seems' to him 'both stilted and
repulsive'; 'the phrase "with beaded bubbles winking at the brim" is
(though picturesque) trivial'; 'the succeeding image, "Not charioted by
Bacchus and his pards"' is 'far worse'; while such an expression as
'light-winged Dryad of the trees' is an obvious pleonasm, for Dryad
really means Oak-nymph! As for that superb burst of passion,

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Mr. Rossetti tells us that it is a palpable, or rather 'palpaple (sic)
fact that this address . . . is a logical solecism,' as men live longer
than nightingales. As Mr. Colvin makes very much the same criticism,
talking of 'a breach of logic which is also . . . a flaw in the poetry,'
it may be worth while to point out to these two last critics of Keats's
work that what Keats meant to convey was the contrast between the
permanence of beauty and the change and decay of human life, an idea
which receives its fullest expression in the Ode on a Grecian Urn. Nor
do the other poems fare much better at Mr. Rossetti's hands. The fine
invocation in Isabella--

Moan hither, all ye syllables of woe,
From the deep throat of sad Melpomene!
Through bronzed lyre in tragic order go,
And touch the strings into a mystery,

seems to him 'a fadeur'; the Indian Bacchante of the fourth book of
Endymion he calls a 'sentimental and beguiling wine-bibber,' and, as for
Endymion himself, he declares that he cannot understand 'how his human
organism, _with respirative and digestive processes_, continues to
exist,' and gives us his own idea of how Keats should have treated the
subject. An eminent French critic once exclaimed in despair, 'Je trouve
des physiologistes partout!'; but it has been reserved for Mr. Rossetti
to speculate on Endymion's digestion, and we readily accord to him all
the distinction of the position. Even where Mr. Rossetti seeks to
praise, he spoils what he praises. To speak of Hyperion as 'a monument
of Cyclopean architecture in verse' is bad enough, but to call it 'a
Stonehenge of reverberance' is absolutely detestable; nor do we learn
much about The Eve of St. Mark by being told that its 'simplicity is full-
blooded as well as quaint.' What is the meaning, also, of stating that
Keats's Notes on Shakespeare are 'somewhat strained and _bloated_'? and
is there nothing better to be said of Madeline in The Eve of St. Agnes
than that 'she is made a very charming and loveable figure, _although she
does nothing very particular except to undress without looking behind
her, and to elope_'? There is no necessity to follow Mr. Rossetti any
further as he flounders about through the quagmire that he has made for
his own feet. A critic who can say that 'not many of Keats's poems are
highly admirable' need not be too seriously treated. Mr. Rossetti is an
industrious man and a painstaking writer, but he entirely lacks the
temper necessary for the interpretation of such poetry as was written by
John Keats.

It is pleasant to turn again to Mr. Colvin, who criticises always with
modesty and often with acumen. We do not agree with him when he accepts
Mrs.