6. The Last Days of "The Company," 10. A First Glimpse of the Rocky 11. At the Head of Lake Superior, 12. The True North-West Passage, A Study of Shakspeare's Richard II., The British Constitutional System, Fraser Rae (London Times"), 372 Correspondence of Toronto "Mail," 373 W. H. Williams (special corre- [Mount Latmos was in Caria, the south-west division of ancient Asia Minor. There, in a glade of the forest, and under the loving gaze of the moon, slumbered the beauteous Endymion (pr. Endym'ion), on whom Jove had bestowed the boon of perpetual youth, but coupled with perpetual sleep.] Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed Into o'erhanging boughs and precious fruits. Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep A lamb strayed far a-down those inmost glens, Whither his brethren, bleating with content, Where fed the herds of Pan: ay, great his gains To a wide lawn, whence one could only see Edged round with dark tree-tops? through which a dove eve, Full in the middle of this pleasantness Now while the silent workings of the dawn * Used in older English (Spenser, Shakspeare, Dryden) for any spotted beast of prey-leopard, panther, etc. "The models upon which Keats formed himself in the Endymion, the earliest and by much the most considerable of his poems, are obviously The Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher, and The Sad Shepherd of Ben Jonson."-LORD JEFFREY: Edinburgh Review (1820). But the influence was rather that of Spenser, to whom Keats, in common with Fletcher and Jonson, was largely indebted. See (p. 196) Professor Masson's remarks on the growth of Keats' diction. All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave, To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking Endymion (1818). A DREAM OF THE UNKNOWN. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822). [Remarking on the line, “And wild roses, and ivy serpentine," F. T. Palgrave says, Our language has no line modulated with more subtle sweetness. A good poet might have written, And roses wild; yet this slight change would disenchant the verse of its peculiar beauty."] I dreamed that as I wandered by the way Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring, And gentle odors led my steps astray, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, Daisies, those pearled Arctūri* of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender blue-bells, at whose birth And in the warm hedge grew lusht eglantine, Green cow-bind and the moonlight-colored May, With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; |