BY JOHN KEATS." a nymph of whom he is enamoured. Upon a time, before the faery broods Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslip'd lawns, 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. On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse, Ah, what a world of love was at her feet! 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, grace. A haunting music, sole perhaps and lone Of palm and plantain, met from either side, So canopied, lay an untasted feast Teeming with odours. Lamia, regal drest, And shut the chamber up, close, hush'd and still, 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, Garlands of every green, and every scent From vales deflower'd, or forest-trees branch-rent, 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; Who hath not loiter'd in a green church-yard, Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard, To see scull, coffin'd bones, and funeral stole ; She gaz'd into the fresh-thrown mould, as though Her silk had play'd in purple phantasies, 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, Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass, A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings. Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, Anon his heart revives: her vespers done, Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees; But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled. Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest, Stol'n to this paradise, and so entranced, "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 Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went, 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 Forehead to forehead held their monstrous horns; Lock'd up like veins of metal, crampt and screw'd; Without a motion, save of their big hearts 7. Creus was one; his ponderous iron mace 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 Shadow'd Enceladus; once tame and mild ( As grazing ox unworried in the meads; Of Ops the queen all clouded round from sight; 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, 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, 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 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 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 |