to render to the painter's memory the lence. He may not have Michael An

homage of their tears.

They came to give a last farewell,
The young, the glad, the gay,

To him, who low before them there
In pale cold silence lay.

He rested calm with clasped hands,

With rich disparted hair;

And though the loving glance was gone,
The beauty still was there.

And thus they met-a princely band-
The rich, the great, the proud;
The scholar, and the patron high,
Alike in homage bowed.

With solemn steps, and downcast eyes,
With hushed and reverent breath;
In the awful presence-room

Of the majesty of death.

And "pictured dreams" were bright around,

But chief among them rose,
That grand transfigured form that shone
In most divine repose.

The likeness of the victor Christ,
When unto earth was given
Glimpse of the glory that he wore,
Among the thrones of heaven.

Ah! it was well that they should place
The cold and lifeless clay,
Beneath the image of the truth,
The life, the light, the way!

Of him, the holy priest, to whom
The Father God had given
The mastery over death and hell,

The fairest crown in heaven.

And he who pictured that bright scene,
Lay still in child-like rest;

The wreath unheeded on his brow,
The purple on his breast.

He might not hear if nations rose
To greet him with acclaim;
He might not hear the voice of love
That lowly breathed his name.
They gazed upon the life-like forms,
His hand had loved to trace,
And on the marble, pure and still,
Of his placid, sleeping face.
His genius bright with hues of heaven,
Still "skied them overhead;"
And 'mid that flush of power and light,
They scarce could deem him dead.

And hearts that never felt before,

Were touched and bleeding then;
And sighs were breathed, and tears were in
The eyes of lofty men.

Then slowly moved the reverent crowd,
And left the sacred spot;

But that hushed room and that pale corse,
They never more forgot!

gelo's mastery over the terrible and the sublime; but he greatly excels the Florentine in dignity and grace. His Madonnas may not possess the deep spiritual beauty of those of the earlier painters; nevertheless, they are "exceeding fair,” and wear upon their brows the light of a "tender human love." His colouring may not be characterized by the brilliancy and richness which distinguished the school of Venice: but his design is by far more pure and lofty than that of the Venetians. Others might approach him in one particular department; but, in completeness and versatility, he was without a rival. The genius of Raphael was highly dramatic. Every sentiment that can sway the heart, every passion that can convulse the soul, has found a true and ready exponent in the creations of his pencil. The impress of poetic feeling is stamped upon all his productions; and perhaps no painter has ever possessed more just claims to the proud title of the Shakspere of Modern Art. He rarely repeats himself; in the grace of his compositions, in the beauty, dignity, and character of his heads, he is alike eloquent and alone.

We have no written record of Raphael's inner life; of his thought and sentiment, of his loves and his sympathies, of his woes, joys, faith, and aspirations. The pictured halls of the Vatican compose the fair temple, wherein his life-intellectual is enshrined; and, in truth, we could scarcely ask for more. It is a revelation of power and majesty and beauty, and tells us sufficient, if not all we should like to know of the character of the inspiring genius; a genius, we should imagine, with wide and unchained sympathies, rejoicing in the glory and loveliness of nature, regarding life as a beauty and a blessing, The remains of Raphael were fol- and working out the poem of existence lowed to the grave by a long and stately with the faith of a lofty soul and the funeral procession, amid the deep heart-love of a generous heart. Were it otherregrets of an assembled multitude. His wise, indeed, there would be no existent tomb is in the Church of the Pantheon, harmony between genius and its pronear that of his betrothed wife, Maria ductions; and from these productions de Bibbiena The Pope requested Car- the true spiritual essence of mental chadinal Bembo to compose his epitaph.racter is best shadowed forth. It will His loss was deplored throughout Italy be said that base and unworthy men as a national calamity. have often thought and acted aright. Raphael is generally placed first in Yes; but not uniformly. The works of the catalogue of painters. No other such may be brilliant with coruscations artist of modern times has ever united of genius, but they will assuredly be in himself so great a variety of excel-deficient in that stedfast, shining light,

which can alone exist when the whole being moves in sweet concert with the universal harmonies.

Some accusations have been brought against the moral character of Raphael. We believe them to be utterly unfounded; and, in support of our own opinion, we are happy to adduce a testimony from the elegant pen of Mrs. Jameson: There was a vulgar idea at one time prevalent, that Raphael was a man of vicious and dissipated habits, and even died a victim to his excesses. This slander has been silenced for ever, by indisputable evidence to the contrary. And now we may reflect with pleasure, that nothing rests on surer evidence than the admirable qualities of Raphael, that no earthly renown was ever so unsullied by reproach, so justified by merit, so confirmed by concurrent opinion, so established by time."

a circumstance which almost proves of itself that he could not have employed his short life otherwise than well, the writer continues: "As Raphael carried to the highest perfection the union of those faculties of head and hand which constitute the complete artist, so this harmony pervaded his whole being, and nothing deformed or discordant could enter there. In all the portraits which exist of him, from infancy to manhood, there is a divine sweetness and repose; the little cherub face of three years old is not more serene and angelic than the same features at thirty. The child whom father and mother, tutor and stepmother caressed and idolized in his loving innocence, was the same being whom we see in the pride of manhood subduing and reigning over all hearts; so that, to borrow the words of a contemporary, not only all men, but the very brutes After adverting to the painter's ex-loved him;' the only very distinguished traordinary industry (for he left behind man of whom we read, who lived and him, when he died, at thirty-seven years died without an enemy or a detractor." of age, 287 pictures and 576 drawings),

JOHN KEATS.

As

"To the poet, if to any man, it may | passion and a premature death."
justly be conceded to be estimated by
what he has written rather than by
what he has done, and to be judged by
the productions of his genius rather
than by the circumstances of his out-
ward life. For although the choice and
treatment of a subject may enable us
to contemplate the mind of the his-
torian, the novelist, or the philosopher,
yet our observation will be more or less
limited and obscured by the sequence
of events, the forms of manners, or the
exigences of theory, and the personality
of the writer must be frequently lost;
while the poet, if his utterances be deep
and true, can hardly hide himself even
beneath the epic or dramatic veil, and
often makes of the rough public ear, a
confessional into which to pour the
richest treasures and holiest secrets of
his soul. His life is in his writings,
and his poems are his works indeed.
The biography, therefore, of a poet
can be little more than a comment on
his poems, though his life may be of
long duration, and chequered by strange
and various adventures but these
pages concern one whose whole life may
be summed up in three volumes of
poems, some earnest friendships, one

men die so they walk among posterity,
and our impression of Keats is that of
an earnest, highly susceptible nature,
perseveringly testing its own powers,
and striving ever towards a realization
of its high ideal of perfection; of a
manly heart bravely surmounting and
profiting by its own hard experience—
and of an imagination glowing with all
the brilliant hues of romance and alle-
gory, ready to inundate the world, yet
learning to flow within regulated chan-
nels, and endeavouring to abate its vio-
lence without decreasing its power.

Ever improving in his art, he gave no reason to believe that his marvellous faculty partook of the nature of that facility of rhyming which in many men has been the outlet of their ardent feelings in youth and early manhood, but which as the cares of the world have pressed more heavily upon them have subsided into morbidness of feeling or have disappeared altogether. In him no one doubts that a true genius was suddenly arrested, and they who will not allow him to have won a place in the first ranks of English Literature, will not deny the promise of his candidature.

The interest which attaches to the

all manly exercises, combined to the extreme generosity of his disposition made him highly popular. "He combined," writes one of his schoolfellows "a terrier-like resoluteness of character, with the most noble placability;" and another mentions that his extraordinary

family of every remarkable individual, ears: and after his mother's death has failed in discovering in that of Keats which occurred in 1810, he hid himmore than that his childhood was sur- self for several days in a nook by the rounded by virtuous and honourable master's desk, indulging in one long influences. His father, a man of ex- agony of grief, refusing consolation cellent understanding, and of a lively alike from master or from friend. energetic countenance, was employed The sense of humour which so frein the establishment of Jennings, the quently accompanies a strong sensiproprietor of large livery stables in bility, abounded in him. He ever Moorfields, opposite the entrance to delighted in displays of grotesque origiFinsbury Circus. He married his mas-nality or wild pranks, and he appeared ter's daughter, but was perfectly free from to prize these next to his favourite any taint of affectation or vulgarity on quality-physical courage. His perfect account of his prosperous alliance. He indifference to be thought well of as was killed in 1804 by a fall from his "a good boy," was as remarkable as the horse at the early age of thirty-four. | peculiar facility with which he mastered Mrs. Keats, a lively intelligent woman, his tasks, which never seemed to occupy had four children. John, the subject | his attention, but in which he was ever of this memoir, was born 29th of Octo- equal to his companions. His skill in ber, 1795. Of his two brothers, George was the older than himself-Thomas younger, and his sister considerably younger. John resembled his father in feature, stature, and manner, and was possessed of warm affectionate feelings; which are evident from the following little anecdote. On occasion of his mother's ill-energy, animation and ability, imness, the doctor having ordered her not pressed them all with the conviction of to be disturbed for some time-John his future greatness, "but rather in a kept sentinel at the door for three hours, military or some such active sphere of guarding the entrance with an old life, than in the peaceful arena of sword he had picked up, and allowing literature." (Mr. E Holmes, author of no one to enter the room. At this time 'Life of Mozart.") "His eyes then, as he was about four years old. Some ever, were large and sensitive, flashing years later he was sent to Mr. Clarke's with strong emotions, or suffused with school at Enfield, then in high repute. tender sympathies, and more distinctly A maternal uncle of young Keats, reflected the varying impulses of his had been an officer in Duncan's Ship nature, than when under the selfoff Camberdown. This naval uncle was control of maturer years; his hair hung the ideal of the boys, and inspired them in thick brown ringlets round a head, with the desire when they went to diminutive for the breadth of shoulders school of keeping up the family's repu- below it, while the smallness of the tation for bravery. This was mani- lower limbs, which in later life marred fested in the elder brother by cool the proportion of his person, was not manliness, but in John and Tom by a then apparent, but at the time only fierce pugnacity of disposition; John completed such an impression as the was always fighting, he selected for his ancients had of Achilles, joyous and companions those who excelled in war-glorious youth-everlastingly striving." like accomplishments. Nor were the It was only after remaining at school brothers backward in exercising their a considerable time, that his intellectual mettle on each other; this disposition ambition developed itself; he deterwas however combined with great ten- mined to carry off all the first prizes derness of feeling, and in John with a in literature, and he succeeded. passionate sensibility, which exhibited obtained them after arduous study, and itself in strange contrasts, he would at the expense of his amusements and frequently pass suddenly from a wild favourite exercises. Even on holidays, fit of laughter, to an equally violent when all the boys were out at play, he flood of tears. In giving way to his would remain translating his Virgil or impulses he regarded not consequences; Fenelon, and when his master would he once attacked an usher violently, oblige him to go out for the sake of who had been boxing his brother's his health, he would walk about with

He

of nothing but Spenser. A new world of beauty and enchantment seemed opened to him: "He ramped through the scenes of the romance," writes Mr. Clarke, "like a young horse turned into a spring meadow," he revelled in the gorgeousness of the imagery as in the pleasures of a newly-discovered sense; the expressiveness and felicity of an epithet (such, for example, as "The sea-shouldering Whale"), would illu mine his countenance with ecstacy, and some fine description would strike on the secret chords of his soul and awaken countless harmonies. His earliest known verses are those in imitation of Spenser, begining

a book in his hand. The quantity of translations he made on paper during the last two years of his school-life, was astonishing. The twelve books of the Aneid were a portion of it, though he does not appear to have been acquainted with much other Latin poetry, nor to have commenced learning Greek. Yet Took's "Pantheon," Spence's "Polymetis" and Lemprière's Dictionary, were sufficient fully to introduce his imagination to the enchantment of Mythology, with which at once he became intimately acquainted; and a mind eagerly alive to the beauties of classic literature, led the way to that wonderful reconstruction of Grecian feeling and fancy, for which he was so peculiarly adapted. He does not at this time seem to have been a sedulous Nor will the just critic fail in discoreader of other books, but "Robinson vering that much in the early poems Crusoe" and Marmontel's "Incas of which, at first, appears strained and Peru" appear to have impressed him strongly. He must have met with Shakespere, for he told one of his companions "he thought no one could dare to read Macbeth' alone in a house, at two o'clock in the morning."

On the death of their remaining parent, in 1810, the young Keats's were consigned to the guardianship of Mr. Abbey, a merchant; about £8,000 were left to be divided among the four children. John, on leaving school, in 1810, was apprenticed for five years to Mr. Hammond, a surgeon of considerable eminence, at Edmonton. From its vicinity to Enfield he was enabled to keep up his acquaintance with the family of Mr. Clarke, where he was ever welcomed with much kindness. His talents and energy strongly recommended him to his preceptor, and his affectionate feelings found a response in the heart of the son. In Charles Cowden Clarke he found a friend, capable of sympathizing in all his highest tastes and purest feelings, and in this genial atmosphere, his noble powers gradually expanded. Yet so little opinion was formed of the direction his genius would take that when, in 1812, he asked for the loan of Spenser's "Faerie Queene," it was supposed, he merely desired from a boyish ambition, to become acquainted with so illustrious a poem. The effect produced by this wonderful work of the imagination was electrical. He was in the habit of walking over to Enfield once a week to talk over his reading with his friend, and now he would talk

Now morning from her orient chamber came.

fantastical may be traced to an indis-
criminate and blind reverence for a
great, though unequal model. In the
scanty records which remain of the
adolescent years, in which Keats be-
came a poet, a sonnet on Spenser illu-
strates this view-

Spenser! a jealous honorer of thine,
A forester deep in thy midmost trees,
Did last eve ask my promise to refine
Some English, that might serve thine ear
to please.

But Elfin poet! 'tis impossible

For an inhabitant of wintry earth
To rise like Pho bus with a golden quill,
Firewinged, and make a morning in his

mirth.

It is impossible to 'scape from toil
O' the sudden, and receive thy spiriting:
The flower must drink the nature of the

soil

Before it can put forth its blossoming: Be with me in the summer days, and I Will for thine honour and his pleasure try. Few memorials remain of his other studies-Chaucer evidently gave him the greatest pleasure-he felt in reading it nothing but the pure breath of nature in the early dawn of English literature. The strange tragedy of the unhappy fate of Chatterton, "the marvellous boy, the sleepless soul that perished in its pride," is a frequent subject of allusion in Keats's letters and poems. The impressible nature of Keats would naturally incline him to erratic composition, but his early love verses are remarkably deficient in beauty and pathos. The world of personal emotion was to him far less familiar than that of the imagination, and indeed it appears to have been long ere he descended from the heights of poetry and romance, to the

These are the living pleasures of the bard:
What does he murmur with his latest breath,
But richer far posterity's award.
While his proud eye looks thro' the film of death?
Yet shall my spirit lofty converse hold
What tho' I leave this dull and earthly mould,
With after times. The patriot shall feel
My stern alarum, and unsheath his steel;
To startle princes from their easy slumbers;
Or in the senate thunder out my numbers,
The sage will mingle with each moral theme
My happy thoughts sententious: he will teem
With lofty periods when my verses fire him,
And then I'll stoop from heaven to inspire him.
Lays have I left of such a dear delight,
That maids will sing them on their bridal night.

troubled realities of human love. Let it not be supposed that the creations of even his young imagination were cold, passionless, and unimbued with natural feelings; so far from it, it may be conjectured that it was the blending of the ideal and sensual life, so peculiar to the Grecian Mythology, which rendered it so attractive to the mind of Keats, and when the " Endymion" comes to be critically considered, it will at once appear that its excellence consists in the appreciation of that ancient spirit Then, as if feeling his presumptuousof beauty, to which all outward percep-ness, he checks himself and saystions so excellently ministered, and which undertook to refine and to elevate the instinctive feelings of those who would submit to their influence.

For tasting joys like these, sure I should be
Could I, at once, my mad ambition smother,
Happier and dearer to society.

The sonnet swelling loudly

Up to its climax and then dying proudly;

the ode,

Growing like Atlas, stronger for its load; the epic,

Of all the king, Round, vast, and spanning all, like Saturn's ring;

At times, 'tis true, I've felt relief from pain, When some bright thought has darted thro' my Friendship, generally ardent in youth, brain: would not remain without its impres-Than if I had brought to light a hidden treasure. Thro' all that day I've felt a greater pleasure sion in the early poems of Keats. With Mr. Felton Mather, to whom his first His third epistle (Sept., 1816), adpoetical epistle is addressed, he enjoyed dressed to his friend Cowden Clarke, is a high intellectual sympathy. "This written in a bolder, freer strain than friend had introduced him to congenial the others. In it occur those just and society, both of men and books. Those sententious descriptions of the various verses were written just at the time orders of verse with which his friend had Keats became aware of the little in-familiarized his mind. They betoken terest which he felt in the profession that he united clearness of perception he was so studiously pursuing, and was to brilliance of fancy:— already in the midst of that conflict between the outer and inner world, which is, alas! too often the poet's heritage in life. Mr. Mather remarks that at that time "the eye of Keats was more critical than tender, and so was his mind; he admired more the external decorations than felt the deep emotions of the muse. He delighted in leading you through the mazes of elaborate description, but was less conscious of the sublime and pathetic; he used to spend many evenings in reading to me, but I never observed the tears in his eyes, nor the broken voice which are indicative of extreme sensibility." This modification of a nature, at first passionately susceptible, and the succeeding development of the imagination, is not an unfrequent phenomenon in poetical psychology. His next poetic epistle, dated August 1816, is addressed to his brother George, and we find Spenser there too. By this time the delightful consciousness of latent genius had dawned upon him. After a gorgeous description of the present happiness of the poet, he betrays that he is not alto-Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, gether free from what has been so aptly designated the "weakness of great minds,"-the love of fame.

The sharp the rapier-pointed epigram; Spenserian vowels that elope with ease, And float along like birds on summer seas. Among his sonnets, of which he wrote several, some are of unequal merit, and relating to forgotten details of every-day life, are only interesting so far as they illustrate the progress of genius and the constant striving after something worthy of the high and noble art to which he had dedicated his powers. A few, however, exist of surpassing loveliness— sublime in strength, rich in expression, and harmonious in rhythm. That "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," has, by a high judge of poetry, been pronounced "the most splendid sonnet in the language."

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been,

Which bards in feaity to Apollo hold:
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told,