walked ten. Dyspepsy was, no doubt, the | to his memory, since it pointed a censorious true ground of his unhappiness: and he eye upon those things viewed as the acts of had nothing to hope for. To remedy these a demure pretender to piety, which would evils, I have always understood that every else have passed without notice as the most day (and especially towards night) he drank venial of frailties in a layman. too much of that French liquor, which, call- Something I had to say also upon Homer, ing itself water of life, nine times in ten who mingles amongst the examples cited by proves the water of death. He lived latterly at Mr. Gilfillan, of apparent happiness conKensington, viz. in Holland House, the nected with genius. But, for want of well-known residence of the late Lord Hol- room,* I forbear to go further, than to land; and the tradition attached to the lodge my protest against imputing to Hogallery in that house, is, that duly as the mer as any personal merit, what belongs sun drew near to setting, on two tables, altogether to the stage of society in which one at each end of the long ambulachrum, he lived. They," says Mr. Gilfillan, the right honorable Joseph placed, or caus- speaking of the "Iliad" and the "Odysed to be placed, two tumblers of brandy, sey," 99 66 are the healthiest of works. There somewhat diluted with water: and those, are in them no sullenness, no querulous the said vessels, then and there did alter- complaint, not one personal allusion." No; nately to the lips of him, the aforesaid Jo- but how could there have been? Subjective seph, diligently apply, walking to and fro poetry had not an existence in those days. during the process of exhaustion, and divid- Not only the powers for introverting the ing his attention between the two poles, eye upon the spectator, as himself, the arctic and antarctic of his evening diaulos, spectaculum, were then undeveloped and with the impartiality to be expected from a inconceivable, but the sympathies did member of the Privy Council. How often not exist to which such an innovation the two "blessed bears," northern and could have appealed. Besides, and partly southern, were replenished, entered into no from the same cause, even as objects, the affidavit that ever reached me. But so human feelings and affections were too much I have always understood, that in the broadly and grossly distinguished, had not gallery of Holland House, the ex-secre- reached even the infancy of that stage in tary of state caught a decided hiccup, which the passions begin their processes of which never afterwards subsided. In all intermodification, nor could have reached this there would have been little to shock it, from the simplicity of social life, as well people, had it not been for the sycophancy as from the barbarism of the Greek reliwhich ascribed to Addison a religious rep-gion. The author of the "Iliad," or even utation such as he neither merited nor of the "Odyssey," (though doubtless a wished to claim. But one penal reaction of mendacious adulation, for him who is weak enough to accept it, must ever be, to impose restraints upon his own conduct, which otherwise he would have been free to decline. How lightly would Sir Roger de Coverley have thought of a little sotting in any gentleman of right politics! And * For the same reasons, I refrain from noticing Addison would not, in that age, and as to the pretensions of Savage. Mr. Gilfillan gives us that point, have carried his scrupulosity to understand, that not from want of room, but of higher than his own Sir Roger. But such knaves as he who had complimented Addison with the praise of having written " no line which, dying, he could wish to blot," whereas, in fact, Addison started in life by publishing a translation of Petronius Arbiter, had painfully coerced his free agency. This knave, I very much fear, was Tickell the first; and the result of his knavery was, to win for Addison a disagreeable sanctimonious reputation that was, 1st, founded in lies; 2d, that painfully limited Addison's free agency; and 3dly, that prepared insults product of a later period,) could not have been " unhealthy," or sullen," or querulous," from any cause, except psora, or elephantiasis, or scarcity of beef, or similar afflictions with which it is quite impossible to inoculate poetry. The metrical roman time, he does not (which else he could) prove him to be the man he pretended to be. For my own part, I believe Savage to have been the vilest of swindlers; and in these days, under the surveillance of an active police, he would have lost the chance which he earned of being hanged, by having previously been transported to the Plantations. How can Mr. Gilfillan allow himself in a case of this nature, to speak of "universal impression" (if it had really existed) as any separate ground of credibility for Savage's tale? When the public have no access at all to sound means of judging, what matters it in which direction swell the belief, for which not one of all these their "impression " lies, or how many thousands thousands has any thing like a reason to offer? ces of the middle ages have the same shiv- dermined by sickness. As a man, and viewering character of starvation, as to the in-ed in relation to social objects, Keats was ner life of man; and, if that constitutes a nothing. It was as mere an affectation meritorious distinction, no man ought to be when he talked with apparent zeal of libexcused for wanting what it is so easy to erty, or human rights, or human prospects, obtain by simple neglect of culture. On as is the hollow enthusiasm which many the same principle, a cannibal, if truculent-people profess for music, or most poets for ly indiscriminate in his horrid diet, might external nature. For these things Keats win sentimental praises for his temperance; fancied that he cared; but in reality he others were picking and choosing, misera- cared not at all. Upon them, or any of ble epicures! but he, the saint upon earth, their aspects, he had thought too little, and cared not what he ate; any joint satisfi- too indeterminately, to feel for them as pered his moderate desires; shoulder of man, sonal concerns. Whereas Shelley, from leg of child; any thing, in fact, that was his earliest days, was mastered and shaken ne arest at hand, so long as it was good, by the great moving realities of life, as a wholesome human flesh; and the more prophet is by the burden of wrath or of plainly dressed the better. promise which he has been commissioned to reveal. Had there been no such thing as literature, Keats would have dwindled into a cipher. Shelley, in the same event, would hardly have lost one plume from his crest. It is in relation to literature, and to the boundless questions as to the true and the false arising out of literature and poetry, that Keats challenges a fluctuating interest; sometimes an interest of strong disgust, sometimes of deep admiration. There is not, I believe, a case on record throughout European literature, where feelings so repulsive of each other have centred in the same individual. The very midsummer madness of affectation, of false vapory sentiment, and of fantastic effeminacy, seemed to me combined in Keats's Endymion, when I first saw it near the close of 1821. The Italian poet Marino had been reputed the greatest master of gossamery affectation in Europe. But his conceits showed the palest of rosy blushes by the side of Keats's bloody crimson. Naturally, I was discourBut about aged from looking further. But these topics, so various and so fruitful, I touch only because they are introduced, amongst many others, by Mr. Gilfillan. Separately viewed, some of these would be more attractive than any merely personal interest connected with Keats. His biography, stripped of its false coloring, offers little to win attention; for he was not the victim of any systematic malignity, as has been represented. He met, as I have understood, with unusual kindness from his liberal publishers, Messrs. Taylor and Hessey. He met with unusual severity from a cynical reviewer, the late Mr. Gifford, then editor of The Quarterly Review. The story ran, that this article of Mr. G.'s had killed Keats; upon which, with natural astonishment, Lord Byron thus commented, in the 11th canto of Don Juan: John Keats who was kill'd off by one critique, Contrived to talk about the gods of late, Much as they might have been supposed to speak. Poor fellow! his was an untoward fate: 'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, Should let itself be snuffed out by an Article. a week later, by pure accident, my eye fell upon his Hyperion. The first feeling was that of incredulity that the two poems could, under change of circumstances or lapse of time, have emanated from the same mind. The Endymion displays absolutely the most shocking revolt against good sense and just feeling that all literature does now, or ever can, furnish. The Hyperion, as Mr. "is the greatest of po Strange, indeed!-and the friends who honor Keats's memory, should not lend themselves to a story so degrading. He died, I believe, of pulmonary consumption; and would have died of it, probably, under any circumstances of prosperity as a poet. Gilfillan truly says, Doubtless, in a condition of languishing etical torsos." The first belongs essentialdecay, slight causes of irritation act pow-ly to the vilest collection of wax-work filierfully. But it is hardly conceivable that gree, or gilt gingerbread. The other preone ebullition of splenetic bad feeling, in a sents the majesty, the austere beauty, and case so proverbially open to revision as the the simplicity of Grecian temples enriched pretensions of a poet, could have over- with Grecian sculpture. thrown any masculine life, unless where We have in this country a word, viz. the that life had already been irrecoverably un-word Folly, which has a technical appro priation to the case of fantastic buildings. religious. It will, therefore, be a sort of Any building is called "a folly,"* which resurrection for both the palace and the mimics purposes incapable of being realiz- poet, if I cite his description of this gored, and makes a promise to the eye which geous folly. It is a passage in which Cowit cannot keep to the experience. The per assumes so much of a Miltonic tone, most impressive illustration of this idea, that, of the two, it is better to have read which modern times have seen, was, un- his lasting description, than to have seen, doubtedly, the ice palace of the Empress with bodily eyes, the fleeting reality. The Elizabeth-t poet is apostrophizing the Empress Elizabeth. "That most magnificent and mighty freak," which, about eighty years ago, was called up from the depths of winter by "The imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ." Winter and the Czarina were, in this architecture, fellow-laborers. She, by her servants, furnished the blocks of ice, hewed them, laid them: winter furnished the cement, by freezing them together. The palace has long melted back into water; and the poet who described it best, viz. Cowper, is not much read in this age, except by the "A folly." We English limit the application of the term to buildings: but the idea might as fitly be illustrated in other objects. For instance, the famous galley presented to one of the Ptolemies, which offered the luxurious accommodations of capital cities, but required a little army of four thousand men to row it, whilst its draft of water was too great to allow of its often approaching the shore; this was "a folly" in our EngSo again was the Macedonian phaianx the Roman legion could form upon any ground it was a true working tool. But the phalanx was too fine and showy for use. It required for its manœuvring a sort of opera stage, or a select bowling-green, such as few fields of battle offered. lish sense. : I had written "the Empress Catherine:" but, on second thought, it occurred to me that the "mighty freak was, in fact, due to the Empress Elizabeth. There is, however, a freak connected with ice, not quite so "mighty," but quite as autocratic, and even more femininei its caprice, which belongs exclusively to the Empress Cathe rine. A lady had engaged the affections of some young nobleman, who was regarded favorably by the imperial eye. No pretext offered itself for interdicting the marriage; but, by way of freezing it a little in the outset, the Czarina coupled with her permission this condition-that the wedding night should be passed by the young couple on a matress of her gift. The matress turned out to be a block of ice, elegantly cut by the court upholsterer, into the likeness of a well-stuffed Parisian matress. One pities the poor bride, whilst it is difficult to avoid laughing in the midst of one's sympathy. But it is to be hoped that no ukase was issued against spreading seven Turkey carpets by way of under blankets, over this amiable nuptial present. Amongst others who have noticed the story, is Captain Colville Frankland, of the navy. -Nor wanted aught within Sofa, and couch, and high-built throne august. The poet concludes by viewing the whole as an unintentional stroke of satire by the Czarina, -On her own estate, Twas transient in its nature, as in show On human grandeur, and the courts of kings. 'Twas durable; as worthless, as it seem'd Treacherous and false,-it smiled, and it was Intrinsically precious to the foot cold, Looking at this imperial plaything of ice in the month of March, and recollecting that in May all the crystal arcades would be weeping away into vernal brooks, one would have been disposed to mourn a beauty so frail, and to marvel at a frailty so elaborate. Yet still there was some proportion observed: the saloons were limited in number, though not limited in splendor. It was a petit Trianon. But what if, like Versailles, this glittering bauble, to which all the science of Europe could not have Keats had the honor to speak the language secured a passport into June, had contained of Chaucer, Shakspere, Bacon, Milton, six thousand separate rooms? A "folly" Newton. The more awful was the obligaon so gigantic à scale would have moved tion of his allegiance. And yet upon this every man to indignation. For all that mother tongue, upon this English language, could be had, the beauty to the eye, and has Keats trampled as with the hoofs of a the gratification to the fancy, in seeing wa- buffalo. With its syntax, with its prosody, ter tortured into every form of solidity, re- with its idiom, he has played such fantastic sulted from two or three suites of rooms, tricks as could enter only into the heart of a barbarian, and for which only the anarchy as fully as from a thousand, of Chaos could furnish a forgiving audience. Verily it required the Hyperion to weigh against the deep treason of these unparalleled offences. Now, such a folly, as would have been the Czarina's, if executed upon the scale of Versailles, or of the new palace at St. Petersburg, was the Endymion: a gigantic edifice (for its tortuous enigmas of thought multiplied every line of the four thousand into fifty) reared upon a basis slighter and less apprehensible than moonshine. As reasonably and as hopefully in regard to hu- STATE OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN SPAIN. From the Foreign Quarterly Review. Queen Isabella II.'s Speech to the Cortes of 1846. win, if we remember well, had a notion of that sort, and there are sundry gentlemen beyond the Atlantic, encouraged by the high state of morals in Pennsylvania and other repudiating states, who re-echo the sentiments of the perfectionists on this side of the water. man sympathies, might a man undertake an epic poem upon the loves of two butterflies. The modes of existence in the two parties to the love-fable of Endymion, their relations to each other and to us, their THERE is, we believe, a sect in this prospects finally, and the obstacles to the country which still puts faith in human instant realization of these prospects, all perfectibility, and teaches that we have all these things are more vague and incompre- of us long been on the high road to angelic hensible than the reveries of an oyster. completeness. It is just within the limits Still the unhappy subject, and its unhappy of possibility that it may be right; Goodexpansion, must be laid to the account of childish years and childish inexperience. But there is another fault in Keats, of the first magnitude, which youth does not palliate, which youth even aggravates. This lies in the most shocking abuse of his mother-tongue. If there is one thing in this world that, next after the flag of his country and its spotless honor, should be holy in the eyes of a young poet,-it is the language of his country. He should spend the third part of his life in studying this language, and cultivating its total resources. He should be willing to pluck out his right eye, or to circumnavigate the globe, if by such a sacrifice, if by such an exertion he could attain to greater purity, precision, compass, or idiomatic energy of diction. This, if he were even a Kalmuck Tartar, who by the way has the good feeling and patriotism to pride himself upon his beastly language. *But Keats was an Englishman; If diligently sought for, more than one philosopher of this school might, no doubt, be found also in Spain, where things have been wearing so promising an aspect for The rare merit of the last century or so. the theory of perfectibility is, that it is founded on experience. tional poem, [doubtless equally hideous,] they hold to be the immediate gifts of inspiration: and for this I honor them, as each generation learns both from the lips of their mothers. This great poem, by the way, measures (if I remember) seventeen English miles in length; but the most learned man amongst them, in fact a monster of erudition, never read farther than the eighth mile-stone. What he could repeat by heart was little more than a mile and a half; and, indeed, that was Bergmann, the German traveller, in his ac- found too much for the choleric part of his audiEven the Kalmuck face, which to us foolcount of his long rambles and residence amongst ence. the Kalmucks, makes us acquainted with the de-ish Europeans looks so unnecessarily flat and ogrelirious vanity which possesses these demi-savages.like, these honest Tartars have ascertained to be Their notion is, that excellence of every kind, the pure classical model of human beauty,— perfection in the least things as in the greatest, is which, in fact, it is, upon the principle of those briefly expressed by calling it Kalmuckish, Accord- people who hold that the chief use of a face is— ingly, their hideous language, and their vast na- to frighten one's enemy. VOL. III.-No. II. * 50 All history shows that men were exceed sible mistake to suppose that man is as yet ingly demoniacal at their first starting on this an unhatched perfectibility, and that he globe, and that they have gone on improv- will by and by break his shell, put forth a ing their tempers and their practices from powerful pair of wings, and soar away afthat day to this, so that at present there is ter some transcendental fashion into what scarcely an ounce of the old man left in Mr. Shelley calls the intense inane.' At them. There are no tyrants or cannibals all events the upholders of this notion act in the world now. None who persecutes so as to excite in us but little hopes; they for conscience' sake, no thirst for conquest, philosophize as the witch repeats her no appetite for war or bloodshed. We all prayers-backwards, and imagine that the of us sit down under our vines and under best means of fitting us for mounting upour fig-trees, and there is no such thing as wards is to strip our nature of every thing faction or an union workhouse in the land. ethereal and spiritual. Gentlemen with white waistcoats legislate for us, gentlemen in hair-cloth shirts preach to us at the universities, and take charge of our ethical habits, and determine the relations in which we are henceforward to stand to the Bishop of Rome. Clearly we have very few steps to take to reach that supercelestial state towards which the advocates of perfectibility assure us we are hastening; a state in which there will be no circulating libraries, in which gentlemen will buy books for themselves and read them; the millennium of printers and paper-makers, the holiday of soldiers, the long vacation of lawyers. Our own opinion is that modern society does not intend to climb much higher. It seems to be rapidly becoming practical, to be surrounding itself with conveniences, in one word, to be making itself comfortable, -a temper of mind highly adverse to ambitious speculation. Nations which look up the plane of possibility, which contemplate a high and distant level, and are resolved to reach it, gird up their loins and prepare for a struggle. They think little of ordinary enjoyments, present or prospective. Their delight is in intellectual and moral activity, in building up systems of philosophy or government, in subduing Meanwhile, there is a slight jarring of the actual by the speculative, in mounting the system in Spain, where General Nar- over the steps of their own theories to the vaez, the Pythagoras of the Peninsula, has loftiest regions of thought. But throughfor some time been endeavoring to inculcate out Christendom humanity is evidently in into the press the necessity of preserving the attitude of Lot's wife. It regrets the a five years' silence. He considers free circle of traditions, emotions, creeds, and discussion a very pernicious thing, and ob- philosophies out of which it has blundered, jects to juries, because they are apt to take views of political errors and delinquencies somewhat different from those of the government. There was a time when similar fancies possessed gentlemen in office here, in our own island, though they had exceedingly few converts among the people. There is therefore progress, it may be said, or in other words, a tendency towards perfection. We and longs passionately to re-enter it. With respect to Spain, the great point of interest is to ascertain, if possible, whether We fancy the human race very much re- its progress towards constitutional freedom sembles a traveller, who progressing perpet- is to be pacific or bloody, or, in other ually has some timesto traverse long level words, whether moral objects are to be efplains, steppes or downs, and sometimes to fected by moral and intellectual means, or climb steep acclivities, or to ascend the by exhibitions of physical force, and a perpinnacles of mountains; but sometimes petual cycle of revolutions. Some appear also, when he has got up as high as he can to think, that because the action of society go or as there is a rock or a glacier to has there for many years past been greatly stand upon, it becomes his duty, painful or disturbed, we are to look for a constant repleasant as the case may be, to descend, to currence of the same phenomena. It may plunge into sombre valleys or toil drearily be however that it has now passed through along over morasses and swamps. Civili- the period of turbulence and anarchy, and zation, at its best, cannot make a silk purse entered upon that of repose. Many feaout of a sow's ear. It is the greatest postures in the aspect of the country would |