worth than in that of any other poet I would wish what I have said to serve merely as an "introduction" to such study. On an earlier occasion I spoke of the ode on "Intimations of Immortality." It is the one work of Wordsworth on which all comments and epithets are more than ever unavailing. If it awakens a sympathy in the reader, then it probably becomes and remains for him absolutely priceless as a revelation (no mere statement) of his own deepest beliefs.

In conclusion, I must mention the sonnets-some of them perhaps the finest sonnets in the English language. Of these one might select as superlatively beautiful-as bright particular stars amid the constellation—the sonnet composed upon Westminster Bridge; that addressed to Sleep, beginning with the line, "A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by;" one "On a picture ;" and lastly, the indescribably lovely lines descriptive of evening, the music of which shall not be marred by any further words of mine :

"It is a beauteous evening calm and free ;
The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven is on the sea:
Listen! The mighty being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder everlastingly."

R

CHAPTER VIII.

KEATS.

IT will probably be remembered how Rousseau adopted as his guide in life what he called "Sensibility," and how in his case, and on a more terrible scale in the French Revolution, passion - what Carlyle calls the “daemonic" part of man-became supreme, and the results were most lamentable.

It may also be remembered how, when we considered the nature of poetry, there seemed to be reasons for affirming, in opposition to some great authorities, that Taste is not the sole arbiter of art, and that the object of art is not merely the production of the beautiful. Indeed it appeared that if we accepted these definitions, we should be forced also to accept Plato's verdict, and banish poetry as a thing not only useless but injurious.

Poetry if we have appealed to any purpose against this verdict-and not only poetry but all art, is capable of something far other than the mere production of beauty for the object of satisfying our taste. It is creative, and the reality that it creates exists as a reality by virtue of the meaning, or idea,

that it brings. Of this meaning—that is, of the reality and value of the creation-the supreme arbiter is our higher Reason, by which we recognize the idea as true, and neither our Understanding nor our Taste can reverse its judgment, unless they are grossly outraged.

The mere production of beautiful scenes and the excitement of our feelings is in itself nothing unless these scenes and these feelings be used by the poet for the one end of poetry that is of any value. It is merely an accumulation of what may prove poetic material.

Now to one gifted with poetic faculty this collected material may be, what nature itself is, a very different thing from what it is to most of us poor prosaic souls. Such an one needs no help from a fellow poet; he interprets these things for himself. And so diverse are human minds that it is utterly absurd and presumptuous for any one of us to lay down the law for any other on these points. What may be of true worth as poetry to you may not be so to me. In each of us lies the supreme arbitrament; and we must judge of a poet by the total effect that he has produced on ùs-by the living and life-giving ideas that he has given us, thus adding vigour to our true existence.

I will not apologize for once more reasserting this, for I feel that by thus recalling to memory the principles that I have so often-perhaps rather too often-insisted upon, I may help to make more

distinct the view which rightly or wrongly I take of Keats's poetry.

I shall now state briefly a few of the more significant facts of the poet's life, then consider his opinions with reference to poetry and other subjects, and lastly turn to his poems.

John Keats was born in Moorfields, London, in 1795. His father, who was killed by a fall from his horse when the poet was yet a child, had accumulated some means by keeping a livery stable. John was the third of five children. The chief characteristic of the younger generation seems to have been pugnacity: and at Mr. Clarke's boarding-school at Enfield the future poet distinguished himself chiefly by this quality. His mother died when he was fifteen, and he was removed from school (where he had formed an intimate friendship with Cowden Clarke, the head-master's son) and apprenticed to a surgeon at Edmonton. It was about this time that he first read Spenser, whose "Faerie Queen" seems to have opened the floodgates to his poetic faculty. His first production-one of considerable beauty, and containing many signs of his future strength -was a piece called an "Imitation of Spenser," written when he was seventeen. With an unquenchable passion he passed from Spenser to Chaucer, Milton, and Shakespeare, revelling especially in scenes and passages of rich imagery and voluptuous diction. "He brooded," says a writer (Masson) “over

fine phrases like a lover, and often when he met a quaint or delicious word he would take pains to make it his own by using it as speedily as possible in some poem he was writing." It was by means of translations alone that he learnt to adore with a passionate love the Greek poets. His sonnet (written in 1814), entitled "On first looking into Chapman's Homer," is almost Greek in its noble and simple grandeur. It is usually said that Keats possessed a poetic faculty akin to that of the Greeks. It is true that he-like all who are peculiarly sensitive to beauty of form-was an intense worshipper of Greek art and at times we find in his poems an almost sculpturesque beauty of outline. But that his imaginative power was of a Greek character I do not believe. His was essentially a reproductive genius. But of this more later.

Having served his apprenticeship, Keats removed to London to "walk" the hospitals. But the society of literary men and artists, such as Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt, the painter Haydon, and others, proved too great a fascination, and, abandoning the idea of the medical profession, he betook himself to the neighbourhood of Hampstead Heath with the distinct object of devoting himself to poetry. Here he published his first volume, containing some sonnets and minor pieces, studies and essays in verse, in which he tried his strength of wing. But he had now made up his mind to write a long poem, and carried