Chapter 20
remains, and we close the poem with a conviction that Keats, if he had succeeded in writing "a _fragment_ as sublime as Æschylus," was both prudent and fortunate in leaving it a fragment. To say that "Hyperion" is after all a semi-artificial utterance of the grand would be harsh, and ungrateful for so noble an effort of noble faculty; but to say that, by being prolonged, its grandeur must infallibly have partaken more and more of an artificial infusion, appears to me criticism entirely sound and safe.
Mr. Woodhouse has informed us: "The poem, if completed, would have treated of the dethronement of Hyperion, the former god of the sun, by Apollo; and incidentally of those of Oceanus by Neptune, of Saturn by Jupiter, &c., and of the war of the Giants for Saturn's re-establishment; with other events of which we have but very dark hints in the mythological poets of Greece and Rome. In fact, the incidents would have been pure creations of the poet's brain." Here again Keats would have been partly forestalled by Milton: the combat of the Giants with the Olympian gods must have borne a very appreciable resemblance to the combat of Satan and his legions with the hosts of heaven. How far Keats's "invention" would have sufficed to filling in this vast canvas may be questioned. The precedent of "Endymion," in which he had attempted something of the same kind, was not wholly encouraging. The method and tone would of course have been very different; in what remains of "Hyperion," the general current of diction is as severe as in "Endymion" it had been florid.
The other commencement of "Hyperion" (alluded to in my sixth chapter) was a later version, done in November and December 1819; it presents a great deal of poetic or scenic machinery in which the author's personality was copiously introduced. This recast contains impressive things; but the prominence given to the author as spectator or participant of what he pictures forth was fulsome and fatal. Mr. Swinburne is in error (along with most other writers) in supposing this to be the earlier version of the two.
The tragedy of "Otho the Great," written on a peculiar system of collaboration to which I have already referred, succeeded "Hyperion." It is a tragedy on the Elizabethan model, and we find in scene i. a curious instance of Elizabethan contempt of chronology--a reference to "Hungarian petards." The main factors in the plot are a fierce and fervent love-passion of the man, and an unscrupulous ambition of the woman, reddened with crime. Webster may perhaps have been taken by Keats as his chief prototype. To call "Otho the Great" an excellent drama would not be possible; but it can be read without tedium, and contains vigorous passages, and lines and images moulded with a fine poetic ardour. The action would be sufficient for stage-representation at a time when an audience come prepared to like a play if it is good in verse and strong in romantic emotion; under such conditions, while it could not be a great success, it need not nevertheless fall manifestly flat. Under any other conditions, such as those which prevail nowadays, this tragedy would necessarily run no chance at all. In a copy of Keats which belonged to Dante Gabriel Rossetti I find the following note of his, which may bear extracting: "This repulsive yet powerful play is of course in draft only. It is much less to be supposed that it would have been left so imperfect than to be surmised, from its imperfection, how very gradual the maturing of Keats's best work probably may have been. It gives after all, perhaps, the strongest proof of _robustness_ that Keats has left; and as a tragedy is scarcely more deficient than 'Endymion' as a poem. Both, viewed as wholes, are quite below Keats's three masterpieces;[23] yet 'Otho,' as well as 'Endymion,' gives proof of his finest powers." Another note from the same hand remarks: "The character and conduct of Albert [the lover of Auranthe murdered to clear the way for her ambition] are the finest point in the play."
Of the later drama, "King Stephen," so little was written that I need not dwell upon it here.
"Lamia" was begun about the same time as "Otho the Great," but finished afterwards. The influence of Dryden, under which it was composed, has told strongly upon its versification, as marked especially in the very free use of alexandrines--generally the third line of a triplet, sometimes even the second line of a couplet. You might search "Endymion" in vain for alexandrines; and I will admit that their frequency appears to me to give an artificial tone to "Lamia." The view which Keats has elected to take of his subject is worth considering. The heroine is a serpent-woman, or a double-natured being who can change from serpent into woman and _vice versâ_. In the female form she beguiles a young student of philosophy, Lycius, lives with him in a splendid palace, and finally celebrates their marriage-feast. The philosopher Apollonius attends among the guests, perceives her to be "human serpentry," and, gazing on her with ruthless fixity, he compels her and all her apparatus of enchantment to vanish. This is the act for which (in lines partly quoted in these pages) Keats arraigns philosophy, and its power of stripping things bare of their illusions. No doubt a poet has a right to treat a legend of this sort from such point of view as he likes; it is for him, and not for his reader, to take the bull by the horns. But it does look rather like taking the bull by the weaker horn to contend that the philosopher who saves a youthful disciple from the wiles of a serpent is condemnably prosaic--a grovelling spirit that denudes life of its poetry. Conveniently for Keats's theory, Lycius is made to die forthwith after the vanishing of his Lamia. If we invent a different finale to the poem, and say that Lycius fell down on his knees, and thanked Apollonius for saving him from such pestilent delusions and perilous blandishments, and ever afterwards looked out for the cloven tongue (if not the cloven hoof) when a pretty woman made advances to him, we may perhaps come quite as near to a right construction of so strange a series of events, and to the true moral of the story. But Keats's championship was for the enjoying aspects of life; he may be held to have exercised it here rather perversely. "Lamia" is one of his completest and most finished pieces of writing--perhaps in this respect superior to all his other long poems, if we except "Hyperion"; it closes the roll of them with an affluence, even an excess, of sumptuous adornment. "Lamia" leaves on the mental palate a rich flavour, if not an absolutely healthy one.
Passing from the long compositions, we find the cream of Keats's poetry in the ballad of "La Belle Dame sans Merci," and in the five odes--"To Psyche," "To Autumn," "On Melancholy," "To a Nightingale," and "On a Grecian Urn." "La Belle Dame sans Merci" may possibly have been written later than any of the odes, but this point is uncertain. I give it here as marking the highest point of romantic imagination to which Keats attained in dealing with human or quasi-human personages, and also his highest level of simplicity along with completeness of art.
"Ah what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,[24] Alone and palely loitering? The sedge is withered from the lake, And no birds sing.
"Ah what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done.
"I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever-dew; And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too."
"I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful, a faery's child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.
"I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone: She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan.
"I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long; For sideways would she lean and sing A faery's song.
"She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna-dew; And sure in language strange she said-- 'I love thee true.'
"She took me to her elfin grot, And there she gazed and sighèd deep, And there I shut her wild sad eyes-- So kissed to sleep.
"And there we slumbered on the moss, And there I dreamed--ah woe betide!-- The latest dream I ever dreamed On the cold hill-side.
"I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors--death-pale were they all; They cried--'La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall.'
"I saw their starved lips in the gloam With horrid warning gapèd wide; And I awoke, and found me here On the cold hill-side.
"And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering; Though the sedge is withered from the lake, And no birds sing."
This is a poem of _impression_. The impression is immediate, final, and permanent; and words would be more than wasted upon pointing out to the reader that such and such are the details which have conduced to impress him.
In the five odes there is naturally some diversity in the degrees of excellence. I have given their titles above in the probable (not certain) order of their composition. Considered intellectually, we might form a kind of symphony out of them, and arrange it thus--1, "Grecian Urn"; 2, "Psyche"; 3, "Autumn"; 4, "Melancholy"; 5, "Nightingale"; and, if Keats had left us nothing else, we should have in this symphony an almost complete picture of his poetic mind, only omitting, or representing deficiently, that more instinctive sort of enjoyment which partakes of gaiety. Viewing all these wondrous odes together, the predominant quality which we trace in them is an extreme susceptibility to delight, close-linked with afterthought--pleasure with pang--or that poignant sense of ultimates, a sense delicious and harrowing, which clasps the joy in sadness, and feasts upon the very sadness in joy. The emotion throughout is the emotion of beauty: beauty intensely perceived, intensely loved, questioned of its secret like the sphinx, imperishable and eternal, yet haunted (as it were) by its own ghost, the mortal throes of the human soul. As no poet had more capacity for enjoyment than Keats, so none exceeded him in the luxury of sorrow. Few also exceeded him in the sense of the one moment irretrievable; but this conception in its fulness belongs to the region of morals yet more than of sensation, and the spirit of Keats was almost an alien in the region of morals. As he himself wrote (March 1818)--
"Oh never will the prize, High reason, and the love of good and ill, Be my award!"
I think it will be well to cull out of these five odes--taken in the symphonic order above noted--the phrases which constitute the strongest chords of emotion and of music.
(1) "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, Pipe, to the spirit, ditties of no tone.
"Human passion far above That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
(2) "Too late for antique vows, Too too late for the fond believing lyre, When holy were the haunted forest boughs, Holy the air, the water, and the fire.
"Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branchèd thoughts new-grown with pleasant pain, Instead of pines, shall murmur in the wind.
(3) "Where are the songs of spring--ay, where are they? Think not of them: thou hast thy music too, While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue.
(4) "But, when the melancholy fit shall fall Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, And hides the green hill in an April shroud, Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave.
"She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine.
(5) "That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret, Here where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few sad last grey hairs; Where youth grows pale and spectre-thin and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
"Darkling I listen: and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death,-- Called him soft names in many a musèd rhyme To take into the air my quiet breath. Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy.
"The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic casements opening on the foam Of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn. Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self.
"Was it a vision or a waking dream? Fled is that music--do I wake or sleep?"
To one or two of these phrases a few words of comment may be given. That axiom which concludes the "Ode on a Grecian Urn"--
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know,"
is perhaps the most important contribution to thought which the poetry of Keats contains: it pairs with and transcends
"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever."
I am not prepared to say whether Keats was the first writer to formulate any axiom to this effect,--I should rather presume not; but at any rate it comes with peculiar appropriateness in the writings of a poet who might have varied the dictum of Iago, and said of himself
"For I am nothing if not beautiful."
In the Ode, the axiom is put forward as the message of the sculptured Grecian Urn "to man," and is thus propounded as being of universal application. It amounts to saying--"Any beauty which is not truthful (if any such there be), and any truth which is not beautiful (if any such there be), are of no practical importance to mankind in their mundane condition: but in fact there are none such, for, to the human mind, beauty and truth are one and the same thing." To debate this question on abstract grounds is not in my province: all that I have to do is to point out that Keats's perception and thought crystallized into this axiom as the sum and substance of wisdom for man, and that he has bequeathed it to us to ponder in itself, and to lay to heart as the secret of his writings. Those other lines, from the "Ode on Melancholy," where he says of Melancholy--
"She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu"--
appear to me unsurpassable in the whole range of his poetry--as intense in imagery as supreme in diction and in music. They pair with the other celebrated verses from the "Ode to a Nightingale"--
"Now more then ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain;"
and--
"Charmed magic casements opening on the foam Of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn."
The phrase "_rich_ to die" is of the very essence of Keats's emotion; and the passage about "magic casements" shows a reach of expression which might almost be called the Pillars of Hercules of human language. Far greater things have been said by the greatest minds: but nothing more perfect in form has been said--nothing wider in scale and closer in utterance--by any mind of whatsoever pitch of greatness.
And here we come to one of the most intrinsic properties of Keats's poetry. He is a master of _imagination in verbal form_: he gifts us with things so finely and magically said as to convey an imaginative impression. The imagination may sometimes be in the substance of the thought, as well as in its wording--as it is in the passage just quoted: sometimes it resides essentially in the wording, out of which thought expands in the reader, who is made
"To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest."
From wealth of perception, at first confused or docked in the expression, he rose into a height of verbal embodiment which has seldom been equalled and seldomer exceeded. His conception of poetry as an ideal, his sense of poetry as an art, spurred him on to artistic achievement; and in the later stages of his work the character of the Artist is that which marks him most strongly. As one of his own letters says, he "looks upon fine phrases like a lover."
According to Mr. Swinburne, "the faultless force and profound subtlety of this deep and cunning instinct for the absolute expression of absolute natural beauty is doubtless the one main distinctive gift or power which denotes him as a poet among all his equals." We may safely accept this verdict of poet upon poet as a true one: yet I should be inclined to demur to such strong adjectives as "faultless" and "absolute." Beautiful as several of them are, I might hesitate to say that even one poem by Keats exhibits this his special characteristic in a faultless degree, or expresses absolutely throughout a natural beauty of absolute quality. To the last, he appears to me to have been somewhat wanting in those faculties of selection and of discipline which we sum up, by a rough-and-ready process, in the word "taste." He had done a great deal in this direction, and would probably, with a few years more of life, have done all that was needed; but we have to take him as he stands, with those few years denied. Unless perhaps in "La Belle Dame sans Merci," Keats has not, I think, come nearer to perfection than in the "Ode to a Nightingale." It is with some trepidation that I recur to this Ode, for the invidious purpose of testing its claim to be adjudged "faultless," for in so doing I shall certainly lose the sympathy of some readers, and strain the patience of many. The question, however, seems to be a very fair one to raise, and the specimen a strong one to try it by, and so I persevere. The first point of weakness--excess which becomes weak in result--is a surfeit of mythological allusions: Lethe, Dryad (the nightingale is turned into a "light-wingèd Dryad of the trees"--which is as much as to say, a light-wingèd _Oak_-nymph of the _trees_), Flora, Hippocrene, Bacchus, the Queen-moon (the Queen-moon appears at first sight to be the classical Phoebe, who is here "clustered around by all her starry Fays," spirits proper to a Northern mythology; but possibly Keats thought more of a Faery-queen than of Phoebe). Then comes the passage (already cited in these pages) about the poet's wish for a draught of wine, to help him towards spiritual commune with the nightingale. Some exquisite phrases in this passage have endeared it to all readers of Keats; yet I cannot but regard it as very foreign to the main subject-matter. Surely nobody wants wine as a preparation for enjoying a nightingale's music, whether in a literal or in a fanciful relation. Taken in detail, to call wine "the true, the blushful Hippocrene"--the veritable fount of poetic inspiration--seems both stilted and repulsive, and the phrase "with beaded bubbles winking at the brim" is (though picturesque) trivial, in the same way as much of Keats's earlier work. Far worse is the succeeding image, "Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards"--_i.e._, not under the inspiration of wine: the poet will fly to the nightingale, but not in a leopard-drawn chariot. Further on, as if we had not already had enough of wine and its associations, the coming musk-rose is described as "full of dewy wine"--an expression of very dubious appositeness: and the like may be said of "become a sod," in the sense of "become a corpse--earth to earth." The renowned address--
"Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! No hungry generations tread thee down,"
seems almost outside the region of criticism. Still, it is a palpable fact that this address, according to its place in the context, is a logical solecism. While "Youth grows pale and spectre-thin and dies," while the poet would "become a sod" to the requiem sung by the nightingale, the nightingale itself is pronounced immortal. But this antithesis cannot stand the test of a moment's reflection. Man, as a race, is as deathless, as superior to the tramp of hungry generations, as is the nightingale as a race: while the nightingale as an individual bird has a life not less fleeting, still more fleeting, than a man as an individual. We have now arrived at the last stanza of the ode. Here the term "deceiving elf," applied to "the fancy," sounds rather petty, and in the nature of a make-rhyme: but this may possibly be a prejudice.
Having thus--in the interest of my reader as a critical appraiser of poetry--burned my fingers a little at the clear and perennial flame of the "Ode to a Nightingale," I shall quit that superb composition, and the whole quintett of odes, and shall proceed to other phases of my subject. The "Ode to Indolence," and the fragment of an "Ode to Maia," need not detain us; the former, however, is important as indicating a mood of mind--too vaguely open to the influences of the moment for either love, ambition, or poesy--to which we may well suppose that Keats was sufficiently prone. The few poems which remain to be mentioned were all printed posthumously.
There are four addresses to Fanny Brawne, dating perhaps from early till late in 1819; two of them are irregular lyrics, and two sonnets. The best of the four is the sonnet, "The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone," which counts indeed among the better sonnets of Keats. Taken collectively, all four supply valuable evidence as to the poet's love affair, confirmatory of what appears in his letters; they exhibit him quelled by the thought of his mistress and her charms, and jealous of her mixing in or enjoying the company of others.
Keats wrote some half-hundred of sonnets altogether, some of them among his very earliest and most trifling performances, others up to his latest period, including the last of all his compositions. Notwithstanding his marked growth in love of form, and his ultimate surprising power of expression--both being qualities peculiarly germane to this form of verse--his sonnets appear to me to be seldom masterly. A certain freakishness of disposition, and liability to be led astray by some point of detail into side-issues, mar the symmetry and concentration of his work. Perhaps the sonnet on "Chapman's Homer," early though it was, remains the best which he produced; it is at any rate pre-eminent in singleness of thought, illustrated by a definite and grand image. It has a true opening and a true climax, and a clear link of inventive association between the thing mentally signified in chief, and the modes of its concrete presentment. In points of this kind Keats is seldom equally happy in his other sonnets; sometimes not happy at all, but distinctly at fault. There is a second Homeric sonnet, "Standing aloof in giant ignorance" (1818), which contains one line which has been very highly praised,
"There is a budding morrow in midnight:"
but, regarded as a whole, it is a weakling in comparison with the Chapman sonnet. The sonnets, "To Sleep" ("O soft embalmer of the still midnight"), "Why did I laugh to-night?" and "On a Dream" ("As Hermes once took to his feathers light")--all of them dated in 1819--are remarkable; the third would indeed almost be excellent were it not for the inadmissible laxity of an alexandrine last line. This is the sonnet of which we have already spoken, the dream of Paolo and Francesca. The "Why did I laugh to-night?" is a strange personal utterance, in which the poet (not yet attacked by his mortal illness) exalts death above verse, fame, and beauty, in the same mood of mind as in the lovely passage of the "Ode to a Nightingale"; but the sonnet, considered as an example of its own form of art, is too exclamatory and uncombined.
There are several minor poems by Keats of which--though some of them are extremely dear to his devotees--I have made no mention. Such are "Teignmouth," "Where be you going, you Devon maid?" "Meg Merrilies," "Walking in Scotland," "Staffa," "Lines on the Mermaid Tavern," "Robin Hood," "To Fancy," "To the Poets," "In a drear-nighted December," "Hush, hush, tread softly," four "Faery Songs." Most of these pieces seem to me over-rated. As a rule they have lyrical impulse, along with the brightness or the tenderness which the subject bespeaks; but they are slight in significance and in structure, pleasurable but not memorable work. One enjoys them once and again, and then their office is over; they have not in them that stuff which can be laid to heart, nor that spherical unity and replenishment which can make of a mere snatch of verse an inscription for the adamantine portal of time.
The feeling with which Keats regarded women in real life has been already spoken of. As to the tone of his poems respecting them we have his own evidence. A letter of his to Armitage Brown, dated towards the first days of September 1820, says, in reference to the "Lamia" volume: "One of the causes, I understand from different quarters, of the unpopularity of this new book, is the offence the ladies take at me. On thinking that matter over, I am certain that I have said nothing in a spirit to displease any woman I would care to please; but still there is a tendency to class women in my books with roses and sweetmeats; they never see themselves dominant." The long poems in the volume in question were "Isabella," "The Eve of St. Agnes," "Hyperion," and "Lamia." In "Hyperion" women are of course not dominant; but, as regards the other three poems, they are surely dominant enough in one sense. In "Isabella" the heroine is the sole figure of prime importance--so also in "Lamia"; and in the "Eve of St. Agnes" she counts for much more than Porphyro, though the number of stanzas about her may be fewer. Nevertheless it might be that the women in the three poems, though "dominant," are "classed with roses and sweetmeats." I do not see, however, that this can fairly be said of Madeline in the "Eve of St. Agnes"; she is made a very charming and loveable figure, although she does nothing very particular except to undress without looking behind her, and to elope. Again, Isabella, amenable as she may be to the censure of the severely virtuous, plays a part which takes her very considerably out of affinity to roses and sweetmeats. To Lamia the objection applies clearly enough; but then she is not exactly a woman, and Keats resents so fiercely the far from indefensible line of conduct which Apollonius adopts in relation to her that it seems hard if the ladies owed the poet a grudge. On the whole I incline to think that they must have been misreported; but the statement in Keats's letter remains not the less significant as a symptom of his real underlying feeling about women.
It has often been pointed out that Keats's lovers have a habit of "swooning," and the fact has sometimes been remarked upon as evidencing a certain want of virility in himself. I cannot affect to be, so far, of a different opinion. The incident and the phrase do manifestly tend to the namby-pamby. This may have been more a matter of affected or self-willed diction on his part--and diction of that kind appears constantly in his earlier poems, and not seldom in his later ones--than of actual character chargeable against himself; yet I would not entirely disregard it in the latter relation either. Keats was a very young man, with a limited experience of life. He had to picture to himself how his lovers would be likely to behave under given conditions; and, if he thought they would be likely to swoon, the probability is that he also, under parallel conditions, would have been likely to swoon--or at least supposed he would be likely. Because he thrashed a butcher-boy, or was indignant at backbiting and meanness, we are not to credit him with an unmingled fund of that toughness which distinguishes the English middle class. The English middle-class man is not habitually addicted to writing an "Endymion," an "Eve of St. Agnes," or an "Ode on Melancholy."
Sensuousness has been frequently defined as the paramount bias of Keats's poetic genius. This is, in large measure, unassailably true. He was a man of perception rather than of contemplation or speculation. Perception has to do with perceptible things; perceptible things must be objects of sense, and the mind which dwells on objects of sense must _ipso facto_ be a mind of the sensuous order. But the mind which is mainly sensuous by direct action may also work by reflex action, and pass from sensuousness into sentiment. It cannot fairly be denied that Keats's mind continually did this; it had direct action potently, and reflex action amply. He saw so far and so keenly into the sensuous as to be penetrated with the sentiment which, to a healthy and large nature, is its inseparable outcome. We might say that, if the sensuous was his atmosphere, the breathing apparatus with which he respired it was sentiment. In his best work--for instance, in all the great odes--the two things are so intimately combined that the reader can only savour the sensuous nucleus through the sentiment, its medium or vehicle. One of the most compendious and elegant phrases in which the genius of Keats has been defined is that of Leigh Hunt: "He never beheld an oak tree without seeing the Dryad." In immediate meaning Hunt glances here at the mythical sympathy or personifying imagination of the poet; but, if we accept the phrase as applying to the sensuous object-painting, along with its ideal aroma or suggestion in his finest work, we shall still find it full of right significance. We need not dwell upon other less mature performances in which the two things are less closely interfused. Certainly some of his work is merely, and some even crudely, sensuous: but this is work in which the poet was trying his materials and his powers, and rising towards mastery of his real faculty and ultimate function.
While discriminating between what was excellent in Keats, and what was not excellent, or was merely tentative in the direction of final excellence, we must not confuse endowments, or the homage which is due to endowments, of a radically different order. Many readers, and there have been among them several men highly qualified to pronounce, have set Keats beside his great contemporary Shelley, and indeed above him. I cannot do this. To me it seems that the primary gift of Shelley, the spirit in which he exercised it, the objects upon which he exercised it, the detail and the sum of his achievement, the actual produce in appraisable work done, the influence and energy of the work in the future, were all superior to those of Keats, and even superior beyond any reasonable terms of comparison. If Shelley's poems had defects--which they indisputably had--Keats's poems also had defects. After all that can be said in their praise--and this should be said in the most generous or rather grateful and thankful spirit--it seems to me true that not many of Keats's poems are highly admirable; that most of them, amid all their beauty, have an adolescent and frequently a morbid tone, marking want of manful thew and sinew and of mental balance; that he is not seldom obscure, chiefly through indifference to the thought itself and its necessary means of development; that he is emotional without substance, and beautiful without control; and that personalism of a wilful and fitful kind pervades the mass of his handiwork. We have already seen, however, that there is a certain not inconsiderable proportion of his poems to which these exceptions do not apply, or apply only with greatly diminished force; and, as a last expression of our large and abiding debt to him and to his well-loved memory, we recur to his own words, and say that he has given us many a "thing of beauty," which will remain "a joy for ever." By his early death he was doomed to be the poet of youthfulness; by being the poet of youthfulness he was privileged to become and to remain enduringly the poet of rapt expectation and passionate delight.
THE END.
INDEX.
A.
Abbey, Guardian of Keats, 17, 19, 20, 29, 37, 39
"Adonais," by Shelley, 39, 90, 98, 170
Æschylus, 186
"Agnes, The Eve of St.," 107, 138; critical estimate of the poem, 182-184; 190, 206
"Alastor," by Shelley, 82
"Annals of the Fine Arts," 110
Ariosto, 113
_Asclepiad, The_, 24
_Athenæum, The_, 23
"Autumn, Ode to," by Keats, 109, 192, 194
B.
Bailey, Archdeacon Benjamin, 23, 77, 78, 112, 123; his description of Keats, 124; 130, 133, 141, 142, 145, 158, 159
"Belle Dame (La) sans Merci," by Keats, 112, 182, 185, 190; quoted, 192, &c.; 200
Benjamin, Nathan, 157
Bion, Idyll on "Adonis," by, 170
Blackwood, William, 91
_Blackwood's Magazine_, 90; articles in by Z, on The Cockney School of Poetry, 91; 92, 93, 95, 97, 98, 99, 100, 103, 104, 153
Boccaccio's "Decameron," 107, 180, 181
Boileau, 70
Bojardo's "Orlando Innamorato," 114
Brawne, Fanny, engaged to Keats, 30, 32; Keats's description of her, 33; 34, 35, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 45; Keats's love-letters to her, 45-46, &c.; 53, 57, 60, 62, 102; her marriage to Mr. Lindon, 121; 130, 141, 143, 146, 147, 158, 160; poems to, 202
Brawne, Mrs., 29, 34, 36, 60, 61, 143
Brown, Charles Armitage, friend of Keats, 25; Keats's verses on, 26; 27, 28, 29, 33, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 46, 48, 53; letter from Keats to, 55-56, 59, 108, 111, 112, 114, 116, 119; his death, 120; 136, 156, 157, 160, 206
Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," 108
Byron, Lord, 32, 102, 103, 105, 125, 128, 185
Byron's "Don Juan," 58
C.
Caius Cestius, 118
"Calidore," by Keats, 65, 165
"Cap and Bells, The," by Keats, 113, 183
"Caviare" (pseudonym of Keats), 112
"Cenci, The," by Shelley, 123
_Champion, The_, 115
"Chapman's Homer," sonnet by Keats, 66, 69, 165, 166, 203
Chartier, Alain, 112
Chatterton, 67, 68
Chaucer, 112
Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, picture by Haydon, 21, 36, 43, 126, 158
"Christmas Eve," sonnet by Keats, quoted, 157
Clark, Mrs., 60
Clark, Sir James, 59, 60
Clarke, Charles Cowden, preceptor and friend of Keats, 14, 18, 19, 20, 25, 65, 66; his "Recollections," 102; 104, 125, 126, 129, 140, 148
Clarke, Epistle to, by Keats, 67, 68
Clarke, Rev. John, Keats's schoolmaster, 14
Coleridge, 25, 151, 164
Coleridge's "Christabel," 185
Colman, 156
Colvin's, Mr., "Life of Keats," 9, 35, 42
"Comus," by Milton, 115
Cox, Miss Jane ["Charmian"], 30, 31, 32, 34, 143, 146
Cripps, 133
D.
Dante, 112, 113
Dilke, Charles Wentworth, 23, 27, 29, 34, 39, 51, 53, 58, 103, 115, 120, 131, 133, 142, 150, 156, 160
Dilke, Mrs., 28
"Dream, A," sonnet by Keats, 112, 204
Dryden, 70, 108, 190
Duncan, Admiral, 16
E.
_Edinburgh Review_, 109, 117
Edouart, 35
"Endymion," by Keats, 23, 24, 25, 54, 67, 72; details as to the composition of, 76; preface to, 79, 80; criticism upon in _The Quarterly Review_, 83; Keats's feeling as to this and other criticisms, 91-106; 107, 108, 109, 122, 130, 137, 139, 141, 149, 152, 166; Shelley's opinion of, 167; summary of the poem, 168-175; critical estimate of it, 176-180; 182, 186, 188, 189, 190
_Examiner, The_, 21, 68, 100
Eyre, Sir Vincent, 119
F.
"Fancy, The," by Reynolds, 22
Finch, Colonel, 39, 98
"Florence, The Garden of," by Reynolds, 22, 107
Forman, Mr. H. Buxton, 18, 25, 33, 34, 35, 52, 123
G.
_Gentleman's Magazine, The_, 102
George IV., 21, 114
Gifford, William, 83, 95, 168
Girometti, 128
Gisborne, Mrs., 44, 98
Grafty, Mrs., 64
"Grasshopper and Cricket, The," sonnets by Keats and Hunt, 166
"Grecian Urn, Ode on a," by Keats, 109, 110, 192, 194-198
Guido, 155
H.
Hammond, Surgeon, 18, 19
Haslam, William, 54
Haydn, 148
Haydon, Benjamin Robert, the painter, friend of John Keats, 13, 16, 18, 21, 36, 37, 44; his last interview with Keats, 54, 55, 64, 69, 76, 78, 99; his view as to Keats's feeling regarding critical attacks, 100, &c.; 105, 110, 123, 126, 127, 128, 132, 133; his view of Keats's character, 134-135, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 150, 152, 153, 155, 158
Hazlitt, 116, 152
Hilton, 128
Holmes, Edward, 54
Homer, 165
Hood, Mrs. (Miss Reynolds), 23
Hood, Thomas, 23
Hooker, Bishop, 32
Houghton, Lord, 41, 42, 58, 99, 114, 119, 125, 132, 136, 139
Howard, John, 32
Hunt, John, 20
Hunt, Leigh, 20, 21, 25, 44, 59, 66-69, 77, 83, 84, 85, 89-92, 97, 98, 100; his view as to Keats's sensitiveness to criticism, 102; 110, 112, 114, 121, 122, 123; his description of Keats, 124; 125, 131, 134, 141, 142, 148, 150, 156, 158, 164, 166, 181, 207
Hunt, Leigh, dedicatory sonnet to, by Keats, 66
Hunt, Leigh, leaving prison, sonnet by Keats, 66
Hunt, Mrs., 44
Hunt, Thornton, 44
"Hyperion," by Keats, 96, 97, 107, 108, 113, 137, 182; critical estimate of the poem, 185-189; recast of, 189; 190, 192, 206
I.
"I stood tiptoe upon a little hill," poem by Keats, 67; extract from, 74; 165
_Indicator, The_, 112, 114
"Indolence, Ode to," by Keats, 202
"Isabella, or the Pot of Basil," by Keats, 95, 107, 138; critical estimate of the poem, 180-182; 206
"Islam, The Revolt of," by Shelley, 77, 82, 123
J.
J. S., 93, 94
Jeffrey, Lord, 109
Jeffrey, Mr., 120
Jennings, grandfather of Keats, 12, 37
Jennings, Captain, 16
Jennings, Mrs., 16
"Joseph and his Brethren," by Wells, 23
K.
Kean as Richard Duke of York, critique by Keats, 93, 115
Kean, Edmund, 112
Keats, Fanny, sister of the poet, 13, 29, 38, 43, 45, 57, 62, 120, 121, 129, 148
Keats, Frances, mother of the poet, 12; her death, 16; 25, 126
Keats, George, brother of the poet, 13, 15, 18, 19, 25, 27, 30, 32, 37, 38, 64, 71, 95, 98; his view as to John Keats's sensitiveness to criticism, 103; 111, 119, 120, 126, 136, 141, 142, 145, 146, 147, 150, 151, 155, 159, 160
Keats, George, Epistle to, by John Keats, 67, 68
Keats, John, his parentage, 12; his birth in London, October 31, 1795, 13; anecdote of his childhood, 13; goes to the school of Mr. Clarke at Enfield, 14; his studies, pugnacity, &c., 15; death of his parents, 16; apprenticed to a surgeon, Hammond, 18; leaves Hammond, and walks the hospitals, 18, 19; reads Spenser's "Faery Queen," and drops surgical study, 20; makes acquaintance with Leigh Hunt, Haydon, and others, 20, 21, 22; his first volume, Poems, 1817, 22; writes "Endymion," 23; his health suffers in Oxford, 24; anecdotes (Coleridge, &c.), 25; makes a pedestrian tour in Scotland &c. with Charles Armitage Brown, 25-29; takes leave of his brother George and his wife, 27; his brother Tom dies, 29; lodges with Brown at Hampstead, 29; meets Miss Cox ("Charmian") and Miss Brawne, and falls in love with the latter, 30-35; their engagement, 36; his friendship towards Haydon cools, 36, 37; at Shanklin and Winchester, 37, 38; sees his brother George again, and is left by him in pecuniary straits, 38, 39; the painful circumstances of his closing months, owing to illness, his love affair, and the depreciation of his poems, 40, 41; beginning of his consumptive illness, 41, 42; removes to Kentish Town, 43, 44; returns to Mrs. Brawne's house at Hampstead, 45; his love-letters, 45-54; travels to Italy with Joseph Severn, 54-59; Severn's account of his last days in Rome, 60, 61; his death there, February 23, 1821, 62, 63; his early turn for mere rhyming, 64; his early writings, and first volume, 65, 69; diatribe against Boileau, and poets of that school, 70; the publishers relinquish sale of the volume, 72; "Endymion," and passage from an early poem forecasting this attempt, 73-76; details as to composition of "Endymion," 76-79; prefaces to the poem, 79-83; adverse critique in _The Quarterly Review_, 83-91; question debated whether this and other attacks affected Keats deeply, 91-97; statements by Shelley, 97; and by Haydon, 99; other evidence, 102; conclusion as to this point, 105; Keats writes "Isabella," "The Eve of St. Agnes," and "Hyperion," 107; "Lamia," 108; and publishes the volume containing these poems, 1820, 108; other poems in the volume, 109; posthumous poems of Keats, "The Eve of St. Mark," "Otho the Great," "The Cap and Bells," &c., 110-115; his letters and other prose writings, 115-117; Keats's burial-place, 118-119; projects for writing his life, accomplished finally by Lord Houghton, 119; his relations with Hunt, Shelley, and others, 121-123; Keats's small stature and personal appearance, 124-126; the portraits of him, 126-129; difficulty of clearly estimating his character, 129; his poetic ambition and intensity of thought, 130, 131; his moral tone, 132; his character ("no decision" &c.,) estimated by Haydon, 133-139; Lord Houghton's account of his manner in society, 139; his suspiciousness, 141; and dislike of mankind, 142; his feeling towards women, 143-146; and towards Miss Brawne, 147, 148; his habits, opinions, likings, &c., 148-155; humour and jocularity, 155-157; negative turn in religious matters, 157-160; wine and diet, 160, 161; conclusion as to his character, 161, 162; his early tone in poetry, 164; critical estimate of his first volume, Poems, 1817, 165-166; of "Endymion," 167, 168; narrative of this poem, 168-175; defects and beauties of "Endymion," 176-180; critical estimate of "Isabella," 180; "Eve of St. Agnes," 182; "Eve of St. Mark," 184; "Hyperion," 185; "Otho the Great," 189; "Lamia," 190; "Belle Dame sans Merci" (quoted), 192; the five chief Odes, 194; analysis of the "Ode to a Nightingale," 200; various posthumous lyrics, sonnets, &c., 202; Keats's feeling towards women, as developed in his poems, 205; "swooning," 206; sensuousness and sentiment, 207; comparison between Keats and Shelley, and final remarks, 208
Keats, Mrs. George, 27, 32, 95, 120
Keats, Thomas, father of the poet, 12; his death, 16; 126
Keats, Thomas, brother of the poet, 13, 15, 19, 23, 24, 25, 28; his death, 29; 37, 38, 39, 121, 135, 159, 160
"King Stephen," by Keats, 73, 112, 190
Kotzebue, 150
L.
Lamb, Charles, 78, 150
Lamb, Dr., 44
"Lamia," by Keats, 108, 138, 151, 160; critical estimate of the poem, 190, &c.; 206
"Lamia, and other Poems," by Keats (1820), 44, 97, 103, 108, 109, 110, 206
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 61
Lemprière's "Classical Dictionary," 15
Lindon, Mrs. (_see_ Brawne, Fanny)
Llanos, 121
Lockhart, 91
Lucas, 19
Lucy Vaughan Lloyd (pseudonym of Keats), 114
Lyrics (various) by Keats, 204
M.
Mackereth, George Wilson, 19
"Maia, Ode to," by Keats, 202
"Mark, Eve of St.," by Keats, 52, 110, 182; critical estimate of the poem, 184-185; 190
Marmontel's "Incas of Peru," 15
Mathew, George Felton, Epistle to, by Keats, 67; 157
Medwin's "Life of Shelley," 34
"Melancholy, Ode on," by Keats, 109, 192, 194-199
Milton, 107, 135, 147, 159, 165, 186, 188
"Miserrimus," by Reynolds, 23
Mitford, Miss, 101, 135
Moore, Thomas, 165
_Morning Chronicle, The_, 93
Murray, John, 102
N.
Napoleon I., 32
"Narensky," opera by C. A. Brown, 27
Newton, Sir Isaac, 151
"Nightingale, Ode to a," by Keats, 103, 109, 160, 192, 194-202; analysed, 200-202; 204
"Nile," Sonnets on the, by Keats, &c.; 110
O.
Ollier, Charles, 21, 71
"Otho the Great," by Keats, 38, 111, 112; critical estimate of, 189
P.
"Paradise Lost," 108, 175, 187
"Paradise Lost," Notes on, by Keats, 115
Philostratus's "Life of Apollonius," 108
"Poems" (1817), by Keats, 23, 66; letter regarding this volume, by the publishers, 72; 122, 164-167
Pope, 70
Procter, Mrs., 125, 126
Purcell, 148
"Psyche, Ode to," by Keats, 109, 192, 194-199
Q.
_Quarterly Review, The_, 83; its critique of "Endymion" extracted, 83-91; 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 102, 104, 153, 179
"Quixote, Don," 120
R.
R. B., 93
Raphael, 155
Rawlings, William, 16
Reynolds, John Hamilton, 22, 79, 95, 107, 115, 128, 156
Reynolds, Misses, 30, 31, 142, 145, 148
Reynolds, Mrs., 31
Rice, James, 38, 41, 147
Richardson, Dr., 25
Ritchie, 78
Robinson Crusoe, 15
Robinson, H. Crabb, 104
Rossetti, Dante G., 52, 184, 185, 190
S.
Sandt, 150
Scott, Sir Walter, 91, 100
Severn, Joseph, 39; leaves England with Keats for Italy, 54; 59; his narrative of Keats's last days, 60, &c.; 104, 118, 119, 125; his portraits of Keats, 127-129; 139, 143, 147, 148
Shakespeare (Macbeth), 15; (Hamlet), 52; 93, 114, 135, 147; (King Lear), 151; 155, 165
Shakespeare, Notes on, by Keats, 115
Shakespeare's sonnets, Book on, by C. A. Brown, 27
Sharpey, Dr., 30
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 39, 58, 59, 71, 77, 82, 91, 96; his references to "Endymion," and _The Quarterly Review_, 97-99; 102, 110, 119, 123, 125, 141, 147, 167, 179, 180, 185; comparison between Shelley and Keats, 208
"Sleep and Poetry," by Keats, 67, 69; extract from, 70; 165
Smith, Horace, 68
Snook, 56
Sonnet by Keats ("Bright Star," &c.), 114
Sonnets (various) by Keats, 164, 167, 203, &c.
Spence's "Polymetis," 15
Spenser, Edmund, 66, 164, 165
Spenser's Cave of Despair, picture by Severn, 55
Spenser's "Faery Queen," 20, 149
"Spenser, Imitation of," by Keats, 64
Stephens, Henry, 19, 78, 132, 147
"Stories after Nature," by Wells, 23
Swinburne, Mr. (on "Hyperion"), 186; 189, 199
T.
Tasso, 165
Taylor and Hessey, 23, 72, 76, 78, 83, 93, 96, 109, 120, 128, 140, 146, 149, 152
Terry, 100
Thomson, James, 70
Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne," 179
Tooke's "Pantheon," 15
Torlonia, 61
V.
Virgil, 165
Virgil's Æneid, 15, 20
Voltaire, 158
W.
Webb, Cornelius, 92
Webster, 189
Wells, Charles, 23
Wilson, John, 91
"Woman, when I behold thee" &c., poem by Keats, quoted, 143
Wood, Warrington, 119
Woodhouse, Richard, 94, 149, 153, 188
Wordsworth, 21, 78; ("The Excursion,") 152; 153, 156, 164, 179
Z.
Z (probably Lockhart), 91, 92, 100.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
BY
JOHN P. ANDERSON
(British Museum).
I. Works. II. Poetical Works. III. Single Works. IV. Letters, etc. V. Miscellaneous. VI. Appendix-- Biography, Criticism, etc. Magazine Articles. VII. Chronological List of Works.
I. WORKS.
The Poetical Works and other Writings of John Keats, now first brought together, including poems and numerous letters not before published. Edited, with notes and appendices, by H. B. Forman. 4 vols. London, 1883, 8vo.
The Letters of John Keats. Edited by J. G. Speed. (The Poems of J. Keats, with the annotations of Lord Houghton, and a memoir by J. G. Speed.) 3 vols. New York, 1883, 8vo.
A number of letters now included in this work were first published in the New York _World_ of June 25-6, 1877, and afterwards reprinted in the _Academy_, vol. xii., 1877, pp. 38-40, 65-67.
II. POETICAL WORKS.
The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats. In one volume. Paris, 1829, 8vo.
John Keats (including Memoir), i.-vii. and 1-75.
Standard Library. The Poetical Works of J. K. London, 1840, 8vo.
The first _collected_ edition of Keats's Works.
The Poetical Works of J. K. London, 1840, 8vo.
With an engraved frontispiece from the portrait in chalk by Hilton. This book, although dated 1840, was not issued until the following year. The frontispiece is dated correctly.
The Poetical Works of J. K. London, 1841, 8vo.
The Poetical Works of J. K. A new edition. London, 1851, 8vo.
The Poetical Works of J. K. With Memoir by R. M. Milnes [Lord Houghton]. Illustrated by a portrait and 120 designs by George Scharf, Jun. London, 1854, 8vo.
A small number of copies were struck off upon large paper.
The Poetical Works of J. K. With a life [signed J. R. L.--_i.e._, James Russell Lowell]. Boston [U.S.], 1854, 8vo.
The Poetical Works of J. K. With a Memoir by Richard Monckton Milnes [Lord Houghton]. A new edition. London, 1861, 8vo.
Upon the reverse of the half-title to the "Memoir" is a wood-cut profile of Keats.
The Poetical Works of J. K. Edited, with a critical memoir, by W. M. Rossetti. Illustrated by T. Seccombe. London [1872], 8vo.
The Poetical Works of J. K. Edited, with an introductory memoir and illustrations, by William B. Scott. London [1873], 8vo.
The Poetical Works of J. K. With a memoir by James Russell Lowell. Portrait and 10 illustrations. New York, 1873, 8vo.
The Memoir was afterwards reprinted in "Among my Books," second series, 1876, pp. 303-327.
The Poetical Works of J. K., reprinted from the early editions, with memoir, explanatory notes, etc. (_Chandos Classics._) London [1874], 8vo.
The Poetical Works of J. K. Chronologically arranged and edited, with a memoir, by Lord Houghton. (_Aldine Edition._) London, 1876, 8vo.
The Poetical Works of Coleridge and Keats, with a memoir of each. (_Riverside Edition._) 4 vols. in 2. New York, 1878, 8vo.
The Poetical Works of J. K. London [1878], 8vo.
The Poetical Works of J. K. Edited, with an introductory memoir, by W. B. Scott. (_Excelsior Series._) London [1880], 8vo.
The Poetical Works of J. K. Edited, with a critical memoir, by W. M. Rossetti. [Portrait, fac-simile, and six illustrations by Thomas Seccombe.] (_Moxon's Popular Poets._) London [1880], 8vo.
The same as the edition of 1872. The Memoir was reprinted in "Lives of Famous Poets."
The Poetical Works of J. K., reprinted from the original editions, with notes, by F. T. Palgrave. (_Golden Treasury Series._) London, 1884, 8vo.
The Poetical Works of J. K. Edited by W. T. Arnold. London, 1884, 8vo.
There was a large paper edition, consisting of fifty copies, numbered and signed.
The Poetical Works of John Keats. Edited by H. B. Forman. London, 1884, 8vo.
The Poetical Works of J. K. With an introductory sketch by John Hogben. (_Canterbury Poets._) London, 1885, 8vo.
III. SINGLE WORKS.
Poems, by John Keats. London, 1817, 16mo.
The Museum copy contains a MS. note by F. Locker.
Endymion; a Poetic Romance. By J. K. London, 1818, 8vo.
Endymion. Illustrated by F. Joubert. From paintings by E. J. Poynter. London, 1873, fol.
The Eve of St. Agnes. By J. K. With 20 illustrations by E. H. Wehnert. London, 1856, 8vo.
The Eve of St. Agnes. Illustrated by E. H. Wehnert. London [1875], 8vo.
The Eve of St. Agnes. Illustrated by nineteen etchings by Charles O. Murray. London, 1830, fol.
The Eve of St. Agnes, and other Poems. Illustrated. Boston [U.S.], 1876, 24mo.
Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society. London, 1856-7, 8vo.
Vol. iii. contains "Another version of Keats's _Hyperion, a Vision_," edited, with an introduction, by R. M. Milnes (Lord Houghton).
Keatsii Hyperionis. Libri i-ii. Latine reddidit Carolus Merivale. Cambridge, 1862, 8vo.
Keats's Hyperion. Book I. With notes [life and introduction]. London [1877], 8vo.
Keats's Hyperion. Book I. With introduction, elucidatory notes, and an appendix of exercises. London [1878], 8vo.
Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other Poems. By J. K. London, 1820, 12mo.
Lamia. With illustrative designs by W. H. Low. Philadelphia, 1885, fol.
Ode to a Nightingale. By J. K. Edited, with an introduction, by Thomas J. Wise. London, 1884, 8vo.
Printed for private distribution, and issued in parchment wrappers. Four copies on vellum and twenty-five on paper only printed.
IV. LETTERS, ETC.
Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of J. K. Edited by R. M. Milnes. 2 vols. London, 1848, 16mo.
Life and Letters of John Keats. A new and completely revised edition. Edited by Lord Houghton. London, 1867, 8vo.
Letters of J. K. to Fanny Brawne, written in the years 1819 and 1820, and now given from the original manuscripts, with introduction and notes, by Harry Buxton Forman. London, 1878, 8vo.
In addition to the ordinary issue, the following special copies were "printed for private distribution"--In 8vo on Whatman's hand-made paper 60 copies, on vellum 2 copies; in post 8vo there were 6 copies with title-page set up in different style, and 2 copies of coloured bank-note paper, one blue and the other yellow.
V. MISCELLANEOUS.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO MAGAZINES.
_Annals of the Fine Arts. A quarterly magazine, edited by James Elmes_--
"Ode to the Nightingale," vol. iv., 1820, pp. 354-356. The first appearance of this poem, which was afterwards included in the "Lamia" volume, 1820, pp. 107-112.
"Ode on a Grecian Urn." Appeared first in the "Annals of the Fine Arts" vol. iv., 1820, pp. 638, 639, afterwards included in the Lamia volume.
_The Athenæum_--
First appearance of the Sonnet "On hearing the Bag-pipe and seeing 'The Stranger' played at Inverary," June 7, 1873, p. 725.
_The Champion_--
"On Edmund Kean as a Shakesperian actor, and on Kean in 'Richard, Duke of York.'" Appeared on the 21st and 28th Dec. 1817.
_The Dial_--
"Notes on Milton's Paradise Lost." In vol. iii., 1843, pp, 500-504; reprinted by Lord Houghton.
_The Examiner_--
The "Sonnet to Solitude," Keats's first published poem, according to Charles Cowden Clarke, appeared on the 5th of May 1816, signed J. K., p. 282.
The first appearance of the sonnet "To Kosciusko," Feb. 16, 1817, p. 107.
The first appearance of the sonnet, "After dark vapors have oppress'd our plains," etc., Feb. 23, 1817, p. 124.
Two sonnets "To Haydon, with a Sonnet written on seeing the Elgin Marbles," and "On seeing the Elgin Marbles" appear for the first time, March 9, 1817, p. 155. In 1818 they were reprinted in the _Annals of the Fine Arts_, No. 8.
The first appearance of the sonnet, "Written on a blank space at the end of Chaucer's tale of 'The Floure and the Lefe,'" March 16, 1817, p. 173.
Sonnet "On the Grasshopper and Cricket" appeared on the 21st Sept. 1817, p. 599.
_The Gem, a Literary Annual, Edited by Thomas Hood_--
The sonnet "On a picture of Leander" appeared for the first time in 1829, p. 108.
_Hood's Comic Annual_--
"Sonnet to a Cat," 1830, p. 14.
_Hood's Magazine_--
In vol. ii., 1844, p. 240, the sonnet "Life's sea hath been five times at its slow ebb" appears for the first time; included by Lord Houghton in the Literary Remains.
In vol. ii., 1844, p. 562, the poem "Old Meg," written during a tour in Scotland, appears for the first time.
_The Indicator. Edited by Leigh Hunt_--
In vol. i., 1820, p. 120. there are thirty-four lines, headed _Vox et præterea nihil_, supposed by Mr. Forman to be a cancelled passage of Endymion, and reprinted by him in his edition of Keats, 1883, vol. i, p. 221.
In vol. i. 1820, pp. 246-248, the poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" first appeared, and signed "Caviare."
First appearance of the sonnet, "A Dream after reading Dante's Episode of 'Paolo and Francesca,'" signed "Caviare," vol. i. 1820, p. 304.
_Leigh Hunt's Literary Pocket Book_--
First appearance of the sonnets, "To Ailsa Rock" and "The Human Season" in 1819.
VI. APPENDIX.
BIOGRAPHY, CRITICISM, ETC.
Armstrong, Edmund J.--Essays and Sketches of Edmund J. Armstrong. London, 1877, 8vo.
Keats, pp. 176-179.
Atlantic Monthly.--Boston, 1858, 8vo.
"The Poet Keats." Seven stanzas, vol. ii., pp. 531-532.
Belfast, Earl of.--Poets and Poetry of the xixth century. A course of lectures. London, 1852, 8vo.
Moore, Keats, Scott, pp. 59-131.
Best Bits.--Best Bits. London, 1884, 8vo.
"The Last Moments of Keats," vol. ii., p. 119.
Biographical Magazine.--Lives of the Illustrious (The Biographical Magazine). London, 1853, 8vo.
John Keats, vol. iii., pp. 260-271.
Caine, T. Hall. Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. London, 1882, 8vo.
Keats, pp. 167-183.
Caine, T. Hall.--Cobwebs of Criticism, etc. London, 1883, 8vo. Keats, pp. 158-190.
Carr, J. Comyns.--Essays on Art. London, 1879, 8vo.
The artistic spirit in Modern English Poetry, pp. 3-34.
Clarke, Charles Cowden.--The Riches of Chaucer, in which his impurities have been expunged, etc. 2 vols. London, 1835, 12mo.
John Keats, vol. i., pp. 52, 53.
---- Recollections of Writers. London, 1878, 8vo.
John Keats, pp. 120-157.
Colvin, Sidney.--Keats (_English Men of Letters_). London, 1887, 8vo.
Cotterill, H. B.--An Introduction to the Study of Poetry. London, 1882, 8vo.
Keats, pp. 242-268.
Courthope, William J.--The Liberal Movement in English Literature. London, 1885, 8vo.
Poetry, Music, and Painting. Coleridge and Keats, pp. 159-194.
Cunningham, Allan.--Biographical and Critical History of the British Literature of the last fifty years. [Reprinted from the "Athenæum."] Paris, 1834, 12mo.
Keats, pp. 102-104.
Dennis, John.--Heroes of Literature. English Poets. London, 1883, 8vo.
Keats, pp. 365-373.
De Quincey, Thomas.--Essays on the Poets, and other English Writers. Boston, 1853, 8vo.
John Keats, pp. 75-97.
---- De Quincey's Works. 16 vols. Edinburgh, 1862-71, 12mo.
John Keats, vol. v, pp. 269-288.
Devey, J.--A comparative estimate of Modern English Poetry. London, 1873, 8vo.
Alexandrine Poets. Keats, pp. 263-274.
Dilke, Charles Wentworth.--The Papers of a Critic. Selected from the writings of the late Charles W. Dilke. 2 vols. London, 1875, 8vo.
John Keats, vol. i., pp. 2-14.
Encyclopædia Britannica.--Encyclopædia Britannica. Eighth edition. Edinburgh, 1857, 4to.
John Keats, vol. xiii., pp. 55-57.
---- Ninth edition. Edinburgh, 1882, 4to.
John Keats, by Algernon C. Swinburne, vol. xiv., pp. 22-24.
English Writers.--Essays on English Writers. By the author of "The Gentle Life." London, 1869, 8vo.
Shelley, Keats, etc., pp. 338-349.
Gilfillan, George.--A Gallery of Literary Portraits. Edinburgh, 1845, 8vo.
John Keats, pp. 372-385.
Gossip.--The Gossip. London, 1821, 8vo.
Three Stanzas, signed G. V. D., May 19, 1821, p. 96, "On Reading Lamia and other poems, by John Keats."
Griswold, Rufus W.--The Poets and Poetry of England in the Nineteenth Century. New York, 1875, 8vo.
John Keats, with portrait, pp. 301-311.
Haydon, Benjamin Robert,--Life of B. R. Haydon. Edited and compiled by Tom Taylor. 3 vols. London, 1853, 8vo.
Numerous references to Keats.
---- Correspondence and Table-Talk. With a memoir by his son, F. W. Haydon. 2 vols. London, 1876, 8vo.
Contains ten letters and two extracts from letters to Haydon, and ten letters from Haydon to Keats, vol. ii., pp. 1-17.
Hinde, F.--Essays and Poems. Liverpool, 1864, 8vo.
The life and works of the poet Keats: a paper read before the Liverpool Philomathic Society, April 15, 1862, pp. 57-95.
Hoffmann, Frederick A.--Poetry, its origin, nature, and history, etc. London, 1884, 8vo.
Keats, vol. i., pp. 483-491.
Howitt, William.--Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British Poets. Third edition. London, 1857, 8vo.
John Keats, pp. 292-300.
---- The Northern Heights of London, etc. London, 1869, 8vo.
Keats, pp. 95-103.
Hunt, Leigh.--Imagination and Fancy; or, selections from the English Poets. London, 1844, 12mo.
Keats, born 1796, died 1821, pp. 312-345.
---- Foliage, or Poems original and translated. London, 1818, 8vo.
Contains four sonnets; "To John Keats," "On receiving a Crown of Ivy from the same," "On the same," "To the Grasshopper and the Cricket."
---- Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries; with recollections of the author's life, and of his visit to Italy. London, 1826, 4to.
John Keats, pp. 246-268.
---- The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt; with reminiscences of friends and contemporaries. In three volumes. London, 1850, 8vo.
The references to John Keats, vol. ii., pp. 201-216, etc. are substantially reproduced from the preceding work.
Hutton, Laurence.--Literary Landmarks of London. London, [1885], 8vo.
John Keats, pp. 177-182.
Jeffrey, Francis.--Contributions to the Edinburgh Review. London, 1853, 8vo.
John Keats. Review of Endymion and Lamia, pp. 526-534.
Lester, John W.--Criticisms. Third edition, London, 1853, 8vo.
John Keats, pp. 343-349.
Lowell, James Russell.--Among my Books. Second series. London, 1876, 8vo.
Keats, pp. 303-327.
---- The Poetical Works of J. R. L. New revised edition. Boston [U.S.], 1882, 8vo.
Sonnet "To the Spirit of Keats," p. 20.
Maginn, William.--Miscellanies: prose and verse. Edited by R. W. Montagu. 2 vols. London, 1885; 8vo.
Remarks on Shelley's Adonais, vol. ii., pp. 300-311.
Mario, Jessie White.--Sepoleri Inglesi in Roma. (Estratto dalla _Nuova Antologia_, 15 Maggio, 1879.) Roma, 1879, 8vo.
On Keats and Shelley.
Mason, Edward T.--Personal Traits of British Authors. New York, 1885, 8vo.
John Keats, pp. 195-207.
Masson, David.--Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and other Essays. London, 1874, 8vo.
"The Life and Poetry of Keats," pp. 143-191.
Medwin, Thomas.--Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron: noted during a residence with his Lordship at Pisa, in the years 1821 and 1822. By T. Medwin. London, 1824, 4to.
John Keats, pp. 143, 237-240, 255, etc.
Milnes, Richard Monckton, _Lord Houghton_.--Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats. In two volumes. London, 1848, 8vo.
---- Life and Letters of John Keats. A new and completely revised edition. Edited by Lord Houghton, London, 1867, 8vo.
Mitford, Mary Russell.--Recollections of a Literary Life, etc. 3 vols. London, 1852, 8vo.
Shelley and Keats, vol. ii., pp. 183-192.
Moir, D. M.--Sketches of the poetical literature of the past half-century. London, 1851, 8vo.
John Keats, pp. 215-221.
Noel, Hon. Roden.--Essays on poetry and poets. London, 1886, 8vo.
Keats, pp. 150-171.
Notes and Queries.--General Index to Notes and Queries. 5 series. London, 1856-80, 4to.
Numerous references to John Keats.
Olio.--The Olio. London [1828]. 8vo.
"Recollections of Books and their Authors," No. 6, "John Keats, the Poet," vol. i., pp. 391-394.
Oliphant, Mrs.--The Literary History of England, etc. 3 vols. London, 1885, 8vo.
John Keats, vol. iii., pp. 133-155.
Owen, Frances Mary.--John Keats. A Study. London, 1880, 8vo.
Reviewed in the _Academy_, July 5 1884, p. 2.
Payn, James.--Stories from Boccaccio, and other Poems. London, 1852, 8vo.
Sonnet to John Keats, p. 97.
Phillips, Samuel.--Essays from "The Times." Being a selection from the literary papers which have appeared in that journal. London, 1851, 8vo.
"The Life of John Keats," pp. 255-269. This article originally appeared in "The Times" on Sept. 17, 1849.
---- New Edition. 2 vols. London, 1871, 8vo.
John Keats, vol. i., pp. 255-269.
Richardson, David Lester.--Literary Chit-Chat, etc. Calcutta, 1848, 8vo.
Shelley, Keats, and Coleridge, pp. 271-281.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel.--Ballads and Sonnets. London, 1881, 8vo.
Sonnets "To Five English Poets." No. iv., John Keats, p. 316.
Rossetti, William Michael.--Lives of Famous Poets. London [1885], 8vo.
John Keats, pp. 349-361.
Sarrazin, Gabriel.--Poètes Modernes de l'Angleterre. Paris, 1885, 8vo.
John Keats, pp. 131-152.
Scott, William Bell.--Poems, Ballads, Studies from Nature, Sonnets, etc. Illustrated by seventeen etchings by the author and L. Alma Tadema. London, 1875, 8vo.
An etching by the author of Keats' Grave, p. 177; sonnet "On the Inscription, Keats' Tombstone," p. 179. An Ode "To the memory of John Keats," pp. 226-230.
Scribner's Monthly Magazine.--Scribner's Monthly Magazine. New York, 1880, 1887, 8vo.
The No. for June 1880 contains fourteen lines "To the Immortal memory of Keats," and the May No. for 1887, p. 110, "Keats" (ten verses) by Robert Burns Wilson.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe.--Adonais. An elegy on the death of John Keats, author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc. Pisa, 1821, 4to.
---- Adonais. An elegy on the death of John Keats, etc. Cambridge, 1829, 8vo.
---- Adonais. Edited, with notes, by H. Buxton Forman. London, 1880, 8vo.
Shelley, Lady.--Shelley Memorials; from authentic sources. Edited by Lady Shelley. London, 1859, 8vo.
John Keats, pp. 74, 150-152, 155, 156, 200, 203.
Stedman, Edmund Clarence.--Victorian Poets. London, 1876, 8vo.
John Keats, pp. 18, 104, 106, 155, 367, etc.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles.--Miscellanies. London, 1886, 8vo.
Keats, pp. 210-218. Originally appeared in the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Tuckerman, Henry T.--Characteristics of Literature, illustrated by the genius of distinguished men. Philadelphia, 1849, 8vo.
Final Memorials of Lamb and Keats, pp. 256-269.
---- Thoughts on the Poets. London [1852], 12mo.
Keats, pp. 212-226.
Verdicts.--Verdicts. [Verse.] London, 1852, 8vo.
John Keats, occupies 93 lines, pp. 28-32.
Ward, Thomas H.--The English Poets, etc. 4 vols. London, 1883, 8vo.
John Keats, by Matthew Arnold, vol. iv., pp. 427-464.
Willis, N. P.--Pencillings by the Way. A new edition. London, 1844, 8vo.
"Keats's Poems," pp. 84-88.
Wiseman, Cardinal.--On the Perception of Natural Beauty by the Ancients and the Moderns, etc. London, 1856, 8vo.
Keats, pp. 13, 14; reviewed by Leigh Hunt in _Fraser's Magazine_ for December, 1859.
MAGAZINE ARTICLES.
Keats, John
--Examiner, June 1, 1817, p. 345, July 6, 1817, pp. 428, 429, July 13, 1817, pp. 443, 444.
--Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 3, 1818, pp. 519-524.
--Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 7, 1820, p. 665; vol. 27, 1830, p. 633.
--Indicator, by Leigh Hunt, vol. 1, 1820, pp. 337-352.
--Quarterly Review, vol. 37, 1828, pp. 416-421.
--Southern Literary Messenger, by H. T. Tuckerman, vol. 8, 1842, pp. 37-41.
--Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, by T. De Quincey, vol. 13, N.S., 1846, pp. 249-254; same article, Eclectic Magazine, vol. 8, pp. 202-209.
--Democratic Review, vol. 21, N.S., 1847, pp. 427-429.
--United States Magazine, vol. 21, N.S., 1847, pp. 427-429; vol. 26, N.S., 1850, pp. 415-421.
--Hogg's Weekly Instructor, with portrait, vol. 1, 1848, pp. 145-148; same article, Eclectic Magazine, vol. 14, pp. 409-415.
--Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, vol. 10, N.S., 1848, pp. 376-380.
--Sharpe's London Magazine, vol. 8, 1849, pp. 56-60.
--Knickerbocker, vol. 55, 1860, pp. 392-397.
--Temple Bar, vol. 38, 1873, pp. 501-512.
--Edinburgh Review, July 1876, pp. 38-42.
--Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 40. 1870, pp. 523-525 and vol. 55, 1877, by E. F. Madden, pp. 357-361, illustrated.
--Scribner's Monthly, by R. H. Stoddard, vol. 15, 1877, pp. 203-213.
--American Bibliopolist, vol. 7, p. 94, etc., and vol. 8, p. 94, etc.
--_La Revue Politique et Littéraire_, by Léo Quesnel, 1877, pp. 61-65.
--Argonaut, by Reginald W. Corlass, vol. 2, 1875, pp. 172-178.
--Canadian Monthly, by Edgar Fawcett, vol. 2, 1879, pp. 449-454.
--_Century_, by Edmund C. Stedman, illustrated, vol. 27, 1884, pp. 599-602.
---- _and his Critics._ Dial, vol. 1, 1881, pp. 265, 266.
---- _and Joseph Severn._ Dublin University Magazine, by E. S. R., vol. 96, 1880, pp. 37-39.
---- _and Lamb._ Southern Literary Messenger, by H. T. Tuckerman, vol. 14, 1848, pp. 711-715.
---- _and Shelley._ To-Day, June 1883, pp. 188-206, etc.
---- _and the Quarterly Review._ Morning Chronicle, Oct. 3 and 8, 1818 (two letters). Examiner, 11 Oct., 1818, pp. 648, 649.
---- _an Esculapian Poet._ Asclepiad, with portrait on steel, vol. 1, 1884, pp. 138-155.
---- _Art of._ Our Corner, by J. Robertson, vol. 4, 1884, pp. 40-45, 72-76.
---- _Cardinal Wiseman on._ Fraser's Magazine, by Leigh Hunt, vol. 60, 1859, pp. 759, 760.
---- _daintiest of Poets._ Victoria Magazine, vol. 15, 1870, pp. 55-67.
---- _Death of._ London Magazine, vol. 3, 1821, pp. 426, 427.
---- _Verses on death of._ London Magazine, vol. 3, 1821, p. 526.
---- _Did he really care for music._ Manchester Quarterly, by John Mortimer, vol 2, 1883, pp. 11-17.
---- _Endymion._ Quarterly Review, by Gifford, vol. 19, 1818, pp. 204-208.--London Magazine, vol. 1, 1820, pp. 380-389.
---- _Forman's Edition of._ Macmillan's Magazine, vol. 49, 1884, pp. 330-341.--Times, Aug. 7, 1884.
---- _Fragment from._ Gentleman's Magazine, by Grant Allen, vol. 244, 1879, pp. 676-686.
---- _Genius of._ Christian Remembrancer, vol. 6, N.S., 1843, pp. 251-263.
---- _Holman Hunt's "Isabel."_ Fortnightly Review, by B. Cracroft, vol. 3, 1868, pp. 648-657.
---- _Hyperion._ American Whig Review, vol. 14, 1851, pp. 311-322.
---- _Hyperionis, Libri i-ii._ Saturday Review, April 26, 1862, pp. 477, 478.
---- _in Cloudland._ A poem of thirty-one verses. St. James's Magazine, by R. W. Buchanan, vol. 7, 1863, pp. 470-475.
---- _Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and other poems._ London Magazine, vol. 2, 1820, pp. 315-321.--Indicator, by Leigh Hunt, vol. 1, 1820, pp. 337-352.--Monthly Review, vol. 92, N.S., 1820, pp. 305-310.--Eclectic Review, vol. 14 N.S., 1820, 158-171.
---- _Leigh Hunt's Farewell Words to._ Indicator, September 20, 1820.
---- _Letters to Fanny Brawne._ Athenæum, July 14, p. 50, July 21, pp. 80, 81, and July 28, 1877, pp. 114, 115.--Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 57, 1878, p. 466.--Eclectic Magazine, vol. 27, N.S., 1878, pp. 495-498 (from the Academy).--Appleton's Journal, by R. H. Stoddard, vol. 4, N.S., 1878, pp. 379-382.
---- _Life and Poems of._ Macmillan's Magazine, by D. Masson, vol. 3, 1860, pp. 1-16.
---- _Marginalia made by Dante G. Rossetti in a copy of Keats' Poems._ Manchester Quarterly, by George Milner, vol. 2, 1883, pp. 1-10.
---- _Milnes' Life of._ American Review, by C. A. Bristed, vol. 8, 1848, pp. 603-610.--Littell's Living Age, vol. 19, 1848, pp. 20-24.--United States Magazine, vol. 23, N.S., 1848, pp. 375-377.--Athenæum, Aug. 12, 1848, pp. 824-827.--Revue des Deux Mondes, by Philarète Chasles, Tom. 24, Série 5, 1848, pp. 584-607.--Eclectic Review, vol. 24, N.S., 1848, pp. 533-552.--Dublin Review, vol. 25, 1848, pp. 164-179.--British Quarterly Review, vol. 8, 1848, pp. 328-343.--Prospective Review, vol. 4, 1848, pp. 539-555.--Democratic Review, vol. 23, N.S., 1848, pp. 375-377.--Westminster Review, vol. 50, 1849, pp. 349-371.--Sharpe's London Magazine, vol. 8, 1849, pp. 56-60.--North British Review, vol. 10, 1848, pp. 69-96; same article, Eclectic Magazine, vol. 16, pp. 145-159.--New Monthly Magazine, vol. 84, 1848, pp. 105-115; same article, Eclectic Magazine, vol. 15, pp. 340-343.--Dublin University Magazine, vol. 33, 1849, pp. 28-35.--Democratic Review, vol. 26, N.S., 1850, pp. 415-421.
---- _My Copy of._ Tinsley's Magazine, by Richard Dowling, vol. 25, 1879, pp. 427-436.
---- _New Editions of._ Dial, by W. M. Payne, vol. 4, 1884, pp. 255, 256.
---- _Le Paganisme poétique en Angleterre._ Revue des Deux Mondes, by Louis Étienne, Tom. 69, période 2, pp. 291-317.--Eclectic Review, vol. 8, 1817, pp. 267-275.
---- _Poems of._ Examiner, by Leigh Hunt, June 1, July 6 and 13, 1817.--Edinburgh Review, by F. Jeffrey, vol. 34, 1820, pp. 203-213.--Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 8, N.S., 1841, pp. 650, 651.--Dublin University Magazine, vol. 21, 1843, pp. 690-703.--Edinburgh Review, vol. 90, 1849, pp. 424-430.--Massachusetts Quarterly Review, vol. 2, 1849, pp. 414-428.--Dublin University Magazine, vol. 83, 1874, pp. 699-706.--North American Review, vol. 124, 1877, pp. 500-501.
---- _Poetry, Music, and Painting: Coleridge and Keats._ National Review, by W. J. Courthope, vol. 5, 1885, pp. 504-518.
---- _Recollections of._ Gentleman's Magazine, by Charles Cowden Clarke, vol. 12, N.S., 1874, pp. 177-204; same article, Littell's Living Age, vol. 121, pp. 174-188; Every Saturday, vol. 16, p. 262, etc., 669, etc.--Atlantic Monthly, by C. C. Clarke, vol. 7, 1861, pp. 86-100.
---- _School House of, at Enfield._ St. James's Magazine Holiday Annual, 1875, by Charles Cowden Clarke.
---- _Thoughts on._ New Dominion Monthly (portrait), by Robert S. Weir, 1877, pp. 293-300.
---- _Unpublished Notes on Milton._ Athenæum, Oct. 26, 1872, pp. 529, 530.
---- _Unpublished Notes on Shakespeare._ Athenæum, Nov. 16, 1872, p. 634.
---- _Vicissitudes of his fame._ Atlantic Monthly, by J. Severn, vol. 11, 1863, pp. 401-407; same article, Sharpe's London Magazine, vol. 34, N.S., 1869, pp. 246-249.
VII.--CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS.
Poems 1817
Endymion 1818
Lamia, etc. 1820
Life, letters, and literary remains 1848
Letters to Fanny Brawne 1878
Letters 1883
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: A small point here may deserve a note. A letter from John Keats to his brother George, under date of September 21st, 1819, contains the following words: "Our bodies, every seven years, are completely fresh-materialed: seven years ago it was not this hand that clenched itself against Hammond." Another version of the same letter (the true wording of which is matter of some dispute) substitutes: "Mine is not the same hand I clenched at Hammond's." Mr. Buxton Forman, who gives the former phrase as the genuine one, thinks that "this phrase points to a serious rupture as the cause of his quitting his apprenticeship to Hammond." My own inclination is to surmise that the accurate reading may be--"It was not this hand that clenched itself against Hammond's"; indicating, not any quarrel, but the friendly habitual clasp of hand against hand. "Seven years ago" would reach back to September 1812: whereas Keats did not part from Hammond until 1814.]
[Footnote 2: This is Hunt's own express statement. It has been disputed, but I am not prepared to reject it.]
[Footnote 3: Biographers have been reticent on this subject. Keats's statement however speaks for itself, and a high medical authority, Dr. Richardson, writing in _The Asclepiad_ for April 1884, and reviewing the whole subject of the poet's constitutional and other ailments, says that Keats in Oxford "runs loose, and pays a forfeit for his indiscretion which ever afterwards physically and morally embarrasses him." He pronounces that Keats's early death was "expedited, perhaps excited, by his own imprudence," but was substantially due to hereditary disease. His mother, as we have already seen, had died of the malady which killed the poet, consumption. It is not clear to me what Keats meant by saying that "from his _employment_" his health would be insecure. One might suppose that he was thinking of the long and haphazard working hours of a young surgeon or medical man; in which case, this seems to be the latest instance in which he spoke of himself as still belonging to that profession.]
[Footnote 4: Hitherto printed "life"; it seems to me clear that "lips" is the right word.]
[Footnote 5: In Medwin's "Life of Shelley," vol. ii. pp. 89 to 92, are some interesting remarks upon Keats's character and demeanour, written in a warm and sympathetic tone. Some of them were certainly penned by Miss Brawne (Mrs. Lindon), and possibly all of them. Mr. Colvin (p. 233 of his book) has called special attention to these remarks: I forbear from quoting them. A leading point is to vindicate Keats from the imputation of "violence of temper."]
[Footnote 6: This passage is taken from Lord Houghton's "Life, &c., of Keats," first published in 1848, and by "home" he certainly means Wentworth Place, Hampstead. Yet in his Aldine Edition of Keats, his lordship says that the poet "was at that time, very much against Mr. Brown's desire and advice, living alone in London." This latter statement may possibly be correct--I question it. The passage, as written by Lord Houghton, is condensed from the narrative of Brown. The latter is given verbatim in Mr. Colvin's "Keats," and is, of course, the more important and interesting of the two. I abstain from quoting it, solely out of regard to Mr. Colvin's rights of priority.]
[Footnote 7: Apparently Miss Brawne had remonstrated against the imputation of "flirting with Brown," and much else to like effect in a recent letter from Keats.]
[Footnote 8: I observe this name occurring once elsewhere in relation to Keats, but am not clear whose house it represents.]
[Footnote 9: It has been suggested (by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, as printed in Mr. Forman's edition of Keats) that the poem here referred to is "The Eve of St. Mark." Keats had begun it fully a year and a half before the date of this letter, but, not having continued it, he might have spoken of "having it in his head."]
[Footnote 10: This may require a word of explanation. Keats, detained at Portsmouth by stress of weather, had landed for a day, and seen his friend Mr. Snook, at Bedhampton. Brown was then in Chichester, only ten miles off, but of this Keats had not at the time been aware.]
[Footnote 11: The -- before "you" appears in the letter, as printed in Mr. Forman's edition of Keats. It might seem that Keats hesitated a moment whether to write "you" or "Miss Brawne."]
[Footnote 12: No such letter is known. It has been stated that Keats, after leaving home, could never summon up resolution enough to write to Miss Brawne: possibly this statement ought to be limited to the time after he had reached Italy.]
[Footnote 13: Lord Houghton says that Keats in Naples "could not bear to go to the opera, on account of the sentinels who stood constantly on the stage:" he spoke of "the continual visible tyranny of this government," and said "I will not leave even my bones in the midst of this despotism." Sentinels on the stage have, I believe, been common in various parts of the continent, as a mere matter of government parade, or of routine for preserving public order. The other points (for which no authority is cited by Lord Houghton) must, I think, be over-stated. In November 1820 the short-lived constitution of the kingdom of Naples was in full operation, and neither tyranny nor despotism was in the ascendant--rather a certain degree of popular license.]
[Footnote 14: The reader of Keats's preface will note that this is a misrepresentation. Keats did not speak of any fierce hell of criticism, nor did he ask to remain uncriticized in order that he might write more. What he said was that a feeling critic would not fall foul of him for hoping to write good poetry in the long run, and would be aware that Keats's own sense of failure in "Endymion" was as fierce a hell as he could be chastised by.]
[Footnote 15: This phrase stands printed with inverted commas, as a quotation. It is not, however, a quotation from the letter of J. S.]
[Footnote 16: "Coolness" (which seems to be the right word) in the letter to Miss Mitford.]
[Footnote 17: Severn's view of the matter some years afterwards has however received record in the diary of Henry Crabb Robinson. Under the date May 6, 1837, we read--"He [Severn] denies that Keats's death was hastened by the article in the _Quarterly_."]
[Footnote 18: The passage which begins--
"Hard by Stood serene Cupids watching silently"
has some affinity with a passage in Shelley's "Adonais." The latter passage is, however, more directly based upon one in the Idyll of Bion on Adonis.]
[Footnote 19: I do not clearly understand from the poem whether Endymion does or does not know, until the story nears its conclusion, that the goddess who favours him is Diana. He appears at any rate to _guess_ as much, either during this present interview or shortly afterwards.]
[Footnote 20: Keats has been laughed at for ignorance in printing "Visit my Cytherea"; but it appears on good evidence that what he really wrote was "Visit thou my Cythera." A false quantity in this same canto, "Nèpt[)u]nus," cannot be explained away.]
[Footnote 21: Declared it in some very odd lines; for instance--
"Do gently murder half my soul, and I Shall feel the other half so utterly!"]
[Footnote 22: See p. 52 as to Miss Brawne.]
[Footnote 23: I presume the "three masterpieces" are "The Eve of St. Agnes," "Hyperion," and "Lamia"; this leaves out of count the short "Belle Dame sans Merci," and the unfinished "Eve of St. Mark," but certainly not because Dante Rossetti rated those lower than the three others.]
[Footnote 24: There are some various readings in this poem (as here, "wretched wight"); I adopt the phrases which I prefer.]
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings, and inconsistent hyphenation. Obvious typographical errors in punctuation have been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:
page 110: typo fixed
In Feburary[February] 1818 Keats, Leigh Hunt, and Shelley, undertook to write a sonnet each upon the river Nile.
page 150: typo fixed
which could not be made applicable or subservient to the purposes of poetry. Many will remember the ancedote[ancedote], proper to Haydon's "immortal dinner"
page 201: typo fixed
seems almost outside the region of criticism. Still, it is a palpaple[palpable] fact that this address, according to its place in
In Footnote 20, [)u] indicates a u-breve.
End of Project Gutenberg's Life of John Keats, by William Michael Rossetti