Solomon, and you and Cornelius Webb,3 and a few more city sparks, are pleased to look upon yourselves as so many future Shakespeares and Miltons The world has really some reason to look to its foundations! Here is a tempestas in matula with a vengeance. At the period when these sonnets were published Mr. Keats had no hesitation in saying that he looked on himself as "not yet a glorious denizen of the wide heaven of poetry," but he had many fine soothing visions of coming greatness, and many rare plans of study to prepare him for it. The following we think is very pretty raving. Why so sad a moan? O for ten years, that I may overwhelm Having cooled a little from this "fine passion," our youthful poet passes very naturally into a long strain of foaming abuse against a certain class of English poets whom, with Pope at their head, it is much the fashion with the ignorant unsettled pretenders of the present time to undervalue. Begging these gentlemen's pardon, although Pope was not a poet of the same high order with some who are now living, yet to deny his genius is just about as absurd as to dispute that of Wordsworth or to believe in that of Hunt. Above all things it is most pitiably ridiculous to hear men of whom their country will always have reason to be proud, reviled by uneducated and flimsy striplings, who are not capable of understand A minor poet who, in certain verses, had called Keats "the Muses' son of promise.' From the poem called "Sleep and Poetry." The reviewer quotes twenty lines more. ing either their merits or those of any other men of power, fanciful dreaming tea-drinkers, who, without logic enough to analyze a single idea, or imagination enough to form one original image, or learning enough to distinguish between the written language of Englishmen and the spoken jargon of Cockneys, presume to talk with contempt of some of the most exquisite spirits the world ever produced, merely because they did not happen to exert their faculties in laborious affected descriptions of flowers seen in window-pots, or cascades heard at Vauxhall; in short, because they chose to be wits, philosophers, patriots, and poets, rather than to found the Cockney school of versification, morality, and politics, a century before its time. After blaspheming himself into a fury against Boileau, etc., Mr. Keats comforts himself and his readers with a view of the present more promising aspect of affairs; above all, with the ripened glories of the poet of Rimini. Addressing the manes of the departed chiefs of English poetry, he informs them, in the following clear and touching manner, of the existence of "him of the rose," etc. From a thick brake, Nested and quiet in a valley mild, Bubbles a pipe; fine sounds are floating wild From this he diverges into a view of "things in general." We smile when we think to ourselves how little most of our readers will understand of what follows. Yet I rejoice: a myrtle fairer than A pleasure-park near London. ... Referring to the classicists of the eighteenth century, Keats had written They went about, Holding a poor, decrepit standard out Mark'd with most_flimsy mottoes, and in large Will not some say that I presumptously In the very fane, the light of poesy. From some verses addressed to various amiable individuals of the other sex, it appears, notwithstanding all this gossamer-work, that Johnny's affections are not entirely confined to objects purely ethereal. Take, by way of specimen, the following prurient and vulgar lines, evidently meant for some young lady east of Temple Bar. Add too the sweetness Of thy honied voice; the neatness In the coolness of the morn. O, if thou hadst breathed then, Now the Muses had been ten. Couldst thou wish for lineage higher At last for ever, evermore, Will I call the Graces four. Who will dispute that our poet, to use his own phrase (and rhyme), Can mingle music fit for the soft ear Of Lady Cytherea? So much for the opening bud; now for the expanded flower. It is time to pass from the juvenile "Poems" to the mature and elaborate Endymion, a Poetic Romance. The old story of the moon falling in love with a shepherd, so prettily told by a Roman classic, and so exquisitely enlarged and adorned by one of the most elegant of German poets," has been seized upon by Mr. John Keats, to be done with as might seem good unto the sickly fancy of one who never read a single line either of Ovid or of Wieland. If the quantity, not the quality, of the verses dedicated to the story is to be taken into account, there can be no doubt that Mr. John Keats may now claim Endymion entirely to himself. To say the truth, we do not suppose either the Latin or the German poet would be very anxious to dispute about the property of the hero of the "Poetic Romance." Mr. Keats has thoroughly appropriated the character, if not the name. His Endymion is not a Greek shepherd, loved by a Grecian goddess; he is merely a young Cockney rhymester, dreaming a fantastic dream at the full of the moon. Costume, were it worth while to notice such a trifle, is violated in every page of this goodly octavo. From his prototype Hunt, John Keats has acquired a sort of vague idea that the Greeks were a most tasteful people, and that no mythology can be so finely adapted for the purposes of poetry as theirs. It is amusing to see what a hand the two Cockneys make of this mythology; the one confesses that he never read the Greek tragedians, and the other knows Homer only from Chapman; and both of them write about Apollo, Pan, Nymphs, Muses, and Mysteries, as might be expected from persons of their education. We shall not, however, enlarge at present upon this subject, as we mean to dedicate an entire paper to the classical attainments and attempts of the Cockney poets. As for Mr. Keats's Endymion, it has just as much to do with Greece as it has with "old Tartary the fierce"; no man, whose mind has ever been imbued with the smallest knowledge or feeling of classical poetry or classical history, could have stooped to profane and vulgarize every association in the manner which has been adopted by this "son of promise." Before giving any extracts, we must inform our readers that this romance is meant to be written in English heroic rhyme. To those who have read any of Hunt's poems, this hint might indeed be needless. Mr. 8 7 In Wieland's Comische Erzählungen. 8 The Elizabethan translator of Homer; see Keats's sonnet on reading his work. Keats has adopted the loose, nerveless versification and the Cockney rhymes of the poet of Rimini; but in fairness to that gentleman we must add that the defects of the system are tenfold more conspicuous in his disciple's work than in his own. Mr. Hunt is a small poet, but he is a clever man. Mr. Keats is a still smaller poet, and he is only a boy of pretty abilities, which he has done everything in his power to spoil.. "11 And now, good-morrow to "the Muses' son of Promise"; . 10 as for "the feats he yet may do," as we do not pretend to say, like himself, "Muse of my native land am I inspired," we shall adhere to the safe old rule of pauca verba. We venture to make one small prophecy, that his bookseller will not a second time venture fifty pounds upon anything he can write. It is a better and a wiser thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so back to the shop, Mr. John, back to "plasters, pills, and ointment boxes," etc. But, for heaven's sake, young Sangrado,12 be a little more sparing of extenuatives and soporifics in your practice than you have been in your poetry. ON THE TRAGEDIES OF SHAKESPEARE CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR FITNESS FOR STAGE REPRESENTATION CHARLES LAMB [This early example of Lamb's dramatic criticism appeared in Leigh Hunt's journal, The Reflector, in 1812. The paper opens with a passage on Garrick's tomb in Westminster Abbey, and a denial of the right of the actor to a position of honour comparable to that of the dramatist.] It may seem a paradox, but I cannot help being of the opinion that the plays of Shakespeare are less calculated for performance on a stage than those of almost any other dramatist whatever. Their distinguishing ex In the omitted passage the poem is outlined, with quotations. 10 See note 3. 11 From Endymion, IV, 354. 12 A quack in LeSage's novel Gil Blas. |