'for six weeks he was scarcely ever sober' is scouted by better witnesses. Brown testifies to the poet's occasional use of laudanum, but also to his prompt abandonment of the drug in deference to remonstrance. By Christmas 1819 Keats, having given up work both on the Cap and Bells' and the Vision,' was writing nothing, and confined almost entirely at home by ill-health. In January 1820 George Keats, whose first speculations in America had failed, paid a flying visit to England in order to extract from Mr. Abbey some of the funds divisible under his grandmother's will after Tom's death. He found John, as he afterwards recorded, not the same being; although his reception of me was as warm as heart could wish, he did not speak with his former openness and unreserve; he had lost the reviving custom of venting his griefs.' George left again for Liverpool, 28 Jan., taking with him 700l., of which he undertook to remit to John 2007. as soon as the state of his affairs allowed. On 3 Feb. Keats was seized with the first overt symptoms of consumption, in the shape of an attack of hemorrhage from the lungs, after a cold night-ride outside the coach from London to Hampstead. The scene is vividly described in Brown's manuscript sketch of the poet's life, which has been quoted in Lord Houghton's and other biographies. Extreme nervous prostration followed the attack, and Keats remained a prisoner for six or seven weeks, affectionately nursed by Brown, but forbidden at first to see any one else. With Fanny Brawne, who was still living with her family next door, he kept up a constant interchange of notes during his illness. To his sister, still living under the care of the Abbeys at Walthamstow, and to several friends he wrote also pleasantly and tenderly from his sick bed. By the end of March he began to get about again, and his friends were full of hope for his recovery. Brown started early in May for a second walking tour in Scotland, and Keats having accompanied him as far as Gravesend, returned, not to Hampstead, but to a lodging in Wesleyan Place, Kentish Town, which he had chosen for the sake of being near the Leigh Hunts, who were living in the same district, in Mortimer Street. Here he was able to work a little at seeing through the press the volume of his poems written since Endymion,' which he had been persuaded to bring out, and which was published by Messrs. Taylor & Hessey in the beginning of July (1820), under the title 'Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and other Poems, by John Keats, Author of "Endymion." By the contents of this volume Keats lives as one of the great English poets. They had all been composed in the space of little over a year and a half (March 1818 to October 1819), after the experimental stage of 'Endymion' had been passed through, and before illness and trouble had yet quite unmanned him. Their imaginative range is wide, from the pathos and grimness of 'Isabella' to the elemental majesty of Hyperion,' from the glowing romance colour of the Eve of St. Agnes to the classical enchantments of Lamia,' and from these to the brooding inwardness of the meditative odes. I have loved,' says Keats, 'the principle of beauty in all things,' and again, I feel assured I should write from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the beautiful, even if my night's labours should be burnt every morning, and no eye ever rest upon them.' 'To load every rift of the subject with ore' was his critical advice to Shelley. Charged, even loaded, with beauty as is his mature poetry, it is also singularly free from the sense of strain or effort, and seems to come as naturally (and this again is one of his own critical requirements) as the leaves to a tree.' For easy and assured poetic mastery much of his work in this volume stands next in English literature to that of the great Elizabethans from whom he seems lineally descended. Or if, as in 'Hyperion,' he writes rather in the key of Milton, or, as in Lamia,' in measures recalling those of Dryden, still it is not as an imitator, but rather as one of a kindred strain and gifts with these classics of the language. The chief English poets after him have been foremost to do him honour. Almost immediately on the appearance of the volume its true value was recognised by such judges as Lamb and Shelley. Leigh Hunt was of course, as usual, cordial and discriminating in its praise. Within a few weeks there appeared also a laudatory article (chiefly on 'Endymion') by Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review.' But such recognition came too late to give the poet comfort. Fresh hemorrhages occurring on 22 and 23 June gave proof of the progress of his disease, and were followed by an acute aggravation of nervous despondency and weakness. The Hunts took him into their house and nursed him kindly. His unhappy condition is testified by their accounts and that of their visitors, as well as his own despairing letters to Fanny Brawne. In some of these his jealous misery breaks out in suspicions against friends for whom his affection never varied, and of whose loyalty he would never have dreamed of doubting, except in such passing moments of frenzy. The delivery of a letter of Fanny Brawne's January and the greater part of February, peacefully on the whole, though with intervals when Severn was almost exhausted, beating about in the tempest of his mind.' Severn nursed him with assiduous devotion, and has recorded the invincible sweetness of nature which he showed through all his sufferings. His chief comfort was in listening to Severn's reading and music, the book he preferred being Jeremy Taylor's' Holy Living and Dying,' the music, Haydn's sonatas. 'When will this posthumous life of mine come to an end?' was the question with which he would habitually turn to the doctor. 'I feel,' he used to say, 'the flowers growing over me.' He asked that if any epitaph were placed over his grave, it might be in the words 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water.' On 23 Feb. 1821 the approaches of death came on about four o'clock in the morning, and at about eleven he passed away peacefully in Severn's arms. Three days later his remains were buried in the old protestant cemetery, near the pyramid of Gaius Cestius, which was soon afterwards disused. Through Severn's care the spot was marked by a tombstone, carved with a lyre and inscribed with an epitaph, including his own words above quoted. In 1875 a committee of Englishmen and Americans, headed by Sir Vincent Eyre, provided for the repair of the monument and the placing on an adjacent wall of a medallion portrait of the poet presented by its sculptor, Mr. Warrington Wood. In 1881 the remains of Severn were laid in a tomb of similar design beside those. of his friend. two days late and with the seal broken caused him to leave the Hunts' house suddenly on 12 Aug. He was taken in and nursed by Mrs. Brawne and her daughter at Wentworth Place. Here he passed a period of relative tranquillity, during which he made up his mind, on medical advice, to try the effect of a winter in Italy, as a soldier marches against a battery. From Shelley, who had heard of his condition through the Gisbornes, he received an invitation in the kindest possible terms to Pisa. But Keats preferred the society of one of his more intimate friends, and, failing that of Brown (whom the news of his relapse had failed to reach in the highlands), determined to go with Severn, who had won the gold medal of the Royal Academy the year before, and was now about to start for Rome. Keats and Severn accordingly took passage for Naples on board the ship Maria Crowther, which sailed from London on 18 Sept. 1820. Brown had in the meantime come back from Scotland, and the friends just missed each other at Gravesend. The Maria Crowther was delayed by adverse winds in the Channel, but the voyage at first seemed to do Keats good, and landing one day on the Dorset coast, he composed in a relatively peaceful temper the sonnet Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou art." This was his last attempt in poetry, although during the remainder of the passage he spoke much of a projected poem on the subject of Sabrina. Fresh storms retarded the and it was after a month at sea voyage, that Keats reached Naples. There he was detained ten days in quarantine, during which, he says, he summoned up in a kind of despera- Miss Brawne is recorded to have been tion more puns than ever in his life before. 'very much affected' by the news of Keats's For about a fortnight after landing Keats death; 'because she had treated him so badly,' stayed at Naples, whence he unbosomed adds the witness above quoted. Her own himself of his sufferings in an agonised letter words about him, as given in Medwin's Life to Brown; and having declined a second of Shelley,' are kind and feeling enough. After invitation from Shelley to Pisa, started with his death she remained on intimate terms with Severn for Rome about 12 Nov. Dr. (after his sister Fanny. She afterwards married a wards Sir James) Clark had taken lodgings Mr. Lindo, who changed his name to Lindon, for them in the Piazza di Spagna, in the and was one of the secretaries of the Great corner house on the right going up the steps Exhibition of 1851. She died in 1865. Her of Sta. Trinità de' Monti. Here the remain-mother was burnt to death from her dress ing three months of Keats's life were spent. A delusive rally, during which his thoughts turned again to the subject of Sabrina, was followed on 10 Dec. by a violent relapse, with attendant symptoms of fever and anguish of mind bordering on delirium. Similar attacks recurred at intervals, and during one such crisis Keats entreated to be given the bottle of laudanum he had entrusted to Severn, in order that he might put an end to his own sufferings and his friend's watching, After a while becoming calmer, he lingered through having caught fire at her own front door while they were still living at Wentworth Place. Fanny Keats on reaching her majority had, to put the law in motion (with the help of Dilke) in order to get from Mr. Abbey the inheritance due to her. She married in 1820 nSpanish gentleman, Señor Llanos, well known as a writer and liberal politician, and had by him two sons, one of whom followed the profession of painting, and two daughters. She died at Madrid in December 1889 (see Athenaum, 1890, p. 16). most intimate friends saw nothing of it until disease, passion, and misfortune had sapped his power of self-control. When his brother George declares 'John was the soul of manliness and courage, and as like the Holy Ghost as Johnny Keats' (the puling Johnny Keats of Byron's epigrams and of public sympathy), he expresses in a nutshell a view which is confirmed by the testimony alike of Bailey, Reynolds, Brown, and all those who were his daily companions before his breakdown. Noble integrity,'' conspicuous common-sense,' eager unselfishness, and sympathy for others are the qualities with which they credit him with one consent. His letters show him to have been privately critical enough, in certain moods, of the foibles of his friends, but to his unfailing sweetness and generosity in his practical behaviour to them their testimony is unanimous. it is said, 'would arrest even the casual passenger in the street.' The head was small and well-shaped, the hair of a golden-brown colour, very thick and curling. Every feature,' says Leigh Hunt,' was at once strongly cut and delicately alive. His face was rather long than otherwise, the upper lip projected a little over the under, the chin was bold, the cheeks sunken, the eyes mellow and glowing, large, dark, and sensitive.' 'Like the hazel eyes,' says Severn, of a wild gipsy maid in colour, set in the face of a young god.' 'He had an eye,' says Haydon,' that had an inward look, perfectly divine, like a Delphian priestess that saw visions.' George Keats having made, and in his latter days again lost, a competence in business, died at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1842, leaving several sons and daughters. His widow married a Mr. Jeffrey, who communicated to Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton) an important part of the materials for his life of the poet. George Keats was esteemed by his fellow-citizens as a man of high character and intelligence. His failure to send help to his brother out of the money which he had taken from England in January 1820 was very harshly interpreted by some of the latter's friends, including Severn and Brown, who would hold no terms with him thereafter. Dilke, on the other hand, was entirely satisfied with George's explanations, and took his side. The quarrel thus arising was one of the causes which delayed the appearance of any authorised biography of the poet. Brown long purposed to bring out a In personal appearance Keats was very Life,' but George Keats would not help, and striking, notwithstanding his small stature. even obtained, or endeavoured to obtain, anThe character and expression of his features,' injunction to prevent him, and finally Brown emigrated to New Zealand in 1841, leaving his materials in the hands of R. M. Milnes. Taylor, Woodhouse, and J. H. Reynolds also severally entertained and abandoned the idea of writing a life of their friend. (For the character of George Keats see communication of the Rev. J. F. Clarke to 'The Dial,' April 1843, reprinted, with a selection from the letters of G. K., in Forman's 'Poetical Works of J. K.,'iv. 382. Brown's accusations against him, and the consequent quarrels and estrangements, are recorded at length in Sharp's 'Life and Letters of Joseph Severn,' chaps. iv. v. and viii, From George Keats's prompt action in paying his brother's debts after his death, from the general character he bore, from the tenor of his letters, and from the positive conclusion of Dilke as a practical man of business, the rights of the case seem certainly to be on his side against Brown, who moreover was prone to vehement prejudices.) Between the period of the poet's death and the publication of Lord Houghton's 'Life and Letters' (1821-1848) there came to prevail a one-sided view of his character, founded partly on what was known of his last sufferings, partly on the signs of excessive emotional sensibility in some of his work, partly on the language of Byron in 'Don Juan,' and most of all on the impassioned expression of Shelley's pity and indignation in Adonais.' The truth is that an over-sensitive and hypochondriac strain was in Keats's nature from the first, but was manfully kept under as long as health lasted. He speaks in an early letter to Leigh Hunt of his own 'horrid morbidity of temperament,' but even his The principal portraits of him are as follows. Life-mask said to have been taken by Haydon, but at what date is not recorded. It may probably be alluded to in a letter of the poet to C. C. Clarke, written in December 1816 (No. iv. in Letters, &c., ed. Colvin), It is figured from several points of view in Poetical Works,' &c., ed. Forman, iv. p. xxxvi; see also the etching in Letters and Poems,' ed. Speed, vol. ii. frontispiece. Minia ture painted by Severn, and exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1819. This was copied by the artist many times, both during the poet's life and afterwards. Before going to Italy he gave the original to Fanny Brawne, from whose hands it passed into those of C. W. Dilke, and is now in possession of the present baronet. Replicas belong to the same owner, to Mr. Buxton Forman, to Lord Houghton, &c. This portrait was engraved first for Lord Houghton's Life and Letters,' 1848, and has become the standard likeness of Keats. A life-sized version in oil, painted his lifetime); new and completely revised edition of the same, 1867; Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, 1850; revised edition of the same, 1860; Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, by Tom Taylor, 1853; Poetical Works of John Keats, with Memoir by R. M. Milnes (Lord Houghton), 1854; new edition of the same, 1861; Miscellanies of the Lord Houghton of the recast of Hyperion); Philobiblon Society, 1856-7 (first publication by Atlantic Monthly, 1863, p. 401 (article by Severn on the Vicissitudes of Keats's Fame); Gent. Mag. 1874 (Recollections of John Keats by C. C. Clarke, reprinted with alterations in Recollections of Writers, by C. and M. C. Clarke, 1878); Papers of a Critic (C. W. Dilke), 1875; Haydon's Correspondence and Table Talk, 1876; Poetical Works of J. K., arranged and edited with a Memoir by Lord Houghton (Aldine edition), 1876; Letters of John Keats to Fanny Brawne, with Introduction and Notes, by H. B. Forman, 1878 (the first publication of these letters); Poetical Works and other Writings of John Keats, edited, with Notes and Appendices, by hensive work in 4 vols., including all poems, H. B. Forman, 1883 (an elaborate and compreletters, and literary remains previously pub by Severn for the publisher Moxon, after the poet's death, is in the possession of Mr. G. P. Boyce. Another life-sized version in oil from the same type, by Hilton, is in the National Portrait Gallery. A profile drawing by Severn in charcoal is engraved in Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron and his Contemporaries,' 1828, and reproduced in facsimile in Poetical Works, &c., ed. Forman, 1883, vol. iii., frontispiece. A chalk drawing, three-quarters length, by Hilton, was engraved by C. Watt, 1841, and published first by Taylor & Walton as frontispiece to an edition of the 'Poems' dated 1840, and again in Lord Houghton's 'Life,' 2nd edit. 1867, and in 'Poetical Works,' &c., ed. Forman, vol. ii., frontispiece; the original or a replica was lately in the hands of Mr. J. E. Taylor of 20 Palace Gardens. The pen-sketch in profile by Haydon in his 'Journal' for November 1816, intended for his picture of Christ's Entry into Jerusalem,' was reproduced in 'Poetical Works,' &c., ed. Forman, iii. 44. Silhouette, executed in 1818 or 1819; figured in Sharp's 'Life and Letters of Joseph Severn,' p. 34. Of the pencil draw-lished, in many cases collated with the autoing of Keats on his deathbed, done by Severn 28 Jan. 1821, several replicas exist: it was etched by W. Scott in Letters to Fanny Brawne, ed. Forman, 1878, and again in 'Poetical Works,' &c., ed. Forman, vol. iv., frontispiece, and in 'Letters and Poems,' ed. Speed, ii. p. xxxvi. Small full-length portraits in oils were painted after his death by Severn in 1823, and are in the National Portrait Gallery. Á medallion by Girometti, also posthumous, was engraved on wood for an edition of the 'Poems,' 1854; a plaster cast is in the possession of Sir Charles Dilke. An oil-painting by Hilton was in the possession of MissTatlock, Bramfield House, Suffolk. The dates of publication of Keats's writings which appeared during his lifetime are given above. Those which have appeared posthumously are to be found in the Life and Letters by Lord Houghton, and other authorities quoted in the following list. [Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron, &c., by Medwin, 1824; Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries, by Leigh Hunt, 1828; Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats, Galignani, 1829 (includes the first collected edition of Keats's Poems, with a memoir founded on the preceding); Medwin's Life of Shelley, 1847; Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats, edited by Richard Monckton Milnes, 1848 (the first detailed and authoritative account, compiled from information and manuscript material, original and other, furnished principally by Brown, C. C. Clarke, Taylor, Severn, and Jeffrey, including transcripts of the chief part of the poet's correspondence, and autographs or transcripts of most of the poems unpublished during graphs, with the addition of new minor poems, the letters to Fanny Keats, letters by Severn and George Keats, and a reprint of early reviews, biographical notices, &c.); reissue of the same with new matter, 1889, 1901-2, and 1906; Letters and Poems of John Keats, edited by J. G. Speed (an American grandnephew of the poet), 1883; Po-tical Works, edited by F. T. Palgrave (Golden Treasury Series) 1884, by W. T. Arnold (with valuable preface on the sources of K.'s vocabulary and diction), by G. Thorn Drury, with introduction by Robert Bridges (Muses' Library) 1896, by E. de Selincourt 1905, and by W. T. Arnold (Globe edit.) 1907: The Asclepiad, 1884, p. 134 (article by Dr. B. W. Richardson on an Esculapian Poet, John Keats); Life of Keats by w. M. Rossetti, 1887 (bibliography by J. P. Anderson); Keats, by Sidney Colvin (English Men of Letters Series), 1887; Letters of J. K. to his Family and Friends, edited by Sidney Colvin, 1891; manuscript materials used in preparing the two volumes last named, including proceedings in chancery suit, Rawlings . Jennings,' 1805-25, Brown's sketch of Keats's Life, correspondence of Brown, Bailey, and others with Lord Houghton, transcripts of Keats's Letters and Poems by Woodhouse; autographs of the chief part of the Letters to America, and Jeffrey's transcripts of the rest; W. Sharp's Life and Letters of Joseph Severn, 1892.] S. C. (1757-1834), admiral, elder son of the Rev. KEATS, SIR RICHARD GOODWIN Richard Keats, curate of Chalton in Hampshire, afterwards head-master of Blundell's school, Tiverton, and rector of Bideford (d. 1812), was born at Chalton on 16 Jan. 1757 (HARDING, History of Tiverton, vol. ii, bk, iv. pp. 91, 116). He entered the navy in 1770, on board the Bellona, with Captain James Montagu [q. v.], whom he accompanied to the Captain in 1771, when Montagu was promoted to be rear-admiral, and went out as commander-in-chief at Halifax. He then served in the Kingfisher and Mercury sloops with the admiral's son, Captain James Montagu, and in 1776 was moved into the Romney, carrying the flag of Admiral Montagu as commander-in-chief at Newfoundland. In April 1777 he was promoted to be lieutenant of the Ramillies, with Captain Robert Digby [q. v.], and in her took part in the action off Ushant on 27 July 1778. In June 1779 he was moved with Digby to the Prince George, in which ship Prince William Henry, afterwards King William IV, was for upwards of two years midshipman of his watch, and contracted with him an admiring and lifelong friendship. In the Prince George Keats was present at the relief of Gibraltar in January 1780, and again in April 1781. In September 1781 the Prince George went out to North America, and Keats, following Digby to the Lion, was promoted on 18 Jan. 1782 to command the Rhinoceros, fitted as a floating battery for the defence of New York. In May he was transferred to the Bonetta sloop, one of the squadron which captured the Aigle frigate and two smaller vessels on 15 Sept. 1782 [see ELPHINSTONE, GEORGE KEITH, VISCOUNT KEITH]. Keats continued in the Bonetta on the North American station after the peace, and till January 1785, when he returned to England, and the ship was paid off. During the next four years he resided for the most part in France, and on 24 June 1789 was promoted to post rank, at the particular request, it is said, of the Duke of Clarence. In September he was appointed to command the Southampton frigate in the Channel, and the next year was moved into the Niger. In April 1793 he commissioned the London, fitting for the Duke of Clarence's flag. It was afterwards determined that the duke should not hoist his flag, and the London was paid off. In May 1794 Keats was appointed to the Galatea of 36 guns, one of the frigate squadron employed under Sir John Borlase Warren [q. v.] and Sir Edward Pellew [q. v.] on the coast of France, and in June to July 1795 in the disastrous landing of the French royalists at Quiberon. He continued on the same service through 1796, and on 23 Aug. drove the 40-gun frigate Andromaque ashore near the mouth of the Garonne. The pilot, it is said, refused to take the Galatea among the shoals; but Keats, on his own responsibility, followed the French frigate till she struck. The next morning he was joined by the Artois and the Sylph brig, and the wreck of the Andromaque was set on fire. In the mutiny of May 1797 Keats, with several of the other captains, was put on shore; but in June he was appointed to the Boadicea, again for service on the coast of France, and employed for the most part in maintaining a close watch on Brest, and in stopping the coasting trade by which the fleet and arsenal were supplied with stores. In September 1798, when a powerful squadron intended for the invasion of Ireland put to sea, Keats, having no force to stop it, sent the news home with such happy promptitude that Warren, then at Plymouth, was able to intercept it. In writing privately to Warren, he said: 'My fortune sprung and watched the game, which, notwithstanding your present situation, yours will take you to the death of. Keats continued on this difficult and arduous service till 1800, when he was detached by Lord St. Vincent as senior officer off Ferrol, where he had the good fortune to make some rich prizes. In March 1801 he was appointed to the 74-gun ship Superb, in which in June he joined the squadron off Cadiz, under_Sir James Saumarez, afterwards Lord De Saumarez [q. v.] On 5 July, while the Superb was detached off San Lucar, Saumarez received news of a French squadron having anchored at Algeciras, and, without waiting for the Superb, sailed at once in search of the enemy. Keats, understanding that he was purposely left to maintain a watch on Cadiz, remained off that port till the 9th, when the Spanish squadron put to sea, and Keats, preceding it, joined the admiral at Gibraltar. He then first learned of the repulse sustained by Saumarez on the 6th, and was still at Gibraltar, when on the evening of the 12th the allied French and Spanish squadron, now consisting of ten sail of the line, got under way from Algeciras. Saumarez weighed and followed, though with only five sail of the line. In the darkness of the night and a fresh easterly wind his ships were a good deal scattered, the enemy was lost sight of, and about nine o'clock Saumarez, hailing the Superb, directed Keats to make sail ahead and attack the enemy's rear so as to delay them. The result is without a parallel in naval history. As the Superb set her courses and top-gallant sails, going between eleven and twelve knots, she was soon out of sight of the English ships, and about half-past eleven ranged abreast of a three-decker, known afterwards to be the Real Carlos of 112 guns. She shortened sail, and fired her port broadside into what she knew must be an enemy. Many of her shot |