Literary by-paths in old England . hy do notneed to be informed how colossal that estimatewas. No wonder, then, that Keats was besidehimself with joy when the mighty painter prom-ised to make a finished chalk sketch of his 220 IN OLD ENGLAND head to serve as a frontispiece for Endymion,coupling the promise with the characteristicassertion that hehad never donethe thing for anyhuman being,and that, as he in-tended signing it,the drawing musthave considerableeffect. It wasalso characteristicthat the promisewas not kept.Still, posterityowes some debt tothe friendship of Haydon, for it was he who
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Literary by-paths in old England . hy do notneed to be informed how colossal that estimatewas. No wonder, then, that Keats was besidehimself with joy when the mighty painter prom-ised to make a finished chalk sketch of his 220 IN OLD ENGLAND head to serve as a frontispiece for Endymion, coupling the promise with the characteristicassertion that hehad never donethe thing for anyhuman being, and that, as he in-tended signing it, the drawing musthave considerableeffect. It wasalso characteristicthat the promisewas not kept.Still, posterityowes some debt tothe friendship of Haydon, for it was he who executed the life-mask of Keats which his sister declared to bethe best likeness ever made of her brother. Notwithstanding these limitations, it still holdsgood that Keats was singularly fortunate in hisfriends and if he had been asked which of thosefriends he valued most, his reply would un-doubtedly have been in favour of John HamiltonReynolds. Such a verdict must be concurred inby every student of the poet, and it should be 221. Haydoxs Life-mask of Keats LITERARY BY-PATHS placed to the credit of Leigh Hunt that the intro-duction was effected through him. This friend-ship naturally gave Keats admission to the familycircle of the Reynoldses in their home in LittleBritain, and that he valued the privilege is mani-fest from more than one passage in his letters.It was a privilege he shared in common withCharles Lamb and Thomas Hood, and many other literary aspi-rants of the earlynineteenth cen-tury. That factalone might besufficient to stampthe Reynoldses as aremarkable family.But other proofsare available. Only a bare factor two is knownabout the father.He was mathe-matical and head John- Hamilton Reynolds Writing master in Christs Hospital, and had, according to the testimony of one ofhis grandsons, a rooted objection to having his