true to nature, and indicate
even a finer power of characterization than is exhibited in the more
strongly marked personages of the work.

The test of the excellence of a novel is the clearness with which its
events and characters are remembered after it has been read. We think
that Vanity Fair will bear this criterion. All its characters are
recognized in memory as living beings, and we would refer to and quote
them with as much confidence as to any of the acquaintances we hold in
remembrance.

* * * * *

_Life, Letters and Literary Remains of John Keats.
Edited by Richard Moncton Milnes. New York: Geo. P.
Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._

This book, the long promised, has at last appeared, and we must
confess that, from the time expended in its preparation, we expected a
more satisfactory result. The biography, though written in a style of
elaborate elegance, and pleasing enough as regards cadence of period
and felicity of phrase, tells little about Keats which is new, and
leaves many obscure passages of his life in the same darkness in which
it found them. Nothing to the purpose is told of the lady who was the
object of Keats's passionate love, and who shares with consumption in
being the dismal cause of his early death. Mr. Milnes points
triumphantly to the new facts and private letters he has included in
the volume, in proof that the common impression that Keats lacked
manliness of character, is an error; but instead of proving that Keats
was a strong man, he has very nearly proved that he himself is a
sentimentalist. The characteristic of Keats is sensitiveness to
external impressions, the characteristic of Milnes is sensitiveness to
self; the page of one throngs with delicious sensations, but leaves no
strong impression of character; that of the other is pervaded by a
thoughtful ennui, and leaves an impression of egotistic weakness of
character. Of course, Keats is the stronger man of the two, and a
stronger man even than Milnes's musical sentences indicate, but still
not a strong man in the strict meaning of the phrase.

The letters of Keats are exceedingly interesting, and some of them
fine specimens of brilliant epistolary composition, but we think there
is a general tone of languid jauntiness observable in them, which
shows a certain feebleness at the heart of his being. He seems a man
whom every one would desire to see placed in happy circumstances, but
not one who would bear b