KEATS AND SHAKESPEARE

Evening Star, Issue 18258, 24 April 1923, Page 2

KEATS AND SHAKESPEARE

NEW PORTRAITS DISCOVERED. ACQUISITION BY TURNBULL LIBRARY. There was recently discovered l in Auckland a hitherto unknown portrait of tiro English poet Keats. This portrait was a pencil sketch executed by Richard Brown, a close personal friend of Keats, who came to New Zealand in the early days and resided at New Plymouth. His grave is on Marsden Hill in that town. After a holiday ramble ■which Richard Brown and Keats had had together Keats sat in a chair leaning back as if tired, and, unknown to him, his friend made this pencil sketch. Not long afterward Richard Brown left England for New Zealand, and, as stated, lived at New Plymouth, where ho died. Many years after his death the sketch was found amongst his papers, and his grand-daughter, Jlrs Osborne, now residing in Auckland, sent the portrait Homo to Sir Sydney Colvin, the great authority on Keats. Mrs Osborne had* photographic facsimiles made, and one of these, an India proof, has been received from her by the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington (states the ’Post’). She also promises to send a portrait of the bust of her grandfather, Richard l Brown, who made the sketch.

The portrait is of exceptional interest, because it was made in tho year 1819. Keats’s first book, ‘ Endymion,’ was published in 1818, and his second, containing ‘Hyperion/ ‘Eve of St. Agnes,’ and other well-known poems, including the ‘ Odes, 1 was published in 1820. So that this portrait shows Keats in tho period of his best poetical activity. ‘ Ehdymion ’ was tho poem, published in 1818, which tho ‘Quarterly Review’ criticised very severely, and it was supposed that the criticism had zn injurious effect upon the health of Keats. He was, however, consumptive, and* jt is considered hardly probable tliat the review had the disastrous effect supposed*. Bo that as it may, it elicited from Shelley one of the finest of his poems, ‘Adonais/ which is a lament for the death of Keats, and ranks with the highest of English elegies.

This shows that even in the colonies important finds may be made regarding our English literary celebrities. And it may. be noted that in the last number of the ‘ Shakespearean Quarterly,’ published in Sydney, there is an intimation to the effect that a contemporary portrait of Shakespeare has been found in the Commonwealth.

Comparing the recently-discovered portrait with the engraving which appears in the second folio of 1632, a copy of which is in tho Alexander Turnbull Library, it is seen that the faces are very similar: the same open eyes and lofty brow, tho same way of wearing the moustache and beard and the shape of the Lead generally corresponds, so that it would appear that there is a possibility of the portrait being genuine. The announcement in the ‘Shakespearean Quarterly’ states that the portrait, which is painted on ooppefl, and is owned* by Mrs A. Barlow, of Toowoomba, Queensland, has been in the family since the year 1682, or shortly before that time. The ownership has been traced back to Anthony Nicholas, of Hyde Hall, Ingleston, .Sussex, a relation of Sir Edward Nicholas, secretary to tho Duka of Buckingham, 1628. When Anthony Nicholas died in 1681 his widow took possession of the portrait, and it remained in her family. By successive bequests it became tho property of the great-great-grandmothor of the present owner, Jirs Barlow. It, is believed that the painting was made by Cornelius Janssen.