THE

EVE OF ST. AGNES.

69

[In a letter to George Keats and his wife dated the 14th of February [1819], Keats says that he took with him to Chichester, where he had been staying in January, "some of the thin paper, and wrote on it a little poem called 'St. Agnes' Eve,' which you will have as it is, when I have finished the blank part of the rest for you." Lord Houghton says the poem was begun on a visit in Hampshire, at the commencement of this year [1819], and finished on his return to Hampstead." On the 5th of September 1819, Keats wrote to Taylor from Winchester that he was "occupied in revising 'St. Agnes' Eve,' and studying Italian." The manuscript of The Eve of St. Agnes, wanting the first seven stanzas, is in the possession of Mr. Frederick Locker. It was among the relics which passed from the late Joseph Severn to a Dr. Valeriani, and which were afterwards bought and sold by Messrs. Sotheran of Piccadilly. This manuscript is written in double columns on both sides of very thin oblong paper, presumably that taken to Chichester, and shows abundant and extensive revisions and corrections. Nothing could be more interesting as a study of a great poet's way of work. It is a calamity that the opening stanzas are missing it seems likely that they were separated to send to the publishers in connexion with Keats's complaint that a liberty had been taken with the seventh stanza. See the note to that stanza. I have collated the text with the manuscript and noted even variations of no great consequence in themselves, in order to give as complete an insight as possible into the composition of this deservedly much-prized poem. Leigh Hunt, in his London Journal for the 21st of January 1835, printed the whole poem with a delightful running commentary between the stanzas; and this I have transferred to the present edition in the shape of foot-notes, after collating it with the revision which has so prominent a place in Imagination and Fancy. I have not thought it necessary to omit whatever is left out of the revision; but have adopted the later readings wherever it is clear that a change was made for the simple sake of improvement. Hunt opens his paper in the Journal thus :

"The reader should give us three pearls, instead of three halfpence, for this number of our Journal, for it presents him with the whole of Mr Keats's beautiful poem, entitled as above,-to say nothing of our loving commentary. We promised, some time ago, in giving quotations from Thomson's 'Castle of Indolence,' to read a small poem occasionally with the reader, after this fashion. Correspondents have more than once reminded us of the promise: we never lost sight of it, and here we redeem it; as we hope we often shall. To-day is the Eve of St. Agnes; and we thought we

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could not take a better opportunity of increasing the public acquaintance with this exquisite production, which is founded on the popular superstition connected with the day. St. Agnes was a Roman virgin, who suffered martyrdom in the reign of Dioclesian. Her parents, a few days after her decease, are said to have had a vision of her, surrounded by angels, and attended by a white lamb, which afterwards became sacred to her. In the Catholic church formerly the nuns used to bring a couple of lambs to her altar during mass. The superstition is (for we believe it is still to be found) that by taking certain measures of divination, damsels may get a sight of their future husbands in a dream. The ordinary process seems to have been by fasting. Aubrey (as quoted in Brand's 'Popular Antiquities') mentions another, which is, to take a row of pins, and pull them out one by one, saying a Pater-noster ; after which, upon going to bed, the dream is sure to ensue. Brand quotes Ben Jonson :

And on sweet St. Agnes' night,

Please you with the promis'd sight—
Some of husbands, some of lovers,

Which an empty dream discovers.

But another poet has now taken up the creed in good poetic earnest; and if the superstition should go out in every other respect, in his rich and loving pages it will live for ever."

Hunt is wrong in saying the 21st of January is the Eve of St. Agnes. That day is the Feast of St. Agnes: the Eve or Vigil is of course the 20th. An account of the superstitions connected with this Vigil, the English "Halloween," will be found in Chambers's Book of Days.-H. B. F.]

THE

EVE OF ST. AGNES.

I.

ST. Agnes' Eve-Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,

Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.

(1) Hunt, quoting the first line as an illustration for the paper A "Now," descriptive of a Cold Day in his London Journal for the 3rd of December 1834, changes the sex of the owl and reads

"The owl, with all her feathers, is a-cold,

or you think her so." In his comment on the whole stanza he again misquotes the line. He says, "What a complete feeling of wintertime is here, together with an intimation of those Catholic elegancies, of which we are to have more in the poem !

The owl, with all his feathers, was a-cold.

Could he have selected an image more warm and comfortable in itself, and, therefore, better contradicted by the season? We feel the