The Sun.
London, England, 1848-11-14 00:00:00

throughout the story of her metamorphosis, of the
love of Lycius, of their marriage at Athens, and of
the appearance of Apollonius—

" 'ULU it seem'd a horrid presence there,
And not a man butfelt the terror in his hair."
" The Pot of Basil," too, that piteous tale from Boc-
cacio, with the loves of Isabella and Lorenzo of whom
the poet says—
- -

"-Parting, they seem'd to tread upon the air,
Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart
Only to meet again more close, and share
The inward fragrance of each other's heart;"
"The Eve of Saint Agnes," that seraphic vision of
revelry, loveliness, and bridal rapture, when Madeline
after dreaming of Porphyro, and finding him on his
knees by her couch, speaks to him in the impassioned
terms of love, and
" At her voluptuous accents, he arose,
Etherial, flush'd, and like a throbbing star
Seen 'mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose;
Into her dream he melted, as the rose
Blendeth its odour with the violet ;"
" The Ode to Psyche," depicting the " rosy sanc-
tuary" of the goddess, decked "with the wreathed
trellis of a working brain ;" the " Ode on a Grecian
Urn" pourtraying those
" happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Their leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu;
And happy melodist, unweari6l,
For ever singing songs for ever new;"
The " Ode to a Nightingale," composed on a garden
grass-plot under a plum-tree at Hampstead; the
" Ode on Melancholy ;" "Sleep ;"
"Fancy ;" "Robin Hood;" and Poetry n
the Mermaid Tavern• '" " T Autumn ',' ‘ " ;Li s
o
" Hope ;" I stood
tiptoe upon a little hill -" " Imitation of Spenser ;"
" Calidore ;" Sonnets, Epistles, and Miscellanies—
all had been familiar to us as the breath of clover in
the meadows, they had come to our ears as pleasantly
and as often as "the clicking of the coal in winter
time, or the luxury of a summer rain at the windows."
But, beyond all these, theu
utterance
fragment. of
" Hyperion"--as grand in rdance as anything ever
syllabled by Homer, as ins
sublime as 2Eschylus"—had as I indar, and "as
inspired
detrsaonced us with admi-
ration for a genius which co
period to so vast an altitude. Ourar at such an early
admirationfi. has
only been enhanced in degree and confirmed
en d
ta
er
d-
nestness, after the perusal of the two volumes
by the author of " Palm Leaves." Marvellous as the
powers of Keats appeared before, they now seem to
be little short of the miraculous. That one so young
should write in a tone so harmonious, and with a
vigour so full and elevated, must always appear re-
markable ; but, that a 3 outh bred behind the
counter of a surgeon-apothecary, and aided only
by the most slipshod and insufficient education,
should revive in his metre the forms, and
the passions, and the graces, and the melodies of
Attic life and Grecian Mythology, must for ever re•
main one of the most surprising inexplicable
and of
all the enigmas of the Psychologist. A glance at the
few domestic facts which are recorded in the first
volume will afford ample testimony that in speaking
thus we are guilty of no exaggeration. The family
of Keats we have already intimated to have been very
humble ; but its lowliness was at the least respectable.
The father was employed as a groom or otherwise in
the livery• stable of a Mr. Jennings, whose establish-
ment was situated on the Pavement . .Moorfields.
The mother was the daughter of this man's employer;
and both parents departed life somewhat prematurely,
leaving their children to the care of a Mr. Abbey.
Besides John, whose genius was destined ultimately
to render the obscure name of his parents illustrious,
there was his elder brother George who died in
America, his younger brother Thomas who perished
in the poet's arms from a lingering decline, and his
little child-like sister Fanny, who was subsequently
married to a Spanish gentleman named Lianas.
In 1810, John was apprenticed by his guardian
for a period of five years to Mr. Ham-
mond, a surgeon, living at Edmonton. Previous
to this he had studied at the school of Mr. Clarke, in
Enfield, but had learnt little enough beyond the
merest rudiments of knowledge. Latin was to him,
in more senses than one, a dead letter ; Greek was,
as the saying goes, nothing more comprehensible
than High Dutch; and even inEnglish literature the
young apprentice was only in a relative degree be-
coming a proficient. Notwithstanding a passion for
poetry and mythology, which had grown up with him
from his boyhood, and which was confirmed by his
perus4l of T.Pmprii're s "Dictionary," sp,nee.,
" Po!y unii,," Tooke's " Pan tl.leon," anti Spen;,,r's
"Fairy Queen," he laboured with so much assiduity'
at his profession, that he passed the examination at
Apothecary's Hall with considerable credit. On
arriving in London for the purpose of walking the
hospitals, John Keats took up his residence in the
Poultry, but towards the autumn of 1817 removed to
Hampstead. Here it was that commenced those
friendships and those compositions which redounded
in the end to his glery,. although, throughout his
brief lifetime, coupled with so many anxieties and
such melancholy misrepresentations. In the revela-
tion of these miseries Mr. Milnes has displayed very con-