friends; and without overturning all experience and all analogy, we must perforce conclude that the world had received from him what was his to bestow, before he sank into his early and lamented tomb.

His early fate is the more lamentable, that he died before his fame had begun to live. He carried with him to the grave only ruined hopes and disappointed love; desiring his friends to inscribe upon his stone, 'HERE LIES ONE WHOSE NAME WAS WRIT IN WATER.' From that humble tomb, however, there has now come a light to which the eyes of rising genius are turned from the ends of the earth. Keats is one of the great teachers of the new world, and of new spirits in the old; and already, besides numerous editions of the works, imperfect as they may be, of this once despised poet, we have two volumes of his 'Life, Letters, and Literary Remains.'*

We do not think that Mr Milnes has stated completely the case between his author and the public. The reviewers of "Blackwood" and the "Quarterly," he tells us, were persons evidently destitute of all poetic perception, directing an unrefined and unscrupulous satire against political opponents, whose intellectual merits they had no means of understanding. This, indeed, was no combat of literary principles, no struggle of thoughts, no competition of modes of expression; it was simply the judgment of the policeman and the beadle over mental efforts and spiritual emanations.' Now it appears to us to be quite clear that Keats's poetry was not abused, and the abuse acquiesced in by the public, on account of his politics, but simply because neither critics nor public felt and understood it. The hostility of the critics may have been imbittered by politics, and the political principles of the Cockney school used against its leaders, just like the pimples of Hazlitt or the criminal addiction of Leigh Hunt to tea and muffins. But if politics had been the sole motive of the critics, it would have worked in two ways, and the object of their acrimony would have enjoyed the fame as well as endured the torments of a martyr. The Lake school, with politics diametrically opposite, was the object of as much critical objurgation and popular neglect as the school of Hampstead; and Keats himself is noticed by our editor as having been daringly singular in his admiration of Wordsworth.

6

The truth appears to be, that the public mind was at that time in the transition state from a kind of poetical materialism, in which it was satisfied with the sensuous images of such writers as Scott, to the more metaphysical taste that followed, uniting the kingdoms of matter and mind, and recognising the spirit of nature even in the meanest of her external forms. Keats was one of the prophets who helped forward this movement, and was stoned for his pains; but the stones have now become at once his own monument and a memorial of the fruitless zeal with which his critics strove unconsciously to impede the progress of mind. This zeal, however, was fruitless only as regards the cause: it was fatal to the individual. It is absurd to deny the temporary power of contemporary criticism. If the frank acknowledgment,' says Mr Milnes, of the respect with which Keats had inspired Mr Jeffrey had been made in 1818 instead of 1820, the tide of public opinion would probably have been at once turned in his favour, and the imbecile abuse of his political, rather than literary antagonists, been completely exposed.' Would this have saved Keats? Yes. We talk not of his life. That is unimportant, for one must die some time or other. But it was hard for this young man to die before knowing that he had lived; it was hard for him to think that all his proud hopes and lofty aspirations had been vain; it was hard for him to believe that it was empty air he had felt stirring like a god within his gallant heart; it was hard for him to read in imagination the legend on his unhonoured grave: 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water!'

*Edited by Richard Morckton Milnes. Moxon: London. 1848.

Mr Milnes has discharged his duty as an editor with great ability, but too timidly. If Keats is not what he represents him to be, then there was no need for the book at all; if he was, then biographical facts were of too great value to be concealed for the purpose of sparing private sensibilities. These pages,' he tells us, 'concern one whose whole story may be summed up in the composition of three small volumes of verse, some earnest friendships, one passion, and a premature death.' This passion, which must have been, and was, an essential part in the life of a poet, receives not the smallest illustration from the editor; and here was a point, we think, in which private feelings should have yielded.

Keats was born on the 29th October 1795. His father was in the service of Mr Jennings, the proprietor of livery stables on the Pavement in Moorfields, whose daughter, the mother of the poet, he married. The family consisted of George, John, Thomas, and a daughter; and the boys were distinguished at school for their furious pugnacity. In John, however, this disposition was combined with a passionate sensibility which exhibited itself in the strangest contrasts. Convulsions of laughter and of tears were equally frequent with him, and he would pass from one to the other almost without an interval.' He cared nothing about the character of a 'good boy:' bravery, energy, generosity, these were his great qualities; and they impressed his schoolfellows with the idea that he was destined to succeed in some active sphere in life. He was at times laborious and attentive to his studies, and then carried off all the first prizes in literature. He learned French, and translated much of the Eneid, but was indebted to English works for the knowledge of the Greek mythology, which afterwards, distilled in the alembic of his own imagination, produced something more spiritual than the Greeks ever fancied.

At the death of his parents, about L.8000 was left to be divided among the four children; and in 1810 John was apprenticed for five years to a surgeon at Edmonton. In 1812 the reading of the 'Fairy Queen' formed an era in his intellectual existence; Chaucer following, he inhaled 'the pure breath of nature in the morning of English literature;' and at the end of 1814, Byron inspired him with an indifferent sonnet. Later, a much better sonnet, 'On first looking into Chapman's Homer,' might seem to indicate how early his taste disavowed the school of Pope. After the termination of his apprenticeship, he removed to London, for the purpose of walking the hospitals. He now became intimate with Hunt, Hazlitt, Shelley, Haydon, Godwin, and others; and Mr Ollier published for him his first volume of poems, which attracted no attention. He passed his examination at Apothecaries' Hall with some credit; but as soon as he entered on the practical part of his business, he saw that his sensibility rendered him unfit for it, and he was thus thrown upon the world arm in arm between poetry and poverty.

He now went to the Isle of Wight and other parts of the country, and began seriously to labour at his poem of Endymion.' His correspondence (May 1817) is full of this work, and of his doubts and fears. I have asked myself so often why I should be a poet more than other men, seeing how great a thing it is, how great things are to be gained by it, what a thing to be in the mouth of fame, that at last the idea has grown so monstrously beyond my seeming power of attainment, that the other day I nearly consented with myself to drop into a Phaeton.... Does Shelley go on telling "strange stories of the deaths of kings?" Tell him there are strange stories of the deaths of poets. Some have died before they were conceived. "How do you make that out, Master Vellum?" His personal appearance about this time is thus described by a lady :- His eyes were large and blue, his hair auburn; he wore it divided down the centre, and it fell in rich masses on each side his face; his mouth was full, and less intellectual than his other features. His countenance lives in my mind as one of singular beauty and brightness-it had an ex

pression as if he had been looking on some glorious sight. The shape of his face had not the squareness of a man's, but more like some women's faces I have seen -it was so wide over the forehead, and so small at the chin. He seemed in perfect health, and with life offering all things that were precious to him.' Mr Milnes says- His habitual gentleness made his occasional looks of indignation almost terrible: on one occasion, when a gross falsehood respecting the young artist Severn was repeated and dwelt upon, he left the room, declaring "He should be ashamed to sit with men who could utter and believe such things." On another occasion, hearing of some unworthy conduct, he burst out"Is there no human dust-hole into which we can sweep such fellows?" This quickness of feeling was evidenced on the occasion of his repeating to Wordsworth the hymn to Pan in 'Endymion.' The Christian poet merely remarked that It was a pretty piece of paganism; and Keats took the seeming contempt more to heart than the after abuse of the Quarterly' or the ridicule of 'Blackwood.'

In 1818 his independence of spirit is thus finely shown in a remonstrance to the objections of his friends to his having a preface to the Endymion.' 'I have not the slightest feeling of humility towards the public, or to anything in existence but the Eternal Being, the Principle of Beauty, and the Memory of great Men. When I am writing for myself, for the mere sake of the moment's enjoyment, perhaps nature has its course with me; but a preface is written to the public-a thing I cannot help looking upon as an enemy, and which I cannot address without feelings of hostility. If I write a preface in a supple or subdued style, it will not be in character with me as a public speaker. I would be subdued before my friends, and thank them for subduing me; but among multitudes of men I have no feel of stooping-I hate the idea of humility to them. I never wrote one single line of poetry with the least shadow of public thought.' After all, this first sustained work,' says Mr Milnes, 'of a man whose undoubted genius was idolised by a circle of affectionate friends, whose weaknesses were rather encouraged than repressed by the intellectual atmosphere in which he lived, who had rarely been enabled to measure his spiritual stature with that of persons of other schools of thought and habits of mind, appears to have been produced with a humility that the severest criticism might not have engendered.' Jeffrey, when too late (in 1820), pronounced the poem to be as full of genius as absurdity, and described it as a test to ascertain whether any one had in him a native relish for poetry, and a genuine sensibility to its intrinsic charm.' Byron was thrown into a fever of jealous rage by this encomium, in which he talked of the drivelling idiotism of the manikin Keats;' but in after years, when the poor youth was no longer in his way, he made the amende honorable, and pronounced the fragment of Hyperion' to seem 'actually inspired by the Titans,' and to be as sublime as Eschylus.'

This noble poem was begun at the close of 1818, but never finished. The ode to the Nightingale' and to a Grecian Urn' followed; and in 1819 the Eve of St Agnes' and other pieces. While occupied in this way, he received a L.25 note in a letter by the post, the sender of which he never discovered. This year he determined to endeavour to subsist by writing for the periodicals; and taking lodgings in London, he plunged into work and into dreams from which he was soon to be awakened. One night, about eleven o'clock, Keats returned home in a state of strange physical excitement -it might have appeared to those who did not know him one of fierce intoxication. He told his friend he had been outside the stage-coach, had received a severe chill, was a little fevered, but added, "I don't feel it now." He was easily persuaded to go to bed, and as he leapt into the cold sheets, before his head was on the pillow, he slightly coughed, and said, "That is blood from my mouth; bring me the candle; let me see this blood." He gazed steadfastly for some moments at the

ruddy stain, and then looking in his friend's face with an expression of sudden calmness never to be forgotten, said, "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!" He got betterworse-better-worse again-alas! in the old routine; and then he was recommended to go to Italy. When Haydon went to bid him farewell, he recorded in his journal the terrible impression of this visit: the very colouring of the scene struck forcibly on the painter's imagination; the white curtains, the white sheets, the white shirt, and the white skin of his friend, all contrasted with the bright hectic flush on his cheek, and heightened the sinister effect: he went away hardly hoping.'

Before following him abroad, we must advert to a passage which throws a romantic yet terrible hue upon the last year of the poet's life. At his first interview with the nameless lady we have alluded to, he describes her thus:-She is not a Cleopatra, but is at least a Charmian: she has a rich Eastern look; she has fine eyes, and fine manners. When she comes into the room she makes the same impression as the beauty of a leopardess. She is too fine and too conscious of herself to repulse any man who may address her: from habit, she thinks that nothing particular. I always find myself more at ease with such a woman: the picture before me always gives me a life and animation which I cannot possibly feel with anything inferior. I am at such times too much occupied in admiring, to be awkward or in a tremble: I forget myself entirely, because I live in her. You will by this time think I am in love with her; so, before I go any farther, I will tell you I am not. She kept me awake one night, as a tune of Mozart's might do. I speak of the thing as a pastime and an amusement, than which I can feel none deeper than a conversation with an imperial woman, the very "yes" and “no” of whose life is to me a banquet.' This was in October 1818; and in this same month in the following year Mr Milnes describes the irresistible influence she exercised over him. She, whose name

"Was ever on his lips,

But never on his tongue,"

exercised too mighty a control over his being for him to remain at a distance, which was neither absence nor presence, and he soon returned to where at least he could rest his eyes on her habitation, and enjoy each chance opportunity of her society.' When in the vessel which was about to carry him from the shores of Eng land, Keats writes thus to his true friend and patron Mr Brown:- There is one I must mention, and have done with it. Even if my body would recover of itself, this would prevent it. The very thing which I want to live most for, will be a great occasion of my death. I cannot help it. Who can help it? Were I in health, it would make me ill, and how can I bear it in my state? I daresay you will be able to guess on what subject I am harping-you know what was my greatest pain during the first part of my illness at your house? I wish for death every day and night to deliver me from these pains, and then I wish death away, for death would destroy even those pains, which are better than nothing. Land and sea, weakness and decline, are great separators; but death is the great divorcer for ever. When the pang of this thought has passed through my mind, I may say the bitterness of death is past. I often wish for you, that you might flatter me with the best. I think, without my mentioning it, for my sake, you would be a friend to Miss when I am dead. You think she has many faults, but for my sake, think she has not one. If there is anything you can do for her by word or deed, I know you will do it.'

And again he writes from Naples, where he had arrived with his friend Severn:-"The persuasion that I shall see her no more will kill me. My dear Brown. I should have had her when I was in health, and I should have remained well. I can bear to die

I cannot bear to leave her. Oh, God! God! God! Everything I have in my trunks that reminds me of her goes through me like a spear. The silk lining she put in my travelling cap scalds my head. My imagination is horribly vivid about her. I see her!-I hear her! There is nothing in the world of sufficient interest to divert me from her a moment. This was the case when I was in England: I cannot recollect, without shuddering, the time that I was a prisoner at Hunt's, and used to keep my eyes fixed on Hampstead all day. Then there was a good hope of seeing her again. Now! -oh that I could be buried near where she lives! I am afraid to write to her to receive a letter from her to see her handwriting would break my heart -even to hear of her anyhow: to see her name written would be more than I can bear. My dear Brown, what am I to do? Where can I look for consolation or ease? If I had any chance of recovery, this passion would kill me. Indeed, through the whole of my illness, both at your house and at Kentish Town, this fever has never ceased wearing me out. When you write to me, which you will do immediately, write to Rome (poste restante)—if she is well and happy, put a mark thus +; if'

Keats did not like Naples. He felt that he was dying, and appears to have laboured under the restlessness which so often induces persons in this state to change even their bedroom. Arrived at Rome, a letter of introduction to Dr (now Sir James) Clark obtained from him and his lady the affectionate attention which might have been expected from the character of these estimable persons. In a letter to Mr Brown-supposed to be his last letter-he declares that he has a habitual feeling of his real life being past, and that he is leading a posthumous existence. After this, the melancholy news is from the pen of his devoted friend Severn. On the 14th December 1820 the patient was seized anew with an alarming vomiting of blood. Not a single thing will he digest, yet he keeps on craving for food. Every day he raves he will die from hunger, and I've been obliged to give him more than was allowed. His imagination and memory present every thought to him in horror: the recollection of "his good friend Brown," of" his four happy weeks spent under her care," of his sister and brother. Oh, he will mourn over all to me whilst I cool his burning forehead, till I tremble for his intellects.'

Jan. 15th, 1821, half-past eleven.-Poor Keats has just fallen asleep. I have watched him, and read to him, to his very last wink; he has been saying to me"Severn, I can see under your quiet look immense contention you don't know what you are reading. You are enduring for me more than I would have you. Oh that my last hour was come!" Then came the misery of want of money, which it was necessary to conceal from Keats, as that would kill him at a word.' His letters were now unopened: they tear him to pieceshe dare not look on the outside of any more.'

I shall be ill able to bear it. I cannot bear to be set free, even from this my horrible situation by the loss of him. I am still quite precluded from painting, which may be of consequence to me. Poor Keats has me ever by him, and shadows out the form of one solitary friend; he opens his eyes in great doubt and horror, but when they fall upon me, they close gently, open quietly, and close again, till he sinks to sleep. This thought alone would keep me by him till he dies: and why did I say I was losing my time? The advantages I have gained by knowing John Keats are double and treble any I could have won by any other occupation.' And now all is over. 'Feb. 27th.-He is gone; he died with the most perfect ease-he seemed to go to sleep. On the twentythird, about four, the approaches of death came on. "Severn-I-lift me up-I am dying-I shall die easy; don't be frightened-be firm, and thank God it has come." I lifted him up in my arms. The phlegm seemed boiling in his throat, and increased until eleven, when he gradually sunk into death, so quiet, that I still thought he slept.'

The Protestant cemetery of Rome where Keats was laid is on a grassy slope among the ruins of the Honorian walls of the city. He had a passion for flowers, and there they grow, violets and daisies covering his resting-place the whole year through. What a blessed change! There, in that lonely spot, sleeps the dust of the immortal, while the living world is filled, as before, with withered hopes, vain aspirations, white quivering lips, and breaking hearts.

Go thou to Rome at once the Paradise,
The grave, the city, and the wilderness:

And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress
The bones of Desolation's nakedness;
Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access,
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread,
And grey walls moulder round, on which dull Time
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand;
And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned
This refuge for his memory, doth stand
Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath
A field is spread, on which a newer band
Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death,
Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath.
Here pause these graves are all too young as yet
To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned
Its charge to each; and, if the seal is set
Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind,
Break it not thou! Too surely shalt thou find
Thine own well full, if thou returnest home,
Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind
Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb.
What Adonais is, why fear we to become?'

of experiences can teach the meaning of genius to those who look for it in additions and results, any more than the numbers studded round a planet's orbit could approach nearer infinity than a single unit. The world of thought must remain apart from the world of action, for, if they once coincided, the problem of Life would be solved, and the hope, which we call heaven, would be realised on earth. And therefore men

"Are cradled into poetry by wrong:

They learn in suffering what they teach in song."'

THE NOBLE COOKS.

'We never know what we can do till we try,' and Necessity is the mother of invention,' are two timehonoured adages, which, contrary to the usual fate of ancient saws, are fully as often practised as preached. Certainly if there be truth in the latter one, poor Necessity is the parent of a very queer and incongruous progeny; and if the age of miracles' be past, the age of inventions' is surely present. Our business just now, however, is not with such lofty excursions up the hill of science as are every day undertaken by the master-spirits of the age, but rather with a lowly, though adventurous descent, into the culinary regions, accomplished by knights, and lords, and ladies fair.

6

It happened some years ago that a lady of the highest rank in Paris, named Madame B-, had assembled in her château sixty distinguished personages. The entertainment was given in honour of the Prussian ambassador; and the Luxembourg, the Palais-Bourbon, and the diplomatic body, all had their representatives among the guests. Every one had arrived; and the trying half-hour' before dinner passed in brilliant chat. A consul-general recounted some scenes in the private life of Ibrahim Pacha; while a deputy from Languedoc drew laughter-loud as ever came from lips polite from the group who surrounded him, as he read aloud a letter just received from one of his electors. The worthy informed him he had two camels, which he knew not what to do with, and modestly requested the deputy to sell them at a high price to government for the Garden of Plants. 'It won't cost the country much,' he added, and will secure you my vote!'

'The cook is tipsy-indeed so very drunk, that he has not even caused fires to be lighted. If he could even set about preparing dinner now, it would take four hours to make ready.'

By this time the guests' appetite had become sharp, and diplomatic stomachs were in question. Madame B- remained calm and serene. It was impossible to avoid the difficulty; so she met it with a smiling face. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' said she, addressing the company, I invited you to dinner, but there is no dinner to be had: I have this moment learned that my cook is intoxicated; and if we want to have the table covered, we must turn cooks ourselves.'

The proposal was received with enthusiastic applause. The Prussian ambassador immediately turned up his sleeves; all the others followed his example, and amid merry peals of laughter they descended en masse to the kitchen.

The cook was seated in an arm-chair, looking as red as a turkey - cock, and as immovable as a sphinx. Around him were plenty of saucepans and stewpans, but not a vestige of anything eatable. Conquer or die!' was their motto; and they conquered.

A peer of the realm was placed in charge of the spit; two ministerial deputies watched the frying-pans; three secretaries to the embassy were promoted to mix

the sauces; and two presidents of the courts-royal were set to skim the pot. Seven or eight admirals and generals waged valiant warfare on the poultry-yard, and came off victorious with twenty dozen eggs, and chickens and ducks innumerable.

All the ladies declared that they were perfectly versed in making omelets; accordingly there was no end to these dainties. The most remarkable were, an omelet with rum by a duchess, an omelet with truffles by a marchioness, an omelet with asparagus by a viscountess, and a sweet omelet by a baroness.

Madame B-maintained order in all departments of the service; she reserved to herself the seasoning of the ragoûts.

And how they did laugh!

'Where's the vinegar?' cried a consul.

'A little parsley for my capon!' shouted a chargéd'affaires.

'Salt and pepper, if you please!' demanded a secretary of state.

Flour for me!' vociferated the attorney-general. After the omelets, there still remained so many eggs, that the ladies set to work and prepared fried eggs, boiled eggs, sliced eggs, and eggs beaten up in froth.

While these active preparations were progressing, the cook tried now and then to rise, but sank down again with a heavy sigh. Then he would follow with his drooping eyes the gentlemen in black coats, and the ladies in satin robes, all protected with napkins, feeling totally unable to comprehend this invasion of his empire.

At ten o'clock Madame B- announced, in the midst of general enthusiasm, that dinner was ready; and shortly after they all sat down to table.

Every one had earned a dinner and an appetite, and the dishes were pronounced by acclamation excellent. Seldom was a banquet so thoroughly enjoyed; and at a late hour the illustrious guests separated, in goodhumour with each other, with their hostess, and with themselves.

Next morning, when the valet of Madame Bawoke from his lethargy, he called for a sword to pierce his breast; but being able to find nothing better than a carving-knife, that professional implement seemed to him an ignoble instrument of death; and on second thoughts, he resolved to live.

THE WAKALAHS, OR COMMERCIAL HOTELS OF EGYPT.

EVERY one who writes about the East, thinks it incumbent on him to say something of the bazaars, or businessquarters of the great towns, but rarely, if ever, is any notice taken of the wakálahs. It is very easy to mount a donkey, and, riding through the streets of Cairo, for example, examine in a cursory manner the aspect of the shops, the nature of the goods exposed for sale, the appearance of the traders, who seem sitting for their portraits within them, and the varied costumes of the crowds that stream by. The picture is a striking one, and easy to paint. First, grocers, with their piles of sugar, and coffee, and sweetmeats, and yellow and red and white tapers; then pipe-sellers, with their cherrysticks, and their jasmines, and their cheap maples, plain, or ornamented with silk coverings and tassels, and with cases of costly mouthpieces; next come the dealers in manufactures, as cotton-prints, muslins, shawls, swinging flauntingly from poles thrust out overhead; farther on we see carpets, and silks and brocades in odd juxtaposition with Damascus swords; afterwards Morocco shoes or Stambouli slippers; here Fez caps, there burnooses, with now and then a money changer watching over his strong chest of old carved wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

Generally speaking, the persons who sit in the bazaars are men of small capital, with stocks that can be taken in at one single glance, but which are constantly re