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Art. VII.—Endymion: A Poetic Romance.
By John Keats. London, 1818. Quarto. pp. 207.
eviewers have been sometimes accused of
not reading the works which they affected to criticise. On the present occasion we shall
anticipate the author’s complaint, and honestly confess that we have not read his work.
Not that we have been wanting in our duty—far from it—indeed, we have made efforts
almost as superhuman as the story itself appears to be, to get through it; but with the fullest
stretch of our perseverance, we are forced to confess that we have not been able to struggle
beyond the first of the four books of which this Poetic Romance consists. We should extremely
lament this want of energy, or whatever it may be, on our parts, were it not for one
consolation—namely, that we are no better acquainted with the meaning of the book through
which we have so painfully toiled, than we are with that of the three which we have not looked
into.
It is not that
Of this school,
——‘all the things itself had wrote, Of special merit though of little note.’
This author is a copyist of
‘Knowing within myself (he says) the manner in which this Poem
has been produced, it is not without a feeling of regret that I make it public.—What
manner I mean, will be quite clear to the reader, who must soon perceive
great inexperience, immaturity, and every error denoting a feverish attempt, rather than a deed
accomplished.’—Preface, p. vii.
We humbly beg his pardon, but this does not appear to us to be quite so clear—we really do not know what he means—but the next passage
is more intelligible.
‘The two first books, and indeed the two last, I feel sensible
are not of such completion as to warrant their passing the press.’—Preface, p. vii.
Thus ‘the two first books’ are, even in his own judgment, unfit to appear, and ‘the two last’ are, it seems, in the same condition—and as two and two make four, and as that is the whole number of books, we have a clear and, we believe, a very just estimate of the entire work.
fierce hell’ of criticism, which terrify his
imagination, if he had not begged to he spared in order that he might write more; if we had not
observed in him a certain degree of talent which deserves to be put in the right way, or which,
at least, ought to be warned of the wrong; and if, finally, he had not told us that he is of an
age and temper which imperiously require mental discipline.
Of the story we have been able to make out but little; it seems to be
mythological, and probably relates to the loves of bouts-rimés
We shall select, not as the most striking instance, but as that least liable to suspicion, a passage from the opening of the poem.
——‘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; &c. &c.’—pp. 3, 4.
Here it is clear that the word, and not the idea, moon
produces the simple sheep and their shady boon, and that ‘the dooms of the mighty dead’ would never have intruded themselves but
for the ‘fair musk-rose blooms.’
Again.
‘For ’twas the morn: Apollo’s upward fireMade every eastern cloud a silvery pyre Of brightness so unsullied, that therein A melancholy spirit well might win Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun; The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass; Man’s voice was on the mountains; and the mass Of nature’s lives and wonders puls’d tenfold, To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.’—p. 8.
Here fire produces a pyre, a silvery pyre of clouds, wherein a spirit might win oblivion and melt his
essence fine, and scented eglantine gives sweets
to the sun, and cold springs had run into the grass, and then the pulse of the mass pulsed tenfold to feel the glories old of the new-born
day, &c.
One example more.
Lodge, dodge—heaven,
leaven—earth, birth; such, in six words, is the sum and substance of six lines.
We come now to the author’s taste in versification. He cannot indeed write a sentence, but perhaps he may be able to spin a line. Let us see. The following are specimens of his prosodial notions of our English heroic metre.
‘Dear as the temple’s self, so does the moon, The passion poesy, glories infinite.’—p. 4. ‘So plenteously all weed-hidden roots.’—p. 6. ‘Of some strange history, potent to send.’—p. 18. ‘Before the deep intoxication.’—p. 27. ‘Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion.’—p. 33. ‘The stubborn canvass for my voyage prepared——.’—p. 39. ‘“ Endymion ! the cave is secreterThan the isle of Delos. Echo hence shall stirNo sighs but sigh-warm kisses, or light noise Of thy combing hand, the while it travelling cloys And trembles through my labyrinthine hair,’”—p. 48.
By this time our readers must be pretty well satisfied as to the meaning of his
sentences and the structure of his lines: we now present them with some of the new words with
which, in imitation of
We are told that ‘turtles passion their
voices,’ (p. 15); that ‘an arbour was nested,’ (p.
23); and a lady’s locks ‘gordian’d up,’ (p. 32);
and to supply the place of the nouns thus verbalized serpentry,‘ (p. 41); the ‘honey-feel’ of bliss,’ (p. 45); ‘wives prepare needments,’ (p. 13)—and so forth.
Then he has formed new verbs by the process of cutting off their natural tails, the adverbs, and affixing them to their foreheads; thus, ‘the wine out-sparkled,’ (p. 10); the ‘multitude upfollowed,’ (p. 11); and ‘night up-took,’ (p. 29). ‘The wind up-blows,’ (p. 32); and the ‘hours are down-sunken,’ (p. 36.)
But if he sinks some adverbs in the verbs he compensates the language with
adverbs and adjectives which he separates from the parent stock. Thus, a lady ‘whispers
pantingly and close,‘ makes ‘hushing signs,‘ and steers her skiff into a ‘ripply cove,’ (p. 23); a shower falls ‘refreshingly,’ (45); and a vulture has a ‘spreaded
tail,’ (p. 44.)
But enough of