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BY JOHN KEATS."
LAMIA, AND OTHER POEMS.

a nymph of whom he is enamoured.
We give the opening passage, as it will
enable the reader to feel the airy spirit
with which the young poet sets forth
on his career.

Upon a time, before the faery broods
Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,
Before King Oberon's bright diadem,
Sceptre, and mantle, clasp'd with dewy gem,

Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns

From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslip'd lawns,
The ever-smitten Hermes empty left

THESE poems are very far superior to any which their author has previously committed to the press. They have nothing showy, or extravagant, or eccentric about them; but are pieces of calm beauty, or of lone and self-supported grandeur. There is a fine freeness of touch about them, like that which is manifest in the old marbles, as though the poet played at will his fancies virginal, and produced his most perfect works without toil. We have perused them with the heartiest pleasure for we feared that their youthful author was suffering his genius to be enthralled in the meshes of sickly affec- Into a forest on the shores of Crete. tation-and we rejoice to find these his latest works as free from all offensive peculiarities-as pure, as genuine, and as lofty, as the severest critic could desire. "Lamia," the first of these poems, founded on the following passage in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, which Though Fancy's casket were unlock'd to choose. is given as a note at its close:

is

"Philostratus, in his fourth book de Vita Apollonii, hath a memorable instance in this kind, which I may not omit, of one Menippus Lycius, a young man twenty-five years of age, that going betwixt Cenchreas and Corinth, met such a phantasm in the habit of a fair gentlewoman, which taking him by the hand, carried him home to her house, in the suburbs of Corinth, and told him she was a Phoenician by birth, and if he would tarry with her, he should hear her sing and play, and drink such wine as never any drank, and no man should molest him; but she, being fair and lovely, would live and die with him, that was fair and lovely to behold. The young man, a philosopher, otherwise staid and discreet, able to moderate his passions, though not this of love, tarried with her a while to his great content, and at last married her, to whose wedding, amongst other guests, came Apollonius; who, by some probable conjectures, found her out to be a serpent, a lamia; and that all her furniture was, like Tantalus' gold described by Homer, no substance, but mere illusions. When she saw herself descried, she wept, and desired Apollonius to be silent, but he would not be moved, and thereupon she, plate, house, and all that was in it, vanished in an instant: many thousands took notice of this fact, for it was done in the midst of Greece."

Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy."

Part 3. Sect. 2. Memb. 1. Subs. 1.

The poem commences with the descent of Mercury to Crete, in search of

His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft.
From high Olympus had he stolen light,

On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight
Of his great summoner, and made retreat

For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt
A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt ;
At whose white feet the languid Tritons pour'd
Pearls, while on land they wither'd and adored.
Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont,
And in those meads where sometime she might
haunt,

Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse,

Ah, what a world of love was at her feet!
So Hermes thought, and a celestial heat
Burnt from his winged heels to either ear,
That from a whiteness, as the lily clear,
Blush'd into roses 'mid his golden hair,
Fallen in jealous curls about his shoulders bare.

After seeking the nymph with vain search through the vales and woods, as he rests upon the ground pensively, he hears a mournful voice, "such as once heard in gentle heart destroys all pain but pity," and perceives in a dusky brake a magnificent serpent, with the lips of a woman, who addresses him in human words, and promises to place the nymph before him, if he will set her spirit free from her serpent-form. He consents-his utmost wishes are granted-and the brilliant snake, after a convulsive agony, vanishes, and Lamia's soft voice is heard luting in the air. Having enjoyed power during her degradation to send her spirit into distant places, she had seen and loved Lycius, a youth of Corinth, whom she now hastens to meet in her new, angelic beauty. He sees and loves her; and is led by her to a beautiful palace in the midst of Corinth, which none ever remembered to have seen before, where they live for some time in an unbroken dream of love. But Lycius, at last, becomes restless in his happiness, and longs to shew his beautiful mistress to the world. He resolves to solemnize

*Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other poems. By John Keats, author of Endymion; in one vol. foolscap 8vo.

publicly his marriage festival, against which she tremblingly remonstrates in vain. Finding she cannot win him from his purpose,

She sets herself high-thoughted how to dress

Her misery in fit magnificence:

with a frightful scream, and Lycius is found, on his high couch, lifeless! There is, in this poem, a mingling of Greek majesty with fairy luxuriance, which we have not elsewhere seen. The fair shapes stand clear in their antique

And the following is the beautiful re- beauty, encircled with the profuse mag

sult of her art:

About the halls, and to and from the doors,
There was a noise of wings, till in short space
The glowing banquet-room shone with wide-arched

grace.

A haunting music, sole perhaps and lone
Supportress of the faery-roof, made moan
Throughout, as fearful the whole charm might fade.
Fresh carved cedar, mimicking a glade

Of palm and plantain, met from either side,
High in the midst, in honour of the bride :
Two palms and then two plantains, and so on,
From either side their stems branch'd one to one
All down the aisled place; and beneath all
There ran a stream of lamps straight on from wall
to wall.

So canopied, lay an untasted feast

Teeming with odours. Lamia, regal drest,
Silently paced about, and as she went,
In pale contented sort of discontent,
Mission'd her viewless servants to enrich
The fretted splendour of each nook and niche.
Between the tree-stems, marbled plain at first,
Came jasper pannels; then, anon, there burst
Forth creeping imagery of slighter trees,
And with the larger wove in small intricacies.
Approving all, she faded at self-will,

And shut the chamber up, close, hush'd and still,
Complete and ready for the revels rude,
When dreadful guests would come to spoil her
solitude.

The fatal day arrives-the guests assemble-Apollonius, the tutor of Lycius, comes an unbidden guest-but all, for a while, is luxury and delighted

wonder.

Soft went the music the soft air along,
While fluent Greek a vowel'd undersong
Kept up among the guests, discoursing low
At first, for scarcely was the wine at flow;
But when the happy vintage touch'd their brains,
Louder they talk, and louder come the strains
Of powerful instruments :-the gorgeous dyes,
The space, the splendour of the draperies,
The roof of awful richness, nectarous cheer,
Beautiful slaves, and Lamia's self, appear,
Now, when the wine has done its rosy deed,
And every soul from human trammels freed,
No more so strange; for merry wine, sweet wine,
Will make Elysian shades not too fair, too divine.
Soon was God Bacchus at meridian height;
Flush'd were their cheeks, and bright eyes double
bright:

Garlands of every green, and every scent

From vales deflower'd, or forest-trees branch-rent,
In baskets of bright osier'd gold were brought
High as the handles heap'd, to suit the thought
Of every guest; that each, as he did please,
Might fancy-fit his brows, silk-pillow'd at his ease.

The awful catastrophe is, however, at hand. In the midst of the festivities

nificence of romance, and in the thick atmosphere of its golden lustre!

"Isabella" is the old and sweet tale of the Pot of Basil, from Boccaccio, which forms the groundwork of Barry Cornwall's delicious Sicilian story. It is here so differently told, that we need not undertake the invidious task of deciding which is the sweetest. The poem of Mr. Keats has not the luxury of description, nor the rich love-scenes, of Mr. Cornwall; but he tells the tale with a naked and affecting simplicity which goes. irresistibly to the heart. The following description of Isabella's visit with her old nurse to her lover's grave, and their digging for the head, is as wildly intense as any thing which we can remember.

See, as they creep along the river side,

How she doth whisper to that aged Dame, And, after looking round the champaign wide, Shows her a knife."What feverous hectic

flame

Burns in thee, child-What good can thee betide, That thou should'st smile again ?"-The even

ing came,

And they had found Lorenzo's earthy bed;
The flint was there, the berries at his head. 21

Who hath not loiter'd in a green church-yard,
And let his spirit, like a demon-mole,

Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard,

To see scull, coffin'd bones, and funeral stole ;
Pitying each form that hungry Death hath marr'd,
And filling it once more with human soul?
Ah! this is holiday to what was felt
When Isabella by Lorenzo knelt.

She gaz'd into the fresh-thrown mould, as though
One glance did fully all its secrets tell;
Clearly she saw, as other eyes would know
Pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well;
Upon the murderous spot she seem'd to grow
Like to a native lily of the dell :
Then with her knife, all sudden, she began
To dig more fervently than misers can.
Soon she turn'd up a soiled glove, whereon

Her silk had play'd in purple phantasies,
She kiss'd it with a lip more chill than stone,
And put it in her bosom, where it dries
And freezes utterly unto the bone

Those dainties made to still an infant's cries: Then 'gan she work again; nor stay'd her care, But to throw back at times her veiling hair. That old nurse stood beside her wondering, Until her heart felt pity to the core

At sight of such a dismal labouring,

1

And so she kneeled, with her locks all hoar, And put her lean hands to the horrid thing: Three hours they labour'd at this travail sore;

Apollonius fixes his eye upon the cold, At last they felt the kernel of the grave,

pallid, beseeching bride-she vanishes

And Isabella did not stamp and rave.

"The Eve of St. Agnes" is a piece of consecrated fancy, which shews how a young lover, in the purity of heart, went to see his gentle mistress, the daughter of a baron, as she laid herself in her couch to dream in that holy seasonand how she awoke and these lovers fled into the storm-while the father and his guests were oppressed with strange night-mare, and the old nurse died smitten with the palsy. A soft religious light is shed over the whole story. The following is part of the exquisite scene in the chamber:

A casement high and triple-arch'd there was,
All garlanded with carven imag'ries

Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings;
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,

A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast,
As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings, for heaven :-Porphyro grew faint :
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal
taint.

Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,

Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,
Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,

But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.

Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,
In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay,
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress'd
Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;
Blissfully haven'd both from joy and pain;
Clasp'd like a missal where swart Paynims pray;
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.

Stol'n to this paradise, and so entranced,
Porphyro gazed upon her empty dress,
And listen'd to her breathing, if it chanced
To wake into a slumberous tenderness;
Which when he heard, that minute did he bless,
And breath'd himself: then from the closet crept,
Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness,
And over the hush'd carpet, silent, stept,
And 'tween the curtains peep'd, where, lo!-
how fast she slept.

"Hyperion, a fragment," is in a very different style. It shews us old Saturn after the loss of his empire, and the Titans in their horrid cave, meditating revenge on the usurper, and young Apollo breathing in the dawn of his

joyous existence. We do not think any thing exceeds in silent grandeur the opening of the poem, which exhibits Saturn in his solitude:

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 gray-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 deadened 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 foot-marks 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 list'ning to the
Earth,

His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.

The picture of the vast abode of Cybele and the Titans—and of its gigantic inhabitants, is in the sublimest style of Eschylus. Lest this praise should be thought extravagant we will make room for the whole.

It was a den where no insulting light

Could glimmer on their tears; where their own

groans

They felt, but heard not, for the solid roar
Of thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse,
Pouring a constant bulk, uncertain where.
Crag jutting forth to crag, and rocks that seem'd
Ever as if just rising from a sleep,

Forehead to forehead held their monstrous horns;
And thus in thousand hugest phantasies
Made a fit roofing to this nest of woe.
Instead of thrones, hard flint they sat upon,
Couches of rugged stone, and slaty ridge
Stubborn'd with iron. All were not assembled:
Some chain'd in torture, and some wandering.
Cous, and Gyges, and Briareus,
Typhon, and Dolor, and Porphyrion,
With many more, the brawniest in assault,
Were pent in regions of laborious breath;
Dungeon'd in opaque element, to keep
Their clenched teeth still clench'd, and all their
limbs

Lock'd up like veins of metal, crampt and screw'd;

Without a motion, save of their big hearts
Heaving in pain, and horribly convuls'd
With sanguine feverous boiling gurge of pulse.
Mnemosyne was straying in the world;
Far from her moon had Phoebe wandered;
And many else were free to roam abroad,
But for the main, here found they covert drear.
Scarce images of life, one here, one there,
Lay vast and edgeways; like a dismal cirque
Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor,
When the chill rain begins at shut of eve,
In dull November, and their chancel vault,
The Heaven itself, is blinded throughout night.
Each one kept shroud, nor to his neighbour gave
Or word, or look, or action of despair.

7.

Creus was one; his ponderous iron mace
Lay by him, and a shatter'd rib of rock
Told of his rage, ere he thus sank and pined.
Iapetus another; in his
grasp,

A serpent's plashy neck; its barbed tongue Squeez'd from the gorge, and all its uncurl'd length

Dead; and because the creature could not spit
Its poison in the eyes of conquering Jove...
Next Cottus: prone he lay, chin uppermost,
As though in pain; for still upon the flint
He ground severe his skull, with open mouth
And eyes at horrid working. Nearest him
Asia, born of most enormous Caf,
Who cost her mother Tellus keener pangs,
Though feminine, than any of her sons:
More thought than woe was in her dusky face,
For she was prophesying of her glory;
And in her wide imagination stood
Palm-shaded temples, and high rival fanes,
By Oxus or in Ganges' sacred isles.
Even as Hope upon her anchor leans,
So leant she, not so fair, upon a tusk
Shed from the broadest of her elephants.
Above her, on a crag's uneasy shelve,
Upon his elbow rais'd, all prostrate else,

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Shadow'd Enceladus; once tame and mild (

As grazing ox unworried in the meads;
Now tiger-passioned, lion-thoughted, wroth,
Hemeditated, plotted, and even now re
Was hurling mountains in that second war
Not long delay'd, that scar'd the younger Gods
To hide themselves in forms of beast and bird.
Not far hence Atlas; and beside him prone
Phorcus, the sire of Gorgons. Neighbour'd close
Oceanus, and Tethys, in whose lap - O
Sobb'd Clymene among her tangled hair.
In midst of all lay Themis, at the feet

Of Ops the queen all clouded round from sight;
No shape distinguishable, more than when
Thick night confounds the pine-tops with the
clouds:

And many else whose names may not be told.

We now take leave of Mr. Keats with wonder at the gigantic stride which he has taken, and with the good hope that, if he proceeds in the high and pure style which he has now chosen, he will attain an exalted and a lasting station among English poets.

NOCTES ATTICE.-REVERIES IN A GARRET.

CONTAINING SHORT AND ORIGINAL REMARKS ON MEN AND BOOKS, &c. L

ARCHITECTURE.

BY PAUL PONDER, GENT.

Nubes et inania captat.

I REMEMBER an Italian author who proposes consigning his state rooms to the different virtues suiting the noble inhabitants and guests: chastity, temperance, honour, integrity, &c. Integrity lodges a prime minister, temperance a city alderman, and chastity a young widow of quality, &c. I fear this writer was somewhat of a wag, and required a delicate duty from the master of the mansion.

ANTIQUITIES.

Students in antiquarian researches are valuable persons; and should be considered as great law officers in the literary world as they arrest the hand of oblivion, and prevent the ravages of time from injuring the views of future ages, in spite of the indignant exclamation of time on these useful and diligent purveyors for futurity..

Pox on't, says Time to Thomas Hearne,
Whatever I forget you learn.

To such valuable reporters we are much indebted, that as we grow old we do not subject ourselves to the bitter sarcasm of Junius, of being old men without the benefits of experience.

ADVICE AND CAUTION.

When old persons inveigh against the vanity and nonsense of the world,

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How many persons labour under lowness of spirits, from not being aware that a very slight medical aid would liberate them from these "blue devils. Were we all able to distinguish moral from physical evils, we should not so often talk of unhappiness, misery, &c.; and it may be feared that many men have applied a pistol to their heads in a great agony of mind, when a few gentle cathartics would have restored them to cheerfulness and health.

FIELDING AND RICHARDSON.

Fielding, like a modern portraitpainter or statuary, made his characters resemble individuals. Richardson, on the contrary, painted from fancy, in imitation of the beau ideal, by which the statue or painting represented no

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real person, but a character made up of various excellent qualities from different persons, as in the exhibition of the super-excellent Lais. Fielding's Tom Jones is an individual we often meet with in life; Sir Charles Grandison an ideal excellence, and compiled from others

"A faultless monster that the world ne'er saw."

DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO.

Many ingenious critics have puzzled themselves in making comparisons of the respective merits of these authors, when their difference is the more obvious subject of this discussion. Demosthenes might be compared to thunder and lightning, astonishing and terrifying the reader; whilst the eloquence of the Roman orator might be illustrated by artificial fires, which are at once luminous, elegant, and amusive.

GIL BLAS AND DON QUIXOTE.

These very ingenious and diverting authors seem calculated to please readers of very different descriptions. I have observed that literary men are most delighted with Don Quixote, and men of the world with Gil Blas. Perhaps the preference of Don Quixote in the former may be ascribed to the sympathy which learned readers feel for the knight, whose aberrations of intellect originated from too intense an application to books of his own selection, and from whims which his own brain engendered.

DRUIDS.

We learn that the ancient Druids reckoned their days, not by the course of the sun, but by that of the moon. Perhaps some learned ladies of this age have adopted the almanack of the Druids, and regulate their days, or rather nights, by this planet; and the dame of fashion, like the Satan in Paradise Lost, never thinks of the sun, but to address him in the lines of that immortal bard,

To tell him how she hates his beams."

LEARNED LADIES.

A person who frequently attended the Royal Institution, and who was both astonished and delighted with the numerous attendance of the fair sex at these scientific lectures, observed with a smile somewhat Sardonic, that he saw great advantage arising from that circumstance, as he was sure that for the future the sciences would no longer have any secrets.

NEW MONTHLY MAG-No. 80.

EVIDENCE ADMITTED.

Mr. R. a staunch lawyer, used frequently to rate his wife for her unfounded stories, for which she was in vain requested to bring some authority or voucher. Once in a passion she told him, that he was a cuckold. Now, my dear, replied Mr. R. with the utmost sung froid, now I believe I may consider your own assertion as the best possible evidence.

AMBITION

Can only be praise-worthy in any individual as it produces benefits to mankind, and has real honour in view. Otherwise the hero who acts on the selfish motive of making himself great, is only a robber or a tyrant, a whirlwind and a storm, and a plague.

"From Macedonia's madman to the Swede."

BIOGRAPHY (SELF.)

Should such facetious writers as Montaigne or Rabelais give us an account of their own lives, their pleasant anecdotes and candid representations of themselves would shut our eyes against the vanity of writing their own lives. When David Hume in the description of himself displays cold conceit and the most inhuman from the pages of a solemn and disgustphlegm, we turn our faces with disgust ing babbler.

BEAUTY.

Men who marry for the beauty only of their wives, found their conjugal happiness on a very precarious tenure: they cannot renew the lease, or repair the premises, or enter upon new ones; whilst the old one is every day falling to ruin and as marriage is a concurrent lease, the hope of survivorship is equally uncertain. Our early dramatists have given some useful hints on this delicate subject

"By her virtue learn to square
And level out your life: for to be fair
And nothing virtuous, only fits the eye
Of gaudy youth and swelling vanity."
Beaumont and Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess.

CONVERSATION.

This intercourse has generally been regulated by moral remedies. I should propose physical cures. Men from exuberant spirits often disturb the equality necessary to conversation: I should recommend the lancet to such plethoric talkers; either to the tongue if it be too rapid, or to the temples if the person indulges more in talk than the adjacent regions may enable him to do well. VOL. XIV. 2 K

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