dity of imagination, so eminently possessed by Keats, fully culminated; demonstrating with what an ardent spirit he loved and respected the beliefs and lore of the classic past. It displays much solemnity of outline. Shelley's opinion was, "I consider it as second to nothing that was ever produced by a writer of the same years ;" and Lord Byron, with an exaggeration akin to his former underrating, declared it "to seem actually inspired by the Titans, and as sublime as Æschylus." Both for grandeur of conception and execution, it is a veritable antique-a torso of the age when Phidias adorned the proud city of Athens with his glorious and opulent art. Such magnificent and colossal mutilations are regarded with a complex emotion; one of blended admiration, expectation, and regret. The picture of Saturn and Thea, at the very commencement, is marked by an easy and finished beauty. The old majesty and rule attributed to Saturn. have been wrested from him by the rebellious usurper Jupiter; and he is, in consequence, represented sitting lone, retired, and melancholy, doubtless pondering o'er days more blest gone by ;-for indeed

this is truth the poet sings,

That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things,"

and through the depressing weight of grief, sinking at

last into a sort of troubled slumber.

"Deep in the shady sadness of a vale

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat grey-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung about his head
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day

Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,

But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.
A stream went voiceless by, still deaden'd more
By reason of his fallen divinity

Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds
Press'd her cold finger closer to her lips.

Along the margin-sand large footmarks went,
No further than to where his feet had stray'd,
And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground
His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,
Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed ;
While his bow'd head seem'd listening to the earth,
His ancient mother, for some comfort yet."

The Naiad evidently respected the mute woe of the crownless and sceptreless Deity. Unexpectedly Thea appears to him, and, bending tenderly and compas

sionately down, endeavours, without success, to instil some consolation into his bosom. Finding, however, that all is useless, she exhorts him—

"Why should I ope my melancholy eyes?

Saturn, sleep on! while at thy feet I weep."

This description throughout is both majestic and graceful. Nature herself, with her loveliest attributes, is feelingly represented as sympathising in the calamity of her dethroned and mournful sovereign. But such a poem as "Hyperion" is absolutely difficult of division; almost unsusceptible of either condensation or analysis. It is one which should be studied in its own terse and polished elegance, collectively and thoughtfully, by every lover of real poetry.

The succeeding poem for illustration is one of a very different stamp. It is entitled "Isabella, or the Pot of Basil;" a versification (and there really could not be one more excellently rendered) of one of Boccacio's finest and most attractive stories. Keats, however, by his masterly handling, has made it entirely his own, and perfectly familiarised it to the English reader. He has suspended, as it were, some rich jewels on the simple thread of the affecting narrative; fully elucidating that melancholy is the most legiti

mate of all the poetical tones. It is a tale of human interest, of attachment, and of cruel revenge and suffering, well though peculiarly depicted. It possesses superlative sweetness and softness.

66 Now reach my harp from off the wall,
Where shines the sun aslant!

The sun may shine, and we be cold-
Oh hearken, loving hearts and bold,
wild romaunt."

Unto my

Lorenzo, the hapless lover of Isabella-and he must have regarded her with extreme fondness, for do we not find

"He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch,
Before the door had given her to his eyes;
And from her chamber-window he would catch
Her beauty farther than the falcon spies ;
And constant as her vespers would he watch,
Because her face was turn'd to the same skies;
And with sick longing all the night outwear,
To hear her morning-step upon the stair."

This Lorenza, then, had been ruthlessly murdered by the lady's two brothers, and buried by them in a forest-"quiet for the slaughter:" how dreadfully significant, and yet how pictorial, is this daring anti

cipation" quiet for the slaughter." She, after long watching and weeping, and agonising suspense and uncertainty, at length, at midnight's witching hour, is warned of the dire occurrence by a vision of her assassinated betrothed. Unlike "O'Connor's pale and lovely child," who, under exactly similar circumstances, hurles a sublime but withering malediction upon her heartless blood-relatives, frenziedly imprecating

"And go! (I cried) the combat seek,
Ye hearts that, unappalled, bore
The anguish of a sister's shriek,
Go!-and return no more!

"For sooner guilt the ordeal brand

Shall grasp unhurt, than ye shall hold

The banner with victorious hand,

Beneath a sister's curse unroll'd."

-Unlike her, poor gentle Isabella takes an aged nurse with her, and, after three hours of toil, succeeds in digging up the corpse of Lorenzo; and with pious care, and a devotion over which death itself had no power, removes its head and conceals it in a pot of sweet basil. How ineffably tender is all this!—truly a beauteous exhibition of woman's unfailing love. But let the Poet himself relate this part of the story—