Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/799

 KEATS 779 and the plains of Mesa, Jan. 8 and 9, 1847. He was appointed brevet major general, and was governor of California from March to Juno, 1847. He was the author of a work on the " Ma- nceuvring of Dragoons" (1837), and of "Laws for the Government of New Mexico" (1846). III. Philip, an American soldier, nephew of the preceding, born in New York, June 2, 1815, killed near Chantilly, Va., Sept, 1, 1862. He studied law, but in 1837 accepted a commission as second lieutenant in the 1st dragoons, com- manded by his uncle. Being soon afterward sent to Europe by the government to study and report upon the French cavalry tactics, he entered the military school at Saumur, then went to Algeria, joined the chasseurs d' Afrique as a volunteer, and received the cross of the legion of honor for his bravery. On his re- turn home in 1840 he was appointed aide-de- camp to Gen. Macomb, and the next year to Gen. Scott, which appointment he held till 1844. In 1846 he was made captain of dragoons. He furnished his men with equipments and horses from his private means, and his com- pany formed the escort of Gen. Scott when he entered Vera Cruz. He was brevetted major for gallant conduct at Contreras and Churubusco. In a charge on the San Antonio gate at the city of Mexico he lost his left arm. At the close of the Mexican war he was ordered to Califor- nia, and commanded an expedition against the Indians of Columbia river. In 1851 he resigned and went to Europe, where he continued to pursue military studies. In the Italian war of 1859 he served as a volunteer aide on the staff of the French general Maurier, was in the bat- tles of Magenta and Solferino, and received from Napoleon III. for the second time the cross of tiie legion of honor. On the breaking out of the American civil war he hastened home, and was placed in command of a brigade, and afterward of a division in the army. He dis- tinguished himself at the battles of Williams- burg, Seven Pines, and Frazier's Farm, and was made a major general of volunteers July 4, 1862. He was prominent at the second battle of Bull Run. During the action at Chantilly he rode forward in advance of his men to reconnoitre, and fell in with a confed- erate soldier, of whom he inquired the position of a regiment. Discovering his mistake, he turned to ride away, when the soldier fired, and Kearny fell mortally wounded. KEATS, John, an English poet, born in Lon- don in 1795 or 1796, died in Rome, Feb. 27, 1821. He was sent at an early age with his two brothers to a school in Enfield, where he re- mained until his 15th year. He seems to have been careless of the ordinary school distinctions, but read whatever authors attracted his fancy. He never advanced in his classical studies be- yond Latin, and his knowledge of Greek my- thology was derived from Lempriere's diction- ary and Tooke's " Pantheon ;" a singular fact considering the thoroughly Hellenic spirit which imbues some of his works. In 1810 he was re- moved from school, and apprenticed for five years to a surgeon in Edmonton. His earliest known verses are the lines " In Imitation of Spenser." About the same time he became acquainted with Homer through Chapman's translation, and commemorated his emotions in the sonnet, " On first looking into Chap- man's Homer." Upon the completion of his apprenticeship he removed to London to " walk the hospitals," and made the acquaintance of Leigh Hunt, Haydon, Hazlitt, Godwin, and other literary men, incited by whose praise he published a volume of poems, comprising son- nets, poetical epistles, and other small pieces, which excited little attention. He soon per- ceived that the profession of a surgeon was un- fitted for him, both on account of his extreme nervousness in the performance of operations, and of the state of his health ; and in the spring of 1817 he was induced by symptoms of con- sumption to make a visit to the country. Du- ring this absence he commenced his " Endymi- on," which, with some miscellaneous pieces, was published in the following year. Keats had allied himself with a political and literary coterie obnoxious to the " Quarterly Review " and "Blackwood's Magazine," and the appear- ance of a volume of poems by a new writer of the " cockney school " was the signal for an attack upon him by these periodicals, the bit- terness of which savored more of personal ani- mosity than of critical discernment. The in- sulting allusions to his private affairs and his family aroused in the poet no other feeling than contempt or indignation ; and if we may judge from his letters, far from being crushed in spirit by the virulence of his reviewers, he would have been much more inclined to in- flict personal chastisement upon them if he had met them. Byron in "Don Juan," and Shel- ley in " Adonais," have apparently confirmed the notion that his sensitive nature on this oc- casion received a shock from which it never recovered ; but the effect of the criticism has been greatly exaggerated. His health was failing rapidly, but from other causes. His younger brother's death in the autumn of 1818 affected him deeply, and about the same time he experienced a passion for a lady of remark- able beauty, the effect of which upon a frame worn by disease was fatal. His little patri- mony became exhausted, and he began to think of making literature his profession. While preparing a third volume for the press he was attacked with a violent spitting of blood. After a long illness he recovered sufficiently to think of resuming his literary avocations, but found his mind too unstrung by sickness and the passion which had such an influence over him. In this emergency he had nearly deter- mined to accept the berth of surgeon in an In- diaman, when a return of the previous alarm- ing symptoms made it apparent that nothing but a winter in a milder climate would offer a chance of saving his life. Before his de- parture he published a volume containing his