My belief is that such power they would not have failed to gain. From the height to which the genius of Keats arose during the brief period between its first effervescence and its exhaustion,--from the glowing humanity of his own nature, and the completeness with which, by the testimony alike of his own consciousness and his friends" experience, he was accustomed to live in the lives of others,--from the gleams of true greatness of mind which shine not only in his poetry, but equally amid the gossip and pleasantry of his familiar letters,--from all our evidences, in a word, as to what he was as well as from what he did,--I think it probable that by power, as well as by temperament and aim, he was the most Shaksperean spirit that has lived since Shakspere; the true Marcellus, as his first biographer has called him, of the realm of English song; and that in his premature death our literature has sustained its greatest loss. Something like this, it would seem, is also the opinion of his foremost now living successors, as Lord Tennyson, Mr Browning, Mr Matthew Arnold. Others have formed a different judgment: but among those unfortunate guests at the banquet of life, the poets called away before their time, who can really adjudge the honours that would have been due had they remained? In a final estimate of any writer"s work, we must take into account not what he might have done, but only what he did. And in the work actually left by Keats, the master-chord of humanity, we shall admit, had not yet been struck with fulness. When we sum up in our minds the total effect of his poetry, we can think, indeed, of the pathos of _Isabella_, but of that alone, as equally powerful in its kind with the nature-magic of the _Hymn to Pan_ and the _Ode to a Nightingale_, with the glow of romance colour in _St Agnes" Eve_, the weirdness of romance sentiment in _La Belle Dame Sans Merci_, the conflict of elemental force with fate in _Hyperion_, the revelations of the soul of ancient life and art in the _Ode on a Grecian Urn_ and the fragment of an _Ode to Maia_.
It remains to glance at the influence exercised by Keats on the poets who have come after him. In two ways chiefly, I should say, has that influence been operative. First on the subject-matter of poetry, in kindling and informing in other souls the poetic love of nature for her own sake, and also, in equal degrees, the love both of cla.s.sic fable and of romance. And secondly on its form, in setting before poets a certain standard of execution--a standard not of technical correctness, for which Keats never cared sufficiently, but of that quality to which he himself refers when he speaks of "loading every rift of a subject with ore." We may define it as the endeavour after a continual positive poetic richness and felicity of phrase. A typical instance is to be found in the lines already quoted that tell us of the trembling hopes of Madeline,--
"But to her heart her heart was voluble, Paining with eloquence her balmy side."
The beauty of such a phrase is no mere beauty of fancy or of sound; it is the beauty which resides in truth only, every word being chosen and every touch laid by a vital exercise of the imagination. The first line describes in perfection the duality of consciousness in such a moment of suspense, the second makes us realise at once the physical effect of the emotion on the heroine, and the spell of her imagined presence on ourselves. In so far as Keats has taught other poets really to write like this, his influence has been wholly to their advantage,--but not so when for this quality they give us only its simulacrum, in the shape of brilliancies merely verbal and a glitter not of gold. The first considerable writer among Keats"s successors on whom his example took effect was Hood, in the fairy and romance poems of his earlier time. The dominant poet of the Victorian age, Tennyson, has been profoundly influenced by it both in the form and the matter of his art, and is indeed the heir of Keats and of Wordsworth in almost equal degrees. After or together with Coleridge, Keats has also contributed most, among English writers, to the poetic method and ideals of Rossetti and his group.
Himself, as we have seen, alike by gifts and training a true child of the Elizabethans, he thus stands in the most direct line of descent between the great poets of that age and those, whom posterity has yet to estimate, of our own day.
Such, I think, is Keats"s historic place in English literature. What his place was in the hearts of those who best knew him, we have just learned from their own lips. The days of the years of his life were few and evil, but above his grave the double aureole of poetry and friendship shines immortally.
THE END.
APPENDIX.
p. 2, note 1. As to the exact date of Keats"s birth the evidence is conflicting. He was christened at St Botolph"s, Bishopsgate, Dec. 18, 1795, and on the margin of the entry in the baptismal register (which I am informed is in the handwriting of the rector, Dr Conybeare) is a note stating that he was born Oct. 31. The date is given accordingly without question by Mr Buxton Forman (_Works_, vol. I. p. xlviii). But it seems certain that Keats himself and his family believed his birthday to have been Oct. 29. Writing on that day in 1818, Keats says, "this is my birthday." Brown (in Houghton MSS.) gives the same day, but only as on hearsay from a lady to whom Keats had mentioned it, and with a mistake as to the year. Lastly, in the proceedings in _Rawlings v. Jennings_, Oct. 29 is again given as his birthday, in the affidavit of one Anne Birch, who swears that she knew his father and mother intimately. The entry in the St Botolph"s register is probably the authority to be preferred.--Lower Moorfields was the s.p.a.ce now occupied by Finsbury Circus and the London Inst.i.tution, together with the east side of Finsbury Pavement.--The births of the younger brothers are in my text given rightly for the first time, from the parish registers of St Leonard"s, Sh.o.r.editch; where they were all three christened in a batch on Sept. 24, 1801. The family were at that date living in Craven Street.
p. 2, note 2. Brown (Houghton MSS.) says simply that Thomas Keats was a "native of Devon." His daughter, Mrs Llanos, tells me she remembers hearing as a child that he came from the Land"s End. Persons of the name are still living in Plymouth.
p. 5, note 2. The total amount of the funds paid into Court by the executors under Mr Jennings"s will (see Preface, p. viii) was 13160.
19_s._ 5_d._
p. 11, note 1, and p. 70, note 1. Of the total last mentioned, there came to the widow first and last (partly by reversion from other legatees who predeceased her) sums amounting to 9343. 2_s._ In the Chancery proceedings the precise terms of the deed executed by Mrs Jennings for the benefit of her grandchildren are not quoted, but only its general purport; whence it appears that the sum she made over to Messrs Sandell and Abbey in trust for them amounted approximately to 8000, and included all the reversions fallen or still to fall in as above mentioned. The balance it is to be presumed she retained for her own support (she being then 74).
p. 17, note 1. The following letter written by Mr Abbey to Mr Taylor the publisher, under April 18, 1821, soon after the news of Keats"s death reached England, speaks for itself. The letter is from Woodhouse MSS. B.
"Sir,
I beg pardon for not replying to your favor of the 30th ult.
respecting the late Mr Jno. Keats.
I am obliged by your note, but he having withdrawn himself from my controul, and acted contrary to my advice, I cannot interfere with his affairs.
I am, Sir, Yr. mo. Hble St., RICHD. ABBEY."
p. 34, note 1. The difficulty of determining the exact date and place of Keats"s first introduction to Hunt arises as follows.--Cowden Clarke states plainly and circ.u.mstantially that it took place in Leigh Hunt"s cottage at Hampstead. Hunt in his _Autobiography_ says it was "in the spring of the year 1816" that he went to live at Hampstead in the cottage in question. Putting these two statements together, we get the result stated as probable in the text. But on the other hand there is the strongly Huntian character of Keats"s _Epistle_ to G. F. Mathew, dated November 1815, which would seem to indicate an earlier acquaintance (see p. 31). Unluckily Leigh Hunt himself has darkened counsel on the point by a paragraph inserted in the last edition of his _Autobiography_, as follows:--(Pref. no. 7, p. 257) "It was not at Hampstead that I first saw Keats. It was at York Buildings, in the New Road (No. 8), where I wrote part of the _Indicator_, and he resided with me while in Mortimer Street, Kentish Town (No. 13), where I concluded it. I mention this for the curious in such things, among whom I am one." The student must not be misled by this remark of Hunt"s, which is evidently only due to a slip of memory. It is quite true that Keats lived with Hunt in Mortimer Street, Kentish Town, during part of July and August 1820 (see page 197): and that before moving to that address Hunt had lived for more than a year (from the autumn of 1818 to the spring of 1820) at 8, New Road. But that Keats was intimate with him two years and a half earlier, when he was in fact living not in London at all but at the Vale of Health, is abundantly certain.
p. 37, note 1. Cowden Clarke tells how Keats once calling and finding him fallen asleep over Chaucer, wrote on the blank s.p.a.ce at the end of the _Floure and the Leafe_ the sonnet beginning "This pleasant tale is like a little copse." Reynolds on reading it addressed to Keats the following sonnet of his own, which is unpublished (Houghton MSS.), and has a certain biographical interest. It is dated Feb. 27, 1817.
"Thy thoughts, dear Keats, are like fresh-gathered leaves, Or white flowers pluck"d from some sweet lily bed; They set the heart a-breathing, and they shed The glow of meadows, mornings, and spring eves, O"er the excited soul.--Thy genius weaves Songs that shall make the age be nature-led, And win that coronal for thy young head Which time"s strange [qy. strong?] hand of freshness ne"er bereaves.
Go on! and keep thee to thine own green way, Singing in that same key which Chaucer sung; Be thou companion of the summer day, Roaming the fields and older woods among:-- So shall thy muse be ever in her May, And thy luxuriant spirit ever young."
p. 45, note 1. Woodhouse MSS. A. contains the text of the first draft in question, with some preliminary words of Woodhouse as follows:--
"The lines at p. 36 of Keats"s printed poems are altered from a copy of verses written by K. at the request of his brother George, and by the latter sent as a valentine to the lady. The following is a copy of the lines as originally written:--
Hadst thou lived in days of old, Oh what wonders had been told Of thy lively dimpled face, And thy footsteps full of grace: Of thy hair"s luxurious darkling, Of thine eyes" expressive sparkling.
And thy voice"s swelling rapture, Taking hearts a ready capture.
Oh! if thou hadst breathed then, Thou hadst made the Muses ten.
Could"st thou wish for lineage higher Than twin sister of Thalia?
At least for ever, ever more Will I call the Graces four."
Here follow lines 41--68 of the poem as afterwards published: and in conclusion:--
"Ah me! whither shall I flee?
Thou hast metamorphosed me.
Do not let me sigh and pine, Prythee be my valentine.
14 Feby. 1816."
p. 47, note 1. Mrs Procter"s memory, however, betrayed her when she informed Lord Houghton that the colour of Keats"s eyes was blue. That they were pure hazel-brown is certain, from the evidence alike of C. C. Clarke, of George Keats and his wife (as transmitted by their daughter Mrs Speed to her son), and from the various portraits painted from life and posthumously by Severn and Hilton. Mrs Procter calls his hair auburn: Mrs Speed had heard from her father and mother that it was "golden red," which may mean nearly the same thing: I have seen a lock in the possession of Sir Charles Dilke, and should rather call it a warm brown, likely to have looked gold in the lights. Bailey in Houghton MSS. speaks of it as extraordinarily thick and curly, and says that to lay your hand on his head was like laying it "on the rich plumage of a bird." An evidently misleading description of Keats"s general aspect is that of Coleridge when he describes him as a "loose, slack, not well-dressed youth." The sage must have been drawing from his inward eye: those intimate with Keats being of one accord as to his appearance of trim strength and "fine compactness of person." Coleridge"s further mention of his hand as shrunken and old-looking seems exact.
p. 78, note 1. The isolated expressions of Keats on this subject, which alone have been hitherto published, have exposed him somewhat unjustly to the charge of petulance and morbid suspicion. Fairness seems to require that the whole pa.s.sage in which he deals with it should be given. The pa.s.sage occurs in a letter to Bailey written from Hampstead and dated Oct. 8, 1817, of which only a fragment was printed by Lord Houghton, and after him by Mr Buxton Forman (_Works_, vol. III. p. 82, no. xvi.).
"I went to Hunt"s and Haydon"s who live now neighbours.--Sh.e.l.ley was there--I know nothing about anything in this part of the world--every Body seems at Loggerheads. There"s Hunt infatuated--there"s Haydon"s picture in statu quo--There"s Hunt walks up and down his painting-room criticizing every head most unmercifully--There"s Horace Smith tired of Hunt--"The Web of our life is of mingled yarn."... I am quite disgusted with literary men, and will never know another except Wordsworth--no not even Byron.
Here is an instance of the friendship of such. Haydon and Hunt have known each other many years--now they live, pour ainsi dire, jealous neighbours.
Haydon says to me, Keats, don"t show your lines to Hunt on any account, or he will have done half for you--so it appears Hunt wishes it to be thought. When he met Reynolds in the Theatre, John told him I was getting on to the completion of 4000 lines--Ah! says Hunt, had it not been for me they would have been 7000! If he will say this to Reynolds, what would he to other people? Haydon received a Letter a little while back on the subject from some Lady, which contains a caution to me, thro" him, on this subject. Now is not all this a most paultry thing to think about?"
p. 83, note 1. See Haydon, _Autobiography_, vol. I. pp. 384-5. The letter containing Keats"s account of the same entertainment was printed for the first time by Speed, _Works_, vol. I. p. i. no. 1, where it is dated merely "Featherstone Buildings, Monday." (At Featherstone Buildings lived the family of Charles Wells.) In Houghton MSS. I find a transcript of the same letter in the hand of Mr Coventry Patmore, with a note in Lord Houghton"s hand: "These letters I did not print. R. M. M." In the transcript is added in a parenthesis after the weekday the date 5 April, 1818: but this is a mistake; the 5th of April in that year was not a Monday: and the contents of Keats"s letter itself, as well as a comparison with Haydon"s words in his _Autobiography_, prove beyond question that it was written on Monday, the 5th of January.
p. 87, note 1. Similar expressions about the Devonshire weather occur in nearly all Keats"s letters written thence in the course of March and April. The letter to Bailey containing the sentences quoted in my text is wrongly printed both by Lord Houghton and Mr Forman under date Sept.
1818. I find the same date given between brackets at the head of the same letter as transcribed in Woodhouse MSS. B., proving that an error was early made either in docketing or copying it. The contents of the letter leave no doubt as to its real date. The sentences quoted prove it to have been written not in autumn but in spring. It contains Keats"s reasons both for going down to join his brother Tom at Teignmouth, and for failing to visit Bailey at Oxford on the way: now in September Keats was not at Teignmouth at all, and Bailey had left Oxford for good, and was living at his curacy in c.u.mberland (see p. 122). Moreover there is an allusion by Keats himself to this letter in another which he wrote the next day to Reynolds, whereby its true date can be fixed with precision as Friday, March 13.
p. 112, note 1. The following unpublished letter of Keats to Mr Taylor (from Woodhouse MSS. B.) has a certain interest, both in itself and as fixing the date of his departure for the North:--
"Sunday evening,
"My dear Taylor,
I am sorry I have not had time to call and wish you health till my return. Really I have been hard run these last three days. However, au revoir, G.o.d keep us all well! I start tomorrow Morning. My brother Tom will I am afraid be lonely. I can scarcely ask the loan of books for him, since I still keep those you lent me a year ago. If I am overweening, you will I know be indulgent. Therefore when you shall write, do send him some you think will be most amusing--he will be careful in returning them. Let him have one of my books bound. I am ashamed to catalogue these messages. There is but one more, which ought to go for nothing as there is a lady concerned. I promised Mrs Reynolds one of my books bound. As I cannot write in it let the opposite" [a leaf with the name and "from the author," notes Woodhouse] "be pasted in "prythee. Remember me to Percy St.--Tell Hilton that one gratification on my return will be to find him engaged on a history piece to his own content. And tell Dewint I shall become a disputant on the landscape. Bow for me very genteely to Mrs D. or she will not admit your diploma. Remember me to Hessey, saying I hope he"ll _Carey_ his point. I would not forget Woodhouse. Adieu!
Your sincere friend, JOHN O"GROTS.