ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 i89o
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 EDWIN CORLE 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 JEAN CORLE
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 CHIEF POE1 OF THE AGE.
 
 *
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 CHIE* POE2 OP 7 HE AGE. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM G. KINGSLAND. 
 
 NEW EDITION, 
 
 With Biographical and other Additions. 
 
 ILontum : 
 y. W. JAR VIS 6- SON, 
 
 28, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND. 
 1890.
 
 *** THE PORTRAIT of Mr. Browning is from the last 
 Photograph of the Poet taken, and reproduced by 
 photogravure by kind permission of Mr. W. H. 
 Grove, 174, Brompton Road, S.W. 
 
 PRINTED BY S. AND J. BRAWN, 13, GATE STREET, HIGH HOLBORN, W.C
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I AM gratified to find that this book has 
 been so favourably received as to call for 
 a second edition ; a circumstance which has 
 afforded me the opportunity of correcting 
 some errors, and of someVhat enlarging the 
 scope of the work, and thereby adding, I 
 would fain hope, to its usefulness. My main 
 purpose has been to offer a sort of manual for 
 beginners in the study of Browning. There 
 are various treatises in existence dealing cri- 
 tically with the poems ; but none, it seemed to 
 me, specially intended as a guide to beginners. 
 My object is, primarily, to call attention to 
 the simplest of the poems, while remarking 
 on the leading characteristics of the poet's 
 genius, in the hope that the reader may be 
 induced thereby to study the complete works 
 of Robert Browning. Of course, for more 
 advanced students, the " Handbook " of Mrs. 
 Orr is the guide to the full understanding of 
 Browning. 
 
 My thanks are due to Mr. J. T. Nettleship 
 (the well-known animal painter), for some 
 kindly criticism, to which I have given heed ; 
 also to Mr. Thos. J. Wise and Mr. P. Jenner 
 
 B 
 
 2039488
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 Weir; and in a special degree to my friend 
 Miss C. G. Barnard, from whom I have 
 received much valuable help, and who in 
 America as in England has been untiring in 
 her efforts to make known this little work. I 
 had hoped to have obtained Mr. Browning's 
 approval of this new edition ; but can now 
 only record the kindliness and heartiness with 
 which he granted his permission to use 
 whatever extracts I required : on one occasion 
 writing : " As for the poems you require, pray 
 help yourself to them as liberally as you 
 please"; and again: "I am most happy to 
 allow as many extracts from my poetry as 
 you please to make." I may here be pardoned 
 for quoting a letter I received from the poet, 
 on my forwarding him a copy of the first edi- 
 tion of this work, with an intimation that a 
 large-paper copy would follow : 
 
 19, WARWICK CRESCENT, W., 
 
 March 17 th, 1887. 
 My dear Kingsland, 
 
 How can I be other than most grateful 
 to you for your generous belief in me ? 
 unwarranted as it may be by anything I have 
 succeeded in doing, although somewhat justi- 
 fied perhaps by what I would fain have done 
 if I could. But it is now a long time indeed 
 since I have been assured of your sympathy, 
 and proud of your friendship. As for the
 
 Robert Browning. iii 
 
 book it seems to me sufficiently pretty on 
 the outside to require no "large paper" or 
 other enhancement of its attractiveness. I 
 have no doubt that whoever reads it will be 
 the more disposed to think favourably of my 
 general writings : your extracts are calculated 
 to excite interest in the poems of which they 
 are such good samples. . . . You know 
 how happy I shall be to see you : meantime, 
 and always, remember me as 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 I have also to express my acknowledgments 
 to Mr. R. Barrett Browning for the cordiality 
 with which he renewed whatever permission I 
 had received from his father to use the extracts 
 I have quoted in the following pages. 
 
 January, 1890. W. G. K.
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 BORN MAY 7, 1812 ; DIED DEC. 12, 1889. 
 
 O STRONG- SOUL'D singer of high themes andwide- 
 Thrice noble in thy work and life alike, 
 
 Thy genius sweeps athwart a sea whose tide 
 Heaves with a pain and passion infinite ! 
 
 Men's hearts laid bare beneath thy pitying touch ; 
 
 Strong words that comfort all o'erwearied much ; 
 
 Thoughts that inspire and mould our inner life, 
 
 Strengthen to bravely bear amid world-strife ; 
 
 And one large Hope, full-orbed as summer sun, 
 
 That souls shall surely meet when LIFE is won ! 
 
 So round thy memory we our thanks entwine 
 Men are the better for these songs of thine : 
 At eve thy muse did o'er us mellower swell 
 Strong with the strength of life lived long and well.
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 I. 
 
 " r I ""HERE were giants on the earth in 
 those days !" so will the student of 
 literature a century hence have to 
 exclaim, in looking back to the Victorian age : 
 and one of the last, as the greatest, of the race 
 is the poet who passed away on the evening 
 of December I2th, 1889, in the Palazzo 
 Rezzonico, at Venice. Suddenly snatched 
 from among us as to our dim sight Robert 
 Browning seems to have been it is as though 
 the light of our deepest life had gone out, and 
 we were left in darkness and eclipse. Some of 
 us owed so much to this man ; our best im- 
 pulses, our highest aspirations, our noblest 
 endeavours after good these were all fed at 
 the perennial fount of his verse. He led us, 
 by no devious way, to God, Truth, Immor- 
 tality ; and the debt we owe him is one that 
 cannot easily be repaid save by keeping his 
 memory green, and " passing on " to others all 
 that we have received from him. Robert 
 Browning was beyond and before all things a 
 good man true to himself and to God ; and 
 we who were admitted to his presence, knew 
 well his manliness and worth, as also the rare 
 fidelity of his friendship. All that he has been
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 to our England of to-day is perhaps hardly yet 
 known, for he was pre-eminently the teacher 
 of the teachers ; but it is being realized, and 
 the full greatness of the Man and the Poet 
 will not long wait acknowledgment. 
 
 As it is, we can yet hardly realize that 
 Robert Browning is dead. Yet he was surely 
 happy in the last hours of his earthly sojourn, 
 happy in the manner of his "passing" no 
 man happier. He died, it may truly be said, 
 at his post the final product of his regal brain 
 before his eyes. It was, I think, sometime 
 during the summer of last year that he said to 
 me : " I cannot be idle I shall die in harness : 
 I have been writing some small things lately, 
 but I want to write one or two more large 
 works before I die." Brave words, but alas, 
 though he died "in harness," the " larger 
 works " he was not permitted to execute : not 
 here, at least ; yet, perchance, yonder, " behind 
 the veil " who can tell ? To him, the passing 
 into the Unseen was not death, but life. The 
 writer of an interesting article concerning 
 the Poet, in the columns of the Glasgoiv 
 Heraldy says : " It seems but a day or two ago 
 that the present writer heard from the lips of 
 Mr. Browning a mockery of death's pitiful 
 vanity a brave assertion of the glory of life. 
 ' Death, death ! It is this harping on death I 
 despise so much,' he remarked with emphasis 
 of gesture as well as of speech. ' This idle and 
 often cowardly as well as ignorant harping !
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 Why should we not change like everything 
 else ? In fiction, in poetry, French as well 
 as English, and, I am told, in American art 
 and literature, the shadow of death call it 
 what you will, despair, negation, indifference 
 is upon us. But what fools who talk thus ! 
 Why, amico mio, you know as well as I that 
 death is life, just as our daily, our momentarily, 
 dying body is none the less alive and ever 
 recruiting new forces of existence. Without 
 death, which is our crape-like churchyardy 
 word for change, for growth, there could be 
 no prolongation of that which we call life. 
 Pshaw ! it is foolish to argue upon such a 
 thing even. For myself, I deny death as an 
 end of everything. Never say of me that I 
 am dead ! ' " 
 
 I well remember, too, some few years since, 
 the vehemence with which he spoke on the 
 subject of personal immortality, " If there is 
 anything I hold to, it is that : why, I knoiv 
 I shall meet my dearest friends again ! " But, 
 indeed, with Asolando before us, there need be 
 no more said on this matter. 
 
 It is but natural, and to a certain extent 
 right, that all beginners in the study of the 
 writings of Browning, should now desire to 
 know something of his life apart from his work. 
 But there is little to say, at the present time 
 at any rate, concerning the incidents of his 
 outer life apart from the development of
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 his inner life, as recorded in his writings. In- 
 deed, his life was part and parcel of his work, 
 and one can hardly be dissevered from the 
 other. Still there are certain landmarks which 
 may be duly noted, and will prove of interest 
 to the student. On the 7th of May, 1812, 
 Robert Browning was born at Camberwell 
 then a suburb in the south of London, but 
 now drawn into the vortex of districts which 
 marks our modern metropolis. His father, 
 (who died in 1866, at the age of 84), was a 
 clerk in the Bank of England, and was a man 
 of wide and varied culture. In Asolando 
 there is a delightful bit of autobiography, 
 where the poet tells us that his " father was 
 a learned man and knew Greek, "and proceeds 
 to narrate how the little boy of five years old 
 was introduced to Homer. It was doubtless 
 from his father that the future poet imbibed 
 that love of classical literature which was to 
 take so original a development in his later 
 years. Comparatively early in life he wrote : 
 
 " How well I know what I mean to do 
 
 When the long dark autumn evenings come ; 
 
 And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue ? 
 With the music of all thy voices, dumb 
 
 In life's November too ! 
 
 " I shall be found by the fire, suppose, 
 
 O'er a great wise book, as beseemeth age, 
 
 While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows, 
 And I turn the page, and I turn the page, 
 
 Not verse now, only prose !
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 " Till the young ones whisper, finger on li 
 
 ' There he is at it, deep in Greek : 
 ' Now then, or never, out we slip 
 
 ' To cut from the hazels by the creek 
 ' A mainmast for our ship ! 
 
 " I shall be at it indeed, my friends \ 
 
 Greek puts already on either side 
 Such a branch-work forth as soon extends 
 
 To a vista opening far and wide, 
 And I pass out where it ends." 
 
 But it was getting towards the afternoon of 
 his career ere the Greek plant blossomed into 
 the lovely Balaustion. 
 
 Of the poet's childhood little is recorded. 
 At an early age he began to rhyme, and by 
 the time he had reached his twelfth year, had 
 written a considerable quantity of verses, 
 which were shown to the well-known Rev. 
 W. J. Fox, and that gentleman at once 
 recognized the genius of the lad, and pro- 
 phesied his future greatness. The boy was 
 educated first at a school at Peckham, kept by 
 Rev. Mr. Ready ; afterwards receiving private 
 tuition at home, and subsequently attending 
 lectures at the London University. After this 
 he paid his first visit to Italy a visit destined 
 to have far reaching influence on his after 
 career. It appears that for some time the 
 young poet was under the influence of Byron ; 
 but about the year 1825, his mother purchased 
 for him Shelley's Adonais* and other works 
 
 * As verifying Browning's early intimacy with the 
 writings of Shelley, the following extract from a letter
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 of his, at that time exceedingly difficult to 
 obtain. Shelley seems to have awakened the 
 true poetic instinct in the youth, for on October 
 22nd, 1832, Mr. Browning had finished his 
 first poem, Pauline. As was natural, this 
 performance was greatly admired at home, 
 and the money to print it was given to him 
 by an aunt of whom Mr. Browning (in a 
 letter now before me), writes : " The beloved 
 aunt who helped me, as you rightly say, was 
 my Mother's own and only sister." 
 
 In 1833, the little book came out pub- 
 lished anonymously by Saunders and Otley, 
 at the price of 55. It is needless to say that 
 Pauline failed to gain the ear of the public ; 
 but it was nevertheless at once recognized by 
 those best capable of judging of its worth. 
 Mr. W. J. Fox received it generously, and 
 wrote freely concerning it. In a number of 
 the Repository for 1833, he says : " The work 
 before us gave us the thrill, and laid hold of us 
 with the power, the sensation of which has 
 
 of the poet's, dated "March 3rd, 1886," may be 
 quoted : " As for the early editions of Shelley, they 
 were obtained for me sometime before 1830 (or even 
 earlier), in the regular way, from Hunt and Clarke, in 
 consequence of a direction I obtained from the " Lite- 
 rary Gazette." I still possess Posthumous Poems, but 
 have long since parted with Prometheus Unbound, 
 Rosalind and Helen, Six Weeks 1 Tour, Cenci, and the 
 Adonais. I got at the same time, nearly, Endytnion, 
 and Lamia, &c., just as if they had been published a 
 week before, and not years after the death of Keats."
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 never yet failed us as a test of genius. Who- 
 ever the anonymous author may be, he is a 
 poet. We felt certain of Tennyson, before 
 we saw his book, by a few lines which had 
 straggled into a newspaper ; we are not 
 less certain of the author of ' Pauline.' " The 
 critic then proceeds to warn the anonymous 
 writer that, by the character of his work, he 
 must not look for popularity, nor expect to 
 make a hit or to produce a sensation ; but his 
 recognition of the intrinsic merits of the poem 
 was ample ; and was the first welcome given 
 to Robert Browning into the world of litera- 
 ture. 
 
 Some twenty years after the publication of 
 Pauline, the late Dante Gabriel Rossetti 
 came upon a copy in the British Museum, and 
 at once divined it to be the work of Browning, 
 a wonderful instance of the prescience of the 
 painter-poet. 
 
 So far as Mr. Browning was concerned, 
 Pauline was left to its anonymity for five 
 and thirty years; till, in 1868, it was reprinted 
 in the collected edition of his works, which 
 were in course of issue by Messrs. Smith and 
 Elder, in six volumes. In a prefatory note, 
 Mr. Browning says : " The first piece \Pauline\ 
 I acknowledge and retain with extreme re- 
 pugnance, indeed purely of necessity ; for not 
 long ago I inspected one, and am certified of 
 the existence of other transcripts, intended, 
 sooner or later to be published abroad : by
 
 S Robert Browning. 
 
 forestalling these, I can at least correct some 
 misprints (no syllable is changed) and intro- 
 duce a boyish work by an exculpatory word." 
 But the lovers of Mr. Browning would 
 not willingly let Pauline go for not only is 
 the poem a very beautiful one ; but it is inte- 
 resting as revealing the bent of its author's 
 mind from the beginning of his career. 
 
 The following, from a letter by Mr. Browning 
 to Mr. Thos. J. Wise, in respect to Pauline, 
 dated November cjth, 1886, will be of interest : 
 "... The ' King ' is Agamemnon, in the 
 tragedy of that name by ^Eschylus, whose 
 treading the purple carpets spread before him 
 by his wife, preparatory to his murder, is a not- 
 able passage. The ' boy ' is Orestes, as des- 
 scribed at the end of the Chocphoroi by the 
 same author. V. A. XX. is the Latin abbre- 
 viation vivixi annos, ' I was twenty years old,' 
 that is, the imaginary subject of the poem was 
 of that age." 
 
 In 1886, a facsimile of the original Pauline, 
 edited by Mr. Thos. J. Wise, was brought out 
 under the auspices of the Browning Society, 
 and has now become a rare volume. When 
 this re-issue was in contemplation, Mr. 
 Browning was asked if he would kindly say a 
 word of introduction, and he wrote : " I 
 really have said my little say about the 
 little book already elsewhere,* and should only 
 
 * Presumably in the preface, from which an extract
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 increase words without knowledge. An intro- 
 ductory sentence or two of your own will be 
 better in every way. There was a note of ex- 
 planation in the copy I gave John Forster, 
 which contained also a criticism by John Mill. 
 It is not included in the catalogue of his books, 
 however, but may turn up some day." 
 
 In 1834, Mr. Browning again set out on his 
 travels, spending some time at St. Petersburg. 
 His pen was not idle, however, for in 1835 
 appeared Paracelsus and at a bound the 
 young poet took his position among the 
 leading spirits of the age. Still, as with 
 Pauline, the reading public and the critics 
 would have little to say to Paracelsus though, 
 as with the former poem, the " few " saw and 
 acknowledged its power. 
 
 From the original preface to this work, the 
 poet would appear to have anticipated the 
 verdict of the " general reader," for he says : 
 
 " It is certain, however, that a work like mine 
 depends more immediately on the intelligence 
 and sympathy of the reader for its success ; 
 indeed, were my scenes stars, it must be his 
 co-operating fancy which, supplying all 
 chasms, shall connect the scattered lights into 
 one constellation a Lyre or a Crown." 
 
 Paracelsus brought him fame, and friends, 
 if nothing else ; and in the Reminiscenses 
 
 is quoted above, to the six volume edition of his writ- 
 ings of 1868. W. G. K.
 
 io Robert Browning, 
 
 of Macready, the reader will find various 
 notices of the poet and his first great work. 
 
 In 1837, Browning came before the public 
 as a writer of plays his historical tragedy of 
 Straff or d, being published by Messrs. Long- 
 man. It was brought out at Covent Garden 
 on May I of that year. 
 
 It may be interesting to the modern reader 
 to give an extract from the original preface to 
 Stratford, and the reader will not fail to note 
 the passage I have taken the liberty of print- 
 ing in italics : 
 
 " I had for some time been engaged on a 
 Poem of a very different nature . ^."^"j^. 
 and am not without apprehension that my 
 eagerness to freshen a jaded mind by di- 
 verting it to the healthy natures of a grand 
 epoch, may have operated unfavourably on 
 the represented play, which is one of Action 
 in Character, rather than Character in Action. 
 To remedy this, in some degree, considerable 
 curtailment will be necessary, and, in a few 
 instances, the supplying details not required, 
 I suppose, by the mere reader. While a 
 trifling success would much gratify, failure 
 will not wholly discourage me from another 
 effort: experience is to come; and earnest en- 
 deavour may yet remove many disadvantages. 
 The portraits are, I think, faithful. . . . My 
 Carlisle, however, is purely imaginary. I at 
 first sketched her singular likeness roughly in,
 
 Robert Browning. n 
 
 as suggested by Matthew and the memoir 
 writers but it was too artificial, and the sub- 
 stituted outline is exclusively from Voiture 
 and Waller." 
 
 The play was, as I have said, produced at 
 Covent Garden Theatre, on May i, 1837 5 the 
 Literary Gazette of May 6, of that year re- 
 marking that Macready's Strafford was 
 forcible and striking : " Miss Faucit played 
 with great taste and effect ; Vandenhoff s Pym 
 was rather croaky. Messrs. Bennett and 
 Webster did well for Hollis and Vane. The 
 King (Dale), was awfully bad ; the Queen 
 (Vincent) only a shade better." In connection 
 with the statement that Browning's acted 
 plays have always been failures, we may note 
 the following from The Examiner, of May 
 14, 1837: " Strafford was winning its way 
 into even greater success than we had ven- 
 tured to hope for it ; but Mr. Vandenhoft's 
 secession from the theatre has caused its tem- 
 porary withdrawal. It will be only temporary, 
 we trust ; no less in justice to the great genius 
 of the author, than to the fervid applause with 
 which its last performance was received by an 
 admirably-filled house." 
 
 About 1838, Mr. Browning would seem to 
 have set to work in earnest on one of the 
 most characteristic as it is certainly the 
 most debated of his works. This was 
 Sordello, which was published in 1840. This,
 
 12 Robert Browning. 
 
 too, may be said to have fallen almost still- 
 born from the Press though there were even 
 then not a few who recognized its glamour 
 and fascination. In 1863, this exotic poem 
 was revised and reprinted, with a dedication 
 to J. Milsand, of Dijon, one of the poet's ripest 
 friends, and a man of rare worth and discern- 
 ment. The dedication is worth noting here, 
 as much for the frankness of its self-criticism 
 as for the friendliness to which it gave 
 utterance : 
 
 " Let the next poem be introduced by your 
 name, and so repay all trouble it ever cost me. 
 I wrote it twenty-five years ago for only a 
 few, counting even in these on somewhat more 
 care about its subject than they really had. 
 My own faults of expression were many ; but 
 with care for a man or book such would be 
 surmounted, and without it what avails the 
 faultlessness of either ? I blame nobody, least 
 of all myself, who did my best then and since ; 
 for I lately gave time and pains to turn my 
 work into what the many might, instead of 
 what the few must like ; but after all, I 
 imagined another thing at first, and therefore 
 leave as I find it. The historical decoration 
 was purposely of no more importance than a 
 background requires ; and my stress lay on 
 the incidents in the development of a soul : 
 little else is worth study. I, at least, always 
 thought so, you, with many known and un-
 
 Robert Brtyiuning. 13 
 
 known to me, think so, others may one day 
 think so." 
 
 When Mr. Browning re-issued Sordello, as 
 above stated, in 1863, many students were 
 under the impression that it had been re- 
 written, more especially as the poet had intro- 
 duced, on each page, a series of explanatory 
 head-lines. This theory as to the " re-writing " 
 would appear to be still held in many quarters, 
 but the following extract from a letter of Mr. 
 Browning's will set the matter at rest : 
 
 " I don't understand what can mean 
 
 by saying that Sordello has been ' re-written : ' 
 I did certainly at one time intend to re-write 
 much of it, but changed my mind, and the 
 edition which I reprinted was the same in all 
 respects as its predecessor only with an 
 elucidatory heading to each page, and some 
 few alterations, presumably for the better, in 
 the text, such as occur in most of my works. 
 I cannot remember a single instance of any 
 importance that is 're-written,' and I only 
 
 suppose that has taken project for 
 
 performance, and set down as ' done ' what 
 was for a while intended to be done." 
 
 In 1841, appeared the first of the series of 
 poems entitled Bells and Pomegranates, in 
 yellow paper covers, and issued first at six- 
 pence ; the price being afterwards raised to a 
 shilling. Pippa Passes formed the first number, 
 and may surely be spoken of as the most 
 
 C
 
 14 Robert Browning. 
 
 wonderful sixpennyworth ever offered to the 
 reading public ; it was dedicated in the follow- 
 ing preface to Mr. Serjeant Talfourd : 
 
 " Two or three years ago I wrote a play, 
 about which the chief matter I much care to 
 recollect at present is, that a pitfull of good- 
 natured people applauded it. Ever since, I 
 have been desirous of doing something in the 
 same way that should better reward their at- 
 tention. What follows I mean for the first of 
 a series of dramatical pieces, to come out at 
 intervals, and I amuse myself by fancying that 
 the cheap mode in which they appear will for 
 once help me to a sort of pit-audience again. 
 Of course, such a work must go on no longer 
 than it is liked ; and to provide against a cer- 
 tain and but too possible contingency, let me 
 hasten to say now what, if I were sure of suc- 
 cess, I would try to say circumstantially 
 enough at the close, that I dedicate my best 
 intentions most admiringly to the author of 
 Ion most affectionately to Sergeant Tal- 
 fourd." 
 
 In the following year (1842) were published 
 Nos. 2 and 3, the former containing King 
 Victor and King Charles, and the latter 
 Dramatic Lyrics, consisting of the Cavalier 
 Tunes, Italy (afterwards called My Last 
 Duchess], France (now known as Count 
 Gismond), Camp and Cloister (^subsequently 
 entitled Incidents of the French Camp, and
 
 Robert Browning. 15 
 
 Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister), In a Gon- 
 dola, Artemis, Waring, Rudel and the Lady of 
 Tripoli, Cristina, Madhouse Cells (Johannes 
 Agricola, and Porphyria's Lover\ Through the 
 Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr, and The Pied Piper 
 of Hamelin. No. 4 was issued in 1843, and 
 contained that fine tragedy The Return of the 
 Druses ; and in the same year came No. 5, 
 consisting of A Blot in the Scutcheon, which 
 was produced at Drury Lane Theatre on the 
 nth of February, 1843, Miss Helen Faucit 
 playing Mildred Tresham ; Mr. Phelps after- 
 wards reviving the play at Sadler's Wells 
 Theatre. 
 
 Concerning this tragedy, there is in Forster's 
 Life of Dickens, a letter from the great novel- 
 ist, to whom Forster had lent the play in 
 manuscript, well worth quoting. Dickens 
 writes : 
 
 "Browning's play has thrown me into a 
 perfect passion of sorrow. To say that there 
 is anything in its subject save what is lovely, 
 true, deeply affecting, full of the best emotion, 
 the most earnest feeling, and the most true 
 and tender source of interest is to say that 
 there is no light in the sun, and no heat in the 
 blood. It is full of genius, natural and great 
 thoughts, profound and yet simple, and yet 
 beautiful in its vigour. I know nothing that 
 is so affecting, nothing in any book I have 
 ever read, as Mildred's recurrence to that : ' I 
 was so young I had no mother.' I know no
 
 1 6 Robert Browning. 
 
 love like it, no passion like it, no moulding ot 
 a splendid thing after its conception, like it. 
 And I swear it is a tragedy that must be 
 played ; and must be played, moreover, by 
 Macready. There are some things that I 
 would have changed if I could (they are very 
 slight, mostly broken lines) ; and I assuredly 
 would have the old servant begin his tale upon 
 the scene ; and be taken by the throat, or drawn 
 upon, by his master, in its commencement. 
 But the tragedy I shall never forget, or less 
 vividly remember than I do now. And if you 
 tell Browning that I have seen it, tell him 
 that I believe from my soul there is no man 
 living (and not many dead) who could pro- 
 duce such a work." 
 
 In 1844 came No. 6, consisting of Colombe's 
 Birthday, and was dedicated to Barry 
 Cornwall. This beautiful play was produced 
 at the Haymarket on April 25, 1853, Miss 
 Helen Faucit playing Colombe. The follow- 
 ing year No. 7 was issued the price this 
 time being two shillings ; and was entitled Dra- 
 matic Romances and Lyrics, was dedicated to 
 John Kenyon, and contained How tJiey 
 brought the Good News front Ghent to Aix, 
 Pictor Ignotns, Italy in England (afterwards 
 The Italian in England}, England in Italy 
 (known afterwards as The Englishman in 
 Italy}, the Lost Leader, the Lost Mistress, 
 Home Thoughts from Abroad, The Tomb at 
 St. P raxed' s, Garden Fancies, The Laboratory,
 
 Robert Browning. 17 
 
 The Confessional, The Flight of the Duchess, 
 Earths Immortalities, Song, The Boy and tJie 
 Angel, Night and Morning, Claret and Tokay, 
 the first part of Saul, Time's Revenges, and the 
 Glove. 
 
 In the same year followed the last of the 
 Bells and Pomegranates, No. 8, containing 
 Luria and A Souls Tragedy. This last issue 
 was published at half-a-crown, and was dedi- 
 cated to Walter Savage Landor. 
 
 Landor replied in his characteristic yet 
 kindly fashion : " Accept my thanks for 
 the richest of Easter offerings made to any 
 one for many years. I staid at home last 
 evening on purpose to read Luria, and if I lost 
 any good music (as I certainly did) I was well 
 compensated in kind. To-day I intend to de- 
 vote the rainy hours entirely to The Soul's 
 
 Tragedy Go on and pass us poor 
 
 devils ! If you do not go far ahead of me, I 
 will crack my whip at you and make you 
 spring forward." 
 
 The prefatory note to A Soul's Tragedy, 
 not having been reprinted, it may be interest- 
 ing to quote it here : 
 
 " Here ends my first series of Bells and 
 Pomegranates, and I take the opportunity of 
 explaining, in reply to inquiries, that I only 
 meant by that title to indicate an endeavour 
 towards something like an alternation, or mix- 
 ture, of music with discoursing, sound with
 
 1 8 Robert Browning. 
 
 sense, poetry with thought ; which looks too 
 ambitious, thus expressed, so the symbol was 
 preferred. It is little to the purpose, that 
 such is actually one of the most familiar of 
 the many Rabbinical (and Patristic) accepta- 
 tions of the phrase ; because I confess that, 
 letting authority alone, I supposed the bare 
 words, in such juxtaposition, would sufficiently 
 convey the desired meaning. ' Faith and good 
 works ' is another fancy, for instance, and per- 
 haps no easier to arrive at : yet, Giotto placed 
 a pomegranate fruit in the hand of Dante, and 
 Raffaelle crowned his Theology (in the Came- 
 ra del/a Segnaturd) with blossoms of the same ; 
 as if the Bellari and Vasari would be sure to 
 come after, and explain that it was merely 
 ' simbolo delle bnone operc il qual P omograna- 
 to fu perb usato nelle vesti del Pontifice appresso 
 gli Edrei.'R. B." 
 
 Such were the Bells and Pomegranates 
 poems which marked a new era in English lit- 
 erature ; and which I have enumerated in de- 
 tail that the reader, if he cares, may com- 
 pare them with the poems as published in the 
 collected edition of Mr. Browning's works. I 
 may here remark that the ostensible reason of 
 their first publication in the above form was 
 that their author, seeing the public were 
 but little inclined to buy his books, and with 
 the knowledge of the expense his father had 
 already gone to in that direction, consulted
 
 Robert Browning. 19 
 
 with his then publisher, Mr. Edward Moxon, 
 who suggested the publication in pamphlet 
 form, as the expense would thereby be con- 
 siderably lessened. 
 
 It was in 1846, on September I2th, that a 
 unique ceremony was witnessed in Marylebone 
 Parish Church, Elizabeth Barrett Barrett giv- 
 ing her hand in marriage to Robert Browning. 
 " Among the few living poets of whom Eliza- 
 beth Barrett was wont to speak and write with 
 admiration," says Mr. Ingram, " was Robert 
 Browning. He had been characteristically 
 mentioned in Lady Geraldine's Courtship 
 and from that time forward his name and re- 
 putation found frequent mention in her cor- 
 respondence." The " mention," in Miss Bar- 
 rett's poem was, one may say, intuitive, for it 
 gave, in a line, the leading motive of Mr. 
 Browning's work : 
 
 " Or from Browning some ' Pomegranate,' which, if 
 
 cut deep down the middle, 
 Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined 
 
 humanity." 
 
 From this period, one may say that the 
 story of their lives can best be known by their 
 writings, the record of their personal history 
 being a sealed book to the outside world ; but 
 here and there some interesting peeps into 
 their life are afforded us. After their marriage, 
 they resided in Italy, this step being ne- 
 cessitated chiefly by the fragile health of Mrs. 
 Browning. Pisa, was I believe, their first
 
 2O Robert Browning. 
 
 abode, but they subsequently removed to 
 Florence, that fair city becoming the one home 
 of their married life. In Old Pictures in 
 Florence, Mr. Browning says : 
 
 "The morn when first it thunders in March, 
 
 The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say : 
 As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch 
 
 Of the villa-gate this warm March day, 
 No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled 
 
 In the valley beneath where, white and wide 
 And washed by the morning water-gold, 
 
 Florence lay out on the mountain-side. 
 
 " River and bridge and street and square 
 
 Lay mine, as much at my beck and call, 
 Through the live translucent bath of air 
 As the sights in a magic crystal ball." 
 
 For something like sixteen years they lived 
 in Florence ' Casa Guidi ' their home, an 
 ideal home, wherein two poets lived and worked 
 in the completest love and harmony. Various 
 pictures have been presented to us of the home- 
 life of the Brownings in Italy, the best per- 
 haps being that of Mr. Story, the American 
 sculptor. "We can never forget," he says, 
 " the square ante-room, with its great picture 
 and pianoforte, at which the boy Browning 
 passed many an hour the little dining-room 
 covered with tapestry, where hung medallions 
 of Tennyson, Carlyle, and Robert Browning 
 the long room filled with plaster casts 
 and studies, which was Mr. Browning's retreat 
 and, dearest of all, the large drawing-room,
 
 Robert Browning. 21 
 
 where she always sat. It opened upon a bal- 
 cony filled with plants, and looked out upon the 
 iron grey church of Santa Felice. There was 
 something about this room which seemed to 
 make it a proper and especial haunt for poets. 
 The dark shadows and subdued light gave it a 
 dreamy look, which was enhanced by the ta- 
 pestry-covered walls, and the old pictures of 
 saints that looked out sadly from the carved 
 frames of black wood. Large bookcases, con- 
 structed of specimens of Florentine carving 
 selected by Mr. Browning, were brimming 
 over with wise-looking books. Tables were 
 covered with more gaily-bound volumes, the 
 gifts of brother authors. Dante's grave profile, 
 a cast of Keats' face and brow taken after 
 death, a pen-and-ink sketch of Tennyson, the 
 genial face of John Kenyon, Mrs. Browning's 
 good friend and relative,, little paintings of the 
 boy Browning all attracted the eye in turn, 
 and gave rise to a thousand musings. A 
 quaint mirror, easy chairs and sofas, and a 
 hundred nothings that always add an inde- 
 scribable charm, were all massed in this room. 
 But the glory of all, and that which sanctified 
 all, was seated in a low armchair near the door, 
 a small table, strewn with writing materials, 
 books and newspapers, was always by her 
 side." 
 
 In " Passages from the French and Italian 
 Note-books of Nathaniel Hawthorne," the 
 reader will find many references to Mr. Brown-
 
 22 Robert Browning. 
 
 ing and his Italian home, the American writer 
 remarking that, " Mr. Browning's grasp of the 
 hand gives a new value to life, revealing so 
 much fervour and sincerity of nature. He is 
 a most vivid and quick-thoughted person, logi- 
 cal and common-sensible." 
 
 Mr. Bayard Taylor, writing in 1851, says: 
 " Calling one afternoon in September at De- 
 vonshire Street, I was fortunate enough to find 
 the Brownings at home, though on the eve ot 
 their return to Florence. Browning received 
 me with great cordiality. He was then, I 
 should judge, about 37 years of age, but his 
 dark hair was already streaked with gray about 
 the temples. His complexion was fair, with 
 perhaps the faintest olive tinge, eyes large, 
 clear, and gray, nose strong and well cut, 
 mouth full and rather broad, and chin pointed 
 though not prominent. His forehead broad- 
 ened rapidly upwards from the outer angle of 
 the eyes, slightly retreating. The strong indi- 
 viduality which marks his poetry was ex- 
 pressed not only in his face and head, but in 
 his whole demeanour. He was about the 
 medium height, strong in the shoulders but 
 slender at the waist, and his movements ex- 
 pressed a combination of vigour and elasticity." 
 
 The record of Browning's life at Florence 
 would be incomplete without some reference 
 to Walter Savage Landor. It was to Robert 
 Browning that the " old lion " went in his 
 deepest trouble ; and to the younger poet's
 
 Robert Browning. 23 
 
 judicious guidance the elder was ever 
 amenable. Landor never failed to speak of 
 of the kindness and innate courtesy of the 
 Brownings and the closing days of his 
 chequered career were certainly made the 
 brighter and happier through the sympathy 
 and goodwill of Mr. Browning. 
 
 It was in the year 1850 that Mr. Browning 
 published his chief religious poems Christ- 
 mas Eve and Easter Day. These works were 
 written at Florence ; and were Browning's 
 contributions to the religious questionings that 
 were then perplexing men's minds. His word 
 was, as might have been expected, emphatic- 
 ally on the side of faith. I have not yet 
 mentioned that Browning's parents were 
 Dissenters, and Dissenters of a very marked 
 type. The poet himself was, of course, 
 brought up in this school ; and for some years 
 after his return from Florence attended a 
 Congregational Chapel in Camden Town, 
 which was under the charge of the " poet 
 preacher," the Rev. Thomas Jones, whose 
 teaching was essentially that of the broad 
 school ; but it must not be supposed that on 
 this matter Mr. Browning's mind ran in one 
 groove ; for, as will be evident to the reader of 
 Christmas Eve, he was catholic and large- 
 hearted to the highest degree. 
 
 Two years after the publication of Christ- 
 mas Eve, Mr. Edward Moxon published 
 " Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, with an
 
 24 Robert Browning. 
 
 Introductory Essay by Robert Browning." 
 These letters were subsequently found to be 
 forgeries ; and the work was speedily with- 
 drawn from sale ; but of course the responsi- 
 bility for their publication in no way concerned 
 Mr. Browning ; neither did they throw any 
 new light on Shelley's character or life : but 
 they at least gave Browning the chance of 
 writing not only on the subject of Shelley, 
 but on the true poet, his work and aims an 
 essay which will always prove of- interest to 
 the student of poetry. 
 
 It was in 1855 that Mr. Browning attained 
 the crowning point of his literary career by 
 the publication, in two volumes, of the series 
 of poems entitled Men and Women. The 
 various poems that make up this collection 
 were written in London and Florence, and 
 contain some of his finest and most mature 
 work. In these volumes there was little that 
 could be called obscure although such poems 
 as Love in a Life and Life in a Love, 
 seem to have puzzled the ordinary reader 
 from that day to this ; but a couple of 
 volumes containing such poems as Saul, 
 Andrea del Sarto, By the Firesiae, &c., must 
 have come as a new revelation to all readers 
 of poetry. The second volume closed with 
 One Word More in which he addresses 
 " E. B. B. ; " the only direct personal note he 
 has permitted himself to utter. The first of 
 these volumes contained the fine poem of the
 
 Robert Browning. 25 
 
 Statue and the Btist, which seems to have 
 been regarded by certain readers as some- 
 what difficult. A year or two since, Mr. Wise 
 received a copy of an American paper, in 
 which occurred the following queries concern- 
 ing the Statue and the Bust : 
 
 o 
 
 " i. When, how, and where did it happen ? 
 Browning's divine vagueness lets one gather 
 only that the lady's husband was a Riccardi ; 
 2. Who was the lady ? who the duke ? 3. 
 The magnificent house wherein Florence 
 lodges her Prefet is known to all Florentine 
 ball-goers as the Palazzo Riccardi. It was 
 bought by the Riccardi from the Medici in 
 1659. From none of its windows did the lady 
 gaze at her more than royal lover. From 
 what window then, if from any ? Are the 
 statue and the bust still in their original posi- 
 tions ? " 
 
 On the receipt of these queries, Mr. Wise 
 forwarded them to the poet, receiving the 
 following characteristic note in answer : 
 
 Jan. 8t/t, '87. 
 Dear Mr. Wise, 
 
 I have seldom met with such a strange 
 inability to understand what seems the plain- 
 est matter possible : " ball-goers " are pro- 
 bably not history readers, but any guide book 
 would confirm what is sufficiently stated in 
 the poem : I will append a note or two, how- 
 ever.
 
 26 Robert Browning. 
 
 i. "This story the townsmen tell"; 
 " when, how, and where " constitutes the sub- 
 ject of the poem. 
 
 2. The lady was the wife of Riccardi, and 
 the Duke Ferdinand, just as the poem says. 
 
 3. As it was built by, and inhabited by 
 the Medici till sold, long after, to the Riccardi, 
 it was not from the Duke's palace, but a 
 window in that of the Riccardi, that the lady 
 gazed at her lover riding by. The statue is 
 still in its place, looking at the window under 
 which " now is the empty shrine." Can any- 
 thing be clearer ? My " vagueness " leaves 
 what to be " gathered " when all these things 
 are put down in black and white ? Oh, " ball- 
 goers " ! 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 In the Keepsake for 1856, edited by Miss 
 Power, occurs a little poem by Mr. Browning, 
 entitled Ben KarshooKs Wisdom (dated Rome, 
 April 2^th, 1854), which, as it has not 
 been reprinted in any of his works, I quote 
 here (in the exact form in which it appears in 
 the Keepsake} : 
 
 I. 
 
 " Would a man 'scape the rod ? " 
 
 Rabbi Ben Karshook saith, 
 " See that he turn to God, 
 
 The day before his death."
 
 Robert Browning, 27 
 
 " Ay, could a man inquire, 
 
 When it shall come ! " I say. 
 The Rabbi's eye shoots fire 
 
 " Then let him turn to-day !" 
 
 II. 
 
 Quoth a young Sadducee : 
 
 " Reader of many rolls, 
 Is it so certain we 
 
 Have, as they tell us, souls ? " 
 
 " Son, there is no reply ! " 
 
 The Rabbi bit his beard : 
 " Certain, a soul have / 
 
 We may have none," he sneered. 
 
 Thus Karshook, the Hiram's-Hammer, 
 The Right-hand Temple- column, 
 
 Taught babes in grace their grammar, 
 And struck the simple, solemn. 
 
 In 1 86 r, about an hour after daybreak on 
 the morning of June 29, died Elizabeth Barrett 
 Browning ; and of Mr. Browning it may 
 truly be said, the " light of his life had gone 
 out." Soon after his wife's death, the poet 
 returned to England ; residing for many 
 years at 19, Warwick Crescent, Paddington ; 
 and for the last two or three years of his life 
 at 29, De Vere Gardens, Kensington. 
 
 Once again in London, Mr. Browning re- 
 newed his old friendships, and made many 
 new ones ; but for the most part, his life from 
 this time onward was, in the main, a record 
 of ever-increasing poetical work, which he
 
 28 Robert Browning. 
 
 poured forth with surprising rapidity. In 
 1864, was published the Dramatis Persona, 
 which contains some of his best work. For 
 the next four years he was silent, but by no 
 means idle indeed, about 1868, he writes me, 
 " I have been far from well, and oppressed by 
 work." This latter statement was truly enough 
 substantiated when, in November, 1868, came 
 out the first volume of a new poem (in four 
 volumes), entitled The Ring and the Book 
 the remaining volumes being issued in each 
 subsequent month. It is a stupendous work, 
 but it crowned him " chief poet of the age." 
 
 In 1870, Mr. Browning's first sonnet was 
 written, and it appeared some few years later 
 in the Pall Mall Gazette. This fine sonnet 
 was written at the request of Lord Dufferin, 
 having for its subject the memorial tower 
 which had been erected at Clandeboye, Ireland, 
 to the memory of his mother, Helen, Countess 
 of Gifford. It was as follows : 
 
 Who hears of Helen's Tower, may dream perchance 
 How the Greek Beauty from the Scsean Gate 
 Gazed on old friends unanimous in hate, 
 
 Death-doom'd because of her fair countenance. 
 
 Hearts would leap otherwise at thy advance, 
 Lady, to whom this Tower is consecrate ! 
 Like hers, thy face once made all eyes elate, 
 
 Yet, unlike hers, was blessed by every glance. 
 
 The Tower of Hate is outworn, far and strange.; 
 A transitory shame of long ago, 
 It dies into the sand from which it sprang;
 
 Robert Browning. 29 
 
 But thine, Love's rock-built Tower, shalt fear no 
 
 change : 
 
 God's self laid stable earth's foundations so, 
 When all the morning stars together sang. 
 
 ,.> f - - - f .- 4 . 4 V\ - 
 
 Mr. Browning does not, however, seem to 
 have taken very kindly to the sonnet as a 
 medium for the expression of his thought ; 
 merely reserving this for any chance word that 
 might need utterance. It is noteworthy that 
 he has not included any of what may be 
 termed his " chance sonnets " in his published 
 work : and for that reason, it may be useful 
 to quote here the few that have appeared in 
 the Press. 
 
 Following the above, Browning's next 
 sonnet in rank of merit, is, I think, the one 
 contributed to the Shakspearian show at the 
 Albert Hall, entitled The Names : 
 
 Shakspeare ! to such name's sounding, what 
 
 succeeds 
 
 Fitly as silence ? Falter forth the spell, 
 Act follows word, the speaker knows full well, 
 
 Nor tampers with its magic more than needs. 
 
 Two names there are : That which the Hebrew reads 
 With his soul only : if from lips it fell, 
 Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven and hell, 
 
 Would own " Thou did'st create us ! " Nought impedes 
 
 We voice the other name, man's most of might, 
 Awesomely, lovingly : let awe and love 
 
 Mutely await their working, leave to sight 
 All of the issue as below above 
 Shakspeare's creation rises : one remove, 
 
 Though dread this finite from that infinite. 
 
 At Venice, in the November of 1883, the 
 
 D
 
 3O Robert Browning. 
 
 following was written for the Album of the 
 Committee of the Goldoni Monument : 
 
 Goldoni, good, gay, sunniest of souls, 
 
 Glassing half Venice in that verse of thine, 
 
 What though it just reflect the shade and shine 
 Of common life, nor render, as it rolls, 
 Grandeur and gloom ? Sufficient for thy shoals 
 
 Was Carnival : Parini's depths enshrine 
 
 Secrets unsuited to that opaline 
 Surface of things which laughs along thy scrolls. 
 There throng the People : how they come and go, 
 
 Lisp the soft language, flaunt the bright garb see 
 On Piazza, Calle, under Portico 
 
 And over Bridge ! Dear king of Comedy, 
 Be honoured ! Thou that didst love Venice so, 
 
 Venice, and we who love her, all love thee ! 
 
 Then there was the sonnet written in 1884, 
 in the Album presented to Arthur Chappell : 
 
 " Enter my palace," if a prince should say 
 
 " Feast with the Painters ! See, in bounteous row, 
 They range from Titian up to Angelo ! " 
 
 Could we be silent at the rich survey ? 
 
 A host so kindly, in as great a way 
 
 Invites to banquet, substitutes, for show 
 Sound that's diviner still, and bids us know 
 
 Bach like Beethoven ; are we thankless, pray ? 
 
 Thanks, then, to Arthur Chappell, thanks to him 
 Whose every guest henceforth not idly vaunts, 
 " Sense has received the utmost Nature grants, 
 
 My cup was filled with rapture to the brim, 
 
 When, night by night ah, memory, how it haunts ! 
 Music was poured by perfect ministrants, 
 
 By Halle, Schumann, Piatti, Joachim."
 
 Robert Browning, 31 
 
 There were also'the sonnets " Why am I a 
 Liberal ? " published in a work issued by 
 Messrs. Cassell and Co. ; and the one to 
 " Rawdon Brown." 
 
 Mr. Browning wrote some memorial lines 
 for a " window," commemorative of the 
 Jubilee, placed in St. Margaret's Church, West- 
 minster : 
 
 " Fifty years' flight ! wherein should he rejoice 
 
 Who hailed their birth, who as they die decays ? 
 This England echoes his attesting voice ; 
 Wondrous and well thanks Ancient Thou of 
 days." 
 
 The last of Mr. Browning's " chance words " 
 was the well-known lines to some remarks of 
 Edward Fitzgerald's certainly a well-merited 
 castigation ; but which were now best forgotten, 
 though we can easily understand the spirit 
 of indignation under which the poet wrote. 
 
 In 1871, the Cornhill Magazine contained 
 Herve Kiel, the poem being dated Croisic, 
 Sept. 30, 1867. This was Mr. Browning's sole 
 contribution to magazines of recent years 
 the ;ioo he received for the poem being given 
 to the French relief fund during the war with 
 Germany. In the same year appeared Balaus- 
 tioris Adventure ; including a Transcript from 
 Euripides. The record of the next few years 
 is a busy one : 187 1, Prince Hohenstiel-Schwan- 
 gau, Saviour of Society ; 1872, Fifine at the 
 Fair ; 1873, Red Cotton Nightcap Country, or 
 Turf and Towers; 1875, Aristophanes' Apology,
 
 32 Robert Browning. 
 
 being the Last Adventure of Balaustion; and 
 the same year, the Inn Album. 
 
 These poems from 1871 to 1875 are surely 
 a record of unwearied literary productiveness ; 
 and truly prove the correctness of his words, 
 " I cannot be an idle man." They did not, 
 however, add very much to the fame he had 
 already achieved, although each poem was ex- 
 ceedingly characteristic of its author. But 
 in 1876 appeared " Pacchiarotto, and how he 
 worked in Distemper: with other Poems" these 
 " other Poems " being in the nature of a return 
 to his earlier work, and containing such gems 
 as " Pisgah-Sights," "At the 'Mermaid,'" 
 " Appearances," " St. Martin's Summer," and 
 " Fears and Scruples." Regarding this latter 
 poem, I will quote an interesting letter from 
 the poet himself : 
 
 19, Warwick Crescent, W., 
 
 Feb. gtk, '85. 
 
 My dear Kingsland, 
 
 Another of your many proofs of kind- 
 ness to me ! but you are no more likely to 
 tire of being kind than I am of being grateful. 
 
 I think that the point I wanted to illustrate 
 in the poem you mention was this : Where 
 there is a genuine love of the " letters " and 
 " actions " of the invisible " friend," however 
 these may be disadvantaged by an inability to 
 meet the objections to their authenticity or 
 historical value urged by " experts " who
 
 Robert Browning. 33 
 
 assume the privilege of learning over igno- 
 rance, it would indeed be a wrong to the 
 wisdom and goodness of the "friend" if he 
 were supposed capable of overlooking the ac- 
 tual " love " and only considering the " igno- 
 rance " which, failing to in any degree affect 
 " love " is really the highest evidence that 
 " love," exists. So I meant, whether the result 
 be clear or no. . ... 
 
 Yours affectionately ever, 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 The Agamemnon of JEschylus appeared in 
 1877 ; and in the following year, La Saisiaz, 
 and the Two Poets of Croisic. In 1879, Mr. 
 Browning issued his Dramatic Idylls, and the 
 following year a second series under the same 
 title. Jocoseria was published in 1883 ; and 
 fierisktaHs Fancies in 1884. 
 
 It may here be well to mention that in 
 July, 1 88 1, a society was formed in London 
 by Dr. Furnivall and Miss E. H. Hickey, for 
 the purpose of the study and discussion of Mr. 
 Browning's works. The society called the 
 " Browning Society " soon got into working 
 order, many admirers of the poet were at once 
 enrolled as members, and the study of Mr. 
 Browning's writings set about in earnest. Dr. 
 Furnivall compiled an interesting and volumi- 
 nous " Bibliography," while various critical 
 papers by those best competent to speak were 
 read and printed. But after all, it was felt by
 
 34 Robert Browning. 
 
 not a few that what was really wanted was a 
 selection of Mr. Browning's more popular and 
 easily-understood poems, published at a 
 nominal price, so as to bring them within 
 reach of what is somewhat vaguely termed 
 " the People." Those who were able to join 
 a society such as this, were probably the 
 people who had leisure and means to study 
 for themselves ; but it was felt that there was 
 a " general reading public " to whom some of 
 these poems should specially appeal, and the 
 question was how to get at them ? This was 
 in some measure answered by means of lec- 
 tures, &c. ; while the issue by Messrs. Smith 
 and Elder of a cheaper edition of the 
 " Selections," greatly aided in the matter and 
 in this regard it is pleasant to note the cordial 
 and friendly relations that always subsisted 
 between Mr. Browning and his publishers. 
 
 It was towards the end of 1885 that I wrote 
 to a leading member of this Society (a friend 
 of Mr. Browning's) on the question as to the 
 desirability of a " People's Edition " of the 
 more popular poems. To my dismay, I re-; 
 ceived an intimation that my letter had been 
 sent on to Mr. Browning of course with the 
 obvious intention of emphasising the need of 
 such an edition. However this might be, I 
 certainly was averse to my crude suggestions 
 going to head-quarters ; so I at once wrote 
 the Poet, explaining the matter in question; 
 His reply is, I think, well worth quoting, as it
 
 Robert Browning. 35 
 
 will show that while he was fully desirous that 
 his works should be brought within reach of 
 the " People," he had implicit confidence in 
 the judgment of his publishers ; and like a 
 wise man, prefered leaving business details to 
 them who after all were the only competent 
 judges in the matter : 
 
 19, Warwick Crescent, 
 
 Jan. 6t/i, '86. 
 
 My dear Kingsland, 
 
 I did indeed get your very kind and 
 
 considerate letter addressed to , and 
 
 returned it to him with every acknowledge- 
 ment of the interest in my books which I have 
 very long now been thoroughly acquainted 
 with and grateful for. 
 
 With respect to the proposed cheap volume 
 of selections, is it necessary to say that so 
 far from being indifferent to the sympathy of 
 " the People," and careless about their limi- 
 ted means of laying out money on books I 
 began the series of " Bells and Pomegranates," 
 at the price of sixpence a number, which the 
 publisher found it advisable to raise, if he 
 wished to sell at all. In this case, my pub- 
 lisher might say that a cheap edition of the 
 Selections has just been printed and stereo- 
 typed, at half the price of the former one, and 
 the sale of this, which is increasingly consider- 
 able, would be checked or stopped by yet 
 another venture in the way of cheapness
 
 36 Robert Browning. 
 
 which, moreover, to answer its purpose, ought 
 to comprise the more popular if not the best 
 pieces : and what can be said in reply ? Alas, 
 that, as Keats complained, in these days, 
 "honey can't be got without hard money!" 
 
 I wish, with all my heart, I could give the 
 honey, or what your good nature accepts as 
 such, freely and without price ; but so long 
 as there is an intermediary to account with, I 
 am bound to consult his advantage in busi- 
 ness matters as well as my own in a plea- 
 sant liberality which would be accountable to 
 nobody else. 
 
 I think you do not take into account the 
 uses of a book purchased at even a price above 
 the means of " the People " to pay : after it is 
 read how often is it bound or simply shelved 
 and put aside exclusively for the owner ? Are 
 books not lent, and sold secondhand, and 
 dirtied, and cheapened still further, till they 
 are within the reach of, at least, many a 
 reader who would otherwise never possess 
 them at all even for an hour's amusement ? 
 But I have said my little say and may leave 
 off. All best wishes to you and yours for the 
 current year and its followers ! Do pray, 
 whenever you wish to gratify me, come here : 
 you will delight my sister as well as myself. 
 Ever, with all kind regards from us both, 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING.
 
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 Robert Browning. 37 
 
 It was in 1886, that Mr. Browning lost by 
 death, one of his oldest and worthiest friends, 
 M. Milsand, of Dijon, to whom the well-known 
 dedication of the 1863 edition of Sordello 
 was written. M. Milsand was almost the first 
 Frenchman to recognize Mr. Browning's 
 genius or to review his poems. As early as 
 1851 he wrote of him in the Revue des deux 
 Mondes : " Mr. Browning belongs to the family 
 of Milton rather than of Shakespeare. His 
 peculiar genius is that he sees in every fact an 
 epitome of creation. I know of no poet as 
 capable of gathering up the religious,moral,and 
 scientific conceptions of our time, and clothing 
 them in poetic form." The relationship between 
 Browning and Milsand was a very beautiful 
 one ; and it was truly delightful to see these 
 old and staunch friends together. When Mr. 
 Browning heard of his friend's death, he at 
 once wrote me the letter of which a facsimile 
 is appended. 
 
 In 1887 came the Parleyings with certain 
 People of Importance in their day, bearing the 
 following inscription : " In Memoriam, J. 
 Milsand, Obiitiv. Sept., mdccclxxxvi, Absens 
 absentem aiiditque videtqu'e." "There's poor 
 dear Milsand," said Browning to me one day, 
 at his house in De Vere Gardens, pointing to 
 his friend's portrait, painted by his son ; " he 
 was in my mind a great deal while I was writ- 
 ing the Parleyings" Alas, but three years
 
 38 Robert Browning. 
 
 were to run ere Mr. Browning was to follow 
 his friend into the " world of light." 
 
 I have not yet mentioned the few occasions 
 on which Mr. Browning was present at public 
 ceremonials ; but one of these stands out more 
 boldly than the rest, and is worthy of record 
 from the fact that the poet himself was pro- 
 foundly touched by his reception, and would 
 often speak of it with evident gratification : I 
 refer to the celebration of the Tercentenary of 
 the University of Edinburgh, in 1884. It was, 
 however, at the students' reception of the 
 University guests that Mr. Browning achieved, 
 perhaps, the greatest popular success of his 
 life, and became, without any premeditation 
 or effort, one of the heroes of the memor- 
 able festival. Concerning this interesting occa- 
 sion, a correspondent of the Times writes : 
 " The students arrived early and packed them- 
 selves in their allotted space. During the 
 hour or more of waiting they had voluntarily 
 subjected themselves to, they were surprised 
 and gratified to find that a neatly-dressed old 
 gentleman, with snow-white head and beard, 
 had from his place on the platform elected 
 to spend the waiting hour with them. 
 At first they assumed that the venerable 
 visitor had made a mistake, and they 
 laughed heartily but good-naturedly, as they 
 thought of the disappointment that was in 
 store for him. But by-and-by, as it was 
 seen that the old man was genuinely interested
 
 .Robert Browning. 39 
 
 in the impromptu preliminary proceedings, 
 and seemed unreservedly to participate in all 
 the innocent fun in which the students in- 
 dulged, a kindlier feeling was shown towards 
 him, and the young men seemed to find 
 pleasure in making efforts to afford entertain- 
 ment for their appreciative listener and ob- 
 server on the platform. By-and-by the 
 whisper passed from bench to bench, that the 
 faultlessly-attired, benignant-looking, white- 
 haired visitor and observer was no other than 
 Robert Browning ; and the students, as if 
 ashamed of the liberties they had been taking 
 with him, relapsed into respectful, reverent 
 silence, until one daring admirer burst out 
 with a loud call, ' Three cheers for Browning.' 
 Instantly the students, springing to their feet, 
 responded to the call with stentorian cheers ; 
 while the poet, flushing and embarrassed, yet 
 evidently highly gratified, bowed his acknow- 
 ledgments, and then turned to find a less con- 
 spicuous seat. Having selected his place of 
 retreat, he was, however, amid the thundering 
 plaudits of the students, conducted back to 
 his old place, the master of ceremonies on the 
 platform having apparently explained that all 
 the seats were allotted, and that no guest could 
 change his place without causing confusion. 
 The poet, however, soon recovered his com- 
 posure as the places beside him became more 
 occupied, sometimes chatting pleasantly with 
 the gentlemen near him, at other times keep-
 
 4O Robert Browning. 
 
 ing time with his foot or hand to the students' 
 songs, and every now and again acknowledg- 
 ing with unconcealed pleasure the friendly and 
 affectionate cheers of his young admirers. 
 
 "All through the proceedings he continued 
 the leading favourite. Speeches of exceptional 
 interest, beauty, and power, were delivered by 
 Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. Lowell, and 
 others ; but still the cry was for " Browning," 
 and at last the poet rose to his feet. He 
 said : 
 
 " ' Gentlemen, the utter surprise with which 
 this demonstration fills me, and the embarrass- 
 ment consequent upon it, must be my excuse 
 for not attempting to do more adequately 
 what I am afraid would in any case be done 
 by me most imperfectly. I am usually accused 
 of my writings being unintelligible. Let me, 
 for once, attempt to be intelligible indeed by 
 saying that I feel thoroughly grateful to you 
 for the kindness which, not only on this 
 occasion, but during the last two or three 
 days, I have experienced. I shall consider 
 this to the end of my life one of the proudest 
 days I have spent. The recognition you have 
 given me and all your kindness I shall never 
 forget.' 
 
 " Every sentence was emphasized by hearty 
 cheering from the students, and Sir Stafford 
 Northcote, gracefully responded on the part
 
 Robert Browning. 4r 
 
 of the meeting : ' Mr. Browning has been good 
 enough to say that his writings are generally 
 misunderstood, but that must be due to his 
 audiences. I am sure that so intelligent an 
 audience as that which I now see before me 
 would have done ample justice to Mr. Brown- 
 ing's address. But we are very much obliged to 
 him for his presence here, and for the kind re- 
 cognition which he has joined in giving you.' " 
 
 Here perhaps might be the place to weave 
 in a few personal recollections of the poet ; 
 but they could tell little that the world does 
 not already know concerning him. Kindly 
 and courteous, gentle and loving, he ever was 
 to all with whom he came in contact. It was 
 an experience to accompany him upstairs to 
 his " den," as he would call the handsome and 
 spacious study in his Kensington house, and 
 hear him talk, discoursing sometimes of his 
 Pauline days at Richmond ; and narrating 
 how on one occasion, walking with Words- 
 worth and some friends, one of the party said, 
 " There's Browning's house over by that hill." 
 " Call that a hill," exclaimed Wordsworth, 
 " why, we only call that a rise in my country." 
 Then he would show you the lock of Milton's 
 hair, given to him and his wife by Leigh 
 Hunt ; the books and manuscripts connected 
 with Walter Savage Landor ; and the original 
 " square old yellow book," with its " crumpled 
 vellum covers," which he picked up in a " square
 
 42 Robert Browning. 
 
 in Florence," the finding of which led to his 
 writing the Ring and the Book. Mr. Brown- 
 ing seems to have had a most retentive me- 
 mory ; and he would pour out early reminiscen- 
 ces in abundance at times : indeed, I recollect 
 his remarking on one occasion that he could 
 call to mind many things that occurred when 
 he was five years old, adding " I used to 
 frighten my mother with my keen memory." 
 
 Now and again Mr. Browning would re- 
 call some reminiscence of his wife, or narrate 
 little incidents connected with her memory. 
 On one occasion at Warwick Crescent, when 
 the conversation was ranging round the ways 
 of little children, he abruptly broke in : "I was 
 one day playing a delicate piece of Chopin's 
 on the piano ; and on hearing a loud noise 
 outside the room, hastily left off playing. Just 
 at that moment my little boy came in and 
 my wife turned round to me, saying, half in 
 jest and half in earnest, ' How could you have 
 the heart to leave off playing when he has 
 come in with tJiree drums to accompany you ?' " 
 
 Indeed, it was a rare and especial privilege 
 to be shown some of the many memorials of 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The old poet 
 would unlock a drawer of the table at which 
 he wrote, and take out a book or a faded 
 paper, while the listener would detect a wist- 
 ful, yearning tenderness in the voice as the poet 
 proceeded to explain whatever object he might 
 be showing you.
 
 Robert Browning. 43 
 
 I remember calling on him soon after the 
 Shah's last visit to London, and it was very 
 amusing to hear his account of the personal 
 communication between the Persian monarch 
 and himself. " Are you a poet ? " was the first 
 question (in French) : " Well, people are good 
 enough to say so," replied the poet. " Have 
 you written much ? " next queried the Shah. 
 " A great deal too much," was the modest 
 answer. "Will you give me one of your books ?" 
 was another question, and, said the poet, 
 with a comical smile, "I went out next morning 
 to Oxford Street, and bought the two volumes 
 of selections, prettily bound, and sent him." 
 
 For Lord Tennyson he always had a 
 large place in his heart, and would speak of 
 him with reverent admiration which feeling 
 we all know was nobly reciprocated by the 
 Laureate. It has been so customary for cri- 
 tics to speak of " Mr. Browning and his great 
 rival," that a certain order of minds might 
 well think there was a sort of personal rivalry 
 between them. We are therefore very grate- 
 ful to one of Mr. Browning's friends, for per- 
 suading Lord Tennyson to allow the following 
 letter to be made public, written on the eve 
 of his eightieth birthday : 
 
 " 29, De Vere-gardens, W. 
 
 Aug. 5, 1889. 
 My dear Tennyson, 
 
 To-morrow is your birthday indeed,
 
 44 Robert Browning; 
 
 a memorable one. Let me say I associate 
 myself with the universal pride of our country 
 in your glory, and in its hope that for many 
 and many a year we may have your very self 
 among us secure that your poetry will be a 
 wonder and delight to all those appointed to 
 come after. And for my own part, let me 
 further say, I have loved you dearly. May 
 God bless you and yours. 
 
 At no moment from first to last of my ac- 
 quaintance with your works, or friendship with 
 yourself, have I had any other feeling, ex- 
 pressed or kept silent, than this which an 
 opportunity allows me to utter that I am 
 and ever shall be, my dear Tennyson, admir- 
 ingly and affectionately yours, 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING." 
 
 It was always a pleasure to hear Mr. Brown- 
 ing speak of his contemporaries in literature 
 for the listener could not fail to note the large- 
 hearted generosity of the man. Of Landor, 
 Forster, Dickens, "Barry Cornwall," and 
 others, Mr. Browning would speak with en- 
 thusiasm ; but he always had a special word 
 of praise for Thomas Carlyle from whom, 
 early in his career, he had had several kindly 
 and encouraging letters, which are now I be- 
 lieve in the hands of Professor Norton, for 
 future publication. Mr. Browning used to 
 tell how, soon after the publication of one of his 
 early books, he had a most cordial letter from
 
 ., 
 
 Robert Browning. 45 
 
 Carlyle, asking him to call at Chelsea. So 
 kindly was the letter, that Mr. Browning 
 who looked up to Carlyle with a sort of awe 
 thought it must be a mistake ; but he never- 
 theless called, and was received with the 
 greatest kindness by the philosopher and his 
 wife. He subsequently renewed his visits ; 
 and he would relate how Carlyle and his 
 wife would often accompany him part of the 
 way back, " as far as Vauxhall Bridge Road," 
 on his homeward journey. In after life, Brown- 
 ing always made a point of visiting Carlyle on 
 his birthday. Shortly before his death, the 
 old man called at Warwick Crescent. Mr. 
 Browning was out, but Carlyle (who was too 
 weak to leave the carriage), left a message 
 with Miss Browning: "Tell your brother I 
 should like to see him once again before I die." 
 Needless to say, the poet went over to Chelsea 
 the next morning. 
 
 Of his personal kindness to myself, I cannot 
 here speak but the recollection of it will 
 be one of the sacredest of memories. He 
 was always the same : the hearty grasp of the 
 hand, the face smiling a welcome, the kindly 
 ring of the voice. Hopeful and buoyant he 
 ever was though latterly there would be a 
 tinge of pathos in his utterance. " That is my 
 room," he said to me once, as he was showing 
 me over his new house. " I shall die there 
 that will be my last home." "Here at least," 
 he went on, "for one may surely hope it 
 
 E 

 
 46 Robert Browning. 
 
 will not be the last ;" entering his study, he 
 said, "By and bye I do not mean to write 
 quite so much as I have done and then I 
 shall have more time to give to my friends." I 
 asked him once if he would mind writing his 
 name in my original edition of the Dramatis 
 Persona ; and he wrote as follows : " I had 
 not the pleasure of giving this book to my 
 friend Kingsland but there is no one for 
 whom I would rather have written it, if he has 
 got pleasure by what it contains, Robert 
 Browning." 
 
 In August, 1888, I saw him for the last time. 
 It seemed to me he was then ageing visibly, 
 despite the youthfulness and buoyancy of 
 manner that yet asserted itself. But the old 
 kindliness and cheeriness was still present 
 though there was a touch of pathos in his voice 
 as he spoke of meeting after his holiday. " If 
 I live," he repeated, more than once. 
 
 A few days after this, I received from Miss 
 Helen Clarke, of Philadelphia, some numbers 
 of a magazine dealing chiefly with the wri- 
 tings of Mr. Browning, with a request that 
 I would forward them to the poet. I did so, 
 and a few days afterwards received what 
 proved to be my last letter from him : 
 
 29, De Vere Gardens, W., 
 My dear Kingsland, Aug. 26, '89. 
 
 I have to acknowledge your kindness
 
 Robert Browning. 47 
 
 in forwarding the magazines, which have much 
 interested me, as I looked through them last 
 evening .... I am hurried and cannot say 
 more, as I would gladly do if we were not 
 just about to start in a day or two at 
 farthest. But here or away, you must re- 
 member me ever as your affectionate friend 
 
 and well-wisher. Will you 
 
 thank Miss Helen Clarke emphatically for 
 the honour and pleasure she and her like- 
 minded friends have done me in the magazine 
 and elsewhere ? I should be grateful for the 
 successive numbers, if the transmission would 
 not cause too much trouble. With kind 
 regards, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 Within a day or two of writing this letter, 
 Mr. Browning left England for his autumn 
 holiday for the last time. He spent some 
 pleasant weeks at Asolo ; from thence jour- 
 neying to Venice, where he stayed for some 
 time with old friends, and subsequently with 
 his son at the Palazzo Rezzonico. He had 
 intended to return to England in time for the 
 publication of his new book, Asolando ; but 
 just as he was about to start, he was taken 
 suddenly ill with bronchial catarrh. His com- 
 plaint, however, developed to bronchitis with 
 asthma, and weakness of the heart ensued. 
 In spite of every care and the most attentive
 
 48 Robert Browning. 
 
 nursing, the poet grew weaker, though he 
 suffered little save inconvenience, and ate, 
 slept, and digested almost as well as when in 
 his full vigour. On Thursday, December 
 1 2th, however, the extreme weakness of the 
 heart's action was very marked, and the doc- 
 tors feared that unless some immediate change 
 for the better took -place- a fatal lapse would 
 occur before long. The poet's last hours were 
 by no means unhappy or overclouded ; nay, 
 they were what his best friends could well 
 have desired for him. He was free from pain, 
 and, save for his cardiac weakness, feeling 
 better ; was greatly cheered by the sympathy 
 displayed by the numerous telegrams which 
 he had received ; and those near and dear to 
 him were by his side. He also experienced 
 much pleasure from the receipt of more than 
 one telegram telling him of the wide and im- 
 mediate success of his new book Asolando, 
 which had been more largely "subscribed for" 
 than any of his other works. So the day wore 
 on, till, about 10 o'clock in the evening, the 
 great poet painlessly entered Life. 
 
 fi 'U : >"'.'i--t &* 
 
 It was decided to remove the poet's remains 
 from the Palazzo Rezzonico to the island 
 cemetery at Venice, as a temporary resting- 
 place. A short service having been held in 
 the palace, the body was placed in a gondola, 
 bearing at the prow the figure of an angel, at 
 the stern that of a lion, "he, with voice
 
 Robert Browning. 49 
 
 of angel, heart oflion, lay between the two," 
 and covered with lovely flowers, many of them 
 sent from Florence. The relatives and friends, 
 and members of the Venetian Syndic, followed 
 in other gondolas, and so, in the light of the 
 setting sun, the mournful but picturesque pro- 
 cession moved slowly across the lagoons of 
 the city which the dead poet has immortal- 
 ised in his verse, " where the Doges used to 
 wed the sea with rings, where St. Mark's is," 
 to the island of San Michele, where the body 
 was placed in the chapel. 
 
 It had been the poet's wish to be laid in the 
 same grave with his wife in the old cemetery 
 at Florence ; and application was at once made 
 to the proper authorities there. It was however 
 found to be impossible to re-open the cemetery 
 without an Act of Parliament ; and under these 
 circumstances, Mr. Barrett Browning, the 
 poet's son, acquiesced (in accordance with 
 the earnest wishes of many of the deceased 
 poet's contemporaries and friends) in the desire 
 of the Dean Bradley, that the remains of his 
 father should be interred in Westminster 
 Abbey, and the body was therefore subse- 
 quently removed from Venice to De Vere 
 Gardens, London. 
 
 On the last day of December, 1889, at noon, 
 all that was mortal of Robert Browning was 
 laid in the Abbey of Westminster, his grave 
 being fittingly found in Poet's Corner, close to 
 spot where lie the remains of Dryden, Chau-
 
 5O Robert Browning. 
 
 cer, and Cowley. Over London, there had 
 floated all the morning a thick fog, but the 
 Abbey was, nevertheless, thronged with 
 mourners. Art, science, and literature, were 
 represented ; men and women were present 
 who had become the nobler and stronger 
 through the inspiration of his verse ; while in 
 that part of the edifice open unrestricted to the 
 public could be seen a vast crowd, composed 
 mostly of young men and young women, drawn 
 there out of love to the great poet, who was, to 
 use his own expressive words, "greater than 
 the world suspects." Strangely suggestive to 
 many who had known and loved the poet was 
 the sudden lifting of the fog soon after noon, 
 just at the time when the music of Croft and 
 Purcell was borne to the ears of the vast con- 
 gregation. The clergy of the Abbey, on the 
 arrival of the body, formed in procession and 
 walked from the altar to the door of the west 
 cloister, and returned with the bearers of the 
 coffin ; the officiating clergy were the Dean, 
 the Sub-Dean (Canon Prothero), Canon 
 Duckworth, Canon Furse, and Dr. Troutbeck 
 (precentor). Slowly the sad procession passed 
 within the choir, and the bearers bore the 
 coffin, covered with a purple pall, to the open 
 space assigned to it the pall-bearers being : 
 Mr. Hallam Tennyson, representing the Poet 
 Laureate, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, the 
 Master of Trinity, Sir Theodore Martin, Arch- 
 deacon Farrar, the Master of Balliol, Professor
 
 Robert Browning. -51 
 
 Masson, Sir Frederick Leighton, Sir James 
 Paget, Sir G. Grove, Professor Knight, and 
 Mr. George Smith. By the side of the Dean 
 of Westminster at the bottom of the choir 
 were the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Capt. 
 Walter Campbell, the latter representing the 
 Queen. Upon the top of the corfin were some 
 exquisite wreaths, one of white immortelles ; 
 another of violets and lilies of the valley, and 
 a massive cross of violets. The service began 
 with the chanting of the QOth Psalm, " Lord, 
 Thou hast been our refuge," to Purcell's music, 
 and then Canon Prothero read the appointed 
 lesson. Next followed the beautiful words of 
 Mrs. Browning, to which Dr. Bridge had com- 
 posed a musical setting of the tenderest pathos, 
 and in full harmony with the thought of the 
 poem. Very sacred was it to listen to these 
 words of the wife who had been taken from her 
 husband some eight-and-twenty years before, 
 but had left him a legacy of love as rare as it 
 was beautiful : 
 
 What would we give to our beloved ? 
 The hero's heart to be unmoved, 
 
 The poet's star-tuned harp to sweep, 
 The patriot's voice to teach and rouse, 
 The monarch's crown to light the brows ?- 
 
 " He giveth His beloved sleep." 
 
 O earth, so full of dreary noises ! 
 O men, with wailing in your voices ! 
 O delved gold, the wailers heap !
 
 52 Robert Browning. 
 
 O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall ! 
 God strikes a silence through you all, 
 And "giveth His beloved sleep." 
 
 wiJ r^v.s .bri .bsvoirf ^Icjpab ' rj/ 4.?^t? 
 
 His dews drop mutely on the hill, 
 His cloud above it saileth still, 
 
 Though on its slopes men sow and reap ; 
 More softly than the dew is shed, 
 Or cloud is floated overhead, 
 
 "He giveth His beloved sleep." 
 
 " ^ ' r.#r^ rtjciriri A r ^ '\/l\ T>r* * 
 
 Following this came Wesley's anthem, 
 "All go to one place" (Eccles. iii. 20), and 
 then the clergy, the pall-bearers, and the 
 mourners moved after the coffin towards the 
 spot where the grave had been prepared. 
 
 The coffin having been lowered into the 
 grave, the choral part of the service for the 
 burial of the dead was sung. Around the 
 grave, with the clergy and pall-bearers, stood 
 the sorrowing friends and relatives of the great 
 poet who had passed into the Unseen ; while 
 the Dean pronounced the committal to the 
 earth, and read the prayer and collect. Then 
 came a burst of music from the organ, and the 
 whole of the vast congregation, rising, joined 
 the choir in singing the well-known hymn : 
 
 " O God our help in ages past, 
 
 Our hope for years to come ; 
 Our shelter from the stormy blast, 
 And our eternal home." 
 
 Very solemn and affecting was the singing
 
 Robert Browning. 53 
 
 of these words, and it will not soon be forgot- 
 ten by those who heard it ; many of the 
 audience were deeply moved, and even the 
 most indifferent spectator (had such an one 
 been present) must have felt something of the 
 high and holy spirit which seemed to fill the 
 place, and which had animated the great and 
 good man now being laid to his rest. Stand- 
 ing by the open grave, on that dim December 
 afternoon, while the strains of Watts' noble 
 hymn were surging through the old Abbey, 
 there came forcibly to mind the resonant line 
 from La Saisiaz : 
 
 " He at least believed in soul was very sure of God." 
 
 And that other far-reaching line from the 
 earlier poem of Saul: 
 
 " It shall be 
 A Face like my face that receives thee ; a Man like to 
 
 me, 
 Thou shalt love and be loved by for ever : a Hand 
 
 like to my hand 
 Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee see the 
 
 Christ stand ! " 
 
 The gates have been opened for Robert 
 Browning he has seen all : he has realised 
 his own words in Prospice : 
 
 " O thou soul of my soul, I shall see thee again, 
 And with God be the rest." 
 
 The Benediction, followed by the Dead
 
 34 Robert Browning. 
 
 -March, brought this sad and impressive service 
 to a close. 
 
 1 freaxfc R fccria fnrm fjiRfren. 
 i&* ka& fofrfrfr fei-e in 
 sait[r Ifrt ^^ixit, in tfris st fxom 
 
 is sfoaUofojefc ttp in bi 
 
 4< SD&anhs k ta (S0i> fofritfr et&ctb us 
 0r
 
 ovf returns 5<< fe^g ^df 
 
 II. 
 
 I HAVE already noted that the anonymous 
 publication of Mr. Browning's first poem, Pau- 
 line, in 1833, attracted but little attention, yet 
 a few highly-gifted spirits saw in it the sure 
 indications of genius, and prophesied of its 
 author yet greater things. As the years went 
 by, these prophesies were more than realised, 
 but though many readers of poetry fought 
 rather shy of each succeeding volume, the 
 "select few," soon after the publication of 
 Paracelsus, recognized that once more a giant 
 had appeared upon the earth, and welcomed 
 each new poem with a fervour and a hearti- 
 ness which must have more than compensated 
 its author for the neglect of the general 
 reading public. 
 
 On the publication of the Ring and tJie 
 Book, however, in 1868 and 1869, the public 
 could hold out no longer, and fascinated by 
 the wealth of imagery and of thought, as by 
 the dramatic vividness of the narrative, were 
 constrained to hail Robert Browning as one of 
 the chief singers of the day. 
 
 At the same time, there remained a large 
 class of intelligent people who were repelled 
 by what they called the " obscure style," the
 
 56 Robert Browning. 
 
 "harsh and involved expressions," the "ambi- 
 guity " of this most incisive and vigorous of 
 modern poets. Some critics, indeed, went so 
 far as to affirm that the " obscurity " was wil- 
 ful ; and that the poet had seen fit, for some 
 occult reason of own, to " puzzle " his readers. 
 This theory has long since exploded, and in- 
 deed could never have been tenable ; as will 
 be seen by a letter written by Mr. Browning 
 upwards of twenty years ago, an extract from 
 which has already been made public : 
 
 , ? '": 
 
 19, Warwick Crescent, W. 
 
 Nov. 27, '68. 
 
 My dear Mr. Kingsland, 
 
 Will the kindness that induced you to 
 write your very gratifying letter forgive the 
 delay that has taken place in answering it ? 
 an unavoidable delay, for I have been far from 
 well, and oppressed by work. 
 
 I am heartily glad I have your sympathy 
 for what I write : intelligence, by itself, is 
 scarcely the thing with respect to a new book, 
 as Wordsworth says (a little altered) "you 
 must like it before it be worthy of your liking." 
 In spite of your intelligence and sympathy, I 
 can have little doubt but that my writing has 
 been, in the main, too hard for many I should 
 have been pleased to communicate with : but 
 I never designedly tried to puzzle people, as 
 some of my critics have supposed. On the 
 other hand, I never pretended to offer such
 
 Robert Browning. 57 
 
 literature as should be a substitute for a cigar, 
 or game at dominos to an idle man. So per- 
 haps on the whole I get my deserts and some- 
 thing over, not a crowd but a few I value 
 more. Let me remember gratefully that I 
 may class you among these : while you, in turn, 
 must remember me as, 
 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 But unfortunately, in spite of Mr. Brown- 
 ing's asseverations that he has never been 
 " wilfully obscure," many readers of poetry still 
 incline to the belief that in some way or other 
 it is his fault if they fail to catch his meaning ; 
 and after one or two futile attempts at some 
 poem utterly beyond them at that stage of 
 their reading, give up the thing altogether. 
 Thus it comes about that Mr. Browning's 
 poems have been neglected by many who might 
 otherwise have felt drawn to them, and it is 
 with the hope of interesting readers of this 
 class that this book has been written. 
 
 It may be well to note, first, some of the 
 main characteristics of Browning's work ; and 
 it must be stated at the outset, that he is 
 emphatically the poet of Faith and Hope, 
 the truly religious poet. At the same time, 
 he is a man of the world, with a large know- 
 ledge of men and things, and an altogether 
 marvellous insight into human nature. 
 
 Great, indeed, is the range of his genius, and
 
 58 Robert Broivniug. 
 
 universal the sources of his inspiration. Popes, 
 monks, saints, kings, queens, children, villains, 
 throng his canvas, and from one and all some 
 deep human experience is evolved. In Pippa 
 Passes perhaps the most beautiful, as it is 
 probably the most easily comprehended of his 
 dramas he gives us a charming picture of 
 Pippa, a little factory girl, who, moving anear 
 to souls soiled by evil in her one day's holiday, 
 sings her little snatches of song like the lark 
 at heaven's gate, awaking dead conscience and 
 remorse in hard, bad hearts, instancing once 
 more the power of the old-world words, " out 
 of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast 
 perfected praise : " and the burden of whose 
 song, as she descends like a child-angel into 
 the light of a new morning, with the spring- 
 world bathed in the glory and gold of a blessed 
 sunrise, is 
 
 " The year 's at the spring, 
 And day 's at the morn ; 
 Morning 's at seven ; 
 The hill-side 's dew-pearled, 
 The lark 's on the wing ; 
 The snail 's on the thorn ; 
 God 's in His Heaven 
 All 's right with the world." 
 
 The range of Mr. Browning's genius is 
 as unique as it is catholic. Are you fond of 
 thought cast in a dramatic mould ? Then you 
 can have your choice amid half a dozen of the 
 ripest dramas of the last fifty years dramas
 
 Robert Browning.. 
 
 that reach even the " high-water mark " of 
 
 the dramatists of the Elizabethan period 
 
 beginning with Strafford and ending with 
 
 Litria. Does Art appeal to you ? Then you 
 
 have some pregnant teaching on painting and 
 
 sculpture in Old Pictures in Florence, Fra 
 
 Lippo, and Andrea del Sarto, Do you love 
 
 to peer into the recesses of the human heart, 
 
 and probe to the utmost motive and conscience? 
 
 Then must you go to Browning, and the Ring 
 
 and the Book, and the Dramatic Idylls, will 
 
 furnish you with an ever-widening series of 
 
 studies on conscience and mental analysis. 
 
 Does music speak to you ? Here you will find 
 
 not only perfect poems, but the ripest thought 
 
 on music to be found in modern literature 
 
 poems which culminate in the rapt vision of 
 
 Abt Vogler. Lastly are you moved by the 
 
 religious questionings of the age ? Are you 
 
 profoundly touched by religious thought ? 
 
 Then here is your poet ready to hand ; and in 
 
 Saul, onward to the Death in the Desert, 
 
 FerishtaJfs Fancies, and Asolando, you will 
 
 will find the ripened wisdom of 'a religious 
 
 teacher whose teachings transcend theology, 
 
 and the key-note of whose belief is 
 
 I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ, 
 Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee 
 All questions in the earth and out of it, 
 And has so far advanced thee to be wise. 
 
 "Death in the Desert?
 
 60 Robert Browning. 
 
 In a word, Mr. Browning is pre-eminently the 
 religious poet healthy, manly, brave ; with a 
 hope like Jacob's ladder, reaching from earth 
 to the highest heaven. To him, Hope is visi- 
 ble the world round. He walks one day 
 through Paris streets and steps into the Morgue, 
 where the corpses of suicides were wont 
 to be ranged for the public gaze. And there 
 lay three specimens of humanity, 
 
 " Poor men, God made, and all for that ! 
 
 The reverence struck me ; o'er each head 
 Religiously was hung its hat, 
 
 Each coat dripped by the owner's bed, 
 Sacred from touch : each had his berth, 
 
 His bounds, his proper place of rest, 
 Who last night tenanted on earth 
 
 Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast 
 Unless the plain asphalte seemed best." 
 
 The poet then proceeds to read the secret of 
 each heart, probing with his keen analytical 
 power the secret of the life thrown away, and 
 finding the source of despair that induced self 
 destruction: 
 
 " How did it happen, my poor boy ? 
 
 You wanted to be Buonaparte 
 And have the Tuileries for toy, 
 
 And could not, so it broke your heart ? 
 You, old one by his side, I judge, 
 
 Were, red as blood, a socialist, 
 A leveller ! Does the Empire grudge 
 
 You've gained what no Republic missed ? 
 Be quiet, and unclench your fist !
 
 Robert Broivning. 6 1 
 
 "And this why he was red in vain, 
 
 Or black poor fellow that is blue ! 
 What fancy was it turned your brain ? 
 
 Oh, women were the prize for you ! 
 Money gets women, cards and dice 
 
 Get money, and ill-luck gets just 
 The copper couch and one clear nice 
 
 Cool squirt of water o'er your bust, 
 The right thing to extinguish lust ! " 
 
 Note the indignant burst of these Jast lines ! 
 Browning has only contempt for mere sensu- 
 ality as, indeed, what else could such a man 
 have ? So, gazing on these corpses, thinking 
 of the sin and wretchedness that lured a hu- 
 man soul to a self-sought death, he exclaims : 
 
 " I thought, and think their sin 's atoned." 
 
 Following with that strong, optimistic stanza, 
 in which he expresses his belief that evil is not 
 eternal ; that God lives, therefore Hope is 
 assured; and that the destruction of one human 
 soul is alien to the character of the Maker : 
 
 " It 's wiser being good than bad ; 
 
 It 's safer being meek than fierce : 
 It 's fitter being sane than mad. 
 
 My own hope is, a sun will pierce 
 The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ; 
 
 That, after Last, returns the First, 
 Though a wide compass round be fetched ; 
 
 That what began best, can't end worst, 
 Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst."
 
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 griirnern i3frmiue c o>fii 
 III. .n 
 
 BEFORE, however, we go any further in our 
 brief study of the leading characteristics of 
 Mr. Browning's work, we must lay stress 
 upon the fact that he is, first and foremost, a 
 poet. What is a poet ? What do we mean 
 when we call a man a "chief singer," when we 
 claim for him the title of poet f Primarily he 
 must be a teacJier ; he must have a message 
 to deliver, a doctrine to propound ; and he 
 must assuredly be a thinker. .But still all this 
 would not constitute him a poet. There is an 
 undefinable something else wanting. He 
 must combine with these qualities the rare 
 power of giving utterance to his thoughts in 
 words that shall thrill the imagination ; his 
 lines must be rainbow-coloured, as it were ; 
 they must be blended with a fancy, wedded to 
 a music, that shall sing themselves into the 
 mind of the reader. He who has this gift is a 
 poet he who has it not, may be a clever and 
 pleasing versifier, but is no poet. 
 
 Now I hold that Robert Browning possessed 
 in a large measure this superb and unique 
 gift. Had he not felt impelled to poetry, 
 undoubtedly he would have turned his genius 
 into another channel : but he could not help
 
 Robert "Browiiirg. 63 
 
 being a poet his words naturally form them- 
 selves into musical rhythm ; his sentences are 
 coloured as with the brush of a Turner; and 
 throb with life, like a summer morning. But 
 then, Mr. Browning's thoughts come so fast, 
 they flow forth in such rich and prodigal pro- 
 fusion, that they as often as not hide the ex- 
 quisite play of fancy, the sweet musical ripple, 
 that lies beneath them. And so one some- 
 times has to search deep for the jewel to read 
 and re-read ; and, unfortunately, this is just 
 what many modern readers cannot be per- 
 suaded to do. Thereupon they say, as was 
 said from the time of Sordello, " We cannot 
 understand this Browning we cannot find the 
 golden nugget you tell us is there, so we give 
 it up." Thus has our poet been termed un- 
 popular, obscure, devoid of music, and so on. 
 Now a very little patience on the reader's part 
 would have altered all this ; and by a second 
 or third reading, he would not only have found 
 beneath the poet's world of words a vein of 
 rich ore, but have discovered that he was in an 
 altogether new country, the strange beauty of 
 which would have fascinated his mind and 
 gladdened his heart. 
 
 Having said this much, however, it must at 
 the same time be confessed that the poet is 
 often apparently indifferent to mere form or 
 beauty of expression. In some of his later 
 poems especially, there is at times a rugged- 
 ness which would tend to repel the beginner ;
 
 64 Robert Browning. 
 
 while the twists and turns of his sentences, 
 and the involved grammar, does at times hin- 
 der one's enjoyment of his work. Often his 
 expression appears to a novice exceedingly 
 " odd," though startling and forceful ; and the 
 dramatic style he has so largely adopted in 
 telling a story, and which often seems to pre- 
 suppose knowledge on the reader's part of what 
 has gone before, when combined with this in- 
 volved form of writing, does certainly render 
 the thought exceedingly difficult to follow. 
 That he could be, and often is, musical in the 
 highest degree I am now endeavouring to 
 prove ; but that he was at times really careless 
 as to mere beauty of expression, is to be duly 
 acknowledged and regretted. 
 
 Browning has been, and' most truly, ranked 
 with Shakspeare in the quality of his genius ; 
 he has .all Shakspeare's catholicity, his 
 breadth of vision, his insight into human na- 
 ture ; at the same time, it has always seemed 
 to me that there is a great deal in Browning 
 akin to Shelley. It will readily be conceded 
 that Shelley has the greatest lyric gift of all 
 English poets, that he is, indeed, our fore- 
 most singer ; his poems read like melodies 
 heard in the twilight ; like the music of the 
 wind sweeping amid the trees of the forest, 
 like the lullaby of the ocean waves ; and I 
 believe that Browning possesses this gift in an 
 almost equal degree with Shelley, but that, 
 owing to his superabundant thought, he has
 
 Robert Browning. 65 
 
 used it less, or where it is oftenest used, it is 
 as often hidden by the massiveness of the 
 message he has to deliver. In deep spiritual 
 experience and mental power (as for instance, 
 in Saul], he rises far above Shelley ; and it 
 is this very wealth of mind that sometimes 
 causes an apparent obscurity and overvveighs 
 the music of his verse. In Browning's earlier 
 work, the poetry comes more into .play, his 
 fancy seems more jubilant, his pictures more 
 delicately-coloured : take this, for instance, 
 from his first work, Pauline : 
 
 Thou wilt remember one warm morn, when winter 
 Crept aged from the earth, and Spring's first breath 
 Blew soft from the moist hills ; the black-thorn 
 
 boughs, 
 
 So dark in the bare wood, when glistening 
 In the sunshine were white with coming buds, 
 Like the bright side of a sorrow, and the banks 
 Had violets opening from sleep like eyes. 
 
 Or from the same poem : 
 
 This is the very heart of the woods, all round 
 Mountain-like heaped above us ; yet even here 
 One pond of water gleams ; far off the river 
 Sweeps like a sea, barred out from land ; but one 
 One thin, clear sheet has over-leaped and wound 
 Into this silent depth, which gained, it lies 
 Still, as but let by suffrance ; further on, 
 Tall rushes and thick flag-knots have combined 
 To narrow it ; so, at length, a silver thread, 
 It winds, all noiselessly through the deep wood, 
 Till, thro' a cleft-way, thro' the moss and stone, 
 It joins its parent-river with a shout !
 
 66 Robert Browning. 
 
 But if Mr. Browning has written one work 
 in which his poetic colouring and wealth of 
 imagination is most superb, that work is 
 Sordello. Long before I learned to love or 
 understand this poem, I had found out its 
 poetic wealth, and had culled from it sentence 
 after sentence of jewel-like thoughts that were 
 scattered through its pages thick as daisies in 
 a spring meadow. It is a veritable storehouse 
 for the poet ; there is hardly a page which does 
 not radiate with poetic simile or lurid word- 
 painting ; and one may, without exaggeration, 
 speak of Sordello as one of the richest poems 
 in the language. It is a very easy thing for 
 any one to take up this poem.pick out apage at 
 random, read it alcud, and then triumphantly 
 ask what it all means : it is doubtless a hard 
 task to faithfully persevere in one's first read- 
 ing of the poem. It is difficult ; there is no 
 doubt about that ; but, as the poet himself has 
 said, " with care for a man or a book " many 
 difficulties can be overcome. The faithful stu- 
 dent, who persistently sets himself down to its 
 study, going over its pages not once but many 
 times, will be amply rewarded. The poem is 
 full of spiritual teaching ; it will enlarge his 
 knowledge ; deepen his reverence ; and im- 
 press his understanding ; he will find it a real 
 contribution to our human experience ; full 
 of wise thoughts ; and containing pearls of 
 rare and exceeding value. To show what I 
 mean by the richness of the poetic mine in
 
 Robert Browning, 67 
 
 Sordello, I take a few extracts at random 
 from its pages : 
 
 " That autumn eve was stilled : 
 A last remains of sunset dimly burned 
 O'er the far forests, like a torch-flame turned 
 By the wind back upon its bearer's hand 
 In one long flare of crimson ; as a brand, 
 The woods beneath lay black." 
 
 " Dante, pacer of the shore 
 Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom, 
 Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume 
 Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope 
 Into a darkness quieted by hope ; 
 Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye 
 In gracious twilights where His chosen lie." 
 
 " Shrinking Caryatides 
 Of just-tinged marble like Eve's lilied flesh 
 Beneath her Maker's finger when the fresh 
 First pulse of life shot brightening the snow." 
 
 " The breezy morning fresh 
 Above, and merry, all his waving mesh 
 Laughing with lucid dew-drops rainbow-edged." 
 
 " Songs go up exulting, then dispread, 
 Dispart, disperse, lingering overhead 
 Like an escape of angels." 
 
 " A footfall there 
 Suffices to upturn to the warm air 
 Half-germinating spices ; mere decay 
 Produces richer life." 
 
 u Her head that's sharp and perfect like a pear 
 So close and fine are laid the few fine locks 
 Coloured like honey oozed from topmost rocks 
 Sun-blanched the live-long summer." - '.,
 
 68 Robert Browning. 
 
 In Pippa Passes, the reader will find a stanza 
 which Turner alone, perhaps, could have put 
 upon canvas so rich and profuse is its colour- 
 ing ; while the inspiration of the poet seems 
 to outsoar his capacity of writing down his 
 words ere they vanish in a whirl of rainbow- 
 coloured mist. It is a description of day- 
 break, and forms the opening to the poem : 
 
 Day! 
 
 Faster and more fast, 
 O'er night's brim, day boils at last ; 
 Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim 
 Where spurting and suppressed it lay ; 
 For not a froth-flake touched the rim 
 Of yonder gap in the solid gray 
 Of the eastern cloud, an hour away ; 
 But forth one wavelet, then another, curled, 
 Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed, 
 Rose, reddened, and its seething breast 
 Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the 
 world. 
 
 And such things are scattered throughout the 
 whole of Browning's pages ; we have but 
 glanced at a few of them floating on the sur- 
 face. The true lover of English poetry will 
 not be content with glancing, but will dive 
 deeply after these pearls of thought and har- 
 monies of language, and will make them his 
 own ; he will be the richer and gladder all his 
 days for their possession ; and will never regret 
 that, undeterred by their apparent difficulty, 
 " he sought till he found."
 
 Robert Browning. 69 
 
 In Mr. Browning's first acknowledged work, 
 Paracelsus, will be found many such gems. It 
 contains much of his highest teaching, and is 
 a poem which once read, must be re-read and 
 pondered over ; is as fresh to-day as it was A 
 fresh revelation to the lovers of poetry fifty 
 years ago ; and is to be read as much for its 
 music as for its wealth of thought. Take this 
 passage, for example : 
 
 " Friends," I would say, " I went far, far for them, 
 
 Past the high rocks the haunt of doves, the mounds 
 
 Of red earth from whose sides strange trees grow out, 
 
 Past tracts of milk-white minute blinding sand, 
 
 Till, by a mighty moon, I tremblingly 
 
 Gathered these magic herbs, berry and bud, 
 
 In haste, not pausing to reject the weeds, 
 
 But happy plucking them at any price. 
 
 To me, who have seen them bloom in their own soil, 
 
 They are scarce lovely : plait and wear them, you ! 
 
 And guess, from what they are, the springs that fed 
 
 them, 
 
 The stars that sparkled o'er them, night by night, 
 The snakes that travelled far to sip their dew ! " 
 
 Again, see the play of fancy the poet-heart 
 in such passages as these : 
 
 " As one spring wind unbinds the mountain snow 
 And comforts violets in their hermitage." 
 
 " Though dark and drear 
 Appears the world before us, we no less 
 Wake with our wrists and ankles jewelled still." 
 
 " A light 
 
 Will struggle through these thronging words at last, 
 As in the angry and tumultuous West 
 A soft star trembles through the drifting clouds."
 
 7O Robert Browning. 
 
 " God is the perfect poet, 
 Who in his person acts his own creations." 
 
 "Are there not 
 
 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 ? " 
 
 " And she is gone ; sweet human love is gone. 
 'Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels 
 Reveal themselves to you ; they sit all day 
 Beside you, and lie down at night by you 
 Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep, 
 And all at once they leave you, and you know them." 
 
 Here, again, is a truly magnificent passage 
 from the same poem unequalled in its de- 
 scriptive and imaginative power, so far as my 
 reading extends, by any English poet at 
 least of the modern school. Have those who 
 so often decry the poetic power of Browning 
 ever read this passage ? It reveals to the ut- 
 most the daring imagination and " fulness " of 
 the poet's vision ; and, remembering the then 
 age of the writer (22), is mavellous in its rea- 
 listic force : 
 
 The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth, 
 And the earth changes like a human face ; 
 The molten ore bursts up among the rocks, 
 Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright 
 In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds, 
 Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask 
 God joys therein. The wroth sea's waves are edged 
 With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate, 
 When, in the solitary waste, strange groups 
 Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like,
 
 Robert Browning. 71 
 
 Staring together with their eyes on flame 
 
 God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride, 
 
 Then all is still ; earth is a wintry clod : 
 
 But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes 
 
 Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure 
 
 Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between 
 
 The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost, 
 
 Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face ; 
 
 The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with 
 
 blooms 
 
 Like chrysalids impatient for the air, 
 The shining dorrs are busy, bettles run 
 Along the furrows, ants make their ado ; 
 Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark 
 Soars up and up, shivering for very joy ; 
 Afar the ocean sleeps ; white fishing-gulls 
 Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe 
 Of nested limpets ; savage creatures seek 
 Their loves in wood and plain and God renews 
 His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all, 
 From life's minute beginnings, up at last 
 To man. 
 
 To those, however, who look on poetry sim- 
 ply as an amusement, Mr. Browning has 
 nothing to say. The true poet he believes is a 
 seer, bringing a veritable God's message to us ; 
 what is it but this fact that gives the best 
 poetry so soothing and religious an effect on 
 our minds ? Hear Mrs. Browning in her 
 Aurora Leigh: 
 
 " I write 
 
 Of the only truth-tellers now left to God, 
 The only speakers of essential truth, 
 The only teachers who instruct mankind. . . 
 . . . And while your common men 
 Lay telegraphs, gauge railroads, reign, reap, dine
 
 72 Robert Browning. 
 
 And dust the flaunty carpets of the world, 
 For kings to walk on, or our president, 
 The poet suddenly will catch them up, 
 With his voice like a thunder " This is soul, 
 This is life, this word is being said in heaven, 
 Here 's God down on us ! what are you about ? " 
 
 Now this is what Browning does for us. He 
 reveals to us, far above the storm-clouds of 
 this lower world, the unsoiled blue of the hea- 
 vens ; we can gaze with him upon the fair 
 earth, upon the sunset sky, upon the human 
 hearts to which ours are knit in bonds of 
 eternal love and find the root and origin of 
 all in an eternal Father. Ever, as in the 
 Seer's vision of old, do the angels ascend and 
 descend ; ever are the heavens one with the 
 earth one in the wide brotherhood of the 
 race.
 
 IV. 
 
 BROWNING is one of the healthiest of modern 
 English poets ; there is nothing morbid 
 in his writing, as he himself so recently 
 told us : of necessity, therefore, he takes an 
 intensely earnest view of Life and its duties. 
 To him this present life is not the play time, 
 but the apprenticeship of the soul ; not the 
 place for rest, but for good, honest, hearty 
 work : 
 
 " Life is probation, and this earth no goal 
 But starting point of man." 
 
 For him there can be no eventual failure ; 
 there may be, often, an apparent failure the 
 soul may be " unmade " by folly, unmanned 
 by evil ; but the nobler part of man's nature 
 must finally triumph and the soul will be re- 
 made in those " other heights in other lives," 
 which shall yet be a reality to every son of 
 Adam. If a man does fail in his pursuit after 
 Truth, or Goodness, or Beauty, he is not finally 
 overcome ; he has gained somewhat he has 
 endeavoured ; for, had he not attempted he could 
 not have failed ; consequently, failure but 
 implies ultimate success. 
 
 Taking the completed round of his work
 
 74 Robert Browning. 
 
 from Paracelsus, to Asolando, the reader 
 will find that Mr. Browning is essentially opti- 
 mistic. To him, life is a glad, sweet thing, so 
 he will rejoice therein, and be glad ; he does 
 not, as did Byron, bemoan his condition, 
 " open his breast " to gain praise and pity ; 
 preach on the vanity of life, and then en- 
 deavour to recruit his faded energies by sen- 
 sual pleasure. By no means : life is a serious 
 and earnest piece of business, there is not 
 doubt about that yet it is also a beautiful and 
 joyous thing withal, and to be enjoyed as the 
 Giver meant it to be. Look at the hearty 
 robustness of these verses, and ponder well on 
 the answer the poet gives to each question 
 he asks : 
 
 " Have you found your life distasteful ? 
 
 My life did and does smack sweet. 
 Was your youth of pleasure wasteful ? 
 
 Mine I saved and hold complete. 
 Do your joys with age diminish ? 
 
 When mine fail me, I'll complain. 
 Must in death your daylight finish ? 
 
 My sun sets to rise again. 
 
 " What, like you, he proved your Pilgrim 
 
 This our world, a wilderness ; 
 Earth still gray and heaven still grim, 
 
 Not a hand there his might press, 
 Not a heart his own might throb to, 
 
 Men all rogues, and women say 
 Dolls which boys' heads duck and bob to, 
 
 Grown folks drop or throw away ?
 
 Robert Browning. 75 
 
 <f My experience being other, 
 
 How should I contribute verse 
 Worthy of your king and brother ? 
 
 Balaam-like I bless, not curse. 
 I find earth not gray but rosy. 
 
 Heaven not grim but fair of hue, 
 Do I stoop ? I pluck a posy. 
 
 Do I stand and stare ? All's blue." 
 
 This is Browning's central creed, round 
 which all his thought revolves the precious- 
 ness of striving, and the consequent growth 
 of the soul. In Attainment here, says the 
 poet, a man has gained the world, but lost his 
 soul : once let him say that he has attained 
 what more has he to live for ? it is the 
 struggle that makes life worth living, the con- 
 tinued endeavour, the seeking after Attainment. 
 In his Art poems especially, Mr. Browning 
 teaches that the true glory of Art, of what- 
 ever kind, consists in this from its incep- 
 tion in the mind of the worker, onward to 
 its outer manifestation, there ever comes to 
 the artist who works for Art's sake, desires 
 and aspirations which reach beyond his art 
 culminating in Eternity. Any artist, be he 
 brain-worker or hand-worker, who avers that 
 he can, in this limited life, realize his high- 
 est ideal, has failed for the search after the 
 highest is a continued endeavour ; there is a 
 perfection even beyond perfection : the highest 
 on earth implies a Higher in Heaven. So the 
 true worker is he who, through repeated
 
 76 Robert Browning. 
 
 failures, through all unsatisfied longings and 
 unfulfilled aspirations, reaches upward to 
 God : 
 
 " Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
 Or what 's a heaven for ? " 
 
 The reader will find much of Mr. Browning's 
 chief utterances on this subject in Old 
 Pictures in Florence, where the poet avers 
 that the art of ancient Greece was a failure, 
 inasmuch as it was finite ; while the real 
 greatness of early Christian art consisted in 
 its incompleteness nay, in its very faults ; 
 these latter leading to aspiration and en- 
 deavour. 
 
 " For time theirs ours for eternity." 
 
 The same idea also being emphasised in 
 Said : 
 
 " 'Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what 
 man Would do." 
 
 Perhaps the noblest ode we have on life 
 and its duties is to be found in Browning's 
 Rabbi Ben Ezra. It is a poem one should 
 know by heart ; it has lines in it -that chant 
 themselves into our understanding ; and its 
 wise, weighty, and cheerful words should be a 
 comfort under all circumstances of life. Much 
 of Browning's theory of life is to be found in 
 this poem. Take this, for example : 
 
 " Then, welcome each rebuff 
 
 That turns earth's smoothness rough, 
 
 Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go !
 
 Robert Browning. 77 
 
 Be our joys three-parts pain ! 
 Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; 
 Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the 
 throe ! 
 
 As it was better, youth 
 
 Should strive, through acts uncouth, 
 
 Toward making, than repose on aught found made : 
 
 So, better, age, exempt 
 
 From strife, should know, than tempt 
 
 Further. Thou waitest age j wait death nor be afraid. 
 
 But I need, now as then 
 Thee, God, who mouldest men ! 
 
 My times be in Thy hand ! 
 Perfect the cup as planned ! 
 
 Let age approve of youth, and death complete the 
 same ! " 
 
 Take, too, these lines from Parleyings, and 
 see how well they fit in with the teaching of 
 his earlier work how glad their faith, how 
 noble their sense of triumph : 
 
 " What if the rose-streak of morning, 
 Pale and depart in a passion of tears' ? 
 Once to have hoped is no matter for scorning ! 
 Love once e'en love's disappointment endears ! 
 A minute's success pays the failure of years. 
 
 Age ? Why, fear ends there : the contest concluded, 
 Man did live his life, did escape from the fray ; 
 Not scratchless, but unscathed, he somehow eluded 
 Each blow fortune dealt him, and conquers to-day : 
 To-morrow new chance and fresh strength might we 
 
 say? 
 
 Laud then Man's life no defeat but a triumph ! " 
 
 G
 
 V. 
 
 I HAVE said that Browning is a religious poet 
 that his mind is permeated by the Chris- 
 tian story. It is a grand thing that a man 
 like Browning, with so supreme an intellect, 
 should be a man of firm religious belief. At 
 73 years of age, he produced Ferishtatis 
 Fancies, in which he reiterated his belief -in 
 God, in the efficacy of prayer, and in immor- 
 tality ; and five years later came Asolando, 
 with the same hopeful and triumphant mes- 
 sage. As to the personal religious belief 
 of Mr. Browning we have no right to 
 hazard a question, indeed, there is far too 
 much, now-a-days, of this curious inquiry into 
 the private life of our great teachers; from 
 a man's life-work alone are we at liberty to 
 gather what we may of the tendency of his 
 mind and the workings of his soul ; and it is 
 from his work alone that we can judge him. 
 But such a man as Robert Browning could 
 not fail to put some of his deepest con- 
 victions upon art and life into the mouths 
 of many of his imaginary "men and women," 
 and from these, without impertinence, we may 
 learn something of the spiritual truths that 
 were evidently part and parcel of the poet's life.
 
 Robert Browning. 79 
 
 Undoubtedly, the noblest religious poems in 
 English literature, are Christmas- Eve and 
 Easter- Day, Saul, and the Death in the 
 Desert ; and these are the poems in which the 
 specially religious thought of Mr. Browning is 
 manifest. In them he stands forth as 
 the champion of the Christian faith not 
 the champion of orthodoxy, but of Christian- 
 ity. The great strength of Browning, as a 
 leader of thought in the nineteenth century, 
 lies, to a large extent, in his acceptance of the 
 Christian faith not, be it understood, his ac- 
 ceptance of the doctrines of any school of 
 theology, or in adherence to any dogmatic 
 creed, for he is too great to be bandied about 
 by any theological school but in his accep- 
 tance of the Divine Man, " who came and 
 dwelt on earth awhile," as the source of all 
 that is good and great in human nature, and 
 as the Regenerator of the race. 
 
 Browning's poem of La Saisiaz is often 
 mentioned as evidence of the poet's Theistic 
 views ; and the statement has been advanced 
 by some of the Agnostic school that for some 
 years preceding his death he had left the 
 sunny ways of Saul, Christmas Eve, DeatJi in 
 the Desert, and Prospice, for the colder regions 
 of theistical speculation. I cannot accept this ; 
 it is true, the name of Christ does not appear 
 in the poem, but the spirit of Christ is there, 
 and the triumphant ring of faith at the close 
 very firm :
 
 8o Robert Browning. 
 
 1 He at least believed in soul ; was very sure of God." 
 
 How could he be sure of God unless he 
 knew Christ ? "I in the Father, and the Fa- 
 ther in me." " He that hath seen me, hath 
 seen the Father." If he simply thought of 
 (not believed in) God, as a mere cold abstrac- 
 tion a sort of gaseous ether " floating in the 
 wide bosom of the All " then he might call 
 himself a Theist ; but surely would have no 
 trust in immortality, which, if he believes in 
 sonl, he must have. But nowhere do we find 
 Browning speaking of God in the sense of a 
 mere abstraction ; he does speak of Him as a 
 personality ; as one to whom he can utterly and 
 fearlessly commit himself, as, in fact, a Father 
 and " the Father" implies the lover, the 
 friend, the brother, the fulness of whose Fa- 
 therhood was revealed by the Christ : 
 
 " So the All great were the All loving too." 
 
 Nor would the mere belief in the existence 
 of a God warrant his belief in the eternity 
 of love, as implied, for instance, in the poems 
 of Any Wife to any Husband, and Evelyn 
 Hope. But a belief in Christ, as the Divine and 
 Eternal Love, would warrant it. 
 
 Again, in Rabbi Ben Ezra, we have the 
 same idea. 
 
 " Praise be Thine ! 
 I see the whole 'design, 
 I, who saw Power, see now Love perfect too : .
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 Perfect I call Thy plan : 
 Thanks that I was a man ! 
 Maker, remake, complete, I trust what Thou 
 shalt do ! " 
 
 Twenty-five years later, the same thought 
 is confirmed ; the poet has now reached ex- 
 treme old age, but the Power God is still 
 as evident to his mind : but no less evident is 
 Love. The Reverie (in Asolando) confirms and 
 strengthens Rabbi Ben Ezra : 
 
 " Then life is to wake not sleep, 
 
 Rise and not rest, but press 
 From earth's level where blindly creep 
 
 Things perfected, more or less, 
 To the heaven's height, far and steep, 
 
 " Where, amid what strifes and storms 
 
 May await the adventurous quest, 
 
 Power is love transports, transforms 
 
 Who aspired from worst to best, 
 Sought the soul's world, spurned the worms'. 
 
 " I have faith such end shall be : 
 
 From the first, Power was I knew. 
 Life has made clear to me 
 
 That, strive but for closer view, 
 Love were as plain to sec. 
 
 " When see ? When there dawns a day, 
 
 If not on the homely earth, 
 Then yonder, worlds away, 
 
 Where the strange and new have birth, 
 And Power comes full in play." 
 
 Could the poet have given us a nobler 
 dying song than this ? It is one of his noblest 
 yet tenderest utterances the refrain of which 
 is : " God is Love."
 
 82 Robert Broivmng. 
 
 It has been remarked the outcome of the 
 poem of Easter Day is found in one of its con- 
 cluding lines : " I find it hard to be a Chris- 
 tian." But the poet assuredly does not mean 
 by that statement that he finds it hard to 
 grasp the facts of our Saviour's Divine and 
 personal relation to all mankind, but hard to 
 live tJie divinely Christian life, the utter self- 
 lessness and self-abnegation that following 
 Christ involves ; hard to live that broad, 
 tolerant, sympnthetic, large-hearted, unique 
 life of love that being a Christian implies : 
 for the poet concludes with a magnificent 
 outburst of triumphant music, in which his 
 soul seems to glow like the flush of a sunset 
 sky, and his spirit rises grand with the gran- 
 deur of a full-orbed faith : 
 
 " But Easter-Day breaks ! But 
 Christ rises ! Mercy every way 
 Is infinite, and who can say ?" 
 
 He is sure of the Resurrection then he is 
 sure of Christ, " And who can say ? " Say 
 what ? Why, what the possibilities of the 
 race will yet be, in that higher, greater, and 
 holier sphere, where the living Christ shall be 
 a living and loving Guide to all human hearts 
 for ever. 
 
 But with the Death in the Desert before us, 
 one cannot long remain in doubt as to the 
 directness of Mr. Browning's distinctively 
 Christian teaching ; and which is brought out
 
 Robert Browning. 83 
 
 still more decisively perhaps in Saul. Here 
 Mr. Browning is supreme and at his best ; and 
 his utterance comes very close to the pro- 
 phetic : 
 
 " Oh, speak through me now ! 
 Would I suffer for him that I love? So would'st thou, 
 
 so wilt thou ! 
 
 He who did most, shall bear most ; the strongest shall 
 
 stand the most weak. 
 'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for ! my flesh, 
 
 that I seek [be 
 
 In the Godhead ! I seek and I find it O Saul, it shall 
 A Face like my face that receives thee ; a Man like to 
 
 me, 
 Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like 
 
 this hand 
 Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See the 
 
 Christ stand ! " 
 
 Since Mr. Browning's death there has been 
 published in the Nonconformist a singularly 
 beautiful letter written by him in 1876, which, 
 emphasizes our poet's attitudes towards Chris- 
 tianity. Mr. Browning, received a letter from 
 a lady who, believing herself to be dying, 
 wrote to thank him for the help she had derived 
 from his poems, mentioning particularly Rabbi 
 Ben Ezra and Abt Vogler, and expressing the 
 deep satisfaction she felt that one so highly 
 endowed with genius held to the cardinal 
 truths of religion, and he replied as follows : 
 
 " 19, Warwick Crescent, W., 
 Dear Friend, May 11/76. 
 
 It would ill become me to waste a
 
 84 Robert Browning. 
 
 word on my own feelings except inasmuch 
 as they can be common to us both, in such a 
 situation as you describe yours to be, and 
 which, by sympathy, I can make mine by the 
 anticipation of a few years at most. It is a 
 great thing, the greatest, that a human being 
 should have passed the probation of life, and 
 sum up its experience in a witness to the 
 power and love of God. I dare congratulate 
 you. All the help I can offer, in my poor de- 
 gree, is the assurance that I see ever more 
 reason to hold by the same hope and that 
 by no means in ignorance of what has been 
 advanced to the contrary ; and for your sake 
 I would wish it to be true that I had so much 
 of 'genius' as to permit the testimony of an 
 especially privileged insight to come in aid 
 of the ordinary argument. For I know I, my- 
 self, have been aware of the communication of 
 something more subtle than a ratiocinative 
 process, when the convictions of ' genius ' have 
 thrilled my soul to its depths, as when Napo- 
 leon, shutting up the New Testament, said of 
 Christ : " Do you know that I am an under- 
 stander of men ? Well, He was no man ! " 
 (' Savez-vous que je me connais en hommes ? 
 Eh bien, celui-la ne fut pas un homme.') Or 
 as when Charles .Lamb, in a gay fancy with 
 some friends as to how he and they would feel 
 if the greatest of the dead were to appear sud- 
 denly in flesh and blood once more, on the 
 final suggestion, " And if Christ entered this
 
 Robert Browning. 85 
 
 room ? " changed his manner at once, and 
 stuttered out, as his manner was when moved, 
 " You see, if Shakespeare entered we should 
 all rise ; if He appeared we must kneel." Or, 
 not to multiply instances, as when Dante wrote 
 what I will transcribe from my wife's Testa- 
 ment, wherein I recorded it fourteen years ago, 
 " Thus I believe, thus I affirm, thus I am cer- 
 tain it is, that from this life I shall pass to 
 another better, there, where that lady lives of 
 whom my soul was enamoured."* Dear friend, 
 I may have wearied you in spite of your good 
 will. God bless you, sustain, and receive you ! 
 Reciprocate this blessing with 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING." 
 
 This brings us to Prospice, magnificent in 
 its triumph-note, fearless in faith, undaunted 
 in courage. Hope, Love, Faith, these have 
 stood him in good stead through the days of 
 
 * Two years after the date of this letter, appeared 
 Mr. Browning's La Saistaz, in which the following lines 
 occur : 
 
 " I take upon my lips 
 Phrase the solemn Tuscan fashioned, and declare the 
 
 soul's eclipse 
 Not the soul's extinction. Take his ' I believe and I 
 
 declare 
 
 Certain am I from this life I pass into a better, there 
 Where this lady lives 6f whom enamoured was my 
 
 soul.'"
 
 86 Robert Browning. 
 
 his life. His friends have left him ; the one 
 Love of his soul has passed from his sight, and 
 left him solitary and alone, pacing the shores 
 of Time : still, he has not left go of Hope, 
 and Trust yet walks by his side through the 
 busy world of men. But at last comes Death 
 how now? Can he still "hope on, hold 
 hard in the subtle thing that's spirit"? Is 
 there any fear touching his heart ? Listen to' 
 his triumphant response : 
 
 " Fear death ? to feel the fog in my throat, 
 
 The mist in my face, 
 When the snows begin, and the blasts denote 
 
 I am nearing the place, 
 The power of the night, the press of the storm, 
 
 The post of the foe ; 
 Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, 
 
 Yet the strong man must go : 
 For the journey is done and the summit attained, 
 
 And the barriers fall, 
 Though a battle 's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, 
 
 The reward of it all. 
 I was ever a fighter, so one fight more, 
 
 The best and the last ! [bore, 
 
 I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and for- 
 
 And bade me creep past. 
 No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers 
 
 The heroes of old, 
 Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 
 
 Of pain, darkness and cold. 
 For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, 
 
 The black minute 's at end, 
 And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, 
 
 Shall dwindle, shall blend, 
 Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, 
 
 Then a light, then thy breast,
 
 Robert Browning. 87 
 
 O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again, 
 And with God be the rest ! " 
 
 Browning, as will appear from the above 
 letter, was not afraid to grapple with " doubt " 
 indeed, he has grappled with it, and has 
 come out victorious : he knows that earnest 
 doubt is but a stepping stone to the highest 
 faith. As Bishop Blongram has it : 
 
 " You call for faith : 
 
 I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists, 
 The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say, 
 If faith o'ercomes doubt. How I know it does 1 
 By life and man's free will, God gave for that ! . . . 
 
 The reader, in this connection, may refer 
 to that lovely little poem, Fears and Scruples, 
 but more especially to Abt Voglcr. In 
 reading this poem, one's step gathers strength 
 with the strength of the verse ; one's heart ex- 
 pands with the glow of faith and the perfect 
 serenity of the poet's vision ; and one is able 
 to realise to the full the blessedness and joy 
 of belief, and to exclaim, " Thank God, I am 
 a man, with all a man's imperfection, and ten- 
 dency to doubt, yet able to say with the poet 
 ' let doubt occasion still more faith.' " It is 
 this manly, strong teaching that our age needs ; 
 and it is this that alone will save it from the 
 pessimistic influences that seem ever to en- 
 circle one's path. The musician, Abt Vogler, 
 while extemporising on a musical instrument 
 of his own invention, has built up a mighty
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 palace of sound, wonderful, weird, beautiful ; 
 he wishes his music could become a "visible 
 palace of beauty, but, lo, it all vanishes, and 
 he ends his " extemporising " by seeing in 
 the incompleteness of sound its effect ceas- 
 ing with silence, an earnest of completeness 
 by and bye, completeness in that infinite blue, 
 where no failure will ever be writ, no " lost 
 hope " ever recorded : 
 
 Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable 
 
 Name ? 
 Builder and Maker, Thou, of houses not made with 
 
 hands. 
 What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the 
 
 same 1 
 Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy 
 
 power expands ? 
 There shall never be one lost good ! What was, shall 
 
 live as before ; 
 
 The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; 
 What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much 
 
 good more 
 
 On the earth the broken arcs ; in the heaven, a per- 
 fect round.
 
 bus ,g5tl?j;iv I's ft ,ol Ji/cJ - ;..!,: 
 VI. 
 
 To pass now to another phase of Mr. Brown- 
 ing's art : in the poet's conception of life, Love 
 occupies a prominent place. No life is perfect 
 without love but it must be a love that will 
 regenerate ; not the false sentiment so often 
 mistaken for love : the true love is the love that 
 influences for good another life ; not the love 
 that kindles passion, but the love that inspires 
 nobleness, devoutness, faith in a word, son/- 
 love. Without this, human life is incomplete ; 
 with it, there is .an ever-present joy and 
 blessedness. The mere love for the sake of 
 gaining love's reward the winning of the 
 loved one's hand is but a small matter. The 
 true love is the love for love's sake, without 
 thought of possible reward: for, says Mr. 
 Browning, there can be but one love in a life 
 it is once and for ever and never again. Mar- 
 riage may or may not follow, but love is love, 
 and is eternal. Here are some beautiful lines 
 from a fascinating play, Colombe's Birth- 
 day, written by Browning nine and thirty 
 years since. Valence, a poor advocate of 
 Cleves, has fallen in love with the Duchess, to 
 whom he has gone to present a petition, and 
 who, of course, is socially far above him, and
 
 90 Robert Browning. 
 
 unapproachable by him. This love having 
 been eventually discovered, it appears that 
 the Duchess has likewise learned to love him ; 
 thereupon his fellows are ready enough to 
 taunt him that, so far as he is concerned, love 
 can have little place in the matter ; it is her 
 hand, not her heart, he aspires to. But he 
 proudly answers them : 
 
 " Who thought upon reward ? And yet how much 
 Comes after oh, what amplest recompense ! 
 Is the knowledge of her naught ? The memory naught? 
 Lady, should such an one have looked on you, 
 Ne'er wrong yourself so far as quote the world 
 And say. love can go unrequited here ! 
 You will have blessed him to his whole life's end 
 Low passions hindered, baser cares kept back, 
 All goodness cherished, where you dwelt and dwell? 
 
 And the same idea occurs in an earlier play, 
 Strafford, where Lady Carlisle exclaims : 
 
 "Ah, have I spared 
 
 Strafford a pang, and shall I seek reward 
 Beyond that memory ? Surely, too, some way 
 He is the befterfor my love" 
 
 See, too, how noble is Browning's view of 
 love in the little poem, One way of Love. 
 The orthodox poet, with unrequited love, 
 would have sobbed out his sorrows in the 
 world's ear ; would cultivate sentimentalities 
 as he bemoaned his forlorn condition : not so 
 the true poet, as typified by Browning ; the 
 thing that would engender that feeling is not
 
 Robert Browning. 91- 
 
 love, but passion : here is the higher ideal of 
 love under like circumstances 
 
 " All June I bound the rose in sheaves, 
 Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves, 
 And strew them where Pauline may pass. 
 She will not turn aside ? Alas ! 
 Let them lie. Suppose they die ? 
 The chance was they might take her eye. 
 
 How many a mouth I strove to suit 
 These stubborn fingers to the lute ! 
 To-day I venture all I know. 
 She will not hear my music ? So ! 
 Break the string ; fold music's wing ; 
 Suppose Pauline had bade me sing ! 
 
 My whole life long I learned to love. 
 
 This hour my utmost art I prove 
 
 And speak my passion heaven or hell ? 
 
 She will not give me heaven ?. "Tis well ! 
 
 Lose who may I still can say, 
 
 Those who win heaven, blest are they ! " 
 
 He is the better man for that love of his, al- 
 though another has stepped in before him and 
 obtained the prize. Those who have gained 
 life's prize of love, blest are they ; still, he too, 
 who has failed, has gained somewhat, for he 
 has loved, and all his life through he will be the 
 nobler and happier man for that one revela- 
 tion : he will have gained a greater than 
 happiness, even (as Carlyle has it) blessedness : 
 a truly nobje way this, of " falling in love." 
 
 Then, says Browning, finding love here, the 
 lover will soon get to look through and be*
 
 9 2 Robert Browning. 
 
 yond it to love there : that is, that through 
 the earthly love he will seek the heavenly ; 
 so that, should he apparently fail here in 
 love's quest, his life has been neither aimless 
 nor hopeless, for his so-ca.lled failure will lead 
 him to the highest love that is, God's. The 
 reader may, in this connection, turn to two 
 little poems in the first series of selections : 
 Love in a Life and Life in a Love. I am 
 aware that it is rather hazardous to send the 
 " beginner" to these poems, as they are gener- 
 ally looked upon as peculiarly obscure ; but 
 a little patience will show that what the poet 
 has to teach here is, that the highest love can- 
 not be included in a 'life ; but that, on the 
 other hand, the best and noblest life is sus- 
 tained by a great love ; and is carried onward 
 and upward to " other heights in other lives." 
 
 " But what if I fail in my purpose here ? 
 It is but to keep the nerves at strain, 
 
 To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, 
 And baffled, get up and begin again 
 
 So the chase takes up one's life, that's all." 
 
 So with Pompilia and Caponsacchi. To the 
 outside world their life is a failure. They met 
 loved 
 
 " Understood each other at first look" 
 
 but the world's barriers are between them, and 
 duty speaks. Is their love a failure then ?
 
 Robert Browning. 93 
 
 was it better they should never have met 
 or met, gone their various ways regardless one 
 of the other ? Assuredly not ; for they have 
 loved ; and life is perfected by love ! Shall 
 we think of them, then, as having failed as 
 having lost the compensations of life been 
 cheated, as it were, by Time ? Nay : their 
 love in Time but grows, ripens, and develops 
 till its fruition in Eternity. Love is not 
 lost ; but is an ever-present help to the soul 
 left to carry on the struggle alone. Let me 
 close this section with Pompilias noble words : 
 
 My end of breath 
 
 Shall bear away my soul in being true ! 
 He is still here, not outside with the world, 
 Here, here, I have him in his rightful place ! 
 'Tis now, when I am most upon the move, 
 I feel for what I verily find again 
 The face, again the eyes, again, through all, 
 The heart and its immeasurable love 
 Of my one friend, my only, all my own, 
 Who put his breast between the spears and me. 
 Ever with Caponsacchi ! Otherwise 
 Here alone would be failure, loss to me 
 How much more loss to him, with life debarred 
 From giving life, love locked from love's display, 
 The day-star stopped its task that makes night morn ! 
 O lover of my life, O soldier- saint 
 No work begun shall ever pause for death ! 
 Love will be helpful to me more and more 
 I' the coming course, the new path I must tread, 
 My weak hand in Ihy strong hand, strong for that. 
 
 II
 
 sift '.t&rrr frigid -Hw- 3fiTr?r;cf 
 
 v/ 
 
 VII. 
 
 >T 3ff 16 bffficnab aoob vlnlpiisD '^v\- 
 
 As many of my readers probably know little. 
 of Mr. : Browning's poetry, we will analyse one 
 or two of the leading shorter poems, and en^- 
 deavour to prove to them that, with a little 
 patience, Mr. Browning is easily understand- 
 able. 
 
 I would advise beginners to obtain the 
 first volume of Selections* in which they 
 will find some of the poet's best and most 
 characteristic work ; and for the further 
 reason that, in the study of these poems, it is 
 absolutely essential that the student should 
 " begin in the right class." No doubt much 
 of the feeling as to Browning's obscurity 
 arises from the fact that the reader began 
 where he should have ended. He took up 
 perhaps some of his later works, in which there 
 are (as the greatest lovers of Browning will 
 admit) many difficulties, and was naturally 
 repelled and discouraged from further at- 
 
 * Selections from the Poetry of Robert Browning. 
 Two vols. Smith, Elder and Co. The " beginner" will 
 find these volumes (he should, I think, begin with the 
 first) a fitting prelude to the study of Browning's com- 
 pleted work ; and all readers of modern English poetry 
 are certainly indebted to the publishers for this cheap 
 and capital selection.
 
 Robert Browning. 9$ 
 
 tempts ; but if he will begin with the earlier 
 and shorter poems, he will gradually grow 
 accustomed to the poet's style, will be pre- 
 pared to exert that intelligence which Brown- 
 ing certainly does demand of the reader, and 
 will soon learn to love his strong and vigorous 
 lines, to make them part of his own mental na- 
 ture, and having learned to love, and grown into 
 the meaning and mystery of Browning's strong 
 sentences, he will find that no English writer 
 is at once so vigorous, so bold, so healthy ; 
 that the poet stands alone and unrivalled, as 
 a great, strong, robust soul whose verse eats 
 into our very heart and mind. 
 
 One of the first poems which will probably 
 attract the beginner, is the Lost Leader. The 
 fire and verve of this fine lyric will at once 
 make itself apparent ; and while many readers 
 will fit the lines to some " lost leader " of their 
 own, the question will naturally occur, " who 
 was in the poet's mind when he wrote the 
 poem ? " Most readers of Browning are no 
 doubt aware, that for a long time the question 
 was debated as to whether Wordsworth was 
 not the " lost leader ; " but the question has 
 been finally set at rest by the poet himself r 
 who, in 1875, wrote to Dr. Grosart as follows : 
 
 " I have been asked the question you now 
 address me with, and as duly answered it, I 
 can't remember how many times : there is no 
 sort of objection to one more assurance^ or-
 
 g6 Robert Browning. 
 
 rather confession, on my part, that I did in 
 my hasty youth presume to use the great and 
 venerated personality of Wordsworth as a sort 
 of painter's model, one from which this or the 
 other particular feature may be selected, and 
 turned to account : had I intended more, above 
 all, such a boldness as portraying the entire 
 man, I should not have talked about ' handfuls 
 of silver and bits of riband.' These never in- 
 fluenced the change of politics in the great 
 poet ; whose defection, nevertheless, accom- 
 panied as it was by a regular face-about of his 
 special party, was to my juvenile apprehen- 
 sion, and even mature consideration, an event 
 to deplore. But just as in the tapestry on my 
 wall I can recognize figures which have struck 
 out a fancy, on occasion, that though truly 
 enough thus derived, yet would be preposter- 
 ous as a copy, so, though I dare not deny the 
 original of my little poem, I altogether refuse 
 to have it considered as the ' very effigies ' of 
 such a moral and intellectual superiority." 
 
 . 
 
 Of whom was Wordsworth the " lost leader"? 
 Presumably of the little band who, at the be- 
 ginning of the present century, led the struggle 
 that had for its supreme object liberty of 
 thought, and the universal brotherhood of the 
 race ; the band which appeared to have lost 
 its one possible leader when Shelley perished 
 in that fatal storm in the gulf of Spezzia :
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 Wordsworth being the one Englishman who 
 could have carried on the work. 
 
 " We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured 
 him, 
 
 Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 
 Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, 
 
 Made him our pattern to live and to die. 
 Shakespeare was of iis, Milton was for us, 
 
 Burns, Shelley, were with us they watch from their 
 
 graves ! 
 He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, 
 
 He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves ! " 
 
 It is noteworthy that the poet, in his mature 
 age, should still deplore the abandonment by 
 Wordsworth of the cause which makes for 
 freedom and liberty. 
 
 The student may now turn to another lyric, 
 perhaps the finest of its kind in the language, 
 The Last Ride Together, and he will not fail 
 to note the measured pulsing of the lines, 
 which seem to keep time to the horses' gallop. 
 The lover has loved in vain ; youth has passed 
 in the quest ; and he now resigns himself to 
 his fate but ere he does this he begs for one 
 last ride with his beloved ; and during the ride 
 he reflects on success or failure in life. He 
 has failed ; but what then ? 
 
 " Fail I alone, in words and deeds ? 
 Why, all men strive and who succeeds ? 
 ,We rode ; it seemed my spirits flew, 
 Saw other regions, cities new, 
 As the world rushed by on either side.
 
 98 Robert Browning. 
 
 t '" , I thought, All labour, yet no less 
 
 Bear up beneath their unsuccess. 
 
 Look at the end of work, contrast 
 t The. petty done, the undone vast, 
 
 This present of their's with the hopeful past ! 
 I hoped she would love me ; here we ride." 
 
 Then there flashes through his mind the 
 idea that were success achieved here, if 
 one obtained the full fruition of one's hopes 
 and desires in this life of limitation, what need 
 would there be for heaven ; nay, would one 
 care for heaven at all ? This thought brings 
 a feeling of rest to his spirit, and as he dreams 
 of riding with his love for " ever and ever," he 
 questions with himself whether this may not 
 be heaven : 
 
 " And yet she has not spoke so long ! 
 What if heaven be that, fair and strong 
 At life's best, with our eyes upturned, 
 Whither life's flower is first discerned, 
 We, fixed so, ever should so abide ! 
 What if we still ride on, we two, 
 With life for ever old yet new, 
 Changed not in kind but in degree, 
 The instant made eternity, 
 And heaven just prove that I and she 
 Ride, ride together, forever ride !" 
 
 We will next take up a lyrical gem of the 
 first water, A Woman's last word, which 
 explains itself. There has evidently been a 
 " misunderstanding " between husband and 
 wife ; and the " woman " is having the " last
 
 Robert Browning. 99 
 
 word " a word of infinite tenderness and self 
 surrender. 
 
 " Let's contend no more, Love, 
 
 Strive nor weep : 
 All be as before, Love, 
 Only sleep ! . . . ; . 
 
 Teach me, only teach, Love ! 
 
 As I ought 
 I will speak thy speech, Love, 
 
 Think thy thought 
 
 J 
 
 Meet, if thou require it, 
 
 Both demands, 
 Laying flesh and spirit 
 
 In thy hands ! 
 
 That shall be to-morrow, 
 
 Not to-night : 
 I must bury sorrow 
 
 Out of sight : 
 
 Must a little weep, Love 
 
 (Foolish me !) 
 . !7 And so fall asleep, Love, 
 
 Loved by thee." .',.'. 
 
 Somewhat in the same strain, we next hear 
 a man's voice a strong, healthy note, though 
 full of a yearning tenderness in a longer poem, 
 called A Lovers Quarrel. This is easily under- 
 standable, and contains some exquisite poetry. 
 
 " Dearest, three months ago 
 When we loved each other so, 
 
 Lived and loved the same, 
 
 Till an evening came, 
 When a shaft from the devil's bow 
 
 Pierced to our ingle-glow, 
 And the friends were friend and foe !
 
 IOO Robert Browning. 
 
 Woman, and will you cast 
 For a word, quite off at last 
 
 Me, your own, your You, 
 
 Since, as truth is true, 
 I was You all the happy Past 
 
 Me do you leave aghast 
 With the memories We amassed ? 
 
 Love, if you knew the light 
 That your soul casts in my sight, 
 
 How I look to you 
 
 For the pure and true, 
 And the beauteous and the right 
 
 Bear with a moment's spite 
 When a mere mote threats the white ! " 
 
 L ' -*- 
 
 j *jr* 
 
 There is a quiet, brooding thoughtfulness in 
 that retrospective-like poem entitled By the 
 Fireside. It is a very beautiful creation, full 
 of pure, manly feeling and emotion, and is 
 dear to all lovers of our poet ; the verses read 
 as though written in the very presence of that 
 peerless singer, Elizabeth Barrett Browning : 
 
 " My perfect wife, my Leonor, 
 
 Oh heart, my own, oh eyes, mine too, 
 Whom else could I dare look forward for, 
 With whom beside should I dare pursue 
 The path grey heads abhor ? 
 
 My own, confirm me ! If I tread 
 This path back, is it not in pride 
 
 To think how little I dreamed it led 
 To an age so blest that, by its side 
 
 Youth seems the waste indeed ?
 
 Robert Broivning. 101 
 
 Think, when our one soul understands 
 
 The great Word which makes all things new, 
 
 When earth breaks up and heaven expands, 
 How will the change strike me and you 
 
 In the house not made with hands '? 
 
 Oh I must feel your brain prompt mine, 
 
 Your heart anticipate my heart, 
 You must be just before, in fine, 
 
 See and make me see^ for your part, 
 New depths of the divine ! " 
 
 There is a longer poem in this first volume 
 of Selections, which the beginner may now take 
 up, and. which is charged to the full with fire 
 and poetry I refer to the Flight of the Duchess. 
 This strong poem gives a rare insight into 
 Browning's sharp, incisive lines, into his marvel- 
 lous power in the manipulation of rhyme, and 
 his fervid imagination. It is full of a strange 
 and subtle music weird and ghost-like as a set- 
 ting of Wagner's : the opening stanzas display 
 all Browning's unique power of realism one 
 can see the scene he is describing. It is indeed 
 a " great wild country," leading out past the 
 cornfields and vineyards, to cattle track and 
 open chase, till the base of the mountain is 
 reached, where 
 
 "At a funeral pace 
 Round about, solemn and slow, 
 One by one, row after row, *-.- 
 Up and up the pine trees go, . .; , 
 And so on, more and ev,er more, 
 Till at the last for a bounding belt, 
 Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea shore."
 
 102 Robert Browning. 
 
 The poem is, as I have said, full of music, 
 and the words of the Gipsy Queen in this 
 poem glow with a strangely fascinating 
 melody ; the whole culminating in one note 
 of high-wrought pathos, when, on the topmost 
 height of "old age," the poet, glancing back on 
 the Past, is about to open the veil into the 
 Unseen and Eternal : 
 
 So, at the last shall come old age, 
 
 Decrepit as befits that stage ; 
 
 How else wouldst thou retire apart. 
 
 With the hoarded memories of thy heart, 
 
 And gather all to the very least 
 
 Of the fragments of life's earlier feast, 
 
 Let fall through eagerness to find 
 
 The crowning dainties yet behind ? 
 
 Ponder on the entire past 
 
 Laid together thus at last, 
 
 When the twilight helps to fuse 
 
 The first fresh with the faded hues, 
 
 And the outline of the whole, 
 
 As round eve's shades their framework roll, 
 
 Grandly fronts for once thy soul. 
 
 And then, as 'mid the dark, a gleam 
 
 Of yet another morning breaks, 
 
 And, like the hand which ends a dream, 
 
 Death, with the might of his sunbeam, 
 
 Touches the flesh, and the soul awakes, 
 
 Then ." 
 
 "Then" Alas, the poet can take us 
 
 no further ; he -has brought to the very ves- 
 tibule of the House of God ; we long to hear 
 what more he has to reveal to us of the glories
 
 Robert Browning. 103 
 
 within ; our ears are strained to their utmost 
 tension, but, ah, the inevitable " but " appals 
 us once again; and we, like the poet, with 
 brave hearts and chastened spirits, must do 
 our appointed tasks on this earth awaiting 
 His time ere we, too, ascend "those other 
 heights in other lives." 
 
 But for pathos, for emotion, for all those 
 holy feelings that come right home to the hu- 
 man heart, the poem entitled Any Wife to any 
 Husband is incomparable and unique. Let 
 the student read it through quietly and 
 thoughtfully, once, twice, three times, and he 
 will assuredly rise with a feeling of awe and 
 reverence, intensified by each successive read- 
 ing, and will claim for the poet not merely the 
 title of singer, but of teacher, consoler, and 
 friend. A true wife, whose whole life has 
 been wrapped up in the love of her husband, 
 is dying ; she knows that she is fading, that her 
 life is slowly ebbing away that she must 
 leave him who was and is all and in all to her ; 
 and in these last supreme moments she utters 
 forth her heart to him who, too, has loved 
 her right well, and who is sobbing out his soul 
 by her dying bed. She tells him how sure 
 she is of his love ; she never had a doubt 
 about that 
 
 ' r 
 
 '. . . "".- 
 
 " I have but to be by thee, and thy hand 
 Will never let mine go, nor heart withstand 
 ' The beating of my heart to, reach. its
 
 1 04 Robert Browning. 
 
 When shall I look for thee and feel thee gone ? 
 *Vo1;When cry for the old. comfort and find none ? 
 Never, I know ! Thy soul is in thy face." 
 
 She feels that her human beauty is fading 
 her face is getting thinner, the lines of care 
 and suffering are writing themselves on her 
 noble brow ; and with all a woman's true 
 instinct she would have saved that for his sake : 
 
 "Oh, I should fade 'tis Willed so ! Might I save, 
 Gladly I would, whatever beauty gave 
 
 Joy to thy sense, for that was precious too. 
 It is not to be granted. But the soul 
 Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole ; 
 
 Vainly the flesh fades ; soul makes all things new.'' 
 
 Ah, but when she is gone, will he still love her, 
 on and on into the new life whither she has fled? 
 Will he remain faithful to her memory ? No ; 
 she knows he will not. All those dear words 
 and tendernesses once uttered to her will be 
 passed on to another : 
 
 " Ah ! but the fresher faces ! ' Is it true,' 
 Thou'lt ask, 'some eyes are beautiful and new? 
 Some hair how can one choose but grasp such 
 
 wealth ? 
 
 And if a man would press his lips to lips, 
 Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup there slips 
 The dew-drop out of, must it be by stealth ] 
 'It cannot change the love still kept for Her' 
 
 " So must I see, from where I sit and watch, 
 My own self sell myself, my hand attach 
 
 Its warrant to the very thefts from me 
 Thy singleness of soul that made me proud, 
 Thy purity of heart I loved aloud, 
 
 Thy man's truth I was bold to bid God see !"
 
 Robert Browning, 105 
 
 Still, for her as for all, true love is eternal 
 and unchangeable ; that is only the outer 
 shell that can be given to another : the real 
 essence of man's own being all that love 
 means and is can be but given to one, and 
 must and shall be hers for ever. And thus 
 will he come back to her again in the land of 
 Light and Love, when earth's shadows shall 
 be dissolved in the sunlight of eternal beauty. 
 
 " It all comes to the same thing at the end, 
 
 Since mine thou wast, mine art, and mine shall be; 
 Faithful or faithless : sealing up the sum 
 Or lavish of my treasure, thou must come 
 
 Back to the heart's place here I keep for thee ! 
 
 " Only why should it be with stain at all ? 
 Why must I, 'twixt the leaves of coronal, 
 
 Put any kiss of pardon on thy brow ? 
 Why need the other women know so much, 
 And talk together, Such the look and such 
 
 The smile he used to love with, then as now ! 
 "Might I die last and show thee ! Should I find 
 Such hardship in the few years left behind, 
 
 If free to take and light my lamp and go 
 Into thy tomb, and shut the door and sit, 
 Seeing thy face on those four sides of it 
 
 The better that they are so blank, I know ! " 
 
 But, in spite of all, she sees, with the intuitive 
 and unerring vision of the dying, that he will, 
 after all that she can say, be faithless to her 
 memory choosing one of the " fresher faces ;" 
 and so the poem closes with a last appeal on 
 her part surely one of the most pathetic, 
 simple, yet withal beautiful poems in our En- 
 glish literature.
 
 io6 Robert Browning. 
 
 Andrea del Sarto is a poem dear and precious 
 to all readers of Browning. It is an "imagin- 
 ary conversation," an altogether beautiful 
 picture : while some of the poet's highest 
 teaching is to be found in it. The great painter 
 is pleading with his wife pleading that she 
 would return to him some of the love that he 
 lavishes upon her ; that she would give to 
 him the incentive to work for the sake of art 
 and the glory not for the mere worldly gain. 
 Oh, how different would his life then be ! 
 With his hand in hers, tenderly does he plead 
 with her : 
 
 " I often am much wearier than you think, 
 This evening, more than usual : and it seems 
 As if forgive me should you let me sitj 
 Here by the window, with your hand in mine, 
 And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole, 
 Both of one mind, as married people use, 
 Quietly, quietly, the evening through, 
 I might get up to-morrow to my work, 
 Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. 
 
 Then he proceeds to speak of the failure of his 
 work. He is called the "Faultless" painter 
 but on that very ground his work fails ; per- 
 fection cannot be attained in this life of limi- 
 tation : no man can say he has here, in this 
 life, attained to his ideal for there is still an 
 ideal beyond the ideal. Mark well these 
 pregnant lines : 
 
 - ".Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
 Or what's a heaven for? All is silver grey, 
 Placid and perfect with my art : the worse ! "
 
 Robert Browning. 107 
 
 We are not to be content with what we can 
 grasp, but reach after something beyond our 
 grasp ; or, in other words, we are not to be 
 content with this limited life and its cares ; 
 but to strive after the eternal life the only 
 real life. So he goes on pleading with the 
 woman, whom he loves (and who is even then 
 thinking of another than he) : 
 
 " But had you oh, with the same perfect brow, 
 And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, 
 And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird 
 The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare 
 Had you with these the same, but brought a mind ! 
 Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged 
 ' God and the glory ! never care for gain. 
 The present by the future, what is that ? 
 Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo ! 
 Rafael is waiting : up to God all three ! ' 
 I might have done it for you." 
 
 Another -vivid piece of portraiture in this 
 first series of selections is An Epistle, 
 narrating the " strange medical experience of 
 Karshish, the Arab physician." Karshish, the 
 " picker-up of learning's crumbs," in the course 
 of his travels comes to Bethany, from whence 
 he writes to his teacher Abib, giving an 
 account of his many wanderings. Among 
 the numberless strange things that have be- 
 fallen him, is none other than a meeting with 
 " one Lazarus, a Jew, sanguine, proportioned, 
 fifty years of age," whose strange medical 
 " case " was a sort of mania, " a trance pro- 
 longed unduly some three days,"
 
 Robert Brcnu)iin. 
 
 '' And first the man's own firm conviction rests '/. 
 That he was dead (in fact, they buried him) 
 That he was dead, and then restored to. life 
 By a Nazarene physician of his tribe : 
 Sayeth, the same bade ' Rise,' and he did rise ! " 
 
 Then follows a vivid description of how Lazar 
 rus views the world after his three days' sleep : 
 
 " Whence has the man the balm that brightens all ? 
 This grown man eyes the world now like a child. 
 Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, 
 Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, 
 To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, 
 Now sharply, now with sorrow, told the case 
 He listened not except I spoke to him, 
 But folded his two hands, and let them talk, 
 Watching the flies that buzzed : and yet no fool. 
 And that's a sample how his years must go." 
 
 Now we have a picture of the life led by the 
 risen Lazarus of the wonderful sense of God 
 in the man's soul : 
 
 "And oft the man's soul springs into his face 
 As if he saw again and heard again, 
 His sage that bade him ' Rise ' and he did rise. 
 Indeed, the especial marking of the man 
 Is prone submission to the heavenly will, 
 Seeing it, what it is, and why it is 
 'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last 
 He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live 
 So long as God please, and just how God please." 
 
 The thought then occurs to Karshish, that his 
 teacher Abib will inquire why he did not seek 
 put the sage but he anticipates the question,
 
 Robert Broivning. 109 
 
 and says, " Alas, he perished in a tumult long 
 ago." At this point, the physician bursts out 
 into a sudden indignation at what he has 
 heard, and comes to the conclusion that this 
 Lazarus must be just stark mad : 
 
 " This man so cured regards the Curer, then 
 As God forgive me ! who but God himself, 
 Creator and sustainer of the world, 
 That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile 
 Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own 
 
 house, 
 
 Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know, 
 And yet was .... what I said nor choose repeat." 
 
 Astonished at his own credulity in listening to 
 this Jew's tale, Karshish begs pardon of the 
 learned leech, his master, for dwelling on it at 
 such length ; but suddenly, at the close of his 
 letter, the whole truth seems to dawn on him. 
 There must be something in it ; the story 
 cannot be all a lie and he exclaims : 
 
 " The very God ! think Abib ; dost thou think ? 
 So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving, too 
 So, through the thunder comes a human voice 
 Saying, ' O heart I made, a heart beats here ! 
 ' Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself ! 
 ' Thou hast no power nor mayest conceive of mine ; 
 ' But love I gave thee, with myself to love, 
 ' And thou must love me who have died for thee ! ' 
 The madman saith He said so : it is strange ! " 
 
 Here is another poem, the Boy and the 
 Angel, commencing : 
 
 " Morning, evening, noon, and night, 
 " Praise God," sang Theocrite. 
 
 I
 
 1 10 Robert Browning. 
 
 Theocrite was but a poor little fellow, who, 
 in his narrow cell, had to work hard during 
 the long hours of the day, earning his bread. 
 But the boy was happy, for he was always 
 singing God's praise : 
 
 " Hard he laboured, long and well, 
 O'er his work the boy's curls fell. 
 But ever at each period 
 He stopped, and sang ' Praise God ! ' 
 Then back again his curls he threw, 
 And cheerful turned to work anew." 
 
 But Theocrite, like all boys, thought he 
 could do better things were he only a great 
 man ; and so he wished to become the Pope, 
 that he might be enabled to praise God better, 
 and God granted him his wish. The boy falls 
 ill, and appears to die, and when he awakens 
 he finds himself Pope. But the boy's cell is 
 empty, and God "misses his little human 
 praise ; " and so the angel Gabriel is sent to 
 take the boy's place. But no ; the song of 
 the great angel is not so sweet to God as was 
 that of the little boy. The angelic song is 
 beautiful, but far more beautiful and dear to 
 God is the human praise. When that little 
 voice stayed its singing, it seemed as though 
 the chorus of creation had stopped too. So 
 the new Pope, Theocrite, becomes the boy 
 again, Gabriel becoming Pope instead. 
 
 The beginner may now take up Saul, in- 
 comparably the finest lyric in modern poetry 
 brimful of music. David has been sent to Saul
 
 Robert Browning. 1 1 1 
 
 that he might sing and play to him, and de- 
 liver him from the terrible inward conflict that 
 is consuming him ; and as he sings, he un- 
 burthens himself, utters strange prophecies, 
 and tells of a Christ to come. More severe 
 in style, but in its way as beautiful, is The 
 Death in the Desert a poem of wondrous 
 power. The beloved Apostle is dying in the 
 desert, hidden in the inmost recesses of a cave 
 his companions, four disciples and a boy. 
 Outside, where one kept watch, " was all noon, 
 and the burning blue ; " but within the cool of 
 the cave, the dying John utters his last words 
 words of infinite pathos and beauty, full of 
 impressive power. Growing more and more 
 prophetic, the dying apostle rises into " far- 
 sounding melody of strength," as in his rapt 
 vision he sees the far-off time, when men will 
 be eagerly inquiring, " Did John live at all ? 
 and did he say he saw the Christ ? " It is a 
 poem the age needs, and one that should be 
 pondered over by the thoughtful student. 
 Then there is the Confessional ; Evelyn Hope 
 a poem to be treasured in one's heart as a 
 sacred memory ; Love among the Ruins ; Two 
 in the Campagna; Home Thoughts from Abroad; 
 The Statue and the Bust ; The Guardian 
 Angel; Clean; James Lee's Wife; In a Gon- 
 dola ; Caliban -upon Setebos, a sermon upon 
 the text, " Thou thoughtest that I was al- 
 together such an one as thyself" ; The Italian 
 in England a poem which Mazzini once read
 
 112 Robert Browning. 
 
 to his fellow-exiles to show how an English- 
 man could sympathize with them and many 
 others ; with all of which the beginner may 
 readily become familiar and will easily under- 
 stand. 
 
 And now the student will, I think, be 
 ready to acknowledge the wealth and power 
 to be found in the works of Robert Browning, 
 and I can leave him to wander at will in 
 this newly-discovered country. He can, if he 
 prefer, leave Sordello till the last, but he is by 
 no means to be deterred from giving it at 
 least two or three readings ; but he can now 
 take up Paracelsus, Christmas Eve and Easter 
 Day, La Saisiaz, the two series of Dramatic 
 Idylls and Jocoseria, Fcrishtalis Fancies, and 
 the plays especially Colombe's Birthday, The 
 Blot in the ScntcJieon (containing, as Arch- 
 deacon Farrarhas said, the sweetest love poem 
 in the English language) ; Strafford and In a 
 Balcony, with the many other works of our 
 beloved master. 
 
 In many of these poems, the reader will find 
 Mr. Browning's sense of humour strongly 
 brought out and it is a humour of a rare and 
 unique kind. He will note it especially in A 
 Soul's Tragedy, and in FraLippo; but it is 
 indeed scattered more or less over much of his 
 work, and may be spoken of as one of his chief 
 characteristics as a poet. 
 
 Since Emerson and Carlyle wrote, no man 
 has come to us charged with a more earnest
 
 Robert Browning. 113 
 
 message to his fellows that Robert Browning. 
 To him work is not the all and in all of life 
 there is work of the soul as of the body ; and 
 his anathemas are hurled with no unsparing 
 hand against mere worldliness, and the 
 " getting-on-in-life " doctrines. Here is his 
 rebuke to those who live, in a double sense, in 
 their shops, and exist only to accumulate gain, 
 having no finer aspirations of the spirit to 
 keep alive their inner and higher life : 
 
 " Because a man has shop to mind 
 
 In time and place, since flesh must live, 
 Needs spirit lack all life behind, 
 All stray thoughts, fancies fugitive, 
 All loves except what trade can give ? 
 
 I want to know a butcher paints, 
 A baker rhymes for his pursuit, 
 
 Candlestick-maker much acquaints 
 His soul with song, or, haply mute, 
 Blows out his brains upon the flute. 
 
 But shop each day and all day long ! 
 
 Friend, your good angel slept, your star 
 Suffered eclipse, fate did you wrong ! 
 From where these sorts of treasures are, 
 There should our hearts be Christ, how far ' 
 b^ un
 
 ?e 
 
 'gfiirtton si tmr& ; gaafisupint; gjj nl snob; abaste 
 u&ttvmX at Ji to?- jntrtiitsiil rfeiiott.'j r u jj 3J |jf 
 
 VII. 
 
 /pi ,nsrrt lo luos adJ oJ 
 
 HAVING got so far into the study of Mr. 
 Browning's work, the reader may now turn to 
 the Poet's masterpiece The Ring and the 
 Book. He will doubtless have been eager to 
 have dipped into this colossal poem at a less 
 advanced stage of his studies, the more 
 especially as he may have heard it spoken of 
 as containing a story of absorbing interest, 
 and as being less obscure than many 
 of the other poems. But it is, I think, essen- 
 tial that the student should know something 
 of Mr. Browning's earlier work ere he takes up 
 his cJief cTauvre ; for from Paracelsus onward 
 to Men and Women and Dramatis Persona 
 there is a gradual development, both in poetic 
 art and evolution of thought, which culminates 
 in The Ring and the Book: This is the 
 high-water mark of Mr. Browning's literary 
 career the work which crowned him " chief 
 poet of the age " ; all the characters of his 
 genius are here displayed passion, pathos 
 and humour, strength and beauty, a marvel- 
 lous analytical and psychological power, com- 
 bined with a prodigality of thought, and a 
 dramatic force and verve, truly astonishing. It 
 is undoubtedly, looked at from all sides, the 
 greatest poem of the century ; nay, the
 
 Robert Browning. 115 
 
 greatest since the dramas of Shakespeare. It 
 stands alone in its uniqueness ; there is nothing 
 like it in English literature for it is human 
 to the core ; it is indeed a precious possession 
 to the soul of man, revealing, as it does, the 
 ultimate triumph of right over wrong, of good 
 over evil, of truth over falsehood. 
 
 The poet tells us how, one day, strolling 
 across a Square in Florence, he stopped at a 
 book-stall, and suddenly pounced upon an old 
 volume, " part print, part manuscript," which 
 contained an account of the trial of one Count 
 Guido Franceschini and his four accomplices 
 for the murder of his wife Pompilia, and her 
 putative parents, Pietro and Violante Compa- 
 rini. At once he bought it gave a lira for it 
 " eightpence English just," and discovered 
 in his purchase the story of a tragedy of intense 
 human interest. 
 
 To give the reader some " general idea " of 
 the plot of this poem, I will put lightly to- 
 gether the leading features of the story, as 
 found by the poet in this old book. With 
 these in his mind, the consecutive narratives, 
 as told by the various dramatis persona will 
 be more easily followed. 
 
 Some two hundred years ago, there lived in 
 the Via Vittoria, Rome, two people of " the 
 modest middle class," Pietro and Violante 
 Comparini. Pietro was possessed of " house 
 and land," and also had " moneys' use lifelong," 
 which, in the event of his dying without heirs
 
 1 1 6 Robert Browning. 
 
 passed out of his family. Therefore his one 
 grief was the old grief he had no child. After 
 some years, however, his wife Viol ante 
 
 "'Twixt a smile and a blush 
 With touch of agitation proper too, 
 Announced that, spite of her unpromising age 
 The miracle would in time be manifest, 
 An heir's birth was to happen : and it did." 
 
 And in time the event came to pass : a baby 
 girl was shown to old Pietro, the simple 
 fellow being beside himself with joy. The 
 child named Pompilia was tenderly brought 
 up by the good old man, who loved her as his 
 life ; and who, rapt up in the joy of possessing 
 this new treasure, spent most of his time in 
 play ; until, at the end of twelve years he 
 having in the meantime " learned to dandle 
 and forgot to dig " poverty " reached him in 
 her rounds." In this strait, Violante, as one 
 said, spied out " Count Guido Franceschini, 
 the Aretine," threw "her bait, Pompilia," 
 and caught the noble. So, one day, in her 
 thirteenth year, the child was hurriedly taken 
 to San Lorenzo, and surreptitiously married 
 to Count Guido Franceschini ; she not know- 
 ing for what purpose she had accompanied her 
 mother to church, and after the ceremony 
 hurried home again with strict injunctions to 
 hold her peace. After a while, however, Guido 
 wanted his wife, and Pietro must needs be 
 told ! As may be expected, the old man was 
 beside himself with rage but, alas, it was then
 
 Robert Browning, ny 
 
 of no avail. Some time after this, the old 
 people were persuaded to renounce all their 
 little property in favour of Guido ; living with 
 him and his in the dreary old palace at Arezzo. 
 Four months of this new life was enough for 
 them ; they soon discovered the wickedness of 
 the Count and his brother the Canon ; and 
 were glad to get back to Rome, begging a 
 living from their former neighbours and com- 
 panions. 
 
 Soon after this happened, the Pope, attain- 
 ing his eightieth year, proclaimed a jubilee 
 in which there was to be " short shrift, prompt 
 pardon for each light offence." So Violante 
 must needs confess Jier sin ; and, like a bolt 
 from the blue, it startled friends and foes : the 
 child was not hers ; she had but bought it 
 to please her husband, and thus save his pro- 
 perty from strangers of some "creature" who 
 had found, by chance, " motherhood like a 
 jewel in the muck." 
 
 " This fragile egg, some careless wild bird dropped 
 She had picked from where it waited the footfall, 
 And put in her own breast till broke forth finch 
 Able to sing God praise on mornings now." 
 
 And what excessive harm was done ? inquired 
 Violante : and the answer is given in due 
 course swift and terrible ! Soon arose much 
 hubbub among all concerned, in which the 
 " dowry " figures as a chief factor. The matter 
 went to the law courts, with the result that 
 Guido can keep the dowry he had with his
 
 II 8 Robert Browning. 
 
 wife, but must give up the other property be- 
 longing to Pietro. 
 
 So for the nonce the matter is appar- 
 ently settled three dreary years passing after 
 these events for the poor " child-wife," shut 
 up in the gloomy palace years of cruelty 
 and terror. At the end of this period, cer- 
 tain complicated events happen a brother of 
 the Count produced a letter, purporting to be 
 written by Pompilia, in which she charged her 
 parents with recommending her to escape with 
 some "gallant" from her husband. But as 
 the child could neither read nor write, this was 
 manifestly false ; the charge being evidently 
 concocted for the purpose of enabling her hus- 
 band to rid himself of his wife and yet retain the 
 dowry. At this time, through her husband's 
 brother, she meets with a young priest 
 Giuseppe Caponsacchi by name. At the bro- 
 ther's instigation, forged letters from Pompilia 
 pass to the Priest ; her maid also brings 
 back letters to her mistress, explaining to 
 her their purport, which was that Capon- 
 sacchi " loved her." Eventually Pompilia and 
 the Priest meet, and she gives him to under- 
 stand all that has taken place ; begging him 
 to aid her to escape from the palace in which 
 she is immured. For days the priest debates 
 within himself as to the right or wrong of this 
 course ; what would God have him do ? But 
 he has seen, pitied, and loved : love comes to 
 his aid ; and he determines to help her flee
 
 Robert Browning 119 
 
 from her husband. So, " all was determined 
 and performed at once," and on a certain April 
 evening she leaves the house, and meeting the 
 Priest, they journey together towards Rome. 
 The next morning, however, Guido awakens 
 somewhat later than usual, with the feeling that 
 he has been half poisoned ; he is soon told 
 what has happened ; and at once sets out in 
 pursuit of the fugitives, whom he overtakes 
 when within a stage of Rome and freedom. 
 
 For this offence the couple were tried at 
 Rome the Priest sentenced to three years' 
 banishment at Civita ; the wife to confinement 
 until she showed signs of reformation in a 
 convent for Magdalens. After a while, how- 
 ever, Pompilia is taken ill, and consequently 
 placed under the care of her parents ; at whose 
 house, the day before Christmas, is born to 
 her a son, whom she names Gaetano, and who 
 within two days was baptized and sent away. 
 This event soon comes to the ears of Guido 
 with the result that 
 
 " He saw the ins and outs to the heart of hell 
 And took the straight line thither swift and sure." 
 
 Revenge has mastered him ; he rushes to 
 Vittiano, finds four " brutes of his own breed- 
 ing," who will follow him to the death. They 
 take horse, arrive in Rome on Christmas eve : 
 
 " One, 
 
 Struck the year's clock whereof the hours are days, 
 And off was rung o ! the little wheels the chime
 
 I2O Robert Browning. 
 
 1 Good will on earth and peace to man : ' but, two 
 Proceeded the same bell and, evening come, 
 The dreadful five felt finger- wise their way 
 Across the town by blind cuts and black turns, 
 To the little lone suburban villa ; knocked 
 * Who may be outside ? ' called a well-known voice, 
 ' A friend of Caponsacchi's bringing friends 
 ' A letter.' " 
 
 Quickly Violante opens the door her death 
 was the first ; Pietro, with a sudden cry, is 
 next done to death ; Pompilia, though having 
 twenty-one wounds, being the only one not 
 killed. The deed of blood rouses the neigh- 
 bourhood ; pursuit follows ; Guido and his 
 accomplices are captured, and in due course 
 brought to trial. The usual pleadings for and 
 against follow ; but Guido and his accom- 
 plices are doomed. 
 
 A shot, however, was reserved. It seemed 
 that Guido had power to appeal to the head 
 of the Church, the Pope, then Innocent XII., 
 which appeal is duly made : the good old Pope, 
 however, ultimately pronouncing the innocence 
 of Pompilia, and ordering the execution of 
 Guido and his fellows. 
 
 Such is the main drift of the story as found 
 in the " book " : which facts, being woven with 
 the " alloy " of the poet's fancy as a " crafts- 
 man " in making a ring, " mingles gold with 
 gold's alloy," are transformed into the Ring 
 and the Book.
 
 Robert Browning. 121 
 
 In the Introduction, the Poet describes the 
 book and the manner of his finding it : 
 
 Do you see this square old yellow book, I toss 
 
 I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about 
 
 By the crumpled vellum covers pure crude fact, 
 
 Secreted from man's life, when hearts beat hard, 
 
 And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since ? 
 
 And proceeds to narrate the " story." For 
 truth's sake, he endeavoured to vouch for the 
 facts, making inquiries at Rome for that 
 purpose. Then we have some account of 
 the different personages who are hereafter 
 to speak for themselves : and herein conies 
 the amazing fertility of the poet's genius, that 
 the story is not once told, but is, in substance, 
 told twelve times over the whole forming a 
 series of marvellous and powerful mono- 
 logues, in which different phases of the same 
 incident are repeated by different persons in 
 drama. We have first the introduction, then 
 the opinions of " One Half Rome," and " The 
 Other Half Rome." " Guido " makes two long 
 speeches, the dying Pompilia gives a record 
 of her blameless life ; the priest, Caponsacchi, 
 narrates his part in the terrible business ; an 
 impartial authority, "Tertium Quid," delivers 
 himself on the matter ; two lawyers discuss the 
 events ; the old Pope, who had seen eighty- 
 four summers of good and evil, gives an 
 elaborate judgment ; and finally, the Poet, in 
 his own person, sums up the tragic tale. It 
 will be at once seen, what a colossal poem this
 
 122 Robert Browning. 
 
 is ; but, nevertheless, the interest of the reader 
 is kept alive to the end. But did ever Poet 
 have to make such a statement as is made in 
 the introduction ? It is a stain which, since 
 the publication of this poem, has been in a 
 large measure wiped out, for the public have, 
 "after many days," had to confess that they 
 do like him. 
 
 n brip livalo inanoJuIorfw R ritto* 
 " Such, British public, ye who like me not, 
 (God love you !) whom I yet have laboured for, 
 Perchance more careful whoso runs may read 
 Than erst when all, it seemed, could read who ran, 
 Perchance more careless whoso reads may praise 
 Than late when he who praised and read and wrote, 
 Was apt to find himself the selfsame me, 
 Such labour had such issue, so I wrought 
 This arc, by furtherance of such alloy, 
 And so, by one spirt, take away its trace 
 Till, justifiably golden, rounds my ring." 
 
 The introductory portion closes with those 
 beautiful and pathetic lines commencing: 
 
 or n 
 
 O lyric Love, half-angel and half-bird 
 And all a wonder and a wild desire, 
 
 which read like a " dedication " to England's 
 great poetess, whose name, linked in that of 
 her husband's, will never be forgotten in the 
 land that gave them birth. After reading 
 this, let no one say that Browning is obscure, 
 or devoid of music. The whole passage is 
 charged with music, full to the brim and
 
 Robert Browning. 123 
 
 overflowing one of the most beautiful pas- 
 sages in English literature. 
 
 The two monologues which follow, give, in 
 the words of two spokesmen whom the poet is 
 supposed to meet, the " gossip " first of " One 
 Half Rome," and second of the " Other Half 
 Rome " on the tragedy which has been enacted. 
 " Half Rome " favours the husband, and lets 
 forth a whole torrent of evil and misery, passion 
 and pain. The "Other Half Rome" takes 
 apparently the wife's side, and reveals to us a 
 glimpse of the " unsoiled blue." Its opening 
 lines are simple in their suppressed pathos : 
 
 Another day that finds her living yet 
 
 Little Pompilia with the patient brow 
 
 And lamentable smile on those poor lips, 
 
 And, under the white hospital-array, 
 
 A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise 
 
 You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through 
 
 again, 
 Alive i' the ruins. 'Tis a miracle ! 
 
 But the monologue Pompilia is assuredly 
 the most beautiful as it is the most simple in 
 construction, in the book ; while the one 
 character in the poem, that which runs 
 through it like a golden thread, is the girl- 
 wife Pompilia. She stands on a par with 
 Shakespeare's women ; no poet since his time 
 has created such a woman as Pompilia beau- 
 tiful, sainted, true-hearted child-mother and 
 friend ! So real has the Poet drawn her that 
 we almost see her face, we recall its every tone 
 and touch ; and feel that we are in the
 
 124 Robert Browning. 
 
 presence of as saintly a creature as ever trod 
 earth. True nobleness is in her soul, 
 true purity in her heart, true goodness 
 and grace in her every action. As she lies 
 dying in the hospital from wounds inflicted at 
 the hands of her husband, she sobs out her last 
 words words of thanks to the good priest 
 Caponsacchi who had tried to save her, and of 
 thanks to God who had kept her pure and 
 white. It is said, forsooth, that Browning's 
 words are without form, rugged, devoid of 
 music, and I know not what, by certain critics, 
 who would educate the taste of the public down 
 to their dead level. Listen to this ; it is the 
 patient, pure, " lily-like " child, Pompilia, who 
 is speaking. In her last moments, with death 
 all too visible before her, she prattles of her 
 little baby boy, in words which show how 
 deeply Browning can enter into the heart of a 
 woman : 
 
 " I am just seventeen years and five months old, 
 And if I live one day more, three full weeks. . , 
 Oh how good God is that my babe was born, 
 Better than born, baptised and hid away 
 Before this happened, safe from being hurt ! 
 That had been sin God could not well forgive : 
 He was too young to smile and save himself. 
 
 One cannot judge 
 
 Of what has been the ill or well of life, 
 The day that one is dying sorrows change 
 Into the not altogether sorrow-like ;
 
 Robert Browning. 125 
 
 I do see strangeness but scarce misery, 
 Now it is over, and no danger more. 
 My child is safe ; there seems not so much pain. 
 It comes, most like, that I am just absolved, 
 Purged of the past, the foul in me washed fair, 
 One cannot both have and not have, you know, 
 Being right now, I am happy and colour things. 
 Yes, every body that leaves life sees all 
 Softened and bettered : so with other sights : 
 To me at least was never evening yet 
 But seemed far beautifuller than its day, 
 For past is past." 
 
 So real is all this that one can easily call to 
 mind the sad scene. The dying girl on her 
 couch : the pale lily-like face ; the folded 
 hands ; the quiet voice, as from another world, 
 repeating to the awe-struck listener her sad 
 and pathetic story. One cannot find another 
 such picture in the wide range of English 
 literature. See, too, how noble her faith ; 
 how firmly she clings to God ; and how con- 
 vinced she is that it was God who had sent 
 Caponsacchi to her aid in her terrible strait : 
 
 " I answered, ' He will come.' 
 And, all day, I sent prayer like incense up 
 To God the strong, God the beneficent, 
 God ever mindful in all strife and strait, 
 Who, for our own good, makes the need extreme, 
 Till at the last He puts forth might and saves." 
 
 Then notice how right human, how divine 
 is her love for her boy. It is a genuine human 
 creature, this child-mother, that Mr. Browning 
 has drawn for us ; not a poetical figure, but 
 real flesh and blood, with a human beating 
 
 K
 
 1 26 Robert Browning. 
 
 heart strong in life, stronger in dying, and 
 strongest in the possibilities of the Hereafter. 
 Hear her childlike, loveable prattle about her 
 babe, the little Gaetano : 
 
 " My boy was born, 
 
 Born all in love, with naught to spoil the bliss 
 A whole long fortnight : in a life like mine 
 A fortnight filled with bliss is long and much. 
 All women are not mothers of a boy, 
 Though they live twice the length of my whole life." 
 
 As for her husband, Count Guido Frances- 
 chini, the cause of the woe and misery, she 
 cannot say a hard word for him. Pathetic, 
 and yet full of true womanliness are the words 
 which Pompilia speaks of her husband. For 
 him she has no hatred, no bitterness only an 
 infinite pity : 
 
 " I pardon him ? So far as lies in me, 
 I give him for his good the life he takes. . . . 
 Let him make God amends, none, none to me. 
 We shall not meet in this world nor the next, 
 .But where will God be absent ? In His face 
 Is light, but in His shadow healing too : 
 Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed ! . . :. ! 
 I could not love him, but his mother did." 
 
 But if Pompilia is the most beautiful of 
 these monologues, Caponsacchi is assuredly 
 the most impassioned ; while that of the Pope 
 is the most stately and perfect in its rhythm 
 and structure. These three monologues make 
 up a unity of impassioned, beautiful, and 
 stately verse. Caponsacchi tells his story with 
 a torrent of passion, not one word but which
 
 Robert Browning. 127 
 
 bears the impress of truth. Especially fine is 
 his account of the ' mental conflict in his 
 spirit as to whether he shall give Pompilia 
 the help she needs ; while his description of 
 their flight to Rome, with the account of her 
 mind-wanderings and song-like words, is one 
 of the greatest bits of poetic writing in our 
 literature. 
 
 But for ripeness of experience, force and 
 power, the monologue of the Pope stands su- 
 preme. It must be read many times, and each 
 successive reading will deepen the impression it 
 leaves on the mind of the reader. It is so im- 
 partial, convincing, stately. There has been 
 nothing like it for majesty of verse since Mil- 
 ton wrote the " Paradise Lost." With " win- 
 ter in his soul beyond the world's," Innocent 
 XII. goes over each "dismal document " con- 
 nected with the case, pleadings and counter 
 pleadings, until the naked truth fronts him : 
 the guilt of Guido, the innocence of Pompilia. 
 It matters no whit to him that the chief culprit 
 is noble, and backed up by noble friends ; nay, 
 that is an added sin. He looks him through 
 and through, but can find no redeeming point ; 
 he sees how, in his starting in life, he had 
 every advantage, what the world counts " suf- 
 ficient help " body and mind well balanced ; 
 a solid intellect : wisdom and courage ; all 
 things essential to make life a success : 
 
 " Oh, and much drawback ! what where earth with- 
 . . -out?
 
 128 Robert Browning. 
 
 Is this our ultimate stage, or starting-place 
 
 To try man's foot, if it will creep or climb, 
 
 'Mid obstacles in seeming, points that prove 
 
 Advantage for who vaults from low to high 
 
 And makes the stumbling block a stepping-stone ? " 
 
 Yet with all this, Guide misses the mark ; al- 
 most a priest, he rushes into sin " believes in 
 just the vile of life " ; even his marriage is a 
 lie : it is lust for money, and the low appetite 
 of the beast. So, when in his scheming, an 
 obstacle blocks his path, the vindictive cruelty 
 of his nature asserts itself, and he revels in the 
 torture of a human soul : till sin is conceived 
 to the full, and brings forth death. So does 
 the Pope sit in judgment on the wretched 
 man, and finds him the " mid-most blotch of 
 black " of the evil group. 
 
 But when he comes to Pompilia, his voice 
 changes ; an added softness tones down the 
 stern utterance, and a smile seems to flit over 
 the wan features. The good old Pope is sure 
 of Pompilia's innocence : 
 
 " First of the first, 
 
 Such I pronounce Pompilia, then as now 
 Perfect in whiteness stoop thou down, my child, 
 Give one good moment to the poor old Pope 
 Heart-sick at having all his world to blame. 
 
 . . . Everywhere 
 I see in the world the intellect of man 
 That sword, the energy his subtle spear, 
 The knowledge which defends him like a shield 
 Everywhere ; but they make not up, I think 
 The marvel of a soul like thine, earth's flower, 
 She holds up to the softened gaze of God ! . . . .
 
 Robert Browning. 127 
 
 . . . . My flower, 
 My rose, I gather for the breast of God." 
 
 As for Caponsacchi, the Pope finds much 
 amiss and blameworthy in " this freak " of his 
 the masquerading in motley garb ; yet he 
 acknowledges the " healthy rage " which ani- 
 mated his spirit when came the first moan from 
 the martyr maid, and judges him pure in 
 thought, word, and deed. He knew what the 
 temptation must have been ; but, was the temp- 
 tation sharp, the trial sore ? Then, thank God, 
 exclaims the Pope, for : 
 
 " Why comes temptation but for man to meet 
 And master and make crouch beneath his foot 
 And so be pedestalled in triumph ? Pray 
 " Lead us into no such temptations, Lord ! " 
 Yea, but, O Thou whose servants are the bold, 
 Lead such temptations by the head and hair 
 Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight 
 That so he may do battle and have praise ! " 
 
 So he judges the matter : nowise blindly ; 
 knowing the fallibility of human judgment, 
 and the infirmity of the human will. He looks 
 beyond his fallible judgment to the unerring 
 judgment of God. Of that he is assured 
 God is, and God is true : 
 
 " I must outlive a thing ere know it dead : 
 When I outlive the faith there is a sun, 
 When I lie, ashes to the very soul 
 Someone, not I, must wail above the heap, 
 " He died in dark whence never morn arose.' . . . 
 No, I have light, nor fear the dark at all."
 
 130 Robert Browning. 
 
 The closing lines of this monologue are in- 
 tense in their realistic picturesqueness, and 
 reveal all the massive strength of Browning's 
 genius. 
 
 The two monologues of Guido are psycho- 
 logical studies in Browning's most character- 
 istic manner. In the second speech of the 
 Count, the man's true nature is more fully 
 revealed. Indeed, in reading the last terrible 
 words of Guide's, wherein he lays bare his 
 soul to the confessors who have been sent 
 him, one is struck. with the masterful manner 
 in which the poet-seer analyses the worldly 
 soul of this man. He reads him through and 
 through, and reveals to us the superstition, 
 the undisciplined intellect, the clinging to life, 
 the bravado of the wretched fellow. It is a 
 wonderful portrait. Hear him, as the con- 
 fessors pause, listening to his torrent of words : 
 
 " Come, I am tired of silence ! Pause enough ! 
 You have prayed : I have gone inside my soul 
 And shut its door behind me ; 'tis your torch 
 Makes the place dark, the darkness let alone 
 
 Grows tolerable twilight 
 
 You never know what life means till you die : 
 Even throughout life, 'tis death that makes life live, 
 Gives it whatever the significance." 
 :. 
 
 But at the last he breaks down. Life is 
 sweet after all ; his bravado is gone ; the 
 whole contemptible cowardice of his nature 
 bursts forth and in his last words he proves
 
 Robert Browning. 131 
 
 the innocence of his wife by invoking her aid 
 to save him : 
 
 "Who are these you have let descend my stair ? 
 
 Ha, their accursed psalm ! Lights at the sill ! 
 
 Is it " Open" they dare bid you ? Treachery ! 
 
 Sirs, have I spoken one word all this while 
 
 Out of the world of words I had to say ? 
 
 Not one word ! All was folly I laughed and mocked ! 
 
 Sirs, my first true word, all truth and no lie, 
 
 Is save me notwithstanding ! Life is all ! 
 
 I was just stark mad let the madman live 
 
 Pressed by as many chains as you please pile ! 
 
 Do n't open ! Hold me from them ! I am yours, 
 
 I am the Grand-duke's no, I am the Pope's ! 
 
 Abate Cardinal Christ Maria God, . . . 
 
 Pompilia, will you let them murder me ? " 
 
 In the concluding section, the Poet gives a 
 final summing up of the matter. First we have 
 a letter from a stranger, a Venetian visitor at 
 Rome, who writes on the evening of the exe- 
 tution of Guido and his accomplices, and who 
 gives a description of that event. Guide's 
 friend, Don Giacinto Arcangeli, also writes on 
 the same evening ; followed by an epistle from 
 the " call blue-eyed Fisc whose head is capped 
 with cloud," Doctor Bottini. The Doctor en- 
 closes in his letter the report of a sermon by 
 the Augustinian monk, from the text, " Let 
 God be true and every man a liar," and here 
 the reader will find one of Browning's most 
 eloquent passages. The Poet then sums up 
 the whole :
 
 132 Robert Browning. 
 
 " So did this old woe fade from memory, 
 Till after, in the fulness of the days, 
 I needs must find an ember yet unquenched 
 And, breathing, blow the spark to flame. It lives, 
 If precious be the soul of man to man. 
 So, British Public, who may like me yet, 
 (Marry and amen !) learn one lesson hence 
 Of many which whatever lives should teach : 
 This lesson, that our human speech is nought, 
 Our human testimony false, our frame 
 And human estimation words and wind." 
 
 Such are the main features of the Ring and 
 the Book, and I hope enough has been said to 
 prove to the student the wealth, wonder, and 
 intense human interest of this poem. It must 
 be read and re-read, pondered and thought 
 over ; for it is a decided addition to our hu- 
 man experience. Certainly, it is a formidable 
 task to put before a " beginner " in the study 
 of Browning, a poem, consisting of upwards 
 of 21,000 lines. But the reader will be amply 
 repaid for his assiduity ; he will have seen a 
 woeful tragedy put before him in an altogether 
 new form ; he will have felt the beat and sway 
 of passion and pain, hate and fear, hope and 
 joy ; and he will have seen human hearts laid 
 bare before the analytical power of this most 
 
 incisive and masterful of modern poets. 
 
 : 10 
 
 .a 3ff 
 !<>q
 
 VIII. 
 
 AND now, in bringing this little work to a 
 close I trust I may have made, to the student 
 at any rate, somewhat clearer the depth of 
 thought and power of inspiration to be found 
 in the works of him whom I take to be the 
 Chief Poet of our Age ; chief, because he, more 
 than any other, perceived the needs and 
 yearnings of this restless period, and set him- 
 self to supply them. He never aimed at 
 popularity ; success was in nowise his ambi- 
 tion : he was content with the judgment of 
 his peers, and could afford to wait the verdict 
 ot the populace. " Were you never dis- 
 couraged," I asked him once, " at the indiffer- 
 ence of the public and the hostility of the 
 critics to your writings ? " " Never? was his 
 emphatic reply. " Why, I had the approba- 
 tion of Fox, of Mill, of Forster, and I was 
 content with tJieir verdict." It has been well 
 for us that he was so content, and went on his 
 high career regardless of the public indifference 
 or the critics' hostility. Had he so chosen 
 he might, early in his career, have obtained a 
 popularity as large and widespread as that of 
 his great contemporary : for he had a unique 
 lyric power, and in ballad writing was easily 
 
 L
 
 134 Robert Browning. 
 
 great. On these lines, he might have speedily 
 achieved popularity ; but this was not his 
 work and this would not have won him the 
 title of Chief Poet of the Age. 
 
 I hold him to be " chief " also because he, of 
 all modern writers, so largely combined the 
 prophetic, or the seeing power, and this it is 
 that places him far above more melodious- 
 voiced singers. This poet deals with the philo- 
 sophical and intellectual problems of his day ; 
 he is a great religious teacher ; he influenced 
 men's actions and lives in a word, he was a 
 seer. To him the world was alive and radiant 
 with hope ; he never lost his hold on God, 
 never faltered in his high ideals of life, never 
 failed in his belief in humanity. God's father- 
 hood was to him an assured fact and equally 
 assured was his certainty of Immortality. His 
 death was as noble as his life it was the 
 triumph hour of his career: surrounded by 
 those to whom he was bound by the tenderest 
 of all ties, he heard across the waters that 
 beat against the walls of the Palazzo 
 Rezzonico, the " well done "of his compatriots 
 in the land of his birth ; and his hands had 
 held for a moment the volume containing the 
 last fruits of his brain and heart. Full of 
 trust in the Future, he passed the veil into the 
 Unseen his latest utterance testifying to the 
 greatness of his hope : 
 
 At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, 
 When you set your fancies free,
 
 Robert Browning. 135 
 
 Will they pass to where by death, fools think, im- 
 prisoned 
 
 Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, 
 Pity me ? 
 
 No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time 
 
 Greet the unseen with a cheer! 
 
 Bid him forward, breast and back, as either should be, 
 " Strive and thrive ! " cry " Speed fight on, fare ever 
 There as here ! " 
 
 And herein lies his power to influence yet 
 further the England he loved so well for 
 Robert Browning is emphatically the poet of 
 the future. Dreadful things are prophesied of 
 the coming age and the pessimists are hold- 
 ing high carnival over the downfall of the old 
 creeds : but the foundations are firm still, it 
 is only the building that is changing, not the 
 superstructure. Faith is still alive, and uplift- 
 ing the hearts, of men ; religion is still doing 
 her beneficent work, as it has never done it 
 before, but bigotry and intolerance are pass- 
 ing away ; superstition is dead, but Christ is 
 alive, and the new age is pregnant with a 
 tolerant, large-hearted, all-embracing Chris- 
 tianity, broad as the wide waters of the 
 moon-swayed Atlantic. Of this new age 
 Robert Browning will be the great high-priest 
 and poet, the inspired leader and teacher. 
 Carlyle tells us that some familiar verses of 
 Goethe's sound to him like the marching song 
 of humanity, but Browning has written for us 
 our inarching song, and, in his poem of the 
 Grammarian's Funeral, he leads us on, step
 
 136 Robert Browning. 
 
 by step, till we gain the mountain heights. It 
 is an account of the burial of a learned man, 
 who loved learning for learning's sake, seeking 
 payment, not from man, but God. As his 
 friends carry his body, for burial, up to the top 
 of the mountain crest, they chant their uplift- 
 ing song, in words that haunt the memory, 
 lifting the spirit above the world's turmoils, 
 into that serener atmosphere where human 
 hearts beat in unison with the heart of the 
 Father : 
 
 Oh, if we draw a circle premature 
 
 Heedless of far gain, 
 Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure 
 
 Bad is our bargain ! 
 Was it not great ? did not he throw on God 
 
 (He loves the burthen) 
 God's task to make the heavenly period 
 
 Perfect the earthen ? . . . . 
 
 That low man seeks a little thing to do, 
 
 Sees it and does it : 
 This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 
 
 Dies ere he knows it. 
 That low man goes on adding one to one, 
 
 His hundred's soon hit : 
 This high man, aiming at a million, 
 
 Misses an unit. 
 That, has the world here should he need the next, 
 
 Let the world mind him ! 
 This, throws himself on God, and unperplext 
 
 Seeking shall find Him ! 
 
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