clarity of the poems published between 1845 and 1864 ("Dramatis Persona"), and was not always forgotten afterwards.

"And promise and wealth for the future I think you meant to write 'the' before promise. "All I said about the poem in my note, I A few more general expressions of opinion think more and more. Full of power and may be quoted in conclusion. Of "Sibrandus beauty it is-and the conception, very Schafnaburgensis," that delightful story of striking.

"E. B. B."

vengeance on a pedant, Miss Barrett writes: Do you know that this poem is a great

Ah,

That is one little batch of notes, one morn-favourite with me-it is so new, and full of a ing's work, it may be, of the invalid lying creeping, crawling, grotesque life. on her back on her couch, and writing in her but ... do you know, besides, it is almost tiny hand on tiny sheets of note-paper-for. reproachable in you to hold up John Knox as she said, she was a small woman, and liked to derision in this way!

to have small things about her. The reader Of "The Tomb of St. Praxed's" (as the who will take the pains to compare the criti-poem was originally called, of which Ruskin cisms with the poem as it stands to-day said that he knew no other piece of modern (remembering that, in its original form it was English in which there is so much told of the printed in alternate long and short lines, in Renaissance spirit):

...

place of the uniform long lines to which we are accustomed) will see that in almost every This is a wonderful poem, I think, and case Browning had the wisdom to accept classes with those works of yours which show his critic's suggestions. It was the most most power most unquestionable genius useful form of criticism-accepting and in the high sense. You force your reader to admiring the general conception and treat- sympathise positively in his glory in being ment, but suggesting minor improvements buried. in detail which could be adopted without difficulty. The criticism which begins by life of the descriptions" in "England in Italy" She notices also "the rushing and hurrying telling a poet to alter his whole method is (with its alternative title "Autumn at Sorrarely of any use. It would be tedious to go through the other the grape bunches in the early part, and not rento"), "tossed in one upon another like poems in detail. In the lyric poems Miss kept under by ever so much breathless effort Barrett's criticisms are mostly directed to improvements in rhythm and the removal of the sense of Italy, it is worth a whole library on the poet's part," and adds "For giving small obscurities. In "Luria," on the other of travel-books." Of the companion poem, hand, she did good service by discouraging "Italy in England," which Mazzini read to a trick of inversion, and pointing out the his fellow-exiles as a proof that at least one greater force given by directness. No one Englishman sympathised with them, she who knows this noble poem will question the inferiority of the first form of these lines says: "I like the simplicity of the greatheartedness of it (though perhaps half-Saxon (Act I, ll. 139-142)— in character), with the Italian scenery all around-it is very impressive."

If in the struggle when the soldier's sword Before the statist's hand should sink its point, It is not always easy for the first critic And to the calm head yield the violent hand, of a new poem (and Browning's were so new Virtue on virtue still have fallen away . . . that nothing like them, except the "Dramatic Lyrics" in Part III of the "Bells and Pometo the simple, directer form in which they granates," had ever appeared in English now stand. "Tell me if an air of stiffness! literature) to hit on just the features to which is not given by such unnecessary inversions," its ultimate reputation is due; but Miss Barsays the critic in another instance; and again, rett does so again and again with unerring when she has set straight another contorted touch. Of "Pictor Ignotus" she says: "This phrase, "You allow the reader to see at a poem is so fine, so full of power, as to claim glance what otherwise he will seek studiously." every possible attention to the working of This is a pregnant phrase, which Browning it: it begins greatly, grandly, and ends so.in later years might have done well to bear the winding up winds up the soul of it. The in mind. Not that the want of directness versification too is noble. . . . I cannot tell in some of the later poems, as compared with you how much it impresses me." And she these of the Italian period, is to be attributed appreciates fully the verve and vigour of to the loss of his wife's correcting hand; for the great ride from Ghent to Aix: we know that the married poets made a point

of keeping their work independent and apart You have the very trampling and breathuntil it was ready for the press. Neverthe- ing of the horses all through-and the sentiless, the lesson indicated by these few criti- ment is left in its right place, through all the cisms seems to have borne fruit in the greater physical force and display. . . . I know you

must be proud of the poem, and nobody can Flung slumber's mantle o'er him. At that forget it who has looked at it once.

By

hour

the way, how the "galloping" is a good He in whose brain the burning fever fiend
galloping word! And how you felt it, and Held revelry-his hot cheek turn'd awhile
took the effect up and dilated it by repeating Upon the cooler pillow. In his cell
it over and over in your first stanza
doubling, folding one upon another, the hoof-
treads.

The captive wrapped him in his squalid rags,
And sank amid his straw. Circean sleep!
Bathed in thine opiate dew false hope vacates
Her seat in the sick soul, leaving awhile
Her dreamy fond imaginings-pale fear
His wild misgivings, and the warm life-
springs

The textual criticism of Browning cannot have quite the same value as that of an artist in words, such as Tennyson, the lessons of whose fastidious taste are so well brought Flow in their wonted channels-and the out in his son's biography. Nevertheless there is interest in tracing the development The harpy train of care forsakes the heart. of his power of self-expression from the turbid

train

waters of "Pauline" and the tangled thickets Was it the passing sigh of the night wind of "Sordello" up to the supreme mastery Or some lorn spirit's wail-that moaning cry of thought and phrase which marks the That struck the ear? 'tis hushed-no! it fifty "Men and Women" of 1855, and which swells on

endured through the finest poems of "Drama- On-as the thunder peal when it essays

tis Persona" to the best books of "The Ring To wreck the summer sky-that fearful and the Book." And in the fragments of

shriek

the story which have here been offered to Still it increases-'tis the dolorous plaint, the sympathetic reader there is the further The death cry of a nation

interest that they form an episode in the

beautiful idyll of the love of Elizabeth Barrett It was a fearful thing-that hour of night. and Robert Browning.

NEW POEMS

BY ROBERT BROWNING

THE FIRST-BORN OF EGYPT

I have seen many climes, but that dread hour
Hath left its burning impress on my soul
Never to be erased. Not the loud crash
When the shuddering forest swings to the red

bolt

Or march of the fell earthquake when it whelms

A city in its yawning gulf, could quell [Robert Browning destroyed much of his That deep voice of despair. Pharaoh arose very early work; this poem and the one Startled from slumber, and in anger sought that follows it are the only surviving ex- The reason of the mighty rushing throng amples. They were written in his fourteenth At that dark hour around the palace gates, year, and we are indebted for their preserva--And then he dashed his golden crown away tion to Miss Sarah Flower (afterwards And tore his hair in frenzy when he knew Mrs. Adams, author of "Nearer, my God, That Egypt's heir was dead-From every to Thee"), who copied out the two poems home,

in a letter addressed to William Johnson The marbled mansion of regality.

Fox in 1827 (see p. 1330). This letter was To the damp dungeon's walls--gay pleasure's brought to light at the sale of the Browning seat

Collections in 1913, being purchased with And poverty's lone hut, that cry was heard other papers by Mr. Bertram Dobell. Both As guided by the Seraph's vengeful arm the writer of the letter and its recipient were The hand of death held on its withering friends of the youthful poet. The poems were first printed, in an article by Mr. Bertram Dobell, in the Cornhill Magazine for January, 1914.]

THAT night came on in Egypt with a step
So calmly stealing in the gorgeous train
Of sunset glories flooding the pale clouds
With liquid gold, until at length the glow
Sank to its shadowy impulse and soft sleep
Bent o er the world to curtain it from life-

Vitality was hushed beneath her wingPomp sought his couch of purple-care-worn grief

course,

Blighting the hopes of thousands.

I sought the street to gaze upon the grief
Of congregated Egypt-there the slave
Stood by him late his master, for that hour
Made vain the world's distinctions--for
could wealth

Or power arrest the woe?--Some were there
As sculptured marble from the quarry late
Of whom the foot first in the floating dance,
The glowing check hued with the deep'ning
flush

In the night revel-told the young and gay.
No kindly moisture dewed their stony eye,

Or damp'd their ghastly glare-for they felt And watch'd fair Cynthia's golden streak

Which brings as the simoom destruction and To meet with her lover an early grave.

80

Followed by the shuddering laugh,
As when fiends the life blood quaff?
See! see that band,

See how their bursting eyeballs gleam.

As the tiger's when crouched in the jungle's lair,

In India's sultry land.

Now they are seized in the rabies fell,
Hark! 'tis a shriek as from fiends of hell;
Now there is a plaining moan,

Lo As the flow of the sullen river

List! there is a hollow groan.

Doth it not make e'en you to shiver-
These are they struck of the barbs of
quiver.

Slaves before my haughty throne,
Bow then, bow to me alone.

CONSUMPTION

'Tis for me, 'tis for me;

for other writings with the same signature. I found that "S. Y." was a frequent contributor of verse and prose to the magazine. In all these contributions I recognized the work of a mind "touched to fine issues," and I became very curious as to the personality hidden behind the mask "S. Y." I felt assured the writer could not be altogether unknown to fame; but I could find no clue that would connect him-or her-with any known author. I was particularly struck with the excellence of the various poems by "S. Y.," and when I printed "An Evening my with Charles Lamb and Coleridge" in my book, I printed also a poem "Morning, Noon, and Night" which I then thought-and still think-worthy of being included in any anthology of English verse. 1

Mine the prize of Death must be;
My spirit is o'er the young and gay
As on snowy wreaths in the bright noonday
20 They wear a melting and vermeille flush
E'en while I bid their pulses hush,
Hueing o'er their dying brow

With the spring (?) of health's best roseate
glow

When the lover watches the full dark eye
Robed in tints of ianthine dye,

Beaming eloquent as to declare

The passions that deepen the glories there.
The frost in its tide of dazzling whiteness,
As Juno's brow of crystal brightness,
30 Such as the Grecian's hand could give
When he bade the sculptured marble "live,"
The ruby suffusing the Hebe cheek,
The pulses that love and pleasure speak
Can his fond heart claim but another day,
And the loathsome worm on her form shall
prey.

She is scathed as the tender flower,
When mildews o'er its chalice lour.
Tell me not of her balmy breath,

Some time after the publication of my book I was informed-I cannot now remember by whom-that "S. Y." stood for "Sally," the usual signature in letters to friends and relatives of Mrs. Sarah Flower Adams, well known as the author of what is now, perhaps, the most popular hymn in our language, "Nearer, my God, to Thee"; but otherwise, save to a very few, practically unknown. The fame she has hitherto enjoyed, despite its narrow limits, has yet been of a not unenviable kind; for it would be impossible to name any poem, not of a religious character, which is so often in the minds and on the lips of humanity as the hymn which I have mentioned. It is one which, like Newman's "Lead, kindly Light," can never fall into disuse; since its appeal is universal and does not depend upon any doctrine which may not be subscribed to by the members of any church or creed.

He

Eliza and Sarah Flower were the daughters of Benjamin Flower, a printer, and a man of liberal opinions, at a time when the open avowal of such opinions was extremely likely to lead to unpleasant consequences. was the publisher of The Cambridge Intelligencer, in which paper some of Coleridge's poems first appeared, and to which, when he discontinued his Watchman, the poet recommended his readers to subscribe. Some disrespectful remarks, which were printed in the paper, upon Bishop Watson, then faTHE EARLIEST POEMS OF ROBERT mous as the Church's champion against

Its tide shall be shut in the fold of death; 40 Tell me not of her honied lip,

The reptile's fangs shall its fragrance sip.
Then will I say truimphantly
Bow to the deadliest-bow to me!

BROWNING

Paine's Age of Reason, were construed as a breach of the privileges of the House of WHEN I was writing my "Sidelights on Lords, and the unfortunate publisher was Charles Lamb," I happened in the course condemned to six months' imprisonment of my search for materials to look through and a fine of a hundred pounds. Yet this the volume of The Monthly Repository for seeming misfortune was, it appears, some1835. Therein I found, with other matter thing like a blessing in disguise. Eliza Gould, on my subject, an article entitled "An Even- a Devon schoolmistress, and a reader of ing with Charles Lamb and Coleridge," over The Intelligencer, found herself compelled the signature "S. Y." I found this so interesting from its vivid and sympathetic sketches

'It has found its way into at least one an

of the two authors that I searched the volume thology.

to choose between giving up her school or but her sister, who first introduced the poems giving up her newspaper. She was a woman-or at least two of them-to Mr. Fox's noof spirit, and chose rather to sacrifice her tice. We shall see, too, that the letter of school than her liberal opinions. She visited Sarah Flower is, fortunately, still in existence, Flower in prison, with the result that a mutual and that it contains, not "a fragment of affection sprang up between them; and this verse," but two complete poems, of quite led, on his release, to their marriage. She sufficient length to show of what the young became in 1803 the mother of Eliza, and in poet was then capable. Nor is the fragment 1805 of Sarah Flower. Like her daughters, spoken of a direct imitation of Coleridge's she was destined to an early death: she passed "Fire, Famine and Slaughter." It may have away in 1810. been suggested by it; but it cannot fairly be The Flower sisters, it appears, had become called a mere imitation. acquainted with the Browning family through a mutual friend, a Miss Sturtevant. This EXTRACT FROM A LETTER FROM SARAH

FLOWER (AFTERWARDS MRS. ADAMS,
AUTHOR OF "NEARER, MY GOD, TO
THEE") TO WILLIAM JOHNSON Fox.

DALSTON

happened in 1827, or it may be a year or so earlier. Robert Browning was then between fourteen and fifteen years of age; and the sisters, naturally enough, took much interest in the "boy Genius." He had already written a "book full" of verse, which he had entitled May 31st (1827). "Incondita," and which he was "mad to "What in the name of fortune is the girl publish." His mother showed this book to going to do with this tremendous sheet of the sisters; and Eliza Flower, it is said, ad-paper?" Now dread the worst my dear Mr. mired the book so much that she copied out Fox but suspend your judgment one minutethe whole of it. But perhaps I had better now in reward you shall hear what a delicious quote from Mrs. Orr's Life of Browning treat you may expect when you have turned her account of this matter: over a new leaf. Now do not peep. Yes you may just take one, only one. I do most The young author gave his work the title positively forbid your reading that Genius's of "Incondita," which conveyed a certain poetry tho' I grant it looks very tempting idea of depreciation. He was, nevertheless, until you have waded thro' the prosy part. very anxious to see it in print; and his father No! No! I am quite too cunning for that. and mother, poetry lovers of the old school, So now having done as they do with children also found in it sufficient merit to justify (there-take your physic there's a good its publication. No publisher, however, child and then you shall have something On could be found; and we can easily believe so nice afterwards), shall I tell you whose that he soon afterwards destroyed the little mine these gems come from?-and yet I manuscript, in some mingled reaction of wish they were mine with all my soul--and disappointment and disgust. But his mother, I'm sure it would be worth all my soul if they meanwhile, had shown it to an acquaintance were--"Bah"-forgive me and if you knew of hers, Miss Flower, who herself admired what a bad muddling cold I have had you its contents so much as to make a copy of would-They are "the boy" Browning's them for the inspection of her friend, the at. 14-and so they as well as he can speak well-known Unitarian minister, Mr. W. J. for themselves.

Fox. The copy was transmitted to Mr.

Browning after Fox's death, by his daughter, I do not know of any equally promising Mrs. Bridell Fox; and this, if no other, was work by one who was no older than Browning in existence in 1871, when, at his urgent at the time these poems were written; unless request, that lady also returned to him a indeed it was that of his future wife, whose fragment of verse contained in a letter from epic of "The Battle of Marathon" was a Miss Sarah Flower. Nor was it till much still more juvenile production. Shelley, at later that a friend, who had earnestly begged about the same age, was still in his witch, for a sight of it, definitely heard of its destruc-hobgoblin, and Minerva Press period, and tion. The fragment, which doubtless shared had written nothing but wild and incoherent the same fate, was, I am told, a direct imita- rhapsodies from which no favourable foretion of Coleridge's "Fire, Famine and Slaugh-cast of his future achievements could possi ter." bly have been derived. The feeling we should have for his early writings would be someMrs. Orr wrote the above from the best thing like contempt, if we did not know that information then available; but her state- they were the necessary prelude to "The ment can now be amplified. It may be true Cenci" and "Prometheus Unbound." But that Eliza Flower copied out the whole of the we can have no such feeling about "The "Incondita" volume for Mr. Fox's inspec- First-born of Egypt,' or "The Dance of tion; but it is certain that it was not she, Death." Faulty they may be, but there is