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Ciara Wauren Dixit.
HANDBOOK TO BROWNING'S WORKS.
"
A HANDBOOK
TO THE WORKS OF
ROBERT
11
BROWNING,
BY
Alexandra
MRS. SUTHERLAND ORR.
SEVENTH EDITION.
"No pause i' the leading and the light!"
The Ring and the Book, vol. ix. p. 226.
LONDON:
GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN,
AND NEW YORK.
1896.
CHISWICK PRESS: C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT,
CHANCERY LANE
quest

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
HIS book was written at the request of some
of the members of the Browning Society, and
was originally intended to be a primer. It
bears the marks of this intention in its general scheme,
and in the almost abrupt brevity which the desired limits
of space seemed to impose on its earlier part. But I felt
from the first that the spirit of Mr. Browning's work could
neither be compressed within the limits, nor adapted to
the uses, of a primer, as generally understood; and the
book has naturally shaped itself into a kind of descriptive
Index, based partly on the historical order and partly on
the natural classification of the various poems. No other
plan suggested itself, at the time, for bringing the whole
series of these poems at once under the reader's eye: since
a description which throughout followed the historical
order would have involved both lengthiness and repetition;
while, as I have tried to show, there exists no scheme of
natural classification into which the whole series could
have been forced. I realize, only now that it is too late,
that the arrangement is clumsy and confusing or at
least has become so by the manner in which I have
carried it out; and that even if it justify itself to the mind
of my readers, it can never be helpful or attractive to their
eye, which had the first right to be considered. That I
vi
Preface.
should have failed in a first attempt, however earnest, to
meet the difficulties of such a task, is so natural as to be
almost beyond regret, where my credit only is concerned;
but I shall be very sorry if this result of my inexperience
detracts from any usefulness which the Handbook might
otherwise possess as a guide to Mr. Browning's works. I
note also, and with real vexation, some blunders of a more
mechanical kind, which I might have been expected to
avoid.
I have been indebted for valuable advice to Mr. Furnivall;
and for fruitful suggestion to Mr. Nettleship, whose pro-
posed scheme of classification I have in some degree
followed.
A. ORR.
March 2nd, 1885.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

N preparing the Handbook for its second edition,
my first endeavour has been to correct, as far as
possible, the faults which I acknowledged in my
Preface to the first. But even before the time for doing
so had arrived, I had convinced myself that where con-
struction or arrangement was concerned, these faults
could not be corrected: that I, at least, could discover no
more artistic method of compressing into a small space,
and to any practical purpose, an even relatively just view
of Mr. Browning's work. The altered page-headings will,
where they occur, soften away the harshness of the classi-
fication, while they remove a distinct anomaly: the dis-
cussion of such a poem as "Pauline" under its own title,
such a one as “Aristophanes' Apology," under that of a
group; but even this slight improvement rather detracts
from than increases what little symmetry my scheme pos-
sessed. The other changes which, on my own account, I
have been able to make, include the re-writing of some
Preface to the Second Edition.
vii
passages in which the needful condensation had unneces-
sarily mutilated the author's sense; the completing of
quotation references which through an unforeseen acci-
dent had been printed off in an unfinished state; and the
addition of a few bibliographical facts. By Mr. Brown-
ing's desire, I have corrected two mistakes: the misread-
ing, on my part, of an historical allusion in "The Statue
and the Bust," and of a poetical sentiment expressed in
"Pictor Ignotus ”—and, by the insertion of a word or sen-
tence in the notice of each, expanded or emphasized the
meaning of several of the minor poems. I should have
stated in my first Preface, had not the fact appeared to
me self-evident, that I owe to Mr. Browning's kindness
all the additional matter which my own reading could not
supply such as the index to the Greek names in “Aris-
tophanes' Apology," and the Persian in "Ferishtah's
Fancies;" the notes to "Transcendentalism," and " Pietro
of Abano ;" and that he has allowed me to study in the
original documents the story of "The Ring and the Book."
The two signed notes by which he has enriched the pre-
sent edition have grown out of recent circumstances.
A. ORR.
January 11th, 1886.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
HE present edition of the Handbook includes a
summary of Mr. Browning's "Parleyings," which
from the contents of this volume, as well as from
its recent appearance, finds its natural place in a Supple-
ment.
I have added an Index to the six volumes of the
"Works," which has been desired for greater facility of
reference.
viii
Preface to the Third Edition.
Various corrections and improvements of the nature
indicated in the Preface to my second edition have been
also made in the book.
June 25th, 1887.
A. ORR.
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
HE deeply painful circumstances in which the
Handbook re-appears have compelled me to
defer the fulfilment of Mr. Browning's wish, that
its quotation references should be adapted to the use of
readers of his new edition. They also leave it the poorer
by some interesting notes which he more than once
promised me for my next reprint; I had never the heart
to say to him: "Is it not safer to give them now?"
The correction, p. 149, of the note referring to p. 184
of "Aristophanes' Apology," was lately made by Mr.
Browning in the Handbook, pending the time when he
could repeat it in his own work. The cancelled footnote
on my 353rd page means that he did remove the con-
tradiction of which I spoke.
An open discussion on "Numpholeptos," which took
place some months ago, made me aware that my little
abstract was less helpful even than its brevity allowed,
because I had emphasized the imagery of the poem where
it most obscured-or least distinctly illustrated—its idea ;
and I re-wrote a few sentences which I now offer in their
amended form. A phrase or two in "One Word More"
has been altered for the sake of more literal accuracy.
No other correction worth specifying has been made in
the book.
A. ORR.
Fanuary 7th, 1890.
•


PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.
HE changes made in the present edition have
been almost entirely bibliographical. Their
chief object was that indicated in an earlier
preface, of bringing the Handbook into correspondence
with the latest issue of Mr. Browning's works. I felt
reluctant when making them, to entirely sacrifice the
convenience of those students of Browning who from
necessity, or, as in my own case, from affection, still cling
to the earlier editions; and would gladly have retained
the old references while inserting the new. All however
that seemed practical in this direction was to combine the
index of 1868 with that of 1889 in so far as they run
parallel with each other.
A long felt want has been supplied by the addition to
the Handbook of a Bibliography of Mr. Browning's works,
based on that of Dr. Furnivall, and thoroughly revised
by Mr. Dykes Campbell. The bibliographical details
scattered throughout the work have also been made more
complete.
The time and trouble required for the altered quotation
references have been reduced to a minimum by the
thoughtful kindness of my friend Miss Fanny Carey of
Trent Leigh, Nottingham; who voluntarily, many months
ago, prepared for me a list of the new page numbers, leaving
X
Preface.
them only to be transcribed when the time came. I have
also to thank Mr. G. M. Smith for a copy of his general
Index to the works.
Dec. 1st, 1891.
· A. ORR.

t
T
་

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION
PREFACE TO FIFTH EDITION
PREFACE TO SIXTH EDITION
PAGE
V
vi
•
vii
viii
ix
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.
HIS
THE NATURE OF MR. BROWNING'S GENIUS.
CHOICE AND TREATMENT OF SUBJECT. VERSIFI-
CONTINUOUS CHARACTER OF HIS Work .
CATION.
I
INTRODUCTORY. GROUP.
"Pauline."
"Paracelsus." "Sordello "
17
NON-CLASSIFIED POEMS.
DRAMAS.
"Strafford."
Charles."
"Pippa Passes."
King Victor and King
"The Return of the Druses." "A Blot in
the 'Scutcheon." "Colombe's Birthday." "A Soul's
Tragedy." "Luria.” "In a Balcony" (A Fragment)
"THE RING AND THE BOOK"
TRANSCRIPTS FROM THE GREEK, with
Prologizes".
>
"Artemis
53
75
• IIS
xii
Contents.
44
CLASSIFIED GROUPS.
ARGUMENTATIVE POEMS. SPECIAL PLEADINGS.
"Aristophanes'Apology," with "Balaustion's Adventure."
"Fifine at the Fair." "Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau,
Saviour of Society." "Bishop Blougram's Apology."
"Mr. Sludge, 'The Medium ’”
•
PAGE
ARGUMENTATIVE POEMS CONTINUED. REFLECTIONS.
"Christmas - Eve and Easter-day." "La Saiziaz."
"Cleon." "An Epistle containing the Strange Medical
Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician.
"Caliban
upon Setebos; or, Natural Theology in the Island "
DIDACTIC POEMS.
""
"A Death in the Desert. "Rabbi Ben Ezra." << Dear
and Dumb: a group by Woolner."
the Bust"
I21
178
"The Statue and
198
CRITICAL POEMS.
""
"Old Pictures in Florence.' "Respectability."
""
""
"Popu-
"A Light
larity. "Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha."
Woman." "Transcendentalism." "How it Strikes a
Contemporary.' "Dîs aliter Visum; or, Le Byron de
nos Jours." "At the 'Mermaid." "House." "Shop."
Pisgah-Sights" I. Pisgah-Sights," II. "Bifurca-
tion." "Epilogue ""Pacchiarotto and other Poems") 207
EMOTIONAL POEMS. LOVE.
LYRICAL LOVE POEMS. "One Word More. To E. B. B."
"Prospice." Numpholeptos." "Prologue" (to "Pac-
chiarotto and other Poems."). "Natural Magic." “Magi-
cal Nature." Introductory Poem to "The Two Poets
of Croisic." Concluding Poem to "The Two Poets of
Croisic" (a Tale). DRAMATIC LOVE POEMS.
"Cris-
tina."
66
'Evelyn Hope." "Love among the Ruins.
"By the Fireside.” Any
"Two in the Campagna.'
A Lovers' Quarrel."
Wife to any Husband."
""
ļ
Contents.
xiii
"The Lost
"A Serenade
"Rudel to the
"Love in a Life." "Life in a Love."
Mistress." "A Woman's Last Word.”
at the Villa." "One Way of Love."
Lady of Tripoli. "In Three Days."
dola." "Porphyria's Lover."
"In a Gon-
"James Lee's Wife."
"The Worst of it." 66 Too Late."
EMOTIONAL POEMS CONtinued.
PAGE
•
219
RELIGIOUS, ARTISTIC, AND EXPRESSIVE OF THE FIERCER
EMOTIONS.
"Saul." "Epilogue to Dramatis Persona."
'Fears
and Scruples." "Fra Lippo Lippi." "Abt Vogler."
""
"Pictor Ignotus.' "The Bishop orders his Tomb at
Saint Praxed's Church." "A Toccata of Galuppi's.”
"The Guardian-Angel: a picture at Fano." "Eurydice
to Orpheus: a picture by Leighton." "A Face."
"Andrea del Sarto." "The Laboratory." 'My_Last
Duchess." Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister."
Confessional." 'A Forgiveness
""
The
•
HISTORICAL POEMS, OR POEMS FOUNDED On Fact.
"Red Cotton Night-Cap Country; or, Turf and Towers."
Cenciaja." "The Two Poets of Croisic."
Inn Album."
Interlude"
"The
"The Heretic's Tragedy: a Middle-Age
237
254
ROMANTIC POEMS.
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." "The Flight
of the Duchess "
HUMOROUS OR SATIRICAL POEMS.
""
"C
"Holy-Cross Day.' Pacchiarotto, and how he Worked
in Distemper." Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of
Burial." "Up at a Villa - Down in the City."
"Another Way of Love." "Garden Fancies-II.
Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis '
271;
•
277
xiv
Contents.
"De Gustibus
""
DESCRIPTIVE POEMS.
"Home-Thoughts, from Abroad.”
"The Englishman in Italy"
NON-CLASSIFIED POEMS CONTINUED.
PAGE
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS-INCLUDING SONGS, LEGENds,
DRAMATIC POEMS, AND EPISODES.
66
"The Lost Leader." Nationality in Drinks.”
"Garden
Fancies-I. The Flower's Name." 'Earth's Immor-
talities." "Home-Thoughts, from the Sea." "My
Star." "Misconceptions." "A Pretty Woman."
<< Women and Roses." "Before." "After." "Me-
morabilia.' "The Last Ride Together." "A Gram-
marian's Funeral." "Johannes Agricola in Meditation.”
"Confessions." "May and Death." "Youth and Art.”
"A Likeness." Appearances." "St. Martin's
Summer." Prologue to "La Saisiaz.” "Cavalier
Tunes. "How they Brought the Good News from
Ghent to Aix" Song." "Incident of the French
Camp." "Count Gismond." 'The Boy and the
Angel." "The Glove.” "The Twins." "The Pied
Piper of Hamelin; a Child's Story." "Gold Hair: a
Story of Pornic."
"Hervé Riel." CC
Through the
Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr.” Meeting at night." "Part-
ing at Morning." "The Patriot: an Old Story."
"Instans Tyrannus.' "Mesmerism." "Time's Re-
venges.
"
(C
<<
"The Italian in England.”
"C
"Apparent Failure.” Waring"
CONCLUDING GROUP.
DRAMATIC IDYLS. JOCOSERIA.
"Protus."
""
"Phei-
DRAMATIC IDYLS, I. SERIES: "Martin Relph.'
dippides. "Halbert and Hob." "Ivan Ivànovitch."
"Tray." "Ned Bratts." DRAMATIC IDYLS, II. SERIES.
وو
"Prologue.' "Echetlos." "Clive." Mulèykeh."
"Pietro of Abano."
"Doctor
""
"Pan and
285
289
Contents.
XV
Luna." "Epilogue.
"JOCOSERIA." "Wanting is-
what?" "Donald." "Solomon and Balkis." "Cristina
and Monaldeschi." Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli.'
Adam, Lilith, and Eve." "Ixion."
Hakkadosh."
"Pambo"
((
"Jochanan
"Never the Time and the Place."
SUPPLEMENT.
PAGE
•
308
Ferishtah's Fancies.
Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in their
day: To wit: Bernard de Mandeville, Daniel Bartoli,
Christopher Smart, George Bubb Dodington, Francis
Furini, Gerard de Lairesse, and Charles Avison. Intro-
duced by a Dialogue between Apollo and the Fates:
concluded by Another between John Fust and his
Friends
NOTE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF BROWNING'S WORKS
INDEX TO FIRST LINES OF POEMS
•
331
339
•
363
365
395
4II
INDEX
.
3
417


HANDBOOK TO BROWNING'S WORKS.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.
THE NATURE OF MR. BROWNING'S GENIUS.
F we were called upon to describe Mr. Browning's
poetic genius in one phrase, we should say it con-
sisted of an almost unlimited power of imagination
exerted upon real things; but we should have to explain
that with Mr. Browning the real includes everything which
a human being can think or feel, and that he is realistic
only in the sense of being never visionary; he never deals
with those vague and incoherent fancies, so attractive to
some minds, which we speak of as coming only from the
poet's brain. He imagines vividly because he observes
keenly and also feels strongly; and this vividness of his
nature puts him in equal sympathy with the real and the
ideal-with the seen and the unseen. The one is as living
to him as the other.
His treatment of visible and of invisible realities con-
stitutes him respectively a dramatic and a metaphysical
poet; but, as the two kinds of reality are inseparable in
human life, so are the corresponding qualities inseparable
in Mr. Browning's work. The dramatic activity of his
B
2
Handbook to Browning's Works.
genius always includes the metaphysical. His genius
always shows itself as dramatic and metaphysical at the
same time.
Mr. Browning's genius is dramatic because it always
expresses itself in the forms of real life, in the supposed
experiences of men and women. These men and women
are usually in a state of mental disturbance or conflict;
indeed, they think much more than they act. But their
thinking tends habitually to a practical result; and it
keeps up our sense of their reality by clothing itself always
in the most practical and picturesque language which
thought can assume. It has been urged that he does not sink
himself in his characters as a completely dramatic writer
should; and this argument must stand for what it is worth.
His personality may in some degree be constructed from
his works: it is, I think, generally admitted, that that of
Shakespeare cannot; and in so far as this is the test of a
complete dramatist, Mr. Browning fails of being one. He
does not sink himself in his men and women, for his sym-
pathy with them is too active to admit of it. He not only
describes their different modes of being, but defends them
from their own point of view; and it is natural that he
should often select for this treatment characters with
which he is already disposed to sympathize. But his
women are no less living and no less distinctive than his
men; and he sinks his individuality at all times enough
to interest us in the characters which are not akin to his
own as much as in those which are. Even if it were
otherwise, if his men and women were all variations of
himself, as imagined under differences of sex, of age, of
training, or of condition, he would still be dramatic in this
essential quality, the only one which bears on our conten-
tion that everything which, as a poet, he thinks or feels,
comes from him in a dramatic, that is to say, a completely
living form.
It is in this way also that his dramatic genius includes
General Characteristics.
3
the metaphysical. The abstract, no less than the prac-
tical questions which shape themselves in his mind, are
put before us in the thoughts and words, in the character
and conduct of his men and women. This does not mean
that human experience solves for him all the questions
which it can be made to state, or that everything he be-
lieves can be verified by it: for in that case his mode of
thought would be scientific, and not metaphysical; it
simply means, that so much of abstract truth as cannot be
given in a picture of human life, lies outside his philosophy
of it. He accepts this residue as the ultimate mystery of
what must be called Divine Thought. Thought or spirit is
with him the ultimate fact of existence; the one thing
about which it is vain to theorize, and which we can never
get behind. His gospel would begin, "In the beginning
was the Thought;" and since he can only conceive this
as self-conscious, his “Alpha and Omega” is a Divine intel-
ligence from which all the ideas of the human intellect are
derived, and which stamps them as true. These religious
conceptions are the meeting-ground of the dramatic and
the metaphysical activity of his poetic genius. The two
are blended in the vision of a Supreme Being not to be
invested with human emotions, but only to be reached
through them.
To show that Mr. Browning is a metaphysical poet, is
to show that he is not a metaphysical thinker, though he
is a thinker whose thought is metaphysical so far as prin-
ciple goes. A metaphysical thinker is always in some
way or other thinking about thought; and this is pre-
cisely what Mr. Browning has no occasion to do, because
he takes its assumptions upon trust. He is a constant
analyst of secondary motives and judgments. No modern
freethinker could make a larger allowance for what is
incidental, personal, and even material in them: we
shall see that all his practical philosophy is bound up
with this fact. But he has never questioned the origin
4
Handbook to Browning's Works.
of our primary or innate ideas, for he has, as I have
said, never questioned their truth. It is essential to
bear in mind that Mr. Browning is a metaphysical poet,
and not a metaphysical thinker, to do justice to the depth
and originality of his creative power; for his imagination
includes everything which at a given moment a human
being can think or feel, and often finds itself, therefore,
at some point to which other minds have reasoned their
way. The coincidence occurs most often with German
lines of thought, and it has therefore been concluded that
he has studied the works in which they are laid down, or
has otherwise moved in the same track; the fact being
that he has no bond of union with German philosophers,
but the natural tendencies of his own mind. It may be
easily ascertained that he did not read their language
until late in life; and if what I have said of his mental
habits is true, it is equally certain that their methods have
been more foreign to him still. He resembles Hegel,
Fichte, or Schelling, as the case may be, by the purely
creative impulse which has met their thought, and which,
if he had lived earlier, might have forestalled it. Mr.
Browning's position is that of a fixed centre of thought and
feeling. Fifty years ago he was in advance of his age.
He stood firm and has allowed the current to overtake
him, or even leave him behind. If I may be allowed
a comparison: other mental existences suggest the idea
of a river, flowing onwards, amidst varying scenes, and in
a widening bed, to lose itself in the sea. Mr. Browning's
genius appears the sea itself, with its immensity and
its limits, its restlessness and its repose, the constant self-
balancing of its ebb and flow.
As both dramatic and metaphysical poet, Mr. Browning
is inspired by one central doctrine: that while thought is
absolute in itself, it is relative or personal to the mind
which thinks it; so that no one man can attain the whole
truth of any abstract subject, and no other can convict
General Characteristics.
5
him of having failed to do so. And he also believes
that since intellectual truth is so largely for each of us a
matter of personal impression, no language is special
enough to convey it. The arguments which he carries on
through the mouths of his men and women often repre-
sent even moral truth as something too subtle, too com-
plex, and too changing; to be definitely expressed; and
if we did not see that he reverences what is good as
much as he excuses what is bad, we might imagine
that even on this ground he considered no fixed know-
ledge to be attainable. These opinions are, however,
closely bound up with his religious beliefs, and in great
measure explained by them. He is convinced that un-
certainty is essential to the spiritual life; and his works
are saturated by the idea that where uncertainty ceases,
stagnation must begin; that our light must be wavering,
and our progress tentative, as well as our hopes che-
quered, and our happiness even devoid of any sense of į
finality, if the creative intention is not to frustrate itself;
we may not see the path of progress and salvation clearly
marked out before us. On the other hand, he believes
that the circumstances of life are as much adapted to the
guidance of each separate soul as if each were the single
objeet of creative care; and that therefore while the in
dividual knows nothing of the Divine scheme, he is every-
thing in it.
This faith in personality is naturally abstruse on the
metaphysical side, but it is always picturesque on the dra-
matic; for it issues in that love of the unusual which is
so striking to every reader of Mr. Browning's works; and
we might characterize these in a few words, by saying that
they reflect at once the extent of his general sympathies,
and his antagonism to everything which is general. But
the "unusual" which attracts him is not the morbid or the
monstrous, for these mean defective life.
It is every
healthy escape from the conventional and the common.
6
Handbook to Browning's Works.
place, which are also defective life; and this is why we
find in his men and women those vivid, various, and
subtly compounded motives and feelings, which make
our contact with them a slight, but continuous electric
shock.
And since the belief in personality is the belief in hu-
man life in its fullest and truest form, it includes the belief
in love and self-sacrifice. It may, indeed, be said that
while Mr. Browning's judgments are leavened by the one
idea, they are steadily coloured by the other; this again
being so evident to his serious readers that I need only in-
dicate it here. But the love of love does more than colour
his views of life; it is an essential element in his theology ;
and it converts what would otherwise be a pure Theism
into a mystical Christianity which again is limited by his
rejection of all dogmatic religious truth. I have already
alluded to his belief that, though the Deity is not to be in-
vested with human emotions, He can only be reached
through them. Love, according to him, is the necessary
channel; since a colourless Omnipotence is outside the
conception as outside the sympathies of man. Christ
is a message of Divine love, indispensable and therefore
true; but He is, as such, a spiritual mystery far more
than a definable or dogmatic fact. A definite revelation
uttered for all men and for all time is denied by the first
principles of Mr. Browning's religious belief. What
Christianity means for him, and what it does not, we
shall also see in his works.
It is almost superfluous to add that Mr. Browning's dra-
matic sympathies and metaphysical or religious ideas con-
stitute him an optimist. He believes that no experience
is wasted, and that all life is good in its way. We also
see that his optimism takes the individual and not the
race for its test and starting point; and that he places the
tendency to good in a conscious creative power which is
outside both, and which deals directly with each separate
General Characteristics.
7
human soul. But neither must we forget that the creative
purpose, as he conceives it, fulfils itself equally through
good and evil; so that he does not shrink from the con-
templation of evil or by any means always seek to ex-
tenuate it. He thinks of it philosophically as a condition
of good, or again, as an excess or a distortion of what is
good; but he can also think of it, in the natural sense, as
a distinct mode of being which a bad man may prefer for
its own sake, as a good man prefers its opposite, and may
defend accordingly. He would gladly admit that the
coarser forms of evil are passing away; and that it is the
creative intention that they should do so. Evil remains
for him nevertheless essential to the variety, and invested
with the dignity of human life; and on no point does he
detach himself so clearly from the humanitarian optimist
who regards evil and its attendant sufferings as a mere
disturbance to life. Even where suffering is not caused by
evil doing, he is helped over it by his individual point of
view; because this prevents his ever regarding it as dis-
tinct from the personal compensations which it so often
brings into play. He cannot think of it in the mass;
and here again his theism asserts itself, though in a less
obvious manner.
So much of Mr. Browning's moral influence lies in the
hopeful religious spirit which his works reveal, that it is
important to understand how elastic this is, and what
seeming contradictions it is competent to unite. The
testimony of one poem might otherwise be set against that
of another with confusing results.
Mr. Browning's paternal grandfather was an English-
man of a west country stock; his paternal grandmother a
' I stated in my first edition that Mr. Browning was descended from the
Captain Micaiah Browning" who raised the siege of Derry in 1689 by
springing the boom across Lough Foyle, and perished in the act (the in-
cident being related in Macaulay's "History of England," vol. iv., pp. 244
and 245 of the edition of 1858). I am now told that there is no evidence of
this lineal descent, though there are circumstances which point to some kind
}
}
8
Handbook to Browning's Works.
Creole. The maternal grandfather was a German from
Hamburg named Wiedemann, an accomplished draughts-
man and musician.¹ The maternal grandmother was
completely Scotch.
This pedigree throws a valuable light on the vigour and
variety of Mr. Browning's genius; for it shows that on the
ground of heredity they are, in great measure, accounted
for. It contains almost the only facts of a biographical
nature which can be fitly introduced into the present work.
HIS CHOICE AND TREATMENT OF SUBJECT.
VERSIFICATION.
Mr. Browning's choice of subject is determined by his
belief that individual feeling and motive are the only
true life hence the only true material of dramatic art.
He rejects no incident which admits of development on
the side of feeling and motive. He accepts none which
cannot be so developed. His range of subject covers,
therefore, a great deal that is painful, but nothing that is
simply repulsive: because the poetry of human life, that
is, of individual experience, is absent from nothing which
he portrays.
His treatment of his subject is realistic in so far that it
is always picturesque. It raises a distinct image of the
person or action he intends to describe; but the image is,
so to speak, always saturated with thought: and I shall
later have occasion to notice the false impression of Mr.
of relationship. Another probable ancestor is Captain Browning, who
commanded the ship "Holy Ghost," which conveyed Henry V. to France
before he fought the battle of Agincourt; and in return for whose services
two waves, said to represent waves of the sea, were added to his coat of arms.
The same arms were worn by Captain Micaiah Browning, and are so by the
present family.
"
'Wiedemann is the second baptismal name of Mr. Browning's son; and,
in his infantine mouth, it became (we do not exactly guess how), the "Penini,'
shortened into "Pen," which some ingenious interpreters have derived from
the word "Apennine."
General Characteristics.
9
Browning's genius which this circumstance creates. De-
tails, which with realists of a narrower kind would give
only a physical impression of the scene described, serve
in his case to build up its mental impression. They create
a mental or emotional atmosphere which makes us vaguely
feel the intention of the story as we travel through it, and
flashes it upon us as we look back. In Red Cotton
Night-cap Country" (as we shall presently see) he dwells
so significantly on the peacefulness of the neighbourhood
in which the tragedy has occurred, that we feel in it the
quiet which precedes the storm, and which in some mea-
sure invites it. In one of the Idyls, “Ivàn Ivànovitch,"
he begins by describing the axe which will strike off the
woman's head, and raising a vague idea of its fitness for
any possible use. In another of them, "Martin Relph,"
the same process is carried on in an opposite manner.
We see a mental agony before we know its substantial
cause; and we only see the cause as reflected in it.
Ned Bratts," again, conveys in its first lines the sensa-
tion of a tremendously hot day in which Nature seems
to reel in a kind of riotous stupefaction; and the gro-
tesque tragedy on which the idyl turns, becomes a matter
of course. It would be easy to multiply examples.
Mr. Browning's verse is also subordinate to this intel-
lectual theory of poetic art. It is uniformly inspired by
the principle that sense should not be sacrificed to sound:
and this principle constitutes his chief ground of diver-
gence from other poets. It is a case of divergence-
nothing more: since he is too deeply a musician to be
indifferent to sound in verse, and since no other poet
deserving the name would willingly sacrifice sense to it.
But while all agree in admitting that sense and sound in
poetry are the natural complement of each other, each
will be practically more susceptible to one than to the
other, and will unconsciously seek it at the expense of the
other. With all his love for music, Mr. Browning is more
IO
Handbook to Browning's Works.
susceptible to sense than to sound. He values thought
more than expression; matter, more than form; and,
judging him from a strictly poetic point of view, he has
lost his balance in this direction, as so many have lost it
in the opposite one. He has never ignored beauty, but he
has neglected it in the desire for significance. He has never
meant to be rugged, but he has become so, in the exercise
of strength. He has never intended to be obscure, but
he has become so from the condensation of style which
was the excess of significance and of strength. Habit
grows on us by degrees till its slight invisible links form
an iron chain, till it overweights its object, and even ends
in crushing it out of sight; and Mr. Browning has illus-
trated this natural law. The self-enslavement was the
more inevitable in his case that he was not only an
earnest worker, but a solitary one. His genius¹ removed
him from the first from that sphere of popular sympathy
in which the tendency to excess would have been cor-
rected; and the distance, like the mental habit which
created it, was self-increasing.
It is thus that Mr. Browning explains the eccentricities
of his style; and his friends know that beyond the point
of explaining, he does not defend them. He has never
blamed his public for accusing him of obscurity or ugli-
ness. He has only thought those wrong who taxed him
with being wilfully ugly or obscure. He began early to
defy public opinion because his best endeavours had
failed to conciliate it; and he would never conciliate it at
the expense of what he believed to be the true principles
of his art. But his first and greatest failure from a popu-
lar point of view was the result of his willingness to accept
any judgment, however unfavourable, which coincided with
this belief.
"Paracelsus," had recently been published, and declared
'And-we are bound to admit-the singular literary obtuseness of the
England of fifty years ago.
General Characteristics.
II
unintelligible;" and Mr. Browning was pondering this
fact and concluding that he had failed to be intelligible
because he had been too concise, when an extract from a
letter of Miss Caroline Fox was forwarded to him by the
lady to whom it had been addressed. The writer stated
that John Sterling had tried to read the poem and been
repelled by its verbosity; and she ended with this ques-
tion : doth he know that Wordsworth will devote a
fortnight or more to the discovery of the single word that is
the one fit for his sonnet?"
66
Mr. Browning was not personally acquainted with either
John Sterling or Caroline Fox, and what he knew of the
former as a poet did not, to his mind, bear out this marked
objection to wordiness. Still, he gave the joint criticism
all the weight it deserved; and much more than it de-
served in the case of Miss Fox, whom he imagined, from
her self-confident manner, to be a woman of a certain
age, instead of a girl some years younger than himself;
and often, he tells us, during the period immediately follow-
ing, he contented himself with two words where he would
rather have used ten. The harsh and involved passages
in "Sordello," which add so much to the remoteness of
its thought, were the first consequence of this lesson.
"Pauline" and "Paracelsus" had been deeply musical,
and the music came back to their author's verse with
the dramas, lyrics, and romances by which Sordello "
was followed. But the dread of being diffuse had doubly
rooted itself in his mind, and was to bear fruit again as
soon as the more historical or argumentative mood should
prevail.
66
The determination never to sacrifice sense to sound is
the secret of whatever repels us in Mr. Browning's verse,
and also of whatever attracts. Wherever in it sense keeps
company with sound, we have a music far deeper than can
arise from mere sound, or even from a flow of real lyric
emotion, which has its only counterpart in sound. It is
12
Handbook to Browning's Works.
in the idea, and of it. It is the brain picture beating itself
into words.
The technical rules by which Mr. Browning works, carry
out his principle to the fullest extent.
I. He uses the smallest number of words which his
meaning allows; is particularly sparing in adjectives.
II. He uses the largest relative number of Saxon (there-
fore picturesque) words.¹
III. He uses monosyllabic words wherever this is pos-
sible.
39.66
IV. He farther condenses his style by abbreviations and
omissions, of which some are discarded, but all warranted
by authority: “in,” on,"
” and “of,” for instance, become
"i'," "o'," and "o'." Pronouns, articles, conjunctions, and
prepositions are, on the same principle, occasionally left out.
V. He treats consonants as the backbone of the lan-
guage, and hence, as the essential feature in a rhyme;
and never allows the repetition of a consonant in a rhyme
to be modified by a change in the preceding vowel, or by
the recurrence of the rhyming syllable in a different word
-or the repetition of a consonant in blank verse to
create a half-consonance resembling a rhyme: though
other poets do not shrink from doing so.²
¹ A distinguished American philologist, the late George P. Marsh, has
declared that he exceeds all other modern English writers in his employment
of them.
2 In "In Memoriam " we have such rhymes as :—
now
low
curse
horse
mourn
turn
{good
blood
light
delight
report
port
In the blank verse of "The Princess," and of "Enoch Arden" such
assonances as :—
sun
noon
known
down
lost
burst
clipt
kept
whom
seem
Swand
hand.
word
{ wood, etc.
I take these instances from the works of so acknowledged a master of
verse as Mr. Tennyson, rather than from those of a smaller poet who would
be no authority on the subject, because they thus serve to show that the
poetic ear may have different kinds as well as degrees of sensibility, and
must, in every case, be accepted as, to some extent, a law to itself.
General Characteristics.
13
VI. He seldom dilutes his emphasis by double rhymes,
reserving these—especially when made up of combined
words, and producing a grotesque effect-for those cases
in which the meaning is given with a modifying colour:
a satirical, or self-satirical, intention on the writer's part.
Strong instances of this occur in "The Flight of the
Duchess, ""Christmas Eve," and "Pacchiarotto."
VII. He always uses the measure most appropriate to
his subject, whether it be the ten-syllabled blank verse
which makes up "The Ring and the Book," the separate
dramatic monologues, and nearly all the dramas, or the
heroic rhymed verse which occurs in Sordello" and
"Fifine at the Fair;" or one of the lyrical measures, of
which his slighter poems contain almost, if not quite, every
known form.¹
VIII. He takes no liberties with unusual measures;
though he takes any admissible liberty with the usual
measures, which will interrupt their monotony, and
strengthen their effect.
>>
IX. He eschews many vulgarisms or inaccuracies which
custom has sanctioned, both in prose and verse, such as,
"thou wert;"
""better than them all;" "he need not ;'
"he dare not." The universal "I had better;" "I had
rather," is abhorrent to him.²
on.
1 "La Saisiaz." for instance, is written in the same measure as "Locksley
Hall," fifteen syllables, divided by a pause, into groups of four trochees, and
of three and a half-the last syllable forming the rhyme. It is admirably
suited to the sustained and incisive manner in which the argument is carried
"Ixion," in "Jocoseria," is in alternate hexameter and pentameter,
which the author also employs here for the only time; it imitates the
turning of the wheel on which Ixion is bound. "Pheidippides" is in a
measure of Mr. Browning's own, composed of dactyls and spondees, each
line ending with a half foot or pause. It gives the impression of firm, con-
tinuous, and rhythmic motion, and is generally fitted to convey the exalted
sentiment and heroic character of the poem.
In his translation of the " Agamemnon," Mr. Browning has used the
double ending continuously, so as to reproduce the extended measure of the
Greek iambic trimeter.
2 As objection has been taken to the opinions conveyed in this paragraph,
14
Handbook to Browning's Works.
X. No prosaic turns or tricks of language are ever
associated in his verse with a poetic mood.
THE CONTINUOUS CHARACTER OF HIS WORK.
The writer of a handbook to Mr. Browning's poetry
must contend with exceptional difficulties, growing out of
what I have tried to describe as the unity in variety of
Mr. Browning's poetic life. This unity of course impresses
itself on his works; and in order to give a systematic sur-
vey
of them, we must treat as a collection of separate facts
what is really a living whole; and seek to give the impres-
sion of that whole by a process of classification which cuts
it up alive. Mr. Browning's work is, to all intents and
purposes, one group; and though we may divide and
and Mr. Browning's authority has been even, in a manner, invoked against
them, I subjoin by his desire the accompanying note. The question of what
is, or is not, a vicious locution is not essential to the purposes of the book
but it is essential that I should not be supposed to have misstated Mr.
Browning's views on any point on which I could so easily ascertain them.
'
<
"I make use of 'wast' for the second person of the perfect-indicative, and
'wert' for the present-potential, simply to be understood; as I should
hardly be if I substituted the latter for the former, and therewith ended my
phrase. Where wert thou, brother, those three days, had He not raised
thee?' means one thing, and 'Where wast thou when He did so?' means
another. That there is precedent in plenty for this and many similar locu
tions ambiguous, or archaic, or vicious, I am well aware, and that, on their
authority, I be wrong, the illustrious poet be right, and you, our critic, was
and shall continue to be my instructor as to every thing that pretty bin.' As
regards my objection to the slovenly 'I had' for 'I'd,' instead of the proper
'I would,' I shall not venture to supplement what Landor has magisterially
spoken on the subject. An adverb adds to, and does not, by its omission,
alter into nonsense the verb it qualifies. 'I would rather speak than be
silent, better criticize than learn' are forms structurally regular: what mean
ing is in 'I had speak, had criticize'? Then, I am blamed for preferring the
indicative to what I suppose may be the potential mood in the case of
'need' and 'dare '-just that unlucky couple: by all means go on and say
'He need help, he dare me to fight,' and so pair off with 'He need not beg
he dare not reply,' forms which may be expected to pullulate in this morn
ing's newspaper.
"VENICE, Oct. 25, 1885."
"R B."
General Characteristics.
15
1
subdivide it for purposes of illustration, the division will
be always more or less artificial, and, unless explained
away, more or less misleading. We cannot even divide
it into periods, for if the first three poems represent
the author's intellectual youth, the remainder are one
long maturity; while even in these the poetic faculty
shows itself full-grown. We cannot trace in it the evi-
dence of successive manners like those of Raphael, or
successive moods like those of Shakespeare; or, if we do,
this is neutralized by the simple fact that Mr. Browning's
productive career has been infinitely longer than was
Raphael's, and considerably so than Shakespeare's; and
that changes which meant the development of a genius in
their case, mean the course of a life in his.
And this is the central fact of the case. Mr. Browning's
work is himself. His poetic genius was in advance of
his general growth, but it has been subject to no other
law. "The Ring and the Book" was written at what may
be considered the turning-point of a human life. It was
in some degree a turning-point in the author's artistic
career for most of his emotional poems were published
before, and most of the argumentative after it; and in
this sense his work may be said to divide itself into two.
But the division is useless for our purpose. The Browning
of the second period is the Browning of the first, only in
a more crystallized form. No true boundary line can be
drawn even here.
My endeavour will, therefore, be to bring the sense of
this real continuity into the divisions which I must impose
on Mr. Browning's work; and thus also to infuse some-
thing of his life into the meagre statement of contents to
which I am forced to reduce it. The few words of ex-
planation by which I preface each group may assist this
end. At the same time I shall resist all temptation to
"bring out" what I have indicated as Mr. Browning's
leading ideas by headings, capitals, italics, or any other
16
Handbook to Browning's Works.
1
artificial device whatever; as in so doing I should destroy
his emphasis and hinder the right reading, besides effacing
the usually dramatic character, of the individual poems.
The impressions I have received from the collective work
will, I trust, be confirmed by it.


I.
INTRODUCTORY GROUP.
"PAULINE," "PARACELSUS," "SORDELLO."
HESE three poems are Mr. Browning's first,
and they are also, as I have said, the one partial
exception to the unity and continuousness of his
work; they have, at least, one common characteristic
which detaches them from the remainder of it. Each is
in its different way the study of a human spirit, too ambi-
tious to submit to the limits of human existence, and which
learns humility in its unsuccessful conflict with them This
ambition is of its nature poetic, and seems so much in
harmony with Mr. Browning's mind-young and untutored
by experience as it then was, full of the consciousness of
its own powers as it must have been-that it is difficult not
to recognize in it a phase of his own intellectual life. But
if it was so, it is one which he had already outgrown, or
lived much more in fancy than in fact. His sympathy with
the ambition of Paracelsus and Sordello is steadily counter-
acted by his judgment of it; and we are only justified in
asserting what is beyond dispute: that these poems repre-
sent an introductory phase of the author's imagination,
one which begins and ends in them. The mind of his
men and women will be exercised on many things, but
never again so much upon itself. The vivid sense of their
personality will be less in their minds than in his own.
C
18
Handbook to Browning's Works.
"PAULINE." (1832.)
This poem is, as its title declares, a fragment of a con-
fession. The speaker is a man, probably still young ; and
Pauline, the name of the lady who receives the confession,
and is supposed to edit it. It is not, however, "fragmen-
tary" in the sense of revealing only a small part of the
speaker's life, or of only recording isolated acts, from which
the life may be built up. Its fragmentary character lies
in this : that, while very explicit as a record of feeling and
motive, it is entirely vague in respect to acts. It is an
elaborate retrospect of successive mental states, big with
the sense of corresponding misdeeds; and pointing among
these to some glaring infidelities to Pauline, the man's
constant love and friend; but on the whole conveying no-
thing beyond an impression of youthful excesses, and of
an extreme and fantastic self-consciousness which has in-
spired these excesses, and which now magnifies and dis-
torts them.
An ultra-consciousness of self is in fact the key-note of
the whole mental situation. Pauline's lover has been a
prey to the spiritual ambition so distinctly illustrated in
these three first poems; and, unlike Paracelsus and Sor-
dello, he has given it no outlet in unselfish aims. His life
has not been wholly misspent ; he is a poet and a student;
he has had dreams of human good; he has reverenced great
men: and never quite lost the faith in God, and the sense
of nearness to Him; and he alleges some of these facts in
deprecation of his too harsh verdict upon himself. But his
ultimate object has been always the gratification of Self—
the ministering to its pleasures and to its powers; and this
cgotism has become narrower and more consuming, till
the thirst for even momentary enjoyment has banished
the very belief in higher things. The belief returns, and
we leave him at the close of his confession exhausted by
Pauline.
19*
the mental fever, but released from it-new-born to a
better life; though how and why this has happened is
again part of the mystery of the case. "Pauline" is the
one of Mr. Browning's longer poems of which no intel-
ligible abstract is possible: a circumstance the more
striking that it is perfectly transparent, as well as truly
poetical, so far as its language is concerned.
">
The defects and difficulties of "Pauline are plainly
admitted in an editor's note, written in French, and
signed by this name; and which, proceeding as it does
from the author himself, supplies a valuable comment on
the work.
"I much fear that my poor friend will not be always
perfectly understood in what remains to be read of this
strange fragment, but it is less calculated than any other
part to explain what of its nature can never be anything
but dream and confusion. I do not know moreover
whether in striving at a better connection of certain parts,
one would not run the risk of detracting from the only
merit to which so singular a production can pretend: that
of giving a tolerably precise idea of the manner (genre)
which it can merely indicate. This unpretending open-
ing, this stir of passion, which first increases, and then
gradually subsides, these transports of the soul, this sudden
return upon himself, and above all, my friend's quite pecu-
liar turn of mind, have made alterations almost impossible.
The reasons which he elsewhere asserts, and others still
more cogent have secured my indulgence for this paper,
which otherwise I should have advised him to throw into
the fire. I believe none the less in the great principle
of all composition-in that principle of Shakespeare, of
Raphael, and of Beethoven, according to which concen-
tration of ideas is due much more to their conception than
to their execution; I have every reason to fear that the
first of these qualities is still foreign to my friend, and I
much doubt whether redoubled labour would enable him
20
Handbook to Browning's Works.
to acquire the second. It would be best to burn this;
but what can I do?"
*
We might infer from this, as from his subsequent intro-
duction, that Mr. Browning disclaimed all that is extra-
vagant in the poem, and laid it simply to the charge of
the imaginary person it is intended to depict : but that he
has also prefaced it with a curious Latin quotation which
identifies that person with himself.¹
"Pauline" did not take its place among the author's
collected works till 1868, when the uniform edition of them
appeared; and he then introduced it by a preface (to which
I have just alluded) in which he declared his unwilling-
ness to publish such a boyish production, and gave the
reasons which induced him to do so. The poem is boyish,
or at all events youthful, in point of conception; and we
need not wonder that this intellectual crudeness should
have outweighed its finished poetic beauties in its author's
mind. It contains however one piece of mental portrai-
ture which, with slight modifications, might have stood for
Mr. Browning when he re-edited the work, as it clearly
did when he wrote it. It begins thus (vol. i. page 14):
¹ The quoted passage is from the works of Cornelius Agrippa, a well-
known professor of occult philosophy, and is indeed introductory to a
treatise upon it. The writer is quite aware that his work may be scandalizing,
hurtful, and even poisonous to narrow minds, but is sure that readers of a
superior understanding will get no little good, and plenty of pleasure from
it; and he concludes by claiming indulgence on the score of his youth, in
case he should have given even the better judges any cause for offence. For
those who read this preface with any previous knowledge of Mr. Browning's
life and character, there will be an obvious inference to his own youthful-
ness in the exaggerated estimate thus implied of his imaginative sins; for
the tendency of "Pauline" is both religious and moral; and no man has
been more innocent than its author, from boyhood up, of tampering with any
belief in the black art. His hatred for that "spiritualism," which is its
modern equivalent, is indeed matter of history. But the trick he has here
played himself may confuse the mind of those who only know him from his
works, and for whom his vivid belief in the supernatural may point to a
different kind of mysticism.
Pauline.
21
"I am made up of an intensest life,"
The tribute at page 14¹ to the saving power of imagina-
tion is also characteristic of his maturer mind, though
expressed in an ambiguous manner. It is interesting to
know that in the line (page 26),
"the king
Treading the purple calmly to his death,"
he was thinking of Agamemnon: as this shows how early
his love of classic literature began. The allusion to
Plato, at pages 19, 20, and 21, largely confirms this im-
pression. The feeling for music asserts itself also at page
18, though in a less spiritual form than it assumes in his
later works. But the most striking piece of true bio-
graphy which "Pauline" contains, is its evidence of the
young writer's affectionate reverence for Shelley, whom he
idealizes under the name of Sun-treader. An invocation
to his memory occupies three pages, beginning with the
ninth; it is renewed at the end of the poem, and there
can be no doubt that the pathetic language in which it is
couched came straight from the young poet's own heart.
We even fancy that Shelley's influence is visible in the
poem itself, which contains a profusion of natural imagery,
and some touches of naturalistic emotion, not at all in
keeping with Mr. Browning's picturesque, but habitually
human genius. The influence, if it existed, passed away
with his earliest youth; not so the admiration and sym-
pathy which it implied; and this, considering the wide
difference which separated the two minds, is an interest-
ing fact.2
1 Vol. i. of the new uniform edition of 1888-89. This will be the one
always referred to.
2 The "Andromeda," described as "with" the speaker at pages 29 and 30,
is that of Polidoro di Caravaggio, of which Mr. Browning possesses an
engraving, which was always before his eyes as he wrote his earlier poems.
The original was painted on the wall of a garden attached to the Palazzo
Bufalo-or del Bufalo-in Rome. The wall has been pulled down since
Mr. Browning was last there.
22
Handbook to Browning's Works.
"PARACELSUS." (1835.)
"Paracelsus" is a summary of the life, as Mr. Browning
conceives it, of this well-known physicist of the sixteenth
century; and is divided into five scenes, or groups of
scenes, each representing a critical moment in his expe-
rience, and reviewing in his own words the circumstances
by which it has been prepared. The personages whom it
includes are, besides the principal one, Festus and Michal,
early friends of Paracelsus, and now man and wife; and
the Italian poet Aprile. Michal appears only in the first
scene; Aprile in the second or third; but Festus accom-
panies Paracelsus throughout the drama, in the constant
character of judicious, if not profound, adviser, and of
tender friend. His personality is sufficiently marked to
claim the importance of a type; and as such he stands
forth, as contrasted with both Paracelsus and Aprile, and
yet a bond of union between them. It is more probable
however that he was created for the mere dramatic pur-
pose of giving shape to the confession of Paracelsus, and
preserving it from monotony. The story is principally
told in a dialogue between them.
The first scene is entitled "Paracelsus aspires;" and
takes place at Würzburg between himself, Festus, and
Michal, on the eve of his departure from their common
home. Both friends begin by opposing his aspirations,
and thus lead him to expound and defend them. The aim
and spirit of these is the distinguishing feature of the
poem. Paracelsus aspires to knowledge: such knowledge
as will benefit his fellow-men. He will seek it in the pro-
perties of nature, and, as history tells us, he will succeed.
But his aspirations pass over these isolated discoveries,
which he has no idea of connecting into scientific truths:
and tend ever towards some final revelation of the secret
of life, to flash forth from his own brain when the flesh
Paracelsus.
23
shall have been subdued, and the imprisoned light of in-
tellect set free. And here Mr. Browning's metaphysical
fancy is somewhat at issue with his facts. Paracelsus
employed nature in the quest of the supernatural or
magical; this is shown by the poem, though in it he
begins by repudiating, with all other external aids, the
help of the black art. He therefore relied on other kinds
of knowledge than that which springs direct from the
human mind. The inconsistency however disappears in
Mr. Browning's conception of the case, and the meta-
physical language which he imputes to Paracelsus in the
earlier stages of his career, is not felt to be untrue.
Paracelsus not only aspires to know: he believes it his
mission to acquire knowledge; and he believes also that
it is only to be acquired through untried methods, through
untaught men: most of all through solitary communion
with nature, and at the sacrifice of all human joys. Fes-
tus regards this as a delusion, and combats it, in this first
scene, with the arguments of common sense; overshoot-
ing the mark just enough to leave his friend the victory.
Paracelsus has declared that he appreciates all he is re-
nouncing, but that he has no choice. He knows that the
way on which he is about to enter is "trackless ;" but so
is the bird's: God will guide him as He guides the bird.
And Festus replies that the road to knowledge is not track-
less. "Mighty marchers" have left their footprints upon
it. Nature has not written her secrets in desert places,
but in the souls of great men: the "Stagirite,"¹ and the
sages who form a glory round him. He urges Paracelsus
to learn what they can teach, and then take the torch of
wisdom from the exhausted runner's hand, and let his fresh
strength continue the race. He warns him against the
personal ambition which alloys his unselfish thirst for
knowledge; against the presumption which impels him to
serve God (and man)
'Aristotle.
24
Handbook to Browning's Works.
apart from such
Appointed channel as he wills shall gather
Imperfect tributes, for that sole obedience
Valued perchance
"
(vol. ii. p. 17.)
against the dangers of a course which cuts him adrift from
human love. But Paracelsus has his answer ready.
"The wisdom of the past has done nothing for mankind.
Men have laboured and grown famous and the evils of
life are unabated: the earth still groans in the blind and
endless struggle with them. Truth comes from within the
human intellect. To KNOW is to have opened a way for
its escape-not a way for its admission. It has often
refused itself to a life of study. It has been born of loiter-
ing idleness. The force which inspires him proves his
mission to be authentic. His own will could not create
such promptings. He dares not set them aside."
The depth of his conviction carries the day, and the
scene ends with these expressive words :—
"Par.
Are there not, Festus, are there not, dear Michal,
Two points in the adventure of the diver,
One-when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge,
One-when, a prince, he rises with his pearl?
Festus, I plunge!
Fest.
We wait you when you rise!"
(vol. ii. p. 38.)
The next two, or indeed three scenes are united under
the title "Paracelsus attains ;" but the attainment is not at
first visible. We find him at Constantinople, in the house
of the Greek conjuror, nine years after his departure from
home. He has not discovered the magical secret which
he came to seek; and his tone, as he reviews his position,
is full of a bitter and almost despairing sense of failure.
His desultory course has borne scanty and confused re-
sults. His powers have been at once overstrained and
frittered away.
He is beset by the dread of madness;
and by the fear, scarcely less intolerable, of a moral ship-
wreck in which even the purity of his motives will disappear.
1
Paracelsus.
25
His thoughts revert sadly to his youth, and its lost possi-
bilities of love and joy. At this juncture the poet Aprile
appears, and unconsciously reveals to him the secret of his
unsuccess. He has sought knowledge at the sacrifice of
love; in so doing he has violated a natural law and is
suffering for it. Knowledge is inseparable from love in
the scheme of life. Aprile too has sinned, but in the
opposite manner; he has refused to know. He has loved
blindly and immoderately, and retribution has overtaken
him also: for he is dying. If the one existence has lacked
sustaining warmth, the other has burned itself away.
Aprile's "Love" is not however restricted to the personal
sense of the word; it means the passion for beauty, the
impulse to possess and to create it; everything which be-
longs to the life of art. He represents the æsthetic or
emotional in life, as Paracelsus represents the intellec-
tual. We see this in the sorrowful confession of Para-
celsus :-
"I cannot feed on beauty for the sake
Of beauty only, nor can drink in balm
From lovely objects for their loveliness;" (vol. ii. p. 95.)
and, in the words already addressed to Aprile (page
65):
'Are we not halves of one dissevered world,"
Aprile acknowledges his own mistake, in a passage which
fully completes the moral of the story, and begins thus
(page 59):
"Knowing ourselves, our world, our task so great,
Our time so brief,
•
"}
Paracelsus never sees him again, and will speak of him on
a subsequent occasion as a madman; but he evidently
accepts him as a messenger of the truth; and the message
sinks into his soul.
In what is called the third scene, five years more have
elapsed; and Paracelsus is at Bâle, again opening his heart
to his old friend. He is professor at the University. His
26
Handbook to Browning's Works.
fame extends far beyond it. Outwardly he has “attained.”
But the sense of a wasted life, and above all, of moral de-
terioration, is stronger on him than ever, and the tone in
which he expresses it is only calmer than in the previous
soliloquy, because it is more hopeless. He has failed in
his highest aims-and failed doubly because he has
learned to content himself with low ones. He believes
that he is teaching useful, although fragmentary truths; that
these may lead to more; that those who follow him may
stand on his shoulders and be considered great. But the
crowning TRUTH is as far from him as ever; and the mass
of those who crowd his lecture-room do not even come for
what they can learn, but for the vulgar pleasure of seeing
old beliefs subverted, and old methods exposed. He is
humiliated at having declined on to what seems to him a
lower range of knowledge; still more by the kind of men
with whom it has brought him into contact; and he sees
himself sinking into a lower depth, in which such praise as
they can give will repay him. His contempt for himself
and them is making him reckless of consequences, and
preparing the way for his disgrace.
In spite however of his failure Paracelsus has done so
much, that Festus is converted; and ready to justify both
his early belief in his own mission, and the abnormal
means by which he has chosen to carry it out. Their po-
sitions are reversed, and he combats his friend's self-abase-
ment as he once combated his too great confidence in
himself. He grieves over what seems to him the depres-
sion of an over-wrought mind, and what he will not regard
as due to any deeper cause. But Paracelsus will take no
comfort; and when, finally, he denounces the folly of intel-
lectual pretensions, and ends with the pathetic words--in
part the echo of Festus' own :—
66
No, no:
Love, hope, fear, faith-these make humanity;
These are its sign and note and character,
And these I have lost!
(vol. ii. p. 109.)
Paracelsus.
27
Festus has no answer to give. He parts from Paracelsus
perplexed and saddened rather than convinced, but with a
dawning consciousness of depths in life, to which his strong
but simple soul has no key.
In the fourth scene these depths are more fully and
more perplexingly revealed. Two years more have elapsed.
Paracelsus has escaped from Bâle, and is at Colmar, once
more confessing himself to Festus, and once more said to
"aspire." But his aspirations are less easy to understand
than formerly, because their aim is less single. The sense
of wasted life, Aprile's warnings, some natural rebound
against the continued intellectual strain have determined
him to strive for a fuller existence, and neglect no oppor-
tunity of usefulness or enjoyment. A serious and com-
mendable change would seem to be denoted by the words,
"I have tried each way singly : now for both!" (page 121);
and again at page 126, where a new-born softness asserts
itself. His language has, however, a vein of bitterness,
sometimes even of cynicism, which belies the idea of any
sustained impulse to good. He is worn in body, weary
in mind, fitful and wayward in mood, and just in the con-
dition in which men half impose on others, and half on
themselves. He alludes to the habit of drinking as one
which he has now contracted; and he is clearly entering
on the period of his greatest excesses, perhaps also of
his most strenuous exertions in the cause of knowledge.
But his energy is reckless and irregular, and the spirit
of the gambler rather than that of the student is in it.
He works all night to forget himself by day, gathering
up his diminished strength for a lavish expenditure ;
and a new misgiving as to the wisdom of his "aspirations"
pierces through the assertion that even sickness may lend
an aid; since
mind is nothing but disease,
And natural health is ignorance."
จ
(vol. ii. p. 122.)
We feel that henceforward his path will be all downhill.
28
Handbook to Browning's Works.
In the fifth and closing scene, thirteen years later, Para-
celsus "attains" again, and for the last time. He is dying.
Festus watches by him in his hospital cell with a very
touching tenderness; and as Paracelsus awakes from a
period of lethargy to a delirious remembrance of his past
life, he soothes and guides him to an inspired calm in
which its true meaning is revealed to him. The half
prophetic death-bed vision includes everything which ex-
perience had taught him; and a great deal which we can-
not help thinking only a more modern experience could
have taught. It disclaims all striving after absolute know-
ledge, and asserts the value of limitation in every energy
of life. The passage in which he describes the faculties
of man, and which begins
"Power-neither put forth blindly, nor controlled
Calmly by perfect knowledge;"
(vol. ii. p. 168.)
contains the natural lesson of the speaker's career, sup-
posing him in a condition to receive it. But it also reflects
Mr. Browning's constant ideal of a fruitful and progressive
existence; and the very beautiful monologue of which it
forms part is, so far as it goes, his actual confession of
faith. The scientific idea of evolution is here distinctly
foreshadowed: though it begins and ends, in Mr. Brown-
ing's mind, in the large Theism which was and is the basis
of his religious belief.
The poem is followed by an historical appendix, which
enables the reader to verify its facts, and judge Mr. Brown-
ing's interpretation of them.
"SORDELLO." (1840.)
"Sordello" is, like "Paracelsus," the imaginary recon-
struction of a real life, in connection with contemporary
facts; but its six "books" present a much more complicated
structure. The historical part of "Paracelsus" is all con-
Sordello.
29
in its way, as rest-
It may save time
tained in the one life. In "Sordello " it forms a large and
moving background, which often disputes our attention
with the central figure, and sometimes even absorbs it:
projecting itself as it were in an artistic middle distance,
in which fact and fancy are blended; while the mental
world through which the hero moves, is
less and as crowded as the material.
and trouble to readers of the poem to know something of
its historical foundation and poetic motive, before making
any great effort to disentangle its various threads; but it
will always be best to read it once without this key: since
the story, involved as it is, has a sustained dramatic inte-
rest which is destroyed by anticipating its course.
The historical personages who take part in it directly
and indirectly, are
Ghibellines.
ECCELINO DA ROMANO II.,
Surnamed the Monk:
married, first to Agnes
Este; secondly to Ade-
laide, a Tuscan.
TAURELLO SALINGUERRA,
a soldier, married, first to
Retrude, of the family of
the German Emperor
Frederick the Second;
and secondly, in ad-
vanced life, to Sofia, fifth
daughter of Eccelino the
Monk.
ADELAIDE, second wife of
Eccelino da Romano.
PALMA (properly Cunizza),
Eccelino's daughter by
Agnes Este.
Guelphs.
Azzo, LORD OF ESTE
(father and son).
RICHARD, COUNT OF SAN
BONIFACIO (father and
son).
The poet SORDELLO.
30
Handbook to Browning's Works.
Historical basis of the Story.
A Mantuan poet of the name of Sordello is mentioned
by Dante in the "Purgatorio," where he is supposed to be
recognized as a fellow-townsman by Virgil.
"Surse ver lui del luogo ove pria stava,
Dicendo, O Mantovan, Io son Sordello
Della tua terra: e l'un l' altro abbracciava.”¹
And also in his treatise “De vulgare Eloquentiâ,” where
he speaks of him as having created the Italian language.
These facts are related by Sismondi in his "Italian Re-
publics,” vol. ii., page 202; and the writer refers us for more
particulars to his work on the "Literature of Southern
Europe." He seems, however, to exhaust the subject
when he tells us that the nobility of Sordello's birth, and
his intrigue or marriage with Cunizza are attested by con-
temporaries; that a mysterious obscurity" shrouds his
life; and that his violent death is obscurely indicated by
Dante, whose mention of him is now his only title to im-
mortality. According to one tradition he was the son of
an archer named Elcorte. Another seems to point to him
when it imputes a son to Salinguerra as the only offspring
of his first marriage, and having died before himself. Mr.
Browning accepts the latter hypothesis, whilst he employs
both.
The birth of his Sordello, as probably of the real one,
coincides with the close of the twelfth century; and with
an active condition of the family feuds which were just
merging in the conflict of Guelphs and Ghibellines. The
Biographie Universelle” says :
The first encounter between the two parties took place
at Vicenza towards 1194. Eccelino the Second, who allied
himself with the republics of Verona and Padua, was
¹ He rose to meet him from the place at which he stood, saying, "Oh
Mantuan, I am Sordello of thy land:" and they embraced each other.
Sordello.
31
exiled from Vicenza himself his whole family and his
faction, by a Podesta, his enemy. Before submitting to
this sentence, he undertook to defend himself by setting
fire to the neighbouring houses; a great part of the town
was burned during the conflict, in which Eccelino was
beaten. These were the first scenes of confusion and
massacre, which met the eyes of the son of the Lord of
Romano, the ferocious Eccelino the Third, born 4th of
April, 1194."
In Mr. Browning's version, Adelaide, wife of Eccelino
II., is saved with her infant son-this Eccelino the Third
-by the devotion of an archer, Elcorte, who perishes in
the act. Retrude, wife of Salinguerra, and also present on
this occasion, only lives to be conveyed to Adelaide's castle
at Goito; but her new-born child survives; and Adelaide,
dreading his future rivalry with her own, allows his father
to think him dead, and brings him up, under the name of
Sordello, as her page, declaring him to be Elcorte's son
adopted out of gratitude. The "intrigue" between him
and Palma (Cunizza) appears in due time as a poetical
affinity, strongest on her side, and which determines her
to see him restored to his rightful place. Palma's subse-
quent marriage with Richard, Count of San Bonifacio,
serves to justify the idea of an engagement to him, ratified
by her father before his retirement from the world, and
which she and Salinguerra conspire to break, the one from
love of Sordello, the other in the interests of her House.
Eccelino's real assumption of the monastic habit after
Adelaide's death is represented as in part caused by re-
morse for Salinguerra is his old and faithful ally, and
he has connived at the wrong done to him in the conceal-
ment of his son; and his return to the Guelph connexion
from which his daughter has sprung, as a general disclaimer
of his second wife's views.
The Lombard League also figures in the story, as the
consequence of Salinguerra's and Palma's conspiracy
32
Handbook to Browning's Works.
against San Bonifacio; though it also appears as brought
about by the historic course of events. Salinguerra, under
cover of military reprisals, has entrapped the Count into
Ferrara, and detained him there, at the moment when he
was expected to meet his lady-love in his own city of
Verona. Verona prepares to resent this outrage on its
Prince, and with it, the other States which represent
the Guelph cause; and when Palma-seizing her oppor-
tunity-summons Sordello thither in his character of her
minstrel, and reveals to him her projects for him and
for herself, their interview is woven into the historical
picture of a great mediæval city suddenly called to arms.
What Sordello sees when he goes with Palma to Ferrara,
belongs to the history of all medieval warfare; and his
sudden and premature death revives the historical tra-
dition though in a new form. The intermediate details of
his minstrel's career are of course imaginary; but his
struggle to increase the expressiveness of his mother
tongue again records a fact.
I have mentioned such accessible authorities as Sis-
mondi and the "Biographie Universelle," because they
are accessible: not from any idea that they give the mea-
sure of Mr. Browning's knowledge of his subject. He
prepared himself for writing "Sordello" by studying all
the chronicles of that period of Italian history which the
British Museum supplied; and we may be sure that every
event he alludes to as historical, is so in spirit, if not in the
letter; while such details as come under the head of his-
torical curiosities are absolutely true.
He also supple-
mented his reading by a visit to the places in which the
scenes of the story are laid.
Its Dramatic Idea.
The dramatic idea of "Sordello" is that of an imagina-
tive nature, nourished by its own creations, and also con-
sumed by them; and breaking down in consequence under
Sordello.
33
the first strain of real conflict and passion. The mysterious
Italian poet,-scarcely known but as a voice, a mere
phantom among living men-was well fitted to illustrate
such an idea; he might also perhaps have suggested it.
But we know that it was already growing in Mr. Brown-
ing's mind; for Sordello had been foreshadowed in Aprile,
though the two are as different as their common poetic
quality allows. Aprile is consumed by a creative passion,
which is always akin to love; Sordello by an imaginative
fever which has no love in it; and in this respect he pre-
sents a stronger contrast to Aprile than Paracelsus him-
self. As a poet he may be said to contain both the artist
and the thinker, and therefore to transcend both; and
his craving is for neither love nor knowledge, as the fore-
going poem represents them, but for that magnitude of
poetic existence, which means all love and all knowledge, as
all beauty and all power in itself. But he makes the same
mistake as Aprile, or at least as Paracelsus, and makes it in
a greater degree; for he rejects all the human conditions of
the poetic life: and strives to live it, not in experience or
in sympathy, but by a pure act of imagination, or as he
calls it, of Will; and he wears himself out body and soul
by a mental strain which proves as barren as it is con-
tinuous. The true joy of living comes home to him at last,
and with it the first challenge to self-sacrifice. Duty pre-
vails; but he dies in the conflict, or rather of it.
The intended lesson of the story is distinctly enforced
in its last scene, but is patent almost from the first-
that the mind must not disclaim the body, nor imagina-
tion divorce itself from reality: that the spiritual is bound
up with the material in our earthly life. All Mr. Brown-
ing's practical philosophy is summed up in this truth, and
much of his religion; for it points to the necessity of a
human manifestation of the Divine Being; and though
Sordello's story contains no explicit reference to Christian
doctrine, an unmistakeable Christian sentiment pervades
D
34
Handbook to Browning's Works.
its close. That restless and ambitious spirit had missed
its only possible anchorage: the ideal of an intellectual
existence at once guided and set free by love.
Mr. Browning has indeed prefaced the poem by saying
that in writing it he has laid his chief stress on the incidents
in the development of a soul. It must be read with refer-
ence to this idea; and I should be bound to give prece-
dence to it over the poetic inspiration of the story if Mr.
Browning had practically done so. This is not, however,
the case.
Sordello's poetic individuality overshadows the
moral, and for a time conceals it altogether. The close
of his story is distinctly the emerging of a soul from the
mists of poetic egotism by which it has been obscured;
and Mr. Browning has meant us from the first to see
it struggling through them. But in so doing he has
judged Sordello's poetic life as a blind aspiration after
the spiritual, while the egotism which he represents as
the keynote of his poetic being was in fact the negation
of it. The idea was just that the greatest poet must
have in him the making of the largest man. His Sordello
is imperial among men for the one moment in which his
song is in sympathy with human life; and Mr. Browning
would have made it more consistently so, had he worked
out his idea at a lat time. But the poem was written at
a period in which his artistic judgment was yet inferior to
his poetic powers, and the need of ordering his vast mate-
rial from the reader's, as well as the writer's, point of view-
though he states it by implication at the end of the third
book-had not thoroughly penetrated his mind.
:
I venture on this criticism, though it is no part of my
task to criticize, because "Sordello" is the one of Mr.
Browning's works which still remains to be read; and
even a mistaken criticism may sometimes afford a clue.
"Sordello" is not only harder to read than "Paracelsus,”
but harder than any other of Mr. Browning's works; its
complications of structure being interwoven with diffi-
Sordello.
35
i
•
culties of a deeper kind which again react upon them.
Enough has been said to show that the conception of
the character is very abstruse on the intellectual and
poetic side; that it presents us with states of thought
and feeling, remote from common experience, and which
no language could make entirely clear; and unfortu-
nately the style is sometimes in itself so obscure that we
cannot judge whether it is the expression or the idea
which we fail to grasp. The poem was written under
the dread of diffuseness which had just then taken pos-
session of Mr. Browning's mind, and we have sometimes
to struggle through a group of sentences out of which
he has so laboured to squeeze every unnecessary word,
that their grammatical connection is broken up, and
they present a compact mass of meaning which with-
out previous knowledge it is almost impossible to con-
strue. We are also puzzled by an abridged, interjectional,
way of carrying on the historical part of the narrative;
by the author's habit of alluding to imaginary or typical
personages in the same tone as to real ones; and by
misprints, including errors in punctuation, which will be
easily corrected in a later edition, but which mar the pre-
sent one.
It is only fair to add that he woul deprecate the idea
of any excessive labour as bestowed on this, to his mind,
immature performance. It is for us, not for him, to do
justice to it. With all its faults and obscurities, “Sor-
dello" is a great work; full moreover of pregnant and
beautiful passages which are not affected by them. When
Mr. Browning re-edited “Sordello” in 1863, he considered
the possibility of re-writing it in a more transparent manner;
but he concluded that the labour would be disproportionate
:o the result, and contented himself with summarizing the
contents of each “book” in a continuous heading, which
represents the main thread of the story. It will be useful
o read this carefully.
36
Handbook to Browning's Works.
BOOK THE FIRST.
The story opens at Verona, at the moment of the for-
mation of the Lombard League—a well-known union of
Guelph cities against the Ghibellines in Northern Italy.
Mr. Browning, addressing himself to an imaginary
audience composed of living and dead, describes the city
as it hastens to arms, and the chain of circumstances
through which she has been called upon to do so; and
draws a curious picture of two political ideals which he
considers respectively those of Ghibelline and Guelph:
the one symbolized by isolated heights, the other by a
continuous level growth; those again suggesting the
violent disruptions which create imperial power; these the
peaceful organic processes of democratic life. The poet
Shelley is desired to withdraw his "pure face" from among
the spectators of this chequered scene; and Dante is in-
voked in the name of him whose fame preceded his, and
has been absorbed by it. A secret chamber in Count
Richard's palace shows Palma and Sordello in earnest
conference with each other. Then the curtain falls; and
we are carried back thirty years, and to Goito Castle.
Sordello is there: a refined and beautiful boy; framed
for all spiritual delights. As his life is described, it has
neither duties nor occupations; no concern with the
outer world; no contact even with that of Adelaide, his
supposed protectress. He is dreaming away his child-
hood in the silent gloom of the castle, or the sunny out-
door life of the hills and woods. He lives in imagination,
blends the idea of his own being with everything he sees;
and for years is happy in the bare fact of existence. But
the germ of a fatal spiritual ambition is lurking within
him; and as he grows into a youth, he hankers after
something which he calls sympathy, but which is really
applause. He therefore makes a human crowd for him-
Sordello.
37
self out of carved and tapestried figures, and the few
names which penetrate into his solitude, and fancies him-
self always the greatest personage amongst them. He
simulates all manner of heroic performances and of luxu-
rious rest. He is Eccelino, the Emperor's vicar; he is the
Emperor himself. He becomes more than this; for his
fancy has soared upwards to the power which includes all
empire in one—the spiritual power of song. Apollo is its
representative. Sordello is he. He has had one glimpse
of Palma; she becomes his Daphne; the dream life is at
its height.
And now Sordello is a man. He begins to sicken for
reality. Vanity and ambition are ripe in him. His
egotisms are innocent, but they are absorbing. The soul
is as yet dormant.¹
BOOK THE SECOND.
Sordello's
The dream-life becomes a partial reality.
wanderings carry him one day to the walls of Mantua,
outside which Palma is holding a "Court of Love."
Eglamor sings. His song is incomplete. Sordello feels
what is wanting; catches up the thread of the story; and
sings it to its proper close.2 His triumph is absolute. He
is installed as Palma's minstrel in Eglamor's place.
Eglamor accepts his defeat with touching gentleness, and
lies down to die. This poet is meant to embody the
limited art, which is an end in itself, and one with the
artist's life. Sordello, on the other hand, represents the
boundless aspirations which art may subserve, but which
¹ The name of Naddo occurs in this book, and will often reappear in the
course of the story. This personage is the typical Philistine-the Italian
Brown, Jones, or Robinson-and will represent genuine common-sense, or
mere popular judgment, as the case may be.
2 Elys, the subject of this song, is any woman of the then prevailing type
of Italian beauty: having fair hair, and a "pear-shaped" face.
38
Handbook to Browning's Works.
must always leave it behind. The parallel will be stated
more distinctly later on.
Sordello's first wish is fulfilled. He has found a career
which will reconcile his splendid dreams with his real
obscurity, and set him, by right of imagination-the
true Apolloship-apart from other men. But his true
difficulties have yet to begin. It is not enough that he
feels himself a transcendent personage. He must make
others believe that he is so. Every act of imagination is
with him an act of existence, or as Mr. Browning calls it
of Will; but this self-asserting was much easier with the
imaginary crowd than it can be with the real one. Sor-
dello is soon at cross-purposes with his hearers: for when
he sings of human passion, or human prowess, they never
dream of identifying him with it; and when he sings of
mere abstract modes of being, they do not understand.
The love of abstract conception is indeed the rock on
which he splits. The feelings which are real to us are
unreal to him, because they are accidental. What is real
to him is the underlying consciousness which according to
his view is permanent: the "intensest" self described in
"Pauline”—the mind which is spoken of in the fifth “book”
of "Sordello" (vol. i. page 236) as nearest to God when
emptied of even thought; and his aim is to put forth all the
qualities which this absolute existence can assume, and yet
be reflected in other men's minds as independent of them.
This lands him in struggles not only with his hearers but
with himself for he is unused to expressing what he feels;
and with a language which at best could convey "whole
perceptions" like his, in a very meagre form, or a frag-
mentary one. He still retains the love of real life and
adventure which inspired his boyish dreams. There is
nothing, as I have said, that he does not wish to be; and
now, amidst commonplace human beings, his human de-
sires often take a more simple and natural form. But the
poet in him pushes the man aside, and bids him, at all
Sordello.
39
events, wait. He does not know that he is failing through
the hopeless disunion of the two. He silences his better
humanity, and retains the worst; for he is more and more
determined to succeed at whatever cost. Yet failure
meets him on every side. He is too large for his public,
but he is also too small for it. Every question raised
even in talk carries him into the infinite. Every man of
his audience has a practical answer ready before he has.
Naddo plies him with common sense.
"He is to speak
to the human heart-he is not to be so philosophical-
he is not to seem so clever." Shallow judges pull him
to pieces. Shallow rivals strive to sing him down.¹ He
loses his grasp of the ideal. He cannot clutch the real
His imagination dries up.
Meanwhile Adelaide has died. Salinguerra, who had
joined the Emperor at Naples, is brought back in hot
haste by the news that Eccelino has retired to a monas-
tery, has disclaimed the policy of his House; and is seal-
ing his peace with the Guelph princes by the promised
marriage of his sons Eccelinc and Alberic with the sisters
of Este; and of his daughter Palma with Count Richard
of San Bonifacio himself. He is coming to Mantua.
Sordello must greet him with his best art. But Sordello
shrinks from the trial, and escapes back to Goito, whence
Palma has just departed. What his Mantuan life has
taught him is thus expressed (vol. i. page 130) :—
"The Body, the Machine for Acting Will,
Had been at the commencement proved unfit
That for Demonstrating, Reflecting it,
Mankind-no fitter: was the Will Itself
In fault?"
He is wiser than he was, but his objects remain the same.
The sympathies-the moral sense-the soul-are still
asleep.
¹ Bocafoli and Plara, mannerists: one of the sensuous school, the other
of the pompously pure; imaginary personages, but to whom we may give
real names.
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}
!
BOOK THE THIRD.
Sordello buries himself once more in the contemplation
of nature; but finds in it only a short-lived peace. The
marshy country about Mantua is suddenly converted into
water; and with the shock of this catastrophe comes also
the feeling: Nature can do and undo; her opportunities
are endless. With man
•
•
youth once gone is gone:
Deeds let escape are never to be done." (vol. i. p. 135.)
He has dreamed of love, of revel, and of adventure; but
he has let pass the time when such dreams could be rea-
lized; and worst of all, the sacrifice has been useless. He
has sacrificed the man in him to the poet; and his poetic
existence has been impoverished by the act. He has re-
jected experience that he might be his fullest self before
living it; and only living, in other words, experience, could
have made that self complete. His later years have been
paving the way for this discovery; it bursts on him all at
once. He has been under a long strain. The reaction at
length has come. He yearns helplessly for the "blisses
strong and soft" which he has known he was passing by,
but of which the full meaning never reached him until now.
He must live yet. The question is,
The question is, "in what way." And
this is unexpectedly answered. Palma sends for him to
Verona; tells him of her step-mother's death-of strange
secrets revealed to herself-of the secret influence Sordello
has exercised over her life—of a great future awaiting his
own, and connecting it with the Emperor's cause. She
summons him to accompany her to Ferrara, and hear from
Salinguerra's lips what that future is to be.
Sordello has entered on a new phase of existence. He
feels that henceforward he is not to act men, but to make
them act; this is how his being is to be fulfilled. It is a
Sordello.
41
first step in the direction of unselfishness, but not yet into
it. The soul is not yet awake.
At this point of his narrative Mr. Browning makes a
halt, and carries us off to Venice, where he muses on the
various questions involved in Sordello's story. The very
act of digression leads back to the comparison between
Eglamor and Sordello: between the artist who is one with
his work, and him who is outside and beyond it-between
the completeness of execution which comes of a limited
ideal, and the true greatness of those performances which
can never be more than dreamed." And the case of the
true poet is farther illustrated by that of the weather-bound
sailor, who seems to have settled down for life with the
fruits of his adventures, but waits only the faintest sign of
a favourable wind to cut his moorings and be off.
(6
Then comes a vision of humanity, also in harmony with
the purpose of the poem. It takes the form of some frail
and suffering woman, and is addressed by the author with
a tenderness in which we recognize one of his constant
ideals of love: the impulse not to worship or to enjoy, but
to comfort and to protect. He next considers the problem
of human sorrow and sin, and deprecates the absolute con-
demnation of the sinner, in language which anticipates that
of “Fifine at the Fair." "Every life has its own law. The
'losel,' the moral outcast, keeps his own conceit of truth
though through a maze of lies. Good labours to exist
through evil, by means of the very ignorance which sets
each man to tackle it for himself, believing that he alone
Mr. Browning rejects at least the show of know-
ledge which gives you a name for what you die of; and
that deepening of ignorance which comes of the per-
petual insisting that fountains of knowledge spring every-
where for those who choose to dispense it. "What science
teaches is made useless by the shortness of human exis-
tence; it absorbs all our energy in building up a machine
The belief in personal experience is very strong here.
can." 1
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
which we shall have no time to work. All direct truth
comes to us from the poet : whether he be of the smaller
kind who only see, or the greater, who can tell what they
have seen, or the greatest who can make others see it."
Corresponding instances follow.¹
Mr. Browning is aware that one is a poet at his own
risk; and that the poetic chaplet may also prove a sacri-
ficial one.
He will still wear it, however, because in his
case it means the suffrage of a "patron friend" 2
"Whose great verse blares unintermittent on
Like your own trumpeter at Marathon,-" (vol. i. p. 169.)
He recalls his readers to the "business" of the poem :
"the fate of such
As find our common nature-overmuch
Despised because restricted and unfit
To bear the burthen they impose on it-
Cling when they would discard it; craving strength
To leap from the allotted world, at length
They do leap,-flounder on without a term,
Each a god's germ, doomed to remain a germ
In unexpanded infancy, unless
"
(pp. 170, 171.).
admits that the story sounds dull; but suggests the pos-
sibility of its containing an agreeable surprise. An amus.
ing anecdote to this effect concludes the chapter.³
BOOK THE FOURTH.
We are now introduced to Taurello Salinguerra: a fine
soldier-like figure; the type of elastic strength in both
body and mind. We are told that he possesses the cour-
age of the fighter, the astuteness of the politician, the
1 The third of these, vol. i. p. 168, is very characteristic of the state of
Sordello's, and therefore, at that moment, of his author's mind.
The poet
who makes others see is he who deals with abstractions: who makes the
mood do duty for the man.
2 Walter Savage Landor.
3 The word "Eyebright" at page 170 stands for Euphrasia its Greek
equivalent, and refers to one of Mr. Browning's oldest friends.
Sordello.
43
He has
knowledge and graces of the man of leisure.
shown himself capable of controlling an Emperor, and of
giving precedence to a woman. He is young at sixty, while
the son who is half his age, is "lean, outworn and really
old." And the crowning difference between him and Sor-
dello is this: that while Sordello only draws out other men
as a means of displaying himself, he only displays himself
sufficiently to draw out other men. "His choicest instru-
ments" have "surmised him shallow."
He is in his palace at Ferrara, musing over the past—
that past which held the turning-point of his career; which
began the feud between himself and the now Guelph
princes, and which naturally merged him in the Ghibel-
line cause.
He remembers how the fathers of the present
Este and San Bonifacio combined to cheat him out of the
Modenese heiress who was to be his bride-how he retired
to Sicily, to return with a wife of the Emperor's own house
-how his enemies surprised him at Vicenza. He sees his
old comrade Eccelino, so passive now, so brave and vigo-
rous then. He sees the town as they fire it together: the
rush for the gates: the slashing, the hewing, the blood
hissing and frying on the iron gloves. His spirit leaps in
the returning frenzy of that struggle and flight. It sinks
again as he thinks of Elcorte-Adelaide's escape—her
rescued child; his own doom in the wife and child who
were not rescued.
"And now! he has effaced himself in the interests of
the Romano house. Its life has grafted itself on his own;
and to what end? The Emperor is coming. His badge
and seal, already in Salinguerra's hands, bestow the title
of Imperial Prefect on whosoever assumes the headship
of the Ghibellines in the north of Italy; and Eccelino, its
proper chief, recoils; withdraws even his name from the
cause. Who shall wear the badge? None so fitly as him-
self, who holds San Bonifacio captive-who has dislocated
if not yet broken the Guelph right arm. Yet, is it worth his
44
Handbook to Browning's Works.
while? Shall he fret his remaining years? Shall he rob his
old comrade's son?" He laughs the idea to scorn. .
Sordello has come with Palma to Ferrara. He came to
find the men who were to be the body to his spirit, the
instrument to his will. But he came, expecting that these
would be great. And now he discovers that very few are
great; while behind and beneath, and among them, ex-
tends something which has never yet entered his field of
thought the mass of mankind. The more he looks the
more it grows upon him: this people with the
mouths and eyes,
"
Petty enjoyments and huge miseries,-
(vol. i. p. 181.)
and the more he feels that the few are great because the
many are in them—because they are types and representa-
tives of these. Hitherto he has striven to impose himself
on mankind. He now awakes to the joy and duty of
serving it. It is the magnified body which his spirit
needs. And in the new-found knowledge, the new-found
sympathy, his soul springs full-grown into life.
But another check is in store for him. He has taken
for granted that the cause in which he is to be enlisted is
the people's cause. The new soul in him can conceive
nothing less. A first interview with Salinguerra dispels
this dream, and dispels it in such a manner that he leaves
the presence of his unknown father years older and wearier
than when he entered it. He wanders through the city,
mangled by civil war. The effects of Ghibelline vengeance
meet him on every side. Is the Guelph more humane?
He discusses the case with Palma. They weigh deeds with
deeds. "Guelph and Ghibelline are alike unjust and cruel,
alike inveterate enemies of their fellow-men." Who then
represents the people's cause? A sudden answer comes.
A bystander recognizing his minstrel's attire begs Sordello
to sing, and suggests the Roman Tribune Crescentius as
his theme. Rome rises before his mind-the mother
Sordello.
45
of cities-the great constructive power which weaves the
past into the future; which represents the continuity of
human life. The reintegration of Rome must typify the
triumph of mankind. But Rome is now the Church ; she
is one with the Guelph cause. The Guelph cause is there-
fore in some sense the true one. Sordello's new-found
spiritual and his worldly interests thus range themselves
on opposite sides.
BOOK THE FIFTH.
The day draws to its close. Sordello has seen more of
the suffering human beings whom he wishes to serve, and
the ideal Rome has collapsed in his imagination like a
mocking dream. Nothing can be effected at once. No
deed can bridge over the lapse of time which divides the
first stage of a great social structure from its completion.
Each life may give its touch; it can give no more; through
the endless generations. The vision of a regenerate
humanity, “his last and loveliest," must depart like the
rest. Then suddenly a voice,
•
Sordello, wake!
God has conceded two sights to a man-
One, of men's whole work, time's completed plan,
The other, of the minute's work, man's first
Step to the plan's completeness: what's dispersed
Save hope of that supreme step which, descried
Earliest, was meant still to remain untried
Only to give you heart to take your own
Step, and there stay-leaving the rest alone?" (vol. i. p. 217,)
The facts restate themselves, but from an opposite
point of view. No man can give more than his single
touch. The whole could not dispense with one of them.
The work is infinite, but it is continuous. The later poet
weaves into his own song the echoes of the first. "The
last of each series of workmen sums up in himself all pre-
decessors," whether he be the type of strength like Charle-
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
·
magne, or of knowledge like Hildebrand. Strength comes
first in the scheme of life; it is the joyousness of child-
hood. Step by step Strength works Knowledge with its
groans and tears. And then, in its turn, Knowledge works
Strength, Knowledge controls Strength, Knowledge
supersedes Strength. It is Knowledge which must prevail
now. May it not be he who at this moment resumes its
whole inheritance-its accumulated opportunities, in him-
self? He could stand still and dream while he fancied he
stood alone; but he knows now that he is part of humanity,
and it of him. Goito is left behind; Ferrara is reached;
he must do the one thing that is within his grasp.
He must influence Salinguerra. He must interest him
in the cause of knowledge; which is the people's cause.
With this determination, he proceeds once more to the
appointed presence. His minstrelsy is at first a failure.
He is, as usual, outside his song. He is trying to guide it;
it is not carrying him away. He is paralysed by the very
consciousness that he is urging the head of the Ghibellines
to become a Guelph. Salinguerra's habitual tact and
good-nature cannot conceal his own sense of the absurdity
of the proposal. Sordello sees in
"a flash of bitter truth:
So fantasies could break and fritter youth
That he had long ago lost earnestness,
Lost will to work, lost power to even express
The need of working!"
(vol. i. p. 228.)
But he will not be beaten. He tries once more.
We see
the blood leap to his brain, the heart into his purpose, as
he challenges Salinguerra to bow before the royalty of
song. He owns himself its unworthy representative :
for he has frittered away his powers. He has identified
himself with existing forms of being, instead of proving his
kingship by a new spiritual birth-by a supreme, as yet
unknown revelation of the power of human will. He has
resigned his function. He is a self-deposed king. He
Sordello.
47
acknowledges the man before him as fitter to help the
world than he is. But this is shame enough. He will not
see its now elected champion scorn the post he renounces
on his behalf. And his art is still royal though he is not.
It is the utterance of the spiritual life: of the informing
thought-which was in the world before deeds began-
which brought order out of chaos-which guided deeds
in their due gradation till itself emerged as SONG: to
react in deed; but to need no help of it; to be (so we
complete the meaning) as the knowledge which controls
strength, which supersedes strength.¹
The walls of the presence-chamber have fallen away.
Imaginary faces are crowding around him. He turns to
these. He shows them human life as the poet's mirror
reflects it in its varied masquerade, in its mingled good
and evil, in its steady advance; in the rainbow brightness
of its obstructed lights; the deceptive gloom of its merely
repeated shadows. He enforces in every tone that con-
tinuity of the plan of creation to which the poet alone
holds the clue. Finally, in the name of the unlimited
truth, the limited opportunity, the one duty which con-
fronts him now, the People whose support, in his perfor-
mance of it, he may claim for the first time, he forbids the
Emperor's coming, and invokes Salinguerra's protection
for the Guelph cause.
Salinguerra is moved at last, though not in the intended
way.
He does not yield to Sordello's enthusiasm, but he
sees that it is worth employing. There is no question of
his becoming a Guelph, but why should not Sordello turn
Ghibelline? The cause requires a youth to “stalk, and
bustle, and attitudinize;" and he clearly thinks this is all
the youth before him wants to do, whether conscious of
the fact or not. He thinks the thought aloud. 'Palma
loves her minstrel; it is written in her eyes; let her marry
¹ Here, as elsewhere, I give the spirit rather than the letter, or even the
exact order of Sordello's words. The necessary condensation requires this.
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him. Were she Romano's son instead of his daughter,
she could wear the Emperor's badge. Himself fate has
doomed to a secondary position. To contend against it
is useless." Before he knows what he has done, without
really meaning to do it, he has thrown the badge across
Sordello's neck, and thus created him Eccelino's successor.
It was a prophetic act. At the moment of its perfor-
mance
each looked on each :
Up in the midst a truth grew, without speech." (vol. i. p. 243.)
Palma's moment is come, and she relates the story, as she
received it from Adelaide, of Sordello's birth. With
blanched lips, and sweat-drops on his face, the old soldier
takes the hand of his poet-son, and lays its consecrating
touch on his own face and brow. Then, recovering him-
self, with his mailed arms on Sordello's shoulders, he
launches forth in an eager survey of the situation as it
may shape itself for both. Palma at last draws him away,
and Sordello, exhausted and speechless, is left alone. The
two are in a small stone chamber, below the one they have
left. Half-drunk with his new emotions, Salinguerra
paces the narrow floor. His eyes burn; his tread strikes
sparks from the stone. The future glows before him. He
and Sordello combined will break up Hildebrand. They
will rebuild Charlemagne; not in the brute force of earlier
days; but as strength adorned with knowledge, as empire
imposing law. Palma listens in satisfied repose; her task
is done.
A stamp is heard overhead.
BOOK THE SIXTH.
Sordello is alone-face to face with his memory, with
his conscience, and, as we presently find out, with the
greatest temptation he has ever known. The moon is
slowly rising; and just so the light of truth is overflowing
Sordello.
49
his past life, and laying bare its every recess. He sees no
fault in this past, except the want of a uniform purpose in
which its various moods could have coalesced, the all-
embracing sense of existence been translated into fact;
but he unconsciously confesses its selfishness, in deciding
that this purpose should have been outside him—a remote
and uplifting, though sympathetic influence, such as the
moon is to the sea. Smaller lives than his have attained
a higher completeness, because they have worked for an
ideal: because they have had their moon.
((
Where then is his moon? What the love, the fear,
the motive, in short, that could match the strength, could
sway the full tide, of a nature like his?" He doubts its
existence. And if, after all, he has been destined to be a
law to himself, must he not in some sense apply this rela-
tive standard to the rest of life; and may not the outward
motive be at all times the embodiment of an inner want
or law, which only the stronger nature can realize as such?
He has found his purpose. That purpose is the people.
"But the people is himself. The desire to help it comes
from within. Will he fulfil this the better for regarding
its suffering part as an outward motive, as something alien
to himself, and for which Self must be forsaken ?" In
plain words would he not serve it as well by serving his
own interests as by forsaking them?
This sophistry is so patent that it startles even him ;
but it is only silenced to reassert itself in another form.
"The Guelph rule would doubtless be the best. But what
can he do to promote it? Attest his belief by refusing the
Emperor's badge? That would be something in the end.
But meanwhile, how many sympathies to be broken, how
many aversions defied, before the one ideal can be made
to prevail. Is not the proceeding too arbitrary? Would
it be justified by the result? The question is only one of
ideas. If the men who supported each opposite cause
were wholly good or bad, his course would be clear. But
E
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
such divisions do not exist. All men are composite. All
nature is a blending of good and evil, in which the one is
often but a different form of the other. Evil is in fact indis-
pensable; for it is not only the ground of sympathy, but
the active principle of life. Joy means the triumph over
obstruction. The suspended effort is death, so far as it
goes. Obstruction and effort must begin again and again.
The sphere grows larger. It can never be more complete
(more satisfying to those who are imprisoned within it).
The only gain of existence is to be extracted from its hin-
drances, by each individual and for himself." The last
plea for self-sacrifice is thus removed.
((
These arguments are often just, even profound; they
might also have been sincere in this special case; for there
was something to be said in favour of accepting the oppor-
tunities which offered themselves, and of guiding the course
of events, instead of engaging in a probably fruitless oppo-
sition to it. But they are not sincere. Sordello is at
best deceiving himself, and Mr. Browning intends us to
to see this. He is struggling, if unconsciously, to evade the
very trials which he thinks so good for other men. His
true object soon stands revealed in a first and last effort at
compromise. The people's good is in the future. His is
in the present. Can he not speed the one, and yet enjoy the
other?". The present rises up, in its new-found rich
ness, in its undisguised temptation. The joys which lure
him become gigantic; the price of renunciation shrinks to
nothing; and at last, the pent-up passion breaks forth-
that passion for life, for sheer life, which inspired his
imagination as a boy, which nerved his ambition as a
man; to which his late-found humanities have given voice
and shape; which now gathers itself to a supreme utter-
ance in the grasp of death. "The earthly existence now:
the transcendent hereafter, if Fate will. A man's oppor-
tunities—a man's powers-a man's self-consciousness of
joy and conflict-these things he craves while he may yet
possess them.”
Sordello.
51
Then a sudden revulsion. "He would drink the very
dregs of life! How many have sacrificed it whilst its
cup was full, because a better still seemed behind
it."
the death I fly, revealed
So oft a better life this life concealed,
And which sage, champion, martyr, through each path
Have hunted fearlessly-
""
(vol. i. p. 272.)
"But they had a belief which he has not. They knew
what 'masters life.' For him the paramount fact is that of
his own being.
This is the last protest of the flesh within him. Sor-
dello is dying, and probably feels that he is so; and he
lapses into a calm contemplation, which reveals to him
the last secret of his mistaken career. He already knew
that he had ignored the bodily to the detriment of his
spiritual existence. He now feels that he has destroyed
his body by forcing on it the exigencies of the spirit.
He has striven to obtain infinite consciousness, infinite
enjoyment, from finite powers. He has broken the law of
life. He has missed (so we interpret Mr. Browning's con-
clusion) the ideal of that divine and human Love which
would have given the freest range to his spirit and yet
accepted that law. Eglamor began with love. Will Sor-
dello find it, meeting that gentle spirit on his course?
We know at least that the soul in him has conquered.
His stamp upon the floor has brought Palma and Salin-
guerra to him in anxious haste. They find him dead :
"Under his foot the badge: still, Palma said,
A triumph lingering in the wide eyes,
Wider than some spent swimmer's if he spies
Help from above in his extreme despair,
(vol. i. p. 279.)
Sordello is buried at Goito Castle, in an old font-tomb in
which his mother lies, and beside whose sculptured female
forms the child-poet had dreamed his earliest dreams of
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
life and of love. Salinguerra makes peace (with the
Guelphs, marries a daughter of Eccelino the monk, and
effaces himself once for all in the Romano house, leaving
its sons Eccelino and Alberic to plague the world at their
pleasure, and meet the fate they have deserved. He him-
self, after varied fortunes, dwindles into a "showy, turbu-
lent soldier," less "astute" than people profess to think :
whose qualities even foes admire; and whose aggressions
they punish, but do not much resent. We see him for the
last time at the age of eighty, a nominal prisoner in Venice.
The drama is played out. Its actors have vanished
from the stage. One only lives on in Mr. Browning's
fancy, in the pathos of his modest hopes, and acknow-
ledged, yet scarcely comprehended failure-more human,
and therefore more undying than Naddo himself: the
poet Eglamor. Sordello he recalls only to dismiss him
with less sympathy than we should expect as ending the
ambition for what he could not become, by the well-meant
renunciation of what he was born to be; made a hero of
by legends which credited him with doing what his con-
science had forbidden him to do; leaving the world to
suffer by his self-sacrifice; a type of failure more rare and
more brilliant than that of Eglamor, yet more full of the
irony of life.
In one sense, however, he had lived for a better thing,
and we are bidden look back, through the feverish years,
on a bare-footed rosy child running “higher and higher”
up a wintry hillside still crisp with the morning frost,
singing all the while
"
(vol. i. p. 288-9.)
Some unintelligible words to beat
The lark, God's poet, swooning at his feet,
So worsted is he
The poet in him had failed with the man, but less com-
pletely.

II.
NON-CLASSIFIED POEMS.
DRAMAS.
UR attention is next attracted to Mr. Browning's
dramas; for his first tragedy, "Strafford," was
published before "Sordello," having been written
in an interval of its composition, and his first drama,
"Pippa Passes," immediately afterwards. They were pub-
lished, with the exception of "Strafford," and "In a Bal-
cony,"
"in the "Bells and Pomegranates" series, 1841-
1846, together with the "Dramatic Lyrics," and "Dra-
matic Romances," which will be found distributed under
various headings in the course of this volume.
The dramas are:-
"Strafford."
1837.
"Pippa Passes." 1841.
(C
King Victor and King Charles." 1842.
"The Return of the Druses."
"A Blot in the 'Scutcheon."
"Colombe's Birthday." 1844.
"A Soul's Tragedy." 1846.
"Luria."
1846.
1843.
1843.
"In a Balcony." (A Fragment.) 1853.
The five-act tragedy of "STRAFFORD
turns on the
impeachment and condemnation of the man whose name
it bears. Its keynote is Strafford's devotion to the King,
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
which Mr. Browning has represented as the constant
motive of his life, and also the cause of his death. When
the action opens, England is without a Parliament. The
question of ship-money is "burning." The Scotch Par-
liament has just been dissolved, and Charles is deter-
mined to subdue the Scots by force. Wentworth has been
summoned from Ireland to assist in doing so. He is
worn and weary, but the King needs him, and he comes.
He accepts the Scotch war against his better judg-
ment: and next finds himself entrapped by the King's
duplicity and selfishness, not only into the command of
the expedition to Scotland, but into the appearance of
having advised it. Pym has vainly tried to win him back
to the popular cause. Lady Carlisle vainly warns him of
his danger in subserving the King's designs. No danger
can shake his allegiance. He leads the army to the
north; is beaten; discovers that the popular party is in
league with the Scotch; returns home to impeach it, and
finds himself impeached. A Bill of Attainder is passed
against him; and Charles, who might prove by one word
his innocence of the charges conveyed in it, promises to
do so, evades his promise, and finally signs the warrant for
Strafford's death. Pym, who loved him best, who trusted
him longest, is he who demands the signature.
Lady Carlisle forms a plan for Strafford's escape from
the Tower; but it fails at the last moment, and we see
him led away to execution. True to the end, he has no
thought but for the master who has betrayed him—whose
terrible weakness must betray himself—whose fate he
sees foreshadowed in his own. He kneels to Pym for the
King's life; and, seeing him inexorable, thanks God that
he dies first. Pym's last speech is a tender farewell
to the friend whom he has sacrificed to his country's
cause, but whom he trusts soon to meet in the better land,
where they will walk together as of old, all sin and all
error purged away.
Dramas.
55
1
We are told in the preface to the first edition of Straf-
ford that the portraits are, so the author thinks, faithful:
his "Carlisle," only, being imaginary; and we may add
that he regards his conception of her as, in the main, con-
firmed by a very recent historian of the reign of Charles I.
The tragedy was performed in 1837, at Covent Garden
Theatre, under the direction of Macready, by whose de-
sire it had been written, and who sustained the principal
part.
The appearance of " Strafford" coincides so closely with
at least the conception of "Sordello" as to afford a strong
proof of the variety of the author's genius. The evidence is
still stronger in "Pippa Passes," in which he leaps directly
from his most abstract mode of conception to his most
picturesque; and, from the prolonged strain of a single
inward experience, to a quick succession of pictures, in
which life is given from a general and external point of
view. The humour which found little place in the earlier
work has abundant scope here; and the descriptive power
which was so vividly apparent in all of them, here shows
itself for the first time in those touches of local colour
which paint without describing. Mr. Browning is now
fully developed, on the artistic and on the practical side
of his genius.
Mr. Browning was walking alone, in a wood near
Dulwich, when the image flashed upon him of some one
walking thus alone through life; one apparently too
obscure to leave a trace of his or her passage, yet exer-
cising a lasting though unconscious influence at every
step of it; and the image shaped itself into the little silk-
winder of Asolo, Felippa, or Pippa.
"PIPPA PASSES" represents the course of one day—
Pippa's yearly holiday; and is divided into what is vir-
tually four acts, being the occurrences of "Morning,"
“Noon,” “ Evening,” and “Night." Pippa rises with the
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sun, determined to make the best of the bright hours befo
her; and she spends them in wandering through the town,
singing as she goes, and all the while thinking of its hap、
piest men and women, and fancying herself they. These
happy ones are four, each the object of a different love,
Ottima, whose aged husband is the owner of the silk mills,
has a lover in Sebald. Phene, betrothed to the French
sculptor Jules, will be led this morning to her husband's
home. Luigi (a conspiring patriot) meets his mother at
eve in the turret. The Bishop, blessed by God, will sleep
at Asolo to-night. Which love would she choose? The
lover's? It gives cause for scandal. The husband's? It
may not last. The parent's? it alone will guard us to the
end of life. God's love? That is best of all. It is
Monsignore she decides to be.
Ottima and her lover have murdered her husband at
his villa on the hillside. She is the more reckless of the
two, and she is striving by the exercise of her attractions
to silence Sebald's remorse. She has succeeded for the
moment, when Pippa passes-singing. Something in her
song strikes his conscience like a thunderbolt, and its re-
viving force awakens Ottima's also. Both are spiritually
saved.
Jules has brought home his bride, and is discovering
that some students who owed him a grudge have prac-
tised a cruel cheat upon him; and that the refined
woman by whom he fancied himself loved is but an igno-
rant girl of the lowest class, of whom also his enemies
have made a tool. Her remorse at seeing what man she
has deceived disarms his anger, and marks the dawning
of a moral sense in her; and he is dismissing her gently,
with all the money he can spare, when Pippa passes-
singing. Something in her song awakens his truer man-
hood. Why should he dismiss his wife? Why cast away
1
¹ The song professedly refers to Catherine Cornaro, the Venetian Queen
of Cyprus, and is the only one in the poem that is based on any fact at all.
Dramas.
57
Her
a soul which needs him, and which he himself has called
into existence? He does not cast Phene away.
salvation and his happiness are secured.
·
Luigi and his mother are in the turret on the hillside
above Asolo. He believes it his mission to kill the
Austrian Emperor. She entreats him to desist; and has
nearly conquered his resolution by the mention of the girl
he loves, when Pippa passes-singing. Something in her
song revives his flagging patriotism. He rushes from the
tower, thus escaping the police, who were on his track;
and the virtuous, though mistaken motive, secures his
liberty, and perhaps his life.
Monsignore and his "Intendant" are conferring in the
palace by the Duomo ; and the irony of the situation is
now at its height. Pippa's fancy has been aspiring to
three separate existences, which would each in its own
way have been wrecked without her. The divinely-guarded
one which she especially covets is at this moment bent
on her destruction. For she is the child of the brother at
whose death the Bishop has connived, and whose wealth
he is enjoying. She is still in his way, and he is listening
to a plan for removing her also, when Pippa passes—sing-
ing. Something in her song stings his conscience or his
humanity to life. He starts up, summons his attendants,
has his former accomplice bound hand and foot, and the
sequel may be guessed.
The scene is varied by groups of students, of poor girls,
and of Austrian policemen, all joking and chatting in
characteristic fashion, and all playing their part in the
story; and also by the appearance of Bluphocks, an
English adventurer and spy, who is in league with the
police for the detection of Luigi, and with the Intendant
for Pippa's ruin; and the saving effect of Pippa's songs is
the more dramatic that it becomes on one occasion the
means of betraying herself. She goes home at sunset,
unconscious of all she has effected and escaped, and
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1
wondering how near she may ever come to touching for
good or evil the lives with which her fancy has been
identifying her. "So far, perhaps," she says to herself,
"that the silk she will wind to-morrow may some day
serve to border Ottima's cloak. And if it be only this!"
"All service ranks the same with God-
With God, whose puppets, best and worst,
Are we there is no last nor first.”
(vol. iii. p. 79.)
These are her last words as she lies down to sleep.
Pippa's songs are not impressive in themselves. They
are made so in every case by the condition of her hearer's
mind; and the idea of the story is obvious, besides being
partly stated in the heroine's own words. No man is
"great" or "small" in the sight of God—each life being
in its own way the centre of creation. Nothing should be
"great" or small" in the sight of man; since it depends
on personal feeling, or individual circumstance, whether a
given thing will prove one or the other.
((
"KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES" is an historical
tragedy in two divisions and four parts, of which the time
is 1730 and 31, and the place the castle of Rivoli near
Turin. The episode which it records may be read in any
chronicle of the period; and Mr. Browning adds a pre-
face, in which he justifies his own view of the characters
and motives involved in it. King Victor II. (first King
of Sardinia) was sixty-four years old, and had been nomi-
nally a ruler from the age of ten, when suddenly (1730)
he abdicated in favour of his son Charles. The Queen
was dead, and he had privately married a lady of the
Court, to whom he had been long attached; and the de-
sire to acknowledge this union, combined with what seems
to have been a premature old age, might sufficiently have
explained the abdication; but Mr. Browning adopts
the idea, which for a time found favour, that it had a
Dramas.
59
deeper cause: that the King's intriguing ambition had
involved him in many difficulties, and he had devised
this plan for eluding them.
Charles has become his father's heir through the death
of an older and better loved son. He has been thrust
into the shade by the favourite, now Victor's wife, and by
the Minister d'Ormea; his sensitive nature crushed into
weakness, his loftiness of purpose never called into play.
He seems precisely the person of whom to make at once
a screen and a tool. But he has scarcely been crowned
when it is evident that he will be neither. He assumes
the character of king at the same time as the function; and
by his honesty, courage, and humanity, restores the pros-
perity of his country, and the honour of his house. He
secures even the devotion, interested though it be, of the
unscrupulous d'Ormea himself.
crown.
Victor, however, is restless in his obscurity; and by
the end of the year is scheming for the recovery of his
He presents himself before his son, and demands
that it be restored to him; denouncing what he considers
the weakness of King Charles' rule. Charles refuses,
gently but firmly, to abandon what has become for him
the post of duty; and King Victor departs, to conspire
openly against him. D'Ormea is active in detecting the
conspiracy and unveiling it; and Victor is brought back
to the palace, this time a prisoner.
But Charles does not receive him as such. His filial
piety is outraged by the unnatural conflict; and his wife
Polixena has vainly tried to convince him that there is a
higher because less obvious virtue in resisting than in
giving way. He once more acknowledges his father as
King. And both he and his wife are soon aware that in
doing so, he is only humouring the caprice of a dying
man. “I have no friend in the wide world is the old
King's cry. Give me what I have no power to take from
you."
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"So few years give it quietly,
My son ! It will drop from me. See you not?
A crown's unlike a sword to give away—
That, let a strong hand to a weak hand give!
But crowns should slip from palsied brows to heads
Young as this head:
(vol. iii. p. 162-3.)
Charles places the crown on his father's head. A strange
conflict of gratified ambition, of remorseful tenderness, of
dreamy regret, stirs the failing spirit. But command and
defiance flash out in the old King's last words.
This death on the stage is the only point on which Mr.
Browning diverges from historical truth. King Victor
lived a year longer, in a modified captivity to which his
son had most unwillingly consigned him; and he is made
to suggest this story in the half-insanity of his last
moments as one which may be told to the world; and
will give his son the appearance of reigning, while he
remains, in secret, King.
"THE RETURN OF THE DRUSES" is a tragedy in five
acts, fictitious in plot, but historical in character. The
Druses of Lebanon are a compound of several warlike
Eastern tribes, owing their religious system to a caliph
of Egypt, Hakeem Biamr Allah; and probably their name
to his confessor Darazi, who first attempted to promul-
gate his doctrine among them; some also impute to the
Druse nation a dash of the blood of the Crusaders. One
of their chief religious doctrines was that of divine incar-
nations. It seems to have originated in the pretension
of Hakeem to be himself one; and as organized by the
Persian mystic Hamzi, his Vizier and disciple, it included
ten manifestations of this kind, of which Hakeem must
have formed the last. Mr. Browning has assumed that
in any great national emergency, the miracle would be
expected to recur; and he has here conceived an emer-
gency sufficiently great to call it forth.
The Druses, according to him, have colonized a small
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61
island belonging to the Knights of Rhodes, and become
subject to a Prefect appointed by the Order. This Prefect
has almost extirpated the Druse sheikhs, and made the
remainder of the tribe victims of his cruelty and lust.
The cry for rescue and retribution, if not loud, is deep. It
finds a passionate response in the soul of Djabal, a son of
the last Emir, who escaped as a child from the massacre of
his family, and took refuge in Europe; and who now returns,
with a matured purpose of patriotic and personal revenge.
He has secured an ally in the young Lois de Dreux-an
intended Knight of the Order, and son of a Breton Count,
whose hospitality he has enjoyed-and induced him to
accompany him to the islet, and pass his probation there.
This, he considers, will facilitate the murder of the Pre-
fect, which is an essential part of his plan; and he has
obtained the promise of the Venetians, who are hostile
to the Knights, to lend their ships for his countrymen's
escape as soon as the death of the tyrant shall have set
them free.
So far his course is straight. But he has scarcely
returned home, when he falls in love with Anael, a Druse
girl, whose devotion to her tribe is a religion, and who is
determined to marry none but the man who will deliver
it; and he is then seized by an impulse to heighten the
act of deliverance by a semblance of more than human
power. He declares himself Hakeem, the Divine founder
of the sect, again present in human form, and who will
again be transformed, or exalted,” so soon as by the
slaughter of their tyrant he has set the Druses free. His
bride will be exalted with him. The imposture succeeds
only too well. "Mystic" as well as schemer," Djabal,
for a moment, deceives even himself; and when the crisis
is at hand, and reason and conscience reassert them-
selves, the enthusiasm which he has kindled still forces
him on. His only refuge is in flight; and even this proves
impossible. He nerves himself, before escaping, to the
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Prefect's murder; and is confronted on the threshold of
the Prefect's chamber, by his promised wife, who has
herself done the deed.
Anael has loved Djabal, believing him Divine, with
what seemed to her too human a love. She felt unworthy
to share his exaltation. She has done that which her
humanity disclaimed that she might no longer be so. A
few moments more, and they both know that the crime has
been superfluous. Lois, who also loves Anael, and hopes
to win her, has procured from the Chapter of his Order
the removal of the tyrant, and been appointed by it in his
place; the day of Druse oppression was already over.
But Djabal and Anael are inseparably united. The scorn
with which she received his now inevitable confession was
intense but momentary. The woman's heart in her revels
in its new freedom to cherish and to protect; and she
embraces her lover's shame with a far greater joy than
their common triumph could have aroused in her. She
is brought forward as the Prefect's murderer in presence
of all the personages of the drama; and falls dead with a
cry of "Hakeem" on her lips. Djabal stabs himself on
her body, thus "exalting" himself to her. But he has first
committed his Druses to the care of Lois, to be led back
to their mountain home. He remains Hakeem for them,
though branded as an impostor by the rest of the world.
Directly, or indirectly, he has done the work of the
deliverer.
"A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON" is a tragedy in three
acts, less intricate as well as shorter than those which pre-
cede it; and historical only in the simple motive, the un-
compromising action, and the medieval code of honour,
which in some degree fix its date. Mr. Browning places
this somewhere in the eighteenth century.
Lord Henry Mertoun has fallen in love with Mildred
Tresham. His estates adjoin those of Earl Tresham,
•
Dramas.
63
her brother and guardian. He inherits a noble name,
and an unsullied reputation; and need only offer him-
self to be accepted. But the youthful reverence which
he entertains for Lord Tresham makes him shrink from
preferring his suit; and he allows himself and Mildred
to drift into a secret intimacy, which begins in all inno-
cence, but does not end so. Then his shyness vanishes.
He seeks an interview with the Earl, and obtains his joy-
ful consent to the union. All seems to be going well. But
Mildred's awakened womanhood takes the form of an over-
powering remorse and shame; and these become the in-
direct cause of the catastrophe.
Gerard, an old retainer of the family, has witnessed Lord
Mertoun's nightly visits to the castle; and, amidst a
bitter conflict of feeling, he tells the Earl what he has
seen. Tresham summons his sister. He is writhing
under the sense of outraged family honour; but a still
stronger fraternal affection commends the culprit to his
mercy. He assists her confession with touching delicacy
and tenderness; shows himself prepared to share her
shame, to help her to live it through—to marry her to the
man she loves. He insists only upon this, that Mertoun
shall not be deceived: and that she shall cancel the
promise of an interview which she has given him for the
following day.
Mildred tacitly owns her guilt, and invokes any punish-
ment her brother may adjudge to it; but she will not
betray her lover by confessing his name, and she will not
forbid Mertoun to come. The Earl's mind does not con-
nect the two. No extenuating circumstance suggests
itself. He has loved his young sister with a chivalrous
admiration and trust; and he is one of those men to
whom a blot in the 'scutcheon is only less terrible than the
knowledge that such trust has been misplaced. He is
stung to madness by what seems this crowning proof of
his sister's depravity; and by the thought of him who
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has thus corrupted her. He surprises Mertoun on the
way to the last stolen visit to his love; and, before there
has been time for an explanation, challenges and kills him.
The reaction of feeling begins when he perceives that
Mertoun has allowed himself to be killed. Remorse and
sorrow deepen into despair as the dying youth gasps out
the story of his constant love, of his boyish error-of his
manly desire of reparation; above all, as he reminds his
hearer of the sister whose happiness he has slain; and
asks if he has done right to set his "thoughtless foot"
upon them both, and say as they perish―
66
'All had gone otherwise'
Had I thought,
(vol iv. p. 59.)
Mildred is waiting for her lover. The usual signal has
been made the lighted purple pane of a painted window
sends forth its beckoning gleam. But Mertoun does
not appear; and as the moments pass, a despairing
apathy steals over her, which is only the completed cer-
tainty of her doom. She has never believed in the pro-
mised happiness. In a strange process of self-conscious-
ness she has realized at once the moral and the natural
consequences of her transgression; the lost peace of con-
science, the lost morning of her love. Her paramount
desire has been for expiation and rest. In one more pang
they are coming. Lord Tresham breaks in on her soli-
tude. His empty scabbard shows what he has done. But
she soon sees that reproach is unnecessary, and that Mer-
toun's death is avenged. It is best so. The cloud has
lifted. The friend and the brother are one in heart again.
She dies because her own heart is broken, but forgiving
her brother, and blessing him. He has taken poison,
and survives her by a few minutes only.
Mildred has a firm friend in her cousin Gwendolen a
quick-witted, true-hearted woman, the betrothed of Austin
Tresham, who is next heir to the earldom. She alone has
Dramas.
65
guessed the true state of the case, and, with the help
of Austin, would have averted the tragedy, if Lord Tre-
sham's precipitate passion had not rendered this im-
possible, These two are in no need of their dying kins-
man's warning, to remember, if a blot should again
come in the 'scutcheon, that " vengeance is God's, not
man's."
This tragedy was performed in 1843, at Drury Lane
Theatre, during the ownership of Macready; in 1848, at
Sadlers Wells," under the direction of Mr. Phelps, who
had played the part of Lord Tresham in the Drury Lane
performance.
COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY is a play in five acts, of which
the scene is the palace at Juliers, the time 16-—. Colombe
of Ravestein is ostensibly Duchess of Juliers and Cleves;
but her title is neutralized by the Salic law under which
the Duchy is held; and though the Duke, her late father,
has wished to evade it in her behalf, those about her are
aware that he had no power to do so, and that the legal
claimant, her cousin, may at any moment assert his rights.
This happens on the first anniversary of her accession,
which is also her birthday.
Prince Berthold is to arrive in a few hours. He has
sent a letter before him from which Colombe will learn her
fate; and the handful of courtiers who have stayed to see
the drama out are disputing as to who shall deliver it.
Valence, an advocate of Cleves, arrives at this juncture,
with a petition from his townspeople who are starving;
and is allowed to place it in the Duchess's hands, on con-
dition of presenting the Prince's letter at the same time.
He does this in ignorance of its contents; he is very
indignant when he knows them; and the incident natu-
rally constitutes him Colombe's adviser and friend; while
the reverence with which he owns himself her subject,
also determines her if possible to remain his sovereign.
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Prince Berthold arrives unprepared for any show of re-
sistance; and is a little startled to find that Colombe
defies him, and that one of her courtiers (not choosing to
be outdone by Valence) has the courage to tell him so;
but he treats the Duchess and her adviser with all the
courtesy of a man whose right is secure; and Valence, to
whom he entrusts his credentials, is soon convinced that
it is so. But he has a far-sighted ambition which keeps
him alive to all possible risks and it occurs to him as
wiser to secure the little sovereignty by marrying its
heiress than by dispossessing her. He desires Valence to
convey to the young Duchess the offer of his hand. The
offer is worth considering, since as he asserts, it may mean
the Empire: to which the Duchy is, in his case, but a
necessary stepping-stone; and Valence, who has loved
Colombe since his first glimpse of her at Cleves, a year
ago; who has begun to hope that his affection is returned;
and who knows that the Prince's message is not only a test
of her higher nature, but a snare to it, feels nevertheless
bound to leave her choice free. This choice lies clearly
between love and power; for Berthold parades a cynicism
half affected, half real; and on being questioned as to his
feeling for the lady, has dismissed the question as irrele-
vant.
Valence is, throughout the play, an advocate in the best
sense of the word. As he has pleaded the wrongs of an
oppressed people, he sets forth the happiness of a suc-
cessful prince—the happiness which the young Duchess
is invited to share; and he departs from all the conven-
tionalities of fiction, by showing her the true poetry, not
the artificial splendours, of worldly success. Colombe
is almost as grateful as the young Prince could desire,
for she assumes that he has fallen in love with her,
whether he says so or not; and here, too, Valence must
speak the truth. "The Prince does not love her." "How
does he know this?" "He knows it by the insight of one
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67
who does love." Astonished, vaguely pained, Colombe
questions him as to the object of his attachment, and, in
probably real ignorance of who it can be, draws him on
to a confession. For a moment she is disenchanted. "So
much unselfish devotion to turn out merely love! She
will at all events see Valence's rival."
In the last act she discusses the Prince's proposal with
himself. He frankly rests it on its advantages for both.
He has much to say in favour of such an understanding,
and reminds his listener as she questions and temporizes,
that if he gives no heart he also asks none. The courtiers
now see their opportunity. They inform the Prince that
by her late father's will the Duchess forfeits her rights in
the event of marrying a subject. They point to such a
marriage as a natural result of the loving service which
Valence has this day rendered to her, and the love which
is its only fitting reward. And Colombe listening to the
just if treacherous praises of this man, feels no longer
sure" that she does "not love him." Valence is sum-
moned; requested to assert his claim or to deny it; given
to understand that the lady's interests demand the latter
course. The manly dignity and exalted tenderness with
which he resigns her convert, as it seems, the doubt into
certainty; and Colombe takes him on this her birthday
at the sacrifice of " Juliers and the world.”
Berthold has a confidant, Melchior, a learned and
thoughtful man, who is affectionately attached to the
young prince, and who views with regret the easy worldly
successes which neutralize his higher gifts. Melchior
has also appreciated the genuineness of Colombe's nature,
and conducted the last interview with Valence as one who
desired that loyalty should be attested and love triumph.
He now turns to Berthold with what seems an appeal to
his generosity. But Berthold cannot afford to be generous.
As he reminds the happy bride before him he wants het
duchy much more than she does. He is, however, the
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sadder, and perhaps the wiser, for having found this
out.
"Colombe's Birthday" was performed in 1853, at the
Haymarket Theatre; in 1853 or '54, in the United States,
at Boston. The part of Colombe was taken, as had been
those of Mildred Tresham and Lady Carlisle, by Miss
Helen Faucit, now Lady Martin.
A SOUL'S TRAGEDY" brings us near to the period of
the "Men and Women ;" and displays, for the first time in
Mr. Browning's work, a situation quite dramatic in itself,
but which is nevertheless made by the characters, and
imagined for thein. It is a story of moral retrogression ;
but, setting aside its very humorous treatment, it is no
"tragedy" for the reader, because he has never believed
in that particular "soul," though its proprietor and his
friends are justly supposed to do so. The drama is divided
into two acts, of which the first represents the "poetry,"
the second the prose, of a certain Chiappino's life. The
scene is Faenza; the time 15—.
Chiappino is best understood by comparison with
Luitolfo, his fellow-townsman and friend. Luitolfo has a
gentle, genial nature; Chiappino, if we may judge him by
his mood at the time of the action, an ill-conditioned one.
Luitolfo's gentleness is allied to physical timidity, but his
moral courage is always equal to the occasion. Chiappino
is a man more of words than of deeds, and wants both the
courage and the rectitude which ill-conditioned people
often possess. Faenza is governed by a provost from
Ravenna. The present provost is a tyrant; and Chiappino
has been agitating in a somewhat purposeless manner
against him. He has been fined for this several times, and
is now sentenced to exile, and confiscation of all his goods.
Luitolfo has helped him until now by paying his fines;
but this is an additional grievance to him, for he is in love
with Eulalia, the woman whom his friend is going to
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69
marry, and declares that he has only refrained from urging
his own suit, because he was bound by this pecuniary
obligation not to do so. He is not too delicate, however,
to depreciate Luitolfo's generosity, and generally run him
down with the woman who is to be his wife; and this is
what he is doing in the first scene, under cover of taking
leave of her, and while her intended husband is inter-
ceding with the provost in his behalf. A hurried knock,
which they recognise as Luitolfo's, gives a fresh impulse
to his spite; and he begins sneering at the milk-and-
watery manner in which Luitolfo has probably been
pleading his cause, and the awful fright in which he has
run home, on seeing that the provost "shrugged his
shoulders" at the intercession.
Luitolfo is frightened, for his friendship for Chiappino
has been carrying him away; and on finding that entrea-
ties were of no use, he has struck at the provost, and, as
he thinks, killed him. A crowd which he imagines to be
composed of the Provost's attendants has followed him
from the palace. Torture stares him in the face; and his
physical sensitiveness has the upper hand again. For a
moment Chiappino becomes a hero; he is shamed into
nobleness. He flings his own cloak over Luitolfo, gives
him his passport, hurries him from the house, assumes his
friend's blood-stained garment, and claims his deed. But
he has scarcely done so when he perceives their mistake.
Luitolfo's fears have distorted a friendly crowd into a
hostile one; and the throng which Chiappino has nerved
himself to defy is the populace of Faenza applauding him
as its saviour. He postpones the duty of undeceiving it
under pretence of the danger being not yet over. The next
step will be to refuse to do so. His moral collapse, the
tragedy" of his "soul," has begun.
66
In the second act, a month later, this is complete. The
papal legate, Ogniben, has ridden on his mule in to Faenza
to find out what was wanted. "He has not come to punish ;
70
Handbook to Browning's Works.
there is no harm done for the provost was not killed
after all. He has known twenty-three leaders of revolts,"
and therefore, so we understand, is not disposed to take
such persons too seriously. He has made friends with
Chiappino, accepting him in this character, and lured
him on with the hope of becoming provost himself; and
Chiappino again rising—or falling—to the situation, has
discovered patriotic reasons for accepting the post. He
has outgrown his love, as well as modified his ideas of
civic duty; and he disposes of the obligations of friend-
ship, by declaring (to Eulalia) that the blow imputed to
him was virtually his, because Luitolfo would fain have
avoided striking it, while he would have struck it if he
could. The legate draws him out in a humorous dia-
logue; satirizes his flimsy sophistries under cover of
endorsing them, and leads him up to a final self-exposure.
This occurs when he reminds Chiappino in the hearing
of the crowd of the private agreement they have come to:
that he is to have the title and privileges of Provost on
the one hand, and pay implicit obedience to Rome, in the
person of her legate, on the other; but with the now added
condition, that if the actual assailant of the late provost is
discovered, he shall be dealt with as he deserves. At
which new view of the situation Chiappino is silent; and
Luitolfo, who had missed all the reward of his deed, charac-
teristically comes forward to receive its punishment. The
legate orders him to his own house; advises Chiappino,
with a little more joking at his expense, to leave the town
for a short time; takes possession of the key of the pro-
vost's palace, to which he does not intend to give a new
inmate; bids a cheery goodbye to every one, and rides
away as he came. He has
66
known four and twenty leaders of revolts." (vol. iii. p. 302.)
The tragedy of "LURIA" is supposed to be enacted at
Dramas.
71
·
some period of the fifteenth century; being an episode in
the historical struggle between Florence and Pisa. It occu-
pies one day; and the five acts correspond respectively to
its "Morning,” “Noon," "Afternoon,” “Evening,” and
"Night." The day is that of a long-expected encounter
which is to end the war. The Florentine troops are com-
manded by the Moorish mercenary Luria. He is en-
camped between the two cities; and with, or near him, are
his Moorish friend and confidant Husain; Puccio-the
officer whom he has superseded; Braccio-Commissary of
the Republic; his secretary Jacopo, or Lapo; and a noble
Florentine lady, Domizia.
Luria is a consummate general, a brave fighter, and a
humane man. Every soldier of the army is devoted to
him, and the triumph of the Republic seems secured. But
the men who trust him to win the victory cannot trust him
not to misuse it. They are afraid that his strength will be
turned against themselves so soon as it has disposed of
their foreign foe: and Braccio is on the spot, in order to
watch his movements, to register every deed that can give
the slightest hold for an accusation-in short, to supply
the Signoria with the materials for a trial, which is pro-
ceeding step by step with Luria's successful campaign, and
is to crush him the moment this is completed. Every one
but Husain is more or less his enemy. For Lapo is almost
blindly devoted to his chief. Puccio is jealous of the
stranger for whom he has been set aside. Domizia is
making him an instrument of revenge. Her brothers have
been faithful as he is, and condemned as he is to be.
They accepted their sentence because it was the mother-
city who passed it. She encourages Luria to encounter
the same ingratitude, because she believes he will resist
and punish it.
He is not unwarned of his danger. The Pisan general,
Tiburzio, has discovered the conspiracy against him, and
brings him, shortly before the battle, an intercepted letter
72
Handbook to Browning's Works.
from Braccio to the Signoria, in which he is convinced
that he may read his fate. He urges him to open it; to
desert the perfidious city, and to adopt Pisa's cause. But
Luria's loyalty is unshaken. He tears up the letter in the
presence of Braccio, Puccio, and Domizia : and only when
the battle has been fought and won demands the secret
of its contents. At the word "trial" he is carried away
by a momentary indignation; but this subsides into a
tender regret that "his Florentines" should have so mis-
judged him; that he should have given them cause to do
it. He has laboured for their city, not only with the
obedience of a son, but with the devotion of a lover. His
Eastern fancy has been enslaved by her art, her intellect :
by the life of educated thought which so far removed
her from the blind unrest, and the animal strength of
his savage world; Domizia's attractions have added to
the spell. He has never guarded his love for Florence
against doubt, for he never dreamed that it could be
doubted. He cannot find it in his heart to chastise her
now.
Temptation besets him on every side; for the armies of
both Florence and Pisa are at his command. Husain and
Domizia urge him on to revenge. Tiburzio entreats him
to give to Pisa the head with which Florence will only
decorate a gateway. Him he thanks and dismisses. To
the others he prepares his answer. Alone for the last
time; with eyes fixed on the setting sun-his " Own
orb” so much nearer to him in his Eastern home, and
which will shine for him there no more—he drains a phial
of poison: the one thing he has brought from his own
land to help him in the possible adversity. Death was to
be his refuge in defeat. He will die on his triumph-day
instead.
They all gather round him once more: Puccio grateful
and devoted; for he has seen that though discredited
by Florence, Luria was still working for her success—
Dramas.
73
Tiburzio, who returns from Florence, where he has tendered
his submission to Luria's arms, and borne his heartfelt
testimony to Luria's honour-Domizia, who has learned
from Luria that there are nobler things than retaliation :
and now entreats him to forego his vengeance against her
city, as she foregoes her own—Braccio, repentant for the
wrong done, and beseeching that Luria will not "punish
Florence." But they cannot avert the one punishment
which that gentle spirit could inflict. He lies dead before
them.
"IN A BALCONY" is a dramatic fragment, equivalent to
the third or fourth act, of what might prove a tragedy or a
drama, as the author designed. The personages are
"Norbert" and "Constance," a young man and woman;
and the "
Queen," a woman of a certain age. Constance
is a relation and protégée of the Queen-as we imagine, a
poor one. She is loved by Norbert; and he has entered
the Queen's service, for the opportunity of wooing and
winning her. His diplomatic exertions have been stre-
nuous. They have secured to his royal mistress the pos-
session of a double crown. The "Balcony" echoes with
the sound of festivities which are intended to mark the
event.
Constance returns Norbert's affection. He thinks the
moment come for pleading his and her cause with their
sovereign. But Constance entreats him to temporize:
either to defer the proposal for her hand, or to make it in
so indirect a manner, that the Queen may only see in it a
tribute to herself. He has allowed her to think that he
served her for her own sake; she must not be undeceived
too roughly. Her heart has starved amidst the show
of devotion: its hunger must not be roused by the touch
of a living love in which she has no part. A shock of
this kind would be painful to her-dangerous to them-
selves.
74
Handbook to Browning's Works.
Norbert is an honest man, possessed of all the courage of
his love and he finds it hard to believe that the straight-
forward course would not be the best; but he yields to the
dictates of feminine wisdom; and having consented to
play a part, plays it with fatal success. The Queen is a
more unselfish woman than her young cousin suspects.
She has guessed Norbert's love for Constance, and is pre-
pared to sanction it; but her own nature is still only too
capable of responding to the faintest touch of affection :
and at the seeming declaration that that love is her's, her
joy carries all before it. She is married; but as she de-
clares she will dissolve her marriage, merely formal as it
has always been; she will cast convention to the winds,
and become Norbert's wife. She opens her heart to Con-
stance; tells her how she has yearned for love, and how
she will repay it. Constance knows, as she never knew,
what a mystery of pain and passion has been that out-
wardly frozen life; and in a sudden impulse of pity and
compunction, she determines that if possible its new happi-
ness shall be permanent—its delusions converted into truth.
She meets Norbert again; makes him talk of his future;
discovers that he only dreams of it as bound up with the
political career he has already entered upon; and though
she sees that every vision of this future begins and ends in
her, she sees, as justly, that its making or marring is in the
Queen's hands. Here is a second motive for self-sacrifice.
Norbert has no suspicion of what he has done. The
Queen appears before Constance has had time to inform
him of it; and the latter has now no choice but to let him
learn it from the Queen's own lips. She draws her on,
accordingly, under plea of Norbert's diffidence, to speak
of what she believes him to have asked of her, and what
she knows to be already granted. She tries to prompt his
reply.
But Norbert will not be prompted. He is slow to
understand what is expected of him, very indignant when
The Ring and the Book.
75
he does so; and in terror lest he should still be misun-
derstood-in unconsciousness of the torture he is inflicting
-he asserts and re-asserts his respect for the one woman,
his absorbing passion for the other. The Queen goes out.
Her looks and silence have been ominous. The shadow
of a great dread falls upon the scene. The dance-music
stops. Heavy footsteps are heard approaching. Norbert
and Constance stand awaiting their doom. But they are
united as they have never yet been, and they can defy it;
for her love has shown itself as capable of all sacrifice –
his as above temptation.
Various theories have been formed as to the kind of
woman Mr. Browning meant Constance to be; but a
careful and unbiassed reading of the poem can leave no
doubt on the subject. He has given her, not the courage
of an exclusively moral nature, but all the self-denial of a de-
voted one, growing with the demands which are made
upon it. How single-hearted is her attempt to sacrifice
Norbert's love, is sufficiently shown by one sentence, ad-
dressed to him after his interview with the Queen:
"You were mine. Now I give myself to you." (vol. vii. p. 28.)
"THE RING AND THE BOOK." 1868-69.
From the dramas, we pass naturally to the dramatic
monologues; poems embodying a lengthened argument or
soliloquy, and to which there is already an approach in the
tragedies themselves. The dramatic monologue repeats
itself in the finest poems of the "Men and Women,” and
"Dramatis Personæ;" and Mr. Browning's constructive
power thus remains, as it were, diffused, till it culminates
again in “The Ring and the Book :" at once his greatest
constructive achievement, and the triumph of the mono-
logue form. From this time onwards, the monologue will
76
Handbook to Browning's Works.
be his prevailing mode of expression, but each will often
form an independent work. The Ring and the Book" is
thus our next object of interest.
Mr. Browning was strolling one day through a square in
Florence, the Piazza San Lorenzo, which is a standing
market for old clothes, old furniture, and old curiosities of
every kind, when a parchment-covered book attracted his
eye, from amidst the artistic or nondescript rubbish of one
of the stalls. It was the record of a murder which had
taken place in Rome, and bore inside it an inscription
which Mr. Browning thus transcribes :—
A Koman 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."
(vol. viii. p. 6.)
The book proved, on examination, to contain the whole
history of the case, as carried on in writing, after the
fashion of those days: pleadings and counter-pleadings,
the depositions of defendants and witnesses; manuscript
letters announcing the execution of the murderer; and the
"instrument of the Definitive Sentence" which established
the perfect innocence of the murdered wife: these various
documents having been collected and bound together by
some person interested in the trial, possibly the very Cen-
cini, friend of the Franceschini family, to whom the manu-
script letters are addressed. Mr. Browning bought the
whole for the value of eightpence, and it became the raw
material of what appeared four years later as "The Ring
and the Book."
This name is explained as follows:-The story of the
Franceschini case, as Mr. Browning relates it, forms a
The Ring and the Book.
77
circle of evidence to its one central truth; and this circle
was constructed in the manner in which the worker in
Etruscan gold prepares the ornamental circlet which will
be worn as a ring. The pure metal is too soft to bear
hammer or file; it must be mixed with alloy to gain the
necessary power of resistance. The ring once formed and
embossed, the alloy is disengaged, and a pure gold orna-
ment remains. Mr. Browning's material was also inade-
quate to his purpose, though from a different cause. It
was too hard. It was (6
pure crude fact," secreted from
the fluid being of the men and women whose experience
it had formed. In its existing state it would have broken
up under the artistic attempt to weld and round it. He
supplied an alloy, the alloy of fancy, or-as he also calls
it-of one fact more: this fact being the echo of those past
existences awakened within his own. He breathed into
the dead record the breath of his own life; and when his
ring of evidence had re-formed, first in elastic then in solid
strength, here delicately incised, there broadly stamped
with human thought and passion, he could cast fancy
aside, and bid his readers recognize in what he set before
them unadulterated human truth.
·
All this was not effected at once. The separate scenes
of the Franceschini tragedy sprang to life in Mr. Brown-
ing's imagination within a few hours of his reading the
book. He saw them re-enacted from his terrace at Casa
Guidi on a sultry summer night-every place and person
projected, as it seemed, against the thundery sky-but his
mind did not yet weave them into a whole. The drama
lay by him and in him till the unconscious inspiration was
complete; and then, one day in London, he felt what he
thus describes :-
"A spirit laughs and leaps through every limb,
And lights my eye, and lifts me by the hair,
Letting me have my will again with these
>>
(vol. viii. p. 32.)
78
Handbook to Browning's Works.
and "The Ring and the Book" was born. All this is
told in an introductory chapter, which bears the title of
the whole work; and here also Mr. Browning reviews those
broad facts of the Franceschini case which are beyond
dispute, and which constitute, so far as they go, the crude
metal of his ring. He has worked into this almost every
incident which the chronicle supplies and his book re-
quires no supplement. But the fragmentary view of its
contents, which I am reduced to giving, can only be held
together by a previous outline of the story.
There lived in Rome in 1679 Pietro and Violante Com-
parini, an elderly couple of the middle class, fond of show
and good living, and who in spite of a fair income had
run considerably into debt. They were, indeed, at the
period in question, in receipt of a papal bounty, employed
in the relief of the needy who did not like to beg. Creditors
were pressing, and only one expedient suggested itself:
they must have a child; and thus enable themselves to
draw on their capital, now tied up for the benefit of an
unknown heir-at-law. The wife conceived this plan, and
also carried it out, without taking her husband into her
confidence. She secured beforehand the infant of a poor
and not very reputable woman, announced her expecta-
tion, half miraculous at her past fifty years, and became,
to all appearance, the mother of a girl, the Francesca
Pompilia of the story.
When Pompilia had reached the age of thirteen, there
was also in Rome Count Guido Franceschini, an im-
poverished nobleman of Arezzo, and the elder of three
brothers, of whom the second, Abate Paolo, and the third,
Canon Girolamo also play some part in the story. Count
Guido himself belonged to the minor ranks of the priest-
hood, and had spent his best years in seeking preferment
in it. Preferment had not come, and the only means of
building up the family fortunes in his own person, was now
a moneyed wife. He was poor, fifty years old, and per-
The Ring and the Book.
79
sonally unattractive. A contemporary chronicle describes
him as short, thin, and pale, and with a projecting nose.
He had nothing to offer but his rank; but in the case of
a very obscure heiress, this might suffice, and such a one
seemed to present herself in Pompilia Comparini. He
heard of her at the local centre of gossip, the barber's
shop; received an exaggerated estimate of her dowry;
and made proposals for her hand; being supported in his
suit by the Abate Paul. They did not, on their side, under-
state the advantages of the connection. They are, indeed,
said to have given as their yearly income, a sum exceeding
their capital, and Violante was soon dazzled into consent-
ing to it. Old Pietro was more wary. He made inquiries
as to the state of the Count's fortune, and declined, under
plea of his daughter's extreme youth, to think of him as a
son-in-law.
Violante pretended submission, secretly led Pompilia to
a church, the very church of San Lorenzo in Lucina,
where four years later the murdered bodies of all three
were to be displayed, and brought her back as Count
Guido's wife. Pietro could only accept the accomplished
fact; and he so far resigned himself to it, that he paid
down an instalment of his daughter's dowry, and made up
the deficiency by transferring to the newly-married couple
all that he actually possessed. This left him no choice
but to live under their roof, and the four removed together
to the Franceschini abode at Arezzo. The arrangement
proved disastrous; and at the end of a few months Pietro
and Violante were glad to return to Rome, though with
empty pockets, and on money lent them for the journey
by their son-in-law.
We have conflicting testimony as to the cause of this
rupture. The Governor of Arezzo, writing to the Abate
Paul in Rome, lays all the blame of it on the Comparini,
whom he taxes with vulgar and aggressive behaviour; and
Mr. Browning readily admits that at the beginning there
ܐ,
Hardbook to Browning's Works.
80
may have
as well as
opposite vi
on their side. But popular judgment,
ance of evidence, were in favour of the
and curious details are given by Pompilia
and by a servant of the family, a sworn witness on Pom-
pilia's trial, of the petty cruelties and privations to which
both parents and child were subjected.
So much, at all events, was clear; Violante's sin had
overtaken her; and it now occurred to her, apparently for
the first time, to cast off its burden by confession. The
moment was propitious, for the Pope had proclaimed a
jubilee in honour of his eightieth year, and absolution was
to be had for the asking. But the Church in this case
made conditions. Absolution must be preceded by atone-
ment. Violante must restore to her legal heirs that of
which her pretended motherhood had defrauded them.
The first step towards this was to reveal the fraud to her
husband; and Pietro lost no time in making use of the
revelation. He repudiated Pompilia, and with her all
claims on her husband's part. The case was carried into
court. The Court decreed a compromise. Pietro appealed
from the decree, and the question remained unsettled.
The chief sufferer by these proceedings was Pompilia
herself. She already had reason to dread her husband as a
tyrant—he to dislike her as a victim; and his discovery of
her base birth, with the threatened loss of the greater part of
her dowry, could only result, with such a man, in increased
aversion towards her. From this moment his one aim
seems to have been to get rid of his wife, but in such a
manner as not to forfeit any pecuniary advantage he
might still derive from their union. This could only be
done by convicting her of infielity; and he attacked her
so furiously, and so persistently, on the subject of a cer-
tain Canon Giuseppe Caponsacchi, whom she barely knew,
but whose attentions he declared her to have challenged,
that at last she fled from Arezzo, with this very man.
She had appealed for protection against her husband's
The Ring and the Book.
81
violence to the Archbishop and to
had striven to enlist the aid of his bro
She had implored a priest in confession to
.or. She
:')
Conti.
or her to
But the
her parents, and induce them to fetch her aw y.
whole town was in the interest of the Franceschini, or in
dread of them. Her prayers were useless, and Caponsac-
ohi, whom she had heard of as a "resolute man,” appeared
her last resource. He was, as she knew, contemplating a
journey to Rome; an opportunity presented itself for
speaking to him from her window, or her balcony; and
she persuaded him, though not without difficulty, to
assist her escape, and conduct her to her old home. On a
given night she slipped away from her husband's side,
and joined the Canon where he awaited her with a
carriage. They travelled day and night till they reached
Castelnuovo, a village within four hours of the journey's
end. There they were compelled to rest, and there also
the husband overtook them. They were not together at
the moment; but the fact of the elopement was patent;
and if Franceschini had killed his wife there, in the sup-
posed excitement of the discovery, the law might have
dealt leniently with him. But it suited him best for the
time being to let her live. He procured the arrest of the
fugitives, and after a short confinement on the spot, they
were conveyed to the New Prisons in Rome (Carceri
Nuove) and tried on the charge of adultery.
It is impossible not to believe that Count Guido had
been working towards this end. Pompilia's verbal com-
munications with Caponsacchi had been supplemented by
letters, now brought to him in her name, now thrown or
let down from her window as he passed the house. They
were written, as he said, on the subject of the flight, and
as he also said, he burned them as soon as read, not
doubting their authenticity. But Pompilia declared, on
examination, that she could neither write nor read; and
setting aside all presumption of her veracity, this was
Ꮐ
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
more than probable. The writer of the letters must
therefore, have been the Count, or some one employed by
him for the purpose. He now completed the intrigue by
producing eighteen or twenty more of a very incriminating
character, which he declared to have been left by the
prisoners at Castelnuovo; and these were not only dis-
claimed with every appearance of sincerity by both the
persons accused, but bore the marks of forgery within
themselves.
Pompilia and Caponsacchi answered all the questions.
addressed to them simply and firmly; and though their
statements did not always coincide, these were calculated
on the whole to create a moral conviction of their inno-
cence; the facts on which they disagreed being of little
weight. But moral conviction was not legal proof; the
question of false testimony does not seem to have been
even raised; and the Court found itself in a dilemma,
which it acknowledged in the following way: it was
decreed that for his complicity in "the flight and deviation
of Francesca Comparini,” and too great intimacy with her,
Caponsacchi should be banished for three years to Civita
Vecchia; and that Pompilia, on her side, should be rele-
gated, for the time being, to a convent.
That is to say:
the prisoners were pronounced guilty; and a merely
nominal punishment was inflicted upon them.
The records of this trial contain almost everything of
biographical or even dramatic interest in the original
book. They are, so far as they go, the complete history
of the case; and the result of the trial, ambiguous as it
was, supplied the only argument on which an even formal
defence of the subsequent murder could be based. The
substance of these records appears in full in Mr. Brown-
ing's work; and his readers can judge for themselves
whether the letters which were intended to substantiate
Pompilia's guilt, could, even if she had possessed the power
of writing, have been written by a woman so young and so
The Ring and the Book.
83
uncultured as herself. They will also see that the Count's
plot against his wife was still more deeply laid than the
above-mentioned circumstances attest.
Count Guido was of course not satisfied. He wanted a
divorce; and he continued to sue for it by means of his
brother, the Abate Paul, then residing in Rome; but
before long he received news which was destined to change
his plans. Pompilia was about to become a mother; and
in consideration of her state, she had been removed from
the convent to her paternal home, where she was still to
be ostensibly a prisoner. The Comparini then occupied
a small villa outside one of the city gates. A few months
later, in this secluded spot, the Countess Franceschini
gave birth to a son, whom her parents lost no time in
conveying to a place of concealment and safety. The
murder took place a fortnight after this event. I give the
rest of the story in an almost literal translation from a
contemporary narrative, which was published, immediately
after the Count's execution, in the form of a pamphlet¹——
the then current substitute for a newspaper.
"Being oppressed by various feelings, and stimulated to
revenge, now by honour, now by self-interest, yielding to
his wicked thoughts, he (Count Guido) devised a plan for
killing his wife and her nominal parents; and having
enlisted in his enterprise four other ruffians,"-labourers
on his property, “started with them from Arezzo, and on
Christmas-eve arrived in Rome, and took up his abode at
Ponte Milvio, where there was a villa belonging to his
brother, and where he concealed himself with his followers
till the fitting moment for the execution of his design had
arrived. Having therefore watched from thence all the
movements of the Comparini family, he proceeded on
Thursday, the 2nd of January, at one o'clock of the night,2
This pamphlet has supplied Mr. Browning with some of his most curious
facts. It fell into his hands in London,
2 The first hour after sunset.
84
Handbook to Browning's Works.
with his companions to the Comparini's house; and
having left Biagio Agostinelli and Domenico Gambasini
at the gate, he instructed one of the others to knock at
the house-door, which was opened to him on his de-
claring that he brought a letter from Canon Caponsacchi
at Civita Vecchia. The wicked Franceschini, supported
by two other of his assassins, instantly threw himself on
Violante Comparini, who had opened the door, and flung
her dead upon the ground. Pompilia, in this extremity,
extinguished the light, thinking thus to elude her assassins,
and made for the door of a neighbouring blacksmith,
crying for help. Seeing Franceschini provided with a lan-
tern, she ran and hid herself under the bed, but being
dragged from under it, the unhappy woman was barbar-
ously put to death by twenty-two wounds from the hand
of her husband, who, not content with this, dragged her
to the feet of Comparini, who, being similarly wounded by
another of the assassins, was crying, 'confession.'
"At the noise of this horrible massacre people rushed
to the spot; but the villains succeeded in flying, leaving
behind, however, in their haste, one his cloak, and Fran-
ceschini his cap, which was the means of betraying them.
The unfortunate Francesca Pompilia, in spite of all the
wounds with which she had been mangled, having implored
of the Holy Virgin the grace of being allowed to confess,
obtained it, since she was able to survive for a short
time and describe the horrible attack. She also related
that after the deed, her husband asked the assassin who
had helped him to murder her if she were really dead;
and being assured that she was, quickly rejoined, let us
lose no time, but return to the vineyard;¹ and so they
escaped. Meanwhile the police (Forza) having been
called, it arrived with its chief officer (Bargello), and a
confessor was soon procured, together with a surgeon,
1
"Villa" is often called "vineyard" or vigna," on account of the vine-
yard attached to it.
The Ring and the Book.
85
who devoted himself to the treatment of the unfortunate
girl.
"Monsignore, the Governor, being informed of the
event, immediately despatched Captain Patrizj to arrest
the culprits; but on reaching the vineyard the police
officers discovered that they were no longer there, but had
gone towards the high road an hour before. Patrizj pur-
sued his journey without rest, and having arrived at the
inn, was told by the landlord that Franceschini had in-
sisted upon obtaining horses, which were refused to him
because he was not supplied with the necessary order; and
had proceeded therefore on foot with his companions
towards Baccano. Continuing his march, and taking the
necessary precautions, he arrived at the Merluzza inn,
and there discovered the assassins, who were speedily
arrested, their knives still stained with blood, a hundred
and fifty scudi in coin being also found on Franceschini's
person. The arrest, however, cost Patrizj his life, for he
had heated himself too much, and having received a slight
wound, died in a few days.”
"The knife of Franceschini was on the Genoese pat-
tern, and triangular; and was notched at the edge, so that
it could not be withdrawn from the wounded flesh without
lacerating it in such a manner as to render the wound
incurable."
"The criminals being taken to Ponte Milvio, they went
through a first examination at the inn there at the hands
of the notaries and judges sent thither for the purpose,
and the chief points of a confession were obtained from
them."
"When the capture of the delinquents was known in
Rome, a multitude of the people hastened to see them as
they were conveyed bound on horses into the city. It is
related that Franceschini having asked one of the police
officers in the course of the journey how ever the crime
had been discovered, and being told that it had been re-
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vealed by his wife, whom they had found still living, was
almost stupefied by the intelligence. Towards twenty-
three o'clock (the last hour before sunset) they arrived at
the prisons. A certain Francesco Pasquini, of Città di
Castello, and Allessandro Baldeschi, of the same town,
both twenty-two years of age, were the assistants of Guido
Franceschini in the murder of the Comparini; and Gam-
basini and Agostinelli were those who stood on guard at
the gate."
"Meanwhile the corpses of the assassinated Comparini
were exposed at San Lorenzo, in Lucina, but so disfigured,
and especially Franceschini's wife, by their wounds in the
face, that they were no longer recognizable. The unhappy
Francesca, after taking the sacrament, forgiving her mur-
derers, under seventeen years of age, and after having
made her will, died on the sixth day of the month, which
was that of the Epiphany; and was able to clear herself
of all the calumnies which her husband had brought
against her. The surprise of the people in seeing these
corpses was great, from the atrocity of the deed, which
made one really shudder, seeing two septuagenarians and
a girl of seventeen so miserably put to death."
((
The trial proceeding meanwhile, many papers were
drawn up on the subject, bringing forward all the most
incriminating circumstances of this horrible massacre;
and others also were written for the defence with much
erudition, especially by the advocate of the poor, a certain
Monsignor Spreti, which had the effect of postponing the
sentence; also because Baldeschi persisted in denial,
though he was tortured with the rope, and twice fainted
under it. At last he confessed, and so did the others, who
also revealed the fact that they had intended in due time
to murder Franceschini himself, and take his money, be-
cause he had not kept his promise of paying them the
moment they should have left Rome."
"On the twenty-second of February there appeared on
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87
the Piazza del Popolo a large platform with a guillotine
and two gibbets, on which the culprits were to be exe-
cuted. Many stands were constructed for the convenience
of those who were curious to witness such a terrible act
of justice; and the concourse was so great that some
windows fetched as much as six dollars each. At eight
o'clock Franceschini and his companions were summoned
to their death, and having been placed in the Consorteria,
and there assisted by the Abate Panciatici and the Car-
dinal Acciajuoli, forthwith disposed themselves to die well.
At twenty o'clock the Company of Death and the Miseri-
cordia reached the dungeons, and the condemned were let
down, placed on separate carts, and conveyed to the place
of execution."
It is farther stated that Franceschini showed the most
intrepidity and cold blood of them all, and that he died
with the name of Jesus on his lips. He wore the same
clothes in which he had committed the crime: a close-
fitting garment (juste-au-corps) of grey cloth, a loose
black shirt (camiciuola), a goat's hair cloak, a white hat,
and a cotton cap.
The attempt made by him to defraud his accomplices,
poor and helpless as they were, has been accepted by Mr.
Browning as an indication of character which forbade
any lenient interpretation of his previous acts. Pompilia,
on the other hand, is absolved, by all the circumstances
of her protracted death, from any doubt of her innocence
which previous evidence might have raised. Ten different
persons attest, not only her denial of any offence against
her husband, but, what is of far more value, her Christian
gentleness, and absolute maiden modesty, under the suffer-
ings of her last days, and the medical treatment to which
they subjected her. Among the witnesses are a doctor
of theology (Abate Liberato Barberito), the apothecary
and his assistant, and a number of monks or priests; the
first and most circumstantial deposition being that of an
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Augustine, Frà Celestino Angelo di Sant' Anna, and con-
cluding with these words: "I do not say more, for fear of
being taxed with partiality. I know well that God alone
can examine the heart. But I know also that from the
abundance of the heart the mouth speaks; and that my
great St. Augustine says: "As the life was, so is its end.""
It needed all the evidence in Pompilia's favour to secure
the full punishment of her murderer, strengthened, as he
was, by social and ecclesiastical position, and by the
acknowledged rights of marital jealousy. We find curious
proof of the sympathies which might have prejudiced his
wife's cause, in the marginal notes appended to her depo-
sitions, and which repeatedly introduce them as lies.
“F. Lie concerning the arrival at Castelnuovo.”
"H. New lies to the effect that she did not receive the
lover's letters, and does not know how to write," &c., &c.¹
The significant question, "Whether and when a hus-
band may kill his unfaithful wife," was in the present case
not thought to be finally answered, till an appeal had been
made from the ecclesiastical tribunal to the Pope himself.
It was Innocent XII. who virtually sentenced Count
Franceschini and his four accomplices to death.
When Mr. Browning wrote "The Ring and the Book,"
his mind was made up on the merits of the Franceschini
case; and the unity of purpose which has impressed itself
upon his work contributes largely to its power. But he also
knew that contemporary opinion would be divided upon it;
and he has given the divergent views it was certain to
create, as constituting a part of its history. He reminds us
that two sets of persons equally acquainted with the facts,
equally free from any wish to distort them, might be led
into opposite judgments through the mere action of some
It is difficult to reconcile this explicit denial of Pompilia's statements with
the belief in her implied in her inerely nominal punishment: unless we look
on it as part of the formal condemnation which circumstances seemed to
exact,
The Ring and the Book.
89
impalpable bias in one direction or the 'other, while a
third, more critical or more indifferent, would adopt a
compromise between the two; and he closes his intro-
ductory chapter with a tribute to that mystery of human
motive and character which so often renders more conclu-
sive judgments impossible.
"Action now shrouds, now shows the informing thought;
Man, like a glass ball with a spark a-top,
Out of the magic fire that lurks inside,
Shows one tint at a time to take the eye
Which, let a finger touch the silent sleep,
Shifted a hair's-breadth shoots you dark for bright,
Suffuses bright with dark, and baffles so
Your sentence absolute for shine or shade." (vol. viii. p. 55.)
The three forms of opinion here indicated appear in
the three following chapters as the respective utterance
of (C HALF-ROME," ((
THE OTHER HALF-ROME," and
"TERTIUM QUID."
HALF-ROME has an instinctive sympathy with the hus-
band who has been made ridiculous, and the nobleman
who is threatened with an ignominious death; and is dis-
posed throughout to regard him as more sinned against
than sinning. "Count Guido has been unfortunate in
everything. He is one of those proud and sensitive
men who make few friends, and who meet reverses half-
way. He has waited thirty years for advancement in
the church, is sick of hope deferred, and is on the point
of returning home to end his days, as he thinks, in fru-
gality and peace, when a pretty girl is thrown in his way.
Visions of domestic cheerfulness and comfort rise up
before him. He is entrapped into marriage before he has
had time to consider what he is doing, and discovers
when it is too late that the parents reputed wealthy have
little left but debts; and that in exchange for their
daughter's dowry, present and prospective, he must
virtually maintain them as well as her."
"He is far from rich, but he makes the best of a bad
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bargain—takes the three with him to Arezzo, and lodges
them with his mother and his youngest brother, in the old
family house. He is repaid with howls of disappointment.
Pietro and Violante want splendour and good-living.
They haven't married their daughter to a nobleman and
gone to live in his palace, to be duller than they were at
home, and have less to eat and drink. They abuse the
mother, who won't give up her place in the household, and
try to sneer the young brother-priest out of his respect
for old-fashioned ways. They go back to Rome, trum-
peting their wrongs: and, once there, spring a mine
upon the luckless Count. They refuse to pay the re-
mainder of Pompilia's dowry, on the ground that she is
not their child. Violante Comparini has cheated her
husband into accepting a base-born girl as his own, and
a well-born'gentleman into marrying her, but was ready
to have qualms of conscience as soon as it should be con-
venient to tell the truth; and now the moment has come."
"Count Guido, left alone with his nameless and penni-
less wife, still hopes for the best. Pompilia is not guilty
of her mock parents' sins. She has been honest enough
to take part against them when writing to her brother-in-
law in Rome.¹ He and she may still live in peace
together. But now the old story begins again—that of
the elderly husband and the young wife. Canon Capon-
sacchi throws comfits at Pompilia in the theatre; brushes
against her in the street; has constantly occasion to pass
under her window, or to talk to some one opposite to it.
He, of course, looks up; Pompilia looks down; the
neighbours say, 'What of that?' The Count is uncom-
fortable, but he is only laughed at for his pains; the fox
prowls round the hen-roost undisturbed. He wakes one
¹ A letter written in this strain was also produced on the trial; and Pom-
pilía owned to having written it, but only in the sense of writing over in ink
what her husband had traced in pencil-being totally ignorant of its
contents.
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91
་
morning, after a drugged sleep, to find the house ran-
sacked, and Pompilia gone, and everyone able to inform
him that she has gone with Caponsacchi, and to Rome.
He pursues them, and overtakes them where they have
spent the night together. She brazens the matter out,
covers her husband with invective, and threatens him with
his own sword. He gives both in charge, and follows
them to Rome, where he seeks redress from the law. But
he does not obtain redress, though the couple's guilt is
made as clear as day by a packet of love letters which they
had left behind them. They swear that they did not write
the letters, and the Court believes them. They have
done wrong, of course, but there is no proof of crime;' and
they are let off with a mere show of punishment."
"The Count returns to Arezzo to find the whole story
known, and himself the laughing-stock of everybody. He
is complimented on his patience under his wife's attack—
congratulated on having come out of it with a whole skin.
He pushes his claim for a divorce on the obvious ground
of infidelity! is met by a counter-claim on the ground
of-cruelty! One exasperating circumstance fellows an-
other. At last he hears of the birth of a child, which will
be falsely represented as his heir; and then the pent-up
passion breaks forth, and in one great avenging wave it
washes his name clear."
"Yet he gives the guilty one a last chance. He utters the
name of Caponsacchi at her door. If she regrets her
offence, that name will bar it. It proves a talisman at
which the door flies open. The Count and his assistants
must be tried for form's sake. But if they are condemned,
there is no justice left in Rome. If he had taken his wife's
life at the moment of provocation, he would have been
praised for the act. But he called in the law to do what
he was bound to do for himself; and the law has assessed
his honour at what seemed to be his own price. The ven-
geance, too long delayed, has been excessive in conse
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quence. It was clumsy into the bargain, since the Canon
has escaped alive. Well, if harm comes, husbands who are
disposed to take the new way instead of the old will
have had a lesson; and the Count has only himself to
thank."
THE OTHER HALF-ROME is chiefly impressed by the
spectacle of a young wife and mother butchered by her
husband in cold blood: and can only think of her as
having been throughout a victim. It does not absolve
Violante, but it allows something for honest parental feel-
ing in the old couple's desire for a child; and something
for the good done to this human waif by its adoption into
a decent home. According to this version, it is the Count
and his brother who lay the matrimonial trap, and the
Comparini parents and child who fall into it. "The grim
Guido is at first kept in the background. Abate Paolo
makes the proposal. He is oily and deferential, and flatters
poor foolish Violante, and dazzles her at the same time.
His elder brother,' he says, 'is longing to escape from
Rome and its pomps and glare. He wants his empty old
palace at Arezzo, and his breezy villa among the vines,’-
and here the emptiness of both is described so as to sound
like wealth. Poor Guido! he is always harping upon
his home. But he wants a wife to take there-a wife not
quite empty-handed, since he is not rich for his rank—but
above all, with a true tender heart and an innocent soul-
one who will be a child to his mother, and fall into his
own ways. Many a parent would be glad to welcome him
as a son-in-law, but report tells him that Violante's
daughter is just the girl he wants.'”
"The marriage takes place. Foolish Pietro is talked
over and strips himself of everything he has. He and his
wife have no choice but to go and live with their son-in-
law and his mother and brother. They meet with nothing
under his roof but starvation, insult, and cruelty, and
return home after a few months, duped and beggared, to
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93
ask hospitality of those whom they had once entertained.
Violante, overwhelmed by these misfortunes, confesses
that Pompilia is not her child, and Pietro proclaims the
fact; not that he wishes to leave Pompilia in the lurch,
but because he thinks this a sure way of getting her back.
-Count Guido is clearly not the man to wish to retain as
his wife a base-born girl without a dowry, and whom he
has never loved.-But the case must be settled by law;
the law pronounces in Count Guido's favour so far as the
actual marriage portion is concerned; and Count Guido
clearly lays his plans so as to half-drive and half-tempt
his wife into the kind of misconduct which will rid him
of her without prejudicing his right to what she has
brought him."
This half of Rome accepts Pompilia's story of all that
led to her flight, and Caponsacchi's statement that he
assisted in it simply to save her life. It thinks the hus-
band's intrigues sufficiently proved by the fact that the
Canon owns to having received letters which the wife
denies having written, and which must, therefore, have
been forged. Count Guido, it declares, has had no wrongs
to avenge, and supposing he had wrongs, he has adopted
too convenient a mode of avenging them. "He demands
protection from the law, and the moment its balance
trembles against him he flies out of court, declaring that
wounded honour can only be cured by the sword.
events he has given the law plenty to do three courts
at work for him, and an appeal to the Pope besides. If
any law is binding on mankind it is that such as he shall
be made an end of. He is the common enemy of his
fellow-men."
At all
TERTIUM QUID sees no reason for assuming that the
wrong is altogether on either side, and reviews the cir-
cumstances in such a manner as to show that there is pro-
bably right on both. He lays stress on the expediency of
judging the Comparini by the morals of their class, and
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Count Guido by the peculiarities of his own nature; ad-
mits the punishment of the wife and parents to have been
excessive, and cannot admit it to have been unprovoked;
does not pretend to decide between the conflicting state-
ments, and does not consider that Pompilia's dying con-
fession throws much light upon them; seeing that it may
be equally true, or false, or neutralized by another re-
served for the priest's ear. Does not regard putting the
Count to the torture as the right mode of eliciting the
truth : because he may be innocent. But declares that if he
does not deserve to undergo the torture, no one ever did
or will. Tertium Quid is sometimes flippant in tone, and
his neutral attitude seems chiefly the result of indifference
or of caution. He is addressing himself to a Highness
and an Excellency, and is careful not to shock the prejudices
of either. Still, his statement is the nearest approach to a
judicial summing up of which the nature of the work
adınits.
Mr. Browning now enters on the constructive part of
his work. He puts the personages of the drama them-
selves before us, allowing each to plead his or her own
cause. The imaginary occasion is that of Count Guido's
trial; and all the depositions which were made on the pre-
vious 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 con-
formity with the character. The motive, feeling, and cir-
cumstance set forth by each separate speaker are thus in
some degree fictitious; but they are always founded upon
fact; and the literal truth of a vast number of details is
self-evident. We first hear :
COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI. He has been caught
red-handed from the murder of his wife. His crime is
patent. He has himself confessed it under torture. His
only hope of reprieve lies in the colour which he may be
able to impart to it; and his speech is cunningly adapted
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95
to the nature of the Court, and to the moral and mental
constitution of those of whom it is composed. His judges
are churchmen: neutral on the subject of marriage;
rather coarsely masculine in their idea of the destiny of
women. He does not profess to have entertained any
affection for his wife. He derides the idea of having
ill-used her, and thinks she might have liked him better
if he had done so, instead of threatening her into good
behaviour like a naughty child, with hair powder for
poison, and a wooden toy for a sword; has no doubt that,
if she had cared to warm his heart, some smouldering
embers within it might still have burst into flame; but
admits once for all that there was no question of feeling
in the case; it was a bargain on both sides, and a fair
one as far as he was concerned.
Paternity, however, is a condition with which his hearers
may be supposed to sympathize; and he is absolutely elo-
quent, when he describes the desire he has cherished for
a son, and the burning pain which filled him when he
knew that it had been defrauded. He tells the story of
his wife's intrigue and flight, much as the opinion of Half-
Rome has reflected it; but he laces the question of
his child's legitimacy in such a manner as to extract
an equal advantage from either view. In either case it
was Pompilia's crowning iniquity that she gave birth to
a child, and placed it beyond his reach; and in either
case it was the outraged paternal feeling which inspired
his act.
The whole monologue is leavened by a spirit of mock
deference for religion, for the Church, and for the law
which represents the Church. Count Guido is led in from
the torture, a mass of mock-patient suffering: wincing
as he speaks, but quite in spite of himself-grateful that
his pains are not worse-begging his judges not to be too
much concerned about him; "since, thanks to his age and
shaken health, a fainting fit soon came to his relief-
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indeed, torture itself is a kind of relief from the moral
agonies he has undergone." He reminds his judges that
the Church was his only mistress for thirty years. He
would have served her, he declares, to the end of his
life, but that his fidelity had been so long ignored. He
trusted to the law-in other words to the Church-to
avenge his honour when he ought to have done so him-
self. She deceived his trust, and still he hoped and en-
dured. When he came to Rome, in his last frenzy of just
revenge, he still stayed his hand, because the Feast of the
Nativity had begun : it was the period at which the Church
enjoins peace and good-will towards men. The face of
the heavenly infant looked down upon him; he prayed
that he might not enter into temptation. But the days
went by, and the Face withered and waned, and the cross
alone confronted him. Then he felt that the hour had
come, and he found his way to his wife's retreat.
The door opened to the name of Caponsacchi. His
worst fears were thus confirmed. Even so, had he been
admitted by Pompilia, weak from her recent sufferings,
he might have paused in pity-by Pietro, he might have
paused in contempt; but it was the hag Violante who
opened to him: the cheat, the mock-mother, the source of
all his wrongs. The impulse to stamp out that one de-
tested life involved all three. And now he triumphs in
the deed. He has cast a foul burden from his life. He
can look his fellow-men in the face again. Far from ad-
mitting that he deserves punishment, he claims the sym-
pathy and the approval of those who have met to judge
him: for he has done their work-the work of Divine
justice and of natural law. In a final burst of rhetoric he
challenges his judges to restore to him his life, his name,
his civil rights, and best of all, his son; and together, he
declares, they will rebuild the family honour, and revive
the old forgotten tradition of domestic purity and peace.
And if one day the son, about to kiss his hand, starts at
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.97
the marks of violence upon it, he will smile and say, “it
was only an accident—
just a trip
O' the torture-irons in their search for truth,-
Hardly misfortune, and no fault at all." (vol. ix. p. 82.)
GIUSEPPE CAPONSACCHI next tells his story. It in-
cludes some details of his earlier life, which throw light on
what will follow. He is not a priest from choice. He had
interest in the Church, and grew up in the expectation of
entering it. But when the time came for taking his vows,
he recoiled from the sacrifice which they involved, and
yielded only to the Bishop's assurance that he need make
no sacrifice; there were two ways of interpreting such vows,
and he need not select the harder; a man of polish and
accomplishments was as valuable to the Church as a
scholar or an ascetic. Her structure stood firm, and no
one need now-a-days' break his back in the effort to hold
her up. Let him write his madrigals (he had a turn for
verse-making) and not become a fixture in his seat in the
choir through too close an attendance there. The terms
were easy, and Caponsacchi became a priest, no worse
and no better than he was expected to be; but with the
feelings and purposes of a truer manhood lying dormant
within him. These Pompilia was destined to arouse.
He relates that he first saw her at the theatre. His
attention was attracted by her strange sad beauty: and a
friend who sat by him, and was a connection of the
husband's, threw comfits at her to make her return his
gaze, warning him at the same time to do nothing which
could compromise her. He accepted the warning, but
could not forget the face. He felt a sudden disgust for
the light women and the light pleasures which were alone
within his reach, and determined to change his mode of
life, and leave Arezzo for Rome.
At this juncture a love-letter was brought to him. It
purported to come from the lady at whom he had flung
H
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ነ
the comfits;¹ offered him her heart, and begged an inter-
view with him. The bearer was a masked woman, who
owned to an equivocal position in Count Guido's house-
hold. Caponsacchi saw through the trick, declined the
proposed interview on the ground of his priesthood, and
completed his answer with an allusion to the husband,
which would punish him in the probable case of its pass-
ing directly into his hands. The next day the same
messenger appeared with a second letter, reproaching
him for his cruelty; he answered in the same strain. But
the letters continued, now dropped into his prayer-book,
now flung down to him from a window. At length they
changed their tone. He had been begged to come: he
was now entreated to stay away. The husband, before
absent, had returned: indifferent, had become jealous.
His vengeance was aroused; and the sooner Caponsacchi
escaped to Rome, the better. This challenge to his
courage had the intended effect. He wrote word that the
street was public if the house was not, and he would be
under the lady's window that evening.
He went. She was standing there, lamp in hand, like
Our Lady of Sorrows on her altar. She vanished, re-
appeared on a terrace close above his head, and spoke
to him. He had sent her letters, she said, which she
could not read; but she had been told that they spoke of
love. She thought at first that he must be wicked, and
then she felt that he could not be so wicked as to have
meant what that woman said; and now that she saw his
face she knew he did not write it. Still, he meant her
well when no one else did. Her need was sore; he alone
in the world could help her; she had determined to call to
him. If he had some feverish fancy for what was not
her's to give, he would be cured of it so soon as he knew
all. She told him her story, and entreated him to take
' Count Guido thought, or affected to think, that these had been thrown
by Caponsacchi.
1
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99
He
Would it be
her to Rome, and consign her to her parents' care.
promised, and then his heart misgave him.
right in him? Would it be good for her? He passed
two days in a ceaseless internal conflict, and then deter-
mined to see her once more, but only to comfort and
advise.
She stood again awaiting him at her window. Again
she spoke, reproaching him for the suspense she had
undergone. Her manner dispelled all doubt, and he did
for her what she desired. The journey, which he de-
scribes in detail, was to him one spontaneous and continued
revelation of her purity and truth. Then came the trial
and his banishment. He was compelled to leave her to
the protection of the law; to the good offices of the Court
which confronts him now-of the men who, as he reminds
them, laughed in their sleeve at the young priest's esca-
pade, and at the transparent excuses with which he had
taxed their credulity,—of the men who, in consideration
for his youth, merely sent him to disport himself else-
where, leaving the woman he had striven to protect, to
the husband who was to murder her.
The news which summons him from Civita Vecchia has
fallen on him like a thunderbolt. His being is shaken to
its foundations. He strives to contain himself in outward
deference to the Court, but a storm of suppressed sorrow
and indignation rages beneath all his words now utter-
ing itself in pitying tender reverence for Pompilia's
memory; now in scorn of those who would defame her;
now in anger at himself, who is casting suspicion on her
innocence by the very passion with which he defends it
now in defiance of those who choose to call the passion by
the vulgar name of love. He tears up the flimsy calumnies
which have been launched against her and himself; fling-
ing them back in short, contemptuous utterances in the
teeth of whosoever may believe them; begs his judges to
forget his violence; and makes a last attempt to convince
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himself and them that no selfish desire underlies it
Pompilia is dying he too is dead-to the world. What
can she be to him but a dream-a thinker's dream—of a
life not consecrated to the Church, but spent, as with her,
in one constant domestic revelation of the eternal good-
ness and truth-a dream from which he will pass content
"> And here the whole edifice of self-control and
self-deception breaks down, and the agonized heart sends
forth its cry :-
“O great, just, good God! Miserable me!" (vol. ix. p. 166.)
The third speaker is POMPILIA. Her evidence is the
story of her life. It is given from her deathbed; and its
half-dreamy reminiscences are uttered with the childlike
simplicity with which she may have opened her heart to
her priest. She is full of strange pathetic wonder at the
mystery of existence; at the manner in which the thing
we seem to grasp eludes us, and the seemingly impossible
comes to pass. "Husbands are supposed to love their
wives and guard them. See how it has been with her!
That other man-that friend-they say he loves her; his
kindness was all love! She is a wife and he a priest, and
yet they go on saying it! Her boy, she imagined, would
be hers for life: and he is taken from her. He, too,
becomes a dream; and in that dream she sees him grown
tall and strong, and tutoring his mother as an imprudent
child, for venturing out of the safe street into the lonely
house where no help could reach her. It all reminds her
of the day when she and a child-friend played at finding
each other out in the figures on the tapestry; and Tisbe
recognized her in a tree with a rough trunk for body, and
her five fingers blossoming into leaves. Things are, and
are not at the same time."
One thing, however, is real amidst the unreality her
joy and pride in finding herself a mother. The event
proved that when she left Arezzo the hope of maternity
The Ring and the Book.
ΙΟΙ
was already dawning upon her; and Mr. Browning has
combined this fact with the latent maternal sentiment of
all true women, and read it into every impulse of her re-
maining life. She was wretched. She had vainly sought
for help.
She had resigned herself to the inevitable.
She had lain down at night with the old thought—
'Done, another day!
How good to sleep and so get nearer death!'-
When, what, first thing at day-break, pierced the sleep
With a summons to me? Up I sprang alive,
Light in me, light without me, everywhere
Change!"
(vol. ix. p. 216.)
From this moment, as she tells us, everything was
transformed. For days, for weeks, Caponsacchi's name
had been ringing in her ears: in jealous explosions on her
husband's part; in corrupting advice on the part of the
waiting-woman who brought letters supposed to be sent
to her by him; in declarations of love which her first
glance at his face told her he could not have written.
This, too, has all seemed a grotesquely painful dream. But
when she awoke on the April morning in that bounding of
the spirit towards an unknown joy, the name assumed a
new meaning for her, and she said, "Let Caponsacchi
come."
She remembers little after that, but the enfolding ten-
derness which secured the fulfilment of her hope. She
describes nothing after the "tap" at the door, which was
the beginning of the end. She has attained the crown of
her woman's existence, and she can bear no resentment
towards him whose cruelty embittered, and whose ven-
geance has cut it short. The motherly heart in her goes
out to the wicked husband who was also once a child,
and strives to palliate what he has done. "He was sinned
against as well as sinning. Her poor parents were blind
and unjust in their mode of retaliating upon him. She
was blind and foolish in doing nothing to heal the breach.
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Her earthly goods have been a snare to Guido; she her-
self was an importunate presence to him. By God's grace
he will be the better for having swept her from his path.
She thanks him for destroying in her that bodily life which
was his to pollute, and for leaving her soul free. Her in-
fant shall have been born of no earthly father. It is the
child of its mother's love."
And this love for her child overflows in gratitude to
him who saved her for it—a gratitude which is also some-
thing more. She has recoiled from the idea of being united
to a priest by any bond of earthly affection; but the know-
ledge is growing upon her that her bond to Caponsacchi is
love, though it assumes an ideal character in her innocence,
her ignorance, and the exaltation of feeling which denotes
her approaching death. She has recalled the incidents
of her flight, but only to bear witness to Caponsacchi's
virtues his watchful kindness, his chivalrous courage,
the unselfishness which could risk life and, honour without
thought of reward, the priestly dignity which he never set
aside. Her last words contain an invocation to himself
which has all the passion of earthly tenderness, and all
the solemnity of a prayer. She addresses him as her
soldier-saint-as the friend "her only, all her own," who
is closest to her now on her final journey; whose love
shall sustain, whose strong hand shall guide her, on the
unknown path she is about to tread. She thinks he
would not marry if he could. True marriage is in
heaven, where there is no making of contracts, with gold
on one side, power or youth or beauty on the other, but
one is
man and wife at once when the true time is.”
Would either of them wish the past undone? Her soul
says "No."
66
'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." (vol. ix. p. 241.)
The Ring and the Book.
103
We have now the written pleadings of two advocates
who figure largely in the records of the case; the one
enlisted on the Count's side, the other on Pompilia's.
They are
DOMINUS HYACINTHUS DE ARCHANGELIS (procurator
of the poor)
JURIS DOCTOR JOHANNES BAPTISTA BOTTINIUS (fisc,
or public prosecutor).
The subject of these pleadings is the possible justifica-
tion of the crime for which Count Franceschini is on trial,
but not otherwise the crime itself; for he has owned to
its commission; and though the avowal has been drawn
from him by torture, it is justly accepted as decisive. All
the arguments for and against him hinge therefore on the
evidence of Pompilia's guilt or innocence as established
by the previous enquiry; and as we have seen, the formal
result of this enquiry was unfavourable to her. The
Count obtained his verdict, though the subsequent treat-
ment of the offenders made it almost nugatory; and de
Archangelis rings the changes on the stock arguments of
his client's outraged honour, and his natural if not legal
right to avenge it.
Bottinius, on the other hand, does not admit that the
husband's honour has been attacked; but he defends the
wife's conduct, more by extenuating the acts of which she
is accused, than by denying them. His denials are gene-
rally parenthetic and imply that the whether she did
certain things is much less important than the why and
the how; and though he professes to present her as a
pearl of purity, he shows his standard of female purity to
be very low.
Mr. Browning might easily have composed a more
genuine defence from the known facts of the case; but he
represents these quibblings and counter-quibblings as
equally beside the mark. The question of the murderer's
guilt was being judged on broader grounds; and the sup-
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い
​1
posed talkers on either side are aware of this. De Arch-
angelis and Bottinius both know that their cleverness will
benefit no one but themselves, and for this reason they are
as much concerned to show how good a case they can
make out of a doubtful one, as to prove that their case is
in itself good. Each is thinking of his opponent, and how
best to parry his attack; and their arguments are relieved
by a brisk exchange of personalities, in which "de Arch-
angelis" includes his subordinate "Spreti "—" advocate
of the poor"-whose learned contribution to this paper
warfare has probably aroused his jealousy.
Mr. Browning has also displayed the hollowness of the
proceedings by making "de Archangelis" the very opposite
of his saturnine and blood-thirsty client: the last person
we could think of as in sympathy with him. He is a coarse
good-natured paterfamilias, whose ambitions are all centred
on an eight-year-old son, whose birthday it is; and his
defence of the murder is concocted under frequent inter-
ruptions, from the thought of Cinuncino (little Giacinto, or
Hyacinth), and the fried liver and herbs which are to form
part of his birthday feast. Bottinius is a vain man, occu-
pied only with himself, and regretting nothing so much as
that he may not display his rhetorical powers, by deliver-
ing his speech instead of writing it.
Count Guido, with his accomplices, has been condemned
to death. His friends have appealed from the verdict, on
the ground of his being, though in a minor degree, a priest.
The answer to this appeal rests with the head of the
Church. The next monologue is therefore that of
THE POPE. The reflections here imagined grow out of
a double fact. Innocent the Twelfth refused to shelter
Count Franceschini with his accomplices from the judg-
ment of the law, and thus assumed the responsibility of
his death. He had reached an age at which so heavy a
responsibility could not be otherwise than painful. As Mr.
Browning depicts him, his decision is made. From dawn
The Ring and the Book.
105
to dark he has been studying the case, piecing together
its fragmentary truths, trying its merits with "true sweat
of soul." There is no doubt in his mind that Guido
deserves to die. But he has to nerve himself afresh before
he gives the one stroke of his pen, the one touch to his
bell, which shall send this soul into eternity; and that is
what we see him doing.
As he says to himself, he is weighed down by years.
He lifts the cares of the whole world on a "loaded branch"
for which a bird's nest were a "superfluous burthen.”
Yet this strong man cries to him for life: and he alone
has the power to grant it. How easy to reprieve! How
hard to deny to this trembling sinner the moment's respite
which may save his soul. He wants precedent for such a
deed; and he seeks it in the records of the Papacy. It is
from the Popes his predecessors that he must learn how
to dare, to suffer, and to judge. But these records tell
him how Stephen cursed Formosus; how Romanus and
Theodore reinstated the sanctity of Formosus and cursed
Stephen; and how John reinstated Stephen and cursed
Formosus. They could not all be right. There is no
guarantee for infallibility—no test of justice—to be found
here.
How, then, would he defend his condemnation of Guido
if he himself were now summoned to the judgment-seat?
The question is self-answered: no defence would be
needed; for God sees into the heart. He appraises the
seed of act, which is its motive; not "leafage and
branchage, vulgar eyes admire." The Pope knows that
his motives will stand the scrutiny of God. How, finally,
could he plead his cause with a man like himself: with
the man Antonio Pignatelli, his very self? He must,
once for all, marshal the facts, and let them plead for
him.
Next follows the Pope's version of the story, which
differs from those preceding it, in being the summing up
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of a spiritual judge, who deals not only with facts but with
conditions, and who looks at the thing done, in its special
reference to the person who did it. As seen in this light,
the blacks of the picture are blacker, the whites, whiter,
than they appear from the ordinary point of view. Guido
has been doubly wicked because his birth, his breeding,
and his connection with the Church, had surrounded him
with incitements to good, and with opportunities for it.
Pompilia is doubly virtuous because she is a mere " chance-
sown,'
""cleft-nurtured" human weed, owing all her good-
ness to herself. With Guido, the bad end is secured by
the worst means. Not satisfied to murder his wife, he
must use a jagged instrument with which to torture her
flesh. Not satisfied to torment her in the body, he must
imperil her soul by placing desperate temptation in her
way. With Pompilia the right virtue is always employed
for the good end. She is submissive where only her own
life is at stake; brave, when a life within her own calls on
her for protection. Guido's accomplices: his brothers,
his mother, the four youths who helped him to kill his
wife: the Governor, and the Archbishop, who abetted his
ill-treatment of her, have alike sinned against their age,
their character, or their associations.
Caponsacchi has not been faultless. He has failed
somewhat in the dignity of his office, somewhat in its
decorum; his mode of rescuing the oppressed has had
too much the character of an escapade. But the more dis-
ciplined soldier of the Church would have erred in the
opposite direction. The ear which listens only for the
voice of authority becomes obtuse to the cry of suffering.
The spirit which only moves to command becomes unfit
for spontaneous work. Caponsacchi, standing aloof like a
man of pleasure, has proved himself the very champion of
God, ready to spring into the arena, at the first thud of the
false knight's glove upon the ground. He has shown
himself possessed of the true courage which does not
The Ring and the Book.
107
shrink from temptation, and does not succumb to it. Such
transgressions as his reflect rather on the limits imposed
than on the impatience which transgressed them. He
must submit to a slight punishment. He must work-be
unhappy-bear life. But he ranks next in grace to Pom-
pilia—the “rose” which the old Pope "gathers for the
breast of God." Of Count Guido's other victims, Pietro
and Violante, the worst that can be said is this: they
have halted between good and evil; and, as the way of
the world is, suffered through both. The balance of jus-
tice once more confirms the Pope's decree.
Yet at this very moment his will relaxes. A sudden
dread is upon him—a chill such as comes with the sudden
clouding of a long clear sky. The ordeal of a deeper and
stranger doubt is yet to be faced. He has judged, as he
believed, by the light of Divine truth. Has he been
mistaken?
Step by step he tests and reconstructs his belief, tracing
it back to its beginning. God, the Infinite, exists. Man,
the atom, comprehends him as the conditions of his intel-
ligence permit, but so far truly. Man's mind, like a
convex glass, reflects him, in an image, smaller or less
small, adequate so far as it goes. As revealed in the
order of nature, God is perfect in intelligence and in
power; but not so in love; and there has come into the
mouths and hearts of men, a tale and miracle of Divine love
which makes the evidence of his perfection complete.
The Pope believes that tale, whether true in itself, or like
man's conception of the infinite, true only for the human
mind. He accepts its enigmas as a test of faith as a
sign that life is meant for a training and a passage: as a
guarantee of our moral growth, and of the good which
evil may produce.
Christianity stands firm. And yet his heart misgives
him; for it is not justified by its results. It is not that
the sceptical deny its value: that those bent on earthly
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good reject it with open eyes. The surprise and terror is
this that those who have found the pearl of price-who
have named and known it-will still grovel after the lower
gain. Such the Aretine bishop who sent Pompilia back
to her tormentor; the friar who refused to save her be-
cause he feared the world; the nuns who at first testi-
fied to her purity, and were ready to prove her one of
dishonest life, when they learned that she possessed
riches which by so doing they might confiscate to them-
selves.
Nor is the fault in humanity at large: for love and faith
have leapt forth profusely in the olden time, at the sum-
mons of "unacknowledged," "uncommissioned" powers
of good. Caponsacchi has shown that they do so still.
Before Paul had spoken and Felix heard, Euripides had
pronounced virtue the law of life, and, in his doctrine of
hidden forces, foreshadowed the one God. Euripides felt
his way in the darkness. He, the Pope, walking in the
glare of noon, might ask support of him. Where does the
fault lie? It lies in the excess of certainty—in the too
great familiarity with the truth-in that encroachment of
earthly motives on the heavenly, which is begotten by the
security of belief Between night and noonday there has
been the dawn, with its searching illumination, its thrill
of faith, the rapture of self-sacrifice in which anchorite
and martyr foretasted the joys of heaven. Now Chris-
tianity is hard because it has become too easy; because
of the “ignoble confidence," which will enjoy this world
and yet count upon the next: the "shallow cowardice,"
which renders the old heroism impossible.
The Pope is discursive, as is the manner of his age;
and his reflections have been, hitherto, rather suggested by
the case before him than directly related to it. But he
grasps it again in a burst of prophetic insight which these
very reflections have produced. Heroism has become
impossible,
A
The Ring and the Book.
109
"Unless
what whispers me of times to come?
What if it be the mission of that age
་
My death will usher into life, to shake
This torpor of assurance from our creed?" (vol. x. p. 137.)
What if earthquake be about to try the towers which
lions dare no longer attack: if man be destined to live
once more, in the new-born readiness for death? Is the
time at hand, when the new faith shall be broken up as the
old has been; when reported truth shall once more be
compared with the actual truth-the portrait of the Divine
with its reality? Is not perhaps the Molinist' himself
thus striving after the higher light?
The Pope's fancy conjures up the vision of that coming
time. He sees the motley pageant of the Age of Reason
pushing the churchly "masque" aside, impatient of the
slowly-trailing garments, in which he, the last actor in it,
is passing off the scene. He beholds the trials of that
transition stage; the many whose crumbling faith will
land them on the lower platform of the material life; the
few, who from habit, will preserve the Christian level;
the fewer still, who, like Pompilia, will do so in the inspired
conviction of the truth. He sees two men, or rather types
of men, both priests, frankly making the new experiment,
and adopting nature as their law. Under her guidance,
one, like Caponsacchi acts, in the main, well; the other,
like Guido Franceschini, wallows in every crime. .
The "first effects" of the new cause" are apparent in
those murdering five, and in their victims.
"
But the old law is not yet extinct. He (the Church)
The disciple of Michael de Molinos, not to be confounded with Louis
Molina, who is especially known by his attempt to reconcile the theory of
grace with that of free will. Molinos was the founder of an exaggerated
Quietism. He held that the soul could detach itself from the body so as to
become indifferent to its action, and therefore non-responsible for it; and it
was natural that all who defied the received laws of conduct, or were sus-
pected of doing so, should be stigmatized as his followers. Molinism was a
favourite bugbear among the orthodox Romanists of Innocent the Twelfth's
day.
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
still occupies the stage, though his departure be close at
hand: so, in a last act of allegiance to Him who placed
him there, he smites with his whole strength once more,
"Ending, so far as man may, this offence." (vol. x. p. 141.)
Yet again his arm is stayed. Voices, whether of friend
or foe, are sounding in his ear. They reiterate the sophis-
tries which have been enlisted in the Count's defence: the
credit of the Church, the proprieties of the domestic
hearth; the educated sense of honour which is stronger
than the moral law; the general relief which will greet the
act of mercy. The Pope listens. For one moment we
may fancy that he yields. "Pronounce then," the ima-
ginary speakers have said. A swift answer follows:
"I will, Sirs: but a voice other than your's
Quickens my spirit
and the death-warrant goes out.
"
(vol. x. p. 146.)
A favourite theory of Mr. Browning's appears in this
soliloquy, for the first time since he stated it in "Sordello,"
and in a somewhat different form: that of the inadequacy
of words to convey the truth. The Pope declares (p. 78)
that we need
"Expect nor question nor reply
At what we figure as God's judgment-bar!
None of this vile way by the barren words
Which, more than any deed, characterize
Man as made subject to a curse."
and again (p. 79) that
3
these filthy rags of speech, this coil
Of statement, comment, query and response,
Tatters all too contaminate for use,
Have no renewing: He, the Truth, is, too,
The Word."
The scene changes to the prison-cell where Count Guido
has received his final sentence of death. Two former
friends and fellow-Tuscans, Cardinal Acciajuoli and Abate
The Ring and the Book.
III.
Panciatichi, have come to prepare him for execution; but
the one is listening awe-struck to the only kind of confes-
sion which they can obtain from him, while the other plies
his beads in a desperate endeavour to exorcise the spiritual
enemy, "ban" the diabolical influences, it is conjuring up.
The speaker is no longer Count Guido Franceschini, but
GUIDO. He is indeed another man than he was in his
first monologue, for he has thrown off the mask. His
tone is at first conciliatory, even entreating: for his hearers
are men of his own class, and he hopes to persuade them
to one more intercession in his behalf. But it changes to
one of scorn and defiance, as the hopelessness of his case
lays hold of him, and rises, at the end, to a climax of
ferocity which is all but grand.
"Repentance! if he repent for twelve hours, will he die
the less on the thirteenth? He has broken the social law,
and is about to pay for it. What has he to repent of but that
he has made a mistake? Religion! who of them all be-
lieves in it? Not the Pope himself; for religion enjoins
mercy; it is meant to temper the harshness of the law:
and he destroys the life which the law has given over to
him to save. What man of them all shows by his acts
that he believes; or would be treated otherwise than as a
lunatic if he did? Let those who will, halt between belief
and unbelief. It has not been in him to do so. Give
him the certainty of another world, and he would have
lived for it. Owning no such certainty, he has lived for
this one; he has sought its pleasures and avoided its
pains. Only he has carried the thing too far. The world
has decreed limits to every man's pleasure; it limits this for
the good of all; and it has made unlawful the excess of
pleasure which turns to someone else's pain. He has
exceeded the lawful amount of pleasure, and he pays for
it by an extra dose of pain.”
"There the matter ends. But his judges want more—a
few edifying lies wherewith to show that he did not die
II 2 Handbook to Browning's Works.
impenitent, and stop the mouth of anyone who may hint,
the day after the execution, that old men are too fond of
putting younger ones out of the way. They shall have his
confession; but it must be the truth."
He killed his wife because he hated her; because,
whether it were her fault or not, she was a stumbling-
block in his path. He had been outraged by her aversion,
exasperated by her patience, maddened by her never
putting herself in the wrong. While her parents were
with her, she resisted and clamoured, and then her presence
could be endured; but they were left alone together, and
then everything was changed. Day by day, and all day,
he was confronted by her automatic obedience, by her
dumb despair. She rose up and lay down-she spoke or
was silent at his bidding; neither a loosened hair, nor a
crumple in the dress, giving token of resistance; he might
have strangled her without her making a sign. She
eloped from him, yet he could not surprise her in the
commission of a sin: and he returned from his pursuit of
her, ridiculous when he should have been triumphant. He
took his revenge at last. And now that he might tell his
story and find no one to controvert it-how he came to
claim his wife and child, and found no child, but the lover
by the wife's side; was attacked, defended himself, struck
right and left, and thus did the deed-she survives, by
miracle, to confute him, to condemn him, and worst of all,
to forgive him."
"He has been ensnared by his opportunities from first to
last. He failed to save himself from retribution, only be-
cause he was drunk with the sudden freedom from this
hateful load. And Pompilia haunts him still. Her stupid
purity will freeze him even in death. It will rob him of
his hell-where the fiend in him would burn up in fiery
rapture-where some Lucrezia might meet him as his
fitting bride-where the wolf-nature frankly glutted would
perhaps leave room for some return to human form. / For
The Ring and the Book.
113
she cannot hate. It would grieve her to know him there;
and-if there be a hell-it will be barred to him in con-
sideration for her."
The Cardinal, the Abate, they too are petrifactions
in their way! He may rave another twelve hours, and it
will be useless." Yet he makes one more effort to move
them. He reminds the Cardinal of the crimes he has
committed—of the help he will need when a new Pope is
to be elected; of the possible supporter who may then be
in his grave.
Then fiercely turning on them both; "the
Cardinal have a chance indeed, when there is an Albano
in the case! The Abate be alive a year hence, with that
burning hollow cheek and that hacking cough !-Well, he
will die bold and honest as he has lived."
(6
At this juncture he becomes aware that the fatal moment
has arrived. Steps and lights are on the stairs. The de-
fiant spirit is quenched. He has laughed and mocked
and said no word of all he had to say." In wild terror he
pleads for life-bare life. A final vindication of his wife's
goodness bursts from him in the words,
"Abate, Cardinal,-Christ,-Maria,—God,—
Pompilia, will you let them murder me?" (vol. x. p. 243.)
The concluding part of the work reverses the idea of the
first, and is entitled
THE BOOK AND THE RING. It completes the record
of the Franceschini case, and gives the concluding touches
to the circle of evidence which now assumes its final
dramatic form. We have first an account of the execution,
conveyed in a gossiping letter from a Venetian gentleman
on a visit to Rome, and who reports it as the last news of
the week, and the occasion of his having lost a bet. The
writer also discusses the Pope's health, the relative merits
of his present physician and a former one; the relative
chances of various candidates for the Papacy; and the
Pope's possible motives for setting aside "justice, pru.
I
[14
Handbook to Browning's Works.
dence, and esprit de corps, in the manner testified by his
recent condemnation or a man of rank. His political likes
and dislikes are thrown into the scale, but his predilection
for the mob is considered to have turned it. "He allows
the people to question him when he takes his walks; and
it is said that some of them asked him, on the occasion of
his last, whether the privilege of murder was altogether
reserved for noblemen." "The Austrian ambassador had
done his best to avert bloodshed, and pleaded hard for the
life of one whom, as he urged, he 'may have dined at
table with!' and felt so aggrieved by the Pope's answer,
that he all but refused to come to the execution, and would
barely look at it when he came." Various details follow,
some of which my readers already know.
Mr. Browning next speaks of the three manuscript
letters bound into the original book; selects one of these,
written by the Count's advocate, de Archangelis, and gives
it, first, in its actual contents, and next, in an imaginary
postscript which we are to think of as destined for the
recipient's private ear. The letter itself is written for the
Count's family and friends ; and states, in a tone of solemn
regret, that the justifications brought forward by his cor-
respondent arrived too late; that the Pope thought it
inexpedient to postpone the execution, or to accept the
plea of youth urged in favour of the four accomplices; and
that they all died that day. It declares that the Count
suffered in an exemplary manner, amidst the commisera-
tion and respect of all Rome, and that the honour of his
house will lose nothing through the catastrophe.
The supplement is conceived in a very different spirit.
The writer laughs at their "pleas" and "proofs," coming,
like Pisan help, when the man is already dead-"not
that twenty such vindications would have done any
good-
"When Somebody's thick head-piece once was bent
On seeing Guido's drop into the bag." (vol. x. p. 256.),
The Ring and the Book.
115
Well, people enjoyed the show, but saw through it all
the same; and meanwhile his (the writer's) superb defence
goes for nothing; and though argument is solid and
subsists
"While obstinacy and ineptitude.
Accompany the owner to his tomb;" (vol. x. p. 256.)
his hands and his pockets are empty. Ah well! little
Cino will gain by it in the long run.
He had been pro-
mised that if papa couldn't save the Count's head, he
should go and see it chopped off: and when a patroness
of his joked the child on his defeat, and on Bottini's ruling
the roast, the clever rogue retorted that papa knew better
than to baulk the Pope of his grudge, and could have
argued Bottini's nose off if he had chosen. Doesn't the
fop see that he (de Archangelis) can drive right and left
horses with one hand? The Gomez case shall make it up
to him."
The two other letters are in the same strain as the first.
Both are written on the day of the execution. Both an-
nounce it in a condoling manner. Both allude to the
justifications which arrived too late : and in one or both,
the criminal is spoken of as "poor" Signor Guido. Mr.
Browning has preferred, however, representing the other
side; and the next which he gives is, like Don Hyacinth's
supplement, only such as might have been written. It is
supposed to be from Pompilia's advocate Bottinius (or
Bottini), and is in keeping with the spirit of his defence.
He is clearly jealous of not having had a worse case to
plead. "He has won," he says. "How could he do
otherwise? with the plain truth on his side, and the Pope
ready to steady it on his legs again if he let it drop asleep.
Arcangeli may crow over him, as it is, for having been
kept by him a month at bay—though even this much was
not his doing; the little dandiprat Spreti was the real
man."
And this is not all. "Of course Rome must have its joke
116
Handbook to Browning's Works.
:
at the advocate with the case that proved itself: but here
is a piece of impertinence he was not prepared for. The
barefoot Augustinian, whose report of Pompilia's dying
words took all the freshness out of the best points of his
defence, has been preaching on the subject; and the ser-
mon is flying about Rome in print." Next follows an
extract from it. The friar warns his hearers not to trust
to human powers of discovering the truth. "It is not the
long trial which has revealed Pompilia's innocence; God
from time to time puts forth His hand, and He has done
so here. But earth is not heaven, nor all truth intended
to prevail. One dove returned to the ark. How many
were lost in the wave? One woman's purity has been
rescued from the world. 'How many chaste and noble
sister-fames' have lacked 'the extricating hand?' And
we must wait God's time for such truth as is destined to
appear. When Christians worshipped in the Catacomb,
one man, no worse than the rest, though no less foolish,
will have pointed to its mouth, and said, 'Obscene rites
are practised in that darkness. The devotees of an exe-
crable creed skulk there out of sight.' Not till the time
was ripe, did lightning split the face of the rock, and lay
bare a nook-
"Narrow and short, a corpse's length, no more :
And by it, in the due receptacle,
The little rude brown lamp of earthenware,
The cruse, was meant for flowers, but held the blood,
The rough-scratched palm-branch, and the legend left
Pro Christo." (vol. x. p. 265.)
"And how does human law, in its 'inadequacy' and
' ineptitude' defend the just? How has it attempted to
clear Pompilia's fame? By submitting, as its best resource,
that wickedness was bred in her flesh and bone. For him-
self he cannot judge, unless by the assurance of Christ, if
he have not lost much by renouncing the world: for he
has lost love, and knowledge, and perhaps the means of
The Ring and the Book.
117
bringing goodness from its ideal conception into the actual
life of man. But the bubble, fame-worldly praise and
appreciation-he has done well to set these aside."
"And what is all this preaching," resumes Bottinius,
"but a way of courting fame? The inflation of it! and
the spite and the Molinism! As its first pleasant con-
sequence, Gomez, who had intended to appeal from the
absurd decision of the Court, declines to ask the lawyers
for farther help.¹ There is an end of that job and its
fee. Nevertheless, his 'blatant brother' shall soon see if
law is as inadequate, and advocacy as impotent, as he
fancies. Providence is this time in their favour. Pompilia
was consigned to the 'Convertite' (converted ones). She
was therefore a sinner. Guido has been judged guilty:
but there was no word as to the innocence of his wife.
The sisterhood claims, therefore, the property which accrued
to her through her parents' death, and which she has left
in trust for her son. Who but himself-the Fisc-shall
support the claim, and show the foul-mouthed friar that
his dove was a raven after all." (He too can drive left
and right horses on occasion.)
This he actually did. But once more the Pope inter-
vened: and Mr. Browning proceeds to give the literal
substance of the "Instrument" of justification as it lies
before him. In this, Pompilia's "perfect fame" is re-
stored, and her representative, Domenico Tighetti, secured
against all molestations of her heir and his ward, which
the Most Venerable Convent, etc. etc., may commit or
threaten.
What became of that child, Gaetano, as he was called
after the new-made saint? Did he live a true scion of
A passing allusion is made to this Gomez case in one of the manuscript
letters, the writer of which begs Cencini (clearly also an advocate), to send
him the papers conce ning it. The place it occupies in the thoughts of the
two lawyers, as Mr. Browning depicts them, is very characteristic of the
manner in which his imagination has embraced and vivified every detail of
the situation.
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
the paternal stock, whose heraldic symbols Mr. Browning
has described by Count Guido's mouth ?—
"Or did he love his mother, the base-born,
And fight i' the ranks, unnoticed by the world?" (vol. x. p. 277.)
This question Mr. Browning asks himself, but is unable to
answer. He concludes his book by telling us its intended
lesson, and explaining why he has chosen to present it in
this artistic form. The lesson is that which we have
already learned from his Pope's thoughts :-
our human speech is naught,
Our human testimony false, our fame
And human estimation words and wind." (vol. x. p. 277.)
Art, with its indirect processes, can alone raise up a living
image of that truth which words distort in the stating.
And, lastly, he dedicates the completed work to the
“Lyric Love,” whose blessing on its performance he has
invoked in a memorable passage at the close of his intro-
ductory chapter.
TRANSCRIPTS FROM THE GREEK, WITH
"ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES.”
Another group of works detaches itself from any possible
scheme of classification: These are Mr. Browning's trans-
cripts from the Greek.
The "Alkestis" of Euripides, imbedded in the dramatic
romance called "Balaustion's Adventure." 1871.
The “Herakles" of Euripides, introduced into “ Aristo-
phanes' Apology." 1875.
The "Agamemnon" of Eschylus, published by itself.
1877.
“Artemis Prologizes."
119
They are even outside my subject because they are
literal; and therefore show Mr. Browning as a scholar,
ɔut not otherwise as a poet than in the technical power
and indirect poetic judgments involved in the work. All
I need say about this is, that its literalness detracts in no
way from the beauty and transparency of “Alkestis ” or
"Herakles,” while it makes “Agamemnon"
Agamemnon" very hard to
read; and that Mr. Browning has probably intended his
readers to draw their own conclusion, which is so far his,
as to the relative quality of the two great classics. Some
critics contend that a less literal translation of the “Aga-
memnon" would have been not only more pleasing, but
more true; but Mr. Browning clearly thought otherwise.
Had he not, he would certainly have given his author the
benefit of the larger interpretation; and his principal
motive for this indirect defence of Euripides would have
disappeared.
Mr. Browning has also given us an original fragment in
the classic manner :-
"ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES." ("Men and Women,"¹)
published in "Dramatic Lyrics," in 1842.) This was
suggested by the "Hippolytos" of Euripides; and des-
tined to become part of a larger poem, which should con-
tinue its story. For, according to the legend, Hippolytos
having perished through the anger of Aphrodité (Venus),
was revived by Artemis (Diana), though only to disappoint
her affection by falling in love with one of her nymphs,
Aricia. Mr. Browning imagines that she has removed him
in secret to her own forest retreat, and is nursing him back
to life by the help of Asclepios; and the poem is a mono-
logue in which she describes what has passed, from Phædra's
self-betrayal to the present time. Hippolytos still lies un-
1 The poems to which I refer as now included in "Men and Women" will
be found so in the editions of 1868 and 1888-9; though the redistribution
made in 1863 has much curtailed their number.
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}
conscious; but the power of the great healer has been
brought to bear upon him, and the unconsciousness seems
only that of sleep. Artemis is awaiting the event.
The ensuing chorus of nymphs, the awakening of Hip-
polytos, and with it the stir of the new passion within him,
had already taken shape in Mr. Browning's mind. Un-
fortunately, something put the inspiration to flight, and it
did not return.¹
1 It was in this poem that Mr. Browning first adopted the plan of spelling
Greek names in the Greek manner. He did so, as he tells us in the preface
to his
Agamemnon," "innocently enough;" because the change com-
mended itself to his own eye and ear. He has even assured his friends that
if the innovation had been rationally opposed, or simply not accepted, he
would probably himself have abandoned it. But when, years later, in
"Balaustion's Adventure," the new spelling became the subject of attacks
which all but ignored the existence of the work from any other point of view,
the thought of yielding was no longer admissible. The majority of our best
scholars now follow Mr. Browning's example.


CLASSIFIED GROUPS.
ARGUMENTATIVE POEMS. SPECIAL
PLEADINGS.
HE isolated monologues have a special signifi
cance, which is almost implied in their form, but
is also distinct from it. Mr. Browning has made
them the vehicle for most of the reasonings and reflec-
tions which make up so large a part of his imaginative life :
whether presented in his own person, or, as is most often
the case, in that of his men and women. As such, they
are among those of his works which lend themselves to a
rough kind of classification; and may be called “argu-
mentative."
They divide themselves into two classes: those in which
the speaker is defending a preconceived judgment, and an
antagonist is implied; and those in which he is trying to
form a judgment or to accept one: and the supposed
listener, if there be such, is only a confidant. The first
kind of argument or discussion is carried on-apparently
-as much for victory as for truth; and employs the
weapons of satire, or the tactics of special-pleading, as
the case demands. The second is an often pathetic and
always single-minded endeavour to get at the truth.
Those monologues in which the human spirit is repre-
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sented as communing with itself, contain some of Mr.
Browning's noblest dramatic work; but those in which
the militant attitude is more pronounced throw the
strongest light on what I have indicated as his distinc-
tive intellectual quality: the rejection of all general and
dogmatic points of view. His casuistic utterances are
often only a vindication of the personal, and therefore in-
definite quality of human truth; and their apparent trifling
with it is often only the seeking after a larger truth, in
which all seeming contradictions are resolved.
It was
inevitable, however, that this mental quality should play
into the hands of his dramatic imagination, and be some-
times carried away by it; so that when he means to tel.
us what a given person under given circumstances would
be justified in saying, he sometimes finds himself includ-
ing in the statement something which the given person so
situated would be only likely to say.
The first of these classes, or groups, which we may dis-
tinguish as SPECIAL PLEADINGS, contains poems very
different in length, and in literary character; and to avoid
the appearance of confusion, I shall reverse the order of
their publication, and place the most important first :
"Aristophanes' Apology;¹ or The Last Adventure of
Balaustion." (1875.)
"Fifine at the Fair." (1872.)
"Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society."
(1871.)
"Bishop Blougram's Apology" (Men and Women).
(1855.)
' The classification of this poem is open to the obvious objection that it is
not a monologue; but a dialogue or alternation of monologues, in which the
second speaker, Balaustion (who is also the narrator), is, for the time being,
as real as the first. Its conception is, however, expressed in the first title;
and the arguments and descriptions which Balaustion supplies only contribute
to the vividness with which Aristophanes and his defence are brought before
"Aristophanes' Apology" is identical in spirit with the other poems of
us.
this group.
Balaustion's Adventure.
123
"Mr. Sludge, the Medium."
(1864.)
(Dramatis Personæ.)
"ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY" is, as its second title shows,
a sequel to "Balaustion's Adventure” (1871). Both turn
on the historical fact that Euripides was reverenced far
inore by the non-Athenian Greeks than by the Athenians;
and both contain a transcript from him. But the interest
of "Aristophanes' Apology" is independent of its
"Herakles," while that of "Balaustion's Adventure" is
altogether bound up with its Alkestis; and in so far as
the "adventure" places Balaustion herself before us, it
will be best treated as an introduction to her appearance
in the later and more important work.
Balaustion is a Rhodian girl, brought up in a worship
for Euripides, which does not, however, exclude the appre-
ciation of other great Greek poets. The Peloponnesian
War has entered on its second stage. The Athenian fleet
has been defeated at Syracuse. And Rhodes, resenting
this disgrace, has determined to take part against Athens,
and join the Peloponnesian league. But Balaustion will not
forsake the mother-city, the life and light of her whole
known world; and she persuades her kinsmen to migrate
with her to it, and, with her, to share its fate. They accord-
ingly take ship at Kaunus, a Carian sea-port belonging
to Rhodes. But the wind turns them from their course,
and when it abates, they find themselves in strange waters,
pursued by a pirate bark. They fly before it towards what
they hope will prove a friendly shore-Balaustion hearten-
ing the rowers by a song from Æschylus, which was sung
at the battle of Salamis-and run straight into the hostile
harbour of Syracuse, where shelter is denied them.
The captain pleads in vain that they are Kaunians, sub-
jects of Rhodes, and that Rhodes is henceforward on
Sparta's side. "Kaunian the ship may be : but Athenians
are on board.
All Athens echoed in that song from
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Æschylus which has been ringing across the sea. The
voyagers may retire unhurt. But if ten pirate ships were
pursuing them, they should not bring those memories of
Salamis to the Athenian captives whom the defeat of
Nicias has left in Syracusan hands." The case is desperate.
The Rhodians turn to go.
Suddenly a voice cries, "Wait. Do they know any
verses from Euripides?"
'More than that, they answer,
Balaustion can recite a whole play-that strangest, sad-
dest, sweetest song-the 'Alkestis.' It does honour to
Herakles, their god. Let them place her on the steps of
their temple of Herakles, and she will recite it there."
The Rhodians are brought in, amidst joyous loving
laughter, among shouts of "Herakles” and “Euripides.”
The recital takes place;¹ it is repeated a second day and a
third; and Balaustion and her kinsmen are dismissed with
good words and wishes, for, as she declares :
""
And poetry is power,
Greeks are Greeks, and hearts are hearts,
"}
(vol. xi. p. 14.)
The story of Alkestis scarcely needs repeating. Apollo
had incurred the anger of Jupiter by avenging the death of
his son Esculapius on the Cyclops whose thunder-bolt
had slain him; and been condemned to play the part of a
common mortal, and serve Admetus, King of Thessaly, as
herdsman. The kind treatment of Admetus had made
him his friend and Apollo had deceived the Fate sisters
into promising that whenever the king's life should become
their due, they would renounce it on condition of some
other person dying in his stead. When the play opens,
the fatal moment has come. Alkestis, wife of Admetus,
has offered herself to save him; and Admetus, though he
does so with a heavy heart, has been weak enough to
This incident is founded on fact. It is related in Plutarch's Lives,
that after the defeat of Nicias, all those of the captives who could recite
something from Euripides were kindly treated by the Syracusans.
Balaustion's Adventure.
125
accept the sacrifice. Death enters the palace, from which
even Apollo can no longer turn him away.
But just as Alkestis has breathed her last, Herakles
appears; and his great cheery voice is heard on the
threshold of the house of mourning, inquiring if the master
be within. Admetus suppresses all signs of emotion, that
he may receive him as hospitality demands; and Herakles,
hearing what has happened from a servant of the house,
is moved to gratitude and pity. He wrestles with Death ;
conquers him; and brings back Alkestis into her husband's
presence, veiled, and in the guise of a second companion.
Admetus will at first neither touch nor look at her. He
has promised his dying wife to give her no successor;
and her memory is even dearer to him than she herself
has been. The god however reasons, persuades, and
insists; and at length, very reluctantly, Admetus gives
his hand to the stranger, whom he is then told to unveil.
Herakles has delayed the recognition, that Alkestis might
be enabled to probe her husband's fidelity, and convince
herself that sorrow had made him worthier of her.
(6
as
Balaustion half recites the play, half describes it,
she has seen it at Kameiros this very year," occasionally
compressing an unimportant scene, but always closely
adhering to the original. She knows that she is open to
the reproach of describing more than the masked faces of
the actors could allow her to see; but she meets it in these
words:-
"What's poetry except a power that makes?
And, speaking to one sense, inspires the rest,
"
Pressing them all into its service; (vol. xi. pp. 17.18.)
The whole work is a vindication of the power of poetry,
as exerted in itself, and as reproduced in those who have
received its fruits (pages 110, III); and Balaustion herself
displays it in this secondary form, by suggesting a version
of the story of Alkestis, more subtly, if less simply, beautiful
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
than the original. She makes Love the conqueror of Death.
According to her, the music made by Apollo among
Admetus's flocks has tamed every selfish passion in the
King's soul; and when the time comes for his wife to die,
he refuses the sacrifice. "Zeus has decreed that their two
lives shall be one; and if they must be severed, he must
go who was the body, not she, who was the soul, of their
joint existence." But Alkestis declares that the reality of
that existence lies not in her but in him, and she bids him
look at her once more before his decision is made. In this
look, her soul enters into his; and, thus subduing him,
she expires. But when she reaches the nether world she
is rejected as a deceiver. "The death she brings to it is
a mockery, since it doubles the life she has left behind.”
Proserpine sends her back to her husband's side; and the
“lost eyes” re-open beneath his gaze, while it still em-
braces her.
Apollo smiles sadly at the ingenuousness of mortals, who
thus imagine that the chain of eternal circumstance could
snap in one human life; at their blindness to those seeds
of pity and tenderness which the crushed promise of
human happiness sets free. Yet he seems to think they
lose nothing by either. "They do well to value their little
hour. They do well to treasure the warm heart's blood,
of which no outpouring could tinge the paleness or fill the
blank of eternity, the power of love which transforms their
earthly homes, their
hopes and fears, so blind and yet so sweet
With death about them."
ka
FIND
(p. 115.)
(C
Balaustion" means wild pomegranate flower; and the
girl has been so called on account of her lyric gifts. She
recalls the pomegranate tree, because its leaves are cooling
to the brow, its seed and blossom grateful to the sense, and
because the nightingale is never distant from it. She will
Aristophanes' Apology.
127
keep the name for life-so she tells her friends-and with
it a better thing which her songs have gained her. One
youth came daily to the temple-steps at Syracuse to hear
her. He was at her side at Athens when she landed.
They will be married at this next full moon.
"Alkestis" failed "to get the prize" when its author
was competing with Sophocles. "But Euripides has had
his reward in the sympathies which he has stirred; in
the genius which he has inspired. His crown came direct
from Zeus."
:
We need not name the poetess whom Mr. Browning
quotes at the close of this poem. The painter so gene-
rously eulogized is F. Leighton.
When we meet Balaustion again, in "Aristophanes'
Apology," many things have happened. She has seen her
poet in his retirement (this was mentioned in her "adven-
ture"), kissed his hand, and received from it, together
with other gifts, his tragedy of Herakles. Euripides has
died; Athens has fallen; and Balaustion, with her
memories in her heart, and her husband, Euthykles, by
her side, is speeding back towards Rhodes. She is deeply
shocked by the fate of her adoptive city, to which her fancy
pays a tribute of impassioned reverence, too poetic to
be given in any but Mr. Browning's words.
a growing belief that that fate was just.
and the blue expanse of heaven are full of suggestion of
that spirit-life, with its larger struggles or its universal
peace, which is above the world's crowd and noise.
And she determines that sorrow for what is fleeting shall
not gnaw at her heart.
Yet she has
Sea and air
But in order to overcome the sorrow, she must loosen
it from her. The tragedy she has witnessed must enact
itself once more for Euthykles and her, he writing as she
dictates. It will have for prologue a second adventure of
her own, which he also has witnessed; and this adventure
will constitute the book. It is prefaced in its turn by a
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backward glance at the circumstances, (so different from
the present) in which she related the first.
It was the night on which Athens received the news that
Euripides was dead: Euthykles had brought this home
to her from the theatre. They were pondering it gravely,
but not sadly, for their poet was now at rest, in the com-
panionship of Æschylus, safe from the petty spites which
had frothed and fretted about his life. He had lived and
worked, to the end, true to his own standard of right, heed-
less of the reproach that he was a man-hater and a recluse,
without regard for civic duty, and with no object but his
art. He had left it to Sophocles to play poet and com-
mander at the same time, and be laughed at for the result.
He had first taken the prize of " Contemplation" in his
all but a hundred plays; then, grasping the one hand
offered him which held a heart, had shown at the court of
Archelaus of Macedon whether or not the power of active
usefulness was in him. His last notes of music had also
been struck for that one friend.
Even Athens did him justice now. The reaction had
set in; one would have his statue erected in the theatre;
another would have him buried in the Piræus; etc. etc.
Not so Euthykles and Balaustion. His statue was in
their hearts. Their concern was not with his mortal
vesture, but with the liberated soul, which now watched
over their world. They would hail this, they said, in the
words of his own song, his "Herakles.”
The reading was about to begin, when suddenly there
was torch-light—a burst of comic singing—and a knocking
at the door; Bacchus bade them open; they delayed.
Then a name was uttered, of "authoritative" sound, of
"immense significance;" and the door was opened to—
Aristophanes. He was returning from the performance
of his "Thesmophoriazusae;"¹ last year a failure, but this
¹ The name signifies celebration of the festival of the Thesmophoria.
This was held by women only, in honour of Ceres and Proserpine
Aristophanes' Apology.
129
time, thanks to some new and audacious touches, a bril-
liant success. His chorus trooped before him-himself no
more sober than was his wont-crowned, triumphant, and
drunk; a group of flute-boys and dancing-girls making up
the scene. All these, however, slunk away before Balaus-
tion's glance, Aristophanes alone confronting her. And,
as she declares, it was "no ignoble presence." For the
broad brow, the flushed cheek, the commanding features,
the defiant attitude, all betokened a mind, wantoning
among the lower passions, but yet master of them.
He addresses Balaustion in a tone of mock deference e;
banters her on her poetic name, her dignified mien, and
the manner in which she has scared his chorus and its
followers away; "not indeed that that matters, since the
archon's economy and the world's squeamishness will soon
abolish it altogether."1 Then struck by a passing thought,
he stands grave, silent—another man in short—awaiting
what she has to say.
In this sober moment, Balaustion welcomes him to her
house. She welcomes him as the Good Genius: as genius
of the kindly, though purifying humour, which, like sum-
mer lighting, illumines, but does not destroy. She knows
and implies that he is not only this. But she greets the
light, no matter to what darkness it be allied. She reve-
rences the god who forms one half of him, so long as the
monster which constitutes the other, remains out of
sight; a poetic myth is made to illustrate this feeling.
The gravity, however, is short-lived. The lower self
in Aristophanes springs up again, and his "apology"
begins.
"Aristophanes' APOLOGY" is a defence of comedy, as
understood and practised by himself: that is, as a broad
1 The chorus of each new play was supplied to its author by the Govern
ment, when considered worth the outlay. Sketches of this and other plays
alluded to in the course of the work may be read in the first volume of
Mahaffy's "History of Classical Greek Literature."
K
130
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expression of the natural life, and a broad satire upon
those who directly or indirectly condemn it. It is ad-
dressed to Euripides in the person of his disciple. It is
at the same time an attack upon him; and in either capa-
city it covers a great deal of ground. For the dispute does
not lie simply between comedy and tragedy-which latter,
with the old tragedians, was often only the naturalism of
comedy on a larger scale-but between naturalism and
humanity, as more advanced thinkers understood it; be-
tween the old ideas of human and divine conveyed by
tragedy and comedy alike, and the new ones which
Euripides, the friend of Socrates, had imported into them;
and the question at issue involved, therefore, not only art
and morals, but the entire philosophy of life. The
"Apology" derives farther interest and significance from
the varied emotions by which it is inspired. The speaker
(as is the case in "Fifine at the Fair ") is answering not
only his opponent, but his own conscience. How the con-
science of Aristophanes has been aroused he presently
tells: first struggling a little with the false shame which
the experience has left behind. This is the scene which
he describes.
A festive supper had followed the successful play.
Jollity was at its height. The cup was being crowned to
Aristophanes as the "Triumphant," when a knock came
to the door and there entered no "asker of questions,"
no casual passer-by, but the pale, majestic, heavily-draped
figure of Sophocles himself. Slowly, solemnly, and with
bent head, he passed up the hall, between two ranks of
spectators as silent as himself; raised his eyes as he con-
fronted the priest,¹ and announced to him, that since
Euripides was "dead to-day," and as a fitting spectacle
for the god, his chorus would appear at the greater feast,
'The plays were performed at the lesser and greater festivals of Bacchus ;
this, the Lenaia, being the smaller one. Hence, the presence of priest a
well as archon at the ensuing banquet
Aristophanes' Apology.
131
next month, clothed in black and ungarlanded. Then
silently, and amidst silence, he passed out again.
This, then, was the purport of the important news which
was known to have arrived in port, but which every one
had interpreted in his own way. Euripides was no more!
But neither the news nor he who brought it could create
more than a momentary stupor; and the tipsy fun soon
renewed itself, at the expense of the living tragedian and
the dead. Aristophanes alone remained grave. The
value of the man whom he had aspersed and ridiculed
stood out before him summed up by the hand of Death.
He recalled the failure which had marked the now hope-
less limitation of his own genius, and those last words
addressed to him by Euripides which brought home its
lesson.' The archon, "Master of the Feast," judging that
its "glow" was “extinct,” had risen to conclude it by
crowning the parting cup. He had crowned it with
judicious reserve to the “Good Genius;” and Strattis (the
comic poet) had burst forth in an eulogium of the Comic
Muse which claimed the title of Good Genius for her-
when yielding to this new and over-mastering impulse,
he (Aristophanes) checked the coming applause, and
demanded that the Tragic Muse and her ministrant Euri-
pides should receive the libation instead; justifying the
demand by a noble and pathetic tribute to the memory of
the dead poet, and to the great humanities which only the
tragic poet can represent.
But he found no response. The listeners mistook his
seriousness for satire, and broke out afresh at the excel-
lence of such a joke; and recovering his presence of mind
as quickly as he had lost it, he changed his tone, thanked
1 The failure here alluded to is his Ploutos or Plutus-an inoffensive but
tame comedy written when Aristophanes was advanced in years, and of which
the ill-success has been imputed to this fact. Mr. Browning, however, treats
it as a proof that the author's ingrained habit of coarse fun had unfitted him
for the more serious treatment of human life.
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those alike who had laughed with him, and who had wept
with the "Lord of Tears ;" and desired that the cup be
consecrated to that genius of complex poetry which is
tragedy and comedy in one. It was sacrilege, he declared,
to part these two; for to do so was to hack at the Hermai¹
-to outrage the ideal union of the intellectual and the
sensuous life in man. And from this new vantage-ground
he launched another bolt at Euripides, whose coldness, he
asserted, had belied this union, and made him guilty of a
crime inexpiable in the sight of the gods.
Yet he could not dismiss him from his thoughts. He
wanted to go over the old ground with him, and put him-
self in the right. Balaustion and her husband were in a
manner representatives of the dead tragedian. That was
why he had come. He was not sure that he expressed, or
at the moment even felt, all that he had just repeated.
"Drunk he was with the good Thasian, and drunk he pro-
bably had been." Nevertheless, the impulse he had thus
obeyed sprang perhaps from some real, if hitherto undis-
covered depths in his soul.
Up to this moment his defence has been carried on in
a disjointed manner, and consists rather in defying attack
than in resisting it: the defiant mood being only another
aspect of the perturbed condition which has brought him
to Balaustion's door. It finds its natural starting-point in
the coarse treatment of things and persons which his
Thesmophoriazusae," with its "monkeying" of Euri-
pides,2 has so recently displayed. But he reminds Balaus-
tion that the art of comedy is young. It is only three
generations since Susarion gave it birth. (He explains
this more fully later on.) It began when he and his com-
panions daubed their faces with wine lees, mounted a cart,
66
1
• Figures placed above the entrance of Athenian houses, and symbolizing
the double life. It was held as sacrilege to deface them, as had been recently
and mysteriously done.
2 Introducing him into the play, as in the disguise of a disreputable
woman.
Aristophanes' Apology.
133
and drove by night through the villages : crying from house
to house, how this man starved his labourers, that other
kissed his neighbour's wife, and so on. The first comedian
battered with big stones. He, Aristophanes, is at the
stage of the wooden club which he has taken pains to
plane smooth, and inlay with shining studs. The mere
polished steel will be for his successors.
"And is he approaching the age of steel?" Balaustion.
asks, well knowing that he is not. "His play failed last
year.
Was his triumph to-night due to a gentler tone?
Is he teaching mankind that brute blows are not human
fighting, still less the expression of godlike power; and
that ignorance and folly are convicted by their opposites,
not by themselves?
"Not he, indeed," he replies; "he improves on his art :
he does not turn it topsy-turvy. He does not work on
abstractions. His power is not that of the recluse. He
wants human beings with their approbation and their
sympathy, and his Athens, to be pleased in her own way.
He leaves the rest to Euripides. Real life is the grist to
his mill. It is clear enough, however, that the times are
against him. Every year more restrictions; Euripides
with his priggishness; Socrates with his books and his
moonshine, and his supercilious ways: never resenting
his (Aristophanes') fun, nor seeming even to notice it,'
not condescending to take exception to any but the
'tragedians;' as if he, the author of the 'Birds,' was a
mere comic poet!" Then follows a tirade on the variety of
his subjects; their depth, their significance, and the mawk-
ishness and pedantry which they are intended to confute.
"Drunk! yes, he owns that he is." This in answer to
a look from Balaustion, which has rebuked a too hazar-
dous joke-" Drink is the proper inspiration. How else
1
Aristophanes' comedy of the "Clouds" was written especially at
Socrates, who stood up unconcernedly in the theatre that the many strangers
present might understand what was intended.
134
Handbook to Browning's Works.
was he beaten in the 'Clouds,' his masterpiece, but that
his opponent had inspired himself with drink, and he this
time had not?' Purity! he has learned what that is
worth "—With more in the same strain. Now, however,
that his adventure is told, the tumult of feeling in some
degree subsides, and the more serious aspects of the
apology will come into play.
Balaustion and her husband, seeing the sober mood
return, once more welcome "the glory of Aristophanes"
to their house, and bid him on his side share in their
solemnity, and commemorate Euripides with them. This
calls his attention to the portrait of the dead poet; those
implements of his work which were his tokens of friend-
ship to Balaustion; the papyrus leaf inscribed with the
Herakles itself; and he cannot resist a sneer at this again
unsuccessful play. His hostess rebukes him grandly for
completing the long outrage on the living man by this
petty attack on his " supreme calm;" and as supreme
calmness means death, he begins musing on the immuni-
ties which death confers, and their injustice. "Give him
only time and he will pulverize his opponents; he will
show them whether this work of his is unintelligible, or
that other will not live. But let them die; and they slink
out of his reach with their malice, stupidity, and ignorance,
while survivors croak 'respect the dead' over the hole
in which they are laid. At all events, he retorts on them
when he can-unwisely perhaps, since those he flings
mud at are only immortalized by the process. Euripides
knew better than to follow his example."
Again Balaustion has her answer. "He has volleyed
mud at Euripides himself while pretending to defend the
same cause: the cause of art, of knowledge, of justice,
¹ Mr. Mahaffy's description of the "Clouds" contains an account of this
defeat, which sets forth the amusing conceit and sophistry of Aristophanes'
explanation of it. He alludes here to the prevailing custom of several dra-
matic writers competing for a prize.
Aristophanes' Apology.
135
and of truth';" and she makes his cheek burn by remind-
ing him of what petty and what ignoble witticisms that
mud was made up. At last he begins in real earnest.
"Balaustion, he understands, condemns comedy both in
theory and in practice, from the calm and rational heights
to which she, with her tragic friend, has attained. Here
are his arguments in its favour."
"It claims respect as an institution, because as such it
is coeval with liberty-born of the feast of Bacchus, and
therefore of the good gifts of the earth-a mode of telling
truth without punishment, and of chastising without doing
harm. It claims respect by its advance from simple
objects to more composite, from plain thumping to more
searching modes of attack. The men who once exposed
wrong-doing by shouting it before the wrong-doer's door,
now expose it by representing its various forms. The
comic poets denounce not only the thief, the fool, the
miser, but the advocates of war, the flatterers of the popu-
lace, the sophists who set up Whirligig¹ in the place of
Zeus, the thin-blooded tragedian in league with the
sophists, who preaches against the flesh. Where facts are
insufficient he has recourse to fancy, and exaggerates the
wronged truth the more strongly to enforce it (here
follows a characteristic illustration.) To those who call
Saperdion the Empousa, he shows her in a Kimberic
robe; 2 in other words, he exposes her charms more fully
than she does it herself, the better to convict those who
malign them."
And here lies his grudge against Euripides. Euripides
is one of those who call Saperdion a monster-who slander
the world of sense with its beauties and its enjoyments,
1
¹ Whirligig is a parody of the word "vortex. Vortex itself is used in
derision of Socrates, who is represented in the "Clouds" as setting up this
non-rational force in the place of Zeus-the clouds themselves being subordi-
nate divinities.
2 Saperdion was a famous Hetaira, the Empousa, a mythological monster.
Kimiberic or Cimberic means transparent.
136
Handbook to Browning's Works.
or who contemptuously set it aside. "Born on the day
of Salamis—when heroes walked the earth; and gods were
reverenced and not discussed-when Greeks guarded their
home with its abundant joys, and left barbarian lands to
their own starvation-he has lived to belie every tradition
of that triumphant time. He has joined himself with a
band of starved teachers and reformers to cut its very
foundations away. He exalts death over life, misery over
happiness; or, if he admits happiness, it is as an empty
name."
“Moreover, he reasons away the gods; for they are,
according to him, only forms of nature. Zeus is the
atmosphere. Poseidon is the sea. Necessity rules the
universe. Duty, once the will of the gods, is now a voice
within ourselves bidding us renounce pleasure, and giving
us no inducement to do so.
""
"He reasons away morality, for he shows there is neither
right nor wrong, neither 'yours' nor 'mine,' nor natural
privilege, nor natural subjection, that may not be argued
equally for or against. 'Why be in such a hurry to pay
one's debt, to attend one's mother, to bring a given
sacrifice?"
"He reasons away social order, for he declares the slave
as good as his master, woman equal to man, and even
the people competent to govern itself. 'Why should not
the tanner, the lampseller, or the mealman, who knows
his own business so well, know that of the State too?'"
"He ignores the function of poetry, which is to see beauty,
and to create it: for he places utility above grace, truth
above all beauty. He drags human squalor on to the
scene because he recognizes its existence. The world of
the poet's fancy, that world into which he was born, does
not exist for him. He spoils his art as well as his life,
carving back to bull what another had carved into a
sphinx."
"How are such proceedings to be dealt with? They
Aristophanes' Apology.
137
appeal to the mob. The mob is not to be swayed by
polished arguments or incidental hints. We don't scare
sparrows with a Zeus' head, though the eagle may recognize
it as his lord's. A big Priapus is the figure required.”
"And this," so Aristophanes resumes his defence," comedy
supplies. Comedy is the fit instrument of popular convic
tion and the wilder, the more effective: since it is the
worship of life, of the originative power of nature; and
since that power has lawlessness for its apparent law.
Even Euripides, with his shirkings and his superiority,
has been obliged to pay tribute to the real. He could
not shake it off all at once. He tacked a Satyric play
to some five of his fifty trilogies and if this was grim
enough at first, he threw off the mask in Alkestis, show-
ing how one could be indecent in a decent way.'
" 1
>>
For the reasons above given, which he farther expands
and illustrates, Aristophanes chooses the "meaner muse
for his exponent. "And who, after all, is the worse for it?
Does he strangle the enemies of the truth? No. He
simply doses them with comedy, i.e. with words. Those
who offend in words he pays back in them, exaggerating
a little, but only so as to emphasize what he means ; just as
love and hate use each other's terms, because those proper
to themselves have grown unmeaning from constant use.
And what is the ground of difference between Balaustion
and himself? Slender enough, in all probability, as he
could show her, if they were discussing the question for
themselves alone. As it is, Euripides has attacked him
in the sight of the mob. His defence is addressed to it :
he uses the arguments it can understand. It does not
follow that they convey a literal statement of his own
views. Euripides is not the only man who is free from
¹ A pure libel on this play, which is noted for its novel and successful
attempt to represent humour without indecency. Aristophanes here alludes
to the prevailing custom of concluding every group of three tragedies with a
play in which the chorus consisted of Satyrs: a custom which Euripides
broke through.
138
Handbook to Browning's Works.
"
superstition. He too on occasion can show up the gods;
and he describes the manner in which he will do this in
his next play. All that is serious in the Apology is given
in the concluding passage. "Whomever else he is hard
upon, he will level nothing worse than a harmless parody
at Sophocles, for he has no grudge against him :—
'He founds no anti-school, upsets no faith,
But, living, lets live,'
(vol. xiii. p. 110.)
And all his, Aristophanes', teaching is this:-
accept the old,
Contest the strange! acknowledge work that's done,
Misdoubt men who have still their work to do !'
(p. 111.)
He has summed up his case. Euripides must own him-
self beaten. If Balaustion will not admit the defeat, let
her summon her rosy strength, and do her worst against
his opponent."
Balaustion pauses for a moment before relating her
answer to this challenge: and gives us to understand
that, in thus relieving her memory, she is reproducing not
only this special experience, but a great deal of what she
habitually thinks and feels; thus silencing any sense of
the improbable, which so lengthened an argument accu-
rately remembered, might create in the reader's mind.
Her tone is at first deprecating. "It is not for her, a
mere mouse, to argue on a footing of equality with a forest
monarch like himself. It is not for her to criticize the
means by which his genius may attain its ends. She
does not forget that the poet-class is that essentially which
labours in the cause of human good. She does not forget
that she is a woman, who may recoil from methods which
a man is justified in employing. Lastly, she is a foreigner,
and as such may blame many things simply because she
does not understand them. She may yet have to learn
that the tree stands firm at root, though its boughs dip
and dance before the wind. She may yet have to learn
Aristophanes' Apology.
139
that those who witness his plays have been previously
braced to receive the good and reject the evil in them, like
the freshly-bathed hand which passes unhurt through
flame. She may judge falsely from what she sees.”
"But," she continues,¹ "let us imagine a remote future,
and a far-away place-say the Cassiterides 2—and men
and women, lonely and ignorant-strangers in very deed
-but with feelings similar to our own.
Let us suppose
that some work of Zeuxis or Pheidias has been trans-
ported to their shores, and that they are compelled to
acknowledge its excellence from its own point of view—its
colouring true to nature, though not to their own type—its
unveiled forms decorous, though not conforming to their
own standard of decorum. Might they not still, and
justly, tax it on its own ground with some flaw or incon-
gruity, which proved the artist to have been human? And
may not a stranger, judging you in the same way, recog-
nize in you one part of peccant humanity, poet 'three
parts divine' though you be?"
"You declare comedy to be a prescriptive rite, coeval
in its birth with liberty. But the great days of Greek
national life had been reached when comedy began. You
declare also that you have refined on the early practice,
and imported poetry into it. Comedy is therefore, as you
defend it, not only a new invention, but your own. And,
finally, you declare your practice of it inspired by a fixed
purpose. You must stand or fall by the degree in which
this purpose has been attained."
Do
"You would, by means of comedy, discredit war.
you stand alone in this endeavour?" And she quotes a
beautiful passage from 'Cresphontes,' a play written by
Euripides for the same end. "And how, respectively, have
you sought your end? Euripides, by appealing to the
'The inverted commas include here, as elsewhere in the Apology, only the
very condensed substance of Mr. Browning's words.
2 Tin-islands. Scilly Islands, loosely speaking, Great Britain.
I 40
Handbook to Browning's Works.
nobler feelings which are outraged by war; you, by ex-
patiating on the animal enjoyments which accompany
peace. The 'Lysistrata' is your equivalent for 'Cres-
phontes.' Do you imagine that its obscene allurements
will promote the cause of peace? Not till heroes have
become mean voluptuaries, and Cleonymos,¹ whom you
yourself have derided, becomes their type."
"You would discredit vice and error, hypocrisy, sophistry
and untruth. You expose the one in all its seductions,
and the other in grotesque exaggerations, which are
themselves a lie; showing yourself the worst of sophists
-one who plays false to his own soul."
"You would improve on former methods of comedy.
You have returned to its lowest form. For you profess to
strike at folly, not at him who commits it: yet your tac-
tics are precisely to belabour every act or opinion of
which you disapprove, in the form of some one man.
You pride yourself, in fact, on giving personal blows,
instead of general and theoretical admonitions; and even
here you seem incapable of hitting fair; you libel where
you cannot honestly convict, and do not care how ignoble
or how irrelevant the libel may be. Does the poet de-
serve criticism as such? Does he write bad verse, does
he inculcate foul deeds? The cry is, 'he cannot read or
write;' 'he is extravagant in buying fish;' 'he allows
someone to help him with his verse, and make love to his
wife in return ;' 'his uncle deals in crockery;' 'his mother
sold herbs' (one of his pet taunts against Euripides); ‘he
is a housebreaker, a footpad, or, worst of all, a stranger;'
-a term of contempt which, as Balaustion reminds him,
has been repeatedly bestowed upon himself.
"What have you done," she continues, "beyond de-
voting the gold of your genius to work, which dross, in
the person of a dozen predecessors or contemporaries,
¹ A demagogue of bad character attacked by Aristophanes; a big fellow
and great coward.
Aristophanes' Apology.
141
has produced as well. Pun and parody, satire and invec-
tive, quaintness of fancy, and elegance, have each had its
representative as successful as you. Your life-work, until
this moment, has been the record of a genius increasingly
untrue to its better self. Such satire as yours, however
well intended, could advance no honest cause. Its exagge-
rations make it useless for either praise or blame. Its
uselessness is proved by the result: your jokes have re-
coiled upon yourself. The statues still stand which your
mud has stained; the lightning flash of truth can alonc
destroy them. War still continues, in spite of the seduc-
tions with which you have invested peace. Such improve-
ments as are in progress take an opposite direction to that
which you prescribe. Public sense and decency are only
bent on cleansing your sty."
And now her tone changes.
Has Euripides succeeded
any better? None can say ; for he spoke to a dim future
above and beyond the crowd. If he fail, you two will
be fellows in adversity; and, meanwhile, I am convinced
that your wish unites with his to waft the white sail on
its way.¹ Your nature, too, is kingly." She concludes
with a tribute to the "Poet's Power," which is one with
creative law, above and behind all potencies of heaven and
earth; and to that inherent royalty of truth, in which
alone she could venture to approach one so great as he.
He too, as poet, must reign by truth, if he assert his proper
sway.
"Nor, even so, had boldness nerved my tongue,
But that the other king stands suddenly
In all the grand investiture of death,
Bowing your knee beside my lowly head-
Equals one moment!"
(vol. xiii. p. 144.
Then she bids him "arise and go." Both have done
homage to Euripides.
White was the Greek colour of victory. This passage, not easily para-
phrased, is a poetic recognition of the latent sympathy of Aristophanes with
the good cause.
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
"Not so,” he replies; "their discussion is not at an end.
She has defended Euripides obliquely by attacking him-
self. Let her do it in a more direct fashion." This leads
up to what seems to her the best defence possible: that
reading of the "Herakles" which the entrance of Aris-
tophanes had suspended. Its closing lines set Aristophanes
musing. The chorus has said:
"The greatest of all our friends of yore,
We have lost for evermore !
(p. 231.)
66 'Who," he asks, "has been Athens' best friend? He who
attracted her by the charm of his art, or he who repelled
her by its severity ?" He answers this by describing the
relative positions of himself and Euripides in an image
suggested by the popular game of Cottabos.¹
"The one
was fixed within his 'globe;' the other adapted himself to
its rotations. Euripides received his views of life through
a single aperture, the one channel of 'High' and 'Right.'
Aristophanes has welcomed also the opposite impressions
of 'Low' and 'Wrong,' and reproduced all in their turn.
Some poet of the future, born perhaps in those Cassite-
rides, may defy the mechanics of the case, and place him-
self in such a position as to see high and low at once-
be Tragic and Comic at the same time. But he mean-
while has been Athens' best friend-her wisest also-since
he has not challenged failure by attempting what he could
not perform. He has not risked the fate of Thamyris,
who was punished for having striven with the higher
powers, as if his vision had been equal to their own.
And he recites a fragment of song, which Mr. Browning
unfortunately has not completed, describing the fiery rap-
1
"2
¹ A game said to be of Sicilian origin and played in many ways. Details
of it may be found in Becker's "Charikles," vol. ii.
2 Thamyris of Thrace, said to have been blinded by the Muses for con-
tending with them in song. The incident is given in the "Iliad," and was
treated again by Sophocles, as Aristophanes also relates.
Aristophanes' Apology.
143
ture in which that poet marched, all unconscious, to his
doom. Some laughing promise and prophecy ensues, and
Aristophanes departs, in the 'rose-streaked morning grey,'
bidding the couple farewell till the coming year.
That year has come and gone. Sophocles has died:
and Aristophanes has attained his final triumph in the
"Frogs"-a play flashing with every variety of his genius
-as softly musical in the mystics' chorus as croaking in
that of the frogs—in which Bacchus himself is ridiculed,
and Euripides is more coarsely handled than ever. And
once more the voice of Euripides has interposed between
the Athenians and their doom.2 When Ægos Potamos
had been fought, and Athens was in Spartan hands,
Euthykles flung the "choric flower" of the "Electra" in
the face of the foe, and
•
because Greeks are Greeks, though Sparte's brood,
And hearts are hearts, though in Lusandros' breast,
And poetry is power,
(p. 253.)
the city itself was spared. But when tragedy ceased,
comedy was allowed its work, and it danced away the
Piræan bulwarks, which were demolished, by Lysander's
command, to the sound of the flute.
And now Euthykles and Balaustion are nearing Rhodes.
Their master lies buried in the land to which they have
bidden farewell; but the winds and waves of their island
home bear witness to his immortality: for theirs seems the
voice of nature, re-echoing the cry, "There are no gods,
no gods!" his prophetic, if unconscious, tribute to the One
God, "who saves " him.
Balaustion has no genuine historic personality. She is
simply what Mr. Browning's purpose required: a large-
souled woman, who could be supposed to echo his appre-
ciation of these two opposite forms of genius, and express
his judgments upon them. But the Euripides she de-
2 This also is historical.
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
picts is entirely constructed from his works; while her
portrait of Aristophanes shows him not only as his works
reflect, but as contemporary criticism represented him;
he is one of the most vivid of Mr. Browning's characters.
The two transcripts from Euripides seem enough to prove
that that poet was far more human than Aristophanes
professed to think; but the belief of Aristophanes in
the practical asceticism of his rival was in some degree
justified by popular opinion, if not in itself just; and we
can understand his feeling at once rebuked and irritated
by a contempt for the natural life which carried with it so
much religious and social change. Aristophanes was a
believer in the value of conservative ideas, though not
himself a slave to them. He was also a great poet,
though often very false to his poetic self. Such a man
might easily fancy that one like Euripides was untrue to
the poetry, because untrue to the joyousness of existence;
and that he shook even the foundations of morality by
reasoning away the religious conceptions which were
bound up with natural joys. The impression we receive
from Aristophanes' Apology is that he is defending some-
thing which he believes to be true, though conscious of
defending it by sophistical arguments, and of having en-
forced it by very doubtful deeds; and we also feel that
from his point of view, and saving his apparent incon-
sistencies, Mr. Browning is in sympathy with him. At
the same time, Balaustion's rejoinder is unanswerable, as
it is meant to be; and the double monologue distinguishes
itself from others of the same group, by being not only
more dramatic and more emotional, but also more con-
clusive; it is the only one of them in which the question
raised is not, in some degree, left open.
The poem bristles with local allusions and illustrations
which puzzle the non-classical reader. I add an explana-
tory index to some names of things and persons which
have not occurred in my brief outline of it.
Aristophanes' Apology.
145
Vol. xiii. p. 4. Koré. (Virgin.) Name given to Per
sephoneé. In Latin, Proserpina.
P. 6. Dikast and Heliast. Dicast Judge, Heliast=
Juryman, in Athens.
P. 7. I. Kordax-step. 2. Propulaia. (Propylaia.) 1.
An indecent dance. 2. Gateway of the Acropolis. 3.
Pnux. (Pnyx.) 4. Bema. 3. Place for the Popular
Assembly. 4. Place whence speeches were made.
P. 8. Makaria. Heroine in a play of Euripides, who
killed herself for her country's sake.
P. 10.
1. Milesian smart-place. 2. Phrunikos. (Phry-
nicus.) 1. The painful remembrance of the capture of
Miletus. 2. A dramatic poet, who made this capture the
subject of a tragedy, "which, when performed (493), so
painfully wrung the feelings of the Athenian audience
that they burst into tears in the theatre, and the poet was
condemned to pay a fine of 1,000 drachmai, as having
recalled to them their own misfortunes." 1 He is derided
by Aristophanes in the “Frogs" for his method of intro-
ducing his characters.
P. 12. Amphitheos, Deity, and Dung. A character in
the Acharnians of Aristophanes-"not a god, and yet
immortal."
P. 14.
I. Diaulos.
Race-course.
2. Stade. I. A double line of the
2. The Stadium, on reaching which, the
runner went back again.
P. 16. City of Gapers. Nickname of Athens, from the
curiosity of its inhabitants.
P. 17. Koppa-marked. Race-horses of the best breed
were marked with the old letter Koppa.
P. 18. Comic Platon. The comic writer of that name :
author of plays and poems, not THE Plato.
P. 21. Salabaccho. Name of a courtesan.
P. 30. Cheek-band. Band worn by trumpeters to sup-
¹ Grote's "History of Greece," vol. iii. p. 265.
L
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
port the cheeks. Cuckoo-apple. Fruit so-called = fool-
making food. Threttanelo, Neblaretai. Imitative sounds :
1. Of a harp-string. 2. Of any joyous cry. Three-days
salt-fish slice. Allowance of a soldier on an expedition.
(It was supposed that at the end of this time he could
forage for himself.)
P. 31.
Goat's breakfast and other abuse. Indecent
allusions, to be fancied, not explained.
P. 32. Sham Ambassadors. Characters in the Achar-
nians. Kudathenian. Famous Athenian. Pandionid.
Descendant of Pandion, King of Athens. Goat-Song.
Tragoedia-Tradegy. It was called goat-song because a
goat-skin, probably filled with wine, was once given as a
prize for it. The expression occurs in Shelley.
P. 33.
Willow-Wicker Flask. Nickname of the poet
it is applied to, a toper.
P. 36. Lyric Shell or Tragic Barbiton. Lesser and
larger lyre.
P. 38. Sousarion. Susarion of Megara, inventor of
Attic comedy. Chionides.
Chionides. His successor.
P. 39. Little-in-the-Fields. The Dionysian Feast; a
lesser one than the City Dionysia.
P. 40. Ameipsias. A comic poet, contemporary with
Aristophanes, whose two best plays he beat.
P. 42. Iostephanos. "Violet-crowned,” name of Athens.
Kleophon. A demagogue of bad character, attacked by
Aristophanes as profligate, and an enemy of peace.
Kleonumos. A similar character; also a big fellow, and
great coward.
P. 43.
Telekleides. Old comic poet, on the same side
as Aristophanes. Mullos and Euetes. Comic poets who
revived the art of comedy in Athens after Susarion.
P. 44. Morucheides. Son of Morychus-like his father,
a comic poet and a glutton. Sourakosios. Another comic
poet.
Aristophanes' Apology.
147
P. 46. Trilophos. Wearer of three crests on his
helmet.
P. 47. Ruppapai. Word used by the crew in rowing-
hence, the crew itself.
P. 49. Free dinner in the Prutaneion. (Prytaneion.)
Such was accorded to certain privileged persons. Ariph.
rades. A man of infamous character, singer to the harp :
persistently attacked by Aristophanes. Karkinos. Comic
actor had famous dancing sons.
P. 50. Exomis. A woman's garment. Parachoregema.
Subordinate chorus, which sings in the absence of the
principal one. Aristullos. Bad character satirized by
Aristophanes, and used in one of his plays as a travesty of
Plato. This incident, and Plato's amused indifference, are
mentioned at p. 137 of the Apology.
P. 51. Murrhine, Akalantis. Female names in the
Thesmophoriazusae. New Kalligeneia. Name given to
Ceres, meaning, "bearer of lovely children." The Toxotes.
A Syrian archer in the “Thesmophoriazusae.” The Great
King's Eye. Mock name given to an ambassador from
Persia in the Acharnians. Kompolakuthes.
boaster with a play on the name of Lamachus.
P. 52. Silphion. A plant used as a relish.
Clapper. Corrector of Kleon.
Bully-
Kleon-
P. 54. Trugaios. Epithet of Bacchus, "vintager;"
here name of a person in the comedy of "Peace." Story
of Simonides. Simonides, the lyric poet, sang an ode to
his patron, Scopas, at a feast; and as he had introduced
into it the praises of Castor and Pollux, Scopas declared
that he would only pay his own half-share of the ode, and
the Demi-gods might pay the remainder. Presently it was
announced to Simonides that two youths desired to see
him outside the palace; on going there he found nobody,
but meanwhile the palace fell in, killing his patron. Thus
was he paid.
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
P. 58. Maketis. Capital of Macedonia.
P. 60. Lamachos. General who fell at the siege of
Syracuse; satirized by Aristophanes as a brave, but
boastful man.
P. 67. Sophroniskos' Son. Socrates.
P. 74. Kephisophon. Actor, and friend of Euripides ;
enviously reported to help him in writing his plays.
P. 79. Palaistra. A wrestling-school, or place of
exercise.
P. 82. San. Letter distinguishing race-horses. Thea-
rion's Meal-Tub Politics. Politics of Thearion the baker.
Pisthetarios. Character in the "Birds," alias “Mr. Per-
suasive.” Strephsiades. Character in the “Clouds.”
P. 83. Rocky ones. Epithet given to the Athenians.
Promachos. Champion.
P. 85.
P. 86.
The Boulé.
State Council. Prodikos. Pro-
dicus. A Sophist, satirized in the "Birds" and
"Clouds."
P. 87. Choes. Festival at Athens. "The Pitchers."
P. 89. Plataian help. The Platæans sent a thousand
well appointed warriors to help at Marathon. The term
stands for timely help.
P. 94. Plethron square.
100 feet square.
P. 98. Palaistra tool. Tool used at the Palaistra,
or wrestling school: in this case the strigil.
P. 99. Phales. Iacchos. Two epithets of Bacchus—
the former indecent.
P. 112. Kinesias.
Kinesias. According to Aristophanes, a bad
profligate lyric poet, notable for his leanness.
P. 113. Rattei. Like "
Neblaretai," an imitative or
gibberish word expressing joyous excitement. Aristonu-
mos. Sannurion. Two comic poets, the latter ridiculed
by Aristophanes for his leanness.
P. 124. Parabasis. Movement of the chorus, wherein
the Coryphoeus came forward and spoke in the poet's name.
Aristophanes' Apology.
149
P. 128. Skiadeion. Sunshade. Parasol.
P. 129. Theoria. Opora. Characters in the Eirené or
"Peace:" the first personifying games, spectacles, sights;
the second, plenty, fruitful autumn, and so on.
P. 133. Philokleon. Lover of Kleon. (Cleon.) Bde-
lukleon. Reviler of Kleon.
P. 135. Logeion. Front of the stage occupied by the
actors.
P. 137. Kukloboros-roaring. Roaring like the torrent
Cycloborus (in Attica).
P. 140. Konnos. The play by Ameipsias which beat the
"Clouds." Euthumenes. One who refused the pay of the
comic writers, while he tripled that of those who attended
at the Assembly. Argurrhios. As before. Kinesias. As
before.
P. 144.
god.
Triballos. A supposed country and clownish
P. 172. Propula. (Propyla.) Gateway to the Acro-
polis.
P. 248.
month.
Elaphebolion month. The "Stag-striking "
P. 249. Bakis prophecy. Foolish prophecies attributed
to one Bacis, rife at that time; a collective name for all
such.
P. 255. Kommos. General weeping-by the chorus
and an actor.
17
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
"FIFINE AT THE FAIR."
"Fifine at the Fair" is a defence of inconstancy, or of
the right of experiment in love; and is addressed by a
husband to his wife, whose supposed and very natural
comments the monologue reflects. The speaker's implied
name of Don Juan sufficiently tells us what we are meant
to think of his arguments; and they also convict them-
selves by landing him in an act of immorality, which
brings its own punishment. This character is neverthe-
less a standing puzzle to Mr. Browning's readers, because
that which he condemns in it, and that which he does not,
are not to be distinguished from each other. It is im-
possible to see where Mr. Browning ends and where Don
Juan begins. The reasoning is scarcely ever that of a
heartless or profligate person, though it very often betrays
an unconsciously selfish one. It treats love as an educa-
tion still more than as a pleasure; and if it lowers the
standard of love, or defends too free an indulgence in it,
it does so by asserting what is true for imaginative per-
sons, though not for the commonplace: that whatever
stirs even a sensuous admiration appeals also to the
artistic, the moral, and even the religious nature. Its
obvious sophistries are mixed up with the profoundest
truths, and the speaker's tone has often the tenderness of
one who, with all his inconstancy, has loved deeply and
long. We can only solve the problem by referring to the
circumstances in which the idea of the poem arose,
Mr. Browning was, with his family, at Pornic many years
ago, and there saw the gipsy who is the original of Fifine.
His fancy was evidently sent roaming, by her audacity, her
strength-the contrast which she presented to the more
"Fifine at the Fair."
151
spiritual types of womanhood; and this contrast even-
tually 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 attrac-
tions, not only successively, but at the same time; and a
modified Don Juan would grow up under his pen, think-
ing in some degree his thoughts, using in some degree his
language, and only standing out as a distinctive character
at the end of the poem. The higher type of womanhood
must appear in the story, at the same time as the lower
which is represented by Fifine; and Mr. Browning would
instinctively clothe it in the form which first suggested or
emphasized the contrast. He would soon, however, feel
that the vision was desecrated by the part it was called
upon to play. He would disguise or ward it off when
possible now addressing Elvire by her husband's mouth,
in the terms of an ideal companionship, now again reduc-
ing her to the level of an every-day injured wife; and when
the dramatic Don Juan was about to throw off the mask,
the flickering wifely personality would be extinguished
altogether, and the unfaithful husband left face to face
with the mere phantom of conscience which, in one sense,
Elvire is always felt to be. This is what actually occurs ;
and only from this point of view can we account for the
perpetual encroaching of the imaginary on the real, the
real on the imaginary, which characterizes the work.
A fanciful prologue, "Amphibian," strikes its key-note.
The writer imagines himself floating on the sea, pleasantly
conscious of his bodily existence, yet feeling unfettered by
it. A strange beautiful butterfly floats past him in the air
her radiant wings can be only those of a soul; and it
strikes him that while the waves are his property, and the
;
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
1
air is hers, hers is true freedom, his only the mimicry of
it. He sees little to regret in this, since imagination is as
good as reality; and Heaven itself can only be made up
of such things as poets dream. Yet he knows that his
swimming seems but a foolish compromise between the
flight to which he cannot attain, and the more grovelling
mode of being which he has no real wish to renounce;
and he wonders whether she, the already released, who is
upborne by those sunlit wings, does not look down with
pity and wonder upon him. So also will Elvire, though
less dispassionately, watch the intellectual vagaries of her
Don Juan, which embrace the heavens, but are always
centred in earth. This prologue is preceded by a quota-
tion from Molière's "Don Juan," in which Elvire satiri-
cally prescribes to her lover the kind of self-defence-or
something not unlike it—which Mr. Browning's hero will
adopt.
Don Juan invites his wife to walk with him through the
fair and as he points out its sights to her, he expatiates
on the pleasures of vagrancy, and declares that the red
pennon waving on the top of the principal booth sends an
answering thrill of restlessness through his own frame.
He then passes to a glowing eulogium on the charms of
the dark-skinned rope-dancer, Fifine, who forms part of
the itinerant show.
Elvire gives tokens of perturbation, and her husband
frankly owns that as far as Fifine is concerned, he cannot
defend his taste: he can scarcely account for it.
"Beau-
tiful she is, in her feminine grace and strength, set forth
by her boyish dress; but with probably no more feeling
than a sprite, and no more conscience than a flower. It
is likely enough that her antecedents have been execrable,
and that her life is in harmony with them." Still, he does
not wish it supposed that he admires a body without a
soul; and he tries to convince himself that Fifine, after
all, is not quite without one. "There is no grain of sand
<<
153
Fifine at the Fair."
on the sea-shore which may not, once in a century, be the
first to flash back the rising sun; there can be no human
spirit which does not in the course of its existence greet
the Divine light with one answering ray.”
But no heavenly spark can be detected in Fifine; and
he is reduced to seeking a virtue for her, a justification
for himself, in that very fact. If she has no virtue, she
also pretends to none. If she gives nothing to society,
she asks nothing of it. His fancy raises up a procession
of such women as the world has crowned: a Helen, a
Cleopatra, some Christian saint; he bids Elvire see her-
self as part of it—as the true Helen, who, according to the
legend, never quitted Greece, contemplated her own phan-
tom within the walls of Troy-and be satisfied that she is
"best" of all. "All alike are wanting in one grace which
Fifine possesses that of self-effacement. Helen and Cleo-
patra demand unquestioning homage for their own mental
as well as bodily charms; the saint demands it for the prin-
ciple she sets forth. His love demands that he shall see
into her heart; his wife that he shall believe the impossible
as regards her own powers of devotion. Fifine says, 'You
come to look at my outside, my foreign face and figure
my outlandish limbs. Pay for the sight if it has pleased
you, and give me credit for nothing beyond what you see.'
So simply honest an appeal must touch his heart.”
Don Juan well knows what his wife thinks of all this,
and he says it for her. "Fifine attracts him for no such
out of the way reason. Her charm is that she is some-
thing new, and something which does not belong to him.
He is the soul of inconstancy; and if he had the sun for
his own, he would hanker after other light, were it that of
a tallow-candle or a squib." But he assures her that this
reasoning is unsound, and his amusing himself with a
lower thing does not prove that he has become indifferent
to the higher. He shows this by reminding her of a pic-
ture of Raphael's, which he was mad to possess; which
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
now that he possesses it, he often neglects for a picture-
book of Dore's; but which, if threatened with destruction,
he would save at the sacrifice of a million Dorés, perhaps
of his own life. And now he turns back to her phantom
self, as present in his own mind; describes it in terms of
exquisite grace and purity; and declares hers the one
face which fits into his heart, and makes whole what
would be half without it.
Elvire is conciliated; but her husband will not leave
well alone. He has established her full claim to his ad-
miration: but he is going to prove that so far as her
physical charms are concerned, she owes it to his very
attachment: "for those charms are not attested by her
looking-glass. He discovers them by the eye of love—
in other words-by the artist soul within him."
All beauty, Don Juan farther explains, is in the imagi-
nation of him who feels it, be he lover or artist; be the
beauty he descries the attribute of a living face, of a
portrait, or of some special arrangement of sound. The
feeling is inspired by its outward objects, but it cannot be
retraced to them. It is a fancy created by fact, as flame
by fuel; no more identical with it. The fancy is not on
that account a delusion. It is the vision of ideal truth :
the recognition by an inner sense of that which does not
exist for the outer. That is why hearts choose each other
by help of the face, and why they choose so diversely.
The eye of love, which again is the eye of art, reads soul
into the features, however incomplete their expression of
it may be. It reconstructs the ideal type which nature
has failed to carry out.
He illustrates this by means of three faces roughly
sketched in the sand. At first sight they are grotesque
and unmeaning. Yet a few more strokes of the broken
pipe which is serving him as a pencil, will give to two of
these a predominating expression; convert the third into
a likeness of Elvire.
"Fifine at the Fair.”
155
"These completing touches represent the artist's action
upon life.
By this method Don Juan has been enabled,
on a former occasion, to complete a work of high art. A
block of marble had come into his possession, half shaped
by the hand of Michael Angelo.
One hand, the Master's,-smoothed and scraped
That mass, he hammered on and hewed at, till he hurled
Life out of death, and left a challenge: for the world,
Death still,-
"
(vol. xi. p. 260.)
Not death to him: for as he gazed on the rough-hewn
block, a form emerged upon his mental sight—a form
which he interpreted as that of the goddess Eidotheé.¹
And as his soul received it from that of the dead master,
his hand carried it out."
Mr. Browning's whole theory of artistic perception is
contained in the foregoing lines; but he proceeds to en-
force it in another way. "The life thus evoked from death,
the beauty from ugliness, is the gain of each special soul
-its permanent conquest over matter. The mode of
effecting this is the special secret of every soul; and this
Don Juan defines as its chemic secret, the law of its affini-
ties, the law of its actions and reactions. Where one, he
says, lights force, another draws forth pity; where one finds
food for self-indulgence, another acquires strength for self-
sacrifice. One blows life's ashes into rose-coloured flame,
another into less heavenly hues. Love will have reached
its height when the secret of each soul has become the
knowledge of all; and the many-coloured rays of indivi-
dual experience are fused in the white light of universal
truth."
Here again Don Juan imagines a retort. Elvire makes
short work of his poetic theories, and declares that this
professed interest in souls is a mere pretext for the grati-
Eidotheé or Eidothea, is the daughter of Proteus-the old man of the
A legend concerning her is found in the 4th book of the Odyssey.
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
fication of sense.
"Whom in heaven's name is he try-
ing to take in?" He entreats music to take his part.
"It alone can pierce the mists of falsehood which intervene
between the soul and truth. And now, as they stroll home-
wards in the light of the setting sun, all things seem
charged with those deeper harmonies-with those vital
truths of existence which words are powerless to convey.
Elvire, however, has no soul for music, and her husband
must have recourse to words."
The case between them may, he thinks, be stated in this
question, "How do we rise from falseness into truth?” “We
do so after the fashion of the swimmer who brings his
nostrils to the level of the upper air, but leaves the rest of
his body under water-by the act of self-immersion in the
very element from which we wish to escape. Truth is
to the aspiring soul as the upper air to the swimmer : the
breath of life. But if the swimmer attempts to free his
head and arms, he goes under more completely than
before. If the soul strives to escape from the grosser
atmosphere into the higher, she shares the same fate. Her
truthward yearnings plunge her only deeper into falsehood.
Body and soul must alike surrender themselves to an ele-
ment in which they cannot breathe, for this element can
alone sustain them. But through the act of plunging we
float up again, with a deeper disgust at the briny taste we
have brought back; with a deeper faith in the life above,
and a deeper confidence in ourselves, whom the coarser
element has proved unable to submerge."
Suppose again, that as we paddle with our hands under
water, we grasp at something which seems a soul. The
piece of falsity slips through our fingers, but by the me-
chanical reaction just described, it sends us upwards into
the realm of truth. This is precisely what Fifine has
done. Of the earth earthy as she is, she has driven you
and me into the realms of abstract truth. We have thus
no right to despise her" This discourse is interrupted
"Fifine at the Fair."
157
by a contemptuous allusion to a passage in "Childe
Harold,” (fourth canto), in which the human intelligence is
challenged to humble itself before the ocean.
Elvire is still dissatisfied. The suspicious fact remains,
that whatever experience her husband desires to gain, it is
always a woman who must supply it. This he frankly
admits; and he gives his reason.
"Women lend them-
Men are egotists, and
selves to experiment; men do not.
absorb whatever comes in their way. Women, whether
Fifines or Elvires, allow themselves to be absorbed. You
master men only by reducing yourself to their level. You
captivate women by showing yourself at your best. Their
power of hero-worship is illustrated by the act of the
dolphin, 'True woman creature,' which bore the ship-
wrecked Arion to the Corinthian coast. Men are not only
wanting in true love: their best powers are called forth
by hate. They resemble the vine, first‘stung' into ‘fer-
tility' by the browsing goat, which nibbled away its ten-
drils, and gained the 'indignant wine' by the process. In
their feminine characteristics Elvire stands far higher
than Fifine; but Fifine is for that very reason more useful
as a means of education; for Elvire may be trusted im-
plicitly; Fifine teaches one to take care of himself. They
are to each other as the strong ship and the little rotten
bark." This comparison is suggested by a boatman whom
they lately saw adventurously pushing his way through
shoal and sandbank because he would not wait for the tide.
Don Juan begs leave to speak one word more in defence
of Fifine and her masquerading tribe; it will recall his
early eulogium on her frankness. "All men are actors:
but these alone do not deceive. All you are expected
• to applaud in them is the excellence of the avowed
sham.'
Don Juan has thus developed his theory that soul is
attainable through flesh, truth through falsehood, the real
through what only seems; and, as he thinks, justified the
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
conclusion that a man's spiritual life is advanced by every
experience, moral or immoral, which comes in his way.
He now relates a dream by which, as he says, those ab-
stract reflections have been in part inspired; in reality,
it continues, and in some degree refutes them. The dream
came to him this morning when he had played himself to
sleep with Schumann's Carnival; having chosen this piece
because his brain was burdened with many thoughts and
fancies which, better than any other, it would enable him
to work off; and as he tells this, he enlarges on the faculty
of music to register, as well as express, every passing
emotion of the human soul. He notes also the constant
recurrence of the same old themes, and the caprice of
taste which strives as constantly to convert them into
something new.
The dream carries him to Venice, and he awakes, in
fancy, on some pinnacle above St. Mark's Square, over-
looking the Carnival. Here his power of artistic divina-
tion-alias of human sympathy, is called into play; for
the men and women below him all wear the semblance of
some human deformity, of some animal type, or of some
grotesque embodiment of human feeling or passion. He
throws himself into their midst, and these monstrosities
disappear. The human asserts itself; the brute-like be-
comes softened away; what imperfection remains creates
pity rather than disgust. He finds that by shifting his
point of view, he can see even necessary qualities in what
otherwise struck him as faults.
Another change takes place : one felt more easily than
defined; and he becomes aware that he is looking not on
Venice, but on the world, and that what seemed her Car-
nival is in reality the masquerade of life. The change
goes on. Halls and temples are transformed beneath his
gaze. The systems which they represent: religions, phi-
losophies, moralities, and theories of art, collapse before
him, re-form and collapse again. He sees that the
"
159
Fifine ai the Fair."
deepest truth can only build on sand, though itself is
stationed on a rock; and can only assert its substance in
the often changing forms of error.
declare that change is the Law of Life.
The vision seems to
"That law is perma-
"Not so," it was about to say.
nence." The scene has resembled the forming and re-
forming, the blending and melting asunder of a pile of
sunset clouds. Like these, when the sun has set, it is
subsiding into a fixed repose, a stern and colourless uni-
formity. Temple, tower, and dwelling-house assume the
form of one solitary granite pile, a Druid monument.
This monument, as Mr. Browning describes it,¹ consists
really of two, so standing or lying as to form part of each
other. The one cross-shaped is supposed to have been
sepulchral, or in some other way sacred to death. The
latter, on which he mainly dwells, was until lately, the
centre of a rude nature-worship, and is therefore conse-
crated to life. It symbolizes life in its most active and
most perennial form. It means the force which aspires
to heaven, and the strength which is rooted in the earth.
It means that impulse of all being towards something out-
side itself, which is constant amidst all change, uniform
amidst all variety. It means the last word of the scheme
of creation, and therefore also the first. It repeats and
concludes the utterance already sounding in the spectator's
ear :-
'All's change, but permanence as well.'
-Grave note whence-list aloft !-harmonics sound, that mean:
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," "2 (p. 332.
1 There is such a monument at Pornic.
• These words are taken from a line in the Prometheus of Æschylus.
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
The condition of this monument, its history, the conjec-
tures to which it has given rise, are described in a
humorous spirit which belies its mystic significance ;
but that significance is imbedded in the very conception
of the poem, and distinctly expressed in the author's sub-
sequent words. The words which I have just quoted
contain the whole philosophy of "Fifine at the Fair” as
viewed on its metaphysical side. They declare the
changing relations of the soul to some fixed eternal truth
foreshadowed in the impulses of sense. They are the
burden of Don Juan's argument even when he is defending
what is wrong. They are the constantly recurring key-
note of what the author has meant to say.
Don Juan draws also a new and more moral lesson from
this final vision of his dream. Inconstancy is not justi-
fied by natural law, for it means unripeness of soul. The
ripe soul evolves the Infinite from a fixed point. It finds
the many in the one. Elvire is the one who includes the
many. Elvire is the ocean: while Fifine is but the foam-
flake which the ocean can multiply at pleasure. Elvire
shall henceforth suffice to him."
But here, as elsewhere, he makes a great mistake: that
of confusing nature with the individual man. Her insta-
bility supplied him with no excuse for being inconstant,
and her permanence gives him no motive for constancy;
and he proves this in another moment by breaking bounds
no longer in word only, but in deed. It turns out that he
had put gold as well as silver into Fifine's tambourine.
The result, intended or not, has been a letter slipped into
his hand. He claims five minutes to go and “clear the
matter up ;" exceeds the time, and on returning finds his
punishment in an empty home.
This at least, we seem intended to infer. For Elvire
has already startled him by assuming the likeness of a
phantom, and he gives her leave, in case he breaks his
word, to vanish away altogether. The story ends here;
"Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau. ""
161
but its epilogue "The Householder" depicts a widowed
husband, grotesquely miserable, fetched home by his de-
parted wife; and his identity with Don Juan seems un-
mistakable. This scene is more humorous than pathetic,
as befits the dramatic spirit of the poem ; but the most
serious purport and most comprehensive meaning of
"Fifine at the Fair" are summed up in its closing words.
The "householder" is composing his epitaph, and his
wife thus concludes it: "Love is all, and Death is
nought."
"PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU,
SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY.”
"Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau" is a defence of the
doctrine of expediency: and the monologue is supposed
to be carried on by the late Emperor of the French, under
this feigned name. Louis Napoleon is musing over past
and present, and blending them with each other in a
waking dream. He seems in exile again. But the events of
his reign are all, or for the most part behind him, and
they have earned for him the title of "inscrutable.” A
young lady of an adventurous type has crossed his path,
in the appropriate region of Leicester Square. Some
adroit flattery on her side has disposed him to confidence,
and he is proving to her, over tea and cigars, that he is not
so "inscrutable" after all; or, if he be, that the key to the
enigma is a simple one. "This wearer of crinoline seems
destined to play Edipus to the Sphinx he is supposed to
be;" or better still, as he gallantly adds, the "Lais " for
whose sake he will unveil the mystery unasked. The
situation he thus assumes is not dignified; but as Mr.
Browning probably felt, his choice of a confidante suits
M
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the nature of what he has to tell, as well as the circum-
stances in which he tells it. Politically, he has lived from
hand to mouth. So in a different way has she. A very
trifling incident enables him to illustrate his confession,
which will proceed without interruption on the listener's
part.
They are sitting at a table with writing materials upon
it. Among these lies a piece of waste-paper. Prince
Hohenstiel descries upon it two blots, takes up a pen, and
draws a line from one to the other. This simple, half-
mechanical act is, as he declares, a type of his whole life;
it contains the word of the enigma. His constant principle
has been not to strive at creating anything new; not to
risk marring what already existed; but to adapt what he
found half made and to continue it. In other words, he
has been a sustainer or "saviour," not a reformer of
society.
Many pages are devoted to the statement and vindica-
tion of this fact, and they contain everything that can be
said, from a religious or practical point of view, in favour
of taking the world as we find it. Prince Hohenstiel's
first argument is: that he has not the genius of a reformer,
and it is a man's first duty to his Creator to do that only
which he can do best; his second: that sweeping reforms
are in themselves opposed to the creative plan, because
they sacrifice everything to one leading idea, and aim at
reducing to one pattern those human activities which God
has intended to be multiform; the third and strongest :
that the scheme of existence with all its apparent evils is
God's work, and no man can improve upon it. There
have been, he admits, revolutions in the moral as well as
the physical world; and inspired reformers, who were
born to carry them on; but these men are rare and por-
tentous as the physical agencies to which they correspond,
and whether" dervish (desert-spectre), swordsman, saint,
lawgiver," or "lyrist," appear only when the time is ripe
Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau
163
for them. Meanwhile, the great machine advances by
means of the minute springs, the revolving wheel-work, of
individual lives. Let each of these be content with its
limited sphere. God is with each and all.
And Prince Hohenstiel has another and still stronger
reason for not desiring to tamper with the existing order
of things. He finds it good. He loves existence as he
knows it, with its mysteries and its beauties; its complex
causes and incalculable effects; the good it extracts from
evil; the virtue it evolves from suffering. He reveres that
Temple of God's own building, from which deploys the
ever varying procession of human life. If the temple
be intricate in its internal construction, if its architectural
fancies impede our passage; if they make us stumble or
even fall; his invariable advice is this: "Throw light on
the stumbling-blocks; fix your torch above them at such
points as the architect approves. But do not burn them
away." He considers himself therefore, not a very great
man, but a useful one: one possessing on a small scale
the patience of an Atlas, if not the showy courage of a
Hercules: one whose small achievements pave the way
for the great ones.
Thus far the imaginary speaker so resembles Mr. Brown-
ing himself, that we forget for the moment that we are not
dealing with him; and his vicarious testimony to the
value of human life lands him, at page 145, in a personal
protest against the folly which under cover of poetry seeks
to run it down. He lashes out against the "bard" who
can rave about inanimate nature as something greater
than man; and who talks of the "unutterable" impres-
sions conveyed by the ocean, as greater than the intelli-
gence and sympathy, the definite thoughts and feelings
which can be uttered. The lines from "Childe Harold"
which will be satirized in "Fifine at the Fair" are clearly
haunting him here. But we shall now pass on to more
historic ground.
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It is a natural result of these opinions that Prince
Hohenstiel-Schwangau regards life as the one boon which
contains every other; and that the material prosperity of
his people has been the first object by which his “sustain-
ing" policy was inspired. He does not deny that even
within the limits thus imposed, some choice of cause or
system seemed open to him. "It seemed open to him to
choose between religion and free-thought, between mo-
narchy and government by the people and to throw his
energies entirely into one scale or the other, instead of
weighting one and the other by turns. It could justly
have been urged that the simpler aim is included in the
more complex, and that he would promote the interests of
his subjects by serving them from the wider, rather than
from the narrower point of view."
"But what is true in theory is not always so in practice.
He has loved a cause, and believed in it—the cause of
united Italy; and so long as he was free to express sym-
pathy with this-so long, his critics say, as he was a mere
voice, with air to float in, and no obstacle to bar his way
-he expressed it from the bottom of his soul. But with
the power to act-with the firm ground wheron to act-
came also the responsibilities of action: the circumstance
by which it must be controlled. He saw the wants of his
people; the eyes which craved light alone, and the mouths
which craved only bread. He felt that the ideal must
yield to the real, the remote to what was near; and the
work of Italian deliverance remained incomplete. It was
his very devotion to the one principle which brought the
reproach of vacillation upon him."
"He broke faith with his people too"-so his critics.
continue “for he supplied food to their bodies; but
withheld the promised liberties of speech and writing
which would have brought nourishment to their souls."
And again he answers that he gave them what they
wanted most. He gave them that which would enable
"Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau."
165
them to acquire freedom of soul, and without which such
freedom would have been useless.
He concedes something, however, to reformers by
declaring, as his final excuse, that he would not have
thus yielded to circumstances if the average life of man
were a hundred years instead of twenty; for, given suffi-
cient time, all adverse circumstance may be overcome.
"The body dies if it be thwarted. Mind—in other words,
intellectual truth-triumphs through opposition. Envy,
hatred, and stupidity, are to it as the rocks which obstruct
the descending stream, and toss it in jewelled spray above
the chasm by which it is confined. Abstract thinkers
have therefore their rights also; and it is well that those,
in some respects, greater and better men than he, who are
engaged in the improvement of the world, should find
success enough to justify their hopes; failure enough to
impose caution on their endeavours."
The Prince confesses once for all, that since improve-
ment is so necessarily limited; since the higher life is
incompatible with life in the flesh : he is content to wait
for the higher life and make the best he can of the lower.
But if anyone declares that this quiescent attitude means
indolence or sleep, his judgment is on a par with that
which was once passed on the famous statue of the Lao-
Some artist had covered the accessories of the
group, and left only the contorted central figure, with
nothing to explain its contortions. One man said as he
looked upon it,
coon.
I think the gesture strives
Against some obstacle we cannot see."
(p. 172.)
Every other spectator pronounced the "gesture" a yawn.
Prince Hohenstiel gives us a second proof that he is not
without belief in the ideal. He accepts the doctrine of
evolution: though not in its scientific sense. He likes
the idea of having felt his way up to humanity (as he now
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
feels his way in it) through progressive forms of existence;
he being always himself, and nowise the thing he dwelt in.
He likes to account in this manner for the feeling of kin-
ship which attracts him to all created things. It also
completes his vision of mankind as fining off at the sum-
mit into isolated peaks, but held together at the base by
its common natural life; and thus confirms him in the
impression that the personal needs and mutual obliga-
tions of the natural life are paramount.
As he concludes this part of his harangue, an amused
consciousness steals over him that he has been washing
himself very white; and that his self-defence has been
principally self-praise—at least, to his listener's ears. So
he proceeds to show that his arguments were just, by
showing how easily, being blamed for the one course of
action, he might have been no less censured for the oppo-
site. He imagines that his life has been written by some
romancing historian of the Thiers and Victor Hugo type;
and that in this version, practical wisdom, or SAGACITY,
is made to suggest everything which he has really done,
while he unwisely obeys the dictates of ideal virtue and
does everything which he did not.
Hohenstiel-Schwangau (France) had made him her
head-servant: president of the assembly which she had
elected to serve her; and he knew that his fellow-servants
were working for their own ends, while he alone was faith-
ful to his bond. He, doubtless, had his dreams, conjured
up by SAGACITY, of pouncing upon the unfaithful ones,
denouncing them to his mistress, the State, and begging
her to allow him to do their work as well as his own, till
such time as the danger was past, and her desire for a
more popular government could be fulfilled. But in so
doing he would have deceived her, and he chose the truth.
He knew that he had no right to substitute himself for the
multitude, his knowledge for their ignorance, his will for
theirs; since wise and foolish were alike of God's creating,
"Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau."
167
and each had his own place and purpose in the general
scheme. (Here and through the following pages, 176-7,
the real and the imaginary Prince appear merged into
each other.) He performed his strict duty, and left
things to their natural course.
His position grew worse and worse. His fellow-ser-
vants made no secret of their plans to be carried into
execution when his time of service should have expired,
and his controlling hand been removed from them. Each
had his own mine of tyranny-whether Popedom, Socialism,
or other-which he meant to spring on the people fancy-
ing itself free. The Head Servant was silent. They took
fright at his silence. "It meant mischief.”
"It meant
counterplot." "It meant some stroke of State.” “He
must be braved and bullied. His re-election must be pre-
vented; the sword of office must be wrested from his
grasp."
At length his time expired, and then he acted and spoke.
He made no stroke of State." He stepped down from
his eminence; laid his authority in the people's hand;
proved to it its danger, and proposed that Hohenstiel-
Schwangau should give him the needful authority for pro-
tecting her. The proposal was unanimously accepted;
and he justified his own judgment and that of his country
by chastising every disturber of the public peace, and re-
ducing alike knaves and fools to silence and submission.
But now SAGACITY found fault: "he had not taken the
evil in time; he might have nipped it in the bud, and
saved life and liberty by so doing: he had waited till it
was full grown, and the cost in life and liberty had been
enormous." He replied that he had been checked by his
allegiance to the law; and that rather than strain the law,
however slightly, he was bound to see it broken.
And so, the record continues, he worked and acted to the
end. He had received his authority from the people; he
governed first for them. (Here again, and at the follow-
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ing page 184, we seem to recognize the real Hohenstiel or
Louis Napoleon, rather than the imaginary.) He walked
reverently—superstitiously, if spectators will—in the path
marked out for him, ever fearing to imperil what was
good in the existing order of things; but casting all fear
aside when an obvious evil cried out for correction.
Hohenstiel-Schwangau-herself a republic-had attacked
the liberties of Rome, and destroyed them with siege and
slaughter. On his accession to power, he found this "in-
famy triumphant."
SAGACITY suggested that he should leave it untouched.
"It was no work of his; he was not answerable for its
existence.
country."
It had its political advantages for his own
But he would not hear of such a course. There was a
canker in the body politic, requiring to be cut out; and
he cut it out: though the patient roared, the wound bled,
and the operator was abused by friend and foe.
((
Why so rough and precipitate?" again SAGACITY
interposed, "though the right were on your side? Why
not temporize, persuade, even threaten, before coming to
blows?"
66
Yes," was the reply, "and see the evil strengthen
while you look on."
SAGACITY defended her advice on larger grounds; and
here too he was at issue with her. Hohenstiel-Schwangau
had a passion for fighting. She would fight for anything,
or for nothing, merely to show that she knew how. Give
her a year's peace after any war, and she was once more
ready for the fray. Prince Hohenstiel and SAGACITY
both agreed that this evil temper must be destroyed; but
SAGACITY advised him to undermine-Prince Hohenstiel
chose to combat it.
SAGACITY said, "Here is an interval of peace. Prolong
it, make it delightful; but do so under cover of intending
to cut it short. If you would induce a fierce mountain
"Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau."
169
tribe to come down from its fortress and settle in the
plain, you do not bid it destroy the fortress. You bid it
enjoy life in the city, and remember that it runs no risk in
doing so, because it has its fortress to fall back upon at the
first hint of danger. And the time will come when it can
hear with equanimity that the fortress has gone to ruin,
and that fighting is no longer in fashion. The mountain
tribe will have learned to love the fatness of the valley,
while thinking of those mother ribs of its mountain fast-
ness which are ever waiting to prop up its life. Just so
put a wooden sword into the hand of the Hohenstieler,
and let him brag of war, learning meanwhile the value of
peace."
66
Not so," the Prince replied; "my people shall not be
cheated into virtue. Truth is the one good thing. I
will tell them the truth. I will tell them that war, for
war's sake, is damnable; that glory at its best is shame,
since its image is a gilded bubble which a resolute hand
might prick, but the breath of a .foolish multitude buoys
up beyond its reach." "And what," he asked, "is the glory,
what the greatness, which this foolish nation seeks? That
of making every other small; not that of holding its place
among others which are themselves great. Shall such a
thing be possible as that the nation which earth loves best
people so aspiring, so endowed; so magnetic in its
attraction for its fellow-men-shall think its primacy en-
dangered because another selects a ruler it has not patro-
nized, or chooses to sell steel untaxed?”
"But this does not mean that Hohenstiel is to relinquish
the power of war. The aggressiveness which is damnable
in herself is to be condemned in others, and to be punished
in them. Therefore, for the sake of Austria who sins, of
Italy who suffers, of Hohenstiel-Schwangau who has a
duty to perform, the war which SAGACITY deprecates must
be waged, and Austria smitten till Italy is free."
"At least," rejoins SAGACITY, "you secure some reward
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from the country you have freed; say, the cession of Nice
and Savoy; something to satisfy those at home who doubt
the market-value of right and truth.”
No," is the reply, "you may preach that to Metternich
and remain with him." And so the Prince worked on ; de-
termined that neither fear, nor treachery, nor much less
blundering, on his part, should imperil the precarious
balance of the world's life.
Once more, and for the last time, SAGACITY lifts up her
voice. "You were the fittest man to rule. Give solidity
to your life's work by leaving a fit successor to carry it on.
Secure yourself this successor in a son.
open to you for the choice of your bride."
The world is
And again the ideal Prince retorts on the suggestion.
"The fit successor is not secured in this way. All ex-
perience proves it. The spark of genius is dropped where
God will. It may find hereditary (hence accumulated)
faculties ready to be ignited. It may fire the barren rock."
And, changing the metaphor,
rr
The seed o' the apple-tree
Brings forth another tree which bears a crab:
'Tis the great gardener grafts the excellence
On wildings where he will."
(p. 203.)
He ends by calling up the vision of an Italian wayside
temple, in which, as the legend declares, succession was
carried on after a very different principle. Each successive
high priest has become so by murdering his predecessor,
his qualification being found in that simple fact; or in the
qualities of cunning or courage of which it has been the
test.¹
And now the dream is lived through, and Prince
Hohenstiel-Schwangau awakens in his own palace: not
1 Mr. Browning desires me to say that he has been wrong in associating
this custom with the little temple by the river Clitumnus which he describes
from personal knowledge. That to which the tradition refers stood by the
lake of Nemi
"Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau."
171
much better pleased with his own plain speaking than
with the imaginary heroics of Messrs. Hugo and Thiers.
"One's case is so much stronger before it is put into
words. Motives which seem sufficient in the semi-dark-
ness of one's own consciousness, are so feeble in the light
of day. When we reason with ourselves, we subordinate
outward claims without appearing to do so since the
necessity of making the best of life for our own sake
supplies unconsciously to ourselves the point of view from
which all our reasonings proceed. When forced to think
aloud, we stoop to what is probably an untruth. We say
that our motives were-what they should have been;
what perhaps we have fancied them to be."
These closing pages convey the author's comment on
Prince Hohenstiel's defence. They present it, in his well-
known manner, as what such a man might be tempted to
say; rather than what this particular man was justified
in saying. But he takes the Prince's part in the lines
beginning,
(( Alack, one lies oneself
Even in the stating that one's end was truth," (p. 209.)
for they farther declare that though we aim at truth, our
words cannot always be trusted to hit it. The best
cannon ever rifled will sometimes deflect. Words do this
also. We recognize the conviction of the inadequacy of
language which was so forcibly expressed in the Pope's
soliloquy in "The Ring and the Book," but in what seems
a more defined form.
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'BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY.”
"Bishop Blougram's Apology" is a defence of religious
conformity in those cases in which the doctrines to which
we conform exceed our powers of belief, but are not
throughout opposed to them; its point of view being that
of a Roman Catholic churchman, who has secured his
preferment by this kind of compromise. It is addressed
to a semi-freethinker, who is supposed to have declared
that a man who could thus identify himself with Romish
superstitions must be despised as either knave or fool;
and Bishop Blougram has undertaken to prove that he is
not to be thus despised; and least of all by the person
before him.
The argument is therefore special-pleading in the full
sense of the word; and it is clear from a kind of editor's
note with which the poem concludes, that we are meant to
take it as such. But it is supposed to lie in the nature of
the man who utters, as also in the circumstance in which it
is uttered : for Bishop Blougram was suggested by Cardinal
Wiseman; and the literary hack, Gigadibs, is the kind of
critic by whom a Cardinal Wiseman is most likely to be
assailed: a man young, shallow, and untried; unused to
any but paper warfare; blind to the deeper issues of both
conformity and dissent, and as much alive to the distinc-
tion of dining in a bishop's palace as Bishop Blougram
himself. The monologue is spoken on such an occasion,
and includes everything which Mr. Gigadibs says, or
might say, on his own side of the question. We must
therefore treat it as a conversation.
Mr. Gigadibs' reasoning resolves itself into
does not believe in dogmas, and he says so.
cannot believe in them, but does not say so.
this: "he
The Bishop
He is true
1 The Cardinal himself reviewed this poem, not disapprovingly, in a
catholic publication of the time.
Shorter Argumentative Poems.
173
to his own convictions: the Bishop is not true to his."
And the Bishop's defence is as follows.
"Mr. Gigadibs aims at living his own life: in other
words, the ideal life. And this means that he is living no
life at all. For a man, in order to live, must make the best
of the world he is born in; he must adapt himself to its
capabilities as a cabin-passenger to those of his cabin. He
must not load himself with moral and intellectual fittings
which the ship cannot carry, and which will therefore
have to be thrown overboard. He (the Bishop) has
chosen to live a real life; and has equipped himself
accordingly."
And, supposing he displays what Mr. Gigadibs con-
siders the courage of his convictions, and flings his dogmas
overboard,—what will he have gained? Simply that his
uncertainty has changed sides. Believing, he had shocks
of unbelief. Disbelieving, he will have shocks of belief
(note a fine passage, vol. iv. p. 245): since no certainty
in these matters is possible."
"But,” says Gigadibs; “on that principle, your belief is
worth no more than my unbelief."
"Yes," replies the Bishop, "it is worth much more in
practice, if no more in theory. Life cannot be carried on
by negations. Least of all will religious negations be
tolerated by those we live with. And the more definite the
religion affirmed, the better will the purposes of life be
advanced by it."
"Not those of a noble life," argues Gigadibs, "nor in
the judgment of the best men. You are debasing your
standard by living for the many fools who cannot see
through you, instead of the wiser few who can.”
To which the Bishop replies that he lives according to
the nature which God has given him, and which is not so
ignoble after all; and that he succeeds with wise men as
well as with fools, because they do not see through him
either because their judgment is kept in constant sus-
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pension as to whether he can believe what he professes or
cannot; whether, in short, he is a knave or a fool. The
proposition is vividly illustrated; and a few more obvious
sophistries complete this portion of the argument.
Gigadibs still harps upon the fact that conformity can-
not do the work of belief; and the Bishop now changes
his ground. "He conforms to Christianity in the wish
that it may be true; and he thinks that this wish has all
the value of belief, and brings him as near to it as the
Creator intends. The human mind cannot bear the full
light of truth; and it is only in the struggle with doubt
and error that its spiritual powers can be developed." He
concedes, in short, that he is much more in earnest than
he appeared; and the concession is confirmed when he
goes on to declare that we live by our instincts and not by
our beliefs. This is proved-he alleges-by such a man
as Gigadibs, who has no warrant in his belief for living a
moral life, and does so because his instincts compel it.
Just so the Bishop's instincts compel a believing life.
They demand for him a living, self-proving God (here the
doctrine of expediency re-asserts itself), and they tell him
that the good things which his position confers are the
gift of that God, and intended by Him for his enjoyment.
"You," he adds, "who live for something which never is,
but always is to be, are like a traveller, who casts off, in
every country he passes through, the covering that will be
too warm for him in the next; and is comfortable nowhen
and nowhere."
•
One of his latest arguments is the best. Gigadibs has
said: "
If you must hold a dogmatic faith, at all events
reform it. Prune its excrescences away."
"And where," he retorts, "am I to stop, when once
that process has begun? I put my knife to the liquefaction,¹
1 This refers to the popular Neapolitan belief that a crystallized drop of
the blood of the patron saint, Januarius, is miraculously liquefied on given
occasions.
Shorter Argumentative Poems.
175
and end, like Fichte, by slashing at God Himself. And
meanwhile, we have to control a mass of ignorant persons
whose obedience is linked to the farthest end of the chain
(to the first superstition which I am called upon to lop
off). We have here again a question of making the best
of our cabin-fittings, the best of the opportunities which
life places to our hand." In conclusion, he draws a con-
temptuous picture of the obscure and inconsequent exis、
tence which Gigadibs accepts, as the apostle without
genius and without enthusiasm, of what is, if it be one at
all, a non-working truth.
Gigadibs is silenced, and, as it proves, impressed; but
the Bishop is too clever to be very proud of his victory;
for he knows it has been a personal, much more than a
real one.
His strength has lain chiefly in the assumption
(which only the entire monologue can justify or even con-
vey) that his opponent would change places with him if
he could; and he knows that in arguing from this point
of view he has been only half sincere. His reasonings
have been good enough for the occasion. That is the best
he can say for them.
MR. SLUDGE, THE MEDIUM.
"( Sludge, the Medium," is intended to show that even
so ignoble a person as a sham medium may have some-
thing to say in his own defence; and so far as argument
goes, Sludge defends himself successfully on two separate
lines. But in the one case he excuses his imposture in
the other, he in great measure disproves it. And this
second part of the monologue has been construed by some
readers into a genuine plea for the theory and practice of
spiritualism." Nothing, however, could be more opposed
to the general tenour of Mr. Browning's work. He is
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simply showing us what such a man might say in his own
behalf, supposing that the credulity of others had tempted
him into a cheat, or that his own credulity had made him
a self-deceiver; or, what was equally possible, in even
the present case, that both processes had gone on at the
same time. The amount of abstract truth which the
monologue is intended to convey is in itself small, and
more diluted with exaggeration and falsehood than in any
other poem of this group.
Sludge has been found cheating in the house of his
principal patron and dupe. The raps indicating the pre-
sence of a departed mother have been distinctly traced to
the medium's toes. There is no lying himself out of
it this time, so he offers to confess, on condition that the
means of leaving the country are secured to him. There
is a little bargaining on this subject, and he then
begins :-
:
"He never meant to cheat. It is the gentlefolk who have
teased him into doing it; they would be taken in. If a
poor boy like him tells a lie about money, or anything else
in which they are 'up,' they are ready enough to thrash
it out of him; but when it is something out of their way,
like saying he has had a vision-he has seen a ghost—
it's 'Oh, how curious! Tell us all about it. Sit down, my
boy. Don't be frightened, &c. &c.;' and so they lead
him on.
Presently he is obliged to invent. They have
found out he is a medium. A medium he has got to be.
'Couldn't you hear this? Didn't you see that? Try
again. Other mediums have done it, perhaps you may.'
And, of course, the next night he sees and hears what is
expected of him.”
"He gets well into his work. He sees visions; peeps
into the glass ball; makes spirits write and rap, and the
rest of it. There is nothing to stop him. If he mixes up
Bacon and Cromwell, it only proves that they are both
trying to speak through him at once. If he makes Locke
Shorter Argumentative Poems.
177
talk gibberish, and Beethoven play the Shakers' hymn,
and a dozen other such things: 'Oh! the spirits are
using him and suiting themselves out of his stock.' When
he guesses right, it shows his truth. When he doesn't, it
shows his honesty. A hit is good and a miss is better.
When he boggles outright,' he is confused with the phe-
nomena.' And when this has gone on for weeks, and he
has been clothed and cosseted, and his patrons have
staked their penetration upon him; how is he to turn round
and say he has been cheating all the time? 'I should
like to see you do it!' It isn't that he wouldn't often
have liked to be in the gutter again!"
This amusing account is diversified with expressions of
Sludge's hearty contempt for all the men and women he
has imposed upon above all, for their absurd fancy that
any scrap of unexpected information must have come to
him in a supernatural way. "As if a man could hold his
nose out of doors, and one smut out of the millions not
stick to it; sit still for a whole day, and one atom of news
not drift into his ear!" This idea recurs in various
forms.
Some
I
Well! he owns that he has cheated; and now that he
has done so, he is not at all sure that it was all cheating, that
there wasn't something real in it after all. "We are all
taught to believe that there is another world; and the
Bible shows that men have had dealings with it. We are
told this can't happen now, because we are under another
law. But I don't believe we are under another law.
men 'see' and others don't, that's the only difference.
see a sign and a message in everything that happens to
me; but I take a small message where you want a big
one. I am the servant who comes at a tap of his master's
knuckle on the wall; you are the servant who only
comes when the bell rings. Of course I mistake the sign
sometimes. But what does that matter if I sometimes
don't mistake? You say: one fact doesn't establish a system.
N
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You are like the Indian who picked up a scrap of gold,
and never dug for more. You pick up one sparkling fact,
and let it go again. I pick up one such, then another and
another, and let go the dirt which makes up the rest of
life."
Sludge combats the probable objection that the heavenly
powers are too great, and he is too small for the kind of
services he expects of them. Everything, he delares,
serves a small purpose as well as a great one. Moreover,
nothing nowadays is small. It is at all events the lesser
things and not the greater which are spoken of with awe.
The simple creature which is only a sac is the nearest to
the creative power; and since also man's filial relation to
the Creator is that most insisted on, the more familiar and
confiding attitude is the right one.
He lastly declares and illustrates his view that many a
truth may stagnate for want of a lie to set it going, and
thinks it likely enough that God allows him to imagine he
is wielding a sham power, because he would die of fright if
he knew it was a real one. He adds one or two somewhat
irrelevant items to his defence; then finding his patron
unconvinced, discharges on him a volley of abuse, and
decides to try his luck elsewhere. "There must be plenty
more fools in other parts of the world."
ARGUMENTATIVE POEMS CONTINUED.
(REFLECTIONS.)
To the second class of these poems, which are of the
nature of reflections, belong-taking them in the order
of their importance :—
"Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day." (1850.)
La Saisiaz." (1878.)
"Cleon." ("Men and Women.") (1855.)
t
Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day
179
•
“An Epistle containing the strange medical experience
of Karshish, the Arab physician." ("Men and Women.”)
(1855.)
"Caliban upon Setebos; or Natural Theology in the
Island." (Dramatis Personæ.) (1864.)
CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY are two distinct
poems, printed under this one head: and each describing
a spiritual experience appropriate to the day, and lived
through in a vision of Christ. This vision presents itself
to the reader as a probable or obvious hallucination, or
even a simple dream; but its utterances are more or less
dogmatic; they contain much which is in harmony with
Mr. Browning's known views; and it is difficult at first
sight to regard them in either case as proceeding from an
imaginary person who is only feeling his way to the truth.
This, however, they prove themselves to be.
The first poem is a narrative. Its various scenes are
enacted on a stormy Christmas Eve; and it opens with a
humorous description of a little dissenting chapel, sup-
posed to stand at the edge of a common; and of the
various types of squalid but self-satisfied humanity which
find their spiritual pasture within its walls. The narrator
has just “burst out" of it. He never meant to go in. But
the rain had forced him to take shelter in its porch, as
evening service was about to begin : and the defiant looks
of the elect as they pushed past him one by one, had im-
pelled him to assert his rights as a Christian, and push in
too. The stupid ranting irreverence of the pastor, and
the snuffling satisfaction of the flock, were soon, however,
too much for him, and in a very short time he was again
-where we find him-out in the fresh night air.
Free from the constraint of the chapel, he takes a more
tolerant view of what he has seen and heard there. He
gives the preacher credit for having said a great deal that
was true, and in the manner most convincing to the already
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convinced who were assembled to hear him.
For his
own part, he declares, Nature is his church, as she has
been his teacher; and he surrenders himself with a joyful
sense of relief to the religious influences of the solitude
and the night: his heart glowing with the consciousness
of the unseen Love which everywhere appeals to him in
the visible power of the Creator. Suddenly a mighty
spectacle unfolds itself. The rain and wind have ceased.
The barricade of cloud which veiled the moon's passage
up the western sky has sunk riven at her feet. She her- .
self shines forth in unbroken radiance, and a double lunar
rainbow, in all its spectral grandeur, spans the vault of
heaven. There is a sense as of a heavenly presence about
to emerge upon the arc. Then the rapture overflows the
spectator's brain, and the Master, arrayed in a serpentin-
ing garment, appears in the path before him.
But the Face is averted. "Has he despised the friends
of Christ? and is this his punishment?" He prostrates
himself before Him; grasps the hem of the garment;
entreats forgiveness for what was only due to the reve-
rence of his love, to his desire that his Lord should be
worshipped in all spiritual beauty and truth.
The Face turns towards him in a flood of light. The
vesture encloses him in its folds, and he is borne onwards
till he finds himself at Rome, and in front of St. Peter's
Church. He sees the interior without entering. It swarms
with worshippers, packed into it as in the hollow of a hive.
All there is breathless expectation, ecstatic awe; for the
mystery of the mass is in process of consummation, and
in another moment the tinkling of the silver bell will
announce to the prostrate crowd the actual presence of
their Lord; will open to them the vision of the coming
heavenly day. Here, too, is faith, though obscured in a
different manner. Here, too, is love: the love which in
bygone days hurled intellect from its throne, and trampled
on the glories of ancient art-which instructed its votaries
Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day.
181
to feel blindly for its new and all-sufficient life, as does
the babe for its mother's breast-which consecrates even
now the deepest workings of the heart and mind to the
service of God. And Christ enters the Basilica, into which,
after a momentary doubt, he himself follows Him.
They float onwards again, and again he is left alone but
for the hem of the garment; for Christ has entered the
lecture-hall of a rationalistic German professor, and into
this He will not bid His disciple follow Him; but the in-
terior of the building is open, as before, to the disciple's
mental sight. The lecturer is refreshing his hearers' con-
victions by an inquiry into the origin of the Christian
Myth and the foundation of fact on which it rests; and he
arrives at the conclusion that Christ was a man, but whose
work proved Him all but Divine; His Gospel quite other
than those who heard it believed, but in value nearly the
same.
((
The spectator begins musing on the anomalies of this
view. Christ, only a man, is to be reverenced as some-
thing more. On what ground?—The ground of intellect?
-Yet he teaches us only what a hundred others have
taught, without claiming to be worshipped on account of
it—The ground of goodness ?—But goodness is due from
each man to his fellows; it is no title to sovereignty over
them." And he thus sums up his own conviction. "He
may be called a saint who best teaches us to keep our lives
pure; he a poet whose insight dims that of his fellow-men.
He is no less than this, though guided by an instinct no
higher than that of the bat; no more, though inspired by
God. All gifts are from God, and no multiplying of gifts can
convert the creature into the Creator. Between Him who
created goodness, and made it binding on the conscience
of man and him who reduces it to a system, of which the
merits may be judged by man: lies the interval which
separates Nature, who decrees the circulation of the blood,
from the observer Harvey, who discovered it. One man is
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Christ, another Pilate; beyond their dust is the Divinity
of God."
"And the 'God-function' with regard to virtue was first
to impress its truths on every human breast; and secondly,
to give a motive for carrying them out; and this motive
could be given only by one, who, being life's Lord, died
for the sake of men. Whoever conceives this love, and
takes this proof to his heart, has found a new motive,
and has also gained a truth."
But Christ lingers within the hall "Is there something
after all in that lecture which finds an echo in the Chris-
tian soul? Yes, even there. There is the ghost of love,
if nothing more, in the utterance of that virgin-minded
man, with the 'wan, pure look,' and the frail life burning
itself away in the striving after truth. For his critical
tests have reduced the pearl of price to ashes, and yet left
it, in his judgment, a pearl; and he bids his followers
gather up their faith as an almost perfect whole; go home
and venerate the myth on which he has experimented,
adore the man whom he has proved to be one. And if
his learning itself be loveless, it may claim our respect
when a tricksy demon has let it loose on the Epistles of
St. Paul, as it claims our gratitude when expended on
secular things. It is at least better than the ignorance
which hates the word of God, if it cannot wholly accept
it; while these, his disciples, who renounce the earth, and
chain up the natural man on a warrant no more divine
than this, are by so much better than he who at this
moment judges them. Let them carry the doctrine by
which they think themselves carried, as does the child his
toy-horse. He will not deride nor disturb them."
The subject of these experiences has reached a state
of restful indifference. "He will adhere to his own belief,
and be tolerant towards his neighbour's: since the two
only differ as do two different refractions of a single
ray of light. He will study, instead of criticizing, the
Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day.
183
different creeds which are fused into one before the
universal Father's throne."
But this is not the lesson he has been intended to learn.
The storm, breaking out afresh, catches up and dashes him
to the ground, while the vesture, which he had let slip
during his last musings, recedes swiftly rom his sight.
Then he knows that there is one "way," and he knows
also that he may find it; and in this new conviction he
regains his hold of the garment, and at one bound has re-
entered the little chapel, which he seems never indeed to
have left. The sermon is ending, and he has heard it all.
He still appreciates its faults of matter and manner; but
he no longer rejects the draught of living water, because
it comes to him with some taste of earth. What the
draught can do is evidenced by those wrecks of humanity
which are finding renewal there. There his choice shall
rest; for, nowhere else, so he seems to conclude, is the
message of Love so simply and so directly conveyed.
A great part of the narrative is written in a humorous
tone, which shows itself, not only in thought and word,
but in a jolting measure, and even grotesque rhymes. The
speaker desires it to be understood that he is not the less
in earnest for this apparent "levity;" and the levity is
quite consistent with religious seriousness in such a person
as the poem depicts. But, as I have shown, it is alone
enough to prove that the author is not depicting himself.
The poem reflects him more or less truly in the doctrine
of Divine Love, the belief in personal guidance, and the
half-contemptuous admiration with which the speaker
regards those who will mortify the flesh in obedience to a
Christ-man. But it belies the evidence of his whole work
when, as in Section XVII., it represents moral truth as
either innate to the human spirit, or directly revealed to
it; and we shall presently notice a still greater dis-
crepancy which it shares with its companion poem.¹
'The "Iketides" (Suppliants), mentioned in Section XVIII., is a Tragedy
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"Easter-Day"2 deals with the deeper issues of scepticism
and faith; and opens with a dialogue in which the two
opposite positions are maintained. Both speakers start
from the belief in God, and the understanding that Chris-
tianity is unproved; but the one accepts it in faith : the
other regards it as, for the time being, negatived.
The man of faith begins by exclaiming, how hard it is
to be (practically) a Christian; and how disproportionate to
our endeavour is our success in becoming so. The sceptic
replies that to his mind the only difficulty is belief. "Let
the least of God's commands be proved authentic: and
only an idiot would shrink from martyrdom itself, with the
certain bliss that would reward it." The man of faith, who
is clearly the greater pessimist of the two, thinks the world
too full of suffering to be placed, by any knowledge, beyond
the reach of faith-beyond the necessity of being taken
upon trust. And his adversary concedes that absolute
knowledge would-where it was applicable-destroy its
own end. In social life, for instance, it would do away
with all those acts of faith, those instinctive judgments
and feelings, which are the essence of life. But he thinks
one may fairly desire a better touchstone for the purposes
of God than human judgment or feeling; and that, if we
cannot know them with scientific certainty, one must
wish the balance of probability to lie clearly on one side.
The man of faith is of opinion that this much of proof
exists for everyone who chooses to seek it. "The burning
question is how we are to shape our lives. For himself he
is impelled to follow the Christian precept, and renounce
the world." The sceptic denies that God demands such a
sacrifice, and sees only man's ingratitude in the impression
by Æschylus, the earliest extant: and of which the text is especially incom-
plete hence, halting, and "maimed."
2 This poem, like "Aristophanes' Apology," belongs in spirit more than
in form to its particular group. Each contains a dialogue, and in the pre-
sent case we have a defence, though not a specious one, of the judgment
attamed,
Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day.
185
that He does so. The man of faith admits that it would
be hard to have made the sacrifice, and be rewarded only
by death; while the many unbelievers who have virtually
made it for one or other of the hobbies which he describes,
have at least its success to repay them. But even so, he
continues, he would have chosen the better part; for he
would have chosen Hope, the hope which aspires to a
loftier end. "His opponent, it is true, hopes also; but
his hopes are blind. They are not those of St. Paul, but
those which, according to Æschylus, the Titan gave to
men, to spice therewith the meal of life, and prevent their
devouring it in too bitter haste; and if hope-or faith—is
meant to be something more than a relish ....!”
י
The opponent protests against this attack upon the
"trusting ease" of his existence, and declares that his
interlocutor is not doing as he would be done by. Where-
upon the first speaker relates something which befell him
on the Easter-Eve of three years ago, and which startled
him out of precisely such a condition.
He was crossing the common, lately spoken of by their
friend, and musing on life and the last judgment: when the
following question occured to him: what would be his case
if he died and were judged at that very moment? "From
childhood," he continues, “I have always insisted on know-
ing the worst; and I now plunged straight into the recesses
of my conscience, prepared for what spectre might be
hidden there. But all I encountered was common sense,
which did its best to assure me that I had nothing to fear:
that, considering all the difficulties of life, I had kept my
course through it as straight, and advanced as rapidly as
could be expected." (More reflections, half serious half
playful ensue.) "Suddenly I threw back my head, and saw
the midnight sky on fire. It was a sea of fire, now writhing
and surging; now sucked back into the darkness, now
overflowing it till its rays poured downwards on to the
earth. I felt that the Judgment Day had come. I felt
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also, in that supreme moment of consciousness, that I had
chosen the world, and must take my stand upon the
choice. I defended it with the courage of despair.
God
had framed me to appreciate the beauties of life; I could
not put the cup untasted aside; He had not plainly com-
manded me to do so; He knew how I had struggled to
resign myself to leaving it half full; Hell could be no
just punishment for such a mood as that.””
Another burst of fire. A brief ecstasy which confounded
earth and heaven. Then ashes everywhere. And amid the
wreck—like the smoke pillared over Sodom-mantled in
darkness as in a magnific pall which turned to grey the
blackness of the night-pity mingled with judgment in the
intense meditation in which his gaze was fixed-He stood
before me. I fell helpless at His feet. He spoke :
'The judgment is past; dispensed to every man as
though he alone were its object. Thy sin has been the
love of earth. Thou hast preferred the finite to the in-
finite—the fleshly joys to the spiritual. Be this choice
thy punishment. Thou art shut out from the heaven of
spirit. The earth is thine for ever.'"
"My first impulse was one of delighted gratitude. 'All
the wonders--the treasures of the natural world, are
mine?""
·
Thine,' the Vision replied, ' if such shows suffice thee;
if thou wilt exchange eternity for the equivalent of a single
rose, flung to thee over the barrier of that Eden from which
thou art for ever excluded.'"
'Not so,' I answered. 'If the beauties of nature are
thus deceptive, my choice shall be with Art-art which
imparts to nature the value of human life. I will seek
man's impress in statuary, in painting.
•
"Obtain that,' the Vision again rebuked me, 'the one
form with its single act, the one face with its single look:
the failure and the shame of all true artists who felt the
whole while they could only reproduce the part.””
•
Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day.
187
And again the Vision expatiates on the limited nature
of the earthly existence-the limited horizon which re-
duces man to the condition of the lizard pent up in a
chamber in the rock-the destined shattering of the prison
wall which will quicken the stagnant sense to the impres-
sions of a hitherto unknown world-the spiritual hunger
with which the saints, content in their earthly prison, still
hail the certainty of deliverance.
Yet no.
"Let me grasp at Mind,' I then entreated,—' whirl
enraptured through its various spheres.
I know
what thou wilt say. Mind, too, is of the earth; and all
its higher inspirations proceed from another world—are
recognized as doing so by those who receive them. I will
catch no more at broken reeds. I will relinquish the
world, and take Love for my portion. I will love on,
though love too may deceive me, remembering its conso-
lations in the past, struggling for its rewards in the
future.'"
'AT LAST,' the Vision exclaimed, 'thou choosest
LOVE. And hast thou not seen that the mightiness of
Love was curled inextricably about the power and the
beauty which attached thee to the world—that through them
it has vainly striven to clasp thee? Abide by thy choice.
Take the show for the name's sake. Reject the reality as
manifested in Him who created, and then died for thee.
Reject that Tale, as more fitly invented by the sons of
Cain-as proving too much love on the part of God.""
"Terrified and despairing, I cowered before Him, im-
ploring the remission of the sentence, praying that the old
life might be restored to me, with its trials, its limitations ;
but with their accompanying hope that it might lead to
the life everlasting."
"When I 'lived' again, the plain was silvered over with
dew; the dawn had broken."
Looking back on this experience, the narrator is dis-
posed to regard it as having been a dream. It has never-
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theless been a turning-point in his existence; for it has
taught him to hear in every blessing which attaches him
to the earth, a voice which bids him renounce it. And
though he still finds it hard to be a Christian, and is often
discouraged by the fact, he welcomes his consciousness of
this: since it proves that he is not spiritually stagnating—
not cut off from the hope of heaven.
Mr. Browning is, for the time being, outside the dis-
cussion. His own feelings might equally have dictated
some of the arguments on either side; and although he
silences the second speaker, he does not mean to prove
him in the wrong. He is at one with the first speaker,
when he suggests that certainty in matters of belief is no
more to be desired than to be attained; but that personage
regards uncertainty as justifying presumptions of a dog-
matic kind; while its value to Mr. Browning lies precisely
in its right to exclude them. And, again; while the value
of spiritual conflict is largely emphasized in his works, he
disagrees with the man of faith in "Easter-Day" as with
the dogmatic believer in "Christmas-Eve," as to the
manner in which it is to be carried on. According to
these the spirit fights against life: according to him it
fights in, and by means of, its opportunities. From his
point of view human experience is an education: from
theirs it is a snare.
So much of personal truth as these poems contain will
be found re-stated in "La Saisiaz," written twenty-eight
years later, and which impresses on it the seal of maturer
thought and more direct expression.
"LA SAISIAZ" (Savoyard for "The Sun") is the name
of a villa among the mountains near Geneva, where Mr.
Browning, with his sister and a friend of many years'
standing, spent part of the summer of 1877. The poem
so christened is addressed to this friend, and was inspired
by her death: which took place with appalling suddenness
La Saisiaz.
189
while they were there together. The shock of the event
re-opened the great questions which had long before been
solved by Mr. Browning's mind: and within sight of the
new-made grave, he re-laid the foundations of his faith,
that there is another life for the soul.
The argument is marked by a strong sense of the per-
sonal and therefore relative character of human ex-
perience and knowledge. It accepts the "subjective
synthesis" of some non-theistic thinkers, though exclud-
ing, of course, the negations on which this rests; and its
greater maturity is shown by the philosophic form in
which the author's old religious doctrine of personal (or
subjective) truth has been re-cast. He assumes here, it is
true, that God and the soul exist. He considers their
existence as given, in the double fact that there is some-
thing in us which thinks or perceives,¹ and something
outside and beyond us, which is perceived by it; and this
subject and object, which he names the Soul and God, are
to him beyond the necessity of farther proof, because
beyond the reach of it. He might therefore challenge for
his conclusions something more than an optional belief.
He guards himself, nevertheless, against imposing the
verdict of his own experience on any other man: and
both the question and the answer into which the poem
resolves itself begin for his own spirit and end so.
Mr. Browning knows himself a single point in the
creative series of effect and cause: at the same moment
one and the other: all behind and before him a blank.
Or, more helpless still, he is the rush, floated by a current,
of which the whence and whither are independent of it,
and which may land it to strike root again, or cast it
ashore a wreck. He asks himself, as he is whirled on
his "brief, blind voyage" down the stream of life, which
of these fates it has in store for him. Knowing this, that
God and the soul exist-no less than this, and no more-
¹ We recognize the cogito ergo sum of Descartes.
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he asks himself whether he is justified in believing that,
because his present existence is beyond a doubt, its re-
newal is beyond doubt also: that the current, which has
brought him thus far, will land him, not in destruction,
but in another life.
"Everything," he declares, "in my experience and I
speak only of my own-testifies to the incompleteness of
life, nay, even to its preponderating unhappiness. The
strong body is found allied to a stunted soul. The soaring
soul is chained by bodily weakness to the ground. Help
turns to hindrance, or discloses itself too late in what we
have taken for such. Every sweet brings its bitter, every
light its shade; love is cut short by death :".
"I must say or choke in silence-'Howsoever came my fate,
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!
Such were God: and was it goodness that the good within my range
Or had evil in admixture or grew evil's self by change?
Wisdom-that becoming wise meant making slow and sure advance
From a knowledge proved in error to acknowledged ignorance?
Power? 'tis just the main assumption reason most revolts at ! power
Unavailing for bestowment on its creature of an hour,
Man, of so much proper action rightly aimed and reaching aim,
So much passion,-no defect there, no excess, but still the same,—
As what constitutes existence, pure perfection bright as brief
For yon worm, man's fellow-creature, on yon happier world-its leaf!
No, as I am man, I mourn the poverty I must impute:
Goodness, wisdom, power, all bounded, each a human attribute!"
(vol. xiv. p. 183.)
"If we regard this life as final, we must relinquish our
conception of the power of God: for His work is then
open to human judgment, in the light of which it yields.
only imperfect results.”
"But let us once assume that our present state is one of
probation, intended by God as such : and every difficulty is
solved. Evil is no longer a mark of failure in the execu-
tion of the Divine Scheme: it becomes essential to it;
my experience indeed represents it as such. I cannot
La Saisiaz.
191
conceive evil as abolished without abrogation of the laws
of life. For it is not only bound up with all the good of
life; it is often its vehicle. Gain is enhanced by recent
loss. Ignorance places us nearest to knowledge. Beauty
is most precious, truth most potent, where ugliness and
falsehood prevail; and what but the loss of Love teaches
us what its true value has been ?"
(6 'May I then accept the conclusion that this life will be
supplemented by a better one?"
Mr. Browning initiates his final inquiry by declaring
that he will accept only the testimony of fact. He rejects
surmise, he seeks no answer in the beauties or in the voices
of nature; none in the minds of his fellow-men; none
even in the depths of his sentient self with its "aspiration"
and "reminiscence :" its plausible assurances that God
would be "unjust," and man "wronged," if a second life
were not granted to us.
And here he seems for a moment to deny, what he has
elsewhere stated, and everywhere implied, in the poem :
that his own spirit must be to him, despite its isolation
and weakness, the one messenger of Divine truth.
But he is only saying the same thing in a different way.
He rejects the spontaneous utterance of his own spirit;
but relies on its conclusions. He rejects it as pleader;
but constitutes it judge. And this distinction is carried
out in a dialogue, in which Fancy speaks for the sponta-
neous self; Reason for the judicial—the one making its
thrusts, and the other parrying them. The question at
issue has, however, slightly shifted its ground; and we find
ourselves asking: not, "is the Soul immortal?" but
"what would be the consequence to life of its being
proved so?"
FANCY. "The soul exists after death. I accept the
surmise as certainty: and would see it put to use during life.”
REASON. The 'use' of it will be that the wise man
will die at once: since death, in the absence of any super-
(6
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natural law to the contrary, must be clear gain. The soul
must fare better when it has ceased to be thwarted by the
body; and we have no reason to suppose that the obstruc-
tions which have their purpose in this life would be renewed
in a future one. Are we happy? death rescues our hap-
piness from its otherwise certain decay. Are we sad?
death cures the sadness. Is life simply for us a weary
compromise between hope and fear, between failure and
attainment? death is still the deliverer. It must come
some day. Why not invoke it in a painless form when the
first cloud appears upon our sky?"
FANCY. "Then I concede this much: the certainty of
the future life shall be saddled with the injunction to live
out the present, or accept a proportionate penalty."
REASON. In that case the wise man will live. But
whether the part he chooses in it be that of actor or of
looker-on, he will endure his life with indifference. Re-
lying on the promises of the future, he will take success or
failure as it comes, and accept ignorance as a matter of
course."
FANCY. "I concede more still. Man shall not only be
compelled to live: he shall know the value of life. He
shall know that every moment he spends in it is gain or
loss for the life to come-that every act he performs in-
volves reward or punishment in it.”
REASON. "Then you abolish good and evil in their re-
lation to man; for you abolish freedom of choice. No
man is good because he obeys a law so obvious and so
stringent as to leave him no choice; and such would be
the moral law, if punishment were demonstrated as follow-
ing upon the breach of it; reward on its fulfilment. Man
is free, in his present state, to choose between good and
evil-free therefore to be good; because he may believe,
but has no demonstrated certainty, that his future welfare
depends on it."
It is thus made clear that only in man's present state of
Shorter Argumentative Poems.
193
limited knowledge is a life of probation conceivable; while
only on the hypothesis that this life is one of probation,
can that of a future existence be maintained. Mr. Brown-
ing ends where he began, with a hope, which is practically
a belief, because to his mind the only thinkable approach
to it.
A vivid description of the scenes amidst which the
tragedy took place accompanies this discussion.
"CLEON" is a protest against the inadequacy of the
earthly life; and the writer is supposed to be one of those
Greek poets or thinkers to whom St. Paul alludes, in a line
quoted from Aratus in the Acts, and which stands at the
head of the poem.
Cleon believes in Zeus under the
attributes of the one God; but he sees nothing in his
belief to warrant the hope of immortality; and his love
of life is so intense and so untiring that this fact is very
grievous to him.
He is stating his case to an imaginary king-Protus-
his patron and friend; whose convictions are much the
same as his own, but who thinks him in some degree re-
moved from the common lot: since his achievements in
philosophy and in art must procure him not only a more
perfect existence, but in one sense a more lasting one.
Cleon protests against this idea.
“He has,” he admits, “ done all which the King imputes
to him. If he has not been a Homer, a Pheidias, or
a Terpander, his creative sympathies have united all
three; and in thus passing from the simple to the complex,
he has obeyed the law of progress, though at the risk
perhaps of appearing a smaller man."
"But his life has not been the more perfect on that ac--
count. Perfection exists only in those more mechanical
grades of being, in which joy is unconscious, but also self-
sufficing. To grow in consciousness is to grow in the
capability and in the desire for joy; to decline rather
O
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1
than advance, in the physical power of attaining it. Man's
soul expands; his 'physical recipiency' remains for ever
bounded."
"Nor are his works a source of life to him either now or
for the future. The conception of youth and strength and
wisdom is not its reality: the knowing (and depicting) what
joy is, is not the possession of it. And the surviving of his
work, when he himself is dead, is but a mockery the more."
It is all so horrible that he sometimes imagines another
life, as unlimited in capability, as this in the desire, for
joy, and dreams that Zeus has revealed it. "But he has
not revealed it, and therefore it will not be." St. Paul is
preaching at this very time, and Protus sends a letter to
be forwarded to him; but Cleon does not admit that
knowledge can reside in a "barbarian Jew;" and gently
rebukes his royal friend for inclining to such doctrine,
which, as he has gathered from one who heard it, can
De held by no sane man."
((
Cleon constantly uses the word soul as antithesis to
body: but he uses it in its ancient rather than its modern
sense, as expressing the sentient life, not the spiritual;
and this perhaps explains the anomaly of his believing
that it is independent of the lower physical powers, and
yet not destined to survive them.
The EPISTLE of Karshish is addressed to a certain
Abib, the writer's master in the science of medicine. It
is written from Bethany; and the "strange medical ex-
perience" of which it treats, is the case of Lazarus, whom
Karshish has seen there. Lazarus, as he relates, has been
the subject of a prolonged epileptic trance, and his reason
impaired by a too sudden awakening from it. He labours
under the fixed idea that he was raised from the dead;
and that the Nazarene physician at whose command he
rose (and who has since perished in a popular tumult)
was no other than God: who for love's sake had taken
Didactic Poems.
199
sion of an unnamed person, and prefaced by him with a
descriptive note, in which religious reverence and biblio-
graphical interest are touchingly blended with each other.
St. John is dying in the desert, concealed in an inmost
chamber of the rock. Four grown disciples and a boy are
with him. He lies as if in sleep. But, as the end ap-
proaches, faint signs of consciousness appear about the
mouth and eyes, and the patient and loving ministrations
of those about him nurse the flickering vital spark into a
flame.
St. John returns to life, feeling, as it were, the retreating
soul forced back upon the ashes of his brain, and taxing
the flesh to one supreme exertion. But he lives again in
a far off time when "John" is dead, and there is no one
left who saw. And he lives in a sense as of decrepit age,
seeking a "foot-hold through a blank profound;" grasp-
ing at facts which snap beneath his touch; in strange
lands, and among people yet unborn, who ask,
"Was John at all, and did he say he saw?" (vol. vii. p. 128.)
and will believe nothing till the proof be proved.
This prophetic self-consciousness does not, however,
displace the memory of his former self. John knows him-
self the man who heard and saw-receiving the words
of Christ from His own mouth, and enduring those glories
of apocalyptic vision which he marvels that he could
bear, and live; seeing truths already plain grow of their
own strength: and those he guessed as points expanding
into stars. And the life-long faith regains its active power
as the doubting future takes shape before him; as he sees
its children
stand conversing, each new face
Either in fields, of yellow summer eves,
On islets yet unnamed amid the sea;
Or pace for shelter 'neath a portico
Out of the crowd in some enormous town
Where now the larks sing in a solitude;
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Or muse upon blank heaps of stone and sand
Idly conjectured to be Ephesus:
" (vol. vii. p. 134.)
and he hears them questioning truths of deeper import
than those of his own life and work.
The subsequent monologue is an earnest endeavour to
answer those questionings, which he sets forth, in order
that he may do so; his eloquence being perhaps the more
pathetic, that in the depth of his own conviction—in his
loving desire to impart it-he assumes a great deal of
what he tries to prove. "He has seen it all—the miracle
of that life and death; the need, and yet the transiency, of
death and sin; the constant presence of the Divine love ;
those things which not only were to him, but are. And he
is called upon to prove it to those who cannot see: whose
spirit is darkened by the veil of fleshly strength, while his
own lies all but bare to the contact of the Heavenly light.
He must needs be as an optic-glass, bringing those things
before them, not in confusing nearness, but at the right
historic distance from the eye.'
"
"Life,” he admits, "is given to us that we may learn the
truth. But the soul does not learn from it as the flesh
does. For the flesh has little time to stay, and must gain
its lesson once and for all. Man needs no second proof of
the worth of fire: once found, he would not part with it
for gold. But the highest spiritual certainty is not like
our conviction of a bodily fact; and though we know the
worth of Christ as we know the preciousness of fire, we
may not in like manner grasp this truth, acknowledging it
in our lives. He-John-in whose sight his Lord had been
transfigured, had walked upon the waters, and raised the
dead to life: he, too, forsook Him when the 'noise' and
'torchlight,' and the 'sudden Roman faces,' and the
'violent hands' were upon them.
""
The doubter, he imagines, will argue thus, taking
"John's" Gospel for his starting-point
Didactic Poems.
201
(a) “Your story is proved inaccurate, if not untrue.
The doctrine which rests upon it is therefore unproved,
except in so far as it is attested by the human heart. And
this proof again is invalid. For the doctrine is that of
Divine love; and we, who believe in love, because we our-
selves possess it, may read it into a record in which it has
no place. Man, in his mental infancy, read his own
emotions and his own will into the forces of nature, as he
clothed their supposed personal existence in his own face
and form. But his growing understanding discarded the
idea of these material gods. It now replaces the idea
of the one Divine intelligence by that of universal law.
God is proved to us as law~'named,' but ‘not known.'
A divinity, which we can recognize by like attributes to our
own, is disproved by them."
(b) "And granting that there is truth in your teaching :
why is this allowed to mislead us? Why are we left to
hit or miss the truth, according as our insight is weak or
strong, instead of being plainly told this thing was, or it
was not? Does 'John' proceed with us as did the
heathen bard, who drew a fictitious picture of the manner
in which fire had been given to man; and left his readers
to discover that the fact was not the fable itself, but only
contained in it ?”
And John replies :
(a) “Man is made for progress, and receives therefore,
step by step, such spiritual assistance as is proportionate
to his strength. The testimony of miracles is granted
when it is needed to assist faith. It is withdrawn so soon
as it would compel it. He who rejects God's love in Christ
because he has learned the need of love, is as the lamp
which overswims with oil, the stomach which flags from
excess of food: his mind is being starved by the very abun-
dance of what was meant to nourish it. Man was spiri-
tually living, when he shrank appalled from the spectacle
of Nature, and needed to be assured that there was a
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might beyond its might. But when he says, 'Since Might
is everywhere, there is no need of Will;' though he knows
from his own experience how Might may combine with
Will, then is he spiritually dead. And man is spiritually
living, when he asks if there be love
"Behind the will and might, as real as they?" (vol. vii. p. 140.)
But when he reasons: since love is everywhere, and we
love and would be loved, we make the love which we re-
cognize as Christ: and Christ was not; then is he spiri-
tually dead. For the loss which comes through gain is
death, and the sole death."
(b) The second objection he answers by reverting to his
first statement. 'Man is made for progress. He could
not progress if his doubtings were at once changed to cer-
tainties, and all he struggles for at once found. He must
yearn for truth, and grasp at error as a 'midway help' to
it. He must learn and unlearn. He must creep from
fancies on to fact; and correct to-day's facts by the light
of to-morrow's knowledge. He must be as the sculptor,
who evokes a life-like form from a lump of clay, ever seeing
the reality in a series of false presentments; attaining
it through them. God alone makes the live shape at a
jet."
The tenderness which has underlain even John's re-
monstrances culminates in his closing words. "If there
be a greater woe than this (the doubt) which he has lived
to see, may he," he says, "be 'absent,' though it were for
another hundred years, plucking the blind ones from the
abyss."
"But he was dead." (vol. vii. p. 146.)
The record has a postscript, written not by the same
person, but in his name, confronting the opinions of St.
John with those of Cerinthus, his noted opponent in belief,
into whose hands the MS. is also supposed to have fallen.

Didactic Poems.
It is chiefly interesting as heightening the historical effect
of the poem.'
"RABBI BEN EZRA " is the expression of a religious
philosophy which, being, from another point of view, Mr.
Browning's own, has much in common with that which he
has imputed to St. John; and, as "A Death in the Desert"
only gave the words which the Evangelist might have
spoken, so is "Rabbi Ben Ezra" only the possible utter-
ance of that pious and learned Jew. But the Christian
doctrine of the one poem brings into strong relief the pure
Theism of the other; and the religious imagination in
"Rabbi Ben Ezra " is strongly touched with the gorgeous
and solemn realism which distinguishes the Old Testa-
ment from the New.
The most striking feature of Rabbi Ben Ezra's philo-
sophy is his estimate of age. According to him the soul
is eternal, but it completes the first stage of its experience
in the earthly life; and the climax of the earthly life is
attained, not in the middle of it, but at its close. Age is
therefore a period, not only of rest, but of fruition.
((
Spiritual conflict is appropriate to youth. It is well
that youth should sigh for the impossible, and, if needs
be, blunder in the endeavour to improve what is. He
would be a brute whose body could keep pace with his
soul. The highest test of man's bodily powers is the
distance to which they can project the soul on the way
which it must travel alone."
“But life in the flesh is good, showering gifts alike on
sense and brain. It is right that at some period of its
"
1 The narrator, in a parenthetic statement, imputes a doctrine to St. John,
which is an unconscious approach on Mr. Browning's part to the "animism
of some ancient and mediæval philosophies. It carries the idea of the
Trinity into the individual life, by subjecting this to three souls, the lowest of
which reigns over the body, and is that which "Does:" the second and
third being respectively that which "Knows" and "Is." The reference to
the "glossa of Theotypas " is part of the fiction.
+

4
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existence man's heart should beat in unison with it; that
having seen God's power in the scheme of creation, he
should also see the perfectness of His love; that he should
thank Him for his manhood, for the power conferred on
him to live and learn. And this boon must be granted by
age, which gathers in the inheritance of youth.”
“The inheritance is not one of earthly wisdom. Man
learns to know the right and the good, but he does not
learn how outwardly to apply the knowledge; for human
judgments are formed to differ, and there is no one who
can arbitrate between them. Man's failure or success
must be sought in the unseen life—not in that which he
has done. but in that which he has aspired to do."
'Nothing dies or changes which has truly BEEN. The
flight of time is but the spinning of the potter's wheel to
which we are as clay. This fleeting circumstance is but the
machinery which stamps the soul (that vessel moulded
for the Great Master's hand). And its latest impress is
the best though the base of the cup be adorned with
laughing loves, while skull-like images constitute its rim."
"Look not thou down but up!
To uses of a cup,
The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's-peal,
The new wine's foaming flow,
The Master's lips a-glow!
Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou
with earth's wheel?"
(vol. vii. p. 119.)
"DEAF AND DUMB" conveys, in a single stanza, the
crowning lesson of the life of Paracelsus, and indeed of
every human life: for the sculptured figures to which it
refers have supplied the poet with an example of the
"glory" which may "arise" from "defect," the power
from limitation. It needs, he says, the obstructing prism
to set free the rainbow hues of the sunbeam. Only dumb-
ness can give to love the full eloquence of the eyes; only
Didactic Poems.
205
deafness can impress love's yearnings on the movements
of neck and face.
t
"THE STATUE AND THE BUST" is a warning against
infirmity of purpose. Its lesson is embodied in a pic-
turesque story, in which fact and fiction are combined.
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, and
with his head turned in the direction of the once Ric-
cardi Palace, which occupies a corner of the square.
Tradition asserts that he loved a lady whom her husband's
jealousy kept a prisoner there, and whom he could only
see at her window; and that he avenged his love by
placing himself in effigy where his glance could always
dwell upon her.
In Mr. Browning's expanded version, the love is re-
turned, and the lovers determine to fly together. But
each day brings fresh motives for postponing the flight,
and each day they exchange glances with each other—he
passing by on his horse, she looking down from her
window-and comfort themselves with the thought of the
morrow. And as the days slip by, their love grows cooler,
and they learn to be content with expectation. They
realize at last that the love has been a dream, and that
they have spent their youth in dreaming it; and in order
that the dream may continue, and the memory of their
lost youth be preserved, they cause, he his statue to be
cast, she her bust to be moulded, and each placed in the
attitude in which they have daily looked upon each other.
They feel the irony of the proceeding, though they find
satisfaction in it. Their image will do all that the reality
has done.
Mr. Browning blames these lovers for not carrying out
their intention, whether or not it could be pronounced
a good one. "Man should carry his best energies into
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the game of life, whether the stake he is playing for be
good or bad-a reality or a sham. As a test of energy, the
one has no value above the other."
He leaves the "bust” in the region of fancy, by stating
that it no longer exists. But he tells us that it was executed
in “della Robbia” ware, specimens of which, still, at the
time he wrote, adorned the outer cornice of the palace.
The statue is one of the finest works of John of Bologna.
The partial darkening of the Via Larga by the over-
hanging mass of the Riccardi (formerly Medici) Palace¹
is figuratively connected in the poem with the "crime" of
two of its inmates: the "murder," by Cosimo dei Medici
and his (grand) son Lorenzo, of the liberties of the Floren-
tine Republic.
The smallness of this group, and its chiefly dramatic
character, show how little direct teaching Mr. Browning's
works contain. There is, however, direct instructiveness
in another and larger group, which has too much in com-
mon with all three foregoing to be included in either, and
will be best indicated by the term "critical." In certain re-
spects, indeed, this applies to several, perhaps to most, of
those which I have placed under other heads; and I use
it rather to denote a lighter tone and more incidental
treatment, than any radical difference of subject or in-
tention.
1 The present Riccardi palace in the Via Larga was built by Cosmo dei
Medici in 1430; and remained in the possession of the Medici till 1659, when
it was sold to Marchese Riccardi. The original Riccardi palace in the
Piazza S. S. Annunziata is now (since 1870) Palazzo Antinori.
In my first edition, the "crime" is wrongly interpreted as the murder of
Alexander, Duke of Florence, in 1536; and the confusion, I regret to find,
increased by a wrong figure (8 for 5), which has slipped into the date.
Critical Poems.
207
"Old Pictures in Florence."
CRITICAL POEMS.
Dramatic Lyrics.
Published in "Men
and
Women."
1855.
"Respectability."
66
((
Popularity."
Master Hugues of Saxe-gotha."
A Light Woman." Dramatic Romances. Published
in "Men and Women." 1855.
"Transcendentalism." ("Men and Women.") 1855.
"How it Strikes a Contemporary."
Women.") 1855.
("Men and
"Dîs aliter Visum; or, Le Byron de nos Jours." ("Dra-
matis Personæ.") 1864.
"At the Mermaid."
"House."
"Shop."
66
Pisgah Sights," I. and II.
Pacchiarotto, and other
Poems." 1876.
"Bifurcation."
"Epilogue."
The first and fourth of these are significant from the in-
sight they give into Mr. Browning's conception of art.
We must allow, in reading them, for the dramatic and
therefore temporary mood in which they were written, and
deduct certain utterances which seem inconsistent with
the breadth of the author's views. But they reflect him
truly in this essential fact, that he considers art as subor-
dinate to life, and only valuable in so far as it expresses
it. This means, not that his standard is realistic: but
that it is entirely human; it could scarcely be otherwise
in a mind so devoted to the study of human life ; but these
very poems display also, on Mr. Browning's part, a loving
familiarity with the works of painters, sculptors, and
musicians, and a practical understanding of them, which
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might easily have resulted in a partial acceptance of
artistic standards as such, and of the policy of art for art ;
and it is only through the breadth and strength of his
dramatic genius, that artistic sympathies in themselves so
strong could be subjected to it.
In music, this position appears at first sight to be re-
versed; for Mr. Browning rejects the dramatic theory
which would convert it into a direct expression of human
thought. Here, however, the poet in him comes into
play. He leaves the plastic arts to express what may be
both felt and thought; and calls on music to express
what may be felt but not thought. In this sense he accepts
it as an independent science subject to its own ideals and
to its own laws. But this only means that, in his opinion,
the relation of music to human life is different from that of
plastic art the one revealing the unknown, while the
other embodies what is known.
"OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE” is a fanciful mono-
logue, spoken as by one who is looking down upon
Florence, through her magical atmosphere, from a villa
on the neighbouring heights. The sight of her Campanile
brings Giotto to his mind; and with Giotto comes a
vision of all the dead Old Masters who mingle in spirit
with her living men. He sees them each haunting the
scene of his former labours in church or chapter-room,
cloister or crypt; and he sees them grieving over the decay
of their works, as these fade and moulder under the hand
of time. He is also conscious that they do not grieve for
themselves. Earthly praise or neglect cannot touch them
more. But they have had a lesson to teach; and so long
as the world has not learnt the lesson, their souls may not
rest in heaven.
*
"Greek art had its lesson to teach, and it taught it. It
reasserted the dignity of the human form. It re-stated
the truth of the soul which informs the body, and the

Critical Poems.
body which expresses it. Men saw in its creations their
own qualities carried to perfection, and were content to
know that such perfection was possible, and to renounce
the hope of attaining it. In this experience the first stage
was progress; the second was stagnation. Progress began
again, when men looked on these images of themselves
and said: (C
we are not inferior to these. We are greater
than they. For what has come to perfection perishes, and
we are imperfect because eternity is before us; because
we were made to grow." The soul which has eternity
within its grasp cannot express itself in a single glance;
nor can its consciousness be petrified into an unchanging
sorrow or joy. The painters who set aside Greek art
undertook to vindicate the activity of the soul. They
made its hopes and fears shine through the flesh, though
the flesh they shone through were frayed and torn by the
process. This was the work which they had to do; and
which remains undone, while men speak of them as
Master" this, and "Early" the other, and do not dream
that "Old" and "New" are fellows: "that all are links
in the chain of the one progressive art life; the one
spiritual revelation."
"Old
The speaker now relapses into the playful mood which
his more serious reflections have scarcely interrupted.
He thinks of the removable paintings which lie hidden in
cloister or church, and which a sympathizing purchaser
might rescue from decay; and he reproaches those me-
lancholy ghosts for not guiding such purchasers to them.
He, for instance, does not aspire to the works of the very
great; but a number of lesser lights, whose name and
quality he recites, might, he thinks, have lent themselves
to the fulfilment of his artistic desires;¹ and he declares
himself particularly hurt by the conduct of his old friend
Giotto, who has allowed some picture he had been hunt-
1 Mr. Browning possesses or possessed pictures by all the artists mentioned
in this connection.
Р

Handbook to Browning's Works.
ng through every church in Florence to fall into other
hands. He concludes with an invocation to a future time
when the Grand Duke will have been pitched across the
Alps, when art and the Republic will revive together, and
when Giotto's Campanile will be completed—which glo-
rious consummation, though he may not live to see, he
considers himself the first to predict.
Mr. Browning alludes, in the course of this monologue,
to the two opposite theories of human probation one
confining it to this life, the other extending it through a
series of future existences; and without pronouncing on
their relative truth, he owns himself in sympathy with the
former. He is tired and likes to think of rest. The senti-
ment is, however, not in harmony with his general views,
and belongs to the dramatic aspect of the poem.¹
MASTER HUGUES of Saxe GOTHA, also a monologue,
is christened after an imaginary composer; and consists of
a running comment on one of his fugues, as performed by
the organist of some unnamed church. The latter has just
played it through: the scored brow and deep-set eyes of
Master Hugues fixed on him, as he fancied, from the shade;
and he now imagines he hears him say, "You have done
justice to the notes of my piece, but you must grasp its mean-
ing to understand where my merit lies ;" so he plays the
fugue again, listening for the meaning, and reading it as out
of a book. From this literary or dramatic point of view, the
1 (Verses 26, 27, 28.) "Bigordi" is the family name of Domenico,
called "Ghirlandajo," from the family trade of wreath-making. "Sandro'
stands for Alessandro Botticelli. "Lippino" was son of Fra Lippo Lippi. Mr.
Browning alludes to him as "wronged," because others were credited with
some of his best work. "Lorenzo Monaco" (the monk) was a contemporary,
or nearly so, of Fra Angelico, but more severe in manner. "Pollajolo” was
both painter and sculptor. "Margheritone of Arezzo" was one of the earlier
Old Masters, and died, as Vasari states, "infastidito" (deeply annoyed), by
the success of Giotto and the "new school." Hence the funeral garb in
which Mr Browning depicts him.
Critical Poems.
211
impression received is as follows. Some one lays down a
proposition, unimportant in itself, and not justly open to
either praise or.blame. Nevertheless a second person re-
torts on it, a third interposes, a fourth rejoins, and a fifth
thrusts his nose into the matter. The five are fully launched
into a quarrel. The quarrel grows broader and deeper.
Number one restates his case somewhat differently.
Number two takes it up on its new ground. Argument is
followed by vociferation and abuse; a momentary self-
restraint by a fresh outbreak of self-assertion. All tempers
come into play, all modes of attack are employed, from
pounding with a crowbar to pricking with a pin. And
where all this time is music? Where is the gold of truth?
Spun over and blackened by the tissue of jangling sounds,
as is the ceiling of the old church by cobwebs.
"Is it your moral of Life?
Such a web, simple and subtle,
Weave we on earth here in impotent strife,
Backward and forward each throwing his shuttle,
Death ending all with a knife?"
(vol. vi. p. 202.)
He
The organist admires Master Hugues, and approaches
his creations with an open mind; but he cannot help
feeling that this mode of composition represents the tor-
tuousness of existence, and that its "truth" spreads golden
above and about us, whether we accept her or not.
ends by bidding Master Hugues and the five speakers
clear the arena; and leave him to "unstop the full organ,"
and “blare out,” in the "mode Palestrina," what another
musician has had to say.
"
This scene in an organ loft has many humorous touches
which would in any case forbid our taking it too seriously;
and we must no more think of Mr. Browning as indifferent
to the possible merits of a fugue than as indifferent to the
beauties of a Greek statue. But the dramatic situation
has in this, as in the foregoing case, a strong basis of
personal truth.
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Two more of these poems show the irony of circum-
stance as embodied in popular opinion.
“POPULARITY” is an expression of admiring tender-
ness for some person whom the supposed speaker knows
and loves as a poet, though it is the coming, not the pre-
sent age, which will bow to him as such. But the main
idea of the poem is set forth in a comparison. The
speaker "sees " his friend in the character of an ancient
fisherman landing the Murex-fish on the Tyrian shore.
"The 'murex' contains a dye of miraculous beauty; and
this once extracted and bottled, Hobbs, Nobbs, and Co.
may trade in it and feast; but the poet who (figuratively)
brought the murex to land, and created its value, may, as
Keats probably did, eat porridge all his life.”
'HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY" describes a
poet whose personality was not ignored, but mistaken;
and the irony of circumstance is displayed both in the*
extent of this mistake, and the colour which circumstance
has given to it. This poet is a mysterious personage, who
constantly wanders through the city, seeing everything
without appearing to use his eyes. His clothing, though
old and worn, has been of the fashion of the Court. He
writes long letters, which are obviously addressed to “our
Lord the King," and "which, no doubt, have had to do with
the disappearance of A., and the fate of B." He can be,
people think, no other than a spy. A spy, we must
admit, might proceed in much the same manner. Mr.
Browning does, however, full justice to the excesses.of
popular imagination, once directed into a given channel,
in the parallel touches which depict the portentous luxury
in which the spy is supposed to live: the poor though
decent garret in which the poet dies.
"TRANSCENDENTALISM" is addressed to a young poet,
A
Critical Poems.
213
who is accused of presenting his ideas "naked," instead
of draping them, in poetic fashion, in sights and sounds :
in other words, of talking across his harp instead of sing-
ing to it. He acts on the supposition that, if the young
want imagery, older men want rational thoughts. And his
critic is declaring this a mistake. "Youth, indeed, would
be wasted in studying the transcendental Jacob Boehme
for the deeper meaning of things which life gives it to see
and feel; but when youth is past, we need all the more to
be made to see and feel. It is not a thinker like Boehme
who will compensate us for the lost summer of our life;
but a magician like John of Halberstadt, who can, at any
moment, conjure roses up."
There is a strong vein of humour in the argument, which
gives the impression of being consciously overstated. It
is neverthess a genuine piece of criticism.
"AT THE MERMAID " and the "EPILOGUE" deal with
public opinion in its general estimate of poets and poetry;
and they expose its fallacies in a combative spirit, which
would exclude them from a more rigorous definition of
the term "critical.”
critical." In the first of these Mr. Browning
speaks under the mask of Shakespeare, and gives vent to
The "magic" symbolized is that of genuine poetry; but the magician,
mage," is an historical person; and the special feat imputed to him was
recorded of other magicians in the Middle Ages, if not of himself.
or
"Johannes Teutonicus, a canon of Halberstadt in Germany, after he had
performed a number of prestigious feats almost incredible, was transported
by the Devil in the likeness of a black horse, and was both seen and heard
upon one and the same Christmas day to say Mass in Halberstadt, in
Mayntz, and in Cologne" ("Heywood's Hierarchy," bk. iv., p. 253).
The "prestigious feat" of causing flowers to appear in winter was a
common one. "In the year 876, the Emperor Lewis then reigning, there
was one Zedechias, by religion a Jew, by profession a physician, but indeed
a magician. In the midst of winter, in the Emperor's palace, he suddenly
caused a most pleasant and delightful garden to appear, with all sorts of
trees, plants, herbs, and flowers, together with the singing of all sorts of birds,
to be seen and heard." (Delrio, "Disquisitio Magicæ,” bk. i., chap. iv., and
elsewhere; and many other authorities.)
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the natural irritation of any great dramatist who sees his
various characters identified with himself. He repudiates
the idea that the writings of a dramatic poet reveal him
as a man, however voluminous they may be; and on this
ground he even rejects the transcendent title to fame
which his contemporaries have adjudged to him. They
know him in his work. They cannot, he says, know him
in his life. He has never given them the opportunity
of doing so. He has allowed no one to slip inside his
soul, and "label" and "catalogue" what he found there.
This is truer for Shakespeare than for Mr. Browning,
who has often addressed his public with comparative
directness, and would be grieved to have it thought that
in the long course of his writings he has never spoken
from his heart. He would also be the first to admit that,
in the course of his writings, the poet must, indirectly,
reveal the man. But he has too often had to defend him-
self against the impression that whatever he wrote as a
poet must directly reflect him as a man. He has too often
had to repeat, that poetry is an art which "makes,” not
one which merely records; and that the feelings it conveys
are no more necessarily supplied by direct experience than
are its facts by the Cyclopædia. And with the usual
deduction for the dramatic mood, we may accept the
retort as genuine.
I have departed in the case of this poem from the mere
statement of contents, which is all that my plan admits of,
or my readers usually can desire: because it expresses an
indifference to general sympathy which belies the author's
feeling in the matter. Mr. Browning speaks equally for
himself and Shakespeare, when he derides another idea
which he considers to be popular: that the fit condition
of the poet is melancholy. "I," he declares, "have found
life joyous, and I speak of it as such. Let those do other-
wise who have wasted its opportunities, or been less richly
endowed with them."
Critical Poems.
215
The “Epilogue” is a criticism on critics, and is spoken
distinctly by Mr. Browning himself. He takes for his text
a line from Mrs. Browning :'
1
"The poets pour us wine,"
and denounces those consumers of the wine of poetry, who
expect it to combine strength and sweetness in an impos-
sible degree. Body and bouquet, he affirms, may be
found on the label of a bottle, but not in the vat from
which the bottle was filled. ((
Mighty" and "mellow"
may be born at once; but the one is for now, the other
only for after-time. The earth, he declares, is his vine-
yard; his grape, the loves, the hates, and the thoughts of
man; his wine, what these have made it. Bouquet
may, he admits, be artificially given. Flowers grow every.
where which will supplement the flavour of the grape;
and his life holds flowers of memory, which blossom with
every spring. But he denies that his brew would be the
more popular if he stripped his meadow to make it so.
How much do his public drink of that which they profess
to approve? They declare Shakespeare and Milton fit
beverage for man and boy. “Look into their cellars, and
see how many barrels are unbroached of the one brand,
what drippings content them of the other. He will be
true to his task, and to Him who set it."
"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-mine for me."
(vol. xiv. p. 148.)
At the 18th stanza the figure is changed, and Mr.
Browning speaks of his work (by implication) as a stretch
1
"Wine of Cyprus." The quotation heading the poem qualifies it as
"wine for the superiors in age and station.
>>
216
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+
of country which is moor above and mine below; and in
which men will find-what they dig for.
"HOUSE" is written in much the same spirit as "At
the Mermaid." It reminds us that the whole front of
a dwelling must come down before the life within it
can be gauged by the vulgar eye; however we may fancy
that this or that poetic utterance has unlocked the door—
that it opens to a "sonnet-key."
") 1
"SHOP" is a criticism on those writers, poets or other-
wise, who are so disproportionately absorbed by the mate-
rial cares of existence as to place the good of literature in
its money-making power; and depicts such in the cha-
racter of the shopman who makes the shop his home,
instead of leaving it for some mansion or villa as soon as
business hours are past. "The flesh must live, but why
should not the spirit have its dues also?"
“RESPECTABILITY" is a comment on the price paid
for social position. A pair of lovers have been enjoying
a harmless escapade; and one remarks to the other that,
if their relation had been recognized by the world, they
might have wasted their youth in the midst of proprieties
which they would never have learned the danger and the
pleasure of infringing. The situation is barely sketched
in; but the sentiment of the poem is well marked, and
connects it with the foregoing group.
"A LIGHT WOMAN," "DÎS ALITER VISUM," and
“BIFURCATION" raise questions of conduct.
A man desires to extricate his friend from the toils of
"A LIGHT WOMAN ;" and to this end he courts her him-
self. He is older and more renowned than her present
victim, and trusts to her vanity to ensure his success.
Such as Wordsworth assumed to have been in use with Shakespeare.
Critical Poems.
217
He
But his attentions arouse in her something more.
discovers too late that he has won her heart. He can
only cast it away, and a question therefore arises: he
knows how he appears to his friend; he knows how he
will appear to the woman whom his friend loved; "how
does he appear to himself?" In other words, did the
end for which he has acted justify the means employed?
He doubts it.
"DÎS ALITER VISUM" records the verdict of later days
on a decision which recommended itself at the time :
that is, to the person who formed it. A man and woman
are attracted towards each other, though she is young
and unformed; he, old in years and in experience; and
he is, or seems to be, on the point of offering her his
hand. But caution checks the impulse. They drift
asunder. He forms a connection with an opera-dancer.
She makes a loveless marriage. Ten years later they
meet again; and she reminds him of what passed between
them, and taxes him with the ruin of four souls. He has
thought only of the drawbacks to present enjoyment,
which the unequal union would have involved; he never
thought or cared how its bitter-sweetness might quicken
the striving for eternity.
This criticism reflects the woman's point of view, and
was probably intended to justify it. It does not follow
that the author would not, in another dramatic mood, have
justified the man, in his more practical estimate of the
situation. Mr. Browning's poetic self is, however, ex-
pressed in the woman's belief: that everything which dis-
turbs the equal balance of human life gives a vital impulse
to the soul. The stereotyped completeness of the lower
existences supplies him here also with a warning.
The title of "BIFURCATION" refers to two paths in
life, followed respectively by two lovers whom circum-
218
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stances divide. The case is not unusual. The woman
sacrifices love to duty, and expects her lover to content
himself with her choice. Why not, she thinks? She will
be constant to him; they will be united in the life to come.
And meanwhile, she is choosing what for her is the
smoother and safer path, while for him it is full of stum-
bling-blocks. Love's guidance is refused him, and he falls.
Which of these two has been the sinner: he who sinned
unwillingly, or she who caused the sin? We feel that
Mr. Browning condemns the apparent saint.
"PISGAH SIGHTS. I." depicts life as it may seem to one
who is leaving it; who is, as it were, "looking over the
ball." As seen from this position, Good and Evil are re-
conciled, and even prove themselves indispensable to
each other. The seer becomes aware that it is unwise to
strive against the mixed nature of existence; vain to
speculate on its cause. But the knowledge is bitter-sweet,
for it comes too late.
"PISGAH SIGHTS. II." is a view of life as it might be, if
the knowledge just described did not come too late; and
shows that according to Mr. Browning's philosophy it
would be no life at all. The speaker declares that if he
had to live again, he would take everything as he found
it. He would neither dive nor soar; he would strive
neither to teach nor to reform. He would keep to the
soft and shady paths; learn by quiet observation; and
allow men of all kinds to pass him by, while he remained
a fixture. He would gain the benefit of the distance with
those below and above him, since he would be magnified
for the one class, while seen from a softening point of
view by the other. And so also he would admire the dis-
tant brightness, "the mightiness yonder," the more for
keeping his own place. If seen too closely, the star might
prove a glow-worm.
Lyrical Love Poems.
219
EMOTIONAL POEMS.
LOVE.
Those of Mr. Browning's poems which are directly
prompted by thought have their counterpart in a large
number which are specially inspired by emotion; and
must be noticed as such. But this group will perhaps be
the most artificial of all; for while thought is with him
often uncoloured by feeling, he seldom expresses feeling
as detached from thought. The majority, for instance,
of his love poems are introduced by the title "dramatic,"
and describe love as bound up with such varieties of life
and character, that questions of life and character are
necessarily raised by them; the emotion thus conveyed
being really more intense, because more individual,
than could be given in any purely lyric effusion not
warmed by the poet's own life. Some few, however, are
genuine lyrics, whether regarded as personal utterances
or not; and in the case of two or three of these, the per-
sonal utterance is unmistakable.
Under the head of LYRICAL LOVE POEMS must be placed
One Word More," to E. B. B. ("Men and Women."
1855.)
((
Prospice." ("Dramatis Personæ." 1864.)
"Numpholeptos."
"Prologue."
"Natural Magic.”
"Pacchiarotto and other Poems."
1876.
66
Magical Nature."
"Introduction.
"A Tale."
"The Two Poets of Croisic."
1878.
"ONE WORD MORE" is a message of love, as direct
220
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(6
as it is beautiful; but as such it also expresses an idea
which makes it a fitting object of study. Most men and
women lay their highest gift at the feet of him or of her
they love, and with it such honour as the world may render
it. They value both, as making them more worthy of those
they love, and for their sake rejoice in the possession.
Mr. Browning feels otherwise. According to him the gifts
by which we are known to the world have lost gracious-
ness through its contact. Their exercise is marred by
its remembered churlishness and ingratitude. Every
artist, he declares, longs "once" and for one only,"
to utter himself in a language distinct from his art; to
"gain” in this manner, "the man's joy," while escaping
"the artist's sorrow." So Raphael, the painter, wrote a
volume of sonnets to be seen only by one. Dante, poet
of the "Inferno," drew an angel in memory of the one (of
Beatrice). He-Mr. Browning-has only his verse to offer.
But as the fresco painter steals a camel's hair brush to paint
flowerets on his lady's missal—as he who blows through
bronze may also breathe through silver for the purpose
of a serenade, so may he lend his talent to a different use.
He has completed his volume of "Men" and "Women."
He dedicates it to her to whom this poem is addressed.
But his special offering to her is not the book itself, in
which he speaks with the mouth of fifty other persons,
but the word of dedication-the "One Word More"-in
which he speaks to her from his own. The dramatic turns
lyric poet for the one only.
And what he says of himself, he in some degree thinks
of her. The moon, he reminds her, presents always the
same surface to the world: whether new-born, waxing, or
waning; whether, as they late saw her, radiant above the
hills of Florence; or, as she now appears to them, palely
hurrying to her death over London house-tops. But for
the "moonstruck mortal" she holds another side, glorious
or terrible as the case may be-unknown alike to herds-
Lyrical Love Poems.
221
man and huntsman, philosopher and poet, among the rest
of mankind. So she, who is his moon of poets, has also
her world's side, which he can see and praise with the rest;
Y
But the best is when I glide from out them,
Cross a step or two of dubious twilight,
Come out on the other side, the novel
Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of,
Where I hush and bless myself with silence." (vol. iv. p. 305.)
"PROSPICE" (look forward) is a challenge to spiritual
conflict, exultant with the certainty of victory, glowing with
the prospective joy of re-union with one whom death has
sent before. We cannot doubt that this poem, like the
preceding, came from the depths of the poet's own heart.
"NUMPHOLEPTOS" (caught by a nymph) is passionately
earnest in tone, and must rank as lyrical in spite of the
dramatic, at least fantastic, circumstance in which the
feeling is clothed. It is the almost despairing cry of a
human love, devoted to a being of superhuman purity; and
who does not reject the love, but accepts it on an impos-
sible condition: that the lover shall complete himself as a
man by acquiring the fullest knowledge of life, and shall
emerge unsullied from its experiences. This woman, more
or less than mortal, belongs rather to the “fairyland of
science" than to the realm of mythology. She stands, in
passionless repose, at the starting-point of the various
paths of earthly existence. These radiate from her, many-
hued with passion and adventure, as light rays scattered
by a prism; and, in the mocking hopes with which she
invests their course, she seems herself the cold white
light, of which their glow is born, and into which it will
also die. She bids her worshipper travel down each
red and yellow ray, bathe in its hue's, and return to her
"jewelled,” but not smirched; and each time he returns,
not jewelled, but smirched; always to appear monstrous in
her sight; always to be dismissed with the same sad smile:
;
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
so pitying that it promises love, so fixed that it bars its
possibility. He rebels at last, but the rebellion is momen-
tary. He renews his hopeless quest.
“PROLOGUE” is a fanciful expression of the ideas of im-
pediment visible and invisible, which may be raised by the
aspect of a brick wall; such a one, perhaps, as projects
at a right angle to the window of Mr. Browning's study,
and was before him when he wrote.
"NATURAL MAGIC" attests the power of love to bring,
as by enchantment, summer with its warmth and blossoms,
into a barren life.
"MAGICAL NATURE" is a tribute to the beauty of
countenance which proceeds from the soul, and has there-
fore a charmed existence defying the hand of time.
The INTRODUCTION to the "Two POETS OF CROIsic,"
(reprinted under the title of "Apparitions,") recalls the
sentiment of“ Natural Magic." The "TALE" with which it
concludes is inspired by the same feeling. Its circum-
stance is ancient, and the reader is allowed to imagine
that it exists in Latin or Greek; but it is simply a poetic
and profound illustration of what love can do always
and everywhere. A famous poet was singing to his lyre.
One of its strings snapped. The melody would have been
lost, had not a cricket (properly, cicada) flown on to the
lyre and chirped the missing note. The note, thus sounded,
was more beautiful than as produced by the instrument
itself, and, to the song's end, the cricket remained to do
the work of the broken string. The poet, in his grati-
tude, had a statue of himself made with the lyre in his
hand, and the cricket perched on the point of it. They
were thus immortalized together: she, whom he had en-
throned, he, whom she had crowned.
Dramatic Love Poems.
223
Love is the cricket which repairs the broken harmonies
of life.
The dramatic setting of the majority of the Love poems
serves, as I have said, to bring out the vitality of Mr.
Browning's conception of love; and though anything like
labelling a poet's work brings with it a sense of anomaly,
we shall only carry out the spirit of this particular group
by connecting each member of it with the condition of
thought or feeling it is made to illustrate.
It will be seen that the dramatic Lyrics and Dramatic
Romances, which supply so many of the poems of the
following and other groups, had been largely recruited
from the first collection of "Men and Women;" having
first, in several instances, contributed to that work.
DRAMATIC LOVE POEMS.
"Cristina." (Love as the special gain of life.)
matic Lyrics." 1842.
"Dra-
"Evelyn Hope." (Love as conquering Time.) "Dra-
matic Lyrics." Published in " Men and Women." 1855.
"Love among the Ruins." (Love as the one lasting
reality.) "Dramatic Lyrics." Published in “Men and
Women." 1855.
"A Lover's Quarrel." (Love as the great harmony
which triumphs over smaller discords.) “Dramatic Lyrics.”
Published in "Men and Women." 1855.
"By the Fireside." (Love in its ideal maturity.) "Dra-
matic Lyrics." Published in “Men and Women.” 1855.
Any Wife to any Husband." (Love in its ideal of
constancy.) "Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Men and
Women." 1855.
((
"Two in the Campagna." (Love as an unsatisfied
yearning.) "Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Men and
Women." 1855.
224 Handbook to Browning's Works.
“Love in a Life." (Love as indomitable purpose.)
"Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Men and Women."
1855.
"Life in a Love." (Love as indomitable purpose.)
"Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Men and Women."
1855.
"The Lost Mistress." (Love as the completeness of
self-surrender.) "Dramatic Lyrics." 1842.
'A Woman's last Word." (Love as the completeness
of self-surrender.) "Dramatic Lyrics." Published in
"Men and Women." 1855-
(C
"A Serenade at the Villa." (Love as the completeness
of self-surrender.) Dramatic Lyrics." Published in
"Men and Women." 1855.
“One Way of Love." (Love as the completeness of
self-surrender.) "Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Men
and Women."
1855.
"Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli." (Love as the com-
pleteness of self-surrender.) "Men and Women." Pub-
lished in "Dramatic Lyrics."
1842.
"In Three Days." (Love as the intensity of expectant
hope.) "Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Men and
Women." 1855.
In a Gondola.” (Love as the intensity of a precarious
"Dramatic Romances." Published in "Dramatic
joy.)
Lyrics." 1842.
"Porphyria's Lover." (Love as the tyranny of spiritual
appropriation.) "Dramatic Romances." Published in
1842.
"Dramatic Lyrics."
"James Lee's Wife." (Love as saddened by the pre-
sentiment and the consciousness of change.) "Dramatis
Personæ." 1864
"The Worst of it." (Love as the completeness of self-
€ ffacement.) "Dramatis Personnæ." 1864.
'Too Late." (Love as the sense of a loss which
Dramatic Love Poems.
225
death has rendered irrevocable.)
1864.
t
"Dramatis Personæ."
The two first of these are inspired by the belief in the
distinctness and continuity of the soul's life; and represent
love as a condition of the soul with which positive ex-
perience has very little to do; but in all the others it is
treated as part of this experience, and subject for the
time being to its laws. The situation sketched-for it is
nothing more-in “CRISTINA” is that of a man and
woman whom a glance has united, and who both have re-
cognized in this union the predestined object of their life.
The knowledge has only flashed on the woman's mind, to
be extinguished by worldly ambitions and worldly honours;
and for her, therefore, the union remains barren. But the
existence of the man is enriched and perfected by it. She
has spiritually lost him, but he has gained her; for though
she has drifted away from him, he retains her soul. (This
poetical paradox is the strong point of the poem.) It is
henceforth his mission to test their blended powers; and
when that has been accomplished, he will have done, he
says, with this world.
'EVELYN HOPE" is the utterance of a love which has
missed its fruition in this life, but confidently anticipates
it for a life to come. The beloved is a young girl. The
lover is three times her age, and was a stranger to her ;
she is lying dead. But God, he is convinced, creates love
to reward love: and no matter what worlds must be tra-
versed, what lives lived, what knowledge gained or lost,
before that moment is reached, Evelyn Hope will, in the
end, be given to him.
"LOVE AMONG THE RUINS" depicts a pastoral solitude
in which are buried the remains of an ancient city, fabu-
lɔus in magnificence and in strength. A ruined turret
Q
226
Handbook to Browning's Works.
marks the site of a mighty tower, from which the king of
that city overlooked his domains, or, with his court, watched
the racing chariots as they encircled it in their course. In
that turret, in the evening grey, amidst the tinkling of the
sheep, a yellow-haired maiden is waiting for him she
loves; and as they bury sight and speech in each other's
arms, he bids the human heart shut in the centuries, with
their triumphs and their follies, their glories and their sins,
for "Love is best."
"A LOVER'S QUARREL" describes, not the quarrel
itself, but the impression it leaves on him who has un-
wittingly provoked it one of amazement as well as
sorrow, that such a thing could have occurred. The
speaker, apostrophizing his absent love, reminds her how
happy they have been together, with no society but their
own; no pleasures but those of sympathy; no amusements
but those which their common fancy supplied; and he asks
her if it be possible that so perfect a union can be de-
stroyed by a hasty word with which his deeper self has
had nothing to do. He believes this so little that he is sure
she will, in some way, come back to him; and then they
will part no more.
A vein of playfulness runs through this monologue,
which represents the lovers before their quarrel as more
like children enjoying a long holiday, than a man and a
woman sharing the responsibilities of life. It conveys,
nevertheless, a truth deeply rooted in the author's mind:
that the foundation of a real love can never be shaken.
'BY THE FIRESIDE" is a retrospect, in which the
speaker is carried from middle-age to youth, and from his,
probably English, fireside to the little Alpine gorge in
which he confessed his love; and he summons the wife
who received "and sanctioned the avowal to share with
him the joy of its remembrance. He describes the scene
Dramatic Love Poems.
227
of his declaration, the conflict of feeling which its risks
involved, the generous frankness with which she cut the
conflict short. He dwells on the blessings which their
union has brought to him, and which make his youth
seem barren by the richness of his maturer years; and he
asks her if there exist another woman, with whom he could
thus have retraced the descending path of life, and found
nothing to regret in what he had left behind. He declares
that their mutual love has been for him that crisis in the
life of the soul to which all experience tends the pre-
destined test of its quality. It is his title to honour as well
as his guarantee of everlasting joy.
The subtler realities of life and love are reflected
throughout the poem in picturesque impressions often no
less subtle, and the whole is dramatic, i.e., imaginary, as
far as conception goes; but the obvious genuineness of
the sentiment is confirmed by the allusion to the "perfect
wife" who,
" 'Reading by firelight, that great brow
And the spirit-small hand propping it," (vol. vi. p. 132.)
is known to all of us.
"ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND" might be the lament
of any woman about to die, who believes that her husband
will remain true to her in heart, but will lack courage to
be so in his life. She anticipates the excuses he will offer
for seeking temporary solace in the society of other
women; but these all, to her mind, resolve themselves
into a confession of weakness; and it grieves her that
such a confession should proceed from one, in all other
respects, so much stronger than she. "Were she the sur-
vivor, it would be so easy to her to be faithful to the end!"
Her grief is unselfish. The wrong she apprehends will be
done to his spiritual dignity far more than to his love for
her, though with a touch of feminine inconsistency she
identifies the two; and she cannot resign herself to the
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idea that he whose earthly trial is "three parts" overcome
will break down under this final test. She accepts it, how-
ever, as the inevitable.
"TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA."
The sentiment of this
poem can only be rendered in its concluding words:
"Infinite passion, and the pain
of finite hearts that yearn."
(vol. vi. p. 153.)
For its pain is that of a heart both restless and weary: ever
seeking to grasp the Infinite in the finite, and ever eluded
by it. The sufferer is a man. He longs to rest in the
affection of a woman who loves him, and whom he also
loves; but whenever their union seems complete, his soul
is spirited away, and he is adrift again. He asks the mean-
ing of it all—where the fault lies, if fault there be; he
begs her to help him to discover it. The Campagna is
around them, with its "endless fleece of feathery grasses,"
its "everlasting wash of air;" its wide suggestions of
passion and of peace. The clue to the enigma seems to
glance across him, in the form of a gossamer thread. He
traces it from point to point, by the objects on which it
rests. But just as he calls his love to help him to hold it
fast, it breaks off, and floats into the invisible. His doom
is endless change. The tired, tantalized spirit must ac-
cept it.
"LOVE IN A LIFE" represents the lover as inhabiting
the same house with his unseen love; and pursuing her
in it ceaselessly from room to room, always catching the
flutter of her retreating presence, always sure that the next
moment he will overtake her.
"LIFE IN a LOVE" might be the utterance of the same
person, when he has grasped the fact that the loved one is
determined to elude him. She may baffle his pursuit,
Dramatic Love Poems.
229
but he will never desist from it, though it absorb his whole
life.
"THE LOST MISTRESS" is the farewell expression of a
discarded love which has accepted the conditions of friend-
ship. Its tone is full of manly self-restraint and of
patient sadness.
"A WOMAN'S LAST WORD" is one of moral and intel-
lectual self-surrender. She has been contending with her
husband, and been silenced by the feeling, not that the
truth is on his side, but that it was not worth the pain of
such a contention. What, she seems to ask herself, is the
value of truth, when it is false to her Divinity; or knowledge,
when it costs her her Eden? She begs him whom she
worships as well as loves, to mould her to himself; but
she begs also the privilege of a few tears—a last tribute,
perhaps, to her sacrificed conscience, and her lost liberty,
“A SERENADE AT THE VILLA” has a tinge of melan-
choly humour, which makes it the more pathetic. A lover
has been serenading the lady of his affections through a
sultry night, in which Earth seemed to turn painfully in
her sleep, and the silent darkness was unbroken, except
by an occasional flash of lightning, and a few drops of
thundery rain. He wishes his music may have told her
that whenever life is dark or difficult there will be one near
to help and guide her : one whose patience will never tire,
and who will serve her best when there are none to wit-
ness his devotion. But her villa looks very dark; its
closed windows are very obdurate. The gate ground its
teeth as it let him pass. And he fears she only said to her-
self, that if the silence of a thundery night was oppressive,
such noise was a worse infliction.
"ONE WAY OF LOVE." This lover has strewn the
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roses of a month's gathering on his lady's path, only for
the chance of her seeing them as he has conquered the
difficulties of the lute, only for the chance of her liking its
sound; thrown his whole life into a love, which is hers to
accept or reject. She cares for none of these things. So
the roses may lie, the lute-string break. The lover can
still say,
(( Blest is he who wins her."
“RUDEL TO THE LADY OF TRIPOLI" is a pathetic de-
claration, in which the lover compares himself to a sun-
flower, and proclaims it as his badge. The French poet
Rudel loves the "Lady of Tripoli ;"¹ and she is dear to
him as is the sun to that foolish flower, which by constant
contemplation has grown into its very resemblance. And
he bids a pilgrim tell her that, as bees bask on the sun-
flower, men are attracted by his song; but, as the sun-
flower looks ever towards the sun, so does he, disregarding
men's applause, look towards the East, and her.
"IN THREE DAYS" is a note of joyful expectation, and
doubtless a pure lyric, though classed as dramatic-
lyrical. The lover will see his love in three days; and his
complex sense of the delay, as meaning both all this
time, and only this, is leavened by the joyful consciousness
that the reunion will be as absolute as the union has been.
He knows that life is full of chance and change. The
possibilities of three days are a great deal to encounter,
very little to have escaped. Unsuspected dangers may
lurk in the coming year. But-he will see her in three
days; and in that thought he can laugh all misgiving and
all fear to scorn.
“IN A GONDOLA" is a love scene, beginning with a sere-
nade from a gondola, and continued by the two lovers in
it, after the Venetian fashion of the olden time. They are
'This is told in the tales of the Troubadours.
Dramatic Love Poems.
231
escaping, as they think, the vigilance of a certain "Three”
-one of whom we may conjecture to be the lady's husband
or father—and have already regained her home, and fixed
the signal for to-morrow's meeting, when the lover is sur-
prised and stabbed. As they glide through the canals of
the city, by its dark or illuminated palaces, each conceal-
ing perhaps some drama of love or crime-the sense of
danger never absent from them, the tense emotion re-
lieves itself in playful though impassioned fancies, in
which the man and the woman vie with each other. But
when the blow has fallen, the light tone gives way, on the
lover's side, to one of solemn joy in the happiness which
has been realized.
.
The Three, I do not scorn
To death, because they never lived: but I
Have lived indeed, and so―(yet one more kiss)—can die!”
" 1
(vol. v. p. 77.)
"PORPHYRIA'S LOVER" is an episode which, with one
of the poems of "Men and Women,” “Johannes Agricola
in Meditation,” first appeared under the head of “Mad-
house Cells." Porphyria is deeply attached to her
"lover," but has not courage to break the ties of an arti-
ficial world, and give herself to him; and when one night
love prevails, and she proves it by a voluntary act of
devotion, he murders her in the act, that her nobler and
purer self may be preserved. Such a crime might be
committed in a momentary aberration, or even intense
excitement, of feeling. It is characterized here by a
matter-of-fact simplicity, which is its sign of madness.
The distinction, however, is subtle; and we can easily
guess why this and its companion poem did not retain
¹ Published, simultaneously, in Mr. Fox's "Monthly Repository." The
song in "Pippa Passes" beginning "A king lived long ago," and the verses
introduced in "James Lee's Wife," were also first published in this Magazine,
edited by the generous and very earliest encourager of Mr. Browning's
boyish attempts at poetry.
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፦
their title. A madness which is fit for dramatic treatment
is not sufficiently removed from sanity.
"JAMES LEE'S WIFE" is the study of a female character
developed by circumstances, and also impressing itself on
them; the circumstances being those of an unfortunate
marriage, in which the love has been mutual, but the con-
stancy is all on the woman's side. "James Lee" is (as
we understand) a man of shallow nature, whose wife's
earnestness repels him when its novelty has ceased to
charm. The Wife" is keenly alive to his change of
feeling towards her and even anticipates it, in melancholy
forebodings which probably hasten its course.
((
I.
JAMES LEE'S WIFE SPEAKS AT THE WINDOW.
Love carries already the seed of doubt. The wife
addresses her husband, who is approaching from outside,
in words of anxious tenderness. The season is changing;
coming winter is in the air. Will his love change too?
II.
BY THE FIRESIDE.
The note of apprehension deepens. The fire they are
sitting by is supplied by ship-wood. It suggests the
dangers of the sea, the sailor's longing for land and home.
(6
But the life in port has its dangers too. There are
worms which gnaw the ship in harbour, as the heart in
sleep. Did some woman before her, in this very house
perhaps, begin love's voyage full sail, and then suddenly
see the ship's planks start, and hell open beneath the
man she loves?"
Dramatic Love Poems.
233
III.
IN THE DOORWAY.
She remonstrates with her fear. Winter is drawing
nearer : nature becoming cold and bare. But they two
have all the necessaries of life, and love besides. The
human spirit (the spirit of love) was meant by God to
resist change, to put its life into the darkness and the
cold. It should fear neither.
IV.
ALONG THE BEACH.
The fear has become a certainty. The wife reasons
with her husband as they walk together. "He wanted
her love, and she gave it to him. He has it, and yet is
not content. Why so? She is not blind to his faults, but
she does not love him the less for them. She has taken
him as he was, with the good seed in him and the bad,
waiting patiently for the good to bring its harvest; en-
during patiently when the harvest failed. Whether praise-
worthy or blameworthy, he has been her world!"
"That is what condemns her in his eyes: she loves too
well; she watches too patiently. His nature is impatient
of bondage. Such devotion as hers is a bond."
V.
ON THE CLIFF.
She reflects on the power of love. A cricket and a
butterfly settle down before her: one on a piece of burnt-
up turf, one on the dark flat surface of a rock which the
receding tide has left bare. The barren surfaces are
transfigured by their brightness. Just so will love settle
on the low or barren in life, and transform it.
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VI.
READING A BOOK UNDER THE CLIFF.
She has reached the transition stage between struggle
and resignation. She accepts change and its disappoint-
ments as the law of life. We discover this in her comment
on the book in question, from which some verses are intro-
duced.¹ 1 The author apostrophizes a moaning wind
which appeals to him as a voice of woe more eloquent
than any which is given to animal or man : and asks it
what form of suffering, mental or bodily, its sighs are
trying to convey. James Lee's wife regards the mood
here expressed as characteristic of a youthful spirit, dis-
posed to enlarge upon the evils of existence by its over-
weening consciousness of power to understand, strength
to escape or overcome them. Such a one, she says, can
only learn by sad experience what the wind in its moaning
means: that subtle change which arrests the course of
happiness, as the same wind, stirring however softly in
a summer dawn, may annul the promise of its beauty.
"Nothing can be as it has been before;
Better, so call it, only not the same.
To draw one beauty into our hearts' core,
And keep it changeless! such our claim;
So answered,-Never more!"
She who has learnt it, can only ask herself if this old
world-sorrow be cause for rejoicing through the onward
impulse ever forced upon the soul; if it be sent to us in
probation. She cannot answer. God alone knows. The
fully realized significance of such death in life gives an
unutterable pathos to her concluding words.
1 These verses were written when Mr. Browning was twenty-three.
}
Dramatic Love Poems.
235
VII.
AMONG THE ROCKS.
She accepts disappointment as also a purifier of love.
A sunny autumn morning is exercising its genial influence,
and the courage of self-effacement awakens in her. As
earth blesses her smallest creatures with her smile, so
should love devote itself to those less worthy beings who
may be ennobled by it. Its rewards must be sought in
heaven.
VIII.
BESIDE THE DRAWING-BOARD.
She accepts the duties of life as an equivalent for its
happiness, ¿.e., for the happiness of love. She has been
drawing from the cast of a hand-enraptured with its
delicate beauty-thinking how the rapture must have
risen into love in the artist who saw it living; when the
coarse (laborious) hand of a little peasant girl reminds
her that life, whether beautiful or not, is the artist's noblest
study; and that, as the uses of a hand are independent of
its beauty and will survive it, life with its obligations will
survive love. She has been a fool to think she must
be loved or die."
1
IX.
ON DECK.
She makes the final sacrifice to her husband's happi-
ness, and leaves him. But in so doing she pays a last
tribute to the omnipotence of love. She knows there is
nothing in her that will claim a place in his remembrance.
She knows also that if he had loved her, it might be
otherwise. Love could have transformed her in his sight
as it has transfigured him in hers. Their positions might
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even have been reversed. If one touch of such a love as
hers could ever come to her in a thought of his, he might
turn into a being as ill-favoured as herself. She would
neither know nor care, since joy would have killed her.
We learn from the two last monologues, especially the
last, that James Lee's wife was a plain woman.
may throw some light on the situation.
This
"THE WORST OF IT" is the cry of anguish of a man
whose wife has been false to him, and who sees in her
transgression only the injury she has inflicted on herself,
and his own indirect part in its infliction. The strain of
suppressed personal suffering betrays itself in his very en-
deavour to prove that he has not been wronged: that it
was his fault, not hers, if his love maddened her, and the
vows by which he had bound her were such as she could
not keep. But the burden of his lament-"the worst of
it" all-is, that her purity was once his salvation, her past
kindness has for ever glorified his life; that she is dis-
honoured, and through him, and that no gratitude of his,
no power of his, can rescue her from that dishonour. In
his passionate tenderness he strives to pacify her con-
science, and again, as earnestly to arouse it. "Her
account is not with him who absolves her, but with the
world which does not; with her endangered womanhood,
her jeopardized hope of Heaven." He implores her for
her own sake to return to virtue though not to him. For
himself he renounces her even in Paradise. He "will pass
nor turn" his "face" if they meet there.
The pathos of "Too LATE" is all conveyed in its title.
The loved woman is dead. She was the wife of another
man than he who mourns for her. But so long as there
was life there was hope. The lover might, he feels,
have learned to compromise with the obstacles to his
happiness. Some shock of circumstance might have
Religious Poems.
237
rolled them away. If the loved one spurned him once,
he had of late been earning her friendship. She might in
time have discovered that the so-called poet whom she
had preferred to him was a mere lay-figure whom her
fancy had draped. But all this is at an end. Hope and
opportunity are alike gone. He remains to condemn his
own quiescence in what was perhaps not inevitable; in
what proved no more for her happiness than for his. The
husband is probably writing her epitaph.
"Too Late" expresses an attachment as individual as
it is complete. "Edith" was not considered a beauty.
She was not one even in her lover's eyes. This fact, and
the manner in which he shows it, give a characteristic
force to the situation.
EMOTIONAL POEMS (CONTINUED).
RELIGIOUS, ARTISTIC, AND EXPRESSIVE OF
THE FIERCER EMOTIONS.
The emotions which, after that of love, are most strongly
represented in Mr. Browning's works are the RELIGIOUS
and the ARTISTIC: emotions closely allied in every nature
in which they happen to co-exist, and which are so in
their proper degree in Mr. Browning's; the proof of this
being that two poems which I have placed in the Artistic
group almost equally fit into the Religious. But the reli-
gious poems impress us more by their beauty than by
:heir number, if we limit it to those which are directly in-
pired by this particular emotion. Religious questions
¡ave occupied, as we have seen, some of Mr. Browning's
nost important reflective poems. Religious belief forms
the undercurrent of many of the emotional poems. And it
was natural therefore, that religious feeling should not
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often lay hold of him in a more exclusive form. It does
so only in three cases; those of
"Saul." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in part in
"Dramatic Romances and Lyrics," 1845; wholly, in
Men and Women,” 1855.)
66
Epilogue.” (“Dramatis Personæ.” 1864.)
"Fears and Scruples."
Poems." 1876.)
("Pacchiarotto and other
The religious sentiment in "SAUL" anticipates Chris-
tianity. It begins with the expression of an exalted
human tenderness, and ends in a prophetic vision of
Divine Love, as manifested in Christ. The speaker is
David. He has been sent into the presence of Saul to
sing and play to him; for Saul is in the agony of that re-
curring spiritual conflict from which only David's song
can deliver him; and when the boy-shepherd has crept
his way into the darkness of the tent, he sees the monarch
with arms outstretched against its poles, dumb, sightless,
and stark, like the serpent in the solitude of the forest
awaiting its transformation.
David tells his story, re-enacting the scene which it
describes, in strong, simple, picturesque words which rise
naturally into the language of prophecy. He tells how
first he tried the influence of pastoral tunes: those which
call the sheep back to the pen, and stir the sense of insect
and bird; how he passed to the song of the reapers-their
challenge to mutual help and fellowship; to the warrior's
march; the burial and marriage chants; the chorus of the
Levites advancing towards the altar; and how at this
moment Saul sent forth a groan, though the lights which
leapt from the jewels of his turban were his only sign of
motion. Then-the tale continues-David changes his
theme. He sings of the goodness of human life, as attested
by the joyousness of youth, the gratitude of old age. He
sings of labour and success, of hope and fulfilment, of high
ambitions and of great deeds; of the great king in whom are
Religious Poems.
239
T
centred all the gifts and the powers of human nature-of
Saul himself. And at these words the tense body relaxes,
the arms cross themselves on the breast. But the eyes
of Saul still gaze vacantly before him, without conscious-
ness of life, without desire for it.
66
His
David's song has poured forth the full cup of material
existence; he has yet to infuse into it that draught of
"Soul Wine" which shall make it desirable. In a fresh
burst of inspiration, he challenges his hearer to follow him
beyond the grave. 'The tree is known by its fruits; life
by its results. Life, like the palm fruit, must be crushed
before its wine can flow. Saul will die. But his passion
and his power will thrill the generations to come.
achievements will live in the hearts of his people; for whom
their record, though covering the whole face of a rock,
will still seem incomplete." And as the "Soul Wine"
works, as the vision of this earthly immortality unfolds
itself before the sufferer's sight, he becomes a king again.
The old attitude and expression assert themselves. The
hand is gently laid on the young singer's forehead; the eyes
fix themselves in grave scrutiny upon him.
Then the heart of David goes out to the suffering
monarch in filial, pitying tenderness; and he yearns to
give him more than this present life—a new life equal to it
in goodness, and which shall be everlasting.
And the yearning converts itself into prophecy. "What
he, as man, can desire for his fellow-man, God will surely
give. What he would suffer for those he loves, surely
God would suffer. Human nature in its power of love
would otherwise outstrip the Divine. He cries for the
weakness to be engrafted upon strength, the human to be
manifested in the Divine. And exulting in the conscious-
ness that his cry is answered, he hails the advent of Christ.
He bids Saul "see" that a Face like his who now speaks
to him awaits him at the threshold of an eternal life; that
a Hand like his hand opens to him its gates.
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David's prophecy has rung through the universe; and
as he seeks his home in the darkness, unseen "cohorts"
press everywhere upon him. A tumultuous expectation
is filling earth and hell and heaven. The Hand guides
him through the tumult. He sees it die out in the birth
of the young day. But the hushed voices of nature attest
the new dispensation. The seal of the new promise is on
the face of the earth.
The EPILOGUE is spoken by three different persons, and
embodies as many phases of the religious life. The
"FIRST SPEAKER, as David," represents the old Testa-
ment Theism, with its solemn celebrations, its pompous
worship, and the strong material faith which bowed down
the thousands as one man, before the visible glory of the
Lord.
The "SECOND SPEAKER, as Renan" represents nine-
teenth-century scepticism, and the longing of the heart for
the old belief which scientific reason has dispelled. This
belief is symbolized by a “Face” which once looked down
from heights of glory upon men; by a star which shone
down upon them in responsive life and love. The face
has vanished into darkness. The star, gradually receding,
has lost itself in the multitude of the lesser lights of
heaven. And centuries roll past while the forsaken
watchers vainly question the heavenly vault for the sign
of love no longer visible there.
This lament assumes that Theism, having grown into
Christianity, must disappear with it; and the pathetic
sense of bereavement gives way to shuddering awe, as the
farther significance of the sceptical position reveals itself.
Man becomes the summit of creation; the sole successor
to the vacant throne of God.
The "THIRD SPEAKER," Mr. Browning himself, cor-
rects both the material faith of the Old Testament, and
the scientific doubt of the nineteenth century, by the idea
>
Religious Poems.
241
of a more mystical and individual intercourse between God
and man.
Observers have noted in the Arctic Seas that
the whole field of waters seem constantly hastening to-
wards some central point of rock, to envelope it in their
playfulness and their force; in the blackness they have
borrowed from the nether world, or the radiance they have
caught from heaven; then tearing it up by the roots, to
sweep onwards towards another peak, and make it their
centre for the time being. So do the forces of life and
nature circle round the individual man, doing in each the
work of experience, reproducing for each the Divine Face
which is inspired by the spirit of creation. And, as the
speaker declares, he needs no "Temple," because the world
is that. Nor, as he implies, needs he look beyond the
range of his own being for the lost Divinity.
"That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,
Or decomposes but to recompose,
Become my universe that feels and knows!" (vol. vii. p. 255.)
FEARS AND SCRUPLES " illustrates this personal reli-
gion in an opposite manner. It is the expression of a
tender and very simple religious feeling, saddened by the
obscurity which surrounds its object, and still more by the
impossibility of proving to other minds that this object is
a real one. It is described as the devotion to an unseen
friend, known only by his letters and reported deeds, but
whom one loves as by instinct, believes in without testi-
mony, and trusts to as accepting the allegiance of the
smaller being, and sure sooner or later to acknowledge it.
In the present case the days are going by. No sign of
acknowledgment has been given. Sceptics assure the
believer that his faith rests on letters which were forged,
on actions which others equally have performed; he can
only yearn for some word or token which would enable
him to shut their mouth. But when some one hints that
the friend is only concealing himself to test his power of
R
1
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vision, and will punish him if he does not see; and another
objects that this would prove the friend a monster; he
crushes the objector with a word : "and what if the friend
be GOD?"
The next group is fuller and still more characteristic :
for it displays the love of Art in its special conditions, and,
at the same time, in its union with all the general human
instincts in which artistic emotion can be merged. We
find it in its relation to the general love of life in
“Fra Lippo Lippi." ("Men and Women." 1855.)
In its relation to the spiritual sense of existence in
"Abt Vogler." ("Dramatis Personæ." 1864.)
As a transformation of human tenderness in
"Pictor Ignotus." ("Men and Women." Published
in "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics."
In its directly sensuous effects in
1845-)
"The
"The Bishop orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's
Church." ("Men and Women." Published as
Tomb at Saint Praxed's" in "Dramatic Romances and
Lyrics." 1845.)¹
In its associative power in
"A Toccata of Galuppi's." (" Dramatic Lyrics." Pub-
lished in "Men and Women." 1855.)
In its representative power in
"The Guardian-Angel : a Picture at Fano.” (“Dramatic
Lyrics." Published in "Men and Women.” 1855.)
(6
Eurydice to Orpheus: a Picture by Leighton." (“Dra-
matis Personæ." 1864.)
"A Face." ("Dramatis Personæ." 1864.)
"FRA LIPPO LIPPI" is a lively monologue, supposed to
be uttered by that friar himself, on the occasion of a night
frolic in which he has been surprised. Cosmo dei Medici
had locked him up in one room of the palace till some
pictures he was painting for him should be finished ;² and
on this particular night he has found the confinement
1 First in "Hood's Magazine."
•
2 Two of these are now in the National Gallery; one presented to it by
Sir Charles Eastlake, the other after his death by Lady Eastlake.
ཡ
A
Poems expressive of the Fiercer Emotions. 253
the wife, confronting him at the same moment, bade him
kill her, but spare the man she loved. He did not kill her
-then for she had turned his love into contempt.
:
He
I despised her too much to inflict even a lesser punishment,
which should compromise the dignity, or disturb the out-
ward calmness, of his life. But from that moment their
union was a form; and while he worked as those do who
have something to forget, and she shared the position
which his labours procured for him, an impassable, if un-
seen, gulf lay between them.
Three years had passed, when suddenly, one night, the
wife begged to speak with her husband alone. Her re-
quest was granted; and then the truth broke forth. She
loved-had loved-no one but him; but she was jealous of
his devotion to the State. She imagined herself second
to it in his affections; and it was the jealousy in her
which had made her strive to arouse it in him. That
other man had been nothing to her but a tool. Her secret,
she now knew, was killing her. Conscience forbade
her to elude her punishment by death. She therefore
spoke.
"Would she write this?" he asked; and he dictated to
her the confession she had just made, in the terms most
humiliating to him who was intended to hear it.
"Could she but write it in her blood!" This, too,
was possible. He put into her hand a dainty Eastern
weapon, one prick of which, he said, would draw so
much blood as was required. It did more than this, for
it was poisoned. But, before she died, she knew that her
explanation had raised her husband's contempt into hatred,
and that the revenge of which she was now found worthy
had quenched the hatred in forgiveness.
"She lies as erst beloved" (the narrative concludes) "în
the church of him who hears this confession; whom his
grate conceals as little as that cloak once did-whom
vengeance overtakes at last.”
254
Handbook to Browning's Works.
The poisoned dagger, which was the instrument of re-
venge-the pledge of forgiveness-is spoken of as part of
a collection preserved in the so-called study, which was
the scene of the interview; and the speaker dwells at
some length on the impression of deadly purpose com-
bined with loving artistic care, which their varied form
and fantastic richness convey. This collection is actually
in Mr. Browning's possession; and he values it, perhaps,
for the reason he imputes to its imagined owner: that
those who are accustomed to the slower processes of
thought, like to play with the suggestions of prompt (if
murderous) action; as the soldier, tired of wielding the
sword, will play with paper and pen.
HISTORICAL POEMS, OR POEMS FOUNDED
ON FACT.
"C
Many of Mr. Browning's poems are- founded on fact,
whether historical, or merely of known occurrence; but
few of them can be classed by their historic quality, be-
cause it is seldom their most important. In Prince
Hohenstiel-Schwangau," for instance, we have a chapter
in recent history: but we only read it as an abstract dis-
cussion, to which a chapter in history has given rise ; and
in "Pacchiarotto, and how he worked in Distemper," and
"Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial" (published
in the same volume), we find two incidents, each of them
true, and each full of historic significance; but which owe
all their vitality to the critical and humorous spirit, in
which Mr. Browning has described them. The small list
of poems which are historical more than anything else,
might be recruited from the Dramatic Idyls; but, for
various reasons, this publication must stand alone; and
even here, it is often difficult to disengage the actual fact,
Red Cotton Night-Cap Country."
255
from the imaginary conditions in which it appears. Our
present group is therefore reduced to—
"Red Cotton Night-Cap Country; or, Turf and
Towers." (1873.)
"The Inn Album." (1875.)
((
The Two Poets of Croisic." (1878.)
Cenciaja." ("Pacchiarotto, and other Poems." 1876.)
We may also place here, as it is historical in character,
"The Heretic's Tragedy; a Middle Age Interlude"
("Dramatic Romances." Published in "Men and
Women." 1855.)
The real-life drama which Mr. Browning has repro-
duced under the title of "RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP
COUNTRY," was enacted partly in Paris, partly in a retired
corner of Normandy, where he spent the late summer of
1872; and ended in a trial which had been only a fortnight
closed, when he supposes himself to be relating it. His
whole story is true, except that in it which reality itself
must have left to the imagination. Only the names of
persons and places are fictitious.¹
The principal actor in this drama, Léonce Miranda,
was son and heir to a wealthy Spanish jeweller in the
Place Vendôme. He was southern by temperament as
by descent; but a dash of the more mercantile Pari-
sian spirit had come to him from his French mother;
and while keenly susceptible to the incitements of both
religious and earthly passion, he began life with the delibe-
rate purpose of striking a compromise between them. At
an early age he determined to live for this world now,
and for the other when he was older; and in the mean-
time to be moderate in his enjoyments. In conformity
with this plan he ran riot on Sunday; but worked dili-
gently during the rest of the week. He bestowed his
1 These were correctly given in the MS., and appeared so in the first
proofs of the book; but were changed from considerations of prudence.
256
Handbook to Browning's Works.
fancy on five women at once; but represented himself,
when in their company, as a poor artist or musician, and
wasted no money upon them.
One day, however, he fell in love. The object of his
affections, Clara Mulhausen, or, as she first calls her-
self, "de Millefleurs," was an adventuress; but she did
not at first allow him to find this out; and when he did
so, her hold upon him had become too strong to be affected
by the discovery. A succession of circumstances, which
Mr. Browning describes, first cemented the bond, then
destroyed its secrecy; and since Clara had a husband,
and the position could not be legalized, Léonce Miranda
had no choice but to accept the social interdict, and with
her retire from Paris. He placed a substitute in the busi-
ness, which had devolved on him through his father's
death; and the pair took up their abode at Clairvaux,
an ancient priory, which the father had bought. Here
Miranda built and improved; indulged his amateur pro-
pensities for painting and music; remained devoted to his
love, and was rewarded by her devotion. For five years
they were very happy.
The first interruption to their happiness was a summons
to Miranda, from his mother in Paris, to come and answer
for his excessive expenditure. The immorality of his life
she had condoned (a curious proof of this is given), for she
hoped it would be its own cure. But "his architectural
freaks, above all, a Belvedere which he had constructed in
his grounds, were a reckless waste of substance which she
could not witness without displeasure." She had immense
influence with her son; and he took her rebuke so much
to heart, that he only left her to fling himself into the
Seine. He was brought out alive; but lay for a month at
death's door, and made no progress towards recovery till
he had been restored to Clara's care; and Clara was pain-
fully winning him back to health, when the telegraphic
wires flashed a second summons upon him. His presence
"Red Cotton Night-cap Country.”
257
was again demanded in the maternal home. "The business
was urgent. Its nature he would learn on arrival."
He hastened to his mother's house, to find her a corpse
-laid out with all the ghastly ceremonial which Catholic
fancy could devise-and to be told that his misconduct
had killed her. The tribe of cousins, who had planned
the coup de théâtre, were there to enjoy its result. This
did not fail them. Miranda fainted away. As soon as
consciousness returned, he made his act of atonement.
He foreswore the illegal bond. He willed away his for-
tune to his kinsfolk; and would retain of it, from that
moment, only a pittance for himself, and the means of
honourable subsistence for Clara. They were to meet in
the same house a week later, to arrange in what manner
that sinful woman should be acquainted with the facts.
The day came.
The cousins arrived. Miranda did not
appear. He had broken down at the funeral in a fresh
outburst of frenzied grief; but from this he had had time
to recover. Someone peeped into his room. There he
stood, by a blazing fire, a small empty coffer by his side, en-
gaged in reading some letters which he had taken from it.
Whose they were, and what the reading had told him, was
quickly shown. He replaced them in the box, plunged this
in the fire; and reiterating the words, "Burn, burn and
purify my past!" held it there till both his hands had been
consumed; no sign of pain escaping him. He was dragged
away by main force, protesting against this hindrance to
his salvation. "He was not yet purified. SHE was not
yet burned out of him." In his bed he raved and struggled
against the image which again rose before his eyes, which
again grew and formed itself in his flesh.
The delirium was followed by three months of ex-
haustion. The moment the sick man could "totter" out
of his room, he found his way to her whom he had
abjured, and who was in Paris calmly awaiting his return
to her. She came back with him. He introduced her to
S
258
Handbook to Browning's Works.
his kinsmen. “It was all right,” he said; "Clara would
henceforth be his brother; he would still fulfil his bond."
From this, however, he departed, in so far as not to con-
tent himself with a pittance. He sold his business to the
cousinry," and, as they considered, on hard terms. He
and Clara then returned to Clairvaux.
And now, as Mr. Browning interprets the situation, his
experience had entered on a new phase. He had tested
the equal strength of the earthly and the heavenly powers,
and he knew that he could elude neither, and that neither
could be postponed to the other. He no longer strove to
compromise between these opposing realities, but threw
his whole being into the struggle to unite them. He
adhered to his unlawful love. His acts of piety and
charity became grotesque in their excessiveness.
these again particulars are given.) Two years went by;
and then, one April morning, Miranda climbed his Belve-
dere, and was found, soon after, dead, on the turf below.
There seemed no question of accident. The third attempt
at suicide had succeeded.
(Of
On this fact, however, Mr. Browning puts a construc-
tion of his own. He asserts the poet's privilege of seeing
into the man's mind; and makes him think before us in
a long and impassioned soliloquy, which sets forth the
hidden motive of his deed. As Mr. Browning conceives
him, he did not mean to kill himself. He did so in a
final, irresistible impulse to manifest his faith, and to test
the foundations of it. It has had for its object, not the
spiritual truths of Christianity, but its miraculous powers;
and these powers have of late been symbolized to his
mind by the Virgin of the Ravissante.¹ The conflict of
despotisms has thus been waged between the natural
woman and the supernatural: each a monarch in her
way. As he looks from his tower towards the Church of
A feigned name for one of the three wonder-working images which are
worshipped in France.
(x
259
Red Cotton Night-cap Country."
the Ravissante, he apostrophizes her who is enthroned
there.
He imagines her to have reproached him for his divided
allegiance; and asserts, in answer, that he has been subject
to her all his life. "He could not part with his soul's
treasure. But he has, for her sake, lavished his earthly
goods, burned away his flesh. If his sacrifice has been
incomplete, it was because another power, mysterious and
unnamed, but yet as absolute as she, had cast its spells
about him. He would have resisted the Enchantress, if
she, the Despot, had made a sign. But what token has
he ever received, of her acceptance, her approbation?
She exacts from her servants the surrender of both body
and soul; the least deficiency in the offering neutralizes
its sum.
And what does she give in exchange for body
and soul? Promises? Is a man to starve while the life-
apple is withheld from him, if even husks are within his
reach? Miracles? Will she make a finger grow on his
maimed hand? Would he not be called a madman if he
expected it?"
And yet he believes. He summons her to justify his
belief. He claims of her a genuine miracle—a miracle of
power, which will silence scepticism, and re-establish the
royalty of the Church-a miracle of mercy, which will
wipe away the past; reconcile duty and love; give Clara
into his hands as his pure and lawful wife.
carry him through the air to the space before
as she was herself conveyed there .
the leap and the catastrophe.
•
>>
"She is to
her church
Then come
He had by a second will bequeathed all his possessions
to the Church, reserving in them a life-interest for his
virtual wife; and when the cousinry swooped down on
what they thought their prey, Madame Mulhausen could
receive them and their condolences with the indignant
scorn which their greed and cruelty deserved. They dis-
puted the will on the alleged plea of the testator's in-
260
Handbook to Browning's Works.
sanity. The trial was interrupted by the events of 1870,
but finally settled in the lady's favour; the verdict being
uncompromising as to her moral, as well as legal claim to
the inheritance.
Mr. Browning had lately stood outside the grounds of
Clairvaux, and seen its lady pass. She was insignificant
in face and expression; and he was reduced to account-
ing for the power she had exercised, by that very fact.
She seemed a blank surface, on which a man could in-
scribe, or fancy he was inscribing, himself; and it is a
matter of fact that, whether from strength of will, or from
the absence of it, she presented such a surface to her
lover's hand. She humoured his every inclination, com-
plied with his every wish. And because she did no more
than this, and also no less, Mr. Browning pronounces her
far from the best of women, but by no means one of the
worst. The two had, after all, up to a certain point, re-
deemed each other.
The title of the book arose as follows. The narrative
is addressed (as the volume is dedicated) to Miss Annie
Thackeray; and its supposed occasion is that of a meet-
ing which took place at St. Rambert-actually St. Aubin
-between her and Mr. Browning, in the summer of 1872.
She had laughingly called the district "White Cotton
Night-Cap Country," from its sleepy appearance, and the
universal white cap of even its male inhabitants. Mr.
Browning, being acquainted with the tragedy of Clair-
vaux, thought "Red Cotton Night-Cap Country" would
be a more appropriate name; and adopted it for his
story, as Miss Thackeray had adopted hers for one which
she promised to write. But he represents himself as
playing at first with the idea; and as leading the listener's
mind, from the suggestions of white night-caps to those
of the red one: and from the outward calmness of the
neighbouring country, to the tragic possibilities which
that calmness conceals.
"Red Cotton Night-cap Country."
261
The supplementary heading, "Turf and Towers,” must
have been inspired by the literal facts of the case; but it
supplies an analogy for the contrasted influences which
fought for Miranda's soul. The "tower" represents the
militant or religious life. The "turf," the self-indulgent ;
and the figure appears and reappears at every stage of
the man's career.
The attempt at compromise is sym-
bolized by a pavilion: a structure aping solidity, but only
planted on the turf. The final attempt at union is spoken
of as an underground passage connecting the two, and by
which the fortress may be entered instead of scaled. The
difficulty of making one's way through life amidst the
ruins of old beliefs and the fanciful overgrowth in which
time has clothed them; the equal danger of destroying
too much and clearing away too little; also find their
place in the allegory.
The possible friend and adviser, to whom Miranda is
referred at vol. xii. p. 122, was M. Joseph Milsand, who
always at that time passed the bathing season at St.
Aubin.¹
•
1 Mr. Browning allows me to give the true names of the persons and
places concerned in the story.
Vol. xii. page 5.
>> 7.
8.
>>
"
7.
"
""
""
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19.
22.
>1
22.
"}
22.
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22.
"
22.
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22.
>>
22.
>>
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2
>>
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17
A
19
The Firm Miranda-Mellerio, Brothers.
St. Rambert-St. Aubin.
Joyeux, Joyous-Gard-Lion, Lionesse.
Vire-Caen.
St. Rambertese-St. Aubinese.
Londres-Douvres.
London-Dover.
La Roche-Courcelle.
Monlieu-Bernières.
Villeneuve-Langrune.
Pons-Luc.
La Ravissante-La Délivrande.
25. Raimbaux-Bayeux.
25. Morillon-Hugonin.
25.
Mirecourt-Bonnechose.
25. Miranda-Mellerio,
26. New York-Madrid.
30, Clairvaux-Tailleville.
31. Gonthier-Bény.
262
Handbook to Browning's Works.
"THE INN ALBUM " is a tragedy in eight parts or
scenes: the dialogue interspersed with description; and
carried on by four persons not named. It is chiefly en-
acted in the parlour of a country inn; and the Inn
Album," in spite of its grotesque or prosaic character,
becomes an important instrument in it.
((
Four years before the tragedy occurred-so we learn
from the dialogue—a gentlemanly adventurer of uncertain
age had won and abused the affections of a motherless
girl, whom he thought too simple to resent the treachery.
He was mistaken in this; for her nature was as proud as
it was confiding; and her indignation when she learned
Page 31. Rousseau-Voltaire.
"}
""
31.
36.
Léonce-Antoine.
Of "Firm Miranda, London and New York"-" Mellerio,
Brothers "-Meller, people say.
53. Rare Vissante -Dell Yvrande.
53. Aldabert-Regnobert.
53. Eldebert-Ragnebert.
54. Mailleville-Beaudoin.
""
""
54 Chaumont-Quelen.
=
"
54. Vertgalant-Talleyrand.
59.
Ravissantish-Délivrandish.
66. Clara de Millefleurs-Anna de Beaupré.
67. Coliseum Street-Miromesnil Street.
72. Steiner-Mayer.
72. Commercy-Larocy.
"
""
72.
Sierck-Metz.
""
73.
>>
73.
Carlino Centofanti-Miranda di Mongino.
""
Muhlhausen-Debacker.
79. Portugal-Italy.
88.
Vaillant-Mériel.
96. Thirty-three-Twenty-five.
97. Beaumont-Pasquier.
128. Luc de la Maison Rouge-Jean de la Becquetière.
Claise-Vire.
"
107. Sceaux-Garges.
""
128.
""
,
129.
"
129. Dionysius-Eliezer.
""
129. Scolastica-Elizabeth.
Maude-Anne.
""
་
""
136. Twentieth-Thirteenth.
152. Fricquot-Picot.
"The Inn Album."
263
that he had not intended marriage was such as to surprise
him into offering it. She rejected the offer with contempt.
He went his way, mortified and embittered. A month
later she had buried herself in a secluded and squalid
village, as wife of the old, poor, overworked, and hopelessly
narrow-minded clergyman, whose cure it was. She ab-
stained, however, for his own sake, from making any pain-
ful disclosures to her husband; and the daily and hourly
expiation brought no peace with it; for she remained in
her deceiver's power.
Three years went by. The elderly adventurer then fell
in with a young, wealthy, and inexperienced man, who had
loved the same woman, and whose honourable addresses
had been declined for his sake; and he acquired over
this youth an influence almost as strong as that which
he had exercised over the young girl. He found him
grieving over his disappointment, and undertook to
teach him how to forget it; became his master in the
art of dissipation; helped to empty his pockets while he
filled his own; and finally induced him to form a merce-
nary engagement to a cousin whom he did not love.
When the story opens, the young man has come to visit
his bride-elect in her country home; and his Mephis-
topheles has followed him, under a transparent pretext, to
secure a last chance of winning money from him at cards.
The presence of the latter is to be a secret, because he is
too ill-famed a personage to be admitted into the lady's
house; so they have arrived on the eve of the appointed
day, and put up at a village inn on the outskirts of the
cousin's estate. There they have spent the night in play.
There also the luck has turned; and the usual winner has
lost ten thousand pounds. His friend insists on cancelling
the debt. He affects to scout the idea. "The money
shall, by some means or other, be paid."
The discussion is renewed with the same result, as they
loiter near the station, at which the younger will presently
264
Handbook to Browning's Works.
make a feint of arriving; and for the first time he asks
the elder why, with such abilities as his, he has made no
mark in life. The latter replies that he found and lost his
opportunity four years ago, in a woman, who, he feels more
and more, would have quickened his energies to better
ends. He then, with tolerable frankness, relates his story.
The younger follows with his own. But, for a reason which
explains itself at the time, the connection between the two
escapes them.
The woman herself next appears on the scene, and with
her, the girl cousin. They are friends of old; and the
married one has emerged from her seclusion at the en-
treaty of the betrothed, to pass judgment on her intended
husband. The young girl is not satisfied with her own
feeling towards him whom she has promised to marry;
though she has no misgiving as to his sentiments towards
her. She is to bring him for inspection to the inn. And
the friend, entering its parlour alone, is confronted by her
former lover, who has temporarily returned there.
A stormy dialogue ensues. She denounces him as the
destroyer, ever lying in wait for her soul. He taunts her
with the malignant hatred with which for years past from
the height of her own prosperity she has been weighing
down his. She retorts in a powerful description of the
love with which he once inspired her, of the living death
in which she has been expiating her mistake. And as he
listens, the old feeling in him revives, and he kneels to her,
imploring that she will break her bonds, and secure their
joint happiness by flying with him. She sees nothing,
however, in this, but a second attempt to ensnare her;
and is repulsing the entreaty with the scorn which she
believes it to deserve, when the younger man bursts
merrily into the room. A wave of angry pain passes over
him as he recognizes the heroine of his own romance, and
hastily infers from the circumstances in which he finds her,
that he has been the victim of a double deception. The
"The Inn Album.”
265
truth gradually shapes itself in his mind; but meanwhile
the older man has grasped the situation, and deter-
mined to make capital of it-to avenge his rebuff and to
rid himself of his debt at the same time. He begs the
lady to leave the room for a few moments, handing her,
for her entertainment, the inn "album," over which he
and his friend were exchanging jokes a few hours ago;
and in which he has, at this moment, inscribed some lines.
The purport of these is that this young man loves her ;
and that unless she responds to his advances, the secret
of her past life shall be revealed to her husband.
Alone with the younger man, he exhausts himself in
coarse libels against the woman, of whom that morning
only he was speaking, as the lost opportunity of his life;
bids him ask of her what he desires, and have it; and
calls on him to admit, that in preserving him from marry-
ing her, and placing her nevertheless at his disposal, he
will have earned his gratitude, and paid the value of the
ten thousand pounds.
When the woman returns, the album in her hand, the
calm of death is upon her. She has lived prepared for
this emergency, provided also with the means of escaping
from it. But she will not die without entreating her young
admirer to shake off, before it is too late, the evil influence
to which both, though in different ways, have succumbed ;
and her dignity, her kindness, the instinctive reverence,
and now chivalrous pity, with which she has inspired him
carry all before them. He renews his declaration; im-
plores her to accept him as her husband, if she is free-
her friend if she is not; her husband even if the relation
she is living in be something less than marriage; to exact
any delay, to impose any probation, so that in the end she
accepts him.
She replies by putting her hand into his, to remain there,
as she says, till death shall part them. The older man,
who has just re-entered the room, congratulates them on
266
Handbook to Browning's Works.
having arrived at so sensible an understanding. The
woman, now very pale, contrives to point to the fatal
entry in the album which she still grasps; and asks her
friend-after quoting the writer's words-how, but in her
own way, the mouth of such a one could have been stopped.
So," exclaims the youth. And he flies at the man's
throat, and strangles him.
66
She has only time to thank her deliverer; to tell him
why his devotion is unavailing-to provide for his safety
by writing in the album from which he has torn the
fatal page, that he has slain a man who would have out-
raged her : and that her last breath is spent in blessing him.
A merry voice is heard; and the young, light-hearted
girl comes all unconscious to the scene of the tragedy.
The curtain falls before she has entered upon it.
The betrayal of the lady, the transaction of which she
becomes the subject, and her consequent suicide, are
taken from an episode in English high life, which occurred
in the present century.
"THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC" is an extract from the
history of two writers of verse, whose respective works
obtained from circumstances a brilliant but short-lived
renown. It forms part of a reminiscence, supposed to be
conjured up by a wood fire near which the narrator, with
his wife, is sitting. The fire, as he describes it, is made
of ship-wood: for it burns in all the beautiful colours which
denote the presence of metallic substances and salts; and
as his fancy reconstructs the ship, it also raises the vision
of a distant coast well known to his companion and to him-
self. He sees Le Croisic-the little town it is the poor
village it was ¹—with its storm-tossed sea-its sandy strip
1
1 Le Croisic is in the Loire Inférieure, at the south-east corner of Brittany.
It has now a good bathing establishment, and is much frequented by French
people; but sardine-fishing and the crystallizing of sea-salt are still its
standing occupations.
"The Two Poets of Croisic."
267
of land, good only for the production of salt—its solitary
Menhir, which recalls, and in some degree perpetuates, the
wild life and the barbarous Druid worship of old Breton
times.¹ And in the bright-hued flames, which leap up and
vanish before his bodily eyes, he sees also the two ephe-
meral reputations which flashed forth and expired there.
René Gentilhomme, born 1610, was a rhymer, as his
father had been before him. He became page to the
Prince of Condé, and occupied his spare time by writing
complimentary verse. One day, as he was hammering at
an ode, a violent storm broke out; and the lightning shat-
tered a ducal crown in marble which stood on a pedestal
in the room in which he sat. Condé was regarded as future
King of France: for Louis XIII. was childless, and his
brother Gaston believed to be so; in consideration of this
fact, men called him "Duke." René took the incident as
an omen, and turned his ode into a prophecy which he de-
livered to his master as the utterance of God. "The Prince's
hopes were at an end: a Dauphin would be born in the
ensuing year." A Dauphin was born; and René, who had
at first been terrified at his own boldness, received the title
of Royal Poet, and the honours due to a seer. But he
wrote little or no more; and he and the tiny volume
which composed his works soon disappeared from sight.
The narrator, however, judges that this oblivion may
not have been unsought, since one who had believed him-
self the object of a direct message from God, would have
little taste for intercourse with his fellow men; and he
suspends his story for a moment to ask himself how such
a one would bear the weight of his experience; and how
far the knowledge conveyed by it might be true. He de-
cides (as we should expect) that a direct Revelation is for-
bidden by the laws of life; but that life is full of indirect
messages from the unseen world; that all our simulated
1 The details of this worship as carried on in the island opposite Le Croisic,
and which Mr. Browning describes, are mentioned by Strabo.
268
Handbook to Browning's Works.
66
thunder-claps;" all our counterfeited truths," all those
glimpses of beauty which startle while they elude the soul,
are messages of this kind : darts shot from the spirit world,
which rebound as they touch, yet sting us to the conscious-
ness of its existence. And so René Gentilhomme had had
a true revelation, in what reminded him that there are
things higher than rhyming and its rewards.
Paul Desforges Maillard was born nearly a century
later, and wrote society verses till the age of thirty, when
the desire for wider fame took possession of him. He
competed for a prize which the Academy had offered to
the poet who should best commemorate the progress made
by the art of navigation during the last reign. His poem
was returned. It was offered, through the agency of a
friend, to a paper called "The Mercury." The editor, La
Roque, praised the work in florid terms, but said he dared
not offend the Academy; he, too, returned the MS.
Paul, mistaking the polite fiction for truth, wrote back an
angry tirade against the editor's cowardice; and the latter,
retorting in as frank a fashion, told the writer that his poem
was execrable, and that it was only consideration for his
feelings which had hitherto prevented his hearing so.
At this juncture Paul's sister interposed. He was wrong,
she declared, to proceed in such a point-blank manner.
In cases like these, it was only wile which conquered. He
must resume his incognito, and try, this time, the effect of
a feminine disguise. She picked out and copied the
feeblest of his songs or sonnets, and sent it to La Roque,
as from a girl-novice who humbly sued for his literary
protection. She was known by another name than her
brother's (Mr. Browning explains why); the travesty was
therefore complete. The poem was accepted; then an-
other and another. The lady's fame grew. La Roque
made her, by letter, a declaration of love. Voltaire also
placed himself at her feet.
Paul now refused to efface himself any longer. The
Shorter Historical Poems.
269
clever sister urged in vain that it was her petticoats which
had conquered, and not his verse. He went to Paris to
claim his honours, and introduce himself as the admired
poetess to La Roque and Voltaire. Voltaire bitterly re-
sented the joke; La Roque affected to enjoy it; but never-
theless advised its perpetrator to get out of Paris as fast
as possible. The trick had answered for once. It would
not be wise to repeat it. Again Paul disregarded his
sister's advice, and reprinted the poems in his own name.
"They had been praised and more than praised. The
world could not eat its own printed words !"
He discovered, however, that the world could eat its
words; or, at least, forget them. The only fame-the
speaker adds—which a great man cannot destroy, is that
which he has had no hand in making. Paul's light, with
his sister's, went out as did that of his predecessor.
Mr. Browning gives, in conclusion, a test by which the
relative merit of any two real poets may be gauged. The
greater is he who leads the happier life. To be a poet is
to see and feel. To see and feel is to suffer. His is the
truest poetic existence who enslaves his sufferings, and
makes their strength his own. He who yokes them to his
chariot shall win the race.¹
"CENCIAJA" signifies matter relating to the "Cenci;"
and the poem describes an incident extraneous to the
"Cenci" tragedy, but which strongly influenced its course.
This incident was the murder of the widowed Marchesa
1 The story of Paul Desforges Maillard forms the subject of a famous
play, Piron's "Métromanie."
"}
2 It is also, and perhaps chiefly, in this case, a pun on the meaning of the
plural noun "cenci," "rags,
"old
or old rags." The cry of this, frequent in
Rome, was at first mistaken by Shelley for a voice urging him to go on with
his play. Mr. Browning has used it to indicate the comparative unimpor
tance of his contribution to the Cenci story. The quoted Italian proverb
means something to the same effect: that every trifle will press in for notice
among worthier matters.
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
dell' Oriolo, by her younger son, Paolo Santa Croce, who
thus avenged her refusal to invest him with his elder
brother's rights. He escaped the hands of justice, though
only to perish in some other disastrous way. But the
matricide had been committed on the very day which
closed the trial of the Cenci family for the assassination
of its Head; and it sealed Beatrice's fate. Her sentence
seemed about to be remitted. The Pope now declared that
she must die.
'Paolo Santo Croce
Murdered his mother also yestereve,
And he is filed: she shall not flee at least !"
(vol. xiv. p. 104,)
The elder son of the Marchesa, Onofrio Marchese dell'
Oriolo, was arrested on the strength of an ambiguous
scrap of writing, which appeared to implicate him in his
brother's guilt; and subjected in prison to such a daily
and day-long examination on the subject of this letter, that
his mind gave way, and the desired avowal was extracted
from him. He confessed to having implied, under reserves
and conditions which practically neutralized the confes-
sion, his assent to his mother's death. He was beheaded
accordingly; and the Governor of Rome, Taverna, who
had conducted the inquisition, was rewarded by a Cardinal's
hat. Other motives were, however, involved in the pro-
ceeding than the Pope's quickened zeal for justice. He
had entrusted the case to his nephew, Cardinal Aldobran-
dini; and it was known that the Cardinal and the Mar-
chese had courted the same lady, and the latter unwisely
flaunted the possession of a ring which was his pledge of
victory.
This story, with other details which I have not space to
give, was taken from a contemporary Italian chronicle, of
which some lines are literally transcribed.
The heretic of "THE HERETIC'S TRAGEDY" was
Shorter Historical Poems.
271
Jacques du Bourg-Molay, last Grand Master of the Order
of Knights Templars, and against whom preposterous
accusations had been brought. This "Jacques,” whom
the speaker erroneously calls "John,” and who might
stand for any victim of middle-age fanaticism, was burned
in Paris in 1314; and the "Interlude," we are told, "would
seem to be a reminiscence of this event, as distorted by
two centuries of refraction from Flemish brain to brain.”
The scene is carried on by one singer, in a succession of
verses, and by a chorus which takes up the last and most
significant words of each verse; the organ accompanying
in a plagal cadence,' which completes its effect. The
chant is preceded by an admonition from the abbot, which
lays down its text: that God is unchanging, and His jus-
tice as infinite as His mercy; and singer and chorus both
denounce the impious heresy of "John:" who admitted
only the love, and sinned the "Unknown Sin," in his con-
fidence in it. How the logs are fired; how the victim
roasts; amidst what hideous and fantastic torments the
damned soul "flares forth into the dark" is quaintly and
powerfully described.
ROMANTIC POEMS.
The prevalence of thought in Mr. Browning's poetry has
created in many minds an impression that he is more a
thinker than a poet: that his poems not only are each
inspired by some leading idea, but have grown up in sub-
servience to it; and those who hold this view both do him
injustice as a poet, and underrate, however unconsciously,
the intellectual value of what his work conveys. For in a
1 That of the Gregorian chant: a cadence concluding on the dominant
instead of the key-note.
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poet's imagination, the thought and the thing-the idea
and its image-grow up at the same time; each being a
different aspect of the other.' He sees, therefore, the
truths of Nature, as Nature herself gives them; while the
thinker, who conceives an idea first, and finds an illustra-
tion for it afterwards, gives truth only as it presents itself
to the human mind-in a more definite, but much narrower
form. Mr. Browning often treats his subject as a pure
thinker might, but he has always conceived it as a poet;
he has always seen in one flash, everything, whether moral
or physical, visible or invisible, which the giv `n situation
could contain.² This fact may be recognized in many of
the smaller poems, which, for that reason, I shall find it
impossible to class; but it is best displayed in a couple
of longer ones, which I have placed under the head
"Romantic." They are distinct from the majority of the
“Dramatic Romances," although included in them.
with these the word "romantic" denotes an inaginary
experience, which may be frankly supernatural, as in
"The Boy and the Angel;" or only improbable, as in
"Mesmerism;" or semi-historical and local, as in “In a
Gondola ;" or simply human, and possible anywhere and
anywhen, as in "The Last Ride Together;" or in “Dîs
aliter Visum,” and “James Lee's Wife,” which might be
classed with them. I am now using it to mark certain
cases, in which the author's imagination has not brought
itself to the test of any consistent experience, but simply
presents us with certain groups of material and mental—
of real and ideal possibilities, which we may each inter-
pret for ourselves. They occur in
¹ We have a conspicuous instance of this in "Pippa Passes."
For
2 This spontaneous mode of conception may seem incompatible with the
systematic adherence to a fixed class of subjects referred to in an earlie
chapter. But it by no means is so. With Mr. Browning the spontaneous
creative impulse conforms to the fixed rule.
The present remarks properly belong to that earlier chapter. But it was
difficult to divide them from their illustrations.
Romantic Poems.
273
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." ("Drama-
tic Romances." Published in "Men and Women.” 1855.)
"The Flight of the Duchess." ("Dramatic Romances."
Published in " Dramatic Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)'
The first of these has been taken by some intelligent
critics to be a moralizing allegory; the second, a moraliz-
ing fairy-tale. They are, therefore, a useful type both of
Mr. Browning's poetic genius, and of the misunderstand-
ing, to which its constantly intellectual employment has
exposed him.
+
"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME,"
describes a brave knight performing a pilgrimage, in
which hitherto all who attempted it have failed. The
way throuh which he struggles is unknown to him;
its features are hideous; a deadly sense of difficulty
and danger hangs over every step; and though Childe
Roland's courage is pledged to the undertaking, the
thought,of failure at last comes to him as a relief. He
reaches the goal just as failure appears inevitable. The
plain has suddenly closed in; weird and unsightly
eminences encompass him on every side. In one flash he
perceives that he is in a trap; in another, that the tower
stands before him; while round it, against the hill-sides,
are ranged the "lost adventurers" who have preceded
him their names and story clanging loudly and more
loudly in his ears—their forms revealed with ghastly clear-
ness in the last fires of the setting sun.
So far the picture is consistent; but if we look below
its surface discrepancies appear. The Tower is much
nearer and more accessible than Childe Roland has
thought; a sinister-looking man, of whom he asked the
way, and who, as he believed, was deceiving him, has
really put him on the right track; and as he describes
the country through which he passes, it becomes clear
that half its horrors are created by his own heated imagi-
1 First in "Hood's Magazine.”
T
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Handbook of Browning's Works.
nation, or by some undefined influence in the place itself.
We are left in doubt whether those who have found failure
in this quest, have not done so through the very act of
attainment in it; and when, dauntless, Childe Roland
sounds his slughorn and announces that he has come, we
should not know, but that he lives to tell the tale, whether
in doing this he incurs, or is escaping, the general doom.
We can connect no idea of definite pursuit or attainment
with a series of facts so dreamlike and so disjointed:
still less extract from it a definite moral; and we are
reduced to taking the poem as a simple work of fancy,
built up of picturesque impressions which have, separately
or collectively, produced themselves in the author's mind.¹
But these picturesque impressions had, also, their ideal
side, which Mr. Browning as spontaneously reproduced;
and we may all recognize under the semblance of the en-
chanted country and the adventurous knight, a poetic vision
of life: with its conflicts, contradictions, and mockeries; its
difficulties which give way when they seem most insuper-
able; its successes which look like failures, and its failures
which look like success. The thing we may not do is to
imagine that an intended lesson is conveyed by it.
"THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS" is the adventure of
a young girl, who was brought out of a convent to marry
a certain Duke. The Duke was narrow-hearted, pom-
pous, and self-sufficient; the mother who shared his home,
a sickly woman, as ungenial as himself. The young wife,
on the other hand, was a bright, stirring creature, who
would have been the sunshine of a labourer's home. She
pined amidst the dreariness and the formality of her con-
' I may venture to state that these picturesque materials included a tower
which Mr. Browning once saw in the Carrara Mountains, a painting which
caught his eye years later in Paris; and the figure of a horse in the tapestry
in his own drawing-room-welded together in the remembrance of the line
from "King Lear," which forms the heading of the
poem.
Romantic Poems.
275
jugal existence, and seized the first opportunity of escape
from it. A retainer of the Duke's, whose chivalry her
position had aroused, connived at her escape, and tells the
story of it.
The Duke had decreed a hunt. Custom prescribed that
his wife should attend it. She had excused herself on
the plea of her ill-health; and he was riding forth in no
amiable mood, when an old gipsy woman, well known in
the neighbourhood, accosted him with the usual prayer
for alms. He was curtly dismissing her, when she men-
tioned her desire to pay her respects to the young
Duchess. It then occurred to him that the sight of this
ragged crone, and the chronicle of her woes, might be an
excellent medicine for his "froward," ungrateful wife, and
teach her to know when she was well off; and after speak-
ing in confidence with the old woman, he bade him who
recounts the adventure escort her into the lady's presence.
The interview took place. The Duchess accompanied
her visitor to the castle gate, ordered her palfrey to
be saddled, mounted it with the gipsy behind her, and
bounded away, never to return. The attendant had watched
and obeyed her as in a dream. She left in his hand, in
gratitude for what she knew he felt for her, a little plait of
hair.
narrator.
These are the real facts of the story. But we have also
its ideal possibilities, as reflected by the imagination of the
He had seen the gipsy metamorphosed as she
received the Duke's command, from a ragged, decrepit
crone into a stately woman, whose clothing bore the appear-
ance of wealth; and as he mounted guard on the bal-
cony which commanded the Duchess's room, he saw the
wonder grow.
A sound as of music first attracted his
attention; and as he looked in at the window he saw the
Duchess sitting at the feet of a real gipsy-queen: her head
upturned her whole being expanding as the gipsy's
hands waved over her, and the gipsy's eyes, preternaturally
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
dilated, poured their floods of life into her own.
Then
the music broke up into words, and he knew what hope
and promise that fainting spirit was drinking in: for he
heard what the gipsy said. She was telling the young
Duchess that she was one of themselves-that she bore
their mystic mark in the two veins which met and parted
on her brow—that after fiery trial she should return to her
tribe, and be shielded by their devotion for evermore.
She was telling her how good a thing is love-how strong
and beautiful the double existence of those whom love has
welded together-how full of restful memories the old age
of those who have lived in and for it-how sure and gentle
their awakening into the better world. . . . . . Here the
words again lost themselves in music, and he understood
no more. When the two appeared at the castle gate, the
gipsy had shrunk back into her original character; but
the Duchess remained transformed. She had become, in
her turn, a queen.
The suggestion of her gipsy origin forms a connecting
link between the real and the ideal aspects of the Duchess's
flight. We might imagine her fervid nature as being
affected by the message of deliverance precisely in the
manner described: while the beautified image of her de-
liverer transferred itself through some magnetic influence
to the spectator's mind from her own. He does not, how-
ever, present himself as a probable subject for such im-
pressions. He is a jovial, matter-of-fact person, in spite
of the vein of sentiment which runs through him; and the
imaginative part of his narrative was more probably the
result of a huntsman's breakfast which had found its way
into his brain. As in the case of Childe Roland, the
poetic truth of the Duchess's romance is incompatible with
rational explanation, and independent of it. Various
dramatic details complete the story.
Satirical or Humorous Poems.
277
SATIRICAL OR HUMOROUS POEMS.
Humour is a constant characteristic of Mr. Browning's
work,' and it sometimes takes the form of direct and in-
tentional satire; but his sympathy with human beings and
his hopeful view of their future destiny, are opposed to
any development of the satirical mood. The impression
of sympathy will even neutralize the satire, in poems in
which the latter is directly and conciously conveyed: as,
for instance, in "Caliban upon Setebos," and " The Bishop
orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church." Of grim or
serious satire, there is, I think, only one specimen among
his works the first part of
:
Holy-Cross Day." ("Dramatic Romances." Pub-
lished in "Men and Women," 1855.)
We may class as playful satires (which I give in the
order of their importance) :
"Pacchiarotto, and how he worked in Distemper."
(1876.)
((
Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial.” (“Pac-
chiarotto, and other Poems." 1876.)
"Up at a Villa-Down in the City." (" Dramatic
Lyrics." Published in "Men and Women." 1855.)
Another Way of Love." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Pub-
lished in "Men and Women." 1855.)
We have a purely humorous picture in
"Garden Fancies, II. Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis."
("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Dramatic Romances
and Lyrics." 1845.)
"HOLY-CROSS DAY" was the occasion of an 66 Annual
'Instances of it occur in the "Dramatic Idyls" and "Jocoseria;" and
will be noticed later
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
Christian Sermon," which the Jews in Rome were forced
to attend; and the poem which bears this title is prefaced
by an extract from an imaginary "Diary by a Bishop's
Secretary," dated 1600; and expatiating on the merciful
purpose, and regenerating effect of this sermon. What the
assembled Jews may have really felt about it, Mr. Brown-
ing sets forth in the words of one of the congregation.
This man describes the hustling and bustling, the crowd-
ing and packing-the suppressed stir as of human vermin
imprisoned in a small space; the sham groans, and sham
conversions which follow in their due course; and as he
thus dwells on his national and personal degradation, his
tone has the bitter irony of one who has both realized and
accepted it. But the irony recoils on those who have in-
flicted the degradation on the so-called Christians who
would throttle the Jew's creed while they "gut " his purse,
and make hirn the instrument of their own sins; and
is soon lost in the emotion of a pathetic and solemn
prayer; the supposed death-bed utterance of Rabbi Ben
Ezra.
The prayer is an invocation to the justice, and to the
sympathy of Christ. It claims His help against the
enemies who are also His own. It concedes, as possible,
that He was in truth the Messiah, crucified by the nation
of which He claimed a crown. But it points to His
Christian followers as inflicting on Him a still deeper
outrage: a belief which the lips profess, and which the
life derides and discredits. It urges, in the Jew's behalf,
the ignorance, the fear, in which the deed was done; the
bitter sufferings by which it has been expiated. It pleads
his long endurance, as testimony to the fact, that he with-
stands Barabbas now, as he withstood Christ "then;"
that he strives to wrest Christ's name from the "Devil's
crew,” though the shadow of His face be upon him. The
invocation concludes with an expression of joyful confi-
dence in God and the future.
Satirical or Humorous Poems.
279
(Giacomo) "PACCHIAROTTO” was a painter of Siena.¹
His story is told in the “Commentary on the Life of
Sodoma" by the editors of Vasari; Florence, 1855; and
this contains all, or nearly all, the incidents of Mr.
Browning's "Pacchiarotto," as well as others of a simi-
lar kind but of later occurrence, which are not mentioned
in it.
This painter was a restless, aggressive personage, with
a craze for reform; and a conspicuous member of the
"Bardotti: " a society of uncommissioned reformers,
whose occupation was to cry down abuses, and prescribe
wholesale theoretical measures for removing them. (Hence
their title; which signifies "spare" horses or "freed" ones:
they walk by the side of the waggon while others drudge
at, and drag it along). But he discovered that men would
not be reformed; and bethought himself, after a time, of
a new manner of testifying to the truth. He selected a
room in his own house, whitewashed it (we conclude);
and, working in “distemper” or fresco, painted it with
men and women of every condition and kind. He then
harangued these on their various shortcomings. They
answered him, as he imagined, in a humble and apologetic
manner; and he then proceeded to denounce their excuses,
and strip the mask from their sophistries and hypocrisies
-doing so with every appearance of success.
But he presumed too much on his victory. A famine
had broken out in Siena. The magistrates were, of course,
held responsible for it. The Bardotti assembled, and
prescribed the fitting remedies. Everything would come
right if only the existing social order was turned topsy-
turvy, and men were released from every tie. Pacchia-
rotto was conspicuous by his eloquence. But when he de-
nounced the chief of the municipal force, and hinted that
if the right man were in the right place, that officer would
Generally confounded with his contemporary and fellow-citizen, Giro-
laino del Pacchia.
1
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
be he, all the other "spare horses " rushed upon him, and
he was obliged to run for his life. The first hiding-place
which presented itself was a sepulchre, in which a corpse
had just been laid. He squeezed himself into this, and
crawled forth from it at at the end of two days, starving,
covered with vermin, and thoroughly converted to the
policy of living and letting live. The authentic part of
the narrative concludes with his admission into a neigh-
bouring convent (the Osservanza) where he was cleansed
and fed. But Mr. Browning allows Fancy the just employ-
ment of telling how the Superior improved the occasion,
and how his lesson was received.
"It is a great mistake," this reverend person assures his
guest-though one from which his own youth has not
been free-" to imagine that any one man can preach
another out of his folly. If such endeavours could succeed,
heaven would have begun on earth. Whereas, every man's
task is to leaven earth with heaven, by working towards
the end to which his Master points, without dreaming that
he can ever attain it. Man, in short, is to be not the
spare horse,' but the 'mill-horse' plodding patiently
round and round on the same spot."
<
And Pacchiarotto replies that his monitor's arguments
are, by his own account, doomed to be ineffectual: but
that he is addressing himself to one already convinced.
He (Pacchiarotto) never was so by living man; but he
has been convinced by a dead one. That corpse has
seemed to ask him by its grin, why he should join it before
his time because men are not all made on the same
pattern: "Because, above, one's Jack and one-John.”
And the same grin has reminded him that this life is
the rehearsal, not the real performance: just an hour's
trial of who is fit, and who isn't, to play his part; that the
parts are distributed by the author, whose purpose will be
explained in proper time; and that when his brother has
been cast for a fool's part, he is no sage who would per-
Satirical or Humorous Poems.
281
suade him to give it up. He is now going back to his
paint-pot, and will mind his own business in future.
By an easy transition, Mr. Browning turns the laugh
against his own critics, whom he professes to recognize on
this May morning, as flocking into his garden in the guise
of sweeps. He does not, he says, grudge them their fun
or their one holiday of the year, the less so that their
rattling and drumming may give him some inkling how
music sounds; and he flings them, by way of a gift, the
story he has just told, bidding them dance, and "dust"
his "jacket" for a little while. But that done, he bids
them clear off, lest his housemaid should compel them to
do so.
He has her authority for suspecting that in their
professional character they bring more dirt into the house
than they remove from it.¹
"FILIPPO BALDINUCCI" was the author of a history
of art ("Notizie dei Professori del Disegno da Cimabue
in qua"); and the incident which Mr. Browning relates as
a reminiscence of A.D. 1670,” appears there in a notice
of the life of the painter Buti. (Vol. iii. p. 422.)
((
The Jewish burial-ground in Florence was a small field
at the foot of the Monte Oliveto. A path ascending the
hill skirted its upper end, and at an angle of this stood a
shrine with one side blank, the other adorned by a paint-
ing of the Virgin Mary. The painting was intended to
catch the eye of all believers who approached from the
neighbouring city-gate (Porta San Friano or Frediano);
and was therefore so turned that it overlooked the Jewish
cemetery at the same time. The Jews, objecting to this,
negotiated for its removal with the owner of the ground;
and his steward, acting in his name, received a hundred
1 The (Baron) Kirkup mentioned at vol. xiv. page 5 was a Florence friend
of Mr. Browning's, and a connoisseur in literature and art. He was ennobled
by the King of Italy for his liberal views and for his services to Italian
literature. It was he who discovered the portrait of Dante in the Bargello at
Florence.
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T
ducats as the price of his promise that the Virgin should
be transferred to the opposite side of the shrine. The
task was undertaken by Buti, but carried on in the
privacy of a curtained scaffolding; and when the cur-
tains were withdrawn, it was seen that the picture had
been transferred; but that a painting of the Crucifixion
occupied its original place. Four Rabbis, the sourest
and ugliest” of the lot, were deputed to remonstrate with
the steward; but this person coolly replied that they had
no ground of complaint whatever. "His master had
amply fulfilled his bond. Did they fancy their 'sordid'
money had bought his freedom to do afterwards what he
thought fit?" And he advised them to remove them-
selves before worse befell them. The Jews retired dis-
comfited; and, as the writer hopes, took warning by what
had happened, never again to tempt with their ill-earned
wealth "the religious piety of good Christians.”
Mr. Browning gives this story, with unimportant varia-
tions, in the manner of Baldinucci himself; and does
full justice to the hostile and contemptuous spirit in which
the attitude of the Jews is described by him. But he also
heightens the unconscious self-satire of the narrative by
infusing into this attitude a genuine dignity and pathos.
He enlists all our sympathy by the Chief Rabbi's prayer
that his people, so sorely tried in life, may be allowed rest
from persecution in their graves; and he concludes with
an imaginary incident which leaves them masters of the
situation. On the day after what the historian calls this
"pleasing occurrence," the son of the High Priest presented
himself at Buti's shop, where he and the so-called "farmer"
were still laughing over the event; and in tones of ominous
mildness begged to purchase that pretty thing-the pic-
ture in oils, from which the fresco painting of the Virgin
had been made. He was a Herculean young man, and
Buti, who white and trembling had tried to slip out of his
way, was so bewildered by the offer, that he asked only
Satirical or Humorous Poems.
283
The farmer, however,
the proper price for his work.
broke forth in expressions of pious delight, "Mary had
surely wrought a miracle, and converted the Jew!"
66
The Jew turned like a trodden worm. Truly," he re-
plied, “a miracle has been wrought, by a power which no
canvas yet possessed, in that I have resisted the desire to
throttle you. But my purchase of your picture is not due
to a miracle. It means simply that I have been cured of
my prejudices in respect to art. Christians hang up pic-
tures of heathen gods. Their 'Titians' paint them. A
cardinal will value his Leda or his Ganymede beyond every-
thing else which he possesses. If I express wonder at this
sacrifice of the truth, I am told that the truth of a picture
is in its drawing and painting, and that these are valued
precisely because they are true. Why then should not
your Mary take her place among my Ledas and the rest;
be judged as a picture, and, since-as I fear-Master Buti
is not a Titian, laughed at accordingly?”
"So now," the speaker concludes, "Jews buy what
pictures they like, and hang them up where they please,
and,”—with an inward groan-" no, boy, you must not
pelt them." This warning, which is supposed to be ad-
dressed by the historian in his old age to a nephew with
a turn for throwing stones, reveals the motive of the
story: a sudden remembrance of the good old pious
time, when Jews might be pelted.
Х
"UP AT A VILLA-DOWN IN THE CITY" is a
lively description of the amusements of the city, and
the dulness of villa life, as contrasted by an Italian of
quality, who is bored to death in his country residence,
but cannot afford the town. His account of the former
gives a genuine impression of dreariness and monotony,
for the villa is stuck on a mountain edge, where the
summer is scorching and the winter bleak, where a “lean
cypress" is the most conspicuous object in the foreground,
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)
and hills "smoked over" with "faint grey olive trees" fill
in the back; where on hot days the silence is only broken
by the shrill chirp of the cicala, and the whining of bees
around some adjacent firs. But the other side of the
picture, though sympathetically drawn, is a perfect parody
of what it is meant to convey. For the speaker's ideal
66 city" might be a big village, with its primitive customs,
and its life all concentrated in the market-place or square;
and it is precisely in the square that he is ambitious to
live. There the church-bells sound, and the diligence
rattles in, and the travelling doctor draws teeth or gives
pills; there the punch-show or the church procession dis-
plays itself, and the last proclamation of duke or arch-
bishop is posted up. It is never too hot, because of the
fountain always plashing in the centre; and the bright
white houses, and green blinds, and painted shop-signs
are a perpetual diversion to the eye . . . But alas! the
price of food is prohibitive; and a man must live where
he can.
•
"ANOTHER WAY OF LOVE" is the complement to
"One Way of Love,” and displays the opposite mood.
The one lover patiently gathers June roses in case they
may catch his lady's eye. The other-grows tired of such
patience even when devoted to himself; he tires of June
roses, which are always red and sweet. His lady-love is
bantering him on this frame of mind. It is true, she says,
that such monotony is trying to a man's temper: there is
no comfort in anything that can't be quarrelled with; and
the person she addresses is free to "go." She reminds
him, however, that June may repair her bower which his
hand has rifled, and the next time "consider " which of
two courses she prefers to bestow her flowers on one
who will accept their sweetness, or use her lightnings to
kill the spider who is weaving his films about them.

:
SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS" is apparently the
Satirical or Humorous Poems.
285
name of an old pedant who has written a tiresome book;
and the adventures of this book form the subject of the
poem. Some wag relates how he read it a month ago,
having come into the garden for that purpose; and then
revenged himself by dropping it through a crevice
in a tree, and enjoying a picnic lunch and a chapter of
"Rabelais" on the grass close by. To-day, in a fit of
compunction, he has raked the "treatise" out; but mean-
while it has blistered in the sun, and run all colours in the
rain. Toadstools have grown in it; and all the creatures
that creep have towzed it and browsed on it, and devoted
bits of it to their different domestic use. It is altogether
a melancholy sight. So the wag thinks his victim has
sufficiently suffered, and carries it back to his book-shelf,
to "dry-rot" there in all the comfort it deserves.
DESCRIPTIVE POEMS.
Mr. Browning's poems abound in descriptive passages,
and his power of word-painting is very vivid, as well as
frequently employed. But we have here another instance
of a quality diffused throughout his work, yet scarcely
ever asserting itself in a distinct form. The reason is,
that he deals with men and women first-with nature
afterwards; and that the details of a landscape have
little meaning for him, except in reference to the mental
or dramatic situation of which they form a part. This
is very apparent in such lyrics or romances as: “By
the Fire-side," "In a Gondola," and "Childe Roland to
the Dark Tower Came." We find three poems only which
might have been written for the sake of the picturesque
impressions which they convey :
286
Handbook to Browning's Works.
"De Gustibus-" ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in
"Men and Women." 1855.)
"Home-Thoughts, from Abroad.” (“Dramatic Lyrics.”
Published in "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)
“ The Englishman in Italy.” (“Dramatic Romances.”
Published as "England in Italy" in "Dramatic Romances
and Lyrics." 1845.) And even here we receive the
picture with a lyric and dramatic colouring, which makes
it much less one of facts than of associations. It is also
to be remarked that, in these poems, the associations are
of two opposite kinds, and Mr. Browning is in equal
sympathy with both. He feels English scenery as an
Englishman does: Italian, as an Italian might be sup-
posed to, feel it.
イ
​"DE GUSTIBUS-" illustrates the difference of tastes by
the respective attractions of these two kinds of scenery,
and of the ideas and images connected with them. Some
one is apostrophizing a friend, whose ghost he is con-
vinced will be found haunting an English lane, with its
adjoining corn-field and hazel coppice : where in the early
summer the blackbird sings, and the bean-flower scents
the air. And he declares at the same time that Italy is
the land of his own love, whether his home there be a
castle in the Apennine, or some house on its southern
shore; among "wind-grieved" heights, or on the edge of
an opaque blue sea: amidst a drought and stillness in
which the very cicala dies, and the cypress seems to rust;
and scorpions drop and crawl from the peeling walls. ...
and where "a bare-footed girl tumbles green melons on
to the ground before you, as she gives news of the last
attack on the Bourbon king."
"HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD" is a longing re-
miniscence of an English April and May, with their young
leaves and their blossoms, their sunshine and their dew,
their song of the chaffinch, and their rapturous music of
1
Descriptive Poems.
287
the thrush. Appreciation is heightened by contrast; and
the buttercup-England's gift to her little children-is
pronounced far brighter than the "gaudy melon-flower"
which the exiled Englishman has at this moment before
him.
"THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY" is a vivid picture of
Italian peasant-life on the plain of Sorrento: the occasion
being an outbreak of the well-known hot wind-the
"scirocco❞—which, in this case, has brought with it a storm
of rain. A little frightened peasant girl has taken refuge
by the side of the Englishman, who is apparently lodging
in her mother's cottage. And he is diverting her attention
by describing his impressions of the last twenty-four
hours: how everything looked before the rain; how he
knew while yet in bed that the rain had come, by the
rattling down of the quail-nets,¹ which were to be tugged
into shelter, while girls ran on to the housetops to fetch
the drying figs; how the black churning waters forbade
the fishermen to go to sea (what strange creatures they
bring home when they do go, and how the brown naked
children, who look like so many shrimps, cling screaming
about them at the sight); how all hands are now employed
at the wine-making, and her brother is at this moment
dancing bare-legged in a vat half as high as the house; how
the bigger girls bring baskets of grapes, with eyes closed
to keep out the rain; and how the smaller ones gather
snails in the wet grass, which will appear with fried pump-
kin at the labourer's supper; how, yesterday, he climbed
Mount Calvano-that very brother of hers for his guide
his mule carrying him with dainty steps through the plain-
past the woods-up a path ever wilder and stonier, where
1
¹ Nets spread to catch quails as they fly to or from the other side of the
Mediterranean. They are slung by rings on to poles, and stand sufficiently
high for the quails to fly into them. This, and every other detail of the
poem, are given from personal observation.
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sorb and myrtle fall away, but lentisk and rosemary still
cling to the face of the rock—the head and shoulders of
some new mountain ever coming into view; how he
emerged, at last, where there were mountains all around;
below, the green sea; above, the crystal solitudes of heaven;
and, down in that green sea, the slumbering Siren islands :
the three which stand together, and the one which
swam to meet them, but has always remained half-way.
These, and other reminiscences, beguile the time till the
storm has passed, and the sun breaks over the great
mountain which the Englishman has just described. He
and little "Fortú" can now go into the village, and see
the preparations being made for to-morrow's feast—that
of the Virgin of the Rosary-which primitive solemnity he
also (by anticipation) describes. He concludes with a brief
allusion to the political scirocco which is blackening the
English sky, and will not vanish so quickly as this has
done; and thus hints at a reason, if the reader desires
one, for his temporary rustication in a foreign land.


NON-CLASSIFIED POEMS (CONTINUED).
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
VEN so imperfect, not to say arbitrary, a classi-
fication as I have been able to attempt, excludes
a number of Mr. Browning's minor poems; for
its necessary condition was the presence of some distinc-
tive mood of thought or feeling by which the poem could
be classed; and in many, even of the most striking and
most characteristic, this condition does not exist. In one
group, for instance, the prevailing mood is either too
slightly indicated, or too fugitive, or too complex, or even
too fantastic, to be designated by any term but "poetic."
Others, again, such as songs and legends, depict human
emotion in too simple or too general a form, to be thought
of as anything but "popular ;" and a third group may be
formed of dramatic pictures or episodes, which unite the
qualities of the other two.
In the first of these groups we must place—
“The Lost Leader." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published
in "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)
"Nationality in Drinks." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Pub-
lished as Claret and Tokay," without 3rd Part, in "Dra-
matic Ron inces and Lyrics." 1845.)¹
"Garden Fancies. I. The Flower's Name." ("Dramatic
Lyrics." Published in "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics."
1845.)¹
1 Both of these first in Hood's Magazine."
U
290
Handbook to Browning's Works.
"Earth's Immortalities." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Pub-
lished in "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)
"Home-Thoughts, from the Sea." ("Dramatic Lyrics."
Published in "Bells and Pomegranates." 1842 or 1845.)
'My Star." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Men
and Women.” 1855.)
66
"Misconceptions." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in
"Men and Women." 1855.)
"A Pretty Woman." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published
in "Men and Women." 1855.)
"In a Year." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Men
and Women." 1855.)
"Women and Roses." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published
in "Men and Women." 1855.)
"Before." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Men
and Women." 1855.)
"After." ("Dramatic Lyrics."
and Women." 1855.)
"Memorabilia."
Published in "Men
("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in
"Men and Women." 1855.)
"The Last Ride Together." ("Dramatic Romances."
Published in "Men and Women." 1855.)
"A Grammarian's Funeral." ("Dramatic Romances."
Published in "Men and Women." 1855.)
"Johannes Agricola in Meditation." ("Men and
Women." Published in "Dramatic Lyrics." 1842.)
"Confessions." ("Dramatis Personæ." 1864.)
(6
May and Death." ("Dramatis Personæ." 1864.)
"Youth and Art." ("Dramatis Persona." 1864.)
"A Likeness." ("Dramatis Personæ." 1864.)
'Appearances." ("Pacchiarotto, and other Poems." 1876.)
"St. Martin's Summer." ("Pacchiarotto, and other
Poems."
1876.)
"Prologue to 'La Saisiaz.'"
In the second group:
1878.
Miscellaneous Poems.
291
"Cavalier Tunes." ("Dramatic Lyrics." 1842.)
"How they brought the Good News from Ghent to
Aix." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Dramatic
Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)
"Song." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Dramatic
Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)
Incident of the French Camp." ("Dramatic Ro-
mances." Published as first part of "Camp and Cloister,"
in "Dramatic Lyrics." 1842.)
"Count Gismond." ("Dramatic Romances." Published
as "France" in "Dramatic Lyrics." 1842.)
"The Boy and the Angel." ("Dramatic Romances."
Published in "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics.” 1845.)¹
"The Glove." ("Dramatic Romances." Published in
"Dramatic Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)
"The Twins." ("Dramatic Romances." Published in
"Men and Women." 1855.)
"The Pied Piper of Hamelin; A Child's Story."
("Dramatic Romances." Published in "Dramatic Lyrics.”
1842.)
"Gold Hair: A Story of Pornic."
sonæ.* 1864.)
"Hervé Riel."
("Dramatis Per-
("Pacchiarotto, and other Poems,"
written at Croisic, 1867. Published in the "Cornhill
Magazine." 1871.)
In the third group :—
"Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr."
Lyrics." 1842.)
66
("Dramatic
Meeting at Night." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published
as "Night" in "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)
"Parting at Morning." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Pub-
lished as "Morning" in "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics."
"The Patriot. An old Story." ("Dramatic Romances."
Published in "Men and Women." 1855.)
1 First in "Hood's Magazine."
292
Handbook to Browning's Works.
"Instans Tyrannus." (Dramatic Romances." (Pub.
lished in “Men and Women."
1855.)
"Mesmerism." ("Dramatic Romances." Published
in "Men and Women." 1855.)
"Time's Revenges." ("Dramatic Romances." Pub-
lished in "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics."
((
1845.)
The Italian in England." ("Dramatic Romances."
Published as "Italy in England" in "Dramatic Romances
and Lyrics." 1845.)
"Protus."
("Dramatic Romances." Published in
"Men and Women." 1855.)
6.
Apparent Failure." ("Dramatis Persona." 1864.)
"Waring." ("Dramatic Romances." Published in
"Dramatic Lyrics." 1842.) This poem is a personal
effusion of feeling and reminiscence, which can stand for
nothing but itself.
+
First Group.
THE LOST LEADER" is a lament over the defection
of a loved and honoured chief. It breathes a tender
regret for the moral injury he has inflicted on himself;
and a high courage, saddened by the thought of lost
support and lost illusions, but not shaken by it. The
language of the poem shows the lost "leader" to have
been a poet. It was suggested by Wordsworth, in his
abandonment (with Southey and others) of the liberal
cause.
"NATIONALITY IN DRINKS." A fantastic little com-
ment on the distinctive national drinks-Claret, Tokay,
and Beer. The beer is being drunk off Cape Trafalgar to
the health of Nelson, and introduces an authentic and
appropriate anecdote of him. But the laughing little
claret flask, which the speaker has on another occasion
seen plunged for cooling into a black-faced pond, suggests
Miscellaneous Poems.
293
to him the image of a "gay French lady," dropped, with
straightened limbs, into the silent ocean of death; while
the Hungarian Tokay (Tokayer Ausbruch), in its concen-
trated strength, seems to jump on to the table as a stout
pigmy castle-warder, strutting and swaggering in his his-
toric costume, and ready to defy twenty men at once if the
occasion requires.
"THE FLOWER'S NAME. Garden Fancies," I. A
lover's reminiscence of a garden in which he and his lady-
love have walked together, and of a flower which she has
consecrated by her touch and voice: its dreamy Spanish
name, which she has breathed upon it, becoming part of
the charm.
"EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES." A sad and subtle little
satire on the vaunted permanence of love and fame. The
poet's grave falls to pieces. The words: "love me for
ever," appeal to us from a tombstone which records how
Spring garlands are severed by the hand of June, and
June's fever is quenched in winter's snow.
“HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA." An utterance
of patriotic pride and gratitude, aroused in the mind of an
Englishman, by the sudden appearance of Trafalgar in the
blood-red glow of the southern setting sun.
+
"MY STAR" may be taken as a tribute to the personal
element in love: the bright peculiar light in which the sym-
pathetic soul reveals itself to the object of its sympathy.
"MISCONCEPTIONS" illustrates the false hopes which
may be aroused in the breast of any devoted creature by
an incidental and momentary acceptance of its devotion.
"A PRETTY WOMAN" is the picture of a simple, com-
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}
pliant, exquisitely pretty, and hopelessly shallow woman:
incapable of love, though a mere nothing will win her
liking. And the question is raised, whether such a crea-
ture is not perfect in itself, and would not be marred by
any attempt to improve it, or extract from it a different
use. The author decides in the affirmative. A rose is best
"graced," not by reproducing its petals in precious stones
for a king to preserve; not by plucking it to "smell, kiss,
wear," and throw away; but by simply leaving it where it
grows. A "pretty" woman is most appropriately treated
when nothing is asked of her, but to be so.
"IN A YEAR" is a wondering and sorrowful little com-
ment on a man's shallowness and inconstancy.
WOMEN AND ROSES" is the impression of a dream,
and both vague and vivid, as such impressions are.
The
author dreams of a "red rose-tree," with three roses upon
it: one withered, the second full-blown, the third still in
the bud; and, floating round each, a generation of
women: those famed in the past; the loved and loving of
the present; the "beauties yet unborn." He casts his
passion at the feet of the dead; but they float past him un-
moved. He enfolds in it the glowing forms of the living;
but these also elude him. He pours it into the budding
life, which may thus respond to his own; but the proces-
sion of maidens drifts past him too. They all circle un-
ceasingly round their own rose.
"BEFORE" and "AFTER" are companion poems, which
show how differently an act may present itself in pros-
pect and in remembrance, whether regarded in its abstract
justification, or in its actual results. The question is
that of a duel; and "BEFORE" is the utterance of a third
person to whom the propriety of fighting it seems beyond a
doubt. "A great wrong has been done. The wronged man,
Miscellaneous Poems.
295
who is also the better one, is bound to assert himself
in defence of the right. If he is killed, he will have
gained his heaven. For his slayer, hell will have begun :
for he will feel the impending judgment, in the earth which
still offers its fruits; in the sky, which makes no sign; in
the leopard-like conscience¹ which leers in mock obeisance
at his side, ready to spring on him whenever the moment
comes. There has been enough of delay and extenua-
tion. Let the culprit acknowledge his guilt, or take its
final consequences.”
The duel is fought, but it is the guilty one who falls;
and "AFTER” gives the words of his adversary—his boy-
hood's friend-struck with bitter remorse for what he has
done. As the man who wronged him lies wrapped in the
majesty of death, his offence dwindles into insignificance;
and the survivor can only feel how disproportionate has
been the punishment, and above all, how unavailing.
"Would," he exclaims, "that the past could be recalled,
and they were boys again together! It would be so easy
then to endure !"
"MEMORABILIA" shows the perspective of memory in
a tribute to the poet Shelley. His fugitive contact with a
commonplace life, like the trace of an eagle's passage
across the moor, leaves an illumined spot amidst blankness.
"THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER" depicts the emotions of
a ride, which a finally dismissed lover has been allowed to
take with his beloved. He has vainly passed his youth in
loving her. But as this boon is granted, she lies for a
moment on his breast. "She might have loved him
more; she might also have liked him less." As they
ride away side by side, a sense of resignation comes over
1 I here use the word "conscience" in its intellectual rather than its
moral sense; as signifying that consciousness of a wrong done, which may,
for a time, be evaded or pushed aside.
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
him. His life is not alone in its failure. Every one
strives. Few or none succeed. The best success proves
itself to be shallow. And if it were otherwise-if the goal
could be reached on earth-what care would one take
for heaven? Then the peace which is in him absorbs the
consciousness of reality. He fancies himself riding with
the loved one till the end of time; and he asks himself if
his destined heaven may not prove to be this.
"A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL" describes the render-
ing of the last honours to one whose life has consumed
itself in the pursuit of knowledge. The knowledge pur-
sued has been pedantic and minute, but for him it repre-
sented a mighty truth; and he has refused to live, in the
world's sense, till he had mastered that truth, co-exten-
sive, as he believed it, with life everlasting. Like Sordello,
though in a different way, he would KNOW before he
allowed himself to BE. He would realize the Whole; he
would not discount it. His disciples are bearing him to a
mountain-top, that the loftiness of his endeavour may be
symbolized by his last resting-place. He is to lie
"where meteors shoot, clouds form,
Lightnings are loosened." (vol. v. p. 159.)
where the new morning for which he waited will figura-
tively first break upon him.
"JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION" is a glowing
and fantastic description of the privileges of the “elect,”
cast in the form of a monologue, and illustrated in the
person of the speaker. Johannes Agricola was a German
reformer of the sixteenth century, and alleged founder of
the sect of the Antinomians: a class of Christians who
extended the Low Church doctrine of the insufficiency of
good works, and declared the children of God to be exempt
from the necessity of performing them; absolved from
Miscellaneous Poems.
297
doing right, because unable to do wrong; because no sin
would be accounted to them as such. Some authorities
contend that he personally rejected only the Mosaic, not
the moral law; but Mr. Browning has credited him with
the full measure of Antinomian belief, and makes him
specially exult in the Divine assurance that the concen-
trated venom of the worst committed sins can only work
in him for salvation. He also comments wonderingly on
the state of the virtuous man and woman, and of the
blameless child, “undone,” as he was saved, before the
world began ; whose very striving is turned to sin; whose
life-long prayer and sacrifice can only end in damnation.
But, as he declares, he praises God the more that he
cannot understand Him; that His ways are inscrutable,
that His love may not be bought.
"CONFESSIONS" is the answer of a dying man to the
clergyman's question: does he "view the world as a
vale of tears?" His fancy is living through a romance of
past days, of which the scene comes back to him in the
arrangement of physic-bottles on a table beside him,
while the curtain, which may be green, but to his dying
eyes is blue, makes the June weather about it all. He is
seeing the girl he loved, as watching for him from a ter-
race near the stopper of that last and tallest bottle in the
row; and he is retracing the path by which he could creep,
unseen by any eyes but hers, to the "rose-wreathed” gate
which was their trysting-place. No, reverend sir,” is
the first and last word of his reply, "the world has been
no vale of tears to me."
"MAY AND DEATH" expresses a mourner's wish, so
natural to the egotism of a deep sorrow, that the season
which robbed him of his friend's life should bury all its
sweetness with him. The speaker retracts this wish, in
justice to the many pairs of friends who have each their
Х
298 Handbook to Browning's Works.
right to happiness. But there is, he says, one red-
streaked plant which their May might spare, since one
wood alone would miss it. For its leaf is dashed as with
the blood of Spring; and whenever henceforth it grows
in that same place, the drop will have been drawn from
his heart.¹
"YOUTH AND ART" is a humorous, but regretful
reminiscence of "Bohemian" days, addressed by a great
singer to a sculptor, also famous, who once worked in a
garret opposite to her own. They were young then, as
well as poor and obscure; and they watched and coquetted
with each other, though they neither spoke nor met; and
perhaps played with the idea of a more serious courtship.
Caution and ambition, however, prevailed; and they have
reached the summit of their respective professions, and
accepted the social honours which the position insures.
But she thinks of all that might have been, if they had
listened to nature, and cast in their lot with each other;
of the sighs and the laughter, the starvation and the feast-
ing, the despairs and the joys of the struggling artist's
career; and she feels that in its fullest and freest sense,
their artist life has remained incomplete.
"A LIKENESS" describes the feelings which are in-
spired by the familiar or indifferent handling of any object
sacred to our own mind. They are illustrated by the idea
of a print or picture, bought for the sake of a resem-
blance; and which may be hanging against a wall, or
stowed away in a portfolio: and, in either case, provoke
comment, contemptuous or admiring, which will cause a
secret and angry pain to its possessor.
“ APPEARANCES," a little poem in two stanzas, illus-
'This poem was a personal utterance, provoked by the death of a relative
whom Mr. Browning dearly loved.
Miscellaneous Poems.
299
trates the power of association. Its contents can only be
given in its own words.
"ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER" represents a lover, with his
beloved, striving to elude the memory of a former at-
tachment, and finding himself cheated by it. As the fires
of a departed summer will glow once more, in the counte-
nance of the wintry year, so also has his past life pro-
jected itself into the present, assuming its features as a
mask. And when the ghosts, from whom, figuratively,
the young pair are hiding, rise from their moss-grown
graves; and the lover would disregard their remonstrant
procession as only "faint march-music in the air”: he
becomes suddenly conscious that the past has withdrawn
its gifts, and that the mere mask of love remains to him.
The poem would seem intended to deny that a second
love can be genuine : were not its light tone and fantastic
circumstance incompatible with serious intention.
PROLOGUE TO (6
LA SAISIAZ,” reprinted as "Pisgah-
Sights," III., is a fantastic little vision of the body and
the soul, as disengaged from each other by death: the soul
wandering at will through the realms of air; the body con-
signed to the
of its native earth.
ने
6.6 Ferns of all feather,
Mosses and heather," (vol. xiv. p. 156.)
Second Group.
"CAVALIER TUNES" consists of three songs, with
chorus, full of rousing enthusiasm for the cause of King
Charles, and of contemptuous defiance for the Round-
heads who are opposing him: I. "Marching Along."
II. "Give a Rouse." III. "Boot and Saddle.”
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1
"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM
GHENT TO Aïx” is an imaginary picture, which would
gain nothing in force by being true. It is that of three
horsemen galloping to save the life of their town; gallop-
ing without rest, from moonset to sunrise, from sunrise into
the blaze of noon; one horse dropping dead on the way,
the second, within sight of the goal; and the third, Roland,
urged on by frantic exertions on his rider's part-the
blood filling his nostrils, and starting in red circles round
his eyes-galloping into the market-place of Aix ; to rest
there with his head between his master's knees: while the
last measure of wine which the city contains is being
poured down his throat.
((
SONG" is a lover's assertion of his lady's transcendent
charms, which he challenges those even to deny who do
not love her.
"INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP." A boy soldier
of the army of Napoleon has received his death wound
in planting the Imperial flag within the walls of Ratisbon.
He contrives by a supreme effort to gallop out to the
Emperor—who has watched the storming of the city from
a mound a mile or two away-fling himself from the
horse, and, holding himself erect by its mane, announce
the victory. No sign of pain escapes him. But when
Napoleon suddenly exclaims: “You are wounded,” the
soldier's pride in him is touched. I am killed, Sire,"
he replies; and, smiling, falls dead at the Emperor's feet.
The story is true; but its actual hero was a man.
"COUNT GISMOND " is an imaginary episode of the days
of chivalry. It relates how a young girl had been chosen
queen of a tournament; and how a false knight, instigated
by two cousins who where jealous of her beauty, accused
her, in the open field, of being unfit to bestow a crown;
Miscellaneous Poems.
301
how a true knight who loved her, killed the lie by a blow
struck at the liar's mouth; and then, mortally wounding
him in single combat, dragged him to retract it at the
lady's feet; how he laid his protecting arm around her,
and led her away to the southern home where she is now
his proud and happy wife, with sons growing up to re-
semble him.
The fearless confidence with which she has awaited the
result of the duel, as bearing God's testimony to the truth,
is very characteristic of the time.
“THE BOY AND THE ANGEL” is an imaginary legend
which presents one of Mr. Browning's deepest convictions
in a popular form. Theocrite was a poor boy, who worked
diligently at his craft, and praised God as he did so. He
dearly wished to become Pope, that he might praise Him
better, and God granted the wish. Theocrite sickened
and seemed to die. And he awoke to find himself a priest,
and also, in due time, Pope. But God missed the praise,
which had gone up to Him from the boy craftsman's cell;
and the angel Gabriel came down to earth, and took
Theocrite's former place. And God was again not satis-
fied; for the angelic praise could not replace for Him the
human. "The silencing of that one weak voice had
stopped the chorus of creation." So Theocrite returned
to his old self; and the angel Gabriel became Pope instead
of him.
"THE GLOVE" is the well-known story¹ of a lady of the
Court of Francis I., who, in order to test the courage of
her suitor, threw her glove into the enclosure in which a
captive lion stood; and describes the suitor-one De
Lorge-as calmly rescuing the glove, but only to fling it in
the lady's face; this protest against her heartlessness and
1 Told by Schiller and Leigh Hunt.
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
vanity being endorsed by both the King and Court.
But at this point Mr. Browning departs from the usual
version: for he takes the woman's part. The supposed
witness and narrator of the incident, the poet Ronsard,
sees a look in her face which seems to say that the
experiment, if painful, has been worth making; and he
gives her the opportunity of declaring so. She had too
long, she explains, been expected to take words for deeds,
and to believe on his mere assertion, that her admirer was
prepared to die for her; and when the sight of this lion
brought before her the men who had risked their lives
in capturing it, without royal applause to sustain them, the
moment seemed opportune for discovering what this one's
courage was worth. She marries a youth, so the poet con-
tinues, whose love reveals itself at this moment of her dis-
grace; and (he is disposed to believe) will live happily,
though away from the Court. De Lorge, rendered famous
by the incident, woos and wins a beauty who is admired
by the King, and acquires practice in seeking her gloves
-where he is not meant to find them-at the moments in
which his presence is superfluous.
"THE TWINS" is a parable told by Luther in his
"Table Talk," to show that charity and prosperity go
hand in hand: and that to those who cease to give it will
no longer be given. "Dabitur" only flourishes where
"Date" is well-fed.
“THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN" (Hameln)¹ is the
story of a mysterious piper who is said to have appeared
at Hameln in the fourteenth century, at a moment when
the city was infested by rats. According to the legend,
he freed it from this nuisance, by shrill notes of his pipe
which lured the rats after him to the edge of the river
1 Written for and inscribed to a little son of the actor, William Macready.
Miscellaneous Poems.
303
Weser, where they plunged in and were drowned; and
then, to punish the corporation, which had refused him the
promised pay, enticed away all its children, by sweet notes
from his pipe; and disappeared with them into the Kop-
pelberg, a neighbouring mountain, which opened and
then closed on them for ever. The legend also asserts
that these facts (to which Mr. Browning has made some
imaginative additions), were recorded on a church window,
and in the name of a street. But the assertion no longer
finds belief.
"GOLD HAIR" is a true "Story of Pornic," which may
be read in guide-books to the place. A young girl of
good family died there in odour of sanctity; she seemed
too pure and fragile for earth. But she had one earthly
charm, that of glorious golden hair; and one earthly
feeling, which was her apparent pride in it. As she lay on
her deathbed, she entreated that it might not be disturbed ;
and she was buried near the high altar of the church of St.
Gilles¹ with the golden tresses closely swathed about her.
Years afterwards, the church needed repair. Part of the
pavement was taken up. A loose coin drew attention to
the spot in which the coffin lay. Its boards had burst,
and scattered about, lay thirty double louis, which had
been hidden in the golden hair. So the saint-like maiden
was a miser.
"HERVÉ RIEL" commemorates the skill, courage, and
singleness of heart of a Breton sailor, who saved the French
squadron when beaten at Cape la Hogue and flying be-
fore the English to St. Malo, by guiding it through the
shallows of the river Rance, in a manner declared imprac-
ticable by the Maloese themselves; being all the while so un-
conscious of the service he was rendering, that, when desired
¹ A picturesque old church which has since been destroyed.
304
Handbook to Browning's Works.
to name his reward, he begged for a whole day's holiday,
to run home and see his wife. His home was Le Croisic.
Third Group.
"THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR" repre-
sents a follower of Abd-el-Kadr hastening through the
desert to join his chief. Mystic fancies crowd upon him
as he "rides" and "rides": his pulses quickened by the
end in view, and by the swift unresting motion of a horse
which never needs the spur; and as he describes his
experience in his own excited words, we receive not only
the mental picture, but the physical impression of it. This
poem is a strong instance of Mr. Browning's power of
conveying sense by sound, when he sees occasion for
doing so.
X
*
"MEETING AT NIGHT" is a glimpse of moonlight and
repose; and of the appropriate seclusion in the company
of the one woman loved.
men "
"PARTING AT MORNING" asserts the need of "
and their "world," which is born again with the sunshine.
66
"THE PATRIOT" tells, as its second title informs us,
an old story." Only this day year, the "patriot "entered
the city as its hero, amidst a frenzy of gratitude and joy.
To-day he passes out of it through comparatively silent
streets; for those for whom he has laboured last as first,
are waiting for him at the foot of the scaffold. No inflic-
tion of physical pain or moral outrage is spared him as
he goes. He is "safer so,” he declares. The reward men
have withheld awaits him at the hand of God.
"INSTANS TYRANNUS"¹ is the confession of a king,
'The "Threatening Tyrant." Suggested by some words in Horace: 8th
Ode. ii, Book.
Į
Miscellaneous Poems.
305
who has been possessed by an unreasoning and uncon-
trolled hatred for one man. This man was his subject,
but so friendless and obscure that no hatred could touch,
so stupid or so upright that no temptation could lure him
into his enemy's power. The King became exasperated by
the very smallness of the creature which thus kept him at
bay; drew the line of persecution closer and closer; and at
last ran his victim to earth. But, at the critical moment,
the man so long passive and cowering threw himself on
the protection of God. The King saw, in a sudden revul-
sion of feeling, an Arm thrown out from the sky, and the
wretch" he had striven to crush, safely enfolded in it.
Then he in his turn-was "afraid."
“MESMERISM” is a fanciful but vivid description of an
act of mesmeric power, which draws a woman, alone, in the
darkness, and through every natural obstacle, to the pre-
sence of the man who loves her.
"TIME'S REVENGES" is also a confession made in the
form of a soliloquy. The speaker has a friend whose de-
votion is equal to any test, and whose love he barely re-
pays with liking; and he has a lady-love by whom this
friend is avenged; for he has given up to his passion for
her his body and his soul, his peace and his renown,
every laudable ambition, every rational aim; and he knows
she would let him roast by a slow fire if this would procure
her an invitation to a certain ball.
THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND" is the supposed adven-
ture of a leading Italian patriot, told by himself in later
years. He tells how he was hiding from the Austrians,
who had put a price upon his head, and were scouring the
country in pursuit of him; how, impelled by hunger, he
disclosed his place of concealment to a peasant girl-the
last of a troop of villagers who were passing by; and how
X
306
Handbook of Browning's Works.
she saved his life at the risk of her own, and when she
would have been paid in gold for betraying him. He
relates also that his first thought was to guard himself
against betrayal by not telling her who he was; but that
her loyal eyes, her dignified form and carriage (perhaps
too, the consummate tact with which she had responded to
his signal) in another moment had put the thought to flight,
and he fearlessly placed his own, and his country's destiny
in her hands. He is an exile in England now. Friends
and brothers have made terms with the oppressor, and
his home is no longer theirs. But among the wishes
which still draw him to his native land, is one, less acknow-
ledged than the rest and which perhaps lies deeper, that
he may see that noble woman once more; talk to her of
the husband who was then her lover, of her children, and
her home; and, once more, as he did in parting from her,
kiss her hand in gratitude, and lay his own in blessing on
her head.¹
"PROTUS" is a fragment of an imaginary chronicle: re-
cording in the same page and under the head of the
same year, how the child-Emperor, Protus, descended from
a god, was growing in beauty and in grace, worshipped
by the four quarters of the known world; and how John,
the Pannonian blacksmith's bastard, came and took the
Empire; but, as "some think," let Protus live-to be
heard of later as dependent in a foreign court: or perhaps
to become the monk, whom rumour speaks of as bearing
his name, and who died at an advanced age in Thrace.
A fit comment on this Empire lost and won, is supplied
by two busts, also imaginary, one showing a "rough
hammered" coarse-jawed head; the other, a baby face,
crowned with a wreath of violets.
1 Mr. Browning is proud to remember that Mazzini informed him he had
read this poem to certain of his fellow-exiles in England to show how an
Englishman could sympathize with them.
Miscellaneous Poems.
307
“APPARENT FAILURE" is Mr. Browning's verdict on
three drowned men, whose bodies he saw exposed at the
Morgue¹ in Paris, in the summer of 1856. He justly as-
sumes that the death was suicide; and as he reads in each
face its special story of struggle and disappointment,
"Poor men, God made, and all for that!" (vol. vii. p. 247.)
the conviction lays hold of him that their doom is not
final, that the life God blessed in the beginning cannot
end accursed of Him; that even a despair and a death
like these, record only a seeming failure.
The poem was professedly written to save the memory
of the Morgue, then about to be destroyed.
The friend, to whom "WARING " refers, is a restless, as-
piring, sensitive person, who has planned great works,
though he has completed none: who feels his powers al-
ways in excess of his performance, and who is hurt if those
he loves refuse them credit for being so. He is gone now,
no one knows whither; and the speaker, who is conscious
that his own friendship has often seemed critical or cold,
vainly wishes that he could recall him. His fancy travels
longingly to those distant lands, in one of which Waring
may be playing some new and romantic part; and back
again to England, where he tries to think that he is lying
concealed, while preparing to surprise the world with some
great achievement in literature or art. Then someone
solves the problem by saying that he has seen him-for
one moment-on the Illyrian coast; seated in a light
bark, just bounding away into the sunset. And the speaker
rejoins
Oh, never star
Was lost here but it rose afar !" (vol. v. p. 89.)
and, we conclude, takes comfort from the thought.
1
¹ A small, square building on one of the quays, in which the bodies of
drowned persons were placed for identification.

CONCLUDING GROUP.
"DRAMATIC IDYLS." "JOCOSERIA."
"DRAMATIC IDYLS."

HE Dramatic Idyls form, like the Dramas, a
natural group; and though, unlike these, they
might be distributed under various heads, it
would not be desirable to thus disconnect them; for their
appearing together at this late period of Mr. Browning's
career, constitutes them a landmark in it. They each consist
of a nucleus of fact-supplied by history or by romance, as
the case may be-and of material, and in most cases,
mental circumstance, which Mr. Browning's fancy has
engrafted on it; and in both their material and their men-
tal aspect they display a concentrated power, which clearly
indicates what I have spoken of as the "crystallizing” pro-
cess Mr. Browning's genius has undergone. A comparison
of these poems with "Pauline,” “Paracelsus,” or even
Pippa Passes," will be found to justify this assertion.
66
The Idyls consist of two series, occupying each a volume.
The first, published 1879, contains :—
"Martin Relph.”
"Pheidippides."
"Halbert and Hob."
"Ivàn Ivànovitch."
"Tray."
"Ned Bratts."
{
Dramatic Idyls.
309
The hero of "MARTIN RELPH" is an old man, whose
life is haunted by something which happened to him when
little more than a boy. A girl of his own village had been
falsely convicted of treason, and the guns were already
levelled for her execution, when Martin Relph, who had
stolen round on to some rising ground behind the soldiers
and villagers who witnessed the scene, saw what no one
else could see: a man, about a quarter of mile distant,
rushing onwards in staggering haste, and waving a white
object over his head. He knew this was Vincent Parkes,
Rosamond Page's lover, bearing the expected proofs of
her innocence. He knew also that by a shout he might
avert her doom. But something paralyzed his tongue, and
the girl fell. The man who would have rescued her but
for delays and obstacles, which no power of his could
overcome, was found dead where Martin Relph had seen
him.
The remembrance of these two deaths leaves Martin
Relph no rest; for conscience tells him that his part in
them was far worse than it appeared. It tells him that
what struck him dumb at that awful moment was not, as
others said, the simple cowardice of a boy he loved in
secret the girl whom Vincent Parkes was coming to save;
and if he had saved her, it would have been for that other
man. But that thought could only flash on him in one
second of fiery consciousness; he had no time to recog-
nize it as a motive; and he clings madly to the hope that
his conscience is mistaken, and it was not that which
silenced him. Every year, at the same spot, he re-enacts
the scene, striving to convince himself-with those who
hear him—that he has been a coward, but not a murderer;
and in the moral and physical reaction from the renewed
agony, half-succeeds in doing so.
The story, thus told in Martin Relph's words, is supposed
to have been repeated to the present narrator by a grand-
father, who heard them. It embodies a vague remem-
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
brance of something read by Mr. Browning when he was
himself a boy.
دو
The facts related in "PHEIDIPPIDES" belong to Greek
legendary history, and are told by Herodotus and other
writers. When Athens was threatened by the invading
Persians, she sent a running messenger to Sparta, to de-
mand help against the foreign foe. The mission was un-
successful. But the "runner,” Pheidippides, fell in on his
return, with the god Pan; and though alone among Greeks
the Athenians had refused to honour him, he promised to
fight with them in the coming battle. Pheidippides was
present, when this battle-that of Marathon-was fought
and won.
He "ran once more, to announce the victory
at Athens; and fell, dead, with the words, “Rejoice, we
conquer !" on his lips. This death followed naturally on
the excessive physical strain; but Mr. Browning has
used it as a connecting link between the historic and the
imaginary parts uf the idyl. According to this, Pheidip-
pides himself tells his first adventure, to the assembled
rulers of Athens: depicting, in vivid words, the emotions
which winged his course, and bore him onwards over
mountains and through valleys, with the smooth swiftness
of running fire; and he also relates that Pan promised
him a personal reward for his "toil," which was to consist
in release from it. This release he interprets as freedom
to return home, and to marry the girl he loves. It meant a
termination to his labours, more tragic, but far more
glorious to die, proclaiming the victory which they had
helped to secure.
Pan is also made to present him with a sprig of fennel
symbol of Marathon, or the "fennel-field”—as pledge
of his promised assistance.
"HALBERT AND HOR" is the story of a fierce father
and son who lived together in solitude, shunned by their
-
I
Dramatic Idyls.
311
:
fellow-men. One Christmas night they drifted into a
quarrel, in the course of which the son seized his father,
and was about to turn him out of doors: when the latter, with
unaccustomed mildness, bade him stay his hand. Just so,
he said, in his youth, had he proceeded against his own
father; and at just this stage of the proceeding had a
voice in his heart bidden him desist. . And the son
thus appealed to desisted also.
This fact is told by Aristotle' as an instance of the here-
ditary nature of anger. But Mr. Browning sees more in it
than that. If, he declares, Nature creates hard hearts, it
is a power beyond hers which softens them; and in his
version of "Halbert and Hob" this supernatural power
completes the work it has begun. The two return in
silence to their fireside. The next morning the father is
found dead. The son has become a harmless idiot, to re-
main so till the end of his life.
"IVAN IVANOVITCH " is the reproduction, with fictitious
names and imaginary circumstances, of a popular Russian
story, known as "The Judgment of God." A young woman
travelling through the forest on a winter's night, is attacked
by wolves, and saves her own life by throwing her children
to them. But when she reaches her village, and either
confesses the deed or stands convicted of it, one of its
inhabitants, by trade a carpenter and the Ivàn Ivàn-
ovitch of the idyl, lifts the axe which he is plying, and
strikes off her head: this informal retribution being ac-
cepted, by those present, as in conformity with the higher
law.
Mr. Browning has raised the mother's act out of the
sphere of vulgar crime, by the characteristic method of
making her tell her story and show herself, as she may
easily have been, not altogether bad; though a woman of
weak maternal instincts, and one whose nature was power-
¹ Ethics,. VII. vi. 2,
1
312
Handbook to Browning's Works.
less against the fear of pain, and the impulse to self-pre-
servation. She describes with appalling vividness the
experiences of the night: the moonlit forest—the snow-
covered ground-the wolves approaching with a whisper-
ing tread, which seems at first but the soughing of a gentle
wind-the wedge-like, ever-widening mass, which emerges
from the trees; then the flight, and the pursuit: the
latter arrested for one moment by the sacrifice of each
victim; to be renewed the next, till none is left to sacrifice:
one child dragged from the mother's arms; another shielded
by her whole body, till the wolf's teeth have fastened in
her flesh; and though she betrays, in the very effort
to conceal it, how little she has done to protect her chil-
dren's lives, we realize the horror of her situation, and pity
even while we condemn, her. But some words of selfish
rejoicing at her own deliverance precede the fatal stroke,
and in some degree challenge it. And Mr. Browning farther
preserves the spirit of the tradition, by giving to her sen-
tence the sanction of the village priest or "pope," into
whose presence the decapitated body has been conveyed.
The secular authorities are also on the spot, and condemn
the murder as contrary both to justice and to law. But the
pope declares that the act of Ivan Ivànovitch has been one
of the higher justice which is above law. He himself is
an aged man-so aged, he says, that he has passed through
the clouds of human convention, and stands on the firm
basis of eternal truth. Looking down upon the world
from this vantage-ground, he sees that no gift of God is
equal to that of life; no privilege so high as that of repro-
ducing its “miracle ;" and that the mother who has cast
away her maternal crown, and given over to destruction
the creatures which she has borne, has sinned an 66
ampled sin," for which a "novel punishment" was re-
quired. No otherwise than did Moses of old, has Ivàn
Ivanovitch interpreted the will-shown himself the servant
-of God,
unex-
Dramatic Idyls.
313
How Mr. Browning's Ivàn Ivànovitch himself judges
the case, is evidenced by this fact, that after wiping the
blood from his axe, he betakes himself to playing with his
children; and that when the lord of the village has-re-
luctantly-sent a deputation to inform him that he is
free, the words, "how otherwise?" are his only answer.
"TRAY" describes an instance of animal courage and
devotion which a friend of Mr. Browning's actually wit-
nessed in Paris. A little girl had fallen into the river.
None of the bystanders attempted to rescue her. But a
dog, bouncing over the balustrade, brought the child to
land; dived again, no one could guess why; and after
battling with a dangerous current, emerged with the
child's doll; then trotted away as if nothing had oc-
curred.
This "Tray” is made to illustrate Mr. Browning's ideal
of a hero, in opposition to certain showy and conventional
human types; and the little narrative contains some
scathing reflections on those who talk of such a creature
as merely led by instinct, or would dissect its brain alive
to discover how the "soul" is secreted there.
"NED BRATTS" was suggested by the remembrance of a
passage in John Bunyan's "Life and Death of Mr. Bad-
man." Bunyan relates there that some twenty years ago,
"at a summer assizes holden at Hertford, while the judge
was sitting on the Bench," a certain old Tod came into
the Court, and declared himself "the veriest rogue that
breathes upon the earth". -a thief from childhood, &c.,
&c.; that the judge first thought him mad, but after con-
ferring with some of the justices, agreed to indict him "of
several felonious actions ;" and that as he heartily con-
fessed to all of these, he was hanged, with his wife, at the
same time. Mr. Browning has turned Hertford into Bed-
ford; made the time of the occurrence coincide with that
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
of Bunyan's imprisonment; and supposed the evident.
conversion of this man and woman to be among the
many which he effected there. The blind daughter of
Bunyan, who plays an important part in "Ned Bratts," is
affectingly spoken of in her father's work; and the tag-
laces, which have subserved the criminal purposes of
Bratts and his wife, represent an industry by which he is
known to have supported himself in prison. Mr. Brown-
ing, finally, has used the indications Bunyan gives, of the
incident taking place on a very hot day, so as to combine
the sense of spiritual stirring with one of unwholesome
and grotesque physical excitement; and this, as he de-
scribes it, is the genuine key-note of the situation.
The character of Ned Bratts is made a perfect vehicle
for these impressions. His "Tab” (Tabitha) has had an
interview with John Bunyan, and been really moved by
his majestic presence, and warning, yet hope-inspiring
words. But he himself has been principally worked upon
by the reading of the "Pilgrim's Progress ;" and we see
in him throughout, an unregenerate ruffian, whose carnal
energies have merely transferred themselves to another
field; and whose blood is fired to this act of martyrdom
both by yesterday's potations, and to-day's virtuously en-
dured thirst. "A mug,” he cries, in the midst of his con-
no (addressing his wife), a prayer!"
fessions; or,
((
"Dip for one out of the Book!
(vol. xv. p. 67.)
The precarious nature of his conversion is, indeed,
vividly present to his own mind. It is borne in upon him
that he is "Christmas," and must escape from the City of
Destruction. He would like nothing better, in his present
mood, than to undertake the whole Pilgrimage, and, as it
were, cudgel his way through; and since it is late in
the day for this, he chooses the short cut by the gallows,
as the next best thing. But he is, above all, desirous to be
taken while the penitent fit is on him and urgently sets
Dramatic Idyls.
315
forth those past misdeeds, which constitute his and his
wife's claim to a speedy despatch, such as will place them
beyond the danger of backsliding. Already, he declares,
Satan is whispering to him of the pleasures he is leaving
behind; and the seductions of to-morrow's brawl and
bear-baiting are threatening to turn the scale. Another
moment, and instead of going up to heaven, like Faithful,
in a chariot and pair, he will be the Lost Man in the
Iron Cage!
(6
When the two have had their wish, and been hanged
out of hand," the bystanders are edified to tears.
But the loyalty of the Chief Justice forbids any im-
puting of the act of grace to the influence of John Bunyan.
Its cause lies rather, he asserts, in the twelve years' pious
reign of the restored Charles.
The second series of the "Dramatic Idyls" was pub-
lished in 1880, and contains :—
"Echetlos."
"Clive."
"Muléykeh."
"Pietro of Abano."
"Doctor
>>
"Pan and Luna.'
"
It has also a little prologue and epilogue: the former
satirizing the pretension to understand the Soul, which we
cannot see, while we are baffled by the workings of the
bodily organs, which we can see; the latter directed
against the popular idea that the more impressible and
more quickly responsive natures are the soil of which
(< song" is born.
The true poet, it declares, is as the
pine tree which has grown out of a rock.
"ECHETLOS" (holder of the ploughshare) is another
legend of the battle of Marathon. It tells, in Mr. Brown-
ing's words, how one with the goat-skin garment, and
the broad bare limbs of a clown," was seen on the
(6
316 Handbook to Browning's Works.
battle-field ploughing down the enemy's ranks: the
ploughshare flashing now here, now there, wherever the
Grecian lines needed strengthening; how he vanished
when the battle was won; and how the oracle, of which
his name was asked, bade the inquirers not care for it :
"Say but just this: We praise one helpful whom we call
"
The Holder of the Ploughshare. The great deed ne'er grows smail.'
(vol. xv. p. 87.)
Miltiades and Themistocles had shown that a great name
could do so.¹
The anecdote which forms the basis of " CLIVE," was told
to Mr. Browning in 1846 by Mrs. Jameson, who had shortly
before heard it at Lansdowne House, from Macaulay. It
is cursorily mentioned in Macaulay's "Essays."
When Robert Clive was first in India, a boy of fifteen,
clerk in a merchant's office at St. David's, he accused an
officer with whom he was playing, of cheating at cards,
and was challenged by him in consequence. Clive fired,
as it seems, prematurely, and missed his aim. The officer,
at whose mercy he had thus placed himself, advanced to
within arm's length, held the muzzle of his pistol to the
youth's forehead, and summoned him to repeat his accu-
sation. Clive did repeat it, and with such defiant courage
that his adversary was unnerved. He threw down the
weapon, confessed that he had cheated, and rushed out of
the room. A chorus of indignation then broke forth among
those who had witnessed the scene. They declared that
the “wronged civilian” should be righted; and that he
who had thus disgraced Her Majesty's Service should be
drummed-if needs be, kicked-out of the regiment. But
here Clive interposed. Not one, he said, of the eleven,
whom he addressed by name and title, had raised a finger
1 The story is told in Pausanias. A painting of Echetlos was to be seen
in the Poecile at Athens.
T
1
Dramatic Idyls.
317
to save his life. He would clear scores with any or all
among them who breathed a word against the man who
had spared it. Nor, as the narrative continues, and as
the event proved, was such a word ever spoken.
Clive is supposed to relate this experience, a week be-
fore his self-inflicted death, to a friend who is dining with
him; and who, struck by his depressed mental state,
strives to arouse him from it by the question: which of
his past achievements constitutes, in his own judgment,
the greatest proof of courage. He gives the moment in
which the pistol was levelled at his head, as that in which
he felt, not most courage, but most fear. But, as he ex-
plains to his astonished listener, it was not the almost
certainty of death, which, for one awful minute, made a
coward of him; it was the bare possibility of a reprieve,
which would have left no appeal from its dishonour. His
opponent refused to fire. He might have done so with
words like these:
"Keep your life, calumniator !-worthless life I freely spare:
Mine you freely would have taken-murdered me and my good fame
Both at once-and all the better! Go, and thank your own bad aim
Which permits me to forgive you!
(vol. xv. p. 105.)
What course would have remained to him but to seize the
pistol, and himself send the bullet into his brain? This
tremendous mental situation is, we need hardly say, Mr.
Browning's addition to the episode.
The poem contains also some striking reflections on the
risks and responsibilities of power; and concludes with an
expression of reverent pity for the "great unhappy hero"
for whom they proved too great.
“MULÉYKEH” is an old Arabian story. The name
which heads it is that of a swift, beautiful mare, who was
Hóseyn-her owner's, "Pearl." He loved her so dearly,
that, though a very poor man, no price would tempt him to
sell her; and in his fear of her being stolen, he slept
318
Handbook to Browning's Works.
always with her head-stall thrice wound round his wrist :
and Buhéyseh, her sister, saddled for instantaneous pur-
suit. One night she was stolen; and Duhl, the thief,
galloped away on her and felt himself secure: for the
Pearl's speed was such that even her sister had never
overtaken her. She chafed, however, under the strange
rider, and slackened her pace. Buhéyseh, bearing Hóseyn,
gained fast upon them; the two mares were already “neck
by croup." Then the thought of his darling's humiliation
flashed on Hóseyn's mind. He shouted angrily to Duhl
in what manner he ought to urge her. And the Pearl,
obeying her master's voice, no less than the familiar signal
prescribed by him, bounded forward, and was lost to him.
for ever. Hóseyn returned home, weeping sorely, and the
neighbours told him he had been a fool. "Why not have
kept silence and got his treasure back?
"..And
Pearl.'
beaten in speed!' wept Hóseyn: 'You never have loved my
(vol. xv. p. 116.)
ABANO”
The man who gives his name to "PIETRO OF Abano"
was the greatest Italian philosopher and physician of the
thirteenth century.¹ He was also an astrologer, pretend-
ing to magical knowledge, and persecuted, as Mr. Brown-
ing relates. But the special story he tells of him has been
told of others also.
Pietro of Abano had the reputation of being a wizard;
and though his skill in curing sickness, as in building, star-
reading, and yet other things, conferred invaluable services
on his fellow-men, he received only kicks and curses for
his reward. His power seemed, nevertheless, so enviable,
that he was one day, in the archway of his door, accosted
by a young Greek, who humbly and earnestly entreated
that the secret of that power might be revealed to him. He
promised to repay his master with loving gratitude; and
i Petrus Aponensis: author of a work quoted in the Idyl: Conciliator
Differentiarum. Abano is a village near Padua.
Dramatic Idyls.
319
hinted that the bargain might be worth the latter's con-
sideration, since nature, in all else his slave, forbade his
drinking milk (this is told of the true Pietro): in other
words, denied him the affection which softens and sweetens
the dry bread of human life. Pietro pretended to consent,
and began, to utter, by way of preface, the word "bene-
dicite." The young Greek lost consciousness at its second
syllable; and awoke to find himself alone, and with a first
instalment of Peter's secret in his mind.
"Good is pro-
duct of evil, and to be effected through it." Acting upon
this doctrine, he traded on the weaknesses of his fellow-
creatures wherever the opportunity occurred; and attained
by this means, first, wealth; next temporal, and then
spiritual, power; rising finally to the dignity of Pope.
At each stage of this progress, Peter came to him in appa-
rent destitution, and claimed the promised gratitude in an
urgent, but very modest prayer for assistance. And each
time Peter's presence infused into him a fresh power of
unscrupulousness, and sent him a step farther on his way.
But each time also the pupil postponed his obligation, till
he at last disclaimed it; and—enthroned in the Lateran
-was dismissing his benefactor with insult: when the
closing syllables-" dicite "-sounded in his ear; and he
became conscious of Peter's countenance smiling back at
him over his shoulder, and Peter's door being banged in
his face. And he then knew that he had lived a lifetime
in the fraction of a minute, and that the magician, by
means of whom he had done so, justly declined to trust
him.
Mr. Browning, however, bids the young Greek per-
severe; since he might ransack Peter's books, without
discovering a better secret for gaining power over the
masses, than the "cleverness uncurbed by conscience,”
which he perhaps already possesses.¹
1 Some expressions in this Idyl may require explaining.
nôsset" (novisset) (p. 136). "Had Solomon but known this."
"Salomo si
"Teneor
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
"DOCTOR " is an old Hebrew legend, founded
upon the saying that a bad wife is stronger than death.
Satan complains, in his character of Death, that man has
the advantage of him : since he may baffle him, whenever
he will, by the aid of a bad woman; and he undertakes to
show this in his own person. He comes to earth, marries,
and has a son, who in due time must be supplied with a
profession. This son is too cowardly to be a soldier, and
too lazy to be a lawyer; Divinity is his father's sphere. So
Satan decides that he shall be a doctor; and endows him
with a faculty which will enable him to practise Medicine,
without any knowledge of it at all. The moment he enters
a sick room, he will see his father spiritually present there;
and unless he finds him seated at the sick's man's head,
that man is not yet doomed. Thus endowed, Doctor
can cure a patient who was despaired of, with a dose of
penny-royal, and justly predict death for one whose only
ailment is a pimple. His success carries all before it.
One day, however, he is summoned to the emperor, who
lies sick; and the emperor offers gold, and power, and,
lastly, his daughter's hand, as the price of his recovery.
But this time Satan sits at the head of the bed, and not
even such an appeal to his pride and greed will induce him
vix" (p. 136). "I scarcely contain myself." "Hactenus" (p. 136). The “
is purposely made long. "Hitherto." Peason" (p. 138). The old English
plural of "pea." "Pou sto" (p. 138). "Where I may stand :" The alleged
saying of Archimedes—“I could move the world had I a place for my ful
crum-' where I might stand' to move it." "Tithon" (p. 141). Tithonus—
Aurora's lover: for whom she procured the gift of eternal life. "Apage,
Sathanas!" (p. 142). "Depart Satan." Customary adjuration.
“e”
The term "Venus," as employed in the postscript to the Idyl, signified in
Roman phraseology, the highest throw of the dice. It signified, therefore
the highest promise to him, who, in obedience to the oracle, had tested his
fortunes at the fount at Abano, by throwing golden dice into it. The "crys-
tal," to which Mr. Browning refers, is the water of the well or fount, at the
bottom of which, as Suetonius declared, the dice thrown by Tiberius, and
their numbers, were still visible. The little air which concludes the post-
script reflects the careless or "lilting" mood in which Mr. Browning had
thrown the "fancy dice" which cast themselves into the form of the poem.
Dramatic Idyls.
321
to grant the patient even a temporary reprieve. The son,
thus driven to bay, pretends to be struck by a sudden
thought. "He will try the efficacy of the mystic Jacob's
staff." He whispers to an attendant to bid his mother
bring it; and as Satan's Bad Wife enters the room, Satan
vanishes through the ceiling, leaving a smell of sulphur
behind him. The Emperor gets well; but Doctor
renounces the promised gold: for it was to be the Prin-
cess's dowry; and he is too wise to accept it on the con-
dition of saddling himself with a wife.
"PAN AND LUNA" describes a mythical adventure of
Luna-the moon, given by Virgil in the Georgics; and
has for its text a line from them (III. 390) :
"Si credere dignum est."
According to the legend, Luna was one night en-
trapped by Pan who lay in wait for her in the form
of a cloud, soft and snowy as the fleece of a certain
breed of sheep; and, Virgil continues, followed him
to the woodland, "by no means spurning him." But
Mr. Browning tells the story in a manner more consonant
with the traditional modesty of the "Girl-Moon." She
was, he says, distressed by the exposure of her full-orbed
charms, as she flew bare through the vault of heaven : the
protecting darkness ever vanishing before her; and she
took refuge for concealment in the cloud of which the
fleecy billows were to close and contract about her, in the
limbs of the goat-god. How little she accepted this her
first eclipse, may be shown, he thinks, by the fact that she
never now lingers within a cloud longer than is necessary
to "rip" it through.
"If it is proper to be credited."
V
322
Handbook to Browning's Works.
"JOCOSERIA."
The volume so christened (grave and gay), published
1883, shows a greater variety of subject and treatment
than do the Dramatic Idyls, and its contents might be
still more easily broken up; but they are also best given
in their original form. They are-
66
Wanting is what?"
"Donald."
"Solomon and Balkis."
"Cristina and Monaldeschi."
(6 Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli."
"Adam, Lilith, and Eve.”
"Ixion."
(6
Jochanan Hakkadosh."
"Never the Time and the Place."
"Pambo."
“WANTING IS-WHAT?" is an invocation to Love, as
the necessary supplement to whatever is beautiful in life.
It may equally be addressed to the spirit of Love, or to
its realization in the form of a beloved person.
“DONALD” is a true story, repeated to Mr. Browning
by one who had heard it from its hero the so-called
Donald, himself. This man, a fearless sportsman in the
flush of youth and strength, found himself one day on a
narrow mountain ledge-a wall of rock above, a precipice
below, and the way barred by a magnificent stag ap-
proaching from the opposite side. Neither could retrace
his steps. There was not space enough for them to pass
each other. One expedient alone presented itself: that
the man should lie flat, and the stag (if it would) step over
him. And so it might have been. Donald slipped side-
"Focoseria."
323
ways on to his back. The stag, gently, cautiously, not
grazing him with the tip of a hoof, commenced the diffi-
cult transit; the feat was already half accomplished. But
the lifted hind legs laid bare the stomach of the stag; and
Donald, who was sportsman first, and man long after-
wards, raised himself on his elbow, and stabbed it. The
two rolled over into the abyss. The stag, for the second
time, saved its murderer's life; for it broke his fall.
He came out of the hospital into which he had been
carried, a crippled, patched-up wretch, but able to crawl
on hands and knees to wherever his "pluck" might be
appreciated, and earn a beggar's livelihood by telling how
it was last displayed.
These facts are supposed to be related in a Scotch
bothie, to a group of young men already fired by the attrac-
tions of sport; and are the narrator's comment on the
theory, that moral soundness as well as physical strength,
is promoted by it.
1
"SOLOMON AND BALKIS" is the Talmudic version ¹
of the dialogue, which took place between Solomon
and the Queen of Sheba, on the occasion of her visit.
to the wise King. They begin by talking for effect:
and when questioned by each other as to the kind of per-
sons they most readily admit to their respective courts,
Solomon answers that he welcomes the Wise, whatever be
their social condition; and Balkis declares that her sym-
pathies are all with the Good. But a chance (?) move-
ment on her part jostles the hand of Solomon; and the
ring it bears slips round, so that the truth-compelling
Name is turned outwards instead of in. Then he con-
fesses that he loves the Wise just so long as he is the
object of their appreciation; she that she loves the Good
so long as they bear the form of young and handsome men.
This version is more crudely reproduced by the Persian poet Jami.
324
Handbook to Browning's Works.
He acknowledges, with a sigh, that the soul, which will
soar in heaven, must crawl while confined to earth; she
owns, with a laugh and a blush, that she has not travelled
thus far to hold mental communion with him.¹
CRISTINA 2
AND MONALDESCHI" gives the closing
scene of the life of Monaldeschi, in what might be Cris-
tina's own words. She is addressing the man whom she
has convicted of betraying her, and at whose murder she
is about to assist ; and the monologue reflects the out-
ward circumstance of this murder, as well as the queen's
deliberate cruelty, and her victim's cowardice. They are
in the palace of Fontainebleau. Its internal decorations
record the loves of Diane de Poitiers and the French
king, in their frequent repetition of the crescent and the
salamander,³ and of the accompanying motto, "Quis sepa-
rabit;” and Cristina, with ghastly irony, calls her listener's
attention to the appropriateness of these emblems to their
own case. Then she plays with the idea that his symbol
is the changing moon, hers the fire-fed salamander,
dangerous to those only who come too close. Changing
the metaphor, she speaks of herself as a peak, which
Monaldeschi has chosen to scale, and which he wrongly
hoped to descend when he should be weary of the posi-
tion, by the same ladder by which he climbed; and her
half-playful words assume a still more sinister import,
as she depicts the whirling waters, the frightful rocky
abyss, into which a moment's giddiness on his part, a
touch from her, might precipitate him. She bids him
"C
1 The word "conster," which rhymes in the poem with monster," is Old
English for construe.
"}
2 Daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, and Queen of Sweden.
3 Some confusion has here arisen between Francis I., whose emblem was
the salamander, and Henry II., the historic lover of Diane de Poitiers. But
Francis was also said to have been, for a short time, attached to her; and
the poetic contrast of the frigid moon and the fiery salamander was perhaps
worth the dramatic sacrifice of Cristina's accuracy.
<<
325
Focoseria."
cure the dizziness, ward off the danger, by kneeling, even
crouching, at her feet; act the lover, though he no longer
is one. And all the while she is drawing him towards the
door of that "Gallery of the Deer," where the priest who
is to confess, the soldiers who are to slay, are waiting for
him.
Cristina's last words are addressed, in vindication of
her deed, to the priest (Lebel), who is aghast at its
ferocity. He, she says, has received the culprit's confes-
sion, and would not divulge it for a crown. The church
at Avon¹ must tell how her secrets have been guarded by
him to whom she had entrusted them.
"MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT AND FUSELI" is the
mournful yet impassioned expression of an unrequited
love.
((
Adam, Lilith, AND EVE" illustrates the manner in
which the typical man and woman will proceed towards
each other: the latter committing herself by imprudent
disclosures when under the influence of fear, and turning
them into a joke as soon as the fear is past; the former
pretending that he never regarded them as serious.
66
IXION" is an imaginary protest of this victim of the
anger of Zeus, wrung from him by his torments, as he
whirls on the fiery wheel. He has been sentenced to
this punishment for presuming on the privileges which
Zeus had conferred upon him, and striving to win Here's ³
love; and he declares that the punishment is undeserved:
"he was encouraged to claim the love of Heré, together
with the friendship of Zeus; he has erred only in his trust
3
1 A village close to Fontainebleau, in the church of which Monaldeschi
was buried.
2 "Winged" or "fiery:" fiery from the rapidity of its motion.
3 Juno.
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
}
in their professions. And granting that it were otherwise
—that he had sinned in arrogance-that, befriended by
the gods, he had wrongly fancied himself their equal: one
touch from them of pitying power would have sufficed to
dispel the delusion, born of the false testimony of the
flesh!" He asks, with indignant scorn, what need there
is of accumulated torment, to prove to one who has re-
covered his sight, that he was once blind; and in this
scorn and indignation he denounces the gods, whose
futile vindictiveness would shame the very nature of man;
he denounces them as hollow imitations of him whom
they are supposed to create as mere phantoms to which
he imparts the light and warmth of his own life. Then
rising from denunciation to prophecy, he bids his fellow-
men take heart. "Let them struggle and fall! Let
them press on the limits of their own existence, to find
only human passions and human pettiness in the sphere
beyond; let them expiate their striving in hell! The
end is not yet come. Of his vapourized flesh, of the
'tears, sweat, and blood' of his agony, is born a rainbow
of hope; of the whirling wreck of his existence, the pale
light of a coming joy. Beyond the weakness of the god
his tormenter he descries a Power, unobstructed, all-pure.
"Thither I rise, whilst thou-Zeus, keep the godship and sink!”
If any doubt were still possible as to Mr. Browning's
attitude towards the doctrine of eternal punishment, this
poem must dispel it.
"JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH" relates how a certain Rabbi
was enabled to extend his life for a year and three months
beyond its appointed term, and what knowledge came to
him through the extension. Mr. Browning professes to
rest his narrative on a Rabbinical work, of which the title,
given by him in Hebrew, means
"Collection of many
lies ;" and he adds, by way of supplement, three sonnets,
"
327
Focoseria."
supposed to fantastically illustrate the old Hebrew proverb,
From Moses to Moses¹ never was one like Moses,” and
embodying as many fables of wildly increasing audacity.
The main story is nevertheless justified by traditional
Jewish belief; and Mr. Browning has made it the vehicle
of some poetical imagery and much serious thought.
Jochanan Hakkadosh was at the point of death. He
had completed his seventy-ninth year. But his faculties
were unimpaired; and his pupils had gathered round him
to receive the last lessons of his experience; and to know
with what feelings he regarded the impending change.
Jochanan Hakkadosh had but one answer to give : his life
had been a failure. He had loved, learned, and fought;
and in every case his object had been ill-chosen, his
energies ill-bestowed. He had shared the common lot,
which gives power into the hand of folly, and places wis-
dom in command when no power is left to be commanded.
With this desponding utterance he bade his "children"
farewell.
But here a hubbub of protestation arose. 'This must
not be the Rabbi's last word. It need not be so;" for, as
Tsaddik, one of the disciples, reminded his fellows, there
existed a resource against such a case. Their "Targums"
(commentaries) assured them that when one thus com-
bining the Nine Points of perfection was overtaken by
years before the fruits of his knowledge had been matured,
respite might be gained for him by a gift from another
man's life: the giver being rewarded for the wisdom to
which he ministered by a corresponding remission of ill-
spent time. The sacrifice was small, viewed side by side
with the martyrdoms endured in Rome for the glory of the
Jewish race. "Who of those present was willing to make
it?" Again a hubbub arose. The disciples within, the
mixed crowd without, all clamoured for the privilege of
2
1 That is, to Moses Maimonides.
2 The names and instances given are, as well as the main fact, historical.
328
Handbook to Browning's Works.
1
lengthening the Rabbi's life from their own. Tsaddik de-
precated so extensive a gift. "Their teacher's patience
should not be overtaxed, like that of Perida (whose story
he tells), by too long a spell of existence." He accepted
from the general bounty exactly one year, to be recruited
in equal portions from a married lover, a warrior, a poet,
and a statesman; and, the matter thus settled, Jochanan
Hakkadosh fell asleep.
:
:
Four times the Rabbi awoke, in renewed health and
strength and four times again he fell asleep and at the
close of each waking term Tsaddik revisited him as he sat
in his garden-amidst the bloom or the languors, the
threatenings or the chill, of the special period of the year
--and questioned him of what he had learned. And each
time the record was like that of the previous seventy-nine
years, one of disappointment and failure. For the gift had
been drawn in every case from a young life, and been
neutralized by its contact with the old. As a lover, the
Rabbi declares, he has dreamed young dreams, and his
older self has seen through them. He has known before-
hand that the special charms of his chosen one would
prove transitory, and that the general attraction of her
womanhood belonged to her sex and not to her. As a
warrior, he has experienced the same process of disen-
chantment. For the young believe that the surest way to
the Right and Good, is that, always, which is cut by the
sword: and that the exercise of the sword is the surest
training for those self-devoting impulses which mark the
moral nature of man. The old have learned that the most
Just war involves, in its penalties, the innocent no less than
the guilty; that violence rights no wrong which time and
patience would not right more fully; and that for the pur-
poses of self devotion, unassisted love is more effective
than hate. (Picturesque illustrations are made to support
this view.) As poet, he has recalled the glow of youthful
fancy to feel it quenched by the experience of age to see
(<
329
Focoseria."
those soaring existences whose vital atmosphere is the
future, frozen by their contact with a dead past. As
statesman, he has looked out upon the forest of life, again
seeing the noble trees by which the young trace their
future path. And, seeing these, he has known, that the way
leads, not by them, but among the brushwood and briars
which fill the intervening space; that the statist's work
is among the mindless many who will obstruct him at
every step, not among the intellectual few by whom his
progress would be assisted.
As he completes his testimony another change comes
over him; and Tsaddik, kissing the closing eyelids, leaves
his master to die.
The rumour of a persecution scatters the Jewish inhabi-
tants of the city. Not till three months have expired do
they venture to return to it; and when Tsaddik and the
other disciples seek the cave where their master lies, they
find him, to their astonishment, alive. Then Tsaddik re-
members that even children urged their offering upon him,
and concludes that some urchin or other contrived to
make it “stick ;” and he anxiously disclaims any share in
the "foisting" this crude fragment of existence on the
course of so great a life. Hereupon the Rabbi opens his
eyes, and turns upon the bystanders a look of such abso-
lute relief, such utter happiness, that, as Tsaddik declares,
only a second miracle can explain it. It is a case of the
three days' survival of the "Ruach or spirit, conceded
to those departed saints whose earthly life has anticipated
the heavenly; who have died, as it were, half in the
better world.¹
""
Tsaddik has, however, missed the fight solution of the
problem. Jochanan Hakkadosh can only define his state as
one of ignorance confirmed by knowledge; but he makes it
very clear that it is precisely the gift of the child's con-
1 A Talmudic doctrine still held among the Jews. The "Halaphta," with
whom Mr. Browning connects it, was a noted Rabbi.
}
330
Handbook to Browning's Works.
i
sciousness, which has produced this ecstatic calm. The
child's soul in him has reconciled the differing testimony
of youth and manhood: solving their contradictions in its
unquestioning faith and hope. It has lifted him into that
region of harmonized good and evil, where bliss is greater
than the human brain can bear. And this is how he feels
himself to be dying; bearing with him a secret of perfect
happiness, which he vainly wishes he could impart.'
“NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE" is a fanciful ex-
pression of love and longing, provoked by the opposition
of circumstances.
The name of " PAMBO" or "Pambus" is known to lite-
rature,² as that of a foolish person, who spent months—
Mr. Browning says years—in pondering a simple passage
from Psalm xxxix.; and remained baffled by the difficulty
of its application. The passage is an injunction that man
look to his ways, so that he do not offend with his tongue.
And Pambo finds it easy to practise the first part of this
precept, but not at all so the second. Mr. Browning de-
clares himself in the same case. "He also looks to his
ways, and is guided along them by the critic's torch. But
he offends with his tongue, notwithstanding."
1 The "Bier" and the "three daughters" was a received Jewish name
for the Constellation of the Great Bear. Hence the simile derived from
this (vol. xv. pp. 217-244).
The "Salem," mentioned at p. 218, is the mystical New Jerusalem to be
built of the spirits of the great and good.
2
Chetw. Hist. Collect.," cent. 1., p. 17. Quoted by Nath. Wanley,
"Wonders of the Little World," p. 138.

SUPPLEMENT.
"FERISHTAH'S FANCIES."

">
HE idea of "FERISHTAH'S FANCIES" grew out
of a fable by Pilpay, which Mr. Browning read
when a boy. He lately 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. Each fancy or fable,
with its accompanying dialogue, is followed by a Lyric,
in which the same or cognate ideas are expressed in an
emotional form; and the effect produced by this combi-
nation of moods is itself illustrated in a Prologue by the
blended flavours of a favourite Italian dish, which is fully
described there. An introductory passage from "King
Lear" seems to tell us what we soon find out for ourselves,
that Ferishtah's opinions are in the main Mr. Browning's
own.
Fancy I. "THE EAGLE," contains the lesson which
determined Ferishtah, not yet a Dervish, to become one.
He has learned from the experience which it describes,
that it is man's mission to feed those hungry ones who
are unable to feed themselves. "The soul often starves
as well as the body. He will minister to the hunger of the
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soul. And to this end he will leave the solitude of the woods
in which the lesson came to him, and seek the haunts of
men."
The Lyric deprecates the solitude which united souls
may enjoy, by a selfish or fastidious seclusion from the
haunts of men.
2. "THE MELON-SELLER," records an incident referred
to in a letter from the "Times'" correspondent, written
many years ago. It illustrates the text-given by Mr.
Browning in Hebrew—“Shall we receive good at the
hands of God, and shall we not receive evil?" and marks
the second stage in Ferishtah's progress towards Dervish-
hood.
The Lyric bids the loved one be unjust for once if she
will. "The lover's heart preserves so many looks and
words, in which she gave him more than justice."
3. "SHAH ABBAS" shows Ferishtah, now full Dervish,
expounding the relative character of belief. "We wrongly
give the name of belief to the easy acquiescence in those
reported facts, to the truth of which we are indifferent; or
the name of unbelief to that doubting attitude towards
reported facts, which is born of our anxious desire that
they may be true. It is the assent of the heart, not that
of the head, which is valued by the Creator."
Lyric. Love will guide us smoothly through the recesses
of another's heart. Without it, as in a darkened room, we
stumble at every step, wrongly fancying the objects mis-
placed, against which we are stumbling.
4. "THE FAMILY" again defends the heart against the
head. It defends the impulse to pray for the health and
safety of those we love, though such prayer may imply
rebellion to the will of God. "He, in whom anxiety for
those he loves cannot for the moment sweep all before it,
will sometimes be more than man, but will much more
often be less."
Lyric. "Let me love, as man may, content with such
"Ferishtah's Fancies."
333
perfection as may fill a human heart; not looking beyond
it for that which only an angel's sense can apprehend."
5. "THE SUN" justifies the tendency to think of God
as in human form. "Life moves us to many feelings of
love and praise. These embrace in an ascending scale
all its beneficent agencies, unconscious and conscious,
and cannot stop short of the first and greatest of all.
This First Cause must be thought of as competent to appre-
ciate our praise and love, and as moved by a beneficent
purpose to the acts which have inspired them. The sun
is a symbol of this creative power-by many even imagined
to be its reality. But that mighty orb is unconscious of
the feelings it may inspire; and the Divine Omnipotence,
which it symbolizes, must be no less incompetent to earn
them. For purpose is the negation of power, implying
something which power has not attained; and would
imply deficiency in an existence which presents itself to
our intelligence as complete. Reason therefore tells us
that God can have no resemblance with man; but it tells
us, as plainly, that, without a fiction of resemblance, the
proper relation between Creator and creature, between
God and man, is unattainable.¹ If one exists, for whom
the fiction or fancy has been converted into fact-for
whom the Unknowable has proved itself to contain the
Knowable: the ball of fire to hold within it an earthly
substance unconsumed; he deserves credit for the magni-
tude, not scorn for the extravagance, of his conception.
Lyric. "Fire has been cradled in the flint, though its
ethereal splendours may disclaim the association.”
6. "MIHRAB SHAH" vindicates the existence of physi-
cal suffering as necessary to the consciousness of well-
being; and also, and most especially, as neutralizing the
1 We must remark that these arguments are not directed against Atheism
und its naturalistic philosophy, which supplies, in Mr. Browning's judgment,
consistent, if erroneous, solution of the problem. They only attack the
position of those who would retain the belief in a personal God, and yet
livest Him of every quality which makes such a Being thinkable.
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
differences, and thus creating the one complete bond of
sympathy, between man and man.
Lyric. "Your soul is weighed down by a feeble body.
In me a strong body is allied to a sluggish soul. You
would fitly leave me behind. Impeded as you also are,
may yet overtake you."
I
7. “A CAMEL-DRIVER” declares the injustice of punish-
ment, in regard to all cases in which the offence has been
committed in ignorance; and shows also that, while a
timely warning would always have obviated such an
offence, it is often sufficiently punished by the culprit's
too tardy recognition of it. "God's justice distinguishes
itself from that of man in the acknowledgment of this
fact."
The Lyric deals specially with the imperfections of
human judgment. "You have overrated my small faults,
you have failed to detect the greater ones.
""
8. "TWO CAMELS" is directed against asceticism. "An
ill-fed animal breaks down in the fulfilment of its task. A
man who deprives himself of natural joys, not for the sake
of his fellow-men, but for his own, is also unfitted for the
obligations of Life. For he cannot instruct others in its
use and abuse. Nor, being thus ignorant of earth, can he
conceive of heaven."
The Lyric shows how the Finite may prefigure the
Infinite, by illustrations derived from science and from
love.
9. "CHERRIES" illustrates the axiom that a gift must
be measured, not by itself, but by the faculty of the giver,
and by the amount of loving care which he has bestowed
upon it. Man's general performance is to be judged from
the same point of view.
The Lyric connects itself with the argument less closely
and less seriously in this case than in the foregoing ones.
The speaker has striven to master the art of poetry, and
found life too short for it. "He contents himself with doing
"Ferishtah's Fancies."
335
little, only because doing nothing is worse.
But when he
turns from verse-making to making love, or, as the sense
implies, seeks to express in love what he has failed to
express in poetry, all limitations of time and power are
suspended; every moment's realization is absolute and
lasting."
10. “PLOT-CULTURE" is a distinct statement of the
belief in a purely personal relation between God and man.
It justifies every experience which bears moral fruit, how-
ever immoral from human points of view; and refers both
the individual and his critic to the final harvest, on which
alone the Divine judgment will be passed.
The Lyric repeats the image in which this idea is
clothed, more directly than the idea itself. A lover pleads
permission to love with his whole being-with Sense as
well as with Soul.
(6
II. A PILLAR AT SEBZEVAR” lays down the proposi-
tion that the pursuit of knowledge is invariably disappoint-
ing while love is always, and in itself, a gain.
:
The Lyric modifies this idea into the advocacy of a
silent love one which reveals itself without declaration.
12. "A BEAN-STRIPE: ALSO APPLE-EATING" is a
summary of Mr. Browning's religious and practical be-
liefs. We cannot, it says, determine the prevailing colour
of any human life, though we have before us a balanced
record of its bright and dark days. For light or darkness
is only absolute in so far as the human spirit can isolate
or, as it were, stand still within, it. Every living expe-
rience, actual or remembered, takes something of its hue
from those which precede or follow it: now catching the
reflection of the adjoining lights and shades; now brighter
or darker by contrast with them. The act of living fuses
black and white into grey; and as we grasp the melting
whole in one backward glance, its blackness strikes most
on the sense of one man, its whiteness on that of another.
Ferishtah admits that there are lives which seem to be,
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perhaps are, stained with a black so deep that no inter-
vening whiteness can affect it; and he declares that this
possibility of absolute human suffering is a constant
chastener to his own joys. But when called upon to
reconcile the avowed optimism of his views with the actual
as well as sympathetic experience of such suffering, he
shows that he does not really believe in it. One race, he
argues, will flourish under conditions which another would
regard as incompatible with life; and the philosophers
who most cry down the value of life are sometimes the
least willing to renounce it. He cannot resist the con-
fiction that the same compensating laws are at work
everywhere.
In explanation of the fact, that nothing given in our ex-
perience affords a stable truth-that the black or white of
one moment is always the darker or lighter grey of another
Ferishtah refers his disciples to the will of God. Our very
scheme of goodness is a fiction, which man the impotent can-
not, God the all-powerful does not, convert into reality. But
it is a fiction created by God within the human mind, that it
may work for truth there; so also is it with the fictitious
conceptions which blend the qualities of man with those
of God. To the objection
"A power, confessed past knowledge, nay, past thought,
-Thus thought and known!" (vol. xvi. p. 84.)
Ferishtah replies that to know the power by its opera-
tion, is all we need in the case of a human benefactor or
lord all we can in the case of those natural forces which
we recognize in every act of our life. And when reminded
that the sense of indebtedness implies a debtor-one ready
to receive his due: and that we need look no farther for
the recipient than the great men who have benefited our
race: his answer is, that such gratitude to his fellow-men
would be gratitude to himself, in whose perception half
their greatness lies. "He might as well thank the star-
"Ferishtah's Fancies."
337
light for the impressions of colour, which have been supplied
by his own brain.”
The Lyric disclaims, in the name of one of the world's
workers, all excessive-i.e., loving recognition of his work.
The speaker has not striven for the world's sake, nor
sought his ideals there. "Those who have done so may
claim its love. For himself he asks only a just judgment
on what he has achieved."
Mr. Browning here expresses for the first time his feeling
towards the "Religion of Humanity; " and though this
was more or less to be inferred from his general religious
views, it affords, as now stated, a new, as well as valuable,
illustration of them. The Theistic philosophy which
makes the individual the centre of the universe, is, per-
haps, nowhere in his works, so distinctly set forth as in
this latest of them. But nowhere either has he more dis-
tinctly declared that the fullest realization of the individual
life is self-sacrifice.
"Renounce joy for my fellows' sake? That's joy
Beyond joy;"
(Two Camels, vol. xvi. p. 50.)
The lyrical supplement to Fancy 12 somewhat obscures
the idea on which it turns, by presenting it from a diffe-
rent point of view. But here, as in the remainder of the
book, we must regard the Lyric as suggested by the argu-
ment, not necessarily as part of it.
The EPILOGUE is a vision of present and future, in
which the woe and conflict of our mortal existence are ab-
sorbed in the widening glory of an eternal day. The
vision comes to one cradled in the happiness of love; and
he is startled from it by a presentiment that it has been
an illusion created by his happiness. But we know that
from Mr. Browning's point of view, Love, even in its illu
sions, may be accepted as a messenger of truth.
Index to names and titles in "Ferishtah's Fancies:"-
Z
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P. 12.
fictitiously.
P. 15.
P. 16.
P. 20.
"Shah Abbas." An historical personage, used
P. 32.
P. 36.
mythology.
Story of Tahmasp." Fictitious.
Ishak son of Absal."
Fictitious.
"The householder of Shiraz." Fictitious.
"Mihrab Shah." Fictitious.
"Simorgh." A fabulous creature in Persian
P. 40. The "Pilgrim's soldier-guide." Fictitious.
P. 41. "Raksh." Rustum's horse in the "Shah Nemeh."
(Firdausi's "Epic of Kings.")
P. 50. (Anglicé), “Does Job serve God for nought?"
Hebrew word at p. 51, line 2, "Mē Elōhīm": "from
God."
P. 54. "Mushtari." The planet Jupiter.
P. 65.
P. 68.
P. 85.
P. 86.
"Hudhud." Fabulous bird of Solomon.
"Sitara." Persian for "a star."
(C
Shalim Shah." Persian for "King of kings."
Rustem," Gew," “Gudarz,” "Sindokht."
"Sulayman," ""Kawah." Heroes in the "Shah Nemeh."
P. 87. The "Seven Thrones." Ursa Major. “Zurah.”
Venus. "Parwin." The Pleiades.
of mage.
P. 88. "Zerdusht."
"Zoroaster."
"Mubid."
A kind
"PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF
IMPORTANCE IN THEIR DAY.”
HIS volume occupies, even more than its prede-
cessor, a distinctive position in Mr. Browning's
work. It does not discard his old dramatic
methods, but in a manner it inverts them; Mr. Browning
has summoned his group of men not for the sake of drawing
their portraits, but that they might help him to draw his
own. It seems as if the accumulated convictions which
find vent in the "parleyings" could no longer endure
even the form of dramatic disguise; and they appear in
them in all the force of direct reiterated statement, and
all the freshness of novel points of view. And the portrait
is in some degree a biography; it is full of reminiscences.
The "people" with whom Mr. Browning parleys, impor-
tant in their day, virtually unknown in ours, are with one
exception his old familiar friends: men whose works
connect themselves with the intellectual sympathies and
the imaginative pleasures of his very earliest youth. The
parleyings are :
I. "With Bernard de Mandeville."
"With Daniel Bartoli."
"With Christopher Smart."
"With George Bubb Dodington."
V. "With Francis Furini."
VI.
'With Gerard de Lairesse."
VII. "With Charles Avison."
They are enclosed between a Prologue and an Epilogue
J
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
both dramatic and fanciful, but scarcely less expressive
of the author's mental personality than the body of the
work.
66
'Apollo and the Fates."
"Fust and his Friends."
In "Apollo and the Fates" the fanciful, or rather fan-
tastic element preponderates. It represents Apollo as
descending into the realms of darkness and pleading with
the Fate Sisters for the life of Admetus, the thread of
which Atropos is about to clip; and shows how he obtained
for him a conditional reprieve by intoxicating the sisters
with wine. The sequel to this incident has been given
in Mr. Browning's transcript from “Alkestis”; and the
present poem is introduced by references to that work of
Euripides, to the "Eumenides" of Eschylus and to
Homer's "Hymn to Mercury": the general sense of the
passages indicated being this :—
Euripides." Admetus-whom, cheating the fates, I
saved from death."
Eschylus (to Apollo).—“ Aye, such were your feats in
the house of Pheres, where you persuaded the fates to
make a mortal immortal: you it was destroyed the ancient
arrangement and deceived the goddesses with wine."
Homer." The Fates are three virgin sisters,-winged
and white-haired,-dwelling below Parnassus: they feed on
honey, and so get drunk, and readily tell the truth. If
deprived of it they delude."
Mr. Browning, however, varies the legend, first by
making the Fates find truth in the fumes of wine; and,
secondly, by assuming that they never knew an inspiring
drunkenness until they tasted it: profoundly intoxicating
as their (fermented) honey must have been.
Apollo urges his request that Admetus, now threatened
with premature death, may live out the appointed seventy
Parleyings with Certain People.
341
years.
The Fates retort on him by exclamations on the
worthlessness of such a boon. They enumerate the follies
and miseries which beset the successive stages of man's
earthly career, and maintain that its only brightness lies
in the delusive sunshine, the glamour of hope, with which
he (Apollo) gilds it. Apollo owns that human happiness may
rest upon illusion, but undertakes to show that man holds
the magic within himself; and to that end persuades the
sisters to drain a bowl of wine which he has brought with
him. In the moment's intoxication the scales fall from
their eyes, and they see that life is good. They see that
if its earlier course means conflict, old age is its recorded
victory. They see it enriched by the joys which are only
remembered as by the good which only might have been.
They praise the Actual and still more the Potential—the
infinite possibilities to which Man is born and which imagi-
nation alone can anticipate; and joining hands with
Apollo in a delirious dance, proclaim the discovery of the
lost secret: Fancy compounded with Fact.
This philosophy is, however, ill-suited to the dark minis-
ters of fate; and an oracular explosion from the earth's
depths startles them back into sobriety; in which condition
they repudiate the new knowledge which has been born
of them, flinging it back on their accomplice with various
expressions of disgust. They admit, nevertheless, that
the web of human destiny often defeats their spinning:
its intended good and evil change places with each other ;
the true significance of life is only revealed by death ; and
though they still refuse to yield to Apollo's demand, they
compromise with it: Admetus shall live, if someone else
will voluntarily die for him. It is true they neutralize
their concession by deriding the idea of such a devoted
person being found; and Apollo also shows himself a
stranger to the decrees of the higher powers by making
wrong guesses as to the event; but the whole episode is
conceived in a humorous and very human spirit which
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especially reveals itself in the attitude of the contending
parties towards each other. The Fates display throughout
a proper contempt for what they regard as the showy
but unsubstantial personality of the young god; and the
natural antagonism of light and darkness, hope and
despair, is as amusingly parodied in the mock deference
and ill-disguised aversion with which he approaches them.
Apollo finally vindicates Mr. Browning's optimistic theism
by claiming the gifts of Bacchus, youngest of the gods,
for the beneficent purpose and anterior wisdom of Zeus.
The one serious idea which runs through the poem is
conveyed in its tribute to the power of wine: in other
words, to the value of imagination as supplement to and
interpreter of fact. Its partial, tentative, and yet efficient
illumining of the dark places of life is vividly illustrated
by Apollo: and he only changes his imagery when he
speaks of Reason as doing the same work. It is the
imaginative, not the scientific "reason" which Mr. Brown-
ing invokes as help in the perplexities of experience;¹ as
it is the spiritual, and not scientific "experience” on which,
in the subsequent discussions, he will so emphatically
take his stand.2
In the first "parleying " Mr. Browning invokes the wis-
dom of BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE on certain problems
of life mainly those of the existence of evil and the
limitations of human knowledge; and the optimistic views
in which he believes Dr. Mandeville to concur with him
are brought to bear on the more gloomy philosophy of
Carlyle, some well-known utterances of whom are brought
1 It has been wrongly inferred from the passage in question that Mr.
Browning admits the pretensions of science to solve the problems of the
universe.
2 The "goddess-sent plague" woven by Lachesis into the destiny of
Admetus was a vengeance of Artemis which befell him on the day of his
marriage. He had slighted her by omitting the usual sacrifice, and in
punishment of this she sent a crowd of serpents to meet him in the nuptial
chamber; but Apollo effected a reconciliation between them.
Parleyings with Certain People.
343
J
forward for confutation. The chief points of the argument
are as follows:-
Carlyle complains that God never intervenes to check
the tyranny of evil, so that it not only prevails in the pre-
sent life, but for any sure indications which exist to the
contrary may still do so in the life to come. It would be
something, he thinks, if even triumphant wrong were
checked, although (here we must read between the lines)
this would be tantamount to the condoning of evil in all
its less developed forms; better still if he who has the
power to do so habitually crushed it at the birth.
Mr. Browning (alias Mandeville) replies by the parable
of a garden in which beneficent and noxious plants grow
side by side. “You must either," he declares, “admit—
which you do not—that both good and evil were chance
sown, or refer their joint presence to some necessary or
pre-ordained connection between them. In the latter case
you may use your judgment in pruning away the too great
exuberance of the noxious plant, but if you destroy it once
for all, you have frustrated the intentions of him who placed
it there."
Carlyle reminds his opponent of that other parable,
according to which it was an enemy who surreptitiously
sowed the tares of evil, and these grow because no one
can pull them out. Divine power and foresight are, in
his opinion, incompatible with either theory, and both of
these mistaken efforts on man's part to "cram" the infi-
nite within the limits of his own mind and understand
what passes understanding. He deprecates the folly of
linking divine and human together on the strength of the
short space which they may tread side by side, and the
anthropomorphic spirit which subjects the one to the other
by presenting the illimitable in human form.
Mr. Browning defends his position by an illustration of
the use (as also abuse) of symbols spiritual and mate-
rial; Carlyle retorts somewhat impatiently that in thinking
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
of God we have no need of symbolism; we know Him as
Immensity, Eternity, and other abstract qualities, and to
fancy Him under human attributes is superfluous; and
Mr. Browning dismisses this theology, with the intellectual
curiosities and intellectual discontents which he knows in
the present case to have accompanied it, in a modifica-
tion of the Promethean myth-such a one as the more
"human" Euripides might have imagined. "When the
sun's light first broke upon the earth, and everywhere in
and on this there was life, man was the only creature
which did not rejoice: for he said, I alone am incomplete
in my completeness; I am subject to a power which I
alone have the intellect to recognize, hence the desire to
grasp. I do not aspire to penetrate the hidden essence,
the underlying mystery of the sun's force; but I crave
possession of one beam of its light wherewith to render
palpable to myself its unseen action in the universe.
And Prometheus then revealed to him the artifice' of
the burning-glass, through which henceforward he might
enslave the sun's rays to his service while disrobing them
of the essential brilliancy which no human sight could
endure."
In the material uses of the burning-glass we have a
parallel for the value of an intellectual or religious symbol.
This too is a gathering point for impressions otherwise too
diffuse; or, inversely conceived, a sign guiding the mental
vision through spaces which would otherwise be blank.
Its reduced or microcosmic presentment of facts too large
for man's mental grasp suggests also an answer to those
who bemoan the limitations of human knowledge. Cha-
racteristic remarks on this subject occur at the beginning
of the poem.
Bernard de Mandeville figures throughout the " parley-
ing" as author of "The Fable of the Bees"; and it is in
this work that Mr. Browning discovers their special ground
of sympathy. "The Fable of the Bees," also entitled
Parleyings with Certain People.
345
"Private Vices Public Benefits,” and again “ The Grum-
bling Hive, or Knaves turned Honest," is meant to show
that self-indulgence and self-seeking carried even to the
extent of vice are required to stimulate the activities and
secure the material well-being of a community. The doc-
trine, as originally set forth, had at least an appearance of
cynicism, and is throughout not free from conscious or
unconscious sophistry; and though the theological con-
demnation evoked by it was nothing short of insane,
we cannot wonder that the morality of the author's pur-
pose was impugned. He defends this, however, in suc-
cessive additions to the work, asserting and re-asserting,
by statement and illustration, that his object has been to
expose the vices inherent to human society-in no sense
to justify them; and Mr. Browning fully accepts the vin-
dication and even regards it as superfluous. He sees
nothing, either in the fable itself or the commentary first
attached to it, which may not equally be covered by the
Christian doctrine of original sin, or the philosophic
acceptance of evil as a necessary concomitant, or con-
dition, of good and finds fresh guarantees for a sound
moral intention in the bright humour and sound prac-
tical sense in which the book abounds. This judg-
ment was formed (as I have already implied) very early
in Mr. Browning's life, even before the appearance of
Pauline," and supplies a curious comment on any im-
pression of mental immaturity which his own work of that
period may have produced.
:
Bernard de Mandeville was a Dutch physician, born at
Dort in the second half of the last century, but who set-
tled in England after taking his degree. He published,
besides "The Fable of the Bees," some works of a more
professional kind. His name, as we know it, must have
been Anglicized.
DANIEL BARTOLI was a Jesuit and historian of his
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order.
Mr. Browning characterizes him in a footnote as
a learned and ingenious writer," and while acknowledg-
ing his blindness in matters of faith would gladly testify
to his penetration in those of knowledge;¹ but the Don's
editor, Angelo Cerutti, declares in the same note that his
historical work so overflows with superstition and is so
crammed with accounts of prodigious miracles as to make
the reading it an infliction ; and the saint-worship involved
in this kind of narrative is the supposed text of the “par-
leying." Mr. Browning claims Don Bartoli's allegiance
for a secular saint: a woman more divine in her non-
miraculous virtues than some at least of those whom the
Church has canonized, and whose existence has the merit
of not being legendary. The saint in question was Mari-
anne Pajot, daughter of the apothecary of Gaston Duke
of Orleans; and her story, as Mr. Browning relates it, a
well-known episode in the lives of Charles IV., Duke of
Lorraine, and the Marquis de Lassay.
66
Charles of Lorraine fell violently in love with Marianne
Pajot, whom he met at the "Luxembourg" when visiting
Madame d'Orleans, his sister.
She was so fair, so
modest, so virtuous, and so witty" that he did not hesitate
to offer her his hand; and they were man and wife so far
as legal formalities could make them when the Monarch
(Louis XIV.) intervened. Charles had by a recent treaty
made Louis his heir. This threatened no obstacle to his
union, since a clause in the marriage contract barred all
claims to succession on the part of the children who might
be born of it. But "Madame" resented the mésalliance;
she joined her persuasions with those of the Minister le
Tellier; and the latter persuaded the young King, not
absolutely to prevent the marriage, but to turn it to
account. A paper was drawn up pledging the Duke to
1 He had, as a young man, so great an admiration for one of Bartoli's
works, "De' Simboli trasportati al Morale," that when he travelled he
always carried it with him.
Parleyings with Certain People.
347
fresh concessions, and the bride was challenged in the
King's name to obtain his signature to it. On this con-
dition she was to be recognized as Duchess with all the
honours due to her rank; failing this, she was to be ba-
nished to a convent. The alternative was offered to her at
the nuptial banquet, at which le Tellier had appeared-a
carriage and military escort awaiting him outside. She
emphatically declined taking part in so disgraceful a com-
pact :¹ and after doing her best to allay the Duke's wrath
(which was for the moment terrible), calmly allowed the
Minister to lead her away, leaving all the bystanders in
tears. A few days later Marianne returned the jewe
which Charles had given her, saying, it was not suitable
that she should keep them "since she had not the honour
of being his wife." He seems to have resigned her without
farther protest.
De Lassay was much impressed by this occurrence,
though at the time only ten years old. He too conceived
an attachment for Marianne Pajot, and married her, being
already a widower, at the age of twenty-three. Their
union, dissolved a few years later by her death, was one
of unclouded happiness on his part, of unmixed devotion
on hers; and the moral dignity by which she had subju-
gated this somewhat weak and excitable nature was
equally attested by the intensity of her husband's sorrow
and by its transitoriness. The military and still more
amorous adventures of the Marquis de Lassay make him
a conspicuous figure in the annals of French Court life. He
is indirectly connected with our own through a somewhat
pale and artificial passion for Sophia Dorothea, the young
1 Her reply was that if she possessed any influence over M. de Lorraine
she would never use it to make him do anything so contrary to his honour
and to his interests; she already sufficiently reproached herself for the mar-
riage to which his friendship for her had impelled him; and would rather be
"Marianne" to the end of her days than become Duchess on such conditions
The reply has been necessarily modified in Mr. Browning's more poetic
rendering of the scene
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
Princess of Hanover, whose husband became ultimately
George I. Mr. Browning indicates the later as well as
earlier stages of de Lassay's career; he only follows
that of the Duke of Lorraine into an imaginary though
not impossible development. Charles had shown himself
a being of smaller spiritual stature than his intended
wife; and it was only too likely, Mr. Browning thinks, that
the diamonds which should have graced her neck soon
sparkled on that of some venal beauty whose challenge to
his admiration proceeded from the opposite pole of woman-
hood. Nevertheless he feels kindly towards him. The
nobler love was not dishonoured by the more ignoble
fancy, since it could not be touched by it. Duke Charles
was still faithful as a man may be.
1
With CHRISTOPHER SMART is an interrogative comment
on the strange mental vicissitudes of this mediocre poet,
whose one inspired work, "A Song to David," was produced
in a mad-house. Of this "Song" Rossetti has said (I quote
the Athenæum" of Feb. 19, 1887) in a published letter
to Mr. Caine, “This wonderful poem of Smart's is the only
great accomplished poem of the last century. The un-
accomplished ones are Chatterton's-of course I mean
earlier than Blake or Coleridge, and without reckoning
so exceptional a genius as Burns. A masterpiece of rich
imagery, exhaustive resources, and reverberant sound."
How Mr. Browning was impressed by such a work of
genius, springing up from the dead level of the author's
own and his contemporary life, he describes in a simile.
He is exploring a large house. He goes from room to
room, finding everywhere evidence of decent taste and
sufficient, but moderate, expenditure: nothing to repel
and nothing to attract him in what he sees. He suddenly
enters the chapel; and here all richness is massed, all
'Indented, for want of writing materials,—with a key on the wainscot
of his cell.
Parleyings with Certain People.
349
fancy is embodied, art of all styles and periods is blended
to one perfection. He passes from it into another suite
of rooms, half fearful of fresh surprise; and decent medio-
crity, respectable commonplace again meet him on every
side. Thus, it seems to him, was the imagination of
Christopher Smart for one moment transfigured by the
flames of madness to resume for ever afterwards the pro-
saic character of its sanity; and he now asks the author
of "A Song to David" how one who had thus touched the
absolute.in art could so decline from it. He assumes that
the madness had but revealed the poet : whether or not
the fiery outbreak was due to force suppressed or to par
ticles of brain substance disturbed. Why was he after as
before silent?
It might be urged in answer that the full glory of that
vision did not return-that the strength and beauty of the
universe never came to him again with so direct a mes-
sage for the eye and ear of his fellow men. But, Mr.
Browning continues, impressions of strength and beauty
are only the materials of knowledge. They contain the
lesson of life. And that lesson is not given in the reite-
rated vision of what is beautiful, but in the patient con-
version into knowledge and motive of such impressions of
beauty—in other words, of strength or power-as Man's
natural existence affords. The poet's privilege, as the
poet's duty, is not merely to impart the pleasure, but to
aid the process of instruction. He only suggests the ex-
planation to disclaim it in Smart's name.
These arguments are very typical of Mr. Browning's
philosophy of Art: of his conviction that Art has no mis-
sion, its intuitions have no authority, distinct from moral
and intellectual truth. He concludes the little sermon by
denouncing that impatience of Fancy which would grasp
the end of things before the beginning, and scale the
heights of Knowledge, while rejecting Experience, through
which, as by a ladder, we scale them step by step.
350
Handbook to Browning's Works.
The lines in “Paracelsus,” vol. ii., p. 36, which are
in this view so appropriate to the case of Christopher
Smart, bore reference to him. The main facts of his life
may be found in any biographical dictionary.
•
1
With GEORGE BUBB DODINGTON is a lesson in the
philosophy of intrigue, or the art of imposing on our
fellow men.
It is addressed to Bubb Dodington ¹ as to
an ambitious, obsequious, unscrupulous, and only par-
tially successful courtier; and undertakes to show that,
being (more or less) a knave, his conduct also pro-
claimed him a fool, and lost him the rewards of knavery.
Mr. Browning does not concern himself with the morali-
ties of the case; these, for the time being, are put out of
court. He assumes, for the purposes of the discussion,
that everyone is selfish and no one need be sincere, and
that "George
George" was justified in labouring for his own
advancement and cheating others, if possible, into sub-
servience to it; but he argues that the aim being right,
the means employed were wrong, and could only result in
failure.
The argument begins and ends in the proposition, in
itself a truism but which receives here a novel significance,
that nothing in creation obeys its like, and that he who
would mount by the backs of his fellow men must show
some reason why they should lend them. In the olden
time, we are reminded, such reasons were supplied by
physical force ; later, force was superseded by intelligence,
¿.e., wit or cunning; and this must now be supplemented
by something deeper, because it has become the property
1 Created Lord Melcombe a year before his death: sufficiently known by
his diary from March, 1748, to Feb., 1761. See its character in the Preface
to the original edition by his relation, Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, 1784
Clther notices will be found in "Edgeworth on Education," Belsham's
"George II.," and Hawkins' "Life of Johnson."
Parleyings with Certain People.
351
of so many persons as to place no one person at an advan-
tage. Bubb Dodington's methods have been those of
simple cunning, and therefore they have not availed him.
The multitude whom he cajoled have seen through his
cajoleries, and have resented in these both the attempt to
deceive them and the pretension-unfounded as it proved
-to exalt himself at their expense.
How then can the multitude be deceived into subser-
vience?-By the pretence of indifference to them. An
impostor is always supposed to be in earnest.
The com-
monplace impostor is so he has staked everything on
the appearance of being sincere. He, on the other hand,
who is reckless in mendacity, who cheats with a laughing
eye; who, while silently strenuous in a given cause,
appears to take seriously neither it, himself, nor those on
whom both depend, irresistibly strikes the vulgar as
moved by something greater than himself or they. A
"quack" he may be, but like the spiritualistic quack, he
invokes the belief in the Supernatural, and perhaps
shares it. He has the secret which Bubb Dodington had
not.
It may be wondered why Mr. Browning treats the shal-
lower political cunning as merely a foil to the deeper,
instead of opposing to it something better than both but
he finds the natural contrast to the half-successful
schemer in the wholly triumphant one: and the second
picture, like the first, has been drawn from life. It is
that of the late Lord Beaconsfield-as Mr. Browning sees
him.
With FRANCIS FURINI is a defence of the study of the
nude, based on the life and work of this Florentine painter
(born 1600), who at the age of forty also became a priest.
According to his biographer, Filippo Baldinucci,' Furini
1
Furini is also honourably mentioned in Pilkington's "Dictionary of
352
Handbook to Browning's Works.
66
was not only a skilful artist, but a conscientious priest,
and a good man. No reproach attached to him but that
he attained a special charm of colouring through the
practice of painting very young women undraped; and
we may infer that he repented this from the current report
that when he felt himself dying he entreated those about
him to have his pictures burnt. But Baldinucci also
relates that he had a specious answer ready for whoever
remonstrated with him on thus endangering his soul. The
answer, which he frankly quotes, is by no means
'spe-
cious" in the sense in which it is made; and Mr. Brown-
ing cannot believe that a man so inspired by the true
artistic passion as those words imply, could in any cir-
cumstances become ashamed of the acts to which they
refer. "If," Furini says, "those scrupulous persons only
knew what is the agony of endeavour with which the
artist strives at faithfully imitating what he sees, they
would also know how little room this leaves in him for
the intrusion of alien" (immoral) "thoughts." Mr.
Browning goes farther still. He asserts not only the
innocence, but the religiousness, of the painter's art when
directed towards the marvels of the female form. He
declares its exercise, so directed, to be a subject, not of
shame in the sight of the Creator, but of thanksgiving to
Him, and also the best form in which human thanks can
be conveyed; and he employs all the vividness of his
illustration and all the force of his invective against the
so-called artist who sees in the Divineness of female
beauty only incitement to low desires; in the art which
seeks to reproduce it only a cloak for their indulgence.
His argument is very strong, and would be unanswerable,
but for the touch of speciousness which Baldinucci by
Painters," revised by Fuseli, and till the middle of the present century the
authoritative work on the subject. It is stated in the edition of 1805 that
many of his paintings are in Florence, which are deemed to add honour
to the valuable collections of the nobility of that city.”
Parleyings with Certain People.
353
anticipation detects in it: Mr. Browning-as did Furini
-regards the breach of formal chastity exclusively from
the artist's point of view. But he may also argue that
this will in the long run determine that of the spectator
and that the model herself is from the first amenable
to it.
Mr. Browning lays stress upon the technical skill which
results from the close copying of nature, and by virtue of
which Furini must be styled a good painter, whether or
not a great one: and though he has never underrated
the positive value of technical skill, we do not feel that in
this third page of the "parleyings "he gives to the inspiring
thought as high a relative place as in his earlier works.
The old convictions reappear at pages 182-3 of vol. xvi.,
when he asserts the danger in which the skilled hand may
involve the artistic soul, by stifling its insight into the
spiritual essence of fleshly things or silencing its testimony
to it; when, too, he admits that not the least worthy of
the "sacred
sacred" ones have been thus betrayed. He still,
however, maintains that the true offender against Art will
ever be the mock artist-the Philistine-who sees cause of
offence in it.
After proclaiming the religiousness of Art, Furini is
called upon to unfold his theology: and he then passes to
a confession of faith in which Mr. Browning's known per-
sonal Theism is contrasted with the scientific doctrines of
Evolution. The Scientist and the Believer would as he
distinguishes them join issue on the value of the artistic
study of man, since man is for both of them the one essen-
tial object of knowledge; but the study (artistic or scien-
tific) is, Mr. Browning considers, unrepaying in the one
case, while it yields all necessary results in the other.
According to the scientist, Man reigns supreme by his
intelligence; according to the Believer, he is subject to
A A
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
In reasoning,
all the helplessness of his ignorance.
therefore, each from his own consciousness, the one finds
his starting point at the summit of creation, the other
virtually at the bottom of it. The Scientist acknowledges
no mind beyond that of man; he seeks the impulse to
life within itself, and can therefore only track it through
the descending scale of being into the region of inorganic
atoms and blind force. The believer refers that impulse
to a conscious external First Cause, and is content to live
surrounded by its mystery, entrenched within the facts of
his own existence, guided (i.e., drawn upwards) by the
progressive revelations which these convey to him.
It is so that Furini has lived and learned. He has
found his lesson in the study of the human frame. There,
as on a rock of experience, he has planted his foot, finding
confusion and instability wherever he projected this
beyond it; striking out sparks of knowledge at every
stamp on the firm ground. He has learned that the Cause
of Life is external, because he has seen how the soul per-
meates and impels the body, how it makes it an instru-
ment of its own raptures and a sharer in them; and he be-
lieves that that which caused the soul and thus gifted it will
ultimately silence the spiritual conflict with Evil and per-
fect Its own creation. He believes this because Evil has
revealed itself to him as the necessary complement of
Good-the antitype through which alone the type defines
itself; as a condition of knowledge; as a test of what is
right; as a motive to life and virtue so indispensable
that it must exist as illusion if it did not exist as fact;
because, therefore, its existence cannot detract from
the goodness of the First Cause or the promise which that
contains.
This constant assertion of the necessity of evil would
land Mr. Browning in a dilemma, if the axiom were pre-
sented by him in any character of dogmatic truth: since
it claims priority for certain laws of thought over a Being
Parleyings with Certain People.
355
which, if Omnipotent, must have created them. But the
anomaly disappears in the more floating outlines of a
poetic personal experience; and Mr. Browning (alias
Furini) once more assures us that what he "knows
"" of
the nature and mode of action of the First Cause he
knows for himself only. How it operates for others is of
the essence of the mystery which enfolds him. Whether
even the means of his own instruction is reality or illusion,
fiction or fact, is beyond his ken; he is satisfied that it
should be so.
Mr. Browning reverts to his defence of the nude in the
description of a picture—exhibited last year at the Gros-
venor Gallery-the subject of which he offers to Furini for
treatment in the manner described.¹
With GERARD DE LAIRESSE is a critical reminiscence
of the unreal and mythological in art, and its immediate
subject a Belgian painter, born at Liege, but who
flourished at Amsterdam in the second half of the seven-
teenth century. De Lairesse was a man of varied artistic
culture as well as versatile skill; but he was saturated
with the pseudo-classical spirit of the later period of the
renaissance; and landscape itself scarcely existed for him
but as a setting for mythological incident or a subject for
embellishment by it. This is curiously apparent in a
treatise on the Art of Painting, which he composed,
and, by a form of dictation, also illustrated, when at the
age of fifty he had lost his sight. An English version of
this fell into Mr. Browning's hands while he was yet a
child, and the deep and, at the time, delightful im-
pression which it made upon him is the motive of the
present poem. Foremost in his memory is an imaginary
1 The allusion in vol. xvi. p. 195, to the old artificer who could make men
"believe" instead of merely "fancy" that what he presented to them was
real, refers especially to the Greek painter Zeuxis; but it is suggested by
the generally realistic character of Greek alt.
356
Handbook to Browning's Works.
"Walk, "1 in which the exercise of fancy which the author
practises and, Mr. Browning tells us, enjoins, is strikingly
displayed by his "conjecturing" Phaeton's tomb from
the evidence of a carved thunderbolt in an empty
sepulchre, and the remains of the "Chariot of the Sun"
from a piece of broken wheel and some similar fragment
buried in the adjoining ground.
The remembrance converts itself into a question: the
poet's fancy no longer peoples the earth with gods and
goddesses; has his insight become less vivid? has the
poetic spirit gone back? The answer is unwavering;
retrogression is not in the creative plan. The poet does
not go back. He is still as of yore a seer; he has only
changed in this, that his chosen visions are of the soul;
their objects are no longer visible unrealities, but the
realities which are unseen. He can still, if he pleases,
evoke those as these, and Mr. Browning proceeds to
show it by calling up a series of dissolving views repre-
senting another "walk.”
A majestic and varied landscape unfolds before us in
the changing lights of a long summer's day; and at each
appropriate artistic moment becomes the background of
a mythological, idyllic, or semi-mythical scene. In the
early dawn we see Prometheus amidst departing thunders
chained to his rock :2 the glutted, yet still hungering
vulture cowering beside him; in the dews of morning,
Artemis triumphant in her double character of huntress-
queen and goddess of sudden death; in the heats of noon,
Lyda and the Satyr, enacting the pathetic story of his
passion and her indifference ;³ in the lengthening shadows,
the approaching shock of the armies of Darius and Alex-
.3
¹ Described at p. 253 and onwards under the heading "Painter-like
Beauty in the Open Air.”
"The last line and a half of the eighth stanza was directly suggested by
the tragedy of Æschylus; the thunderstorm by another version of the
Promethean myth.
3 See Shelley's translation from Moschus.
Parleyings with Certain People.
357
1
ander ;-in the falling night, a dim, silent, deprecating
figure in other words, a ghost.
And here Mr. Browning bids the "fooling" stop; for
he has touched the point of extreme divergence between
the classic spirit and his own. The pallid vision which
he repels speaks dumbly of pagan regret for what is past,
of pagan hopelessness of the to-come. His religion, as
we are again reminded, is one of hope. Let us, he says,
do and not dream, look forward and not back; ascend
the tree of existence into its ripening glory, not hastening
over leaf or blossom, not dallying with them; leave Greek
lore buried in its own ashes, and accept the evidence of
life itself that extinction is impossible; that death-mystery
though it is, calamity though it may be-ends nothing
which has once begun. We may then greet the spring
which we do not live to see in other words than those of
the Greek bard; and the words suggested are those of a
dainty lyric, in which the note of gladness seems to break
with a little sob, and rings, perhaps, on that account the
truer.2
With CHARLES AVISON might be called a reverie on
music and musicians, but for the extraordinary vividness
of the images and emotions which it conveys. It was in-
duced, Mr. Browning tells us, by a picturesque little inci-
dent which set his thoughts vibrating to the impressions
of the word "March": and supplies a parable for their
instinctive flight into a discredited and forgotten past.
They have been feeling for a piece of march-music; they
have bridged the gulf which separates the school of Wagner
and Brahms from that of Handel or Buononcini; they
alight on Charles Avison's "Grand March."³ It is a simple
1 Battle of Arbela.
2 These lines were published in 1886 in the little volume entitled "The
New Amphion."
3 Organist of Newcastle about 1750; author of "An Essay on Musical
Expression" and other works.
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
continuous air, such as hearts could beat to in the olden
time, though flat and somewhat thin, and unrelieved by
those caprices of modulation which are essential to modern
ears; and as it repeats itself in Mr. Browning's brain, the
persistent melody gains force from its very persistence :
till it fills with the sound, as it were glows with the aërial
clashings, of many martial instruments, till it strides in
the lengthening, drum-accentuated motion of many
marching feet. He ponders the fact that such melody
has lost its power, and asks himself why this must be :
since the once perfected can never be surpassed, and the
music of Charles Avison was in its own day as inspiring
and inspired-in other words, as perfect-as that for
which it has been cast aside.
He finds his answer in the special relation of this art to
the life of man. Music resembles painting and poetry in
the essential characteristic that her province is not Mind
but Soul-the swaying sea of emotion which underlies
the firm ground of attainable, if often recondite, fact. All
three have this in common with the activities of Mind
that they strive for the same result; they aim at recording
feeling as science registers facts. The two latter in some
measure attain this end, because they deal with those
definite moments of the soul's experience which share
the nature of fact. But music dredges deeper in the emo-
tional sea.
She draws forth and embodies the more
mysterious, more evanescent, more fluid realities of the
soul's life; and so, effecting more than the sister arts,
she yet succeeds less. Her forms remain; the spirit ebbs
away from them. As, however, Mr. Browning's own ex-
perience has shown, the departed spirit may return :~-
•
Off they steal-
How gently, dawn-doomed phantoms ! back come they
Full-blooded with new crimson of broad day—
Passion made palpable once more."
(P. 232.)
The revived passion may breathe under the name of
Parleyings with Certain People.
359
another man ; it may stir again in the utterance of one
dead and forgotten; and Mr. Browning, borrowing the
language of chemistry, invokes the reactive processes
through which its many-coloured flamelets may spring to
life.¹
He then passes by an insensible-because to him
very natural—transition from the realities of feeling to
those of thought, and to the underlying truth from which
both series derive and combats the idea that in thought,
any more than in feeling, the present can disprove the
past, the once true reveal itself as delusion. Time-other-
wise growth-widens the range as it complicates the
necessities of musical, i.e. emotional expression. It
destroys the enfolding fictions which shield without con-
cealing the earlier stages of intellectual truth. But the
emotions were in existence before music began; and
Truth was potentially "at full" within us when as it were
reborn to grow and bud and blossom for the mind of man.²
Therefore, he has said, addressing Avison's March,
Blare it forth, bold C Major!" and "Therefore,” he con-
tinues, in a swift return of fancy :—
(C
•
Bang the drums,
Blow the trumps, Avison! March motive? That's
Truth which endures resetting. Sharps and flats,
Lavish at need, shall dance athwart thy score
When ophicleide and bombardon's uproar
Mate the approaching trample, even now
Big in the distance-or my ears deceive—
Of federated England, fitly weave
March-music for the future!"
(P. 237.)
The musical transformation is for a moment followed back
to the days of Elizabethan plain-song, and then arrested
at those of Avison, where he may be imagined as joining
chorus with Bach in celebrating the struggle for English
The "Relfe" spoken of in this connection was Mr. Browning's music.
master: a learned contrapuntist.
2 In interpreting this passage I have somewhat exceeded the letter, but
only to emphasize the spirit of Mr. Browning's words.
!
360
Handbook to Browning's Works.
1
liberty. The closing stanzas are written to the music of
Avison's March, which is also given ¹ at the end of the
poem, and throws a helpful light on its more technical
parts.
FUST AND HIS FRIENDS is based on a version of the
Faust legend which identifies the inventor of printing
with Dr. Faust, and contains allusions to some of the
incidents of Goethe's double poem: the magical drinking
bout of the first part, and the appearance of the Grecian
Helen in the second; but whereas the popular tradition
makes Fust's great discovery the fruit of his alliance with
the powers of Evil, Mr. Browning represents it as an act
of atonement for the figurative devil-worship which was
involved in a disorderly and ostentatious life. Fust has by
his own admission sinned to this extent. He has obeyed
the father of lies. He has also accepted with thankfulness
the chance of redeeming his soul by a signal service ren-
dered to the cause of Truth. The process of engraving on
gold, furtively witnessed in a Tuscan workshop, has sug-
gested to him the manufacture of metallic types, and he has
been for years secluded with the conception of his printing-
press, and glowing visions of that winged word which
should one day fly forth at his command. Complacent
ignorance and stupidity have buzzed freely about him as
he sat unaided and alone in what Mr. Browning poetically
depicts as the prolonged travail of a portentous mental
birth; and, as we are led to imagine, much well-meant
remonstrance and advice rebounded from his closed
door. But at the moment in question the door is open,
for the work of Fust is complete. Seven "Friends" pre-
sent themselves prepared to lecture him for his good and
for that of their city (Mayence) which is endangered by
¹ From an MS. copy formerly in the possession of Mr. Browning's father.
2 The wealth to which he alludes was justly imputed to him, as the real
Fust was a goldsmith's son.
Parleyings with Certain People.
361
his compact with the Devil; and the ensuing intensely
humorous colloquy supplies him with the fitting occa-
sion for distributing specimens of his new art and dis-
playing the mechanism through which its apparent magic
is achieved. He then pours forth his soul in an impas-
sioned utterance, half soliloquy, half prayer, in which
gratitude for his own redemption tempers the sense of
triumph in the world-wide intellectual deliverance he has
been privileged to effect, and becomes a tribute of adora-
tion to that Absolute of Creative Knowledge, the law of
which he has obeyed; which stirs in the unconsciousness
of the ore and plant, and impels man to Its realization
step by step in the ever-receding, ever-present vision of
his own ignorance.
:
He owns, however, when the talk is resumed, that his
happiness is not free from cloud since the wings which
he has given to truth will also aid the diffusion of false-
hood; and the note of humour returns to the situation
when this contingency asserts itself in the mind of some
of the "friends." These worthies have passed through
the descending scale of feeling proper to such persons on
such an occasion. They have received Fust's invention
as diabolical—as wonderful-as very simple after all;
and now the fact stares them in the face that, printing
being so simple, the Hussite may publish his heresies as
well as the Churchman his truth, and the old sure remedy
of burning him and his talk together will no longer avail.
One of the two Divines on whom this impresses itself
had indeed " been struck by it from the first."
The poem concludes with a joke on the name of Huss,
which (I am told) is the Bohemian equivalent for "goose,"
and his reported prophecy of the advent and the triumph
of Luther : which prophecy Fust re-echoes.¹
1 The relation of John Fust to the popular legend is pleasantly set forth
in Mr. Sutherland Edwards' little book, "The Faust Legend: Its Origin
and Development."
NOTE.
The following note shows Mr. Browning in a more pro-
nounced attitude towards the opponents of the new Greek
spelling than does that which, by his desire, I inserted in
my first edition; but the last mood was in this case only
a natural development of the first :—
"I have just noticed in this month's 'Nineteenth Cen-
tury' that it is inquired by a humorous objector to the
practice of spelling (under exceptional conditions) Greek
proper names as they are spelt in Greek literature, why
the same principle should not be adopted by 'Ægyptolo-
gists, Hebraists, Sanscrittists, Accadians, Moabites, Hit-
tites, and Cuneiformists?' Adopt it, by all means, when-
ever the particular language enjoyed by any fortunate
possessor of these shall, like Greek, have been for about
three hundred years insisted upon in England as an acqui-
sition of paramount importance, at school and college, for
every aspirant to distinction in learning, even at the cost
of six or seven years' study-a sacrifice considered well
worth making for even an imperfect acquaintance with
'the most perfect language in the world.' Further, it will
be adopted whenever the letters substituted for those in
ordinary English use shall do no more than represent to
the unscholarly what the scholar accepts without scruple
when, for the hundredth time, he reads the word which,
for once, he has occasion to write in English, and which
he concludes must be as euphonic as the rest of a lan-
guage renowned for euphony. And, finally, the practice
will be adopted whenever the substituted letters effect no
sort of organic change so as to jostle the word from its
pride of place in English verse or prose. 'Themistokles ›
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Handbook to Browning's Works.
fits in quietly everywhere, with or without the k: but in a
certain poetical translation I remember, by a young friend,
of the Anabasis, beginning thus felicitously, ‘Cyrus the
Great and Artaxerxes (Whose temper bloodier than a
Turk's is) Were children both of the mild, pious, And
happy monarch, King Darius,'-who fails to see that,
although a correct 'Kuraush 'may pass, yet 'Daraya-
vush' disturbs the metre as well as the rhyme? It seems,
however, that 'Themistokles' may be winked at : not so
the 'harsh and subversive Kirke.' But let the objector
ask somebody with no knowledge to subvert, how he
supposes 'Circe' is spelt in Greek, and the answer will
be 'with a soft c.' Inform him that no such letter exists,
and he guesses, 'Then with s, if there be anything like it.'
Tell him that, to eye and ear equally, his own k answers
the purpose, and you have, at all events, taught him that
much, if little enough-and why does he live unless to
learn a little?"
"R. B."
Jan. 4, 1866.

A CHRONOLOGICAL
BIBLIOGRAPHY
OF BROWNING'S WORKS.
1833. PAULINE; A FRAGMENT OF A CONFESSION.
8vo. Saunders and Otley, 1833.
end "Richmond, Oct. 22, 1832."
Dated at the
Reprinted in
the six vol. editions of the Poetical Works, 1868,
and later. Also reprinted from the original
edition and edited by T. J. Wise, 1886.
1834. SONNET, "Eyes calm beside thee (Lady couldst
thou know!") Dated Aug. 17, 1834, and signed
"Z." Monthly Repository, vol. viii., N.S., 1834,
p. 712. Not reprinted by Mr. Browning.
1835. PARACELSUS. By Robert Browning. 8vo. Effing-
ham Wilson, 1835. Reprinted in Poems, 2 vols.
1849, and in Poetical Works later, but without
Preface, dated 15th March, 1835.
1835. THE KING. "A king lived long ago." 54 lines
signed "Z," in the Monthly Repository, vol. ix.,
N.S., 1835, pp. 707-8. Afterwards given in Pippa
Passes (sc. I, act iii.) with six additional lines.
1836. PORPHYRIA. "The rain set early in to-night."
Sixty lines signed "Z," in Monthly Repository,
366
A Chronological Bibliography
vol. x., N.S., 1836, pp. 43-4. Afterwards appeared
in Bells and Pomegranates under the heading
"Madhouse Cells II." Was called "Porphyria's
Lover" in the Works, 1863 and after.
1836. JOHANNES AGRICOLA.
and night by night."
“There's Heaven above;
Sixty lines signed "Z,” in
Monthly Repository, vol. x., N.S., 1836, pp. 45-6.
Reprinted in Bells and Pomegranates under the
heading "Madhouse Cells I."
1836. LINES. "Still ailing, wind? wilt be appeased or
no?" Six stanzas signed "Z,” in the Monthly
Repository, vol. x., N.S., 1836, pp. 270-71. Re-
appeared in Dramatis Personæ (1864) as the first
six stanzas of section vi. of “James Lee.”
1837. STRAFFORD: AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY. By
Robert Browning. 8vo. Longmans, 1837. Acted
at Covent Garden Theatre, May 1, 1837. Re-
printed without preface in Poetical Works, 1863,
and later. Acting edition, for the North London
Collegiate School for Girls, 1882, 8vo. An edition
(including preface of 1837) with notes and preface
by Miss E. H. Hickey, and introduction by S. R.
Gardiner, LL.D., 1884, 8vo.
1840. SORDELLO. By Robert Browning. 8vo.
E.
Moxon, 1840. Revised edition with prefatory
letter to J. Milsand, in Poetical Works, 3 vols.
1863, and later.
1841-6. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES. Eight numbers in
wrappers, Rl. 8vo., 1841-46, as follows:-
1841. No. I. PIPPA PASSES. By Robert Browning.
London, E. Moxon, 1841.
1842. No. 2. KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES. By
Robert Browning. London, E. Moxon, 1842.
1842. No. 3. DRAMATIC LYRICS. By Robert Browning,
London, E. Moxon, 1842.
of Browning's Works.
367
Contents:
Cavalier Times. I. Marching Along, p. 3.—
II. Give a Rouse, p. 3.— III. My Wife Gertrude,
P. 3. [III. afterwards "Boot and Saddle."]
Italy and France. I. Italy [“ My last Duchess."]
-II. France [“ Count Gismond”], p. 4.
Camp and Cloister. I. Camp (French), p. 5.—
II. Cloister (Spanish), p. 6.
In a Gondola, p. 7.
Artemis Prologuizes, p. 9.
Waring. I. “What's becomes of Waring?'
II. When I last saw Waring," p. 10.
""
Queen Worship. I. Rudel and the Lady of
Tripoli. II. Cristina, p. 12.
Madhouse Cells. I. Johannes Agricola [of 1836.]
II. Porphyria [of 1836], p. 13.
Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr, p. 14.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin, p. 14.
1843. No. 4. THE RETURN OF THE DRUSES. A
Tragedy in five acts. By Robert Browning.
London, E. Moxon, 1843.
1843. No. 5. A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. A Tragedy
in three acts. By Robert Browning. London, E.
Moxon, 1843. Acted at Drury Lane Theatre,
Feb. 11, 1843.
1844. No. 6. COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY; A Play in five
acts. By Robert Browning. London, E. Moxon,
1844. Acted at the Haymarket, April 25, 1853.
DRAMATIC ROMANCES AND LYRICS By
Robert Browning. London, E. Moxon, 1845.
1845. No. 7.
Contents:
How they brought the Good News from Ghent to
Aix, p. 3.
Pictor Ignotus. Florence, 15-, P. 4.
368
A Chronological Bibliography
[Called "The Italian in
Italy in England.
England" in the Poems, 1849], p. 4.
England in Italy. [Called "The Englishman
in Italy" in Poems, 1849], p. 5.
The Lost Leader, p. 8.
The Lost Mistress, p. 8.
Home Thoughts from Abroad. I. "Oh, to be in
England."-II. "Here's to Nelson's Memory."
[Put after Claret and Tokay, in Poet. Works,
1863, under "Nationality in Drinks."]
III. "Nobly, nobly Cape St. Vincent," p. 8.
["Home Thoughts from the Sea."]
The Tomb at St. Praxed's, p. 9.
Garden Fancies. I. The Flower's Name.-II.
Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis, p. 10.
France and Spain. I. The Laboratory (Ancien
Régime).—II. The Confessional, p. 11.
The Flight of the Duchess, p. 12.
Earth's Immortalities. I. "See, as the prettiest
graves.”—II. “So the year's done with," p. 19.
Song. "Nay, but you, who do not love her,” p. 19.
The Boy and the Angel. [A fresh couplet added
on republication in Poet. Works, 1868,] p. 19.
Night and Morning. I. Night.-II. Morning.
[Called "Meeting at Night" and "Parting at
Morning" in 1863], p. 20.
Claret and Tokay. I. "My heart sunk with our
Claret-flask." II. "Up jumped Tokay on our
table.” [These grouped together, with “Here's
to Nelson's Memory," as "Nationality in
Drinks,” No. 37 in Poet. Works, 1863,] p. 20.
Saul [Part the First, only; completed in Men and
Women, 1855,] p. 21.
Time's Revenges, p. 22.
The Glove. (Peter Ronsard loquitur), p, 23.
of Browning's Works.
369
1846. No. 8, and Last.
LURIA; and A SOUL'S
TRAGEDY. By Robert Browning. London, E.
Moxon, 1846.
Luria. A Tragedy in five acts, p. 2.
A Soul's Tragedy. Part First, being what was
called the Poetry of Chiappino's Life; and
Part Second, its Prose. [With Preface to A
Soul's Tragedy not reprinted], p. 21.
1844. THE LABORATORY (Ancien Régime). By Robert
Browning, in Hood's Magazine, vol. i., 1844, pp.
513-14. Reprinted in Dramatic Romances and
Lyrics (Bells and Pomegranates, No. 7), 1845, as
the first of two poems called France and Spain.
1844. CLARET AND TOKAY. By Robert Browning.
["My heart sunk with our Claret-flask," and
"Up jumped Tokay on our table"], in Hood's
Magazine, vol. i., 1844, p. 525. Reprinted in
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (Bells and Pome-
granates, No. 7), 1845.
1844. GARDEN FANCIES. By Robert Browning. I. The
Flower's Name.-II. Sibrandus Schafnabur-
gensis. In Hood's Magazine, vol. ii., pp. 140-42,
1844. Revised and enlarged in Dramatic Ro-
mances and Lyrics (Bells and Pom., No. 7), 1845.
1844. THE BOY AND THE ANGEL. By Robert Browning.
In Hood's Magazine, vol. ii., pp. 140-2. Enlarged
in Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (Bells and
Pomegranates, No. 7), 1845.
1845. THE TOMB AT ST. PRAXED'S (ROME 15—). By
Robert Browning. In Hood's Magazine, vol.
iii., pp. 237-9, 1845. Enlarged in Dramatic
Romances and Lyrics (Bells and Pomegranates,
No. 7) in same year. Reappeared in Works,
1863, and after, with the title "The Bishop
Orders his Tomb in St. Praxed's Church.”
B B
370
A Chronological Bibliography
1845. THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. By Robert
Browning. Part the first, in Hood's Magazine,
vol. iii., pp. 313-18, 1845. Part II. appeared
when the first part was reprinted in Bells and
Pomegranates, No. 7, in the same year,
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics.
1849. POEMS BY ROBERT BROWNING. A New Edition
[but the first collection under a collective title].
2 vols., 8vo. Chapman and Hall, 1849.
Contents: vol. i. Paracelsus, p. I. Pippa
Passes, a Drama, p. 163. King Victor and King
Charles,a Tragedy, p. 231. Colombe's Birthday,
a Play, p. 302.
Vol. ii. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, a Tragedy,
p. 1. The Return of the Druses, a Tragedy, p. 61.
Luria, a Tragedy, p. 139. A Soul's Tragedy,
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, p. 253;
38 of the 41 pieces in Bells and Pomegranates,
Nos. 3 and 7, the three omitted being Claret,
Tokay, and Here's to Nelson's Memory.
p. 211.
1850. CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY. A Poem.
By Robert Browning. 8vo. Chapman and Hall,
1850. Reprinted in Works, 1863, and after.
1852. Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley. With an Intro-
ductory ESSAY BY ROBERT BROWNING. London,
E. Moxon, 1852. 8vo. [The Essay is on Shelley
—not on the “Letters," which were afterwards
discovered to be spurious, with one exception.]
The Essay was reprinted in the Browning
Society's Papers, Part I., 1881. Edited by Dr.
F. J. Furnivall. Another reprint, edited by W
Tyas Harden, appeared in 1888, 8vo.
1854. Two POEMS. By Elizabeth Barrett and Robert
Browning. 8vo. London, Chapman and Hall,
1854. Price Sixpence. The poem by Robert
of Browning's Works.
371
Browning here is "The Twins,” and is dated
“Rome, March 30th, 1854.” Reprinted in Men
and Women, 1855, and in Works, 1863 and after.
The "Two Poems" were printed by Miss
Arabella Barrett for sale at a bazaar in aid of a
"Refuge for Young Destitute Girls." Mrs.
Browning's contribution was "A Plea for the
Ragged Schools of London."
1855. MEN AND WOMEN. By Robert Browning. In
two vols. 8vo. London, Chapman and Hall.
Contents: Vol. I.—
Love Among the Ruins, p. 1.
A Lover's Quarrel, p. 17.
Evelyn Hope, p. 19.
Up at a Villa-Down in the City, p. 23.
A Woman's Last Word, p. 31.
Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 35.
A Toccata of Galuppi's, p. 56.
By the Fire-side, p. 63.
Any Wife to Any Husband, p. 81.
An Epistle concerning the strange Medical
Experience of Karshish the Arab Physician,
p. 90.
Mesmerism, p. 107.
A Serenade at the Villa, p. 117.
My Star, p. 122.
Instans Tyrannus, p. 123.
A Pretty Woman, p. 128.
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came,"
p. 134.
Respectability, p. 149.
A Light Woman, p. 151.
The Statue and the Bust, p. 156.
Love in a Life, p. 173
372
A Chronological Bibliography
Life in a Love, p. 175.
How it Strikes a Contemporary, p. 177.
The Last Ride together, p. 184.
The Patriot. An Old Story, p. 191.
Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha, p. 194.
Bishop Blougram's Apology, p. 205.
Memorabilia, p. 259.
Contents of Vol. II.:
Andrea del Sarto, p. I.
Before, p. 15.
After, p. 19.
In Three Days, p. 21.
In a Year, p. 24.
Old Pictures in Florence, p. 30.
In a Balcony, p. 49.
Saul, p. III.
"De Gustibus,” p. 147.
Women and Roses, p. 150.
Protus, p. 154.
Holy-Cross Day, p. 158.
The Guardian Angel, p. 167.
Cleon, p. 171.
The Twins, p. 190.
Popularity, p. 193.
The Heretic's Tragedy, p. 198.
Two in the Campagna, p. 205.
A Grammarian's Funeral, p. 210.
One Way of Love, p. 218.
Another Way of Love, p. 220.
Transcendentalism,” p. 223.
Misconceptions, p. 227.
One Word More. To E. B. B., p. 229.
1856. BEN KARSHOOK'S WISDOM. By Robert Browning.
Twenty lines in The Keepsake for 1856, edited by
of Browning's Works.
373
Miss Power. Never reprinted by Mr. Browning.
The poem seems to be alluded to in "One Word
More."
1857. MAY AND DEATH.
By Robert Browning.
In
The Keepsake for 1857. Reprinted in Dramatis
Personæ, 1864, and in Works 1868, and after.
1863. THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING.
Third edition. Three
Chapman and Hall, 1863.
vols., 8vo. London,
No new poems in this
collection. It was re-issued as "Fourth Edition"
in 1865.
Contents: Vol. I.
LYRICS.
Cavalier Times :-
I. Marching Along, p. I.
II. Give a Rouse, p. 2.
III. Boot and Saddle, p. 3.
The Lost Leader, p. 4.
How they brought the Good News from Ghent
to Aix, p. 6.
Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kader, p. 9.
Nationality in Drinks :-
I. Claret, p. II.
II. Tokay, p. II.
III. Beer (Nelson), p. 12.
Garden Fancies :--
I. The Flower's Name, p. 13.
II. Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis, p. 15.
III. Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, p. 18.
The Laboratory, p. 21.
The Confessional, p. 24.
Cristina, p. 27.
The Lost Mistress, p. 30.
Earth's Immortalities, p. 31.
Meeting at Night, p. 32.
374
A Chronological Bibliography
Parting at Morning, p. 33.
Song ("Nay but you”), p. 33.
A Woman's Last Word, p. 34.
Evelyn Hope, p. 36.
Love Among the Ruins, p. 38.
A Lover's Quarrel, p. 42.
Up at a Villa-Down in the City, p. 49.
A Toccata of Galuppi's, p. 54.
Old Pictures in Florence, p. 58.
De Gustibus
"
p. 70.
Home Thoughts, from Abroad, p. 72.
Home Thoughts, from the Sea, p. 73.
Saul, p. 74.
My Star, p. 98.
By the Fireside, p. 98.
Any Wife to any Husband, p. 110.
Two in the Campagna, p. 116.
Misconceptions, p. 119.
A Serenade at the Villa, p. 119.
One Way of Love, p. 122.
Another Way of Love, p. 123.
A Pretty Woman, p. 125.
Respectability, p. 129.
Love in a Life, p. 130.
Life in a Love, p. 131.
In Three Days, p. 132.
In a Year, p. 133.
Women and Roses, p. 137.
Before, p. 139.
After, p. 141.
The Guardian Angel-A Picture at Fano,
p. 142.
Memorabilia, p. 145.
Popularity, p. 146.
Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha, p. 149.
of Browning's Works.
375
ROMANCES.
Incident of the French Camp, p. 156.
The Patriot. An Old Story, p. 158.
My Last Duchess. Ferrara, p. 159.
Count Gismond. Aix in Provence, p. 162.
The Boy and the Angel, p. 167.
Instans Tyrannus, p. 171.
Mesmerism, p. 174.
The Glove, p. 180.
Time's Revenge, p. 187.
The Italian in England, p. 189.
The Englishman in Italy--Piano di Sorrento,
p. 195.
In a Gondola, p. 205.
Waring, p. 215.
The Twins, p. 225.
A Light Woman, p. 226.
The Last Ride together, p. 229.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin; a Child's Story,
p. 234.
The Flight of the Duchess, 246.
A Grammarian's Funeral, p. 278.
Johannes Agricola in Meditation, p. 284.
The Heretic's Tragedy-A Middle-Age Intcr-
lude, p. 286.
Holy-Cross Day, p. 291.
Protus, p. 297.
The Statue and the Bust, p. 299.
Porphyria's Lover, p. 310.
"Child Roland to the Dark Tower came,"
p. 312.
376
A Chronological Bibliography
Contents of Vol. II.
TRAGEDIES AND OTHER PLAYS.
Pippa Passes-A Drama, p. 1.
King Victor and King Charles-A Tragedy,
p. 68.
The Return of the Druses—A Tragedy, p. 140.
A Blot in the 'Scutcheon-A Tragedy, p. 216.
Colombe's Birthday—A Play, p. 275.
Luria—A Tragedy, p. 357.
A Soul's Tragedy, p. 428.
In a Balcony-A Scene, p. 468.
Strafford-A Tragedy, p. 503.
Contents of Vol. III.
Paracelsus, p. I.
Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day, p. 163.
Sordello, p. 252.
1863. SELECTIONS FROM THE POETICAL WORKS OF
ROBERT BROWNING. 8vo. London, Chapman
and Hall, 1863. The editors of this first selection
were John Foster and B. W. Procter ("Barry
Cornwall"). The volume was re-issued in 1869
with the imprint of Smith, Elder & Co.
Second
1864. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. By Robert Browning. 8vo.
London, Chapman and Hall, 1864.
edition published same year.
Contents.
James Lee, p. 3. [This appears as "James
Lee's Wife" in the Poetical Works, 1868 and
after.]
Gold Hair: a Legend of Pornic, p. 27.
The Worst of it, p. 37.
Dîs aliter visum; or, Le Byron de nos Jours,
P. 47.
of Browning's Works.
377
Too Late, p. 57.
Abt Vogler, p. 67.
Rabbi ben Ezra, p. 77.
A Death in the Desert, p. 91.
Caliban upon Setebos; or, Natural Theology
in the Island, p. 123.
Confessions, p. 139.
May and Death, p. 145.
Prospice, p. 149.
Youth and Art, p. 153.
A Face, p. 161.
A Likeness, p. 165.
Mr. Sludge," the Medium," p. 171.
Apparent Failure, p. 239.
Epilogue, p. 245.
Three of the above poems were reprinted from
advance sheets in the Atlantic Monthly (Boston,
U.S.), vol. xiii., 1864, viz., Gold Hair, May, pp.
596-599; Prospice, May, p. 694; Under the Cliff
(part of James Lee), May, pp. 737-8.
1864. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE. Eight lines in the
Royal Academy Catalogue for 1864, in F.
Leighton's (now P.R.A.) picture so named. First
collected in Poetical Works, 1868, under the title
of "Eurydice to Orpheus, a Picture by Fred.
Leighton, A.R.A.”
1864. POETICAL Works of ROBERT BROWNING. Fourth
edition. A reprint of the Third edition (which
see under "1863").
1865. A SELECTION FROM THE WORKS OF ROBERT
BROWNING. Square post 8vo. "Moxon's Minia-
ture Poets," E. Moxon & Co., 1865.
With
Dedication to Alfred Tennyson; and a photo-
graphic portrait of Robert Browning.
1866. A Selection from the Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett
378
A Chronological Bibliography
Browning. 8vo. London, Chapman and Hall,
1866. EDITED by Robert Browning, and has a
PREFACE signed" R. B.," and dated "London,
“R.
November, 1865.”
1866. Last Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 8vo.
London, Chapman & Hall, 1862. THE DEDICA-
TION ("To Grateful Florence," etc.), and
"ADVERTISEMENT" (dated "London, February,
1862"), written by Robert Browning. See
Browning Soc. Papers [additions to Biblio-
graphy], Parts I. and II., 1881, pp. 111, 162.
1868, THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING.
Six vols. London, Smith, Elder and Co., 1868.
There is only one new piece in this collection,
viz., Deaf and Dumb; written for a marble
group of two children by T. Woolner in the
International Exhibition of 1862.
Contents of Vol. I.
Pauline, p. I.
Paracelsus, p. 43.
Strafford, p. 207.
Contents of Vol. II.
Sordello, p. 1.
Pippa Passes, p. 219.
Contents of Vol. III.
King Victor and King Charles, p. I.
Dramatic Lyrics :—
Cavalier Tunes, p. 75.
The Lost Leader, p. 78.
How they brought the Good News from Ghent
to Aix, p. 80.
Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr, p. 83.
Nationality in Drinks, p. 85.
of Browning's Works.
379
Garden Fancies, p. 87.
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, p. 92.
The Laboratory, p. 95.
The Confessional, p. 98.
Cristina, p. 101.
The Lost Mistress, p. 104.
Earth's Immortalities, p. 105.
Meeting at Night, p. 106.
Parting at Morning, p. 107.
Song ("Nay but you"), p. 107.
A Woman's last Word, p. 108.
Evelyn Hope, p. 110.
Love among the Ruins, p. 112.
A Lovers Quarrel, 115.
Up at a Villa-Down in the City, p. 122.
A Toccata of Galuppi's, p. 127.
Old Pictures in Florence, p. 131.
"De Gustibus
-" p. 143.
Home Thoughts from Abroad, p. 145.
Home Thoughts from the Sea, p. 146.
Saul, p. 146.
My Star, p. 170.
By the Fire-side, p. 170.
Any Wife to any Husband, p. 182.
Two in the Campagna, p. 188.
Misconceptions, p. 191.
A Serenade at the Villa, p. 191.
One Way of Love, p. 194.
Another Way of Love, p. 195.
A Pretty Woman, p. 197.
Respectability, p. 201.
Love in a Life, p. 202.
Life in a Love, p. 203.
In Three Days, p. 204.
In a Year, p. 205.
380
A Chronological Bibliography
Women and Roses, p. 209.
Before, p. 211.
After, p. 213.
The Guardian Angel, p. 214.
Memorabilia, p. 217.
Popularity, p. 218.
Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha, p. 221.
The Return of the Druses, p. 229.
Contents of Vol. IV.
A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, I.
Colombe's Birthday, p. 61.
Dramatic Romances :-
Incident of the French Camp, p. 147.
The Patriot, p. 149.
My Last Duchess, p. 150.
Count Gismond, p. 153.
The Boy and the Angel, p. 158.
Instans Tyrannus, p. 162.
Mesmerism, p. 165.
The Glove, p. 171.
Time's Revenges, p. 178.
The Italian in England, p. 180.
The Englishman in Italy, p. 186.
In a Gondola, p. 196.
Waring, p. 206.
The Twins, p. 216.
A Light Woman, p. 217.
The Last Ride together, p. 220.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin, p. 225.
The Flight of the Duchess, 237.
A Grammarian's Funeral, p. 270.
The Heretic's Tragedy, p. 275.
Holy-Cross Day, p. 280.
Protus, p. 286,
of Browning's Works.
381
The Statue and the Bust, p. 288.
Porphyria's Lover, p. 299.
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came,”
p. 301.
Contents of Vol. V.
A Soul's Tragedy, p. 1.
Luria, p. 43.
Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day, p. 115.
Men and Women:-
Transcendentalism; a Poem in Twelve
Books," p. 207.
How it strikes a Contemporary, p. 209.
Artemis Prologizes, p. 213.
An Epistle (Karshish), p. 218.
Johannes Agricola in Meditation, p. 229.
Pictor Ignotus, p. 231.
Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 234.
Andrea del Sarto, p. 248.
The Bishop orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's
Church, p. 257.
Bishop Blougram's Apology, p. 262.
Cleon, p. 299.
Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli, p. 311.
One Word More, p. 313.
Contents of Vol. VI.
In a Balcony, p. I.
Dramatis Persona :-
James Lee's Wife, p. 41.
Gold Hair; a Story of Pornic, p. 62.
The Worst of it, p. 70.
Dis aliter visum; or, Le Byron de nos Jours,
p. 77.
382
A Chronological Bibliography
Too Late, p. 85.
Abt Vogler, p. 92.
Rabbi ben Ezra, p. 99.
A Death in the Desert, p. 110.
Caliban upon Setebos, p. 136.
Confessions, p. 148.
May and Death, p. 150.
Deaf and Dumb: a group by Woolner, p. 151.
Prospice, p. 152.
Eurydice to Orpheus; a Picture by Leighton,
p. 153.
Youth and Art, p. 154.
A Face, p. 158.
A Likeness, p. 159.
Mr. Sludge, “the Medium,” p. 162.
Apparent Failure, p. 219.
Epilogue (Three Speakers) p. 222.
1868-9. THE RING AND THE BOOK. By Robert Brown-
ing. In four vols., 8vo. London, Smith, Elder
& Co., vols. i., ii., 1868; vols. iii., iv., 1869.
The volumes were issued one by one, between
November 1868 and February 1869. A "second
edition," four volumes, appeared 1869.
1871. HERVÉ RIEL. In the Cornhill Magazine, March,
1871, pp. 257-60. Is dated
Is dated "Croisic, Sept.
Reprinted in Pacchiarotto, &c.,
30th, 1867."
1876.
1871. BALAUSTION'S
A
ADVENTURE: INCLUDING
TRANSCRIPT FROM EURIPIDES. By Robert
Browning. 8vo. London, Smith, Elder & Co.,
1871. With dedication to the Countess Cowper
dated July 22, 1871. A third edition appeared
in 1881. The Last Adventure of Balaustion,
in Aristophanes Apology, &c., 1875, is a sequel
to this work.
of Browning's Works.
383
1871. PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU : SAVIOUR
By Robert Browning.
OF SOCIETY.
London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1871.
8vo.
1872. FIFINE AT THE FAIR. By Robert Browning. 8vo.
London, Smith, Elder & Co.. 1872.
1872. SELECTIONS FROM THE POETICAL WORKS OF
ROBERT BROWNING. London, Smith, Elder &
Co., 1872. With a preface dated “London,
May 14th, 1872." "Dedicated to Alfred Tenny-
son."
1872. THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING.
(The Tauchnitz selection). Two vols., 8vo.
Leipzig; "Collection of British Authors." As
this is a "copyright edition," the selection must
have been either made or sanctioned by Mr.
Browning.
1872-4. COMPLETE WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING. A
reprint from the latest English edition. 8vo.
Chicago. Nos. 1-19 of the "Official Guide of
the Chicago and Alton R.R. and Monthly
Reprint and Advertiser." Edited by the manager
of the railway, Mr. James Charlton. A copy is
in the British Museum.
1873. RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY, OR TURF
AND TOWERS. By Robert Browning. 8vo.
London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1873. Dated at
the end "January 23, 1873." Dedicated "To
Miss Thackeray.”
1875. ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY, INCLUDING A TRAN-
SCRIPT FROM EURIPIDES, BEING THE LAST
ADVENTURE OF BALAUSTION. By Robert
Browning. 8vo. London, Smith, Elder & Co.,
1875. The "Transcript" is "Herakles."
1875. THE INN ALBUM. By Robert Browning. 8vc.
London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1875.
384
A Chronological Bibliography
A translation of this work into German by E.
Leo: "Das Fremdenbuch," Hamburg, 1877.
1876. PACCHIAROTTO AND HOW HE WORKED IN DIS-
TEMPER: WITH OTHER POEMS. By Robert
Browning. 8vo. London, Smith, Elder & Co.,
1876.
Contents.
Prologue. ("O the old wall here.") [Called
'A Wall" in the selection of 1880], p. 1.
Of Pacchiarotto and how he worked in Dis-
temper, p. 4.
At the "Mermaid,” p. 47.
House, p. 60.
Shop, p. 64.
Pisgah-Sights, I., p. 75.
Pisgah-Sights, II., p. 78.
Fears and Scruples, p. 83.
Natural Magic, p. 88.
Magical Nature, p. 90.
Bifurcation, p. 91.
Numpholeptos, p. 95.
Appearances, p. 106.
St. Martin's Summer, p. 108.
Hervé Riel, p. 117.
A Forgiveness, p. 131.
Cenciaja, p. 162.
Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial,
p. 184
Epilogue ["The Poets pour us wine,'"] p. 223.
1877. THE AGAMEMNON OF ÆSCHYLUS, transcribed by
ROBERT BROWNING. 8vo., Smith, Elder & Co.,
1877, with preface dated London, October 1st,
1877.
1877. FAVOURITE POEMS. By Robert Browning. [A
selection]. Illustrated, pp. 96, 16mo. Boston,
: of Browning's Works.
385
James R. Osgood & Co., 1877. [The Vest-
Pocket Series of Standard and Popular Authors].
1878. LA SAISIAZ: THE Two Poets of CROISIC. By
Robert Browning. 8vo. Smith, Elder & Co.,
1878. "Dedicated to Mrs. Sutherland Orr."
La Saisiaz is dated "November 9th, 1877,” and
The Two Poets of Croisic, “January 15th, 1878.”
The Proem to the Two Poets of Croisic was
named “Apparitions" in the Selections of 1880.
OH LOVE, LOVE." Two Stanzas-eighteen lines
translated from the Hippolytus of Euripides,
contributed to Mr. J. P. Mahaffy's Euripides,
p. 115, Macmillan, 1879. Not included in any
collection of Robert Browning's Poems. Re-
printed in Browning Soc. (Bibliography) Papers,
pt. 1, 1881, p. 69.
1879.
1879. DRAMATIC IDYLS. By Robert Browning. Post
8vo. London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1879.
1879.
Contents.
Martin Relph, p. 1.
·Pheidippides, p. 27.
Halbert and Hob, p. 45.
Ivàn Ivànovitch, p. 57.
Tray, p. 101.
Ned Bratts, p. 107.
"THE BLIND MAN TO THE MAIDEN SAID." Poem,
twenty lines, in "The Hour Will Come," by
Wilhelmine von Hillern, translated from the
German by Mrs. Clara Bell (vol. ii., p. 174).
London, 8vo. Quoted in Whitehall Review,
March 1, 1883, with statement that the English
version of the poem is by Mr. Browning. Re-
printed with some particulars in the Browning
Society's Papers, pt. ii., p. 410, 1883.
CC
386
A Chronological Bibliography
1880. DRAMATIC IDYLS. Second Series. By Robert
Browning. Post 8vo. London, Smith, Elder &
Co., 1880.
Contents.
[Proem] (“You are sick, that's sure"), p. vii.
Echetlos, p. I.
Clive, p. 9.
Muléykeh, p. 43.
Pietro of Abano, p. 61.
Doctor
,
p. 113.
Pan and Luna, p. 137.
[Epilogue], (“Touch him ne'er so lightly”), p.
149.
Ten additional lines to this epilogue have
been published "Thus I wrote in London,
musing," &c. These lines appeared in the
Century Magazine (Scribner's), vol. 25, 1882,
pp. 159, 160, and were there said to have been
written in an autograph album, October 14th,
1880. They were reprinted in the Browning
Society's Papers, pt. iii., p. 48*, November, 1882,
but have been withdrawn from the Society's
later issues.
1880. SELECTIONS FROM THE POETICAL WORKS OF
ROBERT BROWNING. Second Series. 8vo.
London, Smith, Elder &
Co., 1880. The First
Both were reprinted
Series appeared in 1872.
in 1884.
1882. A SELECTION FROM THE WORKS OF ROBERT
BROWNING. With a Memoir of the Author, and
explanatory notes, by F. H. Ahn, 8vo. Berlin,
1882. This is vol. viii. of Ahn's Collection of
British and American Standard Authors.
1883. JOCOSERIA. By Robert Browning. 8vo. London,
Smith, Elder & Co., 1883.
of Browning's Works.
387
Contents.
Wanting is-Whai? p. 1.
Donald, p. 5.
Solomon and Balkis, p. 25.
Cristina and Monaldeschi, p. 33.
Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli, p. 45.
Adam, Lilith, and Eve, p. 51.
Ixion, p. 55.
Jochanan Hakkadosh, p. 71.
Never the Time and the Place, p. 133.
Pambo, p. 137.
1883. LYRICAL AND DRAMATIC POEMS SELECTED FROM
THE WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING. Edited
by E. T. Mason. 8vo. New York, 1883.
[1883.] SELECTIONS FROM THE POETRY OF ROBERT
BROWNING. With an Introduction by R. G.
White, 8vo. New York.
1883. SONNET ON GOLDONI. Dated “Venice, Nov. 27,
1883," and written for the Album of the Com-
mittee of the Goldoni Monument at Venice,
where it appears upon the first page. Printed
in the Pall Mall Gazette, Dec. 8, 1883, and in
the Browning Society's Papers, pt. v., p. 98*,
1884.
1883. PARAPHRASE FROM HORACE. (On Singers).
[Horace's "Omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus,”
etc.] Four lines written impromptu for Mr.
Felix Moscheles. Published in the Pall Mall
Gazette, Dec. 12, 1883, and in the Browning
Society's Papers, pt. v. p. 99*, 1884.
1884. SONNET ON RAWDON BROWN. Dated Nov. 28.
1883, and published in the Century Magazine,
vol, 27, Feb. 1884, p. 640. Reprinted in the
Browning Society's Papers, pt. v., p. 132 *, 1884.
1884. THE FOUNDER OF THE FEAST.-A Sonnet. In-
388
A Chronological Bibliography
1
scribed by Mr. Browning in the Album pre-
sented to Mr. Arthur Chappell, director of the
St. James's Hall Popular Concerts, etc. (The
World, April 16, 1884). Reprinted in the
Browning Society's Papers, pt. vii., p. 18*, 1884.
The sonnet is dated "April 5th, 1884.'
1884. THE NAMES. Sonnet on Shakspeare. On page
I of the "Shaksperian Show Book" of the
Shaksperian Show held at the Albert Hall, May
29-31, 1884. The poem is dated "March 12,
'84,'
"}
" and was published in the Pall Mall
Gazette, May 29, 1884, and in the Browning
Society's Papers, pt. v., p. 105 *.
1884. "The Divine Order, and other Sermons and Ad-
dresses. By the late Thomas Jones." Edited by
Brynmor Jones; with a short INTRODUCTION by
Robert Browning. London, 1884, 8vo.
1884. FERISHTAH'S FANCIES. By Robert Browning.
8vo. Smith, Elder & Co., 1884.
Contents:
Prologue ("Pray Reader"), p. I.
1. The Eagle, p. 5.
2. The Melon-Seller, p. 9.
3. Shah Abbas, p. 13.
4. The Family, p. 25.
5. The Sun, p. 33.
6. Mihrab Shah, p. 46.
7. A Camel-Driver, p. 59.
8. Two Camels, p. 69.
9. Cherries, p. 78.
10. Plot-Culture, p. 87.
II. A Pillar at Sebzevah, p. 93.
12. A Bean-Stripe; also Apple-eating, p. 105.
Epilogue [“Oh, Love-no Love !"] p. 140.
of Browning's Works.
389
1884. SELECTIONS FROM THE POETICAL WORKS OF
ROBERT BROWNING. Two series. 2 vols. 8vo.
London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1884. A reprint of
the two series, which appeared respectively in
1872 and 1880.
1884. THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN. By Robert Brown-
ing. London, Robert Dunthorne, 1884. Small
4to. Not published for sale, but printed by Mr.
Browning's permission "to accompany Mr.
Macbeth's Etchings, after the late G. J. Pinwell's
drawings illustrating its subject."
1885. POMEGRANATES FROM AN ENGLISH GARDEN: A
SELECTION FROM THE POEMS OF ROBERT
BROWNING. With Introduction and Notes by
John Munro Gibson. New York, 1885, 8vo.
1885. WHY I AM A LIBERAL.
Sonnet contributed to
"Why I am a Liberal," edited by Andrew Reid.
London, Cassell & Co., n.d. [1885]. Not collected
by Mr. Browning, but reprinted in Browning
Society's Papers, October, 1885, p. 89*, and in
"Sonnets of the Century," edited by W. Sharp,
1886.
1886. Spring Song (“Dance, yellows and whites and
reds !”) contributed to The New Amphion: being
the Book of the Edinburgh University Union
Fancy Fair. Edinburgh University Press, 1886,
p. I. (Reappeared in Lairesse in Parleyings, &c.,
p. 189).
1886. SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BROWNING, with notes
by W. J. Rolfe and H. E. Hersey. New York,
1886, 8vo.
1887. PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPOR-
TANCE IN THEIR DAY; to wit:
Bernard de Mandeville,
Daniel Bartoli,
390
A Chronological Bibliography
1
Christopher Smart,
George Bubb Dodington,
Francis Furini,
Gerard de Lairesse, and
Charles Avison.
Introduced by A Dialogue between Apollo and
The Fates; concluded by another between John
Fust and his Friends. By Robert Browning.
London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1887, 8vo.
Dedicated "In Memoriam J. Milsand, obit. iv.
Sept. MDCCCLXXXVI. Absens absentem auditque
videtque."
1888-9. THE POETICAL WORKs of Robert Browning.
Sixteen vols. 8vo. Smith, Elder & Co., 1888-9.
All the works collected by the author, excepting
only Asolando.
Contents.
Pauline, vol. i., p. I.
Sordello, vol. i., p. 47.
Paracelsus, vol. ii., p. I.
Strafford, vol. ii. p. 187.
Pippa Passes, vol. iii., p. 1.
King Victor and King Charles, vol. iii., p. 81.
Return of the Druses, vol. iii., p. 167.
A Soul's Tragedy, vol. iii., p. 257.
A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, vol. iv., p. I.
Colombe's Birthday, vol. iv., p. 71.
Men and Women, vol. iv., p. 171.
Dramatic Romances, vol. v., p. 1.
Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day, vol. v., p. 209.
Dramatic Lyrics, vol. vi., p. I.
Luria, vol. vi., p. 209.
In a Balcony, vol. vii., p. 1.
Dramatis Personæ, vol. vii., p. 45.
of Browning's Works.
391
The Ring and the Book. Books 1 to 4, vol. viii.,
P. I.
""
99
Books 5 to 8, vol. ix., p. 1.
""
Books 9 to 12, vol. x., p. 1.
""
Balaustion's Adventure, vol xi., p. 1.
Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, vol. xi., p. 123.
Fifine at the Fair, vol. xi., p. 211.
Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, vol. xii., p. 1.
The Inn Album, vol. xii., p. 179.
Aristophanes Apology, including a Transcript
from Euripides, being the Last Adventure
of Balaustion, vol. xiii., p. 1.
The Agamemnon of Æschylus, vol. xiii., p. 259.
Pacchiarotto, and how he worked in Distemper;
with other Poems, vol. xiv., p. I.
La Saisiaz: and The Two Poets of Croisic,
vol. xiv., p. 153.
Dramatic Idyls.
""
""
First series, vol. xv., p. 1.
Second series, vol. xv., p. 85.
Jocoseria, vol. xv., p. 165.
Ferishtah's Fancies, vol. xvi., p. 1.
Parleyings with Certain People of Importance
in their Day, vol. xvi., p. 93.
[1889]. THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN. By Robert
Browning. With 35 illustrations by Kate Green-
away. Pp. 64, Routledge & Sons, 4to.
1889. FIVE LINES (beginning "Wind wafted from the
sunset"), on a picture by Mr. Felix Moscheles,
"The Isle's Enchantress." Printed in the Pall
Mall Gazette for March 26, 1889.
1889-90. The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Brown-
ing. In six volumes. London, Smith, Elder &
Co., 1889-90. 8vo. Vol. i. contains a PREFATORY
NOTE signed "R. B.," and dated "29, De Vere
Gardens, W., December 10, 1887" ["1887" must
392
A Chronological Bibliography
be a misprint for 1888, as the "Prefatory Note"
mentions a Memoir of E. B. Browning by John
H. Ingram, which was published in September,
1888].
1890. ASOLANDO: FANCIES AND FACTS. By Robert
Browning. 8vo. Smith, Elder & Co., 1890.
With dedication "To Mrs. Arthur Bronson."
Now (1891) in its eighth edition. The dedication
is dated "Asolo, October 15, 1889." The volume
was published on the day of the poet's death,
December 12, 1889.
Contents.
Prologue ("The Poet's age is sad; for why ?")
P. I.
Rosny, p. 5.
Dubiety, p. 8.
Now, p. 10.
Humility, p. II.
Poetics, p. 12.
Summum Bonum, p. 13.
A Pearl, a Girl, p. 14.
Speculative, p. 15.
White Witchcraft, p. 17.
Bad Dreams, I., II., III., IV., p. 19.
Inapprehensiveness, p. 34.
Which? p. 37.
The Cardinal and the Dog, p. 40.
The Pope and the Net, p. 42.
The Bean-Feast, p. 46.
Muckle-Mouth Meg, p. 52.
Arcades ambo, p. 56.
The Lady and the Painter, p. 58.
Ponte dell' Angelo, Venice, p. 61.
Beatrice Signorini, p. 76.
Flute Music, with an Accompaniment, p. 99.
of Browning's Works.
393
"Imperante Augusto natus est -" p. 112.
Development, p. 123.
Rephan, p. 131.
Reverie, p. 141.
Epilogue ("At the midnight, in the silence of
the sleep-time"), p. 156.
1890. Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. With PRE-
FATORY NOTE by R. B. 16mo. London, Smith
Elder & Co., 1890.
1890. POCKET VOLUME OF SELECTIONS FROM THE
POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BRowning.
London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1890, 16mo.
**In the "Bibliography" attached to Mr. William
Sharp's "Life of Robert Browning" (London, W. Scott,
1890), under Section II., "Single Works," appear the
following entries :—
(1) "Cleon. Moxon: London, 1855. 8vo. Reprinted
in Men and Women."
(2) "Gold Hair: a Legend of Pornic. [London], 1864.
8vo. Reprinted in Dramatis Persona."
(3) "The Statue and the Bust.
Moxon: London, 1855.
8vo. Reprinted in Men and Women."
(4) Mr. Sharp also (p. 173) mentions a leaflet containing
"Prospice."
Pamphlets bearing the titles of the first and third
certainly exist, and this may also be the case with regard
to the second and fourth; but as nothing is known of
the history of any one of the four, all are excluded from
the foregoing Bibliography.

AN ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ROBERT
BROWNING'S WORKS,
BEING AN INDEX TO THE FOREGOING BIBLIOGRAPIY
AND TO THE COLLECTED EDITIONS OF 1868
AND 1889-90.
Page of
Bibliography.
Title.
Date
In 6 vols.
edit. 1868
vol. & page.
In 16 vols.
edit. 1889-90
vol. & page.
1842
iii. 83
vi. 13
1864
vi. 92
vii. IOI
1883
XV. 197
•
1877
xiii. 259
1855 iii. 213
vi. 186
•
1877
xiii. 259
1882
1842 iv. 153
V. II
367 ABD-EL-KADR, Through the Me-
tidja to.
377 Abt Vogler
387 Adam, Lilith, and Eve
384 Eschylus, The Agamemnon of
372 After
•
384 Agamemnon of Eschylus, The
386 Ahn, F. H., Selections by
367 Aix in Provence. See Count
Gismond
382 Alkestis, Euripides', a translation
from. See Balaustion's Ad-
venture.
383 Amphibian (Prol. to Fifine)
1871
•
1872
389 Amphion, The New Contribution
(C
to, Spring Song "
372 Andrea del Sarto
1886
1855 v. 248
xi.
I
xi. 215
xvi. 219
iv. 221
vi. 161
vi. 142
372 Another Way of Love
371 Any Wife to any Husband
1855 iii. 195
1855 iii, 182
396
List of Browning's Works.
Page.
Title.
390 Apollo and the Fates, Dialogue
between
377 Apparent Failure
385 Apparitions (Proem, Two Poets
of Croisic)
384 Appearances
•
388 Apple-eating.
392 Arcades ambo
383 Aristophanes' Apology
367 Artemis Prologuizes
377 Atlantic Monthly, sce
Drama-
In 6 vols.
Date. edit. 1868
vol. & page.
In 16 vols.
edit. 1889-90
vol. & page.
1887
xvi. 97
1864 vi. 210
vii. 246
•
1878
xiv. 207
91
1876
xiv. 70
17
1884
xvi. 69
1890
·
1875
xiii. I
1842
1
V. 21317. 181
•
1864
1890
1876
1887
xvi.
[
•
1890
tis Personæ "
392 Asolando: Fancies and Facts
384 At the "Mermaid"
390 Avison, Charles, Parleying with
393 "At the midnight" (Epilogue
to Asolando)
372 B., E. B. (Mrs. Browning), To.
["One Word More "]
392 Bad Dreams
•
383 Balaustion, The Last Adventure
of. See Aristophanes' Apology.
1855
v. 313
iv. 296
•
1890
1875
1871
xiii. I
xi.
389 Bartoli, Daniel, Parleying with. 1887
382 Balaustion's Adventure
xvi. 132
392 Bean-Feast, The
1890
388 Bean-stripe, A
1884
xvi. 69
392 Beatrice Signorini
1890
368 Beer, Nationality in Drinks
1845
iii. 85
vi. 16
372 Before
1855 iii. 211
vi. 183
366 Bells and Pomegranates
1841-46
372 Ben Karshook's Wisdom
1856
384 Bifurcation
1876
xiv. 61
372 Bishop Blougram's Apology
1855
v. 262
iv. 71
369 Bishop (The) orders his Tomb
at St, Praxed's
1845
v. 257
iv. 232
List of Browning's Works.
397
378
Page.
Title
385 "Blind man (The) to the maiden
said" (translation)
•
367 Blot (A) in the Scutcheon
367 Boot and Saddle ["My Wife,”
etc.7
•
369 Boy and th. Angel, The .
387 Brown, Rav Jon, Sonnet on
372 B[rowning], E. B., To
•
377 Browning, Mrs. Selection from
her Poetry. Edited by R. B.
Last Poems. Edited by
In 6 vols.
Date. edit. 1268
vol. & page.
In 16 vols.
edit. 1889-90
vol. & page.
•
1879
1843
iv. I
iv. I
1842
iii. 75
vi. 6
•
1844 iv. 158
v. 19
1884
1855
v. 313
iv. 296
1866
R. B.
1866
lition of the Poems of
1889-90
384 Bu.
The Privilege of.
See
Fil, o Baldinucci
1876
xiv. 117
371 By the Fire-side.
376 Byron (Le) de nos Jours
1855 iii. 170
vi. 126
1864
vi. 77
vii. 85
377 CALIBAN upon Setebos
1864 vi. 136 vii. 149
388 Camel-Driver, A
1884
xvi. 40
367 Camp and Cloister
1842 iv. 147
v. 3
392 Cardinal (The) and the Dog
1890
367 Cavalier Tunes
1842
iii. 75
vi. 3
384 Cenciaja
1876
xiv. 104
387 Chappell, (Arthur,) Sonnet to
1884
388 Cherries
1884
xvi. 53
371 "Childe Roland to the Dark
Tower came".
•
1855
iv. 301
v. 194
370 Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day.
369 Claret and Tokay
1850
v. 115
v. 209
1844
iii. 85
vi. 16
372 Cleon
386 Clive
•
1855
v. 299
iv. 279
1880
xv. 88
367 Cloister (Spanish)
367 Colombe's Birthday
1842
iii. 92
vi. 26
•
1844 iv. 61
iv. 71
368 Confessional, The
1845
iii. 98
vi. 34
398
List of Browning's Works.
Page.
377 Confessions
Title.
Date.
In 6 vols.
edit. 1868
vol. & page.
1864 vi. 148
367 Count Gismond, Aix in Provence 1842 iv. 153
In 16 vols.
edit. 1889-90
vol. & page.
vii. 162
V. II
367 Cristina
1842
iii. 101
vi. 39
387 Cristina and Monaldeschi.
1883
385 Croisic, The Two Poets of
1878
xv. 188
xiv. 219
382 Cornhill Magazine, contribution
to. See Hervé Riel.
1871
377 DAVID, etc. (Epil. to Dram.
Persona)
1864 vi. 222
vii. 250
378 Deaf and Dumb
1868 vi. 151
vii. 167
377 Death in the Desert, A
1864 vi. 110
vii. 120
372 "De Gustibus
1855 iii. 143
vi. 92
393 Development
1890
376 Dîs aliter Visum; or, Le Byron
de nos Jours
•
1864
vi. 77 vii. 85
388 "Divine Order," Introduction to 1884
386 Doctor
1880
xv. 146
390 Dodington, George Bubb, Par-
leying with
1887
xvi. 160
387 Donald
1883
xv. 169
385 Dramatic Idyls [First Series]
1879
XV. I
386
Second Series
1880
•
366 Dramatic Lyrics. .
1842
367 Dramatic Romances and Lyrics. 1845
•
376 Dramatis Personæ
368 Drinks, Nationality in
392 Dubiety
370 Duchess, Flight of the
iii. 73
iii.
73
iv. 145
xv. 85
vi. I
v. 3
vi. I
1864
vi. 41
vii. 45
•
1844
iii. 85
vi. 16
1890
1845 iv. 237
v. 116
388 EAGLE, The
1884
xvi. 6
368 Earth's Immortalities
386 Echetlos
•
1845 iii. 105
vi. 45
1880
xv. 85
368 England in Italy
1845 iv. 180
v. 47
368 "England, Oh to be in,'
1845 iii. 145
vi. 95
368 Englishman in Italy, The
1845 iv. 180
v. 54
List of Browning's Works.
399
Page.
Title.
Date.
In 6 vols.
edit. 1868
vol. & page.
377 Epilogue (“ Dram. Persona"). 1864 vi. 222
In 16 vols.
edit. 1889-90
vol. & page.
vii. 250
xiv. 141
384
(Pacchiarotto).
1876
385
(La Saisiaz)
·
1878
xiv. 273
386
(Dramatic Idyls II.)
1880
xv. 164
388
(Ferishtah's Fancies).
1884
xvi. 90
390
(Parleyings, etc.).
1887
xvi. 241
393
(Asolando)
1890
•
371 Epistle (An) concerning the
strange Medical Experience of
Karshish, etc.
377 Eurydice to Orpheus
382 Euripides, A Transcript from
(Alkestis). See Balaustion's
1855
v. 218
iv. 186
1864
vi. 153
vii. 170
Adventure.
. . 1871
xi. I
383
A Transcript from (Herakles
Mainomenos).
•
1875
xiii. 147
385
371 Evelyn Hope
two stanzas from Hippolytus 1879
365 "Eyes calm beside thee" (Sonnet) 1834
1855 iii. 110
vi. 51
377 FACE, A
1864 vi. 158 vii. 176
368 Fame and Love. See Earth's
Immortalities.
1845 iii. 105.
vi. 45
388 Family, The.
384 Fears and Scruples.
388 Ferishtah's Fancies.
383 Fifine at the Fair
384 Filippo Baldinucci
371 Fireside, By the
•
•
370 Flight of the Duchess, The
369 Flower's Name, The
392 Flute-Music, with an
1884
xvi. 19
1876
xiv. 54
1884
xvi. I
1872
xi. 211
1876
xiv. 117
1855 iii. 170
vi. 126
1845 iv. 237
V. 116
1844
iii. 87
vi. 19
•
Accom-
paniment
1890
•
384 Forgiveness, A
1876
xiv. 86
387 Founder of the Feast, The
1884
371 Fra Lippo Lippi
1855
v. 234
iv. 205
400
List of Browning's Works.
Page.
Title.
367 France [Italy and France]
368 France and Spain. See "Con-
fessional" and "Laboratory"
•
367 French Camp, Incident of the
390 Furini (Francis), Parleying with
370 Furnivall, Dr. F. J., his edition
of Browning's essay on Shelley
387 Fuseli, M. Wollstonecraft and
390 Fust and his Friends, Dialogue
between
In 6 vols.
Date. edit. 1868
vol. & page.
1842 iv. 153
1842 iv. 147
1887
In 16 vols.
edit. 1889-90
vol. & page.
V. II
v. 3
xvi. 175
1881
•
1883
xv. 195
•
1887
xvi. 241
366 GARDINER, S. R., and Miss E.
H. Hickey, Edition of Strafford
by
1884
369 Garden Fancies
1844
iii. 87
vi. 19
•
367 Ghent to Aix, How they brought
the good news from .
1845
iii. 80
vi. 9
389 Gibson, J. M., Selection by .
1885
367 Give a Rouse
1842
iii. 75
vi. 5
368 Glove, The
1845
iv. 171
v. 36
376 Gold Hair: a Legend of Pornic. 1864 vi. 62
vii. 69
387 Goldoni, Sonnet on
1883
367 Gondola, In a
1842 iv. 196
v. 66
385 "Good to forgive” (Prol. to La
Saisiaz).
1878
xiv. 155
372 Grammarian's Funeral, A
1855 iv. 270
v. 154
391 Greenaway, Miss Kate, illus-
trated edition of the Pied Piper
[1889]
372 Guardian-Angel, The
1855 iii. 214
vi. 187
385 HALBERT and Hob
1879
xv. 26
383 Herakles.
See
Aristophanes'
Apology
1875
xiii. 147
""
368
Here's to Nelson's Memory
1845 iii. 85
vi. 16
372 Heretic's Tragedy, The
389 Hersey, H. E., and Rolfe, W. J.,
1855 iv. 275
v. 161
Selection by
1886
•
List of Browning's Works.
401
Page.
382 Hervé Riel
366 Hickey, Miss E. H., and Gardiner,
S. R., Edit. of Strafford by
383 Hohenstiel-Schwangau (Prince).
372 Holy-Cross Day.
368 Home-Thoughts, from Abroad
368 Home Thoughts, from the Sea.
Hood's Magazine, contributions to
(The Laboratory).
369
369
369
369
369
370
(Claret, etc.)
•
(Garden Fancies).
(Boy and the Angel).
Title.
In 6 vols.
edit. 1863
vol. & page.
In 16 vols.
edit. 1889-90
vol. & page.
xiv. 77
Date.
1871
•
1884
1871
xi. 123
1855
iv. 280
v. 167
•
1845 iii. 145
vi. 95
1845
iii. 146
vi. 97
•
1844
iii. 95
vi. 30
1844
iii. 85
vi. 16
1844
iii. 87
vi. 19
1844 iv. 158
v. 19
(Tomb at St. Praxed's)
•
•
1845 v. 257
iv. 232
(Flight of the Duchess)
1845 iv. 237
V. 116
384 House .
387 Horace, Paraphrase from.
385 "Hour Will Come, The," trans-
lation in
383 Householder, The (Epil. to Fifine)
372 How it strikes a Contemporary
367 "How they brought the Good
News from Ghent to Aix".
372 Hugues (Master) of Saxe-Gotha.
392 Humility.
385 Hippolytus, Two Stanzas from. 1879
370 Introduction [On Shelley]
1883
1879
1876
xiv. 39
1872
xi. 342
•
1855
v. 209
iv. 176
•
1845
iii. 80
vi. 9
1855 iii. 221
vi. 196
1890
388 Introduction to the
Order".
393 "Imperante Augusto natus est-
372 In a Balcony.
1852
"Divine
1884
1890
•
1855
vi. I
vii. I
1842 iv. 196
v. 66
1855 iii. 205
vi. 175
•
1855 iii. 204
vi. 172
1890
1842 iv. 147
v. 3
367 In a Gondola
372 In a Year .
372 In Three Days
392 Inapprehensiveness.
367 Incident in the French Camp
•
DD
402 List of Browning's Works.
Page.
Title.
383 Inn Album, The
384 Translation of, by Leo.
371 Instans Tyrannus
•
368 Italian in England, The
炸
​In 6 vols.
Date. edit. 1863
1875
1875
vol. & page.
1855 iv. 162
In 16. vols.
edit. 1889-90
vol. & page.
xii. 179
v. 24
1845 iv. 18o
v. 47
367 Italy [Italy and France]
368 Italy in England
385 Ivan Ivanovitch .
387 Ixion
1842 iv. 150
v. 8.
1845 iv. 180
v. 47
1879
xv. 32.
1883
XV. 199
376 JAMES LEE [James Lee's Wife]. 1864
vi. 41
vii. 45
387 Jochanan Hakkadosh
366 Johannes Agricola
386 Jocoseria
•
1883
xv. 209.
1836
v. 229
iv. 199.
1883
xv. 165.
388 Jones's "Divine Order." Intro-
duction to.
1884
371 KARSHISH, the Arab Physician.
1855 v. 218
iv. 186
372 Karshook's (Ben) Wisdom
1856
372 Keepsake, The, contribution to
373
•
1856
1857 vi. 150
vii. 165
367 "Kentish Sir Byng.” [“Marching
along"].
365 King, The (Pippa Passes)
1842
iii. 75
vi. 3
1835
ii. 219
iii. I
366 King Victor and King Charles
•
1842
iii. I
iii. 81
367 "King Charles, and who'll do
him right now?" ["Give a
rouse"].
385 LA SAISIAZ
•
369 Laboratory, The
1842
iii. 75
vi. 5
1878
xiv. 153
1844
iii. 95
vi. 30
1890
•
392 Lady (The) and the Painter
365 "Lady, could'st thou know!
390 Lairesse, Gerard de,("Parleying")
372 Last Ride Together, The.
377 Leighton, A Picture by Fred.
See Orpheus and Eurydice
1834
1887
xvi. 201
1855 iv. 220
v. 96
1864 vi. 153 vii. 179
List of Browning's Works.
403
Title.
Date.
In 6 vols.
edit. 1868
vol. & page.
In 16 vols.
edit. 1889-90
vol. & page.
Page.
384 Leo, E., translation of the Inn
Album
372 Life in a Love
371 Light Woman, A
377 Likeness, A
368 Lost Leader, The
•
1877
1855 iii. 203
1855 iv. 217
1864 vi. 15I
1845 iii. 78
vi. 171
v. 92
vii. 178
vi. 7
vi. 43
368 Lost Mistress, The .
372 Love, Another Way of
368 Love and Fame.
Immortalities.
1845 iii. 104
1855 iii. 195
vi. 161
See Earth's
1845
iii. 105
vi. 45
371 Love among the Ruins
1855 iii. 112
vi. 54
371 Love in a Life
1855 iii. 202
vi. 170
372 Love, One Way of.
1855 iii. 194
vi. 159
371 Lovers' Quarrel, A
1855 iii. 115
vi. 58
369 Luria
1846
v. 43
vi. 209
384 Magical Nature
•
ing with
367 Marching Along
385 Martin Relph
387 Mason, E. T., Selection by
•
389 MACBETH'S etchings, Pied Piper 1884
367 Madhouse Cells.
389 Mandeville, Bernard de, Parley-
1842
v. 229
1876
iv. 199
xiv. 60
1887
xvi. 117
1842
iii. 75
vi. 3
1879
xv. 3
1883
•
372 Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha
373 May and Death.
368 Meeting at Night
388 Melon-Seller, The
372 Memorabilia .
371 Men and Women
384 "Mermaid,” At the
371 Mesmerism
388 Mihrab Shah
372 Misconceptions
•
368 Morning [Night and Morning]. 1845 iii. 107
•
1855 iii. 221
vi. 196
1857 vi. 150
vii. 165
1845 iii. 106
vi. 46
1884
xvi. 9
•
1855 iii. 217
vi. 190
1855
v. 205
iv. 171
1876
xiv. 31
·
1855 iv. 165
v. 28
1884
xvi. 32
1855 iii. 191
vi. 154
vi. 46
404 List of Browning's Works.
Page.
Title.
365
391 Moscheles, F., Lines on a Picture
by
377 Mr. Sludge, the "Medium".
365 Monthly Repository, Poem in
See "A King lived long
ago" (in Pippa Passes).
Date.
In 6 vols.
edit. 1868
vol. & page.
In 16 vols.
edit. 1889-90
vol. & page.
•
1889
1864 vi. 162
vii. 182
•
1834
1835
ii. 219
iii. I
365
66
Porphyria "
1836 iv. 299
366
"Johannes Agricola
1836
v. 229
v. 191
iv. 199
366
"Still ailing, wind?
""
See
James Lee.
1836
vi. 41
vii. 45
392 Muckle-mouth Meg
1890
386 Muléykeh.
1880
XV. 108
367 My Last Duchess
1842 iv. 150
v. 8
371 My Star
1855 iii. 170
vi. 125
367 "My Wife Gertrude " (afterwards
Boot and Saddle).
1842
iii. 75
vi. 6
388 NAMES, The (Sonnet).
1884
368 Nationality in Drinks
1844
iii. 85
vi. 16
377 Natural Theology (Caliban upon
384 Natural Magic
Setebos).
368 "Nay, but you who do not love
her "
385 Ned Bratts
368
"Nelson's Memory, Here's to
387 Never the Time and the Place
368 Night [Night and Morning]
368 "Nobly Cape St. Vincent
392 Now
1876
xiv. 58
•
1864 vi. 136
xiv. 58
•
1845 iii. 107
vi. 47
1879
xv. 60
""
1845
iii. 85
vi. 16
•
1883
xv. 256
•
•
1845 iii. 106
vi. 46
1845 iii. 145
vi. 97
1890
384 Numpholeptos
1876
xiv. 63
385 "OH Love, Love"
1879
368
388 "Oh, Love-no, Love!"
"Oh to be in England
1884
xvi. 90
1845 iii. 145
vi. 95
372 Old Pictures in Florence
1855 iii. 131
vi. 77
List of Browning's Works.
405
Page.
Title.
372 One Way of Love
Date.
In 6 vols.
edit. 1868
vol. & page.
In 16 vols.
edit. 1829-90
vol. & page.
vi. 159
•
1855 iii. 194
372 One Word more.
1855
v. 313
iv. 296
377 Orpheus and Eurydice
1864
vi. 153
vii. 170
384 "O the old wall here"
•
1876
xiv. 3
384 PACCHIAROTTO
1876
387 Pambo
1883
xiv. I
xv. 258
386 Pan and Luna
1880
xv. 159
365 Paracelsus
1835 i. 43
ii. I
of Importance
389 Parleyings with Certain People
368 Parting at Morning
1887
xvi. 93
1845 iii. 107
vi. 46
372 Patriot, The .
1855 iv. 149
v. 6
365 Pauline
1833
i. I
i. I
392 Pearl (A), a Girl
1890
385 Pheidippides.
1879
XV. 17
367 Pictor Ignotus
1845 v. 231
iv. 222
367 Pied Piper of Hamelin
1842 iv. 225
V. 102
389
(separate reprint)
1884
391
(with illustrations)
1889
386 Pietro of Abano .
1880
XV. 117
388 Pillar (A) at Sebzevah.
1884
xvi. 62
389 Pinwell and Macbeth's illustra-
tions to Pied Piper
188,4
366 Pippa Passes.
1841
ii. 219
384 Pisgah-Sights, I. and II..
1876
iii. I
xiv. 49
388 Plot-Culture .
1884
xvi. 58
Poems and Poetical Works. See
under "Works," also " Selec-
tions"
392 Poetics.
1890
384 "Poets, (The), pour us wine
•
1876
xiv. 141
Gibson)
389 Pomegranates (Selections
392 Ponte dell' Angelo, Venice
372 Popularity
by
1885
1890
1855 iii. 218 vi. 192
406
List of Browning's Works.
Page.
392 Pope (The) and the Net . .
376 Pornic. Gold Hair, a Legend of
365 Porphyria ["Porphyria's Lover"]
371 Pretty Woman, A.
383 Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau
388 "Pray, Reader, have you eaten
ortolans?" (Prologue)
Title.
Date.
In 6 vols.
edit. 1868
vol. & page.
In 16 vols.
edit. 1889-90
vol. & page.
•
1890
1864
vi. 62
vii. 69
1836
iv. 299
v. 191
1855
iii. 197
vi. 163
•
1871
xi. 123
•
•
1884
xvi. 3
383 Prologue (Fifine at the Fair)
•
1872
xi. 115
384
(Pacchiarotto)
1876
xiv. 3
385
(La Saisiaz)
1878
xiv. 155
.385
(Two Poets)
1878
xiv. 207
386
(Dramatic Idyls II.).
1880
xv. 83
386
(Jocoseria).
1883
XV. 167
388
(Ferishtah's Fancies).
1884
xvi. 3
389
(Parleyings, etc.).
•
1887
xvi. 97
392
(Asolando).
1890
377 Prospice
1864 vi. 152
vii. 168
372 Protus.
1855
iv. 286
v. 175
367 QUEEN Worship [Rudel, etc.] . 1842
377 RABBI BEN-EZRA
v. 311
iv. 294
1864
vi. 99
vii. 109
383 Red Cotton Night-Cap Country.
1873
xii. I
393 Rephan
1890
•
371 Respectability
1855 iii. 201
vi. 168
367 Return of the Druses, The
1843 iii. 229
iii. 167
393 Reverie
1890
382 Ring and the Book, The .
389 Rolfe, W. J., and Hersey, H.E.,
Selections by
392 Rosny.
367 Rudel and the Lady of Tripoli. 1842
•
1868-9
viii. ix. x.
1886
1890.
v. 311
iv. 294
384 ST. MARTIN'S Summer
•
1876
xiv. 71
369 St. Praxed's, The Tomb at
•
1845
v. 257
iv. 232
368 "St. Vincent, Nobly Cape"
1845
iii. 145
vi. 97
List of Browning's Works.
407
Page.
385 Saisiaz, La
Title.
In 6 vols.
edit. 1268
vol. & page.
In 16 vols.
edit. 1889-90
vol. & page.
xiv. 153
Date.
1878
368 Saul, Part I.
•
1845 iii. 146
vi. y8
372
Part II.
1855 iii. 146
vi. 98
376 Selections from
Browning's
Works.
•
1863
377
(Moxon's)
1865
383
383
(Tauchnitz, Leipzig)
[First Series]
1872
•
1872 and 1884
384
•
(Boston, U.S.)
1877 -
386
Second Series
1880 and 1884
386
by F. H. Ahn
1882
387
by E. T. Mason
1883
387
by R. G. White
•
1883
389
by J. M. Gibson .
1885
389
393
371 Serenade (A) at the Villa.
by Rolfe and Hersey
Pocket Volume
1886
1890
1855 iii. 191 vi. 155
388 Shah Abbas
•
1884
xvi. 12
388 Shakespeare, Sonnet on
1884
370 Shelley, Essay on
1852
384 Shop
1876
xiv. 42
369 Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis
1844
iii. 87
vi. 19
377 Sludge, Mr., the "Medium"
1864 vi. 162
vii. 182
390 Smart, Christopher, Parleying
with.
1887
387 Solomon and Balkis
1883
xvi. 148
XV. IS2
367 Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 1842
iii. 92
368 Song, "Nay but," etc.
1845. iii. 107
vi. 26
vi. 47
365 Sonnet ("Eyes calm besides
thee")
1834
366 Sordello
1840
ii. I
i. 47
369 Soul's Tragedy, A
1846
V. I
iii. 257
392 Speculative
1890
389 Spring Song
1886
xvi. 219
371 Statue and the Bust, The .
1855
iv. 288
v. 178
366 "Still ailing, wind?" (James Lee) 1836
vi. 41
vii. 45
408
List of Browning's Works.
Page.
Title
Date.
366 Strafford
1837
In 6 vols.
edit. 1868
vol. & page.
i. 207
In 16 vols.
edit. 1889-90
vol. & page.
ii. 187
385 "Such a starved bank of moss
[Proem to Two Poets of Croisic]
1878
xiv. 207
392 Summum Bonum
1890
388 Sun, The.
•
1884
xvi. 24
392 "THE Poet's age is sad "
1890
367 Through the Metidja to
el-Kadr.
Abd-
1842
iii. 83
vi. 13
368 Time's Revenges
1845 iv. 178
v. 44
385 Two Poets of Croisic
371 Toccata (A) of Galuppi's.
369 Tokay, Claret and .
369 Tomb (The) at Saint Praxed's
377 Too Late .
•
386 "Touch him ne'er so lightly"
372 "Transcendentalism"
385 Tray
371 Twins, The
388 Two Camels.
•
372 Two in the Campagna
370 Two Poems. See "The Twins
371 UP at a Villa-Down in the City 1855 iii. 122
1855 iii. 127
vi. 72
1844
iii. 85
vi. 16
•
1845
v. 257
iv. 232
1864
vi. 85
vii. 94
1880
xv. 164
•
1855
v. 207
iv. 173
1879
xv. 57
•
1854 iv. 216
v. 90
1884
xvi. 47
•
1855 iii. 188
vi. 150
""
1878
xiv. 209
•
vi. 66
384 WALL, A. (Prologue)
•
387 Wanting is-What?
367 Waring
1876
xiv. 3
1883
xv. 167
1842 iv. 206
v. 78
385 "What a pretty tale you told me"
[Epil. to Two Poets of Croisic]
1878
xiv. 273
392 Which?
1890
387 White, R. G., Selections by .
1883
392 White Witchcraft
1890
389 Why I am a Liberal
•
1885
391
"Wind wafted from the sunset
365 Wise, T. J., edition of Pauline
1889
1886
List of Browning's Works.
409
Page.
Title
In 6 vols.
Date. edit. 1868
vol. & page.
In 16 vols.
edit. 1889-90
vol. & page.
371 Woman, A Pretty
•
1855
iii. 197
vi. 163
371 Woman's Last Word, A
1855
iii. 108
vi. 48
372 Women and Roses.
1855
iii. 209
vi. 180
387 Wollstonecraft (Mary) and Fuseli
378 Woolner, A Group by. See Deaf
1883
xv. 195
and Dumb.
1868 vi. 220
vii. 250
370 Works
(Collective Editions),
2 vols.
1849
373
3 vols.
1863
377
3 vols.
1864
378
6 vols.
1868
·
383
(Chicago)
•
1872-74
390
16 vols.
1888-89
See also Selections.
376 Worst of It, The
• 1864
vi. 70
vi. 78
386
You are sick" (Prologue). . 1880
377 Youth and Art
1864 vi. 154
xv. 83
vii. 171
"Z," Poems so signed.
See
"Monthly Repository."
༣

INDEX TO FIRST LINES OF SHORTER
POEMS.
NEW UNIFORM EDITION.
CERTAIN neighbour lying sick to death
A Rabbi told me: On the day allowed
Ah, but how each loved each, Marquis!.
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain
Ah, Love, but a day
All I believed is true!
•
All I can say is—I saw it!
All June I bound the rose in sheaves.
All's over, then: does truth sound bitter.
All that I know.
xvi. 19
•
xv. 146
XV. 188
vi. 190
vii. 45
v. 28
xiv. 58
vi. 159
vi. 43
vi. 125
Among these latter busts we count by scores
And so you found that poor room dull
"And what might that bold man's announcement be
Anyhow, once full Dervish, youngsters came
As I ride, as I ride.
"As like as a Hand to another Hand!"
‘Ay, but; Ferishtah,”—a disciple smirked
BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!
•
•
Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!
But do not let us quarrel any more
But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!
CHRIST God who savest man, save most
Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles) .
Could I but live again.
•
v. 175
xiv. 70
>>
xvi. 24
xvi. 12
vi. 13
vii. 62
xvi. 58
vi. 51
vi. 6
iv. 221
vii. 170
V. II
iv. 279
xiv. 51
412
Index to First Lines
DEAR and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave
Dear, had the world in its caprice.
Dervish-(though yet un-dervished, call him so
ESCAPE me?.
FEAR death?-to feel the fog in my throat
Fee, faw, fum! bubble and squeak!
•
First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock!!
Flower-I never fancied, jewel-I profess you!
Fortù, Fortù, my beloved one
•
GOING his rounds one day in Ispahan
Grand rough old Martin Luther
Grow old along with me!
Gr-r-r-there go, my heart's abhorrence!
•
HAD I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare
Hamelin Town 's in Brunswick.
"Heigho!" yawned one day King Francis .
Here is a story shall stir you! Stand up, Greeks dead
and gone.
Here is a thing that happened. Like wild beasts whelped,
vi. 187
vi. 168
xvi. 6
vi. 171
vii. 168
v. 167.
XV. 17
•
xiv. 60
v. 54
xvi. 9
v. 90
vii. 109
vi. 26
vi. 66
V. 102
v. 36
xv. 85
for den
XV. 26
Here's my case.
Of old I used to love him.
xiv. 54
Here's the garden she walked across
vi. 19
Here was I with my arm and heart
vii. 94
High in the dome, suspended, of Hell, sad triumph, be-
hold us! .
XV. 199
Hist, but a word, fair and soft!
vi. 196
How of his fate, the Pilgrims' soldier-guide
xvi. 40
•
How very hard it is to be
v. 264
How well I know what I mean to do.
vi. 126
I AND Clive were friends-and why not? Friends! I
think you laugh, my lad
I am a goddess of the ambrosial courts
·
I am indeed the personage you know
I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!.
xv. 88
iv. 181
xiv. 86
iv. 205
of Shorter Poems.
413
I could have painted pictures like that youth's
I dream of a red-rose tree
I know a Mount, the gracious Sun perceives
I leaned on the turf
I-"Next Poet?" No, my hearties
I only knew one poet in my life
I said-Then, dearest, since 't is so
I send my heart up to thee, all my heart.
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he
I've a Friend, over the sea
I will be quiet and talk with you
iv. 202
vi. 180
iv. 294
vii. 54
xiv. 31
iv. 176
v. 96
v. 66
vi. 9
v. 44
vii. 51
vii. 165
I wish that when you died last May
I wonder do you feel to-day.
vi. 150
If a stranger passed the tent of Hóseyn, he cried
A
churl's!".
XV. 108
vii. 176
KARSHISH, the picker up of learning's crumbs
If one could have that little head of hers.
Is all our fire of shipwreck wood
It is a lie their Priests, their Pope
It once might have been, once only
It was roses, roses, all the way
JUNE was not over
•
Just for a handful of silver he left us
Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King
King Charles, and who'll do him right now?
"Knowledged deposed, then!"-groaned whom that
most grieved
vii. 47
vi. 34
vii. 171
v. 6
vi. 161
vi. 7
iv. 186
•
vi. 3
vi. 5
xvi. 62
Let us begin and carry up this corpse
LET them fight it out, friend! things have gone too far
Let's contend no more, Love
vi. 183
vi. 48
v. 154
xvi. 69
"Look, I strew beans "
MAY I print, Shelley, how it came to pass
Morning, evening, noon and night.
xiv. 104
Moses the Meek was thirty cubits high
My first thought was, he lied in every word.
v. 19
xv. 254
v. 194
414
Index to First Lines
My grandfather says he remembers he
saw,
when a
youngster long ago
My heart sank with our claret-flask
xv. 3
vi. 16
My love, this is the bitterest, that thou
vi. 142
NAY but you, who do not love her.
vi. 47
vi. 175
Never any more.
Never the time and the place
xv. 256
Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died
vi. 97
away
•
"No boy, we must not -so began
xiv. 117
•
No, for I'll save it! Seven years since
vii. 246
No more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk
No protesting, dearest !
•
Now, don't, sir! Don't expose me! Just this once!
Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly.
O THE old wall here! How I could pass
O worthy of belief I hold it was
Of the million or two, more or less
Oh but is it not hard, Dear?
iv. 238
xiv. 71
vii. 182
vi. 30
xiv. 3
xv. 159
v. 24
xv. 195
Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth.
vi. 72
•
vii. 61
Oh, Love-no, Love! All the noise below, Love
Oh, the beautiful girl, too white
Oh, to be in England
xvi. 90
vii. 69
vi. 95
vi. 58
Oh, what a dawn of day!
On the first of the Feast of Feasts
vii. 250
•
On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety two
xiv. 77
XV. 197
One day it thundered and lightened
Only the prism's obstruction shows aright
vii. 167
v. 209
Out of the little chapel I burst
Over the ball of it
•
•
PETRUS Aponensis-there was a magician!
Plague take all your pedants, say I !
Pray, Reader, have you eaten ortolans
•
•
xiv. 49
XV. 117
vi. 22
xvi. 3
of Shorter Poems.
415
xiv. 5
QUERY: was ever a quainter
•
Quoth an inquirer, "Praise the Merciful!'
xvi. 32
Quoth one: "Sir, solve a scruple! No true sage.
xvi. 47
vi. 170
ROOM after room
Round the cape of a sudden came the sea
vi. 46
SAID Abner, "At last that art come!
Ere I tell, ere
vi. 98
thou speak
•
See, as the prettiest graves will do in time
Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?
She should never have looked at me
Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst
So far as our story approaches the end
•
vi. 45
xiv. 39
vi. 39
xv. 57
v. 92
So, friend, your shop was all your house!
xiv. 42
vi. 172
So, I shall see her in three days
Solomon King of the Jews and the Queen of Sheba Balkis
xv. 182
vii. 178
Some people hang portraits up
vi. 192
Stand still, true poet that you are!.
vii. 56
•
xiv. 63
•
Still ailing, Wind? Wilt be appeased or no?
Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile!.
Stop, let me have the truth of that!
Stop playing, poet! May a brother speak?
Suppose that we part (work done, comes play)
[Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene .
TAKE the cloak from his face, and at first
That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers
•
That second time they hunted me
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall
That was I, you heard last night
The grey sea and the long black land
The Lord, we look to once for all.
The morn when first it thunders in March
"The poets pour us wine-'
>>
The rain set early in to-night
The swallow has set her six young on the rail
There is nothing to remember in me
•
vii. 85
iv. 173
xv. 258
·
vii. 120
vi. 186
vi. 163
v. 47
v. 8
vi. 155
vi. 46
v. 161
vi. 77
xiv. 141
v. 191
vii. 4
vii.
t
416 Index to First Lines of Shorter Poems.
There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well
There's heaven above, and night by night
•
v. 178
iv. 199
There they are, my fifty men and women
iv. 296
"They tell me, your carpenters," quoth I to my friend
the Russ.
xv. 32
This is a spray the Bird clung to
vi. 154
This now, this other story makes amends
xv. 209
Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke.
xv. 164
'T was Bedford Special Assize, one Daft Midsummer's Day
xv. 60
VANITY, saith the preacher, vanity!
. iv. 232
•
WANTING is-what? . .
We were two lovers; let me lie by her
xv. 167
xiv. 61
What's become of Waring
What, I disturb thee at thy morning-meal
What is he buzzing in my ears?.
Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles
'Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best
Will you hear my story also .
Would it were I had been false, not you!
Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build
"You are sick, that's sure "-they say
You know, we French stormed Ratisbon
Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees
You're my friend
vii. 149
xv. 169
vii. 78
vii. IOI
xv. 83
v. 3
vi. 92
v. 116
xvi. 53
vii. 162
v. 78
vi. 54


INDEX.
BT VOGLER, 244.
Adam, Lilith and
Eve, 325.
After, 294-5.
Andrea del Sarto, 249.
Another Way of Love, 284.
Any Wife to Any Husband,
227.
Apparent Failure, 307.
Appearances, 298.
Aristophanes' Apology; or, the
Last Adventure of Balaustion,
with the "Herakles," 123-27.
Artemis Prologizes, 119.
At the "Mermaid," 213.
Balaustion's Adventure, with the
"Alkestis," 123.
Before, 294.
Bifurcation, 217.
Bishop
Blougram's Apology,
172.
Bishop orders his Tomb at Saint
Praxed's Church, The, 246.
Blot in the 'Scutcheon, A, 62.
Boy and the Angel, The, 301.
By the Fireside, 226.
Caliban upon Setebos;
or,
Natural Theology in the
Island, 195.,
Cavalier Tunes, 299.
Cenciaja, 269.
"Childe Roland to the Dark
Tower Came, 273.
Christmas Eve and Easter-Day,
179.
Cleon, 193.
Clive, 316.
E E
Colombe's Birthday, 65.
Confessional, The, 252.
Confessions, 297.
Count Gismond, 300.
Cristina, 225.
Cristina and Monaldeschi, 324.
Deaf and Dumb: a group by
Woolner, 204.
Death in the Desert, A, 198.
"De Gustibus
" 286.
T
[
418
Index.
Dîs aliter Visum; or, Le Byron
de Nos Jours, 217.
Doctor —, 320.
Donald, 322.
Earth's Immortalities, 293.
Echetlos, 315.
Englishman in Italy, The, 287.
Epilogue to "Dramatic Idyls,"
2nd series, 315.
Epilogue to
Dramatis Per-
sonæ," 240.
Epilogue to "Pacchiarotto and
other Poems," 213, 215.
Epilogue to "The Two Poets
of Croisic" (a tale), 222.
Epistle, An, 194.
Eurydice to Orpheus: a picture
by Leighton, 248.
Evelyn Hope, 225.
Face, A, 247.
Fears and Scruples, 241.
Ferishtah's Fancies, 331.
Fifine at the Fair, 150.
Filippo Baldinucci on the Privi-
lege of Burial, 281.
Flight of the Duchess, The, 274.
Flower's Name, The, (Garden
Fancies, I.), 293.
Forgiveness, A, 252.
Fra Lippo Lippi, 242.
Glove, The, 301.
Gold Hair: a Story of Pornic,
303.
✓ Grammarian's Funeral, A, 296.
Guardian-Angel, The: a picture
at Fano, 248
Halbert and Hob, 310.
Heretic's Tragedy, The;
Middle-Age Interlude, 270.
Hervé Riel, 303.
Holy-Cross Day, 277.
a
Home-Thoughts, from Abroad,
286.
Home-Thoughts, from the Sea,
293.
House, 216.
How it strikes a Contemporary,
212.
"How They Brought the Good
News from Ghent to Aix, "300.
In a Balcony, 73.
In a Gondola, 230.
Incident of the French Camp,
300.
Inn Album, The, 262.
Instans Tyrannus, 304.
In Three Days, 230.
Introduction to "The Two Poets
of Croisic" (Apparitions), 222.
Italian in England, The, 305.
Ivàn Ivànovitch, 311.
Ixion, 325.
James Lee's Wife, 232.
Jochanan Hakkadosh, 326.
Johannes Agricola in Meditation,
296.
King Victor and King Charles,
58.
Index.
419
Laboratory, The, 250.
La Saisiaz, 188.
Last Ride Together, The, 295.
Life in a Love, 228.
Light Woman, A, 216.
Old Pictures in Florence, 208.
One Word More. To E. B. B.,
219.
Likeness, A, 298.
Lost Leader, The, 292.
Lost Mistress, The, 229.
Love among the Ruins, 225.
Love in a Life, 228.
Love, one Way of, 229.
Lover's Quarrel, A, 226.
Luria, 70.
+
Magical Nature, 222.
Martin Relph, 309.
Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli,
325.
Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha,
210.
May and Death, 297.
Meeting at Night, 304.
Memorabilia, 295.
Mesmerism, 305.
Misconceptions, 293.
Mr. Sludge, "The Medium,"
175.
Muléykeh, 317.
My Last Duchess, 250.
My Star, 293.
Nationality in Drinks, 292.
Natural Magic, 222.
Ned Bratts, 313.
Never theme and the Place,
ვვი.
Numpholeptos, 221.
Pacchiarotto, and How He
Worked in Distemper, 279.
Pambo, 330.
Pan and Luna, 321.
Paracelsus, 22.
Parleyings with Certain People of
importance in their Day, 339.
Parting at Morning, 304.
Patriot, The; an Old Story, 304.
Pauline, 18.
Pheidippides, 310.
Pictor Ignotus, 245.
Pied Piper of Hamelin, The ; a
Child's Story, 302.
Pietro of Abano, 318.
Pippa Passes, 55.
Pisgah-Sights, I., 218.
Pisgah-Sights, II., 218.
Popularity, 212.
Porphyria's Lover, 231.
Pretty Woman, A, 293.
Prince Hohenstiel - Schwangau,
Saviour of Society, 161.
Prologue to "Dramatic Idyls,"
2nd series, 315.
Prologue to "Pacchiarotto and
other Poems," 222.
Prologue to "La Saisiaz" (Pis-
gah-Sights, III.), 299.
Prospice, 221.
Protus, 306.

Rabbi Ben Ezra, 203.
420
Index.
Red Cotton Night-Cap Country;
or, Turf and Towers, 255.
Respectability, 216.
Return of the Druses, The, 60.
Ring and the Book, The, 75.
Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli,
· 230.
Saul, 238.
Serenade at the Villa, A, 229.
Shop, 216.
Sibrandus Schafnaburgens's
(Garden Fancies, II.), 284.
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,
251.
Solomon and Balkis, 323.
Song, 300.
Sordello, 28.
Soul's Tragedy, A, 68.
Statue and the Bust, The, 205.
St. Martin's Summer, 299.
Strafford, 53.
Through the Metidja to Abd-el-
Kadr, 304.
Time's Revenges, 305.
Toccata of Galuppi's, A, 247.
Too Late, 236.
"Transcendentalism: a Poem
in Twelve Books," 212.
Transcripts from the Greek,
118.
Tray, 313.
Twins, The, 302.
Two in the Campagna, 228.
Two Poets of Croisic, The, 266.
Up at a Villa--Down' in the
City, 283.
Wanting is-what? 322.
Waring, 307.
Woman's Last Word, A, 229.
Women and Roses, 294.
Worst of it, The, 236.
Year, In a, 294.
Youth and Art, 298.
CHISWICK PRESS:-C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT,
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