make them to other men what they were to himself; it might be that he over-estimated his own æsthetic powers, and underrated those provinces of art in which some of his contemporaries excelled; but surely a man should not have been so left to perish, whose passion for lofty art, notwithstanding all discouragements, must have made him dear to artists, and whose capabilities were such as in any other country would have assured him at least competence and reputation-perhaps wealth and fame.

But at this time the destiny of Haydon seemed to be spread out very differently before him; if ever stern presentiments came across his soul, Art and Youth had then colours bright enough to chase them all away. His society seems to have been both agreeable and instructive to Keats. It is easy to conceive what a revelation of greatness the Elgin Marbles must have been to the young poet's mind, when he saw them for the first time, in March, 1817. The following Sonnets on the occasion were written directly after, and published in the “Examiner." With more polish they might have been worthy of the theme, but as it is, the diction, of the first especially, is obscure though vigorous, and the thought does not come out in the clear unity becoming the Sonnet, and attained by Keats so successfully on many other subjects:

ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES.
My spirit is too weak; mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined pinnacle and steep

Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep,

That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain,
Bring round the heart an indescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old Time-with a billowy main
A sun, a shadow of a magnitude.

The image of the "Eagle" is beautiful in itself, and interesting in its application.

TO HAYDON.

(WITH THE ABOVE.)

Haydon! forgive me that I cannot speak
Definitively of these mighty things;
Forgive me, that I have not eagle's wings,
That what I want I know not where to seek.
And think that I would not be over-meek,
In rolling out upfollowed thunderings,
Even to the steep of Heliconian springs,
Were I of ample strength for such a freak.

Think, too, that all these numbers should be thine;
Whose else? In this who touch thy vesture's hem?

For, when men stared at what was most divine
With brainless idiotism and o'erwise phlegm,

Thou hadst beheld the full Hesperian shine

Of their star in the east, and gone to worship them!

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 name, and to have proclaimed his reverence in such earnest words, while so many men of letters could only scorn or jeer.

The uncongenial profession to which Keats had attached himself now became every day more repulsive. A book of very careful annotations, preserved by Mr. Dilke, attests his diligence, although a fellowstudent,* who lodged in the same house, describes him at the lectures as scribbling doggerel rhymes among the notes, particularly if he got hold of another student's syllabus. Of course, his peculiar tastes did not find much sympathy in that society. Whenever he showed his graver poetry to his companions, it was pretty sure to be ridiculed and severely handled. They were therefore surprised when, on presenting

* Mr. H. Stephens.

himself for examination at Apothecaries' Hall, he passed his examination with considerable credit. When, however, he entered on the practical part of his business, although successful in all his operations, he found his mind so oppressed during the task with an over-wrought apprehension of the possibility of doing harm, that he came to the determined conviction 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. "My dexterity," he said, "used to seem to me a miracle, and I resolved never to take up a surgical instrument again," and thus he found himself on his first entrance into manhood thrown on the world almost without the means of daily subsistence, but with many friends interested in his fortunes, and with the faith in the future which generally accompanies the highest genius. Mr. Haydon seems to have been to him a wise and prudent counsellor, and to have encouraged him to brace his powers by undistracted study, while he advised him to leave London for awhile, and take more care of his health. The following note, written in March, shows that Keats did as he was recommended :—

MY DEAR REYNOLDS,

My brothers are anxious that I should go by myself into the country; they have always been