could arouse even the phantom of a desire. Then negative objective desolation, so to say; dreariness around in landscape, starved foliage, and on up to the loathsome horse. Then subjective misery; a failure of the very memories which in sheer desperation the hero calls up to strengthen him in an hour whose awful numbness stupefies him. Then, when once more relief is sought outside, impressions that are positively disheartening; a suggestion of conflict that brings an overwhelming impression that all the powers of evil actively pervade this place; thenthe Round Tower!

"What does it matter what the tower signifies-whether it be this, that, or the other? If the poem means anything, it means, I am sure, everything in this line. The essential thing is that, after a lifetime pledged to this-whatever the ideal be-the opportunity has come after a cumulative series of disheartenments, and more than all amid an overwhelming sense that failure must be certain where so many have failed; where nature and unseen foes and the ghosts of all his baffled comrades stand watching for his destruction, where defeat is certain and its ignominy already cried aloud by the winds of heaven. And the sublime climax comes in the constancy of the hero:

The nominal issue of the conflict is no matter, because the real issue is here; with the universe against him, with the realization of all this, dauntless he gives his challenge!

"The whole poem is a series of cumulative effects, of which the end is a fitting climax. One cannot read it without a tingling in every fibre of his being, and a stinging doubt whether in such a case he might not have been found wanting. I cannot conceive of anything more complete, more noble, more inspiring. Heaven forbid that any one should so mistake what I have written as to suppose I think I have explained' Childe Roland. I have already said that I believe the meaning of the poem could be put in no other words than those of Mr. Browning; and what I have said does not even attempt to convey a hundredth part of what that glorious poem means to me. Mr. Browning himself very likely would smile at what I have written; but I hope the smile might have in it more of tolerance than of anger."

Richard Grant White, in his Introduction to Selections from Robert Browning's Poems, has a passage which may throw additional light on this poem, if any is needed.

THE BOY AND THE ANGEL.

The Boy and the Angel was published in Hood's Magazine, August, 1844. Six poems by Browning were printed in this magazine between June, 1844, and April, 1845. At that time he was not in the habit of

contributing to magazines, but yielded to an appeal to help poor Hood, who was dying by inches during these months.

The Boy and the Angel was reprinted in the seventh number of Bells and Pomegranates in November, 1845. It has especial interest for the student, because many changes were made in this later edition. One additional couplet, also, was introduced in the collected edition issued by Mr. Browning in 1863.

13. As well as if. The 1st ed. omits As well.

23. God said in heaven. The 1st ed. has "In heaven, God said."

27. Entered in flesh. The 1st ed. omits in flesh.

28. Lived there. The 1st ed. omits these two words.

29. And morning, evening, noon, and night. The 1st ed. has "And

morn, noon, eve, and night."

35. And ever. The 1st ed. has "Yet ever," and omits on earth in the next line.

This couplet was inserted in 1863.
The 1st ed. omits disguise.

37, 38. He did, etc. 46. The flesh disguise. 48. Saint Peter's dome. 51. Dight. Decked. liveries dight."

55, 56. Since when, etc.

1845.

The 1st ed. has "the dome."

Cf. Milton, L'All. 62: "The clouds in thousand

This couplet and the next were inserted in

59. And rising. The 1st ed. has “How rising,” thus connecting the couplet with 54.

62. And on his sight, etc. The 1st ed. has "And in the Angel burned." 63. I bore thee, etc. This couplet was inserted in 1845.

66. Vain was thy dream, etc. The 1st ed. has "Vainly hast thou lived many a year."

67. Thy voice's praise, etc. This couplet was inserted in 1845.

71, 72. With that weak voice, etc.

This couplet was inserted in 1845. 73-76. Back to the cell, etc. As recast in 1845, except that Resume has since been put for "Become." The reading of the 1st ed. was :

"Be again the boy all curled;

I will finish with the world.'

Theocrite grew old at home,
Gabriel dwelt in Peter's dome."

TWO CAMELS.

Ferishtah's Fancies was published in 1884. The idea of it grew out of a fable by Pilpay, which Browning read when a child. He put this into verse, and then added other episodes to it until now the poem consists of twelve Fancies and as many lyric Interludes. Ferishtah is a Persian dervish whose wisdom brings to him many inquirers after truth. He replies to each by a parable or Fancy." Two Camels, which we quote, is the eighth in the series.

66

There is much of Browning's peculiar mingling of humor and seri

ousness in all these poems. He is so especially anxious that we should not miss this flavor that he prints opposite the title-page the following passages:

"His genius was jocular, but, when disposed, he could be very serious."-Article "Shakespear," JEREMY COLLIER'S Historical, &c., Dictionary, 2d edition, 1701.

"You, Sir, I entertain you for one of my Hundred; only, I do not like the fashion of your garments: you will say, they are Persian; but let them be changed."-King Lear, Act III. sc. 6.

II. Well-saffroned. Saffron is an Arab word (zafaran), and very small quantities of the herb are used in Persia as a spice. It has a strong, pungent taste.

27. Nishapur to Sebzevah. Nishapur, or Nishapoor, is a city in the northeastern part of Persia, in the province of Khorassan. It has a special trade in turquoises, obtained from mines to the northwest. Sebzevah (more commonly Sabzawar, or Subzawar) is a fortified town, sixty-five miles west of Nishapur. It has a good bazaar. It must not be confounded with Subzawur in Afghanistan, about a hundred miles south of Herat. 35. Purslane. A common plant with thick, succulent leaves. Lupines. A large genus of the bean family. They are more used in

Eastern countries than here as food for cattle.

38. Doit.

A small Dutch coin, worth about a quarter of a cent. Cf. Temp. ii. 2. 33: "When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian."

41. Quoth that. That is, the other camel. 43. Simooms.

Arabian deserts.

The hot winds so common and so destructive in the

46. Chervil. Literally "pleasant leaf;" another succulent plant. 50. Heartened. Encouraged. Cf. 3 Henry VI. ii. 2, 79 : “And hearten those that fight in your defence."

57. A brand. A somewhat doubtful reward!

58. Good-and-faithful-servant. See Matt. xxv. 14 and Luke, xix. 12. 64. Lilith. It was a belief of the Talmudists that Adam had a wife, Lilith, before he married Eve, and that the children of this first marriage were devils. In the demonology of the Middle Ages, Lilith is a popular witch. She appears in Goethe's Faust. Finally the name has become a generic one for any beautiful and beguiling woman. Browning has a poem in Dramatic Idylls (second series) called Adam, Lilith, and Eve. It is, however, a modernized version of the situation in Eden.

89. Browning introduces several Hebrew lines in the Fancies. The transliteration and translation of this one are as follows:

Hähinnam for naught

vāré doth fear

This passage is the last clause of Job, i. 9.

Iyod
Job

Elōhim.
God.

90. In Persian phrase. It is a Persian who is speaking; but there may be more in the expression than this. "The real learning of this pas

YOUTH AND ART.

173

sage," says a clergyman deeply read in Jewish antiquity, "is not in its use of the Hebrew phrase, which is, indeed, a superficial pedantry, but in the natural, seemingly careless choice of the adjective Persian. That shows that Mr. Browning must be perfectly familiar with the immense literature of the controversy regarding the date and origin of the Book of Job. He might have said Hebrew phrase,' or 'Scripture phrase.' Either would have passed without challenge even from scholars. But he has reached the conclusion of the most skilful modern commentators that the Book of Job is a product of Persian civilization, and of much later date than has usually been supposed."

95. The Hebrew word in this line bears excellent evidence of being a misprint for the first word of the preceding Hebrew quotation, with the addition of the prefix "min" or "from." No vowels are represented in the printing of Hebrew words, and the omission of a dot like that in the first word of 89 makes a serious difficulty in the interpretation of a word. But the sense here is doubtless "A proper speech were this from God;" that is, from the Creator to the creature. For the ironical use of proper, cf. Shakespeare, Much Ado, iv. 1. 312: "A proper saying!" Macbeth, iv. 4. 60: "O proper stuff!" etc.

104. At man's indifference. God is more likely to be displeased at man's indifference to the beauties of the universe than at his absorption in them.

YOUTH AND ART.

The poem was published in Dramatis Persona in 1864. It is an excellent miniature illustration of Mr. Browning's deepest human feeling,—the desire that each soul should work out its own individuality, and so its own salvation, by every means in its power. The man who is the creature of circumstance, of conventionality, who hesitates and trembles before his own impulses, is a contemptible creature in the eyes of the poet. The Statue and the Bust is a larger development of the same theme. To see a great, noble emotion within reach, and to sit in the arm-chair of conventionality while it passes by, is a crime whose punishment will be eternal.

"So! while these wait the trump of doom
How do their spirits pass, I wonder,
Nights and days in the narrow room?

"Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder
What a gift life was, ages ago,
Six steps out of the chapel yonder.

"Surely they see not God, I know,
Nor all that chivalry of His,

The soldier-saints who, row on row,

"Burn upward each to his point of bliss

Since, the end of life being manifest,

He had cut his way thro' the world to this."*

*The Statue and the Bust (in Men and Women, p. 121).

8. Gibson, John (1791-1866). A pupil of Canova and Thorwaldsen. His most famous sculpture is The Wounded Amazon.

12. Grisi, Giulia (1810-1869). An Italian singer, the most famous of her time.

58. Bals-parés. Dress balls.

60. R.A. Member of the Royal Academy of Art.

SONG

FROM A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON."

A Blot in the 'Scutcheon is the fourth in the series of Dramas, and was published in 1843. This song from it is so unique, not only among Browning's poems, but in the literature of our language, that we extract and insert it here, in violation of our principle that no mutilated poems shall appear in the book.

MAY AND DEATH.

Mrs. Orr says of this poem: "It was a personal utterance, provoked by the death of a relative whom Mr. Browning dearly loved."

It first appeared in The Keepsake for 1857, edited by Miss Power. It was reprinted with some new readings in Dramatis Persona, 1864. 8. Moon-births. The 1st ed. has "Moon's birth."

9-10. So, for their sake, etc. The 1st ed. reads:

etc.

"So, for their sake, prove May till May!

Let their new time, like mine of old," etc.

15. Save a sole streak. The 1st ed. has "Except a streak." 19. But I, etc.

The 1st ed. has "And I,-whene'er the plant is there,"

With My Star we begin a series of five poems addressed at one time and another to Mrs. Browning. The first two were published during her life, the last three after her death. Browning has written many others under the same inspiration. These are selected as the most typical, if not the most beautiful. Curiously enough, two of them have been mistaken by some critics for addresses to Christ. The blunder is not inconceivable in Prospice, but how one could so misinterpret the Invocation, "O lyric Love," is mysterious. However, Browning will wait long to suffer what Shakespeare has suffered at the hands of commentators. My Star was published in Men and Women in 1855.

4. Like the angled spar. Spar is a generic word applied to any mineral which breaks into regular surfaces, and reflects the light, or has, as we say, lustre.