do with perceptible things; perceptible things must be
objects of sense, and the mind which dwells on objects of sense must
_ipso facto_ be a mind of the sensuous order. But the mind which is
mainly sensuous by direct action may also work by reflex action, and
pass from sensuousness into sentiment. It cannot fairly be denied that
Keats's mind continually did this; it had direct action potently, and
reflex action amply. He saw so far and so keenly into the sensuous as to
be penetrated with the sentiment which, to a healthy and large nature,
is its inseparable outcome. We might say that, if the sensuous was his
atmosphere, the breathing apparatus with which he respired it was
sentiment. In his best work--for instance, in all the great odes--the
two things are so intimately combined that the reader can only savour
the sensuous nucleus through the sentiment, its medium or vehicle. One
of the most compendious and elegant phrases in which the genius of Keats
has been defined is that of Leigh Hunt: "He never beheld an oak tree
without seeing the Dryad." In immediate meaning Hunt glances here at the
mythical sympathy or personifying imagination of the poet; but, if we
accept the phrase as applying to the sensuous object-painting, along
with its ideal aroma or suggestion in his finest work, we shall still
find it full of right significance. We need not dwell upon other less
mature performances in which the two things are less closely interfused.
Certainly some of his work is merely, and some even crudely, sensuous:
but this is work in which the poet was trying his materials and his
powers, and rising towards mastery of his real faculty and ultimate
function.

While discriminating between what was excellent in Keats, and what was
not excellent, or was merely tentative in the direction of final
excellence, we must not confuse endowments, or the homage which is due
to endowments, of a radically different order. Many readers, and there
have been among them several men highly qualified to pronounce, have set
Keats beside his great contemporary Shelley, and indeed above him. I
cannot do this. To me it seems that the primary gift of Shelley, the
spirit in which he exercised it, the objects upon which he exercised it,
the detail and the sum of his achievement, the actual produce in
appraisable work done, the influence and energy of the work in the
future, were all superior to those of Keats, and even superior beyond
any reasonable term