or where he and Shelley, sat when such and such a poem was recited, or the exact spot in a path through the fields where Coleridge took leave of him and Charles Lamb, to dawdle back to his home at Highgate, and where Lamb, while the departing skirts of the sage were still visible, stuttered out some pun about his personal appearance and his last metaphysical monologue. At the particular time of which we are now speaking, Leigh Hunt was living at Hampstead, where also lived Mr. Armitage Brown, a retired merchant of literary tastes, and others of whom it is not necessary to take note; and there, in the evenings, at the houses of such men, artists and others would drop in ; and then, O ye future critics of Blackwood and the Quarterly, what wit there would be, what music, what portfolios of sketches and engravings, what white casts from the antique, what talk about poetry and literature! From that time, with scarcely an exception, Hampstead was the London home of Keats-first as a guest of Leigh Hunt, or a lodger near to him; and afterwards, and more permanently, as a guest of Mr. Armitage Brown. Indeed, just as Wordsworth and his associates were supposed to have constituted themselves into a school by retiring to Cumberland and Westmoreland, in order to be in closer relations to nature, as exhibited in that district of lake and mountain, so it might have been suggested maliciously of Keats, Hunt, and the rest of their set, that the difference between them and this elder school was, that what they called nature was nature as seen from Hampstead Heath. As the one set of poets had received from their Edinburgh critics the name of "the Lakists," so, to make the joke correspond, the others, instead of being called "the Cockney poets," might have been named the Hampstead Heath-ens. Keats signalized his accession to this peculiar literary group by publishing, in 1817, a little volume of poems, containing some of his sonnets and other pieces now appended to his longer and touched the attention of the public, though it served to show his power to his immediate friends. He was then two and-twenty years of age; and his appear ance 66 was rather singular. Coleridge, who once shook hands with him, when he met him with Hunt in a lane near Highgate, describes him as "a loose, slack, not well-dressed youth." The descriptions of Hunt and others are more particular. He was considerably under middle height-his lower limbs being small, in comparison with the upper, to a degree that marred his whole proportion. His shoulders were very broad for his size; his face was strongly cut, yet delicately mobile, expressing an unusual combination of determination with sensibility-its worst feature being the mouth, which had a projecting upper lip, and altogether a savage pugilistic look. Nor did the look belie him. He had great personal courage, and once took the trouble to thrash a butcher for some insolent conduct in a regular stand-up fight. His hair was brown, and his eyes large, and of a dark, glowing blue. "His head," says Leigh Hunt, was a puzzle for the phrenologists, being remarkably small in the skulla singularity which he had in common "with Byron and Shelley, whose hats I "could not get on." His voice, unlike Shelley's, was deep and grave. His entire expression was that of eager power; and, in contradiction of what was observed of him at an earlier period, he was now easily, though still apparently against his will, betrayed into signs of vehement emotion. "At the recital of a "noble action, or a beautiful thought," says Mr. Hunt, "his eyes would suffuse with tears, and his mouth trembled." On hearing of some unmanly conduct, he once burst out, "Why is there "not a human dust-hole into which to "tumble such fellows ?" Evidently ill-health, as well as imaginative temperament, had to do with this inability to restrain tears and other signs of agitated feeling. His mother had died of consumption at a comparatively early age; his younger brother, Tom, was 66 66 malady; and, though there was as yet no distinct symptom of consumption in Keats, he was often flushed and feverish, and had his secret fears. He had many hours of sprightliness, however, when these fears would vanish, and he would be full of frolic and life. In allusion to this occasional excess of fun and animal spirits, his friends punned. upon his name, shortening it from "John Keats" into "Junkets." Still, amid all-in his times of despondency, as well as in his seasons of hope Poetry was his ceaseless thought, and to be a Poet his one ambition. "O for ten years, that I may overwhelm Myself in Poesy! So I may do the deed That my own soul has to itself decreed!" Of what kind this intended deed was we have also some indication. Like all the fresher young poets of his time, Keats had imbibed, partly from constitutional predisposition, partly from conscious reasoning, that theory of Poetry which, for more than twenty years, Wordsworth had been disseminating by precept and by example through the literary mind of England. This theory, in its historical aspect, I will venture to call Pre-Drydenism. Its doctrine, historically, was that the age of true English Poetry was the period anterior to Dryden-the period of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Milton; and that, with a few exceptions, the subsequent period, from Dryden inclusively down to the time of Wordsworth's own appearance as a poet, had been a prosaic interregnum, during which what passed for poetry was either an inflated style of diction which custom had rendered pleasing, or, at best, shrewd sense and wit, or miscellaneous cogitation more or less weighty, put into metre. Take an example. Here are two stanzas from a well-known paraphrase of Scripture, still sung in churches over a large part of the kingdom. "In life's gay morn, when sprightly youth With vital ardour glows, And shines in all the fairest charms Deep on thy soul, before its powers How remorselessly Wordsworth would have torn this passage to pieces-as, indeed, he did a similar paraphrase of Scripture by Dr. Johnson! "Life's gay morn!" "sprightly youth!" he would have said, meaningless expressions, used because it is considered poetical to stick an adjective before every noun, and "gay" and "sprightly" are adjectives conveniently in stock! Then, "sprightly youth with vital ardour glows"-what is this but slip-shod; and, besides, why tug the verb to the end of the phrase, and say "with vital ardour glows" instead of "glows with vital ardour," as you would do in natural speech? O, of course, the rhyme! Yes; but who asked you to rhyme at all, in the first place? and, in the next place, if you were bent on rhyming, and found "ardour" would not suit at the end of your precious line, that was your difficulty, not mine! What are you a poet for but to overcome such difficulties, or what right have you to extract the rhythms and rhymes that you want in your craft as a versifier by the mere torture of honest prose? And then, worse and worse, "Youth," already "glowing" with this "vital ardour," also, it seems, "shines," and (marvellous metaphor !) shines "with charms"-which "charms" (metaphor still more helpless!) are "the fairest charms disclosed by beauty!" And so on he would have gone, pointing out the flaws of meaning and of expression in the next stanza in the same stern manner. Pass, he would have said at last, from this poor jingle of words to the simple and beautiful text of which it is offered as a paraphrase: "Remem"ber now thy Creator in the days of or where he and Shelley, sat when such and such a poem was recited, or the exact spot in a path through the fields where Coleridge took leave of him and Charles Lamb, to dawdle back to his home at Highgate, and where Lamb, while the departing skirts of the sage were still visible, stuttered out some pun about his personal appearance and his last metaphysical monologue. At the particular time of which we are now speaking, Leigh Hunt was living at Hampstead, where also lived Mr. Armitage Brown, a retired merchant of literary tastes, and others of whom it is not necessary to take note; and there, in the evenings, at the houses of such men, artists and others would drop inj and then, O ye future critics of Blackwood and the Quarterly, what wit there would be, what music, what portfolios. of sketches and engravings, what white casts from the antique, what talk about poetry and literature! From that time, with scarcely an exception, Hampstead was the London home of Keats-first as a guest of Leigh Hunt, or a lodger near to him; and afterwards, and more permanently, as a guest of Mr. Armitage Brown. Indeed, just as Wordsworth and his associates were supposed to have constituted themselves into a school by retiring to Cumberland and Westmoreland, in order to be in closer relations to nature, as exhibited in that district of lake and mountain, so it might have been suggested maliciously of Keats, Hunt, and the rest of their set, that the difference between them and this elder school was, that what they called nature was nature as seen from Hampstead Heath. As the one set of poets had received from their Edinburgh critics the name of "the Lakists,” so, to make the joke correspond, the others, instead of being called "the Cockney poets," might have been named the Hampstead Heath-ens. Keats signalized his accession to this peculiar literary group by publishing, in 1817, a little volume of poems, containing some of his sonnets and other pieces now appended to his longer and touched the attention of the public, though it served to show his power to his immediate friends. He was then twoand-twenty years of age; and his appearance was rather singular. Coleridge, who once shook hands with him, when he met him with Hunt in a lane near Highgate, describes him as "a loose, slack, not well-dressed youth." The descriptions of Hunt and others are more particular. He was considerably under middle height-his lower limbs being small, in comparison with the upper, to a degree that marred his whole proportion. His shoulders were very broad for his size; his face was strongly cut, yet delicately mobile, expressing an unusual combination of determination with sensibility-its worst feature being the mouth, which had a projecting upper lip, and altogether a savage pugilistic look. Nor did the look belie him. He had great personal courage, and once took the trouble to thrash a butcher for some insolent conduct in a regular stand-up fight. stand-up fight. His hair was brown, and his eyes large, and of a dark, glowing blue. "His head," says Leigh Hunt, "was a puzzle for the phrenologists, being remarkably small in the skull a singularity which he had in common "with Byron and Shelley, whose hats I "could not get on." His voice, unlike Shelley's, was deep and grave. His entire expression was that of eager power; and, in contradiction of what was observed of him at an earlier period, he was now easily, though still apparently against his will, betrayed into signs of vehement emotion. "At the recital of a "noble action, or a beautiful thought," says Mr. Hunt, "his eyes would suffuse with tears, and his mouth trembled." On hearing of some unmanly conduct, he once burst out, 66 Why is there "not a human dust-hole into which to "tumble such fellows ?" Evidently ill-health, as well as imaginative temperament, had to do with this inability to restrain tears and other signs of agitated feeling. His mother had died of consumption at a comparatively early age; his younger brother, Tom, was malady; and, though there was as yet no distinct symptom of consumption in Keats, he was often flushed and feverish, and had his secret fears. He had many hours of sprightliness, however, when these fears would vanish, and he would be full of frolic and life. In allusion to this occasional excess of fun and animal spirits, his friends punned upon his name, shortening it from "John Keats" into "Junkets." Still, amid all-in his times of despondency, as well as in his seasons of hope Poetry was his ceaseless thought, and to be a Poet his one ambition. "O for ten years, that I may overwhelm Myself in Poesy! So I may do the deed That my own soul has to itself decreed!" Of what kind this intended deed was we have also some indication. Like all Like all the fresher young poets of his time, Keats had imbibed, partly from constitutional predisposition, partly from conscious reasoning, that theory of Poetry which, for more than twenty years, Wordsworth had been disseminating by precept and by example through the literary mind of England. This theory, in its historical aspect, I will venture to call Pre-Drydenism. Its doctrine, historically, was that the age of true English Poetry was the period anterior to Dryden-the period of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Milton; and that, with a few exceptions, the subsequent period, from Dryden inclusively down to the time of Wordsworth's own appearance as a poet, had been a prosaic interregnum, during which what passed for poetry was either an inflated style of diction which custom had rendered pleasing, or, at best, shrewd sense and wit, or miscellaneous cogitation more or less weighty, put into metre. Take an example. Here are two stanzas from a well-known paraphrase of Scripture, still sung in churches over a large part of the kingdom. "In life's gay morn, when sprightly youth With vital ardour glows, And shines in all the fairest charms Deep on thy soul, before its powers How remorselessly Wordsworth would have torn this passage to pieces-as, indeed, he did a similar paraphrase of Scripture by Dr. Johnson! "Life's gay morn!" "sprightly youth!" he would have said, meaningless expressions, used because it is considered poetical to stick an adjective before every noun, and "gay" and "sprightly" are adjectives conveniently in stock! Then, "sprightly youth with vital ardour glows"-what is this but slip-shod; and, besides, why tug the verb to the end of the phrase, and say "with vital ardour glows" instead of "glows with vital ardour," as you would do in natural speech? O, of course, the rhyme! Yes; but who asked you to rhyme at all, in the first place? and, in the next place, if you were bent on rhyming, and found "ardour" would not suit at the end of your precious line, that was your difficulty, not mine! What are you a poet for but to overcome such difficulties, or what right have you to extract the rhythms and rhymes that you want in your craft as a versifier by the mere torture of honest prose? And then, worse and worse, "Youth," already "glowing" with this "vital ardour," also, it seems, "shines," and (marvellous metaphor !) shines "with charms"-which "charms" (metaphor still more helpless!) are "the fairest charms disclosed by beauty!" And so on he would have gone, pointing out the flaws of meaning and of expression in the next stanza in the same stern manner. Pass, he would have said at last, from this poor jingle of words to the simple and beautiful text of which it is offered as a paraphrase: "Remem"ber now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when "thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in "them." The defects he would have continued, seen on a small scale in the foregoing metrical version of this pas or where he and Shelley, sat when such and such a poem was recited, or the exact spot in a path through the fields where Coleridge took leave of him and Charles Lamb, to dawdle back to his home at Highgate, and where Lamb, while the departing skirts of the sage were still visible, stuttered out some pun about his personal appearance and his last metaphysical monologue. At the particular time of which we are now speaking, Leigh Hunt was living at Hampstead, where also lived Mr. Armitage Brown, a retired merchant of literary tastes, and others of whom it is not necessary to take note; and there, in the evenings, at the houses of such men, artists and others would drop in; and then, O ye future critics of Blackwood and the Quarterly, what wit there would be, what music, what portfolios of sketches and engravings, what white casts from the antique, what talk about poetry and literature! From that time, with scarcely an exception, Hampstead was the London home of Keats-first as a guest of Leigh Hunt, or a lodger near to him; and afterwards, and more permanently, as a guest of Mr. Armitage Brown. Indeed, just as Wordsworth and his associates were supposed to have constituted themselves into a school by retiring to Cumberland and Westmoreland, in order to be in closer relations to nature, as exhibited in that district of lake and mountain, so it might have been suggested maliciously of Keats, Hunt, and the rest of their set, that the difference between them and this elder school was, that what they called nature was nature as seen from Hampstead Heath. As the one set of poets had received from their Edinburgh critics the name of "the Lakists," so, to make the joke correspond, the others, instead of being called "the Cockney poets," might have been named the Hampstead Heath-ens. Keats signalized his accession to this peculiar literary group by publishing, in 1817, a little volume of poems, containing some of his sonnets and other pieces now appended to his longer and touched the attention of the public, though it served to show his power to his immediate friends. He was then twoand-twenty years of age; and his appearance was rather singular. Coleridge, who once shook hands with him, when he met him with Hunt in a lane near Highgate, describes him as "a loose, slack, not well-dressed youth." The descriptions of Hunt and others are more particular. He was considerably under middle height-his lower limbs being small, in comparison with the upper, to a degree that marred his whole proportion. His shoulders were very broad for his size; his face was strongly cut, yet delicately mobile, expressing an unusual combination of determination with sensibility-its worst feature being the mouth, which had a projecting upper lip, and altogether a savage pugilistic look. Nor did the look belie him. He had great personal courage, and once took the trouble to thrash a butcher for some insolent conduct in a regular stand-up fight. His hair was brown, and his eyes large, and of a dark, glowing blue. His head," says Leigh Hunt, 66 66 was a puzzle for the phrenologists, "being remarkably small in the skull a singularity which he had in common "with Byron and Shelley, whose hats I "could not get on." His voice, unlike Shelley's, was deep and grave. His entire expression was that of eager power; and, in contradiction of what was observed of him at an earlier period, he was now easily, though still apparently against his will, betrayed into signs of vehement emotion. "At the recital of a "noble action, or a beautiful thought," says Mr. Hunt, "his eyes would suffuse with tears, and his mouth trembled.” · On hearing of some unmanly conduct, he once burst out, "Why is there "not a human dust-hole into which to "tumble such fellows ?" Evidently ill-health, as well as imaginative temperament, had to do with this inability to restrain tears and other signs of agitated feeling. His mother had died of consumption at a comparatively early age; his younger brother, Tom, was |