that merit. In favour of the author of Endymion, however, it must be remembered that it was produced at an age to which an excess of the imaginative faculty, and a proportionate disregard of the realities of life, may easily be excused. It is generally believed, and it seems to have been the conviction of many of his friends at the time, that the critiques of the Quarterly and Blackwood, and other magazines, had hastened, if not actually brought about, the premature end of their victim. To this belief Byron, who for himself had given the critics little reason to celebrate a triumph, gave a sanction in one of the cantos of Don Juan :

:

'John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique
Just as he really promised something great,
If not intelligible, without Greek

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 snuff'd out by an article.'

The same conviction, most certainly sincere in the case of Shelley, inspired also that most exquisite of all elegies-the Adonais. Nevertheless, it is probable that the effect of the insolent abuse of the periodicals of the day, as e.g. the taunt that 'a starved apothecary was better than a starved poet' (alluding to the beginning of Keats' career in a London hospital) upon his sensitive mind has been exaggerated. Other more real causes seem sufficient to account for the early death of one of the most promising of the priests of the Muses and of the 'Bards of Passion.'

NATURA CONSOLATOR.

A THING of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness, but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darken'd ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Endymion.

FANCY.

EVER let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;

Then let winged Fancy wander

Through the thought still spread beyond her:

Open wide the mind's cage door,

She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.

O sweet Fancy! let her loose:
Summer's joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming:
Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,

Cloys with tasting: what do, then?
Sit thee by the ingle, when

The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;

When the soundless earth is muffled,

And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Moon
In a dark conspiracy

To banish Even from her sky.

Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overaw'd,

Fancy, high-commission'd: send her!
She has vassals to attend her:
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped Autumn's wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,

And thou shalt quaff it :-thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear;

Rustle of the reaped corn;

Sweet birds antheming the morn:

And, in the same moment-hark!

"Tis the early April lark,

Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;

White-plumed lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway

Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearl'd with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;

Then the hurry and alarm

When the beehive casts its swarm;

Acorns ripe down-pattering

While the autumn breezes sing.

Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;

Everything is spoilt by use:

Where's the cheek that doth not fade,

Too much gazed at? Where's the maid Whose lip mature is ever new?

Where's the eye, however blue,

Doth not weary? Where's the face
One would meet in every place?
Where's the voice, however soft,
One would hear so very oft?

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Let, then, winged Fancy find
Thee a mistress to thy mind:

Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,

Ere the God of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;
With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe's, when her zone
Slipt its golden clasp, and down
Fell her kirtle to her feet,

While she held the goblet sweet,

And Jove grew languid.-Break the mesh Of the Fancy's silken leash;

Quickly break her prison-string,

And such joys as these she'll bring.-
Let the winged Fancy roam,

Pleasure never is at home.

THE DOUBLE-LIFE OF POETS.

BARDS of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new?
Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon ;
With the noise of fountains wondrous,
And the parle of voices thund'rous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated en lysian lawns

;

Browsed by none but Dian's fawns
Underneath large blue-bells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;