AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF BROWNING by ARTHUR SYMONS New Edition Revised and Enlarged First Edition, 1906. Reprinted, 1916London, Paris and Toronto J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. 10-13 Bedford Street, W. C. 1916 _" . .. Browning, a great poet, a very great poet indeed, as the world will have to agree with us in thinking. "_--LANDOR. TO GEORGE MEREDITH NOVELIST AND POET THIS LITTLE BOOK ON AN ILLUSTRIOUS CONTEMPORARY IS WITH DEEP RESPECT AND ADMIRATION INSCRIBED. PREFACE This _Introduction to the Study of Browning_, which is now reprinted ina new form, revised throughout, and with everything relating to factscarefully brought up to date, has been for many years out of print. Iwrote it as an act of homage to the poet whom I had worshipped from myboyhood; I meant it to be, in almost his own words, used of Shelley, some approach to "the signal service it was the dream of my boyhood torender to his fame and memory. " It was sufficiently rewarded by three things: first, by the generouspraise of Walter Pater, in the _Guardian_, which led to the beginning ofmy friendship with him; then, by a single sentence from George Meredith, "You have done knightly service to a brave leader"; lastly, by a letterfrom Browning himself, in which he said: "How can I manage even tothank--much more praise--what, in its generosity of appreciation, makesthe poorest recognition 'come too near the praising of myself'?" I repeat these things now, because they seem to justify me in draggingback into sight a book written when I was very young, and, as I am onlytoo conscious, lacking in many of the qualities which I have sinceacquired or developed. But, on going over it, I have found, for the mostpart, what seems to me a sound foundation, though little enough may bebuilt on that foundation. I have revised many sentences, and a fewopinions; but, while conscious that I should approach the whole subjectnow in a different way, I have found surprisingly few occasions for anyfundamental or serious change of view. I am conscious how much I owed, at that time, to the most helpful and judicious friend whom I couldpossibly have had at my elbow, Dykes Campbell. There are few pages of mymanuscript which he did not read and criticise, and not a page of myproofs which he did not labour over as if it had been his own. He forcedme to learn accuracy, he cut out my worst extravagances, he kept mesternly to my task. It was in writing this book under his encouragementand correction that I began to learn the first elements of literarycriticism. This new edition, then, of my book is new and yet the same. I havealtered everything that seemed to require altering, and I have made thestyle a little more equable; but I have not, I hope, broken anywhereinto a new key, or added any sort of decoration not in keeping with theoriginal plainness of the stuff. When Pater said: "His book is, according to his intention, before all things a useful one, " heexpressed my wish in the matter; and also when he said: "His aim is topoint his readers to the best, the indisputable, rather than to thedubious portions of his author's work. " In the letter from which I havequoted, Browning said: "It does indeed strike me as wonderful that youshould have given such patient attention to all those poems, and (if Idare say further) so thoroughly entered into--at any rate--the spirit inwhich they were written and the purpose they hoped to serve. " IfBrowning really thought that, my purpose, certainly, had beenaccomplished. _April 1906_. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION I have ever held that the rod with which popular fancy invests criticismis properly the rod of divination: a hazel-switch for the discovery ofburied treasure, not a birch-twig for the castigation of offenders. Ithas therefore been my aim in the following pages to direct attention tothe best, not to forage for the worst--the small faults which acquireprominence only by isolation--of the poet with whose writings I amconcerned. I wish also to give information, more or less detailed, abouteach of Mr. Browning's works; information sufficient to the purpose Ihave in view, which is to induce those who have hitherto deprivedthemselves of a stimulating pleasure to deprive themselves of it nolonger. Further, my aim is in no sense controversial. In a book whosesole purpose is to serve as an introduction to the study of a single oneof our contemporary poets, I have consciously and carefully refrainedfrom instituting comparisons--which I deprecate as, to say the least, unnecessary--between the poet in question and any of the other eminentpoets in whose time we have the honour of living. I have to thank Mr. Browning for permission to reprint the interestingand now almost inaccessible prefaces to some of his earlier works, whichwill be found in Appendix II. I have also to thank Dr. Furnivall forpermission to make use of his _Browning Bibliography_, and for otherkind help. I wish to acknowledge my obligation to Mrs. Orr's _Handbookto Robert Browning's Works_, and to some of the Browning Society'spapers, for helpful information and welcome light. Finally, I wouldtender my especial and grateful thanks to Mr. J. Dykes Campbell, who hasgiven me much kindly assistance. _Sept. 15, 1886_. CONTENTS PAGEGENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 1 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POEMS 33 APPENDIX: I. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT BROWNING 241 II. REPRINT OF DISCARDED PREFACES TO THE FIRST EDITIONS OF SOME OF BROWNING'S WORKS 255 INDEX TO POEMS 261 ROBERT BROWNING BORN MAY 7, 1812. DIED DECEMBER 12, 1889. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF BROWNING The first and perhaps the final impression we receive from the work ofRobert Browning is that of a great nature, an immense personality. Thepoet in him is made up of many men. He is dramatist, humorist, lyrist, painter, musician, philosopher and scholar, each in full measure, and heincludes and dominates them all. In richness of nature, in scope andpenetration of mind and vision, in energy of passion and emotion, he isprobably second among English poets to Shakespeare alone. In art, in thepower or the patience of working his native ore, he is surpassed bymany; but few have ever held so rich a mine in fee. So large, indeed, appear to be his natural endowments, that we cannot feel as if the wholevast extent of his work has come near to exhausting them. As it is, he has written more than any other English poet with theexception of Shakespeare, and he comes very near the gigantic total ofShakespeare. Mass of work is of course in itself worth nothing withoutdue quality; but there is no surer test nor any more fortunateconcomitant of greatness than the union of the two. The highest geniusis splendidly spendthrift; it is only the second order that needs to beniggardly. Browning's works are not a mere collection of poems, they area literature. And his literature is the richest of modern times. If"the best poetry is that which reproduces the most of life, " his placeis among the great poets of the world. In the vast extent of his work hehas dealt with or touched on nearly every phase and feature of humanity, and his scope is bounded only by the soul's limits and the last reachesof life. But of all "Poetical Works, " small or great, his is the mostconsistent in its unity. The manner has varied not a little, thecomparative worth of individual poems is widely different, but from thefirst word to the last the attitude is the same, the outlook on life thesame, the conception of God and man, of the world and nature, always thesame. This unity, though it may be deduced from, or at leastaccommodated to, a system of philosophical thought, is much more theoutcome of a natural and inevitable bent. No great poet ever constructedhis poems upon a theory, but a theory may often be very legitimatelydiscovered in them. Browning, in his essay on Shelley, divides all poetsinto two classes, subjective and objective, the Seer and the Maker. Hisown genius includes a large measure of them both; for it is equallystrong on the dramatic and the metaphysical side. There are for him buttwo realities; and but two subjects, Life and Thought. On these areexpended all his imagination and all his intellect, more consistentlyand in a higher degree than can be said of any English poet since theage of Elizabeth. Life and thought, the dramatic and the metaphysical, are not considered apart, but woven into one seamless tissue; and inregard to both he has one point of view and one manner of treatment. Itis this that causes the unity which subsists throughout his work; and itis this, too, which distinguishes him among poets, and makes thatoriginality by virtue of which he has been described as the moststriking figure in our poetic literature. Most poets endeavour to sink the individual in the universal; it isBrowning's special distinction that when he is most universal he is mostindividual. As a thinker he conceives of humanity not as an aggregate, but as a collection of units. Most thinkers write and speak of man;Browning of men. With man as a species, with man as a society, he doesnot concern himself, but with individual man and man. Every man is forhim an epitome of the universe, a centre of creation. Life exists foreach as completely and separately as if he were the only inhabitant ofour planet. In the religious sense this is the familiar Christian view;but Browning, while accepting, does not confine himself to, thereligious sense. He conceives of each man as placed on the earth with apurpose of probation. Life is given him as a test of his quality; he isexposed to the chances and changes of existence, to the opposition andentanglement of circumstances, to evil, to doubt, to the influence ofhis fellow-men, and to the conflicting powers of his own soul; and hesucceeds or fails, toward God, or as regards his real end and aim, according as he is true or false to his better nature, his conception ofright. He is not to be judged by the vulgar standards of worldly successor unsuccess; not even by his actions, good or bad as they may seem tous, for action can never fully translate the thought or motive which layat its root; success or unsuccess, the prime and final fact in life, lies between his soul and God. The poet, in Browning's view of him, isGod's witness, and must see and speak for God. He must thereforeconceive of each individual separately and distinctively, and he mustsee how each soul conceives of itself. It is here that Browning parts company most decisively with all otherpoets who concern themselves exclusively with life, dramatic poets, aswe call them; so that it seems almost necessary to invent some new termto define precisely his special attitude. And hence it is that in hisdrama thought plays comparatively so large, and action comparatively sosmall, a part; hence, that action is valued only in so far as it revealsthought or motive, not for its own sake, as the crown and flower ofthese. "To the motive, the endeavour, the heart's self His quick sense looks: he crowns and calls aright The soul o' the purpose, ere 'tis shaped as act, Takes flesh i' the world, and clothes itself a king. "[1] For his endeavour is not to set men in action for the pleasure of seeingthem move; but to see and show, in their action and inaction alike, thereal impulses of their being: to see how each soul conceives of itself. This individuality of presentment is carried out equally in the domainof life and of thought; as each man lives, so he thinks and perceives, so he apprehends God and truth, for himself only. It is evident thatthis special standpoint will give not only a unity but an originality tothe work of which it may be called the root; equally evident that itwill demand a special method and a special instrument. The dramatic poet, in the ordinary sense, in the sense in which we applyit to Shakespeare and the Elizabethans, aims at showing, by means ofaction, the development of character as it manifests itself to the worldin deeds. His study is character, but it is character in action, considered only in connection with a particular grouping of events, andonly so far as it produces or operates upon these. The processes areconcealed from us, we see the result. In the very highest realisationsof this dramatic power, and always in intention, we are presented with aperfect picture, in which every actor lives, and every word is audible;perfect, complete in itself, without explanation, without comment; adogma incarnate, which we must accept as it is given us, and explain andillustrate for ourselves. If we wish to know what this character or thatthought or felt in his very soul, we may perhaps have data from which toconstruct a more or less probable hypothesis; but that is all. We aretold nothing, we care to know nothing of what is going on in thethought; of the infinitely subtle meshes of motive or emotion which willperhaps find no direct outcome in speech, no direct manifestation inaction, but by which the soul's life in reality subsists. This is notthe intention: it is a spectacle of life we are beholding; and life isaction. But is there no other sense in which a poet may be dramatic, besidesthis sense of the acting drama? no new form possible, which "Peradventure may outgrow, The simulation of the painted scene, Boards, actors, prompters, gaslight, and costume, And take for a nobler stage the soul itself, In shifting fancies and celestial lights, With all its grand orchestral silences, To keep the pauses of the rhythmic sounds. "[2] This new form of drama is the drama as we see it in Browning, a dramaof the interior, a tragedy or comedy of the soul. Instead of a groupingof characters which shall act on one another to produce a certain resultin action, we have a grouping of events useful or important only as theyinfluence the character or the mind. This is very clearly explained inthe original Advertisement to _Paracelsus_, where Browning tells us thathis poem is an attempt "to reverse the method usually adopted by writers whose aim it is to set forth any phenomenon of the mind or the passions, by the operation of persons and events; and that, instead of having recourse to an external machinery of incidents to create and evolve the crisis I desire to produce, I have ventured to display somewhat minutely the mood itself in its rise and progress, and have suffered the agency by which it is influenced and determined, to be generally discernible in its effects alone, and subordinate throughout, if not altogether excluded. " In this way, by making the soul the centre of action, he is enabled(thinking himself into it, as all dramatists must do) to bring out itscharacteristics, to reveal its very nature. Suppose him to be attractedby some particular soul or by some particular act. The problem occupieshim: the more abstruse and entangled the more attractive to him it is;he winds his way into the heart of it, or, we might better say, he picksto pieces the machinery. Presently he begins to reconstruct, before oureyes, the whole series of events, the whole substance of the soul, but, so to speak, turned inside out. We watch the workings of the mentalmachinery as it is slowly disclosed before us; we note the specialtiesof construction, its individual character, the interaction of parts, every secret of it. We thus come to see that, considered from theproper point of view, everything is clear, regular and explicable inhowever entangled an action, however obscure a soul; we see that what isexternal is perfectly natural when we can view its evolution from whatis internal. It must not be supposed that Browning explains this to usin the manner of an anatomical lecturer; he makes every characterexplain itself by its own speech, and very often by speech that is orseems false and sophistical, so only that it is personal and individual, and explains, perhaps by exposing, its speaker. This, then, is Browning's consistent mental attitude, and his specialmethod. But he has also a special instrument, the monologue. The dramaof action demands a concurrence of several distinct personalities, influencing one another rapidly by word or deed, so as to bring aboutthe catastrophe; hence the propriety of the dialogue. But theintrospective drama, in which the design is to represent and reveal theindividual, requires a concentration of interest, a focussing of lighton one point, to the exclusion or subordination of surroundings; hencethe propriety of the monologue, in which a single speaker or thinker canconsciously or unconsciously exhibit his own soul. This form ofmonologue, learnt perhaps from Landor, who used it with littlepsychological intention, appears in almost the earliest of Browning'spoems, and he has developed it more skilfully and employed it moreconsistently than any other writer. Even in works like _Sordello_ and_Red Cotton Night-cap Country_, which are thrown into the narrativeform, many of the finest and most characteristic parts are in monologue;and _The Inn Album_ is a series of slightly-linked dialogues which areonly monologues in disguise. Nearly all the lyrics, romances, idyls, nearly all the miscellaneous poems, long and short, are monologues. Andeven in the dramas, as will be seen later, there is visible a growingtendency toward the monologue with its mental and individual, in placeof the dialogue with its active and outer interest. Browning's aim, then, being to see how each soul conceives of itself, and to exhibit its essential qualities, yet without complication ofincident, it is his frequent practice to reveal the soul to itself bythe application of a sudden test, which shall condense the long trial ofyears into a single moment, and so "flash the truth out by one blow. " Tothis practice we owe his most vivid and notable work. "The poetry ofRobert Browning, " says Pater, "is pre-eminently the poetry ofsituations. " He selects a character, no matter how uninteresting initself, and places it in some situation where its vital essence maybecome apparent, in some crisis of conflict or opportunity. The choiceof good or evil is open to it, and in perhaps a single moment its fatewill be decided. When a soul plays dice with the devil there is only asecond in which to win or lose; but the second may be worth an eternity. These moments of intense significance, these tremendous spiritualcrises, are struck out in Browning's poetry with a clearness andsharpness of outline that no other poet has achieved. "To realise such asituation, to define in a chill and empty atmosphere the focus whererays, in themselves pale and impotent, unite and begin to burn, theartist has to employ the most cunning detail, to complicate and refineupon thought and passion a thousand fold. .. . Yet, in spite of thisintricacy, the poem has the clear ring of a central motive; we receivefrom it the impression of one imaginative tone, of a single creativeact. "[3] It is as a result of this purpose, in consonance with this practice, that we get in Browning's works so large a number of distinct humantypes, and so great a variety of surroundings in which they are placed. Only in Shakespeare can we find anything like the same variety ofdistinct human characters, vital creations endowed with thoughtful life;and not even, perhaps, in Shakespeare, such novelty and variety of_milieu_. There is scarcely a salient epoch in the history of the modernworld which he has not touched, always with the same vital andinstinctive sympathy based on profound and accurate knowledge. Passingby the legendary and remote ages and civilisations of East and West, hehas painted the first dawn of the modern spirit in the Athens ofSocrates and Euripides, revealed the whole temper and tendency of thetwilight age between Paganism and Christianity, and recorded the lastutterance of the last apostle of the now-conquering creed; he hasdistilled the very essence of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, thevery essence of the modern world. The men and women who live and move inthat new world of his creation are as varied as life itself; they arekings and beggars, saints and lovers, great captains, poets, painters, musicians, priests and popes, Jews, gipsies and dervishes, street-girls, princesses, dancers with the wicked witchery of the daughter ofHerodias, wives with the devotion of the wife of Brutus, joyous girlsand malevolent greybeards, statesmen, cavaliers, soldiers of humanity, tyrants and bigots, ancient sages and modern spiritualists, heretics, scholars, scoundrels, devotees, rabbis, persons of quality and men oflow estate, men and women as multiform as nature or society has madethem. He has found and studied humanity, not only in English towns andvillages, in the glare of gaslight and under the open sky, but on theRoman Campagna, in Venetian gondolas, in Florentine streets, on theBoulevards of Paris and in the Prado of Madrid, in the snow-boundforests of Russia, beneath the palms of Persia and upon Egyptian sands, on the coasts of Normandy and the salt plains of Brittany, among Drusesand Arabs and Syrians, in brand-new Boston and amidst the ruins ofThebes. But this infinite variety has little in it of mere historic orsocial curiosity. I do not think Browning has ever set himself the taskof recording the legend of the ages, though to some extent he has doneit. The instinct of the poet seizes on a type of character, the eye ofthe painter perceives the shades and shapes of line and colour and formrequired to give it picturesque prominence, and the learning of thescholar then sets up a fragment of the broken past, or re-fashions aportion of the living present, as an appropriate and harmonious scene orbackground. The statue is never dwarfed by the pedestal. The characteristic of which I have been speaking (the persistent carefor the individual and personal, as distinguished from the universal andgeneral) while it is the secret of his finest achievements, and rightlyhis special charm, is of all things the most alien to the ordinaryconceptions of poetry, and the usual preferences for it. The popularityof rare and delicate poetry, which condescends to no cheap bids for it, poetry like Tennyson's, for instance, is largely due to the very qualitywhich Browning's finest characteristic excludes from his. Compare, altogether apart from the worth and workmanship, one of Tennyson's withone of Browning's best lyrics. The perfection of the former consists inthe exquisite way in which it expresses feelings common to all. Theperfection of the latter consists in the intensity of its expression ofa single moment of passion or emotion, one peculiar to a singlepersonality, and to that personality only at a single moment. Toappreciate it we must enter keenly and instantaneously into theimaginary character at its imagined crisis; and, even when this iseasiest to do, it is evident that there must be more difficulty in doingit (for it requires a certain exertion) than in merely letting the mindlie at rest, accepting and absorbing. And the difficulty is increasedwhen we remember another of Browning's characteristics, closely alliedto this, and, indeed, resulting from it: his preference for the unusualand complex rather than the simple and ordinary. People prefer to readabout characters which they can understand at first sight, with whichthey can easily sympathise. A dramatist, who insists on presenting themwith complex and exceptional characters, studies of the good in evil andthe evil in good, representations of states of mind which are nothabitual to them, or which they find it difficult to realise in certainlights, can never obtain so quick or so hearty a recognition as one whodeals with great actions, large and clear characters, familiar motives. When the head has to be exercised before the heart, there is chilling ofsympathy. Allied to Browning's originality in temper, topic, treatment and form, is his originality in style; an originality which is again due, in largemeasure, to the same prevailing cause. His style is vital, his versemoves to the throbbing of an inner organism, not to the pulsations of amachine. He prefers, as indeed all true poets do, but more exclusivelythan any other poet, sense to sound, thought to expression. In hisdesire of condensation he employs as few words as are consistent withthe right expression of his thought; he rejects superfluous adjectives, and all stop-gap words. He refuses to use words for words' sake: hedeclines to interrupt conversation with a display of fireworks: and as aresult it will be found that his finest effects of versificationcorrespond with his highest achievements in imagination and passion. Asa dramatic poet he is obliged to modulate and moderate, sometimes almostto vulgarise, his style and diction for the proper expression of someparticular character, in whose mouth exquisite turns of phrase anddelicate felicities of rhythm would be inappropriate. He will not _lethimself go_ in the way of easy floridity, as writers may whose themesare more "ideal. " And where many writers would attempt merely tosimplify and sweeten verse, he endeavours to give it fullerexpressiveness, to give it strength and newness. It follows thatBrowning's verse is not so uniformly melodious as that of many otherpoets. Where it seems to him necessary to sacrifice one of the two, sense or sound, he has never hesitated which to sacrifice. But while hehas certainly failed in some of his works, or in some passages of them, to preserve the due balance, while he has at times undoubtedlysacrificed sound too liberally to the claims of sense, the extent ofthis sacrifice is very much less than is generally supposed. The notion, only too general, expressed by such a phrase as "his habitual rudenessof versification" (used by no unfavourable _Edinburgh_ reviewer in 1869)is one of the most singularly erroneous perversions of popular prejudicethat have ever called for correction at the hands of serious criticism. Browning is far indeed from paying no attention, or little, to metre andversification. Except in some of his later blank verse, and in a fewother cases, his very errors are just as often the result of hazardousexperiments as of carelessness and inattention. In one very importantmatter, that of rhyme, he is perhaps the greatest master in ourlanguage; in single and double, in simple and grotesque alike, hisrhymes are as accurate as they are ingenious. His lyrical poems containmore structural varieties of form than those of any preceding Englishpoet, not excepting Shelley. His blank verse at its best is more vitalin quality than that of any modern poet. And both in rhymed and in blankverse he has written passages which for almost every technical qualityare hardly to be surpassed in the language. That Browning's style should have changed in the course of years is onlynatural, and its development has been in the natural (if not always inthe best) direction. "The later manner of a painter or poet, " saysF. W. H. Myers in his essay on Virgil, "generally differs from his earliermanner in much the same way. We observe in him a certain impatience ofthe rules which have guided him to excellence, a certain desire to usehis materials more freely, to obtain bolder and newer effects. " Thesetendencies and others of the kind are specially manifest in Browning, asthey must be in a writer of strongly marked originality; for originalityalways strengthens with use, and often hardens to eccentricity, as wemay observe in the somewhat parallel case of Carlyle. We find as aconsequence that a great deal of his later poetry is much lessattractive and much less artistically perfect than his earlier work, while just those failings to which his principles of poetic art renderedhim liable become more and more frequent and prominent. But, good orbad, it has grown with his growth, and we can conceive him saying, withAurora Leigh, "So life, in deepening with me, deepened all The course I took, the work I did. Indeed The academic law convinced of sin; The critics cried out on the falling off, Regretting the first manner. But I felt My heart's life throbbing in my verse to show It lived, it also--certes incomplete, Disordered with all Adam in the blood, But even its very tumours, warts and wens, Still organised by and implying life. "[4] It has been, as a rule, strangely overlooked, though it is a matter ofthe first moment, that Browning's poems are in the most precise sense_works of art_, and this in a very high degree, positive and relative, if we understand by a "work of art" a poem which attains its end andfulfils its purpose completely, and which has a worthy end and plainpurpose to attain. Surely this is of far more vital importance than the mere melodiousnessof single lines, or a metre of unvarying sweetness bearing gently alongin its placid course (as a stream the leaf or twig fallen into it fromabove) some tiny thought or finikin fragment of emotion. Matthew Arnold, who was both poet and critic, has told us with emphasis of "thenecessity of accurate construction, and the subordinate character ofexpression. "[5] His next words, though bearing a slightly differentsignification, may very legitimately be applied to Browning. Arnoldtells us "how unspeakably superior is the effect of the one moralimpression left by a great action treated as a whole, to the effectproduced by the most striking single thought or by the happiest image. "For "a great action, " read "an adequate subject, " and the words defineand defend Browning's principle and practice exactly. There is nocharacteristic of his work more evident, none more admirable or morerare, than the unity, the compactness and completeness, the skill andcare in construction and definiteness in impression, of each poem. I donot know any contemporary of whom this may more truly be said. Theassertion will be startling, no doubt, to those who are accustomed tothink of Browning (as people once thought of Shakespeare) as a poet ofgreat gifts but little skill; as a giant, but a clumsy giant; as whatthe French call a _nature_, an almost unconscious force, expendingitself at random, without rule or measure. But take, for example, theseries of _Men and Women_, as originally published, read poem after poem(there are fifty to choose from) and scrutinise each separately; seewhat was the writer's intention, and observe how far he has fulfilledit, how far he has succeeded in conveying to your mind a distinct andsharply-cut impression. You will find that whatever be the subject, whatever the style, whether in your eyes the former be mistaken, thelatter perverse, the poem itself, within its recognised limits, isdesigned, constructed and finished with the finest skill of thedraughtsman or the architect. You will find that the impression you havereceived from the whole is single and vivid, and, while you may notperceive it, it will generally be the case that certain details at whichyour fastidiousness cries out, certain uncouthnesses, as you fancy, areperfectly appropriate and in their place, and have contributed to theperfection of the _ensemble_. A word may here be said in reference to the charge of "obscurity, "which, from the time when Browning's earliest poem was disposed of by acomplacent critic in the single phrase, "A piece of pure bewilderment, "has been hurled at each succeeding poem with re-iterate vigour ofvirulence. The charge of "pure bewilderment" is about as reasonable asthe charge of "habitual rudeness of versification. " It is a fashion. People abuse their "Browning" as they abuse their "Bradshaw, " though allthat is wanting, in either case, is a little patience and a littlecommon sense. Browning might say, as his wife said in an early preface, "I never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry, nor leisure forthe hour of the poet;" as indeed he has himself said, to much the sameeffect, in a letter printed many years ago: "I never pretended to offersuch literature as should be a substitute for a cigar or a game atdominoes to an idle man. " But he has not made anything like such ademand on the reader's faculties as people, _not_ readers, seem tosuppose. _Sordello_ is difficult, _Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau_ isdifficult, so, perhaps, in parts, is _Fifine at the Fair_; so, too, onaccount of its unfamiliar allusions, is _Aristophanes' Apology_; and afew smaller poems, here and there, remotely argumentative or speciallycomplex in psychology, are difficult. But really these are about all towhich such a term as "unintelligible, " so freely and recklessly flungabout, could with the faintest show of reason be applied by anyreasonable being. In the 21, 116 lines which form Browning's longest workand masterpiece, the "psychological epic" of _The Ring and the Book_, Iam inclined to think it possible that a careful scrutiny might reveal116 which an ordinary reader would require to read twice. Anything moreclear than the work as a whole it would be difficult to find. It is mucheasier to follow than _Paradise Lost_; the _Agamemnon_ is rather lesseasy to follow than _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_. That there is some excuse for the accusation, no one would or coulddeny. But it is only the excuse of a misconception. Browning is athinker of extraordinary depth and subtlety; his themes are seldomsuperficial, often very remote, and his thought is, moreover, as swiftas it is subtle. To a dull reader there is little difference betweencloudy and fiery thought; the one is as much too bright for him as theother is too dense. Of all thinkers in poetry, Browning is the mostswift and fiery. "If there is any great quality, " says Mr. Swinburne, inthose noble pages in which he has so generously and triumphantlyvindicated his brother-poet from this very charge of obscurity-- "If there is any great quality more perceptible than another in Mr. Browning's intellect, it is his decisive and incisive faculty of thought, his sureness and intensity of perception, his rapid and trenchant resolution of aim. To charge him with obscurity is about as accurate as to call Lynceus purblind, or complain of the sluggish action of the telegraphic wire. He is something too much the reverse of obscure; he is too brilliant and subtle for the ready reader of a ready writer to follow with any certainty the track of an intelligence which moves with such incessant rapidity, or even to realise with what spider-like swiftness and sagacity his building spirit leaps and lightens to and fro and backward and forward, as it lives along the animated line of its labour, springs from thread to thread, and darts from centre to circumference of the glittering and quivering web of living thought, woven from the inexhaustible stores of his perception, and kindled from the inexhaustible fire of his imagination. He never thinks but at full speed; and the rate of his thought is to that of another man's as the speed of a railway to that of a waggon, or the speed of a telegraph to that of a railway. "[6] Moreover, while a writer who deals with easy themes has no excuse if heis not pellucid at a glance, one who employs his intellect andimagination on high and hard questions has a right to demand acorresponding closeness of attention, and a right to say, with BishopButler, in answer to a similar complaint: "It must be acknowledged thatsome of the following discourses are very abstruse and difficult; or, ifyou please, obscure; but I must take leave to add that those alone arejudges whether or no, and how far this is a fault, who are judgeswhether or no, and how far it might have been avoided--those only whowill be at the trouble to understand what is here said, and to see howfar the things here insisted upon, and not other things, might have beenput in a plainer manner. "[7] There is another popular misconception to which also a word in passingmay as well be devoted. This is the idea that Browning's personality isapt to get confused with his characters', that his men and women are notseparate creations, projected from his brain into an independentexistence, but mere masks or puppets through whose mouths he speaks. This fallacy arises from the fact that not a few of his imaginarypersons express themselves in a somewhat similar fashion; or, as peopletoo rashly say, "talk like Browning. " The explanation of this apparentparadox, so far as it exists, is not far to seek. All art is acompromise, and all dramatic speech is in fact impossible. No persons inreal life would talk as Shakespeare or any other great dramatist makesthem talk. Nor do the characters of Shakespeare talk like those of anyother great dramatist, except in so far as later playwrights haveconsciously imitated Shakespeare. Every dramatic writer has his ownstyle, and in this style, subject to modification, all his charactersspeak. Just as a soul, born out of eternity into time, takes on itselfthe impress of earth and the manners of human life, so a dramaticcreation, pure essence in the shaping imagination of the poet, takes onitself, in its passage into life, something of the impress of its abode. "The poet, in short, endows his creations with his own attributes; heenables them to utter their feelings as if they themselves were poets, thus giving a true voice even to that intensity of passion which in reallife often hinders expression. "[8] If this fact is recognised (thatdramatic speech is not real speech, but poetical speech, and poeticalspeech infused with the individual style of each individual dramatist, modulated, indeed, but true to one keynote) then it must be granted thatBrowning has as much right to his own style as other dramatists have totheirs, and as little right as they to be accused on that account ofputting his personality into his work. But as Browning's style is verypronounced and original, it is more easily recognisable than that ofmost dramatists (so far, no doubt, a defect[9]) and for this reason ithas come to seem relatively more prominent than it really is. Thisconsideration, and not any confusion of identity, is the cause ofwhatever similarity of speech exists between Browning and hischaracters, or between individual characters. The similarity is onlyskin-deep. Take a convenient instance, _The Ring and the Book_. I haveoften seen it stated that the nine tellings of the story are all told inthe same style, that all the speakers, Guido and Pompilia, the Pope andTertium Quid alike, speak like Browning. I cannot see it. On thecontrary, I have been astonished, in reading and re-reading the poem, atthe variety, the difference, the wonderful individuality in eachspeaker's way of telling the same story; at the profound art with whichthe rhythm, the metaphors, the very details of language, no less thanthe broad distinctions of character and the subtle indications of bias, are adapted and converted into harmony. A certain general style, acertain general manner of expression, are common to all, as is also thecase in, let us say, _The Tempest_. But what distinction, what variationof tone, what delicacy and expressiveness of modulation! As a simplematter of fact, few writers have ever had a greater flexibility of stylethan Browning. I am doubtful whether full justice has been done to one section ofBrowning's dramatic work, his portraits of women. The presence of womanis not perhaps relatively so prominent in his work as it is in the workof some other poets; woman is to him neither an exclusive preoccupation, nor a continual unrest; but as faithful and vital representations, I donot hesitate to put his portraits of women quite on a level with hisportraits of men, and far beyond those of any other English poet of thelast three centuries. In some of them, notably in Pompilia, there is asomething which always seems to me almost incredible in a man: aninstinct that one would have thought only a woman could have for women. And his women, good or bad, are always real women, and they arerepresented without bias. Browning is one of the very few men (Mr. Meredith, whose women are, perhaps, the consummate flower of his work, is his only other English contemporary) who can paint women withoutidealisation or degradation, not from the man's side, but from theirown; as living equals, not as goddesses or as toys. His women live, act, and suffer, even think; not assertively, mannishly (for the loveliest ofthem have a very delicate charm of girlishness) but with naturalvolition, on equal rights with men. Any one who has thought at all onthe matter will acknowledge that this is the highest praise that couldbe given to a poet, and the rarest. Browning's women are not perhaps asvarious as his men; but from Ottima to Pompilia (from the "great whitequeen, magnificent in sin, " to the "lily of a maiden, white with intactleaf") what a range and gradation of character! These are the twoextremes; between them, as earth lies between heaven and hell, arestationed all the others, from the faint and delicate dawn in Pauline, Michal and Palma, through Pippa and Mildred and Colombe and Constanceand the Queen, to Balaustion and Elvire, Fifine and Clara and theheroine of the _Inn Album_, and the lurid close in Cristina. I havenamed only a few, and how many there are to name! Someone has written abook on _Shakespeare's Women_: whoever writes a book on _Browning'sWomen_ will have a task only less delightful, a subject only less rich, than that. When Browning was a boy, it is recorded that he debated within himselfwhether he should not become a painter or a musician as well as a poet. Finally, though not, I believe, for a good many years, he decided in thenegative. But the latent qualities of painter and musician havedeveloped themselves in his poetry, and much of his finest and very muchof his most original verse is that which speaks the language of painterand musician as it had never before been spoken. No English poet beforehim has ever excelled his utterances on music, none has so much asrivalled his utterances on art. _Abt Vogler_ is the richest, deepest, fullest poem on music in the language. It is not the theories of thepoet, but the instincts of the musician, that it speaks. _Master Huguesof Saxe-Gotha_ is unparalleled for ingenuity of technicalinterpretation; _A Toccata of Galuppi's_ is as rare a rendering as cananywhere be found of the impressions and sensations caused by a musicalpiece; but _Abt Vogler_ is a very glimpse into the heaven where music isborn. In his poems on the arts of painting and sculpture (not inthemselves more perfect in sympathy, though larger in number, than thoseon music) he is simply the first to write of these arts as an artistmight, if an artist could express his soul in words or rhythm. It hasalways been a fashion among poets to write about music, though scarcelyanyone but Shakespeare and Milton has done so to much purpose; it isnow, owing to the influence of Rossetti (whose magic, however, was allhis own, and whose mantle went down into the grave with him) a fashionto write about pictures. But indiscriminate sonneteering about picturesis one thing: Browning's attitude and insight into the plastic artsquite another. Poems like _Andrea del Sarto_, _Fra Lippo Lippi_, _PictorIgnotus_, have a revealing quality which is unique; tragedies orcomedies of art, in a more personal and dramatic way than the musicalpoems, they are like these in touching the springs of art itself. Theymay be compared with _Abt Vogler_. Poems of the order of _The GuardianAngel_ are more comparable with _A Toccata of Galuppi's_, the renderingof the impressions and sensations caused by a particular picture. _OldPictures in Florence_ is not unsimilar to _Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha_, critical, technical, lovingly learned, sympathetically quizzical. ButBrowning's artistic instinct and knowledge are manifested not only inspecial poems of this sort, but everywhere throughout his works. Hewrites of painters because he has a kinship with them. "Their picturesare windows through which he sees into their souls. " It is only natural that a poet with the instincts of a painter should becapable of superb landscape-painting in verse; and we find in Browningthis power. It is further evident that such a poet, a man who has chosenpoetry instead of painting, must consider the latter art subordinate tothe former, and it is only natural that we should find Browningsubordinating the pictorial to the poetic capacity, and this morecarefully than most other poets. His best landscapes are as brief asthey are brilliant. They are like sabre-strokes, swift, sudden, flashingthe light from their sweep, and striking straight to the heart. And theyare never pushed into prominence for an effect of idle beauty, norstrewn about in the way of thoughtful or passionate utterance, likeroses in a runner's path. They are subordinated always to the humaninterest; blended, fused with it, so that a landscape in a poem ofBrowning's is literally a part of the emotion. All poetry whichdescribes in detail, however magnificent, palls on us when persisted in. "The art of the pen (we write on darkness) is to rouse the inwardvision, instead of labouring with a Drop-scene brush, as if it were tothe eye; because our flying minds cannot contain a protracteddescription. That is why the poets who spring imagination with a word ora phrase paint lasting pictures. The Shakespearian, the Dantesque, arein a line, two at most. "[10] It is to this, the finest essence oflandscape-painting, that most of Browning's landscapes belong. Yet hecan be as explicit as any one when he sees fit. Look at the poem of _TheEnglishman in Italy_. The whole piece is one long description, minute, careful and elaborated. Perhaps it is worth observing that thedescription is addressed to a child. In the exercise of his power of placing a character or incident in asympathetic setting, Browning shows himself, as I have pointed out, singularly skilful. He never avails himself of the dramatic poet'slicence of vagueness as to surroundings: he sees them himself withinstant and intense clearness, and stamps them as clearly on our brain. The picture calls up the mood. Here is the opening of one of his veryearliest poems, _Porphyria's Lover_:-- "The rain set early in to-night, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its worst to vex the lake, I listened with heart fit to break. When glided in Porphyria. " There, in five lines, is the scene and the mood, and in the sixth linePorphyria may enter. Take a middle-period poem, _A Serenade at theVilla_, for an instance of more deliberate description, flashed by thesame fiery art:-- "That was I, you heard last night When there rose no moon at all, Nor, to pierce the strained and tight Tent of heaven, a planet small: Life was dead and so was light. Not a twinkle from the fly, Not a glimmer from the worm. When the crickets stopped their cry, When the owls forebore a term, You heard music; that was I. Earth turned in her sleep with pain, Sultrily suspired for proof: _In at heaven and out again, Lightning!--where it broke the roof, Bloodlike, some few drops of rain_. What they could my words expressed, O my love, my all, my one! Singing helped the verses best, And when singing's best was done, To my lute I left the rest. So wore night; the East was gray, White the broad-faced hemlock flowers; There would be another day; Ere its first of heavy hours Found me, I had passed away. " This tells enough to be an entire poem. It is not a description ofthe night and the lover: we are made to see them. The lines I haveitalicised are of the school of Dante or of Rembrandt. Their vividnessoverwhelms. In the latest poems, as in _Ivân Ivânovitch_ or _NedBratts_, we find the same swift sureness of touch. It is only naturalthat most of Browning's finest landscapes are Italian. [11] As a humorist in poetry, Browning takes rank with our greatest. Hishumour, like most of his qualities, is peculiar to himself, though nodoubt Carlyle had something of it. It is of wide capacity, and rangesfrom the effervescence of pure fun and freak to that salt and brinylaughter whose taste is bitterer than tears. Its full extent will beseen by comparing _The Pied Piper of Hamelin_ with _Confessions_, or inthe contrast of the two parts of _Holy-Cross Day_. We find the simplestform of humour, the jolly laughter of an unaffected nature, theeffervescence of a sparkling and overflowing brain, in such poems as _Upat a Villa--Down in the City_, or _Pacchiarotto_, or _SibrandusSchafnaburgensis_. _Fra Lippo Lippi_ leans to this category, though itis infused with biting wit and stinging irony; for it is first andforemost the bubbling-up of a restless and irrepressibly comic nature, the born Bohemian compressed but not contained by the rough rope-girdleof the monk. He is Browning's finest figure of comedy. _Ned Bratts_ isanother admirable creation of true humour, tinged with the grotesque. In_A Lovers' Quarrel_ and _Dîs aliter Visum_, humour refines into passion. In _Bishop Blougram_ it condenses into wit. The poem has a well-bredirony; in _A Soul's Tragedy_ irony smiles and stings; in _Mr. Sludge, the Medium_, it stabs with a thirsty point. In _Caliban upon Setebos_ wehave the pure grotesque, an essentially noble variety of art, admittingof the utmost refinement of workmanship. The _Soliloquy of the SpanishCloister_ attains a new effect of grotesque: it is the comic tragedy ofvituperative malevolence. _Holy-Cross Day_ heightens the grotesque withpity, indignation and solemnity: _The Heretic's Tragedy_ raises it tosublimity. Browning's satire is equally keen and kindly. It nevercondescends to raise laughter at infirmity, or at mere absurdities ofmanners; it respects human nature, but it convicts falsity by therevealing intensity of its illumination. Of cynicism, of the wit thatpreys upon carrion, there is less than nothing. Of all poets Browning is the healthiest and manliest; he is one ofthe "substantial men" of whom Landor speaks. His genius is robust withvigorous blood, and his tone has the cheeriness of intellectual health. The most subtle of minds, his is the least sickly. The wind that blowsin his pages is no hot and languorous breeze, laden with scents andsweets, but a fresh salt wind blowing in from the sea. His poetry is atonic; it braces and invigorates. "_Il fait vivre ses phrases_:"his verse lives and throbs with life. He is incomparably plentiful ofvital heat; "so thoroughly and delightfully alive. " This is an effectof art, and a moral impression. It brings us into his own presence, andstirs us with an answering warmth of life in the breathing pages. Thekeynote of his philosophy is:-- "God's in his heaven, All's right with the world!" He has such a hopefulness of belief in human nature that he shrinks fromno _man_, however clothed and cloaked in evil, however miry withstumblings and fallings. I am a man, he might say with the noblestutterance of antiquity, and I deem nothing alien that is human. Hisinvestigations of evil are profoundly consistent with an indomitableoptimism. Any one can say "All's right with the world, " when he looks atthe smiling face of things, at comfortable prosperity and a decentmorality. But the test of optimism is its sight of evil. Browning hasfathomed it, and he can still hope, for he sees the reflection of thesun in the depths of every foul puddle. This vivid hope and trust in manis bound up with a strong and strenuous faith in God. Browning'sChristianity is wider than our creeds, and is all the more vitallyChristian in that it never sinks into pietism. He is never didactic, buthis faith is the root of his art, and transforms and transfigures it. Yet as a dramatic poet he is so impartial, and can express all creedswith so easy an interpretative accent, that it is possible to prove him(as Shakespeare has been proved) a believer in every thing and adisbeliever in anything. Such, so far as I can realise my conception of him, is Robert Browning;and such the tenour of his work as a whole. It is time to pass fromgeneral considerations to particular ones; from characteristics of thewriter to characteristics of the poems. In the pages to follow I shallendeavour to present a critical chronicle of Browning's works; notneglecting to give due information about each, but not confining myselfto the mere giving of information. It is hoped that the quotations forwhich I may find room will practically illustrate and convincinglycorroborate what I have to say about the poetry from which they aretaken. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: _Luria_, Act iii. ] [Footnote 2: _Aurora Leigh_, Book Fifth. ] [Footnote 3: Walter Pater, _The Renaissance_, p, 226. ] [Footnote 4: _Aurora Leigh_, Book Third. ] [Footnote 5: Preface to _Poems_, 1853. ] [Footnote 6: _George Chapman: A Critical Essay_, 1875. ] [Footnote 7: _Works_, 1847, Preface to Sermons, pp. Viii. -ix. , wherewill also be found some exceedingly sensible remarks, which I commend tothose whom it concerns, on persons "who take it for granted that theyare acquainted with everything; and that no subject, if treated in themanner it should be, can be treated in any manner but what is familiarand easy to them. "] [Footnote 8: "Realism in Dramatic Art, " _New Quarterly Magazine_, Oct. , 1879. ] [Footnote 9: Allowing at its highest valuation all that need be allowedon this score, we find only that Mr. Browning has the defects of hisqualities; and from these who is exempted? By virtue of this style ofhis he has succeeded in rendering into words the inmost thoughts andfinest shades of feeling of the "men and women fashioned by his fancy, "and in such a task we can pardon even a fault, for such a result we canoverlook even a blemish; as Lessing, in _Laokoon_, remarking on an errorin Raphael's drapery, finely says, "Who will not rather praise him forhaving had the wisdom and the courage to commit a slight fault, for thesake of greater fulness of expression?"] [Footnote 10: George Meredith, _Diana of the Crossways_. ] [Footnote 11: Italians, it is pleasant to remember, have warmly welcomedthe poet who has known and loved Italy best. "Her town and country, herchurches and her ruins, her sorrows and her hopes, " said Prof. Nencioni, as long ago as 1867, "are constantly sung by him. How he loves the landthat inspires him he has shown by his long residence among us, and bythe thrilling, almost lover-like tone with which he speaks of our dearcountry. 'Open my heart and you will see, Graved inside of it Italy, ' ashe exclaims in _De Gustibus_. "] CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POEMS (1833-1890) CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POEMS (1833-1890. ) * * * * * 1. PAULINE: a Fragment of a Confession. [Published anonymously in 1833; first reprinted (the text unaltered) in _Poetical Works_, 6 vols. , Smith, Elder and Co. , 1868 (Vol. I. , pp. 1-41); revised text, _Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. I. , pp. 1-45. ] _PAULINE_ was written at the age of twenty. Its prefatory motto fromCornelius Agrippa (dated "_London, January, 1833_. _V. A. XX. _") serves toconvey a hint that the "confession" is dramatic, and at the same timelays claim to the indulgence due to the author's youth. These two pointsare stated plainly in the "exculpatory word" prefixed to the reprint in1868. After mentioning the circumstances under which the revival of thepoem was forced on him, Browning says: "The thing was my earliest attempt at 'poetry always dramatic in principle, and so many utterances of so many imaginary persons, not mine, ' which I have since written according to a scheme less extravagant and scale less impracticable than were ventured upon in this crude preliminary sketch--a sketch that, on reviewal, appears not altogether wide of some hint of the characteristic features of that particular _dramatis persona_ it would fain have reproduced: good draughtsmanship, however, and right handling were far beyond the artist at that time. " In a note to the collected edition of 1889, Browning adds: "Twenty years' endurance of an eyesore seems more than sufficient; my faults remain duly recorded against me, and I claim permission to somewhat diminish these, so far as style is concerned, in the present and final edition. " A revised text follows, in which, while many "faults" are indeed"diminished, " it is difficult not to feel at times as if the foot-noteshad got into the text. _Pauline_ is the confession of an unnamed poet to the woman whom heloves, and whose name is given in the title. It is a sort of spiritualautobiography; a record of sensations and ideas, rather than of deeds. "The scenery is in the chambers of thought; the agencies are powers andpassions; the events are transitions from one state of spiritualexistence to another. " There is a vagueness of outline about the speakerwhich is due partly, no doubt, to the immaturity of the writer, partlyalso to the too exclusive portraiture of inactive mood. The difficultyis acknowledged in a curious "editor's" note, written in French, andsigned "Pauline, " in which Browning offered a sort of explanatorycriticism of his own work. So far as we can grasp his personality, thespeaker appears to us a highly-gifted and on the whole right-naturedman, but possessed of a morbid self-consciousness and a limitless yetindecisive ambition. Endowed with a highly poetic nature, yet without, as it seems, adequate concentrative power; filled, at times, with apassionate yearning after God and good, yet morally unstable; he hasspent much of his strength in ineffectual efforts, and he is consciousof lamentable failure and mistake in the course of his past life. Specially does he recognise and mourn his "self-idolatry, " which hasisolated him from others, and confined him within the close and vitiatedcircle of his own selfhood. Led by some better impulse, he now turns toPauline, and to the memory of a great and dearly-loved poet, spoken ofas "Sun-treader, " finding in these, the memory and the love, a quietudeand a redemption. The poet of the poem is an imaginary character, but it is possible totrace in this character some real traits of its creator. The passagebeginning "I am made up of an intensest life" is certainly a piece ofadmirable self-portraiture; allusions here and there have a personalsignificance. In this earliest poem we see the germ of almost all thequalities (humour excepted) which mark Browning's mature work. Intensityof religious belief, love of music, of painting, and of the Greekclassics; insight into nature, a primary interest in and intense insightinto the human soul, these are already manifest. No characteristic ismore interesting in the light of long subsequent achievement than thefamiliarity with Greek literature, shown not merely by the references toPlato and to Agamemnon, but by what is perhaps the finest passage in thepoem, the one ending:-- "Yet I say, never morn broke clear as those On the dim clustered isles in the blue sea, The deep groves and white temples and wet caves: And nothing ever will surprise me now-- Who stood beside the naked Swift-footed, Who bound my forehead with Proserpine's hair. " The enthusiasm which breathes through whole pages of address to the"Sun-treader" gives no exaggerated picture of Browning's love andreverence for Shelley, whose _Alastor_ might perhaps in some respects becompared with _Pauline_. The rhythm of Browning's poem has a certainecho in it of Shelley's earlier blank verse; and the lyrically emotionaldescriptions and the vivid and touching metaphors derived from naturefrequently remind us of Shelley, and sometimes of Keats. On every pagewe meet with magical touches like this:-- "Thou wilt remember one warm morn when winter Crept aged from the earth, and spring's first breath Blew soft from the moist hills; the black-thorn boughs, So dark in the bare wood, when glistening In the sunshine were white with coming buds, Like the bright side of a sorrow, and the banks Had violets opening from sleep like eyes;" with lines full of exquisite fancy, such as those on the woodlandtarn:-- "The trees bend O'er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl;" and in one place we have a marvellously graphic description, extendingover three pages, perhaps the most elaborately painted landscape inBrowning's work. It seems like wronging the poem to speak of its_promise_: it is, indeed, far from mature, but it has a superb precocitymarking a certain stage of ripeness. It is lacking, certainly, asBrowning himself declares, in "good draughtsmanship and right handling, "but this defect of youth is richly compensated by the wealth ofinspiration, the keen intellectual and ethical insight, and thenumberless lines of haunting charm, which have nothing of youth in thembut its vigorous freshness. 2. PARACELSUS. [Published in 1835; first acknowledged work (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. II. , pp. 1-186. ) The original MS. Is in the Forster Library at South Kensington. ] The poem is divided into five scenes, each a typical episode in the lifeof Paracelsus. It is in the form of dialogue between Paracelsus andothers: Festus and his wife Michal in the first scene, Aprile, anItalian poet, in the second, and Festus only in the remainder. The poemis followed by an appendix, containing a few notes and a brief biographyof Paracelsus, translated from the _Biographie Universelle_. _Paracelsus_ might be praised, and has justly been praised, for itsserious and penetrating quality as an historical study of the greatmystic and great man of science, who had realised, before most people, that "matter is the visible body of the invisible God, " and who had beenthe Luther of medicine. But the historical element is less importantthan the philosophical; both are far less important than the purelypoetical. The leading motive is not unlike that of _Pauline_ and of_Sordello_: it is handled, however, far more ably than in the former, and much more clearly than in the latter. Paracelsus is a portrait ofthe seeker after knowledge, one whose ambition transcends all earthlylimits, and exhausts itself in the thirst of the impossible. His careeris traced from its noble outset at Würzburg to its miserable close inthe hospital at Salzburg, through all its course of struggle, conquestand deterioration. His last effort, the superb dying speech, gives themoral of his mistake, and, in the light of the new intuition flashed onhis soul by death, the true conception of the powers and limits of man. The character and mental vicissitudes of Paracelsus are brought out, ashas been stated, in dialogue with others. The three minor characters, though probably called into being as mere foils to the protagonist, havea distinct individuality of their own. Michal is Browning's first sketchof a woman. She is faint in outline and very quiet in presence, butthough she scarcely speaks twenty lines, her face remains with us like abeautiful face seen once and never to be forgotten. There is somethingalready, in her tentative delineation, of that "piercing andoverpowering tenderness which glorifies the poet of Pompilia. " Festus, Michal's husband, the friend and adviser of Paracelsus, is a man ofsimple nature and thoughtful mind, cautious yet not cold, clear-sightedrather than far-seeing, yet not without enthusiasm; perhaps a littlenarrow and commonplace, as the prudent are apt to be. He, like Michal, has no influence on the external action of the poem. Aprile, the Italianpoet whom Paracelsus encounters in the second scene, is an integral partof the poem; for it is through him that a crisis is reached in thedevelopment of the seeker after knowledge. Unlike Festus and Michal, heis a type rather than a realisable human being, the type of the Artistpure and simple, the lover of beauty and of beauty alone, a soulimmoderately possessed with the desire to love, as Paracelsus with thedesire to know. He flickers, an expiring flame, across the pathway ofthe stronger spirit, one luminous moment and no more. _Paracelsus_, though written in dialogue, is not intended to be a drama. This was clearly stated in the preface to the first edition, animportant document, never afterwards reprinted. "Instead of havingrecourse, " wrote Browning, "to an external machinery of incidents tocreate and evolve the crisis I desire to produce, I have ventured todisplay somewhat minutely the mood itself in its rise and progress, andhave suffered the agency by which it is influenced to be generallydiscernible in its effects alone, and subordinate throughout, if notaltogether excluded. "[12] The proportions of the work are epical ratherthan dramatic; but indeed it is difficult to class, so exuberant is thevitality which fills and overflows all limits. What is not a drama, though in dialogue, nor yet an epic, except in length, can scarcely beconsidered, any more than its successors, and perhaps imitators, _Festus_, _Balder_, or _A Life Drama_, properly artistic in form. But itis distinguished from this prolific progeny not only by a finer andfirmer imagination, a truer poetic richness, but by a moderation, aconcreteness, a grip, which are certainly all its own. In few ofBrowning's poems are there so many individual lines and single passageswhich we are so apt to pause on, to read again and again, for the mereenjoyment of their splendid sound and colour. And this for a reason. Thelarge and lofty character of Paracelsus, the avoidance of much externaldetail, and the high tension at which thought and emotion are keptthroughout, permit the poet to use his full resources of style anddiction without producing an effect of unreality and extravagance. Wemeet on almost every page with lines like these:-- "Ask the gier-eagle why she stoops at once Into the vast and unexplored abyss, What full-grown power informs her from the first, Why she not marvels, strenuously beating The silent boundless regions of the sky. " Or again, lines like these, which have become the watch-word of aGordon:-- "I go to prove my soul! I see my way as birds their trackless way. I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first, I ask not: but unless God send his hail Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow, In some time, his good time, I shall arrive: He guides me and the bird. In his good time!" At times the brooding splendour bursts forth in a kind of vast ecstasy, and we have such magnificence as this:-- "The centre fire heaves underneath the earth, And the earth changes like a human face; The molten ore bursts up among the rocks, Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds, Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask-- God joys therein. The wroth sea's waves are edged With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate, When, in the solitary waste, strange groups Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like, Staring together with their eyes on flame-- God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride. Then all is still; earth is a wintry clod: But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost, Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face; The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms Like chrysalids impatient for the air, The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run Along the furrows, ants make their ado; Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark Soars up and up, shivering for very joy; Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing-gulls Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek Their loves in wood and plain--and God renews His ancient rapture. " The blank verse of _Paracelsus_ is varied by four lyrics, themselvesvarious in style, and full of rare music: the spirit song of theunfaithful poets-- "The sad rhyme of the men who sadly clung To their first fault, and withered in their pride, " the gentle song of the Mayne river, and that strange song of old spiceswhich haunts the brain like a perfume:-- "Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes From out her hair: such balsam falls Down sea-side mountain pedestals, From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, Spent with the vast and howling main, To treasure half their island gain. And strew faint sweetness from some old Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud Which breaks to dust when once unrolled; Or shredded perfume, like a cloud From closet long to quiet vowed, With mothed and dropping arras hung, Mouldering her lute and books among, As when a queen, long dead was young. " FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 12: See the whole Preface, Appendix II. ] 3. STRAFFORD: an Historical Tragedy. [Written toward the close of 1836; acted at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (_Strafford_, Mr. Macready; _Countess of Carlisle_, Miss Helen Faucit), May 1, 1837; by the Browning Society at the Strand Theatre, Dec. 21, 1886, and at Oxford by the O. U. D. S. In 1890; published in 1837 (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. II. , pp. 187-307). ] _Strafford_ was written, at Macready's earnest request, in an intervalof the composition of _Sordello_. Like all Browning's plays which wereacted, it owed its partial failure to causes quite apart from its ownmerits or defects as a play. [13] Browning may not have had the making ofa good playwright; but at least no one ever gave him the chance ofshowing whether he was or not. The play is not without incident, especially in the third act. But its chief merit lies in the languageand style of the dialogue. There is no aim at historical dignity orpoetical elaboration; the aim is nature, quick with personal passion. Every word throbs with emotion; through these exclamatory, yet howdelicate and subtle lines, we seem actually to see and hear thespeakers, and with surprising vividness. The words supply their ownaccents, looks and gestures. In his preface to the first edition (reprinted in Appendix II. ) Browningstates that he believes the historical portraits to be faithful. This isto a considerable extent confirmed by Professor Gardiner, who has givena careful consideration of the play in its historical aspects, in hisIntroduction to Miss Hickey's annotated edition (G. Bell & Sons, 1884). As a representation of history, he tells us, it is inaccurate; "the veryroots of the situation are untrue to fact. " But (as he allows) thisdeparture from fact, in the conduct of the action, is intentional, and, of course, allowable: Browning was writing a drama, not a history. Ofthe portraits, the really vital part of the play as an interpretation ofhistory, he writes:-- "For myself, I can only say that, every time I read the play, I feel more convinced that Mr. Browning has seized the real Strafford, the man of critical brain, of rapid decision, and tender heart, who strove for the good of his nation, without sympathy for the generation in which he lived. Charles, too, with his faults perhaps exaggerated, is, nevertheless, a real Charles. .. . There is a wonderful parallelism between the Lady Carlisle of the play and the less noble Lady Carlisle which history conjectures rather than describes. .. . On the other hand, Pym is the most unsatisfactory, from an historical point of view, of the leading personages. " Yet, if it is interesting, it is by no means of primary importance toknow the historical basis and probable accuracy of Browning's play. Thewhole interest is centred in the character of Strafford; it is apersonal interest, and attaches itself to the personal character or thehero. The leading motive is Strafford's devotion to his king, and thenote of tragic discord arises from the ingratitude and faithlessness ofCharles set over against the blind fidelity of his minister. Theantagonism of law and despotism, of Pym and Strafford, is, perhaps, lessclearly and forcibly brought out: though essential to the plot, it wearsto our sight a somewhat secondary aspect. Strafford himself appears notso much a superb and unbending figure, a political power, as a man whoseservice of Charles is due wholly to an intense personal affection, andnot at all to his national sympathies, which seem, indeed, rather on theopposite side. He loves the man, not the king, and his love is a freakof the affections. That it is against his better reason he recognises, but the recognition fails to influence his heart or his conduct. This isfinely expressed in the following lines, spoken by Lady Carlisle:-- "Could you but know what 'tis to bear, my friend, One image stamped within you, turning blank The else imperial brilliance of your mind, -- A weakness, but most precious, --like a flaw I' the diamond, which should shape forth some sweet face Yet to create, and meanwhile treasured there Lest nature lose her gracious thought for ever'" Browning has rarely drawn a more pathetic figure. Every circumstancethat could contribute to this effect is skilfully seized and emphasised:Charles's incredibly selfish weakness, the implacable sternness of Pym, the _triste_ prattle of Strafford's children and their interruptedjoyous song in the final scene, all serve to heighten our feeling ofaffectionate pity and regret. The imaginary former friendship betweenPym and Strafford adds still more to the pathos of the delineation, andgives rise to some of the finest speeches, notably the last greatcolloquy between these two, which so effectively rounds and ends theplay. The fatal figure of Pym is impressive and admirable throughout, and the portrait of the Countess of Carlisle, Browning's second portraitof a woman, is a noble and singularly original one. Her unrecognised andundeterred devotion to Strafford is finely and tenderly pathetic; it hasthe sorrowful dignity of faithful service, rewarded only in serving. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 13: See _Robert Browning: Personalia_, by Edmund Gosse(Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , 1890). ] 4. SORDELLO. [Published in 1840 (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. I. , pp. 47-289). ] _Sordello_ is generally spoken of as being the most obscure and theleast attractive of Browning's poems; it has even been called "the mostillegible production of any time or country. " Hard, very hard, itundoubtedly is; but undoubtedly it is far from unattractive to theserious student of poetry, who will find in it something of thefascination of an Alpine peak: not to be gained without an effort, treacherous and slippery, painfully dazzling to weak eyes, but for allthat irresistibly fascinating. _Sordello_ contains enough poeticmaterial for a dozen considerable poems; indeed, its very fault lies inits plethora of ideas, the breathless crowd of hurrying thoughts andfancies, which fill and overflow it. That this is not properly to becalled "obscurity" has been triumphantly shown by Mr. Swinburne in hisessay on George Chapman. Some of his admirable statements I have alreadyquoted, but we may bear to be told twice that Browning is too much thereverse of obscure, that he is only too brilliant and subtle, that henever thinks but at full speed. But besides this characteristic, whichis common to all his work, there are one or two special reasons whichhave made this particular poem more difficult than others. Thecondensation of style which had marked Browning's previous work, andwhich has marked his later, was here (in consequence of an unfortunateand most unnecessary dread of verbosity, induced by a rash and foolishcriticism) accentuated not infrequently into dislocation. The veryunfamiliar historical events of the story[14] are introduced, too, in aparenthetic and allusive way, not a little embarrassing to the reader. But it is also evident that the difficulties of a gigantic conceptionwere not completely conquered by the writer's genius, not then fullymatured; that lack of entire mastery over the material has frequentlycaused the two interests of the poem, the psychological and thehistorical, to clash; the background to intrude on and confuse themiddle distance, if not even the foreground itself. Every one of thesefaults is the outcome of a merit: altogether they betray a growingnature of extraordinary power, largeness and richness, not as yet to bebound or contained within any limits or in any bonds. _Sordello_ is a psychological epic. But to call it this only would be todo it somewhat less than justice. There is in the poem a union ofbreathless eagerness with brooding suspense, which has an almostunaccountable fascination for those who once come under its charm, andnowhere in Browning's work are there so many pictures, so vivid inaspect, so sharp in outline, so rich in colour. At their best they aresudden, a flash of revelation, as in this autumnal Goito:-- "'Twas the marsh Gone of a sudden. Mincio, in its place, Laughed, a broad water, in next morning's face, And, where the mists broke up immense and white I' the steady wind, burned like a spilth of light, Out of the crashing of a myriad stars. " Verona, by torchfire, seen from a window, is shown with the same quickflare out of darkness:-- "Then arose the two And leaned into Verona's air, dead-still. A balcony lay black beneath until Out, 'mid a gush of torchfire, grey-haired men Came on it and harangued the people: then Sea-like that people surging to and fro Shouted. " Only Carlyle, in the most vivid moments of his _French Revolution_, hasstruck such flashes out of darkness. And there are other splendours andrarities, not only in the evocation of actual scenes and things, but inmere similes, like this, in which the quality of imagination is of acuriously subtle and unusual kind:-- "As, shall I say, some Ethiop, past pursuit Of all enslavers, dips a shackled foot Burnt to the blood, into the drowsy black Enormous watercourse which guides him back To his own tribe again, where he is king: And laughs because he guesses, numbering The yellower poison-wattles on the pouch Of the first lizard wrested from its couch Under the slime (whose skin, the while, he strips To cure his nostril with, and festered lips, And eyeballs bloodshot through the desert-blast) That he has reached its boundary, at last May breathe;--thinks o'er enchantments of the South Sovereign to plague his enemies, their mouth, Eyes, nails, and hair; but, these enchantments tried In fancy, puts them soberly aside For truth, projects a cool return with friends, The likelihood of winning mere amends Ere long; thinks that, takes comfort silently, Then, from the river's brink, his wrongs and he, Hugging revenge close to their hearts, are soon Off-striding for the Mountains of the Moon. " And, while much of the finest poetry is contained in picturesquepassages such as these, we find verse of another order, thrilling as thetrumpet's "golden cry, " in the passionate invocation of Dante, enshrining the magnificently Dantesque characterization of the threedivisions of the _Divina Commedia_. "For he--for he, Gate-vein of this hearts' blood of Lombardy, (If I should falter now)--for he is thine! Sordello, thy forerunner, Florentine! A herald-star I know thou didst absorb Relentless into the consummate orb That scared it from its right to roll along A sempiternal path with dance and song Fulfilling its allotted period, Serenest of the progeny of God-- Who yet resigns it not! His darling stoops With no quenched lights, desponds with no blank troops Of disenfranchised brilliances, for, blent Utterly with thee, its shy element Like thine upburneth prosperous and clear. Still, what if I approach the august sphere Named now with only one name, disentwine That under-current soft and argentine From its fierce mate in the majestic mass Leavened as the sea whose fire was mixt with glass In John's transcendent vision, --launch once more That lustre? Dante, pacer of the shore Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom, Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume-- Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope Into a darkness quieted by hope; Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye In gracious twilights where his chosen lie, I would do this! If I should falter now!" Browning has himself told us that his stress lay on the "incidents inthe development of a soul. " The portrait of Sordello is one of the mostelaborate and complete which he has given us. It is painted with moreaccessory detail and on a larger canvas than any other single figure. Like _Pauline_ and _Paracelsus_, with which it has points of affinity, the poem is a study of ambition and of egoism; of a soul "whoseambition, " as it has been rightly said, "is in extravagant disproportionto its physical powers and means, and whose temptation is at everycrisis to seek pleasure in the picture of willing and doing rather thanin willing and doing itself. " Sordello's youth is fed upon fancy: heimagines himself Apollo, this or that hero of the time; in dreams he isand does to the height of his aspirations. But from any actual doing heshrinks; at the approach or the call of action, his will refuses to act. We might sum up his character in a general sense by saying that hisimagination overpowers every other faculty; an imagination intenselypersonal, a sort of intellectual egoism, which removes him equally fromaction and from sympathy. He looks on men as foils to himself, or as abackground on which to shine. But the root of his failure is this, andit is one which could never be even apprehended by a vulgar egoism: helongs to grasp the whole of life at once, to realise his aims in theirentirety, without complying with the necessary conditions. His mindperceives the infinite and essential so clearly that it scorns or spurnsthe mere accidents. But earth being earth, and life growth, andaccidents an inevitable part of life, the rule remains that man, toattain, must climb step by step, and not expect to fly at once to thetop of the ladder. Finding that he cannot do everything, Sordello seesno alternative but to do nothing. Consequently his state comes to be avirtual indolence or inactivity; though it is in reality that of thetop, spinning so fast that its motion is imperceptible. Poet and man ofaction, for he contains more than the germ of both, confound and breakdown one another. He meets finally with a great temptation, conquers it, but dies of the effort. For the world his life has been a failure, forhimself not absolutely so, since, before his eyes were closed, he waspermitted to see the truth and to recognise it. But in all his aims, inall his ambitions, he has failed; and the world has gained nothing fromthem or from him but the warning of his example. This Sordello of Browning seems to have little identity with the briefand splendid Sordello of Dante, the figure that fronts us in the superbsixth canto of the _Purgatoria_, "a guisa di leon quando si posa. " Therecords of the real Sordello are scant, fragmentary and contradictory. No coherent outline of his personality remains, so that the characterwhich Browning has made for him is a creation as absolute as if it hadbeen wholly invented. The name indeed of Sordello, embalmed in Dante'sverse, is still fresh to our ears after the "ravage of six long sadhundred years, " and it is Dante, too, who in his _De VulgariEloquentia_, has further signalised him by honourable record. Sordello, he says, excelled in all kinds of composition, and by his experiments inthe dialects of Cremona, Brescia and Verona, cities near Mantua, helpedto form the Tuscan tongue. But besides the brief record of Dante, thereare certain accounts of Sordello's life, very confused and conflicting, in the early Italian Chronicles and the Provençal lives of theTroubadours. Tiraboschi sifts these legends, leaving very little ofthem. According to him, Sordello was a Mantuan of noble family, born atGoito at the close of the twelfth century. He was a poet and warrior, though not, as some reports profess, captain-general or governor ofMantua. He eloped with Cunizza, the wife of Count Richard of St. Boniface; at some period of his life he went into Provence; and he dieda violent death, about the middle of the thirteenth century. The worksattributed to him are poems in Tuscan and Provençal, a didactic poem inLatin named _Thesaurus Thesaurorum_ (now in the Ambrosiana in Milan), anessay in Provençal on "The Progress and Power of the Kings of Aragon inthe Comté of Provence, " a treatise on "The Defence of Walled Towns, " andsome historial translations from Latin into the vulgar tongue. Of allthese works only the _Thesaurus_ and some thirty-four poems inProvençal, _sirventes_ and _tensens_, survive: some of the finest ofthem are satires. [15] The statement that Sordello was specially famed for his philosophicalverses, though not confirmed by what remains of his poetry, isinteresting and significant in connection with Browning's conception ofhis character. There is little however in the scanty tales we have ofthe historic Sordello to suggest the "feverish poet" of the poem. Thefugitive personality of the half mythical fighting poet eludes thegrasp, and Browning has rather given the name of Sordello to an imaginedtype of the poetic character than constructed a type of character to fitthe name. Still less are the dubious attributes with which the barefacts of history or legend invest Cunizza (whom, none the less, Dantespoke with in heaven) recognisable in the exquisite and all-goldenloveliness of Palma. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 14: "Mr. Browning prepared himself for writing _Sordello_, "says Mrs. Orr, "by studying all the chronicles of that period of Italianhistory which the British Museum contained; and we may be sure thatevery event he alludes to as historical, is so in spirit, if not in theletter; while such details as come under the head of historicalcuriosities are absolutely true. He also supplemented his reading by avisit to the places in which the scenes of the story arelaid. "--_Handbook_, p. 31. ] [Footnote 15: Of all these matters, and of all else that is known ofSordello, a good and sympathetic account will be found in Mr. EugeneBenson's little book on _Sordello and Cunizza_ (Dent, 1903). ] 5. PIPPA PASSES. [Published in 1841 as No. I of _Bells and Pomegranates_ (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. III. , pp. 1-79). ] _Pippa Passes_ is Browning's most perfect work, and here, more perhapsthan in anything he ever wrote, he wrote to please himself. As a whole, he has never written anything to equal it in artistic symmetry; while asingle scene, that between Ottima and Sebald, reaches the highest levelof tragic utterance which he has ever attained. The plan of the work, inwhich there are elements of the play and elements of the masque, is awholly original one: a series of scenes, connected only by the passingthrough them of a single person, who is outside their action, and whoseinfluence on that action is unconscious. "Mr Browning, " says Mrs. Sutherland Orr in the _Handbook_, "was walking alone in a wood nearDulwich, when the image flashed upon him of some one walking thus alonethrough life; one apparently too obscure to leave a trace of his or herpassage, yet exercising a lasting though unconscious influence at everystep of it; and the image shaped itself into the little silk-winder ofAsolo, Felippa or Pippa. "[16] It is this motive that makes unity invariety, linking together a sequence of otherwise independent scenes. The poem is the story of Pippa's New Year's Day holiday, her one holidayin the year. She resolves to fancy herself to be in turn the fourhappiest people in Asolo, and, to realise her fancy as much as she can, she spends her day in wandering about the town, passing, in the morning, the shrub-house up the hillside, where Ottima and her lover Sebald havemet; at noon, the house of Jules, over Orcana; in the evening, theturret on the hill above Asolo, where are Luigi and his mother; and atnight, the palace by the Duomo, now tenanted by Monsignor the Bishop. These, whom she imagines to be the happiest people in the town, haveall, in reality, arrived at crises of tremendous and tragic importanceto themselves, and, in one instance, to her. Each stands at theturning-point of a life: Ottima and Sebald, unrepentant, with a crimebehind them; Jules and Phene, two souls brought strangely face to faceby a fate which may prove their salvation or their perdition; Luigi, irresolute, with a purpose to be performed; Monsignor, undecided, beforea great temptation. Pippa passes, singing, at the moment when thesesouls' tragedies seem tending to a fatal end, at the moment when thebaser nature seems about to triumph over the better. Something in thesong, "like any flash that cures the blind, " strikes them with a suddenlight; each decides, suddenly; each, according to the terms of his ownnature, is saved. And Pippa passes, unconscious of the influence she hasexerted, as they are but half-aware of the agency of what they take asan immediate word from God. Each of these four scenes is in dialogue, the first three in blank verse, the last in prose. Between each is aninterlude, in prose or verse, representing the "talk by the way, " ofart-students, Austrian police, and poor girls, all bearing on some partof the action. Pippa's prologue and epilogue, like her songs, are invaried lyric verse. The blank verse throughout is the most vivid anddignified, the most coloured and yet restrained, that Browning everwrote; and he never wrote anything better for singing than some ofPippa's songs. Of the four principal scenes, by far the greatest is the first, thatbetween Ottima and her paramour, the German Sebald, on the morning afterthe murder of old Luca Gaddi, the woman's husband. It is difficult toconvey in words any notion of its supreme excellence of tragic truth: tomatch it we must revert to almost the very finest Elizabethan work. Therepresentation of Ottima and Sebald, the Italian and the German, is asingularly acute study of the Italian and German races. Sebald, in asudden access of brutal rage, has killed the old doting husband, but hisconscience, too feeble to stay his hand before, is awake to torture himafter the deed. But Ottima is steadfast in evil, with the Italianconscienceless resoluteness. She can no more feel either fear or remorsethan Clytæmnestra. The scene between Jules, the French sculptor, and hisbride Phene, and that between Luigi, the light-headed Italian patriot, and his mother, are less great indeed, less tragic and intense andoverpowering, than this crowning episode; but they are scarcely lessfine and finished in a somewhat slighter style. Both are full of colourand music, of insight into nature and into art, and of superb lines andpassages, such as this, which is spoken by Luigi:-- "God must be glad one loves his world so much. I can give news of earth to all the dead Who ask me:--last year's sunsets, and great stars That had a right to come first and see ebb The crimson wave that drifts the sun away-- Those crescent moons with notched and burning rims That strengthened into sharp fire, and there stood, Impatient of the azure--and that day In March, a double rainbow stopped the storm-- May's warm slow yellow moonlit summer nights-- Gone are they, but I have them in my soul!" But in neither is there any single passage of such incomparable qualityas the thunderstorm in the first scene, a storm not to be matched inEnglish poetry:-- "Buried in woods we lay, you recollect; Swift ran the searching tempest overhead; And ever and anon some bright white shaft Burned through the pine-tree roof, here burned and there, As if God's messenger through the close wood screen Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture, Feeling for guilty thee and me: then broke The thunder like a whole sea overhead. " The vivid colloquial scenes in prose have much of that pungentsemi-satirical humour of which Browning had shown the first glimpse in_Sordello_. Besides these, there is one intermediate scene in verse, thetalk of the "poor girls" on the Duomo steps, which seems to me one ofthe most pathetic things ever written by the most pathetic ofcontemporary poets. It is this scene that contains the exquisite song, "You'll love me yet. " "You'll love me yet!--and I can tarry Your love's protracted growing: June reared that bunch of flowers you carry, From seeds of April's sowing. I plant a heartful now: some seed At least is sure to strike, And yield--what you'll not pluck indeed, Not love, but, may be, like. You'll look at least on love's remains, A grave's one violet: Your look?--that pays a thousand pains. What's death? You'll love me yet!" FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 16: _Handbook_, p. 54. ] 6. KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES: A Tragedy. [Published in 1842 as No. II. Of _Bells and Pomegranates_, although written some years earlier (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. III. , pp. 81-165). ] _King Victor and King Charles_ is an historical tragedy, dealing withthe last episode in the career of Victor II. , first King of Sardinia. Browning says in his preface: "So far as I know, this tragedy is the first artistic consequence of what Voltaire termed 'a terrible event without consequences;' and although it professes to be historical, I have taken more pains to arrive at the history than most readers would thank me for particularising: since acquainted, as I will hope them to be, with the chief circumstances of Victor's remarkable European career--nor quite ignorant of the sad and surprising facts I am about to reproduce (a tolerable account of which is to be found, for instance, in Abbé Roman's _Récit_, or even the fifth of Lord Orrery's _Letters from Italy_)--I cannot expect them to be versed, nor desirous of becoming so, in all the details of the memoirs, correspondence, and relations of the time. .. . When I say, therefore, that I cannot but believe my statement (combining as it does what appears correct in Voltaire and plausible in Condorcet) more true to person and thing than any it has hitherto been my fortune to meet with, no doubt my word will be taken, and my evidence spared as readily. " The episode recorded in the play is the abdication of Victor in favourof his son Charles, and his subsequent attempt to return to the throne. The only point in which Browning has departed from history is that thevery effective death on the stage replaces the old king's real death incaptivity a year later. As a piece of literature, this is the leastinteresting and valuable of Browning's plays, the thinnest in structure, the dryest in substance. The interest of the play is, even more than that of _Strafford_, political. The intrigue turns on questions of government, complicatedwith questions of relationship and duty. The conflict is one betweenruler and ruler, who are also father and son; and the true tragedy ofthe situation seems to be this: shall Charles obey the instincts of ason, and cede to his father's wish to resume the government he hasabdicated, or is there a higher duty which he is bound to follow, theduty of a king to his people? The motive is a fine one, but it isscarcely handled with Browning's accustomed skill and subtlety. KingVictor, of whose "fiery and audacious temper, unscrupulous selfishness, profound dissimulation, and singular fertility in resources, " Browningspeaks in his preface, is an impressive study of "the old age of craftymen, " the futile wiliness of decrepit and persevering craft, though weare scarcely made to feel the once potent personality of the man, or tounderstand the influence which his mere word or presence still has uponhis son. D'Ormea, who checkmates all the schemes of his old master, is acurious and subtle study of one who "serves God at the devil's bidding, "as he himself confesses in the cynical frankness of his continualironical self-criticism. After twenty years of unsuccessful intrigue, hehas learnt by experience that honesty is the best policy. But at everystep his evil reputation clogs and impedes his honest action, and thevery men whom he is now most sincere in helping are the most mistrustfulof his sincerity. Charles, whose good intentions and vacillating willare the precise opposites of his father's strong will and selfishpurposes, is really the central figure of the play. He is one of thosemen whom we at once despise and respect. Gifted with many goodqualities, he seems to lack the one thing needful to bind them together. Polyxena, his wife, possesses just that resolution in which he iswanting. She is a fine, firm, clear character, herself admirable, andadmirably drawn. Her "noble and right woman's manliness" (to useBrowning's phrase) is prompt to sweep away the cobwebs that entangle herhusband's path or obscure his vision of things. From first to last shesees through Charles, Victor and D'Ormea, who neither understand oneanother nor perhaps themselves; from first to last she is the sameclear-headed, decisive, consistent woman, loyal always to love, butalways yet more loyal toward truth. 7. DRAMATIC LYRICS. [17] [Published in 1842 as No. III. Of _Bells and Pomegranates_ (_Poetical Works_, 1889, dispersedly in Vols. IV. , V. , and VI. ). ] _Dramatic Lyrics_, Browning's first volume of short poems, contains someof his finest, and many of his most popular pieces. The little volume, it was only sixteen pages in length, has, however, an importance evenbeyond its actual worth; for we can trace in it the germ at least ofmost of Browning's subsequent work. We see in these poems for the firsttime that extraordinary mastery of rhyme which Butler himself has notexcelled; that predilection for the grotesque which is shared by noother English poet; and, not indeed for the first time, but for thefirst time with any special prominence, the strong and thoughtfulhumour, running up and down the whole compass of its gamut, gay andhearty, satirical and incisive, in turn. We see also the first formalbeginning of the dramatic monologue, which, hinted at in _Pauline_, disguised in _Paracelsus_, and developed, still disguised, in_Sordello_, became, from the period of the _Dramatic Lyrics_ onward, thestaple form and special instrument of the poet, an instrument finelytouched, at times, by other performers, but of which he is the onlyLiszt. The literal beginning of the monologue must be found in twolyrical poems, here included, _Johannes Agricola_ and _Porphyria'sLover_ (originally named _Madhouse Cells_), which were published in amagazine as early as 1836, or about the time of the publication of_Paracelsus_. These extraordinary little poems reveal not only animagination of intense fire and heat, but an almost finished art: apower of conceiving subtle mental complexities with clearness and ofexpressing them in a picturesque form and in perfect lyric language. Each poem renders a single mood, and renders it completely. But it isstill only a mood: _My Last Duchess_ is a life. This poem (it was atfirst one of two companion pieces called _Italy and France_) is thefirst direct progenitor of _Andrea del Sarto_ and the other great blankverse monologues; in it we see the form, save for the scarcelyappreciable presence of rhyme, already developed. The poem is a subtlestudy in the jealousy of egoism, not a study so much as a creation; andit places before us, as if bitten in by the etcher's acid, a typicalautocrat of the Renaissance, with his serene self-composure ofselfishness, quiet uncompromising cruelty, and genuine devotion to art. The scene and the actors in this little Italian drama stand out beforeus with the most natural clearness; there is some telling touch in everyline, an infinitude of cunningly careless details, instinct withsuggestion, and an appearance through it all of simple artless ease, such as only the very finest art can give. But let the poem speak foritself. "My LAST DUCHESS. "FERRARA. "That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said 'Frà Pandolf' by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not Her husband's presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps Frà Pandolf chanced to say 'Her mantle laps Over my lady's wrist too much, ' or 'Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat:' such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace--all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men, --good! but thanked Somehow--I know not how--as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech--(which I have not)--to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, 'Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark, '--and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, --E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll meet The company below, then. I repeat The Count your master's known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretence Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!" A poem of quite another order of art, a life-like sketch rather than acreation, is found in _Waring_. The original of Waring was one ofBrowning's friends, Alfred Domett, the author of _Ranolf and Amohia_, then or afterwards Prime Minister in New Zealand. [18] The poem iswritten in a free and familiar style, which rises from time to time intoa kind of precipitate brilliance; it is more personal in detail thanBrowning often allows himself to be; and its humour is blithe andfriendly. In another poem, now known as _Soliloquy of the SpanishCloister_, the humour is grotesque, bitter and pungent, the humour ofhate. The snarling monk of the Spanish cloister pours out on poor, innocent, unsuspecting "Brother Lawrence" a wealth of really choice andmasterly vituperation, not to be matched out of Shakespeare. The poem isa clever study of that mood of active disgust which most of us have felttoward some possibly inoffensive enough person, whose every word, lookor action jars on the nerves. It flashes, too, a brilliant comic lighton the natural tendencies of asceticism. Side by side with this poem, under the general name of _Camp and Cloister_, was published thevigorous and touching little ballad now known as _Incident of the FrenchCamp_, a stirring lyric of war, such as Browning has always been able, rarely as he has cared, to write. The ringing _Cavalier Tunes_ (sographically set to music by Sir C. Villiers Stanford) strike the samenote; so, too, does the wonderfully clever little riding poem, _Throughthe Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr_, a _tour de force_ strung together on asingle rhyme: "As I ride, as I ride. " _Count Gismond_, the companion of _My Last Duchess_, is a vivid littletale, told with genuine sympathy with the mediæval spirit. It is almostlike an anticipation of some of the remarkable studies of the MiddleAges contained in Morris's first and best book of poems, _The Defence ofGuenevere_, published sixteen years later. The mediæval temper of entireconfidence in the ordeal by duel has never been better rendered than inthese two stanzas, the very kernel of the poem, spoken by thefalsely-accused girl:-- " . .. Till out strode Gismond; then I knew That I was saved. I never met His face before, but, at first view, I felt quite sure that God had set Himself to Satan; who would spend A minute's mistrust on the end? He strode to Gauthier, in his throat Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth With one back-handed blow that wrote In blood men's verdict there. North, South, East, West, I looked. The lie was dead, And damned, and truth stood up instead. "[19] Of the two aspects of _Queen Worship_, one, _Rudel to the Lady ofTripoli_, has a mournfully sweet pathos in its lingering lines, and_Cristina_, not without a touch of vivid passion, contains that personalconviction afterwards enshrined in the lovelier casket of _Evelyn Hope_. _Artemis Prologuizes_ is Browning's only experiment in the classicstyle. The fragment was meant to form part of a longer work, which wasto take up the legend of Hippolytus at the point where Euripides droppedit. The project was no doubt abandoned for the same wise reasons whichled Keats to leave unfinished a lovelier experiment in _Hyperion_. Itwas in this poem that Browning first adopted the Greek spelling ofproper names, a practice which he has since carried out, with greaterconsistency, in his transcripts from Æschylus and Euripides. Perhaps the finest of the _Dramatic Lyrics_ is the little lyric tragedy, _In a Gondola_, a poem which could hardly be surpassed in its perfectunion or fusion of dramatic intensity with charm and variety of music. It was suggested by a picture of Maclise, and tells of two Venetianlovers, watched by a certain jealous "Three"; of their brief hour ofhappiness, and of the sudden vengeance of the Three. There is a broodingsense of peril over all the blithe and flitting fancies said or sung toone another by the lovers in their gondola; a sense, however, of futurerather than of present peril, something of a zest and a piquant pleasureto them. The sudden tragic ending, anticipated yet unexpected, roundsthe whole with a dramatic touch of infallible instinct. I know nothingwith which the poem may be compared: its method and its magic are alikeits own. We might hear it or fancy it perhaps in one of the Ballades ofChopin, with its entrancing harmonies, its varied and delicateornamentation, its under-tone of passion and sadness, its storms andgusts of wind-like lashing notes, and the piercing shiver that thrillsthrough its suave sunshine. It is hardly needful, I hope, to say anything in praise of the last ofthe _Dramatic Lyrics_, the incomparable child's story of _The PiedPiper of Hamelin_, [20] "a thing of joy for ever, " as it has been wellsaid, "to all with the child's heart, young and old. " This poem, probably the most popular of Browning's poems, was written for WilliamMacready, the son of the actor, and was thrown into the volume at thelast moment, for the purpose of filling up the sheet. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 17: It should be stated here that the three collections ofmiscellaneous poems published in 1842, 1845 and 1855, and namedrespectively _Dramatic Lyrics_, _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_, and _Menand Women_, were in 1863 broken up and the poems re-distributed. I shalltake the volumes as they originally appeared; a reference to the list ofcontents of the edition of 1863, given in the Bibliography at the end ofthis book, will enable the reader to find any poem in its presentlocality. ] [Footnote 18: See _Robert Browning and Alfred Domett_. Edited by F. G. Kenyon. (Smith, Elder & Co. , 1906). ] [Footnote 19: It is worth noticing, as a curious point in Browning'stechnique, that in the stanza (_ababcc_) in which this and some of hisother poems are written, he almost always omits the pause customary atthe end of the fourth line, running it into the fifth, and thusproducing a novel metrical effect, such as we find used with success inmore than one poem of Carew. ] [Footnote 20: Browning's authority for the story, which is told in manyquarters, was North Wanley's _Wonders of the Little World_, 1678, andthe books there cited. ] 8. THE RETURN OF THE DRUSES: A Tragedy in Five Acts. [Published in 1843 as No. IV. Of _Bells and Pomegranates_ (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. III. , pp. 167-255). Written in 1840 (in five days), and named in MS. _Mansoor the Hierophant_. The action takes place during one day. ] The story of _The Return of the Druses_ is purely imaginary as to facts, but it is founded on the Druse belief in divine incarnations, a beliefinculcated by the founder of their religion, Hakeem Biamr Allah, thesixth Fatemite Caliph of Egypt, whose pretension to be an incarnation ofthe Divinity was stamped in the popular mind by his mysteriousdisappearance, and the expectation of his glorious return. Browning heregives the rein to his fervid and passionate imagination; in event, incharacter, in expression, the play is romantic, lyrical and Oriental. The first line-- "The moon is carried off in purple fire, --" sounds the note of the new music; and to the last line the emotion issustained at the same height. Passionate, rapid, vivid, intense andpicturesque, no stronger contrast could be imagined than that whichexists between this drama and _King Victor and King Charles_. The causeof the difference must be sought in the different nature of the twosubjects, for one of Browning's most eminent qualities is his care inharmonising treatment with subject. _King Victor and King Charles_ is amodern play, dealing with human nature under all the restrictions of apervading conventionality and an oppressive statecraft. It deals, moreover, with complex and weakened emotions, with the petty and prosaicdetails of a secondary Western government. _The Return of the Druses_, on the other hand, treats of human nature in its most romanticconditions, of the mystic East, of great and immediate issues, of themost inspiring of crises, a revolt for liberty, and a revolt under theleadership of a "Messiah, " about whom hangs a mystery, and a reputationof more than mortal power. The characters, like the language, are allsomewhat idealised. Djabal, the protagonist, is the first instance of acharacter specially fascinating to Browning as an artistic subject: thedeceiver of others or of himself who is only partially insincere, andnot altogether ill-intentioned. Djabal is an impostor almost wholly forthe sake of others. He is a patriotic Druse, the son of the last Emir, supposed to have perished in the massacre of the Sheikhs, but preservedwhen a child and educated in Europe. His sole aim is to free his nationfrom its bondage, and lead it back to Lebanon. But in order tostrengthen the people's trust in him, and to lead them back in greaterglory, he pretends that he is "Hakeem, " their divine, predestineddeliverer. The delusion grows upon himself; he succeeds triumphantly, but in the very moment of triumph he loses faith in himself, theimposture is all but discovered, and he dies, a victim of what was wrongin him, while the salt of his noble and successful purpose keeps alivehis memory among his people. In striking contrast with Djabal standsLoys, the frank, bright, young Breton knight, with his quick, generousheart, his chivalrous straightforwardness of thought and action, hisearnest pity for the oppressed Druses, and his passionate love for theDruse maiden Anael. Anael herself is one of the most "actual yetuncommon" of the poet's women. She is a true daughter of the East, tothe finest fibre of her being. Her tender and fiery soul burns upwardthrough error and crime with a leaping, quenchless flame. She lovesDjabal, believing him to be "Hakeem" and divine, with a love which seemsto her too human, too much the love evoked by a mere man's nature. Herattempt at adoration only makes him feel more keenly the fact of hisimposture. Misunderstanding his agitation and the broken words he letsdrop, she fancies he despises her, and feels impelled to do some greatdeed, and so exalt herself to be worthy of him. Fired with enthusiasm, she anticipates his crowning act, the act of liberation, and herselfslays the tyrannical Prefect. The magnificent scene in which this occursis the finest in the play, and there is a singularly impressive touch ofpoetry and stagecraft in a certain line of it, where Djabal and Anaelmeet, at the moment when she has done the deed which he is waiting todo. Unconscious of what she has done, he tells her to go:-- "I slay him here, And here you ruin all. Why speak you not? Anael, the Prefect comes!" [ANAEL _screams_. ] There is drama in this stage direction. With this involuntary scream(and the shudder and start aside one imagines, to see if the dead manreally is coming) a great actress might thrill an audience. Djabal, horror-stricken at what she has done, confesses to her that he is noHakeem, but a mere man. After the first revulsion of feeling, her love, hitherto questioned and hampered by her would-be adoration, burst forthwith a fuller flood. But she expects him to confess to the tribe. Djabalrefuses: he will carry through his scheme to the end. In the first flushof her indignation at his unworthiness, she denounces him. In the finalscene occurs another wonderful touch of nature, a touch which remindsone of Desdemona's "Nobody: I myself, " in its divine and adorableself-sacrifice of truth. Learning what Anael has done, Djabal is aboutto confess his imposture to the people, who are still under hisfascination, when Anael, all her old love (not her old belief) returningupon her, cries with her last breath, "HAKEEM!" and dies upon the word. The Druses grovel before him; as he still hesitates, the trumpet of hisVenetian allies sounds. Turning to Khalil, Anael's brother, he bids himtake his place and lead the people home, accompanied and guarded byLoys. "We follow!" cry the Druses, "now exalt thyself!" "_Dja. _ [_bends over_ ANAEL. ] And last to thee! Ah, did I dream I was to have, this day, Exalted thee? A vain dream--has thou not Won greater exaltation? What remains But press to thee, exalt myself to thee? Thus I exalt myself, set free my soul! [_He stabs himself; as he falls, supported by_ KHALIL _and_ LOYS, _theVenetians enter: the_ ADMIRAL _advances_. _Admiral_. God and St. Mark for Venice! Plant the Lion! [_At the clash of the planted standard, the Druses shout and movetumultuously forward_, LOYS, _drawing his sword_. _Dja. _ [_leading them a few steps between_ KHALIL _and_ LOYS. ] On to theMountain! At the Mountain, Druses! [_Dies_. ]" This superb last scene shows how well Browning is able, when he likes, to render the tumultuous action of a clashing crowd of persons andinterests. The whole fourth and fifth acts are specially fine; everyword comes from the heart, every line is pregnant with emotion. 9. A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON: A Tragedy in Three Acts. [Published in 1843 as No. V. Of _Bells and Pomegranates_, written in five days (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. IV. , pp. 1-70). Played originally at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, February 11, 1843 (_Mildred_, Miss Helen Faucit; _Lord Tresham_, Mr. Phelps). Revived by Mr. Phelps at Sadler's Wells, November 27, 1848; played at Boston, U. S. , March 16, 1885, under the management of Mr. Lawrence Barrett, who took the part of _Lord Tresham_; at St. George's Hall, London, May 2, 1885, and at the Olympic Theatre, March 15, 1888, by the Browning Society; and by the Independent Theatre at the Opera Comique, June 15, 1893. The action takes place during two days. ] _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_ is the simplest, and perhaps the deepest andfinest of Browning's plays. The Browning Society's performances, and Mr. Barrett's in America, have proved its acting capacities, its power tohold and thrill an audience. [21] The language has a rich simplicity ofthe highest dramatic value, quick with passion, pregnant with thoughtand masterly in imagination; the plot and characters are perhaps moreinteresting and affecting than in any other of the plays; while theeffect of the whole is impressive from its unity. The scene is English;the time, somewhere in the eighteenth century; the motive, family honourand dishonour. The story appeals to ready popular emotions, emotionswhich, though lying nearest the surface, are also the mostdeeply-rooted. The whole action is passionately pathetic, and it isinfused with a twofold tragedy, the tragedy of the sin, and that of themisunderstanding, the last and final tragedy, which hangs on a word, spoken only when too late to save three lives. This irony ofcircumstance, while it is the source of what is saddest in humandiscords, is also the motive of what has come to be the only satisfyingharmony in dramatic art. It takes the place, in our modern world, of theNecessity of the Greeks; and is not less impressive because it arisesfrom the impulse and unreasoning wilfulness of man rather than from theimplacable insistency of God. It is with perfect justice, both moral andartistic, that the fatal crisis, though mediately the result ofaccident, of error, is shown to be the consequence and the punishment ofwrong. A tragedy resulting from the mistakes of the wholly innocentwould jar on our sense of right, and could never produce a legitimatework of art. Even Oedipus suffers, not merely because he is under thecurse of a higher power, but because he is wilful, and rushes upon hisown fate. Timon suffers, not because he was generous and good, but fromthe defects of his qualities. So, in this play, each of the characterscalls down upon his own head the suffering which at first seems to be amere caprice and confusion of chance. Mildred Tresham and Henry Mertoun, both very young, ignorant and unguarded, have loved. They attempt a latereparation, apparently with success, but the hasty suspicion of LordTresham, Mildred's brother, diverted indeed into a wrong channel, bringsdown on both a terrible retribution. Tresham, who shares the ruin hecauses, feels, too, that his punishment is his due. He has acted withoutpausing to consider, and he is called on to pay the penalty of "evilwrought by want of thought. " The character of Mildred, a woman "more sinned against than sinning, " isexquisitely and tenderly drawn. We see her, and we see and feel "The good and tender heart, Its girl's trust and its woman's constancy, How pure yet passionate, how calm yet kind, How grave yet joyous, how reserved yet free As light where friends are"-- as her brother, in a memorable passage, describes her. She is sothrillingly alive, so beautiful and individual, so pathetic and pitifulin her desolation. Every word she speaks comes straight from her heartto ours. "I know nothing that is so affecting, " wrote Dickens in aletter to Forster, "nothing in any book I have ever read, as Mildred'srecurrence to that 'I was so young--had no mother. ' I know no love likeit, no passion like it, no moulding of a splendid thing after itsconception like it. "[22] Not till Pompilia do we find so pathetic aportrait of a woman. In Thorold, Earl Tresham, we have an admirable picture of the head of agreat house, proud above all things of the honour of the family and itsyet stainless 'scutcheon, and proud, with a deep brotherly tenderness ofhis sister Mildred: a strong and fine nature, one whom men instinctivelycite as "the perfect spirit of honour. " Mertoun, the apparent hero ofthe play, is a much less prominent and masterly figure than Tresham, notso much from any lack of skill in his delineation, as from the essentialineffectualness of his nature. Guendolen Tresham, the Beatrice of theplay (her lover Austin is certainly no Benedick) is one of the mostpleasantly humorous characters in Browning. Her gay, light-hearted talkbrightens the sombre action like a gleam of sunlight. And like herprototype, she is a true woman. As Beatrice stands by the calumniatedHero, so Guendolen stands by Mildred, and by her quick woman's heart andwit, her instinct of things, sees and seizes the missing clue, thoughtoo late, as it proves, to avert the impending disaster. The play contains one of Browning's most delicate and musical lyrics, the serenade beginning, "There's a woman like a dew-drop. " This is thefirst of the love-songs in long lines which Browning wrote so often atthe end of his life, and so seldom earlier. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 21: A contemporary account, written by Joseph Arnould toAlfred Domett, says: "The first night was magnificent . .. There could beno mistake at all about the honest enthusiasm of the audience. Thegallery (and this, of course, was very gratifying, because not to beexpected at a play of _Browning_) took all the points quite as quicklyas the pit, and entered into the general feeling and interest of theaction far more than the boxes. .. . Altogether the first night was atriumph. "--_Robert Browning and Alfred Domett_, 1906, p. 65. ] [Footnote 22: Forster's _Life of Dickens_, vol. Ii. , p. 24. ] 10. COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY: A Play in Five Acts. [Published in 1844 as No. VI. Of _Bells and Pomegranates_ (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. IV. , pp. 71-169). Played at the Haymarket Theatre, April 25, 1853, Miss Helen Faucit taking the part of _Colombe_; also, with Miss Alma Murray as _Colombe_, at St. George's Hall, November 19, 1885, under the direction of the Browning Society. The action takes place from morning to night of one day]. _Colombe's Birthday_, a drama founded on an imaginary episode in thehistory of a German duchy of the seventeenth century, is the first playwhich is mainly concerned with inward rather than outward action; inwhich the characters themselves, what they are in their own souls, whatthey think of themselves, and what others think of them, constitute thechief interest, the interest of the characters as they influence oneanother or external events being secondary. Colombe of Ravestein, Duchess of Juliers and Cleves, is surprised, on the first anniversary ofher accession (the day being also her birthday), by a rival claimant tothe duchy, Prince Berthold, who proves to be in fact the true heir. Berthold, instead of pressing his claim, offers to marry her. But heconceives the honour and the favour to be sufficient, and makes nopretence at offering love as well. On the other hand, Valence, a pooradvocate of Cleves, who has stood by Colombe when all her other friendsfailed, offers her his love, a love to which she can only respond by"giving up the world"; in other words, by relinquishing her duchy, andthe alliance with a Prince who is on the way to be Emperor. We havenothing to do with the question of who has the right and who has themight: that matter is settled, and the succession agreed on, almostfrom the beginning. Nor are we made to feel that any disgrace orreputation of weakness will rest on Colombe if she gives up her duchy;not even that the pang at doing so will be over-acute or entirelyunrelieved. All the interest centres in the purely personal andpsychological bearings of the act. It is perhaps a consequence of thisthat the style is somewhat different from that of any previous play. Anyone who notices the stage directions will see that the persons of thedrama frequently speak "after a pause. " The language which they use is, naturally enough, more deliberate and reflective, the lines are slowerand more weighty, than would be appropriate amid the breathless actionof _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_ or _The Return of the Druses_. A certainfiery quality, a thrilling, heart-stirred and heart-stirring tone, whichwe find in these is wanting; but the calm sweep of the action is carriedonward by a verse whose large harmonies almost recall _Paracelsus_. Colombe, the true heroine of the play named after her is, if not "thecompletest full-length portrait of a woman that Browning has drawn, "certainly one of the sweetest and most stable. Her character developsduring the course of the play; as she herself says, "This is indeed my birthday--soul and body, Its hours have done on me the work of years--" and it leaves her a nobler and stronger, yet not less charming womanthan it found her. Hitherto she has been a mere "play-queen, " shut infrom action, shut in from facts and the world, and caring only to be gayand amused. But now, at the first and yet final trial, she is provedand found to be of noble metal. The gay girlishness of the youngDuchess, her joyous and generous light heart; her womanliness, herearnestness, her clear, deep, noble nature, attract us from her firstwords, and leave us, after the hour we have spent in her presence, witha memory like that of some woman whom we have met, for an hour or amoment, in the world or in books. Berthold, the weary and unsatisfied conqueror, is a singularlyunconventional figure. He is a man of action, with some of thesympathies of the scholar and the lover; resolute in the attainment ofends which he sees to be, in themselves, vulgar; his ambition rather aninstinct than something to be pursued for itself, and his soul tookeenly aware of the joys and interests he foregoes, to be quitesatisfied or content with his lot and conduct. The grave courtesy of hisspeech to Colombe, his somewhat condescending but not unfriendly tonewith Valence, his rough home-truths with the parasitical courtiers, andhis frank confidence with Melchior, are admirably discriminated. Melchior himself, little as he speaks, is a fine sketch of thecontemplative, bookish man who finds no more congenial companion andstudy than a successful man of action. His attitude of detachment, amere spectator in the background, is well in keeping with the calm andthoughtful character of the play. Valence, the true hero of the piece, the "pale fiery man" who can speak with so moving an eloquence, whetherhe is pleading the wrongs of his townsmen or of Colombe, the rights ofBerthold or of himself, is no less masterly a portrait than the Prince, though perhaps less wholly unconventional a character. His graveearnestness, his honour as a man and passion as a lover, move ourinstinctive sympathy, and he never forfeits it. Were it for nothingelse, he would deserve remembrance from the fact that he is one of thespeakers in that most delightful of love-duets, the incomparable sceneat the close of the fourth act. "I remember well to have seen, " wroteMoncure D. Conway in 1854, "a vast miscellaneous crowd in an Americantheatre hanging with breathless attention upon every word of thisinterview, down to the splendid climax when, in obedience to theDuchess's direction to Valence how he should reveal his love to the ladyshe so little suspects herself to be herself, he kneels--every heartevidently feeling each word as an electric touch, and all giving vent atlast to their emotion in round after round of hearty applause. " All the minor characters are good and life-like, particularly Guibert, the shrewd, hesitating, talkative, cynical, really good-hearted oldcourtier, whom not even a court had deprived of a heart, though thedangerous influence of the conscienceless Gaucelme, his fellow, has inits time played sad pranks with it. He is one of the best of Browning'sminor characters. The performance, in 1885, of _Colombe's Birthday_, under the directionof the Browning Society, has brought to light unsuspected actingqualities in what is certainly not the most "dramatic" of Browning'splays. "_Colombe's Birthday_, " it was said on the occasion, "is charmingon the boards, clearer, more direct in action, more full of delicatesurprises than one imagines it in print. With a very little cutting itcould be made an excellent acting play. "[23] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 23: A. Mary F. Robinson, in _Boston Literary World_, December12, 1885. ] 11. DRAMATIC ROMANCES AND LYRICS. [Published in 1845 as No. VII. Of _Bells and Pomegranates_ (_Poetical Works_, 1889, dispersedly, in Vols. IV. , V. , and VI. ). ] _Dramatic Romances_, Browning's second volume of miscellaneous poems, isnot markedly different in style or substance from the _Lyrics_ publishedthree years earlier. It is somewhat more mature, no doubt, as a whole, somewhat richer and fuller, somewhat wider in reach and firmer in grasp;but in tone and treatment it harmonises considerably more with itspredecessor than with its successor, after so long an interval, _Men andWomen_. The book opens with the ballad, _How they brought the Good Newsfrom Ghent to Aix_, the most popular piece, except perhaps the _PiedPiper_, that Browning has written. Few boys, I suppose, have not readwith breathless emotion this most stirring of ballads: few men can readit without a thrill. The "good news" is intended for that of thePacification of Ghent, but the incident itself is not historical. Thepoem was written at sea, off the African coast. Another poem of somewhatsimilar kind, appealing more directly than usual to the simplerfeelings, is _The Lost Leader_. It was written in reference toWordsworth's abandonment of the Liberal cause, with perhaps a thought ofSouthey, but it is applicable to any popular apostasy. This is one ofthose songs that do the work of swords. It shows how easily Browning, had he so chosen, could have stirred the national feeling with hissongs. The _Home-Thoughts from Abroad_ belongs, in its simpledirectness, its personal and forthright fervour of song, to this sectionof the volume. With the two pieces now known as _Home-Thoughts fromAbroad_ and _Home-Thoughts from the Sea_, a third, very inferior, piecewas originally published. It is now more appropriately included with_Claret_ and _Tokay_ (two capital little snatches) under the head of_Nationality in Drinks_. The two "Home-Thoughts, " from sea and fromland, are equally remarkable for their poetry and for their patriotism. I hope there is no need to commend to all Englishmen so passionate andheartfelt a record of love for England. It is in _Home-Thoughts fromAbroad_, that we find the well-known and magical lines on the thrush:-- "That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture!" The whole poem is beautiful, but _Home-Thoughts from the Sea_ is of thatorder of song that moves the heart "more than with a trumpet. " "Nobly, nobly, Cape Saint Vincent to the North-West died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; In the dimmest North-East distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray; 'Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?'--say, Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray, While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. " Next to _The Lost Leader_ comes, in the original edition, a sort ofcompanion poem, in "THE LOST MISTRESS. I. All's over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes? Hark! 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter About your cottage eaves! II. And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that, to-day; One day more bursts them open fully --You know the red turns gray. III. To-morrow we meet the same, then, dearest? May I take your hand in mine? Mere friends are we, --well, friends the merest Keep much that I resign: IV. For each glance of the eye so bright and black Though I keep with heart's endeavour, -- Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, Though it stay in my heart for ever!-- V. Yet I will but say what mere friends say, Or only a thought stronger; I will hold your hand but as long as all may. Or so very little longer!" This is one of those love-songs which we cannot but consider among thenoblest of such songs in all Love's language. The subject of "unrequitedlove" has probably produced more effusions of sickly sentiment than anyother single subject. But Browning, who has employed the motive sooften (here, for instance, and yet more notably in _The Last RideTogether_) deals with it in a way that is at once novel and fundamental. There is no talk, among his lovers, of "blighted hearts, " no whining andpuling, no contemptible professions of contempt for the woman who hashad the ill-taste to refuse some wondrous-conceited lover, but a noblemanly resignation, a profound and still grateful sorrow which has notouch in it of reproach, no tone of disloyalty, and no pretence ofdespair. In the first of the _Garden Fancies_ (_The Flower's Name_) adelicate little love-story of a happier kind is hinted at. The second_Garden Fancy_ (_Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis_) is of very different tone. It is a whimsical tale of a no less whimsical revenge taken upon a pieceof pedantic lumber, the name of which is given in the title. The varyingring and swing communicated to the dactyls of these two pieces by thejolly humour of the one and the refined sentiment of the other, is apoint worth noticing. The easy flow, the careless charm of theirversification, is by no means the artless matter it may seem to acareless reader. Nor is it the easiest of metrical tasks to poiseperfectly the loose lilt of such verses as these:-- "What a name! Was it love or praise? Speech half-asleep or song half-awake? I must learn Spanish, one of these days, Only for that slow sweet name's sake. " The two perfect little pieces on "Fame" and "Love, " _Earth'sImmortalities_, are remarkable, even in Browning's work, for theirconcentrated felicity, and, the second especially, for swiftsuggestiveness of haunting music. Not less exquisite in its freshmelody and subtle simplicity is the following _Song_:-- I. "Nay but you, who do not love her, Is she not pure gold, my mistress? Holds earth aught--speak truth--above her? Aught like this tress, see, and this tress, And this last fairest tress of all, So fair, see, ere I let it fall? II. Because, you spend your lives in praising; To praise, you search the wide world over: Then why not witness, calmly gazing, If earth holds aught--speak truth--above her? Above this tress, and this, I touch But cannot praise, I love so much!" In two tiny pictures, _Night and Morning_, one of four lines, the otherof twelve, we have, besides the picture, two moments which sum up alifetime, and "on how fine a needle's point that little world of passionis balanced!" I. "MEETING AT NIGHT. 1. The gray sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i' the slushy sand. 2. Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each! II. PARTING AT MORNING. Round the cape of a sudden came the sea, And the sun looked over the mountain's rim: And straight was a path of gold for him, And the need of a world of men for me. " But the largest, if not the greatest work in the volume must be soughtfor, not in the romances, properly speaking, nor in the lyrics, but inthe dramatic monologues. _Pictor Ignotus_ (Florence, 15--) is the firstof those poems about painting, into which Browning has put so much ofhis finest art. It is a sort of first faint hint or foreshadowing of_Andrea del Sarto_, perfectly individual and distinct though it is. _Pictor Ignotus_ expresses the subdued sadness of a too timid or toosensitive nature, an "unknown painter" who has dreamed of painting greatpictures and winning great fame, but who shrinks equally from theattempt and the reward: an attempt which he is too self-distrustful tomake, a reward which he is too painfully discriminating to enjoy. "So, die my pictures! surely, gently die! O youth, men praise so, --holds their praise its worth? Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry? Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth?" The monotonous "linked sweetness long drawn out" of the verses, theadmirably arranged pause, recurrence and relapse of the lines, renderthe sense and substance of the subject with singular appropriateness. _The Tomb at St. Praxed's_ (now known as _The Bishop orders his Tomb atSt. Praxed's Church_), has been finally praised by Ruskin, and the wholepassage may be here quoted:-- "Robert Browning is unerring in every sentence he writes of the Middle Ages; always vital, right, and profound; so that in the matter of art, with which we have been specially concerned, there is hardly a principle connected with the mediæval temper that he has not struck upon in those seemingly careless and too rugged lines of his. "'As here I lie In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all. Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: --Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats. And up into the aery dome where live The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk: And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. --Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, Put me where I may look at him! True peach, Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize! Draw close: that conflagration of my church --What then? So much was saved if aught were missed! My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, Drop water gently till the surface sink, And if ye find . .. Ah God, I know not, I!. .. Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, And corded up in a tight olive-frail, Some lump, ah God, of _lapis lazuli_, Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast. .. . Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, That brave Frascati-villa with its bath, So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, Like God the Father's globe on both his hands Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay, For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years: Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black-- 'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables . .. But I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine, Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! Nay, boys, ye love me--all of jasper, then! 'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve My bath must needs be left behind, alas! One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world-- And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? --That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line-- Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need. ' "I know no other piece of modern English prose or poetry in which there is so much told, as in these lines, of the Renaissance spirit, --its worldliness, inconsistency, pride, hypocrisy, ignorance of itself, love of art, of luxury, and of good Latin. It is nearly all that I have said of the central Renaissance in thirty pages of the _Stones of Venice_, put into as many lines, Browning's also being the antecedent work. "[24] This poem is the third of the iambic monologues, and, but for _ArtemisPrologizes_, the first in blank verse. I am not aware if it was writtenmuch later than _Pictor Ignotus_, but it belongs to a later manner. Scarcely at his very best, scarcely in the very greatest monologues ofthe central series of _Men and Women_, or in these only, has Browningwritten a finer or a more characteristic poem. As a study in humannature it has all the concentrated truth, all the biting and imaginativerealism, of a scene from Balzac's _Comédie Humaine_: it is as much afact and a creation. It is, moreover, as Ruskin has told us, typical notonly of a single individual but of a whole epoch; while, as a piece ofmetrical writing, it has all the originality of an innovation. IfBrowning can scarcely be said to have created this species of blankverse, half familiar, vivid with natural life, full of vigour andbeauty, rising and falling, with the unerring motion of the sea, he hascertainly adapted, perfected, and made it a new thing in his hands. Akin to _The Tomb at St. Praxed's_ on its dramatic, though dissimilar onits lyric, side, is the picturesque and terrible little poem of _TheLaboratory_[25] in which a Brinvilliers of the _Ancien Régime_ isrepresented buying poison for her rival; one of the very finest examplesof Browning's unique power of compressing and concentrating intenseemotion into a few pregnant words, each of which has its own visiblegesture and audible intonation. It is in such poems that Browning is at his best, nor is he perhapsanywhere so inimitable. The second poem under the general heading of"France and Spain, " _The Confessional_, in which a girl, half-maddenedby remorse and impotent rage, tells how a false priest induced her tobetray the political secrets of her lover, is, though vivid andeffective, not nearly so powerful and penetrating as its companionpiece. _Time's Revenges_ may perhaps be classified with these utterancesof individual passion, though in form it is more closely connected withthe poems I shall touch on next. It is a bitter and affecting littlepoem, not unlike some of the poems written many years afterwards by aremarkable and unfortunate poet, [26] who knew, in his own experience, something of what Browning happily rendered by the instinct of thedramatist only. It is a powerful and literal rendering of a certainsordid and tragic aspect of life, and is infused with that peculiar grimhumour, the laugh that chokes in a sob, which comes to men when merelamentation is a thing foregone. The octosyllabic couplets of _Time's Revenges_, as well as its similarlyrealistic treatment and striking simplicity of verse and phrase, connect it with the admirable little poem now know as _The Italian inEngland_. [27] This is a tale of an Italian patriot, who, after anunsuccessful rising, has taken refuge in England. It tells of his escapeand of how he was saved from the Austrian pursuers by the tact andfidelity of a young peasant woman. Its chief charm lies in thesimplicity and sincere directness of its telling. _The Englishman inItaly_, a poem of very different class, written in brisk and vigorousanapæsts, is a vivid and humorous picture of Italian country life. It isdelightfully gay and charming and picturesque, and is the most entirelydescriptive poem ever written by Browning. In _The Glove_ we have a newversion, from an original and characteristic standpoint, of the familiarold story known to all in its metrical version by Leigh Hunt, and morecurtly rhymed (without any very great impressiveness) by Schiller. Browning has shown elsewhere that he can tell a simple anecdote simply, but he has here seized upon the tale of the glove, not for the purposeof telling over again what Leigh Hunt had so charmingly and sufficientlytold, but in order to present the old story in a new light, to show howthe lady might have been right and the knight wrong, in spite of KingFrancis's verdict and the look of things. The tale, which is verywittily told, and contains some fine serious lines on the lion, issupposed to be related by Peter Ronsard, in the position of on-lookerand moraliser; and the character of the narrator, after the poet'smanner, is brought out by many cunning little touches. The poem iswritten almost throughout in double rhymes, in the metre and much in themanner of the _Pacchiarotto_ of thirty years later. It is worth noticingthat in the lines spoken by the lady to Ronsard, and in these alone, thedouble rhymes are replaced by single ones, thus making a distinctseverance between the earnestness of this one passage and the cynicalwit of the rest. The easy mastery of difficult rhyming which we notice in this piece isstill more marked in the strange and beautiful romance named _The Flightof the Duchess_. [28] Not even in _Pacchiarotto_ has Browning so revelledin the most outlandish and seemingly incredible combinations of sound, double and treble rhymes of equal audacity and success. There is muchdramatic appropriateness in the unconventional diction, the story beingput into the mouth of a rough old huntsman. The device of linkingfantasy with familiarity is very curious, and the effect is original inthe extreme. The poem is a fusion of many elements, and has all thevarying colour of a romantic comedy. Contrast the intensely picturesqueopening landscape, the cleverly minute description of the gipsies andtheir trades, the humorous naturalness of the Duke's mediævalmasquerading as related by his unsympathising forester, and, in a higherkey the beautiful figure of the young Duchess, and the serene, mysticalsplendour of the old gipsy's chant. Two poems yet remain to be named, and two of the most perfect in thebook. The little parable poem of _The Boy and the Angel_ is one of themost simply beautiful, yet deeply earnest, of Browning's lyrical poems. It is a parable in which "the allegorical intent seems to be shed by thestory, like a natural perfume from a flower;" and it preaches a sermonon contentment and the doing of God's will such as no theologian couldbetter. _Saul_ (which I shall mention here, though only the first part, sections one to nine, appeared in _Dramatic Romances_, sections ten tonineteen being first published in _Men and Women_) has been by someconsidered almost or quite Browning's finest poem. And indeed it seemsto unite almost the whole of his qualities as a poet in perfect fusion. Music, song, the beauty of nature, the joy of life, the glory andgreatness of man, the might of Love, human and divine: all these are setto an orchestral accompaniment of continuous harmony, now hushed as thewind among the woods at evening, now strong and sonorous as thestorm-wind battling with the mountain-pine. _Saul_ is a vision of life, of time and of eternity, told in song as sublime as the vision issteadfast. The choral symphony of earth and all her voices with whichthe poem concludes is at once the easiest passage to separate from itscontext, and (if we may dare, in such a matter, to choose) one, atleast, of the very greatest of all. "I know not too well how I found my way home in the night. There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right, Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware: I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly there, As a runner beset by the populace famished for news-- Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews; And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not, For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressed All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest, Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest. Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth-- Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth; In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of the hills; In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills; In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill That rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with awe: E'en the serpent that slid away silent, --he felt the new law. The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers; The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine bowers: And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low, With their obstinate, all but hushed voices--' E'en so, it is so!'" FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 24: _Modern Painters_, Vol. IV. , pp. 377-79. ] [Footnote 25: It is interesting to remember that Rossetti's firstwater-colour was an illustration of this poem, and has for subject andtitle the line, "Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?"] [Footnote 26: James Thomson, the writer of _The City of DreadfulNight_. ] [Footnote 27: "Mr Browning is proud to remember, " we are told by MrsOrr, "that Mazzini informed him he had read this poem to certain of hisfellow exiles in England to show how an Englishman could sympathise withthem. "--_Handbook_ 2nd ed. , p. 306. ] [Footnote 28: Some curious particulars are recorded in reference to thecomposition of this poem. "_The Flight of the Duchess_ took its risefrom a line--'Following the Queen of the Gipsies, O!' the burden of asong which the poet, when a boy, heard a woman singing on a Guy Fawkes'day. The poem was written in two parts, of which the first was publishedin _Hood's Magazine_, April, 1845, and contained only nine sections. AsMr Browning was writing it, he was interrupted by the arrival of afriend on some important business, which drove all thoughts of theDuchess and the scheme of her story out of the poet's head. But somemonths after the publication of the first part, when he was staying atBettisfield Park, in Shropshire, a guest, speaking of early winter, said, 'The deer had already to break the ice in the pond. ' On this afancy struck the poet, and, on returning home, he worked it up into theconclusion of _The Flight of the Duchess_ as it now stands. "--_Academy_, May 5, 1883. ] 12. A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. [Published in 1846 (with _Luria_) as No. VIII. Of _Bells and Pomegranates_ (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. IV. , pp. 257-302). Acted by the Stage Society at the Court Theatre, March 13, 1904. ] The development of Browning's genius, as shown in his plays, has beentouched on in dealing with _Colombe's Birthday_. That play, as Iintimated, shows the first token of transition from the comparativelyconventional dramatic style of the early plays to the completelyunconventional style of the later ones, which in turn lead almostimperceptibly to the final pausing-place of the monologue. From _A Blotin the 'Scutcheon_ to _Colombe's Birthday_ is a step; from _Colombe'sBirthday_ to _A Soul's Tragedy_ and _Luria_ another step; and in theselast we are not more than another step from _Men and Women_ and itssuccessors. In _A Soul's Tragedy_ the action is all internalized. Outward action there is, and of a sufficiently picturesque nature; buthere, considerably more than even in _Colombe's Birthday_, the interestis withdrawn from the action, as action, and concentrated on a singlecharacter, whose "soul's tragedy, " not his mere worldly fortunes, strange and significant as these are, we are called on to contemplate. Chiappino fills and possesses the scene. The other characters arecarefully subordinated, and the impression we receive is not unlike thatreceived from one of Browning's most vivid and complete monologues, withits carefully placed apparatus of sidelights. The character of Chiappino is that of a Djabal degenerated; he is thesecond of Browning's delineations of the half-deceived andhalf-deceiving nature, the moral hybrid. Chiappino comes before us as amuch-professing yet apparently little-performing person, moody andcomplaining, envious of his friend Luitolfo's better fortune, a souredman and a discontented patriot. But he is quite sure of his own completeprobity. He declaims bitterly against his fellow-townsmen, his friend, and the woman whom he loves; all of whom, he asseverates, treat himunjustly, and as he never could, by any possibility, treat them. Whilehe is thus protesting to Eulalia, his friend's betrothed, to whom forthe first time he avows his own love, a trial is at hand, and nearerthan he or we expect. Luitolfo rushes in. He has gone to the Provost'spalace to intercede on behalf of his banished friend, and in a moment ofwrath has struck and, as he thinks, killed the Provost: the guards areafter him, and he is lost. Is this the moment of test? Apparently; andapparently Chiappino proves his nobility. For, with truly heroicunselfishness, he exchanges dress with his friend, induces him, in asort of stupefaction of terror, to escape, and remains in his place, "todie for him. " But the harder test has yet to come. Instead of theProvost's guards, it is the enthusiastic populace that bursts in uponhim, hailing him as saviour and liberator. The people have risen inrevolt, the guards have fled, and the people call on the striker of theblow to be their leader. Chiappino says nothing. "Chiappino?" saysEulalia, questioning him with her eyes. "Yes, I understand, " he rejoins, "You think I should have promptlier disowned This deed with its strange unforeseen success, In favour of Luitolfo. But the peril, So far from ended, hardly seems begun. To-morrow, rather, when a calm succeeds, We easily shall make him full amends: And meantime--if we save them as they pray, And justify the deed by its effects? _Eu. _ You would, for worlds, you had denied at once. _Ch. _ I know my own intention, be assured! All's well. Precede us, fellow-citizens!" Thus ends act first, "being what was called the poetry of Chiappino'slife;" and act second, "its prose, " opens after a supposed interval of amonth. The second act exhibits, in very humorous prose, the gradual andinevitable deterioration which the silence and the deception havebrought about. Drawn on and on, upon his own lines of thought andconduct, by Ogniben, the Pope's legate, who has come to put down therevolt by diplomatic measures, Chiappino denies his politicalprinciples, finding a democratic rule not at all so necessary when theprovostship may perhaps fall to himself; denies his love, for his viewsof love are, he finds, widened; and finally, denies his friend, to theextent of arguing that the very blow which, as struck by Luitolfo, hasbeen the factor of his fortune, was practically, because logically, hisown. Ogniben now agrees to invest him with the Provost's office, makingat the same time the stipulation that the actual assailant of theProvost shall suffer the proper penalty. Hereupon Luitolfo comes forwardand avows the deed. Ogniben orders him to his house; Chiappino "goesaside for a time;" "and now, " concludes the legate, addressing thepeople, "give thanks to God, the keys of the Provost's palace to me, andyourselves to profitable meditation at home. " Besides Chiappino, there are three other characters, who serve to setoff the main figure. Eulalia is an observer, Luitolfo a foil, Ogniben atouchstone. Eulalia and Luitolfo, though sufficiently worked out fortheir several purposes, are only sketches, the latter perhaps moredistinctly outlined than the former, and serving admirably as a contrastto Chiappino. But Ogniben, who does so much of the talking in the secondact, is a really memorable figure. His portrait is painted with moreprominent effect, for his part in the play is to draw Chiappino out, andto confound him with his own weapons: "I help men, " as he says, "tocarry out their own principles; if they please to say two and two makefive, I assent, so they will but go on and say, four and four make ten. "His shrewd Socratic prose is delightfully wise and witty. This prose, the only dramatic prose written by Browning, with the exception of thatin _Pippa Passes_, is, in its way, almost as good as the poetry: keen, vivacious, full-thoughted, picturesque, and singularly original. Forinstance, Chiappino is expressing his longing for a woman who couldunderstand, as he says, the whole of him, to whom he could reveal alikehis strength and weakness. "Ah, my friend, " rejoins Ogniben, "wish for nothing so foolish! Worship your love, give her the best of you to see; be to her like the western lands (they bring us such strange news of) to the Spanish Court; send her only your lumps of gold, fans of feathers, your spirit-like birds, and fruits and gems. So shall you, what is unseen of you, be supposed altogether a paradise by her, --as these western lands by Spain: though I warrant there is filth, red baboons, ugly reptiles and squalor enough, which they bring Spain as few samples of as possible. " There is in all this prose, lengthy as it is, the true dramatic note, arecognisable tone of talk. But _A Soul's Tragedy_ is for the study, notthe stage. 13. LURIA: A Tragedy in Five Acts. [Published in 1846 (with _A Soul's Tragedy_) as No. VIII of _Bells and Pomegranates_ (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. VI. Pp. 205-289). The action takes place from morning to night of one day]. The action and interest in _Luria_ are somewhat less internalised thanin _A Soul's Tragedy_, but the drama is in form a still nearer approachto monologue. Many of the speeches are so long as to be almostmonologues in themselves; and the whole play is manifestly written(unlike the other plays, except its immediate predecessor, or rather itscontemporary) with no thought of the stage. The poet is retreatingfarther and farther from the glare of the footlights; he is writingafter his own fancy, and not as his audience or his manager would wishhim to write. None of Browning's plays is so full of large heroicspeech, of deep philosophy, of choice illustration; seldom has hewritten nobler poetry. There is not the intense and throbbing humanityof _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_; the characters are not so simply and sosurely living men and women; but in the grave and lofty speech andidealised characters of _Luria_ we have something new, and somethinggreat as well. The central figure is Luria himself; but the other characters are not socarefully and completely subordinated to him as are those in _A Soul'sTragedy_ to Chiappino. Luria is one of the noblest and most heroicfigures in Browning's works. A Moor, with the instincts of the East andthe culture of the West, he presents a racial problem which is verysubtly handled; while his natural nobility and confidence are no lesssubtly set off against the Italian craft of his surroundings. Thespectacle he presents is impressive and pathetic. An alien, with no bondto Florence save that of his inalienable love, he has led her forcesagainst the Pisans, and saved her. Looking for no reward but thegrateful love of the people he has saved, he meets instead with thebasest ingratitude. While he is fighting and conquering for her, Florence, at home, is trying him for his life on a charge of treachery:a charge which has no foundation but in the base natures of hisaccusers, who know that he might, and therefore suspect that he will, turn to evil purpose his military successes and the power which theyhave gained him over the army. Generals of their own blood have betrayedthem: how much more will this barbarian? Luria learns of the treacheryof his allies in time to take revenge, he is urged to take revenge, andthe means are placed in his hands, but his nobler nature conquers, andthe punishment he deals on Florence is the punishment of his ownvoluntary death. The strength of love which restrains him from punishingthe ungrateful city forbids him to live when his only love has provedfalse, his only link to life has gone. But before he dies he has thesatisfaction of seeing the late repentance and regret of every enemy, whether secret schemer or open foe. "Luria goes not poorly forth. If we could wait! The only fault's with time; All men become good creatures: but so slow!" In the pathos of his life and death Luria may remind us of anotherunrequited lover, Strafford, whose devotion to his king gains the samereward as Luria's devotion to his adopted country. In Luria's faithful friend and comrade Husain we have a contrastedpicture of the Moor untouched by alien culture. The instincts of the oneare dulled or disturbed by his Western wisdom and experience; Husainstill keeps the old instincts and the unmixed nature, and still speaksthe fervid and highly-coloured Eastern speech. But while Husain is tosome extent a contrast with Luria, Luria and Husain together form aninfinitely stronger contrast with the group of Italians. Braccio, theFlorentine Commissary, is an admirable study of Italian subtlety andcraft. Only a writer with Browning's special knowledge and sympathiescould have conceived and executed so acute and true a picture of theItalian temper of the time, a temper manifested with singularappropriateness by the city of Machiavelli. Braccio is the chief schemeragainst Luria, and he schemes, not from any real ill-will, but from thediplomatic distrust of a too cautious and too suspicious patriot. Domizia, the vengeful Florentine lady, plotting against Florence withthe tireless patience of an unforgetting wrong, is also a representativesketch, though not so clearly and firmly outlined as a character. Puccio, Luria's chief officer, once his commander, the simple fightingsoldier, discontented but honest, unswervingly loyal to Florence, butlittle by little aware of and aggrieved at the wrong done to Luria, is areally touching conception. Tiburzio, the Pisan leader, is yet finer inhis perfect chivalry of service to his foe. Nothing could be more noblyplanned than the first meeting, and indeed the whole relations, of thesemagnanimous and worthy opponents, Luria and Tiburzio. There is acertain intellectual fascination for Browning in the analysis of meannatures and dubious motives, but of no contemporary can it be morejustly said that he rises always and easily to the height and at thetouch of an heroic action or of a noble nature. 14. CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY: A Poem. [Published in 1850 (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. V. , pp. 207-307). Written in Florence. ] _Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day_ is the chief work in which Browning dealsdirectly and primarily with the subject of Christianity and thereligious beliefs of the age. Both the poems which appear under thistitle are studies of religious life and thought, the first more in thenarrative and critical way, the second rather in relation to individualexperience. Browning's position towards Christianity is perhaps unique. He has been described as "the latest extant Defender of the Faith, " butthe manner of his belief and the modes of his defence are as littleconventional as any other of his qualities. Beyond all question the mostdeeply religious poet of our day, perhaps the greatest religious poet wehave ever had, Browning has never written anything in the ordinary styleof religious verse, the style of Herbert, of Keble, of the hymn-writers. The spirit which runs through all his work is more often felt as aninfluence than manifested in any concrete and separate form. _Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day_, _La Saisiaz_ and _Ferishtah's Fancies_are the only prominent exceptions to this rule. _Christmas-Eve_ is a study or vision of the religious life of the time. It professes to be the narrative of a strange experience lived throughon a Christmas-Eve ("whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether outof the body, ") in a little dissenting chapel on the outskirts of acountry town, in St. Peter's at Rome, and at an agnostic lecture-hall inGöttingen. The vivid humorous sketch of the little chapel and its flockis like a bit of Dickens at his best. Equally good, in another kind, isthe picture of the Professor and his audience at Göttingen, with itssearching and scathing irony of merciless logic, and the tender andsubtle discrimination of its judgment, sympathetic with the good faithof the honest thinker. Different again in style, and higher still inpoetry, is the glowing description of the Basilica and its sensuousfervour of ceremonial; and higher and greater yet the picture of thedouble lunar rainbow merging into that of the vision: a piece ofimaginative work never perhaps exceeded in spiritual exaltation andconcordant splendour of song in the whole work of the poet, thoughequalled, if not exceeded, by the more terrible vision of judgment whichwill be cited later from _Easter-Day_. "For lo, what think you? suddenly The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky Received at once the full fruition Of the moon's consummate apparition. The black cloud-barricade was riven, Ruined beneath her feet, and driven Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless, North and South and East lay ready For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless, Sprang across them and stood steady. 'Twas a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect, From heaven to heaven extending, perfect As the mother-moon's self, full in face. It rose, distinctly at the base With its seven proper colours chorded, Which still, in the rising, were compressed, Until at last they coalesced, And supreme the spectral creature lorded In a triumph of purest white, -- Above which intervened the night. But above night too, like only the next, The second of a wondrous sequence, Reaching in rare and rarer frequence, Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed, Another rainbow rose, a mightier, Fainter, flushier, and flightier, -- Rapture dying along its verge. Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge, Whose, from the straining topmost dark, On to the keystone of that arc?" At moments of such energy and ecstasy as this, all that there is in thepoet of mere worldly wisdom and intellectual ingenuity drops off, orrather is consumed to a white glow in the intense flame of triumphantand over-mastering inspiration. The piercing light cast in the poem on the representative creeds of theage is well worthy of serious consideration, from an ethical as well asfrom a poetical point of view. No nobler lesson of religious tolerance, united with religious earnestness, has been preached in our day. Nothingcould be more novel and audacious than the union here attempted andachieved of colloquial realism and grotesque humour with imaginativevision and solemn earnestness. The style and metre vary with the mood. Where the narrative is serious the lines are regular and careful, theyshrink to their smallest structural limit, and the rhymes are chieflysingle and simple. Where it becomes humorous, the rhythm lengthens outits elastic syllables to the full extent, and swings and sways, joltsand rushes; the rhymes fall double and triple and break out into audiblelaughter. _Easter-Day_, like its predecessor, is written in lines of four beatseach, but the general effect is totally dissimilar. Here the verse isreduced to its barest constituents; every line is, syllabically as wellas accentually, of equal length; and the lines run in pairs, without onedouble rhyme throughout. The tone and contents of the two poems (thoughalso, in a sense, derived from the same elements) are in singularcontrast. _Easter-Day_, despite a momentary touch or glimmer, here andthere, of grave humour, is thoroughly serious in manner and continuouslysolemn in subject. The burden of the poem is stated in its first twolines:-- "How very hard it is to be A Christian!" Up to the thirteenth section it is an argument between the speaker, whois possessed of much faith but has a distinct tendency to pessimism, andanother, who has a sceptical but also a hopeful turn of mind, respectingChristianity, its credibility, and how its doctrines fit human natureand affect the conduct of life. After keen discussion the argumentreturns to the lament, common to both disputants: how very hard it is tobe, practically, a Christian. The speaker then relates, on account ofits bearing on the discussion, an experience (or vision, as he leaves usfree to imagine) which once came to him. Three years before, on anEaster-Eve, he was crossing the common where stood the chapel referredto by their friend (the poem thus, and thus only, links on to_Christmas-Eve_. ) As he walked along, musingly, he asked himself whatthe Faith really was to him; what would be his fate, for instance, if hefell dead that moment? And he said to himself, jestingly enough, whyshould not the judgment-day dawn now, on Easter-morn? "And as I said This nonsense, throwing back my head With light complacent laugh, I found Suddenly all the midnight round One fire. The dome of heaven had stood As made up of a multitude Of handbreadth cloudlets, one vast rack Of ripples infinite and black, From sky to sky. Sudden there went, Like horror and astonishment, A fierce vindictive scribble of red Quick flame across, as if one said (The angry scribe of Judgment) 'There-- Burn it!' And straight I was aware That the whole ribwork round, minute Cloud touching cloud beyond compute, Was tinted, each with its own spot Of burning at the core, till clot Jammed against clot, and spilt its fire Over all heaven, which 'gan suspire As fanned to measure equable, -- Just so great conflagrations kill Night overhead, and rise and sink, Reflected. Now the fire would shrink And wither off the blasted face Of heaven, and I distinct might trace The sharp black ridgy outlines left Unburned like network--then, each cleft The fire had been sucked back into, Regorged, and out its surging flew Furiously, and night writhed inflamed, Till, tolerating to be tamed No longer, certain rays world-wide Shot downwardly. On every side, Caught past escape, the earth was lit; As if a dragon's nostril split And all his famished ire o'erflowed; Then as he winced at his lord's goad, Back he inhaled: whereat I found The clouds into vast pillars bound, Based on the corners of the earth Propping the skies at top: a dearth Of fire i' the violet intervals, Leaving exposed the utmost walls Of time, about to tumble in And end the world. " Judgment, according to the vision, is now over. He who has chosen earthrather than heaven, is allowed his choice: earth is his for ever. Howthe walls of the world shrink and narrow, how the glow fades off fromthe beauty of nature, of art, of science; how the judged soul prays foronly a chance of love, only a hope of ultimate heaven; how the ban istaken off him, and he wakes from the vision on the grey plain asEaster-morn is breaking: this, with its profound and convincing morallessons, is told, without a didactic note, in poetry of sustainedsplendour. In sheer height of imagination _Easter-Day_ could scarcelyexceed the greatest parts of _Christmas-Eve_, but it preserves a levelof more equable splendour, it is a work of art of more chastenedworkmanship. In its ethical aspect it is also of special importance, for, while the poet does not necessarily identify himself in allrespects with the seer of the vision, the poem enshrines some ofBrowning's deepest convictions on life and religion. 15. MEN AND WOMEN. [Published in 1855, in 2 vols. ; now dispersed in Vols. IV. , V. And VI. Of _Poetical Works_, 1889. ] The series of _Men and Women_, fifty-one poems in number, representsBrowning's genius at its ripe maturity, its highest uniform level. Inthis central work of his career, every element of his genius is equallydeveloped, and the whole brought into a perfection of harmony neverbefore or since attained. There is no lack, there is no excess. I do notsay that the poet has not touched higher heights since, or perhapsbefore; but that he has never since nor before maintained himself solong on so high a height, never exhibited the rounded perfection, theimagination, thought, passion, melody, variety, all fused in one, neverproduced a single work or group at once so great and so various, admits, I think, of little doubt. Here are fifty poems, every one of which, inits way, is a masterpiece; and the range is such as no other Englishpoet has perhaps ever covered in a single book of miscellaneous poems. In _Men and Women_ Browning's special instrument, the monologue, isbrought to perfection. Such monologues as _Andrea del Sarto_ or the_Epistle of Karshish_ never have been, and probably never will besurpassed, on their own ground, after their own order. To conceive adrama, to present every side and phase and feature of it from one pointof view, to condense all its potentialities of action, all itssignificance and import, into some few hundred lines, this has been doneby but one poet, and nowhere with such absolute perfection as here. Evenwhen dealing with a single emotion, Browning usually crystallizes itinto a choice situation; and almost every poem in the series, down tothe smallest lyric, is essentially a dramatic monologue. But perhaps themost striking instances of the form and method, and, with the littledrama of _In a Balcony_, the principal poems in the collection, are thefive blank verse pieces, _Andrea del Sarto_, _Fra Lippo Lippi_, _Cleon_, _Karshish_, and _Bishop Blougram_. Each is a masterpiece of poetry. Eachis in itself a drama, and contains the essence of a life, condensed intoa single episode, or indicated in a combination of discourse, conversation, argument, soliloquy, reminiscence. Each, besides being thepresentation of a character, moves in a certain atmosphere of its own, philosophical, ethical, or artistic. _Andrea del Sarto_ and _Fra LippoLippi_ deal with art. _Cleon_ and _Karshish_, in a sense companionpoems, are concerned, each secondarily, with the arts and physicalsciences, primarily with the attitude of the Western and Eastern worldswhen confronted with the problem of the Gospel of Christ. _BishopBlougram_ is modern, ecclesiastical and argumentative. But howeverdifferent in form and spirit, however diverse in _milieu_, each is alikethe record of a typical soul at a typical moment. _Andrea del Sarto_ is a "translation into song" of the picture known as"Andrea del Sarto and his Wife, " in the Pitti Palace at Florence. Thestory of Andrea del Sarto is told by Vasari, in one of the best known ofhis _Lives_: how the painter, who at one time seemed as if he might havecompeted with Raphael, was ruined, as artist and as man, by hisbeautiful, soulless wife, the fatal Lucrezia del Fede; and how, led andlured by her, he outraged his conscience, lowered his ideal, and, losingall heart and hope, sank into the cold correctness, the unerringfluency, the uniform, melancholy repetition of a single type, hiswife's, which distinguish his later works. Browning has taken his factsfrom Vasari, and he has taken them quite literally. But what a change, what a transformation and transfiguration! Instead of a piece of prosebiography and criticism, we have (in Mr. Swinburne's appropriate words)"the whole man raised up and reclothed with flesh. " No more absolutelycreative work has been done in our days; few more beautiful and patheticpoems written. The mood of sad, wistful, hopeless mournfulness ofresignation which the poem expresses, is a somewhat rare one withBrowning's vivid and vivacious genius. It is an autumn twilight piece. "A common greyness silvers everything, -- All in a twilight, you and I alike --You, at the point of your first pride in me (That's gone, you know), --but I, at every point; My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. There's the bell clinking from the chapel top; That length of convent-wall across the way Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside; The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease, And autumn grows, autumn in everything. Eh, the whole seems to fall into a shape As if I saw alike my work and self And all that I was born to be and do, A twilight-piece. " The very movement of the lines, their tone and touch, contribute to theeffect. A single clear impression is made to result from an infinity ofminute, scarcely appreciable touches: how fine these touches are, howclear the impression, can only be hinted at in words, can be realisedonly by a loving and scrupulous study. Whether the picture which suggested the poem is an authentic work ofAndrea, or whether, as experts have now agreed, it is a work by anunknown artist representing an imaginary man and woman is, of course, ofno possible consequence in connection with the poem. Nor is it of anymore importance that the Andrea of Vasari is in all probability not thereal Andrea. Historic fact has nothing to do with poetry: it is merematerial, the quarry of ideas; and the real truth of Browning's portraitof Andrea would no more be impugned by the establishment of Vasari'sinaccuracy, than the real truth of Shakespeare's portrait of Macbeth bythe proof of the untrustworthiness of Holinshed. A greater contrast, in every respect, than that between _Andrea delSarto_ and _Fra Lippo Lippi_ can scarcely be conceived. The story ofFilippo Lippi[29] is taken, like that of Andrea, from Vasari's _Lives_:it is taken as literally, it is made as authentically living, and, inits own more difficult way, it is no less genuine a poem. The jolly, jovial tone of the poem, its hearty humour and high spirits, and thebreathless rush and hurry of the verse, render the scapegrace painter tothe life. Not less in keeping is the situation in which the unsaintlyfriar is introduced: caught by the civic guard, past midnight, in anequivocal neighbourhood, quite able and ready, however, to fraternisewith his captors, and pour forth, rough and ready, his ideas andadventures. A passage from the poem placed side by side with an extractfrom Vasari will show how faithfully the record of Fra Lippo's life isfollowed, and it will also show, in some small measure, the essentialnewness, the vividness and revelation of the poet's version. "By the death of his father, " writes Vasari, [30] "he was left a friendless orphan at the age of two years, his mother also having died shortly after his birth. The child was for some time under the care of a certain Mona Lapaccia, his aunt, the sister of his father, who brought him up with great difficulty until he had attained his eighth year, when, being no longer able to support the burden of his maintenance, she placed him in the above-named convent of the Carmelites. " Here is Browning's version:-- "I was a baby when my mother died And father died and left me in the street. I starved there, God knows how, a year or two On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks, Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day, My stomach being empty as your hat, The wind doubled me up and down I went. Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand, (Its fellow was a stinger as I knew) And so along the wall, over the bridge, By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there, While I stood munching my first bread that month: 'So, boy, you're minded, ' quoth the good fat father, Wiping his own mouth, 'twas refection-time, -- 'To quit this very miserable world?'" But not only has Browning given a wonderfully realistic portrait of theman; a man to whom life in its fulness was the only joy, a true type ofthe Renaissance spirit, metamorphosed by ironic fate into a monk; hehas luminously indicated the true end and aim of art and the falseasceticism of so-called "religious" art, in the characteristic commentsand confessions of an innovator in the traditions of religious painting. _Cleon_ is prefaced by the text "As certain also of your own poets havesaid" (_Acts_, xvii. 28), and is supposed to be a letter from one of thepoets to whom St. Paul refers, addressed to Protus, an imaginary"Tyrant, " whose wondering admiration of Cleon's many-sided culture hasdrawn him to one who is at once poet, painter, sculptor, musician andphilosopher. Compared with such poems as _Andrea del Sarto_, there islittle realisable detail in the course of the calm argument orstatement, but I scarcely see how the temper of the time, among itschoicest spirits (the time of classic decadence, of barren culture, offruitless philosophy) could well have been more finely shadowed forth. The quality of the versification, unique here as in every one of thefive great poems, is perfectly adapted to the subject. The slow sweep ofthe verse, its stately melody, its large, clear, classic harmony, enableus to receive the right impression as admirably as the other qualities, already pointed out, enable us to feel the resigned sadness of Andreaand the jovial gusto of Lippo. In _Cleon_ we have a historical picture, imaginary indeed, but typical. It reveals or records the religiousfeeling of the pagan world at the time of the coming of Christ; itssadness, dissatisfaction and expectancy, and the failure of its wisdomto fathom the truths of the new Gospel. In _An Epistle containing the strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician_, we have perhaps a yet more subtle delineation of acharacter similar by contrast. Cleon is a type of the Western andsceptical, Karshish of the Eastern and believing, attitude of mind; theone repellent, the other absorbent, of new things offered for belief. Karshish, "the picker up of learning's crumbs, " writes from Syria to hismaster at home, "Abib, all sagacious in our art, " concerning a man whosesingular case has fascinated him, one Lazarus of Bethany. There are fewmore lifelike and subtly natural narratives in Browning's poetry; fewmore absolutely interpenetrated by the finest imaginative sympathy. Thescientific caution and technicality of the Arab physician, his carefulattempt at a statement of the case from a purely medical point of view, his self-reproachful uneasiness at the strange interest which the man'sstory has caused in him, the strange credulity which he cannot keep fromencroaching on his mind: all this is rendered with a matchless delicacyand accuracy of touch and interpretation. Nor can anything be finer thanthe representation of Lazarus after his resurrection, a representationwhich has significance beyond its literal sense, and points a moraloften enforced by the poet: that doubt and mystery, in life and inreligion alike, are necessary, and indeed alone make either life orreligion possible. The special point in the tale of Lazarus which hasimpressed Karshish with so intense an interest is that "This man so cured regards the curer, then, As--God forgive me! who but God himself, Creator and sustainer of the world, That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile! --'Sayeth that such an one was born and lived, Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house, Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know, And yet was . .. What I said nor choose repeat, And must have so avouched himself, in fact, In hearing of this very Lazarus Who saith--but why all this of what he saith? Why write of trivial matters, things of price Calling at every moment for remark? I noticed on the margin of a pool Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort, Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!" How perfectly the attitude of the Arab sage is here given, drawn, against himself, to a conviction which he feels ashamed to entertain. Asin _Cleon_ the very pith of the letter is contained in the postscript, so, after the apologies and farewell greetings of Karshish, the thoughtwhich all the time has been burning within him bursts into flame. "The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think? So, the All-Great were the All-Loving too-- So, through the thunder comes a human voice Saying, 'O heart I made, a heart beats here! Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself! Thou hast no power nor may'st conceive of mine, But love I gave thee, with myself to love, And thou must love me who have died for thee!' The madman saith He said so: it is strange. " So far, the monologues are single-minded, and represent the sincere andfrank expression of the thoughts and opinions of their speakers. _BishopBlougram's Apology_ introduces a new element, the casuistical. TheBishop's Apology is, literally, an _apologia_, a speech in defence ofhimself, in which the aim is to confound an adversary, not to state thetruth. This form, intellectual rather than emotional, argumentative morethan dramatic, has had, from this time forward, a considerableattraction for Browning, and it is responsible for some of his hardestwork, such as _Fifine at the Fair_ and _Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau_. _Bishop Blougram's Apology_ represents the after-dinner talk of a greatRoman Catholic dignitary. It is addressed to Mr. Gigadibs, a young andshallow literary man, who poses as free-thinker and as critic of theBishop's position. Mr. Gigadibs' implied opinion is, that a man ofBlougram's intellect and broad views cannot, with honesty, hold andteach Roman Catholic dogma; that his position is anomalous and unideal. Blougram retorts with his voluminous and astonishingly clever "apology. "In this apology we trace three distinct elements. First, there is asubstratum of truth, truth, that is, in the abstract; then there is anapplication of these true principles to his own case and conduct, anapplication which is thoroughly unjustifiable-- "He said true things, but called them by wrong names--" but which serves for an ingenious, and apparently, as regards Gigadibs, a triumphant, defence; finally, there is the real personal element, theman as he is. We are quite at liberty to suppose, even if we were notbound to suppose, that after all Blougram's defence is merely or partlyironical, and that he is not the contemptible creature he would be if wetook him quite seriously. It is no secret that Blougram himself is, inthe main, modelled after and meant for Cardinal Wiseman, who, it issaid, was the writer of a good-humoured review of the poem in theCatholic journal, _The Rambler_ (January, 1856). The supple, nervousstrength and swiftness of the blank verse is, in its way, as fine as thequalities we have observed in the other monologues: there is a splendid"go" in it, a vast capacity for business; the verse is literally alivewith meaning, packed with thought, instinct with wit and irony; and notthis only, but starred with passages of exquisite charm, such as that on"how some actor played Death on the stage, " or that more famous one:-- "Just when we're safest, there's a sunset-touch, A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, A chorus-ending from Euripides, -- And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears As old and new at once as nature's self, To rap and knock and enter in our soul, Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring Round the ancient idol, on his base again, -- The grand Perhaps!" At least six of the poems contained in _Men and Women_ deal withpainting and music. But while four of these seem to fall into one group, the remaining two, _Andrea del Sarto_ and _Fra Lippo Lippi_, properlybelong, though themselves the greatest of the art-poems as art-poems, tothe group of monodramas already noticed. But _Old Pictures in Florence_, _The Guardian Angel_, _Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha_ and _A Toccata ofGaluppi's_, are chiefly and distinctively notable in their relation toart, or to some special picture or piece of music. _The Guardian Angel_ is a "translation into song" of Guercino's pictureof that name (_L'Angelo Custode_). It is addressed to "Waring, " and waswritten by Browning at Ancona, after visiting with Mrs. Browning thechurch of San Agostino at Fano, which contains the picture. Thistouching and sympathetic little poem is Browning's only detaileddescription of a picture; but it is of more interest as an expression ofpersonal feeling. Something in its sentiment has made it one of the mostpopular of his poems. _Old Pictures in Florence_ is a humorous andearnest moralising on the meaning and mission of art and the rights andwrongs of artists, suggested by some of the old pictures in Florence. Itcontains perhaps the most complete and particular statement ofBrowning's artistic principles that we have anywhere in his work, aswell as a very noble and energetic outburst of indignant enthusiasm onbehalf of the "early masters, " the lesser older men whom the world slursover or forgets. The principles which Browning imputes to the earlypainters may be applied to poetry as well as to art. Very characteristicand significant is the insistence on the deeper value of life, of soul, than of mere expression or technique, or even of mere unbreathingbeauty. _Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha_ is the humorous soliloquy of animaginary organist over a fugue in F minor by an imaginary composer, named in the title. It is a mingling of music and moralising. The famousdescription of a fugue, and the personification of its five voices, is abrilliantly ingenious _tour de force_; and the rough humour is quite inkeeping with the _dramatis persona_. In complete contrast to _MasterHugues_ is _A Toccata of Galuppi's_, [31] one of the daintiest, mostmusical, most witching and haunting of Browning's poems, certainly oneof his masterpieces as a lyric poet. It is a vision of Venice evokedfrom the shadowy Toccata, a vision of that delicious, brilliant, evanescent, worldly life, when "Balls and masks began at midnight, burning ever to midday, " and the lover and his lady would break off their talk to listen whileGaluppi "Sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord. " But "the eternal note of sadness" soon creeps in. "Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned: 'Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned. * * * * * Dust and ashes!' So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold. Dear dead women, with such hair, too--what's become of all the gold Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old. " In this poem Browning has called up before us the whole aspect ofVenetian life in the eighteenth century. In three other poems, among themost remarkable that he has ever written, _A Grammarian's Funeral_, _TheHeretic's Tragedy_ and _Holy-Cross Day_, he has realised and representedthe life and temper of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. _AGrammarian's Funeral_, "shortly after the Revival of Learning inEurope, " gives the nobler spirit of the earlier pioneers of theRenaissance, men like Cyriac of Ancona and Filelfo, devoted pedants whobroke ground in the restoration to the modern world of the civilisationand learning of ancient Greece and Rome. It gives this, the nobler andearlier spirit, as finely as _The Tomb at St. Praxed's_ gives the laterand grosser. In Browning's hands the figure of the old grammarianbecomes heroic. "He settled _Hoti's_ business, " true; but he didsomething more than that. It is the spirit in which the work is done, rather than the special work itself, here only relatively important, which is glorified. Is it too much to say that this is the noblest ofall requiems ever chanted over the grave of the scholar? "Here's the top peak; the multitude below Live, for they can, there: This man decided not to Live but Know-- Bury this man there. Here--here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, Lightnings are loosened, Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm, Peace let the dew send! Lofty designs must close in like effects: Loftily lying, Leave him--still loftier than the world suspects, Living or dying. " The union of humour with intense seriousness, of the grotesque with thestately, is one that only Browning could have compassed, and the effectis singularly appropriate. As the disciples of the old humanist beartheir dead master up to his grave on the mountain-top, chanting theirdirge and eulogy, the lines of the poem seem actually to move to thesteady climbing rhythm of their feet. _The Heretic's Tragedy: a Middle-Age Interlude_, is described by theauthor as "a glimpse from the burning of Jacques du Bourg-Molay [lastGrand-Master of the Templars], A. D. 1314, as distorted by the refractionfrom Flemish brain to brain during the course of a couple of centuries. "Of all Browning's mediæval poems this is perhaps the greatest, as it iscertainly the most original, the most astonishing. Its special "note" isindescribable, for there is nothing with which we can compare it. If Isay that it is perhaps the finest example in English poetry of the puregrotesque, I shall fail to interpret it aright to those who think of thegrotesque as a synonym for the ugly and debased. If I call it fantastic, I shall do it less than justice in suggesting a certain lightness andflimsiness which are quite alien to its profound seriousness, aseriousness which touches on sublimity. Browning's power of sculpturingsingle situations is seldom shown in finer relief than in those poems inwhich he has seized upon some "occult eccentricity of history" or oflegend, like this of _The Heretic's Tragedy_, or that in _Holy-CrossDay_, fashioning it into some quaint, curt, tragi-comic form. _Holy-Cross Day_ expresses the feelings of the Jews, who were forced onthis day (the 14th September) to attend an annual Christian sermon inRome. A deliciously naïve extract from an imaginary _Diary by theBishop's Secretary_, 1600, first sets forth the orthodox view of thecase; then the poem tells us "what the Jews really said. " Nothing moreaudaciously or more sardonically mirthful was ever written than thefirst part of this poem, with its "Fee, faw, fum! bubble and squeak! Blessedest Thursday's the fat of the week;" while the sudden transition to the sublime and steadfast Song of Deathof Rabbi ben Ezra is an effect worthy of Heine: more than worthy. Heinewould inevitably have put his tongue in his cheek again at the end. With the three great mediæval poems should be named the slighter sketchof _Protus_. The first and last lines, describing two imaginary busts, are a fine instance of Browning's power of translating sense into sound. Compare the smooth and sweet melody of the opening lines-- "Among these latter busts we count by scores Half-emperors and quarter-emperors, * * * * * One loves a baby-face, with violets there-- Violets instead of laurels in the hair, -- As they were all the little locks could bear"-- with the rasping vigour and strength of sound which point the contrastof the conclusion:-- "Here's John the Smith's rough-hammered head. Great eye, Gross jaw and griped lips do what granite can To give you the crown-grasper. What a man!" One poem of absolutely unique order is the romance of "_Childe Roland tothe Dark Tower came_. " If it were not for certain lines, certainmetaphors and images, here and there in his earlier works, we shouldfind in this poem an exception to the rule of Browning's work sosingular and startling as to be almost phenomenal. But in passages of_Pauline_, of _Paracelsus_, of the lyric written in 1836, andincorporated, more than twenty years later, with _James Lee's Wife_, wehave distinct evidence of a certain reserve, as it were, of romanticsensibility, a certain tendency, which we may consider to have beenconsciously checked rather than early exhausted, towards the weird andfanciful. In _Childe Roland_ all this latent sensibility receives fulland final expression. The poem is very generally supposed to be anallegory, and a number of ingenious interpretations have been suggested, and the "Dark Tower" has been defined as Love, Life, Death and Truth. But, as a matter of fact, Browning, in writing it, had no allegoricalintention whatever. It was meant to be, and is, a pure romance. It wassuggested by the line from Shakespeare which heads it, and was "builtup, " in Mrs. Orr's words "of picturesque impressions, which haveseparately or collectively produced themselves in the author's mind, . .. Including a tower which Mr. Browning once saw in the Carrara Mountains, a painting which caught his eye years later in Paris; and the figure ofa horse in the tapestry in his own drawing-room. "[32] The poem depictsthe last adventure of a knight vowed to the quest of a certain "DarkTower. " The description of his journey across a strange and dreadfulcountry is one of the ghastliest and most vivid in all poetry; ghastlywithout hope, without alleviation, without a momentary touch ofcontrast; vivid and ghastly as the lines following:-- "A sudden little river crossed my path As unexpected as a serpent comes. No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms; This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath For the fiend's glowing hoof--to see the wrath Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes. So petty yet so spiteful! All along, Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it; Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit Of mute despair, a suicidal throng: The river which had done them all the wrong, Whate'er that was rolled by, deterred no whit. Which while I forded, --good saints, how I feared To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek, Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard! --It may have been a water-rat I speared But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek. " The manner of the poem, wholly unlike that of any other poem, may bedescribed by varying Flaubert's phrase of "epic realism": it is romanticrealism. The weird, fantastic and profoundly imaginative picture broughtbefore us with such startling and almost oppressive vividness, is notpainted in a style of vague suggestiveness, but in a hard, distinct, definite, realistic way, the realism which results from a faithfulrecord of distorted impressions. The poet's imagination is like a flashof lightning which strikes through the darkness, flickering above theearth, and lighting up, point by point, with a momentary and fearfuldistinctness, the horrors of the landscape. A large and important group of _Men and Women_ consists of love-poems, or poems dealing, generally in some concrete and dramatic way, sometimesin a purely lyrical manner, with the emotion of love. _Love among theRuins_, a masterpiece of an absolutely original kind, is the idyl of alover's meeting, in which the emotion is emphasised and developed by thecontrast of its surroundings. The lovers meet in a turret among theruins of an ancient city, and the moment chosen is immediately beforetheir meeting, when the lover gazes around him, struck into suddenmeditation by the vision of the mighty city fallen and of the livingmight of Love. "And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve Smiles to leave To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece In such peace, And the slopes and rills and undistinguished grey Melt away-- That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair Waits me there In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul For the goal, When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb Till I come. For he looked upon the city, every side, Far and wide, All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades' Colonnades, All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, --and then, All the men! When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, Either hand On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace Of my face, Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech Each on each. In one year they sent a million fighters forth South and North, And they built their gods a brazen pillar high As the sky, Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force-- Gold, of course. Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns! Earth's returns For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin! Shut them in, With their triumphs and their glories and the rest! Love is best. " The quaint chime or tinkle of a metre made out of the cadence ofsheep-bells renders with curious felicity the quietness and ferventmeditation of the subject. _A Lovers' Quarrel_ is in every respect acontrast. It is a whimsical and delicious lyric, with a flowing andleaping melody, a light and piquant music deepened into pathos by amournful undertone of retrospect and regret, not without a hope for thefuture. All Browning is seen in this pathetic gaiety, this eagernessand unrest and passionate make-believe of a lover's mood. _Evelyn Hope_strikes a tenderer note; it is one of Browning's sweetest, simplest andmost pathetic pieces, and embodies, in a concrete form, one of hisdeepest convictions. It is the lament of a man, no longer young, by thedeath-bed of a young girl whom he has loved, unknown to her. She hasdied scarcely knowing him, not even suspecting his love. But whatmatter? God creates love to reward love, and there is another life tocome. "So hush, --I will give you this leaf to keep See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand! There, that is our secret: go to sleep! You will wake, and remember, and understand. " _A Woman's Last Word_ is an exquisite little lyric which sings itself toits own music of delicate gravity and gentle pathos; but it too holds, in its few small lines, a complete situation, that most pathetic one inwhich a woman resolves to merge her individuality in the wish and willof her husband, to bind, for his sake, her intellect in the chains ofher heart. "A WOMAN'S LAST WORD. I. Let's contend no more, Love, Strive nor weep: All be as before, Love, --Only sleep! II. What so wild as words are? I and thou In debate, as birds are, Hawk on bough! III. See the creature stalking While we speak! Hush and hide the talking, Cheek on cheek! IV. What so false as truth is, False to thee? Where the serpent's tooth is, Shun the tree-- V. Where the apple reddens Never pry-- Lest we lose our Edens, Eve and I. VI. Be a god and hold me With a charm! Be a man and fold me With thine arm! VII. Teach me, only teach, Love! As I ought I will speak thy speech, Love, Think thy thought-- VIII. Meet, if thou require it, Both demands, Laying flesh and spirit In thy hands. IX. That shall be to-morrow Not to-night: I must bury sorrow Out of sight: X. --Must a little weep, Love, (Foolish me!) And so fall asleep, Love, Loved by thee. " _Any Wife to any Husband_ is the grave and mournful lament of a dyingwoman, addressed to the husband whose love has never wavered throughouther life, but whose faithlessness to her memory she foresees. Thesituation is novel in poetry, and it is realised with an intensesympathy and depth of feeling. The tone of dignified sadness in thewoman's words, never passionate or pleading, only confirmed andhopeless, is admirably rendered in the slow and solemn metre, whose firmsmoothness and regularity translate into sound the sentiment of thespeech. _A Serenade at the Villa_, which expresses a hopeless love fromthe man's side, has a special picturesqueness, and something more thanpicturesqueness: nature and life are seen in throbbing sympathy. Thelittle touches of description give one the very sense of the hotthundrous summer night as it "sultrily suspires" in sympathy with thedisconsolate lover at his fruitless serenading. I can scarcely doubtthat this poem (some of which has been quoted on p. 25 above), wassuggested by one of the songs in Sidney's _Astrophel and Stella_, a poemon the same subject in the same rare metre:-- "Who is it that this dark night Underneath my window plaineth? It is one who from thy sight Being, ah! exiled, disdaineth Every other vulgar light. " If Browning's love-poems have any model or anticipation in Englishpoetry, it is certainly in the love-songs of Sidney, in what Browninghimself has called, "The silver speech, Of Sidney's self, the starry paladin. " No lover in English poetry has been so much a man as Sidney andBrowning. _Two in the Campagna_ presents a more intricate situation than most ofthe love-poems. It is the lament of a man, addressed to the woman at hisside, whom he loves and by whom he is loved, over the imperfection andinnocent inconstancy of his love. The two can never quite grow to one, and he, oppressed by the terrible burden of imperfect sympathies, is forever seeking, realising, losing, then again seeking the spiritual unionstill for ever denied. The vague sense of the Roman Campagna isdistilled into exquisite words, and through all there sounds the sad andweary undertone of baffled endeavour:-- "Infinite passion, and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn. " _The Last Ride Together_ is one of those love-poems which I have spokenof as specially noble and unique, and it is, I think, the noblest andmost truly unique of them all. Thought, emotion and melody are mingledin perfect measure: it has the lyrical "cry, " and the objectiveness ofthe drama. The situation, sufficiently indicated in the title, isselected with a choice and happy instinct: the very motion of riding isgiven in the rhythm. Every line throbs with passion, or with a fervidmeditation which is almost passion, and in the last verse, and, stillmore, in the single line-- "Who knows but the world may end to-night?" the dramatic intensity strikes as with an electric shock. _By the Fireside_ though in all its circumstances purely dramatic andimaginary, rises again and again to the fervour of personal feeling, andwe can hardly be wrong in classing it, in soul though not incircumstance, with _One Word More_ and the other sacred poems whichenshrine the memory of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. But, apart from thissuggestion, the poem is a masterpiece of subtle simplicity andpicturesqueness. Nothing could be more admirable in themselves than thenatural descriptions throughout; but these are never mere isolateddescriptions, nor even a mere stationary background: they are fused withthe emotion which they both help to form and assist in revealing. _One Word More_ (_To E. B. B. _) is one of those sacred poems in which, once and again, a great poet has embalmed in immortal words the holiestand deepest emotion of his existence. Here, and here only in the songsconsecrated by the husband to the wife, the living love that too soonbecame a memory is still "a hope, to sing by gladly. " _One Word More_ isBrowning's answer to the _Sonnets from the Portuguese_. And, just asMrs. Browning never wrote anything more perfect than the _Sonnets_, soBrowning has never written anything more perfect than the answeringlyric. Yet another section of this most richly varied volume consists of poems, narrative and lyrical, dealing in a brief and pregnant way with somespecial episode or emotion: love, in some instances, but in a lessexclusive way than in the love-poems proper. _The Statue and the Bust_(one of Browning's best narratives) is a romantic and mainly true tale, written in _terza rima_, but in short lines. The story on which it isfounded is a Florentine tradition. "In the piazza of the SS. Annunziata at Florence is an equestrian statue of the Grand Duke Ferdinand the First, representing him as riding away from the church, with his head turned in the direction of the Riccardi [now Antinori] Palace, which occupies one corner of the square. Tradition asserts that he loved a lady whom her husband's jealousy kept a prisoner there; and that he avenged his love by placing himself in effigy where his glance could always dwell upon her. "[33] In the poem the lovers agree to fly together, but the flight, postponedfor ever, never comes to pass. Browning characteristically blames themfor their sin of "the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, " for theirvacillating purpose, their failure in attaining "their life's set end, "whatever that end might be. Despite the difficulty of the metre, theverse is singularly fresh and musical. In this poem, the first in whichBrowning has used the _terza rima_, he observes, with only occasionallicence, the proper pause at the end of each stanza of three lines. Thislaw, though rarely neglected by Dante, has seldom been observed by thefew English poets who have attempted the measure. Neither Byron in the_Prophecy of Dante_, nor Shelley in _The Triumph of Life_, nor Mrs. Browning in _Casa Guidi Windows_, has done so. In Browning's later poemsin this metre, the pause, as if of set purpose, is wholly disregarded. _How it strikes a Contemporary_ is at once a dramatic monologue and apiece of poetic criticism. Under the Spanish dress, and beneath thehumorous treatment, it is easy to see a very distinct, suggestive andindividual theory of poetry, and in the poet who "took such cognizanceof men and things, . .. "Of all thought, said and acted, then went home And wrote it fully to our Lord the King--" we have, making full allowance for the imaginary dramatic circumstances, a very good likeness of a poet of Browning's order. Another poem, "_Transcendentalism_, " is a slighter piece of humorous criticism, possibly self-criticism, addressed to one who "speaks" his thoughtsinstead of "singing" them. Both have a penetrating quality of beauty infamiliarity. _Before_ and _After_, which mean before and after the duel, realisebetween them a single and striking situation. _Before_ is spoken by afriend of the wronged man; _After_ by the wronged man himself. Thelatter is not excelled by any poem of Browning's in its terribleconciseness, the intensity of its utterance of stifled passion. "AFTER. "Take the cloak from his face, and at first Let the corpse do its worst! "How he lies in his rights of a man! Death has done all death can. And, absorbed in the new life he leads, He recks not, he heeds Nor his wrong nor my vengeance; both strike On his senses alike, And are lost in the solemn and strange Surprise of the change. Ha, what avails death to erase His offence, my disgrace? I would we were boys as of old In the field, by the fold: His outrage, God's patience, man's scorn, Were so easily borne! I stand here now, he lies in his place: Cover the face!" I know of no piece of verse in the language which has more of thequality and hush of awe in it than this little fragment of eighteenlines. _Instans Tyrannus_[34] (the Threatening Tyrant) recalls by its motive, however unlike it may be as a poem, the _Soliloquy of the SpanishCloister_. The situations are widely different, but the root of each isidentical. In both is developed the mood of passive or active hate, arising from mere instinctive dislike. But while in the earlier poem thetheme is treated with boisterous sardonic humour, it is here embodied inthe grave figure of a stern, single-minded, relentless hater, a tyrantin both senses of the term. Another poem, representing an act of will, though here it is love, not hate, that impels, is _Mesmerism_. Theintense absorption, the breathless eagerness of the mesmerist, arerendered in a really marvellous way by the breathless and yet measuredrace of the verses: fifteen stanzas succeed one another without a singlefull-stop, or a real pause in sense or sound. The beautiful andsignificant little poem called _The Patriot: an old Story_, is anarrative and parable at once, and only too credible and convincing aseach. _Respectability_ holds in its three stanzas all that is vital andenviable in the real "Bohemia, " and is the first of several poems ofescape, which culminate in _Fifine at the Fair_. Both here and inanother short suggestive poem, _A Light Woman_ (which might be calledthe fourth act of a tragedy), the situation is outlined like asilhouette. Equally graphic, in the more ordinary sense of the term, isthe picturesque and whimsical view of town and country life taken by afrivolous Italian person of quality in the poem named _Up at aVilla--Down in the City_, "a masterpiece of irony and of description, "as an Italian critic has defined it. Of the wealth of lyrics and short poems no adequate count can here bemade. Yet, I cannot pass without a word, if only in a word may Iindicate, the admirable craftsmanship and playful dexterity of the lineson _A Pretty Woman_; the pathetic feeling and the exquisite and novelmusic of _Love in a Life and Life in a Love_; the tense emotion, thesuppressed and hopeful passion, of _In Three Days_, and the sad andhaunting song of _In a Year_, with its winding and liquid melody, itsmournful and wondering lament over love forgotten; the rich andmarvellously modulated music, the glowing colour, the vivid andpassionate fancy, of _Women and Roses_; the fresh felicity of "_DeGustibus_, " with its enthusiasm for Italy scarcely less fervid than theEnglish enthusiasm of the _Home-Thoughts_; the quaint humour andpregnant simplicity of the admirable little parable of _The Twins_; thesympathetic charm and light touch of _Misconceptions_, and the prettyfigurative fancy of _My Star_; the strong, sad, suggestive little poemnamed _One Way of Love_, with its delicately-wrought companion _AnotherWay of Love_, the former a love-lyric to be classed with _The LostMistress_ and _The Last Ride Together_; and, finally, the epilogue tothe first volume and a late poem in the second: _Memorabilia_, a tributeto Shelley, full of grateful remembrance and admiring love, significantamong the few personal utterances of the poet, and the not less lovelypoem and only less fervent tribute to Keats, the sumptuous, gorgeous, and sardonic lines on _Popularity_. A careful study or even, one wouldthink, a careless perusal, of but a few of the poems named above, shouldbe enough to show, once and for all, the infinite richness and varietyof Browning's melody, and his complete mastery over the most simple andthe most intricate lyric measures. As an example of the finest artisticsimplicity, rich with restrained pathos and quiet with keen tension offeeling, we may choose the following. "ONE WAY OF LOVE I. All June I bound the rose in sheaves. Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves And strew them where Pauline may pass. She will not turn aside? Alas! Let them lie. Suppose they die? The chance was they might take her eye. II. How many a month I strove to suit These stubborn fingers to the lute! To-day I venture all I know. She will not hear my music? So! Break the string; fold music's wing: Suppose Pauline had bade me sing? III. My whole life long I learned to love. This hour my utmost art I prove And speak my passion--heaven or hell? She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well! Love who may--I still can say, Those who win heaven, blest are they!" IN A BALCONY. [35] [Written at Bagni di Lucca, 1853; published in _Men and Women_, above; reprinted in _Poetical Works_, 1863, under a separate heading; _id_. , 1889 (Vol. VII. Pp. 1-41). Performed at the Browning Society's Third Annual Entertainment, Prince's Hall, Piccadilly, Nov. 28, 1884, and by the English Drama Society at the Victoria Hall, June 8, 1905. ] The dramatic scene of _In a Balcony_ is the last of the works written indialogue. We have seen, in tracing the course of the plays from_Strafford_ to _A Soul's Tragedy_, how the playwright gave place to thepoet; how the stage construction, the brisk and interchanged dialogue ofthe earlier dramas, gradually and inevitably developed into the moresubtle, the more lengthy dialogue, which itself approached more and morenearly to monologue, of the later ones. _In a Balcony_, written eightyears later than _A Soul's Tragedy_, has more affinity with it, in format least, than with any other of the plays. But while the situationthere was purely intellectual and moral, it is here passionate andhighly-wrought, to a degree never before reached, except in the crowningscene of _Pippa Passes_. We must go to the greatest among theElizabethans to exceed that; we must turn to _Le Roi s'amuse_ to equalthis. The situation is, in one sense, extremely subtle; in another, remarkably simple. The action takes place within a few hours, on abalcony at night. Norbert and Constance are two lovers. Norbert is inthe service of a certain Queen, to whom he has, by his diplomatic skilland labour, rendered great services. His aim, all the while, thoughunknown, as he thinks, to her, has been the hope of winning Constance, the Queen's cousin and dependant. He is now about to claim her as hisrecompense; but Constance, fearing for the result, persuades him, reluctant though he is, to ask in a roundabout way, so as to flatter ortouch the Queen. He over-acts his part. The Queen, a heart-starved andnow ageing woman, believes that he loves her, and responds to him withthe passion of a long-thwarted nature. She announces the wonderful news, with more than the ecstasy of a girl, to Constance. Constance resolvesto resign her lover, for his good and the Queen's, and, when he appears, she endeavours to make him understand and enter into her plot. But hecannot and will not see it. In the presence of the Queen he declares hislove for Constance, and for her alone. The Queen goes out, in whitesilence. The lovers embrace in new knowledge and fervour of love. Measured steps are heard within, and we know that the guard isapproaching. Each of the three characters is admirably delineated. Norbert is a fine, strong, solid, noble character, without subtlety or mixture of motives. He loves Constance: he knows that his love is returned: he is resolvedto win her hand. From first to last he is himself, honest, straightforward, single-minded, passionate; presenting the strongestcontrast to Constance's feminine over-subtlety. Constance is more, verymuch more, of a problem: "a character, " as Mr. Wedmore has admirablysaid, "peculiarly wily for goodness, curiously rich in resource forunalloyed and inexperienced virtue. " Does her proposal to relinquishNorbert in favour of the Queen show her to have been lacking in love forhim? It has been said, on the one hand, that her act was "noble andmagnanimous, " on the other hand, that the act proved her nature to be"radically insincere and inconstant. " Probably the truth lies betweenthese two extremes. Her love, we cannot doubt, was true and intense upto the measure of her capacity; but her nature was, instinctively, lessoutspoken and truthful than Norbert's, more subtle, more reasoning. Atthe critical moment she is seized by a whirl of emotions, and, with veryfeminine but singularly unloverlike instinct, she resolves, as she wouldphrase it, to sacrifice _herself_, not seeing that she is insulting herlover by the very notion of his accepting such a sacrifice. Hercharacter has not the pure and steadfast nobility of Norbert's, but ithas the capacity of devotion, and it is genuinely human. The Queen, unlike Constance, but like Norbert, is simple and single in nature. Sheis a tragic and intense figure, at once pathetic and terrible. I am notaware that the peculiarly pregnant motive: the hidden longing for lovein a starved and stunted nature, clogged with restrictions of state andceremony, harassed and hampered by circumstances and by the weight ofadvancing years; the passionate longing suddenly met, as it seems, withreward, and breaking out into a great flame of love and ardour, only tobe rudely and finally quenched: I am not aware that this motive hasever elsewhere been worked out in dramatic poetry. As here developed, itis among the great situations in literature. The verse in which this little tragedy is written has, perhaps, moreflexibility than that of any of the formal dramas. It has a strong andfine harmony, a weight and measure, and above all that pungentnaturalness which belongs to the period of _Andrea del Sarto_ and theother great monologues. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 29: The picture which Lippo promises to paint (ll. 347-389) isan exact description of his _Coronation of the Virgin_, in the Accademiadelle Belle Arti at Florence. ] [Footnote 30: Mrs Foster's translation (Bohn). ] [Footnote 31: Baldassarre Galuppi, surnamed Buranello (1706-1785), was aVenetian composer of some distinction. "He was an immensely prolificcomposer, " says Vernon Lee, "and abounded in melody, tender, pathetic, brilliant, which in its extreme simplicity and slightness occasionallyrose to the highest beauty. "--_Studies of the Eighteenth Century inItaly_, p. 101. ] [Footnote 32: _Handbook_, p. 266. The poem was written at Paris, January3, 1852. ] [Footnote 33: Mrs Orr, _Handbook_, p. 201. ] [Footnote 34: The poem was suggested by the opening of the third ode ofthe third Book of Horace: "Justum et tenacem propositi virum. "] [Footnote 35: It will be more convenient to treat _In a Balcony_ in aseparate section than under the general heading of _Men and Women_, forit is, to all intents and purposes, an independent work of anotherorder. ] 16. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. [Published in 1864 (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. VII. , pp. 43-255). ] _Dramatis Personæ_, like _Men and Women_ (which it followed after aninterval of nine years) is a collection of dramatic monologues, in eachof which it is attempted to delineate a single character or a singlemood by setting the "imaginary person" in some revealing situation. Ofthe two possible methods, speech and soliloquy, Browning for the mostpart prefers the former. In _Dramatis Personæ_, however, he recurs, rather more frequently than usual, to the latter; and the situationsimaged are usually suggestive rather than explicit, more incomplete andindirect than those in the _Men and Women_. As an ingenious critic said, shortly after the volume was published, "Mr Browning lets us overhear apart of the drama, generally a soliloquy, and we must infer the rest. Had he to give the story of _Hamlet_, he would probably embody it inthree stanzas, the first beginning, 'O that this too too solid fleshwould melt!' the second 'To be or not to be, that is the question;' andthe third, 'Look here upon this picture, and on that!' From thesedisjointed utterances the reader would have to construct the story. "Here our critic's clever ingenuity carries him a little too far; butthere is some truth in his definition or description of the specialmanner which characterises such poems as _Too Late_, or _The Worst ofIt_. But not merely the manner of presentment, the substance, and alsothe style and versification, have undergone a change during thelong-silent years which lie between _Men and Women_ and _DramatisPersonæ_. The first note of change, of the change which makes us speakof earlier and later work, is here sounded. From 1833 up to 1855 forms asingle period of steady development, of gradual and unswerving ascent. _Dramatis Personæ_ stands on the border line between this period andanother, the "later period, " which more decisively begins with _The Ringand the Book_. Still, the first note of divergence is certainly soundedhere. I might point to the profound intellectual depth of certain piecesas its characteristic, or, equally, to the traces here and there of anapparent carelessness of workmanship; or, yet again, to the new and verymarked partiality for scenes and situations of English and modern ratherthan of mediæval and foreign life. The larger part of the volume consists of dramatic monologues. Threeonly are in blank verse; the greater number in varied lyric measures. The first of these, and the longest, _James Lee_, as it was firstcalled, _James Lee's Wife_[36] as it is now more appropriately named, isa _Lieder Kreis_, or cycle of songs, nine in number, which reveal, in"tragic hints, " not by means of a connected narrative, the history of anunhappy marriage. There is nothing in it of heroic action or suffering;it is one of those old stories always new which are always tragic to oneat least of the actors in them, and which may be tragic or trivial inrecord, according as the artist is able to mould his material. Each ofthe sections shows us a mood, signalized by some slight link ofcircumstance which may the better enable us to grasp it. The developmentof disillusion, the melancholy progress of change, is finely indicatedin the successive stages of this lyric sequence, from the first clearstrain of believing love (shaken already by a faint tremor of fear), through gradual alienation and inevitable severance, to the finalresolved parting. This poem is worthy of notice as the only one in whichBrowning has employed the sequence form; almost the only instance, indeed, in which he has structurally varied his metre in the course of apoem. _James Lee's Wife_ is written in the form of soliloquy, or reflection. In two other poems, closely allied to it in sentiment, _The Worst of it_and _Too Late_, intense feeling expresses itself, though in solitude, asif the object of emotion were present; each is, in great part, a mentalappeal to some one loved and lost. In _James Lee's Wife_ a woman was thespeaker, and the burden of her lament was mere estrangement. _The Worstof it_ and _Too Late_ are both spoken by men. The former is theutterance of a man whose wife has been false to him; the latter of a manwhose loved one is dead. But in each case the situation is furthercomplicated. The woman over whose loss of virtue her forsaken husbandmourns with passionate anguish and unavailing bitterness of regret, hasbeen to him, whom she now leaves for another, an image of purity: herlove and influence have lifted him from the mire, and "the Worst of it, "the last pang which he cannot nerve himself to endure, is the knowledgethat she had saved him, and, partly at least through him, ruinedherself. The poem is one of the most passionate and direct of Browning'sdramatic lyrics: it is thrillingly intense and alive; and the swiftforce and tremulous eagerness of its very original rhythm and metretranslate its sense into sound with perfect fitness. Similar in cadence, though different in arrangement, is the measure of _Too Late_, with itssingularly constructed stanza of two quatrains, followed respectively bytwo couplets, which together made another quatrain. It is worth noticinghow admirably and uniformly Browning contrives to connect, in sound, thetwo halves of the broken quatrains, placing them so as to complete eachother, and relieve our ear of the sense of distance. The poem is spokenby a lover who was neither rejected nor accepted: like the lover ofEvelyn Hope, he never told his love. His Edith married another, aheartless and soulless lay-figure of a poet (or so at least his rivalregards him), and now she is dead. His vague but vivid hopes of somefuture chance to love her and be loved; the dull rebellion of rashlyreasoning sorrow; the remembrance, the repentance, the regret; are allpoured out with pathetic naturalness. These three poems are soliloquies; _Dîs aliter Visum; or, Le Byron denos Jours_, a poem closely akin in sentiment and style, recurs to themore frequent and perhaps preferable manner of speech to an imaginedlistener. It is written in that favourite stanza of five lines, on whichBrowning has played so many variations: here, perhaps, in the internalrhyme so oddly placed, the newest and most ingenious of all. Thesentiment and situation are the exact complement or contrast of thoseexpressed in _By the Fireside_. There, fate and nature have brought to acrisis the latent love of two persons: the opportunity is seized, andthe crown of life obtained. Here, in circumstances singularly similar, the vital moment is let slip, the tide is _not_ taken at the turn. Andten years afterwards, when the famous poet and the girl whom he all butlet himself love, meet in a Paris drawing-room, and one of them tellsthe old tale over for the instruction of both, she can point out, withbitter earnestness and irony (and a perfect little touch of femininenature) his fatal mistake. _Youth and Art_ is a slighter and more humorous sketch, with a somewhatsimilar moral. It has wise humour, sharp characterisation, andballad-like simplicity. Still more perfect a poem, still more subtle, still more Heinesque, if it were not better than Heine, is the littlepiece called _Confessions_. The pathetic, humorous, rambling snatch offinal memory in the dying man, addressed, by a delightful irony, to theattendant clergyman, has a sort of grim ecstasy, and the end is one ofthe most triumphant things in this kind of poetry. "CONFESSIONS. I. What is he buzzing in my ears? 'Now that I come to die. Do I view the world as a vale of tears?' Ah, reverend sir, not I! II. What I viewed there once, what I view again Where the physic bottles stand On the table's edge, --is a suburb lane, With a wall to my bedside hand. III. That lane sloped, much as the bottles do, From a house you could descry O'er the garden wall; is the curtain blue Or green to a healthy eye? IV. To mine, it serves for the old June weather Blue above lane and wall; And that farthest bottle labelled 'Ether' Is the house o'er-topping all. V. At a terrace, somewhat near the stopper, There watched for me, one June, A girl: I know, sir, it's improper, My poor mind's out of tune. VI. Only, there was a way . .. You crept Close by the side, to dodge Eyes in the house, two eyes except: They styled their house 'The Lodge. ' VII. What right had a lounger up their lane? But, by creeping very close, With the good wall's help, --their eyes might strain And stretch themselves to Oes, VIII. Yet never catch her and me together, As she left the attic, there, By the rim of the bottle labelled 'Ether, ' And stole from stair to stair, IX. And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas, We loved, sir, --used to meet: How sad and bad and mad it was-- But then, how it was sweet!" _A Likeness_ forms a third, and a good third, to these two fine andsubtle studies of modern English life. It is one of those poems which, because they seem simple and superficial, and can be galloped off thetongue in a racing jingle, we are apt to underrate or overlook. Yet itwould be difficult to find a more vivid bit of _genre_ painting than thethree-panelled picture in this single frame. The three blank verse poems which complete the series of purely dramaticpieces, _A Death in the Desert, Caliban upon Setebos_ and _Mr. Sludge, "The Medium"_ are more elaborate than any yet named. They follow, to aconsiderable extent, the form of the blank verse monologues which arethe glory of _Men and Women_. Alike in their qualities and defects theyrepresent a further step in development. The next step will lead to theelaborate and extended monologues which comprise the greater part ofBrowning's later works. A _Death in the Desert_ is an argument in a dramatic frame-work. Thesituation imaged is that of the mysterious death of St. John in extremeold age. The background to the last utterance of the apostle is paintedwith marvellous brilliance and tenderness: every circumstance isconceived and represented in that pictorial style, in which a word isequal to a touch of the brush of a great painter. But, delicately as thecircumstances and surroundings are indicated, it is as an argument thatthe poem is mainly left to exist. The bearing of this argument oncontemporary theories may to some appear a merit, to others a blemish. To make the dying John refute Strauss or Renan, handling theirpropositions with admirable dialectical skill, is certainly, on the faceof it, somewhat hazardous. But I can see no real incongruity in imputingto the seer of Patmos a prophetic insight into the future, no realinconsequence in imagining the opponent of Cerinthus spending his lastbreath in the defence of Christian truth against a foreseen scepticism. In style, the poem a little recalls _Cleon_; with less of harmoniousgrace and clear classic outline, it possesses a certain stilledsweetness, a meditative tenderness, all its own, and certainlyappropriate to the utterance of the "beloved disciple. " _Caliban upon Setebos_; or, _Natural Theology In the Island_, [37] ismore of a creation, and a much greater poem, than _A Death in theDesert_. It is sometimes forgotten that the grotesque has its own regionin art. The region of the grotesque has been well defined, in connectionwith this poem, in a paper read by Mr. Cotter Morison before theBrowning Society. "Its proper province, " he writes, "would seem to bethe exhibition of fanciful power by the artist; not beauty or truth inthe literal sense at all, but inventive affluence of unreal yet absurdlycomic forms, with just a flavour of the terrible added, to give a grimdignity, and save from the triviality of caricature. "[38] With theexception of _The Heretic's Tragedy_, _Caliban upon Setebos_ is probablythe finest piece of grotesque art in the language. Browning's Caliban, unlike Shakespeare's, has no active part to play: if he has ever seenStephano and Trinculo, he has forgotten it. He simply sprawls on theground "now that the heat of day is best, " and expounds for himself, forhis own edification, his system of Natural Theology. I think Huxley hassaid that the poem is a truly scientific representation of thedevelopment of religious ideas in primitive man. It needed the subtlestof poets to apprehend and interpret the undeveloped ideas and sensationsof a rudimentary and transitionally human creature like Caliban, to turnhis dumb stirrings of quaint fancies into words, and to do all thiswithout a discord. The finest poetical effect is in the close: it isindeed one of the finest effects, climaxes, _surprises_, in literature. Caliban has been venturing to talk rather disrespectfully of his God;believing himself overlooked, he has allowed himself to speak out hismind on religious questions. He chuckles to himself in safeself-complacency. All at once-- "What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once! Crickets stop hissing; not a bird--or, yes, There scuds His raven that hath told Him all! It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move, And fast invading fires begin! White blaze-- A tree's head snaps--and there, there, there, there, there, His thunder follows! Fool to jibe at Him! Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos! 'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip, Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!" _Mr. Sludge, "The Medium"_ is equally remote from both the other poemsin blank verse. It is a humorous and realistic tale of modernspiritualism, suggested, it is said, by the life and adventures of theAmerican medium, Home. Like _Bishop Blougram_, it is at once an exposureand an apologia. As a piece of analytic portraiture it would bedifficult to surpass; and it is certainly a fault on the right side ifthe poet has endowed his precious blackguard with a dialectical headhardly to be expected on such shoulders; if, in short, he has made himnearly as clever as himself. When the critics complain that thecharacters of a novelist are too witty, the characters of a poet tooprofound, one cannot but feel thankful that it is once in a whilepossible for such strictures to be made. The style of _Mr. Sludge_ isthe very acme of colloquialism. It is not "what is commonly understoodby poetry, " certainly: but is it not poetry, all the same? If such acharacter as Sludge should be introduced into poetry at all, it iscertain that no more characteristic expression could have been found forhim. But should he be dealt with? We limit our poetry nowadays, to thelength of our own tether; if we are unable to bring beauty out of everyliving thing, merely because it is alive, and because nature isbeautiful in every movement, is it our own fault or nature's?Shakespeare and his age trusted nature, and were justified; in our ownage only Browning has wholly trusted nature. Scarcely second in importance to the dramatic group, comes the group oflyrical poems, some of which are indeed, formally dramatic, that is, the "utterance of so many imaginary persons, " but still in general toneand effect lyrical and even personal. _Abt Vogler_ for instance, and_Rabbi ben Ezra_, might no doubt be considered instances of "vicariousthinking" on behalf of the modern German composer and the mediævalJewish philosopher. But in neither case is there any distinct dramaticintention. The one is a deep personal utterance on music, the other aphilosophy of life. But before I touch on these, which, with _Prospice_, are the most important and impressive of the remaining poems, I shouldname the two or three lesser pieces, the exquisite and pregnant littleelegy of love and mourning, _May and Death; A Face_, with its perfectclearness and fineness of suggestive portraiture, as lovely as thevignettes of Palma in _Sordello_, or as a real picture of the "Tuscan'searly art"; the two octaves (not in the first edition) on Woolner'sgroup of Constance and Arthur (_Deaf and Dumb_) and Sir FrederickLeighton's picture of _Eurydice and Orpheus_; and the two semi-narrativepoems, _Gold Hair: a Story of Pornic_, and _Apparent Failure_, theformer a vivid rendering of the strange story told in Brittany of abeautiful girl-miser, the latter a record and its stinging and consolingmoral ("Poor men, God made, and all for that!") of a visit that Browningpaid in 1850 to the Morgue. _Abt Vogler_[39] ("after he has been extemporizing upon the musicalinstrument of his invention") is an utterance on music which perhapsgoes further than any attempt which has ever been made in verse to setforth the secret of the most sacred and illusive of the arts. Only thewonderful lines in the _Merchant of Venice_ come anywhere near it. Thewonder and beauty of it grow on one, as the wonder and beauty of a sky, of a sea, of a landscape, beautiful indeed and wonderful from the first, become momentarily more evident, intense and absorbing. Life, religionand music, the _Ganzen, Guten, Schönen_ of existence, are combined inthreefold unity, apprehended and interpreted in their essential spirit. "Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name? Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands! What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same! Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands? There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before; The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round. All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist; Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it by-and-by. And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized? Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence? Why rushed the discord in, but that harmony should be prized? Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe: But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear; The rest may reason and welcome: 'tis we musicians know. " In _Rabbi ben Ezra_ Browning has crystallized his religious philosophyinto a shape of abiding beauty. It has been called, not rashly, thenoblest of modern religious poems. Alike in substance and in form itbelongs to the highest order of meditative poetry; and it has, inBrowning's work, an almost unique quality of grave beauty, of severerestraint, of earnest and measured enthusiasm. What the _Psalm of Life_is to the people who do not think, _Rabbi ben Ezra_ might and should beto those who do: a light through the darkness, a lantern of guidance anda beacon of hope, to the wanderers lost and weary in the _selvaselvaggia_. It is one of those poems that mould character. I can giveonly one or two of its most characteristic verses. "Not on the vulgar mass Called 'work' must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice: But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount: Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped; All I could never be, All, men ignored in me. This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. * * * * * So, take and use Thy work: Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!" The emotion and the measure of _Rabbi ben Ezra_ have the chastened, sweet gravity of wise old age. _Prospice_ has all the impetuous bloodand fierce lyric fire of militant manhood. It is a cry of passionateexultation and exaltation in the very face of death: a war-cry oftriumph over the last of foes. I would like to connect it with thequotation from Dante which Browning, in a published letter, tells usthat he wrote in his wife's Testament after her death: "Thus I believe, thus I affirm, thus I am certain it is, that from this life I shallpass to another better, there, where that lady lives, of whom my soulwas enamoured. " If _Rabbi ben Ezra_ has been excelled as a Song of Life, then _Prospice_ may have been excelled as a Hymn of Death. "PROSPICE. Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the storm, The post of the foe; Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, Yet the strong man must go; For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall, Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, The reward of it all. I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more, The best and the last! I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past. No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness and cold. For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, The black minute's at end, And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, Then a light, then thy breast, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest!" Last of all comes the final word, the summary or conclusion of the wholematter, in the threefold speech of the _Epilogue_, a comprehensive andsuggestive vision of the religious life of humanity. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 36: The first six stanzas of the sixth section of this poem, the splendid song of the wind, were published in a magazine, as _Lines_, in 1836. Parts II. & III. , of Section VIII. (except the last two lines)were added to the poem in 1868. ] [Footnote 37: The poem was originally preceded by the text, "Thouthoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself" (_Ps. _ 1. 21). ] [Footnote 38: _Browning Society's Papers_, Part V. , p. 493. ] [Footnote 39: The Abt or Abbé George Joseph Vogler (born at Würzburg, Bavaria, in 1749, died at Darmstadt, 1824) was a composer, professor, kapelmeister and writer on music. Among his pupils were Weber andMeyerbeer. The "musical instrument of his invention" was called anorchestrion. "It was, " says Sir G. Grove, "a very compact organ, inwhich four keyboards of five octaves each, and a pedal board ofthirty-six keys, with swell complete, were packed into a cube of ninefeet. "--(See Miss Marx's "Account of Abbé Vogler, " in the _BrowningSociety's Papers_, Part III. , p. 339). ] 17. THE RING AND THE BOOK. [Published, in 4 vols. , in 1868-9: Vol. I. , November, 1868; Vol. II. , December, 1868; Vol. III. , January, 1869; Vol. IV. , February, 1869. In 12 Books: 1. , The Ring and the Book; II. , Half-Rome; III. , The Other Half-Rome; IV. , Tertium Quid; V. , Count Guido Franceschini; VI. , Giuseppe Caponsacchi; VII. , Pompilia; VIII. , Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator; IX. , Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus; X. , The Pope; XI. , Guido; XII. , The Book and the Ring. (_Poetical Works_, 1889; Vols. VIII. -X. )] _The Ring and the Book_ is at once the largest and the greatest ofBrowning's works, the culmination of his dramatic method, and theturning-point, more decisively than _Dramatis Personæ_, of his style. Itconsists of twelve books, the first and last being of the nature ofPreface and Appendix. It embodies a single story, told ten times, eachtime from an individual standpoint, by nine different persons (one ofthem speaking twice), besides a summary of the story by the poet in thefirst book, and some additional particulars in the last. The method thusadopted is at once absolutely original and supremely difficult. To tellthe same story, without mere repetition, no less than ten times over, tomake each telling at once the same and new, a record of the same factsbut of independent impressions, to convey by means of each monologue asense of the speaker not less vivid and life-like than by the ordinarydramatic method, with a yet more profound measure of analytic andpsychological truth, and finally to group all these figures withunerring effect of prominence and subordination, to fuse and mould allthese parts into one living whole is, as a _tour de force_, unique, andit is not only a _tour de force_. _The Ring and the Book_, besides beingthe longest poetical work of the century, must be ranked among thegreatest poems in our literature: it has a spiritual insight, humanscience, dramatic and intellectual and moral force, a strength and grip, a subtlety, a range and variety of genius and of knowledge, hardly to beparalleled outside Shakespeare. It has sometimes been said that the style of Browning is essentiallyundramatic, that Pompilia, Guido, and the lawyers all talk in the sameway, that is, like Browning. As a matter of fact nothing is moreremarkable than the variety of style, the cunning adjustment of languageand of rhythm to the requirements of every speaker. From the generalconstruction of the rhythm to the mere similies and figures of speechemployed in passing, each monologue is absolutely individual, and, though each monologue contains a highly finished portrait of thecharacter whose name it bears, these portraits, so far from beingdisconnected or independent, are linked together in as close aninterdependence as the personages of a regularly constructed drama. Theeffect of the reiterated story, told in some new fashion by each newteller of it, has been compared with that of a great fugue, blending, with the threads of its crossing and recrossing voices, a single web ofharmony. The "theme" is Pompilia; around her the whole action circles. As, in _Pippa Passes_, the mere passing of an innocent child, herunconscious influence on those on whom her song breaks in at a momentof crisis, draws together the threads of many stories, so Pompilia, withhardly more consciousness of herself, makes and unmakes the lives andcharacters of those about her. The same sweet rectitude and purity ofnature serve to call out the latent malignity of Guido and theslumbering chivalry of Caponsacchi. Without her, the one might haveremained a "_petit mâitre_ priestling;" the other merely a soured, cross-grained, impecunious country squire: Rome would have had notragedy to talk about, nor we this book to read. It is in Pompilia thatall the threads of action meet: she is the heroine, as neither Guido norCaponsacchi can be called the hero. The story of _The Ring and the Book_, like those of so many of thegreatest works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, comes to us fromItaly. Unlike Shakespeare's, however, but like one at least of Webster'stwo masterpieces, it is no legend, but the true story of a Romanmurder-case, found (in all its main facts and outlines) in a square oldyellow book, small-quarto size, part print, part manuscript, whichBrowning picked up for eightpence on a second-hand stall in the PiazzaSan Lorenzo at Florence, one day in June, 1865. The book was entitled(in Latin which Browning thus translates):-- "A Roman murder-case: Position of the entire criminal cause Of Guido Franceschini, nobleman, With certain Four the cut-throats in his pay, Tried, all five, and found guilty and put to death By heading or hanging as befitted ranks, At Rome on February Twenty Two, Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight: Wherein it is disputed if, and when, Husbands may kill adulterous wives, yet 'scape The customary forfeit. " The book proved to be one of those contemporary records of famous trialswhich were not uncommon in Italy, and which are said to be stillpreserved in many Italian libraries. It contained the printed pleadingsfor and against the accused, the judicial sentence, and certainmanuscript letters describing the efforts made on Guido's behalf and hisfinal execution. This book (with a contemporary pamphlet which Browningafterwards met with in London) supplied the outlines of the poem towhich it helped to give a name. The story itself is a tragic one, rich in material for artistichandling, though not for the handling of every artist. But itsimportance is relatively inconsiderable. "I fused my live soul and thatinert stuff, " says the poet, and "Thence bit by bit I dug The ingot truth, that memorable day, Assayed and knew my piecemeal gain was gold, -- Yes; but from something else surpassing that, Something of mine which, mixed up with the mass, Makes it bear hammer and be firm to file. Fancy with fact is just one fact the more; To-wit, that fancy has informed, transpierced, Thridded and so thrown fast the facts else free, As right through ring and ring runs the djereed And binds the loose, one bar without a break. " The story, in brief, is this. Pompilia, the supposed daughter of Pietroand Violante Comparini, an aged burgher couple of Rome, has beenmarried, at the age of thirteen, to Count Guido Franceschini, animpoverished middle-aged nobleman of Arezzo. The arrangement, in whichPompilia is, of course, quite passive, has been made with theexpectation, on the part of Guido, of a large dowry; on the part of theComparini of an aristocratic alliance, and a princely board at Guido'spalace. No sooner has the marriage taken place than both parties findthat they have been tricked. Guido, disappointed of his money, andunable to reach the pair who have deceived him, vents his spite on theinnocent victim, Pompilia. At length Pompilia, knowing that she is aboutto become a mother, escapes from her husband, aided by a good youngpriest, Giuseppe Caponsacchi, a canon of Arezzo; and a few monthsafterwards, at the house of her supposed parents, she gives birth to ason. A fortnight after the birth of his heir, Guido, who has beenwaiting till his hold on the dowry is thus secured, takes with him fourcut-throats, steals by night to Rome, and kills his wife and the agedComparini, leaving the child alive. He is captured the same night, andbrought to judgment at Rome. When the poem opens, the case is beingtried before the civil courts. No attempt is made to dispute the fact ofGuido's actual committal of the deed; he has been caught red-handed, andPompilia, preserved almost by miracle, has survived her wounds longenough to tell the whole story. The sole question is, whether the acthad any justification; it being pretended by Guido that his wife hadbeen guilty of adultery with the priest Caponsacchi, and that his deedwas a simple act of justice. He was found guilty by the legal tribunal, and condemned to death; Pompilia's innocence being confirmed beyond adoubt. Guido then appealed to the Pope, who confirmed the judicialsentence. The whole of the poem takes place between the arrest andtrial of Guido, and the final sentence of the Pope; at the time, thatis, when the hopes and fears of the actors, and the curiosity of thespectators, would be at their highest pitch. The first book, entitled _The Ring and the Book_, gives the facts of thestory, some hint of the author's interpretation of them, and theoutlines of his plan. We are not permitted any of the interest ofsuspense. Browning shows us clearly from the first the whole bearing andconsequence of events, as well as the right and wrong of them. He haswritten few finer passages than the swift and fiery narrative of thestory, lived through in vision on the night of his purchase of theoriginal documents. But complete and elaborate as this is, it is merelyintroductory, a prologue before the curtain rises on the drama. First wehave three representative specimens of public opinion: _Half-Rome_, _TheOther Half-Rome_, and _Tertium Quid_; each speaker presenting thecomplete case from his own point of view. "Half-Rome" takes the side ofGuido. We are allowed to see that the speaker is a jealous husband, andthat his judgment is biased by an instinctive sympathy with thepresumably jealous husband, Guido. "The Other Half-Rome" takes the sideof the wife, "Little Pompilia with the patient eyes, " now lying in thehospital, mortally wounded, and waiting for death. This speaker is abachelor, probably a young man, and his judgment is swayed by the beautyand the piteousness of the dying girl. The speech of "Half-Rome, " beingas it is an attempt to make light of the murder, and the utterance of asomewhat ridiculous personage, is exceedingly humorous and colloquial;that of the "Other Half-Rome" is serious, earnest, sometimes eloquent. No contrast could be more complete than that presented by these two"sample-speeches. " The objects remain the same, but we see them throughdifferent ends of the telescope. Either account taken by itself is soplausible as to seem almost morally conclusive. But in both instances wehave down-right apology and condemnation, partiality bred of prejudice. _Tertium Quid_ presents us with a reasoned and judicial judgment, impartiality bred of contempt or indifference; this being-- "What the superior social section thinks, In person of some man of quality Who, --breathing musk from lace-work and brocade, His solitaire amid the flow of frill, Powdered peruke on nose, and bag at back, And cane dependent from the ruffled wrist-- Harangues in silvery and selectest phrase, 'Neath waxlight in a glorified saloon Where mirrors multiply the girandole: Courting the approbation of no mob, But Eminence This and All-Illustrious That, Who take snuff softly, range in well-bred ring, Card-table-quitters for observance' sake, Around the argument, the rational word . .. How quality dissertated on the case. " "Tertium Quid" deals with the case very gently, mindful of his audience, to whom, at each point of the argument calling for judgment, he politelyrefers the matter, and passes on. He speaks in a tone of light andwell-bred irony, with the aristocratic contempt for the _plebs_, theburgesses, Society's assumption of Exclusive Information. He gives thegeneral view of things, clearly, neutrally, with no vulgar emphasis ofblack and white. "I simply take the facts, ask what they mean. " So far we have had rumour alone, the opinions of outsiders; next comethe three great monologues in which the persons of the drama, CountGuido, Caponsacchi, and Pompilia, bear witness of themselves. "The imaginary occasion, " says Mrs. Orr, "is that of Count Guido's trial, and all the depositions which were made on the previous one are transferred to this. The author has been obliged in every case to build up the character from the evidence, and to re-mould and expand the evidence in conformity with the character. The motive, feeling, and circumstance set forth by each separate speaker, are thus in some degree fictitious; but they are always founded upon fact, and the literal fact of a vast number of details is self-evident. "[40] These three monologues (with the second of Guido) are by far the mostimportant in the book. First comes _Count Guido Franceschini_. The two monologues spoken by himare, for sheer depth of human science, the most marvellous of all:"every nerve of the mind is touched by the patient scalpel, every veinand joint of the subtle and intricate spirit divided and laid bare. "[41]Under torture, he has confessed to the murder of his wife. He is nowpermitted to defend himself before the judges. "Soft-cushioned sits he; yet shifts seat, shirks touch, As, with a twitchy brow and wincing lip, And cheek that changes to all kinds of white, He proffers his defence, in tones subdued Near to mock-mildness now, so mournful seems The obtuser sense truth fails to satisfy; Now, moved, from pathos at the wrong endured, To passion. .. . Also his tongue at times is hard to curb; Incisive, nigh satiric bites the phrase. * * * * * And never once does he detach his eye From those ranged there to slay him or to save, But does his best man's-service for himself. " His speech is a tissue of falsehoods and prevarications: if he uses afact, it is only to twist it into a form of self-justification. He knowsit is useless to deny the murder; his aim, then, is to explain andexcuse it. Every device attainable by the instinct and the brain ofhunted humanity he finds and uses. Now he slurs rapidly over aninconvenient fact; now, with the frank audacity of innocence, proclaimsand blazons it abroad; now he is rhetorically eloquent, now ironicallypathetic; always contriving to shift the blame upon others, and to makehis own course appear the only one plausible or possible, the only onepossible, at least, to a high-born, law-abiding son of the Church. Everyshift and twist is subtly adapted to his audience of Churchmen, and thegradation of his pleading no less subtly contrived. No keener andsubtler special pleading has ever been written, in verse certainly, andpossibly in lawyers' prose; and it is poetry of the highest order ofdramatic art. Covering a narrower range, but still more significant within its ownlimits, the speech of _Giuseppe Caponsacchi_, the priest who assistedPompilia in her flight to Rome (given now in her defence before thejudges who have heard the defence of Guido) is perhaps the mostpassionate and thrilling piece of blank verse ever written by Browning. Indeed, I doubt if it be an exaggeration to say that such fire, suchpathos, such splendour of human speech, has never been heard or seen inEnglish verse since Webster. In tone and colour the monologue is quitenew, exquisitely modulated to a surprising music. The lighter passagesare brilliant: the eloquent passages full of a fine austerity; but it isin those passages directly relating to Pompilia that the chief greatnessof the work lies. There is in these appeals a quivering, thrilling, searching quality of fervid pathetic directness: I can give nonotion of it in words; but here are a few lines, torn roughly out oftheir context, which may serve in some degree to illustrate mymeaning:-- "Pompilia's face, then and thus, looked on me The last time in this life: not one sight since, Never another sight to be! And yet I thought I had saved her. I appealed to Rome: It seems I simply sent her to her death. You tell me she is dying now, or dead; I cannot bring myself to quite believe This is a place you torture people in: What if this your intelligence were just A subtlety, an honest wile to work On a man at unawares? 'Twere worthy you. No, Sirs, I cannot have the lady dead! That erect form, flashing brow, fulgurant eye, That voice immortal (oh, that voice of hers!) That vision of the pale electric sword Angels go armed with, --that was not the last O' the lady! Come, I see through it, you find-- Know the manoeuvre! Also herself said I had saved her: do you dare say she spoke false? Let me see for myself if it be so! Though she were dying a priest might be of use, The more when he's a friend too, --she called me Far beyond 'friend. '" Severed from its connection, much of the charm of the passage vanishesaway: always the test of the finest dramatic work; but enough remains togive some faint shadow of the real beauty of the work. Observe how therhythm trembles in accord with the emotion of the speaker: now slow, solemn, sad, with something of the quiet of despair; now strenuouslyself-deluding and feverishly eager: "Let me see for myself if it be so!"a line which has all the flush and gasp in it of broken suddenutterance. And the monologue ends in a kind of desperate resignation:-- "Sirs, I am quiet again. You see, we are So very pitiable, she and I, Who had conceivably been otherwise. Forget distemperature and idle heat; Apart from truth's sake, what's to move so much? Pompilia will be presently with God; I am, on earth, as good as out of it, A relegated priest; when exile ends, I mean to do my duty and live long. She and I are mere strangers now: but priests Should study passion; how else cure mankind, Who come for help in passionate extremes? I do but play with an imagined life. * * * * * Mere delectation, fit for a minute's dream!-- Just as a drudging student trims his lamp, Opens his Plutarch, puts him in the place Of Roman, Grecian; draws the patched gown close, Dreams, 'Thus should I fight, save or rule the world!'-- Then smilingly, contentedly, awakes To the old solitary nothingness. So I, from such communion, pass content . .. O great, just, good God! Miserable me!" From the passionate defence of Caponsacchi, we pass to the death-bed of_Pompilia_. Like Shakespeare, Browning makes all his heroines young; andthis child of seventeen, who has so much of the wisdom of youth, tellson her death-bed, to the kind people about her, the story of her life, in a simple, child-like, dreamy, wondering way, which can be compared, so far as I know, with nothing else ever written. "Then a soul sighs its lowest and its last After the loud ones;" and we have here the whole heart of a woman, the whole heart and thevery speech and accent of the most womanly of women. No woman has everwritten anything so close to the nature of women, and I do not know whatother man has come near to this strange and profoundly manly intuition, this "piercing and overpowering tenderness which glorifies, " as Mr. Swinburne has said, "the poet of Pompilia. " All _The Ring and the Book_is a leading up to this monologue, and a commentary round it. It is asong of serene and quiet beauty, beautiful as evening-twilight. Toanalyse it is to analyse a rose's perfume: to quote from it is to tearoff the petal of a rose. Here, however, for their mere colour and scent, are a few lines. Pompilia is speaking of the birth of her child. "A whole long fortnight: in a life like mine A fortnight filled with bliss is long and much. All women are not mothers of a boy, Though they live twice the length of my whole life, And, as they fancy, happily all the same. There I lay, then, all my great fortnight long, As if it would continue, broaden out Happily more and more, and lead to heaven: Christmas before me, --was not that a chance? I never realized God's birth before-- How He grew likest God in being born. This time I felt like Mary, had my babe Lying a little on my breast like hers. " With a beautiful and holy confidence she now "lays away her babe withGod, " secure for him in the future. She forgives the husband who hasslain her: "I could not love him, but his mother did. " And with her lastbreath she blesses the friend who has saved her:-- "O lover of my life, O soldier-saint, No work begun shall ever pause for death. * * * * * So, let him wait God's instant men call years; Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul, Do out the duty! Through such souls alone God stooping shows sufficient of His light For us i' the dark to rise by. And I rise. " After _Pompilia_, we have the pleadings and counterpleadings of thelawyers on either side: _Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, PauperumProcurator_ (the counsel for the defendant), and _Juris DoctorJohannes-Baptista Bottinius_, _Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus_(public prosecutor). Arcangeli, -- "The jolly learned man of middle age, Cheek and jowl all in laps with fat and law, Mirthful as mighty, yet, as great hearts use, Despite the name and fame that tempt our flesh, Constant to the devotion of the hearth, Still captive in those dear domestic ties!"-- is represented, with fine grotesque humour, in the very act of makinghis speech, pre-occupied, all the while he "wheezes out law andwhiffles Latin forth, " with a birthday-feast in preparation for hiseight-year-old son, little Giacinto, the pride of his heart. The effectis very comic, though the alternation or intermixture of lawyer's-Latinand domestic arrangements produces something which is certainly, andperhaps happily, without parallel in poetry. His defence is, and isintended to be, mere quibbling. _Causâ honoris_ is the whole pith andpoint of his plea: Pompilia's guilt he simply takes for granted. Bottini, the exact opposite in every way of his adversary, -- "A man of ready smile and facile tear, Improvised hopes, despairs at nod and beck, And language--ah, the gift of eloquence! Language that goes as easy as a glove O'er good and evil, smoothens both to one"-- Bottini presents us with a full-blown speech, intended to provePompilia's innocence, though really in every word a confession of herutter depravity. His sole purpose is to show off his cleverness, and hebrings forward objections on purpose to prove how well he can turn themoff; assumes guilt for the purpose of arguing it into comparativeinnocence. "Yet for the sacredness of argument, . .. Anything, anything to let the wheels Of argument run glibly to their goal!" He pretends to "paint a saint, " whom he can still speak of, in tones ofearnest admiration, as "wily as an eel. " His implied concessions andmerely parenthetic denials, his abominable insinuations and suggestions, come, evidently enough, from the instincts of a grovelling mind, literally incapable of appreciating goodness, as well as fromprofessional irritation at one who will "Leave a lawyer nothing to excuse, Reason away and show his skill about. " The whole speech is a capital bit of satire and irony; it is comicallyclever and delightfully exasperating. After the lawyers have spoken, we have the final judgment, thesumming-up and laying bare of the whole matter, fact and motive, in thesoliloquy of _The Pope_. Guido has been tried and found guilty, but, onappeal, the case had been referred to the Pope, Innocent XII. Hisdecision is made; he has been studying the case from early morning, andnow, at the "Dim Droop of a sombre February day, In the plain closet where he does such work, With, from all Peter's treasury, one stool, One table and one lathen crucifix, " he passes the actors of the tragedy in one last review, nerving himselfto pronounce the condemnation which he feels, as judge, to be due, butwhich he shrinks from with the natural shrinking of an aged man about tosend a strong man to death before him. Pompilia he pronounces faultlessand more, -- "My rose, I gather for the breast of God;" Caponsacchi, not all without fault, yet a true soldier of God, prompt, for all his former seeming frivolousness, to spring forward and redressthe wrong, victorious, too, over temptation:-- "Was the trial sore? Temptation sharp? Thank God a second time! Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestalled in triumph? Pray 'Lead us into no such temptation, Lord!' Yea, but, O Thou, whose servants are the bold, Lead such temptations by the head and hair, Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight, That so he may do battle and have praise!" For Guido he can see no excuse, can find no loophole for mercy, and butlittle hope of penitence or salvation, and he signs the death-warrant. "For the main criminal I have no hope Except in such a suddenness of fate. I stood at Naples once, a night so dark, I could have scarce conjectured there was earth Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all: But the night's black was burst through by a blaze-- Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore, Through her whole length of mountain visible: There lay the city thick and plain with spires, And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea. So may the truth be flashed out by one blow, And Guido see; one instant, and be saved. " The whole monologue is of different order from all the others. Every onebut this expresses a more or less partial and fragmentary view. _TertiumQuid_ alone makes any pretence at impartiality, and his is the result ofindifference, not of justice. The Pope's speech is long, slow, discoursive, full of aged wisdom, dignity and nobility. The latter partof it, containing some of Browning's most characteristic philosophy, isby no means out of place, but perfectly coherent and appropriate to thecharacter of the speaker. Last of all comes the second and final speech of _Guido_, "the sameman, another voice, " as he "speaks and despairs, the last night of hislife, " before the Cardinal Acciaiuoli and Abate Panciatichi, two oldfriends, who have come to obtain his confession, absolve him, andaccompany him to the scaffold:-- "The tiger-cat screams now, that whined before, That pried and tried and trod so gingerly, Till in its silkiness the trap-teeth join; Then you know how the bristling fury foams. They listen, this wrapped in his folds of red, While his feet fumble for the filth below; The other, as beseems a stouter heart, Working his best with beads and cross to ban The enemy that come in like a flood Spite of the standard set up, verily And in no trope at all, against him there: For at the prison-gate, just a few steps Outside, already, in the doubtful dawn, Thither, from this side and from that, slow sweep And settle down in silence solidly, Crow-wise, the frightful Brotherhood of Death. " We have here the completed portrait of Guido, a portrait perhapsunsurpassed as a whole by any of Browning's studies in the complexitiesof character. In his first speech he fought warily, and with delicateskill of fence, for life. Here, says Mr. Swinburne, "a close and dumbsoul compelled into speech by mere struggle and stress of things, labours in literal translation and accurate agony at the lips of Guido. "Hopeless, but impelled by the biting frenzy of despair, he pours out onhis awe-stricken listeners a wild flood of entreaty, defiance, ghastlyand anguished humour, flattery, satire, raving blasphemy and foamingimpenitence. His desperate venom and blasphemous raillery is partdespair, part calculated horror. In his last revolt against death andall his foes, he snatches at any weapon, even truth, that may serve hispurpose and gain a reprieve:-- "I thought you would not slay impenitence, But teazed, from men you slew, contrition first, -- I thought you had a conscience . .. Would you send A soul straight to perdition, dying frank An atheist?" How much of truth there is in it all we need not attempt to decide. Itis not likely that Guido could pretend to be much worse than he reallywas, though he unquestionably heightens the key of his crime, working upto a pitch of splendid ferocity almost sublime, from a malevolencerather mean than manly. At the last, struck suddenly, as he sees deathupon him, from his pretence of defiant courage, he hurls down at a blowthe whole structure of lies, and lays bare at once his own malignantcowardice and the innocence of his murdered wife:--is it with a touch ofremorse, of saving penitence? "Nor is it in me to unhate my hates, -- I use up my last strength to strike once more Old Pietro in the wine-house-gossip-face, To trample underfoot the whine and wile Of beast Violante, --and I grow one gorge To loathingly reject Pompilia's pale Poison my hasty hunger took for food. A strong tree wants no wreaths about its trunk, No cloying cups, no sickly sweet of scent, But sustenance at root, a bucketful. How else lived that Athenian who died so, Drinking hot bull's blood, fit for men like me? I lived and died a man, and take man's chance, Honest and bold: right will be done to such. Who are these you have let descend my stair? Ha, their accursed psalm! Lights at the sill! Is it 'Open' they dare bid you? Treachery! Sirs, have I spoken one word all this while Out of the world of words I had to say? Not one word! All was folly--I laughed and mocked! Sirs, my first true word, all truth and no lie, Is--save me notwithstanding! Life is all! I was just stark mad, --let the madman live Pressed by as many chains as you please pile! Don't open! Hold me from them! I am yours, I am the Granduke's, --no, I am the Pope's! Abate, --Cardinal, --Christ, --Maria, --God, . .. Pompilia, will you let them murder me?" The coward's agony of the fear of death has never been rendered in wordsso truthful or so terrible. Last of all comes the Epilogue, entitled _The Book and the Ring_, givingan account of Count Guido's execution, in the form of contemporaryletters, real and imaginary; with an extract from the Augustinian'ssermon on Pompilia, and other documents needed to wind off the threadsof the story. _The Ring and the Book_ was the first important work which Browningwrote after the death of his wife, and her memory holds in it a doubleshrine: at the opening an invocation, at the close a dedication. I quotethe invocation: the words are sacred, and nothing remains to be said ofthem except that they are worthy of the dead and of the living. "O lyric Love, half-angel and half-bird And all a wonder and a wild desire, -- Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun, Took sanctuary within the holier blue, And sang a kindred soul out to his face, -- Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart-- When the first summons from the darkling earth Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue, And bared them of the glory--to drop down, To toil for man, to suffer or to die, -- This is the same voice: can thy soul know change? Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help! Never may I commence my song, my due To God who best taught song by gift of thee, Except with bent head and beseeching hand-- That still, despite the distance and the dark, What was, again may be; some interchange Of grace, some splendour once thy very thought, Some benediction anciently thy smile: --Never conclude, but raising hand and head Thither where eyes, that cannot reach, yet yearn For all hope, all sustainment, all reward, Their utmost up and on, --so blessing back In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home, Some whiteness which, I judge, thy face makes proud, Some wanness where, I think, thy foot may fall!" FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 40: _Handbook_, p. 93. ] [Footnote 41: Swinburne, _Essays and Studies_, p. 220. ] 18. BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE: including a Transcript from Euripides. [Published in August, 1871. Dedication: "To the Countess Cowper. --If I mention the simple truth: that this poem absolutely owes its existence to you, --who not only suggested, but imposed on me as a task, what has proved the most delightful of May-month amusements--I shall seem honest, indeed, but hardly prudent; for, how good and beautiful ought such a poem to be!--Euripides might fear little; but I, also, have an interest in the performance: and what wonder if I beg you to suffer that it make, in another and far easier sense, its nearest possible approach to those Greek qualities of goodness and beauty, by laying itself gratefully at your feet?--R. B. , London, July 23, 1871. " (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. XI. Pp. 1-122). ] The episode which supplies the title of _Balaustion's Adventure_ wassuggested by the familiar story told by Plutarch in his life of Nicias:that after the ruin of the Sicilian expedition, those of the Atheniancaptives who could repeat any poetry of Euripides were set at liberty, or treated with consideration, by the Syracusans. In Browning's poem, Balaustion tells her four girl-friends the story of her "adventure" atSyracuse, where, shortly before, she had saved her own life and thelives of a ship's-company of her friends by reciting the play of_Alkestis_ to the Euripides-loving townsfolk. After a brief reminiscenceof the adventure, which has gained her (besides life, and much fame, andthe regard of Euripides) a lover whom she is shortly to marry, sherepeats, for her friends, the whole play, adding, as she speaks thewords of Euripides, such other words of her own as may serve to explainor help to realise the conception of the poet. In other words, we have atranscript or re-telling in monologue of the whole play, interspersedwith illustrative comments; and after this is completed Balaustion againtakes up the tale, presents us with a new version of the story ofAlkestis, refers by anticipation to a poem of Mrs. Browning and apicture of Sir Frederick Leighton, and ends exultantly:-- "And all came--glory of the golden verse, And passion of the picture, and that fine Frank outgush of the human gratitude Which saved our ship and me, in Syracuse, -- Ay, and the tear or two which slipt perhaps Away from you, friends, while I told my tale, --It all came of the play which gained no prize! Why crown whom Zeus has crowned in soul before?" It will thus be seen that the "Transcript from Euripides" is the realoccasion of the poem, Balaustion's adventure, though graphicallydescribed, and even Balaustion herself, though beautifully and vividlybrought before us, being of secondary importance. The "adventure, " as ithas been said, is the amber in which Browning has embalmed the_Alkestis_. The play itself is rendered in what is rather aninterpretation than a translation; an interpretation conceived in thespirit of the motto taken from Mrs. Browning's _Wine of Cyprus_:-- "Our Euripides, the human, With his droppings of warm tears, And his touches of things common Till they rose to touch the spheres. " Browning has no sympathy with those who impute to Euripides a sophisticrather than a pathetic intention; and it is conceivable that the "task"which Lady Cowper imposed upon him was to show, by some such method oftranslation and interpretation, the warm humanity, deep pathos, rightconstruction and genuine truth to nature of the drama. With this end inview, Browning has woven the thread of the play into a sort of connectednarrative, translating, with almost uniform literalness of language, thewhole of the play as it was written by Euripides, but connecting it bycomments, explanations, hints and suggestions; analyzing whatever mayseem not easily to be apprehended, or not unlikely to be misapprehended;bringing out by a touch or a word some delicate shade of meaning, somesubtle fineness of idea or intention. [42] A more creative piece ofcriticism can hardly be found, not merely in poetry, but even in prose. Perhaps it shares in some degree the splendid fault of creativecriticism by occasionally lending, not finding, the noble qualitieswhich we are certainly made to see in the work itself. The translation, though not literal in form, is literal in substance, and it is rendered into careful and expressive blank verse. Owing to thescheme on which it is constructed, the choruses could not be renderedinto lyrical verse; while, for the same reason, a few passages here andthere are omitted, or only indicated by a word or so in passing. Theomitted passages are very few in number; but it is not always easy tosee why they should have been omitted. [43] Browning's canon oftranslation is "to be literal at every cost save that of absoluteviolence to our language, " and here, certainly, he has observed hisrule. Notwithstanding the greater difficulty of the metrical form, andthe far greater temptation to "brighten up" a version by the use ofparaphrastic but sonorous effects, it is improbable that any prosetranslation could be more faithful. And not merely is Browning literalin the sense of following the original word for word, he gives the exactroot-meaning of words which a literal translator would consider himselfjustified in taking in their general sense. Occasionally a literalityof this sort is less easily intelligible to the general reader than themore obvious word would have been; but, except in a very few instances, the whole translation is not less clear and forcible than it is exact. Whether or not the _Alkestis_ of Browning is quite the _Alkestis_ ofEuripides, there is no doubt that this literal, yet glorified andvivified translation of a Greek play has added a new poem to Englishliterature. The blank verse of _Balaustion's Adventure_ is somewhat different fromthat of its predecessor, _The Ring and the Book_: to my own ear, atleast, it is by no means so original or so fine. It is indeed morerestrained, but Browning seems to be himself working under a sort ofrestraint, or perhaps upon a theory of the sort of versificationappropriate to classical themes. Something of frank vigour, something offlexibility and natural expressiveness, is lost, but, on the other hand, there is often a rich colour in the verse, a lingering perfume andsweetness in the melody, which has a new and delicate charm of its own. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 42: Note, for instance, the admirable exposition and defenceof the famous and ill-famed altercation between Pheres and Admetos: oneof the keenest bits of explanatory analysis in Mr. Browning's works. Orobserve how beautifully human the dying Alkestis becomes as heinterprets for her, and how splendid a humanity the jovial Herakles putson. ] [Footnote 43: The two speeches of Eumelos, not without a note of pathos, are scarcely represented by-- "The children's tears ran fast Bidding their father note the eye-lids' stare, Hands'-droop, each dreadful circumstance of death. "] 19. PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. [Published in December, 1871. (_Poetical Works_, Vol. XI. Pp. 123-210). ] _Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau_[44] is a blank verse monologue, supposedto be spoken, in a musing day-dream, by Louis Napoleon, while Emperor ofthe French, and calling himself, to the delight of ironical echoes, the"Saviour of Society. " The work is equally distant in spirit from thebranding satire and righteous wrath of Victor Hugo's _Châtiments_ and_Napoléon le Petit_, and from Lord Beaconsfield's _couleur de rose_portrait, in _Endymion_, of the nominally pseudonymous Prince Florestan. It is neither a denunciation nor a eulogy, nor yet altogether animpartial delineation. It is an "apology, " with much the same object asthose of Bishop Blougram or Mr. Sludge, the Medium: "by no means toprove black white or white black, or to make the worse appear the betterreason, but to bring a seeming monster and perplexing anomaly under thecommon laws of nature, by showing how it has grown to be what it is, andhow it can with more or less of self-illusion reconcile itself toitself. "[45] The poem is very hard reading, perhaps as a whole the hardestintellectual exercise in Browning's work, but this arises not so muchfrom the obscurity of its ideas and phrases as from the peculiarcomplexity of its structure. To apprehend it we must put ourselves at acertain standpoint, which is not easy to reach. The monologue as a wholerepresents, as we only learn at the end, not a direct speech to a realperson in England, but a mere musing over a cigar in the palace inFrance. It is divided into two distinct sections, which need to be keptclearly apart in the mind. The first section, up to the line, more thanhalf-way through, "Something like this the unwritten chapter reads, " isa direct self-apology. Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau puts forward what herepresents as his theory of practice. It is founded on the principle of_laisser-faire_, and resolves itself into conformity: concurrence withthings as they are, with society as it is. He finds existinginstitutions, not indeed perfect, but sufficiently good for practicalpurposes; and he conceives his mission to be that of a builder onexisting foundations, that of a social conservator, not of a socialreformer: "to do the best with the least change possible. " On his ownshowing, he has had this single aim in view from first to last, and onthis ground, that of expediency, he explains and defends every act ofhis tortuous and vacillating policy. He has had his ambitions and idealsof giving freedom to Italy, for example, but he has set them aside inthe interests of his own people and for what he holds to be their moreimmediate needs. So far the direct apology. He next proceeds to showwhat he might have done, but did not, the ideal course as it is held;commenting the while, as "Sagacity, " upon the imaginary new version ofhis career. His comments represent his real conduct, and they are suchas he assumes would naturally be made on the "ideal" course by the verycritics who have censured his actual temporising policy. The final pagescontain an involuntary confession that, even in his own eyes, PrinceHohenstiel is not quite satisfied with either his conduct or his defenceof it. To separate the truth from the falsehood in this dramatic monologue hasnot been Browning's intention, and it need not be ours. It may berepeated that Browning is no apologist for Louis Napoleon: he simplycalls him to the front, and, standing aside, allows him to speak forhimself. [46] In his speech under these circumstances we find just asmuch truth entangled with just as much sophistry as we might reasonablyexpect. Here, we get what seems the genuine truth; there, in whatappears to the speaker a satisfactory defence, we see that he is simplyexposing his own moral defect; again, like Bishop Blougram, he "saystrue things, but calls them by wrong names. " Passages of the last kindare very frequent; are, indeed, to be found everywhere throughout thepoem; and it is in these that Browning unites most cleverly thevicarious thinking due to his dramatic subject, and the good honestthought which we never fail to find dominant in his most exceptionalwork. The Prince gives utterance to a great deal of very true and veryadmirable good sense; we are at liberty to think him insincere in hisapplication of it, but an axiom remains true, even if it be wronglyapplied. The versification of the poem is everywhere vigorous, and often fine;perhaps the finest passage it contains is that referring to LouisNapoleon's abortive dreams on behalf of Italy. "Ay, still my fragments wander, music-fraught, Sighs of the soul, mine once, mine now, and mine For ever! Crumbled arch, crushed aqueduct, Alive with tremors in the shaggy growth Of wild-wood, crevice-sown, that triumphs there Imparting exultation to the hills! Sweep of the swathe when only the winds walk And waft my words above the grassy sea Under the blinding blue that basks o'er Rome-- Hear ye not still--'Be Italy again?' And ye, what strikes the panic to your heart? Decrepit council-chambers, --where some lamp Drives the unbroken black three paces off From where the greybeards huddle in debate, Dim cowls and capes, and midmost glimmers one Like tarnished gold, and what they say is doubt, And what they think is fear, and what suspends The breath in them is not the plaster-patch Time disengages from the painted wall Where Rafael moulderingly bids adieu, Nor tick of the insect turning tapestry To dust, which a queen's finger traced of old; But some word, resonant, redoubtable, Of who once felt upon his head a hand Whereof the head now apprehends his foot. " FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 44: The name _Hohenstiel-Schwangau_ is formed from HohenSchwangau, one of the castles of the late king of Bavaria. ] [Footnote 45: James Thomson on _The Ring and the Book_. ] [Footnote 46: I find in a letter of Browning, which Mrs Orr has printedin her _Life and Letters of Browning_ (1891), a reference to "what theeditor of the _Edinburgh_ calls my eulogium on the Second Empire--whichit is not, any more than what another wiseacre affirms it to be--'ascandalous attack on the old constant friend of England'--it is justwhat I imagine the man might, if he pleased, say for himself. "] 20. FIFINE AT THE FAIR. [Published in 1872 (_Poetical Works_, Vol. XI. Pp. 211-343). ] _Fifine at the Fair_ is a monologue at once dramatic and philosophical. Its arguments, like those of _Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau_, are parttruth, part sophistry. The poem is prefaced by a motto from Molière's_Don Juan_, in which Donna Elvira suggests to her husband, with a bitterirony, the defence he ought to make for himself. Don Juan did not takethe hint. Browning has done so. The genesis of the poem and the specialform it has assumed are further explained by the following passage fromMrs. Orr:-- "Mr. Browning was, with his family, at Pornic, many years ago, and there saw the gypsy who is the original of Fifine. His fancy was evidently set roaming by her audacity, her strength--the contrast which she presented to the more spiritual types of womanhood; and this contrast eventually found expression in a poetic theory of life, in which these opposite types and their corresponding modes of attraction became the necessary complement of each other. As he laid down the theory, Mr. Browning would be speaking in his own person. But he would turn into someone else in the act of working it out--for it insensibly carried with it a plea for yielding to those opposite attractions, not only successively, but at the same time; and a modified Don Juan would grow up under his pen. "[47] This modified Don Juan is the spokesman of the poem: not the "splendiddevil" of Tirso de Molina, but a modern gentleman, living at Pornic, arefined, cultured, musical, artistic and philosophical person, "of highattainments, lofty aspirations, strong emotions, and capricious will. "Strolling through the fair with his wife, he expatiates on the charm ofa Bohemian existence, and, more particularly, on the charms of oneFifine, a rope-dancer, whose performance he has witnessed. Urged by thetroubled look of his wife, he launches forth into an elaborate defenceof inconstancy in love, and consequently of the character of hisadmiration for Fifine. He starts by arguing:-- "That bodies show me minds, That, through the outward sign, the inward grace allures, And sparks from heaven transpierce earth's coarsest covertures, -- All by demonstrating the value of Fifine!" He then applies his method to the whole of earthly life, finallyresolving it into the principle:-- "All's change, but permanence as well. * * * * * Truth inside, and outside, truth also; and between Each, falsehood that is change, as truth is permanence. The individual soul works through the shows of sense, (Which, ever proving false, still promise to be true) Up to an outer soul as individual too; And, through the fleeting, lives to die into the fixed, And reach at length 'God, man, or both together mixed. '" Last of all, just as his speculations have come to an end in an earnestprofession of entire love to his wife, and they pause for a moment onthe threshold of the villa, he receives a note from Fifine. "Oh, threaten no farewell! five minutes shall suffice To clear the matter up. I go, and in a trice Return; five minutes past, expect me! If in vain-- Why, slip from flesh and blood, and play the ghost again!" He exceeds the allotted five minutes. Elvire takes him at his word; and, as we seem to be told in the epilogue, husband and wife are reconciledonly in death. Such is the barest outline of the structure and purport of the poem. Butno outline can convey much notion of the wide range, profoundsignificance and infinite ingenuity of the arguments; of the splendourand vigour of the poetry; or of the subtle consistency and exquisitetruth of the character-painting. Small in amount as is this last inproportion to the philosophy, it is of very notable kind and quality. Not only the speaker, but Fifine, and still more Elvire, are quickenedinto life by graphic and delicate touches. If we except Lucrezia in_Andrea del Sarto_, in no other monologue is the presence andpersonality of the silent or seldom-speaking listener so vividly felt. We see the wronged wife Elvire, we know her, and we trace the veryprogress of her moods, the very changes in her face, as she listens tothe fluent talk of her husband. Don Juan (if we may so call him) is adistinct addition to Browning's portrait-gallery. Let no one suppose himto be a mere mouthpiece for dialectical disquisitions. He is thiscertainly, but his utterances are tinged with individual colour. Thisfact which, from the artistic point of view, is an inestimableadvantage, is apt to prove, as in the case of Prince Hohenstiel, somewhat of a practical difficulty. "The clearest way of showing wherehe uses (1) Truth, (2) Sophism, (3) a mixture of both--is to say thatwherever he speaks of Fifine (whether as type or not) in relation tohimself and his own desire for truth, or right living with his wife, heis sophistical: wherever he speaks directly of his wife's value to himhe speaks truth with an alloy of sophism; and wherever he speaksimpersonally he speaks the truth. [48]" Keeping this in mind, we caneasily separate the grain from the chaff; and the grain is emphaticallyworth storing. Perhaps no poem of Browning's contains so much deep andacute comment on life and conduct: few, such superabounding wealth ofthought and imagery. Browning is famed for his elaborate and originalsimiles; but I doubt if he has conceived any with more originality, orworked them out with richer elaboration, than those of the Swimmer, ofthe Carnival, of the Druid Monument, of Fifine herself. Nor has he oftenwritten more original poetry than some of the more passionate orimaginative passages of the poem. The following lines, describing animaginary face representing Horror, have all the vivid sharpness of anactual vision or revelation:-- "Observe how brow recedes, Head shudders back on spine, as if one haled the hair, Would have the full-face front what pin-point eye's sharp stare Announces; mouth agape to drink the flowing fate, While chin protrudes to meet the burst o' the wave; elate Almost, spurred on to brave necessity, expend All life left, in one flash, as fire does at its end. " Just as good in a different style, is this quaint and quiet landscape:-- "For, arm in arm, we two have reached, nay, passed, you see, The village-precinct; sun sets mild on Saint-Marie-- We only catch the spire, and yet I seem to know What's hid i' the turn o' the hill: how all the graves must glow Soberly, as each warms its little iron cross, Flourished about with gold, and graced (if private loss Be fresh) with stiff rope-wreath of yellow, crisp bead-blooms Which tempt down birds to pay their supper, mid the tombs, With prattle good as song, amuse the dead awhile, If couched they hear beneath the matted camomile. " The poem is written in Alexandrine couplets, and is, I believe, the onlyEnglish poem of any length written in this metre since Drayton's_Polyolbion_. Browning's metre has scarcely the flexibility of the bestFrench verse, but he allows himself occasionally two licenses not usedin French since the time of Marot: (1) the addition of an unaccentedsyllable at the end of the first half of the verse, as:-- "'Twas not for every Gawain to gaze upon the Grail!"-- (2) the addition of two syllables, making seven instead of six beats. "What good were else i' the drum and fife? O pleasant land of France!" FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 47: _Handbook_, p. 148. ] [Footnote 48: J. T. Nettleship on "Fifine at the Fair" (_BrowningSociety's Papers_, Part II. P. 223). Mr. Nettleship's elaborate analysisof the poem is a most helpful and admirable piece of work. ] 21. RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY; OR, TURF AND TOWERS. [Published in 1873 (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol XII. Pp. 1-177). ] _Red Cotton Night-Cap Country_ is a story of real life, true in all itsfacts, and studied at the place where it had occurred a few yearsbefore: St. Aubin, in Normandy (the St. Rambert of the poem). It is thestory of the life of Antoine Mellerio, the Paris jeweller, whose tragicdeath occurred at St. Aubin on the 13th April 1870. A suit concerninghis will, decided only in the summer of 1872, supplied Browning with thematerials of his tragedy. In the first proof of the poem the real namesof persons and places were given; but they were changed beforepublication, and are now in every case fictitious. The second edition ofMrs. Orr's _Handbook_ contains a list of the real names, which Isubjoin. [49] The book is dedicated to Miss Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie), and thewhole story is supposed to be told to her (as in substance it was) byBrowning, who has thus given to the poem a tone of pleasantcolloquialism. Told as it is, it becomes in part a dramatic monologue ofwhich the _dramatis persona_ is Robert Browning. It is full of quiet, sometimes grim, humour; of picturesque and witty touches; of pungencyand irony. Its manner, the humorous telling of a tragic tale, is alittle after the pattern of Carlyle. In such a setting the tragicepisodes, sometimes all but heroic, sometimes almost grotesque, have allthe impressiveness of contrast. The story itself, in the main, is a sordid enough tragedy: like severalof Browning's later books, it is a study in evil. The two characters whofill the stage of this little history are tragic comedians; they, too, are "real creatures, exquisitely fantastical, strangely exposed to theworld by a lurid catastrophe, who teach us that fiction, if it canimagine events and persons more agreeable to the taste it has educated, can read us no such furrowing lesson in life. " The character of Miranda, the sinner who would reconcile sin with salvation, is drawn with specialsubtlety; analysed, dissected rather, with the unerring scalpel of theexperienced operator. Miranda is swayed through life by two opposingtendencies, for he is of mixed Castilian and French blood. He ismastered at once by two passions, earthly and religious, illicit loveand Catholic devotion: he cannot let go the one and he will not let gothe other; he would enjoy himself on the "Turf" without abandoning theshelter of the "Towers. " His life is spent in trying to effect acompromise between the two antagonistic powers which finally pull downhis house of life. Clara, his mistress-wife, is a mirror of himself; shehumours him, manages him, perhaps on his own lines of inclination. "'But--loved him?' Friend, I do not praise her love! True love works never for the loved one so, Nor spares skin-surface, smoothening truth away, Love bids touch truth, endure truth, and embrace Truth, though, embracing truth, love crush itself. 'Worship not me, but God!' the angels urge!" This man and woman are analysed with exquisite skill; but they are notin the strict sense inventions, creations: we understand rather than seethem. Only towards the end, where the facts leave freer play for thepoetic impulse, do they rise into sharp vividness of dramatic life andspeech. Nothing in the poem equals in intensity the great soliloquy ofMiranda before his strange and suicidal leap, and the speech of Clara tothe "Cousinry. " Here we pass at a bound from chronicling to creation. Asa narrative, _Red Cotton Night-Cap Country_ has all the interest of anovel, with the concentration and higher pitch of poetry. Less ingeniousand philosophical than _Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau_ and _Fifine at theFair_, it is far more intimately human, more closely concerned with"man's thoughts and loves and hates, " with the manifestations of hiseager and uneasy spirit, in strange shapes, on miry roads, in dubioustwilights. Of all Browning's works it is perhaps the easiest to read; notale could be more straightforward, no language more lucid, no versemore free from harshness or irregularity, The versification, indeed, isexceptionally smooth and measured, seldom rising into strong passion, but never running into volubility. Here and there are short passages, which I can scarcely detach for quotation, with a singular charm ofvague remote music. The final summary of Clara and Miranda, excellentand convenient alike, may be severed without much damage from thecontext. "Clara, I hold the happier specimen, -- It may be, through that artist-preference For work complete, inferiorly proposed, To incompletion, though it aim aright. Morally, no! Aspire, break bounds! I say, Endeavour to be good, and better still, And best! Success is nought, endeavour's all. But intellect adjusts the means to ends, Tries the low thing, and leaves it done, at least; No prejudice to high thing, intellect Would do and will do, only give the means. Miranda, in my picture-gallery, Presents a Blake; be Clara--Meissonnier! Merely considered so, by artist, mind! For, break through Art and rise to poetry, Bring Art to tremble nearer, touch enough The verge of vastness to inform our soul What orb makes transit through the dark above, And there's the triumph!--there the incomplete, More than completion, matches the immense, -- Then, Michelagnolo against the world!" FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 49: Page 2. _The Firm Miranda_--Mellerio Brothers. Page 4. _St. Rambert_--St Aubin; _Joyeux, Joyous Gard_--Lion, Lionesse. Page 6. _Vire_--Caen. Page 25. _St. Rambertese_--St. Aubinese. Page 29. _Londres_--Douvres; _London_--Dover; _La Roche_--Courcelle;_Monlieu_--Bernières; _Villeneuve_--Langrune; _Pons_--Luc; _LaRavissante_--La Délivrande. Page 33. _Raimbaux_--Bayeux. Page 34. _Morillon_--Hugonin; _Mirecourt_--Bonnechose; _Miranda_--Mellerio. Page35. _New York_--Madrid. Page 41. _Clairvaux_--Tailleville. Page 42. _Madrilene_--Turinese. Page 43. _Gonthier_--Bény; _Rousseau_--Voltaire;_Léonce_--Antoine. Page 52. _Of "Firm Miranda, London and NewYork"_--"Mellerio Brothers"--Meller, people say. Page 79. _RareVissante_--Del Yvrande; _Aldabert_--Regnobert. Page 80. _Eldobert_--Ragnebert; _Mailleville_--Beaudoin. Page 81. _Chaumont_--Quelen; _Vertgalant_--Talleyrand. Page 89. _Ravissantish_--Délivrandish. Page 101. _Clara de Millefleurs_--Anna deBeaupré; _Coliseum Street_--Miromesnil Street. Page 110. _Steiner_--Mayer; _Commercy_--Larocy; _Sierck_--Metz. Page 111. _Muhlhausen_--Debacker. Page 112, _Carlino Centofanti_--Miranda diMongino. Page 121. _Portugal_--Italy. Page 125. "_Gustave_"--"Alfred. "Page 135. _Vaillant_--Mériel. Page 149. _Thirty-three_--Twenty-five. 152. _Beaumont_--Pasquier. Page 167. _Sceaux_--Garges. Page 203. _Luc dela Maison Rouge_--Jean de la Becquetière; _Claise_--Vire; _Maude_--Anne. Page 204. _Dionysius_--Eliezer; _Scolastica_--Elizabeth. Page 214. _Twentieth_--Thirteenth. Page 241. _Fricquot_--"Picot. "--Mrs. Orr's_Handbook_, Second Edition, pp. 261-2. ] 22. ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY: including a Transcript from Euripides; beingthe Last Adventure of Balaustion. [Published in April, 1875. (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. XIII. Pp. 1-258). ] _Aristophanes' Apology_, as its sub-title indicates, is a kind of sequelto _Balaustion's Adventure_. It is the record, in Balaustion's words, ofan adventure which happened to her after her marriage with Euthukles. Onthe day when the news of Euripides' death reached Athens, as Balaustionand her husband were sitting at home, toward nightfall, Aristophanes, coming home with his revellers from the banquet which followed histriumph in the play of _Thesmophoriazousai_, burst in upon them. "There stood in person Aristophanes. And no ignoble presence! On the bulge Of the clear baldness, --all his head one brow, -- True, the veins swelled, blue net-work, and there surged A red from cheek to temple, then retired As if the dark-leaved chaplet damped a flame, -- Was never nursed by temperance or health. But huge the eyeballs rolled black native fire, Imperiously triumphant: nostrils wide Waited their incense; while the pursed mouth's pout Aggressive, while the beak supreme above, While the head, face, nay, pillared throat thrown back, Beard whitening under like a vinous foam, These made a glory, of such insolence-- I thought, --such domineering deity Hephaistos might have carved to cut the brine For his gay brother's prow, imbrue that path Which, purpling, recognized the conqueror. Impudent and majestic: drunk, perhaps, But that's religion; sense too plainly snuffed: Still, sensuality was grown a rite. " He, too, has just heard of Euripides' death, and an impulse, partsympathy, part mockery, has brought him to the "house friendly toEuripides. " The revellers retire abashed before Balaustion; he aloneremains. From the extraordinary and only too natural gabble and garbageof his opening words, he quickly passes to a more or less seriousexplanation and defence of his conduct toward the dead poet; to anexposition, in fact, of his aims and doings as a writer of comedy. Whenhis "apology" is ended, Balaustion replies, censuring him prettyseverely, making adroit use of the licence of a "stranger" and a woman, and defending Euripides against him. For a further (and the best)defence, she reads the whole of the _Herakles_, which Browning heretranslates. Aristophanes, naturally, is not convinced; impressed he musthave been, to have borne so long a reading without demur: he flings thema snatch of song, finding in his impromptu a hint for a new play, the_Frogs_, and is gone. And now, a year after, as the couple return toRhodes from a disgraced and dismantled Athens, Balaustion dictates toEuthukles her recollection of the "adventure, " for the double purpose ofputting the past events on record, and of eluding the urgency of thepresent sorrow. It will thus be seen that the book consists of two distinct parts. Thereis, first, the apology of Aristophanes, second, the translation of theplay of Euripides. _Herakles_, or, as it is more generally known, _Hercules Furens_, is rendered completely and consecutively, in blankverse and varied choric measures. It is not, as was the case with_Alkestis_ worked into the body of the poem; not welded, but inserted. We have thus, while losing the commentary, the advantage of a detachedtranscript, with a lyrical rendering of the lyrical parts of the play. These are given with a constant vigour and closeness, often with a rarebeauty (as in the famous "Ode bewailing Age, " and that other on thelabours of Herakles). Precisely the same characteristics that we havefound in the translation of the _Alkestis_ are here again to be found, and all that I said on the former, considered apart from its setting, may be applied to the latter. We have the same literalness (again with afew apparent exceptions), the same insistence on the root-meaning ofwords, the same graphic force and vivifying touch, the same generalclearness and charm. The original part of the book is of far closer texture and moreremarkable order than "the amber which embalms _Alkestis_" the firstadventure of Balaustion; but it has less human emotion, less generalappeal. It is nothing less than a resuscitation of the old controversybetween Aristophanes and Euripides; a resuscitation, not only of thecontroversy, but of the combatants. "Local colour" is laid on with anunsparing hand, though it cannot be said that the atmosphere is reallyGreek. There is hardly a line, there is never a page, without anallusion to some recondite thing: Athenian customs, Greek names, theplays of Euripides, above all, the plays of Aristophanes. "Every line ofthe poem, " it has been truly said, "shows Mr. Browning as soaked andsteeped in the comedies as was Bunyan in his Bible. " The result is avast, shapeless thing, splendidly and grotesquely alive, but alive withthe obscure and tangled life of the jungle. Browning's attitude towards the controversy, the side he takes aschampion of Euripides, is distinctly shown, not merely in Balaustion'sstatement and defence, but in the whole conduct of the piece. Aristophanes, though on his own defence, is set in a decidedlyunfavourable light; and no one, judging from Browning's work, can doubtas to his opinion of the relative qualities of the two great poets. Itis possible even to say there is a partiality in the presentment. But itmust be remembered on the other hand that Browning is not concernedsimply with the question of art, but with the whole bearings, artisticand ethical, of the contest; and it must be remembered that the aim ofComedy is intrinsically lower and more limited than that of Tragedy, that it is destructive, disintegrating, negative, concerned with smallerissues and more temporary questions; and that Euripides may reasonablybe held a better teacher, a keener, above all a more helpful, reader ofthe riddle of life, than his mighty assailant. This is how Aristophaneshas been described, by one who should know:-- "He is an aggregate of many men, all of a certain greatness. We may build up a conception of his powers if we mount Rabelais upon Hudibras, lift him with the songfulness of Shelley, give him a vein of Heinrich Heine, and cover him with the mantle of the Anti-Jacobin, adding (that there may be some Irish in him) a dash of Grattan, before he is in motion. "[50] Now the "Titanic pamphleteer" is more recognisable in Browning's mostvivid portrait than the "lyric poet of aerial delicacy" who in somestrange fashion, beyond his own wildest metamorphoses, distracted andidealised the otherwise congruous figure. Not that this is overlookedor forgotten: it is brought out admirably in several places, notably inthe fine song put into the mouth of Aristophanes at the close; but it isscarcely so prominent as lovers of him could desire. It is possible, too, that Browning somewhat over-accentuates his earnestness; not hisfundamental earnestness, but the extent to which he remembered andexhibited it. "My soul bade fight": yes, but "laugh, " too, and laugh forlaughter's as well as fight for principle's sake. This, again, is merelya matter of detail, of shading. There can be little doubt that the wholegeneral outline of the man is right, none whatever that it is a livingand breathing outline. His apology is presented in Browning's familiarmanner of genuine feeling tempered with sophistry. As a piece ofdramatic art it is worthy to stand beside his famous earlier apologies;and it has value too as a contribution to criticism, to a vitalknowledge of the Attic drama and the work and personality ofAristophanes and Euripides, and to a better understanding of the dramaas a criticism of life. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 50: George Meredith, _On the Idea of Comedy_. ] 23. THE INN ALBUM. [Published in November, 1875. (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol XII. Pp. 179-311. ) Translated into German in 1877: "_Das Fremdenbuch_ von Robert Browning. Aus dem Englischen von E. Leo. Hamburg: W. Mauke Söhne. "] The story of _The Inn Album_ is founded on fact, though it is not, like_Red Cotton Night-Cap Country_, an almost literal transcript from life. The characters of the poem are four, all unnamed: a young "polishedsnob, " an impoverished middle-aged nobleman, a woman, whom he hadseduced, and who is now married to a clergyman; and a young girl, herfriend, who is betrothed to the younger of the two men. Of thesecharacters, the only one whom Browning has invented is the girl, throughwhom, in his telling of the story, the tragedy is brought about. But hehas softened the repulsiveness of the original tale, and has alsobrought it to a ringing close, not supplied by the bare facts. Thecareer of the elder man, which came to an end in 1839, did not by anymeans terminate with the events recorded in the poem. _The Inn Album_ is a story of wrecked lives, lost hopes, of sordid andgloomy villainies; with only light enough in its darkness to make thatdarkness visible. It is profoundly sad; yet "These things are life: And life, they say, is worthy of the Muse. " It would also be profoundly depressing but for the art which has wrung agrandeur out of grime, which has uplifted a story of mere vulgar evil tothe height of tragedy. Out of materials that might be melodramatic, Browning has created a drama of humanity of which the impression issingle, intense and overpowering. Notwithstanding the clash of physicalcatastrophe at the close, it is really a spiritual tragedy; and in itBrowning has achieved that highest of achievements: the right, vivid andconvincing presentment of human nature at its highest and lowest, at itsextremes of possible action and emotion. It is not perfect: thecolloquialism which truth and art alike demand sinks sometimes, thoughnot in the great scenes, to the confines of a bastard realism. But inthe main the poem is an excellent example of the higher imaginativerealism, of the close, yet poetic or creative, treatment of life. The four characters who play out the brief and fateful action of thisdrama in narrative (the poem is more nearly related in form to the puredrama than any other of Browning's poems not cast in the dramatic form)are creations, three of them at least, in a deeper sense than thecharacters in _Red Cotton Night-Cap Country_, or than the character in_Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau_. The "good gay girl, " serving herunconscious purpose in the tragic action, is properly enough a meresketch; but the two men and the elder woman are profoundly studiedcharacters, struck into life and revealed to themselves, to one anotherand to us, at the supreme moment of a complex crisis. The elder man isone of Browning's most finished studies, and, morally, one of the worstcharacters even he has ever investigated. He is at once bad, clever andcynical, the combination, of all others, most noxious and most hopeless. He prides himself above all things on his intellect; and it is evidentthat he has had the power to shape his course and to sway others. Butnow, at fifty, he knows himself to be a failure. The cause of it hetraces mainly to a certain crisis of his life, when he won, only toabuse, the affections of a splendidly beautiful woman, whose equalsplendour of soul he saw only when too late. It is significant of himthat he never views his conduct as a crime, a wrong to the woman, but asa mistake on his part; and his attitude is not that of remorse, but ofone who has missed a chance. When, after four years, he meetsunexpectedly the woman whom he has wronged and lost, the good and evilin him blaze out in a sudden and single flame of earnest appeal. In thefact that this passionate appeal should be only half-sincere, or, ifsincere, then only for the moment, that to her who hears it, it shouldseem wholly insincere, lies the intensity of the situation. The character of the woman is less complex but not less consistent andconvincing. Like the man, her development has been arrested anddistorted by the cause which has made him too a wreck. Her love wassingle-hearted and over-mastering; its very force, in recoil, turned itinto hate. Yoked to a soulless husband, whom she has married half inpity, half in despair, her whole nature has frozen; so that when we seeher she is, while physically the same, spiritually the ghost of herformer self. The subtlety of the picture is to show what she is nowwhile making equally plain what she was in the past. She is a figure notso much pathetic as terrible. Pathetic, despite its outer comedy, is the figure of the young man, thegreat rough, foolish, rich youth, tutored in evil by his Mephistopheles, but only, we fancy, skin-deep in it, slow of thought but quick offeeling, with his one and only love, never forgotten, and now foundagain in the very woman whom his "friend" has wronged. His last speech, with its clumsy yet genuine chivalry, its touching, broken words, itsfine feeling and faltering expression, is one of the most patheticthings I know. Such a character, in its very absence of subtlety, is atriumph of Browning's, to whom intellectual simplicity must be thehardest of all dramatic assumptions. 24. PACCHIAROTTO, and how he worked in Distemper: with other poems. [Published in July, 1876 (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. XIV. Pp. 1-152). ] _Pacchiarotto and other Poems_ is the first collection of miscellaneouspieces since the _Dramatis Personæ_ of 1864. It is somewhat of anexception to the general rule of Browning's work. A large proportion ofit is critical rather than creative, a criticism of critics; perhaps itwould be at once more correct and concise to call it "Robert Browning'sApology. " _Pacchiarotto_, _At the "Mermaid"_, _House_, _Shop_ and_Epilogue_, are all more or less personal utterances on art and theartist, sometimes in a concrete and impersonal way, more often in asomewhat combative and contemptuous spirit. The most important part ofthe volume, however, is that which contains the two or threemonodramatic poems and the splendid ballad of the fleet, _Hervé Riel_. The first and longest poem, _Of Pacchiarotto, and how he worked inDistemper_, divides itself into two parts, the first being the humorousrendering of a true anecdote told in Vasari, of Giacomo Pacchiarotto, aSienese painter of the sixteenth century; and the second, a still moremirthful onslaught of the poet upon his critics. The story-- "Begun with a chuckle, And throughout timed by raps of the knuckle, "-- is funny enough in itself, and it points an excellent moral; but it ischiefly interesting as a whimsical freak of verse, an extravaganza instaccato. The rhyming is of its kind almost incomparable as a sustainedeffort in double and triple grotesque rhymes. Not even in _Hudibras_, not even in _Don Juan_, is there anything like them. I think all otherexperiments of the kind, however successful as a whole, let you see nowand then that the author has had a hard piece of work to keep up hisappearance of ease. In _Pacchiarotto_ there is no evidence of thestrain. The masque of critics, under the cunning disguise of May-daychimney-sweepers:-- "'We critics as sweeps out your chimbly! Much soot to remove from your flue, sir! Who spares coal in kitchen an't you, sir! And neighbours complain it's no joke, sir! You ought to consume your own smoke, sir!'"-- this after-part, overflowing with jolly humour and comic scorn, a besomwielded by a laughing giant, is calculated to put the victims in betterhumour with their executioner than with themselves. Browning has had toendure more than most men at the hands of the critics, and he takes inthis volume, not in this poem only, a full and a characteristicallygood-humoured revenge. The _Epilogue_ follows up the pendant to_Pacchiarotto_. There is the same jolly humour, the same combativeself-assertiveness, the same retort _Tu quoque_, with a yet more earnestand pungent enforcement. "Wine, pulse in might from me! It may never emerge in must from vat, Never fill cask nor furnish can, Never end sweet, which strong began-- God's gift to gladden the heart of man; But spirit's at proof, I promise that! No sparing of juice spoils what should be Fit brewage--wine for me. Man's thoughts and loves and hates! Earth is my vineyard, these grow there: From grape of the ground, I made or marred My vintage; easy the task or hard, Who set it--his praise be my reward! Earth's yield! Who yearn for the Dark Blue Sea's Let them 'lay, pray, bray'[51]--the addle-pates! Mine be Man's thoughts, loves, hates!" Despite its humorous expression, the view of poetic art contained inthese verses is both serious and significant. It is a frank (if defiant)confession of faith. _At the "Mermaid"_, a poem of characteristic energy and directness, is aprotest against the supposition or assumption that the personality andpersonal views and opinions of a poet are necessarily reflected in hisdramatic work. It protests, at the same time, against the shammelancholy and pseudo-despair which Byron made fashionable in poetry:-- "Have you found your life distasteful? My life did and does smack sweet. Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? Mine I saved and hold complete. Do your joys with age diminish? When mine fail me, I'll complain. Must in death your daylight finish? My sun sets to rise again. * * * * * I find earth not gray but rosy, Heaven not grim but fair of hue. Do I stoop? I pluck a posy. Do I stand and stare? All's blue. " _House_ confirms or continues the primary contention in _At the"Mermaid"_: this time by the image of a House of Life, which some poetsmay choose to set on view: "for a ticket apply to the Publisher. "Browning not merely denounces but denies the so-called self-revelationsof poets. He answers Wordsworth's "With this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart, " by the characteristic retort:-- "Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!" In _Shop_ we have another keen piece of criticism: a protest againstpoets who make their shop their home, and their song mere ware for sale. After the personal and critical section we pass to half-a-dozen lyrics:_Fears and Scruples_, a covert and startling poem, a doctrine embodiedin a character; then two beautiful little _Pisgah-Sights_, a daintyexperiment in metre, and in substance the expression of Browning'sfavourite lesson, the worth of earth and the need of the mystery oflife; _Appearances_, a couple of stanzas whose telling simplicityrecalls the lovely earlier lilt, _Misconceptions; Natural Magic_ and_Magical Nature_, two magical snatches, as perfect as the "first finecareless rapture" of the earlier lyrics. I quote the latter:-- "MAGICAL NATURE. 1. Flower--I never fancied, jewel--I profess you! Bright I see and soft I feel the outside of a flower. Save but glow inside and--jewel, I should guess you, Dim to sight and rough to touch: the glory is the dower. 2. You, forsooth, a flower? Nay, my love, a jewel-- Jewel at no mercy of a moment in your prime! Time may fray the flower-face: kind be time or cruel, Jewel, from each facet, flash your laugh at time!" But the finest lyric in the volume is _St. Martin's Summer_, a poemfantastically tragic, hauntingly melodious, mysterious and chilling asthe ghostly visitants at late love's pleasure-bower of whom it sings. Ido not think Browning has written many lyrical poems of more brilliantand original quality. _Bifurcation_, as its name denotes, is a study ofdivided paths in life, the paths of Love and Duty chosen severally bytwo lovers whose epitaphs Browning gives. The moral problem, which issinner, which is saint, is stated and left open. The poem is an etching, sharp, concise and suggestive. _Numpholeptos_ (nymph-entranced) has allthe mystery, the vague charm, the lovely sadness, of a picture of BurneJones. Its delicately fantastic colouring, its dreamy passion, and thesad and quiet sweetness of its verse, have some affinity with _St. Martin's Summer_, but are unlike anything else in Browning. It is theutterance of a hopeless-hoping and pathetically resigned love: the loveof a merely human man for an angelically pure and unhumanly cold woman, who requires in him an unattainable union of immaculate purity andcomplete experience of life. "Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile! Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile, Softening, sweetening, till sweet and soft Increase so round this heart of mine, that oft I could believe your moonbeam smile has past The pallid limit and, transformed at last, Lies, sunlight and salvation--warms the soul It sweetens, softens! * * * * * What means the sad slow silver smile above My clay but pity, pardon?--at the best, But acquiescence that I take my rest, Contented to be clay, while in your heaven The sun reserves love for the Spirit-Seven Companioning God's throne they lamp before, --Leaves earth a mute waste only wandered o'er By that pale soft sweet disempassioned moon Which smiles me slow forgiveness! Such the boon I beg? Nay, dear . .. Love, the love whole and sole without alloy!" The action of this soul's tragedy takes place under "the light thatnever was on sea or land": it is the tragedy of a soul, but of adisembodied soul. _A Forgiveness_ is a drama of this world. It is the legitimate successorof the monologues of _Men and Women_; it may, indeed, be most preciselycompared with an earlier monologue, _My Last Duchess_; and it is, likethese, the concentrated essence of a complete tragedy. Like all the bestof Browning's poems, it is thrown into a striking situation, anddeveloped from this central point. It is the story of a love merged incontempt, quenched in hate, and rekindled in a fatal forgiveness, toldin confession to a monk by the man whom the monk has wronged. Thepersonage who speaks is one of the most sharply-outlined characters inBrowning: a clear, cold, strong-willed man, implacable in love or hate. He tells his story in a quiet, measured, utterly unemotional manner, with reflective interruptions and explanations, the acute analysis of amerciless intellect; leading gradually up to a crisis only to be matchedby the very finest crises in Browning:-- "Immersed In thought so deeply, Father? Sad, perhaps? For whose sake, hers or mine or his who wraps --Still plain I seem to see!--about his head The idle cloak, --about his heart (instead Of cuirass) some fond hope he may elude My vengeance in the cloister's solitude? Hardly, I think! As little helped his brow The cloak then, Father--as your grate helps now!" The poem is by far the greatest thing in the volume; it is, indeed, oneof the very finest examples of Browning's psychological subtlety andconcentrated dramatic power. [52] The ballad of _Hervé Riel_ which has no rival but Tennyson's _Revenge_among modern sea-ballads, was written at Croisic, 30th September 1867, and was published in the _Cornhill Magazine_ for March, 1871 in, orderthat the £100 which had been offered for it might be sent to the ParisRelief Fund. It may be named, with the "Ride from Ghent to Aix, " as aproof of how simply and graphically Browning can write if he likes; howpromptly he can stir the blood and thrill the heart. The facts of thestory, telling how, after the battle of the Hogue, a simple Croisicsailor saved all that was left of the French fleet by guiding thevessels into the harbour, are given in the Croisic guide-books; andBrowning has followed them in everything but the very effective end:-- "'Since 'tis ask and have, I may-- Since the others go ashore-- Come! A good whole holiday! Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore!' That he asked and that he got, --nothing more. " "Ce brave homme, " says the account, "ne demanda pour récompense d'unservice aussi signalé, qu'un _conge absolu_ pour rejoindre sa femme, qu'il nomma la Belle Aurore. " _Cenciaja_, the only blank verse piece in the volume, is of the natureof a note or appendix to Shelley's "superb achievement" _The Cenci_. Itserves to explain the allusion to the case of Paolo Santa Croce(_Cenci_, Act V. Sc. Iv. ). Browning obtained the facts from a MS. Volumeof memorials of Italian crime, in the possession of Sir John Simeon, whopublished it in the series of the Philobiblon Society. [53] _Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial_, a grotesque andhumorously-told "reminiscence of A. D. 1670, " is, up to stanza 35, theversification of an anecdote recorded by Baldinucci, the artist and artcritic (1624-1696), in his History of Painters. The incident with whichit concludes is imaginary. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 51: The jocose vindictiveness with which Browning returnsagain and again to the assault of the bad grammar and worse rhetoric ofByron's once so much belauded address to the ocean is very amusing. Theabove is only one out of four or five instances. ] [Footnote 52: It is worth comparing _A Forgiveness_ with a poem of verysimilar motive by Leconte de Lisle: _Le Jugement de Komor_ (_PoèmesBarbares_). Each is a fine example of its author, in just thosequalities for which both poets are eminent: originality and subtlety ofsubject, pregnant picturesqueness of phrase and situation, and grimlytragic power. The contrast no less than the likeness which existsbetween them will be evident on a comparison of the two poems. ] [Footnote 53: In reference to the title _Cenciaja_, and the Italianproverb which follows it, _Ogni cencio vuol entrare in bucato_, Browningstated, in a letter to Mr. H. B. Forman (printed in his _Shelley_, 1880, ii. 419), that "'aia' is generally an accumulative yet depreciativetermination: 'Cenciaja'--a bundle of rags--a trifle. The proverb means, 'Every poor creature will be pressing into the company of his betters, 'and I used it to deprecate the notion that I intended anything of thekind. "] 25. THE AGAMEMNON OF ÆSCHYLUS. [Published in October, 1877 (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. XIII. Pp. 259-357). ] Browning prefaces his transcript of the _Agamemnon_ with a briefintroduction, in which he thus sets forth his theory of translation:-- "If, because of the immense fame of the following Tragedy, I wished to acquaint myself with it, and could only do so by the help of a translator, I should require him to be literal at every cost save that of absolute violence to our language. The use of certain allowable constructions which, happening to be out of daily favour, are all the more appropriate to archaic workmanship, is no violence: but I would be tolerant for once, --in the case of so immensely famous an original, --of even a clumsy attempt to furnish me with the very turn of each phrase in as Greek a fashion as English will bear: while, with respect to amplifications and embellishments, anything rather than, with the good farmer, experience that most signal of mortifications, 'to gape for Æschylus and get Theognis. ' I should especially decline, --what may appear to brighten up a passage, --the employment of a new word for some old one--[Greek: phonos], or [Greek: megas], or [Greek: telos], with its congeners, recurring four times in three lines. .. . Further, --if I obtained a mere strict bald version of thing by thing, or at least word pregnant with thing, I should hardly look for an impossible transmission of the reputed magniloquence and sonority of the Greek; and this with the less regret, inasmuch as there is abundant musicality elsewhere, but nowhere else than in his poem the ideas of the poet. And lastly, when presented with these ideas I should expect the result to prove very hard reading indeed if it were meant to resemble Æschylus. " Every condition here laid down has been carried out with unflinchingcourage. Browning has rendered word by word and line by line; with, indeed, some slight inevitable expansion in the rhymed choruses, veryslight, infinitely slighter than every other translator has foundneedful. Throughout, there are numberless instances of minute and happyaccuracy of phrase, re-creations of the very thoughts of Æschylus. Anincomparable dexterity is shown in fitting phrase upon phrase, forcingline to bear the exact weight of line, rendering detail by detail. Butfor this very reason, as a consequence of this very virtue, there is nodenying that Browning's version is certainly "very hard reading, " sohard reading that it is sometimes necessary to turn to the Greek inorder to fully understand the English. Browning has anticipated, but notaltogether answered, this objection. For, besides those passages whichin their fidelity to every "minute particular, " simply reproduce theobscurity of the original, there is much that seems either obscure orharsh, and is so simply because it gives "the turn of each phrase, " notmerely "in as Greek a fashion as English will bear, " but beyond it:phrases which are native to Greek, foreign to English. The choruses, which are attempted in metre as close as English can come to Greekmetre, suggest the force, but not the dignity of the original; and seemoften to be content to drop much of the poem by the way in getting at"the ideas of the poet. " It is a Titan's version of an Olympian, and itis thus no doubt the scholar rather than the general reader who willfind most to please him in "this attempt to give our language thesimilitude of Greek by close and sustained grappling, word to word, withso sublime and difficult a masterpiece. "[54] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 54: J. A. Symonds, _Academy_, Nov. 10, 1877. ] 26. LA SAISIAZ: THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. [Published in May, 1878. _La Saisiaz_ (written November, 1877), pp. 1-82; _The Two Poets of Croisic_, pp. 83-201. (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. XIV. Pp. 153-204, 205-279). ] In _La Saisiaz_ Browning reasons of God and the soul, of life here andof life to come. The poem is addressed to a friend of old date, who diedsuddenly while she was staying with Browning and his sister, in thesummer of 1877, at a villa called La Saisiaz (The Sun) in the mountainsnear Geneva. The first twenty pages tell the touching story; the rest ofthe poem records the argument which it called forth. "Was ending endingonce and always, when you died?" Browning asks himself, and he attemptsto answer the question, not on traditional grounds, or on the authorityof a creed, but by honest reasoning. He assumes two postulates, and twoonly, that God exists and that the soul exists; and he proceeds to show, very forcibly, the unsatisfactory nature of life if consciousness endswith death, and its completely satisfactory nature if the soul'sexistence continues. "Without the want, Life, now human, would be brutish: just that hope, however scant, Makes the actual life worth leading; take the hope therein away, All we have to do is surely not endure another day. This life has its hopes for this life, hopes that promise joy: life done-- Out of all the hopes, how many had complete fulfilment? none. 'But the soul is not the body': and the breath is not the flute; Both together make the music: either marred and all is mute. " This hypothesis is purely personal, and as such he holds it. But, to hisown mind at least, he finds that "Sorrow did and joy did nowise, --life well weighed--preponderate. By necessity ordained thus? I shall bear as best I can; By a cause all-good, all-wise, all-potent? No, as I am man!" Yet, if only the assumption of a future life may be made, he willthankfully acquiesce in an earthly failure, which will then be onlyrelative, and the earnest of a heavenly gain. Having arrived at thispoint, Browning proceeds to argue out the question yet further, underthe form of a dialogue between "Fancy" (or the soul's instinct) and"Reason. " He here shows that not merely is life explicable only as aprobation, but that probation is only possible under our presentconditions, in our present uncertainty. If it were made certain thatthere is a future life in which we shall be punished or rewarded, according as we do evil or good, we should have no choice of action, hence no virtue in doing what were so manifestly to our own advantage. Again, if we were made certain of this future life of higher facultiesand greater happiness, should we hesitate to rush to it at the firsttouch of sorrow, before our time? He ends, therefore, with a "hope--nomore than hope, but hope--no less than hope, " which amounts practicallyto the assurance that, as he puts it in the last line-- "He at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God!" _The Two Poets of Croisic_ is a comedy in narrative, dealing mainly withthe true tale of Paul Desforges-Maillard, whose story furnished Pironwith the matter of his _Métromanie_. The first of the "two poets" is oneRené Gentilhomme, born 1610, once page to the Prince of Condé, afterwards court-poet to Louis XIII. His story, by an easy transition, leads into the richer record of Desforges, which Browning gives with nota few variations, evidently intentional, from the facts of the case. Paul-Briand Maillard, self-surnamed Desforges, was born at Croisic, April 24, 1699: he died at the age of seventy-three. His memory hassurvived that of better poets on account of the famous hoax which heplayed on the Paris of his day, including no less a person thanVoltaire. The first part of the story is told pretty literally inBrowning's pages:--how Desforges, unsuccessful as a poet in his ownperson, assumed the title of a woman, and as Mlle. Malcrais de la Vigne(his verses being copied by an obliging cousin, Mme. Mondoret) obtainedan immediate and astonishing reputation. The sequel is somewhat altered. Voltaire's revenge when the cheat was discovered, so far from beingprompt and immediate, was treacherously dissimulated, and itsaccomplishment deferred for more than one long-subsequent occasion. Desforges lived to have the last word, in assisting at the firstrepresentation of Piron's _Métromanie_, in which Voltaire's humiliationand the Croisic poet's clever trick are perpetuated for as long as thatsprightly and popular comedy shall be remembered. In his graphic and condensed version of the tale, Browning has used apoet's licence to heighten the effect and increase the piquancy of thenarrative. The poem is written in _ottava rima_, but, very singularly, there is not one double rhyme from beginning to end. It is difficult tosee why Browning, a finer master of grotesque compound rhymes thanByron, should have so carefully avoided them in a metre which, as inByron's hands, owes no little of its effect to a clever introduction ofsuch rhymes. The lines (again of set purpose, it is evident) overlap oneanother without an end-pause where in Italian it is almost universal, namely, after the sixth line. The result of the innovation is far fromsuccessful: it destroys the flow of the verse and gives it an air ofabruptness. Of the liveliness, vivacity and pungency of the tale, noidea can be given by quotation: two of the stanzas in which the moral isenforced, the two finest, perhaps, in the poem, are, however, severablefrom their context:-- "Who knows most, doubts most; entertaining hope, Means recognizing fear; the keener sense Of all comprised within our actual scope Recoils from aught beyond earth's dim and dense. Who, grown familiar with the sky, will grope Henceforward among groundlings? That's offence Just as indubitably: stars abound O'erhead, but then--what flowers made glad the ground! So, force is sorrow, and each sorrow, force: What then? since Swiftness gives the charioteer The palm, his hope be in the vivid horse Whose neck God clothed with thunder, not the steer Sluggish and safe! Yoke Hatred, Crime, Remorse, Despair: but ever 'mid the whirling fear, Let, through the tumult, break the poet's face Radiant, assured his wild slaves win the race!" The poem is followed by an exquisite Epilogue, one of the mostdelicately graceful and witty and tender of Browning's lyrics. Thebriefer Prologue is not less beautiful:-- "Such a starved bank of moss Till, that May-morn, Blue ran the flash across: Violets were born! Sky--what a scowl of cloud Till, near and far, Ray on ray split the shroud: Splendid, a star! World--how it walled about Life with disgrace Till God's own smile came out: That was thy face!" 27. DRAMATIC IDYLS. [Published in May 1879 (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. XV. Pp. 1-80). ] In the _Dramatic Idyls_ Browning may almost be said to have broken newground. His idyls are short poems of passionate action, presenting in agraphic and concentrated way a single episode or tragic crisis. Not onlyby their concreteness and popular effectiveness, their extraordinaryvigour of conception and expression, are they distinguished from much ofBrowning's later writing: they have in addition this significant noveltyof interest, that here for the first time Browning has found subjectsfor his poetry among the poor, that here for the first time he haspainted, with all his close and imaginative realism, the human comedy ofthe lower classes. That he has never done so before, though rathersurprising, comes, I suppose, from his preponderating interest inintellectual problems, and from the difficulty of finding such amongwhat Léon Cladel has called _tragiques histoires plébéiennes_. But thehappy instinct has at last come to him, and we are permitted to watchthe humours of that delicious pair of sinners saved, "Publican Black NedBratts and Tabby his big wife too, " as a relief to the less pleasant andprofitable spectacle of His Majesty Napoleon III. , or of even the twopoets of Croisic. All the poems in the volume (with the exception of anotable and noble protest against vivisection, in the form of a touchinglittle true tale of a dog) are connected together by a single motive, onwhich every poem plays a new variation. The motto of the book mightbe:-- "There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of his life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. " This idea of a turning-point or testing-time in the lives of men is moreor less expressed or implied in very much of Browning's poetry, butnowhere is it expressed so completely, so concisely, or soconsecutively, as here. In _Martin Relph_ (which "embodies, " says Mrs. Orr, "a vague remembrance of something read by Mr. Browning when he washimself a boy") we have an instance of the tide "omitted, " and aterrible picture of the remorse which follows. Martin Relph has thechance presented to him of saving two lives, that of the girl he lovesand of his rival whom she loves. The chance is but of an instant'sduration. He hesitates, and the moment is for ever lost. In that onemoment his true soul, with its instinctive selfishness, has leapt tolight, and the knowledge of it torments him with an inextinguishableagony. In _Ivàn Ivànovitch_ (founded on a popular Russian story of awoman throwing her children to the wolves to save her own life) we havea twofold illustration of the theme. The testing-moment comes to themother, Loùscha, and again to Ivàn Ivànovitch. While the woman failsterribly in her duty, and meets a terrible reward, the man rises to astrange and awful nobility of action, and "acts for God. " _Halbert andHob_, a grim little tragedy (suggested by a passage in the NicomacheanEthics of Aristotle), presents us with the same idea in a singularlyconcrete form. The crisis has a saving effect, but it is an incomplete, an unwilling or irresistible, act of grace, and it bears but sorryfruit. In _Ned Bratts_ (suggested by the story of "Old Tod, " in Bunyan's_Life and Death of Mr. Badman_[55]) we have a prompt and quite hurriedtaking of the tide: the sudden conversion, repentance, and expiation ofthe "worst couple, rogue and quean, unhanged. " _Pheidippides_ (thelegend of the runner who brought the news of Marathon to Athens, anddied in the utterance) illustrates the idea in a more obvious but lessindividual way. Perhaps for sheer perfection of art, for fundamental tragedy, for aquality of compassionate and unflinching imaginative vision, nothing inthe book quite comes up to _Halbert and Hob_. There is hardly inBrowning a more elemental touch than that of: "A boy threw stones: hepicked them up and stored them in his breast. " _Martin Relph_, besidesbeing a fine tale splendidly told, is among the most masterly of allrenderings of remorse, of the terrors and torments of conscience. Everyword is like a drop of agony wrung out of a tortured soul. _IvànIvànovitch_ is, as a narrative, still finer: as a piece of story-tellingBrowning has perhaps never excelled it. Nothing could be more graphicand exciting than the description of the approach of the wolves: theeffective change from iambs to anapæsts gives their very motion. "Was that--wind? Anyhow, Droug starts, stops, back go his ears, he snuffs, Snorts, --never such a snort! then plunges, knows the sough's Only the wind: yet, no--our breath goes up too straight! Still the low sound, --less low, loud, louder, at a rate There's no mistaking more! Shall I lean out--look--learn The truth whatever it be? Pad, pad! At last, I turn-- 'Tis the regular pad of the wolves in pursuit of the life in the sledge! An army they are: close-packed they press like the thrust of a wedge: They increase as they hunt: for I see, through the pine-trunks ranged each side, Slip forth new fiend and fiend, make wider and still more wide The four-footed steady advance. The foremost--none may pass: They are elders and lead the line, eye and eye--green-glowing brass! But a long way distant still. Droug, save us! He does his best: Yet they gain on us, gain, till they reach, --one reaches. .. . How utter the rest?" The setting of the story, the vast motionless Russian landscape, thevillage life, the men and women, has a singular expressiveness; and therevelation of the woman's character, the exposure of her culpableweakness, seen in the very excuses by which she endeavours to justifyherself, is brought about with singularly masterly art. There aremoments of essential drama, not least significantly in the last lines, above all in those two pregnant words: "_How otherwise_? asked he. " _Ned Bratts_ takes almost the same position among Browning's humorouspoems that _Ivàn Ivànovitch_ does among his narratives. It is a wholecomedy in itself. Surroundings and atmosphere are called up with perfectart and the subtlest sympathy. What opening could be a betterpreparation for the heated and grotesque utterances of Ned Bratts thanthe wonderful description of the hot day? It serves to put us intoprecisely the right mood for seeing and feeling the comic tragedy thatfollows. Dickens himself never painted a more riotously realistic scene, nor delineated a better ruffian than the murderous rascal precariouslyconverted by Bunyan and his book. In the midst of these realistic tragedies and comedies, _Pheidippides_, with its clear Greek outline and charm and heroical grace, stands finelycontrasted. The measure is of Browning's invention, and is finelyappropriate to the character of the poem. "So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute Is still 'Rejoice!'--his word which brought rejoicing indeed. So is Pheidippides happy for ever, --the noble strong man Who could race like a God, bear the face of a God, whom a God loved so well He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began, So to end gloriously--once to shout, thereafter be mute: 'Athens is saved!' Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed. " FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 55: At a summer Assizes holden at _Hartfort_, while the Judgewas sitting upon the Bench, comes this old _Tod_ into the Court, cloathed in a green Suit with his Leathern Girdle in his hand, his bosomopen, and all on a dung sweat, as if he had run for his Life; and, beingcome in, he spake aloud as follows: _My Lord_, said he, _Here is theveryest Rogue that breaths upon the face of the earth, . .. My Lord, there has not been a Robbery committed this many years, within so manymiles of this place but I have either been at it or privy to it. _ "The Judge thought the fellow was mad, but after some conference withsome of the Justices, they agreed to Indict him; and so they did, ofseveral felonious Actions; to all of which he heartily confessed Guilty, and so was hanged with his wife at the same time. .. . "As for the truth of this Story, the Relator told me that he was at thesame time himself in the Court, and stood within less than two yards ofold _Tod_, when he heard him aloud to utter the words. "--Bunyan's _Lifeand Death of Mr. Badman_, 1680. ] 28. DRAMATIC IDYLS. Second Series. [Published in July, 1880. _Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. XV. Pp. 81-163. ] The second series of _Dramatic Idyls_ is bound together, like the first, though somewhat less closely, by a leading idea, which, whetherconsciously or not, is hinted at in a pointed little prologue: the ideaof the paradox of human action, and the apparent antagonism betweenmotive and result. The volume differs considerably from its precursor, and it contains nothing quite equal to the best of the earlier poems. There is more variety, perhaps, but the human interest is less intense, the stories less moving and absorbing. With less humour, there is a muchmore pronounced element of the grotesque. And most prominent of all isthat characteristic of Browning which a great critic has called agilityof intellect. The first poem, _Echetlos_, is full of heroical ardour and firm, manlyvigour of movement. Like _Pheidippides_, it is a legend of Marathon. Itsings of the mysterious helper who appeared to the Greeks, in rusticgarb and armed with a plough. "But one man kept no rank and his sole arm plied no spear, As a flashing came and went, and a form i' the van, the rear, Brightened the battle up, for he blazed now there, now here. * * * * * Did the steady phalanx falter? To the rescue, at the need, The clown was ploughing Persia, clearing Greek earth of weed, As he routed through the Sakian and rooted up the Mede. " After the battle, the man was nowhere to be seen, and inquiry was madeof the oracle. "How spake the Oracle? 'Care for no name at all! Say but just this: We praise one helpful whom we call The Holder of the Ploughshare. The great deed ne'er grows small. '" With _Echetlos_ may be mentioned the Virgilian legend of _Pan and Luna_, a piece of graceful fancy, with its exquisite burden, that "Verse of five words, each a boon: Arcadia, night, a cloud, Pan, and the moon. " _Clive_, the most popular in style, and certainly one of the finestpoems in the volume, is a dramatic monologue very much akin, in subject, treatment and form, to the narratives in the first series. The storydeals with an episode in the life of Clive, when, as a young man, hefirst proved his courage in the face of a bully whom he had caughtcheating at cards. The poem is full of fire and brilliance, and is asubtle analysis and presentation of the character of Clive. Itsstructure is quite in Browning's best manner: a central situation, illumined by "what double and treble reflection and refraction!" LikeBalzac (whose _Honorine_, for instance, is constructed on preciselysimilar lines) Browning often increases the effect of his picture bysetting it in a framework, more or less elaborate, by placing thecentral narrative in the midst of another slighter and secondary one, related to it in some subtle way. The story of _Clive_ obtains emphasis, and is rendered more impressive, by the lightly but strongly sketched-infigure of the old veteran who tells the tale. Scarcely anything in thepoem seems to me so fine as this pathetic portrait of the lonely oldman, sitting, like Colonel Newcome, solitary in his house among hismemories, with his boy away: "I and Clive were friends. " The Arabian tale of _Muléykeh_ is the most perfect and pathetic piece inthe volume. It is told in singularly fine verse, and in remarkablyclear, simple, yet elevated style. The end is among the great heroicthings in poetry. Hóseyn, though he has neither herds nor flocks, is therichest and happiest of men, for he possesses the peerless mare, Muléykeh the Pearl, whose speed has never been outstripped. Duhl, theson of Sheybán, who envies Hóseyn and has endeavoured by every means, but without success, to obtain the mare, determines at last to stealher. He enters Hóseyn's tent noiselessly by night, saddles Muléykeh, andgallops away. In an instant Hóseyn is on the back of Buhéyseh, thePearl's sister, only less fleet than herself, and in pursuit. "And Hóseyn--his blood turns flame, he has learned long since to ride, And Buhéyseh does her part, --they gain--they are gaining fast On the fugitive pair, and Duhl has Ed-Dárraj to cross and quit, And to reach the ridge El-Sabán, --no safety till that be spied! And Buhéyseh is, bound by bound, but a horse-length off at last, For the Pearl has missed the tap of the heel, the touch of the bit. She shortens her stride, she chafes at her rider the strange and queer: Buhéyseh is mad with hope--beat sister she shall and must, Though Duhl, of the hand and heel so clumsy, she has to thank. She is near now, nose by tail--they are neck by croup--joy! fear! What folly makes Hóseyn shout 'Dog Duhl, Damned son of the Dust, Touch the right ear and press with your foot my Pearl's left flank!' And Duhl was wise at the word, and Muléykeh as prompt perceived Who was urging redoubled pace, and to hear him was to obey, And a leap indeed gave she, and evanished for evermore. And Hóseyn looked one long last look as who, all bereaved, Looks, fain to follow the dead so far as the living may: Then he turned Buhéyseh's neck slow homeward, weeping sore. And, lo, in the sunrise, still sat Hóseyn upon the ground Weeping: and neighbours came, the tribesmen of Bénu-Asád In the vale of green Er-Rass, and they questioned him of his grief; And he told them from first to last how, serpent-like, Duhl had wound His way to the nest, and how Duhl rode like an ape, so bad! And how Buhéyseh did wonders, yet Pearl remained with the thief. And they jeered him, one and all: 'Poor Hóseyn is crazed past hope! How else had he wrought himself his ruin, in fortune's spite! To have simply held the tongue were a task for a boy or girl, And here were Muléykeh again, the eyed like an antelope, The child of his heart by day, the wife of his breast by night!' 'And the beaten in speed!' wept Hóseyn: 'You never have loved my Pearl!'" There remain _Pietro of Abano_[56] and _Doctor_ ----. The latter, aTalmudic legend, is probably the poorest of Browning's poems: it israther farce than humour. The former is a fine piece of genuinegrotesque art, full of pungent humour, acuteness, worldly wisdom, andclever phrasing and rhyming. It is written in an elaborate comic metreof Browning's invention, indicated at the end by eight bars of music. The poem is one of the most characteristic examples of that "Teutonicgrotesque, which lies in the expression of deep ideas through fantasticforms, " a grotesque of noble and cultivated art, of which Browning is asgreat a master in poetry as Carlyle in prose. The volume ends with a charming lyrical epilogue, not without itspersonal bearing, though it has sometimes, very unfairly, beenrepresented as a piece of mere self-gratulation. "Thus I wrote in London, musing on my betters, " Browning tells us in some album-verses which have found their way intoprint, and he naturally complains that what he wrote of Dante should befoisted upon himself. Indeed, he has quite as much the characteristicsof the "spontaneous" as of the "brooding" poet of his parable. "'Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke: Soil so quick-receptive, --not one feather-seed, Not one flower-dust fell, but straight its fall awoke Vitalising virtue: song would song succeed Sudden as spontaneous--prove a poet soul!' Indeed? Rock's the song-soil rather, surface hard and bare: Sun and dew their mildness, storm and frost their rage Vainly both expend, --few flowers awaken there: Quiet in its cleft broods--what the after age Knows and names a pine, a nation's heritage. " FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 56: Pietro of Abano was an Italian physician, alchemist andphilosopher, born at Abano, near Padua, in 1246, died about 1320. He hadthe reputation of a wizard, and was imprisoned by the Inquisition. Hewas condemned to be burnt; he died in prison, and his dead body wasordered to be burnt; but as that had been taken away by his friends, theInquisition burnt his portrait. His reputed antipathy to milk andcheese, with its natural analogy, suggested the motive of the poem. Thebook referred to in it is his principal work, _Conciliatordifferentiarum quæ inter philosophos et medicos versantur_. Mantua, 1472. ] 29. JOCOSERIA. [Published in March, 1883 (_Poetical Works_, 1889, pp. 165-266). ] The name _Jocoseria_ (mentioned by Browning in its original connection, Melander's "Jocoseria, " in the notes to _Paracelsus_) expresses verycleverly the particular nature of the volume, in its close union andfusion of grave and gay. The book is not, as a whole, so intense or sobrilliant as the first and second series of _Dramatic Idyls_, but oneor two of the shorter poems are, in their way, hardly excelled byanything in either volume. The longest poem, though by no means the best is the imaginaryRabbinical legend of _Jochanan Hakkadosh_ (John the Saint), whichBrowning, with a touch of learned quizzicalness, states in his note[57]"to have no better authority than that of the treatise, existingdispersedly, in fragments of Rabbinical writing, [the name, 'Collectionof many Lies, ' follows in Hebrew, ] from which I might have helped myselfmore liberally. " It is written in _terza rima_, like _Doctor_ ---- inthe second series of _Dramatic Idyls_, and is supposed to be told by"the Jew aforesaid" in order to "make amends and justify our Mishna. "That it may to some extent do, but it seems to me that its effectivenessas an example of the serio-grotesque style would have been heightened bysome metre less sober and placid than the _terza rima_; by rhythm andrhyme as audacious and characteristic as the rhythm and the rhymes of_Pietro of Abano_, for instance. _Ixion_, a far finer poem than _Jochanan Hakkadosh_, is, no doubt, anequally sincere utterance of personal belief. The poem is a monologue, in unrhymed hexameters and pentameters. It presents the old myth in anew light. Ixion is represented as the Prometheus of man's righteousrevolt against the tyranny of an unjust God. The poem is conceived in aspirit of intense earnestness, and worked out with great vigour andsplendour of diction. For passion and eloquence nothing in it surpassesthe finely culminating last lines, of which I can but tear a few, onlytoo barbarously, from their context:-- "What is the influence, high o'er Hell, that turns to a rapture Pain--and despair's murk mists blends in a rainbow of hope? What is beyond the obstruction, stage by stage tho' it baffle? Back must I fall, confess 'Ever the weakness I fled'? No, for beyond, far, far is a Purity all-unobstructed! Zeus was Zeus--not Man: wrecked by his weakness I whirl. Out of the wreck I rise--past Zeus to the Potency o'er him! I--to have hailed him my friend! I--to have clasped her--my love! Pallid birth of my pain, --where light, where light is, aspiring Thither I rise, whilst thou--Zeus, keep the godship and sink!" While _Ixion_ is the noblest and most heroically passionate of thesepoems, _Adam, Lilith, and Eve_, is the most pregnant and suggestive. Browning has rarely excelled it in certain qualities, hardly found inany other poet, of pungency, novelty, and penetrating bitter-sweetness. "ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE. One day it thundered and lightened. Two women, fairly frightened, Sank to their knees, transformed, transfixed, At the feet of the man who sat betwixt; And 'Mercy!' cried each, 'If I tell the truth Of a passage in my youth!' Said This: 'Do you mind the morning I met your love with scorning? As the worst of the venom left my lips, I thought, "If, despite this lie, he strips The mask from my soul with a kiss--I crawl, His slave, --soul, body and all!"' Said That: 'We stood to be married; The priest, or someone, tarried; "If Paradise-door prove locked?" smiled you. I thought, as I nodded, smiling too, "Did one, that's away, arrive--nor late Nor soon should unlock Hell's gate!"' It ceased to lighten and thunder. Up started both in wonder, Looked round, and saw that the sky was clear, Then laughed, 'Confess you believed us, Dear!' 'I saw through the joke!' the man replied They seated themselves beside. " Much of the same power is shown in _Cristina and Monaldeschi_, [58] adramatic monologue with all the old vigour of Browning's early work ofthat kind; not only keen and subtle, but charged with a sharp electricalquality, which from time to time darts out with a sudden and unexpectedshock. The style and tone are infused with a peculiar fierce irony. Themetre is rapid and stinging, like the words of the vindictive queen asshe hurries her treacherous victim into the hands of the assassins. There is dramatic invention in the very cadence: "Ah, but how each loved each, Marquis! Here's the gallery they trod Both together, he her god, She his idol, --lend your rod, Chamberlain!--ay, there they are--'_Quis Separabit_?'--plain those two Touching words come into view, Apposite for me and you!" _Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli_, a dramatic lyric of three verses, thepathetic utterance of an unloved loving woman's heart, is not dissimilarin style to _Cristina and Monaldeschi_. It would be unjust to Fuseli toname him Bottom, but only fair to Mary Wollstonecraft to call herTitania. Of the remaining poems, _Donald_ ("a true story, repeated to Mr. Browning by one who had heard it from its hero, the so-called Donald, himself, "[59]) is a ballad, not at all in Browning's best style, butcertainly vigorous and striking, directed against the brutalisinginfluences of sport, as _Tray_ was directed against the infinitely worsebrutalities of ignorant and indiscriminate vivisection. Its noble humansympathies and popular style appeal to a ready audience. _Solomon andBalkis_, though by no means among the best of Browning's comic poems, isa witty enough little tale from that inexhaustible repository, theTalmud. It is a dialogue between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, not"solely" nor at all "of things sublime. " _Pambo_ is a bit of pointedfun, a mock-modest apology to critics. Finally, besides a musical littlelove-song named _Wanting is--What?_ we have in _Never the Time and thePlace_ one of the great love-songs, not easily to be excelled, even inthe work of Browning, for strength of spiritual passion and intensity ofexultant and certain hope. "NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE. Never the time and the place And the loved one all together! This path--how soft to pace! This May--what magic weather! Where is the loved one's face? In a dream that loved one's face meets mine, But the house is narrow, the place is bleak Where, outside, rain and wind combine With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak, With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek, With a malice that marks each word, each sign! O enemy sly and serpentine, Uncoil thee from the waking man! Do I hold the Past Thus firm and fast Yet doubt if the Future hold I can? This path so soft to pace shall lead Thro' the magic of May to herself indeed! Or narrow if needs the house must be, Outside are the storms and strangers: we-- Oh, close, safe, warm, sleep I and she, --I and she!" FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 57: This note contains three burlesque sonnets whose chiefinterest is, that they are, with the exception of the unclaimed sonnetprinted in the _Monthly Repository_ in 1834, the first sonnets everpublished by Browning. ] [Footnote 58: One can scarcely read this poem without recalling thesuperb and not unsimilar episode in prose of another "great dramaticpoet, " Landor's Imaginary Conversation between the Empress Catherine andPrincess Dashkof. ] [Footnote 59: Mrs. Orr, _Handbook_, p. 313. ] 30. FERISHTAH'S FANCIES. [Published in November, 1884 (_Poetical Works_, 1898, Vol. XVI. Pp. 1-92). ] _Ferishtah's Fancies_ consists of twelve sections, each an argument inan allegory, Persian by presentment, modern or universal inintention. [60] Lightly laid in between the sections, like flowersbetween the leaves, are twelve lyrics, mostly love songs addressed to abeloved memory, each lyric having a close affinity with the preceding"Fancy. " A humorous lyrical prologue, and a passionate lyrical epilogue, complete the work. We learn from Mrs. Orr, that "The idea of _Ferishtah's Fancies_ grew out of a fable by Pilpay, which Mr. Browning read when a boy. He . .. Put this into verse; and it then occurred to him to make the poem the beginning of a series, in which the Dervish who is first introduced as a learner should reappear in the character of a teacher. Ferishtah's 'fancies' are the familiar illustrations by which his teachings are enforced. "[61] The book is Browning's _West-Eastern Divan_, and it is written at nearlythe same age as Goethe's. But, though there is a good deal of localcolour in the setting, no attempt, as the motto warns us, is made toreproduce Eastern thought. The "Persian garments" are used for adisguise, not as a habit; perhaps for the very reason that the thoughtsthey drape are of such intense personal sincerity. The drapery, however, is perfectly transparent, and one may read "Robert Browning" for"Dervish Ferishtah" _passim_. The first two fancies (_The Eagle_ and _The Melon-Seller_) give thelessons which Ferishtah learnt, and which determined him to become aDervish: all the rest are his own lessons to others. These dealseverally with faith (_Shah Abbas_), prayer (_The Family_), theIncarnation (_The Sun_), the meaning of evil and of pain (_MihrabShah_), punishment present and future (_A Camel-Driver_), asceticism(_Two Camels_), gratefulness to God for small benefits (_Cherries_), thedirect personal relation existing between man and God (_Plot-Culture_), the uncertain value of knowledge contrasted with the sure gain of love(_A Pillar at Sebzevah_), and, finally, in _A Bean-Stripe: also AppleEating_, the problem of life: is it more good than evil, or more evilthan good? The work is a serious attempt to grapple with these greatquestions, and is as important on its ethical as on its artistic side. Each argument is conveyed by means of a parable, often brilliant, oftenquaint, always striking and serviceable, and always expressed inscrupulously clear and simple language. The teaching, put more plainlyand definitely, perhaps, with less intellectual disguise than usual, isthe old unconquered optimism which, in Browning, is so unmistakably amatter of temperament. The most purely delightful poetry in the volume will be found in thedelicate and musical love-songs which brighten its pages. They aresnatches of spontaneous and exquisite song, bird-notes seldom heardexcept from the lips of youth. Perhaps the most perfect is the first. "Round us the wild creatures, overhead the trees, Underfoot the moss-tracks, --life and love with these! I to wear a fawn-skin, thou to dress in flowers: All the long lone Summer-day, that greenwood life of ours! Rich-pavilioned, rather, --still the world without, -- Inside--gold-roofed silk-walled silence round about! Queen it thou in purple, --I, at watch and ward Couched beneath the columns, gaze, thy slave, love's guard! So, for us no world? Let throngs press thee to me! Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we! Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face! God is soul, souls I and thou: with souls should souls have place. " "With souls should souls have place, " is, with Browning, the condensedexpression of an experience, a philosophy, and an art. Like the loversof his lyric, he has renounced the selfish serenities of wild-wood anddream-palace; he has gone up and down among men, listening to that humanmusic, and observing that human or divine comedy. He has sung what hehas heard, and he has painted what he has seen. If it should be askedwhether such work will live, there can be only one answer, and he hasalready given it: "It lives, If precious be the soul of man to man. " FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 60: This is emphasized by the ingenious motto from _KingLear_: "You, Sir, I entertain you for one of my hundred; only, I do notlike the fashion of your garments: you will say, they are Persian; butlet them be changed. "] [Footnote 61: _Handbook_, p. 321. ] 31. PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE IN THEIR DAY. [Published in January 1887. _Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. XVI. , pp. 93-275. ] The method of the _Parleying_ is something of a new departure, and atthe same time something of a reversion. It is a reversion towards thedramatic form of the monologue; but it is a new departure owing to theprecise form assumed, that of a "parleying" or colloquy of the authorwith his characters. The persons with whom Browning parleys arerepresentative men selected from the England, Holland, and Italy of thelate seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The parleying with_Bernard de Mandeville_ (born at Dort, in Holland, 1670; died in London, 1733; author of _The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, PublicBenefits_) takes up the optimistic arguments already developed in_Ferishtah's Fancies_ and elsewhere, and preaches, through the dubiousmedium of the enigmatic fabulist, trust in the ordering of the world, confidence in discerning a "soul of goodness in things evil. " _DanielBartoli_ ("a learned and ingenius writer, " born at Florence, 1608; diedat Rome, 1685; the historian of the Order of Jesuits) serves to point amoral against himself, in the contrast between the pale ineffectualsaints of his legendary record and the practically saint-like heroine ofa true tale recounted by Browning, the graphic and brilliant story ofthe duke and the druggist's daughter. The parleying with _ChristopherSmart_ (the author of the _Song to David_, born at Shipborne, in Kent, 1722; died in the King's Bench, 1770) is a penetrating andcharacteristic study in one of the great poetic problems of theeighteenth century, the problem of a "void and null" verse-writer who, at one moment only of his life, sang, as Browning reminds him, "A song where flute-breath silvers trumpet-clang, And stations you for once on either hand With Milton and with Keats. " _George Bubb Dodington_ (Lord Melcombe, born 1691; died 1762) stands astype of the dishonest politician, and in the course of a colloquy, whichis really a piece of sardonic irony long drawn out, a mock serious essayin the way of a Superior Rogues' Guide or Instructions for Knaves, receives at once castigation and instruction. The parleying with_Francis Furini_ (born at Florence, 1600; died 1649) deals with its heroas a man, as artist and as priest; it contains some of Browning'snoblest writing on art; and it touches on current and, indeed, continualcontroversies in its splendidly vigorous onslaught on the decriers ofthat supreme art which aims at painting men and women as God made them. _Gerard de Lairesse_ (born at Liége, in Flanders, 1640; died atAmsterdam 1711; famed not only for his pictures, but for his _Treatiseon the Art of Painting_, composed after he had become blind) gives hisname to a discussion on the artistic interpretation of nature, itschange and advancement, and the deeper and truer vision which hasdisplaced the mythological fancies of earlier painters and poets. Theparleying with _Charles Avison_ (born at Newcastle, 1710; died there, 1770), the more than half forgotten organist-composer, embodies aninquiry, critical or speculative, into the position and function ofmusic. All these poems are written in decasyllabic rhymed verse, withvaried arrangement of the rhymes. They are introduced by a dialoguebetween Apollo and the Fates, and concluded by another between John Fustand his friends, both written in lyrical measures, both uniting deepseriousness of intention with capricious humour of form; the one wildand stormy as the great "Dance of Furies" in Gluck's _Orfeo_; the otherquaint and grimly and sublimely grotesque as an old German print. _Gerard de Lairesse_ contains a charming little "Spring Song" of threestanzas; and _Charles Avison_ a sounding train-bands' chorus, written tothe air of one of Avison's marches. The volume as a whole is full of weight, brilliance, and energy; and itis not less notable for its fineness of versification, its splendour ofsound and colour, than for its depth and acuteness of thought and keengrasp of intricate argument. Indeed, the quality which more than anyother distinguishes it from Browning's later work is the carefulwriting of the verse, and the elaborate beauty of certain passages. Muchof Browning's later work would be ill represented by a selection of the"purple patches. " His strength has always lain, but of late has lainmuch more exclusively, in the _ensemble_. Here, however, there is notmerely one passage of more than a hundred and fifty lines, the like ofwhich (I do not say in every sense the equal, but certainly the like ofwhich) we must go back to _Sordello_ or to _Paracelsus_ to find; but, again and again, wherever we turn, we meet with more than usually fineand impressive passages, single lines of more than usually exquisitequality. The glory of the whole collection is certainly the "Walk, " ordescription, in rivalry with Gerard de Lairesse, of a whole day'schanges, from sunrise to sunset. To equal it in its own way, we mustlook a long way back in our Browning, and nowhere out of Browning. Whereall is good, any preference must seem partial; but perhaps nothing in itis finer than this picture of morning. "But morning's laugh sets all the crags alight Above the baffled tempest: tree and tree Stir themselves from the stupor of the night And every strangled branch resumes its right To breathe, shakes loose dark's clinging dregs, waves free In dripping glory. Prone the runnels plunge, While earth, distent with moisture like a sponge, Smokes up, and leaves each plant its gem to see, Each grass-blade's glory-glitter. Had I known The torrent now turned river?--masterful Making its rush o'er tumbled ravage--stone And stub which barred the froths and foams: no bull Ever broke bounds in formidable sport More overwhelmingly, till lo, the spasm Sets him to dare that last mad leap: report Who may--his fortunes in the deathly chasm That swallows him in silence! Rather turn Whither, upon the upland, pedestalled Into the broad day-splendour, whom discern These eyes but thee, supreme one, rightly called Moon-maid in heaven above and, here below, Earth's huntress-queen? I note the garb succinct Saving from smirch that purity of snow From breast to knee--snow's self with just the tint Of the apple-blossom's heart-blush. Ah, the bow Slack-strung her fingers grasp, where, ivory-linked Horn curving blends with horn, a moonlike pair Which mimic the brow's crescent sparkling so-- As if a star's live restless fragment winked Proud yet repugnant, captive in such hair! What hope along the hillside, what far bliss Lets the crisp hair-plaits fall so low they kiss Those lucid shoulders? Must a morn so blithe Needs have its sorrow when the twang and hiss Tell that from out thy sheaf one shaft makes writhe Its victim, thou unerring Artemis? Why did the chamois stand so fair a mark, Arrested by the novel shape he dreamed Was bred of liquid marble in the dark Depths of the mountain's womb which ever teemed With novel births of wonder? Not one spark Of pity in that steel-grey glance which gleamed At the poor hoof's protesting as it stamped Idly the granite? Let me glide unseen From thy proud presence: well may'st thou be queen Of all those strange and sudden deaths which damped So oft Love's torch and Hymen's taper lit For happy marriage till the maidens paled And perished on the temple-step, assailed By--what except to envy must man's wit Impute that sure implacable release Of life from warmth and joy? But death means peace. " 32. ASOLANDO: FANCIES AND FACTS. [Dated 1890, but published December 12, 1889. _Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. XVII. , pp. Iv. , 131. ] _Asolando_ (a name taken from the invented verb _Asolare_, "to disportin the open air") was published on the day of Browning's death. He diedin Venice, and his body was brought to England, and buried inWestminster Abbey on the last day of the year. The Abbey was invisiblein the fog, and, inside, dim yellow fog filled all the roof, above thegas and the candles. The coffin, carried high, came into the church tothe sound of processional music, and as one waited near the grave onesaw the coffin and the wreaths on it, over the heads of the people, andheard, in Dr. Bridge's setting, the words: "He giveth his belovedsleep. " Reading _Asolando_ once more, and remembering that coffin one had lookeddown upon in the Abbey, only then quite feeling that all was indeedover, it is perhaps natural that the book should come to seem almostconsciously testamentary, as if certain things in it had been reallymeant for a final leave-taking. The Epilogue is a clear, bravelooking-forward to death, as to an event now close at hand, and imaginedas actually accomplished. It breaks through for once, as if at last theoccasion demanded it, a reticence never thus broken through before, claiming, with a supreme self-confidence, calmly, as an acknowledgedright, the "Well done" of the faithful servant at the end of the longday's labour. In _Reverie_, in _Rephan_, and in other poems, theteachings of a lifetime are enforced with a final emphasis, there isthe same joyous readiness to "aspire yet never attain;" the same delightin the beauty and strangeness of life, in the "wild joy of living, " inwoman, in art, in scholarship; and in _Rosny_ we have the vision of ahero dead on the field of victory, with the comment, "That is best. " To those who value Browning, not as the poet of metaphysics, but as thepoet of life, his last book will be singularly welcome. Something likemetaphysics we find, indeed, but humanised, made poetry, in the blankverse of _Development_, the lyrical verse of the _Prologue_, and thethird of the _Bad Dreams_, with their subtle comments and surmises onthe relations of art with nature, of nature with truth. But it is lifeitself, a final flame, perhaps mortally bright, that burns and shines inthe youngest of Browning's books. The book will be not less welcome tothose who feel that the finest poetic work is usually to be found inshort pieces, and that even _The Ring and the Book_ would scarcely be anequivalent for the fifty _Men and Women_ of those two incomparablevolumes of 1855. Nor is _Asolando_ without a further attractiveness tothose who demand in poetry a certain fleeting and evanescent grace. "Car nous voulons la Nuance encor, Pas la Couleur, rien que la Nuance, " as Paul Verlaine says, somewhat exclusively, in his poetical confessionof faith. It is, indeed, _la Nuance_, the last fine shade, that Browninghas captured and fixed for us in those lovely love-poems, _SummumBonum_, _Poetics_, _a Pearl, a Girl_, and the others, so young-hearted, so joyous and buoyant; and in the woody piping of _Flute Music, with anAccompaniment_. Simple and eager in _Dubiety_, daintily, prettilypathetic in _Humility_, more intense in _Speculative_, in the fourteenlines called _Now_, the passion of the situation leaps like a cry fromthe heart, and one may say that the poem is, rather than renders, thevery fever of the supreme moment, "the moment eternal. " "Now. Out of your whole life give but a moment: All of your life that has gone before, All to come after it, --so you ignore, So you make perfect the present, --condense, In a rapture of rage, for perfection's endowment, Thought and feeling and soul and sense-- Merged in a moment which gives me at last You around me for once, you beneath me, above me-- Me--sure that despite of time future, time past, -- This tick of our life-time's one moment you love me! How long such suspension may linger? Ah, Sweet-- The moment eternal--just that and no more-- When ecstasy's utmost we clutch at the core, While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut and lips meet!" Here the whole situation is merged in the single cry, the joy, "unbodied" and "embodied, " of any, of every lover; in several of thepoems a more developed story is told or indicated. One of the finestpieces in the volume is the brief dramatic monologue called_Inapprehensiveness_, which condenses a whole tragedy into itsthirty-two lines, in the succinct, suggestive manner of such poems as_My Last Duchess_. Only Heine, Browning, and George Meredith in _ModernLove_, each in his entirely individual way, have succeeded in dealing, in a tone of what I may call sympathetic irony, with the unheroiccomplications of modern life; so full of poetic matter really, but ofmatter so difficult to handle. The poem is a mere incident, such ashappens every day: we are permitted to overhear a scrap of trivialconversation; but this very triviality does but deepen the effect ofwhat we surmise, a dark obstruction, underneath the "babbling runnel" oflight talk. A study not entirely dissimilar, though, as its name warnsus, more difficult to grasp, is the fourth of the _Bad Dreams_: howfine, how impressive, in its dream-distorted picture of a man's remorsefor the love he has despised or neglected till death, coming in, makeslove and repentance alike too late! With these may be named that otherelectric little poem, _Which?_ a study in love's casuistries, remindingone slightly of the finest of all Browning's studies in that kind, _Adam, Lilith, and Eve_. It is in these small poems, dealing varyingly with various phases oflove, that the finest, the rarest, work in the volume is to be found. Such a poem as _Imperante Augusto natus est_ (strong, impressive, effective as it is) cannot but challenge comparison with what isincomparable, the dramatic monologues of _Men and Women_, and inparticular with the _Epistle of Karshish_. In _Beatrice Signorini_ wehave one of the old studies in lovers' casuistries; and it is told withgusto, but is after all scarcely more than its last line claims for it:"The pretty incident I put in rhyme. " In the _Ponte dell' Angela, Venice_, we find one of the old grotesques, but more loosely "hitchedinto rhyme" (it is his own word) than the better among those poems whichit most resembles. But there is something not precisely similar toanything that had gone before in the dainty simplicity, the frank, beautiful fervour, of such lyrics as _Summum Bonum_, in which exquisiteexpression is given to the merely normal moods of ordinary affection. Inmost of Browning's love poems the emotion is complex, the situation moreor less exceptional. It is to this that they owe their singular, penetrating quality of charm. But there is a charm of another kind, anda more generally appreciated one, "that commonplace Perfection of honest grace, " which lies in the expression of feelings common to everyone, feelingswhich everyone can without difficulty make or imagine his own. In thelyrics to which I am referring, Browning has spoken straight out, injust this simple, direct way, and with a delicate grace and smoothnessof rhythm not always to be met with in his later work. Here is a poemcalled _Speculative_: "Others may need new life in Heaven-- Man, Nature, Art--made new, assume! Man with new mind old sense to leaven, Nature--new light to clear old gloom, Art that breaks bounds, gets soaring-room. I shall pray: 'Fugitive as precious-- Minutes which passed--return, remain! Let earth's old life once more enmesh us, You with old pleasure, me--old pain, So we but meet nor part again. '" How hauntingly does that give voice to the instinctive, the universalfeeling! the lover's intensity of desire for the loved and lost one, forherself, the "little human woman full of sin, " for herself, unchanged, unglorified, as she was on earth, not as she may be in a vague heaven. To the lover in _Summum Bonum_ all the delight of life has beengranted; it lies in "the kiss of one girl, " and that has been his. Inthe delicious little poem called _Humility_, the lover is content inbeing "proudly less, " a thankful pensioner on the crumbs of love'sfeast, laid for another. In _White Witchcraft_ love has outlived injury;in the first of the _Bad Dreams_ it has survived even heart-break. "Last night I saw you in my sleep: And how your charm of face was changed! I asked 'Some love, some faith you keep?' You answered, 'Faith gone, love estranged. ' Whereat I woke--a twofold bliss: Waking was one, but next there came This other: 'Though I felt, for this, My heart break, I loved on the same. '" Not subtlety, but simplicity, a simplicity pungent as only Browningcould make it, is the characteristic of most of the best work in thislast volume of a poet preeminently subtle. This characteristic ofsimplicity is seen equally in the love-poems and in the poems of satire, in the ballads and in the narrative pieces, and notably in the story of_The Pope and the Net_, an anecdote in verse, told with the frank relishof the thing, and without the least attempt to tease a moral out of it. There are other light ballads, as different in merit as _Muckle-mouthMeg_ on the one hand and _The Cardinal and the Dog_ and _The Bean-Feast_on the other, with snatches of moralising story, as cutting as _ArcadesAmbo_, which is a last word written for love of beasts, and as stingingas _The Lady and the Painter_, which is a last word written for love ofbirds and of the beauty of nakedness. One among these poems, _TheCardinal and the Dog_, indistinguishable in style from the others, waswritten fifty years earlier. It is as if the poet, taking leave of that"British public" which had "loved him not, " and to whose caprices he hadnever condescended, was, after all, anxious to "part friends. " Theresult may be said, in a measure, to have been attained. So far I wrote in 1889, when Browning was only just dead, and I went on, in words which I keep for their significance to-day, because time hasalready brought in its revenges, and Browning has conquered. ThatBrowning, I said then, could ever become a popular poet, in the sense inwhich Tennyson is popular, must be seen by everyone to be animpossibility. His poetry is obviously written for his own pleasure, without reference to the tastes of the bulk of readers. The very titlesof his poems, the barest outline of their prevailing subjects, can butterrify or bewilder an easy-going public, which prefers to take itsverse somnolently, at the season of the day when the newspaper is toosubstantial, too exciting. To appreciate Browning you must read withyour eyes wide open. His poetry is rarely obscure, but it is often hard. It deals by preference with hard matter, with "men and the ideas ofmen, " with life and thought. Other poets before him have written withequally independent aims; but had Milton, had Wordsworth, a larger andmore admiring audience in his own day? If the audience of Milton and ofWordsworth has widened, it would be the merest paradox to speak ofeither Milton or Wordsworth as a popular poet. By this time, every oneat least knows them by name, though it would be a little unkind toconsider too curiously how large a proportion of the people who knowthem by name have read many consecutive lines of _Paradise Lost_ or _TheExcursion_. But to be so generally known by name is something, and ithas not yet fallen to the lot of Browning. "Browning is dead, " said afriend of mine, a hunting man, to another hunting man, a friend of his. "Dear me, is he?" said the other doubtfully; "did he 'come out' yourway?" By the time Browning has been dead as long as Wordsworth, I do notthink anyone will be found to make these remarks. Death, not only fromthe Christian standpoint, is the necessary pathway to immortality. As itis, Browning's fame has been steadily increasing, at first slowlyenough, latterly with even a certain rapidity. From the first he has hadthe exceptional admiration of those whose admiration is alone reallysignificant, whose applause can alone be really grateful to aself-respecting writer. No poet of our day, no poet, perhaps, of anyday, has been more secure in the admiring fellowship of his comrades inletters. And of all the poets of our day, it is he whose influence seemsto be most vital at the moment, most pregnant for the future. For thetime, he has also an actual sort of church of his own. The churchespass, with the passing away of the worshippers; but the spirit remains, and must remain if it has once been so vivid to men, if it has once beena refuge, a promise of strength, a gift of consolation. And there hasbeen all this, over and above its supreme poetic quality, in the vastand various work, Shakesperean in breadth, Shakesperean in penetration, of the poet whose last words, the appropriate epilogue of a lifetime, were these: "At the midnight, in the silence of the sleep-time, When you set your fancies free, Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned-- Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, --Pity me? Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! What had I on earth to do With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel --Being--who? One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake. No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time Greet the unseen with a cheer! Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 'Strive and thrive!' cry 'Speed, --fight on, fare ever There as here!'" APPENDIX I A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT BROWNING The following list of the published writings of Robert Browning, in theorder of their publication, has been compiled mainly from Dr. Furnivall's very complete and serviceable Browning Bibliography, contained in the first part of the Browning Society's Papers (pp. 21-71). Volumes of "Selections" are not noticed in this list: there havebeen many in England, some in Germany, and in the Tauchnitz Collection, and a large number in America, where an edition of the complete workswas first published, in seven volumes, by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin &Co. , Boston. 1. PAULINE: a Fragment of a Confession. London: Saunders and Otley, Conduit Street. 1833, pp. 71. 2. PARACELSUS. By Robert Browning. London. Published by EffinghamWilson, Royal Exchange. MDCCCXXXV. , pp. Xi. , 216. 3. Five Poems contributed to _The Monthly Repository_ (edited by W. J. Fox), 1834-6; all signed "Z. "--I. Sonnet ("Eyes, calm beside thee, Lady, couldst thou know!"), Vol. VIII. , New Series, 1834, p. 712. Notreprinted. II. The King--(Vol. IX. , New Series, pp. 707-8). Reprinted, with six fresh lines, and revised throughout, in _Pippa Passes_ (1841), where it is Pippa's song in Part III. -III. , IV. Porphyria and JohannesAgricola. (Vol. X. , pp. 43-6. ) Reprinted in _Dramatic Lyrics_ (1842)under the title of _Madhouse Cells_. --V. Lines. (Vol. X. , pp. 270-1. )Reprinted, revised, in _Dramatis Personæ_ (1864) as the first sixstanzas of § VI. Of _James Lee_. 4. STRAFFORD: an Historical Tragedy. By Robert Browning, Author of"Paracelsus. " London: Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, andLongman, Paternoster Row. 1837, pp. Vi. , 131. 5. SORDELLO. By Robert Browning. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXL. , pp. Iv. , 253. 6. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. I. --PIPPA PASSES. By Robert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus. " London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLI. , pp. 16. (Price 6_d_. , sewed. ) 7. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. II. --KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES. ByRobert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus. " London: Edward Moxon, DoverStreet. MDCCCXLII. , pp. 20. (Price 1_s_. , sewed). 8. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. III. --DRAMATIC LYRICS. By RobertBrowning, Author of "Paracelsus. " London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLII. , pp. 16, (Price 1_s_. , sewed. ) Contents:--1. Cavalier Tunes: I. Marching Along; II. Give a Rouse; III. My Wife Gertrude [Boot and Saddle, 1863]. 2. Italy and France: I. Italy [My Last Duchess. --Ferrara, 1863]; II. France [Count Gismond. --Aix in Provence, 1863]. 3. Camp and Cloister: I. Camp (French) [Incident of the French Camp, 1863]; II. Cloister (Spanish) [Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 1863]. 4. In a Gondola. 5. Artemis Prologuizes. 6. Waring. 7. Queen Worship: I. Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli; II. Cristina. 8. Madhouse Cells: I. [Johannes Agricola, 1863]; II. [Porphyria's Lover, 1863]. 9. Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr. 10. The Pied Piper of Hamelin. 9. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. IV--THE RETURN OF THE DRUSES. A Tragedyin Five Acts. By Robert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus. " London: EdwardMoxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLIII. , pp. 19. (Price 1_s_. , sewed. ) 10. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. V. --A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. A Tragedyin Three Acts. By Robert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus. " London:Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLIII. , pp. 16. (Price 1_s_. , sewed. ) 11. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. VI. --COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY. A Play in FiveActs. By Robert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus. " London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLIV. , pp. 20. (Price 1_s_. , sewed. ) 12. Eight Poems contributed to _Hood's Magazine_, June 1844 to April1845:--I. The Laboratory (Ancien Régime). (June 1844, Vol. I. , No. Vi. , pp. 513-14). Reprinted in _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_ (1845), as thefirst of two poems called "France and Spain. "--II. , III. Claret andTokay (_id. _ p. 525). Reprinted in _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_(1845). --IV. , V. Garden Fancies: 1. The Flower's Name; 2. SibrandusSchafnaburgensis. (July 1844, Vol. II. , No. Vii. , pp. 45-48. ) Reprintedin _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_ (1845). --VI. The Boy and the Angel. (August 1844, Vol. II. , No. Viii. , pp. 140-2. ) Reprinted, revised, andwith five fresh couplets, in _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_(1845). --VII. The Tomb at St. Praxed's (Rome, 15--) (March 1845, Vol. III. , No. Iii. , pp. 237-39). Reprinted in _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_(1845)--VIII. The Flight of the Duchess. (April 1845, Vol. III. , No. Iv. , pp. 313-18. ) Part first only, § 1-9; reprinted, with the remainderadded, in _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_ (1845). 13. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. VII. --DRAMATIC ROMANCES AND LYRICS. ByRobert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus. " London: Edward Moxon, DoverStreet. MDCCCXLV. , pp. 24. (Price 2_s_. , sewed. ) Contents:--1. How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. 2. Pictor Ignotus [Florence, 15--]. 3. Italy in England [The Italian in England, 1849]. 4. England in Italy, _Piano di Sorrento_ [The Englishman in Italy, 1849]. 5. The Lost Leader. 6. The Lost Mistress. 7. Home Thoughts from Abroad. 8. The Tomb at St. Praxed's [The Bishop orders his Tomb in St. Praxed's Church, 1863]. 9. Garden Fancies: I. The Flower's Name; II Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis. 10. France and Spain: I. The Laboratory (_Ancien Régime_); II. The Confessional, 11. The Flight of the Duchess. 12. Earth's Immortalities. 13. Song. 14. The Boy and the Angel. 15. Night and Morning: I. Night [Meeting at Night, 1863], II. Morning [Parting at Morning, 1863], 16. Claret and Tokay [Nationality in Drinks, 1863]. 17. Saul. 18. Time's Revenges. 19. The Glove (Peter Ronsard _loquitur_). 14. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. VIII. And last. --LURIA; and A SOUL'STRAGEDY. By Robert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus. " London: EdwardMoxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLVI. , pp. 32. (Price 2_s_. 6_d_. , sewed. ) 15. POEMS. By Robert Browning. In two volumes. A new edition. London:Chapman and Hall, 186 Strand. 1849, pp. Vii. , 386; viii. , 416. These twovolumes contain _Paracelsus_ and _Bells and Pomegranates_. 16. CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY. A Poem. By Robert Browning. London:Chapman and Hall, 186 Strand. 1850, pp. Iv. , 142. 17. Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley. With an INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, byRobert Browning. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street, 1852, pp. Vi. , 165. (Introductory Essay, pp. , 1-44. ) These so-called Letters of Shelley proved to be forgeries, and thevolume was suppressed. Browning's essay has been reprinted by theBrowning Society, and, later, by the Shelley Society. See No. 58 below. Its value to students of Shelley is in no way impaired by its chanceconnection with the forged letters, to which it barely alludes. 18. TWO POEMS. By Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. London: Chapmanand Hall. 1854, pp. 16. This pamphlet contains "A Plea for the Ragged Schools of London, " byE. B. B. , and "The Twins, " by R. B. The two poems were printed by MissArabella Barrett, Mrs. Browning's sister, for a bazaar in aid of a"Refuge for Young Destitute Girls, " one of the earliest of its kind, founded by her in 1854. 19. CLEON. By Robert Browning. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. 1855, pp. 23. 20. THE STATUE AND THE BUST. By Robert Browning. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. 1855, pp. 22. 21. MEN AND WOMEN. By Robert Browning. In two volumes. London: Chapmanand Hall, 193 Piccadilly. 1855. Vol. I. , pp. Iv. , 260; Vol. II. , pp. Iv. , 241. Vol. I. Contents:--1. Love among the Ruins. 2. A Lovers' Quarrel. 3. Evelyn Hope. 4. Up at a Villa--Down in the City (as distinguished by an Italian person of Quality). 5. A Woman's Last Word. 6. Fra Lippo Lippi. 7. A Toccata of Galuppi's. 8. By the Fire-side. 9. Any Wife to Any Husband. 10. An Epistle containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician. 11. Mesmerism. 12. A Serenade at the Villa. 13. My Star. 14. Instans Tyrannus. 15. A Pretty Woman. 16. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. " 17. Respectability. 18. A Light Woman. 19. The Statue and the Bust. 20. Love in a Life. 21. Life in a Love. 22. How it Strikes a Contemporary. 23. The Last Ride Together. 24. The Patriot--_An Old Story_. 25. Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha. 26. Bishop Blougram's Apology. 27. Memorabilia. Vol. II. Contents:--1. Andrea del Sarto (Called the Faultless Painter). 2. Before. 3. After. 4. In Three Days. 5. In a Year. 6. Old Pictures in Florence. 7. In a Balcony. 8. Saul. 9. "De Gustibus. " 10. Women and Roses. 11. Protus. 12. Holy-Cross Day. 13. The Guardian Angel: a Picture at Fano. 14. Cleon. 15. The Twins. 16. Popularity. 17. The Heretic's Tragedy: A Middle Age Interlude. 18. Two in the Campagna. 19. A Grammarian's Funeral. 20. One Way of Love. 21. Another Way of Love. 22. "Transcendentalism": a Poem in Twelve Books. 23. Misconceptions. 24. One Word More: To E. B. B. 22. Ben Karshook's Wisdom. (Five stanzas of four lines each, signed"Robert Browning, " and dated "Rome, April 27, 1854")--_The Keepsake_. 1856. (Edited by Miss Power, and published by David Bogue, London. ) P. 16. This poem has never been reprinted by the author in any of his collectedvolumes, but is to be found in Furnivall's _Browning Bibliography_. 23. May and Death. --_The Keepsake_, 1857, p. 164. Reprinted, with somenew readings, in _Dramatis Personæ_ (1864). 24. THE POETICAL WORKS of Robert Browning. Third edition. Vol. I. , pp. X. , 432. Lyrics, Romances, Men and Women. Vol. II. , pp. 605. Tragediesand other Plays. Vol. III. , pp. 465. Paracelsus, Christmas Eve andEaster Day, Sordello. London: Chapman and Hall, 193 Piccadilly. 1863. There are no new poems in this edition, but the pieces originallypublished under the titles of _Dramatic Lyrics, Dramatic Lyrics andRomances_, and _Men and Women_, are redistributed. This arrangement hasbeen preserved in all subsequent editions. The table of contents belowwill thus show the present position of the poems. Vol. I, Contents--LYRICS:--1. Cavalier Tunes. 2. The Lost Leader. 3. "How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. " 4. Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr. 5. Nationality in Drinks. 6. Garden Fancies. [62] 7. The Laboratory. 8. The Confessional. 9. Cristina. 10. The Lost Mistress. 11. Earth's Immortalities. 12. Meeting at Night. 13. Parting at Morning. 14. Song. 15. A Woman's Last Word. 16. Evelyn Hope. 17, Love among the Ruins. 18. A Lovers' Quarrel. 19. Up at a Villa--Down in the City. 20. A Toccata of Galuppi's. 21. Old Pictures in Florence, 22. "De Gustibus ----. " 23. Home-Thoughts from Abroad. 24. Home-Thoughts from the Sea. 25. Saul. 26. My Star. 27. By the Fire-side. 28. Any Wife to Any Husband. 29. Two in the Campagna. 30. Misconceptions. 31. A Serenade at the Villa. 32. One Way of Love. 33. Another Way of Love. 34. A Pretty Woman. 35. Respectability. 36. Love in a Life. 37. Life in a Love. 38. In Three Days. 39. In a Year. 40. Women and Roses. 41. Before. 42. After. 43. The Guardian Angel. 44. Memorabilia. 45. Popularity. 46. Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha. ROMANCES:--1. Incident of the French Camp. 2. The Patriot. 3. My Last Duchess. 4. Count Gismond. 5. The Boy and the Angel. 6. Instans Tyrannus. 7. Mesmerism. 8. The Glove. 9. Time's Revenges. 10. The Italian in England. 11. The Englishman in Italy. 12. In a Gondola. 13. Waring. 14. The Twins. 15. A Light Woman. 16. The Last Ride Together. 17. The Pied Piper of Hamelin. 18. The Flight of the Duchess. 19. A Grammarian's Funeral. 20. Johannes Agricola in Meditation. 21. The Heretic's Tragedy. 22. Holy-Cross Day. 23. Protus. 24. The Statue and the Bust. 25. Porphyria's Lover. 26. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. " MEN AND WOMEN:--1. "Transcendentalism. " 2. How it strikes a Contemporary. 3. Artemis Prologuizes. 4. An Epistle containing the strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician. 5. Pictor Ignotus. 6. Fra Lippo Lippi. 7. Andrea del Sarto. 8. The Bishop orders his Tomb in St. Praxed's Church. 9. Bishop Blougram's Apology. 10. Cleon. 11. Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli. 12. One Word More. Vol. II. Contents--TRAGEDIES AND OTHER PLAYS:--1. Pippa Passes. 2. King Victor and King Charles. 3. The Return of the Druses. 4. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon. 5. Colombe's Birthday. 6. Luria. 7. A Soul's Tragedy. 8. In a Balcony. 9. Strafford. Vol. III. Contents:--1. Paracelsus, 2. Christmas Eve and Easter Day. 3. Sordello. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 62: The _Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister_ is here includedas No. III. In the edition of 1868 it follows under a separate heading. This is the only point of difference between the two editions. ] 25. GOLD HAIR: A Legend of Pornic. By Robert Browning. (Withimprint--London: Printed by W. Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street andCharing Cross) 1864, pp. 15. 26. Prospice. --_Atlantic Monthly_, Vol. XIII. , June 1864, p. 694. 27. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. By Robert Browning. London: Chapman and Hall, 193Piccadilly. 1864, pp. Vi. , 250. Contents:--1. James Lee [James Lee's Wife, 1868]. 2. Gold Hair: a Legend of Pornic. 3. The Worst of it. 4. Dîs aliter visum; or, Le Byron de nos jours. 5. Too Late. 6. Abt Vogler. 7. Rabbi ben Ezra. 8. A Death in the Desert. 9. Caliban upon Setebos; or, Natural Theology in the Island. 10. Confessions. 11. May and Death. 12. Prospice. 13. Youth and Art. 14. A Face. 15. A Likeness. 16. Mr Sludge "The Medium. " 17. Apparent Failure. 18. Epilogue. 28. Orpheus and Eurydice. --_Catalogue of the Royal Academy_, 1864, p. 13. No. 217. A picture by F. Leighton. Printed as prose. It is reprinted in _Poetical Works_, 1868, where itis included in _Dramatis Personæ_. The same volume contains a new stanzaof eight lines, entitled "Deaf and Dumb: a Group by Woolner. " This waswritten in 1862 for Woolner's partly-draped group of Constance andArthur, the deaf and dumb children of Sir Thomas Fairbairn, which wasexhibited in the International Exhibition of 1862. 29. THE POETICAL WORKS of Robert Browning, M. A. , Honorary Fellow ofBalliol College, Oxford. London: Smith, Elder and Co. , 15 WaterlooPlace. 1868. Vol. I. , pp. Viii. , 310. Pauline--Paracelsus--Strafford. Vol. II. , pp. Iv. , 287. Sordello--Pippa Passes. Vol. III. , pp. Iv. , 305. King Victor and King Charles--Dramatic Lyrics--The Return of the Druses. Vol. IV. , pp. Iv. , 321. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon--Colombe'sBirthday--Dramatic Romances. Vol. V. , pp. Iv. , 321. A Soul'sTragedy--Luria--Christmas Eve and Easter Day--Men and Women. Vol. VI. , pp. Iv. , 233. In a Balcony--Dramatis Personæ. This edition retains theredistribution of the minor poems in the edition of 1863, alreadymentioned. 30. THE RING AND THE BOOK. By Robert Browning, M. A. , Honorary Fellow ofBalliol College, Oxford. In four volumes. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1868-9. Vol. I. , pp. Iv. , 245; Vol. II. , pp. Iv. , 251; Vol. III. , pp. Iv. , 250; Vol. IV. , pp. Iv. , 235. 31. Hervé Riel--_Cornhill Magazine_, March 1871, pp. 257-60. Reprintedin _Pacchiarotto, and other Poems_ (1876). 32. BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE: Including a Transcript from Euripides. ByRobert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1871, pp. Iv. , 170. 33. PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU: SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1871, pp. Iv. , 148. 34. FIFINE AT THE FAIR. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1872, pp. Xii. , 171. 35. RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY: OR, TURF AND TOWERS. By RobertBrowning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1873, pp. Iv. , 282. 36. ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY: Including a Transcript from Euripides: Beingthe LAST ADVENTURE OF BALAUSTION. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1875, pp. Viii. , 366. 37. THE INN ALBUM. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1875, pp. Iv. , 211. 38. PACCHIAROTTO, and how he worked in Distemper: with other Poems. ByRobert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1876, pp. Viii. , 241. Contents:--1. Prologue. 2. Of Pacchiarotto, and how he worked in Distemper. 3. At the "Mermaid. " 4. House. 5. Shop. 6. Pisgah-Sights (1, 2). 7. Fears and Scruples. 8. Natural Magic. 9. Magical Nature. 10. Bifurcation. 11. Numpholeptos. 12. Appearances. 13. St. Martin's Summer. 14. Hervé Riel. 15. A Forgiveness. 16. Cenciaja. 17. Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial (a Reminiscence of A. D. 1676). 18. Epilogue. 39. THE AGAMEMNON OF ÆSCHYLUS. Transcribed by Robert Browning. London:Smith, Elder and Co. 1877, pp. Xi. (Preface, v. -xi. ), 148. 40. LA SAISIAZ: THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. By Robert Browning. London:Smith, Elder and Co. 1878, pp. Viii. , 201. Contents:--1. Prologue, 2. La Saisiaz (pp. 5-82). The Two Poets of Croisic (pp. 87-191). Epilogue. 41. Song. ("The Blind Man to the Maiden said")--_The Hour will come_. ByWilhelmine von Hillern. Translated from the German by Clara Bell. London, 1879, Vol. II. , p. 174. Not reprinted. 42. "Oh, Love, Love": Translation from the _Hippolytus_ of Euripides. (Eighteen lines, dated "Dec. 18, 1878"). Contributed to Prof. J. P. Mahaffy's _Euripides_ ("Classical Writers. " Macmillan, 1879). P. 116. 43. DRAMATIC IDYLS. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1879, pp. Vi. , 143. Contents:--1. Martin Relph. 2. Pheidippides. 3. Halbert and Hob. 4. Ivàn Ivànovitch. 5. Tray. 6. Ned Bratts. 44. DRAMATIC IDYLS. Second Series. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1880, pp. Viii. , 149. Contents:--Prologue. 1. Echetlos. 2. Clive. 3. Muléykeh. 4. Pietro of Abano. 5. Doctor ----. 6. Pan and Luna. Epilogue. 45. Ten New Lines to "Epilogue. "--_Scribner's Century Magazine_, November 1882, pp. 159-60. Lines written in an autograph album, October14, 1880. Printed in the _Century_ without Browning's consent. Reprintedin the first issue of the Browning Society's Papers, Part III. , p. 48, but withdrawn from the second issue. 46. JOCOSERIA. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1883, pp. Viii. , 143. Contents:--1. Wanting is--What? 2. Donald. 3. Solomon and Balkis. 4. Cristina and Monaldeschi. 5. Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli. 6. Adam, Lilith, and Eve. 7. Ixion. 8. Jochanan Hakkadosh. 9. Never the Time and the Place. 10. Pambo. 47. Sonnet on Goldoni (dated "Venice, Nov. 27, 1883"). --_Pall MallGazette_, December 8, 1883, p. 2. Written for the Album of the Committeeof the Goldoni Monument at Venice, and inserted on the first page. Reprinted in the Browning Society's Papers, Part V. P. 98. * 48. Paraphrase from Horace. --_Pall Mall Gazette_, December 13, 1883, p. 6. Four lines, written impromptu for Mr. Felix Moscheles. Reprinted inthe Browning Society's Papers, Part V. , p. 99. * 49. Helen's Tower: Sonnet (Dated "April 26, 1870"). --_Pall MallGazette_, December 28, 1883, p. 2. Reprinted in Browning Society'sPapers, Part V. , p. 97. * Written for the Earl of Dufferin, who built atower in memory of his mother, Helen, Countess of Gifford, on a rock onhis estate, at Clandeboye, Ireland, and originally printed in the latercopies of a privately printed pamphlet called _Helen's Tower_. LordTennyson's lines, written on the same occasion, appeared a littlepreviously in _The Leisure Hour_. 50. The Divine Order, and other Sermons and Addresses. By the lateThomas Jones. Edited by Brynmor Jones, LL. B. With INTRODUCTION by RobertBrowning. London: W. Isbister. 1884. The introduction is on pp. Xi. -xiii. 51. Sonnet on Rawdon Brown. (Dated "November 28, 1883"). --_CenturyMagazine_, "Bric-à-brac" column, February 1884. Reprinted in theBrowning Society's Papers, Part V. , p. 132. * Written at Venice, on anapocryphal story relating to the late Mr Rawdon Brown, who "went toVenice for a short visit, with a definite object in view, and ended bystaying forty years. " 52. The Founder of the Feast: Sonnet. (Dated "April 5, 1884"). --_TheWorld_, April 16, 1884. Inscribed by Browning in the Album presented toMr Arthur Chappell, director of the St. James's Hall Saturday and MondayPopular Concerts. Reprinted in the Browning Society's Papers, Part VII. , p. 18. * 53. The Names: Sonnet on Shakespeare. (Dated "March 12, 1884"). --_Shakespere Show Book_, May 29, 1884, p. 1. Reprinted in theBrowning Society's Papers, Part V. , p. 105. * 54. FERISHTAH'S FANCIES. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder andCo. 1884, pp. Viii. , 143. Each blank verse "Fancy" is followed by ashort lyric. Contents:--Prologue. Ferishtah's Fancies: 1. The Eagle. 2. The Melon-seller. 3. Shah Abbas. 4. The Family. 5. The Sun. 6. Mihrab Shah. 7. A Camel-Driver. 8. Two Camels 9. Cherries. 10. Plot-Culture, 11. A Pillar at Sebzevah. 12. A Bean Stripe: also Apple-Eating. Epilogue. 55. Why I am a Liberal: Sonnet. --_Why I am a Liberal_, edited by AndrewReid. London: Cassell and Co. 1885. Reprinted in the Browning Society'sPapers, Part VII. , p. 92. * 54. Spring Song. --_The New Amphion_; being the book of the EdinburghUniversity Union Fancy Fair. Edinburgh: T. And A. Constable, UniversityPress. 1886. The poem is on p. 1. Reprinted in _Parleyings_, p. 189. 55. Prefatory Note to _Poems_ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. London:Smith, Elder and Co. 1887. Three pages, unnumbered. 56. Memorial Lines, for Memorial of the Queen's Jubilee, in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. 1887. Reprinted in the BrowningSociety's Papers, Part X. , p. 234. * 57. PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE IN THEIR DAY: to wit, Bernard de Mandeville, Daniel Bartoli, Christopher Smart, George BubbDodington, Francis Furini, Gerard de Lairesse, and Charles Avison. Introduced by a Dialogue between Apollo and the Fates, concluded byanother between John Fust and his Friends. By Robert Browning. London:Smith, Elder and Co. , 15 Waterloo Place. 1887, pp. Viii. , 268. (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. XVI. , pp. 93-275. ) Contents:--Apollo and the Fates--a Prologue. Parleyings: 1. With Bernard de Mandeville. 2. With Daniel Bartoli. 3. With Christopher Avison. 4. With George Bubb Dodington. 5. With Francis Furini. 6. With Gerard de Lairesse. 7. With Charles Avison. Fust and his Friends--an Epilogue. 58. An Essay on Percy Bysshe Shelley. By Robert Browning. Being aReprint of the Introductory Essay prefixed to the volume of [25spurious] Letters of Shelley, published by Edward Moxon in 1852. Editedby W. Tyas Harden. London: Published for the Shelley Society by Reevesand Turner, 196 Strand, 1888, pp. 27. See No. 17 above. 59. To Edward Fitzgerald. (Dated July 8, 1889). --_The Athenæum_, No. 3, 220, July 13, 1889, p. 64. Reprinted in the Browning Society's Papers, Part XI. , p. 347. * 60. Lines addressed to Levi Lincoln Thaxter. (Written in 1885). --_PoetLore_, Vol. I. , August 1889, p. 398. 61. THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING. London: Smith, Elder & Co. , 15 Waterloo Place. 17 volumes. Vol. I. -XVI. , 1889; Vol. XVII. , 1894. Vol. I. Pp. Viii. , 289. Pauline--Sordello. Vol. II. , pp. Vi. , 307. Paracelsus--Strafford. Vol. III. , pp. Vi. , 255. Pippa Passes, King Victor and King Charles, The Return of the Druses, A Soul's Tragedy. Vol. IV. , pp. Vi. , 305. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, Colombe's Birthday, Men and Women. Vol. V. , pp. Vi. , 307. Dramatic Romances, Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day. Vol. VI. , pp. Vii. , 289. Dramatic Lyrics, Luria. Vol. VII. , pp. Vi. , 255. In a Balcony, Dramatis Personæ. Vol. VIII. , pp. 253. The Ring and the Book, Vol. I. Vol. IX. , pp. 313. The Ring and the Book, Vol. II. Vol. X. , pp. 279. The Ring and the Book, Vol. III. Vol. XI. , pp. 343. Balaustion's Adventure, Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Fifine at the Fair. Vol. XII. , pp. 311. Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, The Inn Album, Vol. XIII. , pp. 357. Aristophanes' Apology, The Agamemnon of Æschylus. Vol. XIV. , pp. Vi. , 279. Pacchiarotto and how he worked in Distemper, with other Poems. [La Saisiaz, the Two Poets of Croisic. ] Vol. XV. , pp. Vi. , 260. Dramatic Idyls, Jocoseria. Vol. XVI. , pp. Vi. , 275. Ferishtah's Fancies. Parleyings with Certain People. General Index, pp. 277-85; Index to First Lines of Shorter Poems, pp. 287-92. Vol. XVII. , pp. Viii. , 288. Asolando, Biographical and Historical Notes to the Poems. General Index, pp. 289-99; Index to First Lines of Shorter Poems, pp. 301-307. This edition contains Browning's final text of his poems. 62. ASOLANDO: FANCIES AND FACTS. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder & Co. , 15 Waterloo Place. 1890, pp. Viii. , 157. (_Poetical Works_, 1894, Vol. XVII. , pp. 1-131. ) Contents:--Prologue. 1. Rosny. 2. Dubiety. 3. Now. 4. Humility. 5. Poetics. 6. Summum Bonum. 7. A Pearl, a Girl. 8. Speculative. 9. White Witchcraft. 10. Bad Dreams (i. -iv. ). 11. Inapprehensiveness. 12. Which? 13. The Cardinal and the Dog. 14. The Pope and the Net. 15. The Bean-Feast. 16. Muckle-mouth Meg. 17. Arcades Ambo. 18. The Lady and the Painter. 19. Ponte dell' Angelo, Venice. 20. Beatrice Signorini. 21. Flute-Music, with an Accompaniment. 22. "Imperante Augusto natus est--. " 23. Development. 24. Rephan. 25. Reverie. Prologue. 63. THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING. With Portraits. In twovolumes. London: Smith, Elder & Co. , 15 Waterloo Place, 1896. Vol. I. , pp. Viii. , 784; Vol. II. , pp. Vii. , 786. The Editor's note, after p. Viii. , signed "Augustine Birrell, " says:"All that has been done is to prefix (within square brackets) to some ofthe plays and poems a few lines explanatory of the characters and eventsdepicted and described, and to explain in the margin of the volumes themeaning of such words as might, if left unexplained, momentarily arrestthe understanding of the reader . .. Mr. F. G. Kenyon has been kind enoughto make the notes for 'The Ring and the Book, ' but for the rest theeditor alone is responsible. " The text is that of the edition of 1889, 1894, but the arrangement is more strictly chronological. The notes arethroughout unnecessary and to be regretted. II. REPRINT OF DISCARDED PREFACES TO THE FIRST EDITIONS OF SOME OFBROWNING'S WORKS 1. Preface to _Paracelsus_ (1835). "I am anxious that the reader should not, at the very outset, --mistakingmy performance for one of a class with which it has nothing incommon, --judge it by principles on which it has never been moulded, andsubject it to a standard to which it was never meant to conform. Itherefore anticipate his discovery, that it is an attempt, probably morenovel than happy, to reverse the method usually adopted by writers, whose aim it is to set forth any phenomenon of the mind or the passions, by the operation of persons or events; and that, instead of havingrecourse to an external machinery of incidents to create and evolve thecrisis I desire to produce, I have ventured to display somewhat minutelythe mood itself in its rise and progress, and have suffered the agencyby which it is influenced and determined, to be generally discernible inits effects alone, and subordinate throughout, if not altogetherexcluded; and this for a reason. I have endeavoured to write a poem, nota drama: the canons of the drama are well known, and I cannot but thinkthat, inasmuch as they have immediate regard to stage representation, the peculiar advantages they hold out are really such, only so long asthe purpose for which they were at first instituted is kept in view. Ido not very well understand what is called a Dramatic Poem, wherein allthose restrictions only submitted to on account of compensating good inthe original scheme are scrupulously retained, as though for somespecial fitness in themselves, --and all new facilities placed at anauthor's disposal by the vehicle he selects, as pertinaciouslyrejected. It is certain, however, that a work like mine depends moreimmediately on the intelligence and sympathy of the reader for itssuccess;--indeed, were my scenes stars, it must be his co-operatingfancy which, supplying all chasms, shall connect the scattered lightsinto one constellation--a Lyre or a Crown. I trust for his indulgencetowards a poem which had not been imagined six months ago, and that evenshould he think slightingly of the present (an experiment I am in nocase likely to repeat) he will not be prejudiced against otherproductions which may follow in a more popular, and perhaps lessdifficult form. 15th March 1835. " 2. Preface to _Strafford_ (1837). "I had for some time been engaged in a poem of a very different nature[_Sordello_] when induced to make the present attempt; and am notwithout apprehension that my eagerness to freshen a jaded mind bydiverting it to the healthy natures of a grand epoch, may have operatedunfavourably on the represented play, which is one of Action inCharacter, rather than Character in Action. To remedy this, in somedegree, considerable curtailment will be necessary, and, in a fewinstances, the supplying details not required, I suppose, by the merereader. While a trifling success would much gratify, failure will notwholly discourage me from another effort: experience is to come, andearnest endeavour may yet remove many disadvantages. The portraits are, I think, faithful; and I am exceedingly fortunate inbeing able, in proof of this, to refer to the subtle and eloquentexposition of the characters of Eliot and Strafford, in the Lives ofEminent British Statesmen now in the course of publication in Lardner'sCyclopædia, by a writer [John Forster] whom I am proud to call myfriend; and whose biographies of Hampden, Pym, and Vane, will, I amsure, fitly illustrate the present year--the Second Centenary of theTrial concerning Ship-money. My Carlisle, however, is purely imaginary:I at first sketched her singular likeness roughly in, as suggested byMatthew and the memoir-writers--but it was too artificial, and thesubstituted outline is exclusively from Voiture and Waller. The Italian boat-song in the last scene is from Redi's _Bacco_, longsince naturalised in the joyous and delicate version of Leigh Hunt. " 3. Preface to _Sordello_ (not in first edition, but added in 1863). Ireprint it, though still retained by the author, on account of its greatimportance as a piece of self-criticism or self-interpretation. "To J. MILSAND, OF DIJON. Dear Friend, --Let the next poem be introduced by your name, and so repayall trouble it ever cost me. I wrote it twenty-five years ago for only afew, counting even in these on somewhat more care about its subject thanthey really had. My own faults of expression were many; but with carefor a man or book, such would be surmounted, and without it what availsthe faultlessness of either? I blame nobody, least of all myself, whodid my best then and since; for I lately gave time and pains to turn mywork into what the many might, --instead of what the few must, --like: butafter all, I imagined another thing at first, and therefore leave as Ifind it. The historical decoration was purposely of no more importancethan a background requires; and my stress lay on the incidents in thedevelopment of a soul: little else is worth study. I, at least, alwaysthought so--you, with many known and unknown to me, think so--others mayone day think so: and whether my attempt remain for them or not, Itrust, though away and past it, to continue ever yours, R. B. London, June 9, 1863. " 4. Preface to _Bells and Pomegranates_. --I. _Pippa Passes_ (1841). "ADVERTISEMENT. Two or three years ago I wrote a Play, about which the chief matter Imuch care to recollect at present is, that a Pit-full of good-naturedpeople applauded it: ever since, I have been desirous of doing somethingin the same way that should better reward their attention. What follows, I mean for the first of a series of Dramatical Pieces, to come out atintervals; and I amuse myself by fancying that the cheap mode in whichthey appear, will for once help me to a sort of Pit-audience again. Ofcourse such a work must go on no longer than it is liked; and to provideagainst a certain and but too possible contingency, let me hasten to saynow--what, if I were sure of success, I would try to saycircumstantially enough at the close--that I dedicate my best intentionsmost admiringly to the author of 'Ion'--most affectionately to SerjeantTalfourd. ROBERT BROWNING. " 5. Preface to _Bells and Pomegranates_. --VIII. _Luria_ and _A Soul'sTragedy_. "Here ends my first series of 'Bells and Pomegranates:' and I take theopportunity of explaining, in reply to inquiries, that I only meant bythat title to indicate an endeavour towards something like analteration, or mixture, of music with discoursing, sound with sense, poetry with thought; which looks too ambitious, thus expressed, so thesymbol was preferred. It is little to the purpose, that such is actuallyone of the most familiar of the many Rabbinical (and Patristic)acceptations of the phrase; because I confess that, letting authorityalone, I supposed the bare words, in such juxtaposition, wouldsufficiently convey the desired meaning. 'Faith and good works' isanother fancy, for instance, and perhaps no easier to arrive at: yetGiotto placed a pomegranate-fruit in the hand of Dante, and Raffaellecrowned his Theology (in the _Camera della Segnatura_) with blossoms ofthe same; as if the Bellari and Vasari would be sure to come after, andexplain that it was merely '_simbolo delle buone opere--il qualPomogranato fu però usato nelle vesti del Pontefice appresso gliEbrei_. ' R. B. " It may be worth while to append the interesting concluding paragraph ofthe preface to the first series of _Selections_, issued by Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. In 1872: "A few years ago, had such an opportunity presented itself, I might havebeen tempted to say a word in reply to the objections my poetry was usedto encounter. Time has kindly co-operated with my disinclination towrite the poetry and the criticism besides. The readers I am at lastprivileged to expect, meet me fully half-way; and if, from their fittingstandpoint, they must still 'censure me in their wisdom, ' they havepreviously 'awakened their senses that they may the better judge. ' Nordo I apprehend any more charges of being wilfully obscure, unconscientiously careless, or perversely harsh. Having hitherto done myutmost in the art to which my life is a devotion, I cannot engage toincrease the effort; but I conceive that there may be helpful light, aswell as reassuring warmth, in the attention and sympathy I gratefullyacknowledge R. B. London, May 14, 1872. " INDEX TO POEMS Abt Vogler, 23, 145, 146, 147 Adam, Lilith, and Eve, 220, 221 After, 128, 129 "Agamemnon (The), of Æschylus, " 17, 202, 203 Andrea del Sarto, 23, 59, 82, 104, 107, 109, 113, 135, 179 Another Way of Love, 130 Any Wife to Any Husband, 124 Apparent Failure, 145 Appearances, 197 Arcades Ambo, 236 "Aristophanes' Apology, " 17, 185, 190 Artemis Prologuizes, 63, 64, 85 "Asolando: Fancies and Facts, " 231-239 At the Mermaid, 194, 196, 197 Bad Dreams, 232, 234, 236 "Balaustion's Adventure, " 169, 173, 186 Bean-Feast, The, 236 Bean-Stripe (A): also Apple-Eating, 225 Beatrice Signorini, 234 Before, 128 Bifurcation, 198 Bishop Blougram's Apology, 27, 105, 111-113, 144 Bishop (The) Orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's Church, 83-85, 115 "Blot in the 'Scutcheon, A, " 17, 69-72, 74, 91, 95 Boy and the Angel, The, 89 By the Fireside, 126, 139 Caliban upon Setebos, 27, 141-144 Camel-Driver, A, 224 Cardinal and the Dog, The, 236, 237 Cavalier Tunes, 62 Cenciaja, 201 Cherries, 224 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower, came, ' 118-120 "Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day, " 98-103 Cleon, 105, 109, 111, 143 Clive, 214, 215 "Colombe's Birthday, " 73-76, 91 Confessional, The, 86 Confessions, 27, 139-141 Count Gismond, 62-63 Cristina, 63 Cristina and Monaldeschi, 221-222 Deaf and Dumb, 145 Death in the Desert, A, 141, 142 'De Gustibus, ' 26, 130 Development, 232 Dîs aliter Visum, 27, 138 Doctor ----, 193, 217 Donald, 222 "Dramatic Idyls, " 208-213 "Dramatic Idyls" (Second Series), 213-218 "Dramatic Lyrics, " 58-65 "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, " 56, 77-90 "Dramatis Personæ, " 135-150, 194 Dubiety, 233 Eagle, The, 224 Earth's Immortalities, 80 Echetlos, 213, 214 Englishman in Italy, The, 25, 87 Epilogue to "Dramatic Idyls" (Second Series), 218 Epilogue to "Dramatis Personæ, " 194 Epilogue to Pacchiarotto, 194, 195-196 Epilogue to The Two Poets of Croisic, 208 Epistle of Karshish, 104, 105, 109-111, 234 Eurydice and Orpheus, 145 Evelyn Hope, 63, 122 Face, A, 145 Family, The, 224 Fears and Scruples, 197 "Ferishtah's Fancies, " 98, 223, 226 "Fifine at the Fair, " 17, 111, 130, 177-182, 184 Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial, 201 Flight of the Duchess, The, 88 Flower's Name, The, 80 Flute Music, with an Accompaniment, 233 Forgiveness, A, 199 Fra Lippo Lippi, 23, 27, 105, 107, 113 Garden Fancies, 80 Girl, A, 232 Glove, The, 87 Gold Hair: a Story of Pornic, 145 Grammarian's Funeral, A, 115 Guardian Angel, The, 23, 113 Halbert and Hob, 210 Heretic's Tragedy, The, 27, 115, 116-117, 143 Hervé Riel, 194, 200 Holy-Cross Day, 27, 115, 117 Home-Thoughts from Abroad, 77, 78 Home-Thoughts from the Sea, 78 House, 194, 197 How it strikes a Contemporary, 128 How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, 77 Humility, 233, 236 "In A Balcony, " 105, 132, 135 In a Gondola, 64 Inapprehensiveness, 233 In a Year, 130 Incident of the French Camp, 62 "Inn Album, The, " 7, 22, 190, 193 Instans Tyrannus, 129 In Three Days, 130 Italian in England, The, 87 Ivàn Ivànovitch, 26, 210, 211-212 Ixion, 219-220 James Lee's Wife, 118, 136, 137 Jochanan Hakkadosh, 219 "Jocoseria, " 218, 223 Johannes Agricola, 59 "King Victor and King Charles, " 56-58, 66 Laboratory, The, 86 "La Saisiaz, " 98, 204, 208 Last Ride Together, The, 81, 125, 130 Life in a Love, 130 Light Woman, A, 130 Likeness, A, 141 Lost Leader, The, 77, 78 Lost Mistress, The, 79, 130 Love among the Ruins, 120, 121 Love in a Life, 130 Lovers' Quarrel, A, 27, 121, 122 "Luria, " 4, 91, 95-98, 211, 212 Magical Nature, 175, 197-198 Martin Relph, 209, 210, 211 Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli, 222 Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha, 23, 24, 113, 114 May and Death, 145 Meeting at Night, 81, 82 Melon-Seller, The, 224 Memorabilia, 131 "Men and Women, " 15, 58, 77, 85, 89, 91, 104, 132, 135, 141, 199, 232 Mesmerism, 129 Mihrab Shah, 224 Misconceptions, 130, 197 Mr Sludge, "The Medium, " 27, 141, 144 Muckle-mouth Meg, 236 Muléykeh, 191, 215, 217 My Last Duchess, 59, 60, 61, 199, 233 My Star, 130 Nationality in Drinks, 78 Natural Magic, 197 Ned Bratts, 26, 27, 210, 212 Never the Time and the Place 222, 223 Now, 233 Numpholeptos, 198, 199 Old Pictures in Florence, 24, 113, 114 One Way of Love, 130, 131, 132 One Word More, 126 Pacchiarotto, 27, 88, 194, 195 "Pacchiarotto and Other Poems, " 194, 201 Pambo, 222 Pan and Luna, 214 "Paracelsus, " 6, 37, 41, 49, 59, 74, 118, 218, 229 "Parleyings with certain People, " 226-230 Parting at Morning, 82 Patriot, The: an Old Story, 129 "Pauline, " 33-36, 37, 49, 59, 118 Pearl, A, 232 Pheidippides, 212, 213 Pictor Ignotus, 23, 82, 83, 85 Pied Piper of Hamelin, The, 27, 65, 77 Pietro of Abano, 217 Pillar at Sebzevah, A, 225 "Pippa Passes, " 52-56, 94, 132, 151 Pisgah-Sights, 197 Plot-Culture, 225 Poetics, 232 Pope and the Net, The, 236 Popularity, 131 Porphyria's Lover, 25, 59 Pretty Woman, A, 130 "Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, " 17, 111, 173, 177, 184, 192 Prospice, 145, 148-150 Protus, 117 Rabbi Ben Ezra, 145, 147, 148 "Red-Cotton Night-Cap Country, " 7, 182, 185, 190, 192 Rephan, 231 Respectability, 129 "Return of the Druses, The, " 65, 69, 74 Reverie, 231 "Ring and the Book, The, " 17, 20, 136, 150, 169, 173, 233 Rosny, 232 Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli, 63 St. Martin's Summer, 195 Saul, 89, 90 Serenade at the Villa, A, 25, 26, 124 Shah Abbas, 224 Shop, 194, 197 Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis, 27, 80 Solomon and Balkis, 220 Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 27, 62, 129 "Sordello, " 7, 17, 37, 42, 44, 52, 55, 59, 145, 229 "Soul's Tragedy, A, " 27, 91, 95, 132 Speculative, 233, 235 Statue and the Bust, The, 127 "Strafford, " 41, 44, 57, 132 Summum Bonum, 232, 235, 236 Sun, The, 224 Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr, 62 Time's Revenges, 86 Toccata of Galuppi's, A, 23, 113, 114 Too Late, 136, 137, 138 'Transcendentalism, ' 128 Tray, 222 Twins, The, 130 Two Camels, 224 Two in the Campagna, 125 "Two Poets of Croisic, The, " 206-208 Up at a Villa--Down in the City, 27, 130 Wanting Is--What? 222 Waring, 61, 62 Which, 234 White Witchcraft, 236 Woman's Last Word, A, 122, 124 Women and Roses, 130 Worst of It, The, 136, 137 Youth and Art, 139 BY THE SAME WRITER POEMS (COLLECTED EDITION IN TWO VOLUMES) 1902. AUBREY BEARDSLEY, 1897. THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE, 1899. PLAYS, ACTING AND MUSIC, 1903. CITIES, 1903. STUDIES IN PROSE AND VERSE, 1904. A BOOK OF TWENTY SONGS, 1905. SPIRITUAL ADVENTURES, 1905. STUDIES IN SEVEN ARTS, 1906. THE FOOL OF THE WORLD, AND OTHER POEMS, 1906. The Temple Press Letchworth England