there can be no doubt that Mr.
Keats may now claim Endymion entirely to himself. To say the truth, we
do not suppose either the Latin or the German poet would be very anxious
to dispute about the property of the hero of the "Poetic Romance." Mr.
Keats has thoroughly appropriated the character, if not the name. His
Endymion is not a Greek shepherd, love of a Grecian goddess; he is
merely a young Cockney rhymster, dreaming a phantastic dream at the full
of the moon. Costume, were it worth while to notice such a trifle, is
violated in every page of this goodly octavo. From his prototype Hunt,
John Keats has acquired a sort of vague idea, that the Greeks were a
most tasteful people, and that no mythology can be so finely adapted for
the purposes of poetry as theirs. It is amusing to see what a hand the
two Cockneys make of this mythology; the one confesses that he never
read the Greek Tragedians, and the other knows Homer only from Chapman,
and both of them write about Apollo, Pan, Nymphs, Muses, and Mysteries,
as might be expected from persons of their education. We shall not,
however, enlarge at present upon this subject, as we mean to dedicate an
entire paper to the classical attainments and attempts of the Cockney
poets. As for Mr. Keats's "Endymion," it has just as much to do with
Greece as it has with "old Tartary the fierce"; no man, whose mind has
ever been imbued with the smallest knowledge or feeling of classical
poetry or classical history, could have stooped to profane and vulgarise
every association in the manner which has been adopted by this "son of
promise." Before giving any extracts, we must inform our readers, that
this romance is meant to be written in English heroic rhyme. To those
who have read any of Hunt's poems, this hint might indeed be needless.
Mr. Keats has adopted the loose, nerveless versification, and Cockney
rhymes of the poet of Rimini; but in fairness to that gentleman, we must
add, that the defects of the system are tenfold more conspicuous in his
disciples' work than in his own. Mr. Hunt is a small poet, but he is a
clever man. Mr. Keats is a still smaller poet, and he is only a boy of
pretty abilities, which he has done every thing in his power to
spoil....

After all this, however, the "modesty," as Mr. Keats expresses it, of
the Lady Diana prevented her from owning in Olympus her passion for
Endymion. Venus, as the most knowing in such matters, is the first to
discover the change tha