ptuously
Have spoken? that from hastening disgrace
'Twere better far to hide my foolish face?
That whining boyhood should with reverence bow
Ere the dreadful thunderbolt could reach? How!
If I do hide myself, it sure shall be
In the very fane, the light of poesy."

From some verses addressed to various amiable individuals of the other
sex, it appears, notwithstanding all this gossamer-work, that Johnny's
affections are not entirely confined to objects purely etherial. Take,
by way of specimen, the following prurient and vulgar lines, evidently
meant for some young lady east of Temple-bar.

"Add too, the sweetness
Of thy honied voice; the neatness
Of thine ankle lightly turn'd:
With those beauties, scarce discern'd,
Kept with such sweet privacy,
That they seldom meet the eye
Of the little loves that fly
Round about with eager pry.
Saving when, with freshening lave,
Thou dipp'st them in the taintless wave;
Like twin water lilies, born
In the coolness of the morn
O, if thou hadst breathed then,
Now the Muses had been ten.
Couldst thou wish for lineage _higher_
Than twin sister of _Thalia_?
At last for ever, evermore,
Will I call the Graces four."

Who will dispute that our poet, to use his own phrase (and rhyme),

"Can mingle music fit for the soft _ear_
Of Lady _Cytherea_."

So much for the opening bud; now for the expanded flower. It is time to
pass from the juvenile "Poems," to the mature and elaborate "Endymion, a
Poetic Romance." The old story of the moon falling in love with a
shepherd, so prettily told by a Roman Classic, and so exquisitely
enlarged and adorned by one of the most elegant of German poets, has
been seized upon by Mr John Keats, to be done with as might seem good
unto the sickly fancy of one who never read a single line either of Ovid
or of Wieland. If the quantity, not the quality, of the verses dedicated
to the story is to be taken into account, there can be no doubt that Mr
John 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, loved by a Grecian goddess;
he is merely a young Cockney rhymester, dreaming a phan