He thought that

'strength alone, though of the Muses born,

Is like a fallen angel-trees uptorn,

Darkness and worms and shrouds and sepulchres

Delight it-for it feeds upon the burrs

And thorns of life, forgetting the great end

Of Poesy, that it should be a friend

To soothe the cares and lift the thoughts of men."

And yet Keats did not escape the charge of sacrificing beauty to supposed intensity, and of merging the abiding grace of his song in the passionate fantasies of the moment. Words indeed seem to have been often selected by him rather for their force and their harmony, than according to any just rules of diction; if he met with a word any where in an old writer that took his fancy he inserted it in his verse on the first opportunity; and one has a kind of impression that he must have thought aloud as he was writing, so that many an ungainly phrase has acquired its place by its assonance or harmony, or capability to rhyme, (for he took great pleasure in fresh and original rhymes,) rather than for its grammatical correctness or even justness of expression. And when to this is added the example set him by his great master Spenser, of whom a noted man of letters has been heard irreverently to assert "that every Englishman might be thankful that Spenser's gibberish had never become part and parcel of the language," the wonder is rather that he sloughed off so many of his offending peculiarities, and in his third volume attained so great a purity and concinnity of phraseology, that little was left to designate either his poetical education or his literary associates.

At the completion of the matter for this first volume he gave a striking proof of his facility in composition; he was engaged with a lively circle of friends when the last proof-sheet was brought in, and he was requested by the printer to send the Dedication directly, if he intended to have one: he went to. a sidetable, and while all around were noisily conversing, he sat down and wrote the sonnet

"" 'Glory and loveliness have passed away," &c. &c.

which, but for the insertion of one epithet of doubtful taste, is excellent in itself, and curious, as showing how he had already possessed himself of the images of Pagan beauty, and was either mourning over their decay and extinction, or attempting, in his own way, to bid them live again. For in him was realized the mediæval legend of the Venus-worshiper, without its melancholy moral; and while the old gods rewarded him for his love with powers and perceptions that a Greek might have envied, he kept his affections high and pure above these sensuous influences, and led a temperate and honest life in an ideal world that knows nothing of duty and repels all images that do not please.

This little book, the beloved first-born of so great a genius, scarcely touched the public attention. If, indeed, it had become notable, it would only have been to the literary formalist the sign of the existence of a new Cockney poet whom he was bound to criticise and annihilate, and to the political bigot the production of a fresh member of a revolutionary Propaganda to be hunted down with ridicule or obloquy, as the case might require. But these honors were reserved for maturer labors; beyond the circle of ardent friends and admirers, which comprised most of the most remarkable minds of the period, it had hardly a purchaser; and the contrast between the admiration he had, perhaps in excess, enjoyed among his immediate acquaintance, and the entire apathy of mankind without, must have been a hard lesson to his sensitive spirit. It is not surprising therefore, that he attributed his want of success to the favorite scape-goat of unhappy authors, an inactive publisher, and incurred the additional affliction of a breach of his friendship with Mr. Ollier.

Mr. Haydon, Mr. Dilke, Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Woodhouse, Mr. Rice, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Hessey, Mr. Bailey, and Mr. Haslam, were his chief companions and correspondents at this period. The first name of this list now excites the most painful associations it recalls a life of long struggle without a prize, of persevering hope stranded on despair; high talents laboriously applied earning the same catastrophe as waits on abilities vainly wasted; frugality, self-denial, and simple habits, leading to the penalties of profligacy and the death of distraction; an independent genius

starving on the crumbs of ungenial patronage, and even these failing him at the last! It might be that Haydon did not so realize his conceptions as to make them to other men what they were to himself; it might be that he over-estimated his own æsthetic powers, and underrated those provinces of art in which some of his contemporaries excelled; but surely a man should not have been so left to perish, whose passion for lofty art, notwithstanding all discouragements, must have made him dear to artists, and whose capabilities were such as in any other country would have assured him at least competence and reputation-perhaps wealth and fame.

But at this time the destiny of Haydon seemed to be spread out very differently before him; if ever stern presentiments came across his soul, Art and Youth had then colors bright enough to chase them all away. His society seems to have been both agreeable and instructive to Keats. It is easy to conceive what a revelation of greatness the Elgin Marbles must have been to the young poet's mind, when he saw them for the first time, in March, 1817. The following Sonnets on the occasion were written directly after, and published in the "Examiner." With more

polish they might have been worthy of the theme, but as it is, the diction, of the first especially, is obscure though vigorous, and the thought does not come out in the clear unity becoming the Sonnet, and attained by Keats so successfully on many other subjects:

ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES.

My spirit is too weak; mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep,
That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain,
Bring round the heart an indescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,

Haydon forgive me that I cannot speak
Definitively of these mighty things;
Forgive me, that I have not eagle's wings,
That what I want I know not where to seek.
And think that I would not be over-meek,
In rolling out upfollowed thunderings,
Even to the steep of Heliconian springs,
Were I of ample strength for such a freak.

Think, too, that all these numbers should be thine;
Whose else? In this who touch thy vesture's hem?
For, when men stared at what was most divine
With brainless idiotism and o'erwise phlegm,
Thou hadst beheld the full Hesperian shine

Of their star in the east, and gone to worship them!

In the previous autumn Keats was in the habit of frequently passing the evening in his friend's painting-room, where many men of genius were wont to meet, and, sitting before some picture on which he was engaged, criticise, argue, defend, attack, and quote their favorite writers. Keats used to call it " Making us wings for the night." The morning after one of these innocent and happy symposia, Haydon received a note inclosing the picturesque Sonnet

"Great Spirits now on Earth are sojourning," &c.

Keats adding, that the preceding evening had wrought him up, and he could not forbear sending it. Haydon in his acknowledg

ment, suggested the omission of part of it; and also mentioned that he would forward it to Wordsworth; he received this reply :

MY DEAR SIR,

Your letter has filled me with a proud pleasure, and shall be kept by me as a stimulus to exertion. I begin to fix my eyes on an horizon. My feelings entirely fall in with yours with regard to the ellipsis, and I glory in it. The idea of your sending it to Wordsworth puts me out of breath-you know with what reverence I would send my well-wishes to him.

Yours sincerely,

JOHN KEATS.

It should here be remembered that Wordsworth was not then what he is now, that he was confounded with much that was thought ridiculous and unmanly in the new school, and that it was something for so young a student to have torn away the veil of prejudice then hanging over that now-honored name, and to have proclaimed his reverence in such earnest words, while so many men of letters could only scorn or jeer.

The uncongenial profession to which Keats had attached himself now became every day more repulsive. A book of very careful annotations, preserved by Mr. Dilke, attests his diligence, although a fellow-student,* who lodged in the same house, describes him at the lectures as scribbling doggerel rhymes among the notes, particularly if he got hold of another student's syllabus. Of course, his peculiar tastes did not find much sympathy in that society. Whenever he showed his graver poetry to his companions, it was pretty sure to be ridiculed and severely handled. They were therefore surprised when, on presenting himself for examination at Apothecaries' Hall, he passed his examination with considerable credit. When, however, he entered on the practical part of his business, although successful in all his operations, he found his mind so oppressed during the task with an over-wrought apprehension of the possibility of doing harm, that he came to

*Mr. H. Stephens.