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; i writer that took hi

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be thankful that Spenser's gibberish had never become part and parcel of the language," the wonder is rather that he sloughed off so fast so many of his offending peculiarities, and in his third volume attained a purity and concinnity of phraseology, that left little to recall either his poetical education or his literary associations.

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 proofsheet was brought in, and he was requested by the printer to

was either mourning over their decay and extinction, or attempting, in his own way, to bid them live again. For in him was realised the medieval legend of the Venusworshipper, 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, of itself, 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 honours were reserved for maturer labours; 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 favourite scapegoat of unhappy authors, an inactive publisher, and incurred the additional affliction of a breach of his friendship with Mr. Ollier.

The following sonnets were omitted from this volume, and are here inserted mainly as accessories of mental bio graphy. The first was written in a blank leaf of Chaucer' "Flower and the Leaf," which his friend Clarke had fallen asleep while reading, and found on his lap, enriched with this addition, when he awoke. The three others indicate the growing sense of his own poetic destiny, with more than the usual inter-play of pride, hope, and melancholy, which youth so keenly enjoys :—

This pleasant tale is like a little copse:
The honied lines so freshly interlace,
To keep the reader in so sweet a place,
So that he here and there full-hearted stops;
And oftentimes he feels the dewy drops

Come cool and suddenly against his face,
And, by the wandering melody, may trace
Which way the tender-legged linnet hops.
Oh! what a power has white simplicity !
What mighty power has this gentle story!
I, that do ever feel athirst for glory,
Could at this moment be content to lie

Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings
Were heard of none beside the mournful robins.

Oh how I love, on a fair summer's eve,

When streams of light pour down the golden west, And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest The silver clouds, far-far away to leave All meaner thoughts, and take a sweet reprieve From little cares; to find, with easy quest, A fragrant wild, with Nature's beauty drest, And there into delight my soul deceive. There warm my breast with patriotic lore,

Musing on Milton's fate-on Sydney's bierTill their stern forms before my mind arise: Perhaps on wing of Poesy upsoar,

Full often dropping a delicious tear,

When some melodious sorrow spells mine eyes.

TO A YOUNG LADY WHO SENT ME A LAUREL

CROWN.

Fresh morning gusts have blown away all fear
From my glad bosom,— -now from gloominess
I mount for ever-not an atom less

Than the proud laurel shall content my bier.

No! by the eternal stars! or why sit here

In the Sun's eye, and 'gainst my temples press
Apollo's very leaves, woven to bless

By thy white fingers and thy spirit clear.

Lo! who dares say, "Do this"? Who dares call down

My will from its high purpose? Who say, Stand," Or "Go"? This mighty moment I would frown On abject Cæsars-not the stoutest band Of mailed heroes should tear off my crown:

Yet would I kneel and kiss thy gentle hand!

Jan. 1817.

After dark vapours have oppress'd our plains
For a long dreary season, comes a day
Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious month, relieved from its pains,

Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May,
The eye-lids with the passing coolness play,
Like rose-leaves with the drip of summer rains.
And calmest thoughts come round us-as, of leaves
Budding-fruit ripening in stillness-autumn suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves,-

Sweet Sappho's cheek, ‚—a sleeping infant's breath,-
The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs,—
A woodland rivulet, -a Poet's death.

The name of Haydon now occurs frequently in his correspondence, a name of painful, and perhaps, reproachful associations to the art and literature of my time. It recals 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; 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 realise 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