Shelley is seen by the little poem, Memorabilia, one of the most exquisite and suggestive appreciations in the English language: "Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you, "But were you living before that, My starting moves your laughter! "I crossed a moor, with a name of its own 'Mid the blank miles round about: "For there I picked up on the heather It is Dowden, I think in one of his later studies on Shelley, who, while enumerating the three classes of men in life and literature, calling the first two the Craftsmen and the Conquerors, concludes: "But how shall we name the third class of men, who live for the ideal alone, and are yet betrayed into weakness and terror, and deeds which demand an atonement of remorse; men who can never quite reconcile the two worlds in which we have our being, the world of material fact and the spiritual world above and beyond it; who give themselves away for love or give themselves away for light, yet sometimes mistake bitter for sweet, and darkness for light, children who sometimes stumble on the sharp stones and bruise their hands and feet, yet who can wing their way with angelic ease through spaces of the upper air. These are they whom we say the gods love, and who seldom reach the fourscore years of Goethe's majestic old age. They are dearer perhaps than any others to the heart of humanity, for they symbolise in a pathetic way both its weakness and its strength. We cannot class them with the exact and patient craftsmen; they are ever half-defeated and can have no claim to take their seats besides the conquerors. Let us name them lovers; and if at any time they have wandered far astray, let us remember their errors with gentleness, because they have loved much. It is in this third class of those who serve mankind that Shelley has found a place.” References Books: Life of Shelley. DOWDEN. The Real Shelley. JEAFFRESON. The Life of Shelley. SHARP. Shelley. SYMONDS. Recollections of the Last Days of Byron and Shelley. TRELAWNEY. Shelley, Man and Poet. CHITTON-BROCK. Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. SCUDDER. Studies in Poetry. BROOKE. Transcripts and Studies. DOWDEN. A Study of the Cenci. BATES. Magazines: Shelley and Mary Godwin. LE GALLIENNE. Cosmop., vol. 35, p. 291. Last Days of Shelley. BIAGI. Harper, vol. 84, p. 782. The Prometheus Unbound of Shelley. SCUDDER. Atl., vol. 70, p. 391. Shelley. SYMONS. Atl., vol. 100, p. 347. Shelley's Oxford Martyrdom. LANG. Fortn., vol. 87, p. 230. Shelley 'Contra Mundum.' NICHOLSON. 19th Cent., vol. 63, p. 794. Shelley's Morality. GANNETT. No. Amer., vol. 146, p. 104. Godwin and Shelley. STEPHEN. Liv. Age, vol. 141, p. 67. Some Thoughts on Shelley. BROOKE. Ecl. M., vol. 95, p. 217. A Defence of Harriet Shelley. MARK TWAIN. No. Amer., vol. 159, pp. 108, 240, 353. CHAPTER XII Keats EATS died before he was twenty-six years old, and yet his thought, "I think I shall be among the English poets after my death," has been abundantly fulfilled, for in the language of Matthew Arnold, "He is with Shakspere." Of one whose career is cut short at such an early age it is usually said that he was a man of great promise, but of Keats one may say that he was a youth of great fulfillment. And this not because of the sympathy and pity we feel at his untimely death, not because of the seeds of promise in a quantity of work, but because of the exquisite perfection of his best work. The remarkableness of his achievement can be all the more appreciated when one considers how utterly unknown would be the names of Scott, Carlyle, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning, had their careers ended as early as that of Keats. The story of his life is a sad one, and it is possible that the judgment of posterity has been mellowed by the recollection of the misfortunes and miseries of the poet who dying asked that there be inscribed upon his tombstone, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." But after all deductions have been made, after a century of varying criticism, the fame of Keats is established; he stands secure among the Immortals in that Hall of Fame not made by hands, but built "to the music of their harps." Birth and Parentage. - John Keats was born October 29 or 31, 1795. Genius is inexplicable and crops out in the most unexpected places. No one knowing the parents of Shakspere, Burns, Shelley, or Whittier, would have predicted a poet. Why then need biographers be amazed, and in some cases embarrassed, because the father of Keats was the manager of a livery stable at Finsbury Pavement, Lower Moorfields, London? Thomas Keats had done with his might whatsoever his hand had found to do in the stable of John Jennings. His character was such that he won the heart and hand of Frances Jennings, the daughter of his employer; his ability was such that Jennings retired and gave the management of the business to Thomas, his son-in-law. Cowden Clarke tells us that the father of Keats was no ordinary man "I perfectly remember the warm terms in which his demeanor used to be canvassed by my parents after he had been to visit his boys." Of the mother we know but little. It is said she was impulsive, fond of amusement, and passionately attached to John, her first born, who returned her devoted affection. A characteristic story told by all his biographers is the one first reported by Haydon, the painter: “He was, when an infant, a most violent and ungovernable child. At five years of age or thereabouts he once got hold of a naked sword, and, shutting the door, swore nobody should go out. His mother wanted to do so; but he threatened her so furiously she began to cry, and was obliged to wait till somebody, through the window, saw her position, and came to her rescue." A more pleasing anecdote is another sword incident in which he is represented as standing at the door of her bed-chamber, where she lay seriously ill, with a sword in hand to guard her from being disturbed. However, we are not compelled to believe either story. Education. The Englishman is likely to send his son to one of the great public schools of England, such as Eton, Rugby, or Harrow. Shelley went to Eton and afterwards to Oxford; Byron attended Harrow, and later entered Cambridge. The parents of Keats, deterred by the expense from sending John to Harrow, selected a school at Enfield kept by the Reverend John Clarke. Here Keats and his brothers received their education. Charles Cowden Clarke, born in 1787 and living until 1877, the son of the head-master, took a special interest in John and became in later years the principal source of our information concerning the schooldays of our poet. It seems that at the beginning John was not studious, but during the last eighteen months of his stay at Enfield, with characteristic impetuosity, he devoted himself to reading and study. He became especially fond of classical mythology, reading Lemprièré's Classical Dictionary, Tooke's Pantheon, and Spence's Polymetis. This helps to explain how Keats, in no sense a classical scholar, was able to reproduce some phases of the Greek spirit in his poetry. He translated much of the Æneid. Robinson Crusoe and the Incas He was also acquainted with of Peru were favorite books. Shakspere. His school companions remembered him more as a lively and pugnacious boy than as a devoted student. "He was a boy," wrote in after years Edward Holmes, "whom any one, from his extraordinary vivacity and personal beauty, might easily fancy would become great-but rather in some military capacity than in literature." Charles Cowden Clarke has written entertainingly: "He was a favourite with all. Not the less beloved was he for having a highly pugnacious spirit, which when roused was one of the most picturesque exhibitions—off the stage-I ever saw. . . . Upon one occasion, when an usher, on account of some impertinent behaviour, had boxed his brother Tom's ears, John rushed up, put himself into the received posture of offence, and, it was said, struck the usher—who could, so to say, have put him in his pocket. His passion at times was almost ungovernable; and his brother George, being considerably the taller and stronger, used frequently to hold him down by main force, laughing when John was 'in one of his moods,' and was endeavouring to beat him. It was all, however, a wisp-of-straw conflagration; for he had an intensely tender affection for his brothers, and proved it upon the most trying occasions. He was not merely the favourite of all, like a pet prize-fighter, for his terrier courage; but his highmindedness, his utter unconsciousness of a mean motive, his placability, his generosity, wrought so general a feeling in his behalf that I never heard a word of disapproval from anyone, superior or equal, who had known him." Apprenticeship.—At fifteen John was taken from school and apprenticed to a surgeon for a period of five years, a term of service which for some reason was never completed. By this time the boy of fifteen had more than the usual quota of troubles. In 1804 his father had been killed by a fall from his horse, and in 1810 his mother had died of a rapid consumption. John was |