any of those things which we call reality. It is
of the inspired and ideal kind, and seems to have been conceived and
executed in a similar state of feeling to that which produced among the
ancients those perfect specimens of poetry and sculpture which are the
baffling models of succeeding generations. There is a unity and a
perfection in it of an incommunicable kind. The central figure, St.
Cecilia, seems rapt in such inspiration as produced her image in the
painter's mind; her deep, dark, eloquent eyes lifted up; her chestnut
hair flung back from her forehead--she holds an organ in her hands--her
countenance, as it were, calmed by the depth of its passion and rapture,
and penetrated throughout with the warm and radiant light of life. She
is listening to the music of heaven, and, as I imagine, has just ceased
to sing, for the four figures that surround her evidently point, by
their attitudes, towards her; particularly St. John, who, with a tender
yet impassioned gesture, bends his countenance towards her, languid with
the depth of his emotion. At her feet lie various instruments of music,
broken and unstrung. Of the colouring I do not speak; it eclipses
nature, yet it has all her truth and softness.

JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)

A good deal has already been said of Keats in the
Introduction; but a little more may be pardoned on that most
remarkable correspondence with his brother and sister-in-law
which is there mentioned, and which it is hoped may be
fairly sampled here. There is nothing quite like it: and one
can only be thankful to the Atlantic (which here at least
can have "disappointed" nobody worth mentioning) for causing
the separation that brought it about. The inspirations which
it shows were happily double. We do not know very much about
George Keats, but John's family affection was of the
keenest, and this was the only member of the family who was,
in all the circumstances, likely to sympathise thoroughly
with the poet in his poetry as in other things. Georgiana is
said to have been personally attractive and mentally gifted
beyond the common: and there is no doubt that this excited
something more than mere family devotion in such an
impressionable person as Keats. The combined reagency of
these relatives has given us what we have from no other
English poet--for the simple reason that no other English
poe