BOOKS.

LETTERS OF KEATS.*

A COLLECTION in a separate and convenient form, of Keats's letters to his family and friends, has long been wanting, and all lovers of the poet ought to be grateful to Mr. Colvin for the edition which he has just brought out. Until now, the letters have appeared either as fragments incorporated into various memoirs, or collected in the complete edition of Keats's works. But both in their biographical and literary interest, they are sufficiently unusual to make no apology necessary for their publication in a separate volume. Mr. Colvin has added considerably to the interest of the book by giving in full the poems and fragments of verse which were -originally scattered up and down the letters. Familiar as of course they are in many instances, they seem to gain fresh charm and significance as we come upon them, sometimes carelessly thrown in with a passing word, as if Keats were scarcely conscious of the beauty of his work, and at other times used by him to interpret better the thought he has been expressing in more commonplace prose. A decision which will probably be questioned, but which has much to defend it, is the omission from the volume of the series of letters addressed to Fanny Brawne. There can be little question that when they were written, Keats was already unnerved and broken by illness ; and the growing con- sciousness of rapidly ebbing life and strength drove him -to express himself with painful want of restraint both of language and feeling. It is impossible to read letters so intimate and unreserved as those in which Keats poured forth his passion, without some hesitation and sense of intrusion; and the same instinct holds us back from watching too closely the suffering of a nature which, with many high qualities, was ill-prepared to face sickness and disappointment, and the approach of death.

But until the overshadowing of life and hope, it would be hard to find letters fuller of interest and suggestiveness and promise, than the ones contained in this volume. It is natural to compare Keats's letters with those of Shelley, but com- parison does little beyond establishing the completeness of difference between them. Mr. Colvin in his preface, speaking with strange want of appreciation, says of Shelley, that in his correspondence he is "little more than any other amiable and enthusiastic gentleman on his travels," a judgment at

• Letters of dem Keats. Edited by Sidney Colvin. London : Macmillan and Co.

least as open to question as Matthew Arnold's well-known expression of opinion in an opposite direction. In beauty and distinction of style, and in the skill which chooses the fittest word to express or heighten the image he is seeking to portray, Shelley's letters appear to us unquestionably more perfect. Keats's letters are much more often imperfect and faulty in form and workmanship ; they are less compositions than the rapid outpourings of a rich and poetical imagination, expressing itself as best it can, without pausing to set its thoughts in order, or to measure its language, and often falling back upon poetical expression in the attempt to render more adequately the conceptions which have taken possession of his mind. But it is part of the charm of the letters that they are so imperfect, so nrifintehed. In the ease and nneonstraint and carelessness of effect with which they are written, they bring Keats before us in all his boyish hopefulness and spirit, in his inexperience, his delight in beauty, his eager interest, his affectionate simplicity. The letters contain the record of a good deal that is merely trivial and without permanent interest; and there are pages which go further, and give an unpleasant glimpse into the somewhat second-rate and even underbred society to which by birth Keats belonged, and in which he seems to have moved with an. amused interest in its doings, and an odd absence of sensitive recoil from its vulgarity. But this is only one aspect of the letters. They give also, and with extraordinary directness and absence of self-consciousness, the picture of a highly gifted nature, as it grew and gathered intensity and range of purpose, and as the significance and power of beauty took deeper hold upon it, opening out new possibilities and meanings :— "I can never," he writes in one place, "feel certain of any truth but from a clear perception of its beauty—and I find myself very young-minded even in that perceptive power—which I hope will increase."

And in a very characteristic passage, which illustrates both the strength and weakness of his method, he develops more at

length the manner in which his imagination worked :— •

"I had an idea that a man might pass a very pleasant life in this manner. Let him on a certain day read a certain page of full poesy or distilled prose, and let him wander with it, and muse upon it, and reflect from it, and bring home to it, and prophesy upon it, and dream upon it : until it becomes stale. But when will it do so Never. When man has arrived at a certain ripeness in intellect, any one grand and spiritual passage serves him as a starting-post towards all 'the two-and-thirty Palaces.' How happy is such a voyage of conception, what delicious, diligent indolence Now it appears to me that almost any man may, like the spider, spin from his own inwards, his own airy citadel—the points of leaves and twigs on which the spider begins her work are few, and she fills the air with beautiful circuiting. Man should be content with as few points to tip with the fine web of his soul, and weave a tapestry empyrean—full of symbols for his spiritual eye, of softness for his spiritual touch, of space for his wandering, of distinctness for his luxury. But the minds of mortals are so different and bent on such diverse journeys that it may at first appear impossible for any common taste and fellowship to exist between two or three under these suppositions. It is, however, quite the contrary. Minds would leave each other in contrary directions, traverse each other in numberless points, and at last greet each other at the journey's end. An old man and a child would talk together, and the old man be led on his path and the child left thinking."

Much that Keats writes is unequal in power, much of it is ill-considered and immature ; and his thought is often fragmentary and disconnected, sometimes expressed with remarkable beauty of language, and at other times crude and boyish in form and matter. But whatever he writes is unmistakably sincere ; it is always free from conscious striving after effect, and equally free from arrogance or self-assertion.

And there are many passages in his letters which show other qualities, an independence and soundness of judgment, a singleness of aim, an intellectual force and strength of character, for which we are scarcely so much prepared. There is a phrase he employs, in speaking of Shakespeare's sonnets, "they seem to be full of fine things said unintentionally," which would do very well to describe the character of many of his own letters. In spite of some awkwardness and oddness of expression, and a singular grammatical blunder in the use of a Latin word, such a passage as the following shows both observation and insight :—

" I had not a dispute, but a disquisition, with Dilke upon various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is

capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. Coleridge, for instance, would let go a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Pone- tralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge."

Or, as he puts the same thought another time "Many a man can travel to the very bourne of Heaven, and yet want confidence to put down his half-seeing."

In amusing contrast with the foregoing extracts is the passage in which, with unexpected shrewdness, he speculates on the varying national character of Scotch and Irish, as he has experienced it in a holiday journey :— "I have nothing of consequence to say now concerning our journey—so I will speak as far as I can judge on the Irish and Scotch. I know nothing of the higher classes—yet I have a per- suasion that there the Irish are victorious. As to the profanum roulgus, I must incline to the Scotch. They never laugh—but they are always comparatively neat and clean. Their constitutions are not so remote and puzzling as the Irish. The Scotchman will never give a decision on any point—he will never commit himself in a sentence which may be referred to as a meridian in his notion of things—so that you do not know him—and yet you may come in nigher neighbourhood to him than to the Irishman, who com- mits himself in so many places that it dazes your head. A Scotch- man's motive is more easily discovered than an Irishman's. A Scotchman will go wisely about to deceive you; an Irishman cunningly. An Irishman would bluster out of any discovery to his disadvantage. A Scotchman would retire perhaps without much desire for revenge. An Irishman likes to be thought a gallons fellow. A Scotchman is contented with himself. It seems to me they are both sensible of the Character they hold in England, and act accordingly to Englishmen. Thus the Scotchman will be- come over-grave and over-decent, and the Irishman over-impetuous. I like a Scotchman best because he is less of a bore—I like the Irishman best because he ought to be more comfortable. The Scotchman has made up his mind within himself in a sort of snail- shell wisdom. The Irishman is full of strongheaded instinct. The Scotchman is farther in humanity than the Irishman—there he will stick perhaps when the Irishman will be refined beyond him— for the former thinks he cannot be improved—the latter would grasp at it for ever, place but the good plain before him."

It is just when, as the letters show, the mind was gaining new powers and giving promise of higher achievements, that we notice the signs of failing health. It is very moving to watch the shadow as it gradually overcasts his life. His letters contain repeated and earnest entreaties to his brother and sister to guard their health at all costs. "Nothing is so bad," he writes, "as want of health ; it makes one envy scavengers and cinder. sifters." And at last, at the nearer approach of death, "the great divorcer for ever," he throws aside all reserve, and with a passion which still gives life to the words, he pours forth the despair which has seized him at the thought of parting with the object of his affection:— " 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 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 lathe 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 I was a prisoner at Hunt's, and used to keep my eyes fixed on Hampstead all day. Then there was good hope of seeing her again. Now ! 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."

More pathetic, perhaps, than such an outburst of despair, which almost shocks us by its unreserve and wild passion, are the words with which his last letter ends, where the thought of his sister recalls to him the dead brother whom he had loved and nursed so tenderly :—

" Write to George as soon as you get this, and tell him how I am as far as you can guess ; and also a note to my sister—who walks about my imagination like a ghost—she is so like Tom. I can scarcely bid you good-bye, even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow. God bless you!"

In their simplicity and a certain wistful lingering, such words form a more fitting conclusion to the record of a life begun with so much bright anticipation and eager courage, and out of before it could do more than give an earnest of the high powers which belonged to it.