ABSTRACT
Modern criticism has made the public well acquainted with the merits of Chapman. The retainers of some schools of poetry may not see very far into his old oracular style; but the poets themselves (the true test of poetical merit) have always felt the impression. When Mr. Keats, in 1818, published his volume, his poetic romance entitled “Endymion,” the critical authority, then reigning at the west end, showed it no mercy. Mr. Keats’s natural tendency to pleasure, as a poet, sometimes degenerated, by reason of his ill health, into a poetical effeminacy. There are symptoms of it here and there in all his productions, not excepting the gigantic grandeur of Hyperion. His lovers grew “faint” with the sight of their mistresses. It was Mr. Keats who observed that Milton, in various parts of his writings, has shown himself a bit of an epicure, and loves to talk of good eating.
