PORTRAIT OF KEATS.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17609, 11 November 1922, Page 9

PORTRAIT OF KEATS.

INTEkESTING RECORD FROM AUCKLAND. SIR SIDNEY COLVIN'S TRIBUTE. (FROM OUB OWN COBKESPOXDSXf.) LONDON, September 26. Considerable importance is attached to the portrait of Keats sent by MUs Brown, of Auckland, to Sir Sidney Colvin. A reproduction of the sketch appears in last Sunday's "Observer," together with an appreciation by Sir Sidney Colvin. A sub-leader on the subject .appears in the same issue. "Sir Sidney Colvin," says the writer of the leading article, "has enabled our readers to study for themselves the most recent addition to our mobilised knowledge »f Keats. €"he facsimile of a pencil-sketch by the poet's friend, Charles Brown, comes, romantically enough, from the latter's granddaughter in New Zealand. But the full interest of the episode cannot be appreciated unless we remember that Brown (a Scot whose devotion made some national atonement for the savageries of 'Blackwood' and Byron) wrote a memoir of Keats, and could find no publisher to accept it! His love's labour was not lost, for it became the basis of Lord Houghton's very competent championship; but the change in literaryy valuations'i3 picturesquely shown by the two episodes. There was 'no public' for Brown's biography, but to-day we are grateful for a scrap from his portfolio showing at a new angle that face whose expression was 'too subtle for the brush.' And it is no mere relic-worship that attaches itself to such an acquisition. It becomes ever clearer that Keats belongs to history as well as to literature. He was a germinal force not of poetry alone, but of the whole revolt against industrial ugliness. He blossoms in our greatest school of nineteenth century painters, in all the associated 'craft' movement, and in that aesthetic abhorrence of Bqualor which is a more potent reformer, perhaps, than pure philanthropy. His name is not 'writ in water,' but with growing., distinctness in his country's life." Keats at Shanklin, "Every lover of Keats—which means every lover of poetry—must hold in affectionate regard the name of his genial and unfailing friend, Charles Brown (writes Sir Sidney Colvin). Through the kindness of a granddaughter of Brown's I am enabled to make known a singularly interesting record of their friendship. For six summer weeks of 1820, from the end of June to mid-August, Keats was living in the Isle of Wight, in lodgings on the cliffs above Shanklin, I first with Rice and afterwards with Brown on the tragedy of ' Otho the i Great.' He was ailing, and for the most part out of spirits, suffering from the first torturing raptures of his passion for Fanny Browne, and in health finding- himself not braced but enervated by the island climate. . A Trial 6f Skill. "Both Brown and Keats were amateur draughtsmen of some little skill, Brown the better hand of the two. The point has been neglected in the biographies of the poet, including my own; but there occurs this pleasant playful mention of it in. a letter written* by Keats from Shanklin ; in these very days of* July, 1820, to Dilke: 'Brown aid 1 fcre pretty 'well harnessed tq pur< dog-cart. I mean the. Tragedy, which goes on sinkingly. . . . The Art of Poetry is not sufficient fofus, and if we get on in that as well as we do in painting, we shall by next winter crush the: * reviews and the Royal .Academy. Indeed, if Brown would take a little of my advice, he could not fail to be the first palette of his day. The other day he was sketching Shanklin Church, and as X saw how the business was going on* I challenged him to a trial of skill—he lent me pencil and paper—we keep the sketches to contend for the prize, at the Gallery. I will not say whose I think best —but 'really I do not think Brown's doner to the top of the art.' "Brown emigrated to 'New Zealand with his son towards the end of 1840, and died there little more than a year later. It-is from Auckland that his granddaughter sends me the facsimile oi the drawing by which readers are enabled to judge for themselves of his skill; not the view of Shanklin Church, .but something much more interesting, a finished pencil portrait of Keats himself. Miss Brown gives me the following".account of the origin of. Vthe portrait as traditional in her family:— ' Keats and my grandfather were but sketching together; when they came in Keats was a little tired, and he halfreclined in a couch or easy chair. My grandfather opened his portfolio, and made this pencil copy.. He was pleased with the reßult and kept it. Then it passed on to my father; after his death my mother gave it to me.' Gratefully Welcomed and Treasured. "With this account of its origin the character of the portrait exactly corresponds. There is a certain clumsiness and commonness, whether due to the draughtsman or the sitter, in- the form of the hand, especially the outline of the thumb. But the head resting on it in all but profile is drawn with real ability as well as care. It makes at first sight an impression very different from the various versions iof Severn's well-known full-face portrait with the inspired upward-looking eyes. But Severn was bent on depicting for futurity the poet in his friend: Brown on the other hand has thought of nothing but what he saw at the moment, the human comrade resting after a walk. ' The richly curling hair, as to which all accounts are agreed, instead of standing up from the forehead as in the Severn portraits, falls over and partly covers it. The eyelid droops, suggesting fatigue in the sitter rather than any wen mood of eagerness or aspect of inspiration as were no doubt more habitual to him. The lips are fuller and richer in form than would have been guessed either from the lifemask or even from Severn's drawing, but seem in keeping with what we know of the strength of the sensual elements of .the poet's character. In its differences from, as well as its resemblances to, our other existing material,. this new. record of his features by his most intimate friend is evidently a thing to be-gratefully welcomed arid treasured." The "Observer" further calls attention to the fact that the Keats Centenary had been celebrated in New Zealand by a search for the grave of Charles Brown, the site of which had been lost during the barricading of Marsland Hill, in the Maori Wars. Large areas were dug over, and the slab of stone marking the grave was eventually discovered.