The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 66, April, 1863. Various
and that his tortured soul was received by those Blessed Hands which could alone welcome it.1
After the death of Keats, my countrymen in Rome seemed to vie with one another in evincing the greatest kindness towards me. I found myself in the midst of persons who admired and encouraged my beautiful pursuit of painting, in which I was then indeed but a very poor student, but with my eyes opening and my soul awakening to a new region of Art, and beginning to feel the wings growing for artistic flights I had always been dreaming about.
In all this, however, there was a solitary drawback: there were few Englishmen at Rome who knew Keats's works, and I could scarcely persuade any one to make the effort to read them, such was the prejudice against him as a poet; but when his gravestone was placed, with his own expressive line, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water," then a host started up, not of admirers, but of scoffers, and a silly jest was often repeated in my hearing, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water, and his works in milk and water"; and this I was condemned to hear for years repeated, as though it had been a pasquinade; but I should explain that it was from those who were not aware that I was the friend of Keats.
At the first Easter after his death I had a singular encounter with the late venerable poet, Samuel Rogers, at the table of Sir George Beaumont, the distinguished amateur artist. Perhaps in compliment to my friendship for Keats, the subject of his death was mentioned by Sir George, and he asked Mr. Rogers if he had been acquainted with the young poet in England. Mr. Rogers replied, that he had had more acquaintance than he liked, for the poems were tedious enough, and the author had come upon him several times for money. This was an intolerable falsehood, and I could not restrain myself until I had corrected him, which I did with my utmost forbearance,—explaining that Sir. Rogers must have mistaken some other person for Keats,—that I was positive my friend had never done such a thing in any shape, or even had occasion to do it,—that he possessed a small independence in money, and a large one in mind.
The old poet received the correction, with much kindness, and thanked me for so effectually setting him right. Indeed, this encounter was the groundwork of a long and to me advantageous friendship between us. I soon discovered that it was the principle of his sarcastic wit not only to sacrifice all truth to it, but even all his friends, and that he did not care to know any who would not allow themselves to be abused for the purpose of lighting up his breakfast with sparkling wit, though not quite, indeed, at the expense of the persons then present. I well remember, on one occasion afterwards, Mr. Rogers was entertaining us with a volley of sarcasms upon a disagreeable lawyer, who made pretensions to knowledge and standing not to be borne; on this occasion the old poet went on, not only to the end of the breakfast, but to the announcement of the very man himself on an accidental visit, and then, with a bland smile and a cordial shake of the hand, he said to him, "My dear fellow, we have all been talking about you up to this very minute,"—and looking at his company still at table, and with a significant wink, he, with extraordinary adroitness and experienced tact, repeated many of the good things, reversing the meaning of them, and giving us the enjoyment of the double-entendre. The visitor was charmed, nor even dreamed of the ugliness of his position. This incident gave me a painful and repugnant impression of Mr. Rogers, yet no doubt it was after the manner of his time, and such as had been the fashion in Walpole's and Johnson's days.
I should be unjust to the venerable poet not to add, that notwithstanding what is here related of him, be oftentimes showed himself the generous and noble-hearted man. I think that in all my long acquaintance with him he evinced a kind of indirect regret that he had commenced with me in such an ugly attack on dear Keats, whose fame, when I went to England in 1838, was not only well established, but was increasing from day to day, and Mr. Rogers was often at the pains to tell me so, and to relate the many histories of poets who had been less fortunate than Keats.
It was in the year of the Reform Bill, 1830, that I first heard of the Paris edition (Galignani's) of Keats's works, and I confess that I was quite taken by surprise, nor could I really believe the report until I saw the book with the engraved portrait from my own drawing; for, after all the vicissitudes of Keats's fame which I had witnessed, I could not easily understand his becoming the poet of "the million." I had now the continued gratification in Rome of receiving frequent visits from the admirers of Keats and Shelley, who sought every way of showing kindness to me. One great cause of this change, no doubt, was the rise of all kinds of mysticism in religious opinions, which often associated themselves with Shelley's poetry, and I then for the first time heard him named as the only really religious poet of the age. To the growing fame of Keats I can attribute some of the pleasantest and most valuable associations of my after-life, as it included almost the whole society of gifted young men at that time called "Young England." Here I may allude to the extraordinary change I now observed in the manners and morals of Englishmen generally: the foppish love of dress was in a great measure abandoned, and all intellectual pursuits were caught up with avidity, and even made fashionable.
The most remarkable example of the strange capriciousness of Keats's fame which fell under my personal observation occurred in my later Roman years, during the painful visit of Sir Walter Scott to Rome in the winding-up days of his eventful life, when he was broken down not only by incurable illness and premature old age, but also by the accumulated misfortunes of fatal speculations and the heavy responsibility of making up all with the pen then trembling in his failing hand.
I had been indirectly made known to him by his favorite ward and protégée, the late Lady Northampton, who, accustomed to write to him monthly, often made mention of me; for I was on terms of friendship with all her family, an intimacy which in great part arose from the delight she always had in Keats's poetry, being herself a poetess, and a most enlightened and liberal critic.
When Sir Walter arrived, he received me like an old and attached friend; indeed, he involuntarily tried to make me fill up the terrible void then recently created by the death of Lady Northampton at the age of thirty-seven years. I went at his request to breakfast with him every morning, when he invariably commenced talking of his lost friend, of her beauty, her singularly varied accomplishments, of his growing delight in watching her from a child in the Island of Mull, and of his making her so often the model of his most successful female characters, the Lady of the Lake and Flora MacIvor particularly. Then he would stop short to lament her unlooked-for death with tears and groans of bitterness such as I had never before witnessed in any one,—his head sinking down on his heaving breast. When he revived, (and this agonizing scene took place every morning,) he implored me to pity him, and not heed his weakness,—that in his great misfortunes, in all their complications, he had looked forward to Rome and his dear Lady Northampton as his last and certain hope of repose; she was to be his comfort in the winding-up of life's pilgrimage: now, on his arrival, his life and fortune almost exhausted, she was gone! gone! After these pathetic outpourings, he would gradually recover his old cheerfulness, his expressive gray eye would sparkle even in tears, and soon that wonderful power he had for description would show itself, when he would often stand up to enact the incident of which he spoke, so ardent was he, and so earnest in the recital.
Each morning, at his request, I took for his examination some little picture or sketch that might interest him, and amongst the rest a picture of Keats, (now in the National Portrait Gallery of London,) but this I was surprised to find was the only production of mine that seemed not to interest him; he remained silent about it, but on all the others he was ready with interesting comments and speculations. Observing this, and wondering within myself at his apathy with regard to the young lost poet, as I had reason to be proud of Keats's growing fame, I ventured to talk about him, and of the extraordinary caprices of that fame, which at last had found its resting-place in the hearts of all real lovers of poetry.
I soon perceived that I was touching on an embarrassing theme, and I became quite bewildered on seeing Miss Scott turn away her face, already crimsoned with emotion. Sir Walter then falteringly remarked, "Yes, yes, the world finds out these things for itself at last," and taking my hand, closed the interview,—our last, for the following night he was taken seriously ill, and I never saw him again, as his physician immediately hurried him away from Rome.
The incomprehensibleness of this scene induced me to mention it on the same day to Mr. Woodhouse, the active and discriminating friend of Keats, who
Whilst this was passing at Rome, another scene of the tragedy was enacting in London. The violence of the Tory party in attacking Keats had increased after his leaving England, but he had found able defenders, and amongst them Mr. John Scott, the editor of the "Champion," who published a powerful vindication of Keats, with a denunciation of the party-spirit of his critics. This led to a challenge from Mr. Scott to Mr. Lockhart, who was then one of the editors of "Blackwood." The challenge was shifted over to a Mr. Christie, and he and Mr. Scott fought at Chalk Farm, with the tragic result of the death of Keats's defender,—and this within a few days of the poet's death at Rome. The deplorable catastrophe was not without its compensations, for ever after there was a more chastened feeling in both parties.