that which coming years may bring, but with an intense enthusiastic enjoyment which they may then vainly long to recall. To such especially I would venture to address a few words on a poet who, though far too little known, will be found worthy, I am bold to think, of no unhonoured place upon their shelves. Robert Browning has shared the fate of many of the deepest and most influential writers, not only in this but in every age. At first he was met only with scorn, or what is far worse to a young and ambitious poet, neglect; but ere long he won the deep attachment of a small band of devoted admirers. Years passed by; one work after another was sent forth to the world, and the number of his readers seemed hardly to increase. Yet the constant unwavering support of a body of disciples which, numerically small, yet comprised many of the first thinkers of our time, could not but make its influence felt. The younger generation heard the name of Browning rarely, but when it fell from the lips that they most reverenced, it was coupled with that of Tennyson and honoured as the name of a second in the poetic race hardly inferior to the laurelled victor. Some moved by curiosity took up his works, and after a hasty glance carelessly threw them down with a sneer at his grotesque and incomprehensible mysticism. Others studied them carefully with that loving faith without which no truth worth knowing, that is not purely physical, may be attained to,* and reaped their rich reward. And thus his influence spread and at last the reaction has come. Fresh editions of his poems have been sent forth; the success of one selection speedily called for the issue of a second; and the Quarterly Reviews, faithful to their custom of acknowledging a reputation when it has been established too firmly to be shaken, and granting their praise when it has almost lost all value, followed in the wake of less authoritative literary censors, and deigned to recognise his poems; the Edinburgh even yet but grudgingly, the Quarterly far more heartily and liberally. Already those who remained faithful to him in the days of his utter neglect, are beginning to rejoice at his admission to his proper rank, and to enter somewhat into the feelings of the young Lakists when their veteran leader received his well-earned honours at Oxford,† or of the Rugby men when Arnold's manly voice * On this there are some wise words in Archbp. Trench's Hulsean Lectures, (last edition) p. 16, and in Kingsley's Miscellanies, 11. 39. † F. W. Robertson's Lectures on Poetry, p. 244. VOL. V. C was first heard from the professor's chair in his own loved University.* Robert Browning was born in London in the year 1812. He received his education principally at University College, London, then known as the London University; and the effect of its wide and varied but seldom thorough and profound curriculum may still be often traced in the style as well as the subject-matter of the poet. Indeed, were this the fit occasion, I think that some suggestive and valuable considerations might be deduced from a comparison of his poems with the productions of the thoroughly Oxford mind of Mr. Matthew Arnold. In 1835, at the age of 23, he published his first poem, Paracelsus, a work of remarkable power and depth of thought for so young a man, of which I shall have to speak more at length presently. In 1837 appeared his first play, Strafford, followed in 1840 by Sordello, a long narrative poem, the scene of which is laid in Italy at the time of the contests between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. After this Mr. Browning turned his attention again to the drama, and produced in successive years the plays of Pippa Passes, King Victor and King Charles, The Return of the Druses, and A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, Colombe's Birthday, Luria and A Soul's Tragedy, a succession only broken at intervals between 1842 and 1846 by the appearance of a few minor poems, quaintly entitled "Bells and Pomegranates." The year 1849 witnessed an event almost if not quite without a parallel in the chronicle of the Muses. In the poem of 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship," Miss Barrett had told how a young poet read to his mistress pages from some of our older poets, "Or at times a modern volume, Wordsworth's solemn-thoughted idyl "Howitt's ballad-verse, or Tennyson's enchanted reverie, "Or from Browning some Pomegranate,' which if cut deep down the middle "Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.” The just and graceful compliment was acknowledged by a note from Mr. Browning; and a personal introduction was the consequence, followed at no distant date by the marriage. *Life by Stanley, II., 249. It was founded under this title in 1828, though it possessed no power of conferring degrees, and surrendered it in 1837 in favour of the present University of London which has that power. Hence arose the common confusion between these perfectly distinct institutions. of one of the first of living poets with the queen of all poetesses that the world has seen since the days of the "pure, sweetly-smiling, violet-wreathed" Sappho. But this union, too soon, alas! to be severed on earth, quickened rather than impaired the poetical activity of both; in 1850 appeared Christmas Eve and Easter Day, and in 1855 a cluster of some of the richest fruits of his genius, entitled "Men and Women." A silence of eight years followed, during which his wife was taken from him, her fragile frame fretted away by the fire of the quick spirit within; and in 1863" Dramatis Persona" was published, showing no failing of his poetic powers, and encouraging us to hope for much more yet, that the world will not willingly let die. In glancing over a list of the titles of Mr. Browning's poems, one of the first things that we notice is his striking preference for obscure and out-of-the-way subjects. With the exceptions of "Strafford" and a "A Blot on the 'Scutcheon," the scenes of all his plays are laid in the less known periods of the history of the Middle Ages. The same is the case in his Lyrics, Romances, and Men and Women; we find sketches dramatic, lyric or narrative in their character of minor Italian poets, princes and painters, of an Arab physician or a Greek littérateur under the early Cæsars, a Mediæval Bishop, a Byzantine Emperor, and others not more generally familiar. Thoroughly versed himself in all sorts of quaint and curious lore, he takes delight in choosing striking scenes and characters from every quarter to place upon his canvass. This is no doubt one great cause of his unpopularity with the shallow and the idle; but to the thoughtful reader, who is willing to follow the poet without fatigue in his extended flight and watch him while he calls up those who lived and thought in times and lands far distant, and makes them breathe and speak and act before us, it is a source of rich and ever fresh delight. If poetry be rightly defined as a representative art, the power of conceiving and painting in words that which is seen only by the mental eye, we may venture to claim a very exalted rank among poets for Robert Browning. The scenes into which he brings us are painted with a master's hand; not a stroke is superfluous; the careless hasty reader will be liable, nay almost certain to pass on with vague and confused ideas; yet not a touch is really lacking to make the central figure stand out clearly and sharply from the boldly sketched background, if the reader will but take the pains to fill up the outlines under the poet's guidance. Take for instance the dramatic romance of "My last Duchess" within the narrow compass of some fifty lines we have a Sforza or an Este actually living before us; we seem to know the man to the very bottom; all his polished dilettanteism and utter heartlessness, his perfect selfishness and finished hypocrisy, his fierce jealousy flashing at intervals through the exquisite courtesy that veils it; all in short that goes to make up that strange historical figure, a Mediæval Italian Duke. Or take again that scene from Saul (surely one of the grandest of lyrics) where David first enters the presence of the king, once winning all hearts by the splendour of his manhood, now sunk in gloomy madness For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days Then once more I prayed, And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid, And then the poct tells, in the same glorious rushing rhythm, how David poured from his harp "first the tune all the sheep know as, one after one, so docile they come to the pen-door," then the "help-tune of the reapers, their wine-song, when hand presses hand, and eye quickens eye in friendship," then "the last song when the dead man is praised on his journey," then a glad marriage chant, and a battle-march, and last "the chorus intoned as the Levites go up to the altar." Still the king stands stern and still; one deep shudder alone telling that his gloomy immoveable despair is not the silence of death. The bright young bard lifts up his voice and sings of the joys that mere life brings, the ecstacy of manly vigour and prowess all bestowed in richest measure on Saul. The spell is broken; the fatal slumber is dispelled, and the sleeper wakes; but wakes to joyless idle listlessness; the sparkling cup that is offered him he puts aside— He saith, "It is good;" still he drinks not; he lets me praise life, Gives assent, yet would die for his own part. The singer essays a loftier strain. The pleasures of life are shared by brutes, but man has a glory especially his own. Let the monarch arise to his work, to rule his nation well in peace and lead them valiantly to battle; so shall he win eternal glory, and unborn generations shall celebrate his fame. The royal heart is touched with somewhat of its ancient fire * # * *he slowly resumed His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand replumed * * * * I looked up to know If the best I could do had brought solace: he spoke not, but slow kind power All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower. Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinised mineAnd oh, all my heart how it loved him! Then came the truth flashing in like an inspiration from on high. No harp more-no song more! out rushed fast and thick the glowing words : Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, That I doubt His own love can compete with it? here, the parts shift? Here, the creature surpass the Creator, the end, what Began? |