Civil to all, compliant and polite, The concluding tale is but the end of the visit to the Hall, and the settlement of the younger brother near his senior, in the way we have already mentioned. It contains no great matter; but there is so much good na ture and goodness of heart about it, that we cannot resist the temptation of gracing our exit with a bit of it. After a little raillery, the elder brother says "We part no more, dear Richard! Thou wilt need Thy brother's help to teach thy boys to read; " " 'Alight, my friend, and come, I do beseech thee, to that proper home! Here, on this lawn, thy boys and girls shall run, We shall be abused by our political and fastidious readers for the length of this article. But we cannot repent of it. It will give as much pleasure, we believe, and do as much good, as many of the articles that are meant for their gratification; and, if it appear absurd to quote so largely from a popular and accessible work, it should be remembered, that no work of this magnitude passes into circulation with half the rapidity of our Journal-and that Mr. Crabbe is so unequal a writer, and at times so unattractive, as to require, more than any other of his degree, some explanation of his system, and some specimens of his powers, from those experienced and intrepid readers whose business it is to pioneer for the lazier sort, and to give some account of what they are to meet with on their journey. To be sure, all this is less necessary now than it was on Mr. Crabbe's first re-appearance nine or ten years ago; and though it may not be altogether without its use even at present, rather consulted our own gratification than it may be as well to confess, that we have our readers' improvement, in what we have now said of him; and hope they will forgive us. (August, 1820.) 1. Endymion: a Poetic Romance. By JOHN KEATS. 8vo. pp. 207. London: 1818. 2. Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other Poems. By JOHN KEATS, author of "Endymion." 12mo. pp. 200. London: 1820.* We had never happened to see either of these volumes till very lately-and have been exceedingly struck with the genius they display, and the spirit of poetry which breathes through all their extravagance. That imitation of our old writers, and especially of our older dramatists, to which we cannot help flattering ourselves that we have somewhat contributed, has brought on, as it were, a second spring in our poetry ;-and few of its blossoms are either more profuse of sweetness, or richer in promise, than this which is now before us. Mr. Keats, we understand, is still a very young man; and his whole works, I still think that a poet of great power and promise was lost to us by the premature death of Keats, in the twenty-fifth year of his age; and regret that I did not go more largely into the exposition of his merits, in the slight notice of them, which I now venture to reprint. But though I cannot, with propriety, or without departing from the principle which must govern this republication, now supply this omission, I hope to be forgiven for having added a page or two to the citations, by which my opinion of those merits was then illustrated, and is again left to the judgment of the reader. indeed, bear evidence enough of the fact. They are full of extravagance and irregu larity, rash attempts at originality, intermin able wanderings, and excessive obscurity. They manifestly require, therefore, all the in dulgence 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 bestrewn 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, | our view of the matter, of the true genius of and sets before us the genuine sights and English poetry, and incapable of estimating sounds and smells of the country, with all its appropriate and most exquisite beauties. the magic and grace of Elysium. His sub- With that spirit we have no hesitation in sayject has the disadvantage of being Mytholog-ing that Mr. Keats is deeply imbued-and of ical; and in this respect, as well as on ac- those beauties he has presented us with many count of the raised and rapturous tone it con- striking examples. We are very much insequently assumes, his poem, it may be clined indeed to add, that we do not know thought, would be better compared to the any book which we would sooner employ as Comus and the Arcades of Milton, of which, a test to ascertain whether any one had in also, there are many traces of imitation. The him a native relish for poetry, and a genuine great distinction, however, between him and sensibility to its intrinsic charm. The greater these divine authors, is, that imagination in and more distinguished poets of our country them is subordinate to reason and judgment, have so much else in them, to gratify other while, with him, it is paramount and supreme tastes and propensities, that they are pretty -that their ornaments and images are em- sure to captivate and amuse those to whom ployed to embellish and recommend just their poetry may be but an hinderance and sentiments, engaging incidents, and natural obstruction, as well as those to whom it concharacters, while his are poured out without stitutes their chief attraction. The interest measure or restraint, and with no apparent of the stories they tell-the vivacity of the design but to unburden the breast of the characters they delineate-the weight and author, and give vent to the overflowing vein force of the maxims and sentiments in which of his fancy. The thin and scanty tissue of they abound—the very pathos, and wit and his story is merely the light framework on humour they display, which may all and each which his florid wreaths are suspended; and of them exist apart from their poetry, and inwhile his imaginations go rambling and en-dependent of it, are quite sufficient to account tangling themselves every where, like wild honeysuckles, all idea of sober reason, and plan, and consistency, is utterly forgotten, and "strangled in their waste fertility." A great part of the work, indeed, is written in the strangest and most fantastical manner that can be imagined. It seems as if the author had ventured every thing that occurred to him in the shape of a glittering image or striking expression-taken the first word that presented itself to make up a rhyme, and then made that word the germ of a new cluster of images-a hint for a new excursion of the fancy-and so wandered on, equally forgetful whence he came, and heedless whither he was going, till he had covered his pages with an interminable arabesque of connected and incongruous figures, that multiplied as they extended, and were only harmonised by the brightness of their tints, and the graces of their forms. In this rash and headlong career he has of course many lapses and failures. There is no work, accordingly, from which a malicious critic could cull more matter for ridicule, or select more obscure, unnatural, or absurd passages. But we do not take that to be our office;-and must beg leave, on the contrary, to say, that any one who, on this account, would represent the whole poem as despicable, must either have no notion of poetry, or no regard to truth. It is, in truth, at least as full of genius as of absurdity; and he who does not find a great deal in it to admire and to give delight, cannot in his heart see much beauty in the two exquisite dramas to which we have already alluded; or find any great pleasure in some of the finest creations of Milton and Shakespeare. There are very many such persons, we verily believe, even among the reading and judicious part of the communitycorrect scholars, we have no doubt, many of them, and, it may be, very classical composers in prose and in verse-but utterly ignorant, on for their popularity, without referring much to that still higher gift, by which they subdue to their enchantments those whose souls are truly attuned to the finer impulses of poetry. It is only, therefore, where those other recommendations are wanting, or exist in a weaker degree, that the true force of the attraction, exercised by the pure poetry with which they are so often combined, can be fairly appreciated-where, without much incident or many characters, and with little wit, wisdom, or arrangement, a number of bright pictures are presented to the imagination, and a fine feeling expressed of those mysterious relations by which visible external things are assimilated with inward thoughts and emotions, and become the images and exponents of all passions and affections. To an unpoetical reader such passages will generally appear mere raving and absurdity-and to this censure a very great part of the volumes before us will certainly be exposed, with this class of readers. Even in the judgment of a fitter audience, however, it must, we fear, be admitted, that, besides the riot and extravagance of his fancy the scope and substance of Mr. Keats' poetry is rather too dreamy and abstracted to excite the strongest interest, or to sustain the atten tion through a work of any great compass or extent. He deals too much with shadowy and incomprehensible beings, and is too constantly rapt into an extramundane Elysium, to command a lasting interest with ordinary mortals-and must employ the agency of more varied and coarser emotions, if he wishes to take rank with the enduring poets of this or of former generations. There is something very curious, too, we think, in the way in which he, and Mr. Barry Cornwall also, have dealt with the Pagan mythology, of which they have made so much use in their poetry. Instead of presenting its imaginary persons under the trite and vulgar traits that belong to them in the ordinary systems, little more [hearken is borrowed from these than the general con- | And see that oftentimes the reins would slip ception of their condition and relations; and Through his forgotten hands!"'-pp. 11, 12. an original character and distinct individuality There is then a choral hymn addressed to is then bestowed upon them, which has all the sylvan deity, which appears to us to be the merit of invention, and all the grace and full of beauty; and reminds us, in many attraction of the fictions on which it is en- places, of the finest strains of Sicilian-or of grafted. The ancients, though they probably English poetry. A part of it is as follows:did not stand in any great awe of their deities, have yet abstained very much from any From jagged trunks; and overshadoweth "O thou, whose mighty palace roof doth hang minute or dramatic representation of their Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death feelings and affections. In Hesiod and Homer, Of unseen flowers, in heavy peacefulness! they are broadly delineated by some of their Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress actions and adventures, and introduced to us Their ruffled locks, where meeting hazels darken; merely as the agents in those particular trans- And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and actions; while in the Hymns, from those In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds The dreary melody of bedded reedsascribed to Orpheus and Homer, down to The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth.— those of Callimachus, we have little but pomp-O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles ous epithets and invocations, with a flattering Passion their voices cooingly 'mong myrtles, commemoration of their most famous exploits What time thou wanderest at eventide -and are never allowed to enter into their Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side bosoms, or follow out the train of their feel- Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom ings, with the presumption of our human Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom sympathy. Except the love-song of the Cy- Their golden honeycombs; our village leas Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees clops to his Sea Nymph in Theocritus-the Their fairest blossom'd beans and poppied corn; Lamentation of Venus for Adonis in Moschus The chuckling linnet its five young unborn, -and the more recent Legend of Apuleius, To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries we scarcely recollect a passage in all the Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies writings of antiquity in which the passions of Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year an immortal are fairly disclosed to the scrutiny By every wind that nods the mountain pine, All its completions! be quickly near, and observation of men. The author before O forester divine! us, however, and some of his contemporaries, have dealt differently with the subject;-and, sheltering the violence of the fiction under the ancient traditionary fable, have in reality created and imagined an entire new set of characters; and brought closely and minutely before us the loves and sorrows and perplexities of beings, with whose names and supernatural attributes we had long been familiar, without any sense or feeling of their personal character. We have more than doubts of the fitness of such personages to maintain a permanent interest with the modern public;but the way in which they are here managed certainly gives them the best chance that now remains for them; and, at all events, it cannot be denied that the effect is striking and graceful. But we must now proceed to For willing service; whether to surprise While ever and anon to his shorn peers pp. 114-117. The enamoured youth sinks into insensi bility in the midst of the solemnity, and is borne apart and revived by the care of his sister; and, opening his heavy eyes in her arms, says— "I feel this thine endearing love All through my bosom! Thou art as a dove Alone and sad. No! I will once more raise The fair-grown yew tree, for a chosen bow: And, when the pleasant sun is getting low, Again I'll linger in a sloping mead To hear the speckled thrushes, and see feed In which her voice should wander. 'Twas a lay He then tells her all the story of his love and madness; and gives this airy sketch of the first vision he had, or fancied he had, of his descending Goddess. After some rapturous intimations of the glories of her gold-burnished hair, he says "She had, Indeed, locks bright enough to make me mad! "And then her hovering feet! Overpowered by this "celestial colloquy sublime," he sinks at last into slumber-and on wakening finds the scene disenchanted; and the dull shades of evening deepening over his solitude: "Then up I started.-Ah! my sighs, my tears! "In midst of all, there lay a sleeping youth Disparts a dew-lipp'd rose. Above his head, Stood serene Cupids watching silently. At the youth's slumber; while another took Here is another, and more classical sketch. of Cybele-with a picture of lions that might excite the envy of Rubens, or Edwin Land seer! "Forth from a rugged arch, in the dusk below, The sluggish wheels; solemn their toothed maws, The following picture of the fairy waterworks, which he unconsciously sets playing in these enchanted caverns, is, it must be confessed, "high fantastical;" but we venture to extract it, for the sake of the singular brilliancy and force of the execution. 116 'So on he hies Through caves and palaces of mottled ore, Gold dome, and crystal wall, and turquoise floor, There are strange melodies too around him; and their effect on the fancy is thus poetically described: "Oh! when the airy stress Old ditties sigh above their father's grave! In the midst of all these enchantments he has, we do not very well know how, another ravishing interview with his unknown goddess; and when she again melts away from him, he finds himself in a vast grotto, where he overhears the courtship of Alpheus and Arethusa; and as they elope together, discovers that the grotto has disappeared, and that he is at the bottom of the sea, under the transparent arches of its naked waters! The following is abundantly extravagant; but comes of no ignoble lineage-nor shames its high descent: "Far had he roam'd, With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam'd But those of Saturn's vintage; mould'ring scrolls, There he finds ancient Glaucus enchanted by Circe-hears his wild story-and goes with him to the deliverance and restoration of thousands of drowned lovers, whose bodies were piled and stowed away in a large submarine palace. When this feat is happily performed, he finds himself again on dry ground, with woods and waters around him; and cannot help falling desperately in love with a beautiful damsel whom he finds there, pining for some such consolation; and who tells a long story of having come from India in the train of Bacchus, and having strayed away from him into that forest!-So they vow eternal fidelity; and are wafted up to heaven on flying horses; on which they sleep and dream among the stars;-and then the lady melts away, and he is again alone upon the earth; but soon rejoins his Indian love, and agrees to give up his goddess, and live only for her: But she refuses, and says she is resolved to devote herself to the service of Diana: But, when she goes to accomplish that dedication, she turns out to be the goddess herself in a new shape! and finally exalts her lover with her to a blessed immortality! We have left ourselves room to say but little of the second volume; which is of a more miscellaneous character. Lamia is a Greek antique story, in the measure and taste of Endymion. Isabella is a paraphrase of the same tale of Boccacio which Mr. Cornwall has also imitated, under the title of "A Sicilian Story." It would be worth while to compare the two imitations; but we have no longer time for such a task. Mr. Keats has followed his original more closely, and has given a deep pathos to several of his stanzas. The widowed bride's discovery of the murdered body is very strikingly given. "Soon she turn'd up a soiled glove, whereon Her silk had play'd in purple phantasies! She kiss'd it with a lip more chill than stone, And put it in her bosom, where it dries. Then 'gan she work again; nor stay'd her care, But to throw back at times her veiling hair. "That old nurse stood beside her, wondering, Until her heart felt pity to the core, At sight of such a dismal labouring; And so she kneeled, with her locks all hoar, And put her lean hands to the horrid thing: Three hours they labour'd at this trivial sore; At last they felt the kernel of the grave, &c. 'In anxious secrecy they took it home, And then-the prize was all for Isabel! She calm'd its wild hair with a golden comb; And all around each eye's sepulchral cell Pointed each fringed lash: The smeared loam With tears, as chilly as a dripping well, [kep' She drench'd away :-and still she comb'd, and Sighing all day-and still she kiss'd, and wept "Then in a silken scarf-sweet with the dews Of precious flowers pluck'd in Araby, And divine liquids come with odorous ooze Through the cold serpent-pipe refreshfully,She wrapp'd it up; and for its tomb did choose A garden pot, wherein she laid it by, And cover'd it with mould; and o'er it set Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet. "And she forgot the stars, the moon, the sun! And she forgot the blue above the trees; And she forgot the dells where waters run, And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze! She had no knowledge when the day was done And the new morn she saw not! But in pe Hung over her sweet Basil evermore, And moisten'd it with tears, unto the core !" pp. 72-73. The following lines from an ode to a Nightingale are equally distinguished for harmony and high poetic feeiing:- "O for a beaker full of the warm South! Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth! That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the foreat dim. F'de fur away! dissolve-and quite forget What Thou among the leaves hast never known Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs. The voice I hear, this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown! Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn! The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam, Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn." pp. 108-111. We know nothing at once so truly fresh, genuine, and English,-and, at the same |