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 nature 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; And then, after leading him up to his new purchase, he adds eagerly "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 can. not, 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 illus. trated, and is again left to the judgment of the reader. 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 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 That warm'd his agued limbs; and, sad to see, unclean; That arm-that eye-the cold, the sunken cheek- "If hell's seducing crew To give it up was Heav'n's own act to slight.' I felt it written-Vengeance is not ours!'- "Sure as I hope before my Judge to live, We always quote too much of Mr. Crabbe: -perhaps because the pattern of his arabesque is so large, that there is no getting a fair specimen of it without taking in a good space. But we must take warning this time, and forbear-or at least pick out but a few little morsels as we pass hastily along. One of the best managed of all the tales is that entitled "Delay has Danger;"--which contains a very full, true, and particular account of the way in which a weakish, but well meaning young man, engaged on his own suit to a very amiable girl, may be seduced, during her unlucky absence, to entangle himself with a far inferior person, whose chief seduction is her apparent humility and devotion to him. "That evening all in fond discourse was spent ; In this, the pause of nature and of love; The moral autumn is quite as gloomy, and far more hopeless. "The Natural Death of Love" is perhaps the best written of all the pieces before us. It consists of a very spirited dialogue between a married pair, upon the causes of the difference between the days of marriage and those of courtship;-in which the errors and faults of both parties, and the petulance, impatience, and provoking acuteness of the lady, with the more reasonable and reflecting, but somewhat insulting manner of the gentleman, are all exhibited to the life; and with more uniform delicacy and finesse than is usual with the author. "Lady Barbara, or the Ghost," is a long had been warned, or supposed she had been story, and not very pleasing. A fair widow warned, by the ghost of a beloved brother, that she would be miserable if she contracted a second marriage-and then, some fifteen years after, she is courted by the son of a tired-and upon whom, during all the years reverend priest, to whose house she had reof his childhood, she had lavished the cares of a mother. She long resists his unnatural passion; but is at length subdued by his urgency and youthful beauty, and gives him her hand. There is something rather disgusting, We cannot give any part of the long and we think, in this fiction-and certainly the finely converging details by which the catas-worthy lady could not have taken no way so trophe is brought about: But we are tempted likely to save the ghost's credit, as by enterto venture on the catastrophe itself, for the ing into such a marriage-and she confessed sake chiefly of the right English, melancholy, as much, it seems, on her deathbed. autumnal landscape, with which it con cludes: "In that weak moment, when disdain and pride, "The Widow," with her three husbands, is not quite so lively as the wife of Bath with her five-but it is a very amusing, as well as a very instructive legend; and exhibits a rich variety of those striking intellectual portraits which mark the hand of our poetical Rembrandt. The serene close of her eventful life is highly exemplary. After carefully col lecting all her dowers and jointures "The widow'd lady to her cot retir'd: 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 nature 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; 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, it may be as well to confess, that we have rather consulted our own gratification than 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 can. not, 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, interminable wanderings, and excessive obscurity. 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 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 The fair-grown yew tree, for a chosen bow: To hear the speckled thrushes, and see feed "Hereat Peona, in their silver source 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. of Cybele-with a picture of lions that migh: excite the envy of Rubens, or Edwin Land Here is another, and more classical sketch. seer! 'Forth from a rugged arch, in the dusk below, Came mother Cybele! alone-alone!In sombre chariot: dark foldings thrown About her majesty, and front death-pale With turrets crown'd. Four maned lions hale The sluggish wheels; solemn their toothed maws, Their surly eyes brow-hidden, heavy paws Cowering their tawny brushes. Silent sails Uplifted drowsily, and nervy tails This shadowy queen athwart, and faints away In another gloomy arch!"-p. 83. 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.— "So on he hies Gold dome, and crystal wall, and turquoise floor. Through caves and palaces of mottled ore, Black polish'd porticos of awful shade, Till, at the last, a diamond ballustrade Leads sparkling just above the silvery heads Of a thousand fountains; so that he could dash The waters with his spear! But at that splash, Done heedlessly, those spouting columns rose Sudden a poplar's height, and 'gan to enclose His diamond path with fretwork, streaming round. Alive, and dazzling cool, and with a sound Haply, like dolphin tumults, when sweet shells Welcome the car of Thetis! Long he dwells On this delight; for every minute's space, The streams with changing magic interlace; Sometimes like delicatest lattices, Cover'd with crystal vines: then weeping trees Moving about, as in a gentle wind; Which, in a wink, to war'ry gauze refin'd Pour into shapes of curtain'd canopies, Spangled, and rich with liquid broideries Of Flowers, Peacocks, Swans, and Naiads fair! And then the water into stubborn streams Swifter than lightning went these wonders rare; Collecting, mimick'd the wrought oaken beams, Pillars, and frieze, and high fantastic roof Of those dark places, in umes far aloof Cathedrals named !''' There are strange melodies too around him; and their effect on the fancy is thus poetically described: "Oh! when the airy stress Old dinies 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, But those of Saturn's vintage; mould'ring scrolls, imitations; but we have no longer time for "Soon she turn'd up a soiled glove, whereon That old nurse stood beside her, wondering, At sight of such a dismal labouring; And so she kneeled, with her locks all hoar, In anxious secrecy they took it home, With tears, as chilly as a dripping well, [kept The following lines from an ode to a Night- 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 She stood in tears amid the alien corn! We know nothing at once so truly fresh. genuine, and English,-and, at the same |