The streamlet there is swelling-with added waters strong,
It mocks at ev'ry fetter-and gaily bounds along.

The rustic views with sorrow-the loss of all his labours,

Poor man! which is his own field--and which can be his neighbour's?
The birds, no longer singing-sit trembling in their nest
Or seek 'mid human dwellings-a doubtful place of rest.
The timid flocks are trembling-within the sheepfold pent,
And with their timid bleating-are craving nourishment.
The snow goes on increasing-now right and left 'tis cast,
The winter north-wind twirls it-in circles with his blast.
The clouds are heap'd like mountains-the sky begins to quail
And quickly folds about it-a darker, thicker veil.

The snow may fall, Dorilla-while we the goblet quaff,
And light and gaily jesting-at winter's rigour laugh.
Yes, let us drink and sing, love-for Zephyr soon will bring,
The flow'ry month of April-upon his gentle wing.

SCIENCE.

In search of truth, to science-one day I turn'd my mind,
And thought for all my evils-a remedy to find.

Oh, what a vain illusion-what hours of useless pain,

I gladly seek my verses-and joyous sports again.

What, does not life afford us-troubles and cares enough,

That we should swell their number-with such perplexing stuff.
I bind myself to Bacchus-he's always kind and good,
True wisdom by the sages-is little understood.

What matter if the sun, love-is set like diamond bright,
In yonder sky, Dorilla?—I care but for his light.

They say the moon is peopled-well, peopled let it be,
With living folks by thousands-no harm they'll do to me.
Away, with looks of history-let Alexander go
And plant victorious banners—where Ganges' waters flow.
'Tis nought to us, Dorilla-our flocks at will may feed,
One half of this small valley-is, surely, all they need.

The study of the law, though-" A goblet without fail, The name of that same goddess-has made my spirits quail. The sapient folks who study-a thousand cares annoy, Small sleep, a store of silence-much sadness, little joy. What is their prize? Why, doubts, love-and these beget a string Of other doubts in turn, love-which other studies bring.

'Tis thus they pass their life, love-a gay life that must be, A life of hate and squabble-with folks that ne'er agree.

So fill the cup, Dorilla-while I have store of wine,

These songs thall ne'er be ended—these joyous songs of mine.

THE TURTLE-DOVE.

No more the silent forest-disturb, thou, gentle dove,
By telling doleful stories-about thy hapless love.
Cease, cease, that dismal cooing-and seek the open sky,
'Tis folly in thy sadness-from other birds to fly.
No use is in thy wailing-death's gloomy gates enclose
The lover, whom thou mournest-he cannot hear thy woes.

Would'st flatter him with sorrow? Ah, those that are asleep,
Within the tomb so chilly-care nought for those who weep.
No, no-there fate confines them-with cruel, constant care,
The only use of sighing-is just to shake the air.

Vain are thy lamentations-whither would'st take thy flight?
Why seek these shades so gloomy?—why shun the blessed light?
Return to joy, thou sad one-banish this widow's grief,
And in some other passion-seek for a sure relief.

Clouds from thine eye removing-adorn thy gentle neck,
Let plumage, now neglected-thy form with radiance deck.
Learn that a happy passion-the heart of grief beguiles,
And changes grief and mourning-to sunny laughs and smiles.

THE BUTTERFLY.

Whence is it that thou comest-thou messenger of joy,
Enlivening all the valleys-thou sportive butterfly?

How is't no flow'r can tempt thee-from wandering to rest,
Tempt thee to sip her perfume-couch'd on her purple breast?
I gaze on thee with envy--I watch thy fickle flight

From flower to flower thou boundest-more rapidly than sight.
Thou gaily hov'rest round them-caressing one and all,
Still seeking, shunning, touching-and kissing great and small.
And then what gallant raiment-thy gaudy wing displays
When freely 'tis extended-against the sun's bright rays.
Thy neck with pride is swelling- thy feathers all are spread
Thou curl'st thy horns and bendest-the crest upon thy head.
A gorgeous play of colours !-no purple is so fine

How pearl, and gold, and azure-to paint thy form combine!
The sun, with changing radiance-thy plumage loves to grace,
Charmed when he gazes on thee-to see his own bright face.
The zephyrs ever court thee-the roses all delight
Their tender leaves to open-thy love they would invite.
But thou art ever restless-art ever coy and free,
Their bosom and their fragrance-in vain they offer thee.
Thou light and daring rover-thou toyest with them all;
They all alike amuse thee-but none thy heart enthral.
The charming bell thou kissest-now wandering thou art seen,
Courting the coronilla-or love-lorn jessamine.

The pink thou lightly stirrest-thou seek'st carnations fair,
And from the lily's bosom-thou pluckest a treasure rare.
Then to some brook thou fliest-and in its waters clear,
While on a light bough balanced-thou seest thy form appear.
The sportive wind awakes now-the bough is wavering
Now to the streamlet stooping-it wets thy painted wing.
So off again thou fliest-scared from thy resting-place
Seeking the open valley-which flowers of April grace.
Oh happy, happy wand'rer-thou drinkest morning's smile,
Art able with fresh pleasures-each moment to beguile.
Thou brightest gem of summer-that in thy fickle flight
Across the flowery meadow-find'st ever new delight.
Alas, alas, still greater-my happiness would be
If Lisis were but like thee-in thy inconstancy.

JOHN KEATS.*

It was the misfortune of Keats as a poet, to be either extravagantly praised or unmercifully condemned. The former had its origin in 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.

An interval of more than a quarter of a century has fully entitled a brother poet, to come forward as the biographer of John Keats to dispel alike illusions and prejudices. Keats, it is now acknowledged, was a true poet; he had the creative fancy, the ideal enthusiam," and the nervous susceptibility of the poetical temperament. If, it has been justly remarked, 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, and 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."

"With the works of Keats," says Mr. Monckton Milnes, "I had always felt a strong sympathy, accompanied by a ceaseless wonder at their wealth of diction and imagery, which was increased by the consciousness that all that he had produced was rather a promise than an accomplishment; he had ever seemed to me to have done more at school in poetry, than any man who had made it the object of a mature life. This adolescent character had given me an especial interest in the moral history of this Marcellus of the empire of English song, and when my imagination measured what he might have become by what he was, it stood astounded at the result."

The presenting to public view the true picture of a man of genius, without either wounding the feelings of mourning friends or detracting from his existing reputation, obliged his biographer to consider what course was most likely to raise the character of Keats in the estimation of those most capable of judging it.

I saw (says Mr. Milnes) how grievously he was misapprehended even by many who wished to see in him only what was best. I perceived that many, who heartily admired his poetry, looked on it as the production of a wayward, erratic, genius, self-indulgent in conceits, disrespectful of the rules and limitations of Art, not only unlearned, but careless of knowledge, not only exaggerated but despising proportion. I knew that his moral disposition was assumed to be weak, gluttonous of sensual excitement, querulous of severe judgment, fantastical in its tastes, and lackadaisical in its sentiments. He was all but universally believed to have been killed by a stupid, savage, article in a review, and to the compassion generated by his untoward fate he was held to owe a certain personal interest, which his poetic reputation hardly justified.

When, then, I found, from the undeniable documentary evidence of his inmost life, that nothing could be further from the truth than this opinion, it seemed to me, that a portrait, so dissimilar from the general assumption, would

Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats. Edited by Richard Monckton Milnes. 2 vols. Edward Moxon.

hardly obtain credit, and might rather look like the production of a paradoxical partiality than the result of conscientious inquiry. I had to show that Keats, in his intellectual character, reverenced simplicity and truth above all things, and abhorred whatever was merely strange and strong- that he was ever learning and ever growing more conscious of his own ignorance,-that his models were always the highest and the purest, and that his earnestness in aiming at their excellence, was only equal to the humble estimation of his own efforts that his poetical course was one of distinct and positive progress, exhibiting a self-command and self-direction which enabled him to understand and avoid the faults even of the writers he was most naturally inclined to esteem, and to liberate himself at once, not only from the fetters of literary partizanship, but even from the subtler influences and associations of the accidental literary spirit of his own time. I had also to exhibit the moral peculiarities of Keats as the effects of a strong will, passionate temperament, indomitable courage, and a somewhat contemptuous disregard of other men-to represent him as unflinchingly meeting all criticism of his writings, and caring for the Article, which was supposed to have had such homicidal success, just so far as it was an evidence of the little power he had as yet acquired over the sympathies of mankind, and no more. I had to make prominent the brave front he opposed to poverty and pain-to show, how love of pleasure was in him continually subordinate to higher aspirations, notwithstanding the sharp zest of enjoyment which his mercurial nature conferred on him; and above all, I had to illustrate how little he abused his full possession of that imaginative faculty, which enables the poet to vivify the phantoms of the hour, and to purify the objects of sense, beyond what the moralist may sanction, or the mere practical man can understand.

To effect these objects, Mr. Milnes deemed it best to act simply as editor of the Life which was, as it were, already written. Few of the remains of the poet had escaped the affectionate care of Mr. Charles Brown, a retired Russia merchant, at once a devoted friend and protector of John Keats. Even the preliminary arrangements for giving these documents to the world, were actually in progress, when the accident of attending a meeting on the subject of the Colonisation of New Zealand altered all Mr. Brown's plans, and led to his collections of Keats's writings, accompanied with a biographical notice, being transferred to their present editor.

John Keats was born in London, October 29th, 1795 (not 1796, as generally recorded), in the house of his grandfather, the proprietor of large livery stables on the Pavement in Moorfields. He was a seventh month child, but his constitution is said not to have exhibited any peculiar signs of debility during childhood. In due time he was sent with his brother George, older than himself, and Thomas, younger, to a school at Enfield, then in high repute. It was not, however, till after he had been some time at school, that his intellectual ambition suddenly developed itself: he determined to carry off all the first prizes in literature, and he succeeded. The quantity of translations which he made during the last years of his stay at Enfield is said to have been surprising.

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On the death of their remaining parent, the young Keatses were consigned to the guardianship of Mr. Abbey, a merchant. John was apprenticed for five years to Mr. Hammond, a surgeon at Edmonton. At this time his friend and literary counsellor was Charles Cowden Clarke, in whom the poet found a companion capable of sympathising with all his highest tastes and finest sentiments, and his powers gradually expanded in so genial an atmosphere. genial an atmosphere. Spenser, Chaucer, and Byron were his especial favourites, and the strange tragedy of the fate of Chat

terton, the "Marvellous Boy, the sleepless soul that perished in its pride," so disgraceful to the age in which it occurred and so awful a warning to all others of the cruel evils, which the mere apathy and ignorance of the world can inflict on genius, is a frequent subject of allusion and interest in his letters and poems written at this time.

Upon removing to London, professedly with the view to walk the hospitals, one of his acquaintance, and one who had much influence upon his subsequent career, was Mr. Leigh Hunt, at that time alike eminent for his poetical originality and his political persecutions. The heart of Keats leaped towards the persecuted poet in human and poetic brotherhood, and the earnest Sonnet on the day he left his prison riveted the connexion. Through Leigh Hunt he also became intimate with Hazlitt, Shelley, Haydon, and Godwin, with Mr. Basil Montague and his distinguished family, and with Mr. Charles Ollier, a young publisher, himself a poet, who, out of sheer admiration, offered to publish a volume of his productions. This little work, the beloved first-born of so great a genius, scarcely touched the public attention. It is not surprising, therefore, that Keats attributed his want of success to the favourite scapegoat of unhappy authors-an inactive publisher-and incurred the additional affliction of a breach of his friendship with Mr. Ollier.

In the previous autumn Keats was in the habit of frequently passing the evening in his friend's painting-room, where many men of genius were wont to meet, and, sitting before some picture on which he was engaged, criticise, argue, defend, attack, and quote their favourite writers. Keats used to call it "Making us wings for the night." The morning after one of these innocent and happy symposia, Haydon received a note inclosing the picturesque sonnet

Great Spirits now on earth are sojourning, &c.

Keats adding, that the preceding evening had wrought him up, and he could not forbear sending it. Haydon in his acknowledgment, suggested the omission of part of it; and also mentioned that he would forward it to Wordsworth; he received this reply :

MY DEAR SIR,-Your letter has filled me with a proud pleasure, and shall be kept by me as a stimulus to exertion. I begin to fix my eyes on an horizon. My feelings entirely fall in with yours with regard to the ellipsis, and I glory in it. The idea of your sending it to Wordsworth puts me out of breath-you know with what reverence I would send my well wishes to him, Yours sincerely,

JOHN KEATS.

It should here be remembered that Wordsworth was not then what he is now, that he was confounded with much that was thought ridiculous and unmanly in the new school, and that it was something for so young a student to have torn away the veil of prejudice then hanging over that now-honoured and to have proclaimed his reverence in such earnest words, while so many men of letters could only scorn or jeer.

name,

The little congeniality of the profession to which Keats had been brought up, and the career opened to him by his literary success and connexions, became every day more manifest. He was soon convinced

that he was unfit for the line of life on which he had expended so many years of his study, and a considerable part of his property, and he records in a letter to Reynolds, how he first repaired to the country in the pursuit of health, and, by Haydon's advice, to brace his powers by undistracted study.