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Letters on Literature-Part5_ANDREW LANG(1844-1912)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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a mill between Belasco and the Brummagem youth." Peter was so ill-

advised as to appear before her with glorious scars, "two black



eyes" in fact, and she "was inexorably cruel." Peter did not

survive her disdain. "The lady still lives, and is married"! It is



ever thus!

Peter's published works contain an American tragedy. Peter says he



got it from a friend, who was sending him an American copy of "Guy

Mannering" "to present to a young lady who, strange to say, "read



books and wore pockets," virtues unusual in the sex. One of the

songs (on the delights of bull-baiting) contains the most vigorous



lines I have ever met, but they are too vigorous for our lax age.

The tragedy ends most tragically, and the moral comes in "better



late," says the author, "than never." The other poems are all very

lively, and very much out of date. Poor Peter!



Reynolds was married by 1818, and it is impossible to guess whether

the poems of Peter Corcoran did or did not contain allusions to his



own more lucky love affair. "Upon my soul," writes Keats, "I have

been getting more and more close to you every day, ever since I knew



you, and now one of the first pleasures I look to is your happy

marriage." Reynolds was urging Keats to publish the "Pot of Basil"



"as an answer to the attack made on me in Blackwood's Magazine and

the Quarterly Review."



Next Keats writes that he himself "never was in love, yet the voice

and shape of a woman has haunted me these two days." On September



22, 1819, Keats sent Reynolds the "Ode to Autumn," than which there

is no more perfect poem in the language of Shakespeare. This was



the last of his published letters to Reynolds. He was dying,

hauntedeternally by that woman's shape and voice.



Reynolds's best-known book, if any of them can be said to be known

at all, was published under the name of John Hamilton. It is "The



Garden of Florence, and Other Poems " (Warren, London, 1821). There

is a dedication--to his young wife.



"Thou hast entreated me to 'write no more,'" and he, as an elderly

"man of twenty-four," promises to obey. "The lily and myself



henceforth are two," he says, implying that he and the lily have

previously been "one," a quaintconfession from the poet of Peter



Corcoran. There is something very pleasant in the graceful regret

and obedience of this farewell to the Muse. He says to Mrs.



Reynolds:

"I will not tell the world that thou hast chid



My heart for worshipping the idol Muse;

That thy dark eye has given its gentle lid



Tears for my wanderings; I may not choose

When thou dost speak but do as I am bid, -



And therefore to the roses and the dews,

Very respectfully I make my bow; -



And turn my back upon the tulips now."

"The chief poems in the collection, taken from Boccaccio, were to



have been associated with tales from the same source, intended to

have been written by a friend; but illness on his part and



distracting engagements on mine, prevented us from accomplishing our

plan at the time; and Death now, to my deep sorrow, has frustrated



it for ever!"

I cannot but quote what follows, the tribute to Keats's kindness, to



the most endearing quality our nature possesses; the quality that

was Scott's in such a winning degree, that was so marked in Moliere,



"He, who is gone, was one of the very kindest friends I ever

possessed, and yet he was not kinder, perhaps, to me than to others.



His intense mind and powerful feeling would, I truly believe, have

done the world some service had his life been spared--but he was of



too sensitive a nature--and thus he was destroyed! One story he

completed, and that is to me now the most pathetic poem in



existence."

It was "Isabella, or the Pot of Basil."



The "Garden of Florence" is written in the couplets of "Endymion,"

and is a beautiful version of the tale once more retold by Alfred de



Musset in "Simone." From "The Romance of Youth" let me quote one

stanza, which applies to Keats:



"He read and dreamt of young Endymion,

Till his romantic fancy drank its fill;



He saw that lovely shepherd sitting lone,

Watching his white flocks upon Ida's hill;



The Moon adored him--and when all was still,

And stars were wakeful--she would earthward stray,






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