ability, though not of a plodding kind; on the contrary, he was an active, spirited little fellow, desirous of rivalling hereafter the feats of a naval relative of his, who had served with Duncan at Camperdown. He learned rapidly, but was not industrious till a desire seized him to win the first prizes of the school, when he suddenly devoted himself to study with an ardour which threatened to injure his health. If he walked it was with a book; and play he entirely abjured. His resolute perseverance was crowned with success. He won the prizes, and probably also, at the same time, gained the love and habit of study.

During the latter part of his residence under Mr. Clarke's care he read and translated a great deal of Virgil; but he never learned Greek, and knew Homer only in the words of Chapman. The future poet, whose lines breathed the very spirit of the old classic myths, had gained his knowledge of them from Tooke and Lemprière.

Keats lost both parents while still in his early boyhood; thus his whole life seems to have been chequered by sorrows. His mother died of consumption when he was about fifteen, and he is said to have felt the loss deeply and bitterly. He left school soon after, and was apprenticed to a surgeon at Edmonton, a man of some eminence, named Hammond.

His father had left eight thousand pounds, to be equally divided between his four children; the elder of whom, after the were left orphans, was taken into the office of Mr. Abbey, their guardian, a London merchant. The distance between Edmonton and Enfield permitted Keats, after he was apprenticed, to continue his intimacy with the Clarkes, in whose cultivated society his genius grew and developed. It was to them also that he was indebted for the loan of books. One day his friend Charles lent him, at his request, Spenser's "Fairy Queen ;" and that wonderful poem had on him the same effect it had produced on Cowley two

centuries before; it awoke the dormant spirit of poetry, and his first production was an imitation of Spenser. His first published poem was, however, an "Epistle" addressed to his friend. Mr. Felton Mathew, to whom he had been indebted for an introduction into some pleasant society.

At the termination of his apprenticeship he went to London, to walk the hospitals. Here he lived in the Poultry, and was intro duced by Mr. Clarke to some of the literary celebrities of the day-to Leigh Hunt, Shelley, Haydon, Goodwin, and Mr. Ollier, the publisher and poet.

About this time Leigh Hunt was released from a two years' imprisonment, which he had undergone as the punishment of a libel on the Prince Regent, whom he had described in his paper, the Examiner, as an "Adonis of Fifty." The extreme severity with which this personality was punished roused much indignation amongst literary men. The period was one in which rival politicians used furious invective against each other; and though Hunt cannot be acquitted of bad taste-setting loyalty entirely aside he did but act after the ill fashion of his time. Keats was full of generous indignation on his behalf, and on his release from prison addressed to him a sonnet of eager sympathy. also dedicated to him the first volume of his poems, which Mr. Ollier published entirely on account of the admiration he felt for them. Leigh Hunt was, in fact, the great encourager and instigator of Keats in his poetical labours; and it is said that we owe "Endymion" and the "Revolt of Islam" to a friendly rivalry between Shelley and the young poet.

He

Lord Houghton relates, as an instance of the facility of Keats in composition, that "he was engaged with a lively circle of friends when the last proof-sheet" [of his Poems] "was brought in, and he was requested by the printer to send the Dedication directly, if he intended to have one. He went to a side table,

and while all around were noisily conversing, he sat down and wrote the sonnet, beginning—

"Glory and loveliness have passed away."

This volume of poems, which appeared in 1817, fell unnoticed from the press, and Keats, ascribing his ill success to want of energy in his publisher, rather ungratefully, we think, quarrelled with Mr. Ollier.

Soon after, he sent two sonnets to the Examiner, on first seeing the Elgin Marbles.

Meantime he studied at least fairly well for his profession, as he passed his medical examination successfully. But when he engaged in the practice of medicine, the poet found that he could never be an efficient surgeon. He therefore conscientiously gave up his profession; thus ruining his prospects in a worldly sense, and throwing himself into a state of poverty, and of dependence on the precarious resources of literature, which Scott so aptly described as "a good stick, but a bad crutch.”

His health also was delicate, and by the counsel of Haydon he went to recruit it, and to study uninterruptedly in the Isle of Wight. How he must have luxuriated in the beauty of the lovely little island after living in the Poultry! One understands at once how the line, which has become proverbial, "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever," almost necessarily opened "Endymion," which he began at this time. It does seem as if a poem, so redolent of nature, must have been written amidst its sweetest sights and sounds; and beautiful as the Isle of Wight still is, it was much more so in 1817, when its lovely shades and rocks were less the haunt of sea-side visitors. Towards the close of writing this poem, Keats also beheld the sterner beauties of Scotland, in which he made a tour. Very great anxieties delayed the completion of the poem. His brother Tom was seriously ill :

George had left his employment with the Abbeys, and the poet himself was weak and suffering. But he was cheered by the kindness and liberality of his publishers, Messrs. Taylor and Hessey, who had consented to bring out his poem, and were warm and practical friends. Endymion" was finished at Burford Bridge, in the autumn of 1817, and published in the spring of 1818. In Coleridge's "Table Talk," p. 184, we meet this remarkable account of Keats :

"A loose, slack, not well-dressed youth met Mr. myself in a lane near Highgate.

so.

and

knew him, and spoke.

It was Keats. He was introduced to me, and stayed a minute or After he had left us a little way, he came back, and said, 'Let me carry away the memory, Coleridge, of having pressed your hand.'

"There is death in that hand,' I said to

when Keats was gone. Yet this was, I believe, before the consumption. showed itself distinctly."

"Endymion" was very severely reviewed by Gifford in the Quarterly, and there spread a rumour after the young poet's death, that the unfairness and harshness of the article had induced the illness of which Keats died. This was a delusion; but there can be no doubt that so sensitive a man must have been much hurt by it. The review in Blackwood was disgraceful to that magazine. He was desired in it "to go back to his gallipots!" and told that it was a wiser and better thing to be a starved

apothecary than a starved poet !

In our day, such a view of

poetry and such vulgar insolence are almost incredible.

Byron and Shelley both believed in the fatal effect of the Quarterly Review on Keats. But Lord Houghton tells us that they were mistaken. In his full and interesting Memoir of the poet he gives us a letter of Keats, in which is this remarkable passage :"Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose

love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works. My own domestic criticism has given me pain with out comparison beyond what Blackwood or the Quarterly could possibly inflict; and also when I feel I am right, no external praise can give me such a glow as my own solitary perception and ratification of what is fine.” A man who could write thus, would scarcely be killed by a review. It injured only the public, who were thus deprived of the remainder of "Hyperion." (See advertisement to first edition, p. 237 of this volume.)

In this year, Keats had the sorrow of watching by the dying bed of his brother Tom; and nearly at the same time he met the lady who was his first and last love. She was an East Indian, the cousin of some friend of his-a woman of great personal attractions and talent.

His brother George, who had married and emigrated to America, returned to England for a short visit, and received his share (near 1000l.) of what poor Tom left. John, the poet, received only 2007. His education had been expensive, and he had made very little by his poems, consequently he could have no hope of marrying yet; and his pain and disappointment at the result of his literary efforts (however bravely he bore it) must have been great. His vain and passionate love, and the loss of his favourite brother, also preyed on his strength.

One evening, on returning to his house late outside a stagecoach, he caught a severe chill, and was persuaded to go to bed. He had hardly lain down before he coughed slightly, and said, "There is blood in my mouth; bring me the candle; let me see this blood." He gazed at it, and then said, very calmly, "I know the colour of that blood—it is arterial blood—I cannot be deceived in that colour. That drop is my death-warrant. I must die."*

"Life and Letters of Keats," by Lord Houghton, p. 289.