A MEMORIAL TO KEATS.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18413, 20 June 1925, Page 13

A MEMORIAL TO KEATS.

SPECIAL ARTICLE.

(SPECIALLY WRITTT.X TOB "the peess.")

(By J. W. Jotn-t, M.A.)

On one of the lower slopes of Hamp(u stead Hill there is a shady avenue, which for a good many years has borne the name of "Keats's Grove." Near the foot of the avenue there is a large, old-fashioned house, standing in from the road, with a spacious lawn in front and gardens in the rear. In the first ' decade of the nineteenth century this building wa3 really two houses, one half being occupied by Charles Armitagc Brown, a retired business man of high culture, afterwards an intimate friend of Keats; the other half being the home of Charles Wentworth Dilke, editor and practical proprietor of the great critical •■ journal, the "Athenaeum," and father of the Sir Charles Dilke, familiarly known to modern politics and literature. When Keats was in the transition stage between medical student and poet, he was a frequent, visitor to Hampstead Heath, joining a group of congenial spirits, who clustered round the' hospitable homo of Leigh Hunt in the glen, which still bears the name of the Vale of Hoalth. Brown invited him to share his half of the big house, which he consented to do. A little later Dilke moved to another house, and let his half to a Mrs Brawne and her daughter Fanny. The garden was not divided, but was common to both homes, so that the two sets of occupants were in frequent contact. The result to Keats ,was the sowing of tho seeds of one of the most consuming and torturing passions that ever wrecked the peace of mind of a poet. Since those days "Lawn Bank" has undergone the averago vicissitudes of a "desirablo suburban residence." But in recent years there lias been a > vigorous movement, both in England and in America, to get possession of the house, and transform it into a museum or treasure-house of objects associated with Keats. Large ■ and varied stores of such objects have been hitherto housed in the rooms of tho Hampstead Public Library. But now the efforts of 'the Memorial Committee have reached fruition; and a few weeks ago tho opening ceremony .. took place, and tho Hampstead Borough Council, an enliglfened and progressive body, undertook the maintenance and administration of the trust. i' Tho prominent figures of tho eoreruony were appropriately chosen. The chief address-was delivered by Sir Arthur QuiUcr Couch, whose name is enough. Then there was Sir Sidney Colvin, the biographer, who has hunted down tho details of Keats's life with a kind of passionate industry, and has cleared away much accumulated error and. misconception. . There was Mr Arthur Severn, a kinsman of the devoted artist, Severn, who heroically nursed

Keats through that last. terrible winter

in Rome and. now lies beside him in sacred green nook under the walls

of Rome,'known'as "Tho Protestant ft Cemetery." Then (not to mention 1 v others) the new American Ambassador, Mr A. B. Houghton, appropriately blessed the' movement in the name of

. his countrymen; while hia name, by a singular coincidence, recalled the title vof the-earliest serious, biographer of Keats. Thus all was appropriate; : and it was especially befitting that this momprial to Keats should be established at. Hampstead, and in this particular house. ; Keatß occupied from time to time another home at Hampstead, whorein he nuTsed his .dying brother Tom; but that no longer exists. His association with Hainpstead is analogous (with wide differences in detail) to that of Carlyle with Chelsea, that of Charles Lamb with tho Temple, or that of ' Wordsworth with tho -Lake Country. Keats experimented with other temporary places of abode—Margate, Winchester, Isle of Wight, Devon- • shire—some of them for general-rea-■V sons, others by way of testing their j| efficacy in promoting his creative pow'V ers. But he alwavs drifted back to

Ham'pstead, (in the early days). ' "by his lovo for the wooded dells and uplands of the great Heath, but, later (alas!) by the lure of the over-master-ing passion, which was always tugging at his heaft-strilrgs, and playing havoc, not only with his physical strength, but with tho steady, equable flow of his inspiration. But'the significance of this memorial has a far wider range than any mere local-associations. It ■ symbolises the fact that Keats 'a. reputation has in these latter days come into its own,

arid that he now stands before tho world in the full measure of his stature as a gdnius of the highest order. Far dift ferent indeed was his position a hun- , dred years ago. We have to realise that in his lifetime and for some de-

cades after, beyond select circle of V L discriminating and dovoted admirers, he had no reading public. Shelley, on"lcarnirig of his death, sab down and penned his own immortal tribute, "Adonais." But, in sending it to Severn, with a view to publication, he adopts an apologetic tone, wondering if the subject will be of the slightest - interest to anybody, and adding a re--1 mark: about " the total neglect and obscurity in which the astonishing remains of .Keats'B genius still lie." The venomous and brutal diatribes of the "Quarterly" and "Blackwood," by ,' way of being, criticisms of "Endyihion," were meant to crush Keats; and, though tha victim himself received the disgusting arttacks with a simple manly fortitude, and a quiet resolve to do better, yet there is no doubt that, ,• through sheer force of brutality, they 1 produced a powerful effect on an undiscriminating public who liked their - criticism hot and strong. In addition to this,there grew up the sentimental ~" fallacy about Keats being a poor weakv and the Keats of the 'twenties and 'thirties was a legendary being, , whose health was irretrievaby shatter--1 ed by the cruel reviewers. And so we ' had: "Who killed John Keats?" "I," said the Quarterly, etc., and we had - Byron in "Don Juan."

"Strange that the mind, that very fiery . particle, - .Should let itself be snuffed out by an . , article."

Never was travesty wider of. the t truth. There was no severer critic of „ t; "Endymion" than Keats himself. But y'. he -was always aiming higher and striv- '" l ing after self-improvement; and the re- , suit of his strivings and his self-disci- , Panels seen in the "Hyperion" volume , • of the year after "Endymion." And, as, for his physical disease, it was , hereditary; and its first developments ..in himself were due, not to "Quarter- , ' •&" articles, but to over-exertion- and ~ v bettings and indifferent food, on a long ;• __ Walking tour in Scotland with Brown. .• ? u P t to that time he was a sturdy, faslittle being,'full of sparkle, y -\ vivacity, and high-souled, generous en--t'/jthusiasm. It was, however, only about .- -Athe middle of the century that the real Keats began to emerge from the mists vV=; or legend.