SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

BIOGRAPHY,

Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats. Edited by Richard 3lonckton Mllnea. In two volumes

POLITICAL STATISTICS, Panstarlsm and Germanism. By Count Valerian Krasinski, Author of "The Re-

formation in Poland." Newby. FICTION,

Kate Waisingham. By the Editor of " The Grandfather." By the late Ellen

Pickering. In three volumes Newby.

Macon.

MONCKT ON MILNES'S LIFE OF KEATS.

Ir 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 under- stand 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 humour,—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 Spencer 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, sentiments, or wit ; and these predomi- nate when they are most successful,—as in Chaucer's tales of actual life, and many of the cantos of Spencer where he vivifies allegory. The sub- ject of Beaumont and Fletcher was the drama : their popularity 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.

But the assertion is not accurate. Keats himself 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. Ilis first and most wearying fault was a self-sufficient habit of outpouring. He never seems to have selected his thoughts, or cared for his diction ; he laboured nothing and finished nothing. The effect of striking pictures, weighty lines, and descriptions at once natural and poetical, is weakened by prosaic expressions, obsolete half unintelligible words, and silly man- nerisms 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. Titus, be opens Endymion with a line of power—" A thing of beauty is a joy for ever " ; 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's imperfect productions and his ill-success. He wanted knowledge of life, of literature, and of poetical art. Some sense of his deficiency, probably, drove him upon mytho- logical subjects for his narrative poems ; perhaps on the notion that an ex- ploded 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 pe- dantic formality of poetasters, and endow it with a sort of life by introducing living worshipers, and giving human passions to super- natural beings. The spirit, however, was modern; sometimes of his own age, or rather of his literary school ; sometimes imita- tive of the earlier writers. Spencer is visible in him ; the impression of pictures statues, and we think the conversation of his enthusiastic artist friends—as Haydon—are traceable in his antique descriptions • and in his magic we think we can perceive the influence of the Arabia Nights. But of the true classical spirit he had not a spark, except oc- casionally where a distinct conception of nature found vent in weighty words or delicate delineation, which is classicality all the world over.

By choosing mythological subjects, on which his fancy could run riot without being charged with improbability, Keats in some sense escaped the trammels of a human theme. But to escape from a difficulty is not to overcome it; and his deficiencies are visible in spite of his endeavours to evade them. His narrative, especially in Endymion, is bad in two points : judged by their own nature and position, the conduct of his persons is inconsistent; the progress of the story is impeded by introduc- tions that contribute nothing to the action, and have no other end than to furnish topics for description' or display the writer's dictionary know- ledge of the heathen gods and goddesses. These faults were less visible in his later poems; and he was becoming more artistica!, as Mr. Milnes remarks, in avoiding the obvious points of gross affectation and frequent verboseness. Still, had these faults been conquered altogether, mytho- logical subjects are too exploded to admit of a wide or 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. But though Keats produced no complete poem, he exhibited a high poetical imagination ; not, as Jeffrey seems to mean, a sort of poetical essence too etherial or imaginative to present anything in nature, but founded altogether on reality. There is a wild freshness in his descrip- tion of the forest of Latmos, which, if it does not carry us thither, re- moves us from all common landscapes; not by something dreamy, but by images very distinct. The procession of Endymion and the worship- ers to the woodland altar, though rather after Foussin or l'otussin's French imitators, is wonderfully distinct as a picture. There is a massy prime- • Tat grandeur about Saturn and Ilea in Hyperion, which, if part of the impression seems to arise from a kind of Egyptian magnitude in size, is unrivalled in its way. Some of his descriptions exhibit great delicacy of touch,—as where the smoke of incense from the woodland altar is "a hazy light spread greyly Eastward " ; some of his sentiments derive truth even from a seeming exaggeration,—as when Glancus, gazing on the Circean transformations, sees "a sight too fearful for the feel of fear " ; and we know of nothing in poetry more suggestive of aerial motion than Mercury floating over the woman serpent in Lamia. 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 tem- perament 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 restless activity joined to an impatience of labour : 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 certainly. The seeds of his fatal disorder were in the constitution. One of his brothers had a spitting of blood, and seems to have died of con- sumption. He himself complained, in 1819, that he was "scarcely con- tent to write the best verse, from the fever they leave behind. I want to compose without this fever ; I hope I shall one day." Once, after meeting Keats near Hampstead, when he was supposed to be in per- fect health, Coleridge said to Leigh Hunt, There is death in that hand,— judging, we suppose, from the clammy moisture indicative of a consump- tive tendency. Mr. Milnes intimates that it requires a peculiar constitu- tion to appreciate Endymion: we suspect that a peculiar, not to say a morbid temperament, influenced all that Keats did. We can indeed sup- pose what he might have done had he been differently constituted; but that would only be supposing him somebody else. It is now thirty years since Keats first became conspicuous before the world from the attacks of the Quarterly Review and Black- wood'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 attained has perhaps exceeded his dying hopes, and the ideas of his enemies, though the adventitious circumstance of their attacks has somewhat contributed to it; but, be his fame extensive or limited, permanent or doomed to decay, his Life and Letters have more title to be given to the world than those of many persons that have lately figured in print. Nor, judging from the product, could the sub- ject have been placed in better hands than those of Mr. Monckton Milnes. Mr. Mines, it is true, had no personal knowledge of Keats, and his work must want those lively delineations of character and manners which can only be derived from actual observation. On the other hand, he has not those temptations to soften the truth into falsehood which personal friendship hallowed by death, and reminiscences a little dimmed by time, are apt to produce. The best substitute for personal knowledge Mr. Milnes has had in the communications of surviving friends, and in the whole of Keats's extant letters, which those friends have placed at his disposal. But it is his peculiar genius that renders Mr. Mikes so preeminently fitted for a biographer of Keats. His genial good-nature and catholic sympathies enable him to perceive 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 favourable justice to the character and writings of Keats, without blinding him to their faults ; though, true to is genial humanity, we think the poetical criticism of Mr. Mines is a better specimen of judicial decision than his estimate of the poet's personal character. The rarest feature of the work, however, is the large and comprehensive spirit which characterizes it. The poetical power of Mr. Milnes is seen, we think, to more advantage in these me- moirs than in his poems. Without the slightest trace of poetizing or rhetorical inflation, there is a depth of thought, a vivacity of imagination, and a largeness of grasp, which give to his prose some of the universal character of poetry, without in any way impairing its nature as prose. How much of pregnant closeness there is in the following introductory view of Keats! Speaking generally, it says all that there is Lobe said.

"The biography of a poet can be little better than a comment on his poems, even when itself of long duration, and chequered with strange and various adven- tures: but these pages concern one whose whole story may be summed up in the composition of three small volumes of verse, some earnest friendships, one passion, and a premature death. As men die, so they walk among posterity; and our im- pression of Keats can only be that of a noble nature perseveringly testing its own powers, of a manly heart bravely surmounting its first hard experience, and of an imagination ready to inundate the world, yet learning to flow within regulated channels and abating its violence without lessening its strength. "It is thus no more than the beginning of a Life which can here be written; and nothing but a conviction of the singularity and greatness of the fragment would 4rtify any one in attempting to draw general attention to its shape and substance. The interest indeed of the Poems of Keats has already had much of a personal character; and his early end, like that of Chatterton, (of whom he ever speaks with a sort of prescient sympathy,) has in some degree stood him in stead of a fulfilled poetical existence. Ever improving in his art, he gave no reason to be- lieve that his marvellous faculty had anything in common with that lyrical facility which many men have manifested in boyhood or in youth, but which has grown torrid or disappeared altogether with the advance of mature life: in him no one doubts that a true genius was suddenly arrested ; 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."

The life of John Heats, as Mr. Manes has indicated, was uneventful. The future poet was born in 1795: his father was in the employ of Mr. Jennings, a livery-stable-keeper of Moorfields, and attained the romance of industry, by marrying his master's daughter. At about the usual age, John was sent to a school at Enfield, kept by Mr. Clarke, the father of Charles Cowden Clarke. On leaving school, in 1810, he was apprenticed to Mr. Hammond, a surgeon of Edmonton. He remained with him for the usual period of five years ; regularly walked the hospitals in London; mid, much to the surprise of his medical-student friends, who knew his

habits of verse-making and desultory reading, passed his examination at Apothecaries Hall with considerable credit. Keats's old friend Cowden Clarke, with whom he used to read poetry at school and daring his ap. prenticeship, had introduced him to several literary acquaintances, and in 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 re- solved to abandon his profession, (if be ever practised it,) for poetry. The reason assigned was, that the sense of responsibility in a surgical operation oppressed him : but it is likely that 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, (I817,) Keats, having written verses from boyhood, published his volume of miscellaneous poems ; which "dropped still-born front the press." Notwithstanding the equanimity which he claims for himself, and which Mr. Manes concedes to him, Keats seems to have been sore upon the subject : he attributed the failure to the " inactivity " of his publisher, Mr. Oilier, and thereupon quarrelled with him. Hence-

forth his life passed (to expand the terms of Mr. Milnes's half sentence) in the enjoyment of friendship, the composition of Endynzion, Lamia, Hyperion, and some minor or unpublished poems that appear in the present work ; and in the one passion, that, having begun apparently at the first development of his illness, only terminated with his life.

Of the movements, literary habits, and feelings of Keats, we have a full account in these volumes, until the last months of his life, when he became too weak, nervous, and irritable, to write, or, latterly, even to read the letters addressed to him. But of this period a deeply interest- ing account has been preserved in the communications of Mr. Severn the artist, who accompanied him to Rome, attended him day and night

through an illness whose symptoms were trying alike to the patience and the feelings, and that too while the anxieties of the artist's own position

were pressing heavily upon biro. One or two points of the biography are obscure. In addition to Keats's share of his father's property, which amounted to 2000/., he received 400/. on the death of his brother Thomas; and this capital need only have been diminished by the expenses of his medical education: yet, though he lived, to appearance, on a frugal scale, in lodgings, it vanished unaccountably, and he soon got into pecuniary

difficulties. He lived but six years altogether after his apprenticeship :

by 1819, he determined to resort to periodical writing, which he abhorred, as a means of subsistence ; and but for the kindness of the present Sir James Clark (then practising as a physician at Rome) and the devoted

friendship of Mr. Severn, the author of Hyperion must have shared the fate of many other sons of genius and died in a hospital. It seems only to have been an opportune remittance, (and not the only one,) from Mr. Taylor the publisher' that relieved Keats, or rather Severn, from the apprehensions expressed in the following extract.

" Torlonia, the banker, has r,fused us any more money; the bill is returned nn. accepted ; and tomorrow I most pay my last crown for this cursed lodging-place: and what is more, if he dies, all the beds and furniture will be burnt and the walls

scraped, and they will come on me for a hundred pounds or more! - But, above all, this noble fellow lying on the bed and without the common spiritual [corpo- ral ?] comforts that many a rogue and fool has in his last =meats! If I do break down, it will be under this: but I pray that some angel of goodness may yet lead him through this dark wilderness. "If I could leave Keats every day for a time, I could soon raise money by my painting; but he will not let me out of his sight—he will not bear the face of a

stranger. I would rather cut my tongue out than tell him I must get the money —that would kill him at a word. You see my hopes of being kept by the Royal Academy will be cut off unless I send a picture by the spring. I have written to Sir T. Lawrence. I have got a volume of Jeremy Taylor's works, which Keats

has heard me read tonight. This is a treasure indeed, and came when I should have thought it hopeless. Why may not other good things come? I will keep

myself up with such hopes. Dr. Clark is still the same, though he knows about

the bill: he is afraid the next eba ge will be to diarrhcea. Keats sees all this—his knowledge of anatomy makes every change tenfold worse: every way he is un- fortunate, 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."

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 self-opinioned and so proud as re- garded his literature, this is scarcely sufficient evidence. Nobody, we suppose, meant that Keats was killed "out and out" by the Quarterly. A" mens sans in corpore sano " is not struck down by paper pellets, espe

cially 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 aggra- vate disease to a quicker termination. Little more than this, we sup- pose, 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 &flare of his first-born upon Mr. Oilier; he was angry that he should be considered a follower of Leigh Hunt in Endymion, though his more obvious &tilts and his outward style are distinctly stamped with that writer's school; he was dissatisfied with Mr. Hunt's private (and it striker, us very jast and lenient) criticism on the first part of Endymion,—attributing it to offended vanity in not having been consulted "officiously," [officially?) and on this ground ascribing to Hunt and Shelley a formed resolve to de- preciate his poem.

Mr. Milnes observes that two modes were open to hint in composing these memoirs. The first was to consider his materials as entirely at his own disposal, and deal with them artistically, so as principally to con- sider the literary result. The other was to look upon himself in the light of an editor—print the whole of the correspondence that could pro- perly appear, and merely contribute a narrative that should connect the letters and supply their omissions. The last is the course Mr. Milnes hits adopted, on the ground that it gives a fuller view of Keats. nil in undoubtedly true; but at Keats's expense. Some of his letters are trivial, and others tedious, from his habit of running everything down though not worth the trouble of the dace; others are distasteful from their narrowness, not to say egotism. No doubt, they present the weak- nesses of Keats to the reader ; but Mr. Milnes could have impressed them much more briefly. Hence, some of the most interesting parts of the book are supplied by the biographer, except those letters of Keats which refer to his attachment, and the narrative of his journey to Rome and )is illness there.

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 Eng- land, the allusions to this subject are scanty, as he lived in the lady's neighbourhood. On his voyage 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.

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 itself, this would prevent it. The very thing which I want to live most for, will be a great occasion of 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 in greatest pain daring the first part of my illness at your house. I wish for death every day and night to deliver me from these pains; and then I wish death away, for death would destroy awn those pains, which are better than nothing. Land and sea, weakness and decline, are great separators; but Death is the great di- vorcer for ever. 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 1 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 Brown—Yesterday we were let out of quarantine; during which my health suffered more from bad air and the stifled cabin than it had done 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 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 had her when I was in health, and I should have remained well. I can bear to die—I cannot bear to leave her. Oh, God, God, God! Everything I have in my trunks that reminds me of her goes through me like a spear. The silk lining she put in my travelling-cap scalds my head. My imagination is horribly vivid about her- I see her, I hear her. There is nothing in the world of sufficient interest to divert me from her a moment. This was the case when I was in England: I cannot recollect without shuddering the time that I was a prisoner at Hunt's and used to keep my eyes fixed on Ham_pstead all day. Then there was a good hope of seeing her again. No-0 that I could be buried near where she lives! I am afraid to write to her—to receive a letter from her, to see her handwriting, would break my heart—even to hear of her anyhow, to see her name written, would be more than I can bear. My dear Brown what am 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 you 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 -F, if—. "Remember me to all. I will endeavour to bear my miseries patiently. A pawn in my state of health should not have such miseries to bear. • * • My dear Brown, for my sake, be her advocate for ever. 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, Jona" Kaars."

These feelings pursued him to the last. Nine days before his death, Mr. Severn writes thus.

"Feb. 14114.—Little or no change has taken place, except this beautiful one, that his mind ingrowing 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. Tonight he bas 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

`31isera me solllevo a me non rests.

Altro the it planto, ed U pianto dile° P

Now that I know so much of his grief, I do not wonder at it. "Such a letter has come! I gave it to Keats supposing it to be one of yours; but it proved sadly otherwise. The glance at that letter tore him to pieces; the effects were on him for many days. He did not read it—he could not—but re- quested me to place it in his coffin, together with a purse and a letter (unopened) of his sister's: since then he has told me not to place that letter in his coffin, only his sister's purse and letter, and some hair. I, however, persuaded him to think otherwise on this point. In his most irritable state he sees a friendless world about him, with everything that his life presents, and especially the kindness of others, tending to his melancholy death. •

"Feb. 224-0h, how anxious I am to hear from you! [Mr. Has]am.] I have nothing to break this dreadful solitude but letters. Day after day, night after night, here I am by our poor dying friend. My spirits, my intellect, and my health are breaking down. I can get no one to change with me—no one to relieve tee. All run away; and even if they did not Keats:would not do without me. 'Last night I thought he wan 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 S meet ghastly look. Though Dr. Clark has prepared me for the worst, I shall he ill able to bear it. I cannot bear to be set free even from this my horrible situ- ation by the loas of it. "lain 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 dim: 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. "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 easy; don't be frightened—be firm, and thank God it has come.' I lifted him up in my arms. The phlegm seemed boil- ing in his throat, and increased until eleven, when he gradually sunk into death; so quiet, that I still thought he slept. I cannot say more now. I am broken down by four nights' watching; no sleep since, and my poor Keats; gone. Three days since the body was opened: the lungs 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 de- stroyed, and changed; but this is well looked to by Dr. Clark. "The letters I placed in the coffin with my own hand."