As an instance of the disembodied delight in sweet odour, take the lines in Isabella

"Then in a silken scarf, sweet with the dews
Of precious flowers pluck'd in Araby,
And divine liquids come with odorous ooze
Through the cold serpent-pipe refreshfully,
She wrapp'd it up."

Delicacy and richness in ideal sensations of touch and sound are found throughout. Thus, even the sensation of cold water on the hands :

"When in an antechamber every guest

Had felt the cold full sponge to pleasure press'd

By ministering slaves upon his hands and feet."

or the ideal tremulation of a string:

"Be thou in the van

Of circumstance; yea, seize the arrow's barb Before the tense string murmur."

But let us pass to the sense of sight, with its various perceptions of colour, light, and lustre. Here Keats is, in some respects, facile princeps even among our most sensuous poets. Here is the description of Lamia while she was still a serpent:

"She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue, Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson-barr'd, And full of silver moons that, as she breathed, Dissolved, or brighter shone, or interwreathed Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries."

Here is a passage somewhat more various the description of the bower in which Adonis was sleeping

"Above his head

Four lily-stalks did their white honours wed
To make a coronal; and round him grew
All tendrils green, of every bloom and hue,
Together intertwined and tramell'd fresh-
The vine of glossy sprout, the ivy mesh
Shading the Ethiop berries, and woodbine
Of velvet leaves and bugle-blooms divine,
Convolvulus in streaked vases flush,
The creeper mellowing for an autumn blush,
And virgin's bower trailing airily,
With others of the sisterhood."

These last quotations suggest a remark which does not seem unimportant. When

critics or poets themselves speak of the love of nature or the perception of natural beauty as essential in the constitution of the poet, it will often be found that what they chiefly mean is an unusual sensibility to the pleasures of one of the senses-the sense of sight. What they mean is chiefly a fine sense of form, colour, lustre and the like. Now, though it may be admitted that, in so far as ministration of material for the intellect is concerned, sight is the most important of the senses, yet this all but absolute identification of love of nature with sensibility to visual pleasures seems erroneous. It is a kind of treason to the other senses-all of which are avenues of communication between nature and the mind, though sight may be the main avenue. In this respect I believe that one of the most remarkable characteristics of Keats is the universality of his sensuousness. But farther: -not only, in popular language, does the love of nature seem to be identified with a sensibility to the pleasures of the one sense of sight; but, by a more injurious restriction still, this love of nature or perception of natural beauty seems to have been identified, especially of late, with one class of the pleasures of this one sense of sight-to wit, the pleasures derived from the contemplation of vegetation. Roses, lilies, grass, trees, cornfields, ferns, heaths and poppies-this is what passes for "nature" with not a few modern poets and critics of poetry. It seems as if, since Wordsworth refulminated the advice to poets to go back to nature and to study nature, it had been the impression of many that the proper way to comply with the advice was to walk out in the fields to some spot where the grass was thick and the weeds and wild-flowers plentiful, and there lie flat upon the turf, chins downwards, peering into grasses and flowers and inhaling their breath. Now, it ought to be distinctly represented, in correction of this, that ever so minute and loving a study of vegetation, though laudable and delightful in itself, does not amount to a study of nature-that, in fact, vegetation, though a very re

spectable part of visible nature, is not the whole of it. When night comes, for example, where or how much is your vegetation then? Vegetation is not nature-I know no proposition that should be more frequently dinned in the ears of our young poets than this. The peculiar notion of natural beauty involved in the habit spoken of may be said to have come in with the microscope. In the ancient Greek poets we have very little of it. They give us trees and grass and flowers, but they give them more by mere suggestion; and, so far as they introduce physical nature at all (which is chiefly by way of a platform for human action) it is with the larger forms and aspects of nature that they deal-the wide and simple modifications of the great natural elements. Shakespeare, when he chooses, is minutely and lusciously rich in his scenes of vegetation (and, indeed, in comparing modern and romantic with ancient and classical poets generally, it is clear that, in this respect, there has been a gradual development of literary tendency which might be historically and scientifically accounted for); but no man more signally than Shakespeare keeps the just proportion. Wordsworth himself, when he called out for the study of nature, and set the example in his own case by retiring to the Lakes, did not commit the error of confounding nature with vegetation. In that district, indeed, where there were mountains and tarns, incessant cloudvariations, and other forms of nature on the great scale to employ the eye, it was not likely that it would disproportionately exercise itself on particular banks and gardens or individual herbs and flowers. Such an affection for the minutiæ of vegetation was reserved perhaps for the so-called Cockney poets; and one can see that, if it were once supposed that they introduced the taste, the fact might be humorously explained by recollecting that nature to most of them was nature as seen from Hampstead Heath.

Now, undoubtedly, Keats is great in botanical circumstance. Here is a passage in which he describes the kind of

home he would like to live in for the sake of writing poetry :

"Ah! surely it must be where'er I find Some flowery spot, sequester'd, wild, romantic,

That often must have seen a poet frantic; Where oaks that erst the Druid knew are growing,

And flowers, the glory of one day, are blowing,

Where the dark-leaved laburnum's drooping clusters

Reflect athwart the stream their yellow lustres,

And, intertwined, the cassia's arms unite With its own drooping buds, but very white; Where on one side are covert branches hung, 'Mong which the nightingales have always

sung

In leafy quiet; where, to pry aloof
Between the pillars of the sylvan roof
Would be to find where violet buds were
nestling,

And where the bee with cowslip bells was wrestling:

There must be too a ruin dark and gloomy To say, 'Joy not too much in all that's bloomy.'"

Again, in the hymn to Pan in Endymion :—

"O thou whose mighty palace-roof doth hang From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death

Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness; Who lovest to see the Hamadryads dress Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken,

And through whole solemn hours dost sit and hearken

The dreary melody of bedded reeds
In desolate places where dank moisture
breeds

The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth,
Bethinking thee how melancholy loth
Thou wast to leave fair Syrinx-do thou

now,

By thy love's milky brow!

By all the trembling mazes that she ran !
Hear us, great Pan !"

But, though Keats did "joy in all that is bloomy," I do not know that he joyed "too much;" though luscious vegetation was one of his delights, I do not think that in him there is such a disproportion between this and other kinds of imagery as there has been in other and inferior poets. There is sea and cloud in his poetry, as well as herbage and turf; he is as rich in mineralogical and zoological circum

stance as in that of botany. His most obvious characteristic, I repeat, is the universality of his sensuousness. And this it is, added to his exquisite mastery in language and verse, that makes it such a luxury to read him. In reading Shelley, even when we admire him most, there is always a sense of pain; the influence of Keats is uniformly soothing. In part, as I have said, this arises from his exquisite mastery in language and verse-which, in itself, is one form or result of his sensuousness. There is hardly any recent poet in connexion with whom the mechanism of verse in relation to thought may be studied more delightfully. Occasionally, it is true, there is the shock of a horrible Cockney rhyme. Thus :

"I shall again see Phoebus in the morning," Or flushed Aurora in the roseate dawning." Or worse still :

"Couldst thou wish for lineage higher Than twin-sister of Thalia?"

Throughout, too, there are ungainly traces of the dependence of the matter upon the rhyme. But where, on the whole, shall we find language softer and richer, verse more harmonious and sweetly-linked; and, though usually after the model of some older poet, more thoroughly novel and original; or where shall we see more beautifully exemplified the power of that high artifice of rhyme by which, as by little coloured lamps of light thrown out in advance of the prow of their thoughts from moment to moment, poets steer their way so windingly through the fantastic gloom?

In virtue of that magnificent and universal sensuousness which all must discern in Keats (and which, as being perhaps his most distinctive characteristic, I have chosen chiefly to illustrate in the quotations I have made), he would certainly-even had there been less in him than there was of that power of reflective and constructive intellect by which alone so abundant a wealth of the sensuous element could have been ruled and shaped into artistic literary forms have been very memorable

among English poets. The earlier poems of Shakespeare were, in the main, such tissues of sensuous phantasy; and I believe that, compared even with these, the poems that Keats has left us would not seem inferior, if the comparison could be impartially made. The same might be said of certain portions of Spenser's poetry, the resemblance of which to much of Keats's would strike any reader acquainted with both poets, even if he did not know that Keats was a student of Spenser. Perhaps the likest poet to Keats in the whole list of preceding English poets is William Browne, the author of "Britannia's Pastorals"; but, rich and delicious as the poetry of Browne is, beyond much that capricious chance has preserved in greater repute, that of Keats is, in Browne's own qualities of richness and deliciousness, immeasurably superior.

But sensuousness alone, will not, nor will sensuousness governed by a reflective and fanciful intellect, constitute a great poet; and, however highly endowed a youthful poet may be in these, his only chance of real greatness is in passing on, by due transition and gradation, to that more matured state of mind in which, though the sensuous may remain and the cool fancy may weave its tissues as before, human interest and sympathy with the human heart and grand human action shall predominate in all. Now, in the case of Keats, there is evidence of the fact of this gradation of a progress both intellectually and morally; of a disposition, already consciously known to himself, to move forward out of the sensuous or merely sensuous-ideal mood, into the mood of the truly epic poet, the poet of life, sublimity and action. There is evidence of this in his prose-letters. Thus, in one, he says Although I take Poetry "to be the chief, yet there is something "else wanting to one who passes his "life among books and thoughts of "books." And again, "I find earlier "days are gone by; I find that I can "have no enjoyment in the world but "continual drinking of knowledge. I "find there is no worthy pursuit but

"the idea of doing some good to the "world. Some do it with their society;

some with their art; some with their "benevolence; some with a sort of power of conferring pleasure and good "humour on all they meet-and, in a "thousand ways, all dutiful to the "command of nature. There is but one แ way for me. The road lies through "application, study and thought. I "will pursue it. I have been hovering "for some time between an exquisite sense of the luxurious and a love for philosophy. Were I calculated for "the former, I should be glad; but, as “I am not, I shall turn all my soul to "the latter." In his poetry we have similar evidence. Even in his earlier poems, one is struck not only by the steady presence of a keen and subtle intellect, but by frequent flashes of permanently deep meaning, frequent lines of lyric thoughtfulness and occasional maxims of weighty historic generality. What we have quoted for our special purpose would fail utterly to convey the proper impression of the merits of Keats in these respects, or indeed of his poetic genius generally, unless the memory of the reader were to suggest the necessary supplement. From Endymion itself, sensuous to very wildness as that poem is considered, scores of

passages might be quoted proving that, already, while it was being written, intellect, feeling and experience were doing their work with Keats-that, in fact, to use his own figure, he had then already advanced for some time out of the Infant Chamber, or Chamber of mere Sensation, into the Chamber of Maiden Thought, and had even there begun to distinguish the openings of the dark passages beyond and around, and to be seized with the longing to explore them. Seeing this, looking then at such of his later poems as Lamia and the Eve of St. Agnes, and contemplating last of all that wonderful fragment of Hyperion which he hurled, as it were, into the world as he was leaving it, and of which Byron but expressed the common opinion when he said "It seems actually inspired by the Titans, and is as sublime as Eschylus," we can hardly be wrong in believing that, had Keats lived to the ordinary age of man, he would have been one of the greatest of all our poets. As it is, though he died at the age of twenty-five and left only what in all does not amount to much more than a day's leisurely reading, I believe we shall all be disposed to place him very near indeed to our very best.

I WANT to know whether, indeed and of necessity, there be anything ridiculous, reprehensible, or even odious, about the peculiar relationship induced by circumstances upon that great class of women on whose behalf I venture on remonstrances? And, to simplify matters, let me at once diminish their numbers by at least one half. The legally-maternal relation, strictly speaking, attaches to two female classes. Some women's sons marry; some women's daughters do. Some women, it is also true, have both

sons and daughters who embrace the married estate, and thus inflict upon their single person the double characteristics of legal-maternity. But, for the purposes of this paper, it shall be considered that the term motherin-law applies, unless when it is otherwise specified, to the wife's mother; whether such individual do or do not farther sustain, in her own person, the character of mother to a husband or husbands. This distinction I make for a twofold reason. First, because reflec

tions upon mothers-in-law do for the more part emanate, to our shame be it spoken, from the sex to which I, the apologist, belong. And secondly, because the legal-maternity of the wife's mother has a more self-asserting and generally-felt existence than that of her who is simply mother to a husband. Proverbial philosophy has long since recognised and proclaimed this differ

ence:

"My son is my son, till he gets him a wife : My daughter is my daughter all the days of her life."

This distich embodies one great truth at least a truth admitted and undisputed by those who assail with gibe, and flout, and bitterness, the character of the mother-in-law; assumed as elementary and indispensable by those, if there be any besides myself, who boldly proclaim for that impugned character veneration, esteem, and affection.

Taking the truth as axiomatic, that "my daughter" remains such "all the days of her life," I call special attention to that possessive pronoun. "Her," that is, "my daughter's life." Of that life the daughter's husband may possibly weary, and his testy denunciations of the existence of a mother-in-law, against whom, perhaps, good woman as she is, he really has no cause of quarrel, nor, in truth, really fancies any, amount simply to a subterfuge. Were he rid of his wife he would be practically rid of his mother-in-law. Therefore, not daring to utter his wish in all its naked cynicism, he veils it under a thin and paltry disguise, forgetful or reckless of the fact that he might cease to be a son-in-law without thereby gaining enlargement from the galling bond, as he feels it, of matrimony. Sneaking cowards, who hate their wives and fear them along with it, or else fear what others would think of themselves for hating them, may often, and I dare say do often, find abuse of their mothers-in-law a convenient waste-pipe for some of the venom they fear to vent honestly against their wives. In petty spites, moreover, no less than in the greater, more hideous, No. 13.-VOL. III.

malignity, I am convinced that this is true. The poor mother's breast must bear the stab which is to prick the daughter's heart.

If any young lady friend should consult me on the expediency of marrying a widower, one of the first cautions I should give her would run thus:-"Find out, my dear, how he speaks of his late wife's mother. A captious, fractious, censorious son-in-law may be backed at long odds to have been a cranky kind of husband."

"My daughter is my daughter all the days of her life."

There is much force of apology in the line for those good women who as yet are only meditating the commission of the alleged offence of "mother-inlawhood." "How can they be so eager," ask the impugners, "to get their daughters 'off their hands,' as the phrase is? Does not their striving to become mothers-in-law speak volumes against their true motherly character?" There seems at first sight to be something in these queries, but it evaporates upon analysis. I grant that when, towards the anniversary of good St. Valentine, a man bethinks himself of nest-building, a human magpie's nest is hardly that whence he would go to fetch a mate. Have you ever seen the old birds of that particoloured plumage expel the fledg lings, reader? It's a caution, as the Transatlantics say, to see them get the young ones "off their hands." Something wrong with mother or daughter may be suspected, perhaps, when the former is so forward to part with the latter. but there's the very pith and marrow of the question. What if the parting imply no severance? "My daughter is my daughter all the days of her life." "She feels it and I feel it, without a word spoken about it on either side. And I know what she knows nothow surely her own maternity shall knit new fibres, fresh and living, between her heart and mine. How well I remember it! When her little head nestled for the first time on my bosom, my own head seemed to be pillowed

Ay!