raise

Fame the last spur that the clear spirit doth | guisement. This is the only happiness, and is a rare instance of advantage in the body overpowering the mind.

To spurn delights and live laborious days — was the object of his scornful ridicule; human action of any kind even of the romantic ballads that had stirred the heart of Sir Philip Sidney "like the sound of a trumpet," and of history that had inspired some of the noblest of Shakespeare's dramas was nothing to him compared to

the emotion of an ideal love-scene:

Hence pageant history! hence gilded cheat!
Swart planet in the wilderness of deeds!
Wide sea that one continuous murmur breeds
Along the pebbled shore of memory!
Many old rotten-timbered boats there be
Upon thy vaporous bosom magnified
To goodly vessels; many a sail of pride,
And golden-keeled is left unlaunched and dry.
But wherefore this? What care though owl
did fly

Above the great Athenian admiral's mast?
What care though striding Alexander past
The Indus with his Macedonian numbers?
Though old Ulysses tortured from his slum-

bers

We have in this passage a clear index of Keats's motive when he was in the com. paratively active mood of poetical composition. To the vivid and powerful imagination which worked within his diseased frame, "the vast idea," "the end and aim of Poesy," of which he speaks in his lines on "Sleep and Poetry," was to escape from the detested surroundings of actual life into the ideal world which was ever floating before his mind's eye. In his earlier poems he seems to be haunted by the fear lest he should die before he had time to execute his purpose. The difficulty was to find a form of metrical composition adapted to the expression of his conception. Though, in its repugnance to the actual and the real, his imagination is akin to that of Coleridge, yet the mind of the latter was of a much more energetic and manly order, while the metrical music which he invented had too much of contin

The glutted Cyclops, what care? Juliet lean-uous action to depict adequately the steading

Amid her window flowers-sighing-weaning
Tenderly her fancy from its maiden snow
Doth more avail than these: the silver flow
Of Hero's tears, the swoon of Imogen,
Fair Pastorella in the bandit's den,
Are things to brood on with more ardency
Than the death-day of Empires.

One cause alone can explain and excuse this unblushingly avowed preference for the feminine over the masculine motives of composition, namely, physical debility. To this indulgence Keats is entitled; and, yet when we think of the fiery spirit that has fretted out many a puny body, it is difficult to read without disgust the following confession of an apparently contented materialist:

fast and isolated images which Keats's
Nor could the
fancy loved to evoke.
younger poet make anything of an ex-
tended narrative in verse. As a story,
'Endymion" deserves all that its worst
enemies ever said of it. 66
Hyperion
shows a remarkable advance, but it is well
that Keats left it a fragment, for it is plain
that, with his effeminate notion of Apollo,
he could never have invented any kind of
action which would have interested the
reader in learning how the old Titan Sun-
god was turned out of his kingdom. The
poem, in its language, challenges com-
"Paradise Lost," where
parison with
Milton is confronted with the same diffi-
culty, yet even he, with all his skill in
construction and his noble power of rep-
resenting character, often contends vainly
against the poverty of human interest and
incident inherent in his subject.
Keats evidently felt that in "

Endym

This morning I am in a sort of temper indolent and supremely careless; I long after a stanza or two of Thomson's "Castle of Indolence;" my passions are all asleep, from my having slumbered till nearly eleven, and weak-ion" he had not reached his "end and ened the animal fibre all over me to a delight- aim of Poesy." But he was on the right ful sensation about three degrees on this side track. In "Sleep and Poetry" he lets us faintness. If I had teeth of pearl, and the see very plainly, though he is himself breath of lilies, I should call it languor; but as scarcely conscious of the fact, that the I am, I must call it laziness. In this state of source of his inspiration is sculpture and effeminacy the fibres of the brain are relaxed painting. In looking on a picture by Tiin common with the rest of the body, and to tian, or on the reliefs on a Grecian urn, such a happy degree, that pleasure has no show his fancy lit on objects which carried him of enticement, and pain no unbearable frown; neither Poetry nor Ambition nor Love have away into a world entirely remote from any alertness of countenance; as they pass by his actual circumstances, and we see him me they seem rather like those figures on a in "Endymion" constantly trying to reGreek urn, two men and a woman, whom no produce, in words, the image of some one but myself could distinguish in their dis- landscape or figure which he remembers

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self;
and in the lines in "Lamia,"
Then once again the charmed god began
An oath, and through the serpent's ears it ran,
Warm, tremulous, devout, psalterian.

in painting. These isolated pictures, in- | Charmed magic casements opening on the foam
deed
every one will recall the descrip. Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn ;
tion of Adonis asleep, of Cybele drawn in the passage that follows,
by her lions, and the beautiful proces-
sional song of the Bacchanals- are the
only successful parts of the poem.
But
in his later works he had found his foot-
bold, and in "St. Agnes' Eve," the "Ode
to a Nightingale," the "Ode on a Grecian
Urn," and other short poems of the same
kind, he shows that he has discovered a
group of sculpturesque and picturesque
subjects-subjects, that is to say, which
suggest permanent forms in the midst of
constant material change-on which his
imagination can work with perfect happi-
ness and freedom. He has realized his
own ideal. As he says in the last stanza
of the " Ode on a Grecian Urn "-

Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damasked
wings,

And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blushed with blood of
queens and kings.

It is, in fact, evident that, just as Cole-
ridge, by an instinctive process, learned
how to produce musical effects in language
by combinations of metrical sounds, so
Keats came gradually to perceive the anal-
ogy between painting and poetry latent in
the picturesque associations of individual
words. We see the tendency_betraying
itself early, in his sonnet on Chapman's
Homer; in its maturity, in the beautiful
lines,

And it is carried to its height in the wonderful description immediately connected with these lines

a passage in which the distinctness of the painting is equalled by its loathliness depicting the agony of the serpent during her transformation into a woman.

These are remarkable achievements, which only those who are insensible to the power of genius are likely to underrate. Both Coleridge and Keats must be regarded as inventors in the art of poetry, and, as we know, Virgil gives inventors of all kinds a place beside the poets in Ely. sium.

Quique pii vates et Phobo digna locuti ;
Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes.

I think it will not be contended that I have sought grudgingly to deprive the romantic poets of the honors that are justly their due. On the other hand, it would be the mark of a feeble or a servile mind to shrink, either in deference to the authority of genius, or in gratitude for the boon of novelty, from inquiring whether those who in this century have discovered always "spoken things worthy of Phoe fresh arts of metrical composition, have bus." I must go one step farther. I think that men of impartial judgment will not deny that whatever results may be achieved by the new methods must be achieved by the sacrifice of some principle which lies at the foundation of what the world has agreed to regard as the highest kinds of poetry.

Look at Wordsworth's method, for instance. There can be no doubt that, by carefully watching the individual impres sions made on his own mind by objects in the external world, it may be possible for a man of genius and imagination to notice many subtle beauties which may have escaped general observation, and to record them in a striking metrical form. But it is absolutely essential that if he adopt the principle of analysis, he should forego the principle of action; since he cannot form his conception in the sphere of imagina. tion pure and simple, nor can he give to

his creation that extension and proportion | With fruits and flowers from Amalthea's horn, which is indispensable to any great ideal And ladies of th' Hesperides, that seemed whole. Moreover, by basing poetry solely Fairer than feigned of old or fabled since on the analysis of his own impressions, of faery damsels met in forest wide he necessarily deprives the art of its an- By knight of Logres or of Lyones, cient social influence, because, as Scott And all the while harmonious airs were heard Lancelot, or Pelleas, or Pellenore; justly says, he can have no guarantee that of chiming strings, or charming pipes, and a record of his individual experience will have power to arouse in the minds of his hearers those universal associations to which the great masters of verse appeal.

Again, a man may follow in the track of Coleridge and Keats, and make it his chief aim to touch the imagination by discovering new associations of metrical sound, or fresh combinations of pictur: esque words. But do not let it be argued that those who devote themselves to this

pursuit are enlarging the boundaries of
the art, when in fact they are sensibly
contracting them. Poetry contains in it
self the principles of painting, sculpture,
and music, but, in its highest forms, it
only develops and employs these for the
representation of some human interest
and action. For instance, the passage in
the "Penseroso:".

Oft on a plot of rising ground
I hear the far-off curfew sound,
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar ;
Or if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all resort of mirth,

Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bellman's drowsy charm

To bless the doors from nightly harm.

Here is the law of association at work in all its power, a number of apparently unconnected images being combined, as in "Christabel," in a musical metre; but, unlike "Christabel," the unity of the poem lies, not in the music, but in the thought, namely, the description of the features of melancholy.

As to painting, there is almost as much highly wrought imagery to be found in a simile of Homer or of Ariosto, as in a whole poem of Keats, and yet with them the simile is merely a halting-place for repose in the midst of a swift narrative of ideal action. Is there anything in Keats that can match the following as a picture?

And at a stately sideboard, by the wine

That fragrant smell diffused, in order stood
Tall stripling youths rich-clad, of fairer hue
Than Ganymed or Hylas; distant more
Under the trees, now tripped now solemn stood,
Nymphs of Diana's train, and Naiades

winds

Of gentlest gales Arabian odors fanned
From their soft wings, and Flora's earliest
smells.

But will anybody say that this most
noble
was the motive of "Para-
passage
dise Regained" in the sense that the de-
the motive of "St. Agnes' Eve"?
sire to produce gorgeous word-colors was

Of

The nearer poetry approaches to painting, the farther must it depart from action, action suspended in a single moment of because a picture can only represent an time. And if you sacrifice action in poetry, you sacrifice all that makes it the noblest of the arts, since it alone is able to con. vey to the mind in a rational form an idea of the most lofty and energetic passions that sway the human heart. these Keats knew nothing. With his brilliant pictorial fancy, he was able to conjure up before his mind's eye all those forms of the pagan world which were, by his own confession, invisible to Wordsworth; but, on the other hand, to the actual strife of men, to the clash and conflict of opinion, to the moral meaning of the changes in social and political life, he was blind or insensible. Physical science he regarded as the enemy of poetry. "Do not all charms," he asks,

These lines appear to me to contain a world of suggestion. They speak with equal force, artistically, to enthusiasts who, like Wordsworth, contend that the sphere of poetry is co-extensive with the sphere of nature, and morally (in their pessimism and melancholy) to those other optimists who hold that the resources of art are boundless, so long as it is pursued simply for its own sake. To detach the imagination from its proper sphere, from the range of associations in which it can move with natural freedom, and to plunge it into the midst of common actual life, is

to confuse the limits that separate compo-
sition in verse from composition in prose;
while, on the other hand, to struggle to
get absolutely free from the world of sense
and reality in pursuit of mere beauty of
form, involves a relaxation of all the
nerves and fibres of manly thought, the
growth of affectation, and the consequent
encouragement of all the emasculating
influences that produce swift deterioration
and final decay.

WILLIAM JOHn Courthope.

From Blackwood's Magazine.
THE TORPEDO SCARE.

[TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.
Sir,If I presume to endeavor to stem the
tide of public opinion as regards the very great
efficiency of the fish torpedo as a weapon of
maritime warfare, it is not with any confidence
in my powers of persuasion, or for the pleasure
of controversy, but because I am perhaps the
only person living who has commanded squad-
rons or single ships in war, where torpedoes
were used as offensive weapons. - I am, yours
truly,
HOBART PACHA.]

DURING the late Turco-Russian war,
Russian torpedo-boats constantly attacked
Turkish ships. These attacks were made
not only by boats armed with the Pole
and Harvey torpedo, but with the newest
type of the Whitehead torpedo then in-
vented. They were commanded by as
active and gallant a set of men as ever
stepped a ship's deck, and who made
every possible effort to destroy Turkish
ironclads, every one of which returned
safely to Constantinople after the war.
The only loss to the Turkish squadron
was two small wooden gunboats blown up
in the Danube through the carelessness
of their commanders.

of naval officers, their coolness in time of action, their seamanlike qualities, of which some nations are so justly proud, would be put to a test in a manner altogether different from what has hitherto taken place. The sailor, although brave and cool in a fair fight, would be in constant dread of being hurled into the air without even the chance of striking a blow or firing a shot in self-defence. The writer of this, while commanding squadrons manned by men who have not only the unsurpassed courage of their race, but who have recourse when in danger to the almighty word kismet, and only think of danger after its arrival had only his own humble idea of courage without kismet, and thus felt all the anxiety day and night, for nearly a year, of not knowing at what moment he might receive the happy despatch by being blown into the air.

The Russians had, very shortly after I had anchored my squadron in Batoum, launched several torpedoes at the ships, in spite of my having placed guard-boats across the entrance of the harbor. One of these torpedoes struck the chain of the flag-ship, and went on shore unexploded; another struck on the armored belt of a corvette and exploded, but the blow being at an angle, it did no material injury. After this experience, it was absolutely incumbent on me to take some steps for the safety of the vessels under my command. The means in my power for torpedo defence were unfortunately very limited, but that very fact enabled me to prove that necessity is the mother of invention. For example, the system which I had seen adopted with regard to hostile fleets in torpedo defence, comprised a system of éclairage which it was entirely out of my power to employ. Thus, instead of lighting my ships, whereby I should have become a target for the enemy, I, from force of circumstances, was obliged to maintain what was in reality the far better system of utter darkness from sunset to daylight. But of this hereafter.

I venture to maintain that the power of the torpedo, as a weapon of offence as well as of defence, is enormously exaggerated. Were it not so, one might almost say that naval warfare would soon I will now relate in detail the plan I come to an end altogether, inasmuch as applied as a defence in regard to the difno fleet or ship could resist such a deadly ferent points mentioned above namely, weapon. Blockade of an enemy's port the course to be adopted for the safety of could not be maintained. Vessels could ships of war while blockading an enemy's never lie at anchor 'near an enemy's coast. port, while lying at anchor near an eneFleets could not cruise in the neighbor- my's coast, or while cruising in the neighhood of hostile ships carrying torpedo. borhood of hostile ships blockading. I boats. Ports defended by torpedoes could think that the ships should be always, not be attacked, harbors and estuaries when convenient, under way, and with could not be approached; and, in fact, their torpedo-nets out, constantly chang none of the old systems of naval warfare ing their positions so as not to be easily could be put into execution. The courage | found by the enemy's torpedo-boats: no

lights whatever should be shown. Should an English naval officer of the highest

it be necessary to anchor, I think that the ships should be anchored in small detachments, and a system of defence arranged as follows, placed round each ship or detachment.

rank and position informed me that he had tried defence in torpedo warfare, he himself being on board the defending ship, and that he found that the torpedo-boats so easily discovered his vessel in the darkest nights, that, had it been real warfare, she would have been sunk or destroyed.

Boats at a distance of four or five hundred yards will be placed round the squadron at anchor. These boats will be connected together by wire ropes immersed Now if a man tries to find a thing in the about two feet in the water, and buoyed dark in his own bedroom, he can easily in the centre. The object of this is to find it; but if he goes into another man's catch the screw of any attacking torpedo-bedroom, it will puzzle him vastly to put boat. It has been proved that common his hand upon what he wants. I make rope, used for want of anything better, this comparison because I imagine that has effectually checked the career and the attacking torpedo-boats referred to capsized an attacking_torpedo-boat in her by this gallant officer came from the imattempt to destroy a Turkish ship in the mediate neighborhood, and knew pretty Black Sea during the last war; and I well where the object of their attack was know that most satisfactory experiments lying- knew the bearings and distance with the wire rope have been made else before they started to attack her, and thus where. The result of these experiments had very little difficulty in finding their was, that a torpedo-boat, steaming nine way. The attack by the Russian ships teen miles an hour, has capsized while on the Turkish squadrons was generally dashing full speed on to an imaginary en- made from vessels coming from ports emy's ship. two to three hundred miles off, and which, on a pitch-dark night, had to find a harbor where there were no marks or lights of any description. Nothing could be seen beyond the dark outline of the high mountains behind the harbor, which were next to useless as a guide to the anchorage. Moreover, we had a plan of defence at Batoum of a most original nature, proving again that necessity is the mother of invention.

It seems to me that this system, carefully applied, would prove a most efficient and thorough defence against torpedo at tack. I am aware that the present torpedoes are fitted with screws so sharply edged that they would cut through any rope placed to stop them. With the wire rope this would be impossible. This system of defence would apply to single ships at anchor in the same way as it would apply to a squadron or to a detachment, and I see no reason why a large number of ships should not be protected in a similar way the only question being, that the radius would have to be increased according to the number of ships, which might prove, if overdone, inconvenient, if not impossible. Objections might be made that in bad weather boats could not keep their positions. I have had ample proof that in bad weather torpedo-boats cannot fire with any accuracy. It there fore tells both ways.

The little port of Batoum and its town were kept, as I have stated, in perfect darkness. The severest penalties were to be incurred by those who showed a light anywhere, and on several occasions infractions of that rule were punished with great severity. On one occasion we caught an old rascal showing a light from the window of a house prominently placed near the sea.

The man was instantly seized and bastinadoed. After this, and when one or two other examples had been made, one might have imagined BaNow as to lying at anchor near an ene-toum a city of the dead during the night. my's coast. In this also I have had considerable experience while at Batoum and its neighborhood, where I had frequently under my command twelve or fourteen ships, against which the Russians constantly organized torpedo attacks. All their attacks were unsuccessful, for the following reasons: in the first place, as a most gallant Russian officer informed me after the war, it was very difficult to find Batoum at all. I will diverge for a moment from my point in order to state that

From a spit of land we improvised a breakwater, consisting of such trees and spars as we could lay our hands on. These trees and spars were anchored in a line verging towards the beach at a point. To these trees we nailed numbers of thin planks abreast straight down into the water-so making, as it were, a wall of planks about twelve feet deep. The proof of their efficacy was shown one morning by our finding a hole in the planks, and a torpedo diverged from its