The

forced upon us. And in this case Sir Sidney Colvin makes himself its very frank spokesman. The one fundamental flaw in "Lamia" concerns its moral. word is crude; what I mean is the bewilderment in which it leaves us as to the effect intended to be made on our imaginative sympathies.' Lamia is a witch, a serpentwoman; and from the first we feel that no good can come of Lycius's love for her. Yet the sage, Apollonius, who detects her cheat, who would deliver her pupil from her, and who finally destroys both him and her in doing so, is throughout unsympathetically represented. What did Keats mean us to think, what, even more, did he mean us to feel, when we finish reading the poem? answer is that nobody knows; and it is an answer fatal to the highest claims made for 'Lamia.' We may not be able to explain Hamlet; but Shakespeare never leaves us in a moment's doubt whether we are to sympathise with him or not.

The

But this is not the place to follow Sir Sidney Colvin in his journey along the familiar road through the poems. That pleasure must be left to readers of his book, who will find that, if the road is familiar, he has new things to show them on it, or things worth hearing to say about the old. The Odes, for instance, are among the most universally known of all English poems; but they will be known better by those who read what is here said about them. One, and one only, of the remarks made may be quoted here for the sake of carrying it a little further than Sir Sidney does. He says of the 'Ode to Maia' that it is 'in a more truly Greek manner than anything else Keats wrote, not even excepting the "Ode to Autumn." This is true, and true not only because of the 'mint-mark of absolute economy' of which Sir Sidney speaks. It is not only that there is not a superfluous word in the 'Ode to Autumn,' but that, except the unpleasant rhyme of 'Maia' and 'Baiae,' there is not a word which is not the perfect word. There is no other poem by Keats-not even the sonnet on Chapman's Homer, where the word 'expanse' can hardly claim to be inspired or final-of which either of these things can be said.

But I venture to think that there is even more than this. Keats was an essentially romantic poet from the first. Even Milton could not prevent his bringing

romanticisms into 'Hyperion.' And yet it is also true that he does often remind us of Shelley's answer to the question about him: 'because he was a Greek.' Wordsworth's tribute to the Hymn to Pan' is cool and exasperatingly inadequate, but it points to the fact. That Hymn is much more than a pretty piece of Paganism'; but it is that. And none of our great poets, in dealing with the religion of nature, has struck the Greek note nearly so closely as Keats. Mr C. F. Keary, who died a few months ago, had something of the same felicity, but no one will claim for him that he was more than a minor poet. To Keats, then, before all men, we must go for this. And nowhere else shall we find it in such consummate perfection as in this wonderful fragment. But the point I wished to suggest was this. Is not this unfinished Ode not only the most Greek thing, not only the most perfect thing, Keats ever wrote, but also, in a very real way, his most central piece, the thing which most combines his marvellous gifts? It is steeped in Romance, in the antiquity, mystery, distance, which are the essence of Romance. But it is quite free from the habitual faults of Romance-from its luxury, its superfluity, its love of ornament for ornament's sake, its sacrifice of the main action to scenery or circumstance, or even to irrelevant digression. All these faults are common in most of Keats's poems. Their absence here is due to a unique combination of his inborn instinct for Romance with a Greek sense of restraint, of the favourite Greek virtue of temperance,' with something of a Greek consciousness of the half being more than the whole, of few words in these things saying more than many. One is glad that it was left unfinished-it might so easily have been spoilt; and nothing could have given it a higher place among Keats's work than, at least in my judgment, it already has.

Into Sir Sidney's account of the life, as distinct from the works, of Keats, I have here scarcely attempted to go. His book contains a most interesting picture of Keats and his family and friends; of the latter, in particular, the biographer turns aside from time to time to draw for us brilliant little portraits, such as those of Lamb and Hazlitt, Hunt and Haydon. But considerations of space imposed a choice upon me, and it was

easily made. Keats is not one of those poets, the events of whose lives can challenge interest with their works. No one was ever more wholly a poet; the best record of his life and character is to be found in his poetry. Not that there is anything to conceal-quite the reverse. In fact, the more that is known about him, the more does it become clear that the man was of a stronger, manlier, more active and generous nature than a first reading of his poems might lead one to suppose. Sir Sidney Colvin makes one more effort to slay the long-lived legend, born of Byron and Shelley, that Keats was a timid, effeminate creature, all genius perhaps, but no courage or strength, who lived in a coterie of mutually admiring cockneys, and died in terror of the Quarterly Review.' Nothing could be further from the truth, as every one knows who has ever looked at the poet's delightful letters, which show a man as full of courage, generosity, kindliness, and the sense of duty as of the love of poetry and the modest consciousness of genius. Their interest lies in that revelation of his mind and character much more than in anything which they record of what he privately did or suffered, until one comes to the misery of his passion and the tragedy of his illness and death. After all, his one great achievement was the writing of his poems; and the best offering we can make to his memory is to read them and read them again and again. He is, of all our English poets, the one who most unfailingly, most invariably, converts everything he touches into poetry; not always into good poetry, but never into anything else. Almost all our other poets might conceivably have been men of some other profession. No one can fancy Keats anything but a poet, a poet by birth and nature, by choice, by training, and finally by consummate achievement.

JOHN BAILEY.

Art. 10.-SHALL ENGLAND FINANCE GERMANY AFTER THE WAR?

A SHORT time ago the writer was present when an English statesman of many years' experience asked a Russian, who had spent his life in Government finance, -'What is your opinion of the success of German plans for the economic exploitation of Russia?' The answer came very quickly and briefly: 'That depends wholly on whether or no Great Britain decides to finance Germany in accomplishing her objectives in Russia.' It is proposed in this paper to examine the grounds on which this answer is based, to show that it is strictly accurate, and to enquire into what should be the action of Great Britain upon this vital subject.

The crux of the whole matter lies in the banking customs which obtain in England. Prior to the War, London was the money centre of the world. She was the one great reservoir of accumulated capital upon which all nations might draw upon certain conditions concerned only with security and return. Thus it has been that English banking has been primarily international banking, and secondarily, by a long distance, industrial and commercial. Gradually, the local banks, with their study of local needs, have become absorbed in the London Joint Stock Banks with their innumerable branches. These large consolidations have drained the provinces of money, and have thereupon become the primary factors in carrying on the international banking of the world. If Germany purchased wheat in Australia, or cotton in America, or jute in India, or any nation purchased anything anywhere in the world, the commercial transaction was, almost without exception, financed by bills on London. London became the clearing-house of the world.

These vast financial transactions have been secured on bills accepted by approved banking institutions. The one relevant question is as to the liability of the acceptor and the rate of interest to be paid. No question as to the origin of the bill or the nature of the merchandise covered is the subject of enquiry. The bills then pass from bank to bank as freely as Government currency or Government securities. Prior to the War,

therefore, it was only necessary to possess such bills in order to secure any sum required. If money was tight, the rate of interest rose and thereby attracted to London the additional credits. Beneath the surface, London was always in possession of a great credit, able, by raising the rate, to call in her large outstanding balance.

Under such a system of international banking, any nation could, by a system of banking acceptance of drafts, negotiate in London bills to a colossal amount, always provided the total volume was within the apparent credit resources of the accepting banks and the commercial activities of the nation concerned. Large sums were loaned to America from time to time, through the medium of such finance bills, to move cotton and for other purposes; but the greatest use of this international reservoir of banking credit was made by Germany through her great banks, such as the Deutsche Bank and the Dresdner Bank.

Germany has, indeed, made a close technical study of the possible functions which a bank could perform in the aid of manufacture and commerce. Her banks were equipped not only with machinery for international banking, but with the most carefully organised departments for dealing with various branches of trade. They went further even than the study of these great industrial problems with a view to financing their needs; they took a direct and in some cases controlling interest by purchase and ownership of shares. For example, in the chemical trade a German bank owned a large portion, if not a majority, of the shares in one of the greatest of the dye-stuff companies, that at Elberfeld, known as the 'Farbenfabriken vormals Friedrich Beyer & Co.' A corps of experts trained from the business point of view, whose duty it was to study each industry and collect all the possible data thereon, was established in these banks. Therefore, if a manufacturer came, let us say, to the Deutsche Bank, and presented his plans for an industrial undertaking, he was at once put into communication with experts in his own line of business; and all the resources of knowledge and experience, including the reports of the Germans in British Consular pay, were placed at his disposal. If the bank, knowing the entire subject, decided to support him, it might first invest in