Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/293

 George Keats having made, and in his latter days again lost, a good competence in business, died at Louisville, Ohio, in 1842, leaving several sons and daughters. His widow married a Mr. Jeffrey, who communicated to Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton) an important part of the materials for his life of the poet. George Keats was esteemed by his fellow-citizens as a man of high character and intelligence. His failure to send help to his brother out of the money which he had taken from England in January 1820 was very harshly interpreted by some of the latter's friends, including Severn and Brown, who would hold no terms with him thereafter. Dilke, on the other hand, was entirely satisfied with George's explanations, and took his side. The quarrel thus arising was one of the causes which delayed the appearance of any authorised biography of the poet. Brown long purposed to bring out a 'Life,' but George Keats would not help, and even obtained, or endeavoured to obtain, an injunction to prevent him, and finally Brown emigrated to New Zealand in 1841, leaving his materials in the hands of R. M. Milnes. Taylor, Woodhouse, and J. H. Reynolds also severally entertained and abandoned the idea of writing a life of their friend. (For the character of George Keats see communication of the Rev. J. F. Clarke to 'The Dial,' April 1843, reprinted, with a selection from the letters of G. K., in Forman's 'Poetical Works of J. K.,' iv. 382. Brown's accusations against him, and the consequent quarrels and estrangements, are recorded at length in Sharp's 'Life and Letters of Joseph Severn,' chaps. iv. v. and viii.  From George Keats's prompt action in paying his brother's debts after his death, from the general character he bore, from the tenor of his letters, and from the positive conclusion of Dilke as a practical man of business, the rights of the case seem certainly to be on his side against Brown, who moreover was prone to vehement prejudices.)  Between the period of the poet's death and the publication of Lord Houghton's 'Life and Letters' (1821-1848) there came to prevail a one-sided view of his character, founded partly on what was known of his last sufferings, partly on the signs of excessive emotional sensibility in some of his work, partly on the language of Byron in 'Don Juan,' and most of all on the impassioned expression of Shelley's pity and indignation in 'Adonais.'  The truth is that an over-sensitive and hypochondriac strain was in Keats's nature from the first, but was manfully kept under as long as health lasted. He speaks in an early letter to Leigh Hunt of his own 'horrid morbidity of temperament,' but even his most intimate friends saw nothing of it until disease, passion, and misfortune had sapped his power of self-control. When his brother George declares 'John was the soul of manliness and courage, and as like the Holy Ghost as Johnny Keats' (the puling Johnny Keats of Byron's epigrams and of public sympathy), he expresses in a nutshell a view which is confirmed by the testimony alike of Bailey, Reynolds, Brown, and all those who were his daily companions before his breakdown. 'Noble integrity,' 'conspicuous common-sense,' eager unselfishness, and sympathy for others are the qualities with which they credit him with one consent. His letters show him to have been privately critical enough, in certain moods, of the foibles of his friends, but to his unfailing sweetness and generosity in his practical behaviour to them their testimony is unanimous.

In personal appearance Keats was very striking, notwithstanding his small stature. 'The character and expression of his features,' it is said, 'would arrest even the casual passenger in the street.' The head was small and well-shaped, the hair of a golden-brown colour, very thick and curling. 'Every feature,' says Leigh Hunt, 'was at once strongly cut and delicately alive. His face was rather long than otherwise, the upper lip projected a little over the under, the chin was bold, the cheeks sunken, the eyes mellow and glowing, large, dark, and sensitive.' 'Like the hazel eyes,' says Severn, ' of a wild gipsy maid in colour, set in the face of a young god.' 'He had an eye,' says Haydon,"' that had an inward look, perfectly divine, like a Delphian priestess that saw visions.'

The principal portraits of him are as follows. Life-mask said to have been taken by Haydon, but at what date is not recorded. It may probably be alluded to in a letter of the poet to C. C. Clarke, written in December 1816 (No. iv. in Letters, &c, ed. Colvin). It is figured from several points of view in 'Poetical Works,' &c, ed. Forman, iv. p. xxxvi; see also the etching in 'Letters and Poems,' ed. Speed, vol. ii. frontispiece. Miniature painted by Severn, and exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1819. This was copied by the artist many times, both during the poet's life and afterwards. Before going to Italy he gave the original to Fanny Brawne, from whose hands it passed into those of C. W. Dilke, and is now in possession of the present baronet. Replicas belong to the same owner, to Mr. Buxton Forman, to Lord Houghton, &c. This portrait was engraved first for Lord Houghton's 'Life and Letters,' 1848, and has become the standard likeness of Keats. A life-sized version in oil, painted