Wells, CHARLES JEREMIAH, an English poet, who has been till lately strangely neglected by his countrymen, was born in London in 1800. He was a school companion of R. H. Horne and Keats's brother at Enfield, and at the age of fifteen sent Keats a present of flowers, which the poet acknowledged in the sonnet beginning 'As late I rambled in the happy fields.' A few years afterwards he quarrelled with Keats, and his Stories after Nature, fantastic and sometimes graceful tales in poetic prose, showing strangely the influence of Leigh Hunt, were written, it is said, to show Keats that he 'could do something.' The book, which was published in 1822, fell still-born, and was followed in 1824 by the noble biblical drama, Joseph and his Brethren. The poem attracted no attention, and remained practically unknown until attention was directed to its consummate beauties by Mr Swinburne in an article in the Fortnightly Review of 1875; his attention had been called to it by Rossetti. On the failure of his verses to attract notice, Wells abandoned literature. He adopted law as his profession, went to Brittany in 1840, and finally settled at Marseilles, where he died on February 17, 1879. Joseph and his Brethren is one of the finest dramatic poems in the language. The verse is fiery with passion and rich even to over-richness in graceful and glowing imagery. In one character, the heroine, Phraxanor, the writer shows a truly wonderful strength and subtlety of dramatic insight. Only once before, says Mr Swinburne, has such a character been given with supreme success—viz. in Shakespeare's Cleopatra. It may be, he adds, that only the dullness of fashion has kept out of sight 'a poet who was meant to take his place among the highest.'
Besides Mr Swinburne's article, see two articles by Theodore Watts in The Athenæum (1876, 1879); The Academy for March and April 1879; Mr Buxton Forman in Miles's English Poets of the Century; and Linton's preface to a new edition of Stories after Nature (1891).