so I find myself called upon to exert what little ability I possess, in perpetuating somewhat of the image, or rather the shadow, of that which is, in fact, the universal country of all Christians, and at one time was so elevated and so powerful that mankind began to believe that it was raised beyond the efforts of fortune, and destined to perpetual duration. Hence it would seem that Time, envious of the glory of mortals, but not fully confiding in his own strengh had combined with fortune, and with the profane and unsparing barbarians, that to his corroding file and consuming tooth they might add their destructive fury; and by fire, by sword, and every other mode of devastation might complete the ruin of Rome." The artist then proceeds to lament the indifference and neglect with which the modern Romans had treated these noble monuments of their former glory, suffering them to be left to ruin and decay, or even with sacrilegious hand, employing them in the construction of their dwellings. He adds-“It ought not, therefore, holy father, to be the last object of your attention, to take care that the little which now remains of this, the ancient mother of Italian glory and magnificence, be not, by means of the ignorant and the malicious, wholly extirpated and destroyed; but may be preserved as a testimony of the worth and excellence of those divine minds, by whose example we of the present day are incited to great and laudable undertakings."

Raphael was justly distinguished for the excellence of his portraits, which were, of course, earnestly sought after. Among the most striking are those of Bindo Altoviti, of Joanna of Aragon, of Lee X., with the Cardinals Rossi, and Giulio de Medici, and the picture of "La Fornarina," supposed to be the portrait of a beautiful Roman girl, to whom the artist was attached.

posal serves, however, to show in what high estimation he was held. But the life so bright and beautiful was not destined to prove of long duration.

Raphael's last and greatest production was the grand picture of the "Transfiguration," which he undertook at the desire of the Cardinal de Medici, Archbishop of Narbonne. It was designed for the altar-piece of the Cathedral of Narbonne. At that time there were two parties in Rome, one in favour of Michael Angelo, and the other adhering to Raphael;-not that there was ever any open rivalry between these two great artists. The stern and haughty Florentine was still evidently anxious not to be outdone. He, therefore, employed a Venetian painter, named Sebastian del Piombo, to invest his own energetic designs with the graces of attractive and brilliant colouring. Whilst Raphael was engaged upon the "Transfiguration," Sebastian commenced his celebrated picture of the “Raising of Lazarus," for which it was generally understood that Buonaroti not only supplied the cartoon, but sketched some of the figures upon the panel. The rival pictures were afterwards exhibited together in the chambers of the Consistory, and although the work of the Venetian obtained due praise the palm was unanimously awarded to that of Raphael.

This chef d'œuvre is divided into two parts. The lower represents a demoniac brought for cure to the Redeemer's disciples, by his distressed friends. The upper portion displays Mount Tabor; and the transfigured Christ above, bright with ideal grace, and divine in majesty, Moses and Elias on each side, and the three disciples prostrate on the ground, shading their eyes from the dazzling light of the ineffable glory. But before the artist had quite completed this dream of beauty, death intervened, and Raffaello Sanzio, the world-renowned, "il divin pittore," died on the anniverAt this period we behold Raphael at sary of his birth-day, Good Friday, 1520, the very summit of his greatness and at the comparatively early age of thirtyfelicity, living in the midst of splendour seven years. During his illness, the and of luxury; the companion and the Pope had sent to his residence daily, friend of princes; beloved by his dis-with the kindest inquiries; and he ciples, esteemed and admired by all. The Cardinal Bibbiena offered him his niece in marriage, with a rich dowry; but the lady's death took place before the completion of the arrangements. It does not appear that the artist was at all desirous of this marriage; the pro

joined in the universal sorrow, when it was announced that the beloved artist was no more. The mortal remains of Raphael were laid in state, in his studio, beneath his last glorious work; and hither came crowds of rich and poor, the haughty noble and the loving disciple,

to render to the painter's memory the lence. He may not have Michael Anhomage of their tears.

They came to give a last farewell,
The young, the glad, the gay,

To him, who low before them there
In pale cold silence lay.

He rested calm with claspèd hands,

With rich disparted hair;
And though the loving glance was gone,
The beauty still was there.

And thus they met a princely band-
The rich, the great, the proud;
The scholar, and the patron high,
Alike in homage bowed.

With solemn steps, and downcast eyes,
With hushed and reverent breath;

In the awful presence-room

Of the majesty of death.

gelo's mastery over the terrible and the sublime; but he greatly excels the Florentine in dignity and grace. His Madonnas may not possess the deep spiritual beauty of those of the earlier painters; nevertheless, they are "exceeding fair," and wear upon their brows the light of a "tender human love." His colouring may not be characterized by the brilliancy and richness which distinguished the school of Venice: but his design is by far more pure and lofty than that of the Venetians. Others might approach him in one particular

And "pictured dreams" were bright around, department; but, in completeness and

But chief among them rose,

That grand transfigured form that shone
In most divine repose.

The likeness of the victor Christ,

When unto earth was given
Glimpse of the glory that he wore,
Among the thrones of heaven.

Ah! it was well that they should place
The cold and lifeless clay,
Beneath the image of the truth,
The life, the light, the way!
Of him, the holy priest, to whom
The Father God had given
The mastery over death and hell,

The fairest crown in heaven.

And he who pictured that bright scene,
Lay still in child-like rest;
The wreath unheeded on his brow;
The purple on his breast.

He might not hear if nations rose
To greet him with acclaim;
He might not hear the voice of love
That lowly breathed his name.
They gazed upon the life-like forms,
His hand had loved to trace,
And on the marble, pure and still,
Of his placid, sleeping face.
His genius bright with hues of heaven,
Still "skied them overhead;"
And 'mid that flush of power and light,
They scarce could deem him dead.
And hearts that never felt before,

Were touched and bleeding then;
And sighs were breathed, and tears were in
The eyes of lofty men.

versatility, he was without a rival. The genius of Raphael was highly dramatic. Every sentiment that can sway the heart, every passion that can convulse the soul, has found a true and ready exponent in the creations of his pencil. The impress of poetic feeling is stamped upon all his productions; and perhaps no painter has ever possessed more just claims to the proud title of the Shakspere of Modern Art. He rarely repeats himself; in the grace of his compositions, in the beauty, dignity, and character of his heads, he is alike eloquent and alone.

We have no written record of Raphael's inner life; of his thought and sentiment, of his loves and his sympathies, of his woes, joys, faith, and aspirations. The pictured halls of the Vatican compose the fair temple, wherein his life-intellectual is enshrined; and, in truth, we could scarcely ask for more. It is a revelation of power and majesty and beauty, and tells us sufficient, if not all we should like to know of the character of the inspiring genius; a genius, we should imagine, with wide and unchained sympathies, rejoicing in the glory and loveliness of nature, regarding life as a beauty and a blessing, The remains of Raphael were fol- and working out the poem of existence lowed to the grave by a long and stately with the faith of a lofty soul and the funeral procession, amid the deep heart-love of a generous heart. Were it otherregrets of an assembled multitude. His wise, indeed, there would be no existent tomb is in the Church of the Pantheon, harmony between genius and its pronear that of his betrothed wife, Maria ductions; and from these productions de Bibbiena The Pope requested Car- the true spiritual essence of mental chadinal Bembo to compose his epitaph.racter is best shadowed forth. It will His loss was deplored throughout Italy as a national calamity.

Then slowly moved the reverent crowd,
And left the sacred spot;

But that hushed room and that pale corse,
They never more forgot!

be said that base and unworthy men have often thought and acted aright. Raphael is generally placed first in Yes; but not uniformly. The works of the catalogue of painters. No other such may be brilliant with coruscations artist of modern times has ever united of genius, but they will assuredly be in himself so great a variety of excel-deficient in that stedfast, shining light,

which can alone exist when the whole being moves in sweet concert with the universal harmonies.

Some accusations have been brought against the moral character of Raphael. We believe them to be utterly unfounded; and, in support of our own opinion, we are happy to adduce a testimony from the elegant pen of Mrs. Jameson: "There was a vulgar idea at one time prevalent, that Raphael was a man of vicious and dissipated habits, and even died a victim to his excesses. This slander has been silenced for ever, by indisputable evidence to the contrary. And now we may reflect with pleasure, that nothing rests on surer evidence than the admirable qualities of Raphael, that no earthly renown was ever so unsullied by reproach, so justified by merit, so confirmed by concurrent opinion, so established by time."

After adverting to the painter's extraordinary industry (for he left behind him, when he died, at thirty-seven years of age, 287 pictures and 576 drawings),

a circumstance which almost proves of itself that he could not have employed his short life otherwise than well, the writer continues: "As Raphael carried to the highest perfection the union of those faculties of head and hand which constitute the complete artist, so this harmony pervaded his whole being, and nothing deformed or discordant could enter there. In all the portraits which exist of him, from infancy to manhood, there is a divine sweetness and repose; the little cherub face of three years old is not more serene and angelic than the same features at thirty. The child whom father and mother, tutor and stepmother caressed and idolized in his loving innocence, was the same being whom we see in the pride of manhood subduing and reigning over all hearts; so that, to borrow the words of a contemporary, 'not only all men, but the very brutes loved him;' the only very distinguished man of whom we read, who lived and died without an enemy or a detractor."

JOHN KEATS.

men die so they walk among posterity, and our impression of Keats is that of an earnest, highly susceptible nature, perseveringly testing its own powers, and striving ever towards a realization of its high ideal of perfection; of a manly heart bravely surmounting and profiting by its own hard experience-and of an imagination glowing with all the brilliant hues of romance and allegory, ready to inundate the world, yet learning to flow within regulated channels, and endeavouring to abate its violence without decreasing its power.

"To the poet, if to any man, it may | passion and a premature death." As justly be conceded to be estimated by what he has written rather than by what he has done, and to be judged by the productions of his genius rather than by the circumstances of his outward life. For although the choice and treatment of a subject may enable us to contemplate the mind of the historian, the novelist, or the philosopher, yet our observation will be more or less limited and obscured by the sequence of events, the forms of manners, or the exigences of theory, and the personality of the writer must be frequently lost; while the poet, if his utterances be deep and true, can hardly hide himself even beneath the epic or dramatic veil, and often makes of the rough public ear, a confessional into which to pour the richest treasures and holiest secrets of his soul. His life is in his writings, and his poems are his works indeed. The biography, therefore, of a poet can be little more than a comment on his poems, though his life may be of long duration, and chequered by strange and various adventures but these pages concern one whose whole life may be summed up in three volumes of poems, some earnest friendships, one

Ever improving in his art, he gave no reason to believe that his marvellous faculty partook of the nature of that facility of rhyming which in many men has been the outlet of their ardent feelings in youth and early manhood, but which as the cares of the world have pressed more heavily upon them have subsided into morbidness of feeling or have disappeared altogether. In him no one doubts that a true genius was suddenly arrested, and they who will not allow him to have won a place in the first ranks of English Literature, will not deny the promise of his candidature.

The interest which attaches to the

ears: and after his mother's death
which occurred in 1810, he hid him-
self for several days in a nook by the
master's desk, indulging in one long
agony of grief, refusing consolation
alike from master or from friend.
The sense of humour which so fre-
quently accompanies a strong sensi-
bility, abounded in him.
He ever
delighted in displays of grotesque origi-
nality or wild pranks, and he appeared
to prize these next to his favourite
quality-physical courage. His perfect
indifference to be thought well of as
"a good boy," was as remarkable as the
peculiar facility with which he mastered
his tasks, which never seemed to occupy
his attention, but in which he was ever
equal to his companions. His skill in
all manly exercises, combined to the
extreme generosity of his disposition
made him highly popular. "He com-
bined," writes one of his schoolfellows
"a terrier-like resoluteness of character,
with the most noble placability;" and
another mentions that his extraordinary
energy, animation and ability, im-
pressed them all with the conviction of
his future greatness, "but rather in a
military or some such active sphere of
life, than in the peaceful arena of
literature." (Mr. E Holmes, author of
'Life of Mozart.") "His eyes then, as
ever, were large and sensitive, flashing
with strong emotions, or suffused with
tender sympathies, and more distinctly
reflected the varying impulses of his
nature, than when under the self-
control of maturer years; his hair hung
in thick brown ringlets round a head,
diminutive for the breadth of shoulders
below it, while the smallness of the
lower limbs, which in later life marred
the proportion of his person, was not
then apparent, but at the time only
completed such an impression as the
ancients had of Achilles, joyous and
glorious youth-everlastingly striving."

family of every remarkable individual, has failed in discovering in that of Keats more than that his childhood was surrounded by virtuous and honourable influences. His father, a man of excellent understanding, and of a lively energetic countenance, was employed in the establishment of Jennings, the proprietor of large livery stables in Moorfields, opposite the entrance to Finsbury Circus. He married his master's daughter, but was perfectly free from any taint of affectation or vulgarity on account of his prosperous alliance. He was killed in 1804 by a fall from his horse at the early age of thirty-four. Mrs. Keats, a lively intelligent woman, had four children. John, the subject of this memoir, was born 29th of October, 1795. Of his two brothers, George was the older than himself-Thomas younger, and his sister considerably younger. John resembled his father in feature, stature, and manner, and was possessed of warm affectionate feelings; which are evident from the following little anecdote. On occasion of his mother's illness, the doctor having ordered her not to be disturbed for some time-John kept sentinel at the door for three hours, guarding the entrance with an old sword he had picked up, and allowing no one to enter the room. At this time he was about four years old. Some years later he was sent to Mr. Clarke's school at Enfield, then in high repute. A maternal uncle of young Keats, had been an officer in Duncan's Ship off Camberdown. This naval uncle was the ideal of the boys, and inspired them with the desire when they went to school of keeping up the family's reputation for bravery. This was manifested in the elder brother by cool manliness, but in John and Tom by a fierce pugnacity of disposition; John was always fighting, he selected for his companions those who excelled in warlike accomplishments. Nor were the It was only after remaining at school brothers backward in exercising their a considerable time, that his intellectual mettle on each other; this disposition ambition developed itself; he deterwas however combined with great ten- mined to carry off all the first prizes derness of feeling, and in John with a in literature, and he succeeded. He passionate sensibility, which exhibited obtained them after arduous study, and itself in strange contrasts, he would at the expense of his amusements and frequently pass suddenly from a wild favourite exercises. Even on holidays, fit of laughter, to an equally violent when all the boys were out at play, he flood of tears. In giving way to his would remain translating his Virgil or impulses he regarded not consequences; Fenelon, and when his master would he once attacked an usher violently, oblige him to go out for the sake of who had been boxing his brother's his health, he would walk about with

a book in his hand. The quantity of translations he made on paper during the last two years of his school-life, was astonishing. The twelve books of the Eneid were a portion of it, though he does not appear to have been acquainted with much other Latin poetry, nor to have commenced learning Greek. Yet Took's "Pantheon," Spence's "Polymetis" and Lemprière's Dictionary, were sufficient fully to introduce his imagination to the enchantment of Mythology, with which at once he became intimately acquainted; and a mind eagerly alive to the beauties of classic literature, led the way to that wonderful reconstruction of Grecian feeling and fancy, for which he was so peculiarly adapted. He does not at this time seem to have been a sedulous reader of other books, but "Robinson Crusoe" and Marmontel's "Incas of Peru" appear to have impressed him strongly. He must have met with Shakespere, for he told one of his companions "he thought no one could dare to read 'Macbeth' alone in a house, at two o'clock in the morning."

of nothing but Spenser. A new world of beauty and enchantment seemed opened to him: "He ramped through the scenes of the romance," writes Mr. Clarke, “like a young horse turned into a spring meadow," he revelled in the gorgeousness of the imagery as in the pleasures of a newly-discovered sense; the expressiveness and felicity of an epithet (such, for example, as "The sea-shouldering Whale"), would illu mine his countenance with ecstacy, and some fine description would strike on the secret chords of his soul and awaken countless harmonies. His earliest known verses are those in imitation of Spenser, begining

Now morning from her orient chamber came. Nor will the just critic fail in discovering that much in the early poems which, at first, appears strained and fantastical may be traced to an indiscriminate and blind reverence for a great, though unequal model. In the scanty records which remain of the adolescent years, in which Keats became a poet, a sonnet on Spenser illustrates this view

Spenser! a jealous honorer of thine,
A forester deep in thy midmost trees,
Did last eve ask my promise to refine
Some English, that might serve thine ear
to please.

But Elfin poet! 'tis impossible

For an inhabitant of wintry earth
To rise like Phoebus with a golden quill,
Firewinged, and make a morning in his

mirth.

It is impossible to 'scape from toil
O' the sudden, and receive thy spiriting:
The flower must drink the nature of the
soil

On the death of their remaining parent, in 1810, the young Keats's were consigned to the guardianship of Mr. Abbey, a merchant; about £8,000 were left to be divided among the four children. John, on leaving school, in 1810, was apprenticed for five years to Mr. Hammond, a surgeon of considerable eminence, at Edmonton. From its vicinity to Enfield he was enabled to keep up his acquaintance with the family of Mr. Clarke, where he was ever Before it can put forth its blossoming: welcomed with much kindness. His Be with me in the summer days, and I talents and energy strongly recomWill for thine honour and his pleasure try. mended him to his preceptor, and his Few memorials remain of his other affectionate feelings found a response studies-Chaucer evidently gave him in the heart of the son. In Charles the greatest pleasure he felt in reading Cowden Clarke he found a friend, capable it nothing but the pure breath of nature of sympathizing in all his highest tastes in the early dawn of English literature. and purest feelings, and in this genial The strange tragedy of the unhappy atmosphere, his noble powers gradually fate of Chatterton, "the marvellous expanded. Yet so little opinion was boy, the sleepless soul that perished in formed of the direction his genius would its pride," is a frequent subject of allutake that when, in 1812, he asked for sion in Keats's letters and poems. The the loan of Spenser's "Faerie Queene," impressible nature of Keats would nait was supposed, he merely desired from turally incline him to erratic composition, a boyish ambition, to become acquainted but his early love verses are remarkably with so illustrious a poem. The effect deficient in beauty and pathos. The produced by this wonderful work of the world of personal emotion was to him imagination was electrical. He was in far less familiar than that of the imagithe habit of walking over to Enfield nation, and indeed it appears to have once a week to talk over his reading been long ere he descended from the with his friend, and now he would talk heights of poetry and romance, to the