comparatively few readers are possessed of. But the main reason why his poems are not popular is because they want human interest: when we look for something real and tangible which may awaken our sympathies, we are often put off with cloudy metaphysics, clothed, indeed, in magnificent words, but vague and impalpable. A good deal of Shelley's poetry might almost have been written by a denizen of another world, so remote it seems from all earthly interests. To many, as to Carlyle, "poor Shelley always was, and is, a kind of ghastly object, colourless, pallid, without health, or warmth, or vigour; the sound of him shrieky, frosty, as if a ghost were trying to 'sing to us."" It must not be supposed from this that Shelley is always deficient in human interest or feeling. Frequently he is not so: he was filled with the enthusiasm of humanity, and often employed his verse to give utterance to his hopes of that golden age which always lies in the future. But even where he does so, his conceptions are not, to quote the words of an admirer, "embodied in personages derived from history or his own observation of life," and hence, to readers in general, have a misty and far-away aspect. It ought to be mentioned that Shelley wrote excellent prose: Matthew Arnold considers that his letters and to have a more enduring life than his poems. with this judgment; but all who care to read the thoughts of a great poet upon many points of high literary and philosophical interest will find a rich treat in the alas! too scanty prose remains of Percy Bysshe Shelley. indeed, Mr. essays bid fair Few will agree Near the grave of Shelley in the Protestant cemetery at Rome lies another great poet, cut off in the pride of his youth and genius, but not before, in spite of the deplorable brevity of his career, he had done such work as to place. him in the first rank of English poets, far above other "inheritors of unfulfilled renown," who have died at an early age. The few events in the life of John Keats may be very briefly related. He was born in London in 1795, and leaving school in 1810, was apprenticed for five years to a surgeon at Edmonston. The reading of Spenser in 1812 fired his poetical genius, and he began to write verses. After his apprenticeship was over, he came to London to walk the hospitals; but he soon found that surgery was unsuited to one of his sensitive nature, and gave up the study. In 1817 was published his first volume of poems, miscellaneous products of his youth, not sufficiently noticeable to excite either much praise or much censure. In 1818 appeared "Endymion." Nothing could better show how worthless contemporary criticism often is than the fact that this poem was received with a well-nigh universal shout of derision. Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly Review, in a coarse and virulent article denounced Keats as the "copyist of Leigh Hunt,” “more unintelligible, almost as rugged, twice as diffuse, and ten times as tiresome." Blackwood followed suit; and even more lenient critics showed their want of discernment by "damning with faint praise." Yet it would be difficult to give an example of a poem written at so early an age as "Endymion" so rich in the loftier attributes of poetry; its faults are those of an undisciplined but luxurious imagination, from which great things might have been looked for in the future. The extraordinary rapidity of Keats's poetical growth is shown by the finish and maturity of the poems composed within the two years after "Endymion" was written the noble fragment of "Hyperion," "Lamia," the "Eve of St. Agnes," and the immortal odes, one or two of which are of almost peerless beauty. Meanwhile it was becoming only too evident to all his friends that the poet's 'life was to be a brief one. Consumption had laid its fatal hand upon him, and he was gradually wasting away. In 1820 he embarked for Naples, accompanied by his artist friend Severn. From Naples they proceeded to Rome, and in the Eternal City, in February 1821, Keats breathed his last. To him, indeed, as his biographer, Lord Houghton, himself a poet of no mean talent, remarks, the gods were kind, and granted great genius and early death. Whether the verse he left behind him was but as a prelude to the music never played; whether he would have gone on increasing in poetic stature as the years went James Hogg. 321 on, cannot be said with certainty. When we remember within how short a period the best poetry of Wordsworth and Southey was written, it would be unwise to determine too confidently that, had life been spared, his growth in the poetic art would have been continuous. Brief though his career was, it sufficed him to write poems which can only perish with the language. His passionate love of beauty, his strong and swift imagination, his luxurious flow of language, and his felicity of phrase, rank him among the great masters of English song. How powerful and wide-spread has been his influence is clearly proved by the many echoes of his verse which are found in succeeding writers. We have now gone over the greatest names in the poetical literature of the nineteenth century. But a few writers have yet to be mentioned, one or two of whom were in their lifetime far more widely read than Wordsworth or Keats. Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) is remarkable as having, alone among the poets of his time, remained altogether untouched by the influence of the new era. He was a disciple of Pope, born out of due time, and sedulously followed the footsteps of his master. His poems, of which the principal are the "Pleasures of Memory" (1792), “Human Life" (1819), and "Italy" (1822), are now almost forgotten; they have not sufficient fire or strength to stand the ordeal of time. Their contemporary fame, which was considerable, owed a good deal to the social repute of their author, a rich banker, who was for many years a prominent figure in London society. Many amusing stories of his cynicism and biting and sarcastic remarks are on record, and tend to keep his memory alive. James Hogg (1770-1835), the "Ettrick Shepherd," was a genuine poet, with great but very ill-cultivated and undisciplined abilities. Much of his prose and a good deal of his poetry are worthless, but some of his songs, and the exquisite "Kilmeny," in the "Queen's Wake" (1813), reach a very high level of excellence. His rough and boisterous manners, and his unique and colossal self-conceit, rendered the "Shepherd " a favourite butt among the Edinburgh wits. Another Scots. man, Thomas Campbell (1777-1844), like Rogers, began his poetic career with the publication of a didactic poem, the "Pleasures of Hope" (1799), which in a short time went through many editions. His next long poem, "Gertrude of Wyoming" (1809), breathed more of the modern spirit. Campbell's longer poems have now ceased to be much read or quoted, except in single lines; but his ringing war-bailads, such as the "Battle of the Baltic" and the "Mariners of England," are about the best things of the kind in the language, full of spirit and fire, and written in metre admirably adapted to the subject. Besides his poetry, Campbell wrote a good deal of prose, mostly done as hack-work, and of little permanent value. His "Specimens of the British Poets" is, however, a very good book; and if he had husbanded his energies better, he might have done excellent work as a prose writer, for his style is correct and elegant, and his literary judgments are in general accurate and judicious. Thomas Moore (1779–1852), whose "Life of Byron" (1830) is, considering all the many difficulties of the task, a very creditable performance, was one of the most popular poets of his time. An amiable, goodhearted, cheerful Irishman, possessed of many excellent qualities, he was content to fritter away his life dangling on the skirts of the great, and was never so happy as when in titled company. His "Irish Melodies" are thin and artificial when compared with the songs of Burns, but they are light and graceful enough in their way, and well adapted to be linked to music. His most elaborate performance, "Lalla Rookh" (1817), an Eastern tale, is overloaded with gaudy ornament; but while containing little to satisfy the earnest student of poetry, is spirited and interesting. Some of his other writings show a marked talent for lively satire, which he was not slow to exercise against his political opponents. SIR WALTER SCOTT, AND THE PROSE LITERATURE OF THE EARLY PART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Sir Walter Scott; Mackintosh, Hallam, Alison; Jeffrey, Sydney Smith; Wilson, Lockhart, De Quincey; Lamb, Hazlitt, Hunt; Landor; Chalmers. N our survey of the poets of the new era in the last chapter, one great name was omitted,-the name of one who, till his less intense and dazzling light paled before the brilliant and captivating radiance of Byron, was far and away the most popular poet of his time. It is scarcely necessary to say that we refer to Sir Walter Scott. But Scott's poetry, excellent though in some respects it be, is by no means his most enduring title to remembrance. If he had written nothing else, he would not now have ranked among the first writers of his time, far less would he have occupied among British authors a place in the opinion of many second only to that of Shakespeare. It is as the writer of a long series of fictions which, when we consider their excellence, their interest, their variety, their width of range, their accurate delineations of nature, of life, and of character, may be safely pronounced matchless, that Scott's name is, and in all probability will continue to be, cherished with fond and admiring reverence by millions of readers. But not only did Scott reign supreme as a novelist, and occupy an elevated position in the kindred realm of poetry; it may be said of him, |