And like a dew drop from the Lyons mane, ACT III [SCENE 3]. Wherefore should this ayrie be left out?1 King Lear.2 Goneril.-You see how full of changes his age is... ACT I, SCENE 1. How finely is the brief of Lear's character sketched in this conference-from this point does Shakspeare spur him out to the mighty grapple-" the seeded pride that hath to this maturity blowne up" Shakspeare doth scatter abroad on the winds of Passion, where the germs take b[u]oyant root in stormy Air, suck lightning sap, and become voiced dragons-self-will and pride and wrath are taken at a rebound by his giant hand and mounted to the Clouds-there to remain and thunder evermore ... though she's as like this, as a Crabbe's like an Apple,... ACT I, SCENE 5. "Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty." [LEAR, ACT II, SCENE 4.] Regan.-Was he not companion with the riotous Knights that tended upon my Father? Gloster. I know not Madam, 'tis too bad, too bad. ACT II, SCENE 1. This bye-writing is more marvellous than the whole ripped up contents of Pernambuca—or any buca whatever on the earth or in the waters under the earth. 1 Echo answers why? But it is left out of even the Globe edition, perhaps the best of the popular editions. King Lear is copiously marked throughout, but has only these three notes. [In The Dial for April 1843, in a memoir of George Keats, signed "J. F. C.", we read: "He preserved and highly prized John's letters, and unpublished verses, the copy of Spenser filled with his works [sic but quære, marks?], which he had read when a boy, and which had been to him a very valuable source of poetic inspiration, and a Milton in which were preserved in a like manner John's marks and comments. From a fly-leaf of this book, I was permitted to copy the passages I now send you. I know not whether you will agree with me in their being among the most striking criticisms we possess upon this great author." The memoir is in the form of a letter to the Editor of The Dial; and the author seems to have been a Unitarian clergyman, the Rev. J. Freeman Clarke. Following the letter are the notes, headed "Remarks on John Milton, by John Keats, written in the fly-leaf of Paradise Lost." It is possible that Keats may have written some of his notes in two copies of Milton; but certainly all the notes given in The Dial and reprinted by Lord Houghton exist with others in Keats's autograph on one of the flytitles and in the margins of a copy of Paradise Lost inscribed (also in Keats's writing) to his friend Mrs. Dilke. This book, a pocket edition in two volumes published in 1807 by W. and J. Deas of High Street, Edinburgh, is still in the possession of Sir Charles Dilke; and, as The Dial does not say George Keats's book contained autograph notes, it seems likely that it was a copy into which the notes made in the other had been transcribed. Such a copy, indeed, is in my own collection,—a small volume containing only Paradise Lost, with a preface by Elijah Fenton, but with no title-page whereby to identify the edition: into this, one of the Misses Reynolds, with great pains-taking and exactness, copied not only all Keats's notes in the Dilke copy, but also all his very numerous underlinings. I have not had occasion to use this little volume, as Sir Charles Dilke placed the original at my disposal among the rest of the highly important documents in his hands. The four longer notes now added to those given in The Dial have already appeared in The Athenæum for the 26th of October 1872. In now placing over each note the passage from the poem to which it refers, I have shown in italics what words or lines are underscored by Keats in these passages; but the book is very copiously underlined throughout.-H. B. F.] NOTES ON MILTON'S PARADISE LOST. THE Genius of Milton, more particularly in respect to its span in immensity, calculated him, by a sort of birthright, for such an 'argument' as the Paradise Lost: he had an exquisite passion for what is properly, in the sense of ease and pleasure, poetical Luxury; and with that it appears to me he would fain have been content, if he could, so doing, have preserved his self-respect and feel of duty performed; but there was working in him as it were that same sort of thing as operates in the great world to the end of a Prophecy's being accomplish'd: therefore he devoted himself rather to the ardours than the pleasures of Song, solacing himself at intervals with cups of old wine; and those are with some exceptions the finest parts of the poem. With some exceptionsfor the spirit of mounting and adventure can never be unfruitful or unrewarded: had he not broken through the clouds which envelope so deliciously the Elysian field of verse, and committed himself to the Extreme, we should never have seen Satan as described "But his face Deep scars of thunder had entrench'd," &c. There is a greatness which the Paradise Lost possesses over every other Poem-the Magnitude of Contrast, and that is softened by the contrast being ungrotesque to a degree. Heaven moves on like music throughout. |