Of the story we have been able to make out but little; it seems to be
mythological, and probably relates to the loves of Diana and Endymion;
but of this, as the scope of the work has altogether escaped us, we
cannot speak with any degree of certainty; and must therefore content
ourselves with giving some instances of its diction and
versification:--and here again we are perplexed and puzzled.--At first
it appeared to us, that Mr. Keats had been amusing himself and wearying
his readers with an immeasurable game at _bouts-rimes_; but, if we
recollect rightly, it is an indispensable condition at this play, that
the rhymes when filled up shall have a meaning; and our author, as we
have already hinted, has no meaning. He seems to us to write a line at
random, and then he follows not the thought excited by this line, but
that suggested by the _rhyme_ with which it concludes. There is hardly
a complete couplet enclosing a complete idea in the whole book. He
wanders from one subject to another, from the association, not of the
ideas but of sounds, and the work is composed of hemistichs which, it is
quite evident, have forced themselves upon the author by the mere force
of the catchwords on which they turn.
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