"[37]
JOHN KEATS.--Another singular illustration of eccentricity and abnormal
power in verse is found in the brief career of John Keats, the son of the
keeper of a livery-stable in London, who was born on the 29th October,
1795.
Keats was a sensitive and pugnacious youth; and in 1810, after a very
moderate education, he was apprenticed to a surgeon; but the love of
poetry soon interfered with the surgery, and he began to read, not without
the spirit of emulation, the works of the great poets--Chaucer, Spenser,
Shakspeare, and Milton. After the issue of a small volume which attracted
little or no attention, he published his _Endymion_ in 1818, which, with
some similarity in temperament, he inscribed to the memory of Thomas
Chatterton. It is founded upon the Greek mythology, and is written in a
varied measure. Its opening line has been a familiar quotation since:
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
It was assailed by all the critics; but particularly, although not
unfairly, by Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh Review_.
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