e ever discovered seemed to suggest that the sonnets
had been written by an ex-President of the United States. Observe
the 131st sonnet:

*T*hou art as tyrannous, so as thou art
*A*s those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
*F*or well thou know'st to my dear doting heart
*T*hou art the fairest and most precious jewel.

And evidently Shakespeare intended to begin the 51st sonnet with the
same acrostic; but, with Elizabethan laxity, misspelled Mr. Taft's
name as TOFT.

Reading Elizabethan literature always encourages one to proceed,
even though decorously, with the use of the pun. Such screams of
mirth as (we doubt not) greeted one of Ben Jonson's simpletons when
he spoke of Roger Bacon as Rasher Bacon (we can hear them laughing,
can't you?) are highly fortifying.

But we began by quoting Ben Jonson on poetry. The passage sent us to
the bookcase to look up the "axioms" about poetry stated by another
who was also, in spirit at least, an habitue of The Mermaid. In that
famous letter from Keats to his publisher and friend John Taylor,
February 27, 1818, there is a fine fluent outburst on the subject.
All Keats lovers know these "axioms" already, but they cannot be
quoted too often; and we copy them down with additional pleasure
because not long ago, by the kindness of the two librarians who
watch over one of the most marvellous private collections in the
world--Mr. J.P. Morgan's--we saw the original letter itself:--

1st. I think poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not
by singularity. It should strike the reader as a wording of his
own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.

2d. Its touches of beauty should never be half-way, thereby
making the reader breathless, instead of content. The rise, the
progress, the setting of Imagery should, like the sun, come
natural to him, shine over him, and set soberly, although in
magnificence, leaving him in the luxury of twilight. But it is
easier to think what poetry should be than to write it--and
this leads me to

Another axiom--That if poetry comes not as naturally as the
leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all.

Some people can always find things to complain about. We have seen
protests because the house in Rome where Keats died is used as a
steamship office. We think it is rather appropriate. No man's mind
ever set sail upon wider oceans of imagination. To