The assurance given by the municipal authorities at Rome that
there is no truth in the rumours of a menace to that corner of the English cemetery outside the San Paolo gate where Keats and Joseph Severn and Shelley's heart are buried, will be welcomed with vast relief by everyone who has ever visited that peaceful spot. The Church of St. Paul and the pyramid of Caius Cestius have their part in the scene, but its essentials are the greenery of grass and foliage and the simplicity of the headstones,--especi- ally, of course, the familiar and poignant " Here lies one whose name is writ in water " over Keats's grave. Many things have changed, some of them for the better, in the outward fabric of Rome in the past decade, but any change in the Keats' corner of the English cemetery would be inevitably for the worse.
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