KEATS ON SELF-SUPPOSED POETS.

EFORE dismissing for the present these Letters of Keats—and I

BEF

make the confession before a "cute" reader can detect the fact that I have only dipped into the book as yet, and that my extracts are all from the early pages-I will extract one more utterance. "There is no greater sin after the seven deadly than to flatter oneself into an idea of being a great poet, or one of those beings who are privileged to wear out their lives in the pursuit of honour. How comfortable a feel it is to feel that such a crime must bring its heavy penalty? [sic]. That if one be a self-deluder, accounts must be balanced." I commend this statement on the part of one of the most inspired of poets to those very worthy and self-deluded gentlemen, the candidates for the laureateship. As yet, one and all of them have been spared the ignominy for which each pines. The man who is taxed by Keats with deluding himself into the idea that he is a poet, and concerning whom the diatribe, if such I may call it, is written, is Leigh Hunt, surely a much nearer approach to a poet than any of the compounders of epics or satires who are credited with being candidates for the post. I may wrong these gentlemen in taxing them with such aim, but in that case I do so in company with the world. For the rest, I do not think I wrong them. Those who read between the lines may trace signs of indirect application in most of them. Now, if Leigh Hunt was not a poet, what on earth are these worthies? I am not, of course, referring to Mr. Swinburne or Mr. Morris, either of whom might wear the title of laureate, and transmit the bays untarnished to his successor. But **** and **** and ****, let these gentlemen be content with the honours altogether adequate which they have received, and not challenge the laughter of the present generation and the contempt of the following, which will surely be theirs if their wishes are granted. Returning once more to the point from which I started, Keats' devotion to Shakespeare, I make one more short extract: "I never quite despair, and I read Shakespeare-indeed, I shall, I think, never read any other book much. . . . I am very near agreeing with Hazlitt that Shakespeare is enough for us." The new edition with which I have so long dealt contains a portrait, hitherto unpublished, of Keats seated and reading a book, which is, I think, the best I have seen. It conveys what I am disposed to believe to be an absolutely faithful idea of the poet's appearance.

SYLVANUS URBAN.

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THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY 1896.

THE RUSTICATION OF

LOLL TOPLIS.

BY THOMAS KEYWORTH.

O outsider would think of saying a good word for Poppy

It

was called a "social gangrene," and this name was bestowed upon the place itself, or upon the inhabitants thereof, without much discrimination. What may be called insiders had no idea they deserved either pity or blame.

The houses were small and dilapidated, the air was thick with smoke, and many peculiar smells pervaded the place. When red-hot steel is plunged into oil, when horns are boiled or roasted, and when the demand for buttons makes the storage of bones necessary, there is sure to be a warfare of scents.

Poppies, as they were called by their neighbours, were used to it all. To be a Poppy, bred and born, was a subject of self-gratulation. What privilege or honour it conferred nobody could explain; but there it was. Some inhabitants of the court were natives, and others were settlers: the difference counted for something.

Sam Sky was a native; he ought to have been a puny weakling, if sanitary laws meant much, for every circumstance of his life had been unhealthy, according to ordinary ideas; but he was a big fellow, and the opinion prevailed that he did not know his strength. Perhaps genius is physical sometimes, and the same mystery may enshroud the body of a Sam Sky which enshrouds the mind of a Shakespeare. Sam was a grinder, too. Not a dry grinder, however; the huge stone over which he leaned when at work ran in a trough of water, and that had a tendency to keep the air of his workplace VOL. CCLXXX. NO. 1982.

I

free from the flying particles which made havoc with some men's lungs. He could neither read nor write, a deprivation which in his opinion kept him from the higher walks of life. He did a bit of betting, trusting to his memory, and his knack of quick reckoning, to atone for his inaptness with pencil and paper; he trusted to his fists when there was danger of repudiation on the part of men who fancied they might take advantage of the law and not pay their losses in the absence of documentary evidence.

At the entrance to Poppy Corner was a small public-house, called Poppy Nobs, generally abbreviated to Nobs; it had front entrance, side entrance, and back entrance, and was the most difficult place to watch in the whole town, especially after eleven o'clock was made the closing hour; because the Poppies to a man regarded all restriction on their drinking liberties as gross tyranny. "These Gover❜ment chaps treats us like kids," was their disgusted comment when the new condition of things was explained to them. The women did not go as far as the men in their objection to reform, but they dissembled their love; and, while chuckling over the prospect of their husbands going to bed at a reasonable time, and getting up in the mornings early enough to put in full days, they protested against all interference with up-grown folks, "who knowed what to do as well as Gover'ment did.”

Eph Butts was landlord of the Nobs, and he was after a fashion the philosopher, guide, and friend to most of the Poppies. He had been known to come forward when bailiffs were in the houses of his customers; and he had paid fines or given security when a man had drunk not wisely but too well, and had made skittles of his wife and children or his neighbours. There was a prevailing opinion that Eph Butts was a useful fellow, and that Poppy Corner would do badly without him. He required a good stiff glass of brandy in a morning before he could undertake serious work, but that difficulty being overcome he was able to keep himself in tune during the day, and to retire at night with the consciousness that he had not mixed his drinks and had not eaten more than was good for him. He was stout, very stout, and his breathing was laboured; he had a face of many colours, and a voice which seemed to travel far before it reached the outer air. He held his heart responsible for many of his troubles, and the opinion prevailed that Eph Butts kept himself alive by means of judicious soaking.

He was in the habit of taking the advice of his customers on the slightest pretext; this meant a drink, it might mean a day's drinking; but Poppy Corner never imputed motives, it never suspected them.