But

Dick slowly, and with evident emotion of | long worked at his picture in secret. some kind or other. "What was his at the call of friendship Severn was ready name?" "Richard Trueman." "You to risk all his new and brilliant prosknew him?" "He was ·wal-boss

he was

my father!"

P.S.- Mompesson married Dorothy, came home, and is now the vicar of a small but beautiful parish between Thames and Tweed.

From Temple Bar.

A POET'S FRIEND.

JOSEPH SEVERN.

NEVER Could Solomon's saying, "There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother," be more aptly applied than to Joseph Severn! And this involves no reproach on brother or other friend of Keats. Circumstances gave Severn the opportunity denied to Keats's surviving brother and to his earlier friends. When the sudden and alarming increase of illness took place in the summer of 1820, and Keats was "under sentence of death from Dr. Lamb," a winter in Italy was advised as giving the only chance of a recovery of health. Of the poet's brothers, Tom had died the year before, and George had gone to seek his fortune in America. Cowden Clarke and others of his earlier friends were out of reach. Charles Armitage Brown, a most kind and intimate friend, who had accompanied Keats in his tour in Scotland, and had already nursed him through his first serious attack earlier in the year, was absent in Scotland when he received the news that Keats had been ordered to Italy. He immediately hurried home, but arrived a day too late, the vessels conveying the two friends actually passing a night side by side at Gravesend unknown to both.

pects. The medal he had gained brought with it solid advantages. On condition of the artist sending in certain pictures at certain times, the Royal Academy would pay his expenses for three years' travel on the Continent. His sanguine temperament forbade him to doubt that Keats would recover, and that he would be able to fulfil those conditions. Indeed, after the sad frustration of his hopes, he reproached himself, according to the fashion of a generous mind, with having been selfish and calculating. But it is clear that whatever delusions he had nourished before starting, they must have vanished very shortly after stepping on board the Maria Crowther. Keats was in reality already in the last stage of consumption, and in this wretched little vessel, bad accommodation and bad food neutralized the beneficial effect of the sea air; violent storms tried the tempers of captain, crew, and passengers; while contrary winds lengthened a period of misery which was yet added to by a ten days' quarantine. By the time they reached Naples, Keats felt despair creeping over him. "We will go at once to Rome," he writes. "I know my end approaches, and the visible tyranny of this government prevents me from having any peace of mind. I could not lie quietly here, I will not even leave my bones in the midst of this despotism." With relentless determination the terrible disease came on. At Naples Keats could still, at any rate, complain that he was unable to describe the beauties of the glorious bay; his "intellect was in splints," he said in writing home. By the time he reached Rome he was past even that stage-"his shattered nerves," says Lord Houghton, "refused to convey to his intelligence the impressions Joseph Severn, when he offered to ac- by which, a few months earlier, he would company Keats to Italy, was twenty-seven have been rapt into ecstasy." He wrote years of age, therefore two years older home, but it was only to bid a last farewell than the poet. He had just attained great to the friends he had left behind and loved honor at the Royal Academy, having so dearly-adding the cry of despair, gained the gold medal for historical paint-"Oh, that something fortunate had ever ing by his picture of Spenser's "Cave of Despair.' This medal had not been adjudged for twelve years for lack of merit in the pictures offered for competition. When, therefore, it was bestowed on so young and unknown a painter as Severn, great was the astonishment and discomfiture of the rival candidates, and great in proportion must have been the pride and satisfaction of the young painter who had

happened to me or my brothers!" But neither Severn's tender care nor physician's skill could avert the catastrophe! On December the 14th Severn announced to friends at home, "I fear poor Keats is at his worst." And on February 23rd he breathed his last. Between these dates how terrible the sufferings of the dying poet and his devoted friend! Keats was, from the first, a prisoner in his rooms in

verely." On the 23rd of February, 1821, the poet's glorious spirit went to "join the choir invisible," his "bright falcon eyes were dimmed in death, the "promise of longevity given by his fine compactness of person was belied, and three days later all that was mortal of John Keats was laid by his devoted friend in the beautiful cemetery at Rome.

Of that now honored grave, Severn wrote in April, 1863 :

the Piazza di Spagna, close to the resi- | fell, which fifty years afterwards he thus dence of Dr. Clark, the physician to whose refers to: " Although 'tis half a century care he had been recommended. But," since the disaster, yet I feel it most se as Lord Houghton says, "Rome was at that time far from affording the comforts to the stranger, now so abundant; and the violent Italian superstitions respecting the infection of all dangerous disease rendered the circumstances of an invalid most harassing and painful." Here, as his illness increased, Severn, his only companion and nurse, could never leave him but for a few moments while he slept. "Not a moment," Severn writes, "can I be from him. I sit by his bed and read all day, and at night I humor him in all his wanderings.' "He prepared his food, lighted the fire, performed all the offices of the sick-room, and with immense labor removed the sufferer from one room to another. "Poor Keats has just fallen asleep; I have watched him and read to him to his very last wink; he has been saying to me : Severn, I can see under your quiet look immense contention you don't know what you are reading you are enduring for me more than I would have you. Oh, that my last hour were come!'" Then came the grinding pinch of poverty! The funds, generously supplied by Mr. Taylor the publisher, who had advanced £150 to Keats on account of his poems, began to fail, and the day came when Severn was without means to procure absolute necessaries for his dying

friend.

If I could leave Keats [he writes] every day for a time, I could soon raise money by paint ing; but he will not let me out of his sight, he will not bear the face of a stranger. I would rather cut my tongue out than tell him I must get the money - that would kill him at a word. . . I have had the hardest task in keeping from him my painful situation; I have kept him alive week after week. He has refused all food, and I have prepared his meals

six times a day, till he had no excuse left.

During the night of January 28th, to keep himself awake, Severn drew the deeply pathetic portrait, by far the best we have, of his poor friend as he lay asleep his forehead bathed in the cold dews of death. "Poor Keats has me ever by him, and shadows out the form of one solitary friend; he opens his eyes in great doubt and horror, but when they fall upon me they close gently, open quietly and close again till he sinks to sleep. This thought alone would keep me by him till he dies." At last to Keats came the longed-for release, and on Severn the blow

It only remains for me to speak of my return to Rome in 1861, after an absence of enlargement during that time of Keats's fame, twenty years, and of the favorable change and not as manifested by new editions of his works, or by the contests of publishers about him, or by the way in which most new works are illustrated with quotations from him, or by the fact that some favorite lines of his have passed into proverbs, but by the touching evidence of his silent grave. That grave, which I can remember as once the object of ridicule, has now become the poetic shrine of the world's

pilgrims, who care and strive to live in the happy and imaginative religion of poetry. The head-stone, having twice sunk, owing to its faulty foundation, has been twice renewed by loving strangers, and each time, as I am informed, these strangers were Americans. Here they do not strew flowers, as was the wont of olden times, but they pluck everythe poet. The Custode tells me that, notwiththing that is green and living on the grave of standing all his pains in sowing and planting, meet the great consumption.' Latterly, an English lady, alarmed at the rapid disappearance of the verdure on and around the grave, actually left an annual sum to renew it. When the Custode complained to me of the continued thefts, and asked what he was to do, I replied, "Sow and plant twice as much; extend the poet's domain; for, as it was so scanty during his short life, surely it ought to be afforded to him twofold in his

he cannot 66

grave.'

"Lovely and pleasant in their lives, in their death they were not divided!" And this, not because eight-and-fifty years afterwards the aged painter was laid beside the youthful poet, but because they will ever be named together by posterity; and so long as the English tongue endures to maintain the fame and bewail the untimely loss of Keats, so long will Severn's name be known and loved and joined with his. And we are glad to feel that even in his lifetime Severn enjoyed the well-deserved reward which is not always granted to self-sacrifice and devotion. We find him thus writing-September 1st, 1863,

to Mrs. Speed (daughter of George Keats): :

This is a line to assure you that I am the

46 one devoted friend until death"
of your
illustrious relative John Keats, and that it has
gratified me highly to be addressed by you in
consequence of your reading my essay, "On

Severn then proceeds to describe the happy engagement which had promised so fair, and which Keats found harder to relinquish than life itself:

In Italy he [Keats] always shrank from Speaking in direct terms of the actual things the Vicissitudes of Keats's Fame." As I that were killing him. Certainly the Blackhad the happiness to meet his sister here wood attack was one of the least of his mis(Madame d'Llanos) after forty-five years, Ieries, for he never even mentioned it to me. The greater trouble which was ingulfing him he signified in a hundred ways. He kept continually in his hand a polished oval white carnelian, the gift of his widowing love, and at times it seemed his only consolation, the only thing left him in this world clearly tangible. Many letters which he was unable to read came for him. Some he allowed me to read to him; others were too worldly, for, as he said, he had "already journeyed far beyond them." There were two letters, I remember, for which he had no words, but he made me understand that I was to place them on his heart within his winding-sheet.

trust it may also be my happiness to meet some news of his family in Rome, where I am likely to remain all my life, and where I first came in his dear company in November, 1820, and on his account. Although on my part so mad a thing as it seemed at the time, and was pronounced so by most of my friends, yet it was the best and perhaps the only step to insure my artistic career, which no doubt was watched and blessed by his dear spirit, for I remained twenty years without returning to England, and during that time, the patrons I most valued came to me as 66 the friend of Keats." These have remained faithful to me and mine, no doubt inspired by the revered name Poet. The success of my family (three sons and three daughters) has turned on this. The chief of these patrons I may mention is the present Chancellor of the Exchequer (W. E. Gladstone).

The essay alluded to by Severn in this letter as having called forth expressions of gratitude from Keats's niece, appeared in the April number of the Atlantic Monthly for 1863, and is entitled "On the Vicissitudes of Keats's Fame." It is a highly interesting paper, though somewhat miscalled, and as it is unknown and inacces sible to most readers, some account of it with a few extracts may be acceptable. Writing to Americans, Severn congratulates them on having been more quick to appreciate the genius of Keats than his own countrymen.

It is a singular pleasure [he says] to the few personal friends of Keats in England (who may still have to defend him against the old and worn-out slanders) that in America he has always had a solid fame, independent of the old English prejudices. Here, in Rome, as I write, I look back through forty years of worldly changes, to behold Keats's dear image again in memory. It seems as if he should be living with me now, inasmuch as I never could understand his strange and contradictory death, his falling away so suddenly from health and strength. He had that fine compactness of person which we regard as the promise of longevity, and no mind was ever more exultant in youthful feeling. I cannot summon a sufficient reason why in one short year he should have been thus cut off, "with all his imperfections on his head." Was it that he lived too soon, that the world he sought was not ready for him?

Those bright falcon eyes, which I had known only in joyous intercourse, while revelling in books and nature, or while he was reciting his own poetry, now beamed an unearthly brightness and a penetrating steadfastness that could not be looked at. It was not the fear of death- -on the contrary, he earnestly wished to die-but it was the fear of lingering on and on, that now distressed him; and this was wholly on my account.

Amidst the world of

emotions that were crowding and increasing as his end approached, I could always see that his generous concern for me in my isolated position at Rome was one of his greatest

cares.

From day to day, after this time, he would always demand of Sir James Clark, "How long is this posthumous life of mine to last? On finding me inflexible in my purpose of remaining with him, he became calm, and tranquilly said that he was sure why I held up so patiently was owing to my Christian faith, and that he was disgusted with himself for ever appearing before me in such savage guise; that he now felt convinced how much every human being required the support of religion, that he might die decently. "Here am I," said he, "with desperation in death that would disgrace the commonest fellow. Now, my dear Severn, I am sure, if you could get some of the works of Jeremy Taylor to read to me, I might become really a Christian, and leave this world in peace. Most fortunately I was able to procure the 'Holy Living and Dying." I read some passages to him, and prayed with him, and I could tell by the grasp of his dear hand that his mind was reviving. He was a great lover of Jeremy Taylor, and it did not seem to require much effort in him to embrace the Holy Spirit in those comforting works.

Thus he gained strength of mind from day to day just in proportion as his poor body grew weaker and weaker. At last I had the consolation of finding him calm, trusting, and

was at hand.

I had been [says Severn] indirectly made known to him (Sir Walter Scott) by his favorite ward and protégée the late Lady Northampton (Miss Clephane), who, accustomed to write to him monthly, often made mention of me: for I was on terms of friendship with all her family, an intimacy which in great part arose from the delight she always had in Keats's poetry, being herself a poetess, and a most enlightened and liberal critic.

more prepared for his end than I was. He the painful visit which he paid to Rome tranquilly rehearsed to me what would be the just before his death in 1832. process of his dying, what I was to do, and how I was to bear it. He was even minute in his details, evidently rejoicing that his death In all he then uttered he breathed a simple Christian spirit; indeed, I always think that he died a Christian, that "mercy" was trembling on his dying lips, and that his tortured soul was received by those Blessed Hands which could alone welcome it. Severn then tells of the great kindness and encouragement he received in Rome, in the midst of persons who admired and encouraged my beautiful pursuit of painting, in which I was then but a very poor student, but with, my eyes opening and my soul awakening to a new region of art, and beginning to feel the wings growing for artistic flights I had always been dreaming about. In all this, however, there was a solitary drawback there were few Englishmen at Rome who knew Keats's works, and I could scarcely persuade any one to make the effort to read them, such was the prejudice against him as a poet.

Severn then proceeds to relate some anecdote too unpleasantly characteristic of the aged poet Samuel Rogers, who was staying in Rome the first Easter after Keats's death. Dining one day with Sir George Beaumont, Rogers was asked by his host if he had been acquainted with Keats in England.

that

When Sir Walter.arrived, he received me like an old and attached friend; indeed he involuntarily tried to make me fill up the terrible void then recently created by the death of Lady Northampton at the age of thirty-seven years. I went at his request to breakfast with him every morning, when he invariably commenced talking of his lost friend, of her beauty, her singularly varied accomplishments, of his growing delight in watching her from a child in the island of Mull in his great misfortunes, in all their complications, he had looked forward to Rome and his dear Lady Northampton as his last and certain hope of repose! She was to be his comfort in the winding-up of life's pilgrimage; now, on his arrival, his life and fortune almost exhausted, she was gone! gone! After these pathetic outpourings he would gradually recover his old cheerfulness, his expressive grey eyes would sparkle even in tears, and soon that wonderful power he had for description would show itself, when he would often stand up to enact the incident of which he spoke, so ardent was he, and so earnest in the recital.

Mr. Rogers replied, that he had had more acquaintance than, he liked, for the poems were tedious enough, and the author had come Each morning, at his request, I took for his upon him several times for money. This was examination some little picture or sketch that an intolerable falsehood, and I (Severn) could might interest him, and among the rest a picnot restrain myself until I had corrected him, ture of Keats (now in the National Portrait which I did with my utmost forbearance, ex- Gallery of London); but this I was surprised plaining that Mr. Rogers must have mistaken to find was the only production of mine that some other person for Keats; that I was posi- seemed not to interest him—he remained tive my friend had never done such a thing in silent about it, but on all the others he was any shape, or even had occasion to do it; that ready with interesting comments and speculahe possessed a small independence in money, tions. Observing this, and wondering within and a large one in mind. The old poet re-myself at his apathy with regard to the young ceived the correction with much kindness, and thanked me for so effectually setting him right. Indeed this encounter was the groundwork of a long, and to me advantageous, friendship between us. I soon discovered that it was the principle of his sarcastic wit, not only to sacrifice all truth to it, but even all his friends, and that he did not care to know any who would not allow themselves to be abused for the purpose of lighting up his breakfast with sparkling wit, though not quite, indeed, at the expense of the persons then present.

lost poet, as I had reason to be proud of Keats's growing fame, I ventured to talk about him, and of the extraordinary caprices of that fame, which at last had found a restingplace in the hearts of all real lovers of poetry.

I soon perceived that I was touching on an embarrassing theme, and I became quite bewildered on seeing Miss Scott turn away her face, already crimsoned with emotion. Sir Walter then falteringly remarked, "Yes, yes, the world finds out these things for itself at last," and taking my hand closed the interview

our last, for the following night he was The last and most remarkable instance taken seriously ill, and I never saw him again, given by Severn of the universal change from Rome. as his physician immediately hurried him away in the estimate formed of Keats and his this scene induced me to mention it on the The incomprehensibleness of poetry, as witnessed by him during his same day to Mr. Woodhouse, the active and long life, is that of Sir Walter Scott during | discriminating friend of Keats, who had col

lected every written record of the poet, and to | figments of their own brains; this cerwhom we owe the preservation of many of the tainly looks like a chase of shadows which finest of his productions. He was astonished a sensible man may fairly let alone. at my recital, and at my being ignorant of the fact that Sir Walter Scott was a prominent contributor to the review which, through its false and malicious criticisms, had always been considered to have caused the death of Keats. My surprise was as great as his at my having lived all those seventeen years in Rome, and been so removed from the great world, that this, a fact so interesting to me to know, had never reached me.

AN INTERNATIONAL CENSUS OF HALLU-a summary manner; we look at them just