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it by a torrent of unfeeling mockery or relentless abuse, and taking pains to show how well those passing fantasies may be reconciled to a system of resolute misanthropy, or so managed as even to enhance its merits, or confirm its truth. With what different sensations, accordingly, do we read the works of those two great writers !—With the one, we seem to share a gay and gorgeous banquet-with the other, a wild and dangerous intoxication. Let Lord Byron bethink him of this contrast-and its causes and effects. Though he scorns the precepts, and defies the censure of ordinary men, he may yet be moved by the example of his only superior !-In the mean time, we have endeavoured to point out the canker that stains the splendid flowers of his poetry-or, rather, the serpent that lurks beneath them. If it will not listen to the voice of the charmer, that brilliant garden, gay and glorious as it is, must be deserted, and its existence deplored, as a snare to the unwary.

[Jeffrey reviewed Childe Harold I (February, 1812), The Giaour (July, 1813), The Corsair and The Bride of Abydos (April, 1814), Childe Harold III, &c. (December, 1816), Manfred (August, 1817), Beppo (February, 1818), Marino Faliero (July, 1821), and Sardanapalus, &c. (February, 1822).

The review of Hours of Idleness (January, 1808) was by Brougham. No notice was taken of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Jeffrey's first words in criticism of Byron were 'Lord Byron has improved marvellously since his last appearance at our tribunal'; and from this time Byron gradually acquired a deep and lasting admiration of Jeffrey's magnanimity. In a letter to Jeffrey (February 28, 1815) he writes, 'I shall be now most happy to obtain and preserve whatever portion of your regard you may allot to me. The whole of your conduct to me has already secured mine.' (Life, by Cockburn, i. 416.)

In the article on Sardanapalus Jeffrey, in his own words, 'at last administered a little cruel medicine' (letter to Charles Wilkes, April 13, 1822: Life, ii. 200). But Byron kept his promise never to say anything against Jeffrey, whom he had come to regard as his grand patron'. His reply is in Don Juan X. xi-xvii, XII. xvi.]

JOHN KEATS

(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, 18201.

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, indeed, bear evidence enough of the fact. They are full of extravagance and irregularity, rash attempts at originality, interminable wanderings, and excessive obscurity. They manifestly require, therefore, all the indulgence

1 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 judgement of the reader.

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, 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 poem, it may be thought, would be better compared 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 divine authors, is, that imagination in them is subordinate to reason and judgement, while, with him, it is paramount and supreme that their ornaments and images are employed to embellish and recommend just sentiments, engaging incidents, and natural characters, while his are poured out without measure or restraint, and with no apparent design but to unburden the breast of the author, and give vent to the overflowing vein of

his fancy: The thin and scanty tissue of his story is merely the light framework on which his florid wreaths are suspended; and while his imaginations go rambling and entangling 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 harmonized 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 Shake

speare. There are very many such persons, we verily believe, even among the reading and judicious part of the community-correct scholars, we have no doubt, many of them, and, it may be, very classical composers in prose and in verse-but utterly ignorant, on our view of the matter, of the true genius of English poetry, and incapable of estimating its appropriate and most exquisite beauties. With that spirit we have no hesitation in saying that Mr. Keats is deeply' imbued-and of those beauties he has presented us with many striking examples. We are very much inclined indeed to add, that we do not know any book which we would sooner employ as a test to ascertain whether any one had in him a native relish for poetry, and a genuine sensibility to its intrinsic charm. The greater and more distinguished poets of our country have so much in them to gratify other tastes and propensities, that they are pretty sure to captivate and amuse those to whom their poetry may be but an hindrance and obstruction, as well as those to whom it constitutes their chief attraction. The interest of the stories they tell the vivacity of the characters they delineate the weight and force of the maxims and sentiments in which they abound-the very pathos and wit and humour they display, which may all and each of them exist apart from their poetry, and independent of it, are quite sufficient to account 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,

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