The absurdity in this case, we think, is palpable and glaring; but it is exactly of the same nature with that which infects the whole substance of the work—­a puerile ambition of singularity engrafted on an unlucky predilection for truisms; and an affected passion for simplicity and humble life, most awkwardly combined with a taste for mystical refinements, and all the gorgeousness of obscure phraseology.  His taste for simplicity is evinced, by sprinkling up and down his interminable declamations, a few descriptions of baby-houses, and of old hats with wet brims; and his amiable partiality for humble life, by assuring us, that a wordy rhetorician, who talks about Thebes, and allegorizes all the heathen mythology, was once a pedlar—­and making him break in upon his magnificent orations with two or three awkward notices of something that he had seen when selling winter raiment about the country—­or of the changes in the state of society, which had almost annihilated his former calling.

ON KEATS

[From The Edinburgh Review, August, 1820]

1. Endymion:  A Poetic Romance.  By JOHN KEATS. 8vo. pp. 207.  London, 1818.

2. Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other Poems. By JOHN KEATS, Author of Endymion. 12mo. pp. 200.  London, 1820.

We had never happened to see either of these volumes till very lately—­ and have been exceedingly struck with the genius they display, and the spirit of poetry which breathes through all their extravagance.  That imitation of our older writers, and especially of our older dramatists, to which we cannot help flattering ourselves that we have somewhat contributed, has brought on, as it were, a second spring in our poetry; —­and few of its blossoms are either more profuse of sweetness or richer in promise, than this which is now before us.  Mr. Keats, we understand, is still a very young man; and his whole works, indeed, bear evidence enough of the fact.  They are full of extravagance and irregularity, rash attempts at originality, interminable wanderings, and excessive obscurity.  They manifestly require, therefore, all the indulgence that can be claimed for a first attempt:—­but we think it no less plain that they deserve it; for they are flushed all over with the rich lights of fancy, and so coloured and bestrewn with the flowers of poetry, that even while perplexed and bewildered in their labyrinths, it is impossible to resist the intoxication of their sweetness, or to shut our hearts to the enchantments they so lavishly present.  The models upon which he has formed himself, in the Endymion, the earliest and by much the most considerable of his poems, are obviously the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher, and the Sad Shepherd of Ben Jonson;—­the exquisite metres and inspired diction of which he has copied with great boldness and fidelity—­and, like his great originals, has also contrived to impart