Part 8 (2/2)
The Keats sonnet, as first shown to me, ran as follows:
The weltering London ways where children weep,-- Where girls whom none call maidens laugh, where gain, Hurrying men's steps, is yet by loss o'erta'en:-- The bright Castalian brink and Latinos' steep:-- Such were his paths, till deeper and more deep, He trod the sands of Lethe; and long pain, Weary with labour spurned and love found vain, In dead Rome's sheltering shadow wrapped his sleep.
O pang-dowered Poet, whose reverberant lips And heart-strung lyre awoke the moon's eclipse,-- Thou whom the daisies glory in growing o'er,-- Their fragrance clings around thy name, not writ, But rumour'd in water, while the fame of it Along Time's flood goes echoing evermore.
I need hardly say that this sonnet seemed to me extremely n.o.ble in sentiment, and in music a glorious volume of sound. I felt, however, that it would be urged against it that it did not strike the keynote of the genius of Keats; that it would be said that in all the particulars in which Rossetti had truthfully and pathetically described London, Keats was in rather than of it; and that it would be affirmed that Keats lived in a fairy world of his own inventing, caring little for the storm and stress of London life. On the other hand, I knew it could be replied that Keats was not indifferent to the misery of city life; that it bore heavily upon him; that it came out powerfully and very sadly in his _Ode to the Nightingale_, and that it may have been from sheer torture in the contemplation of it that he fled away to a poetic world of his own creating. Moreover, Rossetti's sonnet touched the life, rather than the genius, of Keats, and of this it struck the keynote in the opening lines. I ventured to think that the second and third lines wanted a little clarifying in the relation in which they stood. They seemed to be a sudden focussing of the laughter and weeping previously mentioned, rather than, what they were meant to be, a natural and necessary equipoise showing the inner life of Keats as contrasted with his outer life. To such an objection as this, Rossetti said:
I am rather aghast for my own lucidity when I read what you say as to the first quatrain of my Keats sonnet. However, I always take these misconceptions as warnings to the Muse, and may probably alter the opening as below:
The weltering London ways where children weep And girls whom none call maidens laugh,--strange road, Miring his outward steps who inly trode The bright Castalian brink and Latinos' steep:-- Even such his life's cross-paths: till deathly deep He toiled through sands of Lethe, etc.
I 'll say more anent Keats anon.
About the period of this portion of the correspondence (1880) I was engaged reading up old periodicals dating from 1816 to 1822. My purpose was to get at first-hand all available data relative to the life of Keats. I thought I met with a good deal of fresh material, and as the result of my reading I believed myself able to correct a few errors as to facts into which previous writers on the subject had fallen. Two things at least I realised--first, that Keats's poetic gift developed very rapidly, more rapidly perhaps than that of Sh.e.l.ley; and, next, that Keats received vastly more attention and appreciation in his day than is commonly supposed. I found it was quite a blunder to say that the first volume of miscellaneous poems fell flat. Lord Houghton says in error that the book did not so much as seem to signal the advent of a new c.o.c.kney poet! It is a fact, however, that this very book, in conjunction with one of Sh.e.l.ley's and one of Hunt's, all published 1816-17, gave rise to the name ”The c.o.c.kney School of Poets,” which was invented by the writer signing ”Z.” in _Blackwood_ in the early part of 1818. Nor had Keats to wait for the publication of the volume before attaining to some poetic distinction. At the close of 1816, an article, under the head of ”Young Poets,” appeared in _The Examiner_, and in this both Sh.e.l.ley and Keats were dealt with. Then _The Quarterly_ contained allusions to him, though not by name, in reviews of Leigh Hunt's work, and _Blackwood_ mentioned him very frequently in all sorts of places as ”Johnny Keats”--all this (or much of it) before he published anything except occasional sonnets and other fugitive poems in _The Examiner_ and elsewhere. And then when _Endymion_ appeared it was abundantly reviewed.
_The Edinburgh_ reviewers had nothing on it (the book cannot have been sent to them, for in 1820 they say they have only just met with it), and I could not find anything in the way of _original_ criticism in _The Examiner_; but many provincial papers (in Manchester, Exeter, and elsewhere) and some metropolitan papers retorted on _The Quarterly_. All this, however, does not disturb the impression which (Lord Houghton and Mr. W. M. Rossetti notwithstanding) I have been from the first compelled to entertain, namely, that ”labour spurned” did more than all else to kill Keats _in 1821_.
Most men who rightly know the workings of their own minds will agree that an adverse criticism rankles longer than a flattering notice soothes; and though it be shown that Keats in 1820 was comparatively indifferent to the praise of _The Edinburgh_, it cannot follow that in 1818 he must have been superior to the blame of _The Quarterly_. It is difficult to see why a man may not be keenly sensitive to what the world says about him, and yet retain all proper manliness as a part of his literary character. Surely it was from the mistaken impression that this could not be, and that an admission of extreme sensitiveness to criticism exposed Keats to a charge of effeminacy that Lord Houghton attempted to prove, against the evidence of all immediate friends, against the publisher's note to _Hyperion_, against the
poet's self-chosen epitaph, and against all but one or two of the most self-contained of his letters, that the soul of Keats was so far from being ”snuffed out by an article,” that it was more than ordinarily impervious to hostile comment, even when it came in the shape of rancorous abuse. In all discussion of the effects produced upon Keats by the reviews in _Blackwood and The Quarterly_, let it be remembered, first, that having wellnigh exhausted his small patrimony, Keats was to be dependent upon literature for his future subsistence; next, that Leigh Hunt attempted no defence of Keats when the bread was being taken out of his mouth, and that Keats felt this neglect and remarked upon it in a letter in which he further cast some doubt upon the purity of Hunt's friends.h.i.+p. Hunt, after Keats's death, said in reference to this: ”Had he but given me the hint!” The _hint_, forsooth! Moreover, I can find no sort of allusion in _The Examiner_ for 1821, to the death of Keats. I told Rossetti that by the reading of the periodicals of the time, I formed a poor opinion of Hunt. Previously I was willing to believe in his unswerving loyalty to the much greater men who were his friends, but even that poor confidence in him must perforce be shaken when one finds him silent at a moment when Keats most needs his voice, and abusive when Coleridge is a common subject of ridicule. It was all very well for Hunt to glorify himself in the borrowed splendour of Keats's established fame when the poet was twenty years dead, and to make much of his intimacy with Coleridge after the homage of two generations had been offered him, but I know of no instance (unless in the case of Sh.e.l.ley) in which Hunt stood by his friends in the winter of their lives, and gave them that journalistic support which was, poor man, the only thing he ever had to give, whatever he might take. I have, however, heard Mr. H. A. Bright (one of Hawthorne's intimate friends in England) say that no man here impressed the American romancer so much as Hunt for good qualities, both of heart and head. But what I have stated above, I believe to be facts; and I have gathered them at first-hand, and by the light of them I do not hesitate to say that there is no reason to believe that it was Keats's illness alone that caused him to regard Hunt's friends.h.i.+p with suspicion. It is true, however, that when one reads Hunt's letter to Severn at Borne, one feels that he must be forgiven. On this pregnant subject Rossetti wrote:
Thanks for yours received to-day, and for all you say with so much more kind solicitousness than the matter deserved, about the opening of the Keats sonnet. I have now realized that the new form is a gain in every way; and am therefore glad that, though arising in accident, I was led to make the change.... All you say of Keats shows that you have been reading up the subject with good results. I fancy it would hardly be desirable to add the sonnets you speak of (as being worthless) at this date, though they might be valuable for quotation as to the course of his mental and physical state. I do not myself think that any poems now included should be removed, but the reckless and tasteless plan of the gatherings. .h.i.therto (in which the _Nightingale_ and other such masterpieces are jostled indiscriminately, with such wretched juvenile trash as _Lines to some Ladies on receiving a Sh.e.l.ly etc_), should of course be amended, and the rubbish (of which there is a fair quant.i.ty), removed to a ”Juvenile” or other such section. It is a curious fact that among a poet's early writings, some will really be juvenile in this sense, while others, written at the same time, will perhaps take rank at last with his best efforts.
This, however, was not substantially the case with Keats.
As to Leigh Hunt's friends.h.i.+p for Keats, I think the points you mention look equivocal; but Hunt was a many-laboured and much belaboured man, and as much allowance as may be made on this score is perhaps due to him--no more than that much.
His own powers stand high in various ways--poetically higher perhaps than is I at present admitted, despite his detestable flutter and airiness for the most part. But a.s.suredly by no means could he have stood so high in the long-run, as by a loud and earnest defence of Keats. Perhaps the best excuse for him is the remaining possibility of an idea on his part, that any defence coming from one who had himself so many powerful enemies might seem to Keats rather to! damage than improve his position.
I have this minute (at last) read the first instalment of your Keats paper, and return it.... One of the most marked points in the early recognition of Keats's claims, as compared with the recognition given to other poets, is the fact that he was the only one who secured almost at once a _great_ poet as a close and obvious imitator--viz., Hood, whose first volume is more identical with Keats's work than could be said of any other similar parallel. You quote some of Keats's sayings. One of the most characteristic I think is in a letter to Haydon:--
”I value more the privilege of seeing great things in loneliness, than the fame of a prophet.” I had not in mind the quotations you give from Keats as bearing on the poetic (or prophetic) mission of ”doing good.” I must say that I should not have thought a longer career thrown away upon him (as you intimate) if he had continued to the age of anything only to give joy. Nor would he ever have done any ”good” at all. Sh.e.l.ley did good, and perhaps some harm with it.
Keats's joy was after all a flawless gift.
Keats wrote to Sh.e.l.ley:--”You, I am sure, will forgive me for sincerely remarking that you might curb your magnanimity and be more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with ore.” Cheeky!--but not so much amiss. Poetry, and no prophecy however, must come of that mood,--and no pulpit would have held Keats's wings,--the body and mind together were not heavy enough for a counterweight.... Did you ever meet with
ENDIMION
AN EXCELLENT FANCY FIRST COMPOSED IN FRENCH
By Monsieur GOMBAULD
AND NOW ELEGANTLY INTERPRETED
By RICHARD HURST, Gentleman
1639.
?
It has very finely engraved plates of the late Flemish type.
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