That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; Leigh Hunt remarks, it is "epical in the splendour and dignity of its images, and terminates with the noblest Greek simplicity." in the same year. These two pieces, of For what has made the sage or poet write, He A drainless shower At the completion of the first volume, he gave a striking proof of his facility for composition. He was enjoying the evening with a lively circle of friends, when the last proof-sheet was brought him, with a message from the publisher that, if he intended to have a dedication, he must write one immediately; he adjourned to a side table, and, whilst the rest were busily conversing, wrote the Sonnet commencing, These critical remarks have anticipated the termination of Keats's apprenticeship and his removal to London, for the purpose of walking the hospitals. He lodged in the Poultry, and having He had yet to learn that art should been introduced by his friend, C. Clarke, purify and elevate that nature which it to some literary friends, he soon found himself in a genial and sympathizing comprehends; and that the ideal loses none of its beauty in aiming at peratmosphere, which stimulated and enfection of form as well as of view. couraged him to exertion. One of his did not like to consider poetry as the most intimate friends at that time, result of anxious and studious thought; eminent for his poetical originality and nor that it should represent the strugpolitical persecutions, was Leigh Hunt, gles in the hearts of men. He says whom all must admire for his noble, most exquisitely, that independent spirit, which recoiled from every species of oppression, as well as for the delightful, melodious poetry with which he has enriched his country. Miserable, indeed, was the return which his fearless advocacy of justice met with. In those days of hard opinion, which we of a "freer and worthier time," look back upon with strong indignation, Mr. Hunt had been imprisoned for an expression of public feeling, in his "Journal," a little too liberal for those times. The heart of Keats leaped towards him, in human and poetic brotherhood; and the earnest sonnet on the day Hunt left prison, cemented the friendship. They read and walked together, and wrote verses in competition on a given subject. "No imaginative pleasure," observes Mr. Hunt, "was left unnoticed by us or unenjoyed, from the recollection of the bards and patriots of old, to the luxury of a summer rain at our windows, or the clicking of the coal in winter time." Thus he became intimate with Hazlitt, Shelley, and Haydon, Basil Montague and his distinguished family, and with Mr. Ollier, a young publisher, who offered to publish a volume of Keat's productions. The poem with which it commences was suggested by a delightful summer's day, as he stood by a gate on Hampstead Heath, leading into a field by Caen Wood; and the last "Sleep and Poetry," was occasioned by his sleeping in Mr. Hunt's cottage Glory and loveliness have passed away. This little book, the beloved first fruits of so great a genius, scarcely arrested the public attention; it had hardly a purchaser beyond the circle of ardent friends, who composed most of the great minds of that time-and the profuse admiration which they bestowed upon it, must have contrasted strangely with the utter neglect of the rest of mankind, and been a bitter lesson to his highly sensitive feelings. Haydon, Dilke, Reynolds, Woodhouse, Rice, Taylor, Wessey, Leigh Hunt, Bailey, and Haslam, were, at this time, Keats's principal companions and correspondents." The uncongenial nature of the profession for which Keats was preparing himself, became daily more apparent to him. An extensive book of careful an notations testify his diligence-distaste-God forbid that I should be withful as he felt his profession to be-out such a task.' I have heard though one of his fellow students de- Hunt say and I may be asked, 'why scribes him at the lectures as being very endeavour after a long poem?' to this I fond of mixing up the notes with dog- should answer, Do not the lovers of gerel rhymes, especially when he got poetry like to have a little region to hold of another student's syllabus. He wander in, where they may pick and did not meet with much sympathy choose, and in which the images are so among the students, and whenever he numerous that many are forgotten and showed them his graver compositions, found new in a second reading,—which they were sure to be severely ridiculed. may be food for a week's stroll in the They were therefore much surprised, summer? Do not they like this better when he presented himself at the than what they can read through before Apothecaries' Hall, that he "passed" Mrs. Williams comes down stairs? a the examination with much credit. morning's work at most. When, however, he entered on the practical part, although successful in all his operations, yet his mind was so oppressed with the dread of doing harm, that he came to the settled conviction that he was totally unfit for the profession, on which he had expended so many years of study and a considerable part of his property. My dexterity," he remarks, "used to seem to me a miracle, and I resolved never to take up a surgical instrument again :" and thus he found himself on the threshold of manhood-without the means of daily subsistence, but with a host of friends deeply interested in his welfare, and indulging those proud hopes for the future which so often buoy up only to deceive the highest geniuses. 66 66 While at Margate in May, 1817, he commenced the poem of "Endymion:" it was finished on 28th November of the same year, as recorded by the existing manuscript, fairly written in a book, with various corrections of words and phrases, but with little transposition of sentences. In the following extract from a letter to his brother George, he gives his reasons for working out a simple mythological legend into so long a story. 'As to what you say about my being a poet, I can return no answer but by saying that the high idea I have of poetical fame makes me think I see it towering too high above me. At any rate I have no right to talk until 'Endymion' is finished. It will be a test, a trial of my powers of imagination, and chiefly of my invention—which is a rare thing indeed-by which I must make 4,000 lines of one bare circumstance, and fill them with poetry. And when I consider that this is a great task, and that when done it will take me but a dozen paces towards the Temple of Fame-it makes me say, "Besides, a long poem is a test of invention, which I take for the polar star of poetry, as fancy is the sails, and imagination the rudder. Did our great poets ever write short pieces? I mean in the shape of tales. This same invention seems, indeed, of late years, to have been forgotten in a partial excellence." So much for what Keats says of his own composition-of its imperfections (which consist rather in the excessive luxuriance of imagery, and extreme sensibility, if these can be called faults, than in overdrawn and "spun-out description) he was well aware, as the reader may perceive by the preface to 66 " Endymion :”—“Knowing within myself the manner in which this poem has been produced, it is not without a feeling of regret that I make it public, what manner I mean will be quite clear to the reader, who must soon perceive great inexperience, immaturity, and every error, denoting a feverish attempt, rather than a deed accomplished." Endymion" is filled with imagery of the most startling loveliness, gorgeous descriptions, and wild, rich, evervarying Eolian music; the metre is capricious, indeed, it can hardly be said to have any versification, and the lines are broken in the strangest, though not unnatural manner, so that it is easy to mistake it for blank verse, unless reading aloud, although the rhymes are remarkably correct and ingenious. The whole poem displays a singularly accurate acquaintance with the mythology of Greece, and an exquisite appreciation of its beauties. In reading the poem we are constrained to own that in 'bidding to live again the images of pagan beauty," Keats had not dulled their brightness. The winter of 1817-18 was spent cheerily enough among his friends at Hampstead; his society was much courted for the agreeable mingling of playfulness and earnestness which distinguished his manner towards all men. He was perfectly natural and unassuming; there was no striving to say "smart things;" he joked well or ill, as the case might be, with a laugh that still rings sweetly in many ears; but at the mention of oppression, or baseness, or any calumny against those he loved, he rose into grave manliness at once, and gave vent to his indignation in withering words of reproach; his habitual gentleness and self-control made these occasional looks of bitterest contempt almost terrible. At one time, hearing a gross falsehood respecting the artist Severn, repeated and dwelt upon, he left the room, declaring "he should be ashamed to sit with men who could utter and believe such things." At another time, hearing of some unworthy conduct, he burst out-"Is there no human dusthole into which we can sweep such fellows?" tellectual than the other features. His countenance lives in my mind, as one of singular beauty and brightness; it had an expression as if it had been looking on some glorious sight. The shape of his face had not the squareness of a man's, but more like some women's face I have scon; it was so wide over the forehead, and so small at the chinhe seemed in perfect health, and with life offering all things that were precious to him." We cannot resist quoting three axioms which Keats penned in February 1818, to his friend Taylor (we presume the author of " Philip Van Artevelta," &c.) on poetry, which show what a simple correct taste he possessed, united to a most feeling appreciation of its exquisiteness. Axiom 1.-"I think poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not by singularity; it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. And 2.Its touches of beauty should never be half-way, thereby making the reader breathless instead of content, The rise, the progress, the telling of imagery should, like the sun, come natural to him, shine over him, and set soberly, although in magnificence, leaving him in the luxury of twilight. But it is easier to think what poetry should be, than to write it. this leads me to another axiom-That if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all. If Endymion' serves me as a pioneer, perhaps I ought to be content, for, thank God, I can read, and perhaps understand, Shakspere to his depths; and I have, I am sure, many friends who, if I fail, will attribute any change, in my life and temper to humbleness rather than pride-to a cowering under the wings of great poets, rather than to a bitterness that I am not appreciated." To display of every kind he had especial abhorrence, and he complains, in a note to Haydon, that "conversation is not a search after knowledge, but an endeavour at effect; if Bacon were alive, and to make a remark in the present day, in company, the conversation would stop on a sudden, I am convinced of this." "Plain practical life, on the one hand, and a free exercise of his rich imagination, on the other, were the ideal of his existence; his poetry never weakened his action, and his simple every-day habits never coarsened the beauty of the world within him," In a letter written to Bailey about this time, we find the following fine suggestive idea:-"Twelve days have passed since your last reached me. What has gone through the myriads of human minds since the 12th. We talk of the immense number of books, the volumes ranged Keats's letters of this period are pethousands by thousands; but perhaps culiarly his own; they exhibit great more goes through the human intelligence powers of perception, depth of thought, in twelve days than ever was written." intensity of feeling, originality of conA lady, whose intuitive perception ception. The following earnest paraonly equals the depth of her understanding, says, she distinctly remembers Keats, as he appeared at this time at Hazlitt's lectures. "His eyes were large and blue, his hair auburn, he wore it divided down the centre, and it fell in rich masses on each side of his face; his mouth was full and less in-thing to prevent me. graph will show how unwearied he was in the endeavour rightly to "occupy" the five talents entrusted to his stewardship-even to the sacrifice of his most darling hopes. "I was proposing to North this Summer. travel over the There is but one I know nothing -I have read nothing-and I mean to notice at all, (pity indeed that the refollow Solomon's directions, "Get learn- viewer set no higher value on his time, ing, get understanding." I find earlier than to waste it in such a manner!) days are gone by, I find that I can From the article, the reader would per have no enjoyment in the world, but ceive the writer's utter incapacity to continual drinking of knowledge. I appreciate poetry of any sort, and the find there is no worthy pursuit, but avowal that he could not read the book the idea of doing some good to the he had undertaken to criticise, (!) was a world. Some do it with their society; piece of impertinence so glaring, as some with their wit; some with their should have deterred all from reading benevolence; some with a sort of power the criticism. The notice in Blackof conferring pleasure and good humour wood was even more scurrilous, but on all they meet, and in a thousand more amusing and inserted quotations ways, all dutiful to the command of of some length. Now it has been curgreat nature. There is but one way rently believed that these severe cuts, for me. The road lies through applica- in two leading Reviews were so bitterly tion, study, and thought. I will pursue felt by Keats, that they brought on a it; and for that end, propose retiring consumption, of which he ultimately for some years. I have been hovering died-true, Keats did die shortly after for some time between an exquisite the criticisms upon him, and his friends sense of the luxurious, and a love for out of honest anger, propagated the philosophy; were I calculated for the notion, that the brutality of the critics former, I should be glad, but as I am had a most injurious effect on his not I shall turn all my soul to the health, but a conscientious enquiry latter." entirely dispels such a belief. It is suffi ciently apparent from Keat's letters, how little importance he attaches to such opinions, how seldom he alludes to them at all, and with how little concern when he does so. Mark his own words in a confidential letter to his publisher, shortly after seeing the critiques. The The usual monotony of Keats's life was now agreeably varied by a pedestrian tour, through the lakes and highlands, with his friend Brown. rapture of Keats was unbounded when he became sensible to the full effect of mountain scenery. At the turn of the road above Bowness, when the Lake Windermere first bursts on the view, he stopped as if petrified with beauty. A sort of journal of this tour, remains in various letters written at this time, they are saturated with the spirit of delight which he felt at beholding nature in her wildest, grandest moods, and bear witness how eminently his mind was qualified to appreciate nature in her touchingly simple, as well as her overpoweringly grand forms, from the "trembling light heather bells" to "black mountain peaks," or "mossy waterfalls," yet there is a vein of rich humour in them, and they abound in remarks on the people, and their peculiar habits and modes of life. in "I cannot but feel indebted to those gentlemen who have taken my part. As for the rest I begin to get a little acquaintance with my own strength and weakness. Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works. My own domestic criticism has given me pain without comparison beyond what "Blackwood," or the "Quarterly" could inflict; and also when I feel I am right, no external praise can give me such a glow as my own solitary reperception and ratification of what is fine. I. S. is perfectly right in regard to the "Slip-shod Endymion;" that it is so is no fault of mine." No! though it may sound a little paradoxical, it is as good as I had power to make it by myself. Had I been nervous about it being a perfect piece, and with that view asked advice, and trembled over every page, it would not have been written; for it is not in my nature to fumble. In November, 1818, there appeared the Quarterly, an article most severely and ungenerously criticising Keats's poems. It had no worth as criticism, (for the justness of the critic, must be tested by what he admires, not only by what he dislikes and abuses) it was eminently stupid; for the book according to the reviewer, might have I will write independently. I have been one of those productions, which written independently without judgment, it is absolutely waste of time to I may write independently and with judgment hereafter. The genius of poetry must work out its own salvation in man. It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself-that which is created, must create itself." to his death. Had he lived less he might, possibly, have lived longer. When in December, Keats was left alone by the death of his brother Tom, (who had long been in consumption,) he accepted the invitation of Mr. Brown to reside with him. The cheerful sociey of his friend had a beneficial effect on his spirits, and stimulated him to renewed poetic exertions. It was then he begun " Hyperion," that noble fragment full "of the large utterance of the early gods," of which Shelley said the scenery and drawing of Saturn, dethroned by the fallen Titans, surpassed those of Satan and his rebellious angels in "Paradise Lost." Hypernion is, without doubt, the most mature of his poems, and contains more of the sublime than any other, which is relieved and softened by imagery of the most exquisite and äeriel hue. Take, for example, the following frag A few weeks later he writes on the same subject," Reynolds is well and persuades me to publish my 'Pot of Basil,' as an answer to the attack made on me by 'Blackwood' and the 'Quarterly. I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death. Even as a matter of present interest the attempt to crush me in the Quarterly' has only brought me more into notice, and it is a common expression among book-men, 'I wonder the Quarterly' should cut its own throat.'" So little, indeed, had it cooled his ardour, or broken his spirit, that about this time he penned the following passage of exalted feeling:"In the second place I will speak of my views, and of the life I purpose to my-mentary passage:self. I am ambitious of doing the world some good; if I should be spared that may be the work of future years. In the interval I will assay to reach as high a summit in poetry as the nerve bestowed upon me will suffer. The fairest conceptions I have of poems to come, bring the blood frequently into my forehead. All I hope is that I may not lose all interest in human affairs; that the solitary indifference I feel for applause, even from the finest spirits, will not blunt any acuteness of vision I may have. I do not think it will. I feel assured I should write from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the beautiful, even if my night's labours should be burnt every morning, and no eye ever shine upon them." In a letter to his brother George, October, 1818, he mentions a lady of noble form, refined manners, and superior intellect, as simply admiring her this admiration in time ripened into a passion which ceased only with his existence. However warmly the devotion of Keats may have been returned, his outward circumstances soon became in so uncertain a state as to render a union for some years at least impossible. Poverty and sickness overtook him; these he met, and for a time successfully baffled, with strong hope and consciousness of his own mighty power of intellect; but they at length overcame him, and the very intensity of his passion was, in a certain sense, accessory As when upon a tranced summer-night, A simile of more unearthly haunting majesty than the following, the intellect of man could hardly create:— There is a roaring in the bleak grown pines With thunder and with music and with pomp. The "Eve of St. Agnes" was begun in |