coffin." He never recovered from the impression, I sentiments, or wit; and these predominate when and he died three weeks afterwards. they are most successful-as in Chaucer's tales There was a period when the deaths in Paris of actual life, and many of the cantos of Spencer were calculated at 1300 or 1400 a day. Hearses where he vivifies allegory. The subject of Beaufell short, and recourse was had to artillery wag-mont and Fletcher was the drama: their popuons. "These having no springs, the violent jolting burst the coffins, the bodies were thrown out, and the pavement was stained with them." The people went mad with terror, believed the wildest fictions, and indulged in the most dreadful atrocities. It was rumored that the deaths were all owing to poison, and that there was no such thing as cholera at all. "Then you might behold larity has passed away, not on account of their poetry, which supports their names, but because of the exceptional vices and crimes they selected as subjects for their tragedies; the grossness of incidents, persons, and sentiments in their comedies; and the predominance of temporary fashions and opinions throughout. The only poet who, on the ground assumed by Jeffrey, could rival Keats was Collins; but, except on subjects purely poetical, as in some of his odes, Collins still sought to produce effect by means of things real in themselves-as nature, history, or passion; or real in the mind-as popular superstitions. Keats him He But the assertion is not accurate. self never appears to have dreamed of founding the ideal on anything but the real. He failed, not through his poetry, but through his faults or his defects. His first and most wearying fault was a self-sufficient habit of outpouring. never seems to have selected his thoughts, or cared for his diction; he labored nothing and finished nothing. The effect of striking pictures, weighty lines, and descriptions at once natural and poetical, is weakened by prosaic expressions, obso all the horrid secrets of modern civilization displayed in the rolling billows of a seething population. From those darksome quarters where misery hides its forgotten head, the capital was suddenly inundated by multitudes of bare-armed men, whose gloomy faces glared with hate. What sought they? What did they demand? They never told this, only they explored the city with prying eyes, and ran about with ferocious mutterings. Murders soon occurred." A Jew was killed because he laughed in a strange manner and carried a packet of white powder (which turned out to be camphor) in his hand. A young man was butchered for looking into a wine-seller's window, and a coal-porter made his dog tear the dead body. Private subscriptions poured in on all sides; every imaginable precaution was taken by the authori-lete, half unintelligible words, and silly mannerisms ties; the medical men made superhuman efforts; but no common method of treatment having been agreed upon, the most opposite systems were pursued, even in the same hospital or the same ward. "The attendants had to execute directly opposite orders for cases perfectly identical: the patient who was dosed with punch, saw ice given to the man in the next bed, and thinking himself used only as a subject for experiments, he died with rage in his heart." of the Cockney school; or they are overwhelmed by that species of expansion which distinguishes the platform and the pulpit, and consists in running down a theme. Thus, he opens Endymion with a line of power-" A thing of beauty is a joy forever;" and then he fills three-and-twenty lines in expounding the text, without making it clearer after all. Deficiency was the great cause of Keats' imperfect productions and his ill-success. He wanted knowledge of life, of literature, and of poetical Although no specific has yet been discovered, it seems agreed that the stimulating mode of treat-art. ment is the best. Bad or unwholesome food of every sort is mentioned as a predisposing cause to cholera. From the Spectator. MONCKTON MILNES' LIFE OF KEATS. IF Jeffrey was correct in asserting that the works of Keats are the best test of a reader's relish of "pure poetry"—that is, as we understand him, poetry in its very essence, apart from the interest of the story, the vivacity of the characters, the weight and force of the maxims, and the embodied wit and humor-then Keats must stand at the very head of all poets, at least of all English poets. It is not the poetry of Chaucer or Spenser that encumbers their works for the general reader, but the minute detail and remote fashion of Chaucer, and the allegory and pedantry of Spencer's age, together with the diffuseness of both writers. They themselves intended to found the interest of their poems on story, characters, Some sense of his deficiency, probably, drove him upon mythological subjects for his narrative poems; perhaps on the notion that an exploded superstition, where he could not be tested, would better serve and shield him than any subject that came more within the range of men's experience. But it was a mistake. Mr. Monckton Milnes enforces a common idea, that Keats breathed a new life into classicality: Keats did nothing of the sort, in a classical sense. What he did, and it is deserving of great praise, was to strip heathen mythology of the pedantic formality of poetasters, and endow it with a sort of life by introducing living worshippers, and giving human passions to supernatural beings. The spirit, how. ever, was modern; sometimes of his own age, of rather of his literary school; sometimes imitative of the earlier writers. Spencer is visible in him; the impression of pictures, statues, and we think the conversation of his enthusiastic artist friendsas Haydon-are traceable in his antique descriptions; and in his magic we think we can perceive the influence of the Arabian Nights. But of the true classical spirit he had not a spark, except occasionally where a distinct conception of nature found vent in weighty words or delicate delineation, which is classicality all the world over. 66 less activity joined to an impatience of labor: he would neither keep back what he had written nor revise what he wrote. Both of these results were perhaps owing to physical causes; the last cerBy choosing mythological subjects, on which tainly. The seeds of his fatal disorder were in his fancy could run riot without being charged the constitution. One of his brothers had a spitwith improbability, Keats in some sense escaped ting of blood, and seems to have died of consumpthe trammels of a human theme. But to escape tion. He himself complained, in 1819, that he from a difficulty is not to overcome it; and his was scarcely content to write the best verse, deficiencies are visible in spite of his endeavors to from the fever they leave behind. I want to comevade them. His narrative, especially in Endym- pose without this fever; I hope I shall one day." ion, is bad in two points: judged by their own Once, after meeting Keats near Hampstead, when nature and position, the conduct of his persons is he was supposed to be in perfect health, Coleridge inconsistent; the progress of the story is impeded said to Leigh Hunt, "There is death in that by introductions that contribute nothing to the ac- hand,"-judging, we suppose, from the clammy tion, and have no other end than to furnish topics moisture indicative of a consumptive tendency. for description, or display the writer's dictionary Mr. Milnes intimates that it requires a peculiar knowledge of the heathen gods and goddesses. constitution to appreciate Endymion: we suspect These faults were less visible in his later poems; that a peculiar, not to say a morbid temperament, and he was becoming more artistical, as Mr. influenced all that Keats did. We can indeed Milnes remarks, in avoiding the obvious points of suppose what he might have done had he been gross affectation and frequent verboseness. Still, differently constituted; but that would only be had these faults been conquered altogether, my- supposing him somebody else. thological subjects are too exploded to admit of a wide or a general interest: they must be false, or they must be heavy; the dead and buried cannot be revived; and of the living Keats had not much knowledge, and did not live in a circle adapted for acquiring it. It is now thirty years since Keats first became conspicuous before the world from the attacks of the Quarterly Review and Blackwood's Magazine; and twenty-seven since he dictated his epitaph from his deathbed-" Here lies one whose name was writ in water." The reputation he has atBut though Keats produced no complete poem, tained has perhaps exceeded his dying hopes, and he exhibited a high poetical imagination; not, as the ideas of his enemies, though the adventitious Jeffrey seems to mean, a sort of poetical essence circumstance of their attacks has somewhat contoo ethereal or imaginative to present anything in tributed to it; but, be his fame extensive or limitnature, but founded altogether on reality. There ed, permanent or doomed to decay, his Life and is a wild freshness in his description of the forest Letters have more title to be given to the world of Latmos, which, if it does not carry us thither, than those of many persons that have lately figured removes us from all common landscapes; not by in print. Nor. judging from the product, could something dreamy, but by images very distinct. the subject have been placed in better hands than The procession of Endymion and the worshippers those of Mr. Monckton Milnes. Mr. Milnes, it is to the woodland altar, though rather after Poussin true, had no personal knowledge of Keats, and or Poussin's French imitators, is wonderfully dis- his work must want those lively delineations of tinct as a picture. There is a massy primeval character and manners which can only be derived grandeur about Saturn and Thea in Hyperion, from actual observation. On the other hand, he which, if part of the impression seems to arise has not those temptations to soften the truth into from a kind of Egyptian magnitude in size, is un- falsehood which personal friendship, hallowed by rivalled in its way. Some of his descriptions death, and reminiscences a little dimmed by time, exhibit great delicacy of touch-as where the are apt to produce. The best substitute for persmoke of incense from the woodland altar is "asonal knowledge Mr. Milnes has had in the comhazy light spread greyly eastward;" some of his munications of surviving friends, and in the whole sentiments derive truth even from a seeming ex- of Keats' extant letters, which those friends have aggeration as when Glaucus, gazing on the placed at his disposal. But it is his peculiar Circean transformations, sees a sight too fearful genius that renders Mr. Milnes so preeminently for the feel of fear;" and we know of nothing in fitted for a biographer of Keats. His genial goodpoetry more suggestive of aërial motion than Mer- nature and catholic sympathies enable him to percury floating over the woman serpent in Lamia. ceive and appreciate the depth of feeling that may lie under weaknesses, affectation, and absurdities of manner, which repel many at the outset. The same disposition mingles with his criticism; inducing him to do full and favorable justice to the character and writings of Keats, without blinding him to their faults; though, true to his genial humanity, we think the poetical criticism of Mr. Milnes is a better specimen of judicial decision than his estimate of the poet's personal character. 66 As Mr. Milnes justly observes, the actual reputation of Keats depends less on what he did than on what he might have done had he lived to develop his genius. It may be doubted whether his constitution or temperament would have admitted of this development. Besides great self-opinion, which he evidently possessed, (as is discernible in his preface to Endymion, and is visible throughout his correspondence,) he seems to have had a rest The rarest feature of the work, however, is the particular to Leigh Hunt, with whom he soon became intimate. There is some slight obscurity in chronology in this period, Mr. Milnes not being always attentive to dates; but it would seem that about 1817 Keats resolved to abandon his profession, (if he ever practised it,) for poetry. The reason assigned was, that the sense of responsibility in a surgical operation oppressed him : but it is likely his own tastes and the example of his new friends had as much influence as the dread of doing harm to his patients. About this time, (1817,) Keats, having written verses from boyhood, published his volume of miscellaneous poems; which "dropped still-born The biography of a poet can be little better than from the press." Notwithstanding the equanimity a comment on his poems, even when itself of long duration, and chequered with strange and various which he claims for himself, and which Mr. Milnes adventures: but these pages concern one whose concedes to him, Keats seems to have been sore whole story may be summed up in the composition upon the subject; he attributed the failure to the of three small volumes of verse, some earnest friend-" 'inactivity" of his publisher, Mr. Ollier, and ships, one passion, and a premature death. As thereupon quarrelled with him. Henceforth his men die, so they walk among posterity; and our life passed (to expand the terms of Mr. Milnes' impression of Keats can only be that of a noble na-half sentence) in the enjoyment of friendship, the ture perseveringly testing its own powers, of a manly heart bravely surmounting its first hard ex- composition of Endymion, Lamia, Hyperion, and perience, and of an imagination ready to inundate some minor or unpublished poems that appear in the world, yet learning to flow within regulated the present work; and in the one passion, that, channels and abating its violence without lessening having begun apparently at the first development its strength. of his illness, only terminated with his life. It is thus no more than the beginning of a Life Of the movements, literary habits, and feelings which can here be written; and nothing but a conviction of the singularity and greatness of the frag- of Keats, we have a full account in these volumes, ment would justify any one in attempting to draw until the last months of his life, when he became general attention to its shape and substance. The too weak, nervous, and irritable, to write, or, interest indeed of the poems of Keats has already latterly, even to read the letters addressed to him. had much of a personal character; and his early But of this period a deeply interesting account has end, like that of Chatterton, (of whom he ever been preserved in the communications of Mr. speaks with a sort of prescient sympathy,) has in Severn the artist, who accompanied him to Rome, some degree stood him instead of a fulfilled poetical attended him day and night through an illness existence. Ever improving in his art, he gave no reason to believe that his marvellous faculty had whose symptoms were trying alike to the patience anything in common with that lyrical facility which and the feelings, and that too while the anxieties many men have manifested in boyhood or in youth, of the artist's own position were pressing heavily but which has grown torpid or disappeared altoupon him. One or two points of the biography gether with the advance of mature life in him no are obscure. In addition to Keats' share of his one doubts that a true genius was suddenly arrest-father's property, which amounted to 20007., he ed; and they who will not allow him to have won his place in the first ranks of English poets will not deny the promise of his candidature. 1 received 4007. on the death of his brother Thomas; and this capital need only have been diminished by the expenses of his medical education; yet, The life of John Keats, as Mr. Milnes has in- though he lived, to appearance, on a frugal scale, dicated, was uneventful. The future poet was in lodgings, it vanished unaccountably, and he born in 1795; his father was in the employ of soon got into pecuniary difficulties. He lived but Mr. Jennings, a livery-stable-keeper of Moorfields, six years altogether after his apprenticeship; by and attained the romance of industry, by marrying 1819, he determined to resort to periodical writing, his master's daughter. At about the usual age, which he abhorred, as a means of subsistence; John was sent to a school at Enfield, kept by Mr. and but for the kindness of the present Sir James Clarke, the father of Charles Cowden Clarke. On Clark (then practising as a physician at Rome) leaving school, in 1810, he was apprenticed to Mr. and the devoted friendship of Mr. Severn, the Hammond, a surgeon of Edmonton. He remained author of Hyperion must have shared the fate with him for the usual period of five years; regu- of many other sons of genius, and died in a larly walked the hospitals in London; and, much hospital. It seems only to have been an oppor to the surprise of his medical-student friends, who tune remittance (and not the only one) from Mr knew his habits of verse-making and desultory Taylor the publisher, that relieved Keats, or rathe reading, passed his examination at Apothecaries Severn, from the apprehensions expressed in the Hall with considerable credit. Keats' old friend, following extract. Cowden Clarke, with whom he used to read poetry at school and during his apprenticeship, had introduced him to several literary acquaintances, and in Torlonia, the banker, has refused us any more money; the bill is returned unaccepted; and tomorrow I must pay my last crown for this cursed The lodging-place; and what is more, if he dies, all the to him in composing these memoirs. The first beds and furniture will be burnt and the walls was to consider his materials as entirely at his scraped, and they will come on me for a hundred pounds or more! But, above all, this noble fellow own disposal, and deal with them artistically, so lying on the bed and without the common spiritual as principally to consider the literary result. [corporal!] comforts that many a rogue and fool has other was to look upon himself in the light of an in his last moments! If I do break down, it will editor-print the whole of the correspondence that be under this; but I pray that some angel of good- could properly appear, and merely contribute a ness may yet lead him through this dark wilder-narrative that should connect the letters and supply ness. their omissions. The last is the course Mr. If I could leave Keats every day for a time, I Milnes has adopted, on the ground that it gives a could soon raise money by my painting; but he fuller view of Keats. This is undoubtedly true; will not let me out of his sight-he will not bear the face of a stranger. I would rather cut my but at Keats' expense. Some of his letters are tongue out than tell him I must get the money trivial, and others tedious, from his habit of runthat would kill him at a word. You see my hopes ning everything down though not worth the trouble of being kept by the Royal Academy will be cut of the chase; others are distasteful from their off unless I send a picture by the spring. I have narrowness, not to say egotism. No doubt, they written to Sir T. Lawrence. I have got a volume of Jeremy Taylor's works, which Keats has heard present the weaknesses of Keats to the reader; me read to-night. This is a treasure indeed, and but Mr. Milnes could have impressed them much came when I should have thought it hopeless. more briefly. Hence, some of the most interWhy may not other good things come? I will esting parts of the book are supplied by the keep myself up with such hopes. Dr. Clark is biographer, except those letters of Keats which still the same, though he knows about the bill; he refer to his attachment, and the narrative of his is afraid the next change will be to diarrhea. journey to Rome and his illness there. Keats sees all this-his knowledge of anatomy makes every change tenfold worse; every way he is unfortunate, yet every one offers me assistance on his account. He cannot read any letters; he has made me put them by him unopened. They tear him to pieces-he dare not look on the outside of any more; make this known. mens sana in cor Mr. Milnes maintains that the attacks upon Keats had nothing to do with his death. His authority for this conclusion seems to be the letters of Keats; but in a person at once so selfopinioned and so proud as regarded his literature, this is scarcely sufficient evidence. Nobody, we suppose, meant that Keats was killed “out and out" by the Quarterly. A " pore sano" is not struck down by paper pellets, especially when annoyance, not truth, is the evident aim. But a nervous temperament, with the germs of disorder strongly developed, might be so excited by mortification, disappointment, and inward anger, as to aggravate disease to a quicker termination. Little more than this, we suppose, was meant; and his brother George, with many of the poet's friends, believed that the attacks upon him produced as much as this. That such might be an exaggerated view we will not dispute; that it had some foundation we believe. His literary sensitiveness was greater than he would willingly own. It has been seen how he tried to put the failure of his first-born upon Mr. Ollier; he was angry that he should be considered a follower of Leigh Hunt in Endymion, though his more obvious faults and his outward style are distinctly stamped with that writer's school; he was dissatisfied with Mr. Hunt's private (and it strikes us very just and lenient) criticism on the first part of Endymion-attributing it to offended vanity in not having been consulted "officiously," [offieially?] and on this ground ascribing to Hunt and Shelley a formed resolve to depreciate his poem. Mr. Milnes observes that two modes were open The passion of Keats was returned; the only obstacles appear to have been his circumstances and his health. Keats himself thought that if his means had permitted him to marry, his health would not have given way; but that was probably a delusion of sickness. Till Keats left England, lived in the lady's neighborhood. On his voyage the allusions to this subject are scanty, as he out, and in Italy, we can observe its absorbing nature. He writes as follows to his friend Mr. Brown, from off the Isle of Wight, in 1820 : I wish to write on subjects that will not agitate me much. There is one I must mention, and have done with it. Even if my body would recover of I want to live most for, will be a great occasion of itself, this would prevent it. The very thing which my death. I cannot help it. Who can help it? Were I in health it would make me ill, and how can I bear it in my state? I dare say you will be able to guess on what subject I am harping—you know what was my greatest pain during the first part of my illness at your house. I wish for death and then I wish death away, for death would every day and night to deliver me from these pains; destroy even those pains, which are better than nothing. Land and sea, weakness and decline, are great separators; but death is the great divorcer forever. When the pang of this thought has passed through my mind, I may say the bitterness of death is passed. I often wish for you, that you might flatter me with the best. I think, without my mentioning it, for my sake you would be a friend to Miss when I am dead. You think she has many faults; but for my sake think she has not one. And again from Naples : Naples, Nov. 1, [1820.] My dear Browne-Yesterday we were let out of from bad air and the stifled cabin than it had done quarantine; during which my health suffered more the whole voyage. The fresh air revived me a little; and I hope I am well enough this morning to write to you a short calm letter-if that can be "Misera me! sollievo a me non resta, Altro che pianto, ed il pianto è ailetto!" Now that I know so much of his grief, I do not wonder at it. called one in which I am afraid to speak of what I would fainest dwell upon. As I have gone thus far into it, I must go on a little; perhaps it may relieve the load of wretchedness which presses upon me. The persuasion that I shall see her no more will kill me. My dear Brown, I should have Such a letter has come! I gave it to Keats had her when I was in health, and I should have supposing it to be one of yours; but it proved sadly remained well. I can bear to die-I cannot bear to otherwise. The glance at that letter tore him to leave her. Oh, God, God, God! Everything I pieces; the effects were on him for many days. have in my trunks that reminds me of her goes He did not read it-he could not-but requested through me like a spear. The silk lining she put me to place it in his coffin, together with a purse in my travelling-cap scalds my head. My imagina- and a letter (unopened) of his sister's; since then tion is horribly vivid about her; I see her, I hear he has told me not to place that letter in his coffin, her. There is nothing in the world of sufficient only his sister's purse and letter, and some hair. interest to divert me from her a moment. This I, however, persuaded him to think otherwise on was the case when I was in England; I cannot this point. In his most irritable state he sees a recollect without shuddering the time that I was a friendless world about him, with everything that his prisoner at Hunt's, and used to keep my eyes fixed life presents, and especially the kindness of others, on Hampstead all day. Then there was a good tending to his melancholy death. hope of seeing her again. No-O that I could be Feb. 22d.-Oh, how anxious I am to hear from buried near where she lives! I am afraid to write you! [Mr. Haslam.] I have nothing to break this to her to receive a letter from her, to see her dreadful solitude but letters. Day after day, night handwriting, would break my heart—even to hear after night, here I am by our poor dying friend. of her anyhow, to see her name written, would be My spirits, my intellect, and my health are breakmore than I can bear. My dear Brown, what aming down. I can get no one to change with me— I to do? Where can I look for consolation or ease? If I had any chance of recovery, this passion would kill me. Indeed, through the whole of my illness, both at your house and at Kentish Town, this fever has never ceased wearing me out. When you write to me, which you will do immediately, write to Rome (poste restante)—if she is well and happy, put a mark thus +; if—————. Remember me to all. I will endeavor to bear my miseries patiently. A person in my state of health should not have such miseries to bear. My dear Brown, for my sake, be her advocate forever. I cannot say a word about Naples; I do not feel at all concerned in the thousand novelties around me. I am afraid to write to her. I should like her to know that I do not forget her. Oh, Brown, I have coals of fire in my breast. It surprises me that the human heart is capable of containing and bearing so much misery. Was I born for this end? God bless her, and her mother, and my sister, and George, and his wife, and you, and all ! Your ever affectionate friend, Nine These feelings pursued him to the last. days before his death, Mr. Severn writes thus: Feb. 14th.-Little or no change has taken place, except this beautiful one, that his mind is growing to great quietness and peace. I find this change has to do with the increasing weakness of his body; but to me it seems like a delightful sleep, I have been beating about in the tempest of his mind so long. To-night he has talked very much, but so easily, that he fell at last into a pleasant sleep. He seems to have happy dreams. This will bring on some change; it cannot be worse-it may be better. Among the many things he has requested of me to-night, this is the principal-that on his gravestone shall be this inscription, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." You will understand this so well that I need not say a word about it. When he first came here he purchased a copy of "Alfieri," but put it down at the second page, being much affected at the lines no one to relieve me. All run away; and even if they did not, Keats would not do without me. Last night I thought he was going-I could hear the phlegm in his throat; he bade me lift him up in the bed, or he would die with pain. I watched him all night, expecting him to be suffocated at every cough. This morning, by the pale daylight, the change in him frightened me; he had sunk in the last three days to a most ghastly look. Though Dr. Clark has prepared me for the worst, I shall be ill able to bear it. I cannot bear to be set free even from this my horrible situation by the loss of it. I am still quite precluded from painting; which may be of consequence to me. Poor Keats has me ever by him, and shadows out the form of one solitary friend; he opens his eyes in great doubt and horror; but when they fall upon me they close gently, open quietly, and close again, till he sinks to sleep. This thought alone would keep me by him till he dies; and why did I say I was losing my time? The advantages I have gained by knowing John Keats are double and treble any I could have won by any other occupation. Farewell. The Feb. 27th. He is gone! He died with the most perfect ease; he seemed to go to sleep. On the 23d, about four, the approaches of death came on. "Severn-I-lift me up-I am dying-I shall die it has come." I lifted him up in my arms. easy; don't be frightened-be firm, and thank God phlegm seemed boiling in his throat, and increased until eleven, when he gradually sunk into death: so quiet, that I still thought he slept. I cannot I am broken down by four nights' say more now. Three days since the body was opened; the lungs watching; no sleep since, and my poor Keats gone. were completely gone. The doctors could not imagine how he had lived these two months. I followed his dear body to the grave on Monday, with many English. They take much care of me here I must else have gone into a fever. I am better now, but still quite disabled. The police have been. The furniture, the walls, the floor, must all be destroyed, and changed; but this is well looked to by Dr. Clark. The letters I placed in the coffin with my own hand. |