Winchester College Publication Bards of a Feather | Page 11

VII : Towards a Victorian Winter

How did it all end ? When Thomas theYounger died in 1790 , an anonymous poet in the Gentleman ’ s Magazine was heartbroken :“ Oh Warton , if in heart I bear not thee / It spouts , its feelings lost ”.

On 3 February 1820 , Keats coughed up blood :“ I know the colour of that blood ! It is arterial blood . I cannot be deceived in that colour . That drop of blood is my death warrant . I must die ”. He left England for Rome on 18 September 1820 , where he died on 23 February 1821 .

Keats ’ s gravestone is in the English Cemetery in Rome . Both Warton and Keats are commemorated by the image of the lyre . But in Keats ’ s grave the strings of the lyre are broken . “ Weep for Adonais , he is gone ”, wrote Shelley .

“ Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains , And feeds her grief with his remember ’ d lay .”

	Joseph retired in 1793 but lived on until 1800 . Bowles immediately published a ‘ Monody on the Death of Dr Warton ’:“ And thou / Friend of my muse , in thy death-bed art cold ”. There is a less leaden-footed monument , in the south aisle of Winchester Cathedral , inscribed as follows :
H . S . E . JOSEPHUS WARTON S . T . P . HUJUS ECCLESIAE PRAEBENDARIUS SCHOLAE WINTONIENSIS PER ANNOS FERE TRICINTA INFORMATOR POETA FERVIDUS FACILIS EXPOLITUS CRITICUS ERUDITUS PERSPICAX ELECANS OBIIT XXIII FEB . MDCCC AETAT LXXVIII	Here lies Joseph Warton , Professor of Sacred Theology , Prebendary of this Cathedral , Headmaster of Winchester College for almost 30 years , A poet – passionate , fluent , polished , A critic – erudite , perceptive , elegant , died 23 February 1800 aged 78 . This monument , whatever its quality , has been raised out of piety to the best and most greatly missed teacher by his Wykehamists . The iconography is impassioned , yet subtle . Warton has an open book , his pupils have a closed one . They want to listen , not follow : friendliness , attentiveness , affection and intimacy abound . The teacher may be on a dais , but a pupil has one foot on the plinth .	Keats ' s Grave , by William Bell Scott , WA1893.3 . Image ^© Ashmolean Museum , University of Oxford .	Keats on his deathbed , by Joseph Severn . © Keats-Shelley Memorial Association and Keats-Shelley House in Rome . Keats ’ s grave is still much visited today , reminding us , in Matthew Arnold ’ s words , that “ He is ; he is with Shakespeare ”. Shelley died next , drowned at sea in 1822 . Byron and others cremated him on the beach . He was still at this time bickering with Bowles – and soon thereafter fighting in Greece , where he too died , on 19 April 1824 . “ Byron is dead ”, the young Tennyson went out to scratch on the Lincolnshire sandstone . “ Tennyson : we cannot live in art ”, he was soon to be told at Cambridge . English literature was destined to change , like English society . Poets were no longer the unacknowledged legislators of mankind , and Poet Power was over .

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Memorial to JosephWarton , South Aisle ofWinchester Cathedral . Photo credit : Dean and Chapter , Winchester Cathedral .

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