Keble, Johx, " the sweetest and most Christian poet of modern days," was bora in Fairford, in Gloucester- shire, April 25, 1792. His father was fellow of Corpus Christi College, and for fifty years vicar of Coin, St^^Vl- vins, and lived until his ninetieth year. His mother was the daughter of a clergyman. Thus on both sides he came of a pastoral stock ; and it is worthy of note that his only surviving brother, Thomas, like himself became a clergyman (rector of Bisley), that that broth- er's sou also tooli orders, and that Mr. Keble himself, like his father, married a clergyman's daughter. Young Keble was prepared for college by his father, and en- tered the University of Oxford, and there greatly distin- guished himself by a remai-kable display of talent and application. When only eighteen, fidl four years be- low the customary age for graduating, John Keble won the highest intellectual rank the universitj- can bestow, that of a " double-first classman," his name appearing in the first class of classics as well as in the first class of mathematics. This distinction had never been achieved up to tliat time except in the case of Robert Peel. April 20, 1811, wanting a few daj'S of the completion of his nineteenth year, he was elected probationer fellow of Oriel, and took his place at the high table, and in the senior common room of that celebrated college. Whate- ly entered it with him, and these two were the duum- viri to whom all paid an almost obs quious deference. In 1812 he won the prizes for both the bachelors' essays — the English on Translation from Dead Languages, the Latin a comparison of Xenophon and Julius C;Esar as Military Chroniclers. In the annals of Corpus twice only has such a triumph been won, one instance that of young Keble, and the other no less a man than Henry Hart iMilman, the late celebrated dean of St. Paul's Ca- thedral. At the unprecedented age of twenty-two — in- deed, some months short of it — he was appointed by the University of Oxford one of its public examiners. Thus did Keble attain a success which w-e believe has never been equalled ft)r its precocious ability. In 1815 he was ordained deacon, the following year priest, and soon af- ter left the university, and never again permanently re- sided there. lie became his father's curate, and lived with him in tliat capacity nearly twenty years. He turned aside from the numerous paths of ambition which were open to him, and gave himself to parochial work as the employment of his life. In 1835 Keble's father died. He was now offered and accepted the vicarage of Hurs- ley, and married. His parish was obscure, thirty miles from Oxford. There was not, it is said, a single culti- vated family in his charge, so that his labors were alto- gether among the humbler and poorer classes, but under his indefatigable ministrations it became one of the model parishes of England. It is, however, as the poet of the "Christian Year" and the "Lyra Innocentium" that Keble will be most widely and permanently known. The former was published in 1827. It is probaVtle that most of the imem was written at Fairford. Its success was certainly most remarkable. IMore than one hun- dred editions have been sold. Of course Keble might have realized a fortune from the sale of this extraordi- nary book; lint in this, as in evcrj'thingelse, he showed his disintercste(hiess. When, in 1835, Keble came to Hursley, he found a church not at all to his mind. It is descriljcd as a i)laiii and anything but beautiful build- ing of Mint and rubble. He at once determined to have
a new one built, and, in order to carrj' out his project, he employed the profits of the many editions of The Christian Year; and when the building was finished, his friends, in token of their regard for him, filled all the" windows with stained glass. On Friday, the Cth of April, 1800, he was buried in the church-yard of Hurs- ley, where he had officiated as minister for nearly thirty years. It was on the day before Good Friday, viz. on the 29th of March, that he died. On the eve of a great Christian observance, he, the singer of Christian observ^- ances, passed away to his rest. The character of Ke- ble's poetry may be surmised from his life and opinions; it is gentle, sweet, devotional, and highly cultivated; it translates religious sentiment out of the ancient and ex- clusively Hebrew dialect into the language of modern feeling. A deep tone of home affection runs through all his poems. The highest culture of which man is capable, and the most refined thought in him, had not weakened, but only made natural affection more pure and intense. Never, perhaps, except in the case of George Herbert, has a character of such rare and saintly beauty concurred with a poetic gift and power of poetic expression of the highest order. John Keble is noted also as the leader of the original band of Oxford schol- ars and divines who began the so-called " Puseyite" movement in the English Church. He contributed to the famous Tracts for the Times (183-1-1836), and it is to Keble's influence over Newman that the latter as- scribes his conversion to Romanism, dating it from July 14, 1833, when Keble preached his sermon on National Apostasi/. He was also one of the editors of the Bihli- otheca Patrum Ecclesi(e Catholicie (begun in 1838). His works are, 0« Translation from the Dead Languages (an Oxford Prize Essay, 1812; Oxf. 1812) -.—The Christian Year: thoughts in verse for the Smidaj-s and hoh'-days throughout the year (1827, 2 vols. ; 36th cd. 1852", 8vo) : —The Child's Christian Year (4th edit. 1841, 18mo) :— Primitire Tradition recognised in Jlohj Scrijiture ; a Ser- mon (on 2 Tim. i, 14; 4tli ed.,with a Postscript and Ca- tena Patrum [No. 3 of the Tracts of the Timesi, 1839, 18mo ; originaUy published [in 1837] as No. 78 of the [Oxford] Tracts for the Times) : — The Psalter, or Psalms of David, in English Verse (1839, sm. 8vo ; 3d edit. 1840, 18mo) : — Selections from Richard Ilool-er (1839, 18mo ; 2d edit. 1848, 18mo) : — an edition of Ilool-er's ]Vo7-ks : — Pralectiones Academicm Oxotiii J/abitce (1832-41, 2 vols. 8vo; 1844-1846, 2 vols. 8vo) : — Lgra Innocentium: Thoughts on Verse, on Children, their Ways and their Privileges (184G. sm. 8vo, Anon.) : — Sermons Academi- cal and Occasional (1847, 8vo; 2d edit. 1848, 8vo) :—A very feio j)luin Thoughts on the proposed Addition of Dissentei's to the University of Oxford (written from his position as High-Church polemic, 1854). See Coleridge, Memoirs of the Rev. J. Keble (1869, 2 vols. 8\-o) ; Shairp, Memoir (in tSiudies in Poetry and Philosophy); Allibone, Diet, of Authors, s. v. ; Church Review, Oct. 1866, art. i; A nur'.Ch. Review, April, 1870, art. i. (E. de P.)