ture of a blood-vessel in the lungs, and the usual process of consumption appears to have begun.' The process had begun, as was too soon apparent; but Keats continued his studies, and in 1820 brought out his second volume-Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, and other Poems. These falling into the hands of Jeffrey, were criticised in the Edinburgh Review in a spirit of kindliness and just appreciation, which must have soothed the wounded feelings of the poet, and, with an author of a more healthy and robust frame, would have amply atoned for the previous injustice that had been done him. Mr Keats,' says the eloquent critic, 'is, we understand, still a very young man; and his whole works, indeed, bear evidence enough of the fact. They manifestly require, therefore, all the indulgence that can be claimed for a first attempt; but we think it no less plain that they deserve it; for they are flushed all over with the rich lights of fancy, and so coloured and bestrown with the flowers of poetry, that, even while perplexed and bewildered in their labyrinths, it is impossible to resist the intoxication of their sweetness, or to shut our hearts to the enchantments they so lavishly present. The models upon which he has formed himself in the "Endymion," the earliest and by much the most considerable of his poems, are obviously the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher, and the Sad Shepherd of Ben Jonson, the exquisite metres and inspired diction of which he has copied with great boldness and fidelity; and, like his great originals, has also contrived to impart to the whole piece that true rural and poetical air which breathes only in them and in Theocritus-which is at once homely and majestic, luxurious and rude, and sets before us the genuine sights, and sounds, and smells of the country, with all the magic and grace of Elysium. His subject has the disadvantage of being mythological; and in this respect, as well as on account of the raised and rapturous tone it consequently assumes, his poetry may be better compared perhaps to the Comus and the Arcades of Milton, of which, also, there are many traces of imitation. The great distinction, however, between him and these *Preface to Adonais; an elegy on the death of Keats. In Shelley's correspondence is a letter by Mr Finch, giving an account of Keats's last moments, less pleasing, but much more striking than that of Hunt. Almost despairing of his case, he left his native shores by sea in a merchant-vessel for Naples, where he arrived, having received no benefit during the pas sage, and brooding over the most melancholy and mortifying reflections; and nursing a deeply-rooted disgust to life and to the world, owing to having been infamously treated by the very persons whom his generosity had rescued from want and wo. He journeyed from Naples to Rome, and occupied, at the latter place, lodgings which I had, on former occasions, more than once inhabited. Here he soon took to his bed, from which he never rose more. His passions were always violent, and his sensibility most keen. It is extraordinary that, proportionally as his strength of body declined, these acquired fresh vigour; injure himself, and annoy every one around him. He eagerly and his temper at length became so outrageously violent, as to wished for death. After leaving England, I believe that he seldom courted the muse. He was accompanied by a friend of mine, Mr Severn, a young painter, who will, I think, one day be the Coryphæus of the English school. He left all, and sacrificed every prospect, to accompany and watch over his friend Keats. For many weeks previous to his death, he would see no one but Mr Severn, who had almost risked his own life by unwearied attendance upon his friend, who rendered his situation doubly unpleasant by the violence of his passions, exhibited even towards him, so much that he might be judged insane. His inMr Severn, the heir of what little Keats left behind him at tervals of remorse, too, were poignantly bitter. I believe that Rome, has only come into possession of very few manuscripts of his friend. The poetical volume which was the inseparable companion of Keats, and which he took for his most darling model in composition, was the Minor Poems of Shakspeare.' Byron (who thought the death of Keats a loss to our literature, and who said, 'His fragment of Hyperion seems actually inspired by the Titans, and is as sublime as Eschylus") alludes, It was the misfortune of Keats, as a poet, to be either extravagantly praised or unmercifully condemned. The former was owing to the generous partialities of friendship, somewhat obtrusively displayed; the latter, in some degree, to resentment of that friendship, connected as it was with party politics and peculiar views of society as well as of poetry. In the one case his faults, and in the other his merits, were entirely overlooked. An interval of more than twenty years should have dispelled these illusions and prejudices. Keats was a true poet: he had the creative fancy, the ideal enthusiasm, and the nervous susceptibility of the poetical temperament. If we consider his extreme youth and delicate health, his solitary and interesting self-instruction, the severity of the attacks made upon him by his hostile and powerful critics, and, above all, the original richness and picturesqueness of his conceptions and imagery, even when they run to waste, he appears to be one of the greatest of the young self-taught poets. Michael Bruce or Henry Kirke White cannot for a moment be compared with him: he is more like the Milton of Lycidas,' or the Spenser of the Tears of the Muses.' What easy, finished, statuesque beauty and classic expression, for example, are displayed in this picture of Saturn and Thea! [Saturn and Thea.] [From Hyperion."] Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there, Along the margin sand large footmarks went It seemed no force could wake him from his place; Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx, playfully and wittily, in his Don Juan, to the death of the young poet: John Keats, who was killed off by one critique, If not intelligible, without Greek Contrived to talk about the gods of late, Much as they might have been supposed to speak. Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self! I cannot say, "O wherefore sleepest thou?" As when, upon a tranced summer night, The antique grace and solemnity of passages like this must be felt by every reader of poetry. The chief defects of Keats are his want of distinctness and precision, and the carelessness of his style. There would seem to have been even affectation in his disregard of order and regularity; and he heaps up images and conceits in such profusion, that they often form grotesque and absurd combinations, which fatigue the reader. Deep feeling and passion are rarely given to young poets redolent of fancy and warm from the perusal of the ancient authors. The difficulty with which Keats had mastered the classic mythology gave it an undue importance in his mind: a more perfect knowledge would have harmonised its materials, and shown him the beauty of chasteness and simplicity of style-the last but the greatest advantage of classic studies. In poets like Gray, Rogers, and Campbell, we see the ultimate effects of this taste; in Keats we have only the materials, unselected, and often shapeless. His imagination was prolific of forms of beauty and grandeur, but the judgment was wanting to symmetrise and arrange them, assigning to each its due proportion and its proper place. His fragments, however, are the fragments of true genius-rich, original, and various; and Mr Leigh Hunt is right in his opinion, that the poems of Keats, with all their defects, will be the sure companions in field and grove' of those who love to escape 'out of the strife of commonplaces into the haven of solitude and imagination.' [The Lady Madeline at her Devotions.] Out went the taper as she hurried in; As though a tongueless nightingale should swell Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint. [Hymn to Pan.] [From Endymion."] O thou whose mighty palace-roof doth hang In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx-do thou now, By all the trembling mazes that she ran, O thou for whose soul-soothing quiet turtles Thou to whom every fawn and satyr flies To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw; And gather up all fancifullest shells O hearkener to the loud-clapping shears, The many that are come to pay their vows Be still the unimaginable lodge A firmament reflected in a sea; Ode to a Nightingale. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, O for a draught of vintage, that hath been And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink and leave the world unseen, Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Away! away! for I will fly to thee Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the queen-moon is on her throne But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous blooms and winding mossy ways. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain- Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the mossed cottage trees, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; [On First Looking into Chapman's Homer.] Much have I travelled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne: [The Human Seasons.] Happy is England! I could be content To feel no other breezes than are blown For skies Italian, and an inward groan To sit upon an Alp as on a throne, And half forget what world or wordling meant. Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters; Enough their simple loveliness for me; Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging: Yet do I often warmly burn to see Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing, And float with them about their summer waters. Lines. [The poet Keats walked in the Highlands, not with the joyousness, the rapture, of the young Rousseau, but in that hallowed pleasure of the soul which, in its fulness, is akin to pain. The following extract of a poem, not published in his works, proves his intensity of feeling, even to the dread of madness. It was written while on his journey, soon after his pilgrimage to the birthplace of Burns, not for the gaze of the world, but as a record for himself of the temper of his mind at the time. It is a sure index to the more serious traits in his character; but Keats, neither in writing nor in speaking, could affect a sentiment-his gentle spirit knew not how to counterfeit.'-New Monthly Magazine, 1822.] There is a charm in footing slow Where patriot battle has been fought, One hour half idiot he stands By mossy waterfall, But in the very next he reads He reads it on the mountain's height, DR REGINALD HEBER. DR REGINALD HEBER, bishop of Calcutta, was born April 21, 1783, at Malpas in Cheshire, where his father had a living. In his seventeenth year he was admitted of Brazen-nose college, Oxford, and soon distinguished himself by his classical attainments. In 1802 he obtained the university prize for Latin hexameters, his subject being the Carmen Seculare. Applying himself to English verse, Heber, in 1803, composed his poem of Palestine, which has been considered the best prize poem the university has ever produced. Parts of it were set to music; and it had an extensive sale. Previous to its recitation in the theatre of the university, the young author read it to Sir Walter Scott, then on a visit to Oxford; and Scott observed, that in the verses on Solomon's temple, one striking circumstance had escaped him-namely, that no tools were used in its construction. Reginald retired for a few minutes to the corner of the room, and returned with the beautiful lines No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung; He has also given a striking sketch of the Druses, the hardy mountain race descended from the Crusaders :-- Fierce, hardy, proud, in conscious freedom bold, O, ever thus, by no vain boast dismayed, Yet shines your praise, amid surrounding gloom, While his poem of 'Palestine' was universally admired, and all looked forward to the maturity of studies with unabated industry. He made considera genius so rich in promise, Heber continued his able progress in mathematics and in the higher classics. In 1805 he took his degree of B. A., and the same year gained the prize for the English elected to a fellowship at All Souls college, and essay; the subject, The Sense of Honour. He was soon after went abroad, travelling over Germany, Russia, and the Crimea. On his return he took his degree of A. M. at Oxford. He appeared again as a poet in 1809, his subject being Europe, or Lines on the Present War. The struggle in Spain formed the predominating theme of Heber's poem. He was now presented to the living of Hodnet; and at the same time he married Amelia, daughter of Dr Shipley, dean of St Asaph. The duties of a parish pastor were discharged by Heber with unostentatious fidelity and application. He also applied his vigorous intellect to the study of divinity, and His picture of Palestine, in its now fallen and deso- in 1815 preached the Bampton Lecture, the subject late state, is pathetic and beautiful: Reft of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn, selected by him for a course of sermons being the Personality and Office of the Christian Comforter. He was an occasional contributor to the Quarterly Review; and in 1822 he wrote a copious life of Jeremy Taylor, and a review of his writings for a complete edition of Taylor's works. The same year he was elected, by the benchers of Lincoln's Inn, preacher to their society. Here he had chambers in London, an addition of about £600 to his yearly income, and his duty was only preaching thirteen sermons in the year. An office so honourable, from the high character and talents of the electors, and the eminent persons by whom it has been held, is usually considered a stepping-stone to a bishopric. To this honour in its highest formthat of a spiritual peer of the realm-Heber might now have looked forward with confidence; but a |