Having now gone through the narrative of Keats's life and death, and
also the narrative of his literary work, we have before us the more
delicate and exacting task of forming some judgment of both,--to
estimate his character, and appraise his writings. But first I pause a
brief while for the purpose of relating a little that took place after
his decease, and mentioning a few particulars regarding his surviving
relatives and friends.
Keats was buried in the Protestant Cemetery at Rome amid the overgrown
ruins of the Honorian walls, surmounted by the pyramid-tomb of Caius
Cestius, a Tribune of the People whose monument has long survived his
fame: this used to be traditionally called the Tomb of Remus. There were
but few graves on the spot when Keats was laid there. In recent years
the portion of the cemetery where he reposes has been cut off by a
fortification. A little altar-tomb was set up for him, sculptured with a
Greek lyre, and inscribed with his name and his own epitaph, "Here lies
one whose name was writ in water." Severn attended affectionately to all
this, and the whole was completed about two years after the poet's
death. In 1875 General Sir Vincent Eyre and some other Englishmen and
Americans repaired the stone, and placed on an adjacent wall a medallion
portrait of Keats, presented by its sculptor, Mr. Warrington Wood.
Severn, who died in August 1879, having been British Consul in Rome for
many years, now lies in close proximity to his friend. Shelley's remains
are interred hard by, but in the new cemetery,--not the old one, which
received the bones of Keats. As early as 1836 Severn was able to attest
that his connection with the poet had been of benefit to his own
professional career. The friend and death-bed companion of Keats had by
that time become a personage, apart from the merit, be it greater or
less, of his performances as a painter.
Severn's letters addressed to Armitage Brown show that it was expected
that Brown should write a Life of Keats. The non-appearance of any such
work was made a matter of remonstrance in 1834; and at one time George
Keats, though conscious of not being quite the right man for the
purpose, thought of supplying the deficiency. Severn also had had a
similar idea. Brown was in Italy in 1832, and there he met Mr. Richard
Monckton Milnes, afterwards Lord Houghton. He returned to England some
three years later, and was about to produce the desired Life when a new
project entered his mind, and he emigrated to New Zealand. He then
handed over to Mr. Milnes all his collections of Keats's writings, and
the biographical notices which he had compiled, and these furnished a
substantive basis for Mr. Milnes's work published in 1848--a work
written with abundant sympathy, invaluable at its own date and ever
since to all lovers of the poet's writings. Brown died towards 1842.
George Keats voluntarily paid all the debts left by his brother. These
have not been precisely detailed: but it appears that Messrs. Taylor and
Hessey had made an advance of L150, and there must have been something
not inconsiderable due to Brown, and probably also to Dilke, who assured
George that John Keats had known nothing of direct want of either money
or friends. George, who has been described as "the most manly and
self-possessed of men," settled at Louisville, Kentucky, where he became
a prominent citizen, and left a family creditably established. He died
in 1841, and his widow remarried with a Mr. Jeffrey. In one of his
letters addressed to his sister, April 1824, there is a pleasant little
critique of "Don Quixote." It gives one so prepossessing an idea of its
writer that I am tempted to extract it:--
"Your face is decidedly not Spanish, but English all over. If I
fancied you to resemble Don Quixote, I should fancy a handsome,
intelligent, melancholy countenance, with something wild but
benevolent about the eyes, a lofty forehead but not very broad,
with finely-arched eyebrows, denoting candour and generosity. He
is an immense favourite of mine; and I cannot help feeling angry
with the great Cervantes for bringing him into situations where
he is the laughing-stock of minds so inferior to his own. It is
evident he was a great favourite of the author, and it is evident
_he_ was united with the chivalric spirits he so wittily
ridicules. He is made to speak as much sound sense, elevated
morality, and true piety, as any divine who ever wrote. If I were
to meet such a man, I should almost hate myself for laughing at
his eccentricities."
The opening reference here to a Spanish face must relate to the fact
that Miss Fanny Keats, who in girlhood had been the recipient of many
affectionate and attentive letters from her brother John, was engaged
to, and eventually married, a Spanish gentleman, Senhor Llanos, author
of "Don Esteban," "Sandoval the Freemason," and other books illustrating
the modern history of his country. He was a Liberal, and in the time of
the Spanish Republic represented his Government at the Court of Rome.
Mrs. Llanos is still living at a very advanced age. A few years ago a
pension on the Civil List was conferred upon her, in national
recognition of what is due to the sister of John Keats. There is a
pathetic reference to her appearance at the close of the very last
letter which he wrote: "My sister, who walks about my imagination like a
ghost, she is so like Tom."
Miss Brawne married a Mr. Lindon some years after the death of Keats. I
do not know how many years, but it must have been later than June 1825.
She died in 1865.
The sincerity or otherwise of Leigh Hunt as a personal, and more
especially a literary, friend of Keats, has been a good deal canvassed
of late. It has been said that he showed little staunchness in
championing the cause of Keats at the time--towards the close of
1818--when detraction was most rampant, and when support from a man
occupying the position of editor of _The Examiner_ would have been most
serviceable. But one must not hurry to assume that Hunt was seriously in
the wrong, whether we regard the question as one of individual
friendship or of literary policy. The attacks upon Keats were in great
measure flank-attacks upon Hunt himself. Keats was abused on the ground
that he wrote bad poetry through imitating Hunt's bad poetry--that he
out-Heroded Herod, or out-Hunted Hunt. Obviously it was a delicate task
which would have lain before the elder poet: for any direct defence of
Keats must have been conducted on the thesis either that the faults were
not there (when indeed they _were_ there to a large extent); or else
that the faults were in fact beauties, an allegation which would only
have riveted the charge that they were Leigh-Huntish mannerisms; or
finally that they were not due to Hunt's influence or example, but were
proper to Keats in person, and this would have been more in the nature
of censure than of vindication. A defence on general grounds, upholding
the poems without any discussion of the particular faults alleged, would
also, as coming from Hunt, have been a difficult thing to manage: it
would rather have inflamed than abated the rancour of the enemy.
Besides, we must remember that Keats's first volume, though very warmly
accepted and praised by Hunt, was really but beginner's work, imperfect
in the last degree; while the second volume, "Endymion," was viewed by
Hunt as a hazardous and immature attempt notwithstanding its many
beauties, and incapable of being upheld beyond a certain limit. There
was not at that date any third volume to be put forward in proof of
faculty, or in arrest of judgment. Mr. Forman, than whom no man looks
with more patience into the evidence on a question such as this of
Hunt's friendship, or is more likely to pronounce a sound judgment upon
it, wholly scouts the accusation; and I am quite content to range myself
on the same side as Mr. Forman.
Of Keats's friends in general it may be said that the one whom he
respected very highly in point of character was Bailey: the one who had
a degree of genius fully worthy, whatever its limitations and defects,
of communing with his own, was Haydon. Shelley can hardly be reckoned
among his friends, though very willing and even earnest to be such, both
in life and after death. Keats held visibly aloof from Shelley, more
perhaps on the ground of his being a man of some family and position
than from any other motive. Shortly after the publication of "The Revolt
of Islam," Keats's rather naive expression was, "Poor Shelley, I think
he has his quota of good qualities." Neither did he show any warm or
frank admiration of Shelley's poetry. On receiving a copy of "The
Cenci," he urged its author to "curb his magnanimity, and be more of an
artist, and load every rift of his subject with ore." We should not
ascribe this to any mean-spirited jealousy, but to that sense, which
grew to a great degree of intensity in Keats, that the art of
composition and execution is of paramount importance in poetry, and must
supersede all considerations of abstract or proselytizing intention.