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THE   BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS 


THE 


JOSTON  BROWNING  SOCIETY  PAPERS 


to  represent  tfje  SHorfe  of  rjje  £octetp_ 


FHOM 


1886-1897 


"Ktta  gorfe 
THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 

189T 

All  rights  reserved 


COPTMGHT,  1897, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Jinibcrsitg 
JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE,  U.S.A. 


* 

. 


PREFATORY    NOTE. 


THE  work  of  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  since  its  organ- 
ization in  1885,  has  been  varied  and  continuous,  and  neither 
this  volume  nor  the  valuable  Browning  Library  of  the  So- 
ciety exemplifies  all  the  modes  of  its  activity.  This  vol- 
ume, however,  —  although  it  cannot  assume  to  include  all 
or  even  the  greater  part  of  the  essays,  studies,  and  discus- 
sions contributed  to  the  Sessions  of  the  past  twelve  years, 
—  may  stand  as  generally  representative,  in  so  far  as  writ- 
ten Papers  on  special  themes  are  concerned,  of  the  range 
of  the  Society's  work  up  to  the  present  time.  With  that 
idea  in  view,  as  well  as  with  the  .hope  that  this  book  may 
be  of  interest  and  service  to  other  students  and  readers,  it 
is  now  offered  to  the  Public. 

That  the  literary  criticism  pursued  by  the  Society  has 
been  broad  in  scope  as  well  as  impartial  and  scholarly  in 
quality,  these  papers  may  demonstrate  to  the  most  scepti- 
cal of  those  who  in  the  past  have  failed  to  perceive  the 
significance  of  the  literary  movement  which  the  Society 
represents,  and  therefore  have  faile  •<  to  appreciate  the  value 
and  permanency  of  its  results.  The  Boston  Society  has 
been  particularly  fortunate  in  having  among  its  essayists 
a  number  of  men  and  women  who  have  attained  eminence 
as  specialists  in  philosophy,  theology,  and  literature ;  and 
these  have  contributed  to  the  work  of  the  Society  the  em- 


VI  .    PREFATORY  NOTE. 

ciency  and  weight  that  came  from  the  trained  eye  and 
practised  hand,  as  well  as  of  a  sound  and  broad  culture. 
To  some  degree,  the  present  volume  may  make  this  appar- 
ent in  the  compass  of  its  subject-matter,  covering  as  it  does 
phases  of  Browning's  art,  fame,  and  philosophy,  and  in  the 
sympathetic  yet  judicial  nature  of  the  criticism  by  which 
it  seeks  to  verify  the  conclusions  and  confirm  the  lead- 
ings of  enlightened  taste. 

Some  few  of  the  Papers  here  published  have  appeared  in 
TJie  Andovcr  Review,  The  New  World,  Poet-lore,  and  The 
American  Journal  of  Philology,  to  which  magazines  the 
thanks  of  the  Society  are  due  for  permission  to  reprint 
them. 

The  copious  and  excellent  index  to  this  volume  is  the 
work  of  Miss  Elizabeth  May  Dame. 

It  may  be  well  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  ar- 
rangement of  these  Papers  follows,  in  the  main,  the  chron- 
ological order  in  which  they  were  delivered. 

PHTLIP  STAFFORD  MOXOM, 

President. 
GEORGE  DIMMICK  LATIMER, 

Vice- President. 

T  tr  PUBLICATION  COMMITTEE. 

JOSHUA  KENDALL,  \  BOSTON  BROWKIMG  SOCIETY. 

Chairman, 
EMMA  ENDICOTT  MAREAN, 

,          Librarian. 
CHARLOTTE  PORTER. 

BOSTON,  April  26,  1897. 


CONTENTS. 


'/  PAOB 

THE  BIOGRAPHY  OP  BROWNING'S  FAME    ........        1 

THOMAS  WENTWORTH  HIGGINSON. 

BROWNING'S  THEISM   .     ..............      \7 

JOSIAH   ROYCE. 


BROWNING'S  ART  IN  MONOLOGUE 

PERCY  STICKNEY  GRANT. 


/ 

^CALIBAN  UPON  SETEBOS' 67 

""  CHARLES  GORDON  AMES. 

BROWNING'S  THEORY  OF  ROMANTIC  LOVE (84J 

GEORGE  WILLIS  COOKE. 

BROWNING'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART   .... 
DANIEL  DORCHESTER,  JR. 

APPARENT  FAILURE,  IN  REALITY  ULTIMATE  AND  SUBSTAN- 
TIAL TRIUMPH 

JOSHUA  KENDALL. 

THE  UNCALCULATING  SOUL 130 

JENKIN  LLOYD  JONES. 

THE  VALUE  OF  CONTEMPORARY  JUDGMENT 153 

HELEN  A.  CLARKE. 

BROWNING'S  MASTERY  OF  RHYME 164 

WILLIAM  J.  ROLFE. 

A  BROWNING  MONOLOGUE 

GEORGE  DIMMICK  LATIMER. 

DRAMATIC  MOTIVE  IN  '  STRAFFORD  ' 190 

CHARLOTTE  PORTER. 

4  BROWNING  AS  A  DRAMATIC  POET 203 

HENRY  JONES. 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

THE  PROBLEiM  OF  PARACELSUS 221 

JOSIAH    ROYCE. 

'LuRiA' 249 

JOHN  WHITE  CHADWICK. 

'  THE  RETURN  OF  THE  DRUSES  ' 264 

GAMALIEL  BRADFORD,  JR. 

'  MR.  SLUDGE,  THE  MEDIUM  ' 289 

FRANCIS  B.  HORNBROOKE.  ^^^ 

J  THE  OPTIMISM  OF  BROWNING  AND  WORDSWORTH     ;    .     .     .  /30Q| 

A.  J.  GEORGE.  \^ 

'  SORDELLO  ' 334 

.  CHARLES  CARROLL  EVERETT. 

•  THE  CLASSICAL  ELEMENT  IN  BROWNING'S  POETRY  ....    363    ! 
WILLIAM  CRANSTON  LAWTON. 

-7     HOMER  AND  BROWNING 389 

PRENTISS  CUMMINGS. 

BALAUSTION'S  OPINION  OF  EURIPIDES 411 

PHILIP  STAFFORD  MOXOM. 

^  THE  GREEK  SPIRIT  IN  SHELLEY  AND  BROWNING 438 

VlDA   D.    SCUDDER. 

\       THE  NATURE  ELEMENT  IN  BROWNING'S  POETRY (471 

EMMA  ENDICOTT  MAREAN. 


THE 

BOSTON  BROWNING  SOCIETY  PAPERS. 


THE   BIOGRAPHY  OF   BROWNING'S  FAME. 

BY  THOMAS  WENT  WORTH  HIGGINSON. 

THE  remark  was  once  made  to  me  at  a  dinner  party,  by 
an  unusually  lively  English  lady  who  had  just  arrived  in 
the  United  States,  to  the  effect  that  all  the  really  interest- 
ing Americans  seemed  to  be  dead.  While  the  phrase  was 
certainly  marked  by  the  frankness  of  her  nation  —  since  it 
is  not  easy  to  imagine  a  Frenchwoman  as  saying  it,  how- 
ever much  she  might  think  it  —  yet  it  suggested  the  natu- 
ral mental  attitude  of  any  foreigner  visiting  any  country. 
Emerson,  writing  in  April,  1843  (Boston  Dial,  III.  512), 
says  regretfully,  "Europe  has  lost  ground  lately.  Our 
young  men  go  thither  in  every  ship,  but  not  as  in  the 
golden  days  when  the  same  tour  would  show  the  traveller 
the  noble  heads  of  Scott,  of  Mackintosh,  Coleridge, 
Wordsworth,  Cuvier  and  Humboldt."  Yet,  for  those  who 
went  there  thirty  years  later,  there  were  the  heads,  quite 
as  noble,  of  Carlyle,  Darwin,  Tennyson,  Browning,  Tyndall 
and  Victor  Hugo.  I  was  one  of  these  later  visitors,  and 
might  now  easily  assume,  from  the  disappearance  of  those 
notables,  that  all  the  interesting  Englishmen  are  dead  also. 
The  London  of  Andrew  Lang  and  Oscar  Wilde  would 
not  seem,  of  itself,  a  formidable  competitor  with  either  of 
those  golden  periods.  Were  I  to  go  once  more  and  meet 

1 


2  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

my  vivacious  little  companion  on  her  native  heath,  there 
would  certainly  be  a  temptation  to  be  as  little  restrained 
by  courtesy  as  she  was. 

The  interest  of  a  foreign  country  lies,  for  visitors,  largely 
in  the  fame  of  its  authors.  Yet  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  biography  of  an  author  is  not  to  be  reckoned  by 
the  parish  registers,  but  by  the  successive  milestones  of 
his  fame.  We  know  that  Browning's  '  Pauline '  was  pub- 
lished in  1833,  his  '  Paracelsus  '  in  1835,  his  '  Strafford '  in 
1837,  his  first  instalment  of  '  Bells  and  Pomegranates '  in 
1841 ;  but  we  know  that  for  long  years  after  this  he 
remained  practically  unknown  to  the  general  public,  and 
that  this  period  lasted  even  longer  in  his  own  country  than 
in  America.  We  also  know  how  complete  has  been  the 
reversal  worked  in  his  case  by  time.  Literary  history  can, 
perhaps,  produce  no  rival  to  the  orbit  traversed  between 
the  publication  of  *  Pauline,'  of  which  not  a  single  copy 
was  ever  sold,  and  that  occasion  last  year  when  the  Boston 
Browning  Society  sent  to  England  an  order  to  bid  f 400 
for  a  copy  sold  at  auction,  and  failed  because  the  price 
brought  was  nearly  twice  that  sum. 

It  is  interesting  to  us,  as  Americans,  to  know  that  the 
shadow  began  to  lift  from  Browning's  fame  a  little  earlier 
in  this  country  than  in  his  own.  It  does  not  appear  from 
Mr.  Sharp's  laborious  bibliography  that  any  one  had  re- 
viewed '  Bells  and  Pomegranates '  in  England  when 
Margaret  Fuller  printed  her  brief  but  warm  notice  of 
'  Pippa  Passes '  in  the  (Boston)  Dial  for  April,  1843 
(III.  535),  although  Mr.  Sharp  does  not  speak  of  this,  but 
only  of  her  collected  notices  of  Browning  in  '  Papers  on 
Literature  and  Art'  (London,  1846).  Nor  does  it  appear 
that  any  one  in  England  reviewed  the  collected  poems  so 
early  as  Lowell  in  the  North  American  Review,  in  1848, 
(LXVI.  357),  except  a  writer  in  the  British  Quarterly 
Review  the  year  previous.  But  it  was  true,  at  any  rate, 
for  both  countries,  that  the  progress  of  his  fame  was  more 


BIOGEAPHY   OF   BROWNING  S   FAME.  3 

tardy  than  that  of  Tennyson.     A  few  facts  will  make  this 
very  clear. 

Lady  Pollock,  writing  '  Macready  as  I  knew  him '  in 
1884,  describes  Macready  as  first  reading  Browning  to  her, 
thirty  years  earlier,  and  as  being  one  of  the  few  who  had 
then  (in  1854)  learned  to  admire  his  poetry.  He  was  dis- 
turbed to  find  that  Lady  Pollock  had  not  read  '  Paracelsus ; ' 
said  once  or  twice  "  O  good  God  !  "  walked  up  and  down 
the  room  once  or  twice  and  said,  "  I  really  am  quite  at 
a  loss;  I  cannot  understand  it."  Lady  Pollock  "pleaded 
the  claims  of  the  babies;  they  left 'little  time;"  and 
he  answered,  "Hand  the  babies  to  the  nurse  and  read 
'  Paracelsus.' "  Then  he  read  it  to  her,  and  she  was 
conquered. 

So  slowly  did  the  taste  for  Browning's  poetry  grow  in  , 
the  most  cultivated  circles  in  London  that  when,  about 
1870,  Lady  Amberley  was  in  this  country,  and  an  Amer- 
ican friend,  driving  her  out  from  Newport  to  see  Berkeley's 
house  in  that  vicinity,  proposed  to  call  at  Mr.  Lafarge's 
house  on  the  way  and  see  the  designs  from  Browning 
that  he  had  just  finished,  she  expressed  utter  indiffer- 
ence, saying  that  she  and  her  friends  in  London  knew 
and  valued  Mr.  Browning  as  a  man,  but  cared  absolutely 
nothing  for  him  as  a  poet.  Lady  Amberley  was  the 
daughter-in-law  of  Earl  Russell  and  the  daughter  of 
Lord  Stanley  of  Alderley ;  she  had  always  been  accustomed 
to  meeting  authors  and  artists  at  her  father's  house,  and 
her  mother  was  the  leading  promoter  of  Girton  College. 
Lady  Amberley  herself,  who  was  then  barely  twenty,  was  in 
the  last  degree  independent  in  her  opinions,  —  sufficiently 
so  to  name  an  infant  daughter  after  Lucretia  Mott ;  —  but 
all  this  had  not  carried  her  beyond  the  point  where  she 
valued  Browning  as  a  man,  but  utterly  ignored  him  as  a 
poet. 

It   must  be   remembered,  however,  that  it  inevitably 
takes  some  time  for  the  leading  figures  in  literature  to  de- 


4  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

tach  themselves  from  the  mass.  A  whole  school  of  poets 
and  poetasters  was  then  coming  forward  at  once,  and 
Browning  and  Tennyson  were  both  seen  amid  a  confused 
crowd,  including  Milnes,  Trench,  Bailey,  Alford,  Faber, 
Aubrey  de  Vere,  and  the  like ;  and  I  can  recall  many  ques- 
tionings and  discussions  as  to  the  staying  powers  of  these 
various  competitors.  There  were  always  some  who  were 
inclined  in  horse-racing  parlance  to  "  back  the  field,"  and 
by  no  means  to  accept  Tennyson,  and  still  less  Browning, 
as  certain  to  win  the  prize  of  fame.  Even  Margaret 
Fuller  thought  '  Paracelsus '  "'  much  inferior  to  '  Faust '  or 
'  Festus.' "  These  periods  of  temporary  equipoise  last  a 
good  while  among  the  rival  candidates  for  national  fame,  but 
they  do  not  endure  for  ever.  Fifty  years  ago,  Italian  stu- 
dents bought  a  single  large  volume  'I  Quattro  Poeti,'  which 
placed  the  four  recognised  Italian  masters  on  the  same 
tableland  of  fame.  Now  the  volume  seems  to  have  disap- 
peared ;  Ariosto  and  Tasso  are  little  more  than  names  to 
readers;  Petrarch  has  come  to  be  a  delicate  delight  for 
fastidious  scholars ;  Italian  literature  means  Dante.  In 
the  same  way,  the  interest  of  German  students  was  for- 
merly balanced  between  Goethe  and  Schiller ;  it  was  hard 
to  tell  which  had  more  admirers,  though  Menzel  wrote  a 
History  of  German  Literature  to  show  that  Goethe  was  by 
far  the  less  important  figure.  No  one  would  now  take 
this  position ;  the  Goethe  literature  increases  in  relative 
importance  day  by  day,  while  that  in  relation  to  Schiller 
is  comparatively  stationary ;  indeed,  Heine  now  takes  alto- 
gether the  lead  of  Schiller  in  respect  to  criticism  and  cita- 
tion. As  yet,  however,  the  scales  are  balancing  between  the 
two  great  contemporary  English  poets,  with  distinct  indi- 
cations that  Browning  is  destined  to  prevail. 

I  remember  that  Miss  Anne  Thackeray  (afterwards  Mrs. 
Ritchie)  in  London,  in  1872,  put  the  assumed  superiority  of 
Tennyson  on  the  strongest  ground  I  had  ever  heard 
claimed  for  it,  by  pointing  out  that,  other  things  being 


BIOGRAPHY   OF   BROWNING  S   FAME.  0 

equal,  superiority  in  expression  must  tell,  and  that  while 
Tennyson  equalled  Browning  in  thought,  he  clearly  sur- 
passed him  in  form.  It  was  Tennyson,  not  he,  she  said, 
who  had  produced  gems  and  masterpieces.  She  instanced 
'  Tears,  Idle  Tears '  as  an  example  on  the  smaller  scale 
and  '  In  Memoriam '  on  the  larger.  It  has  taken  a  quarter 
of  a  century  since  then  to  satisfy  me  that  her  first  premise 
—  equality  in  thought  —  was  mistakenly  assumed,  so  that 
the  whole  argument  falls.  The  test  of  thought  is  time ; 
and  for  myself  it  is  applied  in  the  following  way. 

I  began  to  read  the  two  poets  at  about  the  same  period, 
1841,  when  I  was  not  quite  eighteen,  and  long  before  the 
collected  poems  of  either  had  been  brought  together.  I 
then  read  them  both  constantly  and  knew  by  heart  most  of 
those  of  Tennyson,  in  particular,  before  I  was  twenty  years 
old.  To  my  amazement  I  now  find  that  I  can  read  these 
last  but  little  ;  the  charm  of  the  versification  remains,  but 
they  seem  to  yield  me  nothing  new ;  whereas  the  earlier 
poems  of  Browning,  '  Paracelsus,'  '  Sordello,'  '  Bells  and 
Pomegranates  '  —  to  which  last  I  was  among  the  original 
subscribers  —  appear  just  as  rich  a  mine  as  ever ;  I  read 
them  over  and  over,  never  quite  reaching  the  end  of 
them.  In  case  I  were  going  to  prison  and  could  have 
but  one  book,  I  should  think  it  a  calamity  to  have  Ten- 
nyson offered  me  instead  of  Browning,  simply  because 
Browning  has  proved  himself  to  possess,  for  me  at  least, 
so  much  more  staying  power.  This  is  at  least  an  intelli- 
gible test,  and,  to  some  degree,  a  reasonable  standard; 
though  of  course  much  allowance  is  to  be  made  for  the 
individual  point  of  view.  The  opinion  of  no  one  per- 
son is  final,  however  much  it  may  claim  to  found  itself  on 
methods  of  demonstration  or  critical  principles.  If  it  as- 
sumes more  than  a  very  limited  and  mainly  subjective 
value,  it  always  drives  us  back  to  the  saying  of  Goncourt, 
"  Tout  discussion  politique  revient  h  ceci :  je  suis  meilleur 
que  vous.  Tout  discussion  litte*raire  a  ceci :  j'ai  plus  de 


6  BOSTON  BKOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

gout  que  vous."  Yet  a  mere  comparison  such  as  I  have 
made  of  the  judgment  of  the  same  mind  at  two  periods  of 
time,  involves  no  such  arrogant  assumption. 

Now  that  both  Tennyson  and  Browning  have  conclu- 
sively taken  their  position  as  the  foremost  English  poets  of 
their  period,  it  is  interesting  to  remember  that  their  whole 
external  type  and  bearing  represented  in  some  degree  the 
schools  to  which  they  respectively  belonged.  Tennyson, 
who  was  English  through  and  through  in  habit  and  resi- 
dence, yet  looked  like  a  picturesque  Italian  priest  or  gue- 
rilla leader;  indeed,  he  christened  Mrs.  Cameron's  best 
photograph  of  him  "  The  Dirty  Monk,"  and  wrote  for  her, 
in  my  presence,  a  testimonial  that  he  thought  it  best. 
Browning,  who  had  lived  so  long  in  Italy  that  it  was  made 
a  current  ground  of  objection  to  his  admission  to  West- 
minster Abbey,  yet  looked  the  Englishman,  rather  than 
the  poet.  He  was  perhaps  best  described  by  Madame 
Navarro  (Mary  Anderson)  in  her  Autobiography,  who  says 
that  to  her  surprise  he  did  not  look  like  a  bard  at  all  but 
rather  "  like  one  of  our  agreeable  Southern  gentlemen  " 
a  phrase  which,  to  those  who  know  the  type  she  meant,  is 
strikingly  recognisable  in  the  fine  photograph  of  him  by 
Mrs.  Myers.  He  perhaps  painted  himself,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  in  the  poet  of  his  t  How  it  Strikes  a  Con- 
temporary,' —  the  man  who  has  no  airs,  no  picturesque 
costume,  nothing  of  the  melodramatic,  but  who  notes 
everything  about  him,  remembers  everything,  and  can,  if 
needed,  tell  the  tale.  This  is  precisely  what  Walter 
Savage  Landor  had  foreshadowed,  fifty  years  before,  in 
comparing  him  to  Chaucer. 


BROWNING'S   THEISM. 

BY  JOSIAH  KOYCE. 
[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  March  25,  1896.] 

A  POET'S  originality  may  be  tested  in  two  ways,  — 
first,  by  observing  the  novelty  of  his  various  individual 
inventions  ;  secondly,  by  considering  the  peculiar  colouring 
that  he  has  given  to  well-known  and  traditional  ideas. 
For  the  rest,  when  we  consider  any  man's  originality,  we 
commonly  find  that  it  shows  itself  rather  more  significantly 
in  the  manner  than  in  the  matter  of  his  discourse,  so  that 
it  is  usually  what  I  have  just  called  the  colouring  of  a 
man's  work,  rather  than  the  material  novelty  of  his 
imaginings,  that  concerns  us  when  we  try  to  comprehend 
his  personal  contribution  to  the  world's  treasures.  Shake- 
speare wrought  over  earlier  plays  and  stories ;  Sophocles 
and  jEschylus  re-worded  ancient  myths ;  the  Homeric 
poems  were  woven  out  of  a  mass  of  earlier  poetic  narra- 
tives. Yet  it  was  just  the  manner  of  doing  this  work 
which  in  each  case  constituted  the  poet's  originality.  Nor 
does  one  at  all  make  light  of  human  originality  by  thus 
calling  it  frequently  more  significant  as  to  its  manner  than 
as  to  its  matter.  All  truth  concerns  rather  the  form  than 
the  stuff  of  things  ;  what  we  call  the  ideal  aspect  of  the  uni- 
verse gets  its  very  name  from  a  word  that  means  visible 
shape ;  and  when  we  call  truth  ideal,  we  imply  that  shape 
is  of  more  importance  than  material,  and  manner  than 
mere  content.  The  difference  between  man  and  the 
anthropoid  apes,  while  it  involves  man's  structure,  is  far 
more  a  difference  in  functions,  i.  e.  in  the  manner  in  which 


8  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

certain  physiological  processes  of  movement  go  on,  than 
it  is  a  difference  in  anatomical  constitution.  Amongst 
men,  a  genius  may  have,  for  all  that  we  now  know,  no 
more  brain-cells  than  many  a  very  commonplace  fellow. 
It  is  the  manner  in  which  these  cells  function  that  gives 
us  the  genius.  Civilisation  itself  as  a  whole  also  turns 
upon  recognising  that  "  good  form,"  as  it  concerns  the  way 
in  which  you  perform  your  act,  is  often  of  far  more  dignity 
than  is  the  material  act  itself.  We  also  often  call  this 
way  of  performance,  in  so  far  as  the  doer  himself  intends 
it,  the  spirit  of  the  act.  And  every  one  now  knows  that 
charity  does  not  mean  giving  all  your  goods  to  feed  the 
poor,  nor  giving  your  body  to  be  burned,  and  that  unless 
the  spirit,  the  deliberate  manner,  the  sincerely  meant  inner 
form  called  charity,  is  in  your  act,  then,  whatever  you  do, 
you  are  as  sounding  brass  or  a  tinkling  cymbal. 

Manner,  then,  is  not  to  be  despised.  Wisdom,  virtue, 
and  genius  are  all  of  them  largely  affairs  of  form  and 
manner.  By  manner  man  differs  most  from  monkey, 
civilisation  most  from  savagery,  the  original  thinker  most 
from  the  prosaic  copyist,  the  great  poet  most  from-  the 
weakling.  On  the  whole,  then,  of  the  two  tests  just 
mentioned  as  helping  us  to  estimate  a  poet's  originality, 
the  test  furnished  by  his  originality  of  style,  of  colouring, 
of  form,  of  attitude,  of  treatment,  even  when  he  deals  with 
very  old  ideas,  is  more  likely  to  prove  significant,  in  any 
given  case,  than  is  the  easier  test  furnished  by  merely 
counting  how  many  apparently  unheard-of  incidents,  char- 
acters, or  scenes  he  may  chance  to  have  invented. 

In  this  essay  I  am  to  speak  of  an  aspect  of  Browning's 
thought  which  had  no  insignificant  place  in  determining 
his  personal  originality  as  a  man  and  as  a  poet.  This 
aspect  concerns  not  any  disposition  ,on  his  part  to  invent 
new  stories,  plots,  or  people,  but  the  fashion  in  which 
he  treated  the  most  familiar  of  religious  conceptions, 
namely,  the  conception  of  God.  I  need  not  say  that 


BROWNING  S   THEISM.  9 

Browning  as  little  invented  any  portion  of  that  concep- 
tion of  God  which  he  possessed  as  he  invented  the  con- 
ception itself  in  its  wholeness.  Nor  could  he  invent  new 
arguments  for  God's  existence :  for  those,  if  such  inven- 
tions were  any  longer  possible  at  all  after  all  these  ages 
of  thinking,  would  concern  the  work  of  the  speculative 
thinker;  and  Browning  is  not  such  a  thinker,  but  is 
a  poet.  On  the  other  hand,  what  a  man  can  render  to 
divine  things,  at  the  present  day,  is  not  his  personal  aid 
in  inventing  novel  notions  of  their  nature,  but  his  indi- 
vidual attitude  and  manner  of  service,  of  exposition,  of 
concern  for  the  unseen  world.  When  a  man  is  as  original 
as  was  Browning,  his  attitude  and  manner  in  respect  of 
these  divine  things  will  have  its  own  noteworthy  and 
original  type.  And  it  is  this  and  this  alone  which  we 
desire  to  study  when  we  consider  Browning's  Theism. 

I. 

As  we  begin,  a  few  words  are  necessary  concerning  the 
traditional  conception  of  God,  as  historical  conditions  have 
denned  it  for  the  whole  Christian  world.  The  individual's 
way  of  viewing  God  can  be  estimated  only  when  set  off 
against  the  background  of  the  current  fashion  of  conceiv- 
ing the  divine  nature.  The  word  God  is  one  of  the 
earliest  great  names  that  we  hear.  The  common  lore 
concerning  God  is  amongst  the  most  familiar  of  the  teach- 
ings of  childhood  and  youth  for  most  of  us.  Yet  few  of 
us  ever  pause  to  ask  with  any  care  whether  this  our  tra- 
ditional conception  of  God  is  derived  from  one  source  or 
from  many,  or  whether  it  is  a  comparatively  simple  or  an 
extremely  complex  idea.  As  a  fact,  the  Christian  notion 
of  God,  as  the  church  has  received,  defined,  and  trans- 
mitted it,  may  be  traced  to  at  least  three  decidedly  distinct 
sources,  each  one  of  which  has  contributed  its  own  share 
to  the  formulation  which  has  now  become  current  in  Chris- 
tendom. The  unlearned  believer  no  longer  distinguishes 


10  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

the  elements  due  to  each  source;  but  part  of  the  very 
consciousness  of  mystery  which  he  feels,  when  he  tries  to 
think  what  God  is,  results  from  the  fact  that,  in  forming 
the  Christian  views  of  God,  three  great  streams  of  opinion, 
as  it  were,  have  met,  and  the  bark  of  faith,  moving  about 
over  the  dark  waters  at  the  confluence  of  these  streams,  is 
often  borne  hither  and  thither  upon  eddies  and  varying 
currents  of  opinion,  whose  manifold  whirlings  are  due  to 
the  fact  that  these  streams,  as  they  come  together,  mingle 
the  diverse  directions  of  their  flow  in  a  very  uncertain  and 
unequal  fashion.  One  of  the  greatest  problems  of  techni- 
cal Christian  theology  has  in  fact  been  to  reconcile  the 
seeming  contradictions  of  the  three  tendencies  to  which 
our  conception  of  God  is  historically  due. 

The  first  and  best  known  of  these  three  tendencies  is 
what  may  be  called  the  moral  view  of  God,  or,  more  tech- 
nically expressed,  the  Ethical  Monotheism  of  the  prophets 
of  Israel.  Christianity,  from  the  very  beginning,  enriched 
this  ethical  monotheism,  added  to  it  a  deeper  colouring,  by 
especially  emphasising  the  doctrine  of  the  love  of  God  for 
the  individual  soul,  and  mingled  with  it  the  conception  of 
the  incarnation.  But  the  doctrine,  even  as  thus  enlarged, 
is  still  essentially  unchanged  in  character,  and  constitutes 
only  one  of  our  three  streams  of  theistic  opinion.  As  the 
prophets  first  taught  the  doctrine,  so  in  essence  it  still 
remains.  God  is  the  righteous  and  loving  ruler  of  the 
world.  Ruler  he  is,  so  to  speak,  only  as  a  mere  expression 
of  his  perfected  righteousness.  His  power  is  self-evident, 
and  hardly  needs  argument.  The  explicit  arguments  of 
the  original  teachers  of  this  faith  concern  in  no  sense  the 
proof  of  God's  existence,  and  only  in  a  minor  sense  the 
demonstration  of  his  power,  which  is  everywhere  assumed. 
What  the  original  teachers  of  this  faith  aim  to  make  clear 
is  the  meaning  of  God's  righteousness,  the  law  that  em- 
bodies his  will,  and  the  genuineness  of  his  love.  Mean- 
wliile,  of  his  nature  apart  from  these  his  ethical  attributes, 


BROWNING'S  THEISM.  11 

both  the  prophets  and  the  earliest  teachers  of  Christianity, 
in  so  far  as  they  were  free  from  foreign  influences,  have 
comparatively  little  to  say.  That  little  we  all  well  know. 
God  is  One,  for  there  is  no  God  beside  him.  God  is  per-  -^ 
sonal,  for  only  a  person  can  will  and  love.  He  is  conceived 
as  sundered  from  the  world  that  he  rules ;  for  the  world 
contains  evil,  which  opposes  his  righteous  will.  Moreover, 
he  created  the  world,  and  one  looks,  upon  occasion,  as 
does  the  Psalmist,  for  signs  of  his  wisdom  in  nature.  But 
all  these  considerations  centre  in  the  one  essential  feature, 
namely,  that  God  is  righteous,  and  that  he  will  prevail 
against  evil  and  will  love  his  own.  Speculation  as  to  the 
divine  essence  is  in  the  background,  and  is  even  feared. 
Proof  is  needless.  God  has  spoken.  One  has  but  to  obey  y 
and  to  love.  This,  then,  is  the  first  tendency  that  has  con- 
tributed to  Christian  theism. 

But  Christianity,  ere  it  became  a  world-religion,  had  to 
meet  the  world  in  intellectual  conflict.  The  world  already 
had  conceived  of  God,  and  had  conceived  him  otherwise. 
Hence,  in  converting  the  world,  Christianity  had  to  mingle 
its  primal  thoughts  with  others.  This  process  began  very 
early,  and  the  first  mingling  of  Greek  and  Jewish  thought 
had  actually  antedated  Christianity.  Accordingly,  the 
second  tendency  which  is  represented  in  our  modern  con- 
ception of  God  is  historically  due,  not  to  the  faith  of  Israel, 
but  to  the  philosophy  of  Greece,  and,  above  all,  to  two 
thinkers,  Plato  and  Aristotle.  Aristotle  himself  was  the 
first  pure  and  explicit  monotheist  in  the  history  of  Greek 
speculation ;  but  Plato  had  already  contributed  elements 
to  philosophical  thought  which  profoundly  affected  all 
the  later  theistic  formulations,  in  so  far  as  such  formula- 
tions embodied  the  Greek  tradition.  The  essence  of  the 
theistic  doctrine  that  resulted  from  this  source  lies  in  the 
fact  that  God  is  conceived  as  the  being  whose  wisdom,  and 
whose  rational  perfection,  self-possession,  omniscience,  and 
ideal  fulness  of  intelligent  and  intelligible  nature  explain 


12  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

whatever  is  orderly,  harmonious,  rational  and  significant 
in  the  universe.  If  God,  for  Israel,  is  righteousness,  and 
in  the  end  love,  for  Greek  philosophy  he  is  primarily  the 
truth,  the  self-possessed  mind,  the  source  of  all  designs,  _ 
the  ideally  harmonious  being  in  whose  presence  all  things 
move,  because  all  things  aim  to  imitate,  by  the  lawfulness 
and  beauty  of  their  movements,  his  moveless  perfection. 
The  prophets  of  Israel  know  that  God  loves  Israel.  The 
Christian  teachers  insist  that  God  loves  the  world.  But 
in  Aristotle's  famous  account  it  is  rather  merely  the  world 
that  loves  God  because  of  his  ideal  perfection,  while  this 
very  perfection  is  the  assurance  that  God,  as  he  is  in  him- 
self, is  above  special  concern  for  any  finite  end.  In  him 
all  ends  are  eternally  attained,  and  in  this  sense  he  can 
indeed  be  called  the  Good.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  this 
his  supreme  goodness  stands  in  strong  contrast  to  the 
righteousness  which  was  attributed  to  God  by  Israel.  For 
Israel's  theism,  whose  Deity,  although  sovereign,  has  to  war 
with  evil  and  unrighteousness,  appears  at  first,  in  compari- 
son with  the  Greek  or  Aristotelian  theism,  as  a  doctrine 
that  stains  the  purely  ideal  fulfilment  of  the  divine  life  by, 
adding  the  notion  that  God  hates,  loves,  strives  with  man,; 
pities,  and  finally,  in  the  Christian  view,  becomes  incarnate. 
Here  was  the  first  great  difficulty  in  the  way  of  Christian- 
ity when  it  undertook  to  win  over  the  world ;  here  was 
what  to  the  Greek  was  foolishness  in  the  early  Christian 
idea  of  God.  The  church  boldly  met  the  objections  of  the 
world  by  undertaking,  from  the  first,  to  unite  the  theism 
of  Greek  philosophy  with  her  own  native  ethical  mon- 
otheism, —  to  assert  that  both  views  are  true,  and  to 
conceive  of  God  at  once  as  ideally  perfect,  as  ethically 
active,  and  as,  in  Christ,  sufferingly  incarnate.  Hence  the 
deeply  paradoxical  character  of  the  Christian  theology,  — 
a  character  always  openly  avowed,  but  of  a  nature  to  insure 
endless  controversy  and  heresy. 

But  a  third  element  entered  to  deepen  still  further  the 


BROWNING'S  THEISM.  13 

mystery  of  the  new  faith.  The  Greek  God  of  Aristotle  is 
still  in  one  aspect  a  personal  God,  for  he  not  only  pos- 
sesses wisdom,  but  himself  knows  that  he  is  wise.  He 
does  not  strive,  or  war  with  ill,  or  pity  his  children,  or  die 
to  save  mankind,  but  he  appears  to  be  at  all  events  self- 
conscious,  and  this  character  he  shares  with  our  own 
rational  selfhood.  But  from  the  Orient,  and  perhaps  also 
from  sources  independently  Grecian,  there  had  come  still 
another  view  of  the  divine  nature,  —  a  view  which  is  the 
parent  of  most  forms  of  Pantheism.  In  its  earliest  devel- 
oped shape,  this  view  appears  as  the  classical  doctrine  of 
the  most  characteristic  Hindoo  philosophy.  According  to 
this  conception  God,  as  he  is  in  himself,  is  simply  the  One 
and  only  genuinely  Real  Being,  the  impersonal  Atman  or 
Self  of  the  Universe.  The  whole  world  of  finite  beings 
is  more  or  less  completely  an  illusion ;  for  this  world  has 
not  the  grade  of  reality  that  God  possesses.  He  truly  is ; 
all  finite  things  are  a  vain  show,  —  a  product  either  of  a 
mere  imagination,  or  of  some  relatively  non-essential  pro- 
cess of  emanation,  or  of  divine  overflow,  whereby  the  all- 
perfect  and  all-real  becomes  the  parent  of  a  realm  of 
shadowy  half-realities,  whose  truth  lies  in  him,  not  in 
themselves.  Thus  our  third  conception  of  God  is  closely 
linked  to  a  denial  of  the  substantial  existence  of  both  the 
natural  and  the  moral  worlds.  God  is  conceived  with  such 
emphasis  laid  upon  his  supreme  reality  that  one  no  longer 
says,  "  He  rules,"  "  He  loves,"  "  He  fashions,"  or  even  "  He 
knows,"  "  He  is  conscious,"  —  but  rather,  "  He  is,  and  all 
else  is  a  dream."  For  wisdom,  power,  love,  self-conscious- 
ness, and  any  form  of  definite  personality,  are  predicates 
too  human  to  express  his  inmost  nature.  He  is  above 
predicates,  above  attributes,  or,  as  Meister  Eckhart  the 
mystic  expresses  it,  the  Godhead  is  " ungewortet"  i.  e.  is 
above  the  meaning  of  all  conceivable  words. 

Now  this  view  of  God's  essence,  derived  as  I  have  said 
from   sources   which   are   some   of   them   Oriental,  while 


14  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

others  may  have  been  independently  Grecian,  is  a  well- 
known  and  fruitful  mother  of  the  pantheistic  heresies  that 
the  church  has  opposed.  But  the  Christian  faith  has 
never  been  willing  to  miss  any  means  of  exalting  the 
divine  nature.  As  a  fact,  the  church  actually  undertook 
not  only  to  oppose,  but  also  to  assimilate,  this  third  con- 
ception, and  to  unite  it  with  the  others,  while  always  con- 
demning as  heresy  any  too  great  or  exclusive  emphasis 
that  might  be  laid  upon  it.  The  result  is  a  well-known 
Christian  tendency  which  has  again  and  again  appeared 
both  in  Catholic  and  in  Protestant  Mysticism.  The  reader 
of  the  'Imitation  of  Christ'  to-day  absorbs,  often  unwit- 
tingly, this  Oriental  notion  of  the  divine  nature,  even 
while  he  thinks  himself  dealing  with  the  incarnation  of 
God  in  Christ.  As  a  mysterious,  esoteric,  and  only  half- 
conscious  motive,  this  faith  that  there  is  no  real  created 
world  at  all,  but  rather  a  mere  hint  of  God's  ineffable 
being  in  whatever  you  feel  and  see,  —  this  sense  of  "  One 
and  all,"  of  God  as  the  only  reality,  of  the  visible  universe 
as  a  vain  show,  of  life  as  a  dream,  of  evil  as  a  mere  illu- 
sion, of  personality  as  a  mistake,  —  has  actually  played  a 
large  part  in  the  Christian  consciousness.  In  its  technical 
doctrine  the  theology  of  the  church  has  often  deliberately 
tried  to  reconcile  this  view  of  God  both  with  the  theism  of 
Aristotle  and  with  the  ethical  monotheism  of  Israel.  How 
hard  the  undertaking,  is  obvious.  And  yet  the  modern 
man,  if  a  believer,  is  likely  to  feel  that  in  each  one  of 
these  views  of  God's  nature  there  must  be  some  element 
of  truth. 

These  three  tendencies,  then,  —  the  Ethical  Monotheism 
of  Israel  enriched  by  the  doctrine  of  the  incarnation;  the 
Greek  Theism  of  Aristotle,  for  which  God  is  the  wise 
source  of  beauty  and  of  rationality ;  the  Monism  of  India, 
for  which  there  is  but  one  super-personal  Real  Being  in 
all  the  world,  while  all  else  is  a  mere  vain  show,  —  these 
are  the  three  streams  of  doctrine  whose  waters  now  mingle 


BROWNING'S  THEISM.  15 

in  the  vast  and  troubled  estuary  of  the  faith  of  the  Chris- 
tian church.  It  is  towards  the  problems  resulting  from 
this  mingling  of  ideas  that  the  individual  believer  has  to 
take  his  stand.  And  now  what  stand  does  Browning 
take? 

II. 

Browning  is  a  poet  who  very  frequently  mentions  God, 
and  who  a  number  of  times  has  elaborately  written  con- 
cerning his  nature  and  his  relations  to  man.  The  argu- 
ments in  question  are  frequently  stated  in  dramatic  form, . 
and  not  as  Browning's  own  utterances.  Paracelsus,  Cali- 
ban, David  in  the  poem  '  Saul,'  both  Count  Guido  and  the 
Pope  in  'The  Ring  and  the  Book,'  Fust  in  the  'Parley- 
ings,'  and  Ferishtah,  are  all  permitted  to  expound  their 
theology  at  considerable  length.  Karshish,  Abt  Vogler, 
Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  Ixion,  and  a  number  of  others,  define 
views  about  God  which  are  more  briefly  stated,  but  not 
necessarily  less  comprehensible.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
are  the  two  poems,  '  Christmas-Eve '  and  '  Easter-Day,' 
which,  -without  abandoning  the  dramatic  method,  approach 
nearer  to  indicating,  although  they  do  not  directly  express, 
Browning's  personal  views  of  the  theistic  problem.  These 
poems  are  important,  although  they  must  not  be  taken  too 
literally.  Finally,  in  '  La  Saisiaz,'  and  in  the  '  Reverie  '  in 
'  Asolando,'  Browning  has  entirely  laid  aside  the  dramatic 
form,  and  has  spoken  in  his  own  person  concerning  his 
attitude  towards  theology.  I  do  not  pretend  by  this 
catalogue  to  exhaust  the  material  for  a  study  of  Brown- 
ing's theism,  but  as  important  specimens  these  passages 
may  serve.  As  for  the  method  of  using  them  for  the 
interpretation  of  Browning's  manner  of  dealing  with  the 
idea  of  God,  that  method  seems  by  no  means  difficult. 
Whether  it  is  Browning  himself  or  any  one  of  his  dramatic 
creations,  whether  it  is  Count  Guido  or  the  Pope,  Caliban 
or  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  who  speaks  of  the  nature  of  God,  the 
general  manner  of  facing  the  problem  is,  on  the  whole, 


16  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

very  characteristically  the  same,  so  far  as  the  character  in 
question  proceeds  to  any  positive  conclusion,  and  that 
however  various  the  results  reached,  or  the  personalities 
dramatically  presented.  This  manner,  identical  in  such 
highly  contrasted  cases,  at  once  marks  itself  as  Browning's 
own  manner,  and  it  is,  as  already  observed,  a  decidedly 
original  one,  not  indeed  as  to  the  ideas  advanced,  but  as 
to  points  emphasised,  the  doubts  expressed  and  the  gen- 
eral spirit  manifested.  The  road  Godwards  is  for  Brown- 
ing the  same,  whoever  it  is  that  wanders  over  that  lonely 
path  or  pauses  by  the  wayside  after  obtaining  a  distant 
view  of  the  goal,  or  traitorously  abandons  the  quest,  or 
reaches  at  last  the  moment  of  blowing  the  slughorn  before 
the  Dark  Tower. 

In  all  cases  the  idea  of  God  and  the  problem  of  God's 
nature  define  themselves  for  Browning  substantially  thus  : 
First,  a  glance  at  the  universe,  so  to  speak,  at  once  informs 
you  that  you  are  in  presence  of  what  Browning  loves  to 
call  Power.  Power  is  the  first  of  Browning's  two  principal 
names  for  God.  Now  this  term  Power  means  from  the 
start  a  great  deal.  Browning  and  his  theologising  charac- 
ters, say  for  instance  even  Caliban  and  Count  Guido,  re- 
semble Paracelsus  in  standing  at  first  where  at  all  events 
many  men  aspire  at  last  to  stand.  Namely,  this  Power 
that  they  know  as  here  in  the  world  is  not  only  One,  real, 
and  in  its  own  measure  and  grade  defined,  so  far  as  possi- 
ble, as  world-possessing,  but  it  is  so  readily  conceived  as 
intelligent  that,  even  when  most  sceptical  and  argumenta- 
tive, they  spend  no  time  in  labouring  to  prove  its  intelli- 
gence. The  conception  of  mere  blind  nature  as  an 
independent  and  substantially  real  realm,  hiding  the  God 
of  Power,  they  hardly  possess,  or,  if  they  possess  such  con- 
ception, a  word  suffices  to  set  it  aside.  If,  like  Caliban, 
they  work  out  an  elaborate  argument  from  design,  as  if  it 
were  necessary  to  prove  the  Creator's  wisdom  from  his 
works,  the  argument  is  accompanied  by  a  certain  sense 


BROWNING'S  THEISM.  17 

that  it  has  either  trivial  or  else,  like  David's  survey  of 
Creation,  merely  illustrative  value.  The  God  of  Power  t's, 
and  he  means  to  work  his  powerful  will.  Hence  he  is 
never  a  mere  Unknowable,  like  Spencer's  Absolute.  That 
is  what  one  simply  finds.  That  is  fact  for  you  whenever 
you  open  your  eyes.  In  other  words,  Browning  makes 
light  of  all  those  ancient  or  modern  views  of  nature,  now- 
adays so  familiar  to  many  of  us,  which  conceive  of  median-  »•* 
ical  laws,  or  of  blind  nature-forces,  as  the  actually  given 
and  independently  real  causes  of  all  our  experience.  The 
dying  John  in  the  desert  prophesies  that  there  will  here- 
after come  such  views,  but  regards  them  as  too  absurd  for 

refutation.     Materialism,  and  other  forms  of  pure  natural- 

i^ 

ism,  never  became,  for  Browning,  expressions  of  any  de- 
finitely recognisable  possibilities.  Herein  he  strongly  ^ 
differs  from  the  Tennyson  of  'In  Memoriam.'  Equally 
uninteresting  to  Browning  is  Greek  polytheism,  whose 
powers  are  numerous,  unless  indeed  one  conceives  these 
powers  as  the  wiser  Greeks  did,  and  calls  them  mere  as- 
pects or  shows  of  the  One  divine  Nature.  God  as  Power 
is  thus  in  part  identical  with  the  Greek  view  of  6  0eo'?,  or 
of  TO  Oelov,  in  so  far  as  this  divine  was  viewed  as  expressed 
in  nature,  and  as  only  symbolised  by  the  names  of  the 
various  gods.  The  various  gods  of  Greek  polytheism  have 
special  interest  to  Browning  only  in  so  far  as  they  reveal 
the  other  aspect  of  the  divine  nature,  namely,  the  divine 
Love,  as  Pan  revealed  his  disinterested  love  for  Athens  to 
Pheidippides,  or  else  in  so  far  as  they  are  mere  individual 
persons  in  a  dramatic  story. 

In  this  conception  of  the  God  as  Power,  revealed  as  a 
perfectly  obvious  and  universal  fact,  Browning  combines, 
in  an  undefined  way,  that  Aristotelian  notion  of  God  as 
the  intelligent  source  of  the  world-order  and  that  rela- 
tively Oriental  faith  in  the  One  Realitj7,  which  we  have 
already  seen  as  factors  in  our  Christian  idea  of  God.  For 
our  poet,  God  as  Powrer  is  One  and  is  Real.  Our  knowl- 

2 


18  BOSTON  BROWNING  SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

edge  that  he  is  so  is  direct,  is  a  matter  almost  of  sense, 
and  needs  no  special  proof.  Like  Xenophanes,  the  early 
Greek  monist,  Browning  simply  "  looks  abroad  over  the 
whole  "  (for  so  Aristotle  phrases  the  matter  in  the  case  of 
Xenophanes)  and  says,  "  It  is  One."  This  knowledge  is  a 
sort  of  easy  and  swift  reflex  action,  on  the  poet's  part,  in 
presence  of  the  physical  universe.  The  directness  of  the 
insight  resembles  that  of  the  mystics  ;  but  this  is  not,  like 
theirs,  as  yet  a  comforting  insight.  For  the  God  of  mere 
Power  is  no  humanly  acceptable , God.  Meanwhile  Brown- 
ing, who  so  easily  individualises  when  he  comes  to  the 
world  of  men,  very  readily  sees  all  natural  objects' as  mere 
cases  or  symbols  of  the  universal  Power ;  and  so,  when- 
ever he  theologises,  the  natural  objects  quickly  lose  their 
individuality  and  lapse  into  unity  as  manifestations  of  the 
one  Power,  even  while  one  continues,  like  David,  to  dwell 
upon  their  various  beauties  with  -enthusiastic  detail.  As 
we  shall  soon  see,  there  does  indeed  arise  a  contradictory 
sort  of  variety  and  disharmony  within  the  world  of  the 
One  Power,  but  this  is  an  inevitable  afterthought.  One 
means  to  view  Power  as  One.  So  far  then,  our  poet  seems 
a  Monist  of  almost  Oriental  swiftness  in  identifying  every- 
thing with  his  One  Power.  The  Pope,  in  '  The  Ring  and 
the  Book,'  does  indeed  give  the  argument  from  Power  a 
somewhat  Aristotelian  definiteness  of  development,  as  a 
sort  of  design-argument :  but  the  Pope  is  a  technical 
theologian ;  and,  for  the  rest,  his  restatement  of  the 
Aristotelian  argument  for  God  is  cut  as  short  as  possible. 
The  manifold  and  occult  wisdom  that  Paracelsus  seeks,  as 
he  runs  about  the  world  in  search  of  strange  facts,  is  not 
meant  to  prove,  but  to  illustrate  and  apply,  with  restless 
empirical  curiosity,  the  wonders  of  the  divine  unity.  The 
designs,  the  exhaustless  ingenuity,  of  the  God  of  Power 
"obtain  praise,"  as  the  '  Reverie'  in  '  Asolando '  points  out, 
from  our  reason,  from  the  knowledge  within  us :  but  it  is 
plainly  not  thus  that  we  gradually  acquire  the  notion  of 


BEOWXING'S  THEISM.  19 

God;  but  it  is  rather  thus  that  we  merely  exemplify, 
variegate,  and  refresh  our  direct  sense  that  God  is 
almighty. 

As  for  the  directness  of  Browning's  insight  into  the  pres- 
ence of  Power,  this  may  readily  be  shown  by  quotations. 
1  La  Saisiaz '  is  to  be  a  poem  of  explicit  reasoning :  — 

Would  I  shirk  assurance  on  each  point  whereat  I  can  but  guess  — 
"  Does  the  soul  survive  the  body  ?     Is  there  God's  self,  no  or  yes  ?  " 

The  poet  thus  resolves  to  get  definite  mental  clearness. 
But  the  first  answer  to  his  questions  is  a  fair  instance  of 
the  absolutely  direct  argument  concerning  P'ower  :  — 

I  have  questioned,  and  am  answered.     Question,  answer  presuppose 

Two  points  :  that  the  thing  itself  which  questions,  answers,  —  is  it  knows ; 

As  it  also  knows  the  thing  perceived  outside  itself,  —  a  force 

Actual  ere  its  own  beginning,  operative  through  its  course, 

Unaffected  by  its  end,  —  that  this  thing  likewise  needs  must  be ; 

Call  this  —  God,  then,  call  that  —  soul,  and  both  —  the  only  facts  for  me. 

Prove  them  facts  ?  that  they  o'erpass  my  power  of  proving,  proves  them  such : 

Fact  it  is  I  know  I  know  not  something  which  is  fact  as  much. 

In  the  '  Reverie  '  in  '  Asolando '  the  soul,  after  its  early 
and  brief  "  surview  of  things,"  learns  to  say  :  — 

Thus  much  is  clear, 
Doubt  annulled  thus  much  :  I  know. 

All  is  effect  of  cause  : 

As  it  would,  has  willed  and  done 
Power  :  and  my  mind's  applause 

Goes,  passing  laws  each  one, 
To  Omnipotence,  lord  of  laws. 

To  "pass"  the  laws  of  the  physical  world  in  this  ready 
way  —  i.  e.  to  make  little  of  any  study  of  the  interposing 
nature,  and  to  go  direct  to  the  highest  in  the   realm   of  \ 
Power  is  very  characteristic  of  this  aspect  of  Browning's  ', 
reasoning.     It   is   in   this   fashion   too,   namely,  by   very 
quickly  passing  from  one  stage  to  a  higher,  that  the  Pope 
abbreviates   his  version   of  the   argument  for  the  divine 
wisdom.     To  be  sure,  Bishop  Blougram,  in  his  assumption 
of   extreme   scepticism,  has   to   declare   that   "creation's 


20  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

meant  to  hide  "  God  "  all  it  can."  But  even  in  his  case, 
not  natural  law,  but  natural  evil,  is  the  veil  that  hides 
God.  And  he  too  admits  that 

The  feeblest  sense  is  trusted  most ;  the  child 
Feels  God  a  moment. 

It  is,  therefore,  not  the  brutishness  of  Caliban,  but  the 
very  essence  of  the  argument  from  the  fact  of  Power,  that 
leads  Caliban  to  begin  his  theology  with  the  directly 
stated  thesis : 

'  Thiuketh  He  dwelleth  i'  the  cold  o'  the  moon. 

One  has  not  first  to  prove  that  Setebos  exists.  The  only 
question  for  Caliban  is  as  to  where  his  lair  is.  On  the 
other  hand,  far  higher  in  the  scale  of  being,  the  sense  that 
the  universe  consists  just  of  man  and  'of  this  God  of  power 
may  come  over  the  soul  of  a  sufferer  with  a  pang  all  the 
keener  because  this  sense  of  God's  mercilessly  potent 
presence  is  so  direct.  The  love-forsaken  heroine  of  the 
lyric  '  In  a  Year '  closes  with  words  whose  sense  the  fore- 
going considerations  may  serve  to  make  plainer  : 

Well,  this  cold  clay  clod 

Was  man's  heart : 
Crumble  it,  and  what  conies  next  ? 

Is  it  God  ? 

God  and  the  heart,  we  see,  are  the  two  and  sole  realities ; 
crumble  one,  and  only  the  other  is  left  you. 

I  do  not  know  that  anywhere  the  otherwise  so  argu- 
mentative poet  throws  much  fuller  light  upon  this  fashion 
of  making  clear  God's  existence.  What  Power  does,  many 
of  Browning's  characters  very  elaborately  describe,  accord- 
ing to  their  lights ;  but  that  the  one  Power  exists,  needs 
for  Browning  no  fuller  proof  than  the  foregoing.  Brown- 
ing apparently  is  not,  at  any  rate  consciously,  a  Berke- 
leyan  idealist,  yet  for  him  the  existence  of  the  God  of 
Power  is  not  only  as  sure  as  is  the  existence  of  one's  own 
self,  but  is  surer,  and  apparently  more  real,  than  is  the 


BROWNING'S  THEISM.  21 

existence  of  what  we  call  the  outer  world,  i.  e.  the  world 
of  nature. 

The  young  Browning,  for  the  rest,  was  partly  under 
Platonic  influence  in  regard  to  the  definition  of  the  world 
of  Power.  This  influence  appears  in  '  Pauline  '  and  in 
'  Paracelsus.'  But  the  influence  was  hardly  that  of  a  tech- 
nical interest  in  Plato,  and  the  neo-Platonic  pantheism 
attributed  to  Paracelsus  is  transformed  into  a  highly 
modern  and  romantic  rhapsody,  conceived  after  Renais- 
sance models,  but  much  in  Schelling  s  spirit.  The  Greeks 
had  first  found  their  natural  world  real,  beautiful,  and 
mysterious,  as  well  as  obviously  embraced  within  the 
unity  of  the  celestial  spheres.  Hence  the  thoughtful 
Greek  finally  reasoned,  but  by  slowly  attained  successive 
stages,  that  the  world  is  both  one  and  divine.  His  Gods 
gradually  blended  in  the  abstraction  called  TO  6elov ;  his 
philosophical  theories  of  nature  slowly  lost  their  early 
materialism ;  and  thence  he  passed,  next,  to  Plato's  world 
of  the  eternal  ideas,  then  to  Aristotle's  monotheism.  But 
in  Browning's  view  of  the  universe  of  power  this  whole 
Hellenic  process_js_condensed,  as  it  were,  to^jjoint,  and 
blended  with  the  monistic  tendency  _thatj3ame  into  Chris- 
tianity, through  Neo-Platonism,  from  the  East.  Nature, 
for  Browning's  view,  is  swiftly  surveyed,  and  seen  to  be 
wiseand  beautiful.  Then  nature  is  referred  to  one  prin- 
ciple,—  God  as  Power.  This  reference  is  an  immediate 
intuition.  Hereupon  God  as  Power  seems  actually  to 
absorb  the  very  being  of  the  natural  world,  and  the  result 
is  so  far  pantheistic.  The  individual  Self  that  ob- 
serves all  this  remains,  to  be  sure,  still  unabsorbed  and 
problematic. 

But  now,  in  strong  contrast  to  this  first  aspect  of 
Browning's  Theism,  is  a  second  aspect,  and  one  which 
forms  the  topic  of  our  poet's  most  elaborate  reasoning 
processes.  God  as  Power  is  grasped  by  an  intuition. 
There  is,  however,  another  intuition,  namely,  that  God 


22  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEES. 

is  Love.  This  latter  intuition,  taken  by  itself,  Browning 
can  as  little  prove  as  the  foregoing.  What  it  means,  we 
have  yet  to  see.  But  its  presence  in  the  poet's  mind 
introduces  a  new  aspect  of  his  doctrine.  The  difficulty, 
namely,  that  here  appears,  is  the  one  which  taxes  every 
power  of  his  reflection.  The  difficulty  is:  How  can  the 
God  of  Power  be  also  the  God  of  Love?  Neither  of  the 
intuitions  can  be  proved ;  neither  is  a  topic  of  more  than 
the  most  summary  reasoning  process.  But  the  relation 
between  the  two  intuitions  is  a  matter  worthy  of  the  most 
extensive  and  considerate  study.  Moreover,  to  Browning's 
mind,  herein  lies  the  heart  of  our  human  interest  in  divine 
matters.  Hence  dramatic  portrayals  of  even  the  basest 
efforts  to  make  the  transition  in  thought  from  the  God  of 
Power  to  the  God  of  Love ;  even  the  dimmest  movings  of 
the  human  spirit  in  its  search  for  the  conception  of  the  God 
of  Love,  —  all  these  will  be,  in  Browning's  view,  of  fasci- 
nating interest. 

But  now  what,  from  Browning's  point  of  view,  does  one 
mean  by  speaking  of  God  as  Love  ?  As  I  once  tried  to 
point  out,1  Browning  uses  the  word  Love,  in  his  more 
metaphysical  passages,  in  a  very  pregnant  and  at  the  same 
time  in  a  very  inclusive  sense,  —  almost,  one  might  say, 
as  a  technical  term.  Love,  as  he  here  employs  it,  includes 
indeed  the  tenderer  affections,  but  is  in  no  wise  limited  to 
them.  Love,  in  its  most  general  use,  means  for  Browning, 
very  much  as  for  Swedenborg,  the  affection  that  any  being 
has  towards  what  that  creature  takes  to  be  his  own  good. 
Paracelsus,  in  his  d}7ing  confession,  declares :  — 

In  my  own  heart  love  had  not  been  made  wise 

To  trace  love's  faint  beginnings  iii  mankind, 

To  know  even  hate  is  but  a  mask  of  love's, 

To  see  a  good  in  evil,  and  a  hope 

In  ill-success ;  to  sympathize,  be  proud 

Of  their  half-reasons,  faint  aspirings,  dim 

1  In  '  The  Problem  of  Paracelsus,'  p.  224. 


BROWNING'S  THEISM.  23 

Struggles  for  truth,  their  poorest  fallacies, 
Their  prejudice  and  fears  and  cares  and  doubts  ; 
All  with  a  touch  of  nobleness,  despite 
Their  error,  upward  tending  all  though  weak, 
Like  plants  in  mines,  which  never  saw  the  sun, 
But  dream  of  him,  and  guess  where  he  may  be, 
And  do  their  best  to  climb  and  get  to  him. 

In  brief,  then,  the  totality  of  human  concerns,  on  their 
positive  side,  all  passion,  all  human  life,  in  so  far  as  these 
tend  towards  growth,  expansion,  increasing  intensity  and 
ideality,  —  all  these,  however  base  their  expressions  may 
now  seem,  constitute,  in  us  mortals,  Love.  Stress  is  laid, 
of  course,  upon  this  expanding,  this  positive  and  ideal 
tendency  of  love.  This  is  the  differentia  of  love  amongst 
the  affections.  Content,  sloth,  indolence,  hesitancy,  even 
where  these  are  conventionally  moral  states,  as  in  '  The 
Statue  and  the  Bust,'  are  cases  of  what  is  not  love.  Stren- 
uousness,  however,  even  when  its  object  is  the  theory  of 
the  Greek  particles,  is,  as  in  '  The  Grammarian's  Funeral,' 
an  admirable  case  of  love.  Ixion  loves,  even  in  the  midst 
of  his  wrath  and  anguish  : — 

Pallid  birth  of  my  pain,  —  where  light,  where  light  is,  aspiring 
Thither  I  rise,  whilst  thou  —  Zeus,  keep  the  godship  and  sink! 

If  this  then,  in  man,  is  love,  what  must  it  mean  to  say 
that  God  is  Love  ?  It  must  mean  first,  that  there  is  some- 
thing in  God  that  corresponds  to  every  one  of  these  aspira- 
tions of  the  creature.  Now  this,  to  be  sure,  is  so  far  what 
even  Aristotle  had  in  one  sense  said.  For  Aristotle  declares 
that  the  world  loves  God,  and  that  the  world  is  thus  moved 
to  imitate  — every  finite  being  in  its  own  measure  —  God's 
perfection.  But.  in  Aristotle's  conception,  it  is  the  world 
that  loves ;  God  is  the  Beloved.  But  now  Browning 
plainly  means  more  than  this.  He  means  that  to  every 
affection  of  the  creature,  in  so  far  as  it  aims  upwards, 
towards  greater  intensity  and  ideality,  there  is  something 
in  God  that  not  only  corresponds,  but  directly  responds :  — 


24  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Thoughts  hardly  to  be  packed 

Into  a  narrow  act, 
Fancies  that  broke  through  language  and  escaped; 

All  I  could  never  be, 

All,  men  ignored  in  me, 
This,  I  was  worth  to  God,  whose  wheel  the  pitcher  shaped. 

God's  love  for  us,  if  it  exists,  must  thus  have  not  merely 
to  aim  at  some  distant  perfection  and  heavenly  bliss  for  us, 
but  to  find  in  our  very  blindness,  suffering,  weakness, 
inefficiency,  —  yes,  even  in  our  very  faultiness,  so  far  as 
it  involves  a  striving  upwards,  —  something  that  he  met 
with  appreciation,  sympathy,  •  care,  and  praise,  as  being 
love's  "  faint  beginning  "  in  us.  God's  love,  in  Browning's 
mind,  does  not  mean  merely  or  even  mainly  his  tenderness 
or  pity  for  us,  or  his  desire  to  see  us  happy  in  his  own 
arbitrarily  appointed  way,  but  his  delight  in  our  very 
oddities,  in  the  very  narrowness  of  our  ardent  individuality. 
It  means  his  sharing  of  our  very  weaknesses,  his  sympathy 
with  even  our  low  views  of  himself,  so  long  as  all  these 
things  mean  our  growing  like  the  plant  in  the  mine  that 
has  never  seen  the  light.  If  God  views  our  lives  in  this 
way,  then,  and  only  then,  does  he  love  us.  He  must  love 
us,  at  the  very  least,  as  the  artist  loves  his  creations, 
heartily,  open-mindedly,  joyously,  not  because  we  are  all 
fashioned  in  one  abstract  image,  but  because  in  our  mani- 
foldness  we  all  together  reflect  something  of  the  wealth  of 
life  in  which  he  abounds.  This  is  the  view  of  Aprile, 
never  later  abandoned  by  Browning. 

Here,  I  take  it,  we  have  indicated  the  core  of  Browning's 
doctrine  of  the  divine  Love.  But  now  how  is  this  doctrine 
related  to  that  of  Christianity?  The  notion  of  God  as 
Power  was,  we  saw,  a  summary  and  blending  of  that  Greek 
monotheism  and  Oriental  pantheism  which  have  always 
contributed  their  share  to  the  theism  of  the  Christian 
church.  Browning's  doctrine  of  God  as  Love,  on  the  other 
hand,  brings  him,  of  course,  into  intimate  contact  with  the 
remaining  aspect  of  Christian  theism,  or  with  the  more 


BROWNING'S  THEISM.  25 

central  and  original  portion  of  the  faith  of  the  church. 
Yet  here,  as  appears  of  this  central  and  original  portion  of 
Christian  faith,  only  one  article  immediately  and  personally 
appealed  to  Browning  himself.  This  article  he  selects 
from  tradition  for  repeated  and  insistent  illustration,  at 
periods  very  remote  from  one  another  in  his  life.  It  is  the 
doctrine  of  the  Incarnation.  God,  according  to  the  Chris- 
tian faith,  became  man.  To  the  significance  of  this  doc- 
trine, as  Browning  viewed  it,  the  dying  Aprile  (in  the  s? 
second  version  of  the  '  Paracelsus  ' ),  David,  Karshish,  and  w 
Ferishtah  all  bear  a  witness,  that  is  conceived  by  the  poet  as 
coming  from  the  hearts  of  men  who  are  not  under  the  spell 
of  the  faith  of  the  church  itself.  The  dying  John  in  the 
desert,  the  Pope  in  his  meditation,  give  the  same  tale  its 
more  orthodox  form :  yet  neither  of  these  is  merely  report- 
ing a  tradition ;  each  is  giving  the  personal  witness  of  a 
soul.  Speaking  more  obviously  in  his  own  person,  or  at 
least  under  thinner  dramatic  disguises,  the  poet  more  than 
once  returns  to  the  topic.  About  this  point  long  arguments 
cluster.  It  is  an  ineffable  mystery.  Could  it  be  true  ? 
The  poet  very  noteworthily  loves  to  view  this  article  of 
faith  as  if  from  without,  as  Karshish  or  as  Ferishtah  has 
to  view  it,  —  as  an  hypothesis,  as  something  that  might 
some  time  occur.  Browning  himself  regards  with  an 
unpersuaded  interest  the  historical  arguments  pro  and  con 
as  to  the  authenticity  of  the  Gospel  narrative.  It  is  note- 
worthy, moreover,  that  the  incarnation  has  small  connection, 
in  his  mind,  with  the  other  articles  with  which  the  faith 
of  the  church  has  joined  it.  The  atonement,  the  death  on 
the  cross,  have  at  all  events  a  very  much  smaller  personal 
interest  for  the  poet,  although  they  are  mentioned  in  the 
two  poems,  •  Christmas-Eve  '  and  '  Easter-Day.'  But  it  is 
the  reported  fact  of  the  incarnation  over  which  he  wonders 
and  is  fain  to  be  clear.  Why  this  intense  concern  of  an 
essentially  independent  intellect,  which  mere  tradition,  as 
such,  could  never  convince  ?  For  Browning  was  certainly 
no  orthodox  believer. 


26  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

The  answer  is  plain.  The  truth  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
incarnation,  if  ever  it  became  or  becomes  true,  must  lie  in 
its  revelation  of  a  universal  and  transcendently  significant 
aspect  of  God's  nature,  —  namely,  the  human  aspect.  God, 
the  All-Great,  if  he  is  or  can  become  human,  is  thereby 
shown  to  be  the  All-Loving  too.  Then  one  can  see  that 
he  really  does  and  so  can  contain  an  attribute  that  qualifies 
him  to  see  the  meaning  of  our  every  imperfection,  and  to 
respond  to  our  blindest  love  with  love  of  his  own.  To  say 
God  is  Love  is,  then,  the  same  as  to  say  God  is,  or  has 
been,  or  will  "be  incarnate,  perhaps  once,  perhaps  —  for  so 
Browning's  always  monistic  intuitions  about  the  relation 
of  God  and  the  world  suggest  to  him  —  perhaps  always, 
perhaps  in  all  our  life,  perhaps  in  all  men. 

So  far,  then,  Browning's  general  attitude  towards  the 
manifold  traditions  of  the  Christian  faith.  So  far  his  con- 
trast between  God  as  Power  and  God  as  Love.  So  far  too 
his  interest  in  what,  if  completely  believed,  would  for  him 
be  the  doctrine  that  would  reconcile  God  as  Power  with 
God  as  Love. 

III. 

Let  us  turn  next  to  a  more  special  aspect  of  the  conflict 
which  these  two  conceptions  of  God  undergo  in  the  various 
, cases  where  they  are  dramatically  represented. 

People  who  conceive  God  almost  exclusively  as  Powef 
are  in  Browning's  account,  in  general,  beings  of  a  lower 
mental  or  moral  grade.  Such  is  the  intolerant  believer 
with  whom  Ferishtah  argues  in  '  The  Sun.'  Such,  more 
markedly  still,  are  Count  Guido  and  Caliban.  On  the 
other  hand,  sufferers  in  general,  like  Ixion,  have  of  course 
this  aspect  of  the  divine  nature  emphasised  in  their  experi- 
ence, and  are  in  so  far  pathetically  blinded,  unless,  like 
Ixion,  they  escape  from  blindness  by  a  supreme  act  of 
faith.  The  Greek,  on  the  whole,  also  had  to  conceive  of 
God  merely  as  what  Browning  would  call  Power.  But  on 
this  side  Browning,  as  before  pointed  out,  does  not  sympa- 


BROWNING'S  THEISM.  27 

thise  with  the  Greek.  Browning  prefers  Euripides,  partly 
because  the  latter  had  gone  distinctly  beyond  what  Brown- 
ing would  call  mere  power  in  his  conception  of  the  moral 
world,  although  he  had  not  yet  quite  reached  the  Christian 
conception  of  the  divine  love.  But  now,  as  Browning 
portrays  the  thoughts  of  those  who  are  disposed  to  exclude 
the  conception  of  God  as  Love,  there  is  one  very  noteworthy 
feature  about  certain  of  their  arguments  which,  so  far  as 
I  know,  has  escaped  general  notice.  This  feature  lies  in 
the  fact  that  the  God  of  Power,  even  before  we  learn  quite 
positively  to  conceive  him  as  the  God  of  Love,  sometimes 
appears  to  us,  despite  his  all-real  Oneness,  as  somehow 
requiring  another  and  higher  if  much  dimmer  God  beyond 
him,  either  to  explain,  his  existence  or  to  justify  his  being. 
This  contradictory  and  restless  search  for  a  God  beyond 
God,  this  looking  for  a  reality  higher  still  than  our  highest 
already  defined  power,  appears  in  several  cases,  in  our  poet's 
work,  as  a  sort  of  inner  disease,  about  the  very  conception 
of  the  God  of  Power,  and  as  the  beginning  of  the  newer 
and  nobler  faith.  The  God  beyond  God  is  in  the  end  what 
gets  defined  for  us  as  the  God  of  Love.  The  World  of 
Power,  despite  all  the  monistic  intuition,  is  inwardly 
divided,  is  essentially  incomplete,  sends  us  looking  further 
and  further  beyond,  until,  as  to  David  so  to  us,  it  occurs  that 
what  we  are  looking  for  is  just  the  weakness  in  strength 
that  the  God  who  loves  us  face  to  face,  as  man  appreciates 
man,  would  display. 

The  general  idea  of  the  God  beyond  God  has  consider- 
able common  human  interest,  quite  outside  of  Browning. 
We  find  traces  of  such  conceptions  in  many  mythologies, 
in  child  life,  and  in  the  ideas  even  of  some  very  unimagi- 
native people.  A  writer  on  English  country  parish  life 
narrated  a  few  years  since  a  story,  according  to  which  a 
clergyman,  who  had  frequently  condoled  in  a  formal  way 
with  a  steadily  unfortunate  farmer  amongst  his  parish- 
ioners, and  who  had  often  referred  in  this  connection  to 


28  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

the  mysterious  ways  of  Providence,  was  one  day  shocked 
by  the  farmer's  outburst :  "  Yes,  I  well  know  it  was  Provi- 
dence spoiled  my  crops.  It  was  Providence  did  this  and 
did  that.  I  hate  Providence.  But  there  's  One  above 
that  '11  see  it  all  righted  for  me  yet."  This  is  an  example 
of  the  Over-God. 

Well,  the  God  beyond  God  appears  in  Caliban's  the- 
ology, very  explicitly,  as  "  the  something  over  Setebos 
that  made  him,  or  he,  maybe,  found  and  fought."  "  There 
may  be  something  quiet  o'er  his  head."  Caliban  at  one 
point  develops  the  idea  until  it  degrades  Setebos  to  a 
relatively  low  rank  ;  but  thereupon  he  finds  the  attributes 
of  "  The  Quiet "  unworkably  lofty,  and  devotes  the  rest 
of  his  ingenuity  to  Setebos.  In  far  nobler  form,  Ixion 
rises  from  Zeus  to  the  higher  law  and  life  beyond  him.  I 
have  already  mentioned  David's  use  of  a  similar  process 
in  his  gradual  rise  towards  his  wonderful  climax.  On  the 
other  hand,  and  for  very  obvious  reasons,  Augustus  Csesar 
in  the  poem  in  '  Asolando,'  while  he  is  celebrated  by  his 
flatterers  and  subjects  not  only  as  already  the  God  of 
Power,  but  also  as  the  proper  dethroner  of  Jove,  lives  in 
the  shadow  of  the  fear  of  the  Over-God  that  may  any  day 
make  worm's  meat  of  him.  And  meanwhile,  Augustus 
reigning,  Christ  is  born.  John,  dying  in  the  desert,  pro- 
phesies that  in  future,  just  because  of  this  general  problem 
of  might  beyond  might,  some  will  arise  who  will  say  that 
there  is  no  Power  at  all  in  the  universe,  but  only  natural 
law.  Both  John  and  the  poet  obviously,  as  we  saw,  make 
light  of  this  way  of  escape.  The  true  significance  of  the 
striving  beyond  the  God  of  Power  is  its  tendency  to  bring 
us  into  the  presence  of  the  God  of  Love.  I  do  not  know 
whether  it  has  often  been  consciously  observed  that  herein 
lies  at  least  part  of  the  incomparable  irony  of  that  thrilling 
closing  line  of  Count  Guide's  last  speech.  Guido  has 
already  fully  explained  his  theology  to  the  death-watch 
about  him,  stating,  to  be  sure,  a  not  altogether  harmonious 


BKOWNING'S  THEISM.  29 

system  of  opinion.  At  one  point  he  believes  in  a  certain 
Jove  ^Egiochus,  the  segis-bearer,  as  the  one  highest  power 
—  a  belief  not  inconsistent,  he  says,  with  a  reasonable 
polytheism.  One  needs  powers  beyond  powers,  for  various 
reasons.  The  main  concern  for  this  dying  wretch  is  to 
find  out  who  is  really  the  highest  power  in  the  universe, 
since  he  himself  is  badly  in  need  of  help.  In  a  fashion 
that  even  in  its  ghastly  burlesque,  after  all,  suggests  by 
its  form  the  radiant  flight  of  David  through  the  glorious 
world  of  the  higher  powers,  Guido  now  flees,  but  through 
his  own  bosom's  hell,  seeking  for  a  power  that  one  can 
somehow  rest  upon.  He  meets  face  to  face  more  than 
once  the  God  of  his  church,  —  a  power  more  unacceptable 
and  incomprehensible  to  him  than  the  others.  Hereupon 
he  elaborately  defies  all  Power.  He  has  never  taken  the 
Pope  for  God.  In  heaven  he  never  will  take  God  for  the 
Pope.  But  in  vain:  he  falls  helpless  at  last,  and,  even 
while  he  wrestles  beneath  hell's  most  overwhelming  might, 
still,  like  Ixion,  like  Karshish,  and  like  David,  he  con- 
ceives at  last  the  Over-God,  afar  off,  be}rond  the  great 
gulf  fixed ;  and  this  Over-God,  mentioned  in  his  final  cry 
for  help  after  all  the  powers,  —  after  Grand  Duke,  Pope, 
Cardinal,  Christ,  Maria,  God,  —  is  Pompilia.  At  last, 
even  from  the  depths  of  hell,  even  in  the  chaos  of  error, 
one  has  thus  conceived  of  the  God  of  Love,  and  thus 
Guido,  too,  learns  the  deeper  meaning  of  the  Incarnation. 
His  cry  is  as  heretical  as  the  irony  of  his  fate  is  bitter, 
but  he  at  least  has  called  on  the  name  of  what  is  beyond 
Power. 

It  is  interesting  to  glance  at  the  corresponding  process 
occurring  in  a  purely  Grecian  setting.  I  have  already 
mentioned  Euripides,  as  Browning  viewed  his  position. 
Euripides,  as  exhibited  in  the  Pope's  statement  of  his 
faith,  fails  in  some  respects  to  conform  to  Browning's  own 
categories ;  for  our  poet  is  here  portraying  an  independent 
historical  personality,  whose  way  of  approaching  the  ulti- 


30  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

• 

mate  problems  is  not  precisely  his  own.  But  still  the 
general  parallelism  is  obvious.  Euripides,  so  the  Pope 
here  tells  us,  recognises  Nature  as  the  world  of  power. 
Nature,  for  Euripides,  has  unity,  and  somehow  imparts 
this  unity  of  the  Eternal  and  the  Divine  to  the  doubtful 
and  manifold  world  of  the  gods  beneath.  The  gods,  as 
symbols  of  this  power,  to  which  they  have  relations  to  us 
quite  mysterious,  are  deserving  of  awe  "  because  of  power." 
Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  man  knows,  through  the  witness 
of  his  own  heart,  a  truth  whose  warrant  is  superior  to  that 
of  this  whole  world  of  powers.  "  I,"  says  Euripides,  in 
this  dramatic  statement  of  his  case,  — 

I,  untouched  by  one  adverse  circumstance, 
Adopted  virtue  for  my  rule  of  life, 
Waived  all  reward,  loved  but  for  loving's  sake, 
And  what  my  heart  taught  me,  1  taught  the  world. 

This  consciousness  of  the  supremacy  of  virtue  raises  Euri- 
pides to  the  world  where  love  is  above  power : 

Therefore,  what  gods  do,  man  may  criticise, 
Applaud,  condemn,  —  how  should  he  fear  the  truth  1 

Thus,  bold 

Yet  self-mistrusting,  should  man  bear  himself, 
Most  assured  on  what  now  concerns  him  most  — 
The  law  of  his  own  life,  the  path  he  prints,  — 
Which  law  is  virtue  and  not  vice,  I  say,  — 
And  least  inquisitive  where  search  least  skills, 
I"  the  nature  we  best  give  the  clouds  to  keep. 

Euripides,  too,  in  his  way,  then,  found  the  Over-God,  and 
found  him  in  the  world  of  love,  beyond  nature,  and  yet 
within  man's  heart.  It  is  this  quality  which  Browning 
finds  in  Euripides,  this  beginning  of  a  conquest  of  the 
realm  of  power  in  the  interest  of  man,  and  in  the  quest 
for  love  that  makes  Euripides,  in  our  poet's  eyes,  the 
chief  of  the  Greek  tragedians.  Balaustion,  at  the  close  of 
her  first  adventure,  retells,  in  this  sense,  the  Alkestis 
legend.  The  conquest  of  death,  the  power  of  powers,  by 
love  simply  as  love,  and  not  by  any  might,  —  this,  Balaus-' 


BROWNING'S  THEISM.  31 

t 

tion  tells  us,  is  the  deeper  ideal  that  Euripides  has  awak- 
ened in  her  own  heart.  In  her  narrative  the  death-goddess 
herself  recognises  the  Over-God  in  the  person  of  Alkestis. 
This  is  the  poem  that  Euripides  meant,  even  if  he  could 
not  quite  make  it.  But  the  ideal  story  of  the  Alkestis, 
thus  retold,  comes  very  near  in  its  significance  to  the  tale 
that  arouses  the  insistent  wonder  of  Karshish.  The  rais- 
ing from  the  dead  of  Alkestis  or  of  Lazarus,  —  what  mat- 
ters the  name  of  the  tale,  so  long  as  it  arouses  afresh  the 
thought  to  which  the  doctrine  of  the  incarnation  bears 
witness,  the  thought  that,  if  ever  we  pierce  through  the 
world  of  Power  to  the  heart  of  it,  to  that  which  is  beyond 
Power,  we  find,  as  the  Over-God,  Love  ? 

IV. 

Such  then,  for  Browning,  the  inner  process  whereby  we 
pass  from  the  conception  of  Power  to  that  of  Love.  Some 
inherent  restlessness  forbids  the  partisans  of  Power  to 
remain  in  their  own  realm.  Their  souls  are  always  dis- 
content with  their  own  conceptions.  They  are  themselves 
lovers,  and  to  seek  the  sun  is  their  destiny. 

But  the  fully  awakened  lover,  who  conceives  God  as 
Love,  is  now,  after  all,  in  presence  of  his  hardest  trial. 
For  if  the  God  of  Power  has  been  thus  always  transformed 
into  the  God  of  Love,  the  God  of  Love  remains  responsible 
for  all  the  horrors  of  the  world  of  Power.  The  problem 
of  evil  looms  up  before  one,  the  dark  tower  at  the  end  of 
this  long  quest.  What  has  the  poet  to  say  of  this  prob- 
lem ?  How  reconcile  Love  with  Power  in  the  world  as 
we  know  it  ? 

Already,  in  stating  the  meaning  that  Love  has  for 
Browning,  we  have  indicated  that  love,  which  is  so  com- 
plex and  paradoxical  a  thing,  involves,  from  our  poet's 
point  of  view,  very  much  more  than  mere  benevolence. 
In  Shelley's  '  Prometheus,'  the  war  of  Love  and  Power  is 
depicted  in  terms  such  as  in  some  wise  appeal  to  Browning, 


32  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

as  he  himself  has  told  us.  But  love,  in  Shelley's  mind, 
means  pure  kindliness,  benevolence,  mutual  toleration  and 
a  fondness  for  lovely  objects.  And  so  Shelley's  only  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  of  Evil  is  simply  that  Eternal  Love 
has  unaccountably  absented  himself  from  the  present 
world,  leaving  there,  as  reigning  monarch,  the  Power- 
tyrant  Zeus.  Why  love  has  done  this  is  an  absolutely 
inexplicable  and  capricious  mystery.  Some  day,  in  an 
equally  capricious  fashion,  Eternal  Love  is  to  return,  and 
then,  by  a  single  magical  act,  he  will  hurl  the  tyrant  head- 
long into  the  abyss.  Henceforth  the  stars  will  sing,  and 
Prometheus  and  the  ladies  will  weave  flowers  and  tell 
stories,  and  they  all  will  live  happy  ever  after.  This  is 
the  essentially  trivial  thought  that  Shelley  makes  explicit 
in  a  poem  whose  wonderful  beauty  and  true  significance 
really  depend  upon  something  of  which  Shelley  was  uncon- 
scious, —  namely,  upon  the  eternal  fact,  richly  though 
unconsciously  illustrated  by  Shelley,  that  the  world  of  the 
sufferingly  heroic  Prometheus  Bound,  the  unconquerable 
lover,  is  actually  far  more  significant  and  noble,  despite 
Zeus  the  accursed,  than  is  the  later  world  of  Prometheus 
the  Loosed,  as  Shelley  himself  pictures  it ;  namely,  the 
world  free  from  Zeus  and  devoted  to  agreeable  society  and 
to  flowers,  but  with  nothing  whatever  in  it  for  one  to  do 
save  to  be  petted,  admired,  and  caressingly  encouraged  to 
tell  Asia  and  Panthea  how  once  upon  a  time  one  used  to 
be  a  hero.  The  true  moral  of  Shelley's  '  Prometheus '  is 
that,  in  an  ideal  world  of  Love,  we  can  indeed  well  get 
on  without  tyrants,  but  that  we  cannot  get  on  without 
heroes,  who  must,  as  heroes,  not  only  love  but  suffer; 
not  only  sing  but  endure  ;  not  only  be  kindly  but  be 
strenuous  ;  not  only  wear  flowers,  but  bear  on  their  brows, 
upon  occasion,  the  cold  sweat  of  an  anguish  freely  accepted 
for  cause. 

Now  it  is  just  this  strenuous  aspect  of  the  significant  life 
of  love  that  Browning  always  consciously  sees.     Hence, 


BROWNING'S  THEISM.  33 

when  he  tries  to  reconcile  the  world  of  Power  with  the 
world  of  Love,  he  does  not,  like  Shelley,  picture  a  solution 
in  terms  of  mere  benevolence  and  jollity.  Both  benevo- 
lence and  jollity  he  praises,  but  they  do  not  make  the 
whole  of  Love.  Love  includes  strenuousness ;  therefore 
the  human  lover  must  be  often  far  from  his  goal,  embarked 
on  a  dark  quest,  and  so  at  war  with  Power.  Love  means 
•triumph  amid  suffering,  and  so  the  fifty  and  more  '  Men 
and  Women'  must  illustrate  love's  griefs  and  blindness 
quite  as  much  as  love's  attainment.  For  the  lover  of  the 
two  lyrics,  '  Love  in  a  Life '  and  '  Life  in  a  Love,'  the  very 
power  that  holds  him  away  from  his  beloved  is  consciously 
recognised  as  at  one  with  the  spirit  of  his  love ;  for,  as  he 
declares,  endless  pursuit  is  the  only  conceivable  form  of 
endless  attainment.  If  these  things  are  so,  then  even  the 
divine  love  itself  must  need  for  its  fulfilment  these  strug- 
gles, paradoxes,  estrangements,  pursuits,  mistakes,  failures, 
dark  hours,  sins,  hopes,  and  horrors  of  the  world  of  human 
passion  in  which,  according  to  our  poet,  the  divine  is  in- 
carnate. Perfect  love  includes  and  means  the  very  ex- 
perience of  suffering,  and  of  powers  that  oppose  love's 
aims.  Herein  may  —  yes,  must  —  lie  the  solution  of  the 
problem  of  Evil. 

This  general  doctrine,  for  which  our  author's  whole 
range  of  lyric  poetry  furnishes  the  illustration,  is  given  an 
expressly  theological  turn,  as  suggesting  the  true  and 
general  reconciliation  of  the  worlds  of  Love  and  Power, 
in  a  number  of  places.  It  is  this  view,  as  a  justification 
of  the  ills  of  the  world,  that  is  stated  by  Abt  Vogler,  who 
prefers  the  musical  metaphors  known  already  to  the  Greek 
Heraclitus,  and  who  declares  that  discord  is  essential  to  a  per- 
fect series  of  harmonies,  and  that  the  whole  may  be  perfect 
even  where  the  parts  are  evil.  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra  employs 
other  figures,  but  expresses  the  same  intuition.  The  poet 
himself  is  never  content  with  the  present  life  as  showing 
us  the  sufficient  solution  of  the  problem ;  but  he  sees,  in 

3 


34  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEKS. 

the  world  as  it  is,  enough  of  love's  faint  beginnings  in 
mankind  to  be  sure  that  with  more  life  more  light  would 
come,  until  we  learned  of  God's  love,  not  by  getting  rid 
of  the  world  of  dark  Power,  but  by  seeing  in  Power,  as 
the  opponent  of  Love,  the  source  of  that  element  of  con- 
flict, of  paradox,  of  suffering,  and  of  ignorance,  without 
which  Love  —  Love  that  is  heroic  in  conflict,  earnest  with 
problems,  patient  in  suffering,  and  faithful  amidst  doubts 
—  could  never  possess  the  fulness  of  the  divine  life.  That 
divine  life,  completed  in  God,  incarnate  in  man,  is  much 
hidden  from  us  by  death,  but  is  somewhere  fully  seen  as 
good,  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  attainment  and 
wholeness  of  the  external  world. 

This  appears  to  be  Browning's  theistic  faith,  —  never 
a  philosophy,  always  an  intuition,  but  freely  illustrated 
from  experience,  and  insistently  pondered  through  long 
and  manifold  arguments.  By  this  faith  he  met,  in  his 
own  way,  the  problems  set  before  him  not  only  by  life, 
but  by  that  extremely  complex  product  of  tradition,  the 
Christian  conception  of  God. 


BROWNING'S   ART  IN   MONOLOGUE. 

BY  PERCY  STICKNEY  GRANT. 
[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  November  23,  1886.] 

THE  most  splendid  tomb  in  the  world  is  probably  the  Taj, 
erected  by  a  Mogul  emperor  as  the  burial-place  of  his 
favourite  wife.  Made  wholly  of  white  marble,  which  in 
India  retains  the  quarried  brilliancy,  it  is  more  magnificent 
than  the  cathedral  of  Milan,  and  is  properly  considered 
the  perfection  of  Indian  architecture.  A  noble  gateway 
admits  the  visitor  to  a  carriage  path  running  between  low, 
Moorish  arched  buildings,  at  the  end  of  which  rises  a 
second  gateway  surmounted  by  little  domes,  by  itself 
beautiful  enough  to  be  a  memorable  monument.  Continu- 
ing along  a  marble  pavement  through  tropical  foliage,  one 
sees  ahead  the  dome  of  the  Taj  resting  apparently  upon 
dense  verdure.  At  length,  a  succession  of  marble  terraces 
leads  to  a  platform  upon  which  the  whole  structure  rests. 
Within  the  temple,  beneath  the  dome,  is  a  circular  marble 
screen,  carved  in  delicate  tracery  and  studded  with  coloured 
gems.  Enclosed  by  the  screen  is  a  sarcophagus  on  which 
is  cut  an  inscription  in  Arabic.  The  name  of  the  lady 
buried  here  is  Moomtaz  Mahal. 

I  hope  it  is  not  due  only  to  the  fascination  of  the 
oriental  picture  that  I  see  in  it  a  helpful  image  of  the 
poetic  edifice  raised  by  Robert  Browning.  The  reader 
passes  through  the  gateway  of  '  Paracelsus, '  sees  a  few 
poems  on  his  way  to  the  second  gateway,  '  Sordello,'  then 
treads  a  path  flagged  with  dramas  and  lyrics  until  he 


36 


BOSTON    BROWNING    SOCIETY   PAPERS. 


reaches  a  great  structure,  '  The  Ring  and  the  Book,'  in 
which  is  enshrined  Pompilia,  the  poet's  loveliest  creation. 

A  traveller  toward  the  Taj  may  from  a  distant  hill  catch 
sight  of  his  goal  and  discover  the  arrangement  of  the 
whole,  then  plunge  into  the  valley  and  proceed  for  a  time 
before  the  marble  portals  of  the  first  gateway  appear  in 
front  of  him.  Let  us  leave  our  broad  glance  at  Browning's 
poetry  and  approach  it  by  a  somewhat  hidden  path. 

Browning  is  a  fnost  prolific  writer,  and  his  admirers, 
/  remembering,  perhaps,  that  imitation  is  the  sincerest 
flattery,  have  likewise  become  prolific  writers.  Conse- 
quently Browning  and  his  commentators  by  themselves 
form  a  small  library,  and  this  bulk  is  being  constantly 
increased.  An  essayist  would  be  presuming  as  well  as 
unwise  who  attempted  to  treat  more  than  a  small  and  well- 
defined  portion  of  a  subject  that  has  been  so  fully  discussed. 

Let  us  attempt  a  short  study  of  Browning's  art  in  mono- 
logue, a  neglected  field,  and  one  that  will  repay  investiga- 
tion because  it  is  his^fyle  more  than  his  matter  that  dis- 
courages readers  who  open  his  pages  for  the  first  time.  The 
form  rather  than  the  substance  of  Browning's  poetry  will  be 
our  concern  —  the  growth  of  the  poet's  mastery^jover  his 
material.  In  doing  this  we  shall  necessarily  deal  a  little 
with  the  character  of  the  material  which  the  poet  wished  to 
embody.  Before  we  begin  a  close  examination  of  his  work, 
however,  let  us  consider  for  a  moment  the  man  himself. 

Robert  Browning,  the  poet,  club-man,  scholar,  theo- 
^  logian,  is  in  the  first  place  thoroughly  a  being  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Any  one  familiar  merely  with  the  titles  of 
his  poems  might  suppose  his  sympathies  were  entirely  with 
*the  past,  especially  with  mediaeval  life;  but  such  is  not 
the  case.  Every  fibre  of  his  mind  is  strained  over  nine- 
teenth century  problems,  and  no  matter  what  the  scene  or 
the  time,  or  the  system  of  philosophy  he  chooses  to  wrap 
around  his  subjects,  at  the  centre  is  a  question  of  to-day. 
Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  what  Browning  is  as  a  thinker, 


BROWNING'S  AUT  IN  MONOLOGUE.  37 

the  age  has  made  him.  Let  us  bring  before  our  minds  the 
master  spirits  of  two  widely  separate  periods.  In  one 
group  stand  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Raleigh,  Queen  Elizabeth, 
Bacon,  Spenser,  Shakespeare;  in  the  other  Turgenieff, 
George  Eliot,  John  Stuart  Mill,  Matthew  Arnold,  Carlyle, 
Newman.  A  light  seems  to  shine  around  the  first,  while 
our  own  great  ones  stand  in  a  shadow  weighed  down  with 
thought.  Seriousness  is  the  "note  "  of  the  passing  genera- 
tion. It  has  witnessed  the  moral  agitations  that  led  to 
the  emancipation  of  the  Russian  serf  and  negro  slaves. 
It  has  seen  a  world-wide  organisation  aim  to  cure  the 
ravages  of  drunkenness,  and  a  peaceful  army  arise  for  sav- 
ing men,  body  and  soul.  Ethics  temper  even  the  mechani- 
cal laws  of  political  economy.  To-day  we  look  at  the 
moral  side  of  a  question  and  neglect  the  others ;  we  must 
understand  how  a  fact  will  affect  our  lives  before  we 
accept  it.  Art  and  science  petition  the  individual  to  listen 
to  their  claims.  "Here  is  my  Prime  Minister,  Life," 
replies  the  man ;  "  he  will  read  your  suit  and  report  to  me 
his  opinion  of  its  value."  Ethics,  not  metaphysics,  is 
with  us  the  popular  form  of  philosophy.  The  studies  that 
explain  the  relations  of  life  are  the  ones  now  most  esteemed. 
In  Herbert  Spencer's  phrase  we  exclaim,  "How  to  live, 
that  is  the  essential  question  for  us.'*  JVVhat  is  art  or 
science  to  me  if  it  cannot  teach  me  how  to  live  ?  To  con- 
template, even  to  create  beauty  does  not  satisfy  me.  I 
must  know  what  life  means,  then  absorb  all  beauty  and  all 
knowledge  into  myself.  Nothing  is  of  any  account,  except 
as  it  helps  me  to  be,  except  as  it  develops  my  soul.  The 
world  talks  in  such  fashion  to-day  to  those  who  would 
gain  its  ear.  Its  favourites  are  poet-painters,  like  Millet 
and  Corot,  philosophers  who  deal  with  social  problems, 
novelists  who  moralise,  like  Thackeray  and  George  Eliot, 
poets  who  preach,  like  Wordsworth.  All  the  great  men  of 
the  age,  one  might  say,  have  accepted  chairs  of  ethics,  and 
have  agreed  from  some  point  or  other  to  approach  and 


38  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

expound  that  great  subject.  Goethe,  with  his  calm  plan 
nf  splf-p.nlt.nrp.  whir.h  nothing  interrupted,  nnnld  not  have 
been  produced  in  this  century.  We  demand  that  our 
leaders  shall  forget  themselves  j,nd  be  of  practical  use 
to  us.  Many  of  our  spiritual  benefactors  have  a  talent 
for  verse  that  would  have  blossomed  under  Elizabeth: 
Thackeray,  Dickens,  Newman,  Carlyle,  George  Eliot, 
Charles  Kingsley,  Emerson. 

The  men  just  named  thought  they  could  best  help  the 
world  by  talking  to  it  in  prose  rather  than  in  verse,  al- 
though they  loved  verse.  Robert  Browning  settled  the  ' 
question  differently.  He  appreciates  the  spirit  of  his  times, 
but  in  his  nature  imagination  and  reason  are  blended  after 
so  unusual  a  fashion  that  his  best  efforts  to  teach  must  ap- 
pear in  the  form  of  verse.  He  gives  us  his  reasons  for  his 
choice :  —r- 

I  Why  take  the  artistic  way  to  prove  so  much  ? 

rv  j  Because  it  is  the  glory  and  good  of  Art,   " 

n[  That  Art  remains  the  one  way  possible 

\  Of  speaking  truth,  to  mouths  like  mine,  at  least. 

By  noticing  the  leading  characteristics  of  the  last  fifty 
years  —  moral  earnestness,  and  its  greatest  desire,  —  to  be 
taught,  —  we  have  seen  what  kind  of  a  man  a  leader  in  our 
time  must  presumably  be;  namely,  a  teacher  of  morals. 
When  then  we  admit  that  Browning  is  one  of  the  great 
men  of  the  century^we  already  know  enough  of  his  char- 
acter to  understand  a  discussion  of  his  art,  for  we  expect 
him  to  be  a  moralist. 

Many  persons  have  thought  the  modern  atmosphere  too 
scientific,  too  work-a-day  for  poetry  to  thrive.  Many  have 
held  poetry  a  toy,  to  be  cast  away  when  life  begins  to  look 
as  stern  as  it  does  to  us.  A  few  have  not  accepted  these 
opinions,  and  in  spite  of  the  mechanical  and  thoughtful 
generation  upon  which  they  fell,  have  cultivated  the 
Muses  with  success.  There  have  been  in  our  time  two 
answers  to  the  question  which  shall  be  the  poet's  attitude 
towards  his  generation. 


BROWNING'S  ART  IN  MONOLOGUE.  39 

Each  one  of  our  poets  has  settled  the  question  of  his 
relations  to  the  world  in  his  own  way.  One  waives  aside 
the  earnest  pleading  of  the  age,  and  denies  that  there  is 
any  valuable  new  discovery  about  life  awaiting  it.  Those 
that  answer  in  this  way,  regard  the  Time  as  out  of  joint, 
and  maintain  the  best  thing  to  be  done  is  to  resuscitate 
the  art  of  some  happier  age  and  make  ourselves  as  com- 
fortable as  possible.  I  am  still  marking  divisions  roughly 
when  I  place  Keats  and  the  Swinburne-Rossetti  school  in 
this  class.  The  second  answer  is  given  by  such  men  as 
Shelley,  Wordsworth,  and  Browning.  These  poets  believe 
that  the  nineteenth  century  stands  upon  a  vantage  ground, 
that  its  aspirations  are  upward,  and  wjiile  the  future  of 
their  vision  may  seem,  as  it  does  to  Mr.  Arnold,  "Power- 
less to  be  born,"  they  nevertheless  believe  it  will  come 
and  meanwhile  do  what  they  can  to  speed  its  advent. 
They  recognise  the  confusion  that  exists  in  the  minds 
of  many,  but  believe  it  to  be  the  ferment  of  a  new  life. 
The  quality  of  the  age  is  good,  and  its  instincts,  if  obeyed, 
will  lead  it  to  heights  of  knowledge  and  art  never  before 
attained.  The  second  group  of  poets,  therefore,  say  that 
the  poetry  of  the  nineteenth  century  should  be  the  herald 
of  these  truths  that  are  dimly  seen  in  the  distance,  and 
have  determined  for  themselves  the  poetic  mould  in  which 
their  thought  shall  be  cast. 

The  general  readers  of  poetry  have  got  into  an  expectant 
mood,  and  think  that  the  art  they  enjoy  should  show  a 
new  development  to  correspond  to  the  new  knowledge  and 
new  experiences  the  world  has  gained,  —  that  new  wine 
should  have  new  bottles.  But  when  Browning  constructs 
something  to  meet  this  need,  the  public  at  first  laughs  at 
his  oddness,  as  though  a  new  thing  were  not  to  be  different 
from  an  old  after  all.  It  might  ask  at  least  his  reasons  for 
making  such  a  structure. 

Before  we  examine  the  make-up  of  his  verse,  however, 
and  try  to  explain  the  form  in  which  it  is  cast,  there  is 


40 


BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 


3 


a  word  that  ought  to  be  defined.  The  word  "Classic."  has 
almost  magical  powers,  but  its  meaning  is  little  under- 
stood. Let  us  recall  the  theory  of  art  which  the  ancient 
Greeks  held.  It  was  considered  the  function  of  art  to 
discover  in  nature  the  eternal,  and  to  give  it  form,  that 
this  universal  residuum  might  be  apprehended  through  the 
senses,  while  the  accidental  was  left  to  perish.  The  ideal 
human  form  is  a  type  of  eternal  beauty ;  sculpture  should 
represent  it  detached  from  all  circumstances.  We  wonder 
at  the  multitude  of  statues  of  Greek  divinities  that  exhibit 
no  trace  of  emotion  on  their  faces,  but  in  every  muscle 
repose  and  the  majesty  of  calm.  To  the  Greek,  however, 
art  would  have  been  pandering  to  a  morbid  taste,  if  it 
gave  other  expression  to  the  body.  A  furrow  on  the  brow, 
a  strained  muscle,  quite  as  much  as  clothing,  were  acci- 
dents which  disturbed  the  beauty  of  the  simple  form. 

Poetry  obeys  the  same  law,  and  must  give  voice  to 
truth,  omitting  as  far  as  possible  all  that  relates  merely  to 
the  time,  all  peculiarities,  and  the  "personal  equation,"  as 
we  call  that  touch  which  tells  us  more  about  the  author 
and  his  age  than  about  man  and  all  ages.  The  great  love 
that  Antigone  felt  for  her  brother  is  confronted  by  Kreon's 
decree  that  no  one  shall  bury  the  body  of  her  brother  on 
pain  of  death.  It  is  a  law  of  human  nature  that  such  love 
as  hers  would  despise  death.  In  that  one  fact  lies  wrapped 
up  the  whole  play.  Each  actor  is  true  to  his  nature,  and 
the  result  is  tragic,  —  it  must  be  so.  The  poet  takes  the 
fact  and  lets  it  act  itself  out  in  his  verse,  as  terribly  true 
and  necessary  as  gravity.  His  only  carens  not  to  hide  the 
operation  of  the  principle  by  details  that  are  merely  acci- 
dental and  do  not  grow  out  of  his  first  fact,  —  Antigone's 
love  set  against  Kreon's  law.  A  perfect  play  according 
to  a  Greek  standard  is  as  naked  as  a  perfect  statue.  A 
)oet  is  classic,  then,  when  he  does  not  obtrude  himself,  but 
merely  transcribes  into  poetic  form  the  universal  truth  he 
has  discovered.  A  poet  is  not  classic,  when  he  overlays 


BROWNING'S  ART  IN  MONOLOGUE.  41 

the  truth  he  would  reveal  by  comments  of  his  own ;  when, 
in  fact,  he  asks  you  to  look  at  a  truth  through  his  eyes, 
and  does  not  present  it  and  then  leave  you  to  get  acquainted 
as  you  can. 

When  a  perfect  human  form  is  at  last  set  free  from  the 
marble,  when  some  deep  truth  of  human  nature  reveals 
itself  in  action  in  a  drama,  is  this  the  end  of  art,  —  that  a 
masterpiece  exists?  From  the  contemplation  of  beautiful 
objects  we  ascend  to  the  contemplation  of  absolute  beauty ; 
from  each  work  of  art  the  observer  should  learn  something 
about  the  truth  and  beauty  that  are  in  God,  —  at  least  so 
Plato  taught.  Moreover,  Aristotle  tells  us  that  tragedy 
purifies  by  exciting  in  our  breast  pity  and  fear;  and  per- 
haps this  saying  was  in  Emerson's  mind  when  he  wrote, 
"only  that  is  poetry  which  cleanses  and  mans  me." 

But  art  to-day  does  not  often  enough  penetrate  to  the 
soul  by  either  of  these  methods;  does  not  cleanse  it  by 
pity  and  fear,  or  light  it  by  giving  it  an  impulse  along 
the  road  to  absolute  beauty  and  truth  in  God.  We,  on  the 
contrary,  are  satisfied  with  a  sensuous  enjoyment  of  the 
object  before  us.  The  effect  is  superficial.  The  poet 
to-day  who  will  not  stoop  to  gratify  a  low  appreciation  of 
art,  by  producing  what  has  only  a  surface  beauty,  but  who 
will  adhere  to  the  classic  idea  of  art  and  try  to  unfold 
truth,  has  a  labour  which  the  Greek  poets  did  not  have. 
If  the  final  object  of  poetry  is  the  cleansing  and  lifting 
of  the  soul,  the  poet  must  eke  out  the  spiritual  inertia  of 
his  audience,  and  attach  to  his  revelation  of  beauty  an 
index  finger  pointing  up  to  absolute  beauty.  The  way 
in  which  a  modern  artist  fixes  upon  his  work  a  tag  that 
shall  explain  it,  is  illustrated  in  Keats 's  '  Ode  on  a  Grecian 
Urn.'  Four  stanzas  of  the  ode  simply  reproduce  the 
beauty  of  the  exquisite  shape,  and  it  has  rarely  happened 
that  one  art  has  been  so  happily  transcribed  into  the 
symbols  of  another.  Finally,  as  though  he  heard  the  age 
saying,  ''yes,  very  beautiful,  but  what  of  it?"  he  writes  a 


42 


BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPEKS. 


fifth  stanza,  attaches  a  card  to  the  urn,  which  tells  us  the 
universal  truth  contained  in  the  beautiful  object  before  us. 

Thou  shalt  remain,  in  midst  of  other  woe 
Than  ours,  a  friend  to  man,  to  whom  thou  say'st, 
"  Beauty  is  truth,  truth  beauty,"  —  that  is  all 
Ye  know  on  earth,  and  all  ye  need  to  know. 

The  artist  to-day  in  one  work  must  both  do  something 
and  explain  what  he  has  done,  if  he  wishes  to  do  more 
than  please  the  eye  or  ear,  or  tickle  the  fancy  for  a 
moment.  How  this  second  or  explanatory  function  is  to 
be  added  to  the  first  or  the  universal  one  is  the  problem 
of  art  among  ourselves;  if  the  answers  shown  us  look 
strange,  it  is  what  we  may  expect,  and  what  painting 
the  lily  has  always  been.  Such  is  the  composite  art  in 
which  Browning's  genius  has  expressed  itself. 

I  think  we  now  see  that  a  modern  poet  who  represents 
the  thought  of  his  age  cannot  be  classic  in  the  Greek 
sense,  but  that  he  must  be  ornate,  overlaying  the  truth 
he  would  reveal  with  a  multitude  of  analogies  and  sug- 
gestive comments.  It  must  also  be  said  that  life  to-day 
presents  greater  complexity  to  the  observer  than  it  did  in 
the  days  of  Homer.  The  general  characteristic,  profusion 
of  ornament,  all  nineteenth  century  poetry  must  have  in 
some  measure.  The  poetry  of  any  given  man  falls  into  the 
lyric,  the  dramatic,  or  the  epic  mould  according  to  his 
nature.  The  fact  that  Horace  wrote  lyrics  and  Milton 
epics  does  not  denote  an  intellectual  choice  merely.  To 
express  themselves  best  they  had  to  choose  these  forms; 
given  their  natures  their  form  of  verse  followed. 

It  is  the  glory  and  good  of  Art 
That  Art  remains  the  one  way  possible 
Of  speaking  truth,  to  mouths  like  mine  at  least. 

When  we  look  at  the  outside  of  Browning's  poetry,  let 
us  remember  the  fact  we  have  observed,  and  not  say  that 
the  odd  appearance  it  presents  is  a  whim  with  no  necessary 


BROWNING'S  ART  IN  MONOLOGUE.  43 

relation  to  the  poet,  or  that  he  might  have  made  it  essen- 
tially different.  It  is  because  the  average  reader  has  been 
frightened  at  first  sight  and  knows  only  a  portion  of  the 
surface  of  Browning's  poetry,  that  the  poet's  name  has 
come  to  be  a  sort  of  catch-word  for  what  is  foggy.  That 
people  have  been  repelled  by  the  rough  outside  of  his  verse 
may  be  but  another  case  of  that  which  is  illustrated  by 
the  cathedral  window,  —  from  without  dark  and  blotchy, 
from  within  radiant  and  beautiful.  Master  the  poet's 
thought,  then  criticise  his  form,  not  vice  versa.  Study  a 
poet's  nature  and  his  time,  then  ask  if  his  art  is  a  natural 
conclusion  from  these  premises.  If  he  is  true  to  his  nature 
and  his  age,  he  will  write  poetry  that  is  true ;  if  he  and 
his  age  are  great,  his  verse  will  be  proportionally  broader 
and  profounder.  We  cannot  demand  more  of  a  poet  than 
that  he  be  the  truest  poet  of  his  generation  —  its  voice. 
Homer  was  only  this ;  Dante  was  no  more.  If  from  some 
position  aloof  from  all  time  you  look  down  upon  the  great 
poets  and  say  one  is  greater  than  another,  you  are  only 
passing  judgment  upon  the  world  at  the  time  in  which 
they  lived;  they  were  its  image,  its  microcosm,  — that  is 
all. 

Browning  is  a  theologian  with  a  genius  for  poetry.  By 
theologian  I  mean  a  man  who  asks  of  everything  in  life, 
"  What  is  your  effect  upon  that  eternal  thing,  the  human 
soul?"  and  assigns  values  altogether  from  the  human  soul 
as  a  centre.  Dante,  rather  than  Jonathan  Edwards,  is  a 
typical  theologian  as  I  use  the  word.  The  most  inquiring 
minds  the  world  has  produced  have  recognised  in  the  uni- 
verse three  distinct  phases  of  life,  —  the  spiritual,  the 
human,  the  material,  manifested  in  God,  man,  and  nature. 
Man  receives  influences  from  a  spiritual  source  that  he 
cannot  see,  and  from  a  material  source  that  he  can  see, 
while  he  himself  combines  spirit  and  matter.  All  along 
men  have  tried  to  simplify  the  relations  of  man  to  what  is 
outside  himself,  by  ignoring  one  of  the  three  factors. 


44  BOSTON   BEOWNESTG   SOCIETY   PAPEES. 

Some  have  declared  that  God  might  be  cancelled  from  the 
problem,  and  have  then  dealt  with  man  and  nature. 
Others  engross  man  and  nature  under  one  law.  In  some 
way  or  other,  the  philosophic  mind  has,'  like  the  shrewd 
Horatius,  reduced  his  three  antagonists  to  one,  then  quickly 
despatched  them,  and  proclaimed  his  victory  an  explana- 
tion of  the  relations  of  life.  Browning,  however,  has 
not  tampered  with  the  problem,  but  has  honestly  tried  to 
answer  the  question  as  it  was  given  him  ;  this  is  my  reason 
for  calling  him  a  theologian. 

His  theology  accepts  human  nature,  and  does  not  say 
that  any  power  possessed  by  man  should  be  crushed  out  of 
him.  The  monk  subduing  the  flesh  by  the  scourge  is  a 
picture  hateful  to  it.  This  theology  tells  the  soul  to 
nil  "h^nnty  nrrl  nsf  thQ  nniyfrpft  b^aiififi  it  i 


Trujjig     in     atarnify.       But     the     SOul     JS     not    nourished    by 

beauty  alone:  it  is  enlarged  by  knowledge  ;  it  is  strength- 
ened  by  accepting  hard  tasks  ;  it  is  purified  by  self-sacrifice, 
which  is  the  essence  of  love,  and  so  grows  towards  God. 
The  judgment  day,  that  mediaeval  bugbear,  "  is  not  a  crisis 
at  the  end  of  life  here  ;  a  man  is  judged  in  every  act  as  the 
soul  grows  strong  or  weak  by  its  choices  ;  the  judgment  is 
a  process,  not  a  special  scene  after  death.  Life  moves  on 
ceaselessly,  death  is  no  barrier.  Such  are  some  marks  of 
Browning's  theology. 

Milton  discusses  seventeenth  century  theology  and  prob- 
lems of  government  in  epic  poems^.  Browning  treats  nine- 
teenth century  theology  in  monologue,  a  form  which  he 
has  unearthed  from  the  Middle  Ages  and  developed  into 
something  with  as  distinct  advantages  as  the  lyric,  drama, 
or  epic.  Although  Browning  has  written  many  excellent 
dramas,  in  which  he  has  been  truer  to  classic  definitions 
than  most  English  poets,  yet  this  species  of  composition  is 
not  congenial  to  his  genius,  just  as  it  is  not  congenial  to 
the  spirit  of  the  times.  As  has  been  seen,  the  poet  to-day 
must  give  a  running  commentary  on  the  truth  his  verse 


BROWNING'S  ART  IN  MONOLOGUE.  45 

embodies;  he  must  expose  it  to  many  cross-lights  to  bring 
out  all  its  beauties  before  untrained  eyes ;  he  must  inter- 
pret his  fact  by  a  multitude  of  analogies,  that  it  may  be 
readily  received  by  minds  not  so  severely  trained  as  the 
Greek,  who  could  see  the  curve  in  the  apparently  straight 
lines  of  the  Parthenon.  In  modern  or  ancient  drama,  since 
the  main  interest  is  in  the  action,  any  kind  of  comment 
obscures  the  movement  of  the  plot.  We  frequently  find 
this  fault  in  Shakespeare ;  a  profusion  of  imagery  hinders 
the  progress  of  events.  Therefore  the  drama  is  not  the 
best  medium  for  the  thought  of  a  modern  poet,  and  the 
fact  that  Milton's  epics  are  so  little  read  may  sufficiently 
condemn  the  epic  mould  for  the  purposes  of  to-day. 

The/  form  Browning  chose  we  have  called  the  mono- 
logue.    Hamlet's  soliloquy,  if  put  out  by  itself  as  a  com- 
plete poem,  and  if  there  were  no  play  of  '  Hamlet, '  would 
be  an  example  of  this  form.     It  must  be  very  inartistic, 
one  thinks,    to  make  a  poem   consist  of   nothing   but  a 
soliloquy,  yet  there  are  analogies  in  received  forms.     The 
sonnet  is  practically  a  soliloquy  of  fourteen  lines,  subject 
to  definite  rules.     No  one  in  particular  is  addressed  in  a 
sonnet,  not  even  the  Muse.     The  poet  is  talking  to  him- 
self.    The   lyrical   and  personal  qualities  of   the  sonnet 
without  the  rigid  rules  is  the  spirit  of  monologue.     There 
is  a  form  of  sonnet  made  up  of  dialogue.     One   person 
speaks  in  the  odd  lines;  a  second  answers  in  the  even 
lines.     Action,  therefore,  can  go  on  in  a  sonnet,  and  not 
merely   be   described.     In  a  ballad,   action  is  still  more 
possible,   as  we   see  in  'Chevy-Chase'    or  'The   Ancient      < 
Mariner.'     Action  and  description  find  a  natural  vehicle A_ 
in   lyric   poetry,    a   kind   of  verse   suited   for  subjectiv£v 
impressions  rather  than  objective  reproduction.     Browning 
has  tried  to  find  a  form  of  lyric  poetry  ^njvhich  action  and; 
description  would  exist  most  happily  side  by  side.     As  any 
artist  Browning's  work  has  been  to  discover  and  develop 
the  possibilities  in  monologue.     When  we  put  aside  his 


46  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

dramas  and  examine  his  poetry  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
monologue,  we  see  in  all  that  he  has  done  a  unity.  In 
J'  Paracelsus '  and  'Sordello'  he  was  experimenting  with 
his  materials;  in  'The  Ring  and  the  Book'  he  mastered 
them.  A  student  of  Browning  can  best  comprehend  his 
art  through  these  three  poems. 

Perhaps,  in  the  true  spirit  of  Browning,  I  attach  too 
much  importance  to  my  figure  of  the  Taj,  with  its  two 
gateways.  Still  I  think  we  had  better  keep  it  in  mind  as 
we  study  the  poet's  masterpiece,  where  Pompilia  rests, 
and  the  two  earlier  poems,  in  workmanship  tentative  and 
introductory.  Yet  after  I  ask  you  to  accept  my  image  I 
must  risk  marring  it.  It  must  be  acknowledged  that 
'Paracelsus  '  is  not  Browning's  first  poem,  nor  is  it  to  the 
eye  a  monologue.  However,  no  harm  is  done  to  our  first 
gateway;  at  most  it  is  only  given  a  double  arch. 

'Pauline,'  the  first  weak  child  of  our  poet's  muse,  was 
exposed  upon  the  barren  hillside  of  public  neglect.  It 
was  rescued  and  deposited  in  the  British  Museum.  An 
accident  compelled  its  author  late  in  life  to  acknowledge 
it.  'Paracelsus,'  which  takes  up  pretty  much  the  same 
subject,  is  counted  as  his  first  work  by  the  poet,  and  is 
accepted  as  such  by  the  public.  Secondly,  although  to 
the  eye  a  page  of  'Paracelsus  '  looks  like  a  dialogue,  it  is 
not.  There  are  a  number  of  speakers  —  Festus,  Aprile, 
Michal  —  but  they  do  not  help  the  action.  They  merely 
give  Paracelsus  an  occasional  breathing  space,  or  jog  his 
memory  when  his  mind  wanders.  Therefore,  when  we 
start  upon  a  study  of  Browning's  art  in  monologue  with 
'Paracelsus,'  we  are  really  doing  what  he  would  ask  us 
to  do.  Still,  a  few  points  in  the  style  of  both  poems  are 
more  easily  studied  in  the  earlier  one  where  a  less  finished 
art  fails  to  hide  the  machinery. 

'Pauline,'  a  fragment  of  a  confession,  is  a  monologue 
in  blank  verse  of  about  a  thousand  lines.  The  speaker  is 
at  the  point  of  death,  though  presumably  young,  and  talks 


BROWNING'S  ART  IN  MONOLOGUE.  47 

to  Pauline,  the  woman  he  loves.  He  reviews  his  life,  and 
discusses  the  points  in  its  development  and  the  causes  of 
his  mistakes.  He  has  heen  pulled  in  two  different 
directions. 

I  would  have  one  joy, 
But  one  in  life,  so  it  were  wholly  mine, 
One  rapture  all  my  soul  could  fill 

On  the  other  hand  wisdom  attracts  him. 

This  restlessness  of  passion  meets  in  me 

A  craving  after  knowledge    .    .    . 

The  sleepless  harpy  with  just  budding  wings. 

His  position  is  a  variation  of  the  choice  of  Hercules, 
Venus  contending  with  Minerva  for  the  possession  of  a 
soul.  He  vacillates,  and  in  his  weakness  secures  the  help 
of  neither  goddess.  As  we  see  him  lying  there  talking  to 
Pauline,  we  imagine  that  Fannie  Brawne  has  come  to  that 
lonely  room  in  Rome  where  Keats  lies  in  his  fatal  sickness, 
and  that  at  last  she  listens  weeping,  perhaps,  as  the  poet 
goes  over  his  whole  life,  pours  out  his  soul  to  her  for  the 
last  time. 

Indeed,  the  influence  of  Keats  is  very  perceptible  in 
'Pauline;'  yet  there  is  also  an  intellectual  element,  a 
disposition  to  weigh  the  value  of  tilings,  wholly  alien  to 
Keats.  The  thoughtful  vein  in  the  poem  reminds  us  of 
Shelley;  and  'Alastor,'  both  in  form  and  spirit,  may 
easily  have  been  the  poetic  father  of  Browning's  first 
poem.  Browning  admired  Shelley  most  of  modern  poets, 
and  the  following  lines  hi  the  poem  we  are  examining  no 

doubt  refer  to  him :  —  -'•  »  ?' 

And  my  choice  fell 
Not  so  much  on  a  system  as  a  man  — 
On  one,  whom  praise  of  mine  shall  not  offend, 
Who  was  as  calm  as  beauty,  being  such 
Unto  mankind  as  thon  to  me,  Pauline. 

Although  life  has  perplexed  Pauline's  lover,  and  he 
has  not  known  which  to  choose,  beauty  or  knowledge, 


48  BOSTON  BROWNING  SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

now  at  last  by  the  light  of  love  he  will  see  things  more 
clearly,  — 

For  I    .    .    . 

Shall  doubt  not  many  another  bliss  awaits 

As  I  again  go  o'er  the  tracts  of  thought. 

And  beauteous  shapes  will  come  for  me  to  seize, 
And  unknown  secrets  will  be  trusted  me 
Which  were  denied  the  waverer. 

In  'Pauline,'  Browning  shows  that  as  an  artist,  he  is 
not  as  yet  self-centred ;  there  are  too  many  marks  of  Keats 
and  Shelley.  Nevertheless,  he  is  struggling  towards  a 

\natural  expression.     He  did  not  reach  his  poetic  majority 
luntil  'Paracelsus.'     He  neglects  to  fix  the  scene  of  the 
\lconfession,  which  shows  how  early  he  despised  what  did 
"not,  to  his  mind,  help  the  reader's  study  of  a  soul.     Such 
vagueness  we  should  expect  in  Shelley.     On  the  other 
hand,  the  opening  lines  of  the  poem  are  quite  in  the  style 
of  Keats,  — 

Pauline,  mine  own,  bend  o'er  me  —  thy  soft  breast 
Shall  pant  to  mine —  bend  o'er  me  —  thy  sweet  eyes, 
And  loosened  hair,  etc. 


But  the  glow  of  sensuousness  in  the  beginning  of  the  poe 
soon  pales  away  into  cold,  intellectual  talk  about  beau 
and  knowledge. 

Browning  perceived  his  tendency  toward  coldness  and 
monotony,  and  tried  to  lighten  the  burden  of  his  readers  by 
introducing  two  episodes,  —  one  a  description  of  Andromeda 
and  the  Dragon ;  the  other  a  picture  of  an  ideal  abode  for 
lovers  tliat  reminds  us  of  Claude  Melnotte's  home  on  Lake 
Como.  To  help  the  verse  bear  off  with  greater  trip- 
pingness  a  subject  that  inclined  to  meditative  slowness, 
frequent  epigrams  are  used.  There  are  more  lines  in 
'Pauline '  that  look  as  if  framed  to  be  quoted  than  in  all 
the  rest  of  Browning's  poetry.  Most  of  these  ornaments 
are  short,  a  line  or  two.  I  will  venture  to  quote  one 


: 


BROWNING'S   ART   IN   MONOLOGUE.  49 

rather  longer  than  the  rest.  Autumn  stands  before  us  as 
she  might  look  in  a  painting  by  Rossetti. 

Autumn  has  come  like  spring  returned  to  us, 
Won  from  her  girlishness ;  like  one  returned 
A  friend  that  was  a  lover,  nor  forgets 
The  first  warm  love,  but  full  of  sober  thoughts 
Of  fading  years ;  whose  soft  mouth  quivers  yet 
With  the  old  smile,  but  yet  so  changed  and  still ! 

In  the  later  works  there  is  almost  an  entire  absence  of 
passages  that  lend  themselves  readily  to  quotation.  A 
good  thought  or  a  happy  analogy  is  left  to  take  care  of 
itself,  and  is  not  helped,  by  roundness  of  period  or  gram- 
matical construction,  to  stand  out  brighter  than  its  fellows. 
The  choicest  passages  in  a  poem  may  begin  and  end  any- 
where in  a  line,  and  fall  in  any  person,  number,  or  tense. 
Instead  of  being  easily  detached,  they  are  embedded  well- 
nigh  inextricably  in  the  whole.  Turn  with  me  to  the 
second  arch  of  our  first  gateway. 

^aracelsus'  consists  of  some  four  thousand  lines  of 
blank  verse,  broken  by  a  number  of  songs.  In  form  a 
dialogue  between  JParacels  us,  Festus,  Aprile,  and  Michal, 
itls^really  a  monologue.  Says  the  author:  — 

"  It  is  an  attempt,  probably  more  novel  than  happy,  to  re- 
verseithemethodusuallya^  it  is  to 
set  forth  any  phenomena  of  the  mind  or  the  passions  by  the 
operation  of  persons  and  events ;  and  that,  instead  of  having 
recourse  to  an  external  machinery  of  incidents  to  create  and  \  f 
evolve  the  crisis  I  desire  to  produce,  I  have  ventured  to^isplay  fi 
somewhat  minutely  the  /mood  itself  in  its  rise  and  progress^  and  I; 
have  suffered  the  agency  by  which  it  is  influenced  and  deter- 
mined, to  be  generally  discernible   in   its  effects   alone,   and 
subordinate  throughout,  if  not  altogether  excluded ;  and  this 
for  a  reason.     I  have   endeavoured  to  write  a   poemT  not  a  ( 
dyama." 

The  poem  opens  in  the  year  1512  A.  D.     Onward  from 
that  date  the  friends  meet  four  or  five  times  before  the 
•  4 


50  BOSTON  BliOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

close  of  the  half  century,  and  on  these  occasions  Jaracelsus 
gives  a  narrative  of  what  has  befallen  him,  which,  with 
occasional  interruptions  from  the  others,  constitutes  the 
scenes. 

Paracelsus  would  grasp  all  knowledge  and  glorify  God 
by  shining  upon  men  like  a  star  of  wisdom.  Every 
pleasure,  every  reward  of  praise  or  love,  he  pushed  aside  ; 
his  goal  alone  can  attract  him.  He  despises  the  praise 
of  men,  and  shows  them  he  can  do  without  it  ;  they  in 
turn  hate  him.  He  laughs  at  their  enmity,  and  they 
denounce  him.  But  they  were  right  and  he  was  wrong. 
It  was  because  he  was  out  of  sympathy  with  them  that  he 
thought  them  such  contemptible  creatures.  When  they 
would  not  listen  to  his  cold,  loveless  visions,  he  stoops  to 


,  and  exchanges~the  power  of  superior  knowledge 
for  the  power  of  trickery.  He  attempts  to  hold  them  by 
using  like  a  magician  their  passions  and  superstitions  ;  but 
his  wiles  are  seen  through,  and  he  is  thrust  out  by  the 
popylace  as  a  charlatan. 

ffirst,  Paracelsus  learned  that  knowledge  must  go  hand 
irfi  hand  with  love.  Secondly,  that  a  soul  must  be  true  to 
its  own  highest  light,  and  never  stoop  to  use  a  mean 
instrument,  whether  it  gains  its  ambition  or  not.  Aprile, 
a  poet,  represents  the  voice  of  love  which  throughout  life 
called  constantly  to  Paracelsus,  but  to  which  he  was  deaf. 
Festus  stands  tor  faith  in  FaracelsusT  ljut  Paracelsus  lost 
faith  in  himself.  At  last,  however,  he  sees  what  a  mis- 
take  his  plan  of  life  had  been,  and  with  his  last  breath 
whispers,  — 

Festus,  let  my  hand  — 

This  hand,  lie  in  your  own,  my  own  true  friend  ! 

Aprile  !  hand  in  hand  with  you,  Aprile! 

Festus.    And  this  was  Paracelsus. 

The  author  did  right  to  define  a  work  as  a  poem  that  on 
tne  outside  looked  like  a  'drama.  Paracelsus'  cannot 
bejictea  because  it  has  no  action.  Its  force,  therefore,  is 


BROWNING'S  AET  IN  MONOLOGUE.  51 

best  felt  in  a  reading;  but  it  is  hard  reading.  No  one 
knows  whether  the  experience  of  Paracelsus  represents 
aright  the  soul's  growth  until  he  has  passed  through 
similar  experiences.  To  one  who  has  passed  through  like 
crises,  the  poem  is  a  twice-told  tale ;  he  knows  the  story 
and  its  lesson.  To  one  who  has  not  lived  such  a  life,  the 
crises  are  either  barely  intelligible,  —  that  is,  as  necessary 
steps  in  a  soul's  development,  —  or  in  comparison  with 
action,  they  are  but  slightly  interesting.  The  wisdom  of 
the  whole  could  be  contained  in  half  a  dozen  sonnets,  and 
in  that  form  would  stand  a  much  better  chance  than  at 
present  of  becoming  widely  known.  Throughout  a  poem 
as  long  as  all  of  the  Ovid  we  used  to  read  for  college,  it  is 
a  labour  to  keep  in  mind  the  intermediate  steps  of  progress 
from  knowing  to  loving,  —  a  capital  sonnet-subject,  by  the 
way. 

There  is  no  personal  attraction  about  any  of  the  charac- 
ters. Aprile  comes  in  with  a  catching  verse,  but  he  is 
too  much  of  an  abstraction  to  interest  us.  The  fact  that 
there  is  too  little  that  is  tangible  in  the  poem  points,  I 
think,  to  the  root  difficulty  in  that  species  of  verse  which 
describes  the  soul  without  much  reference  to  the  body. 
It  is  not  purely  objective  nor  subjective.  Held  up  to 
nature  it  is  monstrous  egotism.  And  suppose  Browning 
were  wrong  about  Paracelsus,  or  better,  suppose  a  soul 
does  not  develop  in  the  way  his  hero  does ;  in  that  case 
we  are  left  with  nothing,  —  neither  the  living,  acting 
person  of  drama,  whose  character  good  or  bad  we  unravel 
from  his  deeds,  nor  do  we  have  the  subjective  experience 
of  Browning  himself  when  on  some  occasion  he  has 
received  a  powerful  emotion. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  poem  a  need  of  cumulative 
effect  is  felt ;  but  there  is  no  action  to  be  got  out  of  such 
shades  as  Paracelsus  and  Festus.  The  poet  therefore 
allows  Paracelsus,  when  somewhat  delirious,  to  describe 
the  vigorous  scenes  his  uncontrolled  brain  is  fashioning. 


.'J  BOSTON   BROWNING  SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

The  result  is  striking,  but  weak  and  out  of  harmony  with 
the  rest. 

Besides  its  too  great  length  and  its  shadowy  characters, 
little  more  than  personifications,  there  is  another  fault,  the 
same  we  saw  in  '  Pauline, '  -  -  lack  of  warmth  and  move- 
ment. A  few  sweet  songs  break  the  monotony  of  this 
long  poem,  and  had  Browning  done  nothing  else  they 
would  give  him  a  place  in  English  anthologies.  We  are 
apt  to  think  of  Browning's  verse  as  rough  and  ragged, 
though,  perhaps,  like  the  weapon  of  Zeus  it  may  be  power- 
ful. Yet  where  can  we  find  more  melody  than  in  the 
following  lines,  which  breathe  the  same  spirit  as  the 
wonderful  lyrics  of  the  Elizabethan  age,  — 

Thus  the  Mayne  glideth 

Where  my  love  abideth. 

Sleep  'a  no  softer  :  it  proceeds 

On  through  lawns,  on  through  meads, 

On  and  on,  whate'er  befall, 

Meandering  and  musical. 

We  feel  the  pause  in  the  third  line,  as  if  the  stream  ran 
back  for  a  moment  upon  itself  in  an  eddy,  or  as  if  the 
dabbling  willow  branches  made  it  hard  pushing  for  an 
instant.  Then  on  it  hastens,  more  swiftly  after  its  stay, 
till  its  force  is  spent  where  the  meadows  lie  spread  out, 
and  the  channel  winds  in  great  curves.  Although  a 
matter-of-fact  person  might  declare  that  when  a  brook 
begins  to  meander  it  ceases  to  be  musical,  any  poet  would 
envy  the  music  of  the  lines.  While  Browning  has  culti- 
vated the  music  of  verse  less  perhaps  than  most  great 
poets,  he  has  nevertheless  t.hp  fapppfif,  ]oyP  far  fh?.  ^rt  of 
Orpheus.  His  treatment  of  music  in  *  Abt  Vogler *  and 
'A  Toccata  of  Galuppi,'  must  convince  one  that  he  had 
an  ear  and  soul  appealed  to  by  melodious  sounds, — 

I  would   upply  ail  chasms  with  music,  breathing 
Mysterious  notions  of  the  soul,  no  way 
To  be  defined  save  in  strange  melodies. 


BROWNING'S   ART  IN  MONOLOGUE.  53 

I  would  like  to  transcribe  all  the  lyrics  in  'Paracelsus,' 
which  sound  like  birds'  songs  in  a  thick  wood,  especially 
the  most  beautiful  and  longest  one,  beginning,  '  Over  the 
sea  our  galley  went,'  which  is  in  Browning's  best  mature 
style.  But  I  will  content  myself  with  a  shorter  selection, 
one  that  displays  the  poet's  varied  inforrnatiifh  framed  in 
quaint  beauty. 

Heap  cassia,  sandal-bads  and  stripes 

Of  labdanum  aiid  aloe-balls, 
Smeared  with  dull  nard  an  Indian  wipes 

From  out  her  hair  :  such  balsam  falls 

Down  sea  side  mountain  pedestals, 
From  tree-tops  where  tired  winds  are  fain, 
Spent  with  the  vast  and  howling  main, 
To  treasure  half  their  island-gain. 

And  strew  faint  sweetness  from  some  old 

Egyptian's  fine  worm-eaten  shroud 
Which  breaks  to  dust  when  once  unrolled ; 

Or  shredded  perfume,  like  a  cloud 

From  closet  long  to  quiet  vowed, 
With  mothed  and  dropping  arras  hung, 
Mouldering  her  lute  and  books  among, 
As  when  a  queen,  long  dead,  was  young. 

The  second  gateway  in  our  approach  to  Browning's 
masterpiece  is  'Sordello,  *  an  historical  poem  of  about  six 
thousand  lines,  in  five  measure  iambic  metre  with  couplet 
rhymes.  In  a  thirteenth  century  troubadour,  Browning 
has  found  a  type  of  the  artist  who,  with  great  natural 
gifts  and  the  wish  to  put  knowledge  as  well  as  emotion 
into  his  work,  is  confused  by  the  events  of  life,  and  dies 
without  accomplishing  anything.  The  early  sensuousness 
of  his  verse  turns  into  seriousness,  and  his  audience 
deserts  him.  He  is  not  self-centred  enough  to  work  out 
his  own  nature  in  spite  of  circumstances ;  he  is  controlled 
from  without.  The  Guelf  and  Ghibelline  wars  are  trans- 
forming the  beautiful  Italian  cities  into  shambles.  Sordello 
feels  deep  sympathy  with  the  people,  and  is  stimulated  to 
act,  but  loses  his  own  identity  by  exchanging  the  deeds 


54:  BOSTON    BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

of  verse  for  those  of  arms.  His  power  consequently  is 
dissipated,  and  his  slight  accomplishment  is,  practically, 
failure.  Although  incapable  of  action,  he  can  make  a 
right  choice.  When  he  discovers  that  he  is  the  son  of 
Salinguerra,  the  most  famous  Ghibelline  soldier,  he  will 
not  accept  the  imperial  badge,  which  to  him  meant 
(wrongly,  I  think)  desertion  of  the  people,  but  tramples  it 
underfoot,  and  in  the  act  dies.  This  unfortunate  poet  is 
certainly  cousin-german  to  Pauline's  lover. 

As  a  narrative  of  events,  the  poem  is- upon  a  first  reading 
unintelligible.  Indeed,  a  friendly  hand  writes,  "it  is  one 
of  the  most  incomprehensible  in  all  literature."  A  minute 
knowledge  of  a  most  difficult  piece  of  history  —  the  Italian 
cities  in  the  later  Middle  Ages  —  is  presumed.  Yet  did  a 
reader  possess  this  knowledge,  he  would  be  perplexed  by 
the  way  in  which  fictitious  characters  are  mixed  up  with 
historical  ones,  and  he  would  share  the  misery  of  an 
unlearned  reader  in  being  utterly  unable  to  keep  the 
thread  of  the  story  clearly  before  his  mind.  The  narrative 
goes  backward  and  forward  until  a  web  is  woven,  from 
which  the  reader  cannot  extricate  himself  without  help. 

When  Browning  set  about  'Sordello, '  he  had  learned 
that  monologue  —  the  recitation  of  an  event  by  the  actor 
—  was  tiresome.  Even  given  the  specious  appearance  of 
dialogue,  as  in  'Paracelsus,'  the  effect  was  the  same.  He 
changed  the  mould  somewhat  in  'Sordello,'  which  is  a 
monologue  delivered  in  the  third  person.  The  qualities  ofN 
the  verse  were  the  same,  and  the  ideas  to  be  brought  ont 
were  the  same  as  in  Browning's  previous  work.  "The 
historical  decoration  was  purposely  of  no  more  importance 
than  a  background  requires,  and  my  stress  lay  on  the  inci- 
dents in  the  development  of  a  soul."  The  only  new 
factors  in  this  poem  are  mechanical  ones. 

I  called  attention  to  a  method  by  which  Browning  gave 
the  closing  scene  in  'Paracelsus '  a  good  deal  of  life. 
The  device  was  to  have  Paracelsus  describe  a  dream.  A 


BROWNING'S  AKT  IN  MONOLOGUE.      55 

description  of  an  event  by  a  third  person  has  advantages ; 
it  can  tell  us  about  people  who  do  not  act,  yet  put  action 
into  the  recital.  If,  on  the  contrary,  inactive  people  were 
allowed  to  work  out  their  own  lives  as  in  a  drama,  or  were 
set  about  describing  their  lives  which,  when  performance  is 
concerned,  have  been  typical  failures,  no  action  could  be 
expected.  If  anybody  else  had  written  'Sordello'  I 
should  call  it  a  narrative  poem.  Since  in  Browning's 
hands  we  recognize  the  poem  to  be  a  new  study  along  the 
line  of  monologue,  I  would  rather  think  of  it  as  a  mono- 
logue in  the  third  person. 

The  quality  that  Browning  wished  to  give  the  verse  he 
succeeded  in  giving  it.  Though  the  historical  tangle 
makes  'Sordello  '  hard  reading,  yet  the  poem  has  brilliancy 
and  in  pa^ts  action,  though  the  onward  movement  is 
obscure.  Indeed,  it  is  very  much  like  the  man  in  panto- 
mime, who  makes 'all  the  gestures  necessary  for  a  vigorous 
progress,  but  does  not  gain  ground,  only  beckons  at  the 
distance. 

The  means  by  which  he  rescued  his  story  from  being 
wearisome,  however,  is  not  the  most  important  discovery 
that  Browning  shows  us  in  'Sordello,'  for  he  uses  mono- 
logue in  the  third  person  very  rarely  afterward.  The 
great  discovery  the  poet  made,  which  must  have  rejoiced 
him  as  Cortez  rejoiced 

when  with  eagle  eyes 
He  star'd  at  the  Pacific  —  and  all  his  men 
Look'd  at  each  other  with  a  wild  surmise  — 
Silent,  upon  a  peak  in  Darien, 

was  Italy,  which  he  beheld  from  the  Alpine  heights  of  his 
former  verse.  Browning's  theological  mind  expressed  in 
monologue  had  a  tendency  to  syllogistic  nakedness.  His 
lofty  thought  was  as  cold  as  it  is  said  the  spaces  are 
between  the  stars.  In  Italy  he  found  not  only  a  gorgeous 
background  for  his  ideas,  but  men  and  women  of  rich 
natures  to  put  upon  his  stage.  I  cannot  conceive  what 


56  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

he  would  have  become  as  a  literary  workman,  had  he  not 
made  the  discovery  to  which  I  call  attention.  More  meta- 
physical and  more  learned  than  any  poet  of  the  century, 
many  dangers  lay  in  his  way.  A  keener  observer,  but 
with  less  fancy  than  Shelley,  his  philosophy  must  have 
found  another  means  of  expression  from  that  his  predeces- 
sor's bewildering  Muse  displayed.  Without  a  disposition 
to  repose  in  simple  nature  like  Wordsworth,  Browning 
could  not  have  followed  along  the  path  of  the  'Excur- 
sion.' It  may  be  unprofitable  to  discuss  such  hypothetical 
questions,  but  as  far  as  we  can  see,  it  was  Italy  that  saved 
Robert  Browning  the  poet.  Otherwise  his  learning  and 
his  complex  knowledge  of  the  soul  must  have  produced 
the  most  pedantic  and  mystic  verse  imaginable.  Such  a 
catastrophe,  however,  we  have  been  spared,  and  in  view 
of  what  the  discovery  of  Italy  was  to  Browning  and  to 
English  poetry,  one  is  tempted  to  see  a  poetic  justice  in 
the  fact  that  in  Italy  Browning's  wife  is  buried. 

When  once  his  Muse  had  found  that  sunny  land,  she 
rarely  left  it.  The  scenes  of  his  greatest  works  are  laid 
there,  —  his  masterpiece,  '  The  Ring  and  the  Book,' 
'  Luria,'  '  Pippa  Passes,'  his  finest  idyl  or  mask  (to  give 
it  a  name),  besides  a  host  of  lyrics  and  other  pieces.  Italy 
is  the  studio  of  Browning's  art. 

We  have  seen  how  Browning  took  up  monologue,  as 
Hamlet  takes  a  bunch  of  rapiers,  tests  one  or  two  forms, 
sees  imperfections  in  them,  and  rejects  them.  At  last  we 
saw  him  grasp  the  particular  form  that  was  best  suited  to 
his  genius.  In  '  The  Ring  and  the  Book '  he  found  the 
broadest  scope  for  his  thought,  and  a  form  adapted  to 
his  nature.  Let  us  close  our  study  of  the  development  of 
his  art  with  a  brief  examination  of  his  masterpiece. 

'  The  Ring  and  the  Book '  is  a  poem  in  blank  verse  of 
a  little  over  twenty  thousand  lines,  and  consists  of  twelve 
parts.  In  the  first  part  the  plot  is  told  by  the  poet,  and 
the  incident  that  brought  the  story  to  his  knowledge.  A 


BROWNING'S  ART  IN  MONOLOGUE.  67 

manuscript  volume  of  law  briefs,  and  letters  picked  up  at 
a  book-stall  in  Florence,  is  the  "  book  "  of  the  title.  The 
"  ring "  is  a  fancy  of  the  poet's.  When  an  Etruscan 
jeweller  wished  to  make  a  ring  of  the  purest  possible  gold, 
he  mixed  the  precious  metal  with  an  alloy.  The  substance 
is  then  "  a  manageable  mass."  After  he  has  formed  and 
cut  the  ring  to  his  wish,  he  removes  with  an  acid  the 
alloy,  — 

self-sufficient  now,  the  shape  remains, 
The  rondure  brave,  the  lilied  loveliness, 
Gold  as  it  was,  is,  shall  be  ever  more ; 
Prime  nature  with  an  added  artistry  — 
No  carat  lost,  and  you  have  gained  a  ring. 

The  poet  compares  himself  to  the  goldsmith;  all  the 
fancy  and  "  artistry  "  of  the  verse  to  the  serviceable  alloy 
which  will  evaporate  when  once  the  story,  pure  gold,  is 
fixed  in  the  reader's  mind.  Each  of  the  eleven  remaining 
books,  except  the  last,  is  given  up  to  an  actor  in  the 
events  narrated,  who  rehearses  the  whole  story  from  the 
side  of  his  personal  experience. 

At  Rome,  on  Christmas  night,  in  1697,  a  horrible 
murder  was  committed.  '  The  Ring  and  the  Book '  is  a 
history  of  the  trial. 

An  old  couple  of  some  property,  but  of  no  social  impor- 
tance, give  their  daughter,  Pompilia,  a  girl  of  thirteen,  to 
Count  Guido  Franceschini.  The  Count,  for  his  part,  sup- 
plied an  ancient  name  and  a  ruined  fortune.  He  had 
spent  his  life  in  the  household  of  a  cardinal,  and  at  fifty 
discovers  that  he  is  still  on  the  bottom  round  of  the  ladder 
to  success.  The  parents  of  Pompilia,  Pietro  and  Violante, 
go  with  their  daughter  to  the  estate  of  Guido  in  Arezzo, 
for  he  is  now  master  of  their  property.  Life  there  is  soon 
made  intolerable  for  the  old  people,  and  they  return  to 
Rome.  Once  home  they  spread  the  report  that  Pompilia 
is  not  their  daughter,  but  a  child  from  the  dregs  of  the 
city.  The  story  is  terrible  but  true.  Violante,  to  please 


58  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

her  husband,  and  to  secure  the  descent  of  some  property, 
had  pretended  to  give  birth  to  a  child  that  in  fact  she 
had  received  from  a  brother.  Pietro  had  been  as  much 
deceived  as  his  neighbors.  A  lawsuit  followed  the  dis- 
closure, in  which  the  old  people  try  to  recover  Pompilia's 
dowry.  The  poor  child,  left  to  the  mercy  of  the  Count, 
has  a  miserable  existence.  When  Guido  sees  the  aversion 
which  Pompilia  has  for  him,  he  hates  her,  and  would 
willingly  get  rid  of  her,  if  he  could  do  it  without  losing 
the  dowry.  After  four  years  of  torture,  she  can  endure 
her  position  no  longer,  and  to  save  her  own  soul  as  well  as 
the  life  of  a  child  soon  to  be  born,  she  flies  to  Rome  with 
a  young  Canon,  Giuseppe  Caponsacchi.  They  are  over- 
taken on  the  way  by  Guido,  and  are  placed  in  custody. 
A  trial  of  the  case  relegated  the  priest  to  an  out-of-the- 
way  village,  sent  Pompilia  into  the  Convent  for  Penitents, 
and  allowed  the  Count  to  return  to  Arezzo.  After  a  time 
Pompilia  is  permitted  to  dwell  in  the  house  of  Pietro  and 
Violante,  who  still  love  her,  and  there  her  son  is  born. 
On  getting  news  of  this,  Guido  takes  four  country  lads, 
and  plunges  on  to  Rome,  breaks  in  upon  the  family  of  his 
father-in-law  and  murders  Pietro,  Violante,  and  Pompilia. 
The  murderers  flee  blindly  from  the  city,  but  are  found  in 
their  bloody  clothes  asleep  in  a  barn,  where  they  had 
flung  themselves,  overcome  with  fatigue.  In  spite  of  a 
multitude  of  wounds,  Pompilia  lives  a  few  days,  and  tells 
the  story  of  her  life  to  a  monk.  The  murderers  are 
brought  to  trial,  and  from  the  court  the  case  is  sent  up  to 
the  Pope,  for  it  was  supposed  that  inasmuch  as  the  Count 
belonged  to  one  of  the  lower  orders  of  priesthood,  and 
came  from  a  distinguished  family,  the  papal  decision 
would  release  the  prisoners.  This  hope,  however,  was 
disappointed:  the  five  murderers  were  put  to  death. 

"A  disgusting  story  from  beginning  to  end,"  you  will 
say.  And  truly  the  facts  of  the  case  have  a  disreputable 
look.  "  There  is  foul  sin  enough  in  the  atmosphere  of 


BROWNING'S  ART  IN  MONOLOGUE.  59 

Pompilia's  birthplace.  There  is  added  the  trick  of  Violante 
by  which  she  deceives  her  husband.  Next  you  heap  up  a 
mercenary  marriage,  —  an  innocent  child  of  thirteen  is 
forced  to  marry  a  brute  of  fifty ;  the  flight  of  a  wife  in 
company  with  a  priest;  then  the  murder  of  three  people, 
and  the  execution  of  five  men.  One  would  rather  pass, 
holding  his  breath,  such  a  festering  heap ;  but  you  ask  me 
to  take  it  into  my  system  under  the  name  of  poetry."  A 
reader  inclined  to  argue  in  such  a  fashion  could  make  out 
a  strong  case  against  Browning.  But  when  you  look  at 
the  facts,  you  will  see  that  within  their  limits  can  be 
naturally  discussed  most  of  the  questions  that  interest 
modern  society.  In  that  possibility  lay  the  value  of  the 
subject  to  Browning. 

*  The  Ring  and  the  Book  '  is  a  work  of  art  of  beautiful 
design  which  holds  not  only  wise  thoughts  about  life,  and 
a  great  play  of  fancy,  but  a  new  creation  to  take  place 
among  the  immortals,  —  Desdemona,  Ophelia,  and  their 
sisters.  We  can  imagine  Browning's  great  poem  has  this 
inscription  —  To  Pompilia. 

Although  Browning  has  let  so  many  men  and  women 
speak  in  his  verse,  we  feel  acquainted  with  few  of  them. 
We  smile,  perhaps,  as  we  think  of  Bishop  Blougram  with 
his  cut  and  dried  views  of  his  office  and  his  stout  argu- 
mentative armour;  he  is,  indeed,  real  to  us.  Fra  Lippo 
Lippi  is  pretty  distinct,  with  the  watchmen  "  fiddling  "  at 
his  throat,  and  Pippa,  too,  with  her  song  influencing  so 
many  lives  as  she  passes  along.  Lucullus  would  approve 
the  few  and  select  guests  at  a  symposium  of  Browning's 
creations.  Perhaps  the  list  could  be  enlarged.  Even  a 
dinner-party  after  Byron's  taste  might  be  arranged  "in 
number  equal  to  the  Muses ; "  but  no  immortal  like 
Hamlet  or  Lear  among  the  number,  unless  we  ask  Pompilia. 
Many  of  Browning's  men  and  women  are  abstractions, 
their  names  stand  merely  for  ideas ;  but  Pompilia  is  real. 
As  Guide's  hooked  dagger  proved,  she  is  flesh  and  blood. 


60  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Springing  up  out  of  the  mud,  and  resting  upon  dark 
waters,  she  is  indeed  "lilied  loveliness."  She  grew  up 
more  a  flower  than  a  human  being.  No  one  taught  her 
anything.  When  her  husband  in  his  villainy  showed  the 
court  letters  full  of  warm  love  which  he  said  she  had 
written  to  Capcnsacchi,  she  could  simply  say  that  she 
knew  neither  how  to  read  nor  how  to  write.  She  is  not 
like  the  girls  Roman  art  students  paint,  —  blank-looking 
peasants  with  no  soul  in  their  faces.  Pompilia  is  a 
"woman -child,"  who  on  her  death-bed  could  give  right 
answers  to  most  of  the  questions  that  make  life  perplexing. 

Marriage-making  for  the  earth, 
With  gold  so  much,  —  birth,  power,  repute  so  much, 
Or  beauty,  youth  so  much,  in  lack  of  these ! 
Be  as  the  angels  rather,  who,  apart 
Know  themselves  into  one,  are  found  at  length 
Married,  but  marry  never,  no,  nor  give 
In  marriage  ;  they  are  man  and  wife  at  once 
When  the  true  time  is :  here  we  have  to  wait. 

Hear  her  talking  to  Caponsacchi,  the  young  Canon,  as 
they  are  whirled  along  in  a  carriage  towards  Rome. 

Tell  me,  are  men  unhappy,  in  some  kind 
Of  mere  unhappiness  at  being  men, 
As  women  suffer,  being  womanish  ? 

It  hurts  us  if  a  baby  hides  its  face 
Or  child  strikes  at  us  punily,  — 

And  strength  may  have  its  drawback,  weakness  "scapes. 

If  a  soul  meets  nobly  the  experiences  of  life,  it  will 
develop  into  loveliness  without  the  aid  of  knowledge  or 
"the  humanities;"  at  least  such  is  the  poet's  thought  as 
represented  in  Pompilia. 

It  was  not  given  Pompilia  to  know  much, 

Speak  much,  to  write  a  book,  to  move  mankind, 

Be  memorised  by  who  records  my  time. 

Yet  if  in  purity  and  patience,  if 

In  faith  held  fast  despite  the  plucking  fiend 


BROWNING'S  ART  IN  MONOLOGUE.  61 

.    If  in  right  returned 
For  wrong,  most  pardon  for  worst  injury, 
If  there  be  any  virtue,  any  praise,  — 

Then  will  this  woman-child  have  proved  —  who  knows  ?  — 
Just  the  one  prize  vouchsafed  unworthy  me, 
Seven  years  a  gardener  of  the  untoward  ground 
I  till.  ' 

So  speaks  the   Pope. 

Caponsacchi,  Pompilia's  deliverer,  stands  before  us  like 
another  Theseus.  We  admire  him,  and  see  the  progress 
he  made  in  understanding  life  through  the  strange,  sad 
part  he  played.  Yet  in  a  way  he  is  a  special  study  of  a 
young  Italian  priest  of  the  seventeenth  century.  He 
appreciates  Poinpilia ;  that  is  his  greatest  recommendation. 
His  feeling  for  her  is  reverence  like  that  he  has  for  the 
Holy  Virgin  in  the  chancel  of  his  cathedral. 

Yon  know  this  is  not  love,  Sirs,  —  it  is  faith, 
The  feeling  that  there  's  God,  he  reigns  and  rules 
Out  of  this  low  world  ;  that  is  all ;  no  harm ! 

He  is  brave,  he  is  pure;  but  as  a  poetic  creature  he 
lacks  the  charm  that  Pompilia  has  for  us.  He  learned 
that  God  is  served  not  alone  by  administering  the  offices 
of  the  church,  by  writing  verses  for  a  pagan  bishop,  or  by 
keeping  his  services  to  his  fellows  within  conventional 
limits.  He  discovered  he  served  God  more  truly  when  he 
had  the  courage  to  see  that  Pompilia  needed  his  aid,  and 
when  he  did  not  withhold  his  hand. 

As  for  Count  Guido,  he  is  a  thorough  villain,  yet  with 
so  good  an  excuse  for  himself  that  when  he  described  to 
the  court  his  views  of  life,  some  of  the  judges  must  have 
shifted  uneasily  in  their  chairs  at  seeing  how  like  were 
their  own  ideas  to  those  of  a  murderer.  For  the  rub  was 
that  Guido  defended  himself  by  syllogisms,  the  premises 
of  which  were  every-day  maxims  in  society.  There  was 
no  doubt  about  the  soundness  of  the  premises,  but  the 
conclusions  drawn  from  them  were  altogether  untrust- 
worthy. 


62  BOSTON  BROWNING  SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

"  Honor  is  a  thing  of  value,  for  if  I  have  it  any  one 
connected  with  me  is  benefited."  "Certainly,"  replied 
the  world,  "  all  hereditary  nobility,  all  patrician  power  is 
founded  upon  that  fact."  "Then  if  I  share  this  valuable 
possession  with  somebody,  and  for  value  received  he  gives 
into  my  hands  money,  is  there  anything  wrong  in  the 
transaction?"  The  judges  find  difficulty  in  answering, 
for  when  Guido  married  Pompilia  he  has  done  that  very 
thing.  Roman  law,  it  appears,  would  have  justified  Guido 
in  killing  Pompilia,  had  he  done  the  deed  when,  after 
warm  pursuit,  he  overtook  and  confronted  the  runaways. 
Guido  laughs  at  such  discrimination,  and  in  a  step  or  two 
leads  his  judges  to  a  point  where  logically  they  must 
admit  his  right  to  kill  his  wife  when  he  did.  Admit  that 
the  end  justifies  the  means,  then  listen  to  Guido. 

I  don't  hear  much  of  harm  that  Malchus  did 
After  the  incident  of  the  ear,  my  lords ! 
Saint  Peter  took  the  efficacious  way; 
Malchus  was  sore  but  silenced  for  his  life : 
He  did  not  hang  himself  i'  the  Potter's  Field 
Like  Judas,  who  was  trusted  with  the  bag 
And  treated  to  sops  after  he  proved  a  thief. 

"  I  may  punish  a  disobedient  servant,  you  say ;  when  does 
the  instrument  of  punishment  cease  to  be  allowable,  —  a 
switch,  a  stick,  a  pitch-fork,  a  dagger,  where  should  I 
have  stopped  ?  "  Upon  the  pages  of  the  poem  Guido  seems 
too  much  given  to  self-analysis  for  a  villain  in  real  life ; 
but  when  we  have  closed  the  book,  we  find  him  shaping 
himself  very  distinctly  in  our  minds,  and  living  by  his  own 
natural  rights  as  a  rascal,  like  lago. 

Although  the  plot  of  'The  Ring  and  the  Book'  is  a 
curious  one,  I  think  we  can  see  the  reason  Browning 
approved  of  it.  From  some  central  position  he  wished  to 
look  upon  life  and  tell  the  world  what  he  saw,  and  for 
this  purpose  he  took  a  seat  at  a  trial  such  as  we  have 
described,  held  in  Rome.  A  trial  in  any  court  brings  all 


BROWNING'S  AET  ix  MONOLOGUE.  63 

sorts  of  odd  intelligence  to  light.  It  ransacks  family 
history  for  generations  back  ;  it  does  not  tolerate  privacy. 
In  court  the  philosopher  can  study  phases  of  character  and 
strange  sides  of  life  to  his  heart's  content.  From  a  seat 
by  his  friend  the  judge  he  can  look  down  upon  all  condi- 
tions of  life,  all  social  questions,  and  peer  into  the  dark 
nooks  and  corners  of  the  world. 

Such  are  some  of  the  advantages  Browning  secured  by 
weaving  his  poem  about  a  great  trial.  The  bare  facts  of 
the  case  would  retain  their  ugly  look  in  a  novel  or  in  a 
play:  prose  would  not  exalt  them  sufficiently;  the  swift 
action  of  drama  would  not  afford  them  enough  covering. 
Yet  a  plot  like  this,  that  ranges  from  a  harlot  to  a  Pope, 
is  a  necessity,  if  Browning  is  to  have  full  scope  for  his 
powers.  The  four  rustics  who  had  a  hand  in  the  murder 
offer  a  study  in  primitive  human  nature.  They  were  not 
vicious;  they  were  merely  ruddy,  human  animals.  "A 
goat  to  kill  or  a  man,  what  is  the  difference?"  they  might 
ask.  We  hear  Browning  say,  "Such  were  the  much 
vaunted  denizens  of  the  Golden  Age."  From  innocent 
brutishness  to  the  spirituality  of  Pompilia  is  a  range  that 
embraces  all  human  existence.  Hence  the  choice  of  the 
plot.  A  bundle  of  cases  in  ethics  and  theology  is  taken  to 
what  might  be  called  the  Supreme  Court  in  such  matters. 
The  Pope,  who  is  made  to  figure  as  the  final  judge  of  the 
questions,  is  painted  in  colours  that  it  is  a  pity  more  of  the 
successors  of  St.  Peter  have  not  deserved. 

is  as  precise  within  limits  as  that 


of  the  drama,  the  epic,  or  lyric.  It  is  not  merely  eight  or 
ten  different  ways  of  telling  the  same  story.  The  con- 
struction is  carefully  planned,  the  mould  is  unique.  A 
monologue  when  talked  into  the  air,  like  the  "  Mad-House 
Cells,"  could  be  censured  on  the  ground  that  it  was  un- 
natural. It  is  true  that  people  do  mutter,  do  soliloquise, 
and  doubtless  so  superior  a  company  as  Browning's 
dramatis  personce  might  offer  the  same  good  excuse  as  the 


64  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

man  in  the  anecdote.  When  asked  why  he  soliloquised 
so  much,  he  replied,  "  Because  I  like  to  converse  with~a 
sensible  person."  Andrea  del  Sarto  is  a  good  subject  for 
monologue,  as  he  talks  to  Lucrezia;  so  is  Fra  Lippo 
Lippi  arguing  with  the  watchmen~~who  have  caught  him 
in  a  frolic.  But  even  a  monologue  addressed  to  some  one 
named  in  the  poem  becomes  unnatural  when  it  takes  on 
the  length  of  'Bishop  Blougram's  Apology.'  That  worthy 
ecclesiastic,  notwithstanding  his  good  table,  would  hardly 
get  many  men  to  sit  through  more  than  one  such  harangue. 
In  fact,  the  bishop's  table-companion  in  the  present  case 
flees  immediately  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  world.  A 
man  either  could  not  talk  so  uninterruptedly,  or  he  would 
not  be  permitted  to.  In  '  The  Ring  and  the  Book  '  many 
of  the  features  we  object  to  in  the  earlier  monologue  have 
disappeared.  Pompilia's  confession  to  the  Augustinian  is 
a  natural  monologue ;  so  is  a  lawyer's  plea,  the  statement 
of  a  witness  (if  he  is  bold  and  fortunate),  a  story  that  one 
has  been  asked  to  tell,  a  letter,  and  a  sermon,  —  all  are 
natural  monologues.  These  are  what  the  separate  parts  of 
the  poem  contain,  except  the  introduction  in  part  one,  and 
the  section  called  The  Pope.  Each  person  tells  his  story 
without  interruption,  —  Pompilia  to  the  monk,  Guido  and 
Caponsacchi  to  the  judges,  the  lawyers  rehearse  their 
speeches. 

There  is  something  else  in  'The  Ring  and  the  Book* 
that  reminds  one  of  Greek  dramas.  The  two  great 
choruses,  Half  Rome,  The  Other  Half  Rome,  although 
confined  to  their  sections  in  the  first  part  of  the  poem, 
ring  out  the  changes  of  the  popular  mind  like  Strophe  and 
Antistrophe. 

Apart  from  the  arrangement  of  the  main  lines  of  the 
poem  there  is  a  studied  effect  produced  by  the  choice  of 
characters,  and  the  particular  parts  of  the  twelve  in  which 
they  shall  appear.  The  lawyer,  Hyacinthus  de  Archangelis, 
is  the  comedian  of  the  piece,  and  like  Shakespeare's  fool, 


BROWNING'S  ART  IN  MONOLOGUE.  65 

he  relieves  for  a  little  our  oppressed  wits,  and  creates  an 
appetite  for  serious  parts.  His  brother  lawyer  we  might 
call  the  satirist  of  the  poem.  Johannes-Baptiste  Bottenus 
is  not  satirical  in  his  words,  nor  is  Hyacinthus  consciously 
a  humourist;  but  after  the  reader  has  been  carried  away  by 
Pompilia's  woes,  he  is  suddenly  brought  face  to  face  with 
the  selfishness  of  Johannes  and  the  good-nature  of  Hya- 
cinthus; the  effect  is  equal  to  keen  satire  and  broad 
comedy.  These  lawyers  look  at  the  whole  subject,  suf- 
fering, sin,  murder,  trial,  and  all,  as  something  sent  in 
the  providence  of  God  to  help  their  fame  a  little,  or  to 
give  their  children  an  extra  allowance  of  bread  and 
butter. 

We  have  now  come  to  the  end  of  our  rapid  study  of 
Browning's  use  of  monologue.  If  there  were  time,  it 
would  be  interesting  to  examine  his  art  in  the  details  of 
technique.  The  bold,  vivid  portraits  he  dashes  off  in  a 
line  or  two  should  claim  our  attention;  his  frequent  use 
of  alliteration  and  the  other  amenities  of  style  which  he  is 
thought  to  care  little  about;  the  wonderful  imagery  by 
which  he  helps  us  understand  the  subtle  moods  of  the 
souls  should  be  examined.  In  his  early  poems  similes 
stood  out  from  the  body  of  the  verse,  as  a  button  painted 
by  Meissonier  would  stand  out  on  the  blouse  of  one  of 
Millet's  peasants;  in  the  later  poems  the  tone  of  the 
whole  has  been  raised  to  the  brilliancy  of  the  early  figures. 
But  these  minute  studies  hardly  concern  us,  who  have  been 
engaged  upon  the  monologue  as  a  whole. 

The  art  of  Browning  in  monologue  was  developed,  it 
would  seem,  as  a  consequence  of  moral  qualities  in  him- 
self and  his  time.  He  shared  the  serious  questions  of  his 
generation,  and  desired  to  teach  his  fellows  truths  of  the 
spirit.  He  chose  a  poetic  form,  monologue,  because  that 
form  permitted  a  combination  of  action  and  description, 
where  his  personal  interpretation  of  the  story  might  at  any 
time  intrude  itself.  This  method  led  naturally  to  a  cold, 


66  BOSTON  BKOWNIKG   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

metaphysical,  and  lifeless  treatment  of  his  subjects,  which 
were  little  more  than  abstractions,  until  the  discovery  of 
Italy  as  a  rich  storehouse  of  personages  and  incidents 
fortunately  rescued  him,  and  gave  his  themes  warmth  and 
motion.  Browning  is  never  truly  a  dramatic  poet,  —  one 
who  lets  life  act  itself  freely  before  his  readers.  He  muses 
upon  life  in  very  vigorous  speech,  to  be  sure,  but  still  in 
terms  of  the  intellectual  rather  than  in  terms  of  action. 
He  is  analytical,  searching  the  consciousness  of  his  char- 
acters for  motives,  moods,  and  spiritual  processes,  and 
these  he  expounds  with  all  the  virile  brilliancy  of  his 
strong  nature  and  the  egoism  of  the  monologue. 

One  who  does  not  care  to  be  numbered  among  the 
prophets  may  still  believe  that  Browning  will  always  be 
considered  the  master  of  this  species  of  verse.  A  prophecy 
that  goes  farther  than  this  must  take  a  hint  from  Delphic 
oracles,  and  not  be  too  hard  and  fast  in  its  phraseology. 
Certainly  the  problems  of  life  that  Browning  discusses  come 
to  every  thoughtful  man;  but  whether  succeeding  ages 
will  have  the  time  or  the  taste  to  go  to  such  massive 
poems  for  the  answers,  the  future  alone  can  tell. 


CALIBAN   UPON  SETEBOS. 

BY  CHARLES  GORDON  AMES. 

[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  March  25,  1890.] 

ABOUT  the  year  1520,  Magellan,  in  that  voyage  of  explo- 
ration which  first  circumnavigated  the  globe,  made  a  land- 
ing on  the  southernmost  part  of  the  new-found  continent. 
A  chronicler  of  the  expedition  relates  that  the  captain  by 
a  stratagem  had  shackled  two  gigantic  Patagonians. 

"  When  they  saw  how  they  were  deceived  they  roared  like 
bulls,  and  cried  upon  their  great  devil,  Setebos.  They  say  that 
when  any  of  them  die,  there  appear  ten  or  twelve  devils,  leaping 
and  dancing  about  the  bodies  of  the  dead,  and  seeming  to  have 
their  own  bodies  painted  with  divers  colours  ;  and  that  among 
them  there  is  one  seen  bigger  than  the  others  who  maketh  great 
mirth  and  rejoicing.  The  great  devil  they  call  Setebos." * 
('  Navigation!  e  Viaggi,'  Venezia,  1554.) 

In  writing  'The  Tempest,'  about  fifty  years  after  this 
chronicle  was  printed,  Shakespeare  betrays  his  knowledge 
of.  it  by  putting  the  phrase,  "  My  dam's  god,  Setebos,"  into 
the  mouth  of  the  "  monster,"  half  human  and  half  devil, 
whom  Prospero  finds  on  the  island  and  tames  into  a  ser- 
vant and  a  drudge,  teaching  him  language,  which  Caliban 
enjoys  chiefly  because  it  enables  him  to  curse. 

On  two  contrasted  characters  in  '  The  Tempest,'  Dowden 
makes  this  comment :  — 

"  Ariel  [is]  an  unbodied  joy,  too  much  a  creature  of  light  and 
air  to  know  human  affection  or  human  sorrow  ;  Caliban  (the  name 

1  It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  Catholic  writers  apply  the  term  "devil"  to  all 
pagan  deities. 


68  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS, 

formed  from  cannibal)  stands  at  the  other  extreme,  with  all  the 
elements  in  him  —  appetites,  intellect,  even  imagination  —  out 
of  which  man  emerges  into  civilisation,  but  with  a  moral  nature 
that  is  still  gross  and  malignant." 

In  Caliban  the  development  of  intelligence  without  con- 
science produces  quick-sighted  animal  sense  and  cunning ; 
and  being  also  without  reverence  or  sympathy,  his  contact 
with  a  superior  produces  cowardice,  envy,  and  hate.  But 
some  deep-lying  instinct  of  a  more  spiritual  sort  makes  all 
the  faculties  quiver  with  superstitious  dread,  and  stirs  this 
bestial  brother  of  us  all  with  a  vague  sense  of  mysterious 
powers  at  work  in  all  things  around  him.  His  awe  in 
Prospero's  presence  is  like  the  restraint-  which  many  ani- 
mals feel  in  the  presence  of  man : 

J  must  obey :  his  art  is  of  such  power, 
It  would  control  my  dam's  god,  Setebos, 
And  make  a  vassal  of  him. 

We  have  here  the  germ  of  Browning's  Caliban.  Rather 
let  us  say  that  Browning's  genius  seizes  upon  this  creation 
of  Shakespeare  to  use  it  as  a  lay-figure  on  which  to  hang 
the  drapery  of  a  subtle  philosophy ;  or  perhaps  to  inline 
upon  Shakespeare's  outline  the  workings  of  a  rudimentary 
spiritual  intelligence,  looking  out  upon  the  universe 
through  animal  eyes,  —  eyes  wonderfully  clear  and  sharp, 
as  all  animal  eyes  are,  for  their  purpose,  but  no  better 
than  crinkled  glass  for  transmitting  the  light  of  the  finer 
realities. 

From  several  allusions  in  the  poem,  I  suspect  Browning 
had  followed  up  the  Patagonian  clue  somewhat  farther 
than  the  Magellan  chronicle,  as  a  few  facts  gathered  from 
any  encyclopedia  may  show.  For  example  :  (1)  The  natives 
are  much  given  to  drinking,  and  make  an  intoxicating 
liquor  from  the  wild  berries  of  their  woods.  (2)  Their 
superstition  makes  much  of  the  sun  and  moon,  but  takes  no 
account  of  the  stars.  (3)  They  explain  all  natural  phe- 


CALIBAN  UPON   SETEBOS.  69 

nomena  as  if  caused  by  their  own  conduct ;  .and  when  a 
tempest  arises,  they  are  filled  with  terror,  crouch  together 
in  their  huts,  and  do  not  stir  till  it  is  over.  (4)  "  The 
Patagonian  never  eats  or  drinks  without  turning  to  the  sun, 
and  thro  wing,  down  before  him  a  few  scraps  of  meat  or  a 
few  drops  of  water,  and  uttering  an  invocation,"  generally 
like  this :  "  O  Father,  great  Man,  King  of  the  World  ! 
give  me  favour,  dear  friend,  day  by  day,  —  good  food,  good 
drink,  good  sleep.  I  am  poor  myself.  Are  you  hungry  ? 
Here  is  a  poor  scrap ;  eat  if  you  wish." 

But  researches  among  the  lower  tribes  of  mankind  bring 
out  the  same  thing  in  substance.  They  all,  like  children, 
interpret  the  order  of  the  world  by  their  own  limitations, 
and  project  their  own  image  upon  the  sky  and  imagine  it 
to  be  a  likeness  of  God.  To  the  earliest  edition  of  this 
poem,  Browning  prefixed  the  words  which  a  Hebrew 
psalmist  attributes  to  Jehovah :  "  Thou  thoughtest  that  I 
was  altogether  such  an  one  as  thyself."  But  the  secondary 
title  of  the  poem  gives  the  key  equally  well,  '  Natural 
Theology  upon  the  Island.'-  Caliban's  insulation  is  more 
than  geographical.  He  is  shut  off  from  all  instruction  ex- 
cept the  impact  of  dumb  nature  upon  his  senses ;  he  has 
no  idea  of  spiritual  relationship ;  no  kinship  with  other 
intelligences ;  no  capacity  or  opportunity  for  vital  sym- 
pathy; no  human  schooling  for  justice,  kindness,  truth, 
duty  or  beauty,  any  more  than  the  creatures  that  crawl  or 
fly  or  swim  around  him.  The  low  tone  of  his  filial  senti- 
ment is  hinted  by  his  calling  \  the  horrid  old  Sycorax  his 
"  dam  "  and  not  his  mother.  Browning  still  further  em- 
phasises this  low-downness  by  making  him  speak  of  him- 
self nearly  always  in  the  third  person,  as  children  do  when 
they  first  begin  to  talk. 

The  senses  report  to  us  external  facts  or  appearances ; 
they  do  not  report  meanings.  The  beginnings  of  reflection 
are  therefore  necessarily  crude  :  the  forms  of  sense-impres- 
sion still  dominating  thought,  even  after  instruction  or 


70  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

experience  has  set  up  a  series  of  internal  movements 
toward  rationality.  Hence  I  have  heard  a  small  boy  ask, 
"  Can  God  walk  on  the  plastering  like  a  fly  ?  "  When  the 
mother  tells  the  very  little  girl  that  God  is  everywhere,  the 
question  comes  like  a  shot,  "  Is  he  in  the  sugar-bowl  ?  " 
"Yes,"  whereupon  the  child  claps  on  the  cover  and  ex- 
claims in  innocent  glee,  "  Then  I  've  got  him."  This  is 
pure  Calibanism  minus  grown-up  malignity. 

While  Prospero  and  Miranda  take  their  noonday  siesta, 
supposing  that  Caliban  drudges  at  his  task,  this  creature, 
living  coarsely  in  his  senses,  sprawls  swinishly  in  a  pit  of 
mire,  kicks  the  slush  with  both  feet,  chuckles  as  his  skin 
is  tickled  by  the  crawling  vermin,  and  catches  and  crunches 
the  fruit  that  drops  within  reach.  Then  comes  a  fine 
psychological  touch.  At  sight  of  the  sunlight  on  the 
water  —  a  picture  framed  by  the  mouth  of  his  cave  —  Cali- 
ban becomes  aware  of  a  larger .  world,  and  drops  .or  rises 
into  free-thinking,  after  his  own  fashion.  Channing  tells 
us  that,  in  his  boyhood,  as  he  walked  on  the  shore  of  Nar- 
ragansett  Bay,  the  sight  of  the  grandeur  around  him  made 
him  aware  of  the  powers  within  him.  Let  us  do  Caliban 
the  justice  to  say  that  his  mind  likewise,  what  there  is  of 
it,  responds,  in  its  own  poor  way,  to  the  touch  of  nature. 
Light  shines  into  his  mind,  as  into  the  cave  where  he  lies; 
and  with  the  same  effect,  —  it  sets  the  shadows  dancing. 
Then  his  "  rank  tongue  blossoms  into  speech,"  and  he 

Talks  to  his  own  self,  howejer  he  please, 
Touching  that  other,  whom  his  dam  called  God. 

Another  touch  :  now,  "  Talk  is  safer  than  in  winter-time." 
God  seems  absent  because  Caliban  feels  comfortable.  By 
and  bye,  when  cold  pinches  and  his  bones  ache,  that  will 
be  to  him  a  sign  of  the  Real  Presence,  and  he  will  cower 
and  hold  his  tongue. 

Now  the'  soliloquy  begins  : 

Setebos,  Setehos,  and  Setebos! 

'Thinketh,  He  dwelleth  i'  the  cold  o'  the  moon. 


CALIBAN   UPOX   SETEBOS.  71 

"Why  so,  more  \  than  in  the  sunshine  ?  The  weirdness  of 
moonlight,  the  chill  of  the  night  air  and  the  vagueness  of 
all  forms  have  always  been  suggestive  of  mystery;  and 
among  some  ancient  people  the  worship  of  the  moon  pre- 
ceded the  worship  of  the  sun.  At  the  same  time,  the 
moon,  with  its  frequent  changes,  seemed  like  the  capri- 
cious friendship  of  a  Deity  not  understood,  half  trusted, 
half  distrusted.  «'  So  He !  " 

Next  comes  in  the  Patagonian  limitation.  Setebos 
made  moon  and  sun,  but  "the  stars  came  otherwise." 
His  realm  includes  this  portion  of  space, — air,  earth,  island 
and  sea, — 'nothing  more.  The  world  of  Setebos  must 
not  be  much  larger  than  Caliban's  world.  But  why  did 
Setebos  make  anything  ?  Well,  he  was  restless,  —  wanted 
occupation  and  wanted  to  think  of  something  beside  his 
own  discomfort ;  wanted  something  to  vent  his  force  upon, 
—  his  pleasure  now,  and  now  his  spite,  envy,  mockery. 
Couldn't  make  an  equal,  just  as  he  couldn't  make  him- 
self. But  of  course  he  would  make  something  worth  his 
while ;  something  good  enough  for  him  to  admire  and  be 
proud  of,  and  big  enough  to  tease ;  something  strong 
enough  to  provoke  and  resist  him ;  in  short,  something  to 
excite  him,  just  as  Caliban  excites  himself  by  a  pungent 
tipple  that  goes  to  his  head!.  ' 

Then  Caliban  considers  how  he  would  feel  and  act,  if  > 
he  could  make  a  living  creature  that  would  be  wholly  in 
his  power ;  say  a  bird ;  a  rather  fine  bird,  that  he  would  be 
fond  and  proud  of,  and  could  fool  with,  and  treat  as  he 
pleased.     «  So  He  !  " 

At  this  point,  Caliban  seems  to  come  in  sight  of  moral 
distinctions ;  at  least  Browning  does !  But  these  are 
quickly  waved  aside,  so  far  as  Setebos  is  concerned. 

Thinketh,  such  shows  nor  right  nor  wrong  in  Him, 
Nor  kind,  nor  cruel ;  He  is  strong  and  Lord. 

Of  course!  Caliban  reasons  from  the  use  he  makes  of 
power  over  creatures  inferior  to  himself. 


72  BOSTON  BROWNING  SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

'Am  strong  myself  compared  to  yonder  crabs 
That  march  now  from  the  mountain  to  the  sea ; 
'Let  twenty  pass,  and  stone  the  twenty -first, 
Loving  not,  hating  not,  just  choosing  so. 

So  He. 

Well  then,  'supposeth  He  is  good  i'  the  main, 
Placable  if  His  mind  and  ways  were  guessed. 

Tliis  is  fine  satire,  a  slash  at  the  theological  speculations 
which  represent  God  as  arbitrary,  yet  claim  that  He  is 
benevolent  all  the  same !  Mrs.  Stowe  once  told  Starr 
King  that  she  had  been  hearing  a  sermon  which  painted 
God  as  a  devil,  and  added  what  was  far  worse,  —  that 
this  devil  loved  us ! 

But  then  rises  a  protest.  Such  a  Being,  after  all, 
knows  this ;  and  it  explains  His  dislike.  If  the  pipe  I 
blow  through  should  boast  that  it  is  necessary  to  me, 
because  it  can  make  the  sound  I  cannot  make  with  my 
mouth  alone,  would  I  not  smash  it  with  my  foot?  "So 
He !  "  Setebos,  like  Caliban,  is  mindful  of  His  own  glory, 
and  punishes  His  creatures  if  they  take  airs  in  His 
presence. 

But  Browning  could  not  accomplish  the  whole  purpose 
of  this  poem  merely  .by  descending  into  the  low  conscious- 
ness of  this  beastrman ;  he  must  also  let  Caliban  look 
through  the  poet's  eyes  and  deliver  judgment  upon  some 
of  the  subtlest  speculations  of  the  ages.  Why  is  Setebos 
"  rough,  cold  and  ill  at  ease  ?  " 

Aha,  that  is  a  question  !   Ask,  for  that, 
What  knows,  —  the  something  over  Setebos 
That  made  Him,  or  He,  may  be,  found  and  fought, 
Worsted,  drove  off  and  did  to  nothing,  perchance. 

Is  this  a  reflection  of  Jupiter's  dethronement  of  Saturn, 
or  of  the  expulsion  of  one  religious  system  by  another? 
But  both  Hindoo  and  Persian  theologies  recognise  back 
of  all  the  active  deities  —  back  of  creative  Brahma  and 


CALIBAN    UPON   SETEBOS.  73 

Ormuzd  —  an  Eternal  One  as  serene  and  as  inert  as  space 
itself.  There  may  be  "something  over  Setebos." 

There  may  be  something  quiet  o'er  His  head, 
Out  of  His  reach,  that  feels  nor/joy  nor  grief, 
Since  both  derive  from  weakness  in  some  way. 
I  joy  because  the  quails  come ;  would  not  joy 
Could  I  bring  quails  here  when  I  have  a  mind : 
This  Quiet,  all  it  hath  a  mind  to,  doth. 

Browning  goes  very  far  in  thus  making  even  Caliban  feel 
blindly  after  a  Power  that  he  can  respect. 

But  if  there  be  a  far-away  god  of  the  star-region, 
mightier  far  than  Setebos,  let  Him  stay  there :  it  might 
be  so  much  the  worse  if  He  came  this  way.  Enough  for 
Caliban  that  he  must  reckon  with  this  one,  who  because 
He  cannot  "soar  to  what  is  quiet  and  hath  happy  life," 
wreaks  His  power  on  such  a  poor  world  as  He  can  make 
and  manage. 

After  all,  Setebos  in  his  uneasiness  is  only  trying  to  ape 
the  Greater  One,  as  Caliban  recalls  how  he  has  tried  to 
ape  Prospero  by  making  a  book  out  of  leaves,  by  dressing 
up  in  a  magic  robe  made  of  "  the  eyed  skin  of  a  supple 
oncelot,"  and  by  training 

A  four-legged  serpent,  he  makes  cower  and  couch, 
Now  snarl,  now  hold  its  breath  and  mind  his  eye, 
And  saith  she  is  Miranda  and  my  wife  : 
'Keeps  for  his  Ariel  a  tall  pouch-bill  crane 
He  bids  go  wade  for  fish  and  straight  disgorge ; 
Also  a  sea-beast,  lumpish,  which  he  snared, 
Blinded  the  eyes  of,  and  brought  somewhat  tame, 
And  split  its  toe-webs,  and  now  pens  the  drudge 
In  a  hole  o'  the  rock  and  calls  him  Caliban ; 
A  bitter  heart  that  bides  its  time  and  bites. 
.  'Plays  thus  at  being  Prosper  in  a  way, 
Taketh  his  mirth  with  make-believes :  so  He. 

Caliban's  dam  had  held  that  the  Quiet  made  all  things  ; 
and  that  Setebos  only  came  in  to  make  trouble.  This 
agrees  with  the  Patagonian  conception  of  Setebos  as  head 
devil;  or  rather  with  the  chronicler's  version  thereof. 


74  BOSTON  BKOWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

But  Caliban  "  holds  not  so."  The  defects  of  things  imply 
either  a  defective  creator  or  a  spiteful  motive.  "Who 
made  tilings  weak  meant  weakness  He  might  vex."-  But 
there  are  kind  and  friendly  aspects:  how  explain?  If 
Setebos  has  any  liking  for  things,  it  must  be  because 
they  profit  him,  —  serve  him  a  turn,  somehow.  Caliban 
and  his  blinded  beast  love  what  does  them  good;  Setebos 
merely  sees  better,  and  so  can  hate  or  love  just  as  he  likes. 
His  love  is  as  heartless  as  his  hate. 

And  if  Setebos  is  active,  it  is  not  because  He  cares  for 
any  of  the  creatures,  but  because  He  wants  to  while  away 
the  time  and  to  work  off  His  surplus  energy,  just  as  Cali- 
ban himself  piles  up  turf  and  stones  and  drives  stakes 
and  crowns  the  whole  with  a  sloth's  skull. 

No  use  at  all  i'  the  work,  for  work's  sole  sake ; 
'Shall  some  day  knock  it  down  again  :  so  He  ! 

This  may  seem  a  light  touch ;  but  to  my  mind  its  sug- 
gestiveness  is  tremendous.  Conceive  of  this  whole  uni- 
verse —  earth,  solar  system,  starry  heavens  and  •  galaxies 
of  suns  and  worlds— all  launched  into  existence  to  run 
like  clock-work  for  no  matter  what  millions  or  quadrillions 
of  ages,  but  finally  to  run  down ;  every  sun  to  spend  its 
heat,  every  earth  to  grow  dark  and  cold,  every  life  to  go 
out  like  an  extinct  spark,  and  nowhere  any  permanent 
spiritual  product  fro™  HIA  .wVirQft  mitlay^of  wisdom  and 
%iQwer  in  creation :  what  then  is  the  summing  up  of  history 
but  this  —  that  the  Creator,  like  an  infinite  Setebos  or 
Caliban,  "  falls  to  make  something,"  with  "  no  use  at  all 
i'  the  work,"  and  ends  all  by  knocking  it  down  again. 
Even  to  our  poor  reason,  what  adequate  vindication  can 
there  be  of  the  Cosmos  unless  it  be  indeed  what  our  higher 
faith  makes  it,  —  a  nursery,  a  school,  and  a  temple  for  im- 
mortal children  of  Light  and  Love  ? 

But  Caliban  is  not  without  reasons  for  thinking  of  Sete- 
bos with  dread.  Has  n't  a  hurricane  destroyed  his  harvest, 
just  as  it  was  coming  to  maturity?  Hasn't  a  single  tidal 


CALIBAN   UPON   SETEBOS.  75 

wave  "  licked  flat "  six  weeks'  labour  done  to  fence  off  the 
invading  turtles  ?  Has  n't  a  burning  stone  been  shot  down 
out  of  the  sky  at  the  very  spot  where  a  half  hour  before 
he  had  lain  down  for  a  nap  ? 

He  hath  a  spite  against  me,  that  I  know, 
Just  as  He  favours  Prosper,  who  knows  why  ? 

These  lines  recall  the  story  told  me  by  an  army  chaplain 
whose  regiment  had  seen  service  in  Louisiana.  One  day 
the  chaplain  heard  his  coloured  servant  humming  a  ditty : 

De  big  bee  set  on  de  fence, 

De  little  bee  make  all  de  honey ; 
De  black  man  do  all  de  work, 

De  wite  man  hab  all  de  money. 

"Luke,"  asked  the  chaplain,  "Why  do  you  suppose  the 
Lord  gave  the  white  man  the  best  chances?"  "Well, 
massa,  I  'se  thought  a  heap  o'  dat  ar ;  and  I  'se  made  up 
my  mine  dat  de  Lord  he  done  it  jes'  out  o'  meanness.'" 
"  Tut,  tut,  Luke  !  "  said  the  chaplain,  reprovingly ;  "  you 
wouldn't  talk  that  way  about  the  good  Lord."  "Well, 
massa,  I  know'd  you  'd  say  dat  ar ;  but  I  'se  made  up  my 
mine  dat  de  Lord  he's  a  wite  man  hisself;  and  he  seed 
dat  de  wite  f okses  is  like  hisself  and  so  he  done  gone  and 
gin  'em  de  bestest  o'  everything."  "He  hath  a  spite 
against  me;  he  favours  Prosper." 

But  Caliban  next  attacks  the  question  how  he  may  get 
on  the  right  side  of  Setebos,  as  Prosper  does.  No  easy 
matter;  for  what  pleases  in  one  mood  may  irritate  in 
another.  Judging  Setebos  by  himself,  he  concludes  that 
the  god  would  be  just  as  likely  to  resent  as  to  approve 
an  act  done  on  purpose  to  please  him ;  for  he  would  let 
his  creatures  know  that  he  would  n't  be  pleased  by  com- 
pulsion of  any  act  of  theirs. 

Well,  then,  is  there  no  way  out  of  it?  None,  unless 
Setebos  should  die,  or  take  a  notion  to  make  another  world, 
and  sc  forget  this ;  or  outgrow  his  present  self  and  so  rise 
into  the  Quiet. 


76  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

'Conceiveth  all  things  will  continue  thus, 
And  we  shall  have  to  live  in  fear  of  Him 
So  long  as  He  lives,  keeps  His  strength :  no  change, 
If  He  have  done  His  best,  make  no  new  world 
To  please  Him  more,  so  leave  off  watching  this,  — 
If  He  surprise  not  even  the  Quiet's  self 
Some  strange  day,  —  or,  suppose,  grow  into  it 
As  grubs  grow  butterflies  :  else,  h'ere  are  we, 
And  there  is  He,  and  nowhere  help  at  all. 

Yes,  there 's  another  way  out.  Caliban  himself  may  die ; 
and  he  is  too  much  of  a  Sadducee  to  hold  his  dam's 
faith  that  after  death  Setebos  will  plague  his  enemies  and 
feast  his  friends.  No,  the  best  and  worst  he  can  do  is  to 
keep  us  alive  and  torment  us  as  long  as  possible. 

Meanwhile,  the  best  way  to  escape  His  ire 
Is,  not  to  seem  too  happy. 

Another  keen  thrust  at  a  theory  of  life  which  'Browning 
delights  to  impale.  In  how  many  passages  has  he  identi- 
fied life  itself  with  joy,  and  joy  with  the  Love  that  sends 
it !  So  exclaims  Lessing :  "  What  can  please  the  Creator 
more  than  a  happy  creature !  "  Yet  we  sometimes  hear  a 
sombre  intimation  that  our  blessings  are  taken  away  lest 
we  enjoy  them  too  much ;  that  our  children  are  removed 
because  parental  love  needs  to  be  checked.  And  in  '  Max- 
ims and  Examples  of  the  Saints '  I  have  read  that  there 
is  peculiar  virtue  in  eating  unpalatable  food  and  in  subject- 
ing the  body  to  painful  inflictions.  Yet  thousands  of  us 
have  smiled  at  the  pious  old  lady  who  walked  to  church 
along  the  muddy  street  instead  of  taking  the  clean  side- 
walk, "because,"  as  she  said,  "one  cannot  do  too  much 
for  the  Lord." 

So  Caliban  thinks  to  keep  on  the  right  side  of  Setebos 
by  feigning  misery,  and  to  flatter  his  superior  by  showing 
envy. 

Wherefore  he  mainly  dances  on  dark  nights, 
Moans  in  the  sun,  gets  under  holes  to  laugh, 
And  never  speaks  his  mind  save  housed  as  now: 
Outside,  'groans,  curses.    If  He  caught  me  here, 


CALIBAN   UPON   SETEBOS.  77 

O'erheard  this  speech,  and  asked  "  What  chucklest  at  ? " 

'Would,  to  appease  Him,  cut  a  finger  off, 

Or  of  my  three  kid  yearlings  buru  the  best, 

Or  lee  the  toothsome  apples  rot  on  tree, 

Or  push  my  tatne  beast  for  the  ore  to  taste : 

While  myself  lit  a  fire,  and  made  a  song 

And  sung  it,  "  What  I  hate  be  consecrate 

"  To  celebrate  Thee  and  Thy  state  ;  no  mate 

"For  Thee;  what  see  for  envy  in  poor  me  ?  " 

This  is  no  extravagance  of  Browning's.  It  would  be 
ludicrous  if  it  were  not  tragically  true  to  the  religious 
history  of  a  large  part  of  mankind,  who  have  thought  to 
avert  divine  wrath,  natter  divine  vanity  and  win  divine 
favour  by  striking  humiliating  attitudes  and  by  a  thousand 
forms  of  sacrifice,  self -mutilation  and  self-torture.  "  What 
I  [affect  to]  hate  be  consecrate."  Is  it  not  a  curious 
testimony  of  language  that  the  Greek  verb  anathematise 

I    means  both  to  curse  and  to  devote  to  the  gods? 

*"""*     But   now    for   the   denoilment.      The   last  twelve  lines 

contain   the  whole  poem ;    and  for  compressed  explosive 

^dramatic  and  psychologic  force  they  are,  so  far  asl  know, 

rarely  equalled  in  the  world's  literature.     Just  as  Caliban's 

treasonable  soliloquy  culminates  in  the  comfortable  hope 

that  Setebos  may  some  day  "  grow  decrepit,  doze  and  doze, 

as  good  as  die,"  the  tropical  thunder-storm,  with  its  at- 

'  tendant  hurricane  and  cloud  of  sand,  bursts  on  him  like 

a  day  of  judgment  and  a  trump  of  doom: 

What,  what  ?  A  curtain  o'er  the  world  at  once  ! 

Crickets  stop  hissing  ;  not  a  bird  —  or.  yes, 

There  scuds  His  raven,  that  hath  told  Him  all ! 

It  was  fool's  play,  this  prattling: !  Ha  !  The  wind 

Shoulders  the  pillared  dnst,  death's  house  o'  the  move, 

And  fast  invading  fires  begin !  White  blaze  — 

A  tree's  head  snaps  —  and  there,  there,  there,  there,  there, 

His  thunder  follows !     Fool  to  gibe  at  Him ! 

Lo !  'Lieth  flat  and  loveth  Setebos ! 

'Maketh  his  teeth  meet  through  his  upper  lip, 

Will  let  those  quails  fly,  will  not  eat  this  month 

One  little  mess  of  whelks,  so  he  may  'scape ! 


78  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Even  were  I  competent  to  discuss  Browning's  technique, 
I  should  not  wish  to  do  so  now.  I  have  been  more  con- 
cerned to  grasp  and  follow  the  sense  of  this  poem  than 
to  note  its  literary  construction,  its  felicity  and  force 
of  diction,  its  occasional  approach  to  the  grotesque,  or 
even  its  masterly  and  marvellously  picturesque  presenta- 
tion of  an  obscure  and  difficult  theme.  To  dwell  chiefly 
on  an  author's  style,  and  to  study  his  verbal  quality  and 
the  joiner  work  of  his  sentences,  after  the  way  of  merely 
literary  criticism,  or  even  to  applaud  the  march  and  music 
of  his  verse,  is  to  put  manner  before  matter,  and  so  to  fall 
into  dilettantism.  And  a  passionate,  undiscriminating 
admiration  of  an  author  may  operate  to  muzzle  a  great 
voice  which  speaks  because  it  has  somewhat  to  say. 

What  has  Browning  to  say  in  this  particular  utterance  ? 
A  great  deal,  I  think.  Perhaps  in  justice  to  him  and  to 
our  poor  relation,  Caliban,  we  should  construe  this  poem 
as  if  it  were  a  fragment ;  that  is,  we  should  read  it  in  the 
light  of  what  the  author  has  said  otherwheres.  Take  this 
from  '  Christmas  Eve.' 

Whom  do  you  count  the  worst  man  upon  earth  ? 
Be  sure,  he  knows,  in  his  conscience,  more 
Of  what  right  is,  than  arrives  at  birth 
In  the  best  man's  acts  that  we  bow  before. 

In  the  same  poem  he  had  already  said : 

The  truth  in  God's  breast 
Lies  trace  for  trace  upon  ours  impressed  : 
Though  He  is  so  bright  and  we  so  dim, 
We  are  made  in  his  image  to  witness  him. 

This  is  a  favourite  conception  of  the  philosophers,  —  that 
man  is  a  microcosm  —  an  epitome  of  the  universe ;  or  as 
Emerson  poetically  puts  it,  "  God  hid  the  whole  world  in 
thy  breast."  But  man  the  infant,  or  the  savage,  the  un- 
developed man,  cannot  read  what  is  written  in  his  own 
nature  till  light  enters ;  and  this  kind  of  light  comes  not 
from  staring  at  sun  and  moon,  it  is  a  "  light  that  never 


CALIBAN  UPON   SETEBOS.  79 

was  on  sea  or  land."     It  comes  from  the  quickening  of  his 
own  deeper  faculties. 

Now  take  this  passage  from  '  Paracelsus  ' :  — 

Truth  is  within  ourselves ;  it  takes  no  rise 
From  outward  things,  whate'er  you  may  believe. 
There  is  an  inmost  centre  in  us  all, 
Where  truth  abides  in  fulness;  and  around, 
Wall  upon  wall,  the  gross  flesh  hems  it  in, 
This  perfect,  clear  perception  —  which  is  truth. 
A  baffling  and  perverting  carnal  mesh 
Blinds  it,  and  makes  all  error. 

Now  we  see  what  ails  poor  Caliban.  He  too  is  God's 
creature,  with  a  living  soul  made  in  the  divine  image  "  to 
witness  Him ; "  and  in  Caliban,  as  surely  as  in  an  arch- 
angel, "there  is  an  inmost  centre  where  truth  abides  in 
fulness;"  but  "wall  upon  wall,  the  gross  flesh  hems  it 
in,"  "  a  baffling  and  perverting  carnal  mesh "  which 
"makes  all  error." 

And  in  his  case,  the  flesh  wall  is  very  dense ;  his  soul 
is  buried  alive,  and  slumbers  under  heavy  opaque  ances- 
tral coverings. 

But  let  Paracelsus  finish  his  remark,  which  has  been 
interrupted  by  Caliban,  or  by  me. 

To  KNOW 

Kather  consists  in  opening  out  a  way 
Whence  the  imprisoned  splendour  may  escape, 
Than  in  effecting  entry  for  a  light 
Supposed  to  be  without.     Watch  narrowly 
The  demonstration  of  a  truth,  its  birth, 
And  you  trace  back  the  effluence  to  its  spring 
And  source  within  us ;  where  broods  radiance  vast, 
To  be  elicited  ray  by  ray,  as  chance 
Shall  favour. 

'  Paracelsus,'  which  first  appeared  in  1835,  does  not  give 
us  the  whole  of  Browning's  matured  thought.  He  would 
not  have  said  in  his  later  years  that  "  chance "  is  the 
liberator  of  the  "  imprisoned  splendour."  Rather  he  would 
say  that  the  liberation  comes  from  contact  with  a  living 


80  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

and  luminous  personality,  —  the  Life  that  is  awake  rous- 
ing the  life  that  is  asleep.  This  gives  us  Browning's 
conception  of  the  Christ  —  the  God-inan,  whose  personality 
is  duplicated  in  all  men  and  women  in  whom  the  same 
light  shines,  and  shines  not  for  themselves  alone. 

Caliban's  insulation  from  all  the  humanising  influences 
of  sympathy  and  instruction  operates  like  imprisonment 
for  life.  We  might  draw  from  such  a  monstrosity  of 
arrested  development  a  pathetic  and  powerful  appeal  or 
protest  against  all  institutions,  customs  and  doctrines  that 
shut  out  individuals  or  masses  from  the  helpfulness  of  light 
and  love,  and  consign  them  to  those  "  dark  places  "  which 
like  Caliban's  mind,  are  "  habitations  of  cruelty." 

But  to  the  spirit  once  awake  and  enlightened-  the  flesh- 
life,  or  the  sense-wall,  is  no  longer  a  hindrance ;  it  becomes 
a  help.  "  Thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  light."  This 
brings  out  the  significance  of  the  notable  twelfth  stanza 
of  *  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra ' :  — 

Let  us  not  always  say 

"  Spite  of  this  flesh  to-day 
"  I  strove,  made  head,  gained  ground  upon  the  whole  ! " 

As  the  bird  wings  and  sings, 

Let  us  cry,  "  All  good  tilings 
"  Are  ours,  nor  soul  helps  flesh  more,  now,  than  flesh  helps  soul  !  " 

The  manifestation  of  soul  may  be  obstructed  by  the 
organism,  just  as  the  growth  of  a  seed  is  obstructed  by 
the  soil  in  which  it  lies  buried;  bat,  once  the  seed  is 
reached  by  the  warmth  of  the  sun,  the  soil  becomes  its 
next  best  friend,  since  it  gives  foothold  for  roots  and 
standing-ground  and  support  for  the  rising  stalk.  So  we. 

If  it  be  true,  as  poet  and  philosopher  agree,  that  man 
is  an  epitome  of  the  universe,  holding  compacted  in  him- 
self a  sample  of  its  highest  spiritual  principles  along  with 
its  material  substances  and  natural  forces,  then  there 
should  be  something  in  the  universe  to  correspond  to 
everything  in  man.  But  then  only  the  higher  things 


CALIBAN   UPON   SETEBOS.  81 

of  man  should  be  taken  to  correspond  with  the  higher 
things  of  the  universe,  as  his  delicate  eye,  and  not  his 
coarse  lime-built  bones,  responds  to  the  light.  He  can  only 
commune  with  the  spiritual  order  through  his  spiritual 
faculties  and  sentiments.  So  long  as  these  are  dormant, 
or  weak,  or  dimly  lighted,  there  is  no  help  for  it,  —  he  will 
•  inhabit  a  moral  cavern.  Hence  it  is  certain  that  the  relig- 
ious ideas  of  barbarous  and  half-civilised  people  will  also  be 
barbarous  and  half-civilised,  graded  like  their  attainments 
in  language,  science,  art,  medicine  and  government. 

Three  things  I  get  directly  from  the  poem.  (1)  It  is 
a  satire  upon  all  who  plant  themselves  upon  the  narrow 
island  of  individualism  and  think  to  reach  completeness 
of  character  and  culture  without  sharing  the  common 
life  of  the  world.  (2)  It  is  a  protest  against  the  vagaries 
of  the  understanding,  divorced  from  the  deeper  reason  and 
the  moral  sense,  —  against  what  Hiram  Corson  calls  "  phi- 
losophies excogitated  by  the  insulated  intellect."  The 
attitude  and  animus  of  what  may  be  called  unspiritual 
thinking  are  as  fatal  to  rationality  as  to  noble  aspiration. 
But  (3)  chiefly,  I  think,  the  poet  means  it  as  a  satire  upon 
all  religious  theories  which  construct  a  divinity  out  of  the 
imperfections  of  humanity,  instead  of  submitting  humanity 
to  be  inspired  and  moulded  by  the  perfections  of  divinity. 
Caliban  gives  now  and  then  a  sign  that  he  has  some  faint 
ideas  of  kindness,  love,  and  justice,  as  well  as  of  power ; 
but  these  ideas,  which  ought  alone  to  represent  the 
Supreme  Reality,  are  sullied,  distorted,  and  confused  by 
his  own  caprices  of  sensual  impulse  and  wilfulness ;  and 
these  caprices,  which  give  form  and  colour  to  his  imagin- 
ings, he  incorporates  into  his  theory  of  Setebos,  making 
Him  altogether  such  an  one  as  himself,  instead  of  making 
Him  a  reflection  of  the  best,  and  so  a  reprover  and  correc- 
tor of  his  worst.  For  it  is  the  office  of  true  religion  to 
help  us  distinguish  between  the  higher  and  lower  elements 
of  our  nature  ;  and  thus  to  develop  and  strengthen  and 


82  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  'PAPERS. 

enthrone  those  by  subordinating  these  to  their  proper ' 
service.  This  gives  us  a  religion  in  exact  harmony  with 
reason,  or  common  sense,  whereby  we  discriminate  values, 
or  varying  grades  of  excellence  and  dignity,  and  are  thus 
enabled  to  give  the  leadership  and  command  of  our  life 
to  its  superior  principle. 

Caliban,  as  you  must  have  seen,  is  only  one  of  our  poor 
relations,  and  frightfully  like  us  in  some  of  his  features. 
We  Calibanise,  then,  when  we  make  God  "  altogether "  . 
like  ourselves  instead  of  making  ourselves  like  Him,  as 
He  is  revealed  in  the  higher  self.  If  either  Caliban  or 
we  should  really  be  destitute  and  incapable  of  anything 
better  than  blind  and  non-moral  impulse,  then  there  would 
be  no  growing  point;  he  and  we  should  dwell  permanently 
•and  by  necessity  in  innocent  darkness,  or  on  the  purely 
animal  plane.  But  our  escape  upward  into  light  and 
higher  life,  our  evolution  Godward,  seems  provided  for 
in  the  germs  of  reason  and  conscience,  though  these  be 
buried  in  the  grossness  of  our  animal  nature.  In  short,  man 
is  capable  of  looking  beyond  and  above  himself  for  an 
Ideal  Perfection,  because  such  Perfection  is  hinted  in  his 
own  aspirations.  He  Calibanises  when  the  light  that  is 
in  him  becomes  darkness  by  the  overspreading  clouds  of 
sense  and  sensuality. 

Unless  above  himself  he  can 
Erect  himself,  how  poor  a  thing  is  man  ! 

Channing  says  we  should  seek  to  "  become  what  .  we 
praise,  by  transcribing  into  our  lives  the  perfections  of 
God;  by  copying  His  wisdom,  in  the  judicious  pursuit 
of  good  ends  ;  His  justice,  in  the  discharge  of  all  our 
obligations,  and  His  benevolence  in  the  diffusion  of  all 
possible  happiness  around  us."  We  Calibanise  when  we 
invert  this  process  by  transcribing  into  the  character  of 
God  our  own  defects  and  attributing  to  Him  qualities 
inconsistent  with  either  wisdom,  justice,  or  love. 

We  Calibanise  when  we  impose  our  intellectual  limita- 


CALIBAN   UPON   SETEBOS.  83 

tions  upon  the  universe.  At  every  stage  of  enlargement 
our  view  is  limited ;  but  why  must  we  mistake  our  own 
narrow  horizon  for  the  absolute  boundary  of  truth  ? 

And  how  about  the  dominant  principle  ?  Caliban,  sprawl- 
ing content  in  the  summer  mire,  —  is  he  disguised  beyond 
recognition  when  he  is  seen  revelling,  selfishly  and  sensu- 
ally, in  elegant  luxury,  or  given  up  to  literary  indulgence 
and 

pampering  the  coward  heart 
With  feelings  all  too  delicate  for  use  ? 

Does  not  science  smack  of  Calibanism  when  it  exalts  the 
testimony  of  sense  concerning  physical  facts  above  the  tes- 
timony of  consciousness  concerning  internal  experiences ;  / 
or  when  it  fumbles  for  the  essence  of  man's  being  among/ 
molecular  movements  and  the  processes  of  physical  life  ?  / 

And  when  we  imagine  that  the  universe  is  run  chie^r,  in 
our  personal  interest  or  in  hostility  to  us,  how  much  we 
must  resemble  the  creature  who  takes  his  own  capricious 
likes  and  dislikes  for  samples  of  the  Cosmos !  When  af- 
fairs go  pleasantly,  the  god  is  in  good  humour.  When 
any  plan  is  upset,  it  is  because  the  god  has  a  spite  against 
him.  When  the  thunder  breaks,  his  first  in  pulse  is  to 
dodge  the  bolt  that  is  aimed  at  his  particulai  head.  Not 
only  in  certain  forms  of  religious  literature  '  nd  in  hj-mn 
or  prayer,  may  we  hear  the  Calibanic  tone  of  self-felicita- 
tion or  of  whining,  but  in  how  many  of  01  r  daily  moods 
we  may  detect  some  of  the  same  colouring  matter !  But 
as  one  after  another  our  pleadings  for  speci  J  divine  inter- 
^ positions  give  way  before  the  larger  conception  of  uniform 
.'causation,  we  fall  in  all  our  helplessness  and  need  into 
the  arms  of  a  universal  Providence,  w^ich  takes  up  all 
beings  and  all  events,  all  facts  and  ail  forces,  all  pro- 
cesses and  all  results,  into  the  inclush  e  order  of  wisdom 
and  goodness. 

When  half-gods  ?->, 
The  gods  arriv  . 


BROWNING'S  THEORY  OF  ROMANTIC  LOVE. 

BY  GEORGE  WILLIS  COOKE. 
[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  October  27,  1891.] 

THE  comparative  method  in  the  study  of  literature  leads 
us  to  seek  for  the  same  ideas  and  the  same  artistic 
methods  in  writers  widely  separated  in  time  and  space. 
^ he  reader  of  Browning's  love  poetry  must  find  in  it  many 
a  reniiniscence  of  other  poets,  and  he  must  now  and  then 
feel  as  L  the  age  of  chivalry  had  come  back,  with  its  fine 
and  joyous  sentiment.  Love  is  not  a  mere  passion  tot 
Browning,  nor  is  it  simply  an  affection  that  draws  together/ 
one  man  and  woman.  In  his  poetry  it  is  an  intuition,  an 
ecstasy,  a  spiritual  vision,  an  eternal  ideal. 

Such  a  conception  of  love  is  not  new  with  him ;  it  is 
found  in  some  of  the  greatest  writers  of  ancient  and 
modern  times  alike,  notably  in  Plato,  Dante,  and  Petrarch. 
We  can  better  understand  what  love  was  to  Browning, 
or  what  he  has  made  it  in  his  poetry,  if  we  glance  at  what 
these  men  have  made  it  in  their  immortal  works.  We  find 
in  these  men  what  is  known  as  romantic  love,  taking  its 
origin  in  Plato,  brought  to  its  highest  expression  in  Dante 
and  Petrarch,  and  revived  in  a  modernised  form  by 
Browning.  , 

Plato  discusses  love  in  the  'Symposium'  and  in  the 
'  Phfedrus,'  and  he  touches  upon  it  in  one  or  two  of  his 
other  dialogues.  I/  the  'Symposium,'  he  says  that  there 
is  an  earthly  and  a  heavenly  love  ;  and  it  is  the  heavenly 
love  which  he  describes  in  i  he  romantic  spirit.  We  cannot 


BROWNING'S  THEORY  OF  ROMANTIC  LOVE.         85 

forget  that  in  his  dialogues  there  often  appears  what  is  far 
other  than  a  heavenly  love ;  but  it  is  the  dark  shadow 
which  rests  over  all  Greek  life,  and  separates  it  widely 
from  that  of  modern  times.  The  heavenly  love  is  that 
which  desires  the  beautiful  and  good,  which  desires  them 
as  an  eternal  possession,  and  which  seeks  ever  to  bring  to 
creation  children  of  the  good,  that  shall  be  to  us,  as  it  were, 
an  immortal  offspring  of  the  soul.  

Love  is  that  mystical  yearning  for  the  beautiful  and ' 
good,  that  contemplation  of  them  with  insight  and  joy, 
which  makes  them  an  ecstatic  possession  of  the  soul. 
Plato's  conception  of  love  he  presents  in  the  form  of  a 
parable,  wherein  he  represents  man  as  originally  created 
by  Zeus  in  the  shape  of  a  ball,  with  four  hands  and  feet, 
two  faces,  and  the  rest  in  harmony.  As  man  threatened 
to  invade  the  very  regions  of  the  gods,  so  great  was  his 
terrible  swiftness  and  strength,  Zeus  hit  upon  the  device 
of  cutting  him  in  two ;  and  thus  the  two  sexes  came  into 
being.  These  severed  halves  are  eternally  seeking  for 
each  other,  that  the  perfect  whole  may  again  be  made, 
and  the  old  joy  and  happiness  realised.  Love,  says  Plato, 
is  the  desire,  the  pursuit,  of  the  whole,  that  the  com-j 
pleted  man  may  be  attained. 

In  this  parable,  Plato  would  lead  us  to  understand  that 
man  cannot  exist  in  isolation,  and  that  perfection  can  be 
had  only  by  unity  of  soul.     He  finds  this  in  what  we  call 
friendship,  love  of  man  for  man,  rather  than  in  romantic 
love,  or  the  love  of  man  and  woman.     He  also  imagina-  I 
tively  proves  to  us  that  love  is  the  great  mediator,  the 
eternal  reconciler,    between  severed  human  souls.     This 
reconciliation  is  yearned  for  with  the  soul's  utmost  inten- ; 
sity,  because  it  is  an  anticipation,  albeit  indistinct,  of  an 
ideal  union  which  will  be  realised  in  the  eternal  ages. 

In  the  'Phsedrus,'  Plato  interprets  love  with  the  help 
of  his  doctrine  of  pre-existence,  or  transmigration.  Those 
who  love  here  are  those  who  have  been  associated  in  the 


86  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

former  world,  and  have  worshipped  together  the  same  god. 

Here  Plato  doubtless  brings  in  something  of  the  Greek 

,  .  conception  that  love  is  a  divine  ecstasy  or  madness,  and 

therefore  in  some  sense  under  the  direction  of  a  heavenly 

power.     It  is  a  mystical  recollection,  a  reunion  of  those 

who  have  been  long  separated  by  the  exigencies  of  their 

}  spiritual  existence. 

In  these  highly  imaginative  conceptions  of  Plato  are  the 
germs  of  romantic  love.  So  surely  are  they  there  that  every 
teacher  and  singer  of  romantic  love  has  turned  back  to 
Plato  for  the  philosophic  interpretation  of  the  human  ex- 
perience, which  gives  to  such  love  its  justification.  It  was 
not  possible  for  such  conceptions  to  lie  wholly  dormant 
until  the  time  of  Dante  and  the  age-  of  chivalry,  in  order 
to  find  an  expression.  .These  highly  poetic  spiritual  in- 
sights of  Plato  gave  to  the  Neo-Platonists  the  foundations 
for  their  airy  structures  of  philosophic  interpretation ;  and 
with  them  we  find  hints,  now  and  then,  of  a  finer  com- 
prehension of  the  nieaning  of  love.  At  least,  the  old 
sensualism  had  passed  away,  and  a  yearning  for  mo.ral 
purity  had  taken  its  place.  Among  the  Stoics,  in  Plutarch 
and  Pliny,  we  find  some  enlarging  conception  of  the  re- 
lations of  man. and  woman,  which  show  that  Plato  had  not 
spoken  in  vain.  With  the  later  poets,  especially  the  poets 
of  the  Anthology,  we  come  occasionally  upon  some  lyric, 
some  love-song,  some  praise  of  a  beloved  woman,  which 
shows  most  clearly  that  the  conception  of  romantic  love 
"had,  even  as  the  first  faint  peeping  forth  of  the  colour  of 
the  rosebud,  come  to  its  earliest  expression  in  the  adora- 
tion of  a  woman  by  a  man.  It  is  so  unlike  all  that'has 
.gone  before  in  the  Gre,ek  conception  of  woman,  and  the 
love  between  the  sexes,  'that  we  cannot  but  see  it  is  a  new 
thing,  of  the  highest  beauty,  born  into  the  world. 

How  romantic  love  grew  we  cannot  tell,  though  we 
know  that  the  Teutonic  adoration  of  woman  was.  an 
element  in  its  development,  that  the  Christian  conception 


BROWNING'S  THEORY  OF  ROMANTIC  LOVE.         87 

of  man's  spiritual  nature  and  existence  had  its  influence, 
and  that  other  factors  of  medievalism  wrought  upon  it. 
We  know  that  it  came  to  its  perfection  suddenly,  in  the 
troubadours,  in  chivalry,  and  in  Dante.  Its  consummate 
bloom  appeared  in  the  life  and  poetry  of  Petrarch,  where 
we  find  its  every  element  and  its  utmost  capacity. 

Romantic  love  is  the  adoration,  or  even  more  than  that, 
the  worsliip,  of  woman  by  man.  It  is  not  enough  that 
man  should  love  woman,  that  he  should  delight  in  her 
beauty,  and  that  he  should  find  his  greatest  happiness  in 
her  companionship,  in  order  to  the  existence  of  romantic 
love.  He  must  worship  her ;  he  must  find  in  her  some- 
thing far  above  himself;  he  must  take  her  word  as  his 
absolute  command.  One  of  the  troubadours  said  that  he  \ 
would  prefer  to  be  with  his  lady  rather  than  with  God  in 
Paradise.  This  is  an  extravagant  statement  of  what  all 
the  poets  and  knights  of  the  age  of  chivalry  found  in  their 
conception  of  love. 

Among  the  Greeks  a  woman  of  ravishing  beauty  was 
thought  to  be  a  manifestation  of  the -divine,  so  that  no 
harm  could  be  done  her,  for  in  her  some  god  made  himself 
known  to  men.  The  Germans  saw  in.  woman  a  like  divine 
quality,  for  she  had  the  gift  of  divine  knowledge,  and 
a  power  of  spiritual  insight  denied  to  man.  It  is  this  idea, 
clothed  with  the  richest  sentiment,  made  extravagant  in 
an  age  of  emotional  fervour,  that  we  find  expressed  in 
romantic  love. 

The  mediaeval  interpreters  of  romantic  love  turned  to 
Plato  as  the  great  teacher  of  its  doctrines  and  its  spirit ; 
but  they  made  the  recipient  of  the  love  the  source  of  in- 
spiration rather  than  the  lover  himself,  as  with  Plato. 
His  mania  they  changed  into  ecstatic  joy,  so  that  in  the 
worship  of  the  lady  they  found  an  exquisite  delight. 
Mulrihausen,  one  of  tHe  minnesingers,  said  of  his  lady, 
that  when  God  made  her  he  did  not  forget  anything. 
He  also  said  that  he  would  prefer  her  even  to  the  crown 


88  BOSTON  BKOWN1NG  SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

of  Rome,  if  he  must  choose  between  them.  Not  only  did 
chivalry  find  in  woman  a  living  symbol  of  the  highest 
purity  and  holiness,  but  it  found  an  exquisite  delight,  an 
eternal  joy  and  ecstasy  of  soul,  in  rendering  to  her  adora- 
tion and  worship. 

In  accordance  with  this  sentiment,  Dante  and  Petrarch 
attributed  all  that  was  pure  and  noble  in  them  to  the 
influence  of  the  women  they  loved.  Dante  said  that 
Beatrice  had  revealed  to  him  all  virtue  and  all  wisdom. 
Petrarch  blessed  the  happy  moment  which  directed  his 
heart  to  Laura,  for  she  led  him  to  the  path  of  virtue,  to 
cast  out  of  his  heart  all  base  and  grovelling  objects.  She 
it  was  who  inspired  him  with  that  celestial  flame  which 
raised  his  soul  to  heaven,  and  directed  it  to  the  Supreme 
Cause  as  the  only  source  of  happiness. 

Was  Beatrice  a  woman,  or  divine  philosophy,  or  a 
spiritual  ideal  ?  She  was  all  three,  and  the  last  more  than 
the  first. 

Dante  knew  what  Plato  meant  when  he  represented  the 
lover  as  seeking  the  beloved  one  to  whom  he  had  been  at- 
tached in  the  world  out  of  which  they  had  come ;  but  it 
was  the  peculiarity  of  chivalry  that  an  actual  woman  be- 
came for  it  the  symbol  of  its  ideal.  So  we  find  Petrarch 
saying  that  it  was  not  the  person  of  Laura  he  loved,  but 
her  soul.  He  might  have  said  that  he  loved  her  soul  as 
the  incarnation  of  the  Eternal  Love,  and  as  the  perfect 
ideal  of  the  heavenly  life.  He  does  say  that  she  pointed 
out  to  him  the  way  to  heaven  along  which  she  was  his 
guide.  Love  transforms  the  lover,  he  tells  us;  and  it 
assimilates  him  to  the  object  of  his  love.  He  loved  her 
alone ;  he  suffered  all  things  for  her  sake ;  he  sacrificed  all 
his  wishes  and  pleasures  that  he  might  be  more  nearly  like 
her,  for  in  her  he  found  all  virtue  and  all  perfection.  It 
was  fit  that  Beatrice  should  be  the  guide  of  Dante  through 
the  world  to  come,  for  she  was  to  him  a  messenger  of  the 
eternal  wisdom,  a  guide  to  that  spiritual  Paradise  which 


BROWNING'S  THEORY  OF  ROMANTIC  LOVE.    89 

passes  not  away,  because  eternal  in  the  heavens.  Love 
was  to  the  mediaeval  poet  and  knight  a  means  of  spiritual 
attainment,  and  a  way  of  salvation  truer  than  any  other. 
It  is  by  the  means  of  love,  we  are  liberated  from  earthly 
thralldoms,  trained  for  spiritual  victories,  and  prepared  for 
the  freer  communion  and  joy  of  the  heavenly  country. 

After  this  glance  at  the  history  of  romantic  love,  and  at 
some  of  its  poets  and  doctrines,  we  are  prepared  to  turn  to 
Browning  for  the  study  of  those  shorter  poems  of  his  in 
which  the  romantic  spirit  breathes  out  all  its  tender  spiritual 
life.  We  cannot  read  'Evelyn  Hope,'  'Cristina,'  or  other 
of  Browning's  poems,  without  feeling  that  he  has  lived 
with  Plato  or  Petrarch;  and  we  know  from  two  or  three 
of  his  poems  that  he  was  familiar  with  the  Prove^als. 
He  could  not  produce  the  old  life  or  the  old  worship ;  no 
modern  can  do  that  in  the  manner  of  the  medieval  poets. 
We  cannot  worship  woman  now  in  the  spirit  of  Petrarch, 
for  women  are  wiser  than  to  permit  it,  even  if  men  did  not 
know  better.  We  have  found  in  woman  an  equal,  not  an 
inferior  that  becomes  in  some  strange  mystical  way  the 
symbol  to  us  of  the  divine  life. 

Browning  writes,  as  a  modern  poet,  reverencing  woman, 
finding  in  her  an  eternal  charm ;  because  of  her  equality 
with  himself  she  is  other,  weaker  and  yet  nobler.  Though 
a  modern,  the  spirit  of  chivalry  remains  with  him ;  and  the 
very  heart  of  romantic  love  he  has  reproduced  in  some  of 
the  finest  of  his  lyrical  poems.  Had  he  been  reading  Plato 
before  he  wrote  'Cristina'?  We  cannot  read  it  without 
feeling  that  it  thrills  with  the  echo  of  the  far-off  Greek 
voice  that  told  of  the  struggle  of  man  and  woman  to  find 
each  other,  that  love  might  make  them  one,  and  therefore 
make  them  whole. 

Browning  did  not  write  '  Cristina '  merely  for  the  pur- 
pose of  describing  a  coquettish  woman,  hard  of  heart,  and 
careless  of  her  victims.  He  wrote  it  in  the  spirit  of  ro- 
mantic love,  to  sing  the  deep  mystery  which  draws  a  man 


90  BOSTON  BKOWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

and  woman  together,  and  which  makes  their  long  life  an 
ecstasy  of  mutual  comfort  and  courage.  Cristina  awakened 
love,  but  she  gave  no  return.  The  lover  found  they  were 
made  for  each  other,  that  some  profound  spiritual  affinity 
had  linked  them  together,  and  that  only  in  their  love  of 
each  other  could  the'  true  destiny  of  their  lives  be  wrought 
out.  Cristina  saw  the  heavenly  vision  for  a  moment,  knew 
that  their  souls  were  linked  by  ties  of  spiritual  destiny, 
that  they  could 'never  fulfil  the  true  purpose  of  their  lives 
without  each  other;  but  the  world's  honours,  in  her, 
trampled  out  the  light  forever.  When  the  lover  knows 
this,  he  turns  away  in  sadness  and  pain  to  pour  out  his 
heart,  but  with  the  comfort  that  no  failure  of  hers  can  hide 
from  him  the  heavenly  vision,  or  keep  him  from  loving 
even  where  return  of  love  is  denied.  Plato's  conception 
of  lovers  as  drawn  to  .each  other  because  of  some  mystic 
reminiscence  of  their  past  lives,  reappears  in  this  poem. 

Doubt  you  if,  in  some  such  moment, 

As  she  fixed  me,  she  felt  clearly, 
Ages  past  the  soul  existed, 

Here  an  age  't  is  resting  merely, 
And  hence  fleets  again  for  ages, 

While  the  true  end,  sole  and  single, 
It  stops  here  for  is,  this  love-way, 

With  some  other  soul  to  mingle? 

Else  it  loses  what  it  lived  for, 

And  eternally  must  lose  it ; 
Better  ends  may  be  in  prospect, 

Deeper  blisses  (if  you  choose  it), 
But  this  life's  end  and  this  love-bliss 

Have  been  lost  here.    Doubt  you  whether 
This  she  felt  as,  looking  at  me, 

Mine  and  her  souls  rushed  together  ? 

In  this  poem,  Browning  is  true  throughout  to  the  roman- 
tic spirit ;  for  not  only  does  he  present  Plato's  reminiscence 
of  love,  that  repeats  what  other  worlds  have  known,  but  he 
shows  that  love  is  an  intuition  which  reveals  our  spiritual 


BROWNING'S  THEORY  OF  ROMANTIC  LOVE.         91 

destiny.  These  intuitions  come  like  "Cashes  struck  from 
midnights,"  to  show  us  the  real  meaning  of  our  life,  and  to 
keep  us  in  the  way  of  the  spirit's  true  endowments.  The 
same  doctrine  of  reminisce'hce  and  intuition  is  made  use  of 
in  '  Evelyn  Hope.' 

In  it  we  have  the   very  essence  of  romantic  love  as  a 
modern  poet  may  draw  it  from  the  heart  of  Plato's  '  Phae- 
drus.'    It  is  a  spiritual  bond  that  is  woven  in  the  providence 
of  God,  and  that  no  discords  or  perplexities  of  earth  can 
hinder   from   making  the  two   know   each  other  as  one. 
This  conception  of  love  as  an  eternal  union  of  two  souls  ,(, 
finds  expression   again   and   again    in  Browning's  poems.'' 
'(The  tragic  element  with  which  he  deals  is  not  the  ordinary 
discord  between  mortals,  but  their  failure  to  realise  what 
belongs  to  them  as  spiritual  beings.     In  'Any  Wife  to  any 
Husband,'  the  dying  wife  is  struggling  with  her  fear  that 
the  husband  is  not  inspired  with  the  same  affection  as  her 
own,  and  that  when  she  is  gone,  he  will  find  comfort  in_ 
loving  some  other  woman.     He  may  fail  to  know  that  love  ( 
is  the  guardian  angel  of  the  soul  on  its  way  toward  the 
higher  life ;  and  he  may  be  contented  with  the  passions 
and  affections  of  the  fleeting  years,  instead  of  seeking  and 
finding  that  one  true  love  which  is  destined  to  lift  the  soul 
out  of  the  mire,  and  to  be -to  it  a  shining  light  for  eternal  j 
guidance. 

In  '  Two  in  the  Campagna,'  it  is  the  woman  who  will 
not  love  ;  and  because  she  will  not,  love's  tragedy  of  pas- 
sion and  pain  has  its  place  in  the  lover's  history.  It  is  not 
only  satisfaction  of  love  which  helps  the  soul  to  find  its 
way  upward,  but  the  failure  of  love  is  a  part  of  that  mystic 
experience  by  which  we  are  fitted  for  the  life  to  come. 
The  lover  pleads  with  all  the  eloquence  of  his  heart  that 
he  will  do  the  loved  one's  will,  see  with  her  eyes,  make 
his  heart  beat  with  hers,  bow  down  to  her  and  worship  her, 
if  she  will  but  give  back  to  him  love  that  will  be  like  his 
own.  When  he  learns  that  she  will  not  give  herself  as  he 


92  BOSTON   BKOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

gives  himself,  he  finds  that,  though  he  has  failed  of  the 
love  he  desires,  there  yet  remains 

Infinite  passion,  and  the  pain 
Of  finite  hearts  that  yearn, 

and  that  even  in  these  the  soul  finds  purification  and  re- 
demption. Well  is  it  for  the  lover  if  he  loves  her  out  of  a 
pure  heart,  even  if  love  gives  him  no  return  of  the  love  for 
which  his  soul  longs  above  all  other  things.  If  in  his  love 
he  has  been  base,  how  fearful  is  the  shame,  and  how  is  he 
cast  out  from  the  presence  of  the  being  he  has  loved  in 
vain !  This  is  the  thought  of  '  The  Worst  of  It,'  though 
it  is  the  woman  who  has  sinned,  and  not  the  man.  The 
man  has  been  cruelly  betrayed,  but  he  cannot  forget  that 
he  has  loved ;  and  he  still  hopes  that  the  future  will  in 
some  way  blot  out  what  has  been  all  evil  here.  He  cannot 
forget,  even  though  he  knows  how  he  has  been  sinned 
against  by  the  woman  he  loved. 

Dear,  I  look  from  my  hiding-place. 

Are  you  still  so  fair  ?     Have  you  still  the  eyes  ? 
Be  happy !     Add  but  the  other  grace, 

Be  good !     Why  want  what  the  angels  vaunt  ? 
I  knew  you  once :  but  in  Paradise, 

If  we  meet,  I  will  pass  nor  turn  my  face. 

Even  out  of  romantic  love  may  grow  a  curse,  because  of 
the  tragedy  which  ever  lurks  in  its  excess  of  sentiment 
and  passion.  The  love  of  Mertoun  for  Mildred,  in  'A 
Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,'  is  of  the  romantic  type;  but  it 
did  not  give  to  him  that  soul  of  honour  which  keeps  the 
lover  from  even  the  faintest  suggestion  of  .that  which  is 
ignoble.  When  he  sings  of  his  loved  one,  it  is  in  the 
manner  and  spirit  of  the  troubadour,  — 

There  's  a  woman  like  a  dew-drop,  she  's  so  purer  than  the  purest ; 
And  her  noble  heart 's  the  noblest,  yes,  and  her  sure  faith 's  the  surest. 

Love  which  can  sing  like  this  may  make  false  steps  that 
lead  to  misunderstandings,  and  then  to  that  tragic  ending 
in  pain  and  death,  which  is  the  consequence  of  sin. 


BROWNING'S  THEORY  OF  ROMANTIC  LOVE.         93 

Browning  has  depicted  every  form  of  love,  and  love( 
under  every  circumstance.  He  does  not  confine  himself 
to  the  romantic,  or  to  the  love  which  is  a  pure  sentiment 
of  the  heart,  or  to  that  which  is  a  deep  intuition  of  the 
soul.  We  cannot  follow  him  now  into  all  the  variety  he 
has  given  to  the  strongest  of  all  human  sentiments ;  but 
ever  we  may  find  in  his  account  of  it  the  touch  of  his 
own  romantic  spirit.  Above  what  is  gross  or  cruel  or 
tragic,  lingers  ever  some  light  of  the  passion  that  soars 
heavenward,  and  that  will  realise  in  an  eternal  union  of 
soul  with  soul  that  which  belongs  to  man  as  a  spiritual 
being. 

Not  only  has  Browning  given  us  passion  and  tragedy, 
but  he  has  also  given  us  simple  domestic  affection,  as  in 
'  By  the  Fireside.'  In  this  poem  he  shows  what  love  may 
be,  not  in  its  romantic  or  its  tragic  form,  but  in  its  form 
of  help  to  man  and  woman  in  the  home.  The  lovers  here 
are  concerned  mainly  for  what  will  help  them  to  make 
life  sweet  and  noble ;  and  their  hearthside  is  a  quiet 
abiding-place  of  helpfulness  and  tender  affection.  They 
have  not  always  succeeded.  There  have  been  misunder- 
standings, words  that  were  spoken  in  anger,  and  with- 
drawal of  affection  when  it  was  most  needed ;  yet  through 
all  that  has  tried  them,  and  made  love  more  difficult,  there 
has  come  growth  of  soul.  The  lover  has  found,  through 
his  experience,  that  life  is  a  means  of  discovering  himself 
to  himself,  of  testing  his  own  capacities,  and  of  showing 
to  others  that  which  he  can  be  to  them.  In  this  process 
of  self-revelation,  nothing  is  so  important  as  love,  which 
searches  into  every  corner  of  the  soul,  and  brings  out 
everything  there  is  in  one.  What  the  soul  is,  what  it 
has  learned,  what  it  may  become,  makes  itself  known  in 
any  great  experience  that  tries  it  to  its  utmost  depths. 
Such  an  experience  love  always  is  to  the  soul,  when 
it  has  in  it  any  great  reality  of  passionate  yearning  and 
aspiration. 


94  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

I  am  named  and  known  by  that  moment's  feat ; 

There  took  my  station  and  degree ; 
So  grew  my  own  small  life  complete, 

As  nature  obtained  her  best  of  me  — 
One  born  to  love  you,  sweet ! 

And  to  watch  you  sink  by  the  fire-side  now 

Back  again,  as  you  mutely  sit 
Musing  by  fire-light,  that  great  brow 

And  the  spirit-small  hand  propping  it, 
Yonder,  my  heart  knows  how  ! 

So,  earth  has  gained  by  one  man  the  more, 
And  the  gain  of  earth  must  be  heaven's  gain  too. 

This  word  out  of  Browning's  own  love-history,  this 
description  of  his  wife  as  she  sat  by  his  side,  shows  us 
what  romantic  love  was  to  him  as  an  element  in  his  own 
personal  experience.  He  said  that 

Earth  is  just  our  chance  for  learning  love, 
What  love  may  be  indeed,  and  is. 

It  was  to  him  all  that  he  had  dreamed  it  should  be  in  his 
early  romantic  poems.  It  was  to  him  a  romance ;  it  had 
its  tragic  element  of  misunderstanding,  hindrance,  and 
pain ;  and  it  realised  for  him  his  utmost  dream  of  its 
spiritual  illumination  and  redemptive  power. 

His  '  Men  and  Women,'  the  first  volume  he  sent  forth 
to  the  world  after  his  marriage,  shows  how  much  love 
..was  to  him,  and  how  it  had  enlarged  rather  than  lessened 
his  conception  of  romantic  love.  In  that  sweetest  and 
loftiest  of  all  his  poems,  which  he  calls  '  One  Word  More,' 
and  with  which  he  ends  that  book,  he  turns  back  to  Dante 
and  Raphael  for  such  inspiration  as  is  worthy,  with  which 
to  address  his  wife.  He  recalls  how  Dante  sang  of  his 
Beatrice,  and  how  Raphael  painted  his  Madonnas ;  and  he 
longs  for  the  power  to  make  known  the  depth  of  his  own 
affection  for  her  he  loves.  At  last  he  exclaims,  — 

God  be  thanked,  the  meanest  of  his  creatures 
Boasts  two  soul-sides,  one  to  face  the  world  with, 
One  to  show  a  woman  when  he  loves  her ! 


BROWNING'S  THEORY  OF  ROMANTIC  LOVE.         95 

Dante  and  Raphael  drew  on  their  imaginations  for  the 
women  they  painted,  having  the  help  of  real  women,  it 
is  true ;  but  not  contented  with  that  they  saw,  they 
reached  out  of  sight  to  find  the  perfect  in  the  ideal. 
Browning  has  not  found  it  necessary  to  go  from  his  own 
fireside 'to  find  the  Madonna  of  Raphael  or  the  angel  of 
Dante. 

Oh,  their  Rafael  of  the  dear  Madonnas, 
Oh,  their  Dante  of  the  dread  Inferno, 
Wrote  one  song  —  and  in  my  brain  I  sing  it, 
Drew  one  angel  —  borne,  see,  on  my  bosom ! 

And  when  that  loved  one  of  the  "  great  brow  and  the  \ 
spirit-small  hand  "  had  passed  hence  to  some  other  world, 
her  poet  could  not  think  of  her  less,  or  dream  of  her  withj 
other  than   the   old  tenderness.     After  many  years,   he 
found  expression  in  '  The  Ring  and  the  Book '  for  the 
affection  which  had  grown  stronger  with  the  passing  years. 
It  lived  on  with  growing  depths  of  yearning  and  reality, 
because  it  was  not  merely  a  love  to  the  person,  but  a  love 
for  the  soul ;  because  it  was  a  union  of  heart  with  heart 
in  what  is  spiritual  and  therefore  eternal. 

It  is  the  old  romantic  spirit  which  makes  Browning 
invoke  his  wife,  his  ascended  and  transfigured  wife,  as 
the  Muse  which  should  inspire  him  as  he  wrote  'The 
Ring  and  the  Book.'  Therein  he  wrote  of  Pompilia,  as  a 
troubadour  might  have  written  of  the  chosen  one  of  his 
song.  He  wrote  with  many  a  vision  of  her  who  had  been 
once  the  inspiration  of  his  life.  Hence  he  invoked  the 
loved  one,  who  was  now  as  near  and  real  as  then.  - 

This  is  the  same  voice  :  can  thy  soul  know  change  ? 
Hail  then,  and  hearken  from  the  realms  of  help  ! 
Never  may  I  commence  my  song,  my  due 
To  God,  who  best  taught  song  by  gift  of  thee, 
Except  with  bent  head  and  beseeching  hand  — 
That  still,  despite  the  distance  and  the  dark, 
What  was,  again  may  be ;  some  interchange 
Of  grace,  some  splendour  once  thy  very  thought, 


96  BOSTON   BROWNING  SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Some  benediction  anciently  thy  smile  : 
—  Never  conclude,  but  raising  hand  and  head 
Thither  where  eyes,  that  cannot  reach,  yet  yearn 
For  all  hope,  all  sustainment,  all  reward. 

Some  years  later  on,  there  came  to  Browning  once  more 
a  reminiscence  of  his  wife,  and  this  time  with  reference  to 
the  reality  of  that  world  in  which  he  had  imaginatively 
found  her  as  the  Muse  of  his  great  poem.  And  curiously, 
he  thinks  of  her  still  again  in  company  with  Dante. 
While  they  were  together  here  he  had  written  in  her 
New  Testament  some  words  out  of  the  Florentine's 
account  of  his  Beatrice.  Now  he  recalled  those  words  as 
expressing  his  thought  about  the  immortal  life,  and  Ke 
wrote  them  to  a  friend  for  her  comforting.  Fourteen 
years  before,  he  had  written  down  these  words  for  the 
eye  of  the  woman  he  loved :  "  Thus  I  believe,  thus  I 
affirm,  thus  I  am  certain  it  is,  that  from  this  life  I  shall 
pass  to  another  better,  there,  where  that  lady  lives  of 
whom  my  soul  is  enamoured. "  He  recalls  these  words, 
and  finds  in  them  the  true  faith  of  his  soul ;  for  he  could 
not  think  that  death  or  eternity  would  separate  from  him 
her  who  had  been  to  him  the  highest  ideal  because  the 
most  perfect  vision  of  reality. 

It  is  not  the  romantic  love  of  Plato,  Dante,  or  the 
troubadours,  which  we  find  in  the  poems  of  Browning. 
He  has  modernised  it,  and  he  has  given  it  a  character  of 
his  own.  With  him  it  is  less  sentimental,  languishing, 
and  sickly,  has  more  in  it  of  the  true  ring  of  life.  It  is 
quite  as  tender,  as  full  of  yearning,  and  with  a  spiritual 
vision  as  lofty.  He  is  as  little  inclined  as  they  to  what  is 
conventional  in  love,  and  to  what  is  born  of  convenience 
and  utilitarian  considerations.  He  will  make  it  lofty  with 
sentiment ;  he  will  clothe  it  in  forms  of  beauty ;  he  will 
,  make  it  voice  and  guide  his  spiritual  yearnings ;  and  he 
I  must  find  in  it  a  revelation  of  life  and  eternity. 

The  spirit  of  romantic  love  the  world  yet  needs,  that 


BROWNING'S  THEORY  OF  ROMANTIC  LOVE.         97" 

man  and  woman  may  find  in  each  other  the  oneness  which 
makes  them  whole.  Its  sentimentalism,  its  extravagance 
of  passion,  its  disregard  for  reality,  should  pass  away, 
because  they  can  no  longer  help  us ;  but  its  tenderness, 
its  chivalric  fidelity,  its  imaginative  yearning  for  a  purer 
life,  its  lofty  devotion  and  consecration,  should  yet  remain 
with  us,  to  make  wedded  life  all  that  we  desire.  That 
can  be  realised  to-day,  not  in  the  manner  of  romantic  love, 
but  by  seeing  in  woman,  on  the  part  of  man,  a  being  that 
is  other  than  himself,  but  yet  his  equal.  She  is  equal  in 
her  individuality,  which  should  command  his  respect,  and 
which  should  be  held  by  him  in  such  honour  as  to  be  sacred 
and  inviolable. 

In  the  time  of  Plato,  woman  was  the  slave  of  man's 
passion ;  in  the  time  of  Dante,  she  was  the  goddess  of  his 
sentimental  love ;  in  the  time  of  Browning,  she  had 
become  the  object  of  his  personal  esteem,  loved  for  her 
own  sake,  and  because  he  found  in  her  a  companionship 
which  supplemented  and  revealed  his  own  individuality. 
To  Browning,  as  well  as  to  Dante  and  Petrarch,  love  was 
a  spiritual  revelation.  He  saw  in  the  individuality  of 
woman  that  which  made  his  own  life  richer,  that  which 
purified  and  refined  his  conceptions  of  personal  being,  and 
that  which  opened  to  him  widening  visions  of  spiritual 
experience. 

Love  is  that  passion  of  the  soul  which  leads  man  to  for- 
get himself  in  the  life  of  another,  which  shows  him  his 
most  perfect  existence  in  living  for  another  individual, 
and  which  proves  to  him  that  he  can  in  no  wise  save  his 
soul  except  by  losing  it.  Such  love  becomes  romantic 
when  it  passes  through  the  love  of  the  one  wherein  life 
finds  its  enshrinement  of  tenderness  and  comfort,  to  the 
forgetfulness  of  self  in  the  great  life  of  humanity  and 
service  to  fellow-men,  and  then  on  upward  to  spiritual 
love  of  the  Infinite  One.  It  is  the  revelation  of  the 
Infinite  Love  to  our  souls  which  makes  any  worthy  love 

7 


98  BOSTON  BKOWNESTG  SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

of  woman  for  man,  or  man  for  woman.  When  the  love 
with  which  God  searches  out  the  heart  of  a  man  turns 
back  to  him  through  the  love  of  woman,  the  expression  of 
it  appears  as  romantic  love.  It  was  such  love  which  made 
Dante  sing  of  Beatrice,  — 

She  goes  her  way,  and  hears  men's  praises  free, 
Clothed  in  a  garb  of  kindness,  meek  and  low, 
And  seems  as  if  from  heaven  she  came,  to  show 
Upon  the  earth  a  wondrous  mystery. 


BROWNING'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

BY  DANIEL  DORCHESTER,  JR. 

[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  November  24,  1891.] 

PHILOSOPHY  and  art  are  supposed  by  some  people  to  be  at 
variance;  and  they  are  certainly  different  in  aim,  method, 
and  result.  For  the  aim  of  philosophy  is  truth,  the  aim 
of  art  is  beauty.  The  method  of  philosophy  is  critical 
reflection,  proceeding  from  the  known  to  the  unknown  by 
logical  processes.  The  method  of  art  is  creation,  or  repre- 
sentation, transforming  the  ideal  into  the  real,  and  the  real 
into  the  ideal,  through  the  fusing  power  of  the  imagina- 
tion. The  result  of  philosophy  is  a  system  that  appeals  to 
the  intellect,  and  that  explains  or  tries  to  explain  phe- 
nomena. The  result  of  art  is  a  creation  or  "  concrete  repre- 
sentation, which,  uniting  matter  and  spirit,  substance  and 
form,  real  and  ideal,  into  a  complete  organic  whole,  ad- 
dresses itself  at  once  to  the  senses,  the  intellect,  and  the 
heart." 

But  deeper  than  all  these  divisions  is  the  union  of  phil- 
osophy and  art.  While  it  is  true  that  neither  philosophy 
nor  art  is  at  its  best  until  it  is  free,  and  while  each  is 
supreme  in  its  own  realm,  both  emanate  from  a  common 
source,  and  each  lends  to  the  other  something  of  itself. 
Both  are  deeply  concerned  with  ideas.  The  sense  impres- 
sions of  philosopher  and  artist  alike  are  reinforced  and 
transformed  by  the  critical  energy  of  mind.  The  artistic 
impulse  would  be  without  significance  or  strength  were  it 
not  nourished  by  meditation ;  thought  makes  of  the  mind 


100  BOSTON  BEOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEKS. 

of  the  artist  a  magnet,  drawing  to  itself  images  and  ideas, 
and  thus  enabling  him  to  create  out  of  the  garnered  wealth 
of  his  own  soul  and  the  universe.  "  Let  no  one  hope  with- 
out deep  thought,"  said  Plato,  "to  fashion  everlasting 
material  into  eternal  form ; "  and  a  modern  writer  with 
more  fulness  of  truth  has  said :  "  More  than  the  painter  is 
required  for  the  creation  of  great  painting,  and  more  than 
the  poet  for  the  exhibition  of  immortal  verse.  Painters 
are  but  the  hands,  and  poets  but  the  voices,  whereby 
peoples  express  their  accumulated  thoughts  and  permanent 
emotions.  Behind  these  crowd  the  generations  of  the 
myth-makers,  and  around  them  floats  the  vital  atmosphere 
of  enthusiasms  on  which  their  own  souls  and  the  souls  of 
their  brethren  have  been  nourished."  1 

On  the  other  hand,  philosophy  could  ill  afford  to  dis- 
pense with  "  the  idealised  and  monumental  utterances  " 
of  art,  —  its  witness  to  the  unity  of  man  and  the  world, 
and  its  penetrating  glances  into  the  facts  and  principles  of 
the  spiritual  universe.  The  result  of  philosophic  work  can 
never  become  generally  current,  or  "  dear  and  genuine 
inmates  of  the  household  of  man,"  so  long  as  they  are 
insulated  by  the  intellect,  or  dwarfed  by  dogmatic  state- 
ment, but  these  results  must  be  vitalised  by  the  emotions 
and  the  imagination,  and  this  is  the  peculiar  work  of  art. 
Mr.  Browning  at  the  end  of  '  The  Ring  and  the  Book ' 
states  the  philosophic  content  of  that  great  and  long  poem 
in  a  very  few  words.  He  then  asks,  ''Why  take  the 
artistic  way  to  prove  so  much?  Because  it  is  the  glory 
and  good  of  art,  that  art  remains  the  one  way  possible 
of  speaking  truth,  to  mouths  like  mine  at  least.  How 
look  a  brother  in  the-  face  and  say,  '  thy  right  is  wrong, 
eyes  hast  thou  yet  blind,  thine  ears  are  stuffed  and  stopped, 
despite  their  length :  and,  oh,  the  foolishness  thou  countest 
faith ! '  Say  this  as  silverly  as  tongue  can  troll :  the  anger 
of  the  man  may  be  endured ;  the  shrug,  the  disappointed 

.  1  Symonds. 


BROWNING'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART.  101 

eyes  of  him  are  not  so  bad  to  bear :  but  here 's  the  plague, 
that  all  this  trouble  comes  of  telling  truth,  which  truth,  by 
when  it  reaches  him,  looks  false,  seems  to  be  just  the  thing 
it  would  supplant,  nor  recognisable  by  whom  it  left :  while 
falsehood  would  have  done  the  work  of  truth.  But  Art,  — 
wherein  man  nowise  speaks  to  men,  only  to  mankind,  —  Art 
may  tell  a  truth  obliquely,  do  the  tiling  shall  breed  the 
thought,  nor  wrong  the  thought,  missing  the  mediate  word. 
So  you  may  paint  your  picture,  twice  show  truth,  beyond 
mere  imagery  on  the  wall,  —  so,  note  by  note,  bring  music 
from  your  mind  deeper  than  ever  e'en  Beethoven  dived,  — 
so  write  a  book  shall  mean  beyond  the  facts,  suffice  the 
eye  and  save  the  soul  beside." 

The  greatest  poets  and  artists  have  chosen  this  "more 
excellent  way  "  of  presenting  truth,  and  are  significant 
alike  for  the  truthfulness  of  their  ideas  and  the  beauty  of 
their  artistic  forms.  "  Ten  silent  centuries,"  it  is  said, 
found  a  voice  in  Dante,  and  "  the  truths  to  which  he  gave 
immortal  expression  had  been  slowly  crystallising  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  Christian  world."  Now,  Dante  was  a 
student  of  scholasticism  and  a  lecturer  upon  it  as  well. 
The  passage  through  Hell,  Purgatory,  and  Paradise,  as 
described  in  his  'Divine  Comedy,'  is  the  thread  for  the 
exposition  of  his  doctrines.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find 
in  this  poem  a  truth  that  cannot  be  found  in  the  writings^ 
of  Albert  or  Thomas  Aquinas.  But  the  poem  is  much 
more  than  a  system  of  philosophy  or  of  theology;  it  is  a 
vision,  at  once  terrible  and  inspiring,  not  of  the  mediaeval 
world  alone,  but  of  the  world  of  humanity,  and  the  esseiv 
tial  conditions  of  the  soul  in  any  country,  in  any  age,  on 
such  a  pilgrimage.  Scholasticism  may  have  furnished  the 
warp  for  Dante's  sublime  weaving,  but  the  pattern,  the 
texture,  the  figures,  the  perennial  significance,  all  that 
appeals  to  the  imagination  and  stirs  the  soul,  is  due  to 
the  genius  of  the  poet. 

What  Dante   did, — transfigured   scholasticism   for  the 


102  BOSTON  BKOWXING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

"poor  laity  of  love  "  to  read,- — a  score  of  painters  and 
sculptors  sought  to  do  in  the  first  great  period  of  Italian 
art,  the  period  covered  by  Browning  iii  his  poem,  '  Old 
Pictures  in  Florence.'  More  orthodox  than  Dante,  dom- 
inated more  by  the  church,  and  guilty,  many  of  them,  of 
picturesque  infidelity,  their  work  has  not  been  so  world- 
wide in  its  influence,  or  so  significant  to  the  modern  mind. 
But  in  those  days,  when  so  few  could  read  and  there  was 
so  little  for  them  to  read,  painting  was  in  Italy  the  most 
potent  means  for  the  education  of  the  people. 

Hence,  every  great  conception  of  the  Middle  Ages,  dog- 
matic theology  and  pagan  philosophy,  Christian  and  pagan 
virtues,  moral  and  political  precepts,  Biblical  stories  and 
monkish  legends,  saints  and  ecclesiasts,  the  bliss  of  the 
blessed  and  the  miseiy  of  the  damned,  whatever  was 
thought  needful  for  the  religious  and  civil  life  of  man, 
was  painted  on  the  walls  of  churches  and  palaces. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  relation  of  Browning's  art  to 
the  philosophy  of  his  age.  "  The  stream  of  tendency  "  in 
the  nineteenth  century  is  not,  like  that  of  the  age  of 
scholasticism,  pervaded  by  a  movement  that  carries  all 
activities  with  it ;  it  has  many  currents,  and  the  main 
current  is  not  always  the  same.  There  must  be  much 
interaction  in  a  century  so  complex  as  ours ;  hence,  the 
philosophic  relation  of  such  a  complex  poet  as  Browning 
can  be  determined  only  approximately.  With  the  philo- 
sophic movement  of  John  Stuart  Mill  and  Herbert  Spencer, 
Browning  has  little  in  common.  It  is  too  narrow,  too 
mechanical,  too  materialistic,  too  destructive  of  the  soul's 
freedom,  to  nurture  a  great  poet.  Mill  himself,  fled  for 
relief  from  his  own  philosophy  to  the  poetry  of  Words- 
worth ;  Herbert  Spencer's  suggestive  phrase,  "  transfigured 
realism,"  is  a  confession  of  the  need  he  feels  for  a  more 
spiritual  view  of  things.  But  the  mind  cannot  be  trans- 
figured by  a  mere  physical  complement  with  vague  sugges- 
tions of  an  Unknowable  Force  behind  it.  As  a  recent 


BEOWNIXG'S  PHILOSOPHY  OP  ART.  103 

writer  justly  says  :  "  Herbert  Spencer  leaves  matter  and 
mind,  nature  and  thought,  over  against  each  other  without 
vital  relation,  without  explanation,  and  without  a  clue  to 
that  Unknowable  Something  in  which  they  somehow 
combine,  and  which  somehow  animates  and  explains  them 
both."  Or  as  Browning  himself  puts  it  in  the  person  of 
the  prophet  John  in  '  A  Death  in  the  Desert ' :  — 

.  For  I  say,  this  is  death  and  the  sole  death, 
When  a  man's  loss  comes  to  him  from  his  gain, 
Darkness  from  light,  from  knowledge  ignorance, 
And  lack  of  love  from  love  made  manifest ; 
A  lamp's  death  when,  replete  with  oil,  it  chokes ; 
A  stomach's  when,  surcharged  with  food,  it  starves. 
With  ignorance  was  surety  of  a  cure. 
When  man,  appalled  at  nature,  questioned  first, 

"  What  if  there  lurk  a  might  behind  this  might  ?  " 
He  needed  satisfaction  God  could  give, 
And  did  give,  as  ye  have  the  written  word : 
But  when  he  finds  might  still  redouble  might, 
Yet  asks,  "  Since  all  is  might,  what  use  of  will  ?  " 
— Will,  the  one  source  of  might,  —  he  being  man 
With  a  man's  will  and  a  man's  might,  to  teach 
In  little  how  the  two  combine  in  large,  — 
That  man  has  turned  round  on  himself  and  stands, 
Which  in  the  course  of  nature  is,  to  die. 

And  when  man  questioned,  "  What  if  there  be  love 
"  Behind  the  will  and  might,  as  real  as  they  1  "  — 
He  needed  satisfaction  God  could  give, 
And  did  give,  as  ye  have  the  written  word  : 
But  when,  beholding  that  love  everywhere, 
He  reasons,  "  Since  such  love  is  everywhere, 
And  since  ourselves  can  love  and  would  be  loved, 
We  ourselves  make  the  love,  and  Christ  was  not,"  — 
How  shall  ye  help  this  man  who  knows  himself, 
That  he  must  love  and  would  be  loved  again, 
Yet,  owning  his  own  love  that  proveth  Christ, 
Rejecteth  Christ  through  very  need  of  Him  ? 
The  lamp  o'erswims  with  oil,  the  stomach  flags 
Loaded  with  nurture,  and  that  man's  soul  dies. 

By  far  the  broadest  movement  in  the  nineteenth  century 
thought,  the  movement  that  has  overspread  and  modified 


104  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

all  others,  is  the  scientific.  By  the  scientific,  I  mean__a 
certain  way  of  looking  at  things,  certain  methods  of  inves- 
tigation and  thought,  rather  than  any  specific  system  or 
theories  ;  and,  as  such,  it  has  been  all  pervasive ;  every 
kind  of  intellectual  activity,  even  the  poetic,  has  been 
influenced  by  it. 

Browning  has  the  scientific  habit  of  mind,  he  has  the 
critical  scrutiny  that  examines  from  different  points  of 
view,  sifts,  and  endeavours  to  approach  more  and  more  to 
the  conception  that  represents  the  maximum  of  truth. 
Browning  has  also  the  enlightened  curiosity  for  facts  that 
distinguishes  science,  —  the  sympathy  for  old  religions  and 
civilisations,  the  hospitality  to  new  ideas  and  theories. 

Science  has  been  "  a  precious  visitant,"  indeed,  to  Brown- 
ing, because  she  has  "  furnished  clear  guidance,  a  support 
not  treacherous  to  the  mind's  excursive  power." 

In  addition  to  the  point  of  view  of  scientific  realism, 
Browning  has  that  of  idealism,  and  employed  his  genius  as 
an  artist  to  give  expression  to  the  results  of  both.  "  He 
knows,"  says  a  recent  writer,  "  the  'infinite  significances' 
that  facts  have  for  thought,  and  how  this  significance 
comes  of  the  mind's  own  laws  and  depths.  He  is,  in  a 
word,  an  idealist  in  the  last  resort.  Behind  the  energetic 
realism  and  strong  grip  on  facts  is  a  '  visionary  power,'  and 
sense  of  ideas — convictions  and  passions  that  claim  and 
affirm  a  world  more  real  because  ideal.  He  has  the  poet's 
ulterior,  intellectual  perception,  the  artist's  sense  of  the 
reality  of  the  ideal,  the  thinker's  conviction  of  its  spiritu- 
ality. Aware  of  both  sides  of  experience,  and  keenly 
"aware  of  its  real  side,  he  yet  seeks  on  its  ideal  side  the  clue 
to  experience  and  to  the  unknowable  elements  of  man's 
own  nature.  Of  all  worlds,  to  him  the  most  real  is  the 
world  of  man's  thought  and  passion. 

"  The  beliefs  and  emotions,  the  characters  and  actions 
of  men,  the  expression  of  man  through  religion  and  art, 
the  revelation  of  man  in  literature  and  history  —  here, 


BKOWXDSTG'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AKT.  105 

indeed,  is  a  realm  of  facts  of  most  curious  and  profound 
interest,  facts  requiring  and  rewarding  interpretation  more 
than  any  other  facts,  and  throwing  more  light  than  the 
whole  body  of  physical  knowledge  on  all  that  is  of  most 
value  for  us  to  know.  .  .  .  In  an  age  of  science  mainly 
physical,  he  has  maintained  and  illustrated  the  supreme 
interest  and  most  real  significance  of  man,  not  only  to  him- 
self and  with  reference  to  every  '  use  '  of  life,  but  with 
reference  to  knowledge  too.  To  this  ground  he  has  kept ; 
from  this  standpoint  and  with  this  outlook  all  his  work 
has  been  made."  1 

Browning's  affinity  for  idealism  has  already  been  indi- 
cated. He  is  identified  with  a  movement  of  human  thought 
that  is  as  old  as  Plato.  His  idealism,  however,  is^not  that 
of  Plato,  but  that  which  owed  its  most  modern  impulse  to 
Kant  and  his  successors,  and  has  been  accelerated  by  the 
poetry  of  Schiller  and  Goethe,  Shelley  and  Wordsworth. 
These  philosophers  have  made  the  most  successful  attempts 
to  reconcile  what  has  been  called  "  the  three  great  terms 
of  thought,  world,  self,  and  God,"  while  the  poets  have 
sought  to  embody  them  in  artistic  forms.  Neither  has  suc- 
ceeded perfectly ;  indeed,  the  perfect  reconciliation  of 
matter,  thought,  and  spirit  will  be  the  final  achievement  of 
philosophy,  as  their  perfect  realisation  will  be  the  crowning 
glory  of  art  and  religion.  In  '  Paracelsus,'  in  his  sublime 
vision  of  a  true  evolution,  Browning  has  foreseen  this 
reconciliation.  Thus  God- — 

Dwells  in  all, 

From  life's  minute  beginnings,  up  at  last 
To  man  —  the  consummation  of  this  scheme 
Of  being,  the  completion  of  this  sphere 
Of  life  :  whose  attributes  had  here  and  there 
Been  scattered  o'er  the  visible  world  before, 
Asking  to  be  combined,  dim  fragments  meant 
To  be  united  in  some  wondrous  whole, 
Imperfect  qualities  throughout  creation, 
Suggesting  some  one  creature  yet  to  make, 

1  Henry  Jones  :  '  Browning  as  a  Philosophical  and  Religious  Teacher.' 


106  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Some  point  where  all  those  scattered  rays  should  meet 
Convergent  in  the  faculties  of  man. 

Progress  is 

The  law  of  life,  man  is  not  Man  as  yet. 
Nor  shall  I  deem  his  object  served,  his  end 
Attained,  his  genuine  strength  put  fairly  forth 
While  only  here  and  there  ...  a  towering  inmd 
O'erlooks  its  prostrate  fellows  :  when  the  host 
Is  out  at  once  to  the  despair  of  night, 
When  all  mankind  alike  is  perfected, 
Equal  in  full-blown  powers  —  then,  not  till  then, 
I  say,  begins  man's  general  infancy. 

Here  are  the  steps  of  this  reconciliation :  God  in  nature 
working  toward  man,  God  in  man  working  toward  a  com- 
plete humanity,  and  this  complete  humanity  is  "stung 
with  hunger  "  for  the  divine  fulness.  Thus  "  nature,"  as 
one  says,  "  is  on  its  way  back  to  God,  gathering  treasure  as 
it  goes." 

Browning,  thus  interpreting  God,  man,  and  nature  from 
an  idealistic  point  of  view,  naturally  discovered  in  art  a 
deep  significance.  Like  Kant  and  his  successors,  he  con- 
nected art  very  closely  with  character.  To  Schiller,  the 
beautiful  was  an  intimation  of  the  true  and  the  good ;  art 
was  a  means  to  these.  More  exactly  than  any  one  before 
him,  Schiller  estimated  the  importance  of  the  artistic  feeling 
for  the  development  of  humanity.  Hegel  connects  the 
three  general  forms  of  art,  the  symbolic,  the  classic,  and 
the  romantic,  with  the  three  essential  stages  through  which 
the  spirit  of  man  must  pass  in  its  development.  And 
Browning's  art-poems  are  studies  of  character  in  certain 
forms  and  periods  of  artistic  activity. 

An  art-critic,  intent  only  upon  literal  accuracy,  would 
not  accept  the  judgments  expressed  in  those  poems  with- 
out many  qualifications.  He  would  cite,  for  example,  the 
frescoes  of  Andrea  del  Sarto  in  the  entrance  court  of  Santa 
Annunciata  in  Florence,  —  their  great  dignity,  their  fresh 
passion  and  imagination,  as  evidence  that  Andrea  was  more 
than  the  clever  realist  Browning  has  described.  Sandro, 


BROWNING'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART.  107 

better  known  as  Botticelli,  is  classified  by  Browning  in  his 
'  Old  Pictures  in  Florence '  with  Giotto,  Taddeo  Gaddi, 
and  Cimabue,  but  Botticelli  was  a  pupil  of  Fra  Lippo  Lippi,  v 
who  ushered  in  the  next  period  of  Italian  art.  Many  such 
criticisms  might  be  made,  but  they  do  not  invalidate  the 
truth  of  Browning's  art-poems.  His  principle  of  classifica- 
tion transcends  such  minor  distinctions,  and  is  concerned 
with  the  exemplification  in  art  of  certain  types  of  character. 
Andrea  del  Sarto,  it  is  true,  occasionally  rises  to  a  great 
dignity  of  expression,  but  the  general  level  of  his  art,  as  of 
his  life,  was  low,  stereotyped,  and  sordid.  Botticelli, 
though  a  pupil  of  Lippi,  had  a  strong  individuality,  and 
belonged  in  spirit  to  the  school  of  Giotto.  Few  painters 
have  made  every  part  of  their  work  so  tributary  to  an  idea, 
or  striven  more  earnestly  after  ideal  beauty. 

In  the  poem,  '  Old  Pictures  in  Florence,'  Browning 
shows  that  romantic  art  in  its  crude  form  is  superior  to 
Greek  art  in  its  perfection,  simply  because  it  manifests  a 
higher  ideal  of  the  human  soul.  He  is  not  unmindful  of 
the  glory  of  the  Grecian  character  and  art.  The  very 
atmosphere  in  which  the  Greeks  lived  was  pellucid,  and 
their  thought  was  like  it.  They  had,  too,  an  intense 
love  of  sensuous  beauty,  a  love  that  a  clear,  translucent 
sky,  blue  crystalline  seas,  and  each  old  poetic  mountain 
"inspiration  breathing  around,"  so  nurtured  that  it  be- 
came their  master  passion.  Naturally  their  thoughts 
became  transfigured  into  images ;  the  more  vivid  the  con- 
ception, the  more  sensuous  it  seemed;  indeed,  thought 
and  image  became  one.  The  spirit  of  man  for  a  time  saw 
its  ideal  realised  in  the  grand  and  beautiful  forms  of  the 
Grecian  divinities. 

But  no  sensuous  representation,  however  excellent,  could 
long  seem  an  adequate  expression  to  the  developing  soul 
of  man.  Spirit  alone  can  satisfy  spirit,  and  only  in  its 
own  realm,  the  inner  realm  of  the  soul,  can  it  find  its  true 
reality.  In  the  decadence  of  Grecian  art,  in  proportion  as 


108  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

there  was  a  surrender  to  outer  vision  and  as  bodily  charm 
was  sought  as  an  end,  the  human  spirit  turned  its  gaze 
inward  and  communed  with  its  own  loftier  ideals.  Philos- 
ophy dissolved  the  splendid  Grecian  mythology  into  a 
single,  infinite,  invisible  divinity.  Idea  and  sensuous  image 
were  separated.  Then  Christianity  came,  insisting  upon 
the  Divine  Spirit  as  the  absolute  ideal,  and  glorifying  the 
soul  at  the  expense  of  the  body,  if  need  be.  Christian 
virtues  had  no  necessary  connection  with  bodily  symmetry 
and  grace.  A  Greek  faun  must  be  graceful,  a  Greek  god 
must  be  vigorous,  but  a  Christian  saint  without  any  physi- 
cal charm  might  be  enshrined  with  glory.  The  Greek  had 
no  appreciation  for  such  beauty  as  St.  Bernard  saw  in  his 
hymn  to  the  Crucified  One :  — 

All  the  strength  and  bloom  are  faded, 
Who  hath  thus  Thy  state  degraded  ? 
Death  upon  Thy  form  is  written  ; 
See  the  wan,  worn  limbs,  the  smitten 
Breast  upon  the  cruel  tree. 

Thus  despised  and  desecrated, 
Thus  in  dying  desolated, 
Slain  for  me,  of  sinners  vilest, 
Loving  Lord,  on  me  Thou  smilest : 
Shine,  bright  face,  and  strengthen  me. 

But  it  was  just  such  spiritual  beauty  as  this  that  was 
the  strength  of  the  soul  in  this  stage  of  its  development, 
and  it  was  the  mission  of  romantic  art  to  reveal  this 
beauty. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  Browning's  poem  and  observe  how  he 
distinguishes  between  these  two  stages,  between  classic  and 
romantic  art :  — 

When  Greek  Art  ran  and  reached  the  goal, 
Thus  much  had  the  world  to  boast  infructu  — 

The  Truth  of  Man,  as  by  God  first  spoken, 
Which  the  actual  generations  garble, 

Was  re-uttered,  and  Soul  (which  Limbs  betoken) 
And  Limbs  (Soul  informs)  made  new  in  marble. 


BROWNING'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART.  109 

So,  you  saw  yourself  as  you  wished  you  were, 

As  you  might  have  been,  as  you  cannot  be 
Earth  here,  rebuked  by  Olympus  there  : 

And  grew  content  in  your  poor  degree 
With  your  little  power,  by  those  statues'  godhead, 

And  your  little  scope,  by  their  eyes'  full  sway, 
And  your  little  grace,  by  their  grace  embodied, 

And  your  little  date,  by  their  forms  that  stay. 

Growth  came  when,  looking  your  last  on  them  all, 

You  turned  your  eyes  inwardly  one  fine  day 
And  cried  with  a  start,  —  What  if  we  so  small 

Be  greater  and  grander  the  while  than  they  ? 
Are  they  perfect  of  lineament,  perfect  of  stature  ? 

In  both,  of  such  lower  types  are  we 
Precisely  because  of  our  wider  nature ; 

For  time,  theirs  —  ours,  for  eternity. 

To-day's  brief  passion  limits  their  range  ; 

It  seethes  with  the  morrow  for  us  and  more. 
They  are  perfect  —  how  else  ?  they  shall  never  change : 

We  are  faulty  —  why  not  ?  we  have  time  in  store. 
The  Artificer's  hand  is  not  arrested 

With  us  ;  we  are  rough-hewn,  nowise  polished  : 
They  stand  for  our  copy,  and,  once  invested 

With  all  they  can  teach,  we  shall  see  them  abolished. 

'T  is  a  life-long  toil  till  our  lump  be  leaven  — 
The  better !     What 's  come  to  perfection  perishes. 

Things  learned  on  earth,  we  shall  practise  in  heaven : 
Works  done  least  rapidly,  Art  most  cherishes. 

On  which  I  conclude,  that  the  early  painters, 

To  cries  of  "  Greek  Art  and  what  more  wish  you  ?  "  — 
Replied,  "To  become  now  self-acquainters, 

And  paint  man,  man,  whatever  the  issue  ! 
Make  new  hopes  shine  through  the  flesh  they  fray, 

New  fears  aggrandise  the  rags  and  tatters  : 
To  bring  the  invisible  full  into  play ! 

Let  the  visible  go  to  the  dogs  —  what  matters  ?  " 

The  degeneracy  of  art  has  always  been  characterised  by 
a  turning  away  from  the  invisible  and  a  bowing  down  to 
the  visible.  The  limitation  and  condemnation  of  all  such 


110  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

art  may  be  found  in  the  poem   of   'Andrea   del   Sarto.1 
Andrea  speaks  of  his  easy  mastery  of  his  art :  — 

I  can  do  with  my  pencil  what  I  know, 
What  I  see,  what  at  bottom  of  my  heart 
.    I  wish  for,  if  I  ever  wish  so  deep  — 
Do  easily,  too  —  when  I  say,  perfectly, 
I  do  not  boast,  perhaps  :  yourself  are  judge, 
Who  listened  to  the  Legate's  talk  last  week, 
And  just  as  much  they  used  to  say  in  France. 
At  any  rate  't  is  easy,  all  of  it ! 
No  sketches  first,  no  studies,  that 's  long  past : 
I  do  what  many  dream  of,  all  their  lives, 
—  Dream  ?  strive  to  do,  and  agonise  to  do, 
And  fail  in  doing.     I  could  count  twenty  such 
On  twice  your  fingers,  and  not  leave  this  town, 
Who  strive  —  you  don't  know  how  the  others  strive 
To  paint  a  little  thing  like  that  yon  smeared 
Carelessly  passing  with  your  robes  afloat,  — 
Yet  do  much  less,  so  much  less,  Someone  sa3rs, 
(I  know  his  name,  no  matter)  —  so  much  less  ! 

But  his  ideal  is  lower  than  that  of  others  who  are  not  so 
skilful,  and  he  feels  that  he  falls  below  them  :  — 

Well,  less  is  more,  Lncrezia :  I  am  judged. 

There  burns  a  truer  light  of  God  in  them, 

In  their  vexed,  beating,  stuffed  and  stopped-up  brain, 

Heart,  or  whate'er  else,  than  goes  on  to  prompt 

This  low-pulsed  forthright  craftsman's  hand  of  mine. 

Yonder 's  a  work  now,  of  that  famous  youth 

The  Urbinate  who  died  five  years  ago. 

('T  is  copied,  George  Vasari  sent  it  me.) 

Well,  I  can  fancy  how  he  did  it  all, 

Pouring  his  soul,  with  kings  and  popes  to  see, 

Reaching,  that  heaven  might  so  replenish  him, 

Above  and  through  his  art  —  for  it  gives  way ; 

That  arm  is  wrongly  put  —  and  there  again  — 

A  fault  to  pardon  in  the  drawing's  lines, 

Its  body,  so  to  speak :  its  soul  is  right, 

He  means  right  —  that,  a  child  may  understand. 

Still,  what  an  arm !  and  I  could  alter  it : 

But  all  the  play,  the  insight  and  the  stretch  — 

Out  of  me,  out  of  me  ! 


BROWNING'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART.  Ill 

In  suggestive  contrast  to  Andrea  del  Sarto  stifling  the 
promptings,  "  God  and  the  glory !  never  care  for  gain," 
and  squandering  his  talents  upon  pelf  and  popularity,  is 
Pictor  Ignotus,  who  chose  to  worship  his  lofty  but  narrow 
ideal  in  poverty  and  obscurity,  rather  than  lavish  his 
genius  on  the  vain  world.  "  Nor  will  I  say,"  Pictor 
Ignotus  confesses,  — 

I  have  not  dreamed  (how  well !) 

Of  going  —  I,  in  each  new  picture,  —  forth, 
As,  making  new  hearts  beat  and  bosoms  swell, 

To  Pope  or  Kaiser,  East,  West,  South,  or  North, 
Bound  for  the  calmly  satisfied  great  State, 

Or  glad  aspiring  little  burgh,  it  went, 
Flowers  cast  upon  the  car  which  bore  the  freight, 

Through  old  streets  named  afresh  from  the  event, 
Till  it  reached  home,  where  learned  age  should  greet 

My  face,  and  youth,  the  star  not  yet  distinct 
Above  his  hair,  lie  learning  at  my  feet !  — 

Oh,  thus  to  live,  I  and  my  picture,  linked 
With  love  about,  and  praise,  till  life  should  end, 

And  then  not  go  to  heaven,  but  linger  here, 
Here  on  my  earth,  earth's  every  man  my  friend,  — 

The  thought  grew  frightful,  't  was  so  wildly  dear ! 
But  a  voice  changed  it  — 

the  voice  of  his  soul  proclaiming  a  lofty,  austere  ideal, 
that  had  nothing  in  common  with  the  popular  fancy :  — 

Wherefore  I  chose  my  portion.    If  at  whiles 

My  heart  sinks,  as  monotonous  I  paint 
These  endless  cloisters  and  eternal  aisles 

With  the  same  series,  Virgin,  Babe,  and  Saint, 
With  the  same  cold  calm  beautiful  regard,  — 

At  least  no  merchant  traffics  in  my  heart  ; 
The  sanctuary's  gloom  at  least  shall  ward 

Vain  tongues  from  where  my  pictures  stand  apart : 
Only  prayer  breaks  the  silence  of  the  shrine 

While,  blackening  in  the  daily  candle-smoke, 
They  moulder  on  the  damp  wall's  travertine, 

'Mid  echoes  the  light  footstep  never  woke. 
So,  die  my  pictures !  surely,  gently  die ! 

0  youth,  men  praise  so,  — holds  their  praise  its  worth? 
Blown  harshly,  keeps  the  trump  its  golden  cry  ? 

Tastes  sweet  the  water  with  such  specks  of  earth  ? 


112  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

In  Fra  Lippo  Lippi's  earnest  pleading  there  is  revealed 
another  important  element  in  Browning's  philosophy  of 
art. 

Lippi,  a  waif,  full  of  sensibility,  his  soul  and  sense 
sharpened  by  "  the  hunger  pinch  "  to  the  keenest  scrutiny 
of  the  world  about  him,  is  taken,  at  eight  years  of  age,  to  a 
convent,  where  he  shows  such  a  decided  propensity  for 
painting  that  the  Prior,  despairing  of  doing  anything  else 
with  this  erratic  little  genius,  bade  him  daub  away  :  — 

My  head  being  crammed,  the  walls  a  blank, 
Never  was  such  prompt  disemburdeuing. 
First,  every  sort  of  monk,  the  black  and  white, 
I  drew  them,  fat  and  lean  :  then,  folk  at  church, 
From  good  old  gossips  waiting  to  confess 
Their  cribs  of  barrel-droppings,  candle-ends,  — 
To  the  breathless  fellow  at  the  altar-foot, 
Fresh  from  his  murder,  safe  and  sitting  there 
With  the  little  children  round  him  in  a  row 
Of  admiration,  half  for  his  beard  and  half 
For  that  white  auger  of  his  victim's  son 
Shaking  a  fist  at  him  with  one  fierce  arm, 
Signing  himself  with  the  other  because  of  Christ 
(Whose  sad  face  on  the  cross  sees  only  this 
After  the  passion  of  a  thousand  years) 
Till  some  poor  girl,  her  apron  o'er  her  head, 
(Which  the  intense  eyes  looked  through)  came  at  evo 
On  tiptoe,  said  a  word,  dropped  in  a  loaf, 
Her  pair  of  earrings  and  a  bunch  of  flowers 
(The  brute  took  growling),  prayed,  and  so  was  gone. 
I  painted  all,  then  cried,  "  'T  is  ask  and  have  ; 
Choose,  for  more  'a  ready ! "  —  laid  the  ladder  flat, 
And  showed  my  covered  bit  of  cloister-wall. 
The  monks  closed  in  a  circle  and  praised  loud 
Till  checked,  taught  what  to  see  and  not  to  see, 
J  Being  simple  bodies,  —  "  That 's  the  very  man ! 
Look  at  the  boy  who  stoops  to  pat  the  dog ! 
That  woman  's  like  the  Prior's  niece  who  comes 
To  care  about  his  asthma :  it 's  the  life !  " 
But  there  my  triumph's  straw-fire  flared  and  funked; 
Their  betters  took  their  turn  to  see  and  say  : 
The  Prior  and  the  learned  pulled  a  face 
And  stopped  all  that  in  no  time.    "  How  ?  what 's  here  ? 
Quite  from  the  mark  of  painting,  bless  us  all ! 


BROWNING'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART.  113 

Faces,  arms,  legs,  and  bodies  like  the  true 

As  much  as  pea  and  pea!  it 's  devil's-game ! 

Your  business  is  not  to  catch  men  with  show, 

With  homage  to  the  perishable  clay, 

But  lift  them  over  it,  ignore  it  all, 

Make  them  forget  there  's  such  a  thing  as  flesh. 

Your  business  is  to  paint  the  souls  of  men  — 

Man's  soul,  and  it 's  a  fire,  smoke  .  .  .  no,  it 's  not  .  .  . 

It 's  vapour  done  up  like  a  new-born  babe  — 

(lu  that  shape  when  you  die  it  leaves  your  mouth) 

It 's  ...  well,  what  matters  talking,  it 's  the  soul ! 

Give  us  no  more  of  body  than  shows  soul !  " 

The  standard  of  art  that  the  Prior  held  up  was  Jpp 
narrow  for  the  broadening  spirit  of  human  development. 
The  aim  of  the  artist  had  been  the^mere  intelligible  ex- 
pression of  the  theme,  generally  a  theological  one,  which 
he  was  commissioned  to  treat.  In  his  treatment  he  sup- 
pressed, so  far  as  possible,  his  own  individuality,  and  made 
his  figures  look  as  unworldly  as  possible.  And  so  long  as 
the  ruling  style  of  painting  was  allegorical,  so  long  as 
symbols  were  much  in  vogue  and  theological  fidelity  was 
more  highly  esteemed  in  the  painter  than  picturesque 
fidelity,  no  disunion  was  felt  between  theme,  artist,  and 
form  ;  these  three  were  one. 

But  when  the  Renaissance,  wif.li  i'ts__rich_  and  varied 
culture,  with  its  revelation  of  a  new  value  in  man  and  the 
world,  began  to  stir  the  souL_ojL^an,_a  significant  change 
began.  Pagan  tradition  teaching  the  value  of  this  present 
world  contended  with  monastic  "  other-worldliness  "  for 
the  possession  of  the  soul  of  man,  beauty  strove  for 
supremacy  with  dogma,  Art,  conscious  of  her  increasing 
power  by  reason  of  her  improved  technique,  tried  to  serve 
two  masters.  She  received  her  commissions  from  the 
church,  professed  fealty,  but  mingled  pagan  and  Christian 
ideas  in  a  way  sweetly  reasonable  to  herself,  if  to  no  one 
else,  and  bodied  them  forth  in  a  manner  which  showed 
that  her  heart  was  with  beauty  rather  than  with  dogma. 

8 


114  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

That  is   a  very  suggestive  question  the  Prior  asks   Fra 
Lippo  Lippi :  — 

Here 's  Giotto,  with  his  Saint  a-praising  God, 
That  sets  us  praising, —  why  not  stop  with  him  ? 

Giotto  had  taken  a  long  step  in  advance  of  the  Prior's 
kleal.  Giotto  had  little  of  the  superstitious  enthusiasm  of 
his  time,  but  much  of  the  new  love  of  nature.  His  themes, 
it  is  true,  are  much  like  those  of  his  predecessors,  but  his 
style  is  not  so  formal  and  servile ;  he  employs  natural 
incidents  and  forms;  his  composition  has  a  depth  and 
richness  that  is  almost  modern.  Compared  with  Don 
Lorenzo  Monaco  or  even  with  Fra  Angelico,  "that  late 
blooming  flower  of  an  almost  by-gone  time  amid  the 
pulsations  of  a  new  life,"  Giotto  was  a  realist.  Accu- 
rately stated,  Giotto  was  an  idealist,  with  decided  touches 
of  realistic  treatment:  only  such  a  painter  could  have 
given  the  great  impulse  Giotto  did  to  the  sculpture  of  the 
Renaissance.  Indeed,  the  other  old  masters  whom  Brown- 
ing praises  for  their  lofty  ideal,  Cimabue,  Taddeo  Gaddi, 
Sandro,  the  sculptor  Nicolo  the  Pisan,  and  others,  —  these 
artists,  sensing  the  Renaissance  love  of  beauty  that  was 
dawning  upon  the  world,  humanised  this  ideal  and  gave  it 
sensuous  charm. 

In  the  next  great  period  of  Italian  art,  the  period 
ushered  in  by  Fra  Lippo  Lippi,  the  artist  was  less  fettered, 
he  asserted  his  individuality  more,  and  sought  more  ear- 
nestly for  beauty  in  his  forms.  Luca  Signorelli,  for 
example,  in  his  picture,  The  Madonna  and  Child,  has 
painted  in  the  background,  instead  of  the  customary 
shepherds,  four  nude  figures,  modeled  in  strong  light  and 
shade.  This  painting  symbolises  the  character  of  that 
period ;  it  shows  how  the  Renaissance,  though  in  outward 
conformity  to  the  church,  was  luring  art  to  the  worship 
of  beauty.  What  Signorelli  painted,  Fra  Lippo  Lippi 
voiced  in  his  answer  to  the  Prior's  dictum,  "  Paint  no 
more  of  body  than  shows  soul."  He  argues :  — 


BROWNING'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AKT.  115 

Why  can't  a  painter  lift  each  foot  in  turn, 

Left  foot  and  right  foot,  go  a  double  step, 

Make  his  flesh  liker  and  his  soul  more  like, 

Both  in  their  order?     Take  the  prettiest  face, 

The  Prior's  niece  .  .  .  patron-saint  —  is  it  so  pretty 

You  can't  discover  if  it  means  hope,  fear, 

Sorrow  or  joy?  won't  beauty  go  with  these  ? 

Suppose  I  've  made  her  eyes  all  right  and  blue, 

Cau't  I  take  breath  and  try  to  add  life's  flash, 

And  then  add  soul  and  heighten  them  threefold? 

Or  say  there 's  beauty  with  no  soul  at  all  — 

(I  never  saw  it  —  put  the  case  the  same  — ) 

If  you  get  simple  beauty  and  naught  else, 

You  get  about  the  best  thing  God  invents : 

That 's  somewhat :  and  you  '11  find  the  soul  you  have  missed, 

Within  yourself,  when  you  return  him  thanks. 

You  be  judge ! 

You  speak  no  Latin  more  than  I,  belike ; 
However,  you  're  my  man,  you  've  seen  the  world 

—  The  beauty  and  the  wonder  and  the  power, 

The  shapes  of  things,  their  colours,  lights,  and  shades, 
Changes,  surprises,  —  and  God  made  it  all ! 

—  For  what  ?     Do  you  feel  thankful,  ay  or  no, 
For  this  fair  town's  face,  yonder  river's  line, 
The  mountain  round  it  and  the  sky  above, 
Much  more  the  figures  of  man,  woman,  child, 
These  are  the  frame  to  ?     What 's  it  all  about  ? 
To  be  passed  over,  despised  ?  or  dwelt  upon, 
Wondered  at  ?  oh,  this  last  of  course !  —  you  say. 
But  why  not  do  as  well  as  say,  —  paint  these 
Just  as  they  are,  careless  what  comes  of  it  ? 
God's  works  —  paint  any  one,  and  count  it  crime 
To  let  a  truth  slip. 

This  world  's  no  blot  for  us, 
Nor  blank  ;  it  means  intensely,  and  means  good: 
To  find  its  meaning  is  my  meat  and  drink. 

The  gist  of  Lippi's  speech  is  well  expressed  in  Mrs. 
Browning's  '  Aurora  Leigh.'  "  Paint  a  body  well,  you  paint 
a  soul  by  implication,  like  the  grand  first  Master." 

Browning's  distinction  of  objective  and  subjective  poet 
in  his  '  Essay  on  Shelley '  throws  so  much  light  not  only 


116  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

upon  Lippi's  speech  but  upon  his  philosophy  of  art,  that  it 
may  well  conclude  this  paper. 

"  The  objective  poet,"  says  Browning,  "  is  one  whose 
endeavour  has  been  to  reproduce  things  external  (whether 
the  ..phenomena  of  the  scenic  universe,  or  the  manifested 
action  of  the  human  heart  and  brain)  with  an  immediate 
reference,  in  every  case,  to  the  common  eye  and  appre- 
hension of  his  fellow-men,  assumed  capable  of  receiving 
and  profiting  by  this  reproduction.  It  has  been  obtained 
through  the  poet's  double  faculty  of  seeing  external  objects 
more  clearly,  widely,  and  deeply,  than  is  possible  to  the 
average  mind,  at  the  same  time  that  he  is  so  acquainted 
and  in  sympathy  with  its  narrow  comprehension  as  to  be 
careful  to  supply  it  with  no  other  materials  than  it  can 
combine  into  an  intelligible  whole."  This  is  precisely  the 
endeavour  and  method  of  Fra  Lippo  Lippi.  His  saints  are 
of  our  common  humanity ;  his  angels  are  "  like  great,  high- 
spirited  boys."  His  figures  are  drawn  with  such  human 
feeling  and  grouped  with  such  dramatic  vividness  that 
they  easily  charm  the  observer. 

On  the  other  hand,  "  the  subjective  poet  is  impelled  to 
embody  the  thing  he  perceives,  not  as  much  with  reference 
to  the  many  below,  as  to  the  One  above  him,  the  supreme 
Intelligence  who  apprehends  all  things  in  their  absolute 
truth,  —  an  ultimate  view  ever  aspired  to,  if  but  partially 
attained  by  the  poet's  own  soul.  Not  what  man  sees,  but 
what  God  sees  —  the  Ideas  of  Plato,  seeds  of  creation 
lying  burningly  on  the  Divine  Hand  —  it  is  towards  these 
that  he  struggles.  Not  with  the  combination  of  humanity 
in  action,  but  Avith  the  primal  elements  of  humanity  he 
has  to  do ;  and  he  digs  where  he  stands,  preferring  to  seek 
them  in  his  own  soul,  as  the  nearest  reflex  of  that  absolute 
Mind  according  to  the  intuitions  of  which  he  desires  to 
perceive  and  speak." 

This  characterisation  is  just  as  true  of  the  subjective 
painter,  —  it  contains  the  essential  principle  of  Fra 


BKOWNING'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AKT.  117 

Angelico's  art  and,  in  general,  that  of  the  Old  Masters  of 
Florence  whom  Browning  praises. 

The  subjective  and  the  objective  poet  may  be  combined 
in  one  person ;  I  believe  that  they  were  in  Robert  Brown- 
ing ;  similarly  the  subjective  and  the  objective  artist  were 
one  in  Raphael.  And  I  come  to  the  conclusion  of  this 
paper  with  the  strong  desire  that  Browning  had  written 
one  more  art  poem,  exemplifying  how  the  idealism  of  the 
Old  Painters  of  Florence  and  the  realism  of  Andrea  del 
Sarto,  each  alike  one-sided  and  struggling  for  supremacy 
in  Fra  Lippo  Lippi,  became  one  in  Raphael,  a  full-orbed 
artist,  making  the  ideal  appear  more  real  and  the  real  more 
ideal. 


APPARENT  FAILURE,  IN  REALITY,  ULTIMATE 
AND   SUBSTANTIAL  TRIUMPH. 

COMMENTS  ON  BROWNING'S  'THE  GRAMMARIAN'S 
FUNERAL.' 

BY  JOSHUA  KENDALL. 
[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  March  22,  1892.] 

TJEIIS  is  a  song  of  exultation,  the  glad  outburst  of  man's 
spirit  at  the  new  dawn  that  is  breaking  forth  after  the 
night  of  the  Middle  Ages,  —  and  which  of  us  would  not 
rejoice  could  a  new  morn  arise  on  the  night  of  his  spiritual 
Middle  Ages,  —  a  dawn  not  merely  in  outward  nature,  that 
spiritual  symbol  which  is  offered  to  us  daily  and  daily  re- 
peated, but  in  man's  hopes  and  aspirations  ? 

Look  out  if  yonder  be  not  day  again 
Rimming  the  rock-row ! 

The  lofty  peaks  of  intellect  are  the  first  to  catch  the 
sparkle,  yet  how  gladly  the  chosen  band,  his  followers, 
welcome  the  glow,  as  they  climb  the  heights  whither  the 
glory  draws  them,  though 

With  [their]  master,  famous  calm  and  dead 
Borne  on  [their]  shoulders, 

his  work  not  ended,  but  shown  forth,  revealed  in  their 
glad  ascension.  "  And  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all 
men  unto  me,"  said  One,  with  whom,  at  times,  at  least,  we 
feel  somewhat  akin.  For  it  is  a  hero  whose  life  is  here 
extolled ;  one  who  spent  a  life  in  searching  for  truth,  who 
would  lead  men  from  the  low  level  of  their  lives  "  up  to 
the  morning." 


APPARENT  FAILURE  AND   ULTIMATE   TRIUMPH.      119 

What  of  his  life  ?     He  was  — 

Born  with  thy  face  and  throat, 
Lyric  Apollo, 

and  to  know  what  that  means,  look  at  the  cast  of  that 
Apollo,  lyre  in  hand,  in  our  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  as  he 
steps  forward  in  the  full  flush  of  youthful  beauty  —  then 
"lo,  the  little  touch,  and  youth  was  gone."  But  when 
youth  was  gone,  and  play  was  left  behind,  "  straightway 
he  gowned  him,"  and  he  did  not  give  up  his  task  even 
when  old  age,  baldness  and  blindness  came  upon  him, 
when  "  Calculus  racked  him  "  and  "  tussis  attacked  him." 
"That's  the  world's  way."  "Prate  not,"  he  said,  "of 
most  and  least,  painful  and  easy ; "  and,  when  friends,  en- 
treating, said,  "  But  time  escapes !  Live  now  or  never," 
he  replied,  — 

What 's  time  ?     Leave  Now  for  dogs  and  apes  ! 
Man  has  Forever. 

Had  this  man  done  great  things  ?  Judged  by  common 
standards,  he  had  not;  but  yet  great  if  we  look  at  the 
quality,  the  thoroughness  of  his  work.  Life  was,  this  life, 
for  him,  as  for  all  of  us,  only  a  beginning ;  whatever  is  to 
be  done,  it  were  best  to  have  it  well  done.  He  settled  the 
meaning  and  the  doctrine,  say,  of  three  Greek  particles,  at 
which  some  smile ;  but,  as  Browning  informs  us,  this  was 
"  Shortly  after  the  Revival  of  Learning  in  Europe,"  which 
was  itself  an  important  phase  of  the  Renaissance,  which, 
also,  was  one  of  the  most  important  epochs  in  the  history 
of  the  race.  That  revival  started  with  the  dispersion 
throughout  southern  Europe  of  Greek  scholars  who  fled 
from  Constantinople  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
who  carried  with  them  in  their  flight  Greek  texts  which 
had  been  carefully  copied :  with  their  help  attention  was 
turned  anew  to  the  study  of  Greek  authors,  and  was  it  not 
important  that  this  revival  of  learning  should,  at  its  very 
beginning,  be  characterised  by  thoroughness  and  exactness  ? 


120  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEKS. 

I  remember  hearing  Agassiz,  in  the  zenith  of  his  reputa- 
tion, say,  that  should  he  die  then,  his  contribution  to  the 
world's  stock  of  original  knowledge  could  be  fully  ex- 
pressed in  two  lines  of  ordinary  length.  Granting  that 
this  very  modest  estimate  were  true,  still  we  should  feel 
constrained  to  add  it  would  take  many  more  lines  than 
two,  to  set  forth  the  .impetus  given  by  Agassiz  tCLthe  §.tudy 
of  Natural  History  in  this  country. 

But  a  word  about  the  importance  of  those  little  Greek 
terms.  Turn  to  Liddell  and  Scott's  lexicon  of  nearly 
eighteen  hundred  pages.  Its  editors  call  particular  atten- 
tion, in  their  preface,  to  the  articles  written  by  Professors 
Goodwin  and  Gildersleeve  on  particles  no  more  important 
than  on,  ovv  and  Se,  though  no  one  of  these  three  is  there 
mentioned. 

One  may  have,  I  suppose,  a  too  great  fondness  for  the 
study  of  words,  and  too  great  interest  in  them.  They  are . 
used  for  a  day,  it  may  be,  for  years,  or  for  centuries,  and 
then  thrown  aside,  unheeded  and  forgotten.  They  lie 
buried  by  thousands  along  the  path  of  man's  progress,  im- 
bedded in  the  layers  of  various  languages,  spoken  or 
unspoken,  at  the  present  time,  in  countries  all  the  way 
from  the  Caspian  Sea  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  like  broken 
shells  and  cast  up  sea-weed  on  the  shores  of  time.  Still 
they  have  a  wondrous  vitality,  or  their  roots  at  least  have, 
and  they  often  surprise  us  by  a  survival,  or  a  fresh  growth, 
when  we  least  expect  it.  Pick  out  one  of  these  roots, 
generally  represented  by  three  or  four  letters  at  the  most, 
but  whose  hold  on  life  far  outlasts  that  of  the  grain  which, 
some  say,  has  sprouted,  after  it  has  lain  for  centuries  in 
the  tombs  of  Egyptian  mummies. 

Take  from  one  of  the  large  dictionaries  the  root  Steg.  or 
Teg.  See  how  it  keeps  about  the  same  form  in  language 
after  language,  —  in  Sanskrit,  Lithuanian,  Latin,  Greek, 
Old  Norse,  Old  High  German,  Anglo  Saxon,  and  Scotch, 
and  at  last  gives  us  in  English  thatch,  deck,  and  tile,  all  of 


APPARENT   FAILURE  AXD   ULTIMATE   TRIUMPH.       121 

which  contain  teg,  whose  meaning  is  cover.  Were  these 
roots  something  of  man's  invention?  It  hardly  seems 
possible,  but  if  so,  perhaps  the  most  wonderful  of  all  his 
inventions.  At  Nineveh,  Troy,  and  Rome  slabs  and  frag- 
ments are  unearthed  with  which  to  fill  our  museums ;  but 
in  age,  persistence,  significance  and  interest,  verbal  roots 
would  seem  to  surpass  them. 

The  spirit  that  animated  the  Grammarian,  his  absorp- 
tion in  intellectual  pursuits,  the  tenacity  with  which  he 
adhered  to  his  purpose,  the  thoroughness  with  which .  his 
work  was  done,  the  superiority  of  his  mind  over  earthly 
limitations  and  finiteness  furnish  a  fitting  explanation  of 
his  followers'  admiration  for  him.  A  triumphant  justifica- 
tion of  his  life  also  is  furnished  by  this  proud  funeral 
procession,  such  an  one  as  no  dead  Csesar  was  ever  honoured 
with. 

Examine  the  vocabulary  of  the  first  thirty-six  and  of  the 
last  sixteen  lines  of  this  rjoem.  You  will  find  them,  I 
think,  to  be  peculiarly  choice  and  vigorous,  and  well  fitted, 
in  conjunction  with  the  phrases  in  which  they  are  im- 
.  bedded,  with  the  rhymes  and  the  rhythm  that  float  them 
along,  to  portray  the  fine  enthusiasm  that  pervades  the 
lines.  . 

In  the  remaining  portions,  wherein  is  described  the  old 
man's  appearance,  whose  form  lacked  aught  that  could 
attract  the  eye,  the  words  and  the  style  take  on  an  archaic 
touch  in  harmony  with  the  change  in  the  theme. 

We  can  imagine  a  Philistine,  if  such  ever  deigns  to  read 
this  little  piece,  exulting  while  he  reads  the  seemingly 
grotesque  account  of  this  "  wretched  old  fellow,"  as  he 
would  call  the  Grammarian,  and  jeering  at  the  strange 
subject  of  the  poem,  dressed  as  it  is  in  this  uncouth  array ; 
but  the  grotesqueness  will  be  found  to  reside  chiefly  in 
the  critic's  own  conceit,  and  the  laugh  will  at  last  be 
turned  upon  himself. 

We  remember  also  that  it  was  said  of  One  long  ago, 


122  BOSTON  BKOWNESTG   SOCIETY  PAPEKS. 

"  There  is  no  beauty  that  we  should  desire  him,"  "  and  we 
hid,  as  it  were,  our  faces  from  him." 

In  Browning's  eagerness  to  emphasise  the  meaning  of 
this  poem,  to  make  it  so  clear  to  us  that  we  cannot  mistake 
it,  he  quickly  passes  by  the  Grammarian's  youth,  and  pre- 
sents him  to  us  old,  bald,  blear-eyed  and  stooping,  racked 
by  a  cough  also,  in  order  to  bring  out  more  clearly  the 
temper  of  the  man,  his  tenacity  of  purpose  and  his  spiritu- 
ality, —  a  man  who  would  admit  of  no  coddling  and  would 
make  no  complaints,  but  left  to  God  the 

Task  to  make  the  heavenly  period 
Perfect  the  eartheu. 

When,  pray,  if  not  in  old  age,  should  mind  rise  above  all 
ills  and  pains,  and  give  us  some  hint,  at  least,  of  its  divine 
origin  ?  Have  not  two l  rare  souls,  who  had  ministered  to 
us  before  this  Society,  passed  away  this  winter?  And 
when  had  their  mental  activity  and  spirituality  shown  to 
greater  advantage  than  just  before  their  departure  ? 

Did  I  say  "  a  song  of  exultation  ?  "  Now  that  I  look 
again,  I  see  it  is  headed  'The  Grammarian's  Funeral.' 
Was  I  mistaken  then  in  naming  it  as  I  did?  I  think 
not ;  for  throughout  the  poem  there  rings  a  note  of  glad- 
ness, of  triumph.  How  different  this  from  the  famous 
dirges  of  classic  or  of  modern  times,  from  Moschus  on 
Bion,  Virgil's  Tenth  Eclogue,  Milton's  'Lycidas,'  Emer- 
son's '  Threnody '  and  Shelley's  'Adonais.'  In  all  these, 
inasmuch  as  a  dear  friend  taken  away  by  death  is  the 
theme,  grief  at  the  separation,  daily  converse  with  a  be- 
loved one  suddenly  broken  off,  personal  loss  (and  who 
can  but  sympathise  with  the  mourners)  is  the  point  chiefly 
dwelt  upon  ;  but  nothing  of  this  sort  is  to  be  found  in  the 
poem  we  are  considering ;  rather  joy  is  expressed  that  a 
man  has  lived  amongst  us.  Its  spirit  differs  in  this  from 
Gray's  '  Elegy '  -  -  just  as  if  we  were  telling  a  friend 

1  C.  P.  Cranch,  artist  and  poet ;  Rev.  C.  C.  Shackford. 


APPARENT  FAILURE  AND  ULTIMATE  TRIUMPH.      123 

how  some  delightful  stranger  had  sojourned  with  us  for 
a.  while  and  graced  our  home  and  neighbourhood  by  his 
presence. 

Well,  perhaps  Browning  in  this  has  given  us  a  hint  how 
to  speak  of  departed  friends,  and  that  in  a  more  appro- 
priate way  than  we  are  wont.  Whether  a  life  is  to  be 
adjudged  a  failure  or  a  success,  depends  on  the  standard 
with  which  it  is  compared,  and  the  decision,  when  an- 
nounced, commends  or  condemns  the  judge,  for  it  shows 
what  manner  of  man  he  is.  An  ideal  standard  is  one 
that  aims  at  perfection ;  in  pursuit  of  that  ultimate  goal 
through  a  life,  while  there  may  be  constant  failure  of  gain- 
ing the  end,  there  will  be  no  failure  in  the  life.  What 
explanation  is  there  of  our  life,  except  that  we  are  here  for 
our  development,  for  our  increase  in  love  and  in  knowl- 
edge ;  and  how  can  that  be  gained  except  through  effort, 
through  repeated  failure  and  through  trying  again,  —  our 
souls  "  hydroptic  with  a  sacred  thirst "  for  farther  draughts 
of  what  alone  can  refresh  but  can  never  sate  us  ? 

In  one  of  the  earliest  and  most  precious  of  his  poems, 
Browning  traces  out  for  us  the  career  of  one  whose  ab- 
sorbing passion  was  to  know.  Paracelsus  tells  us  that 
his  aim  was 

to  comprehend. the  works  of  God, 
And  God  himself,  and  all  God's  intercourse 
With  the  human  mind. 

Connected  with  this  aspiration  there  was,  at  first,  a  sub- 
lime faith  in  the  possibility  of  ultimate  triumph,  —  that 
he,  Paracelsus,  man's  exemplar,  could  arrive  at  truth :  — 

I  go  to  prove  my  soul ! 
I  shall  arrive !  what  time,  what  circuit  first, 
I  ask  not.     .     .     . 
In  some  time,  his  good  time,  I  shall  arrive. 

His  failure,  if  failure  it  was,  arose  from  his  lack  of  love  for 
the  average  man,  a  common  vice  of  intellectual  men.  He 
"saw  no  good  in  '  men,'  "  he  could  not 


124  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

sympathise,  be  proud 

Of  their  half  reasonings,  faint  aspirings,  dim 
Struggles  for  truth. 

In  '  Thie_  Grammarian's^  Funeral/  the  same  theme^  the 
pursuit  of  truth  despite  obstacles,  is  treated  again ;  but 
there  is~tnts^dift"erence,  as  you  gather  from  the  villagers' 
love  for  and  pride  in  the  Grammarian  that  he  loved  all  of 
them,  that  he  spent  his  life  for  them. 

Browning  is  unfaltering  in  his  conviction  that  love  is 
the  one  important  thing  in  the  world1  the  primal  "fact  in 
the  lives  oi  all  men.  Poem  after  poem  he  gives  us,  show- 
ing love's  many  phases  and  its  subtle  power  over  us  for 
weal  or  for  woe. 

In  t_Childe__  Roland '  there  is  portrayed  an  indomitable 
will  that  "keeps  the  wanderer  steadfast  to  his  purpose. 
Whatever  may  be  the  "explanation,"  so  called,  of  this 
poem,  it  is  plain  that  a  determination  to  search  for  one 
object  until  it  is  found  forms  the  core  of  this  Search  for 
the_  Holy  Grail,  a  search  continued,  despite  rebuffs  and 
disappointments,  through  long  years  and  weary  wander- 
ings, undeterred  by  malicious  leers  and  weird  sights  in  sky 
and  on  land,  and,  just  as  all  the  comrades  of  his  earlier 
years  had  gathered  around  him  expecting  to  see  him  suc- 
cumb at  last,  even  as  all  they  had  done  before  him,  it  ends 
with  a  burst  of  triumph  as  he  put  the  slug-horn  to  his  lips 
and  pealed  forth  his  exulting  cry. 

The  key-note  to  this  poem  is  man's  desire  to  arrive  at 
truth,  and  faith  in  his  capacity  to  attain_it.  Nowhere, 
perhaps,  has  Browning  stated  this  faith  of  his  more  clearly 
than  in  this  poem.  'T  is  his  search  for  truth,  though  it  be 
but  elemental  truth,  his  determination  to  know  what  he 
does  know  thoroughly  and  for  that  to  spare  no  labour  nor 
pains,  that  makes  The  Grammarian  the  admiration  of  his 
people.  This  poem  means,  in  every  line  of  it,  that  man 
can  arrive  at  truth.  In  *  The  Statue  and  The  Bust  * 
weakness  of  will  makes  a  failure  of  two  lives. 


APPARENT   FAILURE  AND  ULTIMATE   TRIUMPH.      125 

So  much  for  Browning's  attitude  towards  Love  and 
Will  and,  in  his  earlier  years,  towards  Knowledge.  But 
later  in  life  his  accent  becomes  uncertain  if  not  despondent 
with  reference  to  man's  power  to  arrive  at  truth;  this 
weakness  is  shown,  so  far  as  I  have  observed,  in  the  poems 
written  in  his  old  age. 

In  '  La  Saisiaz,'  he  says  :  — 

Knowledge  stands  on  my  experience  ;  all  outside  its  narrow  hem 
Free  surmise  and  sport  may  welcome. 

In  '  A  Pillar  at  Sebzevar ' :  — 

Knowledge  doubt 
Even  wherein  it  seems  demonstrable. 

We  are 

sure  that  pleasure  is, 
While  knowledge  may  be,  at  the  most. 

In  '  Francis  Furini : '  — 

Of  power  does  man  possess  no  particle ; 

Of  knowledge  —  just  as  much  as  shows  that  still 

It  ends  in  ignorance  on  every  side. 

And  he  concludes  with  this  sentence,  —  "  Ignorance  exists." 
But  to  return  to  the  topic  from  which  we  have  made  a 
somewhat  long  digression,  —  whether  success  in  life  is  to 
be  measured  by  achievement  rather  than  by  aim,  and  the 
way  to  look  upon  failure  when  it  comes.  If  you  want 
Browning  as  an  authority  on  this  subject,  read  '  The  Last 
Ride  Together.'  Or  read  in  the  poem  now  under  con- 
sideration :  — 

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. 

Let  not  defeat  abash  us.  Recall  Goethe's  advice,  waste 
not  your  time  in  remorse,  but  spend  it  in  action.  Long- 
fellow has  it :  — 


126  BOSTON   gKOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEKS. 

Let  the  dead  past  bury  its  dead  : 
Act,  act  in  the  living  present. 

A  good  old  hymn  renders  it :  — 

Forget  the  steps  already  trod 
And  onward  urge  thy  way. 

Tennyson  voices  it, 

I  hold  it  truth    .     .    . 

That  men  tuay  rise  on  stepping  stones 

Of  their  dead  selves  to  higher  things. 

Turn  we  now  to  the  question,  what  shall  the  standard 
be  ?  Consider  this  one,  —  "  Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even 
as  your  father  which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect."  How  ideal 
is  that  standard  !  It  seems  too  exalted  to  propose  to  mor- 
tals, and  would  be  so,  were  it  not  implied  that  there  is 
happiness  in  strivings  towards  it.  It  is  very  far  off  indeed, 
—  "  For  as  the  heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth,  so  are 
my  ways  than  your  ways,  and  my  thoughts  than  ycur 
thoughts." 

Leibnitz  likened  the  approach  of  the  asymptote  to  its 
curve,  which  it  always  approaches  but  never  reaches,  to 
the  approach  of  the  human  soul  to  God. 

Pity  the  man  who  at  the  close  of  life  can  say,  "  I  have 
done  all  that  I  intended  to  do."  His  ideal  cannot  be  high 
"who  tully  attains  it.  Browning  says,  "  A  man's  reach  should 
exceed  his  grasp."  Paracelsus  is  an  instance  of  one  who 
failed,  but  like  Phaethon,  child  of  the  Sun,  if  he  failed,  he 
failed  in  a  great  undertaking.  Does  it  not  often  happen 
that  men,  in  their  failures,  accomplish  more  than  they  had 
proposed  to  do  ?  the  result  not  just  the  same  as  they  had 
striven  for,  but  far  greater?  Columbus  did  not  discover  a 
West  India,  such  as  he  supposed,  but  a  continent,  —  wholly 
unknown  before.  On  many  a  field,  ethical,  religious, 
philosophical,  the  leader  of  a  forlorn  hope  wins  unex- 
pectedly, and  when  his  confreres  even  are  dreading  his 
discomfiture,  they  hear  of  a  sudden  his  shout,  "  Childe 
Roland  to  the  Dark  Tower  came." 


APPARENT   FAILURE   AND    ULTIMATE   TRIUMPH.       127 

• 

But  what  effect  is  produced  on  a  soul  that  nurses  a  lofty 
ideal  ?  Often  it  is  made  aware,  as  of  necessity  it  must  be, 
that  the  span  of  life  is  short  and  that  numberless  obstacles 
are  interposed  to  its  plans,  when  it  would 

task  for  mankind's  good 
Its  nature,  just  as  life  and  time  accord. 

Some  give  up  their  attempts  in  despair  of  aught  ever 
being  accomplished ;  Browning,  in  '  Bordello,'  gives  us 
their  estimate  of  life, — 

Too  narrow  an  arena  to  reward 
Emprise  —  the  world's  occasion  worthless 
Since  not  absolutely  fitted  to  evince 
Its  [the  soul's]  mastery. 

The  impatience  of  reformers  with  the  obstacles  they 
encounter,  and  with  the  weaknesses  and  perversities  of 
their  fellow  men,  but  expose  their  own  limitations  —  they 
imagine  that  they  should  at  once  get  important  and  far- 
reaching  results ;  wrhat  they  conceive  of  as  a  good,  they 
would  have  realised  at  the  moment ;  they  would  have  a 
new  creation,  then,  not  an  evolution :  but  that  is  not  the 
way  man  progresses.  God  has  borne  with  the  wayward 
and  perverse  souls  of  men  for  many,  many  generations  — 
are  the  reformers  better  than  he  ?  "  Why  so  hot,  little 
man  ? "  asks  Emerson.  Every  step  in  man's  ascent  is  to 
be  wrought  out ;  otherwise  would  it  not  be  worthless  when 
gained  ? 

Other  souls  again  are  wrought  up  to  try  to  do  what  is 
beyond  man's  power ;  to  quote  again  from  '  Sordello : '  — 

Or  if  yet  worse  befall, 
And  a  desire  possess  it  [the  soul]  to  put  all 
That  nature  forth,  forcing  our  straitened  sphere 
Contain  it,  —  to  display  completely  here 
The  mastery  another  life  should  learn,  — 
Thrusting  on  time  eternity's  concern. 

Xow  to  neither  of  the  two  classes  just  mentioned,  to  those 
who  are  hopeless  of  doing  aught  in  this  life,  nor  to  those 


128  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

who  would  thrust  too  much  upon  it,  did  the  Grammarian 
belong ;  he  did  all  he  could ;  he  settled  the  meaning  of 
three  Greek  particles,  if  you  please,  but  he  did  that  well ; 
moreover,  he  did  not  bemoan  his  sad  fate,  as  many  would 
have  done,  while  his  work,  his  thoroughness,  persistence 
and  enthusiasm,  all  together,  were  a  priceless  boon  to  his 
generation. 

But  why  all  this  talk  ?  Is  not  all  that  can  be  said  on 
our  topic,  and  more,  to  be  found  expressed  in  '  The  Gram- 
marian's Funeral,'  clothed  in  great  beauty  too  ?  It  seems 
almost  brutal  to  pick  it  to  pieces,  and  as  with  the  botanist 
and  his  flower,  to  be  justified  only  if  it  shall  be  better 
appreciated  afterwards. 

Let  me  say,  here,  that  Browning  has  portrayed  for  us  in 
the  Grammarian,  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  Saul,  in  Caponsacchi 
and  Pompilia,  characters  of  richer  ethical  value,  of  finer 
and  intenser  spiritual  fibre,  than  any  that  Shakespeare  ever 
dreamed  of. 

The  stage  on  which  Shakespeare  displayed  his  person- 
ages was,  for  the  most  part,  an  external  one,  appealing  to 
the  mind  largely  through  eye  and  ear ;  Browning's  pres- 
entations are  mainly  internal  and  spiritual,  wrought  out 
on  an  invisible  stage,  whose  conflicts  are  far  sharper  and 
their  issues  freighted  with  subtler  significance. 

Not  for  naught  have  three  centuries  elapsed  since 
Shakespeare's  time :  the  world's  ideals  are  loftier  now 
than  then. 

The  growing  drama  has  outgrown  such  toys 
Of  simulated  stature,  face  and  speech. 

It  also  may 

Take  for  a  worthier  stage  the  soul  itself, 
Its  shifting  fancies  and  celestial  lights. 

Aurora  Leigh  ;  Bk.  V. 

As  in  *  La  Sasiaz,'  '  Pippa  Passes,'  and  '  The  English- 
man in  Italy,'  so  here,  nature  is  brought  in,  in  full  sym- 
pathy with  the  human  element,  responsive  to  it,  and 


APPAKENT   FAILURE   AND   ULTIMATE   TRIUMPH.       129 

showing,  as  ever,  noble  and  beautiful  just  in  proportion  to 
the  nobleness  and  beauty  in  the  soul  that  contemplates  it. 
How  exquisite  the  lines :  — 

Sleep,  crop  and  herd !  sleep,  darkling  thorpe  and  croft, 
Safe  from  the  weather  ! 

or  these :  — 

Here  —  here  'a  his  place,  where  meteors  shoot,  clouds  form, 

Lightnings  are  loosened, 
Stars  come  and  go  ! 

Their  lyric  beauty  is  wonderful. 

What  had  gained  for  the  Grammarian  the  love  of  his 
people,  whom  we  see  convoying  him  aloft?  I  have  said 
before,  it  was  the  glad  conviction  that  he  was  their  leader 
up  to  a  higher  level  than  before  of  thought  and  of 
feeling. 

Our  low  life  was  the  level's  and  the  night's; 
He  's  for  the  morning. — 

And  when  they  get  up  to  that  famous  peak  where  sparkles 
the  citadel  "  circling  its  summit,"  they  said,  "  Here  's  his 
place,"  and  left  him  there 

loftily  lying 

—  still  loftier  than  the  world  suspects 
Living  and  dying. 


THE   UNCALCULATING  SOUL. 

BY  JENKIN  LLOYD  JONES. 
[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  May  24,  1892.] 

PKUDENCE  is  a  popular  virtue.  Caution  is  a  grace  much 
commended.  Sagacity  seems  to  win.  Experience  is  a 
much  travelled  road  that  leads  to  prosperity.  The  practi- 
cal experience  of  life  seems  to  demand  that  the  cost  of 
every  act  be  counted  before  it  is  perpetrated.  It  is  ap- 
parently the  province  of  the  rational  soul  to  calculate 
consequences  and  to  shape  its  conduct  thereby.  These 
considerations  are  apparently  growing  more  and  more 
imperative.  The  unreliability  of  any  other  standard  of 
conduct  is  being  more  and  more  confidently  asserted.  It 
is  a  matter  of  daily  demonstration.  The  passions  are  often 
shown  to  be  blind,  the  instincts  treacherous,  our  impulses 
not  trustworthy,  while  conscience  itself  often  lands  us, 
as  it  has  landed  so  many  brave  souls  of  history,  on  the 
wrong  side  of  many  an  issue.  There  is  nothing  more 
pathetic  in  the  history  of  the  race  than  the  tragic  story 
of  right  men,  in  wrong  places,  noble  souls  unwittingly 
lending  themselves  to  ignoble  ends.  To  go  outside  of 
ourselves,  the  absolute  dicta  of  bible,  church,  or  state  have 
been  proven,  over  and  over  again,  inadequate  and  inac- 
curate. The  verdict  of  experience  as  well  as  philoso- 
phy points  to  the  fallibility  of  the  so-claimed  infallible 
authorities. 

And  still,  there  is  that  which  seems  to  be  higher  than 
expediency.     We  are  compelled  to  recognise  a  force  more 


THE  UNCALCULATIXG   SOUL.  131 

imperative  than  prudential  considerations.  We  are  haunted 
by  the  suspicion  that  there  is  a  reason  more  commanding 
than  any  of  our  reasonings.  There  is  in  character  that 
which  is  swifter  than  logic,  more  imperial  than  prudence. 
There  seems  to  be  a  call  in  the  human  soul  more  funda- 
mental and  compelling  than  any  arguments  that  the  judg- 
ment can  produce  at  any  given  time  for  or  against  a  given 
course  of  action. 

These  distinctions  bring  before  our  minds  two  types  of 
character,  or,  at  least,  two  standards  of  conduct,  two  differ- 
ing habits  of  soul.  The  first  takes  time,  considers,  re- 
considers, experiments  with  itself,  halts,  trims,  and  then 
acts.  This  calculating  soul  must  deliberately  count  the 
cost  before  it  makes  the  investment  of  will  and  conscience. 
It  asks  to  see  the  end  before  it  begins.  By  it,  instinct, 
impulse,  intuition,  call  it  what  you  please,  is  held  in  leash 
by  policy,  expediency,  or  that  balancing  of  probabilities 
which  he  calls  judgments.  The  other  feels,  sees,  and 
unhesitatingly  throws  its  destiny  along  the  line  of  vision. 
It  is  indifferent  to  results.  It  acts  regardless  of  conse- 
quences. Its  only  quest  is  loyalty  to  the  vision  given, 
and  "with  God  be  the  rest."  The  uncalculating  soul 
trusts  the  totality  of  being,  that  synthesis  of  life  which 
constitutes  the  whole  man.  The  conscience  strikes  twelve, 
not  because  this  moment  it  has  measured  the  angle  of 
the  sun,  but  because  that  inner  mechanism  of  his  being, 
the  adjusted  clock-work  of  the  soul,  pronounces  it  the 
moment  of  high  noon. 

No  poet  of  modern  times  has  penetrated  more  deeply 
the  mysteries  of  the  human  soul  than  Robert  Browning. 
His  voluminous  works  may  well  be  studied  as  a  cyclopaedia 
of  motives.  Conduct,  both  inner  and  outer,  high  and  low, 
good  and  bad,  of  men  and  women,  of  old  and  young,  he 
has  studied,  analysed,  illustrated,  and  exemplified.  To 
him  then  we  will  go  for  illustrations  of  the  calculating 
and  the  uncalculating  souls. 


132  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

What  a  gallery  he  has  given  us  of  the  calculating  type, 
worldly-wise  men  and  women,  plotters  and  schemers,  halt- 
ing calculators,  wise  in  their  caution  and  cautious  of  their 
wisdom  !  So  just  has  he  been  to  their  method,  so  true  to 
their  processes,  that  each  in  his  turn  almost  persuades  us. 
We  find  ourselves  standing  on  their  shaky  planks  of  ex- 
pediency. We  are  caught  in  the  toils  of  their  logic,  and 
with  them  we  attempt  to  vacate  our  intuitions,  to  split 
our  promptings,  to  check  our  impulses,  hoping  thereby  to 
arrive  at  safer  results,  and  larger  successes  ;  or,  if  we  our- 
selves escape  capture,~we  are  haunted  with  the  suspicion 
that  our  author  is  at  least  on  their  side. 

Turn  the  pages  of  Robert  Browning  and  find  the  char- 
acters whose  motto  and  method  are  well  represented  by 
the  answer  of  Sparta  to  the  Athenian  runner,  who  burst 
upon  them  with  the  message,  "  Persia  has  come,  Athens 
asks  aid !  " 

Nowise  precipitate  judgment  —  too  weighty  the  issue  at  stake ! 
Athens  must  wait,  patient  as  we  —  who  judgment  suspend. 

In  such  a  quest  we  find  the  accomplished  Duke,  who 
"gave  commands,"  and  "all  smiles  stopped  together;" 
Djabal,  the  Druse  prophet,  trying  to  do  the  Lord's  work 
with  European  tricks  ;  Ogniben,  the  papal  legate,  carrying 
the  politician's  scheme  into  the  service  of  the  church ; 
Blougram,  clothing  the  logic  of  expediency  with  Episcopal 
robes ;  Sludge,  the  medium,  trying  to  make  whole  truths 
out  of  half  truths  ;  Prince  Hohenstiel  Schwangau  seeking 
to  justify  a  crown  with  the  arguments  of  "  They  all  do 
it,"  and  "  You  are  another ; "  Domizia,  a  plotting  woman, 
and  —  poor  weak  conscience,  may  heaven  forgive  her  !  — 
a  scheming  bride ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  towering  villain 
Guido  in  '  The  Ring  and  the  Book ; '  and  the  most  intoler- 
able rascal  in  all  literature,  the  old  man  in  the  '  Inn  Al- 
bum.' The  only  flash  of  decency  in  his  whole  career  is 
when  he  forgets  to  calculate  and  loses  himself  for  a 


THE  UXCALCULATIXG   SOUL.  133 

moment  in  a  wholesome  burst  of  uncalculating  love  for  the 
older  woman  when  he  meets  her  after  the  lapse  of  years. 

Let  us  try  to  study  this  problem  by  a  little  closer  grasp 
of  some  one  character  rather  than  an  analysis  of  the 
many  stories  that  would  lend  themselves  to  such  purpose. 
Faenza,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  as  described  in  '  A  Soul's 
Tragedy,'  was  a  little  dependent  suburb  of  Ravenna, 
which,  in  turn,  was  governed  by  Rome.  Into  this  town 
was  born  Chiappino.  His  was  a  soul  sensitive  "  to  the 
shadows,"  and  he  lost  both  his  rank  and  his  wealth 
through  his  persistent  espousal  of  unpopular  causes.  He 
was  a  man  accustomed  to  say,  "  You  sin,"  "  when  a  man 
did  sin,"  and  when  he  could  not  say  it,  he  "  glared  it  at 
him."  When  he  could  not  glare  it,  he  "  prayed  against 
him."  When  thus  his  part  seemed  over,  he  left  it,  trust- 
ing God's  part  might  begin.  His  youth  was  full  of  alert 
discontent.  He  felt  the  people's  wrongs  as  his  own.  He 
aspired  to  heaven  but  did  not  dare  hope  for  it  "  without 
a  reverent  pause,"  growing  less  unfit  for  it.  His  prayer 
was  for  truth;  his  sympathies  were  for  mankind.  In 
their  interest  he  resented  "  each  shrug  and  smirk  "  and 
"  beck  and  bend  "  that  outraged  their  rights.  This  zeal 
for  high  causes  gave  him'  vision  to  see  and  courage  to  say 

I  trust  in  nature  for  the  stable  laws 

Of  beaiity  and  utility. —  Spring  shall  plant, 

And  Autumn  garner  to  the  end  of  time : 

I  trust  in  God  —  the  right  shall  be  the  right 

And  other  than  the  wrong,  while  he  endures  : 

I  trust  in  my  own  soul,  that  can  perceive 

The  outward  and  the  inward,  nature's  good 

And  God's :  so,  seeing  these  men  and  myself, 

Having  a  right  to  speak,  thus  do  I  speak. 

I  '11  not  curse  —  God  bears  with  them,  well  may  I  — 

But  I  —  protest  against  their  claiming  me. 

I  simply  say,  if  that's  allowable, 

I  would  not  (broadly)  do  as  they  have  done. 

—  God  curse  this  townfnl  of  born  slaves,  bred  slaves, 

Branded  into  the  blood  and  bone,  slaves !  Curse, 

Whoever  loves,  above  his  liberty, 

House,  land  or  life  ! 


134  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Of  course  this  brought  him  to  a  homeless,  friendless, 
penniless  condition,  a  proscribed  and  exiled  wretch;  but 
he  had  a  friend  who  had  grown  up  with  him,  one  born 
for  the  sunshine  as  Chiappino  was  for  the  shadow.  He 
was  a 

Friend-making,  everywhere  friend-finding  soul, 

Fit  for  the  sunshine,  so,  it  followed  him. 

A  happy-tempered  bringer  of  the  best 

Out  of  the  worst ;  who  bears  with  what 's  past  cure, 

And  puts  so  good  a  face  on  't  —  wisely  passive 

Where  action 's  fruitless,  while  he  remedies 

In  silence  what  the  foolish  rail  against ; 

A  man  to  smooth  such  natures  as  parade 

Of  opposition  must  exasperate ; 

No  general  gauntlet-gatherer  for  the  weak 

Against  the  strong,  yet  over-scrupulous 

At  lucky  junctures ;  one  who  won't  forego 

The  after-battle  work  of  binding  wounds, 

Because,  forsooth  he  'd  have  to  bring  himself 

To  side  with  wound-inflictors  for  their  leave ! 

Luitolfo  made  friends  as  Chiappino  lost  them.  He  wooed 
and  won  the  fair  Eulalia,  whom  his  gruff  companion  had 
also  loved;  but,  owing  to  the  many  kindnesses  received 
from  him  by  his  rival,  he  had  never  pressed  his  suit.  At 
last  this  grim  speaker  of  uncomfortable  truths  is  to  be 
banished.  His  sunny  friend  hastens  to  the  Provost  to 
intercede.  While  the  successful  suitor  is  at  court,  the 
unhappy  youth,  who,  thus  far,  has  been  loyal  to  the  inner 
vision,  breaks  down,  becomes  petulant,  ungrateful.  Ere 
he  departs  for  his  loveless  exile,  he  whines  his  belated 
love  into  the  ears  of  one  who  is  betrothed.  At  this  junc- 
ture, his  friend  breaks  upon  them  in  blood-stained  garments 
with  an  imaginary  mob  at  his  heels.  Luitolfo  had  lost  his 
temper,  struck,  and,  as  he  supposed,  killed  the  Provost. 
Chiappino  rises  to  the  occasion  as  he  promptly  declares 

As  God  lives,  I  go  straight 

To  the  palace  and  do  justice,  once  for  all ! 

He  wraps  his  friend  in  his  own  disguise,  points  to  him  the 
way  of  escape,  thrusts  him  out,  and  turns  to  meet  the  mob 


THE  TJNCALCTTLATIXG   SOUL.  135 

coming  up  the  steps  with  "  I  killed  the  Provost ! "  But 
the  rabble  were  seeking  their  hero,  not  bent  on  vengeance. 
They  wanted  to  honour  him  who  had  shattered  their  chains. 
They  greeted  their  liberator.  One  exclaimed,  for  many, 

He  who  first  made  us  feel  what  chains  we  wore. 

Another  retorted, 

Oh,  have  you  only  courage  to  speak  now  1 
My  eldest  son  was  christened  a  year  since 
"  Cino  "  to  keep  Chiappino's  name  in  mind  — 
Cino,  for  shortness  merely,  you  observe. 

All  exclaimed, 

The  city 's  in  our  hands.    The  guards  are  fled. 
Do  you,  the  cause  of  all,  come  down  —  come  up  — 
Come  out  to  counsel  us,  our  chief,  our  king, 
Whate'er  rewards  you  !  Choose  your  own  reward  ! 
The  peril  over,  its  reward  hegins  ! 
Come  and  harangue  us  in  the  market-place  ! 

And  lo,  he  who  could  defy  the  prison,  live  in  familiar 
intimacy  with  adversity,  die  like  a  hero,  fell  before  the 
temptations  of  success.  The  truth  which,  under  the  above 
circumstances,  he  told  with  painful  promptness,  he  now 
withholds.  He  begins  to  weigh,  to  calculate. 

To-morrow,  rather,  when  a  calm  succeeds, 

the  prophetic  soul  of  Eulalia  anticipates  the  end  of  the 
sorry  bargain  and  says, 

You  would,  for  worlds,  you  had  denied  at  once. 

Thus  ends  the  poetry  of  Chiappino's  life.  The  remain- 
der of  the  story  is  told  in  painful  prose.  We  see  halting 
attempts  on  the  part  of  conscience  to  erect  itself  without 
losing  a  good  chance.  He  begins  to  distrust  straight  lines, 
goes  around  in  order  to  get  there  the  sooner.  This  tangle 
is  increased  by  the  Pope's  legate,  one  Ogniben,  a  Bishop 
Blougram  written  small,  an  ecclesiastic  of  the  "  good-Lord, 
good-devil"  kind,  as  his  name  might  indicate.  This 
pious  functionary  rode  into  town  upon  his  mule  the  morn- 


136  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

ing  after  the  uprising,  saying,  "I  have  seen  three-and- 
twenty  leaders  of  revolts."  In  the  presence  of  what  seemed 
a  great  opportunity,  Chiappino  abandoned  the  principle  of 
democracy,  which  had  been  the  thought  of  his  life,  ignored 
the  love  of  Eulalia,  which  had  been  the  strength  of  his 
heart,  and  violated  the  friendship  of  Luitolfo,  which  had 
been  his  shield  and  protection.  The  callow  prophet  had 
been  strangled  by  the  oily  rope  of  the  politician.  As  his 
perjured  and  dishonoured  form  vanished  through  the  north 
gate,  Ogniben,  the  unctuous,  could  say,  "  Good-by  to  you 
.  ,  .  now  give  thanks  to  God,  the  keys  of  the  Provost's 
palace  to  me,  and  yourselves  to  profitable  meditation  at 
home  !  I  have  known  .FWr-and-twenty  leaders  of  revolts." 
The  first  and  easy  lesson  of  this  story  is  that  which 
flashed  through  the  mind  of  Eulalia  as  she  was  waiting 
the  approach  of  the  mob  which  she  supposed  was  coming 
to  destroy  her. 

But  even  I  perceive 
T  is  not  a  very  hard  thing  so  to  die. 
My  cousin  of  the  pale-blue  tearful  eyes, 
Poor  Cesca,  suffers  more  from  one  day's  life 
With  the  stern  husband ;  Tisbe's  heart  goes  forth 
Each  evening  after  that  wild  son  of  hers, 
To  track  his  thoughtless  footstep  through  the  streets  : 
How  easy  for  them  both  to  die  like  this  ! 
I  am  not  sure  that  I  could  live  as  they. 

There  is  never  a  scarcity  of  men  who  are  willing  to  die 
for  their  country,  always  a  scarcity  of  men  who  are  ready 
to  pay  honest  taxes  and  vote  independently  for  their 
country. 

But  my  present  use  of  the  story  is  to  rescue  the  poetry 
of  Chiappino's  life  from  contempt.  Prophets  are  so  scarce 
that  we  should  be  thankful  for  fragmentary  ones.  So 
given  are  men  to  temporise,  God  be  thanked  for  those  who 
try  to  eternise,  though  eventually  they  should  falter  and 
halt.  Chiappino's  youth  placed  him  among  the  malcon- 
tents, the  uncomfortable,  disagreeable  class  with  which  the 


THE  UXCALCULATING   SOUL.  137 

world  finds  it  hard  to  get  along,  but  without  which  the 
world  would  cease  to  get  along  altogether.  History  proves 
that  God  has  high  uses  for  those  whom  men  can  hardly 
use.  He  likes  those  whom  we  sorely  dislike.  Disappoint- 
ing as  was  the  life  of  Chiappino,  still  with  our  poet  we 
should  say, 

Better  have  failed  in  the  high  aim 
Than  vulgarly  in  the  low  aim  succeed. 

It  is  hard  to  draw  the  line  between  the  prophet  and  the 
mountebank.  The  idealist  exposes  himself  to  great  dan- 
gers. Not  abating  one  jot  of  the  shame  he  brought  him- 
self, we  find  in  Chiappino's  character  that  which  is  related 
to  things  most  excellent.  It  was  well  for  those  of  Faenza 
that  Chiappino  gave  to  them  the  poetry  of  his  life.  He 
showed  them  the  chains  they  wore.  He,  more  than  Ogniben 
or  Luitolfo,  was  the  forerunner  of  Kossuth  and  his  com- 
patriots, and  the  still  greater  one,  yet  to  come,  who  will  lift 
Italy  into  the  freedom  they  dreamed  of.  He  who  sees  the 
difference  between  things  as  they  are  and  things  as  they 
ought  to  be  and  dares  declare  the  difference  regardless  of 
consequences,  belongs  to  that  line  .of  prophets  who  are 
God's  interpreters  on  earth.  Through  these  do  his  bless- 
ings go  down  the  ages.  While  Chiappino's  life  was 
genuine,  it  was  splendid,  though  disagreeable.  We  will 
not  sneer  at  him,  but  mourn  over  his  downfall.  Browning 
calls  it  a  "  soul's  tragedy."  Dante  defines  a  tragedy  as  "  the 
bad  ending  of  a  good  beginning."  Oh,  the  pathos  of  a  broken 
ideal !  What  pity  we  ought  to  have  for  a  demoralised  life ! 
Shall  we  shudder  at  a  mangled  limb  and  scoff  at  a  baffled 
soul?  Chiappino  is  an  acquaintance  of  yours  and  mine. 
Have  we  not  had  occasion  to  watch  the  disintegration  of  an 
ideal  life  in  a  young  man  or  woman  ?  See  that  boy,  a  very 
Childe  Galahad,  girding  himself  for  the  quest  of  the  Holy 
Grail,  breath  unsullied,  lips  unstained  by  impure  words,  heart 
unsmirohed  by  hatred.  Twenty  years  later,  note  that  same 
youth  with  breath  laden  with  the  impurities  of  cup  and 


138  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEES. 

pipe,  lips  familiar  with  words  not  to  be  spoken  in  the 
mother's  presence.  What  a  fall  is  here !  All  the  more 
tragic  if  the  plottings  began  in  the  interest  of  heaven,  not 
hell.  There  is  no  degeneracy  more  demoralising  than  that 
which  induces  men  like  Chiappino  to  plot  for  God's  cause, 
to  be  dishonest  in  the  interest  of  righteousness,  to  lie  "  for 
Christ's  sake,"  to  scheme  and  compromise  in  the  interest 
of  progress  and .  humanity.  How  sad  is  the  depravity  of 
the  minister  of  religion  who  splits  his  utterances  lest  they 
be  too  well  understood ;  who  obscures  the  vision  lest  it 
throw  too  much  light  on  the  subject,  and  the  collections  be 
marred.  Chiappino  fell  when  he  began  to  calculate  for 
success,  to  buy  efficiency.  We  will  not  reproach  his  dream- 
ing. We  will  regret  rather  his  waking.  Through  the 
cracks  of  the  cranky  life  of  Elias  Butterworth  ('A  Minor 
Prophet'),  George  Eliot  saw  that  something  higher  and 
finer  than  the  calculating  soul  which  prefers  the  near  suc- 
cess and  the  far  defeat  to  the  near  defeat  and  the  far 
success. 

No  tears  are  sadder  than  the  smile 
With  which  I  quit  Elias.    Bitterly 
I  feel  that  every  change  upon  this  earth 
Is  brought  with  sacrifice.  .  .  . 
Even  our  failures  are  a  prophecy, 
Even  our  yearnings  and  our  bitter  tears 
After  that  fair  and  true  we  cannot  grasp ; 
As  patriots  who  seem  to  die  in  vain 
Make  liberty  more  sacred  by  their  pangs. 

Presentiment  of  better  things  on  earth 

Sweeps  in  with  every  force  that  stirs  our  souls 

To  admiration,  self-renouncing  love, 

Or  thoughts,  like  light,  that  bind  the  world  in  one. 

For  the  fuller  assurance  that  Browning  was  in  sympathy 
with  the  uncalculating  soul,  the  soul  that  is  in  league  with 
the  unmeasured  impulses  and  the  undivided  promptings  of 
the  human  heart,  let  us  take  a  glimpse  of  that  other  gallery 
of  his,  of  unsophisticated  men  and  women,  those  of  whom 
the  hero  at  Marathon,  who  "  ploughed  for  ;Greece  all  day  " 


THE  UXCALCULATING   SOUL.  139 

with  his  plough-share,  and  then  went  home  at  night,  forget- 
ting to  leave  his  name  behind,  may  serve  as  type.  Phei- 
dippides,  the  runner,  who  ends  his  race  with  "  Athens  is 
saved,"  and  u  dies  in  the  shout  for  his  meed ; "  Ned  Bra'tts 
and  Tabby,  his  wife,  that  pair  of  "  sinner  saints,"  who, 
moved  by  John  Bunyan's  book,  brought  their  load  to  the 
foot  of  the  scaffold,  relieved  the  burdened  heart  by  con- 
fession, and  then,  because  "  Light 's  left,  "  Ned  begged, 
"  Make  but  haste  to  hang  us  both  !  "  "  while  Tab,  along- 
side, wheezed  a  hoarse,  "  Do  hang  us,  please ! "  So,  "  hap- 
pily hanged  were  they." 

How  the  list  lengthens,  —  the  blue-eyed  Breton ;  the  art- 
less Pippa ;  the  heavenly  guarded  Anael ;  the  ingenuous 
Luria,  with  his  "  own  East  how  nearer  to  God  we  are ;" 
Valence,  the  unsophisticated  advocate ;  Colombe,  who  was 
first  a  woman  and  then  a  queen ;  and  the  valiant  Count 
who  "  used  no  slight  of  the  sword,"  but  "  open-breasted 
drove  "  till u  out  the  truth  he  clove."  These  persuade  us  that 
the  rattling  Pacchiarotto  is  wiser  than  the  cold  and  fault- 
less painter,  Andrea  del  Sarto,  and  that  the  irregular  Fra 
Lippo  is  nearer  to  the  truth  and  nearer  to  God  than  the 
halting  Pictor  Ignotus,  that  the  gentle  and  unflinching 
Clara  in  the  '  Red  Cotton  Night-cap  Country '  was  purer 
than  Constance,  though  she  must  say,  "  Ere  I  found  what 
honour  meant,  I  lost  mine ;  "  and  we  see  that  Miranda,  the 
perplexed  and  unheroic  hero  of  this  book,  was  never  less 
holy  than  when  seeking  holiness,  "  counting  his  sham 
beads*  threaded  on  a  lie."  Rising  on  this  ladder  of  souls, 
we  at  last  take  our  place  and  march  by  the  light  of  the 
undeflected  flame  that  burns  in  the  soul  of  Caponsacchi, 
the  courtier  monk,  who  stood  "  guiltless  in  thought,  word, 
and  deed  "  because  he  saw  there  was  no  "  duty  patent  in 
the  world  like  daring  try  be  good  and  true  "  to  himself. 
We  dare  affirm  with  the  uncounting  Pompilia  that 

Through  such  souls  alone 
God  stooping,  shows  sufficient  of  his  light 
For  us  i'  the  dark  to  rise  by, 


140  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

and  with  the  dear  old  Pope,  we  are  glad  to  "  know  the 
right  place  by  foot's  feel,"  to  take  it  and  "tread  firm 
there." 

Let  us  again  take  a  single  representative,  and  that  not 
an  ideal  one  of  the  uncalculating  soul  as  found  in  the 
Robert  Browning  gallery.  Paracelsus,  that  strange,  erratic 
doctor  of  the  sixteenth  century,  was  an  incoherent,  tem- 
pestuous man.  His  was  a  character  full  of  painful  contra- 
dictions. His  life  was  blurred  with  mistakes  and  blotted 
with  passions.  He  died  a  disappointment  to  his  friends, 
and  his  memory  has  survived  even  to  this  day  as  a  bur- 
lesque and  a  warning.  But  histoiy  is  slowly  justifying 
the  inference  of  the  poem  that  bears  his  name  that  there  was 
a  success  underneath  the  failure.  There  is  that  in  the  story 
which  makes  for  courage,  which  shows  that  it  is  better  again 
to  fail  in  a  high  undertaking  than  never  to  try.  To  his 
pleading  friends,  the  young  man,  about  to  start  out  on  his 
quest,  says, 

What  is  it  you  wish  ? 

That  I  should  lay  aside  my  heart's  pursuit, 
Abandon  the  sole  ends  for  which  I  live, 
Reject  God's  great  commission  and  so  die  ? 

This  young  man's  sublime  faith  in  his  own  dreams  rises 
to  such  heights  that  to  his  dearest  friends  it  seems  but 
towering  audacity.  The  logic  of  failure  had  no  intimida- 
tions. He  feared  no  god  without  sufficiently  to  interfere 
with  his  respect  for  the  God  within. 

The  sovereign  proof 

That  we  devote  ourselves  to  God,  is  seen 
In  living  just  as  though  no  God  there  were. 

To  his  friends  who  plead  caution  and  moderation,  he 
replies, 

Choose  your  side, 

Hold  or  renounce :  but  meanwhile  blame  me  not 
Because  I  dare  to  act  on  your  own  views, 
Nor  shrink  when  they  point  onward,  nor  espy 
A  peril  where  they  most  ensure  success ; 


THE  UNCALCULATING   SOUL.  141 

and  this  daring  comes,  not  from  a  vision  of  the  other  end, 
but  from  a  potency  at  this  end  of  the  line.  He  ventures 
upon  what  he  knows  as  an  unsolved  problem.  He  says, 

No,  I  have  naught  to  fear  !     Who  will  may  know 

The  secret'st  workings  of  my  soul.     What  though 

It  be  so  f  if  indeed  the  strong  desire 

Eclipse  the  aim  in  me  ?  if  splendour  break 

Upon  the  outset  of  my  path  alone, 

And  duskest  shade  succeed  ?     What  fairer  seal 

Shall  I  require  to  my  authentic  mission 

Than  this  fierce  energy  ?  this  instinct  striving 

Because  its  nature  is  to  strive  ?  —  enticed 

By  the  security  of  no  broad  course, 

Without  success  forever  in  its  eyes ! 

How  know  I  else  such  glorious  fate  my  own, 

-But  in  the  restless  irresistible  force 

That  works  within  me  ?     Is  it  for  human  will 

To  institute  such  impulses  ?  —  still  less, 

To  disregard  their  promptings  !     What  should  I 

Do,  kept  among  you  all ;  your  lives,  your  cares, 

Your  life  —  all  to  be  mine  ?     Be  sure  that  God 

Ne'er  dooms  to  waste  the  strength  he  deigns  impart ! 

Ask  the  giec-eagle  why  she  stoops  at  once 

Into  the  vast  and  unexplored  abyss, 

What  full-grown  power  informs  her  from  the  first, 

Why  she  not  marvels,  strenuously  beating 

The  silent  boundless  regions  of  the  sky ! 

Be  sure  they  sleep  not  whom  God  needs  !    Nor  fear 

Their  holding  light  his  charge,  when  every  hour 

That  finds  that  charge  delayed,  is  a  new  death. 

This  for  the  faith  in  which  I  trust ;  and  hence 

I  can  abjure  so  well  the  idle  arts 

These  pedants  strive  to  learn  and  teach. 

In  this  audacious  faith  in  himself  Paracelsus  went  forth 
to 

Know,  not  for  knowing's  sake, 
But  to  become  a  star  to  men  forever. 

Of  course,  the  knowledge  he  obtained  proved  nine  parts 
ignorance.  His  light  soon  became  a  darkness  on  the  face 
of  the  earth,  but,  in  defeat,  disgrace  and  sin,  he  never  lost 
this  high  audacity,  never  ceased  to  believe  that  it  was  his 
business  to  perform  his  "  share  of  the  task." 


142  BOSTON   BKOWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

The  rest  is  God's  concern  ;  mine,  merely  this, 
To  know  that  I  have  obstinately  held 
By  my  own  work. 

Ever  in  his  heart  there  was  found,  as  in  a  "  shrine,  the 
giant  image  of  perfection,  grown  in  hate's  despite."  The 
outcome  of  this  life  was  sad  enough,  gloomy  defeat,  sick 
humiliation,  but  he  never  deserved  the  epitaph  written  over 
those  whose  galleys  went  over  the  sea  "  With  cleaving 
prows  in  order  brave, "  namely,  — 

The  sad  rhyme  of  the  men  who  proudly  clung 
To  their  first  fault  and  withered  in  their  pride. 

Although  he  was  compelled  to  render  up  his  soul  without 
the  "fruits  it  was  ordained  to  bear,"  he  went,  '"joyous  back 
to  God,"  bringing  no  offering,  sustained  by  the  thought  — 

So  glorious  is  our  nature,  so  august 
Man's  inborn,  uninstructed  impulses, 
His  naked  spirit  so  majestical ! 

The  irreverence  of  his  battling  soul  breathed  a  piety. 
So  splendidly  did  he  trust  his  instincts,  fight  for  them,  die 
for  them,  that  we  can  but  feel  that  there  was  some  funda- 
mental integrity  which  would  escape  all  "  devil  toil "  and 
"  hell  torments  "  because 

He  had  immortal  feelings  ;  such  shall  never 
Be  wholly  quenched. 

With  Festus  we  join  in  the  death-bed  prayer,  one  of  the 
most  divinely  audacious  in  literature  because  it  represents 
the  stalwart  spirituality  that  demands  fair  play  even  at  the 
hands  of  omnipotence.  It  insists  that  the  eternal  God 
should  be  humane,  that  he  must  be  just  before  being 
merciful. 

I  am  for  noble  Aureole,  God ! 
I  am  upon  his  side,  come  weal  or  woe. 
His  portion  shall  be  mine.     He  has  done  well. 
I  would  have  sinned,  had  I  been  strong  enough, 
As  lie  has  sinned.     Reward  him  or  I  waive 
Reward  !     If  thou  canst  find  no  place  for  him, 
He  shall  be  king  elsewhere,  and  I  will  be 
His  slave  forever.    There  are  two  of  us. 


THE   UNCALCULATING    SOUL.  143 

The  glow-points  of  history  are  those  where  stand  such 
uncalculating  souls,  they  who  counted  not  the  end  ere  they 
did  the  deed.  The  heroes  of  the  world  are  those  who 
obeyed  the  divine  propulsion  without  trying  to  anticipate 
results.  He  who  would  sink  the  flukes  of  his  faith-anchor 
in  a  far  future  or  a  far  past,  knows  not  the  inspiration  of 
the  saint.  Faith  comes  through  action.  It  waits  no  an- 
swer to  its  questions.  It  parleys  not  with  expedience.  It 
seeks  no  shorter  route  than  conscience,  no  easier  path  than 
principle. 

Chinese  Gordon,  the  uncrowned  king  of  the  Soudan,  was 
the  Sir  Galahad  of  the  English  army  in  his  day.  No  more 
poetic  and  spotless  illustration  of  faith  is  found  in  modern 
times  than  that  given  by  him.  With  tireless  disinterested- 
ness he  tried  to  be  the  Christianity  his  government  pro- 
fessed. We  are  told  the  motto  of  his  life  was  this,  found 
in  'Paracelsus,'  his  favorite  poem: 

I  go  to  prove  my  soul ! 
I  see  my  way  as  birds  their  trackless  way. 
I  shall  arrive  !  what  time,  what  circuit  first, 
I  ask  not :  but  unless  God  send  his  hail 
Or  blinding  fireballs,  sleet  or  stifling  snow, 
In  some  good  time,  his  good  time,  I  shall  arrive: 
He  guides  me  and  the  bird.     In  his  good  time. 

Gordon  knew  a  fearlessness  based  on  inward  confidence. 
Said  King  John  of  Abyssinia  to  him, — 

"  Do  you  know,  Gordon  Pasha,  that  I  could  kill  you  on 
the  spot,  if  I  liked  ?  " 

"  Perfectly  well  aware  of  it,  your  majesty.  If  it  is  your 
royal  pleasure,  I  am  ready.  Do  so  at  once." 

"What!  ready  to  be  killed?"  said  the  disconcerted 
king. 

"  Certainly." 

"  Then  my  power  has  no  terror  for  you  ?  " 

"None  whatever." 

Whereupon  the  king,  not  Gordon,  'was  intimidated. 
Like  that  "  Threatening  Tyrant "  in  Browning's  poem,  he 


144  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY    PAPERS. 

was  afraid !  Not  glory,  not  victory,  but  duty,  was  Nelson's 
word  at  Trafalgar.  "  Ich  dien "  was  Faraday's  motto, 
which  led  him  to  choose  poverty  and  science  rather  than 
wealth  and  luxury.  It  is  said  that  Washington  was  filled 
with  troops  a  whole  year  before  Charles  Sumner  had  ever 
witnessed  a  parade.  His  post  was  in  another  part  of  the 
field,  and  the  angels  on  their  grand  rounds  always  found 
this  sentinel  at  his  post.  "This  one  thing  I  do,"  was 
Paul's  motto.  "Here  I  stand,  God  helping  me,  I  cannot 
do  otherwise,"  exclaimed  Luther.  "'Tis  the  old  word, 
necessity  is  laid  upon  me,"  said  Felix  Holt. 

Not  only  is  this  method  of  the  uncalculating  soul  exem- 
plified by  the  great,  but  it  is  taught  by  them.  "  The  truly 
great  man  does  not  think  beforehand  that  his  words  should 
be  sincere,  nor  that  his  actions  should  be  resolute.  He 
simply  always  abides  in  the  right,"  said  Mencius. 

Nature  hates  calculators.  Only  in  our  spontaneous 
actions  are  we  strong.  "By  contenting  ourselves  with 
obedience  we  become  divine,"  said  Emerson. 

"  The  wiser  the  angels,  the  more  innocent  they  are,"  said 
Swedenborg. 

"  If  we  practise  goodness  for  the  sake  of  gaining  some 
advantage  by  it,  we  may  be  cunning  but  we  are  not  good," 
said  Cicero. 

"  No  inquirer  can  fix  a  clear-sighted  gaze  towards  truth 
who  is  casting  side-glances  all  the  while  on  the  prospects 
of  his  soul,"  says  James  Martineau. 

You  remember  Victor  Hugo's  convent  gardener  who 
must  needs  wear  a  bell,  as  he  said,  "  fastened  to  his  paw  in 
order  to  warn  the  pious  sisters  of  the  approach  of  a  man." 
He  is  described  as  being  "  sorely  tried,  much  worn  by  fate, 
a  poor  thread-bare  soul,  but  still  a  man  to  act  on  the  first 
impulse  and  spontaneously,  a  precious  quality  which  pre- 
vents a  man  from  ever  being  very  wicked." 

To  return  to  Robert  Browning,  we  are  warranted  by  him 
in  saying  another  tiling  concerning  the  uncalculating  soul. 


THE   TJNCALCULATLNG   SOUL.  145 

Its  assurances  make  the  disappointments  of  life  trifling. 
It  lifts  one  above  his  defeats  because  it  recognises  the 
truth,  that  to  God,  being  is  more  than  doing,  purpose  is 
service.  For  once,  at  least,  the  unctuous  Ogniben  ap- 
proaches a  gospel  inspiration  when  he  says,  "  Ever  judge  of 
men  by  their  professions,  for  the  bright  moment  of  promis- 
ing is  but  a  moment  and  cannot  be  prolonged,  yet,  if  sin- 
cere in  its  moment  of  extravagant  goodness,  why  trust  it 
and  know  the  man  by  it,  I  say  —  not  by  his  performance  — 
which  is  half  the  world's  work,  interfere  as  the  world  needs 
must  with  its  accidents  and  its  circumstances,  —  the  pro- 
fession was  purely  the  man's  own.  I  judge  people  by 
what  they  might  be,  —  not  are,  nor  will  be." 

This  is  solace  to  the  badgered  soul.  It  is  probably  the 
most  central  thing  in  Browning's  teachings.  For  this  we 
will  love  him,  if  for  nothing  else,  and  if  need  be,  in  spite 
of  everything  else.  Shall  we  not  indeed  give  to  Giotto 
credit  for  the  spire  that  has  never  graced  the  Florentine 
Campanile  ? 

'T  is  not  what  man  does  which  exalts  him,  but  what  man  would  do ! 

Saul. 

What  I  aspired  to  be, 
And  was  not  comforts  me. 

All  instincts  immature, 
All  purposes  unsure, 
That  weighed  not  as  his  work,  yet,  swelled  the  man's  amount. 

Fancies  that  broke  thro'  language  and  escaped ; 

All  I  could  never  be, 

All,  men  ignored  in  me, 
This,  I  was  worth  to  God,  whose  wheel  the  pitcher  shaped. 

All  that  is,  at  all, 
Lasts  ever,  past  recall ; 
Earth  changes,  but  thy  soul  and  God  stand  sure. 

Rabbi  Ben  Ezra. 

Oh,  if  we  draw  a  circle  premature, 

Heedless  of  far  gain, 
Greedy  for  quick  returns  of  profit,  sure 

Bad  is  our  bargain ! 

10 


146  BOSTON  BKOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Was  it  not  great  ?  did  not  lie  throw  on  God, 

( He  loves  the  burthen)  — 
God's  task  to  make  the  heavenly  period 

Perfect  the  earthen  ? 
Did  not  he  magnify  the  mind,  show  clear 

Just  what  it  all  meant  ? 
He  would  not  discount  life,  as  fools  do  here, 

Paid  by  instalment. 
He  ventured  neck  or  nothing  —  heaven's  success 

Found,  or  earth's  failure  : 
"  Wilt  thou  trust  death  or  not  ?  "    He  answered  "  Yes! 

Hence  with  life's  pale  lure." 
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  unperplexed 

Seeking  shall  find  him. 

A  Grammarian's  Funeral. 

The  last  and  best  thing  is  yet  to  be  said  concerning  the 
uncalculating  soul.  He  is  justified,  not  only  in  experience, 
but  in  philosophy.  His  method  is  scientific.  His  morality 
is  based  in  law.  This  uncalculating  ethics  rests  in  and 
rises  out  of  the  thought  of  evolution.  The  man  who 
follows  the  intuitions  of  his  soul  is  wise  enough  to  profit 
by  the  tuitions  of  his  fore-elders.  The  insight  of  the 
prophet  is  the  stratified  sight  of  his  ancestors.  What  they 
groped  and  toiled  for  and  died  without  the  finding  are  the 
happy  promptings,  the  uncounted  instincts,  the  inheritance 
of  the  child  of  to-day ;  the  tears  of  the  mother  and  the 
grandmother  become  the  radiant  joy  of  the  children  and  the 
grandchildren.  The  Nile  deposits  five  inches  of  alluvial 
soil  upon  the  fertile  fields  of  Egypt  in  a  century,  about 
one-twentieth  of  an  inch  per  year.  This  soil  has  been 
probed  to  the  depth  of  sixty  feet  or  more.  That  is  very 


THE  UNCALCULATING   SOUL.  147 

poor  science  that  assumes  that  this  year's  millet  crop  is  the 
outcome  of  this  year's  flood,  though  it  might  not  come  with- 
out the  annual  inundation.  The  millet  has  come  out  of  this 
last  one-twentieth  of  an  inch  plus  the  sixty  feet  of  previous 
alluvium.  This  last  one-twentieth  of  an  inch  is  the  con- 
scious element  in  morals.  That  we  may,  nay,  we  must, 
reason  about,  analyse,  weigh,  calculate,  and  thus  increase 
its  fertility  and  importance.  But  the  mighty  potency  qf 
morals  comes  from  the  tap-root,  sunk  deep  into  uncon- 
scious inheritances  that  reach  down  through  the  dawn 
of  civilisation,  through  the  various  strata  of  barbarism, 
through  primitive  savagery,  into  all  the  forms  of  animal 
and  vegetable  being.  The  soul's  propulsion  towards  the 
right  is  related  to  the  mute  force  that  blankets  with  husks 
the  growing  corn  and  water-proofs  the  autumn  bud  for  the 
sake  of  spring  foliage  and  blossom.  Conscience  is  akin  to 
that  strange  prevision  that  teaches  the  bee  to  fill  its  winter 
cupboard  and  the  squirrel  to  stock  its  granaries  against  the 
unyielding  season,  —  a  prevision  that  bee  and  squirrel  know 
not  of. 

I  go  to  prove  my  soul ! 

I  see  my  way  as  birds  their  trackless  way. 

He  guides  me  and  the  bird.     In  his  good  time ! 

This  is  good  science  as  well  as  good  poetiy.     There  is  a 
common  gravitation  that  holds  plant,  bird  and  man  in  one 

destiny. 

Across  the  narrow  beach  we  flit, 
One  little  sandpiper  and  I, 
And  fast  I  gather,  bit  by  bit, 
The  scattered  driftwood  bleached  and  dry. 
The  wild  waves  reach  their  hands  for  it, 
The  wild  wind  raves,  the  tide  runs  high, 
As  up  and  down  the  beach  we  flit,  — 
One  little  sandpiper  and  I. 

Comrade,  where  wilt  thou  be  to-night 
When  the  loosed  storm  breaks  furiously  ? 
My  driftwood  fire  will  burn  so  bright ! 
To  what  warm  shelter  canst  thou  fly  1 


148  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

I  do  not  fear  for  thee,  though  wroth 
The  tempest  rushes  through  the  sky : 
For  are  we  not  God's  children  both, 
Thou,  little  sandpiper  and  I  ? 

There  are  those  still  reluctant  to  accept  this  inspiring 
conclusion,  "  God's  children  both,  the  sandpiper  and  the 
soul."  They  dread  this  divine  necessity  of  law,  admitting 
that  Nature,  by  her  methods,  protects  the  winter  bud,  has 
tutored  the  bee  and  the  squirrel,  and  has  taught  the  bird 
his  benign  migration,  but  for  the  soul,  they  claim  some 
peculiar,  supermundane  sources.  Evolution?  Yes,  of 
course,  all  the  way  up  to  man,  perhaps  even  including  the 
physical  man ;  but  for  morals  and  religion  some  special 
intervention,  a  miraculous  lift,  a  supernatural  revelation, 
is  devoutly  clutched  at.  But  with  the  poet,  I  refuse  to  be 
disinherited.  We  cannot  afford  to  sever  a  link  in  that 
chain  of  splendid  being  that  unites  us  to  all  that  is.  I 
prefer  a  duty  that  reaches  for  its  sanctions  down  through 
cactus  to  granite  rather  than  that  which  is  borne  down 
from  a  heaven  above  on  fitful  gusts  of  incoherent  reve- 
lation. The  beautiful  necessity  which  star-rays  the  snow- 
flake  impels  me  "  to  go  prove  my  soul,"  and  to  believe  that 
"in  some  good  time  I  shall  arrive.  He  guides  me  and 
the  bird."  The  pregnant  lines  of  Emerson's  4  Rhodora ' 
were  as  much  a  mystery  and  delight  as  the  purple  petals 
of  the  flower  that  inspired  them,  and  the  best  the  poet 
could  do  was  to  surmise  that  the  same  power  that  brought 
the  one  brought  the  other. 

"Let  us  build  altars  to  the  beautiful  necessity,"  said 
Emerson.  All  strong  souls  have  been  great  believers  in 
fate.  Great  was  the  reach  of  Newton's  mind  who  saw  the 
pull  of  the  planets,  the  hunger  of  each  for  his  fellow. 
Greater  still  is  the  insight  of  the  poet  who  sees  this  pull 
of  human  nature  towards  excellence,  the  divine  gravita- 
tion of  man  to  man,  the  holy  attraction  towards  the  right, 
the  thirst  for  nobility  that  blooms  into  conscience  as  a 


THE    UNCALCULATING    SOUL.  149 

manifestation  of  the  same  law,  the  working   out  of  the 
same  destiny. 

"  Man  is  a  stream  whose  source  is  hidden.  Our  being 
is  a  descending  into  us,  —  we  know  not  whence,"  says 
Emerson. 

I  believe  in  the  morals  called  intuitive  because  I  believe 
"  in  the  tuition  of  eons  of  time  and  cycles  of  being  that  have 
produced  them.  I  believe  none  the  less  in  the  ethics  of 
reason,  judgment,  and  discriminating  experiments,  because 
each  generation  is  to  add  its  twentieth  of  an  inch  to  the 
splendid  deposits  of  the  centuries.  Each  age  must  add  its 
verse  to  the  bible  of  the  race,  "texts  of  despair  or  hope, 
of  joy  or  moan."  Nature  pushed  up  through  crystal,  cell, 
plant,  fish,  fowl,  beast,  ape,  and  savage  to  Jesus.  The 
conscience  of  Channing  was  the  higher  manifestation  of 
the  power  that  trailed  the  arbutus  through  the  rocky  glens 
of  Massachusetts,  and  in  the  main,  one  force  hides  from 
consciousness,  eludes  analysis,  as  much  as  the  other.  The 
great  deeds  of  the  world  are  done  in  obedience  to  prompt- 
ings as  subtle  and  irresistible  as  that  which  impels  the 
water-fowl  through  the  trackless  sky.  "He  guides  me 
and  the  bird."  Bryant  ventured  to  anticipate  the  shel- 
tered nest  beneath  the  "bending  reeds"  as  an  incentive 
to  the  flight,  but  I  suspect  the  bird  did  not  know  of 
the  nest.  It  was  haunted  only  by  apprehension  of  cold. 
A  mute  impulse  impelled  it  to  fly,  and  in  its  flight,  strange 
confidence  in  its  wings  grew.  By  flying  came  that  splen- 
did faith  —  there  is  no  other  word  for  it,  —  faith  in  God, 
"the  evidence  of  things  unseen,  the  substance  of  things 
hoped  for."  This  faith,  born  of  action,  is  the  most  trium- 
phant and  commanding  thing  in  the  world.  It  makes  a 
success  of  the  man,  howe'er  his  schemes  may  fail,  and  this 
halting  distrust  of  a  holy  prompting,  a  scepticism  concern- 
ing the  wisdom  of  a  right  act,  of  the  safety  of  truth-telling 
and  tiuth-f  olio  wing,  is  the  most  disastrous  thing  in  the 
world.  It  makes  a  failure  of  the  man,  however  the  scheme 


150  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCEETY   PAPERS. 

succeeds.  It  may  build  a  house,  but  it  ruins  the  home.  It 
may  plant  a  mission,  but  it  gags  and  kills  the  missionary. 
The  triumphant  faith  rests,  not  on  foresight,  but  upon  the 
impulse  born  out  of  insight.  Luther  had  his  halting 
moments.  He  never  had  a  very  clear  vision  of  what  it 
was  all  coming  to.  There  were  calculating  and  faithless 
souls  who  saw  the  end  of  it  all  more  clearly  than  Luther 
ever  did.  Indeed,  in  his  old  age,  when  action  could  no 
longer  feed  the  fires  of  faith,  Luther  was  tempted  to  say, 
"  Had  I  known  the  trouble  it  would  bring,  I  would  never 
have  touched  it."  But  Luther  in  action,  Luther  on  the 
wing,  uncalculating  Luther,  would  go  to  Worms,  "  though 
there  were  as  many  devils  as  there  were  tiles  on  the  house- 
tops." He  went  "  to  prove  his  soul,"  never  doubting  but 
that,  in  his  good  time,  he  should  arrive. 

What  a  sweep  "  into  the  vast  and  unexplored  abyss  " 
did  that  gier-eagle  of  souls  take,  when  he  dared  put  his 
hand  to  the  Emancipation  Proclamation !  What  "  full- 
grown  power  "  informed  him  there  in  the  boundless  regions 
of  the  sky  that  "  they  sleep  not  whom  God  needs  ?  "  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  is  the  most  stupendous  illustration  in  modern 
history  of  that  fine  climax  in  the  aspirations  of  Paracelsus. 
There  are 

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 ! 

Thus  has  our  poet  apprehended  what  the  scientists 
demonstrate.  Poetry  foretells  what  science  comes  to  tell. 
The  poet,  by  the  "  tougher  sinew "  of  his  brain,  the  more 
penetrating  grasp  of  his  mind^  reaches  the  synthesis  which 
his  sure  ally  and  best  friend,  the  man  of  science,  will,  give 
him  time  enough,  justify  by  analysis. 

4  Paracelsus '  was  first  published  in  1835,  one  year 
before  Emerson  issued  his  prophetic  essay  called  '  Nature,' 
prefaced  by  the  lines :  — 


THE  UNCALCULATING  SOUL.  151 

A  subtle  chain  of  countless  rings, 
The  next  and  to  the  farthest  brings. 

And,  striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 
Mounts  through  all  the  spires  of  form  — 

twenty  years  before  Spencer  gave  to  the  world  the  f oreshad- 
owings  of  his  work,  twenty-four  years  before  Darwin  pub- 
lished his  '  Origin  of  Species,'  forty-four  years  before  the 
appearance  of  Spencer's  'Data  of  Ethics,'  and  nearly  fifty 
years  before  John  Fiske  gave  us  his  '  Idea  of  God '  and 
'  Destiny  of  Man.'  And  still,  without  forcing  the  text,  I 
think  the  careful  reader  finds  the  pith  of  all  these  books 
more  or  less  clearly  foreshadowed  in  this  poem  of  '  Para- 
celsus,' written  by  a  boy  only  twenty-three  years  of  age, 
sixty  years  ago.  Here  we  find,  not  only  the  doctrine  of 
physical  evolution,  the  overlaying  of  strata,  the  progressive 
series  of  plants  and  animals,  but  we  find  also  strangely 
beautiful  suggestions  of  the  evolution  of  morals,  the 
growth  of  spirit,  and  the  crowning  of  the  column  of  being 
with  man's  conscience  as  the  authoritative,  not  infallible, 
force  in  the  uncalculating  soul. 

Here  we  read  of  "  hints  and  previsions  of  his  faculties," 
strewn  confusedly  everywhere  before  man  appears.  Once 
descried,  he  "imprints  forever  his  presence  on  all  lifeless 
things,"  "  the  winds  are  henceforth  voices,  never  a  sense- 
less gust,  now  man  is  born." 

And  still,  the  ladder  of  being  mounts  with  an  ever-in- 
creasing apprehension  of  man's  passing  worth.  Not  con- 
tent with  "  here  and  there  a  star  to  dispel  the  darkness," 
here  and  there  a  "  towering  mind  to  o'erlook  its  prostrate 
fellows,"  this  boy-poet  sang  of  the  time  when  "  the  host  is 
out  at  once  to  the  despair  of  night,"  when  "  all  mankind  " 
shall  boast  of  "  full-blown  powers,"  then,  not  till  then, 
"begins  man's  general  infancy." 

Prognostics  told 

Man's  near  approach  ;  so  in  man's  self  arise 
August  anticipations,  symbols,  types 
Of  a  dim  splendour  ever  on  before 


152 


BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 


In  that  eternal  circle  life  pursues. 

For  men  begin  to  pass  their  nature's  bound, 

And  find  new  hopes  and  cares  which  fast  supplant 

Their  proper  joys  and  griefs ;  they  grow  too  great 

For  narrow  creeds  of  right  and  wrong,  which  fade 

Before  the  unmeasured  thirst  for  good  ;  while  peace 

Rises  within  them  ever  more  and  more. 

Such  men  are  even  now  upon  the  earth, 

Serene  amid  the  half-formed  creatures  round 

Who  should  be  saved  by  them,  and  joined  with  them. 


THE  VALUE  OF  CONTEMPORARY 
JUDGMENT. 

BY  HELEN  A.  CLARKE. 

[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  Dec.  27,  1892.] 

UPON  first  thought  the  intrinsic  value  of  contemporary 
judgment  seems  to  amount  to  almost  nothing :  "  Few 
things," says  Mr.  J.  Addington  Symonds,  "are  more  per- 
plexing than  the  vicissitudes  of  taste,  whereby  the  idols 
of  past  generations  crumble  suddenly  to  dust,  while  the 
despised  and  rejected  are  lifted  to  pinnacles  of  glory." 

These  words  apply  with  especial  force  to  the  change 
wrought  in  the  critical  attitude  toward  those  great  torch- 
bearers  who  lit  up  so  gloriously  the  first  years  of  our  own 
century.  During  these  early  years  there  came  into  exis- 
tence The  Quarterly  Review,  Blackwood's,  The  Edinburgh, 
The  Examiner,  —  magazines  which,  like  Milton's  Satan, 
had  "  through  their  merit  been  raised  to  a  bad  eminence," 
and  "insatiate  to  pursue  vain  war  with  Heaven,"  dis- 
charged their  critical  office,  as  if  all  poets  manifesting 
unusual  genius  were  their  natural  enemies.  All  of  us  are, 
by  hearsay,  familiar  with  the  awful  terror  of  their  weapons ; 
but  it  is  doubtful  whether  imagination  has  ever  clothed  the 
tradition  in  a  way  at  all  approaching  the  fatuous  reality  of 
their  printed  words.  Like  many  critics  of  the  present  day 
when  dealing  with  poets  of  the  calibre  of  William  Blake, 
George  Meredith,  or  Robert  Browning,  they  found  the 
poetry  of  the  Lake  and  so-called  Cockney  schools  "  obscure." 
Wordsworth's  '  Ode  to  Immortality '  was  considered  by 
Blackwood's  a  most  illegible  and  unintelligible  poem.  "  We 


154  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

can  pretend  to  give  no  analysis  or  explanation  of  it."  So 
vicious  an  example  of  obscurity  is  it,  that  the  reviewer  has 
"every  reason  to  hope  that  the  lamentable  consequences 
which  have  resulted  from  Mr.  Wordsworth's  open  violation 
of  the  established  laws  of  poetry  will  operate  as  a  whole- 
some warning  to  those  who  might  otherwise  have  been 
seduced  by  his  example." 

The  Quarterly  made  superhuman  efforts  to  get  through 
with  '  Endymion,'  and  concludes,  "  We  are  no  better 
acquainted  with  the  meaning  of  the  book  through  which 
we  have  so  painfully  toiled  than  we  are  with  that  of  the 
three  which  we  have  not  looked  into."  It  wonders  whether 
"  Mr.  Keats  is  his  real  name,"  for  it  doubts  that  any  man 
in  his  senses  should  put  his  "  name  to  such  a  rhapsody." 
'  Prometheus,'  in  the  words  of  The  Literary  Gazette  of  1820, 
is  little  else  but  "  absolute  raving.  ...  A  melanye  of  non- 
sense, cockneyism,  poverty,  and  pedantry."  And  in  the 
estimation  of  The  Edinburgh  Review,  one  of  the  most  nota- 
ble pieces  of  impertinence  of  which  the  Press  had  lately 
been  guilty  was  the  publication  of  '  Christabel,'  whose 
author  had  "  the  monstrous  assurance  to  come  forward 
coolly  at  that  time  of  day  and  tell  the  reader  of  English 
poetry,  whose  ear  had  been  tuned  to  the  lays  of  Spenser, 
Milton,  Dryden,  and  Pope,  that  he  made  his  metre  on  a 
new  principle." 

Such  criticism  as  this  makes  one  feel  like  exclaiming, 
as  Childe  Roland  did  of  the  blind  horse,  "  I  never  saw  a 
tribe  I  hated  so,"  and  writing  down  all  contemporary  critics 
as  a  race  specially  scorned  of  Providence  in  the  matter  of 
penetration.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  era 
marked  by  this  extraordinarily  vituperative  criticism 
occupies  but  a  small  portion  of  the  whole  body  of  English 
criticism,  and  bearing  in  mind  also  the  scientific  method  of 
proceeding  so  much  in  vogue  at  present,  with  its  deductions 
based  upon  facts,  —  always  facts,  — we  are  warned  not  to 
come  to  too  hasty  conclusions.  Only  an  eternity  of  Grad- 


THE  VALUE  OF  CONTEMPOKAKY  JUDGMENT.    155 

grinds  in  immortal  conclave  could  definitely  settle  the 
question. 

Though  not  able  in  the  nature  of  the  case  to  collect  and 
sift  all  the  facts,  we  can  glance  at  a  few  and  make  at  least 
provisional  deductions. 

Turning  to  the  dawn  of  the  Elizabethan  Age,  we  find 
that  criticism  in  our  modern  sense  had  not  yet  been  devel- 
oped, but  there  then  flourished  a  race  of  critics  of  verse 
forms,  who,  not  occupied  with  the  individual  merits  of 
poets,  were  one  and  all  bent  on  the  improvement  of  Eng- 
lish poetic  forms.  Puffed  up  with  a  little  classical  knowl- 
edge, they  would  take  Horace  or  Virgil  for  their  Apollo. 
The  general  surceasing  of  bald  rhymes  was  determined 
upon;  fixed  rules  for  quantitative  metre  were  to  be 
adopted;  hexameters  were  to  reign  supreme.  Even  the 
poet  Spenser  was  touched  by  this  fever  for  artificial  im- 
provement ;  but  his  natural  genius  happily  saved  him  from 
going  too  far,  and  in  one  of  his  famous  letters  to  Harvey, 
after  some  praise  of  the  hexameter,  he  winds  up,  "  Why 
a  God's  name  may  not  we,  as  else  the  Greeks,  have  the 
kingdom  of  our  own  language,  and  measure  our  accents  by 
the  sound,  reserving  quantity  to  the  verse  ?  "  In  spite  of 
the  fact,  however,  that  these  formulators  of  cast-iron  rules 
for  the  construction  of  poetry  were  opposed  to  such  poetical 
practice  as  that  of  Spenser,  they  were  not  unconscious  of 
his  genius.  The  most  rabid  of  the  Hexametrists  sa}rs, 
when  speaking  of  contemporary  poets,  "  I  confess  and 
acknowledge  that  we  have  many  excellent  and  singular 
good  poets  in  this  our  age,  as  Master  Spenser  .  .  .  and 
divers  others  whom  I  reverence  in  that  kind  of  prose 
rhythm,  wherein  Spenser  hath  surpassed  them  all.  I  would 
to  God  they  had  done  so  well  in  trew  Hexametres,  for 
they  had  then  beautified  our  language."  This  reminds  one 
of  Miss  Jenkyn's  criticism,  in  '  Cranford,'  on  the  author  of 
'The  Pickwick  Papers,'  "doubtless  a  young  man,  who 
might  do  very  well  if  he  would  take  Dr.  Johnson  for  a 


156  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

model."  Spenser  was  also  mildly  praised  of  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  :  " '  The  Shepherd's  Calendar '  hath  much  poetry 
in  his  eclogues,  indeed  worthy  the  reading,  if  I  be  not 
deceived." 

It  was  quite  natural  that  the  romantic  drama  then  grow- 
ing up  should  be  scorned  by  this  new-old  school ;  and  every 
one  is  familiar  with  the  wit  and  learning  with  which 
Sidney  exposed  its  fallacies.  Fortunately,  however,  for 
the  poets  of  that  day,  their  fame  did  not  depend  upon  a 
scant  word  of  praise  uttered  by  the  rhetoricians.  We  have 
a  picture  in  that  curious  old  play,  'The  Return  from 
Parnassus,'  of  the  necessity  devolving  upon  every  poet  of 
finding  an  aristocratic  patron,  who  was  generally  to  be 
bought  at  the  expenditure  of  a  little,  or  rather  of  a  good 
deal,  of  judicious  flattery.  Once  taken  under  the  wing  of 
a  nobleman,  the  popular  judgment  did  the  rest,  and  the 
"  scollers  "  found  their  grumbling  of  little  avail.  No  doubt 
these  same  "  scollers  "  flung  their  sneers  at  Shakespeare,  — 
a  fact  also  patent  in  '  The  Return  from  Parnassus.'  The 
University  gentleman  who  wrote  this  play  for  a  cultured 
audience  might  find  it  amusing  to  make  his  Gullio  —  an 
empty  pretender  to  knowledge  —  the  only  one  to  "  worship 
sweet  Mr.  Shakespeare  ;  "  but  even  while  the  cultured  audi- 
ence was  laughing  at  the  hit,  the  Universities  ( in  the  person 
of  Francis  Meres,  who  was  Master  of  Arts  of  both  Cambridge 
and  Oxford,  and  Professor  of  Rhetoric  in  Oxford)  had 
placed  their  approval  upon  Shakespeare.  Sincerely  appre- 
ciative is  his  quaintly  worded  praise,  —  "  As  the  soul  of 
Euphorbus  was  thought  to  live  in  Pythagoras,  so  the  sweet, 
witty  soul  of  Ovid  lives  in  mellifluous  and  honey  tongued 
Shakespeare." ...  As  Epius  Stolo  said  that  the  Muses 
would  speak  with  Plautus'  tongue  if  they  would  speak 
Latin,  so  say  I,  that  the  Muses  would  speak  with  Shake- 
speare's fine-fil£d  phrase  if  they  would  speak  English.'' 

Such  contemporary  notices  as  have  come  down  to  us, 
with  some  few  exceptions,  such  as  Greene's  famous  "  Shake- 


THE  VALUE  OF  CONTEMPORARY  JUDGMENT.    157 

scene  "  speech,  go  to  prove  the  general  estimation  in  which 
Shakespeare  was  held  during  his  life.  Though  later 
Shakespeare  idolaters  have  loved  to  enlarge  on  Ben  Jonson's 
malignity  toward  Shakespeare,  Gifford  has  shown  pretty 
conclusively  that  the  malignity  was  on  the  part  of  the 
idolaters  toward  Jonson,  while  the  unbiassed  reader  will 
certainly  find  much  more  praise  than  blame  in  Ben  Jonson's 
utterances  upon  Shakespeare.  As  he  says  of  Shakespeare, 
we  may  say  of  his  criticisms  of  Shakespeare,  "  There  was 
ever  more  in  him  to  be  praised  than  pardoned." 

By  the  time  Milton  appears  on  the  scene,  classical  models 
have  had  their  due  effect.  Gabriel  Harvey  would  no 
doubt  have  hailed  with  delight  Milton's  blank  verse,  but 
alas  !  "  It  is  never  the  time  and  the  place  and  the  loved 
one  altogether."  The  poet  who  excelled  in  blank  verse 
came  too  late  for  the  critics  who  would  have  appreciated 
it ;  and  we  find  him  obliged  to  preface  the  second  edition 
of  'Paradise  Lost'  with  an  apology  for  blank  verse.  But 
he  was  not  altogether  without  contemporary  praise,  and 
from  a  very  high  source.  Dryden,  the  great  Mogul  of 
letters,  said  in  the  preface  to  his  poem,  '  The  State  of  Inno- 
cence,' that  'Paradise  Lost'  was  "  undoubtedly  one  of  the 
greatest,  most  noble,  and  most  sublime  poems  which  either 
this  age  or  nation  has  produced."  He  admired  it  so  much 
evidently  that  he  thought  it  worthy  of  his  own  most  august 
improvement.  '  The  State  of  Innocence  '  was  the  result,  — 
a  version  of 'Paradise  Lost,'  which,  as  Milton  expressed  it, 
was  "  tagged  with  rhymes." 

In  Dryden  and  Pope  we  have  the  spectacle  of  poets  who 
attained  the  widest  recognition  in  their  lifetime,  — literary 
dictators,  as  some  one  has  called  them,  poets  who  wrote  in 
a  school  which  was  generally  approved  by  the  taste  of  the 
time,  and  which  they  may  be  said  to  have  both  reflected 
and  led.  Their  successes,  it  is  true,  raised  up  against 
them  a  number  of  envious  scribblers.  But  this  was  not 
an  age  when  the  poets  died  of  criticism,  as  Keats  is  said 


158  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

by  Byron  to  have  done ;  the  bitterest  invective  of  a  dis- 
appointed hack  could  not  compete  with  the  terrible  shafts 
of  sarcasm  wielded  by  a  Pope  or  a  Dryden.  Whenever 
the  poets  gave  battle  to  the  critics  on  their  own  ground, 
the  critics  were  worsted,  and  dispersed  like  Penelope's 
suitors  under  the  bow  of  Odysseus. 

From  this  rapid  glance  at  a  few  well-known  facts,  is  it 
possible  to  draw  any  deductions?  I  think  we  may  at 
least  conclude,  even  with  this  scant  material,  that  before 
deciding  as  to  the  value  of  contemporary  judgment,  a 
great  many  factors  must  be  taken  into  account.  The 
popular  admiration  for  Shakespeare  during  his  lifetime 
has  been  developed  by  succeeding  generations  into  the 
profoundest  reverence  for  his  genius ;  but  no  one  would 
hesitate  to  say  that  when  Meres  wrote  of  him  as  he  did, 
in  1598,  he  expressed  a  contemporary  opinion  of  real  and 
lasting  value.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  doubtful  whether 
the  consensus  of  opinion  at  the  present  time  would  ratify 
the  popular  contemporary  judgment  in  regard  to  Dryden 
and  Pope.  John  Dennis's  opinion  that  the  precepts  in  the 
'  Essay  on  Criticism  '  were  false  and  trivial,  the  thoughts 
crude  and  abortive,  might  even  find  an  echo  in  a  modern 
mind. 

In  both  these  eras,  however,  the  poets  were  decidedly  in 
the  ascendant;  they  did  not  make  their  debut  into  the 
literary  world  under  the  chaperonage  of  the  critics.  Their 
appeal  was  direct  to  the  public.  But  there  is  this  differ- 
ence between  the  two  periods,  —  while  the  Elizabethan 
Age  was  not  the  forerunner  of  any  school  of  criticism 
based  upon  it,  by  which  the  works  of  the  succeeding  era 
were  judged,  the  classical  era  furnished  the  foundation  of 
the  future  criticism,  whose  superstructure  towers  into  the 
present.  With  the  growth  of  prose,  criticism  gradually 
usurped  the  place  of  poetry  as  guide  in  literary  matters ; 
and  when  a  new  race  of  poets  with  new  ideals  arose,  they 
were  in  the  position  of  rebels  against  the  established  order 


THE  VALUE   OF   CONTEMPORARY   JUDGMENT.         159 

of  things,  and  it  was  the  duty  of  the  critics,  as  the  pur- 
veyors of  taste,  to  warn  all  readers  against  these  danger- 
ous poetical  anarchists. 

Shakespeare  in  his  day,  and  Pope  and  Dryden  in  theirs, 
depended,  therefore,  on  the  critical  judgment  of  the  "  gen- 
eral "  rather  than  upon  that  of  a  particular  critic  or  school 
of  critics,  and  that  each  prospered  in  his  own  day  indicates 
that  each  was  the  legitimate  offspring  of  his  time. 

I  think,  then,  that  from  these  illustrations  we  may 
venture  as  provisional  deductions  that  when  a  poet  is  the 
outcome  of  a  great  age  of  spontaneous  poetical  activity, 
such  as  the  Elizabethan  Age,  —  when  not  only  were  the 
poets  many  and  good,  but  the  general  public  was  largely 
receptive  to  poetical  influences,  —  contemporary  judgment 
is  likely  to  be  appreciative  and  therefore  of  intrinsic  value  ; 
when  the  poet  is  the  outcome  of  an  age  of  artificial  poet- 
ical  activity,  such  as  that  of  Pope,  when  poets  and  public 
are  alike  busied  with  the  form  rather  than  the  spirit  of 
poetry,  contemporary  judgment  is  likely  to  be  exaggerated 
in  its  approval,  and  of  lesser  value  ;  but  when  the  poet  is 
not  so  much  the  outcome  as  the  prophet  of  a  coming  great 
age,  and  with  ideals  opposed  to  the  art  conventions  of 
his  time,  contemporary  judgment  is  unequal  to  the  task 
of  appreciating  him,  and  is  consequently  of  little  or  no 
value. 

Yet  even  in  the  most  unappreciative  age,  there  were 
voices  crying  in  the  wilderness  to  announce  its  poets. 
Shelley  as  critic  saw  that  "  in  spite  of  the  low-thoughted 
envy  which  would  undervalue  contemporary  merit,"  his 
own  age  would  be  a  memorable  one  in  intellectual  achieve- 
ments. "  We  live,"  he  says,  "  among  such  philosophers 
and  poets  as  surpass  beyond  comparison  any  who  have 
appeared  since  the  last  national  struggle  for  civil  and 
religious  liberty." 

There  are  numerous  other  factors  which  might  be  con- 
sidered in  a  discussion  of  this  subject,  such  as  political 


160  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

bias,  personal  friendship  or  enmity,  the  individual  pene- 
tration of  the  critic,  all  of  which  would  no  doubt  modify 
these  general  conclusions  in  many  special  instances,  such, 
for  example,  as  Queen  Elizabeth's  judgment  upon  '  Richard 
II.,'  which  she  would  not  allow  to  be  acted  because  a  king 
was  deposed  in  it. 

The  cases  of  valueless  contemporary  judgment  which 
Browning  has  poetised  in  '  The  Two  Poets  of  Croisic '  are 
especially  interesting  in  this  connection,  as  showing  how 
unusual  and  fortuitous  circumstances  may  bring  about  a 
meteor-like  popularity  for  which  there  is  no  lasting  foun- 
dation. It  was  not  the  poetic  skill  of  Rene  Gentilhomme 
that  gained  him  his  short-lived  popularity,  but  a  happy 
coincidence  which  revealed  him  in  the  light  of  a  prophet. 
Popularity  from  such  a  cause  could  be  gained  only  amid 
uncritical  and  superstitious  surroundings. 

The  fictitious  popularity  of  Des  Forges  through  his 
sister  Malcrais  can  perhaps  be  best  explained  by  reference 
to  that  vanity  resident  in  the  breast  of  man,  which  was 
flattered,  in  the  case  of  La  Roque,  by  having  a  feminine 
poet,  whose  rhymes  reflected  the  charming  weakness  of 
her  sex,  throw  herself  upon  his  tender  mercy.  Perhaps 
France,  in  the  age  of  Voltaire,  is  the  only  country  where 
popularity  founded  on  such  a  basis  would  be  possible. 
Picture  the  stern  rebuff  she  would  probably  have  received 
at  the  hands  of  a  man  like  Fitzgerald. 

Toward  the  latter  half  of  this  century  we  see  a  curious 
combination  of  conditions  which  admits  of  the  culmina- 
tion of  the  "  Cockney  School "  in  Tennyson,  —  for  is  he 
not  the  heir  of  Keats  ?  —  and  of  the  beginning,  and 
perhaps  the  culmination  also,  of  a  new  school  in  Browning. 
Yet  Tennyson,  who  had  had  the  ground  ploughed  for  him, 
to  a  certain  extent,  by  his  predecessors,  did  not  escape  the 
ill-natured  censure  of  a  "  Rusty  Crusty  Christopher ;  "  and 
how  is  it  with  Browning  ? 

It  is  a  widely  spread  tradition,  on  the  one  hand,  that 


THE   VALUE   OF   CONTEMPORARY   JUDGMENT.         161 

Browning  was  never  appreciated  until  the  Browning  Soci- 
eties found  him  out ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  there  are 
Philistines  who  imagine  that  the  amateurish  idolaters  of 
which  Browning  Societies  are  supposed  to  be  composed 
have  set  themselves  up  against  the  authority  of  criticism. 
So  much  has  been  said  of  the  criticism  in  a  certain  Review, 
which,  when  '  Pauline '  first  appeared,  dismissed  it  in  one 
line  as  "  a  piece  of  pure  bewilderment,"  that  it  has  come 
to  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  model  of  all  early  Browning 
criticism.  But  a  survey  of  those  criticisms  which  appeared 
before  1860  reveals  the  fact  that  there  were  a  number 
which  at  once  recognised  in  Browning  a  poet  of  extraor- 
dinary power,  some  even  venturing  to  declare  him  the 
greatest  genius  since  Shakespeare.1  Of  course  there  were 
those  who  grumbled,  those  who  were  silent ;  and  as  time 
has  gone  on  and  the  poet's  work  has  been  more  read,  there 
has  been  an  ever-increasing  chorus  of  discordant  voices, 
some  appreciative,  some  the  reverse.  Neither  upon 
Browning  nor  upon  Tennyson  does  contemporary  opinion 
approach  to  any  degree  of  unanimity. 

We  are  perhaps  too  close  at  hand  to  weigh  the  value  of 
the  judgment  in  regard  to  these  two  master-spirits  of  the 
Victorian  Age  ;  but  he  who  runs  can  see,  illustrated  by 
the  criticism  on  these  two  poets  alone,  that,  with  the  grow- 
ing complexity  of  life,  criticism  has  become  more  and  more 
a  matter  of  the  individual  insight  and  preferences  of  the 
critic.  The  almost  autocratic  authority  of  a  school  has 
given  way  to  the  somewhat  precarious  authority  of  the 
individual;  and  as  a  natural  consequence,  contemporary 
judgment  ranges  through  all  degrees  of  value. 

As  the  bulwarks  of  the  old,  authoritative  criticism  are 
crumbling  to  decay,  there  is  arising  a  new  order  of  criti- 

1  Among  these  appreciative  reviews  may  be  mentioned  one  of  '  Pauline,'  by  Allan  Cun- 
ningham, Atlifwrum,  1833;  Review  of  'Strafford,'  Literary  Gazette,  1837;  Review  of 
'Paracelsus,'  The  Theologian,  1845;  Review  by  James  Russell  Lowell,  North.  American 
Review,  1848;  Review  in  Massachusetts  Quarterly,  1850;  Review  in  Christian  Remem- 
brancer, 1857,  and  others. 

11 


162  BOSTON   BKOWXING   SOCIETY   PAPEES. 

cism,  to  which  Browning  stands  in  the  closest  affinity. 
One  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  this  criticism  is  the 
relativity  of  all  art.  Posnett  points  out  how  no  art  ex- 
pression in  any  age  can  be  more  than  an  approach  to  a 
universal  ideal,  subject,  as  it  always  is  and  must  be,  to 
limitations  of  time  and  place.  The  old  criticism  weighed 
eveiy  new  manifestation  in  art  by  past  achievements, 
which  in  course  of  time  came  to  be  regarded  almost  as 
divine  revelations  in  art,  rather  than  as  imperfect  human 
attempts  to  all-express  beauty.  This  same  principle  of 
relativity  is  the  touchstone  by  which  Browning  tries  every 
realm  of  human  endeavour,  and  the  failure  which  he 
records  everywhere  is  but  a  recognition  of  this  all-pervad- 
ing law  of  evolution.  • 

A  fine  example  of  its  application  to  art  is  to  be  found  in 
the  'Parleying  with  Charles  Avison,'  where  he  says  all 
arts  endeavour  to  preserve  hard  and  fast  how  we  feel  as 
what  we  know,  yet  none  of  them  attain  thereto,  because 
the  province  of  art  is  not  in  the  true  sense  creative. 

Arts  arrange, 

Dissociate,  re-distribute,  interchange 
Part  with  part,  lengthen,  broaden,  high  or  deep 
Construct  their  bravest,  —  still  such  pains  produce 
Change,  not  creation. 

In  short,  the  province  of  art  is  to  use  the  materials  of  knowl- 
edge, of  which  the  mind  takes  cognisance,  in  giving  out- 
ward form  and  expression  to  the  creative  impulses  born  of 
the  soul.  Knowledge  being  limited,  art  must  also  be 
limited  in  its  capacity  to  all-express  these  creative  impulses. 
What,  then,  must  be  the  attitude  of  the  critic  ? 

He  certainly  must  not  expect  to  find  perfect  creations 
in  art  which  shall  be  a  law  unto  all  time.  His  duty  will 
be,  as  Symonds  defines  it,  "to  judge,  but  not  without 
understanding  the  natural  and  historical  conditions  of  the 
product  under  examination,  nor  without  making  the  allow- 
ances demanded  by  his  sense  of  relativity,"  or  as  Brown- 


THE  VALUE   OF   CONTEMPORARY   JUDGMENT.         163 

ing,  with  the  finer  human  touch  of  the  poet,  puts  it,  he 
must  bring  his  "  life  to  kindle  theirs."  The  critic  in  this 
school  cannot  dogmatically  dismiss  some  poets  as  beneath 
his  notice  and  claim  kingship  for  others.  Every  poet, 
great  and  small,  must  find  a  place  in  his  scheme  of  human 
art  development.  Unbiassed,  he  must  look  down  from 
the  lofty  summit  of  universal  sympathy. 

With  the  light  of  the  new  criticism  in  his  eyes,  who 
shall  say  to  what  heights  of  value  the  contemporary  judg- 
ment of  the  future  critic  may  not  rise  ? 


BROWNING'S   MASTERY   OF   RHYME. 

BY  WILLIAM  J.  ROLFE. 
[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  Feb.  28,  1893.] 

BROWNING  is  unquestionably  a  great  master  of  rhyme. 
Mr.  Arthur  Symons  does  not  go  too  far  in  saying  in  his 
comments  on  the  poet's  metre  and  versification :  "  In  one 
very  important  matter,  that  of  rhyme,  he  is  perhaps  the 
greatest  master  in  our  language ;  in  single  and  double,  in 
simple  and  grotesque  alike,  he  succeeds  in  fitting  rhyme  to 
rhyme  with  a  perfection  which  I  have  never  found  in  any 
other  poet  of  any  age." 

This  mastery  of  rhyme  is  shown,  in  the  first  place,  by 
the  fact  that  he  rarely,  if  ever,  violates  the  law  which,  as 
Sidney  Lanier  puts  it,  "  forbids  the  least  intrusion  of  the 
rhyme  as  rhyme,  —  that  is,  as  anything  less  than  the  best 
word  in  the  language  for  the  idea  in  hand."  George 
Gascoigne  expressed  it  more  quaintly  three  centuries  and 
a  half  ago :  "  I  would  exhorte  you  also  to  beware  of  rime 
without  reason :  my  meaning  is  hereby  that  your  rime 
leade  you  not  from  your  firste  Invention,  for  many  wryters 
when  they  have  laid  the  platform  of  their  invention,  are 
yet  drawen  sometimes  (by  rime)  to  forget  it  or  at  least  to 
alter  it,  as  .when  they  cannot  readily  finde  out  a  worde 
which  maye  rime  to  the  first  .  .  .  they  do  then  eyther 
botche  it  up  with  a  worde  that  will  rime  (howe  small 
reason  soever  it  carie  with  it)  or  els  they  alter  their  first 
worde  and  so  percase  decline  or  trouble  their  former 
Invention  :  But  do  you  alwayes  hold  your  first  determined 


BROWNING'S  MASTERY  OF  RHYME.  165 

Invention,  and  do  rather  searche  the  bottome  of  your 
brayiies  for  apte  words,  than  change  good  reason  for 
rambling  rime."  It  is  seldom,  if  ever  (except  in  cases  of 
which  I  shall  speak  further  on,  where  elaborately  fantastic 
effects  in  rhyme  are  purposely  introduced  to  surprise  and 
amuse  us),  that  Browning  seems  driven  to  use  a  word 
for  the  rhyme  which  he  would  not  use  for  the  sense.  His 
words  are  such  as  he  needs  to  express  his  meaning,  and 
no  more  than  he  needs :  there  is  no  weakening  of  the 
sense,  and  no  padding  out  of  the  verse.1 

Browning's  masterly  ease  in  rhyming  is  also  shown  in 
the  remarkable  variety  of  his  stanza-forms.  He  has  more 
of  them  than  any  other  English  poet,  early  or  recent ;  and 
in  not  a  few  of  them  the  rhyme-structure  is  more  or  less 
complex  and  difficult.  '  Through  the  Metidja  '  is  an  extra- 
ordinary tour  de  force  in  this  respect,  a  single  rhyme  being 
carried  through  the  forty  lines.  The  repetition  of  "  As  I 
ride,  as  I  ride,"  is  counterbalanced  by  the  "  internal 
rhymes,"  so-called,  —  "  Who  dares  chide  my  heart's  pride," 

1  Poets  who  pad  out  their  verses  for  the  sake  of  rhyme  might  well  print  the  superfluous 
matter  in  italics,  as  a  humble  New  Hampshire  bard  has  done.  I  am  the  fortunate  owner  of 
a  little  volume  entitled  '  Farmer's  Meditations,  or  Shepherd's  Songs,  by  Thomas  Randall, 
a  Resident  of  Eaton,  N.  H.'  (Limerick,  Me.,  1833.)  In  a  poem  on  the  birds,  this  couplet 
occurs  (the  italics  are  in  the  original) :  — 

Their  language  was  charming,  't  was  lovely  and  true  ; 
Each  sound  was  delightful,  and  plain  to  the  view. 

The  following  is  from  an  elegy  '  On  the  Sudden  Death  of  John  Hern ' :  — 

That  voice  that  so  often  has  thrilled  on  the  ear, 
By  the  call  of  his  dog,  and  the  grasp  of  his  gun, 
Those  limbs,  not  oft  weary,  nor  startled  with  fear, 
Are  cold  now  in  death,  and  his  voice  is  undone. 

This  is  from  •  Jesus  Christ,  the  King  of  Kings ' :  — 

May  Europe  (now  in  foreign  lands) 
Soon  burst  their  heathen,  slavish  bands. 

The  italics  in  their  are  apparently  introduced  (as  in  sundry  other  places  in  the  book)  on 
account  of  the  liberty  taken  with  the  grammatical  construction. 
A  stanza  in  verses  '  On  the  Loss  of  Parents  '  is  printed  thus :  — 

Their  sleep  or  slumber  we  deplore  — 
If  sleep  —  why  do  they  never  snore  f 
Or  turn  or  stir  within  their  cell, 
And  prove  to  us  that  all  is  well  ? 


166  BOSTON   BROWNING  SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

*'  Do  I  glide,  unespied,"  etc.,  —  introduced  in  ten  of 
the  lines.  There  are  thirty-six  rhyming  words  in  all,  and 
ride  is  the  only  one  repeated.  In  the  '  Lovers'  Quarrel ' 
we  have  twenty-two  seven-line  stanzas,  with  but  two 
rhymes  in  each,  one  being  carried  through  jive  lines  out  of 
the  seven.  In  '  Childe  Roland '  there  are  thirty-four  six- 
line  stanzas,  with  two  rhymes  in  each  subtly  interlaced. 
Five-line  stanzas  appear  to  have  been  favourites  with  the 
poet  for  about  forty  years  of  his  career,  —  from  the  period 
of  'Men  and  Women,'  written  between  1850  and  1855,  to 
'Asolando,'  the  latter  volume  containing  five  examples 
with  three  variations  in  metrical  form.  In  '  Dls  Aliter 
Visum '  a  peculiar  and  difficult  internal  rhyme  (a  single 
syllable  between  the  rhyming  words)  occurs  in  each  of 
the  thirty  stanzas :  " Is  that  all  true ?  I  say,  the  day" 
" That  I  have  seen  her,  walked  and  talked"  " O'er  the 
lone  stone  fence,  let  me  get"  etc.  These  rhymes  come  in 
so  naturally  that  we  should  not  recognise  them  as  inten- 
tional in  one  case  out  of  seven,  unless  our  attention  had 
been  called  to  the  metrical  structure. 

Again,  this  mastery  of  rhyme  is  shown  by  the  frequency 
and  facility  of  rhyming  in  what  the  recent  Shakespeare 
critics  call  "  run-on  lines  "  in  distinction  from  "  end-stopt 
lines,"  the  former  having  no  natural  break  or  pause  at  the 
end  as  the  latter  have.  In  Pope  and  the  poets  of  his 
school  we  may  say  that  the  lines  are  all  "  end-stopt,"  the 
exceptions  being  too  few  to  bs  worth  noting.  You  may 
look  through  page  after  page  of  Pope's  heroic  couplets 
without  finding  a  line  that  has  not  a  comma  or  some 
larger  stop  at  the  end.  It  is  this  enforced  pause  at  the 
end  of  each  line,  with  the  rare  variations  in  the  "  caesura," 
or  enforced  pause  in  the  middle  of  the  line,  that  makes 
these  "  classic  "  compositions  so  tiresome  to  our  modern 
ears,  accustomed  to  more  varied  rhythmical  effects.  We 
soon  weary  of  the  monotonous  jog-trot  of  the  "faultily 
faultless"  iambics  and  the  perpetual  recurrence  of  the 


BEOWNINQS   MASTERY  OF   RHYME.  167 

obtrusive  rhymes,  their  jingle  forced  upon  our  attention 
by  the  necessary  pause  after  each.  We  can  endure  it  for 
a  hundred  lines  or  so,  but  when  it  goes  on  for  thousand 
after  thousand,  as  in  Pope's  '  Iliad,'  —  aptly  so  known  in 
popular  parlance,  for  it  is  not  Homer's  '  Iliad,'  —  we  cry 
with  Macbeth :  — 

What,  will  the  line  stretch  out  to  tho  crack  of  doom  ? 
.     .     .    I  '11  see  no  more ! 

Whether  rhyme  is  doomed  to  disappear  from  our  poetry, 
as  a  device  suited  only  to  tickle  the  ear  in  the  childhood 
of  poetical  culture,  —  discarded  with  growing  taste,  as  the 
child  throws  away  the  baby  rattle,  —  I  will  not  venture  to 
say ;  but  these  heroic  rhymes,  so  popular  in  an  age  that 
reckoned  nothing  "  classical "  that  was  not  pedantically 
formal  and  artificial,  have  certainly  had  their  day,  —  at 
least  for  long  poems,  or  until  another  Browning  appears. 
He  has  revived  and  revolutionised  the  heroic  couplet,  his 
amazing  command  of  rhyme  and  of  the  more  refined  har- 
monies of  rhythm  enabling  him  to  get  exquisite  music  out 
of  this  old-fashioned  jingle  and  jog-trot,  and  to  continue 
it  indefinitely  without  tiring  us.  Whatever  we  may  think 
of  '  Sordello  '  in  other  respects,  we  must  admit  that  it  is  a 
masterpiece  of  rhymed  measure.  The  "  run-on  "  lines  are 
so  frequent  that  we  hardly  notice  that  they  are  arranged  in 
heroic  couplets.  In  Pope,  as  I  have  said,  there  is  a  point 
and  a  pause  at  the  end  of  nearly  every  line ;  here  not  one 
line  in  seven  is  thus  marked  off.  A  person  not  familiar 
with  the  poem  might  listen  to  long  passages  read  with 
proper  emphasis  and  expression,  and  take  them  for  blank 
verse.  The  same  is  true  of  shorter  poems  in  the  same 
measure.  Take,  for  example,  at  random  a  passage  from 
4  My  Last  Duchess ' :  — 

Sir,  't  was  not 

Her  husband's  presence  only,  called  that  spot 
Of  joy  into  the  Duchess'  cheek  :  perhaps 
Fra  Pandolf  chanced  to  say  "  Her  mantle  laps 


168  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Over  my  lady's  wrist  too  much,"  or  "  Paint 

Must  never  hope  to  reproduce  the  faint 

Half-flush  that  dies  along  her  throat : "  such  stuff 

Was  courtesy,  she  thought,  and  cause  enough 

For  calling  up  that  spot  of  joy.     She  had 

A  heart  —  how  shall  I  say  1  —  too  soon  made  glad, 

Too  easily  impressed  ;  she  liked  whate'er 

She  looked  on,  and  her  looks  went  everywhere. 

In  many  of  the  poems  in  other  measures,  the  rhyme  is 
similarly  obscured  by  the  "  run-on  "  lines,  though  they  are 
much  shorter.  Take  this  stanza  from  '  Count  Gismbnd,' 
for  example :  — 

Till  out  strode  Gismond  ;  then  I  knew 

That  I  was  saved.     I  never  met 
His  face  before,  but,  at  first  view, 

I  felt  quite  sure  that  God  had  set 
Himself  to  Satan ;  who  would  spend 
A  minute's  mistrust  on  the  end  ? 

Or  this  from  'In  a  Ye&i'  where   the  lines   are  shorter 

yet:  — 

Was  it  something  said, 

Something  done, 
Vexed  him  ?  was  it  touch  of  hand, 

Turn  of  head  ? 
Strange !  that  very  way 

Love  begun : 
I  as  little  understand 

Love's  decay. 

In  the  following  passage  from  '  Easter  Day,'  the  octo- 
syllabic couplets  of  which  run  so  easily  into  jingle,  we 
have  eight  successive  lines  with  no  pause  at  the  end  :  — 

And  as  I  said 

This  nonsense,  throwing  back  my  head 
With  light  complacent  laugh,  I  found 
Suddenly  all  the  midnight  round 
One  fire.    The  dome  of  heaven  had  stood 
As  made  up  of  a  multitude 
Of  handbreadth  cloudlets,  one  vast  rack 
Of  ripples  infinite  and  black, 
From  sky  to  sky.     Sudden  there  went, 
Like  horror  and  astonishment, 


BROWNING'S  MASTERY  OF  RHYME.  169 

A  fierce  vindictive  scribble  of  red 

Quick  flame  across,  as  if  one  said 

(The  angry  scribe  of  Judgment)  "  There  — 

Burn  it ! " 

If  anybody  thinks  this  kind  of  rhyming  is  easy,  let  him 
try  it.  In  the  average  verse  of  the  day  you  will  find  the 
lines  almost  invariably  "  end-stopt."  The  ordinary  news- 
paper rh}-mer  seldom  gets  beyond  that  elementary  form  of 
his  art. 

Browning  uses  the  "end-stopt"  form  only  when  the 
effect  of  the  rhyme  as  rhyme  is  to  be  brought  out,  in 
addition  to  that  of  the  metre  or  rhythm ;  as  in  '  Through 
the  Metidja,'  and  in  that  finer  because  less  artificial  horse- 
poem,  '  How  They  Brought  the  Good  News,'  also  in  the 
'  Cavalier  Songs '  and  other  songs,  and  in  many  of  the 
humorous  poems. 

Certain  critics  have  told  us  that  Browning  has  many 
faulty  rhymes,  and  a  careless  reader  might  easily  get  this 
impression;  but  the  fact  is  that  his  percentage  of  such 
rhymes  is  smaller  than  in  the  average  of  our  best  poets. 
Miss  Elizabeth  M.  Clark  has  furnished  mathematical  proof 
of  this  in  her  very  interesting  paper  entitled,  '  A  Study 
of  Browning's  Rhymes,'  in  the  second  volume  of  Poet-Lore. 
She  has  found,  by  actual  count,  that  in  the  1096  pages  of 
rhymed  verse  in  the  "  Riverside  Edition  "  (about  two  fifths 
of  all  Browning's  poetry,  the  unrhymed  filling  1572  pages), 
there  are  34,746  rhymes,  of  which  only  322  are  bad,  being 
either  imperfect  or  forced,  or  both.  This  is  less  than  one 
per  cent,  or  one  in  a  hundred.  The  list  does  not  include 
"  eye -rhymes,"  so-called,  such  as  all  poets  —  unfortunately, 
in  my  humble  opinion  —  admit ;  like  dull  and  full,  lone 
and  gone,  saith  and  faith,  etc.  Of  these  I  am  inclined 
to  think  Browning  has  fewer  than  the  average  in  standard 
poetry.  A  recent  British  writer,  Mr.  Joseph  Jacobs,1  puts 
it  in  my  power  to  compare  the  proportion  of  Browning's 

1  '  Tennyson  and  In  Memoriam,'  by  Joseph  Jacobs  London,  1892). 


170  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

bad  rhymes  with  Tennyson's  —  at  least  with  those  of 
'  In  Memoriam.'  He  finds  in  that  poem  168  bad  rhymes 
in  1448,  or  somewhat  more  than  eleven  per  cent.  He 
gives  a  list  of  these  168  bad  rhymes,  as  he  regards  them ; 
but  on  examining  it  I  find  that  it  includes  many  "eye- 
rhymes  "  (move,  love  ;  most,  lost ;  moods,  woods  ;  hearth,  earth, 
etc.),  and  certain  others  that  are  used  by  the  poets 
generally,  —  even  such  unexceptionable  rhymes  as  again, 
men ;  hour,  flower ;  fair,  prayer;  view,  do ;  flre,  higher, 
etc.  By  striking  out  such  as  these  the  list  is  reduced  to 
48,  or  three  per  cent,  and  might  perhaps  be  cut  down  to 
about  two  per  cent.  The  worst  of  those  that  are  left  are 
mourn,  urn ;  curse,  horse ;  put,  short ;  one,  alone ;  Lord, 
guard,  and  I,  enjoy. 

Miss  Clark  does  not  give  a  list  of  the  rhymes  she 
reckons  bad  (it  is  a  pity  that  she  does  not,  as  it  would 
occupy  little  space  if  printed  in  compact  form),  but  I 
presume  that  most  of  them  are  the  fantastic  double  and 
triple  rhymes  which  occur  in  a  comparatively  small  number 
of  the  poems.  As  a  little  experiment  of  my  own,  with 
a  view  to  a  fairer  comparison  with  Tennyson,  I  have 
examined  about  a  thousand  lines  of  Browning's  serious 
verse,  taking  the  pieces  as  they  come  in  my  '  Select  Poems 
of  Browning  * :  '  Hervd  Kiel,'  '  Clive,1  '  How  They  Brought 
the  Good  News,'  etc.,  'The  Lost  Leader,'  'Rabbi  Ben 
Ezra,'  '  Childe  Roland,'  '  The  Boy  and  the  Angel,'  '  Pro- 
spice,'  '  A  Wall,'  and  '  My  Star,'  —  the  last  three  short 
poems  being  taken,  out  of  the  regular  order,  to  make  1000 
lines,  —  and,  throwing  out  the  unrhymed  lines  in  '  The 
Lost  Leader,'  there  are  exactly  1000.1  In  the  five  hun- 
dred rhymes  there  are  only  fifteen  (or  three  per  cent)  that 
are  in  any  degree  bad,  and  fully  two-thirds  of  these  are 
" eye-rhymes,"  like  watch,  catch ;  mass, pass;  word, afford; 
shone  (sometimes  pronounced  shon),  gone,  etc.  The  worst 

1  I  will  not  vouch  for  the  absolute  accuracy  of  my  counting,  not  having  gone  over  it  a 
second  time ;  but  I  think  it  will  be  found  correct,  or  nearly  so. 


BROWNING'S  MASTERY  OP  RHYME.  171 

are  quiescence,  presence  ;  light,  infinite  ;  comes,  glooms  ;  dunce, 
nonce,  —  on  the  whole,  not  so  bad  as  the  worst  I  have 
cited  from  '  In  Memoriam.' 

Miss  Clark  considers  that  all  of  Browning's  imperfect 
or  forced  rhymes  occur  in  these  three  cases :  — 

"  First,  when  rough,  uneducated  characters  speak  for 
themselves ;  second,  when  Browning  is  speaking  about 
or  describing  such  characters ;  third,  when  he  is  speaking 
in  his  own  person,  evidently  or  apparently  for  himself." 
A  simpler  statement  would  be  that  these  rhymes  occur 
in  poems  or  passages  that  are  more  or  less  sportive,  familiar, 
or  free-and-easy  in  style.  As  I  have  said,  they  are  gener- 
ally double  or  triple  rhymes,  and  as  Professor  Corson 
remarks  in  his  excellent  'Primer  of  English  Verse,'  the 
emphasis  of  such  rlrymes  is  "too  pronounced  for  serious 
verse."  He  illustrates  this  by  extracts  from  Byron's  '  Don 
Juan,'  showing  "  the  part  played  by  the  double  and  triple 
rhymes  in  indicating  the  lowering  of  the  poetic  key, — 
the  reduction  of  true  poetic  seriousness." 

Of  course,  as  Professor  Corson  adds,  it  must  not  be 
inferred  that  this  is  the  peculiar  function  of  such  rhymes. 
"  They  may  serve  to  emphasise  the  serious  as  well  as  the 
jocose  ;  "  as  in  Mrs.  Browning's  '  Cowper's  Grave.'  The 
triple  rhymes  in  Hood's  'Bridge  of  Sighs,'  he  thinks, 
"  serve  as  a  most  effective  foil  to  the  melancholy  theme," 
and  are  "not  unlike  the  laughter  of  frenzied  grief."  I 
cannot  agree  with  him  here.  To  me  there  is  nothing 
suggestive  of  laughter,  or  of  frenzied  grief,  in 

One  more  unfortunate 
Weary  of  breath, 
Rashly  importunate, 
Gone  to  her  death  ! 

The  strain  is  rather  that  of  tenderest  sympathy  and  pity.1 
The  triple  rhymes  are  in  keeping  with  the  dactylic  meas- 

1  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  speaker  is  not  supposed  to  be  a  parent  or  near  relative 
of  the  hapless  girl,  but  a  stranger  who  is  interested  in  her  fate  only  as  illustrating  one  phase 
of  the  lot  of  womanhood  in  the  great  city. 


172  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

lire,  and  are  not  markedly  obtrusive.  This  dactylic 
measure,  seldom  used  by  our  poets,  is  suited  to  quite 
opposite  effects,  —  as  in  this  poem  contrasted  with  Tenny- 
son's '  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade,'  or  Longfellow's 
4  Skeleton  in  Armour.' 

Similarly,  double  rhymes  are  used  with  fine  effect  by 
Browning  as  by  other  poets  in  serious  poems  in  trochaic 
measure,  especially  lyrical  poems ;  as  in  the  exquisite  song 
in  *  The  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,'  "  There  's  a  woman  like 
a  dewdrop."  And  this  measure,  like  the  dactylic,  may  be 
vigorous  and  stirring,  or  soft  and  lulling,  or  meditative 
and  mournful. 

In  lighter  pieces,  like  '  The  Glove '  and  '  The  Flight 
of  the  Duchess,'  the  effect  of  the  double  and  triple  rhymes 
is  in  keeping  with  the  free-and-easy  style  of  the  narration. 
In  '  The  Glove,'  as  Mr.  Arthur  Symons  remarks  in  his 
'  Introduction  to  Browning,'  "  It  is  worth  noticing  that 
in  the  lines  spoken  by  the  lady  to  Ronsard,  and  in  these 
alone,  the  double  rhymes  are  replaced  by  single  ones,  thus 
making  a  distinct  severance  between  the  earnestness  of  this 
one  passage  and  the  cynical  wit  of  the  rest."  The  critic 
might  have  pointed  out  a  similar  change  to  single  rhymes 
in  the  gypsy's  chant  in  '  The  Flight  of  the  Duchess.'  The 
change,  indeed,  begins  some  ten  lines  before  the  chant,  as 
if  to  prepare  for  it,  —  or  rather,  as  occasionally  in  other 
parts  of  the  poem,  it  indicates  the  transition  to  a  slightly 
more  serious  vein  in  the  old  huntsman's  talk. 

4  Pacchiarotto '  seems  to  me  little  else  than  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  poet's  mastery  of  rhyme  "  run  mad."  As  Mr. 
Symons  says,  it  is  "  a  whimsical  freak  of  verse,  an  extra- 
vaganza in  staccato,"  and  "  almost  incomparable  as  a  sus- 
tained effort  in  double  and  triple  grotesque  rhymes."  We 
may  allow  ourselves  to  be  amused  by  it  as  a  piece  of  boy's 
play,  but,  for  myself,  I  must  confess  that  I  rather  tire  of  it 
before  it  is  over.  Let  us  be  thankful  that  our  poet  only 
now  and  then  gave  way  to  such  rhyming  foolery. 


A  BROWNING  MONOLOGUE. 

BY  GEORGE  DIMMICK  LATIMER. 

[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  March  28,  1893.] 

AH,  Clericus,  what  comfortable  quarters  you  have !  It 
takes  a  pastor  to  know  the  best  pastures.  With  your 
permission  I  '11  throw  a  couple  of  sticks  on  the  fire  while 
you  fetch  the  pipes.  What 's  this,  driftwood !  Well,  in 
honour  of  my  visit,  you  won't  mind  burning  a  few  pieces. 
What  a  glorious  blaze  !  See  that  green  flame  trying  to 
escape !  There  's  a  blue  one  chasing  it !  Look  at  these 
violet  and  dun-coloured  rays  faring  forth!  Those  mad 
orange  and  red  spirits  of  flame  suggest  the  Brocken  on 
Walpurgis  Nacht.  Are  you  the  Faust  for  my  Mephis- 
tophelian  spirit? 

Do  you  remember  that  poem  of  Robert  Browning,  I 
think  it 's  '  The  Two  Poets  of  Croisic,'  where  the  friends 
call  the  flames  after  their  poets  and  then  watch  their  hold 
on  '  earth's  immortality  '  ?  A  capital  idea  !  Better  in 
conception,  however,  than  in  execution,  as  is  often  the 
case  with  him.  If  the  poem  had  been  compressed,  say, 
put  on  the  smaller  canvas  of  '  A  Forgiveness,'  '  Andrea 
del  Sarto,'  or  'Ivan  Ivanovitch,'  the  imagery  of  those 
flickering  flames  would  give  it  a  place  in  every  collection. 
But  the  story  is  spun  out  like  Penelope's  web.  Like  so 
much  of  his  work,  it 's  over-elaborated,  it  suggests  Hamlet's 
comment  on  an  earlier  writer,  'Words,  words,  words.' 
He  starts  out  with  that  novel  and  brilliant  image,  and  I 
must  confess  to  a  disappointment  and  vexation  that  the 


174  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

whole  poem  does  n't  flash  and  sparkle  like  the  driftwood 
on  your  hearth. 

By  the  way,  did  it  ever  occur  to  you,  Clericus,  that 
Browning  made  very  little  use  of  imagery?  I  don't  be- 
lieve there  are  half  a  dozen  really  fine  images  in  that  vast 
collection  of  poetry !  I  expected  you  'd  look  incredulous. 
As  a  member  of  the  Browning  Society  it 's  your  duty  to 
look  disgusted,  and  it  doesn't  require  a  clairvoyant  to 
know  you  are  just  ready  to  say,  '  Laicus,  Laicus,  you  're , 
a  cold-blooded  critic,  without  any  bowels  of  compassion, 
and  at  the  first  sign  of  disease  ready  to  strap  the  sufferer 
on  the  table  and  cut  off  the  offending  member.'  Well, 
I  admit  that  lago  and  I  have  one  point  in  common.  But 
the  critic  is  as  necessary  as  the  artist.  I  shall  never 
forget,  however,  your  telling  me  that  I  was  like  a  well- 
known  Judge  who  always  seemed  vexed  that  he  could  n't 
decide  against  both  sides.  For  a  clergyman,  Clericus,  you 
do  make  some  sharp  speeches.  But  I  have  observed  that 
most  of  you  Browning  students  are  like  the  adventurer  in 
the  Arabian  Nights :  he  rubbed  one  eye  with  the  magic 
ointment  and  saw  all  the  treasures  of  the  world ;  and  then, 
not  content,  he  anointed  the  other  eye  —  only  to  become 
blind.  It 's  a  good  thing  to  have  a  critic  about  who  can 
tell  you  when  you  've  rubbed  enough.  I  mean  it ;  I  don't 
believe  there  are  a  dozen  really  fine  images  in  all  his 
poems ;  and  I  '11  prove  it  to  you.  Of  course,  when  we 
speak  of  poetic  imagery  we  don't  refer  to  the  common 
metaphorical  language  that  is  as  much  a  property  of  our 
daily  prose  as  it  is  of  the  Transcript  poets.  The  poetical 
is  not  the  prosaic  whatever  it  may  be,  and  the  stock  meta- 
phors of  the  profession  are  the  veriest  prose.  By  poetic 
imagery  we  mean  a  striking  impersonation,  some  wonderful 
similitude,  the  transference  of  the  qualities  of  one  object 
to  another ;  something  that  at  once  arrests  our  attention, 
gives  us  a  vivid  picture,  animates  nature,  personifies  a 
passion,  or  paints  man  with  the  vocabulary  of  nature. 


A   BROWNIXG   MONOLOGUE.  175 

Take  that  striking  image  from  '  Macbeth,'  —  and,  by  the 
way,  a  comparison  of  Browning  and  Shakespeare  is  fair 
because  both  are  essentially  dramatic  poets,  and  surely  you 
can  ask  no  higher  praise  for  your  poet  than  to  compare 
him  with  the  prince  of  playwrights,  —  that  image  of 
Macbeth  murdering  sleep.  It 's  wonderful ;  that  voice  in 
the  deep  midnight  crying, 

"  Sleep  no  more  ! 

Macbeth  does  murder  sleep,"  —  the  innocent  sleep, 
Sleep  that  knits  up  the  ravell'd  sleave  of  care. 

There  you  see  in  a  flash  all  the  long  nights  of  agony  and 
listless  days  of  the  conscience-stricken  thane.  That 's 
imagery  unquestionably ;  that 's  the  product  of  high 
imaginative  power :  the  power  of  either  incarnating  prin- 
ciples and  passions  or  animating  the  natural  objects  about 
us ;  in  a  word,  making  the  commonplace  marvellous. 

To  be  sure,  that  picture  of  the  storm  in  '  Pippa  Passes ' 
is  fine ;  as  fine  as  anything  in  Shakespeare.  I  'm  glad  you 
mentioned  it.  Have  I  got  the  lines  right  ? 

Swift  ran  the  searching  tempest  overhead ; 

And  ever  and  anon  some  bright  white  shaft 

Burned  thro'  the  pine-tree  roof,  here  burned  and  there, 

As  if  God's  messenger  thro'  the  close  wood  screen 

Plunged  and  replunged  his  weapon  at  a  venture, 

Feeling  for  guilty  thee  and  me  :  then  broke 

The  thunder  like  a  whole  sea  overhead. 

Browning  does  n't  use  much  imagery,  but  when  he  does 
it 's  magnificent.  That  figure  alone  would  mark  him  as 
a  great  dramatic  poet.  A  marvellous  picture,  —  those 
crouching  figures  and  the  lightning  strokes  slashing 
through  the  thicket  in  search  of  the  guilty  couple.  Dido 
and  jEneas  were  more  fortunate  in  their  rendezvous ! 
Do  you  suppose  Browning  had  Virgil  in  mind  when  he 
wrote  tliis  scene  ?  It 's  certainly  one  of  the  things  he  has 
done  best,  for  he  is  especially  strong  when  he  treats  of  the 
unconventional.  I  think  he  preferred  leaving  tame  people 


176  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEES. 

for  the  tame  poets ;  he  evidently  wanted  foemen  worthy 
of  his  steel,  and  the  people  he  most  delighted  in  disarming, 
stripping  of  all  protection  of  plumed  helmet  and  embossed 
shield,  and  laying  bare  and  bloody  at  Ms  feet  are  not  the 
conventional  but  the  erratic  members  of  society.  And  his 
power  lay  in  this  masterly  analysis  of  men  and  motives. 
His  characters,  as  some  one  has  said,  have  a  glass  integ- 
ument and  all  the  spiritual  viscera  can  be  seen. 

Yes,  that 's  a  pretty  little  image  at  the  end  of  '  Bishop 
Blougram's  Apology,' 

While  the  great  bishop  rolled  him  out  a  mind 
Long  rumpled,  till  creased  consciousness  lay  smooth. 

The  figure  of  the  cabin  passenger  fitting  up  his  little 
six  by  eight  stateroom  is  clever  enough,  but  the  strength 
of  this  strong  poem  is  in  the  marvellous  art  of  self-explica- 
tion. The  bishop,  if  you  will  permit  the  slang,  'gives 
himself  away.'  I  always  think  of  the  poor  fellow  as 
hypnotised  and  forced  to  open  all  the  closet  doors  of  his 
life.  And  that 's  a  hard  thing  to  happen  to  your  profes- 
sion, Clericus.  We  laymen  (perhaps  I  should  say  the 
laywomen)  put  you  upon  a  pedestal ;  but  your  own  poet, 
Browning,  lays  you  out  on  the  table  and  dissects  all  your 
spiritual  aspirations  and  aesthetic  tastes  until  the  heart  of 
your  mystery  has  ceased  to  beat.  I  think  Browning  was 
as  rough  on  priests  as  Rabelais  himself.  He  drew  his 
monks  with  porcine  or  wolfish  faces.  Pardon  the  frank- 
ness, my  dear  fellow,  but  if  you  can't  speak  out  of  your 
heart  before  a  blazing  fire  while  this  Turkish  tobacco 
eddies  away  in  spirals  over  your  head,  why,  let 's  for  ever 
give  up  sincerity  and  be  the  well-bred  idiots  of  conven- 
tional life. 

You  're  making  a  good  fight,  my  dear  fellow ;  that  is 
a  fine  image  in  '  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra.'  The  potter's  wheel  is 
an  old  favourite.  Ever  since  Isaiah  set  it  spinning,  the 
poets  who  took  life  seriously  have  given  it  an  additional 


A   BEOWXIXG  MOXOLOGTJE.  177 

twirl.  I  agree  with  you  that  this  is  the  finest  use  of  it. 
I  read  it  with  just  as  much  zest  as  if  Omar  Khayyam  had 
never  seen  it,  and  St.  Paul  had  not  made  it  immortal. 
Yes,  indeed,  that's  one  of  his  fine  images.  Remember, 
I  did  n't  say  there  were  none.  I  only  insist  that  they  're 
very  few,  and  that  we  admire  Browning  for  quite  other 
things.  Take  the  imagery  of  light  in  '  Numpholeptos,'  or 
the  musical  figure  in  '  Abt  Vogler ' :  you  may  or  may  not 
understand  them  very  well,  but  they  show  brilliant  power. 
You  remember  that  little  description  in  'James  Lee's 
Wife '  of  the  rocks  by  the  sea  ? 

Oh,  good  gigantic  smile  o'  the  brown  old  earth, 
This  autumn  morning  !     How  he  sets  his  bones 

To  bask  i'  the  sun,  and  thrusts  out  knees  and  feet 

For  the  ripple  to  run  over  in  its  mirth ; 

Listening  the  while,  where  on  the  heap  of  stones 

The  white  breast  of  the  sea-lark  twitters  sweet. 

There 's  something  that  will  give  the  veriest  clodhop- 
per a  new  impression  of  nature,  a  sense  of  kinship  he 
never  had  before.  How  true  it  is,  Clericus,  that  the 
summer  boarder  is  often  the  peripatetic  teacher  of 
aesthetics  !  And  the  poets  perform  the  same  office  for  us. 
They  tell  us  what  to  see,  and  how  to  see  it.  They  teach 
us  to  dilate  with  the  proper  emotion,  like  the  Symphony 
librettos.  Don't  laugh !  I  really  mean  it.  It  was 
Whittier's  'River  Path'  that  opened  my  eyes  to  the 
beauty  of  this  our  world. 

Ah,   you   quote   '  Fra   Lippo '   aptly.     It 's   as  true   of 
poetry  as  painting. 

For,  don't  you  mark  1     We  're  made  so  that  we  love 
First  when  we  see  them  painted,  things  we  have  passed 
Perhaps  a  hundred  times  nor  cared  to  see. 

Why,  Clericus,  people  don't  begin  to  know  the  world, 

The  beauty,  and  the  wonder  and  the  power, 

The  shapes  of  things,  their  colours,  lights  and  shades, 

Changes,  Surprises,  — 

12 


178 


BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 


It  disgusts  me  to  see  people  straining  every  nerve  to 
furnish  a  few  rooms  with  plush  furniture  and  Japanese 
bric-fc-brac  while  the  gorgeous  temple  of  Nature  is  always 
open.  But  this  is  preaching,  and  my  specialty  is  criticism ! 
Revenons  h  nos  moutons:  I  admit  that  Browning  has 
some  very  striking  imagery,  but  there  is  very  little  of  it. 
Here 's  the  proof.  What  do  you  think  of  when  his  name 
is  mentioned  ?  Is  it  his  imagery  ?  No,  it 's  some  grand 
phrase,  or  some  vivid  portraiture.  Come  now,  what  lines 
does  his  name  suggest? 
Ah,  I  thought  so : 

God 's  in  his  heaven  — 
All 's  right  with  the  world ! 


Good,  go  on. 


What  I  aspired  to  be, 
And  was  not,  comforts  me. 

I  count  life  just  a  stuff 

To  try  the  soul's  strength  on. 

When  the  fight  begins  within  himself, 
A  man 's  worth  something. 

Yes,  of  course  you  can  go  on  for  a  long  time.  My  lines 
are  different,  but  they  are  still  grand  sentiments  thrown 
out  to  an  expectant  multitude  that  feels  but  cannot  ex- 
press itself.  For  instance, 


God  be  thanked,  the  meanest  of  his  creatures 
Boasts  two  soul-sides,  one  to  face  the  world  with, 
One  to  show  a  woman  when  he  loves  her ! 


Or  this, 


That 's  the  wise  thrush ;  he  sings  each  song  twice  over, 
Lest  you  should  think  he>  never  could  recapture 
The  first  fine  careless  rapture. 

There  it  is,  Clericus;  it  is  the  sentiment  that  impresses 
us  in  Browning.  Of  course,  he  has  plenty  of  the  ordinary 
imagery  that  all  poets  use,  the  primary  colours  from  which 
they  get  their  more  delicate  hues  or  more  glowing  effects. 
But  he  cares  a  great  deal  more  for  what  he  is  saying  than 


A  BROWNING  MONOLOGUE.  179 

for  the  way  in  which  it  is  said,  and  as  a  result,  the  finest 
things  he  has  written  are  some  ringing  lines  on  man's  faith 
and  love  and  spiritual  progress.  Now,  turn  to  Shakespeare 
and  at  once  it 's  the  great  imagery  that  looms  before  you. 
If  you  think  of  '  The  Merchant  of  Venice,'  at  once  you  see 
the  moonlight  sleeping  on  the  bank  while  the  sound  of 
music  creeps  into  the  ears,  and  the  "floor  of  heaven  is 
thick  inlaid  with  patines  of  bright  gold."  The  whole 
play  of  '  Julius  Ceesar '  is  in  the  lines 

Why,  man,  he  doth  bestride  the  narrow  world 
Like  a  Colossus,  and  we  petty  men 
Walk  under  his  huge  legs  and  peep  about 
To  find  ourselves  dishonourable  graves. 

Can  you  think  of  Cardinal  Wolsey  except  in  that  great 
figure  ?  — 

I  have  ventured, 

Like  little  wanton  boys  that  swim  on  bladders, 
This  many  summers  in  a  sea  of  glory, 
But  far  beyond  my  depth  :  my  high-blown  pride 
At  length  broke  under  me,  and  now  has  left  me, 
Weary  and  old  with  service,  to  the  mercy 
Of  a  rude  stream,  that  must  for  ever  hide  me. 

Does  not  '  As  You  Like  It '  instantly  remind  you  that 

All  the  world  's  a  stage, 

And  all  the  men  and  women  merely  players  ; 

and  '  Hamlet '  suggest, 

A  station  like  the  herald  Mercury 
New  lighted  on  a  heaven-kissing  hill ; 

and  is  not  Othello 

A  fixed  figure  for  the  time  of  scorn 
To  point  his  slow  unmoving  finger  at? 

But  I  might  go  on  all  night  with  such  illustrations. 
Shakespeare  has  married  the  thought  to  immortal  imagery. 
The  sentiment  may  become  withered  and  barren  as  the 
mortal  whose  wife  forgot  to  ask  eternal  youth  for  her 


180  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

lover,  but  the  goddess  of  beauty  pursues  her  way  un- 
dimmed  by  age,  ever  fresh  and  immortal.  There 's  no 
such  artist  in  words  as  Shakespeare.  Why  think  of  it, 
Clericus,  Browning  has  undoubtedly  written  more  lines, 
and  yet  how  little  is  quotable !  I  mean  by  his  admirers, 
of  course. 

There  you  sit,  your  head  among  the  clouds,  frowning 
like  Jupiter  Tonans.  Well,  I  await  the  thunderbolt.  I£ 
I  'm  wrong  I  '11  admit  it.  Yes,  it 's  true  that  the  figure  in 
4  The  Statue  and  the  Bust '  tells  the  tale, 

And  the  sin  I  impute  to  each  frustrate  ghost 
Is  the  unlit  lamp  and  the  ungirt  loin. 

And  that 's  a  fine  image  also  in  '  Paracelsus '  — 

If  I  stoop 

Into  a  dark  tremendous  sea  of  cloud, 
It  is  but  for  a  time ;  I  press  God's  lamp 
Close  to  my  breast ;  its  splendour,  soon  or  late, 
Will  pierce  the  gloom  ;  I  shall  emerge  one  day. 

But  such  imagery  is  rare.  It  does  not  immediately 
occur  to  you.  Nor  do  you  find  in  Browning  many  of 
those  felicitous  phrases  that  poetic  imagination  delights  in  ; 
such  as  Shakespeare  carelessly  drops  on  the  path  of  narra- 
tion, "  an  itching  palm,"  "  a  kind  of  excellent,  dumb  dis- 
course," "the  hungry  edge  of  appetite,"  "marble-hearted 
fiend,"  "the  glass  of  fashion,"  "a  sea  of  upturned  faces." 
Such  poetic  phrases  are  conspicuous  by  their  absence  in  the 
modern  poet.  And  where  can  you  find  single  lines  so 
fraught  with  meaning  and  filled  with  beauty  as  "Bare 
ruined  choirs  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang,"  "  One  woe 
doth  tread  upon  another's  heel,  so  fast  they  follow,"  and, 
"He  hates  him  much  that  would  upon  the  rack  of  this 
tough  world  stretch  him  out  longer  "  ?  Now,  my  dear  fel- 
low, that  is  imagery,  and  dramatic  imagery.  It 's  the  im- 
agery of  man  in  action,  man  dissatisfied,  toiling,  restless, 
suffering. 


A   BEOWXIXG  MONOLOGUE.  181 

No,  I  don't  think  I  'm  unfair ;  stick  to  the  point,  my 
dear  enthusiast.  We  're  talking  about  dramatic  imagery, 
and  I  turn  to  Shakespeare  as  the  highest  authority.  We 
both  agree  that  these  few  nuggets  from  that  vast  quarry- 
are  good  specimens  for  study.  They  show  us  how  to  tell 
dramatic  imagery ;  and  I  find  in  Browning  very  little  in- 
deed of  such  treasures.  I  don't  expect  to  find  all  dia- 
monds in  the  same  setting;  but  a  diamond  is  always  a 
diamond,  whatever  the  jeweller's  art.  And  so  I  restate  my 
thesis,  that  as  we  usually  understand  imagery,  Browning 
has  very  little  of  it. 

Oh,  well,  if  that 's  your  revenge  you  're  welcome  to  it. 
It 's  not  a  bad  story.  It  may  be  that  I  do  resemble  that 
well-known  free-trader  who  said  to  his  students  one  day 
that  he  had  been  asked  to  state  some  of  the  arguments  for 
Protection,  and  that  he  would  be  glad  to  do  so  if  there 
were  any.  But  I  leave  it  to  you,  if  it  is  not  considerable 
of  an  effort  for  you  to  find  brilliant,  suggestive  imagery  in 
all  those  volumes  of  verse.  The  rough  ore  is  there  in 
great  abundance.  It 's  like  the  Koh-i-noor  before  cutting 
and  polishing.  But  if  whole  paragraphs  of  argument  had 
been  compressed  into  metaphor  and  simile  we  should  have 
imagery  only  second  to  that  of  Shakespeare. 

Oh,  yes,  indeed ;  certainly  imagery  has  a  larger  meaning 
than  mere  similitude.  It  covers  more  than  simile  and 
metaphor.  I  admit  that  it  can  include  vivid  description, 
artistic  portraiture ;  in  fact,  any  image  or  picture  or  repre- 
sentation the  poet  paints  for  us.  For  this  very  purpose  the 
po^t  is  of  *  imagination  all  compact.'  Your  contention  is, 
as  I  understand  it,  that  those  striking  portraits  he  has 
painted  in  '  Fra  Lippo  Lippi,'  *  My  Last  Duchess,'  '  A  Fur- 
giveness,'  'Andrea  del  Sarto,'  'Soliloquy  of  the  Spanish 
Cloister,'  'Ivan  Ivanovitch,'  and  all  the  others,  abound  in 
imagery,  and  that  the  imagery  is  that  of  vivid  description, 
an  enduring  image,  to  delignT~~£Iie  mind.  Well,  well! 
they  are  works  of  imagination,  to  be  sure,  as  '  Hamlet '  and 


182  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

'Othello'  are,  as  'The  Scarlet  Letter'  and  'Anna 
Kardnina  '  are.  And  imagery  is  the  product  of  the  imagi- 
nation. But  I  don't  know  that  vivid  description  is  neces- 
sarily imagery.  I  think  that  there 's  a  distinction 
somewhere.  Vivid  description  generally  means  realism, 
a  scientific  rather  than  a  poetic  treatment.  Where  's  some 
prose  ?  Just  the  thing ;  take  this  little  story  of  De 
Maupassant's  '  The  Confession ; '  here  we  shall  find  '  a 
clearly  drawn  picture.  Let  me  read  it  to  you.  You 
remember  the  old  Marguerite  was  dying,  and  could  not 
rest  until  she  confessed  the  murder  of  her  sister's  lover 
many,  many  years  ago  when  she  was  but  a  little  girl. 

"  '  There,  dost  thou  know  what  I  did  ?  Listen.  I  had  seen 
the  gardener  making  little  balls  to  kill  strange  dogs.  He  pow- 
dered up  a  bottle  with  a  stone  and  put  the  powdered  glass 
in  a' little  ball  of  meat.  I  took  a  little  medicine  bottle  that 
mamma  had ;  I  broke  it  small  with  a  hammer,  and  I  hid  the 
glass  in  my  pocket.  It  was  a  shining  powder.  The  next  day, 
as  soon  as  you  had  made  the  little  cakes,  I  split  them  with 
a  knife  and  I  put  in  the  glass  —  He  ate  three  of  them  —  I 
too,  I  ate  one  —  I  threw  the  other  six  into  the  pond.  The  two 
swans  died  three  days  after  —  Dost  thou  remember  ?  Oh,  say 
nothing  —  Listen,  listen.  I,  I  alone  did  not  die,  but  I  have 
always  been  sick.  Listen.'  —  She  was  silent,  and  remained 
panting,  always  scratching  the  sheet  with  her  withered  nails." 

It 's  horrible,  is  n't  it  ?  I  think  I  see  the  old  woman 
clutching  the  sheets  and  gasping  for  breath  while  she 
breaks  her  sister's  heart.  It 's  just  such  a  picture  as 
Browning  gives  us  in  '  My  Last  Duchess,'  '  A  Forgive- 
ness,' 'The  Laboratory,'  and  similar  poems.  It's  vivid 
enough,  Heaven  knows,  and  there  's  a  new  picture  indel- 
ibly stamped  on  our  mind.  But  it 's  the  realism  that  does 
it.  Here  's  a  line  or  two  from  '  A  Forgiveness.' 

"  Would  my  blood  for  ink  suffice?  " 

"  It  may ;  this  minion  from  a  land  of  spice, 


A  BROWNING   MONOLOGUE.  183 

Silk,  feather  —  every  bird  of  jewelled  breast, — 
This  poignard's  beauty,  ne'er  so  lightly  prest 
Above  your  heart  there." 

"  Thus? " 

"  It  flows,  I  see. 
Dip  there  the  point  and  write  !  " 

She  died  ere  morning ;  then  I  saw  how  pale 
Her  cheek  was  ere  it  wore  day's  paint  disguise, 
And  what  a  hollow  darkened  'neath  her  eyes, 
Now  that  I  used  my  own.     She  sleeps,  as  erst 
Beloved,  in  this  your  church  :  ay,  yours  ! 

In  these  pictures  it 's  the  attention  to  detail  that  is 
remarkable.  Browning  is  not  an  impressionist  who  ropes 
off  his  picture  and  insists  upon  the  long  perspective  for  his 
splashes  of  colour.  His  work  is  microscopic  in  its  nature  ; 
you  may  stand  in  front  of  the  painting  and  use  your 
lorgnette  as  much  as  you  will.  But  there  is  very  little 
imagery  there.  Analyse  such  a  poem  as  '  A  Forgiveness,' 
and  you  will  see  that  its  power  is  due  to  three  causes  : 
first,  its  thrilling  story ;  second,  its  dramatic  form ;  third, 
the  fulness  of  detail.  Browning  is  a  realist,  that  is,  he 
gives  you  abundance  of  details.  I  think  you  observe  this 
more  clearly  if  you  compare  '  A  Forgiveness '  with  '  My 
Last  Duchess.'  The  subjects  are  similar,  the  treatment 
similar.  But  '  My  Last  Duchess '  is  the  greater  poem 
because  there  are  fewer  details.  Suggestion  overpowers 
description.  It 's  a  gem  for  a  royal  collection.  Its  value 
lies  in  the  dramatic  situation,  the  vivid  description  and  the 
concentration  of  power.  It 's  a  work  of  the  imagination  ; 
but  it  has  no  imagery.  You  can't  call  a  whole  poem 
imagery.  It 's  a  portrait,  a  picture,  an  image,  but  not 
imagery.  . 

I  don't  see  why  you  should  feel  vexed.  I  do  have  the 
appreciative  spirit.  I  admire  Browning.  My  wife  makes 
me  go  to  church  with  her  Sunday  morning  (pardon  the 
frankness,  my  dear  fellow),  but  in  the  evening  she  plays 
Wagner  and  I  read  Browning.  I  like  those  Venetian 


184  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

beauties  and  their  imperious  lords.  Those  were  days  when 
married  men  had  some  rights  their  wives  were  bound  to 
respect.  The  advanced  woman  was  not  then  evolved. 
Browning  is  a  great  artist  and  in  nothing  is  his  art  more 
evident  than  in  these  little  dramatic  poems,  portraits  of 
lawless  men  and  more  lawless  women.  But  his  gift  is  his 
power  to  breathe  the  breath  of  life  into  them.  They  live, 
they  move,  they  speak.  Sometimes,  they  talk  too  much ; 
that 's  the  danger  of  clever  people.  Macaulay  was  often 
called  to  order  by  Lady  Holland,  and,  as  a  rule,  their 
admirers  preferred  Coleridge,  De  Quincey,  Hazlitt,  Landor, 
and  Dr.  Johnson  in  small  doses.  Even  the  lovely  Pom- 
pilia  and  the  good  old  Pope  talk  too  much,  while  Sludge 
and  Blougram,  Pamphylax,  Fra  Lippi,  and  dear  David,  too, 
tax  our  patience.  But  still,  it  is  the  monologue  Browning 
uses  so  effectively  that  is  the  principal  charm  of  the  poems. 
It 's  easily  verified.  Analyse  the  poems  and  it 's  their 
dramatic  form  and  realistic  touches  that  impress  you. 
You  remember  the  thrilling  story,  but  rarely  are  there 
special  lines  or  words  of  description  that  linger  in  the 
memory. 

My  dear  fellow,  you  ought  to  have  been  a  lawyer. 
Your  pertinacity  is  equal  to  mine.  Come,  I  '11  give  you  a 
desk  in  my  office  and  we  '11  hang  out  a  fresh  shingle,  — 
Clericus  and  Laicus,  Attorneys  at  Law,  and  Adjudicators 
in  Causas  hereticas.  Of  course  there 's  a  great  differ- 
ence between  the  restrained  description  of  '  My  Last 
Duchess'  and  the  abounding  details,  the  picturesque 
descriptions  of  nature,  as  in  'Saul'  for  instance.  You 
claim  that  those  beautiful  ringing  lines  of  the  pastoral  life 
of  David  and  again  the  hunter's  joys  and  the  picture  of  the 
new  earth  as  David  stole  tentward  in  the  early  dawn,  weary, 
awed  and  exultant  from  his  struggle  with  death,  are 
imagery  of  a  high  order.  Well !  you  press  me  hard,  I 
admit  it.  It  is  ornament  to  the  narrative.  A  description 
of  nature,  or  of  man,  that  embellishes,  enhances,  enriches 


A  BROWNING   MONOLOGUE. 


185 


a  story  that  is  being  told,  is,  of  course,  imagery.  The  de- 
scription of ,  the  furniture,  weapons,  social  life  of  husband 
and  wife  in  '  A  Forgiveness  '  is  not  imagery,  but  merely 
the  details  of  a  circumstantial  narrative.  Nature,  as  de- 
scribed in  '  Saul,'  and  more  especially  in  '  Childe  Roland,' 
is  animated  in  the  first  place,  and  in  the  second  place  dis- 
tinctively used  for  the  enrichment  of  the  poem.  I  have 
been  talking,  you  know  my  habit,  to  clear  my  own  thought. 
Imagery,  I  think,  is  rather  a  vague  word  with  us.  It 's 
not  imagination,  but  one  of  the  products  of  imagination. 
"  Imagination  bodies  forth  the  forms  of  things  unknown." 
Imagery  is  the  decorated  drapery  put  upon  the  forms.  '  A 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream '  is  a  work  of  imagination,  and 
such  lines  in  it  as 

The  rnde  sea  grew  civil  at  her  song, 
And  certain  stars  shot  madly  from  their  spheres 
To  hear  the  sea-maid's  music 

are  imagery.  Of  this  imagery  Browning  has  given  us 
very  little ;  some  very  fine  lines,  however,  which  we  could 
ill  spare,  as  for  instance, 

I  crossed  a  ridge  of  short,  sharp,  broken  hills, 
Like  an  old  lion's  cheek  teeth  ; 

and  .that  line  from  '  One  Word  More  ' 

like  some  portent  of  an  ice  berg 
Swimming  full  upon  the  ship  it  founders, 
Hungry  with  huge  teeth  of  splintered  crystals, 

arid  then  that  very  well-known  one, 

She  lies  in  my  hand  as  tame 
As  a  pear  late  basking  over  a  wall ; 
Just  a  touch  to  try  and  off  it  came. 

As  I  say,  there  's  very  little  of  this  magical  touch  •  that 
Shakespeare  had  in  perfection.  But 4  Childe  Roland '  even 
better  than  '  Saul '  or  '  James  Lee's  Wife  '  has  a  fine  ani- 
mated description  of  nature  that  is  imagery  of  a  high  order. 
Browning  is  oae  of  the  great  masters  of  imaginative  litera- 


186  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

ture,  and  '  Cliilde  Roland,'  in  dramatic  interest,  in  vivid 
portrayal,  and  in  the  confusion  of  the  natural  and  the 
supernatural,  ranks  with  '  The  Haven,'  '  Tarn  O'Shanter,' 
'Christabel'  and  'The  Ancient  Mariner.'  It  is  nature 
that  you  see  in  the  grey  plain  and  close-locked  hills,  but 
nature  seen  through  the  Devil's  spectacles.  Take  such  a 
picture  as  this  — 

As  for  the  grass,  it  grew  as  scant  as  hair 
In  leprosy ;  thin  dry  blades  pricked  the  mud 
Which  underneath  looked  kneaded  up  with  blood  — 

or  the  crawling  river 

So  petty  yet  so  spiteful !     All  along, 
Low  scrubby  alders  kneeled  down  over  it ; 
Drenched  willows  flung  them  headlong  in  a  fit 
Of  mute  despair,  a  suicidal  throng ; 

and  that  awesome  image  at  the  close  — 

The  dying  sunset  kindled  through  a  cleft ; 
The  hills,  like  giants  at  a  hunting,  lay, 
Chin  upon  hand,  to  see  the  game  at  bay,  — 
"  Now  stab  and  end  the  creature  —  to  the  heft ! " 

Yes,  it 's  a  marvellous  poem,  and  shows  a  master's  touch. 
When  you  analyse  it,  however,  there  's  nothing  that  could 
not  be  said  of  our  New  England  sceneiy.  That  weird, 
uncanny,  supernatural  effect  is  the  magician's  power  that 
animates  plain  and  hill,  tree  and  brook  and  bat  with  the 
direful  traits  of  human  nature.  You  can  read  the  fears 
and  fateful  memories  of  the  Paladin  in  the  sympathetic 
world  about  him.  It 's  like  studying  the  enlarged  heads 
of  photography.  The  rushing  verse,  the  grey  garb  of 
nature  and  the  language  of  fear  suit  the  stirring  subject. 
You  may  be  surprised  to  hear  me  say  that  I  admire  the 
restraint  of  this  poem.  There  is  a  great  concentration  of 
power  in  this  succession  of  pictures,  seen  by  flashes  of  poetic 
lightning.  There 's  a  difference  between  driving  your 
imagination  and  letting  it  drive  you.  When  Shakespeare 
and  Browning  fall  they  have  used  the  spur  too  vigorously. 


MONOLOGUE. 


187 


Browning,  especially,  has  often  ridden  too  furiously,  and 
man  and  beast  seem  jaded.  At  times  he  seems  to  have  as 
little  control  of  his  steed  as  John  Gilpin  in  his  memorable 
ride.  But  in  '  Childe  Roland,'  the  concentration,  the  re- 
straint, the  reserved  power,  makes  the  allegory  one  of  the 
great  tone  pictures  of  literature.  Suggestion  and  descrip- 
tion are  equally  and  happily  employed. 

How  true  that  is,  Clericus !  I  feel  it  myself.  It  does 
suggest  the  Fifth  Symphony.  It  gives  you  that  same 
sense  of  struggle,  physical  defeat  and  spiritual  triumph. 
What  was  that  text  you  quoted  ?  "  Though  our  outward 
man  perish,  yet  the  inward  man  is  renewed  day  by  day." 
A  great  verse  that,  worthy  such  an  illustration !  Brown- 
ing is  a  stimulating  writer,  he  makes  you  think.  And 
this  poem  of  weird  imagery  and  unconquerable  spirit  will 
long  be  an  inspiration,  "  a  golden  apple  in  a  silver  picture." 
Imagery  is  a  great  gift ;  "  and  yet  show  I  unto  you  a  more 
excellent  way,"  he  seems  to  say  to  his  readers. 

Imaginative  power  is  the  highest  test  of  the  poet,  Cler- 
icus. It  means  the  creative  gift.  Not  all  the  artists,  not 
all  the  treasures  of  the  kingdom,  could  complete  the  unfin- 
ished window  of  the  palace  that  the  slaves  of  the  lamp 
reared  in  a  single  night.  The  master  is  known  by  his 
works. 

And  as  imagination  bodies  forth 
The  forms  of  things  unknown,  the  poet's  pen 
Turns  them  to  shapes,  and  gives  to  airy  nothing 
A  local  habitation  and  a  name. 

That  is  the  secret  of  the  strength  of  all  the  great 
writers  —  this  power  of  seeing  by  the  mind's  eye  all  the 
details  of  Comedy  or  Tragedy  luminous  in  the  solitude  of 
their  own  thought.  It  was  this  vivid  imagination  that 
drove  Dickens  through  the  wind  and  rain  of  Parisian 
streets  haunted  by  the  pathetic  figure  of  Little  Nell ;  that 
made  Sardou  shake  with  sobs  and  hysterical  laughter  as  he 
read  his  plays  to  the  Come'die  Franqaise ;  that  peopled  the 


188  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

rocks  of  Guernsey  with  the  discontented,  seething  life  of 
Paris  as  Victor  Hugo  wrote  '  Les  Miserables.'  Jb4-4i»ihis 
overpowering  vision  of  what  really  exists  in  man's  spiritual 
life  that  can  alone  explain  the  great  pictures  of  Isaiah,  Dante, 
Shakespeare,  Browning.  •  For  your  poet  had  it ;  his  demon 
ruled  him,  and  when  the  mood  was  on  he  threw  off  the 
robes  of  reserve  and  prophesied  with  inspired  tongue.  It 
is  a  great  thing  to  give  life  to  Othello,  Lear,  Hamlet, 
Juliet.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  give  life  to  Blougram, 
Caliban,  Guido,  Pompilia.  "  Such  tricks  hath  strong 
imagination ! " 

What  is  imagination?  I  must  fall  back  upon  Shake- 
speare. It  "  bodies  forth  the  forms  of  things  unknown." 
It  is  the  creative  power  of  Michael  Angelo,  of  Beethoven, 
of  Shakespeare.  You  remember  Mrs.  Shelley's  definition 
—  that  originality  created  out  of  chaos,  not  out  of  the 
void.  Out  of  all  the  possible  experiences  of  life  the  poet 
selects,  combines  and  gives  form  to  what  was  before  vague 
and  formless.  His  spirit  broods  over  chaos  and  a  world  is 
born.  By  the  way,  I  came  across  the  statement  lately  that 
in,  this  century  there  had  been  only  four  great  imaginative 
writers,  Miche'let,  whose  special  power  was  emotional, 
Hugo,  whose  gift  was  dramatic,  Carlyle  with  his  prophetic 
outlook  and  Walt  Whitman  with  his  cosmic  consciousness. 
There  is  a  classification  of  imagination  that  may  help.  J 
should  say  that  Browning  had  the  last  pre-eminently ;  for 
certainly  no  one,  not  even  King-  William  himself,  has 
struggled  so  often  and  so  well  with  the  great  problems  of 
the  world  —  God,  Duty,  Evil,  Beauty,  Freedom,  Immor- 
tality, Christ  —  as  this  poet  of  our  century.  His  power  is 
<•(>&. uric  and  emotional.  His  characters  live  and  move  and 
have  their  being,  and  in  their  successes  and  failures  we  see 
the  great  laws  of  the  spiritual  universe. 

Are  you  satisfied,  my  dear  fellow?.  Am  I  just?  Far  be 
it  from  me  to  underestimate  a  poet  who  has  done  so  much 
for  me  I  I  admire  him  for  the  affluence  of  his  nature  that 


A  BKOWNIXG  MONOLOGUE.  189 

loves  the  sinner  as  well  as  the  saint,  for  those  splendid 
affirmations  of  faith,  for  his  rare  imagination.  But  as  I 
have  tried  to  point  out,  in  his  dramatic  poems  he  makes 
his  impression  not  by  the  free  use  of  brilliant  imagery, 
indeed  there  is  very  little  o^  it ;  but  by  the  dramatic  situa- 
tion, the  wealth  of  detail,  and  the  spirited  monologue. 

I  see  you  won't  admit  I  'm  right.  Well,  argument  never 
convinces.  Besides,  the  coals  are  dying  and  my  pipe  is 
again  empty.  Another  time.  Good-night. 


DRAMATIC  MOTIVE  IN  BROWNING'S 

* STRAFFORD; 

• 

BY  CHARLOTTE  PORTER. 
[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  April  25,  1893.] 

Is  there  a  more  potential  moment  in  the  life  of  England 
than  that  which  poises,  in  even  scales,  the  struggle 
between  the  king's  prerogative  and  the  people's  will  ?  Is 
there  another  man  than  Strafford  who  so  perfectly  incar- 
nates the  fated  issue  of  that  portentous  clash  of  the  old 
with  the  new  ?  It  is  this  moment  that  Browning  selects 
for  the  opening  of  his  first  stage-play ;  it  is  this  man  he 
makes  its  protagonist. 

The  subject  he  chose  has  been  called  difficult.  Its  great 
difficulty  consists,  I  think,  in  the  peculiarly  modern  qual- 
ity of  its  motive,  and  in  the  fact  that  an  original  path  for 
it  had  to  be  struck  out.  Fate  steers  the  action  of  the 
Greek  tragedies  through  the  personal  adventures  of  the 
heroes  of  famous  houses.  Revenge,  reconciliation,  pride, 
ambition,  passion,  dominate  the  later  European  drama,  or 
that  punctilio  of  "  honour "  which  Spanish  playwrights 
introduced  and  which  has  been  cunningly  appropriated  by 
France  no  less  in  the  romantic  drama  of  Victor  Hugo  than 
in  the  classic  drama  of  Corneille.  What  road  in  common 
have  such  plays  of  family  or  personal  interest  with  the 
play  whose  attempt  must  be  to  show  personal  interests 
and  abilities  in  the  vague  grasp  of  an  impersonal  and 
unrecognised  —  until  then  an  almost  unexistent  — 
power  ? 


DRAMATIC   MOTIVE   IN    'STKAFFORD.'  191 

"  The  main  interest  of  Strafford's  career,"  says  the  able 
historian  of  this  period,  Mr.  Gardiner,  "  is  political,  and  to 
write  a  political  play  '  non  di,  non  homines,  non  conccssere 
columnce.'  The  interest  of  politics  is  mainly  indirect. 
Strafford  is  impeached  not  merely  because  he  is  hated,  or 
because  he  has  done  evil  things,  but  because  he  is  expected 
to  do  more  evil  things.  Such  possibilities  of  future  evil 
which  the  historian  is  bound  to  consider,  are,  however, 
essentially  undramatic." 

'Strafford'  rests  under  this  adverse  cloud  of  pre-con- 
ceived  opinion  as  to  the  capabilities  of  art.  Yet,  in  the 
light  which  Browning's  genius  has  shed  upon  these  "  pos- 
sibilities of  future  evil,"  I  believe  a  new  fact  in  the  devel- 
opment of  dramatic  craft  may  be  descried  which  promises 
to  show  that  they  are  not  necessarily  undramatic. 

The  Nemesis  that  brooded  over  and  foreshadowed  the 
outcome  of  the  Greek  tragedies  shapes  forth  a  dramatic 
effect  most  moving  and  intense.  The  Northern  Nemesis 
—  the  Nemesis  of  Conscience  that  Shakespeare  adapted  to 
his  service  tended  to  like  resistless  and  predestinate  effect. 
Both  find  a  sister  of  their  own  gigantic  disembodied  kind 
where,  but  in  the  obscure  shape  met  at  the  very  threshold 
of  4  Strafford,'  whose  undescried  presence  fills  the  structure 
and  the  onset  of  the  piece  with  omens  of  her  energy,  and 
closes  the  tragedy,  at  last,  in  pity  and  in  terror,  but  in 
exultation,  too,  with  the  clear  perception  of  her  power? 
Her  name  is  "  England's  fate, "  her  champion  is  Pym,  her 
half-unwitting  enemy  is  Strafford,  her  manifestation  is  the 
growing  potency  of  the  people  exerted  against  the  coun- 
cillor and  the  king  who  oppose  her  future  possibilities  of 
good.  Her  shape  is  new,  her  relationship  with  her  well- 
known  lordly  sisters  of  Hellenic  and  Shakespearian  drama 
is  not  yet  all  traced  out ;  but  are  not  the  marks  of  her 
dramatic  kinship  sure  ? 

The  antique  fate  that  animates  events  in  ^Eschylus,  that 
breathes  submission  in  Sophocles,  that,  in  Euripides,  knows 


192  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

how  to  reconcile  itself  with  revolt  and  change,  for  "  the 
gods  bring  to  pass  many  divine  things  in  an  unexpected 
manner;  both  what  has  been  expected  has  been  accom- 
plished, and  God  has  found  out  a  means  for  doing  things 
unthought  for,"  •  —  is  in  Shakespeare  modernised  to  work, 
subjectively,  within  the  actions  and  history  of  the  indi- 
vidual character.  Thus  in  the  course  of  the  dramatic 
evolution  fate  becomes  moral  choice.  In  this  play  of 
Browning's  it  is  modernised  still  more.  It  becomes  human 
will :  the  will  for  the  Ideal.  But  it  is  remarkable  that  in 
the  guise  it  wears  in  such  a  play  as  '  Strafford '  it  tends 
both  to  old  and  new  dramatic  effects.  For  it  is  expressed 
no  less  in  the  actions  and  history  of  the  individual  char- 
acter than  in  the  larger  processes  of  a  great  social  move- 
ment. Such  movements,  to  a  poet  like  Browning,  are 
after  all  not  impersonal  but  personal.  They  are  the  com- 
plex issue  of  many  human  wills.  Personality,  then,  really 
holds  sway  over  the  "possibilities  of  the  future"  as  it 
does  over  the  private  course  of  every  single  action  in  the 
struggle.  The  poet's  use,  therefore,  in  this  play,  of  these 
"  possibilities  of  the  future  "  is  not  abstract  and  historical, 
but  living  and  dramatic. 

Browning  uses  ideas  to  differentiate  them.  He  is  never 
a  direct  borrower,  yet  one  can  sometimes  detect  or  suspect 
the  influence  upon  him  of  two  great  English  poets,  — 
Shakespeare  and  Shelley. 

It  is  of  interest  to  remember  that  Shelley  had  once 
chosen  Charles  I.  as  the  subject  of  a  drama  he  never  com- 
pleted, and  Browning's  early  devotion  to  the  ardent  young 
poet  leaves  one  room  to  suppose  that  he  did  not  pass  that 
fragment  by  unnoticed.  But  the  centre  of  action  in 
Shelley's  unfinished  draft  is  the  opposite  of  that  Browning 
chooses.  King  Charles  himself  as  lover  —  Henrietta 
Maria's  luckless  influence  over  him,  that  is  —  is  to  be  the 
dramatic  motive,  so  far  as  one  may  judge  from  the  frag- 
ment left  us.  The  tragedy  is  to  be  pivoted  within  the 


DRAMATIC   MOTIVE   IX    '  STRAFFORD.'  193 

court  circle,  not  motived  conspicuously  outside  it  in  the 
hidden  power  of  the  people.  In  fine,  the  poet  of  spiritual 
revolt  seems  to  be  preparing  to  treat  this  moment,  big 
with  the  destiny  of  democracy,  in  a  manner  that  belongs 
to  the  elder  way  of  writing,  suited  to  feudal  customs  and 
those  classic  fashions  Aristotle  prescribes  when  he  shows 
how  the  subjects  of  tragedy  should  not  be  ignoble  or 
unknown,  but  selected  from  the  familiar  legends  of  mighty 
houses. 

Strong  as  Shelley's  sympathies  were  with  the  new  order 
—  and  were  planned  to  be  shown,  no  doubt,  in  the  whole 
of  this  interrupted  piece  —  his  art  was  not  yet  free  to  wing 
its  flight  as  its  dreams  willed.  It  is  necessarily  a  later 
day  of  the  world  when  Browning  chooses  the  master-force 
of  his  play  from  a  mighty  house,  indeed,  O,  Aristotle  ! 
although  its  legends  and  adventures  are  even  yet  more 
unfamiliar  than  those  of  royalty,  —  from  the  rising  house 
of  the  people.  In  shaping  his  art  in  consonance  with  his 
motive-force  the  poet  makes  his  craft  as  fresh  and  new  a 
source  of  interest  as  the  issue  of  the  events  he  tells. 

Shakespeare,  in  the  only  play  dealing  with  a  political 
interest  at  all  comparable  to  that  which  holds  sway  in 
*  Strafford,'  has  alone  indicated  the  way  whose  general 
direction  Browning  has  followed  independently  and  often 
divergently,  as  his  need  was. 

'  Julius  Caesar '  opens  on  a  scene  with  the  Roman 
Rabble,  as  '  Strafford '  does  on  a  scene  with  the  English 
Faction.  The  rabble  is  ignorant  and  unstable,  the  faction 
is  intelligent  and  capable  of  self-control ;  yet  the  rabble 
is  designated  in  Shakespeare,  no  less  than  the  faction  in 
Browning,  as  the  background  of  power,  —  the  Court  of 
Appeal,  in  whose  hands  the  future  rests  uncertain.  Before 
the  people  the  decision  is  placed,  later,  in  both  plays :  in 
'  Caesar '  after  the  death  of  Julius  ;  in  '  Strafford '  at  the 
time  of  the  earl's  trial.  Each  play  makes  its  close  refer  to 
a  political  future  which  has  hung  from  the  first  upon  the 

13 


194  BOSTON  BEOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

tragic  fate  of  the  man  against  whom  the  action  proceeds. 
The  sympathies  implied  are  not  the  same.  The  compari- 
son, in  many  respects,  results  in  contrast.  What  is  similar, 
to  some  degree,  is  the  general  dramatic  structure;  what 
is  dissimilar  is  the  material,  and  the .  moral  issue  of  the 
story.  Both  Brutus  and  Pym  are  friends  of  the  men  they 
resolve  to  sacrifice  for  love  of  country.  Brutus  is  the 
hero  of  '  Julius  Csesar,'  much  as  Pym  is  the  hero  of  '  Straf- 
ford ' ;  but  Brutus,  presently,  divides  this  honour  with 
Antony,  as  champion  and  representative  of  the  dead 
Csesar,  and  the  whole  play  takes  a  turn  whose  direction 
is  grounded  on  the  fickle  purpose  of  the  people.  The 
ghost  of  Csesar  then  grows  powerful.  That  royal  spirit 
holds  the  lordship  of  the  future,  and  therefore  is  impres- 
sive. With  the  imperial  ghost  is  the  final  victory,  and 
the  principle  is  maintained  against  which  Brutus  fought. 
The  result  of  the  whole  is  not  to  ennoble  Caesar's  person- 
ality, but  to  assert  Csesar's  principle. 

In  '  Strafford '  Browning  works  similarly  just  far  enough 
to  make  the  difference  more  striking.  Pym's  leadership 
continues  unshaken  because  it  is  grounded  on  the  stead- 
fast purpose  of  the  Parliamentarians,  instead  of  on  the 
fickle  nature  of  the  Rabble  as  Brutus's  is ;  not  even  Straf- 
ford's  great  ability,  therefore,  and  the  pity  his  misfortunes 
and  his  nobleness  justly  excite,  can  swerve  Pym's  stroke 
aside.  The  weak  and  inefficient  rdle  of  the  people,  in 
4  Csesar,'  is,  in  '  Strafford,'  the  weak  and  inefficient  rdle  of 
the  king ;  and  Charles's  champion,  Strafford,  is  made  per- 
sonally interesting  and  luckless  throughout,  as  the  noble 
exponent  of  a  mistaken  policy,  just  as  Brutus,  champion 
of  the  people,  is  in  '  Csesar.'  Pym  stands  for  much  the 
same  sort  of  sacrifice  as  Brutus,  —  he  makes  the  same 
choice  between  the  good  of  his  country  and  the  ill-fate 
of  his  friend;  but,  as  the  play  goes  on,  and  in  the  con- 
summation of  his  sacrifices  of  his  friendship  and  his 
friend  for  England's  sake,  Pym  grows  less  strong  per- 


DRAMATIC   MOTIVE   IN    <  STKAFFORD.'  195 

sonally,  and  more  and  more  identified  with  the  principle 
he  asserts. 

Caesar  and  Caesar's  principle  conquer  in  '  Julius  Csesar.' 
Pym  and  Pym's  principle  conquer  in  '  Strafford.' 

Shakespeare,  one  may  suppose,  felt  the  mockery  of 
Brutus's  struggle  since  he  showed  him  thus  as  one  who  — 

From  desperate  fighting,  with  a  little  band, 
Against  the  powerful  tyrant  of  the  land, 
To  free  his  brethren  in  their  own  despite, 
Awoke  from  day-dreams  to  this  real  night. 

Browning,  on  the  contrary,  one  may  suppose,  feels  noth- 
ing of  the  futile  or  unwise  in  Pym's  battle  to  free  his 
brethren,  since  he  shows  them  as  impelling  and  sustaining 
his  course,  and  paints  him  as  one  whose  ideal  was  not  a 
vain  one  while  unflinchingly  he  obeyed  its  lofty  beckoning, 
although  his  heart  was  rent  and  emptied  and  made  marble. 

It  is  not  alone  historic  truth  that  makes  these  two  plays 
end  as  they  do,  - —  Shakespeare's  with  Caesar's  impersonal 
triumph,  Browning's  with  Pym's  equally  impersonal 
triumph.  With  events  as  they  are,  in  each  case,  they 
might  have  been  construed  differently.  Shakespeare 
shows  his  dramatic  design  in  turning  his  weak  and  peevish 
Caesar  into  an  almost  contradictory  mighty  Caesar  who 
speaks  through  Antony's  golden  mouth  and  ranges  as  an 
angry  ghost  in  the  remorseful  ill-foreboding  heart  of 
Brutus,  to  the  end  that  Caesar's  political  principle  shall 
survive  and  lay  its  impress  on  the  future ;  Browning 
shows  his  design  dramatically,  no  less,  I  think,  in  making 
Pym  embody  England's  will  and  crush  himself  as  well  as 
Strafford  under  the  footsteps  of  her  mightier  fate. 

An  able  writer  on  Shakespeare's  dramatic  art,  Mr. 
Denton  Snider,  considers  that  Shakespeare's  sympathies 
were  decidedly  conservative ;  and  he  adds,  moreover,  that 
they  had  to  be  so  "  to  make  him  a  great  dramatic  poet." 
Certainly  Shakespeare  did  not  have  the  same  open  sym- 
pathies with  the  promise  of  popular  power  that  Browning's 


196  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

construal  of  the  events  of  '  Strafford '  exhibits ;  but  one 
scarcely  can  forget  that  no  one  had,  —  that  the  whole 
range  of  ideas  which  Browning  loves  to  dwell  upon  were 
yet  to  be  evolved  ;  and  the  facts  remain  that  Shakespeare 
chose  so  unique  a  subject  as  '  Julius  Caesar '  presents  for  a 
drama ;  that  he  did  not  make  a  hero  of  Julius  Caesar,  but 
rather  made  heroic  the  principle  he  represented ;  and, 
furthermore,  that  the  principle  is  one  —  as  the  philosophic 
historian,  Mommsen,  has  demonstrated  —  which  was  really 
more  closely  identified  with  the  welfare  and  freedom  of 
the  people  of  the  Roman  Empire  at  large  than  the  rule  of 
the  urban  aristocracy  whom  Brutus  represented.  Shake- 
speare did,  then,  express  the  most  liberal  tendencies,  the 
most  enlightened  view  possible  in  his  day.  That  his  mode 
of  procedure  has  somewhat  of  importance  in  common  with 
BroAvning's  I  have  pointed  out  in  order  to  demonstrate 
how  far  the  shining  glance  of  the  poet  outruns  the  care- 
ful pace  of  historical  and  critical  wisdom.  Study  of  the 
development  of  literary  ideals  proves  how  unsafe  it  is  to 
decide  off-hand  what  genius  cannot  do. 

In  the  first  act  of  '  Strafford,'  the  protasis  as  the  rhetori- 
cians of  the  drama  call  it,  the  exposition  of  its  motive- 
forces  is  unerringly  given.  Not  a  trait  is  too  much  or 
too  meagre  for  the  plan.  The  curtain  rises  on  a  "  stealthy 
gathering  of  great-hearted  men  "  in  "  an  obscure  small 
room  "  where  broods  the  motive  of  all  the  future  conflict, 
—  the  hidden  evolving  power  of  the  people  embodied  in 
this  gathering  of  patriots,  and  rising  to  a  head  in  Pym, 
just  as  in  Went  worth  is  summed  up  the  opposed  ability 
alone  capable  of  "  so  heartening  Charles,"  as  Vane  puts 
it,  that  "  England  shall  crouch,  or  catch  at  us  and  rise." 

The  first  note  of  the  conflict  Vane  strikes  sharply. 
What  is  it?  It  is  fear  of  Wentworth's  will  and  skill.  "  I 
say  if  he  be  here,"  Vane  bursts  out ;  "  And  he  is  here," 
grumbles  Rudyard.  The  king  at  this  moment,  indeed, 
calls  to  his  side  the  able  President  of  the  North  to  counsel 


DRAMATIC   MOTIVE   IN    '  STRAFFOED.'  197 

him  in  the  larger  concerns  of  his  troubled  kingdom.  This 
news  sets  the  future  brewing.  It  is  a  scene  almost  of 
mutiny  against  the  caution  of  Hollis,  the  forbearance  of 
Hampden,  and  Pym's  unwillingness  to  disbelieve  in  Went- 
worth.  The  disorder,  and  the  apprehension  of  Went- 
worth's  power  against  England,  which  master  the  hour,  is 
suppressed  only  by  the  conviction  that  "  One  rash  conclu- 
sion may  decide  our  cause,  and  with  it  England's  fate." 

At  these  first  words  Browning  cleaves  to  the  heart  of 
the  action.  The  large  outlines  prefiguring  England's  fate 
are  co-extensive,  however,  with  subtler,  more  narrowly  and 
warmly  human  interests. 

Vane,  who  breaks  the  word  to  the  audience  of  the  wary 
watch  England  is  keeping  on  Wentworth,  tells,  also,  the 
story  of  Pym's  and  Wentworth's  ancient  friendship.  His 
account  of  the  meeting  of  these  two  men  at  Greenwich 
prefigures  the  tragedy,  and  identifies  Pym  with  the  oncom- 
ing opposition  to  Strafford.  It  points,  too,  to  Pym's  own 
heart  as  the  field  of  a  conflict  between  love  and  conscience, 
—  between  the  yearning  of  a  mighty  friendship  and  his 
soul's  best  fealty  to  a  lofty  vision  of  England's  future 
good. 

This  is  one  of  the  strokes  of  the  poet  which  show  how 
infinitely  closer  is  his  touch  on  life  than  the  colder  groping 
of  the  historian.  Mr.  Gardiner  feels  bound  to  warn  us 
that  Pym  never  had  such  a  friendship  for  Strafford  as  he 
is  represented  as  having ;  and  he  tells  us  this  because  he 
cannot  find  it  set  forth  weightily  in  the  records  as  it  is  in 
the  play.  The  personal  motive  is  always  rightly  the  poet's 
affair  of  the  imagination,  not  the  historian's  matter  of  fact. 
But,  besides  the  story  of  the  early  intimacy  and  the  anec- 
dote of  the  Greenwich  meeting  told  by  Dr.  Welwood  in 
his  Memoirs,  and  from  which  Browning,  or  Browning  and 
Foster,  took  it,  there  are  passages  in  Strafford's  last 
speeches  which  imply  the  reality  of  the  old  friendship,  in 
a  way  that  need  not  cause  one  to  scruple  about  yielding 


198  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPEES. 

the  poet  this  cherished  rich  red  thread  of  human  feeling 
to  weave  in  with  the  larger  pattern  of  his  wide  web.  Mr. 
Gardiner,  indeed,  though  he  gives  it  no  certificate,  does 
not  grudge  it  to  him ;  he  wisely  adds  that,  rather  than 
point  it  out  as  erroneous,  we  will  do  better  to  ask  the  end 
it  serves,  and  what  higher  truth  of  character  results. 

If  this  conflict  within  Pym's  heart  is  not  true  it  ought 
to  be  ;  if  we  have  not  a  historian's  warrant  for  it  we  have 
what 's  better,  —  a  poet's  need  of  it  to  signify  a  higher 
guarantee  of  its  probable  truth  than  annalists  are  able  to 
sign  and  seal  us  with  their  doubtful  facts.  And  is  it  not 
true,  then,  true  to  the  life,  that  in  large  actions  which  the 
world  remembers  long  the  pulse  of  personal  love  once  beat 
devotedly?  In  the  thick  of  the  ferment  what  attractions 
and  repulsions,  what  impervious  hearts,  what  loyal  souls ! 
Word  of  not  half  this  spiritual  energy  reaches  the  ready 
misquoting  ear  of  rumour,  yet  the  most  unknown  of  such 
potencies  plays  its  part  and  is  registered  silently  in  the 
result. 

This  inner  human  truth  underlies  the  events  Browning 
dramatises.  Pym's  true-hearted  yearning  over  Went- 
worth  ;  Lady  Carlisle's  admiring  self-ignoring  devotion  to 
the  earl;  the  earl's  fascinated  loyalty  to  the  king;  the 
king's  slavery  to  the  slightest  displeasure  of  his  wilful 
queen,  —  these  close-linked  springs  of  inward  action  are 
revealed  one  after  the  other  in  the  first  act  of  the  play, 
and  warn  us  of  the  presence  of  forces  of  the  heart  whose 
interplay  is  to  humanise  and  enrich  the  huge  march 
onward  of  the  master-motive,  —  England's  future. 

The  second  act  presents  the  epitasis,  or  tightening,  of 
the  plot.  Precedence  is  yielded  here,  as  in  the  first  act,  to 
the  larger  social  motive,  the  first  scene  depicting  the  exas- 
peration of  the  leaders  against  Strafford's  skilful  ministry 
on  the  king's  behalf,  and  preparing  the  way  for  their 
meeting,  face  to  face,  with  the  earl  in  the  second  scene. 
From  the  violence  of  his  reproaches  of  the  faithless  king, 


DRAMATIC    MOTIVE   IN    '  STRAFFORD.'  199 

the  interruption  of  Pym  and  his  companions  recalls  Straf- 
ford's  loyal  service  to  the  king  for  ever,  and  the  same 
instant  fixes  Pym's  eye  upon  him,  henceforth,  as  foe  not 
friend  to  England.  No  hesitation  is  henceforth  possible ; 
and  now,  in  the  third  act,  comes  the  clash. 

Stratford  goes  to  his  fate  flushed  with  the  certainty  of 
triumph.  "  Pym  shall  not  ward  the  blow "  he  plans, 
"  nor  Savile  creep  aside  from  it !  The  Crew  and  the 
Cabal  —  I  crush  them."  What  quite  other  thing  occurs 
the  audience  learns  from  a  scene  whose  arrangement  fits 
in  strikingly  with  Browning's  dramatic  scheme.  The 
proceedings  are  witnessed  not  from  inside  the  House,  but 
outside,  with  the  waiting  mob  in  the  ante-chamber,  as  if 
the  populace — always  represented  in  '  Straff  or  d  '  as  the 
main  power,  whose  bidding  Pym  and  Hampden  but  inter- 
pret —  were  the  supreme  factor  of  the  event.  The  stormy 
sea  of  the  two  parties  is  shown  in  ceaseless  commotion. 
Puritan  and  Cavalier  ride  to  victory  with  exultation,  and 
each  tastes  the  triumph  but  one  side  may  enjoy,  when,  at 
last,  with  the  rage  of  the  righteous  comes  the  text  of  the 
Puritans,  —  one  of  the  most  effective  of  the  scriptural  out- 
bursts used  to  such  picturesque  purpose  throughout  the 

play :  — 

The  Lord  hath  broken  the  staff  of  the  wicked  ! 
The  sceptre  of  the  rulers,  he  who  smote 
The  people  in  wrath  with  a  continual  stroke, 
That  ruled  the  nations  in  his  auger —  he 
Is  persecuted  and  none  hindereth  ! 

and  Strafford  issues,  with  the  scorn  of  men  behind  him, 
impeached  and  insulted. 

Most  plays  drag  a  little  after  such  a  climax  is  reached, 
but  the  usual  downward  movement  of  fourth  acts  is  in  this 
fourth  act  rather  onward  than  downward.  The  action 
halts  splendidly  in  the  trial  scene,  only  to  gather  head 
again  for  the  next  steps  of  attainder  on  the  side  of  attack, 
of  respite  or  rescue  on  the  side  of  the  defence. 

I  have  heard  the  trial-scene  censured  for  what  seems  to 


200  BOSTON  BBOWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

me,  in  view  of  Browning's  main  motive,  a  token  of  its 
great  originality  and  most  appropriate  art.  The  censure 
was  that  this  scene  should  have  been  laid  in  the  court 
itself,  and  that  the  chance  should  not  have  been  lost  of 
giving  Pyni's  speech  and  Strafford's  defence.  It  would 
have  been  a  more  panoramic  spectacle ;  it  would  have 
been  more  oratorical ;  it  would  have  given  greater  promi- 
nence to  the  single  figures  of  the  strife,  ignoring  what 
would  ordinarily  be  considered  the  unimportant  super- 
numerary bystanders.  The  effect  would  have  been  more 
in  accord  with  dramatic  precedent.  But  Browning  chose 
rather,  I  believe,  to  give  the  broken  talk  about  the  trial  as 
it  fell  from  the  lips  of  the  people  whom  it  so  deeply  con- 
cerned, and  who  so  substantially  sustained  it  both  in  its 
inception  and  its  issue.  He  framed  his  craft  in  this  scene 
in  order  to  bring  it  in  close  harmony  with  his  larger 
motive.  It  suits  new  conditions  of  social  life  and  an 
original  purpose  in  art. 

The  last  act  gathers  to  a  focus  all  the  sunny  threads  of 
human  interest  that  irradiate  the  play.  Lady  Carlisle's 
affection  plans  Strafford's  escape  from  the  Tower,  while 
he  sits  in  prison  with  his  children  about  him,  for  a  breath- 
ing-space, at  peace,  in  an  island  of  childish  song  and 
prattle,  till  Hollis  brings  him  word  that  the  king  has  failed 
him  utterly  and  the  scaffold  waits.  Strafford's  last  act  of 
loyalty  is  then  consummated,  —  to  yield  assent  to  his  own 
death  and  forgiveness  to  the  king.  He  did  this  by  letter 
in  the  records ;  in  the  play  it  is  shown  more  forcibly.  A 
masked  attendant  enters  with  Hollis.  It  is  the  king. 
Every  word  of  Straff ord  stings  him,  most  of  all  his  loyal- 
hearted  excuses  for  him.  Lady  Carlisle's  love  is  stanch 
enough  to  dare  to  save  Strafford,  and  her  plan  of  rescue 
is  ready  to  be  carried  out ;  but  Pym's  love  stays  fast  and 
last.  His  prophecy  holds  good. 

Strafford.  Not  this  way ! 

This  gate  —  I  dreamed  of  it,  this  very  gate. 


DRAMATIC   MOTIVE   IN    '  STRAFFORD.'  201 

Lady  Carlisle.     It  opens  on  the  river  :  our  good  boat 

Is  moored  below,  our  friends  are  there. 

Straf.  The  same : 

Only  with  something  ominous  and  dark, 

Fatal,  inevitable. 

Not  by  this  gate  !     I  feel  what  will  be  there  ! 

I  dreamed  of  it,  I  tell  you  :  touch  it  not ! 

Lady  Car.    To  save  the  King,  —  Strafford,  to  save  the  King ! 

[As  STRAFFORU  opens  the  door,  PYM  is  discovered  with  HAMPDEN, 

VANE,  etc.     STRAFFORD  falls  back;  PYM  follows  slowly  and 

confronts  him.] 

Pym.     Have  I  done  well  ?     Speak,  England !     Whose  sole  sake 
I  still  have  laboured  for,  with  disregard 
To  my  own  heart,  —  for  whom  my  youth  was  made 
Barren,  my  manhood  waste,  to  offer  up 
Her  sacrifice  —  this  friend,  this  Wentworth  here  — 
Who  walked  in  youth  with  me,  loved  me,  it  may  be, 
And  whom  for  his  forsaking  England's  cause, 
I  hunted  by  all  means  (trusting  that  she 
Would  sanctify  all  means)  even  to  the  block 
Which  waits  for  him. 

I  render  up  my  charge  (be  witness  God ! ) 
To  England  who  imposed  it.     ... 
I  never  loved  but  one  man  —  David  not 
More  Jonathan !     Even  thus,  I  love  him  now  : 
And  look  for  my  chief  portion  in  that  world 
Where  great  hearts  led  astray  are  turned  again. 

This  is  no  meeting,  Wentworth  !  Tears  increase 
Too  hot.  A  thin  mist  —  is  it  blood  ?  —  enwraps 
The  face  I  loved  once.  Then,  the  meeting  be ! 

But  the  end  is  not  yet  rounded  out.  Stratford's  personal 
devotion  to  the  king,  in  which  Browning  embodies  the 
great  feudal  virtue,  —  loyalty  to  the  liege,  —  fights  yet  to 
the  last  gasp  against  the  new  political  virtue,  —  belief  in 
the  people,  —  and  most  against  the  horror  of  the  last 
obstacle  Pym  shall  remove  from  the  path  of  England's 
future. 

Oh,  my  fate  is  nothing  — 
Nothing !    But  not  that  awful  head  —  not  that ! 

pleads  Strafford.      Pym  replies  —  "  If  England  shall  de- 
clare such  will  to  me  "  — 


202 


BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 


"  Pym,  you  help  England ! "  falters  Strafford,  van- 
quished ;  yet  only  for  an  instant.  He  breaks  out  again 
consistently  into  a  last  agony  of  prayer  for  Charles :  — 

No,  not  for  England  now,  not  for  Heaven  now,  — 

See,  Pym,  for  my  sake,  mine  who  kneel  to  you ! 

There,  I  will  thank  you  for  the  death,  my  friend ! 

This  is  the  meeting :  let  me  love  you  well ! 

Pym.    England,  —  I  am  thine  own  !    Dost  thou  exact 

That  service  ?     I  obey  thee  to  the  end. 

Straf.    O  God,  I  shall  die  first  —  I  shall  die  first ! 

"  Possibilities  of  future  evil,"  against  which  Pym  guards 
England,  thus  destroy  Strafford  and  with  grim  certainty 
shadow  forth  his  royal  master's  doom.  Stubborn  political 
impersonalities  are  made  plastic  by  the  poet's  incarnation 
of  them  in  loving  souls. 

Is  it,  indeed,  impossible  for  the  dramatist  to  depict 
liberal  tendencies  ?  No.  He  puts  them  not  into  words 
but  into  struggling  hearts,  conflicting  wills,  and  lo !  the 
drama  is  wrought. 


BROWNING  AS  A  DRAMATIC   POET. 

BY  HENRY  JONES. 
[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  Oct.  24,  1893.] 

THERE  is  perhaps  no  lesson  which  the  literary  critic  should 
lay  to  heart  more  constantly  than  that  of  estimating  differ- 
ent poets  in  different  ways  and  according  to  different 
standards.  Every  great  poet  is,  in  the  main,  his  own 
criterion,  and  is  to  be  truly  seen  only  in  his  own  light. 
Philosophers  fall  into  schools,  and  scientific  men  into 
groups  and  classes.  Not  that  they  lack  individuality,  — 
no  effective  thinker  can  lack  this,  —  but  that  the  qualities 
they  have  in  common  are  more  on  the  surface  than  their 
distinctive  differences.  But  the  poets  resist  all  grouping 
and  classification,  unless  they  are  small  and  imitative. 
Each  great  poet  stands  by  himself  like  a  Greek  god,  iso- 
lated from  all  others  by  his  own  peculiar  perfection.  No 
doubt  he  is  the  child  of  his  time  and  his  people  just  as 
much  as  the  scientific  man,  and  he  is  possible  only  through 
antecedents  and  environment  like  all  others.  But  such  is 
the  freedom  and  the  power  of  the  spirit  which  breathes  in 
him  that  he  always  comes  as  a  sudden  surprise,  rising  ex 
abrupto  from  the  common  level  of  the  life  of  his  age,  like  a 
mountain  from  the  plain.  He  is  always  unique.  Nature, 
having  produced  him  (as  an  old  author  said  of  Shake- 
speare), breaks  the  mould.  Chaucer  is  like  no  other,  nor  is 
Spenser,  or  Milton,  or  Wordsworth,  or  Browning.  They 
learn  from  one  another,  of  course.  Each  of  them  "ran- 
sacks the  ages  and  spoils  the  climes,"  and  derives  from  his 
brother  poet  the  inspiration  he  can  get  nowhere  else. 


204  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

Nevertheless,  what  they  give  is  far  more  manifest  and 
more  important  than  what  they  get ;  for  every  great  poet 
adds  some  new  quality  to  our  literature.  He  puts  a  new 
string  to  the  lyre,  and  the  ear  of  the  true  critic  will  always 
catch  the  new  note  in  the  great  orchestra.  Not  one  of 
them  can  be  truly  said  to  continue  the  work  of  his  prede- 
cessor in  the  same  way  as  scientific  men  or  philosophers 
do.  The  light  of  science  broadens  gradually  into  noon ; 
but  the  great  poets  come  out  like  the  stars,  —  sudden 
points  of  brightness  in  the  dark  sky.  What  the  scientific 
man  leaves  unfinished  his  successor  may  carry  nearer  com- 
pletion; but  a  fragment  left  by  a  dead  poet  remains  a 
fragment  to  the  end  of  time.  The  broken  columns  of 
science  may  be  fitted  into  the  growing  structure  of  knowl- 
edge ;  but  what  the  artist  leaves  incomplete  can  only  be 
desecrated  by  another  hand. 

The  universal  element,  the  common  feature,  has  little 
value  in  art ;  it  becomes  a  thin  abstraction,  and  misses  the 
ripe  red  at  the  core.  Individuality  is  everything ;  and 
individuality  is  the  universal  wedded  to  the  particular,  the 
unity  breathing  itself  into  every  detail  and  making  of  the 
whole  a  harmony. 

On  this  account,  even  the  broader  classifications  of  the 
poets  are  often  misleading  and  nearly  always  unsatis- 
factory ;  for  they  necessitate  the  comparison  of  one  poet 
with  another.  While  comparison  may  be  necessary  and 
helpful  to  us  as  we  approach  the  poet,  it  is  an  annoyance 
and  a  hindrance  once  we  have  reached  him.  Each  poet, 
nay,  each  poem,  must  win  us  for  its  own  sake.  It  is,  for 
the  time  being,  like  the  object  we  love,  all  the  world  for 
us  ;  for  "  fine  art  is  always  free,"  its  own  beginning  and  end, 
and  motive  and  purpose,  and  its  own  law.  Speaking  gen- 
erally, we  may  say  that  a  writer  is  a  dramatic,  a  lyric,  or 
an  epic  poet;  but  if  we  leave  apart  the  great  types,  even 
this  broad  classification  is  apt  to  be  as  misleading  as  it  is 
inadequate. 


BKOWNING   AS   A  DBAMATIC   POET.  205 

I  find  this  to  be  the  case  with  Browning  in  particular. 
In  contrast  with  Wordsworth,  who  is  at  once  the  most 
personal  and  the  most  impersonal  of  all  our  poets,  occupied 
with  his  own  moods  and  with  the  evolution  of  his  own 
spirit,  and  yet  at  times  so  identifying  himself  with  Nature  ( 
as  to  speak  in  her  great  impersonal  way,  Browning  is_£sse.n- 
t,ia.11y  dramatic,  as  he  alwaya-CQn&i£lp.md  himself  to  be  ;  for 
he  had  a  deep  repugnance  to  self-revelation,  deep  as  his 
antagonism  to  Byron  "of  the  bleeding  heart." 

Which  of  you  did  I  enable 

Once  to  slip  inside  my  breast, 
There  to  catalogue  and  label 

What  I  like  least,  what  love  best, 
Hope  and  fear,  believe  and  doubt  of, 

Seek  and  shun,  respect  —  deride  1 
Who  has  right  to  make  a  rout  of 

Rarities  he  found  inside  ? 

At  the  Mermaid. 

Shall  I  sonnet-sing  you  about  myself  ? 

Do  I  live  in  a  house  you  would  like  to  see  1 
Is  it  scant  of  gear,  has  it  store  of  pelf  ? 

"  Unlock  my  heart  with  a  sonnet-key  ?  " 

Friends,  the  goodman  of  the  house  at  least 
Kept  house  to  himself  till  an  earthquake  came. 

House. 

But,  when  he  is  contrasted  with  Shakespeare,  the  differ- 
ence in  spirit  and  execution  is  so  great  that  he  almost  ceases 
to  appear  dramatic.  Of  no  one  of  Shakespeare's  person- 
ages can  we  say,  "  There  is  the  author  himself ;  "  of  scarcely  / 
one  of  Browning's  can  we  say,  "There  the  author  is  not/ 
found."  Browning  has  brought  upon  the  stage  in  his  dra- 
matic pieces  a  most  multitudinous  and  motley  throng; 
there  is  no  stratum  of  society  or  civilisation,  and  hardly  a 
corner  of  the  world  of  man,  which  has  not  its  representa- 
tive in  his  pages.  Nevertheless,  amidst  all  the  diversities 
of  type  and  race  and  character,  there  are  certain  constant 
qualities  which  are  due  to  the  poet  himself.  Browning 


206  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

goes  with  his  readers  through  the  sights  and  wonders  of 
the  world  of  man.  We^  never  escape  the  sense  oj:  the 
presence  of  his  powerful  peisonality,  or  of  the  ardour  and 
earnestness  of  the  convictions  on  which  he  has  based  his 
life.  Browning,  I  have  ventured  to  say  elsewhere,  has  at 
bottom  only  one  way  of  looking  at  the  world,  and  one  way 
of  treating  his  objects ;  one  point  of  view  and  one  artistic 
method. 

This  naturally  follows  from  the  fact  that  Browning 
found  one  theme  whose  interest  was  supreme,  and  that  the 
subject  which  was  all  in  all  to  him  was  not  purely  artistic, 
but  also  ethical.  I  cannot  attempt  here  to  discuss  the 
relations  of  these  two  spheres ;  but  it  should  never  be  for- 
gotten that  .though  art  at  its  best  is  always  moral,  and  the 
beautiful  is  both  true  and  good,  still  morality  is  not  art. 
Browning  showed  that  he  knew  himself  and  his  true  work 
when  he  said  that "  he  laid  the  stress  on  the  incidents  in  the 
development  of  a  soul,"  and  he  revealed  his  own  artistic 
limitations  when  he  added,  "little  else  is  worth  study." 
The  depth  of  his  interest  in  the  evolution  of  character,  in 
the  struggle  by  which  the  "  soul  awakes  and  grows  "  and 
holds  by  God,  enabled  him,  as  has  been  frequently  ob- 
served, to  complement  the  nature-poets.  And  the  light 
with  which  he  has  flooded  the  moral  world  is  beyond  doubt 
the  new  quality  he  has  added  to  our  poetic  possessions,  his 
great  and  unique  gift  to  mankind  crowning  him  in  turn 
with  a  glory  all  his  own. 

f  It  was  his  interest  in  the  evolution  of  character  which 
[^  drove  him  to  the  drama.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
arts  possess  no  instrument  comparable  in  power  of  re- 
vealing character  to  the  drama  and  its  prose  counterpart, 
namely,  the  novel.  For  the  primary  truth  about  character 
—  a  truth  which  professed  writers  on  morals  have  never 
forgotten  except  with  calamitous  results  —  is  that  it  is  a 
living  process,  an  endlessly  vn.ryiqg_movement,  a  continuous 
new  creation.  The  unity  of  character  is  never  broken,  but 


BROWNING   AS   A   DRAMATIC   POET.  207 

it  is  never  fixed.  Nothing  can  be  said  to  be,  but  all  is 
becoming.  There  is  nowhere  a  static  element ;  amidst  all 
the  doing  there  is  nothing  done.  Even  the  freedom  from 
which  it  derives  its  being  is  something  never  acquired,  but 
is  always  being  achieved.  The  day  when  we  shall  be  free 
is  ever  in  the  future,  though  every  action  is  due  to  the 
presence  of  freedom  as  an  active  conviction  and  living 
principle.  Character  thus  presents  itself  at  each  moment  * 
as  made  up  of  latent  potencies  capable  of  being  awakened 
by  the  clash  with  outward  circumstances,  and  of  taking 
ever  a  new  form  in  the  conflicts  by  which  it  maintains 
itself.  It  is  a  veritable  treasury  of  surprises.  They  are 
surprises  even  to  the  dramatist  himself.  He  cannot  tell 
beforehand,  as  Scott  admits,  how  his  personages  will  -be- 
have. Their  fate  often  seems  to  hang  by  a  thread,  and  the 
pettiest  incident  may  serve  to  set  free  hidden  forces  in  a 
character  which  otherwise  might  have  lain  dormant.  The 
greater  the  dramatist,  the  better  he  knows  this,  giving 
outward  circumstances  their  place  without  making  his  per- 
sonages puppets.  The  true  dramatist  is  thus  an  observed 
and  recorder,  and  nothing  morev  He  neither  approves! 
nor  disapproves,  but  without  either  prejudice  or  partiality 
lets  the  characters  evolve  their  own  destiny  in  the  outer 
world.  This  is  the  root  of  the  magnificent  objectivity  of  '' 
Shakespeare.  This  is  why  we  cannot  find .  him  in  any  of 
his  works.  He  has  no  preconceived  theory,  no  dominant 
scheme  of  life,  no  likes  or  dislikes  ;  but  his  bosom  is  broad 
as  Nature's,  and  he  sheds  his  genial  sunshine  on  all  alike. 
In  a  word,  he  gives  them  life  and  a  world  to  work  in, 
and  then  he  stands  aside  while  they  pass  judgment  upon 
themselves. 

Now,  this  movement,  this  evolution  of  latent  tendencies 
through  stress  and  conflict,  which  characterises  life  and 
the  dramatic  representation  of  it,  is  a  permanent  quality  of 
Browning's  writing.  Even  in  such  poems  as  '  The  Ring 
and  the  Book,'  where  the  poet  knows  the  end  from  the 


208  BOSTON   BKOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

beginning,  and  where  the  story  expands  at  each  telling 
like  circles  in  water,  this  dramatic  quality  is  present ;  for 
he  throws  the  action  into  the  shifting  present.  We  know 
the  whole  story,  in  a  sense,  after  the  first  telling ;  but  its 
meanings  rise  up  one  after  the  other  as  we  read  the  speech 
of  Caponsacchi  and  the  musings  of  Pompilia  and  of  the 
Pope.  We  never  have  the  feeling  that  we  are  reading  the 
record  of  events  that  are  past,  as  we  have  in  the  writings 
of  an  essentially  epic  poet  like  Milton.  If  we  do  not  catch 
the  action  in  its  making,  as  we  do  in  Shakespeare,  we  hear 
it  reverberate  in  the  world  of  thought :  its  echoes  are  not 
dead.  In  this  respect,  Browning*  writes  dramatically; 
whether  there  is  movement  in  his  out^r  wm-ld  of  action  or 
not,  thereis  movement  inhis  world  of  thought. 

But,  in  constant  conflict  with  this  dramatic  element  in 
Browning's  poetry,  there  is  another  which  mars  its  effect 
and  limits  the  range  of  its  power.  I  mean  the  supremacy 
of  Browning's  interest  in  morals.  I  "Cannot  deny,  and  I 
do  not  wish  to  deny,  that  the  conflict  of  right  and  wrong 
within  a  life  is  the  supreme  fact  both  for  men  and  for  the 
dramatic  representation  of  them.  Nevertheless,  none  can 
read  Shakespeare  or  Scott  and  say  with  Browning  that 
"little  else  is  worth  study."  On  the  contrary,  we  know 
full  well  that  Dogberry  and  Falstaff,  and  Imogen  and 
Rosalind,  and  many  more  are  interesting  quite  apart  from 
all  ethical  considerations.  In  his  tragedies,  no  doubt, 
Shakespeare  raises  the  deepest  ethical  questions ;  there  is 
the  clash  of  the  powers  and  principalities  of  the  moral 
world,  and  these  always  constitute  the  greatest  and  most 
majestic  dramatic  element,  compelling  pity  and  terror. 
Indeed,  I  am  not  sure  that  a  non-ethical  tragedy  is  possible, 
or  that  anything  can  rouse  the  deepest  pity  except  the  de- 
feat of  a  form  of  good.  But  to  ask  moral  questions  when 
we  read  Shakespeare's  comedies,  to  regard  Falstaff  or 
Touchstone  as  either  moral  or  immoral,  is  to  place  our- 
selves at  a  point  of  view  hopelessly  irrelevant.  And  yet 


BROWNING  AS   A  DKAMATIC   POET.  209 

they  are  worth  study !  And  might  we  not  venture  to  learn 
from  them  that  there  are  other  things  in  the  world  besides 
right  and  wrong  ?  In  any  case,  a  humourist  and  a  poet 
might  have  a  good  deal  to  say  for  himself  if  he  insisted 
that  there  are  some  men  and  women  who  are  best  appreci- 
ated only  if  we  regard  them  as  non-moral,  as  neither  good 
nor  bad,  as  meant  not  so  much  to  illustrate  the  conflict  of 
right  and  wrong  as  the  comedy  of  situation.  Life,  no 
doubt,  is  serious  enough  for  them,  but  may  not  a  poet  be 
allowed  to  forget  this  ?  Or,  to  put  the  question  in  an- 
other form,  can  we  be  quite  sure  that  humour  has  no  place 
amongst  the  divine  attributes  ? 

Browning,  if  we  may  judge  from  his  dramas,  took  the 
negative  answer  for  granted.  Nothing  has  interest  for  \ 
him  except  right  and  wrong.  This,  no  doubt,  is  his 
strength  and  the  crown  of  his  glory  amongst  the  poets ;  it 
is  also  his  weakness.  He  cannot  forget  the  mighty  issues 
which  hang  on  paltry  facts  and  passing  thoughts ;  and  life 
is  to  him  "  all  astrain."  He  has  a  surpassingly  quick  eye 
for  moral  effects,  for  the  consequences  that  reverberate 
endlessly  in  the  world  of  spirit,  darkening  destiny  into 
tragedy  and  making  even  the  movement;  of  the  Good  awful 
in  its  magnitude ;  but  he  is  generally  blind  to  the  lighter 
play  of  things,  —  to  the  fanciful  idea  that  brings  nothing 
but  laughter  in  its  train,  to  the  emotion  that  only  ripples 
the  surface,  to  the  inconsequence  and  incoherence,  the 
oddities  and  inversions,  in  which  Comedy,  forgetting  the 
stern  rule  of  law,  always  revels.  Ethics  is,  it  is  true, 
the  completest  science  of  man  ;  but  there  is  room  for  other 
sciences  of  man  as  well.  For  man  is  not  always  moral  or 
immoral,  at  least  not  consciously  so.  He  is  the  offspring 
of  Xature  as  well  as  the  child  of  light,  and  much  of  his 
life  is  only  indirectly  related  to  good  and  evil.  The  con- 
stant consciousness  of  infinite  moral  issues  veritably  latent 
even  in  little  things  would  crush  him.  I  am  not  sure  that 
it  would  make  him  a  good  man ;  or  whether  rather  it  would 

14 


210  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

not  be  better  for  him  to  do  some  good  things  as  the  bird 
sings  on  the  tree-top,  —  with  "  a  fine,  careless  rapture." 

I  do  not  mean  that  Browning's  dramas  are  too  moral  or 
that  he  is  too  great  a  teacher  of  good.  That,  I  believe,  is 
not  possible.  What  I  mean  is  that  his  moral  interests  are 
too  obtrusive,  and  that  he  is  too  conscious  of  a  mission;  and 
a  mission  destroys  the  drama.  No  sterner  moral  lesson  is 
taught  in  all  literature  than  Hamlet  teaches  to  his  mother 
in  the  closet  scene.  But  the  scene  comes  by  the  way.  There 
is  no  mechanical  preparation  for  it,  and  no  reminiscence  of  it 
after  it  is  over.  The  poet  never  purposed  it.  It  is  unpre- 
meditated, spontaneous,  the  product  of  the  moment,  and 
therefore  irresistibly  impressive.  Again  and  again  in 
Shakespeare  we  find  some  little  incident  or  stray  word  sets 
free  some  great  conception. 

Portia.  Do  you  confess  the  bond  ? 

Antonio.  \  do. 

Portia.  Then  must  the  Jew  be  merciful. 

Shi/lock.  On  what  compulsion  must  I  ?  tell  me  that. 

Then  follows  "The  quality  of  mercy  is  not  strained"  and 
the  whole  immortal  passage.  I  cannot  recall  at  present 
any  great  passage  in  Browning  which  rises  on  the  reader 
just  in  this  way,  any  such  great  conflagration  kindled  by 
an  accidental  spark.  The  scenes  which  involve  direct 
moral  issues  generally  come  of  set  purpose.  He  prepares 
for  them,  carries  them  with  him  throughout  the  play, 
and  makes  them  the  pivot  on  which  the  whole  action 
turns. 

In  fact,  this  brings  into  view  a  notable  and,  I  believe,  a 
unique  feature  of  Browning's  dramas.  They  are  never 
placed,  like  Shakespeare's,  frankly  in  the  outer  world,lbut 
in  the  world  of  emotions  and  passions,  and  volitions  and 
thoughts.  His  dramas  are  in  his  characters,  and  his  char- 
acters are  not  in  the  world,  but  in  some  section  cut 
out  of  it-J 

In  consequence,  it  is  the  spiritual  aspect  of  the  actions 


BROWNING  AS   A  DRAMATIC   POET.  211 

which  is  presented  to  the  reader ;  the  moral  issues  are 
given  bare  and  naked,  and  not,  as  in  Shakespeare,  through 
the  medium  of  the  incidents  of  ordinary  life.  If  the  outer 
world  does  come  in,  it  is  only  as  a  background  on  which 
the  real  action  —  namely,  that  of  thought  or  passion  —  is 
cast.  The  stage  is  filled  with  moral  agents  in  a  state  of 
.spiritual  tension,  not  with  men  and  women  who  are  flesh 
and  blood  as  well  as  spirit,  and  who  are  in  time  and  space 
as  well  as  in  the  world  of  the  eternal  verities.  It  may  be 
worth  our  while  to  exemplify  this  cardinal  feature  of 
Browning's  dramas.  His  dramas  do  not  as  a  rule  lack 
incidents  and  events ;  hardly  one  of  them  is  stagnant  like 
'Hamlet,'  where  the  tragedy  hangs  overhead,  motionless 
as  a  black  cloud.  There  is  the  hurry  and  the  heat  of 
tragic  situations  in  the  act  of  evolving  themselves;  and, 
so  far,  the  representation  is  dramatic.  Nevertheless,  they 
are  not  frankly  in  the  outer  world,  not  genuinely  objective. 
I  find  everywhere  the  poet's  own  mood  and  passion ;  moods 
and  passions  which  have  their  root  in  some  moral  convic- 
tion, and  which  envelop  the  agents,  subtly  removing  them 
from  the  ordinary  life  and  giving  to  them  and  their  actors 
an  air  of  unreality  and  untruth.  We  recognise  at  once 
that  the  love  scenes  in  '  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon '  are 
written  by  a  moralist,  and  by  a  surpassingly  great  one. 
We  feel  the  tragic  tension,  the  moral  strain,  in  Mildred's 
first  words  to  her  lover:  "Sit,  Henry — do  not  take  my 
hand  !  "  It  deepens  with  the  next  question  :  "  What  be- 
gins now  ?  "  and  then  comes  the  overmastering  conscious- 
ness that  she  does  not  deserve  the  happiness  which  is  on 
the  threshold,  and  that  she  will  never  have  it. 

Ah  God  !  some  prodigy  of  thine  will  stop 
This  planned  piece  of  deliberate  wickedness 
In  its  birth  even  !  some  fierce  leprous  spot 
Will  mar  the  brow's  dissimulating !  I 
Shall  murmur  no  smooth  speeches  got  by  heart, 
But,  frenzied,  pour  forth  all  our  woeful  story, 
The  love,  the  shame  and  the  despair. 


212  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Mildred  is  everywhere  and  always  in  the  same  highly 
strung  mood.  There  is  nothing  for  her  in  the  whole 
world  except  a  great  love  and  a  broken  moral  law ;  she 
never  comes  down  into  the  level  plain  of  ordinary  life  — 
unless  we  except  those  words  of  unutterable  pathos  which 
she  repeats  as  if  they  were  the  burden  of  a  sad  song  ever 
murmuring  in  her  broken  heart :  — 

I  was  so  young,  I  loved  him  so,  I  had 
No  mother,  God  forgot  me,  and  I  fell. 

These  simple  words  more  than  aught  else  bring  her  near  to 
us,  a  maiden  amongst  maidens,  only  stricken  with  grief. 

The  same  deep  pathos  brings  the  Queen  of  '  In  a  Bal- 
cony '  very  near  to  us  at  times. 

It  is  petty  criticism,  I  think,  to  urge  that  Mildred  was 
only  "  fourteen  "  when  the  play  opens,  and  that  such  an 
insight  into  the  issues  of  right  and  wrong  is  not  possible  to 
a  child,  although,  of  course,  it  is  true.  What  a  critic  has 
a  complete  right  to  object  to  is  that  Mildred  is  presented 
to  us  in  no  other  mood  than  this  of  sublime  moral  tension ; 
and  that,  so  far  as  she  is  concerned,  the  whole  action  takes 
place  not  in  the  ordinary  world,  but  on  "Mount  Sinai 
altogether  on  a  smoke  "  amidst  the  terrors  of  a  broken  law. 
I  would  repeat  my  belief  that  practically  our  only  task 
here  on  earth  is  "  to  learn  thro'  evil  that  good  is  best,"  and 
that  the  drama  at  its  height  turns  on  moral  issues.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  lesson  has  to  be  learned  in  a  natural 
environment,  where  the  sun  shines  and  the  flowers  grow, 
and  men  and  women  eat  and  drink,  marry  and  are  given  in 
marriage.  That  natural  environment  is  not  to  be  found  in 
this  play.  Shakespeare  would  have  made  it  break  in,  so 
intimate  is  his  touch  on  reality.  When  the  moods  and  pas- 
sions have  swept  his  characters  beyond  the  confines  of  ordi- 
nary life,  the  common  world  comes  knocking  at  the  door, 
and  we  have  such  scenes  as  that  of  the  porter  in  '  Macbeth,' 
which  deepens  the  tragedy  and  makes  it  real  by  letting  in 


BROWSING  AS  A  DRAMATIC   POET.  213 

the  contrast  of  the  common  light  of  day  in  its  ordinary 
course.  But  Mildred  lives  throughout  the  play  in  another 
world  from  ours ;  or  if  it  is  our  world,  if  our  world  is  spiritual 
at  the  core  and  morality  its  essence,  its  natural  veil  is  torn 
off  by  the  poet.  Her  thoughts,  her  true  self,  had  already 
passed  beyond  the  walls  of  the  prison-house.  Her 

spirit  yearned  to  purge 
Her  stains  off  iu  the  fierce  renewing  fire. 

And  in  consequence  her  death  does  not  touch  us  like  the 
death  of  Cordelia  or  Desdemona.  She  is  not  removed  from 
our  very  midst,  and  we  are  not  left  desolate  ;  for  she  was 
always  far  away,  in  a  world  not  ours. 

We  find  the  same  absence  of  an  every-day  environment, 
the  same  intrusion  of  the  poet's  own  conception,  and  conse- 
quently the  same  touch  of  unreality,  in  the  character  of 
Tresham.  A  single  trait  once  more  wipes  out  all  else.  In 
his  case,  it  is  the  consciousness  of  an  ancient  descent, 
together  with  the  dignity  and  reserve  and  pride  and  statu- 
esque nobility  of  a  scion  of  an  old  house.  The  'scutcheon 
without  stain  is  a  fixed  idea,  an  obtruding  and  all-obliter- 
ating element.  His  first  words  are  of  the  "  ancestral  roof," 
and  all  but  his  last  dwell  on  the  same  theme. 

You  're  lord  and  lady  now  —  you  're  Treshams ;  name 
And  fame  are  yours  ;  you  hold  our  'scutcheon  up. 
Austin,  no  blot  on  it ! 

Gwendolen,  the  only  entirely  natural  character  in  the  play, 
the  representative  of  common  sense  and  practical  useful- 
ness, carrying  with  it  as  usual  a  tinge  of  humour  as  sweeten- 
ing salt,  knows  well  his  weakness  and  plays  with  it. 

He  's  proud,  confess ;  so  proud  with  brooding  o'er 
The  light  of  his  interminable  line, 
An  ancestry  with  men  all  paladins, 
And  women  all  — 

It  might  be  pleaded  in  justification  of  Browning  that 
the  play  turns  upon  the  blot  in  the  'scutcheon,  and  that  it 


214  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

must  not  be  blamed  for  being  what  it  professes  to  be.  It 
might  also  be  urged  that  every  tragedy  must  turn  upon 
the  excessive  development  of  some  partial  good,  and  its 
consequent  collision  with  a  good  that  is  greater  and  wider. 
The  drama,  in  other  words,  teaches  us  that 

God  fulfils  himself  in  many  ways 

Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world, 

and  that  there  is  nothing  good  except  the  whole.  In  this 
respect  every  tragedy  must  have  its  own  special  purpose ; 
and  although  it  is  foolish  criticism  to  regard  Shakespeare's 
plays  as  written  to  illustrate  a  moral,  they  are,  all  the  same, 
dominated  each  by  a  single  conception,  which  pervades  all 
their  details  as  life  animates  every  particle  of  the  organism. 
The  error  of  the  critics  is  to  forget  that  the  unity,  just 
because  it  is  living,  is  too  subtle  for  definition.  It  escapes 
the  distinctions  of  discursive  thought,  and  it  reports  itself 
only  to  the  feeling  of  the  artistic  spirit.  The  impression 
is  one  and  single,  but  we  know  not  why ;  and  we  know  not 
why,  not  because  there  are  no  reasons,  but  because  there 
are  too  many ;  for,  just  as  life  declares  itself  in  all  that  we 
do,  so  every  movement  is  the  manifestation  of  its  unity. 
The  defect  in  Browning's  dramas  is  therefore  not  that  they 
have  unity  of  purpose,  but  that  this  unity  is  separable 
from  the  rest,  capable  of  being  defined ;  it  obtrudes  itself ; 
it  is  aggressive  rather  than  pervasive.  His  dramas  are  like 
fugues  in  music;  the  main  theme  is  caught  up  now  by 
this  voice,  now  by  that :  — 

One  dissertates,  he  is  candid ; 

Two  must  discept,  —  has  distinguished  ; 
Three  helps  the  couple,  if  ever  yet  man  did ; 

Four  protests ;  Five  makes  a  dart  at  the  thing  wished : 
Back  to  One,  goes  the  case  bandied. 

So  your  fugue  broadens  and  thickens, 

Greatens  and  deepens  and  lengthens, 
Till  we  exclaim  —  "  But  where 's  music  ?  " 

Master  Hugues  of  Saxe-Gotha. 


BROWNING   AS   A  DRAMATIC   POET.  215 

Thus,  while  the  idea  which,  no  doubt,  lies  at  the  root  of 
every  one  cf  Shakespeare's  great  tragedies,  baffles  the 
critics  to  express  it,  because  every  expression  seems  to 
leave  something  out,  I  think  that  in  the  case  of  every  one 
of  Browning's  tragedies  the  main  idea  is  accurately  defin- 
able. The  only  one  that  might  defeat  our  attempt  is 
'  Strafford,'  where,  as  historians  tell  us,  Browning  paints 
the  actual  events  with  marvellous  insight  and  accuracy. 
Who  can  doubt  that  '  Luria '  is  based  on  the  collision  of 
the  fresh  life  of  the  East  with  an  effete  civilisation,  or  of 
Nature  with  art  grown  to  be  artifice  ? 

My  own  East ! 

How  nearer  God  we  were !     He  glows  above 
With  scarce  an  intervention,  presses  close 
And  palpitatingly,  his  soul  o'er  ours  : 
We  feel  him,  nor  by  painful  reason  know ! 

Luria,  Act  V. 

In  this  play,  as  in  several  others,  such  as  '  King  Victor 
and  King  Charles,'  '  Colombe's  Birthday,'  and  '  In  a  Bal- 
cony,' there  is  also  to  be  detected  an  impulse  rarely  dor- 
mant in  the  poet's  breast,  —  the  impulse  to  illustrate  the 
victorious  strength  of  the  soul,  bold  in  the  consciousness 
of  its  right  cause,  marching  straight  on  its  object,  abjuring 
prudence,  which  is  the  wisdom  of  man,  for  truth,  which  is 
the  wisdom  of  God.  Truth,  and  the  courage  which  goes 
with  it,  was  a  passion  in  Browning,  a  great  fire  in  his 
heart.  Unlike  the  pure  artist,  he  hated  a  lie  more  than 
ugliness  ;  and  in  this  lies  the  secret  of  his  interest  in  craft 
and  guile,  in  Guido  and  Blougram  and  Prince  Hohenstiel 
Schwangau,  and  in  Fifine's  gentlemanly  casuist.  Faithful 
always  to  his  task,  he 

Untwists  heaven's  white  from  the  yellow  flare 
O'  the  world's  gross  torch. 

The  Pope. 

And  fast  by  truth,  within  the  truth  as  its  inmost  essence, 
there   always   comes   love,  the   poet's   other  magnificent 


216  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

prejudice.  In  '  Colombo's  Birthday '  and  '  In  a  Balcony ' 
both  of  these  strands  are  woven  together;  nowhere  in 
literature  is  their  union  so  celebrated,  nowhere  is  love 
more  plainly  set  forth  as  the  eternally  true. 

There  is  no  good  of  life  but  love  —  but  love ! 

What  else  looks  good,  is  some  shade  flung  from  love; 

Love  gilds  it,  gives  it  worth. 

In  a  Balcony. 

Love  is  no  mood  or  passion,  not  a  light  that  plays  upon 
the  world,  but  something  which  transfigures  it  and  even 
constitutes  it.  "I  am  love,"  says  Norbert,  "and  cannot 
change ;  love's  self  is  at  your  feet !  " 

Let  me  fulfil  my  fate  — 

Grant  me  my  heaven  now !    Let  me  know  you  mine, 
Prove  you  mine,  write  my  name  upon  your  brow, 
Hold  you  and  have  you,  and  then  die  away, 
If  God  please,  with  completion  in  my  soul ! 

Being  truth,  it  is  the  source  of  every  strength,  the  one  pur- 
pose great  enough  to  make  itself  felt  as  a  mastering  power 
in  the  world's  bewildered  course. 

Oh  never  work 

Like  his  was  done  for  work's  ignoble  sake  — 
Souls  need  a  finer  aim  to  light  and  lure ! 
I  felt,  I  saw,  he  loved  —  loved  somebody. 

Let  her  but  love  you, 
All  else  you  disregard !  what  else  can  be  ? 
You  know  how  love  is  incompatible 
With  falsehood  —  purifies,  assimilates 
All  other  passions  to  itself. 

Colombe's  Birthday. 

Being  truth,  it  is  its  own  sufficient  reward;  it  is  all,  and 
must  satisfy  the  soul. 

Ne'er  wrong  yourself  so  far  aa  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. 

What  would  he  have  ? 


BROWNING   AS   A  DRAMATIC  POET.  217 

It  is  difficult  not  to  dwell  on  this  great  strain  in  Brown- 
ing's poetry.  Love  has  been  much  sung  in  the  world's 
long  course,  though  such  love  as  this  never  before. 

But  its  very  intensity  mars  the  dramatist ;  for  he  must 
paint  the  world  as  it  seems,  although  its  seeming  may  be 
false.  His  task  is  not  to  find  the  truth  beneath  the  shows 
of  sense,  not  to  "  untwist  heaven's  white  from  the  yellow 
flare,"  not  to  separate  the  mean  and  low  from  the  high  and 
pure,  but  to  represent  man  as  the  sorrowful  yet  sacred 
compound  which  he  is.  Browning  cannot  do  this.  I  do 
not  mean  that  his  characters  are  mechanically  simple,  like 
those  of  George  Eliot's  later  works ;  we  cannot  put  their 
motives  together  like  the  pieces  of  a  clock-work,  which, 
though  it  may  have  many  wheels  and  pins,  some  of  them 
very  small,  is  still  held  together  by  a  simple,  natural  force. 
Browning's  personages  are  men  and  women,  and  they  live. 
But  yet  they  are  simple  for  another  cause ;  for  they  are  all 
ruled  by  some  overmastering  passion  or  some  despotic 
idea,  —  caught  in  the  whirl  of  some  sweeping  mood.  If 
we  said  that  Browning,  like  Ben  Jonson,  writes  of  humours, 
we  should  do  him  injustice  and  still  convey  some  truth. 
The  significant  difference  between  them  is  that  these  hu- 
mours are  not,  in  Browning's  characters,  surface  elements, 
external  tricks  of  speech  and  action,  petty  idiosyncrasies ; 
the  significant  similarity  is  that  Browning  gives  to  each 
some  dominant  mood  that_ney_er  for  a  moment  relaxes  its 
hold,  but,  like  a  consuming  fire,  assimilates  everything  to 
itself.  It  would  be  untrue  to  say  that  his  personages  are 
embodiments  of  a  priori  conceptions,  or  that  they  are  made 
in  order  to  illustrate  an  idea  on  a  preconceived  scheme. 
Yet  it  is  quite  evident  that  their  characters  are  not  the  re- 
sult of  their  intercourse  with  their  fellows  and  of  the  inter- 
action between  them  and  the  world.  Had  not  Macbeth 
met  the  witches  on  the  moor  with  the  excitement  of  the 
battle  not  yet  subsided,  the  ambition  within  him  might 
have  left  him  a  loyal  and  victorious  general.  It  is  the 


218  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

outer  incident  which  lets  loose  the  inner  impulse,  and  ever 
and  anon  some  new  hint  is  caught  from  circumstances, 
which  adds  fuel  to  the  fire.  And  what  a  chapter  of  acci- 
dents there  is  in  '  Othello '  or  '  Hamlet '  !  The  plays  move 
and  the  doom  always  comes  nearer,  but  by  what  devious 
ways  and  apparently  meaningless  windings !  These 
dramas  are  like  life,  just  because  the  fate  which  is  irre- 
sistible conceals  itself  amidst  accidents ;  it  carries  with  it 
so  much  apparently  irrelevant  and  so  many  seemingly  in- 
consequent events,  any  one  of  which  might  be  turned  to 
account,  but  are  allowed  to  slip  beyond  the  grasp.  But 
Browning's  plays  march  straight  onward.  The  chief  char- 
acters, enveloped  in  their  own  moods  as  in  a  driving  storm, 
turn  not  from  their  predestined  course.  Outward  circum- 
stances serve  to  reveal  their  qualities,  but  there  is  other- 
wise little  response  to  them,  and  little  development.  They 
are  freighted  with  their  destiny  from_the  first,  —  Mildred 
with  her  woe,  Pym  with  his  great  love  for  England, 
Luria  with  the  tropic  wealth  of  his  generous  nature,  Colombe 
with  the  simple  maidenhood  that  will  always  set  love  above 
the  pomp  of  state,  and  Valence  with  his  stormy  straight- 
forwardness and  his  great  heart.  Browning's  greater  char- 
acters are  so  charged  with  their  passion,  whether  it  is  of 
the  intellect  or  of  the  heart,  that  the  smaller  things  of  life 
cannot  affect  them.  In  fact,  Browning  cannot  deal  in  deli- 
cate lights  and  shades.  He  plays  on  no  lute  or  lyre,  but 
on  an  organ  that  always  blows  with  full  power. 

The  pillar  nods, 

Rocks  roof,  and  trembles  door,  gigantic,  post  and  jamb, 
As  harp  and  voice  rend  air  —  the  shattering  dithyramb ! 

Fifine  at  the  Fair. 

mt 

Wrapped  in  his  theme,  the  poet  forgets  the  world  without. 
His  theme  develops  in  his  hands,  the  thoughts  implicit 
within  it  change  and  grow,  but  the  character  remains  sub- 
stantially the  same  from  beginning  to  end.  The  poet  is, 


BEOWXING   AS   A  DRAMATIC   POET.  219 

in  fact,  a  slave  to  his  own  intensity  and  ardour.  When  he 
deals  with  the  "  development  of  a  soul "  he  is  in  no  holiday 
mood,  and  his  touch  is  rarely  light,  except  in  the  case  of 
subsidiary  personages.  He  is  so  intent  on  the  inner  mean- 
ing, his  eye  is  so  fixed  on  the  greater  elements  in  his  char- 
acters, that  he  is  blind  to  the  small  peculiarities  of  speech 
and  gait  and  action,  and  to  the  side-play  of  casual  inci- 
dents which  is  often  so  significant  in  Shakespeare's  hands. 
The  consequence  is  that  we  cannot  distinguish  his  char- 
acters except  by  broad  lineaments.  We  feel  that  we 
should  recognise  Imogen  or  Cordelia  or  Rosalind  even 
though  they  never  spoke ;  and  if  they  do  speak,  a  word  re- 
veals them.  But  the  Queen  of  '  In  a  Balcony,'  and  Con- 
stance, and  Mildred  reason  of  their  love  in  the  same 
manner,  although  the  first  is  old  and  worn,  the  second  in 
the  full  summer  of  womanhood,  and  the  third  at  its  early 
spring.  To  recognise  them,  we  must  know  their  history 
and  hear  all  they  have  to  say.  Browning's  drama  is  not 
spectacular ;  he  appeals  to  our  reason  rather  than  to  our 
imagination;  the  play  of  fancy  is  very  rare,  and  of  humour 
still  rarer.  In  fact,  the  critic  who  does  not  fear  to  raise  a 
storm  might  hold  that  Browning  has  no  humour.  We  need 
not  say  that  Lance  and  Launcelot  Gobbo,  Dogberry  and 
Touchstone,  are  absolutely  beyond  his  reach;  he  has  no 
Bob  Acres  even,  or  Sir  Antony  Absolute.  Browning  al- 
ways needs  a  great  theme  and  room  to  develop  it.  Some 
of  his  lyrics,  no  doubt,  are  as  light  as  they  are  beautiful, 
and  the  '  Pied  Piper '  is  by  no  means  the  only  example  he 
gives  of  first-rate,  joyous  story-telling.  Nevertheless, 
speaking  generally,  Browning  is  not  like  Bottom,  and  can 
neither  play  all  parts  nor  k;  aggravate  his  voice  so  as  to 
roar  us  gently."  Plagued  by  problems,  crammed  with 
knowledge,  crowded  with  thoughts,  he  cannot  master  his 
material  within  narrow  limits.  His  dramas  in  consequence 
move  heavily  as  a  rule,  though  I  would  fain  make  an  ex- 
ception of  parts  of  '  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon.'  There  is 


220  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

little  play  of  wit,  and  no  bright  repartee,  but  the  speeches 
are  generally  long  and  weighty  with  thought. 

In  a  word,  the  dialectical  power  of  Browning,  the  su- 
premftcy  of  his  interest  in  morals,  his  force,  mass,  and 
momentum,  his  stormy  strength,  point  to  the^monologue.  as 
his  true  vehicle  for  expressing  himself.  Browning  is 
found  at  his  best  in  '  The  Ring  and  the  Book,'  and  in 
'Paracelsus,'  or  'Fifine,'  or  'The  Inn  Album.'  The  de- 
mands which  the  drama  makes,  poised  as  it  is  on  the  point 
of  interaction  between  the  outer  and  inner  worlds,  cannot 
be  met  by  one  whose  soul  ever  dwells  amidst  the  funda- 
mental elements  of  life,  delighting  in  the  great  principles 
constitutive  of  man  and  the  world.  The  greatest  works 
of  Browning  are  neither  narrative  nor  dramatic  nor  reflec- 
tive ;  because  they  are  all  three.  The  ordinary  distinctions 
fail  in  his  case ;  he  breaks  through  our  limitations  and 
definitions  just  because  he  is  a  great  poet,  adding  a  new 
quality  to  our  literature. 

Ours  the  fault, 

Who  still  misteach,  mislead,  throw  hook  and  line, 
Thinking  to  laud  leviathan  forsooth, 
Tame  the  scaled  neck,  play  with  him  as  a  bird, 
And  bind  him  for  our  maidens  !     Better  bear 
The  King  of  Pride  go  wantoning  awhile, 
Unplagned  by  cord  in  nose  and  thorn  in  jaw, 
Through  deep  to  deep,  followed  by  all  that  shine, 
Churning  the  blackness  hoary  ! 

The  Pope. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  PARACELSUS. 

BY  JOSIAH  ROYCE. 
[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  Nov.  26,  1893.] 

THE  collection  of  poems  belonging  to  what  may  be  called 
the  "  Faust-cycle,"  in  the  literature  of  the  present  century, 
contains  no_  extended  work  whose  machinery  of  plot  and 
of  incident  is,  when  externally  regarded,  simpler  than  that 
of  Browning's  '  Paracelsus.'  The  relations  of  hero  and 
tempter  are  nowhere  freer  from  external  complication  than 
when  the  hero  is  explicitly  the  deceiver  of  his  own  soul. 
With  Paracelsus  this  is  actually  the  case. 

For  classing  '  Paracelsus '  with  the  Faust-cycle  in  this 
way  there  are  many  grounds.  The  real  Paracelsus  was  a 
contemporary  of  the  historic  prototype  of  Faust.  The  two 
figures  were,jis_a  fact,  closely  linked  in  Goethe's  mind,  as 
they  must  have  been  in  Browning's.  Such  a  classification 
in  no  wise  detracts  from  the  sort  of  originality  which  the 
poem  possesses,  while  it  aids  us  in  finding  our  way  when 
we  consider  its  problem.  The  absence  of  an  external 
tempter  in  no  wise  excludes  the  poem  from  the  Faust- 
cycle  ;  for  the  tempter  in  most  such  creations  is  but  the 
hero's  other  self,  given  a  magical  and  plastic  outer  reality, 
as  with  Manfred.  As  regards  the  positive  aspects  of  the 
analogy,  the  typical  hero  of  a  poem  of  the  Faust-cycle  is  a 
man  of  the  Renaissance,  to  whom  the  church  is  no  author- 
ity, and  to  whom  the  world  is  magically  full  either  of  God's 
or  of  Satan's  presence,  or  of  both.  This  hero  risks  his 
soul  in  a  quest  for  some  absolute  fulfilment,  of  pleasure, 


222  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

power,  wisdom  or  peace.  Thus  staking_everything,  he 
gets,  like  an  early  voyager  to  the  New  World,  either  the 
doom  of  the  outlaw,  or  the  glories  of  the  conquistador ; 
but  meanwhile  he  comes  near,  if  he  does  not  meet,  an  evil 
end  in  the  abyss. 

Thus  regarded,  the  problem  of  Paracelsus  readily  defines 
itself.  We  are  to  study  the  career  of  a  spiritual  relative 
of  Faust.  Accordingly,  we  have  to  consider  his  original 
quest,  and  the  strong  Satanic  delusion  to  which  he  fell, 
prey.  In  such  a  light  we  may  hope  to  express  the  sense 
of  his  tragedy. 

Browning  has  told  us  several  times,  in  the  course  of  the 
poem,  where  to  look  for  the  heart  of  the  mystery.  Paracel- 
sus  made  it  his  early  ideal  "to  know."  Failing  in  this 
undertaking,  conceived  as  it  was  in  a  spirit  of  ideal  3*011  th- 
f ul  extravagance,  the  maturer  Paracelsus  learns  from  the 
poet  Aprile,  in  the  scene  at  the  Greek  conjurer's  house, 
that  the  goal  of  life  ought  to  be  "  to  love  "  as  well  as  "  to 
know."  He  endeavours,  in  consequence,  to  reform  his  life 
according  to  the  new  insight ;  but  the  attempt  comes  too 
late.  The  "  love "  that  the  great  alchemist  tries  to  culti- 
vate in  his  heart  turns  rather  to  hate.  He  flees  from  his 
office  as  professor  at  Basel,  wanders,  wastes  years  fruit- 
lessly, and  dies,  seeing  indeed  at  last  his  true  defect,  and 
explaining  it  in  the  wonderful  closing  speech  of  the  poem. 

The  whole  tragedy  thus  turns  explicitly  upon  this  poetic 
antithesis  between  "loving"  and  "knowing."  But  these 
words  are  among  the  most  manifold  in  meaning  of  all  the 
words  of  human  language;  from  the  nature  of  the  case 
they  have  to  be  so.  In  this  poem,  then,  just  as  in  daily 
usage,  they  will  mean  whatever  the  whole  context  of  the 
action  shows.  Browning  portrays,  as  usual,  a  "mood" 
(the  word  is  his  own,  used  in  the  preface  to  the  first  edition 
of  the  poem).  He  leaves  us  to  draw  for  ourselves  the  con- 
clusion from  the  situation  before  us.  His  choice  in  this 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   PARACELSUS.  223 

regard  but  embodies  the  natural  privilege  of  the  dramatic 
poet;  the  critical  problem  that  results  for  us  is  one  of 
the  most  legitimate  sort.  A  tragic  conflict  has  occurred 
through  the  interplay  of  two  of  the  most  universal  and 
Protean  of  human  interests.  How  these  interests  are  here 
coloured  and  defined,  and  why  they  thus  conflict,  we  are, 
as  readers,  to  determine.  Such  questions  of  interpretation 
are  necessary  in  case  of  every  serious  dramatic  issue. 

The  very  simplicity  of  seeming  of  the  two  familiar  words 
"  love "  and  "  knowledge "  has,  however,  blinded  many 
readers  to  the  actual  complications  of  the  poem.  Of  the 
critics  some,  like  Mr.  Arthur  Symons,  find  the  tragic  error 
of  Paracelsus  in  the  fact  that  he  is  "  one  whose  ambition 
transcends  all  earthly  limits,  and  exhausts  itself  in  the 
thirst  of  the  impossible."  This  is  of  course  true  in  a 
measure  of  any  hero  of  the  type  of  Faust ;  but  one  thus 
defines,  as  it  were,  only  the  genus,  not  the  species,  of  this 
particular  flower  from  the  fields  of  tragedy.  Of  the  anti- 
thesis between  "  love "  and  "  knowledge  "  itself,  other 
critics,  notably  Mr.  Berdoe,  together  with  far  too  large 
a  number  of  readers,  appear  to  make  little  more  than 
would  be  expressed  by  the  comparatively  shallow  and 
abstract  platitude  that  the  intellect  without  the  affections 
is  a  vain  guide  in  life.  I  doubt  not  that  Browning  most 
potently  believed  this  platitude.  Who  of  us  does  not? 
But  with  such  abstractions  one  gets  but  a  little  way,  and 
creates  no  tragic  issues.  As  a  fact,  nobody  who  has  a 
nature  on  the  human  level,  ever  lives  by  either  the  intellect 
alone  or  the  affections  alone.  Every  rational  being  both 
"  knows "  and  "  loves,"  if  by  these  words  be  meant  only 
the  bare  abstractions  called  the  "  pure  intellect "  and  the 
"  affections."  One  might  "  love  "  Hebrew  roots,  or  "  know  " 
the  art  of  love-making.  In  either  case,  in  actual  life,  one 
would  combine  the  two  .functions  of  loving  and  knowing, 
whatever  one  did.  But  the  problem  of  life  is  always  what 
to  know  and  what  to  love.  Apart  from  specific  objects, 


224  BOSTON  BROWNING    SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

the  two  tendencies  have  no  true  antithesis.  If,  then, 
Browning's  contrast  means  anything,  these  two  words  must 
be  used,  as  St.  Paul  used  them,  or  as  common  sense  always 
uses  them,  in  a  pregnant  sense,  and  with  an  implied  refer- 
ence to  particular  objects  known  or  loved. 

Browning  cannot  mean  to  ascribe  his  hero's  failure  to 
the  fact  that  he  is  a  "  pure  intellectualist,"  in  the  sense  in 
which  that  term  is  often  applied  to  a  man  who  is  exclu- 
sively in  love  with  the  study  of  some  one  abstract  science. 
Such  a  devotee  of  pure  science  Browning  actually  sketched 
for  us  later  in  the  '  Grammarian's  Funeral.'  The  poet,  fond 
as  he  is  of  strenuousness,  has  no  word  of  blame  for  the 
ideal  of  such  a  student,  whose  one-sidedness  he  finds  not 
tragic,  but  glorifying. 

Let  a  man  contend  to  the  uttermost 
For  his  life's  set  prize,  be  it  what  it  will ! 

That  is  Browning's  creed,  from  first  to  last.  I  can  con- 
ceive, then,  no  error  more  hopeless  than  to  suppose  that 
the  pregnant  words  which  name  the  ideals  of  "love"  and 
"  knowledge,"  here  tragically  and  sharply  opposed  to  each 
other,  are  merely  names  for  the  intellectual  and  the  affec- 
tionate sides  of  human  nature,  or  that  the  poem  is  merely 
a  sentimental  protest  on  the  part  of  a  young  poet  against 
the  too  exclusive  devotion  of  a  thoughtful  hero  to  his  life's 
chosen  business.  Were  that  the  case,  it  would  be  the 
solitary  instance  in  all  Browning's  works  where  a  hero 
suffers  in  the  poet's  estimation  because  of  a  too  sincere 
devotion  to  his  chosen  ideal. 

As  a  fact,  such  an  estimate  of  our  poem  would  here  con- 
tradict the  most  obvious  facts  of  the  text.  The  man  Para- 
celsus, at  his  coldest,  never  even  tries  to  appear  in  this 
poem  as  a  partisan  either  of  a  pure  intellectualism  of  any 
sort,  or  of  what  we  nowadays  should  call  the  "  scientific 
spirit."  He  is  no  abstract  reasoner,  but  a  man  of  intui- 
tions ;  no  admirer  of  the  so-called  "  cold  intellect,"  but  a 


THE   PEOBLEM   OF   PAKACELSUS.  225 

passionate  mystic ;  no  steadily  progressive  student,  busied 
with  continuous  systematic  researches,  but  a  restless  wan- 
derer ;  no  being  of  clear-cut  ideas,  but  j^  dreamer.  The 
attentive  reader  cannot  miss  these  altogether  fundamental 
considerations.  Unless  we  bear  in  mind  these  character- 
istics —  the  dreaminess,  the  ardour,  the  mysticism,  the  un- 
steadiness, and  the  essential  unreasonableness  of  Browning's 
Paracelsus,  —  the  man  and  his  fortunes  will  remain  a  sealed 
book.  No  interpretation  that  forgets  these  facts  in  denning 
what  "  knowledge  "  meant  for  Paracelsus,  and  how  it  was 
opposed  to  the  "love  "  of  the  poet  Aprile,  will  be  able  even 
to  approach  a  comprehension  of  the  text,  or  to  see  wherein 
Paracelsus  was  deceived. 

I  may  observe  in  passing  that  Browning  was  fond  of 
using  the  words  "love,"  "knowledge,"  and  "powrer"  in  a 
pregnant  sense.  All  three  are  so  used  not  only  in  this 
poem  but  also  down  to  the  latest  period  of  the  poet's  work. 
The  use  of  familiar  words  in  a  pregnant  sense,  to  be  defined 
by  the  context,  is  the  poet's  substitute  for  technical  terms.  ^ 
In  '  Reverie,'  in  '  Asolando,'  precisely  the  same  antithesis 
as  that  upon  which  the  tragedy  of  '  Paracelsus '  is  based  is 
treated,  not  in  its  relation  to  a  hero's  character,  but  in  a 
general  and  meditative  fashion,  with  the  use  of  the  words 
"love"  and  "power"  as  the  terms.  In  fact  the  problem 
of  '  Paracelsus '  involves  one  of  Browning's  most  frequent 
and  favourite  topics  of  reflection. 

n. 

In  the  case  of  a  tragedy  of  Browning's  creation,  one  can 
do  little  with  the  ideas,  unless  one  first  understands  the  ^/ 
hero's  personality.  How  ideal  are  the  aspirations  which 
Browning  attributes  to  his  hero,  every  reader  knows. 
What  many  readers  neglect  is  that  other  and  far  less  ideal 
disposition  which,  with  a  characteristic  respect  for  the 
complexities  of  human  nature,  he  attributes  to  what  one 
may  call  his  hero's  lower  self.  Browning  has  affixed  to 

15 


226  BOSTON  BEOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEKS. 

the  poem  certain  prose  notes,  meant  to  help  us  in  under- 
standing the  author's  attitude.  Read  by  themselves,  these 
tend  to  make  us  think  of  Paracelsus  and  his  fortunes  in 
anything  but  an  ideal  light.  The  excesses,  the  charla- 
tanry, the  other  marks  of  degradation, — the  roughness  of 
speech  of  this  rugged  being,  when  once  he  is  angered,  his 
pettiness  of  motive  when  once  he  is  involved  in  difficulties, 
—  to  all  these  the  notes  deliberately  attract  attention.  All 
are  fully  reflected  in  the  poem  itself.  Browning  is  not  the 
slavish  admirer  of  his  own  hero,  but  the  true  dramatic 
poet,  who  takes  interest  in  the  struggle  of  a  great  but 
burdened  and  in  some  respects  degraded  soul  for  the  far- 
off  light.  Until  the  very  end  we  must  not  expect  to  find 
Paracelsus  wholly  or  even  very  largely  an  enlightened 
being.  He  has  to  work  aspiringly  in  the  dark. 

As  a  creature  of  flesh  and  blood,  Browning's  Paracelsus 
is,  first  of  all,  rather  a  dreamer  than  a  thinker.  He  is 
extremely  intelligent,  but  essentially  a  creature  of  flashes 
of  insight.  He  is  of  indomitable  courage  and  of  restless 
temper,  impatient  of  restraint,  and  extremely  fond,  like 
many  other  professional  men,  of  the  sound  of  his  own 
voice.  He  is  very  unconscious  meanwhile  of  a  certain 
curiously  sentimental  fondness  for  his  intimate  friends 
which  lurks  in  the  background  of  his  rugged  temperament, 
and  which,  especially  in  the  third  and  fourth  acts,  gets 
very  noteworthy  expressions.  Unable  to  bring  this  senti- 
mental motive  either  to  form  or  to  consciousness,  he  is 
driven  to  search  ceaselessly  for  exciting  experiences,  to  the 
end  that  a  heart  which  can  never  be  satisfied  may  be  kept 
constantly  stimulated.  So  long  as  life  is  new,  he  indeed 
is  able  to  refrain  absolutely  from  all  meaner  indulgences ; 
but  he  is  somewhat  coarse-fibred,  and  when  higher  excite- 
ments fail,  he  takes  a  certain  rude  delight  in  more  ignoble 
sport,  and  meanwhile  despises  himself  therefor.  He  is 
overwhelmingly  proud,  and  is  by  nature  condemned  to  a 
profound  loneliness  of  experience. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   PAEACELSUS.  227 

In  order  to  comprehend  what  sort  of  "  knowledge  "  is  in 
question  in  the  poem,  let  us  observe  something  suggested 
by  the  relation  of  our  hero  to  the  real  Paracelsus.  Brown- 
ing says  :  "  The  liberties  I  have  taken  with  my  subject  are 
very  trifling  ;  and  the  reader  may  slip  the  foregoing  scenes 
between  the  leaves  of  any  memoir  of  Paracelsus  he  pleases, 
by  way  of  commentary."  Browning  was  twenty-two  years 
old  when  he  thus  wrote.  His  previous  reading  had  been 
varied  and  industrious.  From  first  to  last  he  was  fond  of 
what  is  called  mystical  literature.  Mrs.  Sutherland  Orr 
mentions  among  the  books  read  in  the  poet's  boyhood  an 
old  treatise  on  astrology.  For  the  poem  itself  he  read 
during  a  few  months  very  extensively.  There  is  no  evi- 
dence, however,  that  he  considered  it  his  task,  as  poet, 
to  trouble  himself  much  concerning  the  technical  aspect  of 
the  opinions  which  distinguish  the  actual  Paracelsus  from 
other  thinkers  of  a  similar  intellectual  type.  It  is  fairly 
plain,  however,  that  Browning  had  interested  himself  to 
collect  from  such  sources  as  he  used  a  number  of  illus- 
trations of  the  characteristic  speeches  and  the  personal 
attitudes  of  his  hero.  The^  special  doctrines  of  the  thinker 
had  less  concern  for  him.  Their  spirit,  and  ^thedeepej1 
nature  of  the  man,  he  sought  authentically  to  portray. 

Especially  authentic  as  characterising  the  real  Para- 
celsus, and  especially  important,  also,  for  understanding 
the  poetic  antithesis  of  "  love  "  and  "  knowledge,"  as  here 
developed,  is  an  intellectual  trait  which  Browning  makes 
prominent  in  his  hero  throughout  the  poem,  —  the  curious 
union  of  a  very  great  confidence  in  private  intuitions,  in 
the  inner  light,  as  such,  with  a  very  great  respect  for  what 
Paracelsus  regards  as  the  right  sort  of  external  experience 
of  the  facts  of  nature.  Here  is  a  man  to  whom  "knowl- 
edge" means  his  own  private,  immediate,  and  intuitive 
apprehension  of  truth  through  the  inner  light,  but  to 
whom  this  inner  light  means  nothing  except  in  relation  to 
the  details  of  outer  experience,  as  he  himself  has  verified 


228  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPEES. 

them ;  a  dark-lantern  sort  of  spirit  who  has  to  shine  alone 
apart  from  other  lights,  and  whose  spiritual  insight  for 
ever  flashes  its  brilliant  beams  now  on  this,  now  on  that 
chance  fact  of  the  passing  moment.  To  understand  the 
significance  of  this  tendency  we  must  give  the  matter  still 
closer  scrutiny. 

III. 

Browning  well  read  in  the  real  Paracelsus  the  just-men- 
tioned fundamental  and  noteworthy  feature  of  his  mental 
processes.  Some  men  believe  in  the  intuitions,  in  the 
inner  light,  of  either  the  reason  or  the  heart ;  and  there- 
fore they  find  these  intuitions  so  satisfying  that  they  ne- 
glect or  even  abhor  the  baser  revelations  of  the  senses. 
Such  men  go  into  their  closet  and  shut  the  door,  or,  as 
Schiller  has  it,  they  "flee  from  life's  stress  to  the  holy 
inner  temples."  Here  they  can  be  alone  with  God,  with  the 
truth,  with  their  love,  or  with  all  their  noble  sentiments. 
Such  men  may  be  abstract  thinkers,  serene  and  deep,  like 
Spinoza.  If  they  are  more  emotionally  disposed,  they 
become,  in  various  untechnical  and  devout  fashions,  con- 
templative mystics,  quietists,  seers  of  divine  and  incommu- 
nicably  beautiful  dreams.  On  the  other  hand  there  are 
men  who  stand  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  former ;  these  be- 
lieve, as  they  say,  only  "  in  the  hard  facts  of  experience." 
Accordingly,  they  mistrust  all  intuitions,  whether  rational 
or  emotional.  Men  of  this  type  we  call  pure  empiricists^ 
or  positivists. 

But  these  two  sharply  contrasted  types  do  not  anywhere 
nearly  exhaust  the  possibilities.  Many  men  there  are  who 
join,  in  one  way  or  another,  intuition  and  experience.  Of 
these  latter  there  are  not  a  few,  —  even  among  the  patient 
students  of  natural  science,  still  more,  among  the  students 
of  the  moral  world,  —  who  look  to  see  the  divine  law 
illustrated  and  incarnated  in  the  facts  of  experience,  vivify- 
ing either  the  whole,  or  some  luminous  part  thereof,  with 
its  own  grace  and  significance.  In  the  classification  of 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   PARACELSUS.  229 

these  mixed  types  we  must  appeal  to  a  very  ancient  and 
familiar  distinction,  —  that  between  the  world  of  our  phy- 
sical and  the  world  of  our  moral  experiences.  Upon  this 
distinction  the  problem  of  our  whole  poem  turns. 

Granted,  then,  that  one  may  expect  a  divine  order,  such 
as  the  higher  intuitions  have  seemed  to  reveal  to  the  mys- 
tics, to  be  more  or  less  obviously  embodied  and  exemplified 
in  some  type  of  the  concrete  facts  of  our  experience,  there 
still  remains  the  question,  Is  it  Nature,  or  is  it  Spirit;  is 
it  the  physical  world,  or  the  moral  world ;  is  it  the  outer 
order  of  natural  events,  or  is  it  the  conscious  life  of  man- 
kind in  their  social,  their  moral,  their  emotional  relations ; 
is  it  die  world  as  the  student  of  natural  wonders,  or  the 
world  as  the  lover  of  human  life,  the  artist,  the  portrayer 
of  passion,  comprehends  it ;  in  fine,  is  it  the  world  of  the 
"  powers  "  of  nature,  or  the  world  of  the  heart  of  man,  that 
is  the  most  likely  and  adequate  to  furnish  facts  capable  of 
illustrating  and  embodying  the  divine  purpose?  This 
question  is  one  of  the  oldest  in  the  history  of  the  higher 
problems  of  human  thought.  The  vision  of  Elijah  at 
Horeb  is  an  ancient  comment  on  this  topic.  Is  God  in  the 
wonders  of  nature  —  in  the  storm,  the  thunder,  the  earth- 
quake ?  No,  answers  the  story,  He  is  not  in  these.  He  is 
in  the  "  still  small  voice."  The  antithesis  is  thus  an  ex- 
tremely familiar  one  ;  it  was  a  favourite  topic  of  considera- 
tion with  Browning.  His  own  personal  view  agrees  with 
that  of  the  narrator  of  the  vision  of  Elijah. 

Many  men  (for  instance,  the  modern  followers  of  the 
ethical  idealism  that  resulted  from  Kant's  teachings)  have 
learned  to  be  very  sceptical  about  finding  any  revelation 
of  the  divine  will,  or  of  any  absolute  truth,  in  the  world  of 
the  facts  of  physical  nature.  These  facts  they  find,  like 
Browning  in  '  Reverie,'  too  complex,  too  deep,  too  full  of 
apparent  evil,  too  dark,  to  show  us  the  divine  will.  God 
may  be  behind  them,  but  they  hide  his  true  life.  Our 
insight  into  external  nature  is  essentially  limited.  We 


230  BOSTON   BKOWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

vainly  strive,  in  the  present  life,  to  peer  into  such  mys- 
teries. Thejworld  of  physical  experience  is,  as  Kant  de- 
clared, but  the  world  of  our  limitations.  It  is  the  moral 
world,  then,  and  not  the  physical  world,  that  can  show  the 
divine.  In  '  Reverie '  Browning  states  the  issue  and  its 
possible  solution  substantially  thus  :  If  one  looks  outwards, 
one  sees  a  world  which  Browning  calls  the  world  of 
"  power,"  that  is,  the  physical  universe.  It  is  a  world  of 
rigid  law,  and  in  the  observer  it  begets  a  state  called 
knowledge,  that  is,  in  the  language  of  this  poem,  an  out- 
ward-looking and  helplessly  submissive  acceptance  of  what 
one  finds  there :  — 

"  In  a  beginning  God 
Made  heaven  and  earth."    Forth  flashed 
Knowledge  :  from  star  to  clod 
Men  knew  things :  doubt  abashed 
Closed  its  long  period. 

"  Knowledge  obtained,  Power  praise,"  continues  the  poet ; 
but  he  observes  that  what  knowledge  has  thus  revealed  is 
everything  and  anything  but  a  manifestly  divine  order. 
This  world  of  natural  knowledge  shows  itself  full  of  strife, 
evil,  death,  decay.  Can  one  hope,  then,  for  a  solution 
here?  No,  but  there  is  another  world,  the  moral  world, 
the  world  of  love,  and  of  conscious  and  ideal  activity. 
This  is  the  world  that  to  the  hopeful  lover  of  the  good 
shows,  amidst  all  its  incompleteness,  genuine  traces  of 
the  divine  will.  The  poet  contrasts  this,  the  moral 
world,  as  being,  despite  its  mixture  of  tendencies,  rather 
the  world  of  "  Love,"  with  the  other  world,  —  that  of 
"  Power." 

The  world  of  "knowledge,"  whose  facts  come  from 
without  and  simply  mould  the  passive  mind  to  accept 
and  submit  in  the  presence  of  destiny,  is  still  further 
contrasted  with  the  facts  revealed  in  the  "leap  of  man's 
quickened  heart,"  in  the  "stings  of  his  soul  which  dart 
through  the  barrier  of  flesh,"  and  in  all  that  striving  up- 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   PARACELSUS.  231 

wards,  that  moral  idealism,  which  is  for  Browning,  some- 
what as  for  Kant,  the  one  basis  for  the  assurance  that 
"  God 's  in  his  heaven ;  all 's  right  with  the  world." 

One  is  to  get  the  final  revelation  in  terms  of  decidedly 
moral  categories.  It  is  "  rising  and  not  resting ; "  it  is 
"  seeking  the  soul's  world  "  and  "  spurning  the  worm's ; "  it 
is  not  passively  "  knowing,"  but  morally  acting,  that  is  to 
confirm  one's  faith.  What  already  tends  in  the  present 
life  towards  such  confirmation  is  not  "  knowing  "  the  outer 
world,  but  living  "  my  own  life." 

Where,  .among  these  rather  manifold  types  of  mankind, 
did  Paracelsus  stand  ?  Was  he  a  mystical  quietist,  or  was 
he  in  any  fashion  a  mere  positivist  ?  Did  Browning  con- 
ceive him  as  in  substantial  agreement  with  his  own  views  ? 
We  need  not  attribute  to  Browning,  at  twenty-two  years 
of  age,  any  very  elaborate  or  articulate  philosophy  when 
we  conceive  him  taking  sides  concerning  this  ancient  and 
familiar  issue  with  regard  to  the  method  and  the  region  of 
the  divine  revelation.  In  '  Paracelsus,'  as  in  '  Asolando,' 
the  general  view  and  the  terminology  of  the  poet  are  iden- 
tical. Paracelsus  is  no  mystical  quietist  or  positivist.  He 
unites  experience  and  intuition.  But  he  does  not  look 
in  the  moral  world  for  the  divine  revelation.  He  looks 
elsewhere.  He  belongs,  then,  to  another  class  than  does 
Browning ;  and  to  another  class  than  do  the  ethical  ideal- 
ists who  follow  Kant.  What  is  this  class  ? 

There  is  a  type  of  men  whom  one  might  call  the  Occult 
Idealists,  or  in  other  words  the  Physical  Mystics.  Men  of 
this  type  seem  to  themselves  to  possess  overwhelmingly 
clear  intuitions  of  the  divinest  depth ;  but  these  always  re- 
late to  the  spiritual  interpretation  of  particular  physical 
facts.  The  word  of  the  Lord  comes  to  such  men,  but  in 
the  form  of  a  theoretical  revelation  as  to  the  meaning  of 
this  and  this  in  the  world  of  outer  experience.  They 
therefore  are  never  content  in  the  "holy  inner  temples." 
They  dislike  purely  speculative  systems,  as  well  as  all  inner 


232  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

dreaming.  They  are  very  impatient,  too,  oil  the  limitations 
of  human  nature.  They  deny  such  limitations.  One  can 
know  whatever  one  is  deep  enough  to  interpret  in  the 
facts  of  nature.  Equally,  however,  such  men  despise  those 
mere  non-mystical  empiricists,  who  have  and  who  respect 
no  holy  intuitions.  Our  empirical  mystics  find  no  facts 
"  hard,"  as  do  the  positivists,  but  all  facts  deep.  They  do 
not  much  believe  in  a  God  whom  either  speculation  or 
meditation  finds  in  the  cloistered  solitudes  of  the  mind. 
They  want  to  find  him  in  this  or  in  that  physical  fact,  in 
this  sign  or  wonder,  in  that  natural  symbol,  in  yonder  re- 
ported strange  cure  of  a  sick  man,  in  weird  tales  of  second 
sight,  in  the  still  unread  lore  of  the  far  East,  in  "  psychical 
research,"  in  the  "subliminal  self,"  in  the  stars,  in  the 
revelations  of  trance  mediums,  in  the  Ouija  board  or  in 
Planchette,  —  perhaps  in  a  pack  of  cards,  or  in  the  toss  of 
a  coin.  Nowadays  we  are  more  or  less  familiar  with  this 
type  of  empiricists,  who  still  rather  uncritically  trust  their 
intuitions;  of  collectors  of  facts,  who  mean  thereby  to 
prove  the  reality  of  the  universal  order  and  of  the  spiritual 
world ;  they  seem  never  quite  sure  of  the  divine  omni- 
presence until  they  have  looked  behind  this  door,  or  have 
peered  into  that  cupboard,  to  see  whether  God  after  all  is 
really  there. 

IV. 

The  historical  Paracelsus  was,  on  the  whole,  a  man  of 
this  type,  —  an  empirical  mystic  who  devoted  himself  to 
physical  studies.  For  this  class  we  have  the  rather  awk- 
ward but  almost  unavoidable  general  name,  Occultist.  By 
Occultist  we  do  not  mean  merely  one  who  believes  that 
there  are  divinely  mysterious,  i.  e.,  truly  occult,  things  in 
our  world.  The  Kantian  or  Ethical  Idealist  believes  in 
such  mysteries,  and  is  in  no  wise  an  occultist.  But  the 
latter  is  rather  one  who  believes  in  a  particular  method  of 
proving  and  interpreting  the  presence  of  the  divinely  oc- 
cult. This  method  is  a  sort  of  restless  collection  of  quaint 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   PARACELSUS.  233 

and  varied  facts  of  experience.  Quaint  these  facts  must 
be  ;  for  what  lies  near  at  hand  is  never  so  clearly  divine, 
to  such  eyes,  as  the  distant,  the  uncommon,  the  foreign. 
In  our  own  day  God  is  to  be  found  in  the  far  East ;  here 
at  home  we  can  obtain  him  only  at  second  hand.  The 
Arabs  and  the  Hindoos  are  the  true  adepts.  Sp^  Brown- 
ing^ Paracelsus  sets  out  on  long  and  indefinite  travels. 
The  occultist's  facts  must  be  varied.  In  the  Father's 
house  are  many  mansions,  and  their  furniture  is  extremely 
manifold.  Astral  bodies  and  palmistry,  trances  and  men- 
tal healing,  communications  from  the  dead  and  "phan- 
tasms of  the  living "  —  such  things  are  for  some  people 
to-day  the  sole  quite  unmistakable  evidences  of  the  su- 
premacy of  the  spiritual  world.  Some  of  these  things 
were  known  to  the  real  Paracelsus ;  others,  as  varied,  he 
also  knew  and  prized. 

The  real  Paracelsus  was  a  medical  man,  whose  philosophy 
and  occultism  .were  chiefly  valuable  in  his  own  eyes  as  lay- 
ing a  foundation  for  his  skill  as  a  healer.  This  aspect  re- 
treats into  the  background  in  Browning's  poem,  for  obvious 
reasons,  such  as  the  difficulty  of  employing  forgotten  med- 
ical lore  in  verse.  But  the  Paracelsus  of  the  poem  is 
still  both  a  dreamer  of  universal  dreams  and  an  ardent 
empiricist. 

What  fairer  seal 

Shall  I  require  to  my  authentic  mission 
Than  this  fierce  energy  ?  this  instinct  striving 
Because  its  nature  is  to  strive  ? 

So  he  tells  us  in  the  first  act,  where  the  young  aspirant  for 
a  divine  mission  bids  farewell  to  his  two  friends  ere  he  sets 
out  on  a  long  wandering  in  search  of  his  knowledge.  But 
what  this  "  striving  "  proves  is,  he  says,  the  presence  of 

God  helping,  God  directing  everywhere, 
So  that  the  earth  shall  yield  her  secrets  up, 
And  every  object  there  be  charged  to  strike, 
Teach,  gratify  her  master  God  appoints. 


234  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

In  other  words  Paracelsus  is  going,  in  the  service  of  God 
and  man,  to  scour  the  earth  in  the  search  of  numerous  lost 
facts  of  some  vast  significance  for  human  welfare. 

To  this  conception  of  the  young  dreamer's  life  mission 
his  friend  Festus  replies,  with  a  certain  wonder,  that  one 
so  sure  of  God  as  Paracelsus  at  the  outset  of  his  great 
quest  appears  to  be,  might  as  well  seek  for  all  this  healing 
truth  near  by,  in 

Some  one  of  Learning's  many  palaces. 

Why  should  Paracelsus  thus  look  for  the  truth  only  "  in 
strange  and  untried  paths "  ? 

What  books  are  in  the  desert  ?     Writes  the  sea 
The  secret  of  her  yearning  in  vast  caves 
Where  yours  will  fall  the  first  of  human  feet  ? 

Festus  doubts  the  very  sincerity  of  his  friend's  quest 
for  knowledge,  since  it  seems  to  involve  scorn  for  all 
the  accessible  lore  of  the  past  ages  of  learning,  and  a 
mere  resort  to  the  accidental  experiences  of  the  aimless 
wanderer. 

The  reply  of  Paracelsus  goes  very  deep  into  his  own 
character,  and  reveals  to  us  a  certain  scorn  of  the  medioc- 
rity of  ordinary  men,  —  a  scorn  often  characteristic  of 
dreamers  of  every  type.  The  same  reply  reveals  also  a 

\  sense  of  the  unique  intensity  of  his  own  inner  life,  — 
a  sense  upon  which  is  founded  his  love  for  lonely  ways. 
It  expresses  furthermore  his  assurance  of  his  immediate 
intuitions  of  the  divine ;  and  finally,  it  embodies  a  curious 
and  very  characteristic  belief  that  this  immediate  inter- 
course with  God  is  not  of  itself  enough,  and  that  it  points 

v  out  to  him  a  very  hard,  a  very  long,  but  a  very  wonderful 
path  along  which  he  must  henceforth  go,  —  a  path  that  is 
to  lead  to  the  discovery  of  an  endless  multitude  of  special 
truths,  and  such  a  multitude  as  it  almost  crazes  him  to 
contemplate.  This  path  is  the  path  of  the  collector  of 
special  facts  of  experience.  The  passage  of  the  poem  here 


THE   PROBLEM  OF   PAKACELSUS.  235 

in  question  contains  some  of  the  most  frequently  quoted 
and  least  understood  lines  of  the  whole  work.  Paracelsus 
tells  first  about  the  moment  of  his  discovery  of  his  mis- 
sion, when  he  learned  the  wide  contrast  between  his  own 
powers  and  calling  and  those  of  ordinary  men.  He  then 
narrates  his  inner  experience  of  a  conversation  with  the 
divine  voice  that  spoke  in  his  soul  at  that  great  moment, 
and  he  closes :  — 

I  go  to  prove  my  soul ! 
I  see  my  way  as  birds  their  trackless  way. 
I  shall  arrive  !  what  time,  what  circuit  first 
I  ask  not :  but  unless  God  send  his  hail 
Or  blinding  fire-balls,  sleet,  or  stifling  snow, 
In  some  time,  his  good  time,  I  shall  arrive. 

This  spirited  announcement  of  the  youthful  undertaking 
of  Paracelsus  contains  thoughts  that  many  readers  too 
lightly  pass  over.  One  is  too  easily  deceived  by  this 
young  man's  ardent  words.  One  forgets  that  Browning 
is  here  but  the  dramatic  poet,  who  does  not  mean  us  to 
take  these  tenders  for  true  pay.  As  a  fact  Paracelsus  is 
by  no  means  as  inspired  as  he  fancies.  Let  us  analyze  the 
situation  a  little.  Paracelsus  has  already  gained,  as  he 
thinks,  a  very  deep  insight  into  the  world.  God  is,  and 
Paracelsus  communes  with  him,  directly,  and  in  his  own 
heart.  Nevertheless,  he  must  go  somewhere,  for  years  far 
away,  to  find  —  what  ?  A  new  religion  ?  No,  Paracelsus 
is  no  religious  reformer.  A  new  revelation  of  God's 
"  intercourse  "  with  men  ?  This  is  what  lie  himself  says. 
In  fact,  however,  this  "intercourse,"  from  his  point  of 
view,  concerns  the  cause  and  cure  of  human  diseases. 
This  is  indeed  a  grave  matter,  and  one  for  a  long  quest. 
But  where  would  the  medical  student  of  that  time  natu- 
rally look  for  the  path  to  be  followed  in  this  quest  ?  The 
reply  of  course  would  be,  "  some  one  of  Learning's  many 
palaces."  One  would  study  the  traditional  medical  art, 
and  would  then  try  to  improve  upon  it  as  one  could.  But 
Paracelsus  rejects  this  way  altogether.  Why?  Because 


236  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

the  immediate  intuition,  this  direct  ^revelation  from  God, 
shows  him  that  not  upon  such  traditional  ways  lies  the 
goal.  But  if  one  communes  thus  directly  with  God,  why 
not  learn  the  secrets  of  the  medical  art  at  first  hand,  by 
immediate  revelation,  at  home  in  solitary  meditation,  with- 
out wandering?  This  is  the  well-known  way  of  some 
modern  "  mental  healers."  God  speaks  in  the  heart. 
Why  try  the  desert  and  the  sea-caves  ?  Why  wander 
through  nature,  looking  for  new  remedies  ?  The  repl}-  is 

^  that  Paracelsus  is  a  born  empiricist,  and  cannot  rest  in  his 
intuitions.  They  are  vast,  these  intuitions,  and  immediate, 
but  they  are  not  enough.  There  is  the  whole  big  outer 
world,  this  storehouse  of  specimens  of  divine  truth.  One 
must  see,  feel,  touch,  try.  In  that  way  only  can  one  learn 
God's  will,  and  the  art  of  healing. 

Still  one  asks,  with  Festus,  Did  not  the  ancients,  whom 
Paracelsus  rejects,  collect  experiences  in  their  own  way  ? 
Could  not  one  study  facts  wherever  there  are  "  learning's 
palaces  "  and  sick  men  ?  Why  wander  off  into  the  vague  ? 
If  the  world  of  experience  concerns  you,  then,  precisely  as 
if  you  were  a  mere  positivist,  you  need  the  cooperation  of 
your  fellows  in  your  research.  Why  not  then,  like  the 
modern  ethical  idealist  of  the  Kantian  type,  accept  the 
inner  light  as  giving  you  ideals,  but  obtain  also  the  outer 
world  facts  by  the  aid  of  public  and  common  labours,  re- 
searches, traditions  ?  Why  despise  one's  fellows  in  order 
to  learn  God's  will  ? 

Nay,  our  occultist  must  reply,  just  there  is  the  rub. 
One  wants  the  facts,  but  only  as  interpreted  by  the  inner 
light ;  and  the  inner  light,  for  an  occultist,  is  not  something 
rationally  universal  and  human,  like  the  insights  upon 
which  a  Kantian  idealist  depends,  but  is  the  possession 

\  only  of  the  favoured  few.  One  must  therefore  find  out 
God's  will  all  alone  by  one's  self.  One  may  accept  no 
help  from  another's  eyes,  no  cooperation  from  one's  meaner 
fellows.  At  best  the  traditions  of  some  far  off  occult  lore, 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   PARACELSUS.  237 

the  secrets  of  unknown  Oriential  adepts,  may  be  trusted 
as  guides.  This  inner  light  of  the  occultist  is  something 
so  personal,  immediate,  and  precious,  that  one  cannot 
believe  it  common  to  all  mankind  in  case  they  only  reason. 
Nor  can  one  regard  one's  intuitions  as  concerning  only  a 
spiritual  order,  such  as  the  natural  world,  as  a  merely 
phenomenal  expression  of  man's  limitations,  fails  to  em- 
body. One  is  too  ardent  an  empiricist,  and  too  impatient 
a  mystic,  to  accept  any  human  limitations  at  all.  Thus 
then  the  occultist's  view  gets  its  definition.  We  have  to 
take  into  account  all  the  elements,  the  vast,  immediate, 
private  intuition,  and  the  restless  love  of  facts,  in  order  to 
get  this  definition.  The  hard  path  before  Paracelsus  is  the 
path  of  an  endless  collection  of  precisely  the  most  novel 
and  scattered  facts  of  nature.  Only  such  novel  and  scat- 
tered facts  can  be  worthy  of  the  attention  of  a  person 
whose  intuitions  are  private,  immediate,  and  yet  universal. 
One's  intuition  is  that  these  facts  somehow  all  belong 
together,  as  all  the  world  is  one.  Therefore,  the  farther 
off,  the  more  incoherent,  the  dimmer,  the  more  "  secret " 
the  special  facts,  the  better  will  they  serve,  when  you  find 
them,  as  examples  of  God's  will ;  for  God  made  them  all 
somehow  into  his  one  world,  to  magnify  his  own  power, 
to  display  his  glory,  to  heal  his  suffering  children.  But 
how  long  the  "  trackless  way,"  where  indeed  only  God  is 
to  guide,  because  the  entire  search  has  no  principle  save 
the  single  intuition  that  God  himself  is  great,  and  that 
therefore  even  the  remotest  things  in  time  and  in  space 
are  in  his  eyes  one,  since  He  made  them,  and  must  some- 
how secretly  have  linked  them  ! 

Here  lies  a  sick  man.  What  has  caused  his  sickness  ? 
Perhaps  something  astral.  The  stars  are  linked  to  us  b}-  a 
divinely  ordained  sympathy.  Astronomy  is  one  of  the 
"  pillars  of  medicine."  We  must  know  the  stars  well,  else 
we  cannot  judge  about  their  effect  upon  diseases.  What 
is  best  fitted  to  cure  this  patient?  God  of  course  has 


238  BOSTON   BKOWKIXG    SOCIETY  PAPERS./ 

provided  a  remedy,  and  has  left  it  lying  somewhere  in  the 
world,  —  that  vast  world  which  is  all  one  place  for  God, 
but  which,  alas,  is  so  wearily  big  and  manifold  for  us. 
The  only  way  is  to  look  with  the  eye  of  a  trained  intuition 
for  some  hidden  sign,  such  as  quite  escapes  the  vulgar  eye, 
whereby  the  remedy  of  this  particular  disorder  may  be 
recognised  when  you  meet  with  it  in  nature.  The  divine 
kindliness  has  provided  each  of  nature's  remedies  with  a 
sort  of  sign  or  label.  The  flowers,  the  leaves,  the  fruits 
of  remedial  plants  indicate  by  their  colours,  forms,  textures, 
the  particular  diseases  that  they  are  fitted  to  cure.  This 
was  the  famous  doctrine  of  "signatures,"  of  which  the 
real  Paracelsus  made  so  much.  But  again,  only  the 
experienced  man,  taught  at  once  by  the  God  within  and 
by  his  own  eyes  that  restlessly  look  hither  and  thither 
without,  can  learn  to  recognise  these  signs,  labels,  remedies. 
The  divine  apothecary  (the  phrase  is  borrowed  from  the 
real  Paracelsus  himself)  has  marked,  as  it  were,  all  these 
his  natural  medicine  flasks  —  flowers,  plants,  minerals  — 
with  a  certain  sort  of  occult  language,  and  has  then  left 
x  them  scattered  about  the  whole  world.  Only  a  wanderer 
^  i  can  find  them.  Only  a  philosopher,  taught  of  God  direct, 
can  read  the  labels,  these  cryptograms  of  nature.  Hence 
this  possessor  of  intuitions  must  ceaselessly  wander ;  and 
this  wanderer  must  ceaselessly  depend  only  upon  the 
inner  light  to  guide  him.  Everything  in  the  universe  is 
connected  with  eveiything  else.  Hence  "  the  mighty 
range  of  secret  truths  that  long  for  birth."  Mystic  links 
bind  man,  the  microcosmus,  to  the  whole  of  nature,  the 
macrocosmus.  The  physician  must  know  these  links  in 
order  to  heal.  Above  all  must  he  remember  that  every- 
thing in  nature  reveals,  not  so  much  itself,  as  something 
else.  The  world  is  all  symbolic.  God  loves,  in  nature, 
to  express  himself  darkly  by  signs,  portents,  shadows  of 
truth.  All  these  concern  the  philosophical  physician,  and 
they  are,  alas,  so  secret,  so  hard  to  read.  God,  who  in 


THE   PROBLEM  OF   PARACELSUS.  239 

the  heart  speaks  so  plainly  —  well,  in  nature  He  hides 
himself  in  a  mystic  dumb  show,  and  helplessly  gesticulates 
like  an  untaught  and  enthusiastic  deaf-mute.  Such  is 
the  essential  creed  of  any  occultist.  Here  is  a  kind  of 
doctrine  that  pretends,  above  all,  to  honour  God ;  yet,  as  a 
fact,  one  who  pursues  this  "  trackless  way  "  behaves  as  if 
the  God  of  nature  were  a  sort  of  Laura  Bridgman,  whom 
the  occultist  first  teaches  to  talk  intelligibly. 

V. 

I  have  thus  thought  it  right  to  insist  upon  certain 
characteristics  of  the  real  Paracelsus,  whom  Browning 
unquestionably  had  in  mind  as  he  wrote  the  passage  the 
close  of  which  has  been  quoted.  I  have  dwelt  long  upon 
these  characteristics  because  here  lies  the  key  to  the  whole 
poem.  Browning  has  a  certain  deep  personal  fondness  for 
the  occultists.  Their  type  fascinates  him.  He  reads  and 
portrays  them  often.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  never 
able,  either  in  his  youth,  when  he  wrote  this  poem,  or  in 
later  life,  to  share  their  doctrine.  In  '  Paracelsus '  he 
means  to  set  forth  their  great  defect.  He  often  later 
returns  to  the  problem.  The  same  theme  is  treated  in 
'The  Strange  Experience  of  Karshish.'  Karshish  and 
Paracelsus  are,  to  borrow  the  speech  of  the  occultists, 
different  incarnations  of  the  same  spirit.  Browning  ad- 
mires the  "picker-up  of  learning's  crumbs,"  the  mystic 
who  pursues  the  occult  all  through  the  natural  world. 
The  error  of  the  occultist  lies  in  supposing  that  God  is 
in  this  way  revealed,  or  to  be  found.  Browning's  own 
opinion,  as  poet,  has  a  close  relation  to  ethical  idealism. 

For  Browning,  God  is  truly  revealed  within,  not  without, 
our  own  human  nature.  Therefore,  and  here  is  the  point 
of  Browning's  criticism  of  occultism,  it  is  in  our  spiritual 
communion  with  one  another,  it  is  in  our  world  of  human 
loves,  and  even  of  human  hates,  that  one  gets  in  touch 
with  God.  When  man  really  meets  man,  in  love,  in  con- 


240  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

flicL  in  passion,  then  the  knowledge  of  God  gets  alive  in 
both  men.  The  true  antithesis  is  not  between  the  pure 
intellect  and  the  affections  ;  for  your  occultist  is  no  partisan 
of  the  pure  intellect.  He,  too,  is  in  love,  in  mystical  love, 
but  with  outer  nature.  Nor  is  the  antithesis  that  between 
the  scientific  spirit  and  the  spirit  of  active  benevolence. 
Paracelsus,  as  one  devoted  to  the  art  of  healing,  is  from 
the  first  abstractly  but  transcendently  benevolent.  His  is 
simply  not  the  scientific  spirit.  The  antithesis  between 
"  knowledge,"  as  the  occultist  conceives  it,  and  "  love," 
as  the  poet  views  it,  is  the  contrast  between  looking  in 
the  world  of  outer  nature  for  a  symbolic  revelation  of  God, 
and  looking  in  the  moral  world,  the  world  of  ideals,  of 
volition,  of  freedom,  of  hope  and  of  human  passion,  for  the 
direct  incarnation  of  the  loving  and  the  living  God.  The 
researches  of  the  occultist  are  fascinating,  capricious,  — 
and  resultless.  It  is  the  student  of  men  who  talks  with 
God  face  to  face,  as  a  familiar  friend.  The  occultist,  peer- 
ing about  in  the  dark,  sees,  like  Moses  in  the  cleft  of  the 
rock,  only  God's  back.  The  truly  occult  world  is  that 
where  the  lovers  and  the  warriors  meet  and  part.  There 
alone  God  is  revealed.  Search  as  you  will  in  the  far  East, 
in  the  deserts,  in  the  sea-caves,  you  will  never  find  any 
natural  object  more  verily  occult  than  are  his  love's  eyes 
to  the  lover.  Browning's  mysticism  thus  has  always  an 
essentially  human  object  before  it.  He  therefore  some- 
times depicts,  with  especial  fondness,  the  awakened 
occultist,  who  has  just  learned  where  lies  the  true  secret  of 
our  relations  with  God.  So  it  happened  with  Karshish,  — 

Why  write  of  trivial  matters,  things  of  price 
Calling  at  every  moment  for  remark  ? 
I  noticed  on  the  margin  of  a  pool 
Blue-flowering  borage,  the  Aleppo  sort, 
Aboundeth,  very  nitrous.     It  is  strange ! 

Here  speaks  the  true  occultist.  But  now  there  awakens 
in  him,  unrestrainable,  the  new  insight,  which  the  meeting 
with  the  risen  Lazarus  has  suggested  :  — 


THE  PROBLEM   OF  PAKACELSTJS.  241 

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  heai-t  beats  here ! 

"Face,  my  hands  fashioned,  see  it  in  myself! 

"  Thou  hast  no  power,  nor  mayst  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. 

It  is  the  Christian  mystery  of  tl-ip.  Jpp.fl.rnat.ion  that  is 
here  in  question.  But,  as  we  know,  Browning  was  no 
literally  orthodox  believer,  and  the  essential  truth  of 
Christianity  was,  for  him,  identical  with  his  own  poetical 
faith  that  the  divine  plan  is  incarnate  in  humanity,  in 
human  loves,  and  in  all  deep  social  relationships,  rather 
than  in  outer  nature.  A  similar  train  of  thought  guides 
the  half-conscious  inspiration  of  the  young  David  in  the 
poem  '  Saul,'  as  the  singer  of  Israel  feels  after  the  prophecy 
of  the  Incarnation,  and  reaches  it  at  last  through  a  sort  of 
poetic  induction  by  the  "  Method  of  Residues."  First, 
with  all  the  fascination  of  the  occultist,  though  with  all 
the  frank  innocence  of  the  untutored  shepherd,  David 
ransacks  the  whole  natural  world  for  God.  As  the  youth 
is  an  optimist,  he  meets  here  indeed  with  no  obstacles  to 
his  fancy ;  he  is  troubled  by  none  of  the  natural  mysteries 
that  would  baffle  the  more  technical  occultist;  but  still 
the  story,  even  when  most  rapturously,  sung,  when  fullest 
of  the  comprehension  of  nature's  symbolism,  lacks  the 
really  divine  note.  God  is  somehow  not  quite  revealed  in 
all  this.  And  hereupon  David  struggles,  toils,  pauses, 
hesitates,  —  and  then,  with  one  magnificent  bound  of  the 
spirit,  springs  wholly  beyond  the  world  of  the  occultist  to 
grasp  at  once  the  most  transcendent  of  mysteries  and  the 
most  human  of  commonplaces  :  — 

'T  is  the  weakness  in  strength  that  I  cry  for !  my  flesh  that  I  seek 
In  the  Godhead !     I  seek  and  I  find  it.     0  Saul,  it  shall  be 
A  Face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee  ;  a  Man  like  to  me 
Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by,  forever  :  a  Hand  like  this  hand 
Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life  to  thee !     See  the  Christ  stand  ! 

16 


242  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

It  is  by  the  light  of  this  kind  of  poetic  intuition  of  the 
true  place  of  the  divine  in  our  world  that  Browning,  in 
'Paracelsus,'  lets  experience  criticise  the  occultist. 

VI. 

As  the  hero,  therefore,  of  such  a  critical  poem,  Browning 
chooses  a  mystic  of  the  Renaissance.  This  mystic's  creed 
is,  on  the  whole,  that  of  the  real  Paracelsus,  —  a  neo- 
Platonic  philosophy  of  nature.  The  first  of  its  main 
features,  as  expounded  in  the  dying  speech  of  Paracelsus, 
X/  is  Monism.  God  is  not  merely  above  all,  He  is  through  all 
nature  ;  He  is  included  in  everything.  Then  there  is  the 
v/  symbolism  so  characteristic  of  the  whole  doctrine.  Every 
natural  process  has  a  mystic  meaning.  Everything  is 
alive,  and  has  relations  to  all  other  things.  Further, 
man,  as  microcosm,  is  a  copy  in  miniature  of  the  whole 
universe.  Hence,  in  order  to  understand  man,  as  a  physi- 
cian must  do  in  healing  diseases,  one  must  look  about  in 
all  directions,  without.  Thus  arises  the  need  of  an  endless 
collection  of  special  experiences,  and  hence  also  the  con- 
stant need  of  deep  intuitions  in  order  to  comprehend  the 
maze  of  facts.  Every  speck  expands  into  a  star.  Such  a 
search  means  in  the  end  madness  and  despair.  As  a  fact, 
for  Paracelsus,  the  stellar  world  is  needed  to  explain  all 
sorts  of  phenomena  in  the  lower  regions.  This  view,  and 
the  doctrine  of  "  signatures,"  inspired  all  his  work,  —  and 
poisoned  the  very  life-blood  of  it. 

Browning,  too,  had  his  own  sort  of  mysticism.  He  also 
was  a  monist.  But  the  poet  makes  his  hero  confess  that 
he  "  gazed  on  power  "  till  he  "  grew  blind."  Not  that  way 
lies  the  truth.  He  who  gazes  not  on  power,  but  on  the 
"  weakness  in  strength "  of  the  human  spirit,  he  alone 
finds  the  way  to  God. 

In  the  course  of  the  poem,  Browning  brings  this  occultist 
face  to  face  with  a  spiritual  opponent,  who  tries  to  show 
him  the  truth,  and  in  part  succeeds.  This  opponent  is  a 


THE   PEOBLEM   OF   PARACELSUS.  213 

typical,  a  universally  sensitive,  a  thoroughly  humane  artist. 
The  "  lover "  and  the  "  knower "  of  the  poet  are  thus 
explicitly  the  Artist  and  the  Occultist.  The  doctrine  that 
AjDrile  teaches  is,  first,  that  God  is  love,  and,  secondly,  that 
the  meaning  of  this  doctrine  is  simply  that  God  is  the 
"  perfect  poet,  who  in  his  person  acts  his  own  creations." 
God,  then,  is  related  to  his  world  as  the  true  lover  is  to 
the  desires  of  his  own  faithful  heart,  or  as  the  artist  is  to 
his  own  inspired  works.  This  is,  indeed,  mystic-ism,  and  it 
is  neither  for  the  young  Browning  nor  for  his  characters 
any  highly  articulate  theory  of  the  world,  —  any  technical 
philosophy.  But  it  is  certainly  an  intelligible  and  intui- 
tively asserted  doctrine  as  to  how  to  find  the  divine  in 
experience.  What  it  asserts  is  this :  If  you  want  to  know 
God,  live  rather  than  peer  about  you ;  be  observant  of  the 
moral  rather  than  of  the  physical  world ;  create  as  the 
artist  creates  rather  than  collect  facts  as  the  occultist 
collects  them  ;  watch  men  rather  than  things ;  consider  the 
sjecrets  of  the  heart  rather  than  the  hopelessly  mysterious 
symbolism  of  nature  ;  be  fond  of  the  most  commonplace,  so 
long  as  it  is  the  commonplace  in  human  life,  rather  than  of 
the  most  startling  miracles  of  the  physical  world  ;  discover 
new  lands  in  man's  heart,  and  let  the  deserts  and  the  sea- 
caves  alone  ;  call  nothing  work  that  is  not  done  in  company 
with  your  fellow-men,  and  nothing  true  insight  that  does  // 
not  mean  work  thus  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  your  com- 
rades. All  this,  in  substance,  Aprile  teaches ;  and  this, 
and  nothing  else,  is  what  he  and  Browning  here  mean  by. 
"  Love."  The  parallelism  with  the  later  poems,  '  Karshish ' 
and  '  Saul,'  is  emphasised  in  a  later  edition  of  the  '  Para- 
celsus '  by  the  lines  added  at  the  end  of  Aprile's  dying 
speech :  — 

Man's  weakness  is  his  glory  —  for  the  strength 
Which  raises  him  to  heaven  and  near  God's  self 
Came  spite  of  it :  God's  strength  his  glory  is, 
For  thence  came  with  our  weakness  sympathy, 
Which  brought  God  down  to  earth,  a  man  like  us ! 


244  BOSTON   BRQWSflNG   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

ItUs not  the  power  of  God  as  revealed  in  nature,  but  the 
love  that  in  Him,  as  a  being  who  is  alive  like  us,  links  his 
perfect  life  to  our  striving,  and  lives  in  active  and  passion- 
ate sympathy ;  it  is  this  alone  which  makes  God  compre- 
hensible to  us.  For  only  in  this  attribute  is  He  revealed 
to  us.  His  other  attributes  are,  in  our  present  state  of 
existence,  hopelessly  dark  to  us. 

If  this  is  true,  then  indeed  the  quest  and  the  method  of 
Paracelsus  have  been,  in  Browning's  eyes,  vain  enough. 
Let  us  be  frank  about  it.  The  heroic  speech  of  Paracelsus 
consists  of  tenders  and  not  of  true  pay.  It  is  vainglorious 
boasting ;  and  must  be  regarded  as  such.  Or,  to  speak 
less  bluntly,  it  is  a  pathetic  fallacy.  Paracelsus  does  not 
see  his  way  as  birds  their  trackless  way.  On  the  contrary, 
his  instinct  is  false,  and  his  way,  before  one  reaches  the 
very  moment  of  his  final  dying  enlightenment  and  con- 
fession, is  a  blind  flight  no-whither  through  the  blue.  God 
has  no  need  to  waste  any  hail  or  fire-balls  on  the  case. 
Paracelsus  is  left  to  himself,  and  he  does  not  arrive, 
except,  indeed,  at  that  very  last  moment,  at  the  insight 
that  another  man  ought  to  be  formed  to  take  his  place. 
All  this,  from  Browning's  hopeful  point  of  view,  means  no 
absolute  failure.  Our  alchemist,  amid  all  his  delusions, 
remains  a  worthy  tragic  hero,  devoted,  courageous,  indomit- 
able, enduring,  a  soldier  at  heart.  Even  the  wrath  of  man 
praises  God,  much  more  his  misguided  devotion.  It  is 
this  devotion  that  to  the  end  we  honour  even  amid  all  our 
hero's  excesses.  But  Paracelsus,  as  he  is,  is  a  sincere 
deceiver  of  his  own  soul,  and,  as  far  as  in  him  lies,  he  is  a 
blind  guide  of  his  fellows.  Here,  in  the  contrast  between 
the  truth  that  lies,  after  all,  so  near  to  his  ardent  spirit, 
and  the  error  that  is,  despite  this  fact,  so  hopeless,  is  the 
tragedy.  Were  the  truth  not  so  near,  the  error,  indeed, 
would  not  be  so  hopeless.  Were  the  man  not  so  admirably 
strenuous,  he  might  be  converted  before  his  death-bed. 
He  is  no  weakling,  but  a  worthy  companion  of  Faust. 
Yet  just  herein  lies  his  earthly  ruin. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  PARACELSUS.  245 

VII. 

Let  us  now  apply  the  central  idea  of  the  poem  to  its 
action  in  a  brief  review.  Paracelsus  the  occultist  aspires, 
bids  farewell  to  his  friends,  and  then  sets  out  on  his  great 
quest.  Years  later  we  find  him,  older,  but  hardly  wiser, 
at  the  house  of  the  Greek  conjurer  in  Constantinople, 
where  he  seeks  magic  enlightenment  as  to  his  future. 
The  reply  to  his  request  comes  in  the  shape  of  the  sudden 
meeting  with  that  mysterious  figure,  the  dying  poet  Aprile, 
who  has  come  to  this  place  upon  a  similar  errand  after  a 
life  of  failure.  The  two  men  meet,  and,  in  the  wondrous 
scene  which  follows,  Paracelsus  learns  and,  as  far  as  his 
poor  occult  wit  comprehends  it,  accepts  the  ideal  of  the 
poet,  who  "would  love  infinitely  and  be  loved."  The 
characters  here  brought  into  tragic  conflict,  the  "  lover " 
and  the  "  knower,"  are  the  Artist  and  the  Occultist.  Both 
are  enthusiasts,  both  have  sought  God,  both  have  longed 
to  find  out  how  to  benefit  mankind.  There  is  no  clash  of 
reason  with  sentiment.  On  the  contrary,  neither  of  these 
men  is  in  the  least  capable  of  ever  becoming  a  reasoner ; 
both  are  dreamers ;  both  have  failed  in  what  they  set  out 
to  do.  There  is  no  contrast  of  "  love,"  as  Christian  char- 
ity or  practical  humanitarianism,  with  "  knowledge "  as 
something  more  purely  contemplative.  Aprile  is  no  re- 
former. He  longed  to  do  good,  but  as  an  artist ;  he  longed 
to  create,  but  as  a  maker  of  the  beautiful.  His  ideal 
attitude  is,  in  its  way,  quite  as  contemplative  as  is  that  of 
Paracelsus.  This  "  knower  "  is  a  physician.  This  artist, 
with  all  his  creative  ideals,  longs  to  "  love  "  by  apprehend- 
ing the  works  of  God  as  shown  forth  in  the  passions  of 
man. 

The  real  contrast  lies  in  the  places  where  the  two  men 
have  sought  for  God,  and  in  the  degrees  of  strenuousness 
with  which  they  have  pursued  the  quest.  The  artist  has 
sought  God  in  the  world  of  human  passion,  Paracelsus  in 


246  BOSTON  BBOWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

the  magical  and  secret  places  of  outer  nature.  The  artist 
has  no  cause  to  repent  his  choice  of  God's  abode  ;  God  is,  to 
his  eyes,  even  too  dazzlingly  and  obviously  there  in  human 
hearts,  lives,  forms,  and  deeds.  The  occultist  has  been 
baffled  despite  his  labours.  In  strenuousness,  Paracelsus 
has  had  by  far  the  advantage.  In  this  he  is  indeed  the 
king.  But  had  Paracelsus  combined  Aprile's  ideals  and 
powers  with  his  own  strenuousness,  what  a  kingdom  might 
by  this  time  have  become  his  !  Such  is  the  obvious  signifi- 
cance of  this  wonderful  scene. 

Now  let  us  attempt  an  explanation  of  the  vicissitudes  and 
of  the  degradation  of  our  hero's  later  career.  The  dying 
legacy  of  Aprile  to  Paracelsus  is  the  counsel  not  to  wait 
for  perfection,  but  to  do  what  the  time  permits  while  life 
lasts.  Accepting  this  counsel,  but  very  dimly  apprehend- 
ing the  meaning  of  the  artist's  ideal  of  "  love,"  and  falsely 
supposing  himself  to  have  "  attained,"  where  he  had  only 
vaguely  and  distantly  conceived,  the  occultist  now  resolves 
to  show  his  love  for  mankind  in  more  immediate  practical 
relations  with  them.  The  artist  has  counselled  just  such 
closer  relations,  and  this  is  all  that  Paracelsus  has  been  able 
as  yet  to  comprehend.  The  result  is  the  abortive  life  in 
the  professorship  in  Basel.  To  Paracelsus  it  seems  that  the 
actual  spirit  of  the  dead  Aprile  is  after  all  unable  or  un- 
willing to  do  anything  for  him.  One  preaches  occultism 
to  his  students,  supposing  himself  to  be  acting  in  the  sense 
of  the  artist  who  had  counselled  him  to  get  nearer  to  men's 
hearts.  But  the  words  of  these  lectures  sound  hollow  even 
to  one's  own  ears,  and  so  one  is  driven  to  "  bombast."  The 
few  "crumbs"  of  learning,  picked  up  through  all  those 
years  of  wandering,  appear  now  as  nothing  to  the  mysteries 
still  unlearned.  One  had  not  known,  in  fact,  how  small 
was  one's  store  of  collections  until  after  he  had  burned  the 
books  of  Galen  and  the  rest,  and  then  had  actually  begun 
to  teach.  One  must  now  resort  to  boasting,  charlatanry, 
melancholy,  self-reproach,  and  foreboding.  The  man  is  too 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  PARACELSUS.  247 

ardent  of  purpose  to  admit  in  public  his  own  defect,  but 
too  really  noble  of  soul  to  tolerate  in  the  least  his  own 
charlatanry.  God  is  now  indeed  far  off.  The  artist  said 
that  one  found  him  best  and  most  among  living  men.  But 
in  this  lecture-room  the  poor  occultist,  peer  as  he  will, 
can  discover  with  certainty  only  a  mass  of  fools.  The 
most  occult,  the_darkest,  the  most  fearsome  of  all  the  arts 
turns  out  to  be  the  art  of  pedagogy,  —  the  one  truly  crea- 
tive art  whereby  Paracelsus  could  have  hoped  to  enter 
Aprile's  world. 

The  inevitable  downfall  comes,  and  Paracelsus  is  driven 
from  Basel.  His  indomitable  temper  wins  our  admiration 
even  after  we  have  learned  the  utter  uselessness  of  all  his 
magic  arts.  He  now  gives  us  a  new  version  of  Aprile's 
doctrine  as  he  conceives  it.  In  the  song,  "  Over  the  sea 
our  galleys  went,"  he  depicts  the  hopelessness  of  trying  to 
come  into  close  relations  with  men  by  the  devices  that  are 
within  his  own  reach.  Unlike  the  real  Paracelsus,  he  can 
be  a  poet,  but  not,  like  Aprile,  an  artist  comprehending 
and  depicting  other  men.  In  his  chaos  of  excitement,  in 
his  lamentation  over  his  failure,  —  yes,  in  his  cups,  one 
must  add,  —  he  can  sing  in  verse  his  own  tragedy,  not  the 
meaning  of  any  life  but  his  own.  At  length  he  seems  to 
see  the  truth.  What  Aprile  really  meant  must  have  been 
that  a  man  must  live,  —  a  short  life  and  a  full  one,  in 
loneliness,  in  chaos,  but  at  any  rate  in  a  whirlwind  of 
passion.  Thus  alone  can  one  learn  to  know.  The  occultist 
shall  be  joined  now  with  the  man  of  passion.  Thus,  once 
again,  Paracelsus  aspires. 

An  occultist  must  finish  his  days  magically.  From 
weary  dreams  and  furious  delirium  the  dying  seer  miracu- 
lously arises,  full  of  seeming  vigour  and  of  cool  insight,  to 
tell  to  his  friend  what  knowledge  he  has  attained  at  this 
supreme  moment.  Now  at  last  we  do  indeed  learn  the 
truth.  Paracelsus  has  not  "arrived"  at  what  he  sought, 
an  earthly  mission ;  but  he  now  sees  why  he  has  failed. 


248  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

The  old  mystical  monism  was  right ;  but  as  the  seer  depicts 
it  before  us,  a  new  spirit  has  come  into  it.  The  story  of 
the  world  is  right  as  of  old ;  but  the  artist  alone  had  put 
the  true  interpretation  upon  it.  Could  the  Paracelsus  of 
former  days  but  have  understood  in  his  time  what  love 
meant,  could  he  but  have  known  how  all  the  waves  and 
eddies  of  human  passion,  even  when  they  seem  farthest 
from  the  divine,  reveal  God  as  no  object  in  outer  nature, 
however  wonderful,  can  ever  do,  —  the  occultist  would 
not  have  aspired  in  vain!  He  would  have  been  trans- 
formed, as  the  man  of  the  future  shall  be,  into  the  artist. 
This  is  the  final  message  of  Paracelsus,  and  the  meaning 
of  the  whole  tale. 


'LURIA.' 

BY  JOHN  WHITE  CHAD  WICK. 

[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  Jan.  23, 1894.] 

BEOWNIN  G'S  '  Luria '  appeared  in  1 846  as  the  eighth  and 
last  part  of  '  Bells  and  Pomegranates,'  a  series  which 
began  in  1841  with  '  Pippa  Passes.'  Passes  what  ?  asked 
the  dull  critic ;  and  Alfred  Domett  made  answer,  "  The 
comprehension  of  the  critic,"  though  why  it  should  have 
done  so,  passes  ours.  And  certainly  it  was  not  'Luria' 
that  Browning  sent  to  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge,  and  which 
for  the  most  part  so  baffled  his  intelligence  that  Browning 
said,  "Ah,  well !  If  a  reader  of  your  calibre  understands 
ten  per  cent  of  what  I  write,  I  think  he  ought  to  be  con- 
tent." Not  to  understand  nine  tenths  of  '  Luria '  and  the 
best  part  of  another,  one  must  be  dull  indeed.  And  I  am 
glad  to  treat  of  one  of  those  simpler  works  which  has  in  it 
no  encouragement  for  those  who  like  Browning  because 
they  do  not  like  poetry. 

Jn  the  whole  range  of  the  'Bells  and  Pomegranates,' 
obscurity  was  the  exception,  clearness  was  the  rule.  But 
it  was  too  late.  'Sordello,'  "that  colossal  derelict  upon 
the  ocean  of  poetry,"  as  it  has  been  aptly  called,  had  been 
set  adrift  in  1840 ;  and  like  a  phantom  ship,  it  kept  the 
open  sea  and  scared  away  the  ventures  of  appreciation  that 
might  otherwise  have  given  to  the  poet's  other  craft  a  timid 
and  then  bolder  hail.  How  else  can  we  explain  the  fact  that 
a  succession  of  poems,  related  to  the  genius  of  Browning 
very  much  as  Tennyson's  volumes  of  1842  are  related  to 
the  genius  of  Tennyson,  including  such  dramas  as  '  Pippa ' 


250  BOSTON   BBOWNIXG   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

arid  '  Luria,'  '  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,'  and  '  Colombe's 
Birthday,'  not  to  speak  of  others,  —  such  wonderful  things 
as  '  In  a  Gondola,'  '  England  in  Italy,'  4  Italy  in  England,' 
'  The  Lost  Leader,'  '  How  they  brought  the  Good  News,' 
and  '  The  Pied  Piper,'  —  how  otherwise  than  by  the  bad 
name  of  '  Sordello '  can  we  explain  the  fate  of  Browning's 
reputation  for  a  period  of  twenty  years,  a  fate  so  cruel 
that,  about  1860,  there  was  a  period  of  six  months  for 
which  liis  publishers  could  not  report  a  single  copy  of  his 
poems  sold.  "  There  were  always  a  few  people,"  he  wrote 
in  1865,  "who  had  a  certain  opinion  of  my  poems;  but 
nobody  cared  to  speak  what  he  thought,  or  the  things 
printed  twenty-five  years  ago  would  not  have  waited  so  long 
for  a  good  word  ;  but  at  last  a  new  set  of  men  arrive.  .  .  . 
All  my  new  cultivators  are  young  men  ;  more  than  that 
I  observe  that  some  of  my  old  friends  don't  like  at  all  the 
irruption  of  outsiders  who  rescue  me  from  their  sober  and 
private  approval  and  take  those  words  out  of  their  mouth 
'  which  they  always  meant  to  say  '  and  never  did." 

'  Luria,'  in  its  first  appearance,  elicited  from  Landor  his 
well-known  commendation,  —  praise  which  might  well  con- 
sole the  poet  for  much  popular  indifference.  But  there  is  an 
accent  of  discouragement  and  despondency  in  Browning's 
dedication,  —  "this  last  attempt  for  the  present  at  dramatic 
poetry."  Evidently  he  had  been  "frustrate  of  his  hope  "  to 
write  not  only  great  dramatic  poetry,  but  good  acting  plays. 
Something  of  accident  as  well  as  something  of  inherent 
defect  had  operated  to  this  end  with  '  Strafford '  and  '  The 
Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,'  however  it  may  have  been  with 
'  Colombe's  Birthday.'  Only  these  three  of  his  plays  have, 
I  believe,  been  put  upon  the  stage.  Mr.  Lawrence  Barrett 
once  poured  into  my  private  ear  his  enthusiasm  for  '  The 
Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon '  as  a  good  acting  play,  and  I  think 
he  put  it  on  the  boards  with  some  success.  But  Mr. 
Lawrence  Barrett  always  "  wanted  finer  bread  than  can  be 
made  with  wheat."  He  liked  to  do  the  daring  thing,  to 


'  LURIA.'  251 

assume  an  intelligence  and  ideality  in  the  community  of 
play-goers  equal  to  his  own.  The  mdst  of  us  would  won- 
der less  at  the  failure  of  any  play  of  Browning's  than  at 
its  success. 

'  Luria '  was  never  offered  to  the  managers.  The  char- 
acters and  situations  are  sufficiently  dramatic.  They  are 
intensely  so  ;  but  the  monologues  are  many,  and  the 
thought,  though  clear,  is  so  compact  and  crowded  that 
only  "  the  harvest  of  a  quiet  eye  "  is  equal  to  its  complete 
ingathering.  A  second,  third,  or  dozenth  reading  will  not 
exhaust  its  liberal  reserves  of  beauty  and  its  wealth  of 
moral  inspiration. 

One  of  the  many  readings  ought  to  be  comparative,  taking 
the  first  edition  and  the  last  together.  Such  a  reading 
would  be  instructive  in  regard  to  Browning's  real  or  imagi- 
nary indifference  to  formal  excellence.  We  have  his  own 
satirical  self-accusation :  "  This  bard 's  a  Browning ;  he 
neglects  the  form."  It  does  not  look  so  here.  The  changes 
that  he  made  in  '  Luria '  are,  as  I  count  them,  one  hundred 
and  sixty-two  !  A  few  of  these  may  be  the  two  or  three 
parts  of  the  change  a  single  line  or  phrase  has  undergone. 
It  is  evident  that  he  has  returned  upon  his  work  with 
a  remorseless  hand ;  and  the  changes  will  be  found  to  be 
improvements  almost  every  time.  They  are  few  in  the 
first  and  second  acts ;  many  in  the  other  three.  They 
admit  us  very  intimately  to  the  workings  of  the  poet's  mind 
and  art.  They  are  not  all  for  better  sense ;  a  good  many 
are  for  better  sound. 

The  inquiry  what  relation  Browning's  story  has  to  any- 
thing actual  in  the  course  of  history  is  not  a  very  interesting 
one,  but  it  may  give  us  momentary  pause.  The  results 
attainable  do  but  confirm  our  general  impression  that 
Browning  had  a  true  Shakespearian  indifference  to  the 
mere  facts  of  history,  but  less  dependence  than  Shakespeare 
on  some  legend,  history,  or  play  as  the  initiative  impulse 
of  his  work.  That  Florence  made  up  a  final  and  successful 


252  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

war  against  Pisa  in  1406  is  pretty  nearly  the  sum  total  of 
the  facts  contained  in  '  Luria,'  at  least  so  far  as  I  have  yet 
discovered  in  Trollope's  History,  Von  Reumont's  '  Medici,' 
and  other  books  relating  to  the  time.  The  successful  leader 
of  the  Florentines  in  this  war  was  no  mercenary  soldier, 
but  Gino  Capponi,  —  one  of  the  greatest  of  a  noble  family, 
whose  son  Keri  was  the  historian  of  the  war,  as  was  the 
father  of  the  Ciompi  popular  rising  of  1378.  If  I  seem 
unduly  sensitive  on  this  point,  it  may  be  because  I  lodged 
in  Florence  in  the  Capponi  Palace  on  the  Arno,  just  below 
the  Ponte  San  Trinita,  where  from  my  window  I  could  see 
the  black  scum  from  the  charcoal-burners'  huts  up  in  the 
mountains  (mentioned  in  Browning's  '  By  The  Fireside ') 
come  swirling  down  the  stream,  where  Michel  Angelo  had 
been  a  frequent  visitor  and  had  designed  a  fireplace  for 
some  lady  of  the  house  ;  let  us,  till  we  know  better,  think 
it  was  for  her  wjiom  they  poisoned  at  a  ball  in  the  great 
Strozzi  Palace  just  across  the  bridge,  and  brought  back  to 
die,  I  will  be  bound,  in  our  great  room  where  you  could 
swing  a  cat  of  the  royal  Bengal  tiger  family,  twelve  feet 
from  tip  to  tip. 

As  Luria  cannot  be  identified,  so  cannot  Braccio  or 
Puccio  or  Domizia.  .  But  there  are  circumstances  in  the 
history,  here  and  there,  from  which  the  poet  may  have  got 
a  hint.  Thus,  in  1397,  an  attempt  to  restrict  the  power  of 
the  Albizzi,  the  rivals  of  the  novi  Medici,  ended  in  the  exile 
or  death  of  the  ringleaders,  among  whom  were  some  of  the 
Medici.  Hence,  possibly,  the  suggestion  of  Domizia.  If 
we  cannot  identify  Luria,  we  can  find  facts  in  abundance 
corresponding  to  his  relation  to  the  Seigniory  and  city.  Sir 
John  Hawkwood,  one  of  Fuller's  "  worthies,"  died  in  1394, 
and  he  was  the  most  famous  mercenary  Florence  ever  had 
in  her  employ ;  but  he  was  an  Englishman,  and  was  always 
treated  well,  getting  at  one  time  one  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand  gold  florins  for  not  fighting  on  the  other  side. 
When  he  died,  he  had  a  splendid  funeral,  and  was  buried  in 


« LURTA.'  253 

Santa  Maria  del  Fiore,  where  you  can  see  his  equestrian 
portrait  in  grisaille  by  Paolo  Ucelli,  oh  the  interior  of  the 
facade.  In  1342,  Walter,  de  Brjenne,  another  mercenary 
soldier,  had  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  lower  classes  and 
made  himself  master  of  the  city,  and  so  perhaps  had  lent 
some  argument  to  Braccio's  creed ;  but  to  his  attitude  of 
suspicion  and  distrust  we  have  a  remarkable  correspondence 
in  a  passage  quoted  by  Mr.  Cooke,  in  his  invaluable  k  Guide- 
Book,'  from  Sapio  Amminato's  History.  It  tells  how  three 
commissaries  were  sent  ,wi£h  the  army  against  Pisa,  and 
explains,  "  For  although  we  have  every  confidence  in  the 
honour  and  fidelity  of  our  general,  you  see  it  is  always  well 
to  be  on  the  safe  side.  And  in  the  matter  of  receiving  pos- 
session of  a  city  — .-we  know  the  ways  of  these  nobles  with 
the  old  feudal  names  !  An  Orsini  might  be  as  bad  in  Pisa 
as  a  Visconti,  so  we  might  as  well  send  some  of  our  own 
people  to  be  on  the  spot."  Here  is  a  clue,  a  palpable  clue, 
to  Browning's  situation.  Moreover,  Bartoldo  Orsini,  the 
original  leader  of  the  expedition,  was,  if  not  a  Moorish 
mercenary,  a  Ventusian  captain  in  the  pay  of  Florence. 
Apparently  his  character  justified  the  caution  of  the  Sei- 
gniory in  sending  commissaries  along  with  him,  for  his  com- 
mand was  taken  from  him  and  given  to  another,  one  Obizzo 
da  Monte  Corelli,  and,  finally,  to  Gino  Capponi,  who  brought 
the  enterprise  to  a  successful  termination.  "  When  a  god 
would  ride,"  says  Emerson,  "  anything  serves  him  for  a 
chariot ; "  and  when  Browning  came  upon  this  passage  in 
Amminato,  he  had  one  with  two  horses,  the  Ventusian 
captain  and  the  commissary  spies.  Given  so  much,  any- 
body that  had  a  mind  to  could  write  Browning's  '  Luria.' 
Nothing  was  wanting  but  the  mind. 

If  there  is  little  of  the  mere  fact  of  history  reproduced 
in  '  Luria,'  of  its  spiritual  essence  there  is  no  lack.  As  in 
4  Othello '  we  breathe  the  air  of  Venice,  thick -spiced  with 
Eastern  gums,  —  the  air  that  wafted  Columbus  over  seas, 
the  air  of  brave  adventure  that  blew  everywhere  in  the 


254  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

^-^^r" 
sixteenth  century,  so  insatiably  curious,  so  deep  in  love 

with  wonder  and  surprise,  —  so  in  '  Luria '  we  breathe  the 
air  of  Florence,  as  it  caressed  things  new  and  old  upon  her 
streets,  the  towers,  and  palaces,  and  churches,  Avhich  were 
already  her  delight  five  centuries  ago,  and  still  hold  them- 
selves proudly  up  for  our  felicity.  The  Florence  of  that 
time  had  still  much  history  to  make,  and  much  to  do  in 
architecture,  painting,  sculpture,  to  fill  up  the  measure  of 
our  present  thought  of  her.  Not  without  effort  can  we 
think  of  her  without  Raphael  and  Michel  Angel o  and  Fra 
Angelico ;  without  Savonarola  ;  but  many  other  Florentine 
names  now  famous  were  in  1406  the  names  of  the  unborn  : 
Gozzoli,  Botticelli,  Ghirlandajo,  Mantegna,  Francia,  Barto- 
lommeo.  r/Iasaccio  was  a  baby ;  Fra  Angelico  was  not  yet 
Friar  John,  and  would  not  be  the  angelical  for  a  century 
to  come.  But  Gentile  da  Fabriano  was  some  forty  years 
of  age ;  and  of  all  the  pictures  that  we  know  in  Florence, 
his  '  Adoration  of  the  Magi '  is  the  one  that  would  have 
delighted  most  the  soul  of  Luria  could  he  have  lived  to 
see  its  splendid  pageantry.  It  was  painted  in  1423,  so 
that  my  •"  could  he  have  lived  "  has,  you  will  see,  a  double 
sense. 

And  yet  how  much  that  makes  our  thought  of  Florence 
rich  and  glad  and  wonderful  was  then  already  history  and 
architecture  and  frescoed  wall,  and  beauty  breathing  from 
the  painter's  canvas  and  the  sculptor's  stone !  Dante  had 
been  dead  three  quarters  of  a  century  and  more ;  and  on 
the  narrow  Via  San  Martino  was  the  narrower  house  where 
he  was  born,  much  as  we  see  it  now,  and  only  a  few  rods 
away  was  his  beautiful  San  Giovanni,  the  Baptistery  where 
Dante  was  himself  baptised  in  1265,  though,  as  Luria  saw 
it,  it  had  not  the  "gates  of  Paradise"  which  Ghiberti  was 
commissioned  to  cast  in  1403,  but  did  not  complete  till 
1424  and  1452.  There,  too,  was  the  Bargello,  nearly  half 
a  century  old  ;  and  the  Palazzo  Vecchio,  whose  tower  had 
for  a  century  lifted  up  its  "  tall  flower-like  stem "  to  the 


'  LURIA.'  255 

Italian  sky ;  and  close  to  that  the  New  Palace  of  the  Sei- 
gniory, in  whose  spirit  and  details  the  Renaissance  was 
bursting  into  bloom  ;  and  not  far  away  the  more  beautiful 
Or  San  Michele,  begun  in  1350  and  completed  in  1412 ; 
so  that,  most  probably,  Luria  had  this  in  mind,  when  fore- 
casting the  new  burst  of  art  that  peace  would  bring  upon 
the  trail  of  war  he  prophesied. 

'Gainst  the  glad  heaven,  o'er  the  white  palace-front 
The  interrupted  scaffold  climbs  anew ; 

The  statue  to  its  niche  ascends  to  dwell. 

Best  of  all,  that  thing  of  beauty,  Giotto's  campanile,  which 
has  been  a  joy  for  five  long  centuries,  was  then  the  freshest 
wonder  and  delight,  completed,  as  it  was,  in  1387 ;  albeit 
more  beautiful  to-day  than  it  was  then,  as  everybody  knows 
who  has  compared  the  warm,  rich,  mellow  colour  of  its  in- 
crustation with  that  of  the  Duomo's,  now  but  seven  years 
old.  Wherefore  it  seems  that  Luria  was  not  drawing  on 
the  future  when  he  imagined  "  beautiful  Florence  at  a 
word  laid  low,"  and  caught  his  breath  to  say,  — 

Not  in  her  domes  and  towers  and  palaces, 
Not  even  in  a  dream,  that  outrage ! 

One  dome,  however,  and  the  greatest,  had  not  yet  begun 
to  be,  that  of  the  Duomo  di  Santa  Maria  del  Fiore ;  for 
though  the  church  was  begun  by  Arnolfo,  in  1294,  the 
dome  of  which  Michel  Angelo  said,  "  Better  than  thee  I 
cannot,  but  like  thee  I  will  not,"  was  not  undertaken  by 
Brunelleschi  till  1420,  nor  finished  till  1434.  Of  Luria's 
Duomo  all  that  remains  to  us  is  a  short  stretch  of  wall 
back  from  the  front  on  either  side.  He  had,  you  will 
remember,  — 

his  fancy  how  a  Moorish  front  . 
Might  join  to,  and  complete  the  body,     .     .     . 
A  Moorish  front,  nor  of  such  ill  design. 

He  made  a  charcoal  sketch  of  it  upon  the  curtain  of  his 
tent.  Mr.  Cooke  tells  us  that  a  sketch  for  such  a  front  has 


256  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

actually  been  discovered.  But  neither  Moorish,  Gothic, 
nor  Renaissance  facade  was  built  until  our  day.  Begun  in 
1875,  it  was  finished  in  1886 ;  and  it  is  rich  enough  to 
please  a  fancy  rich  as  Luria's  with  all  the  ardors  of  the 
orient  earth  and  sky. 

The  aesthetic  life  of  Florence  does  not  find  more  apt 
expression  in  the  course  of  '  Luria '  than  its  sharp,  intellect- 
ual subtlety.  That  is  merely  incidental ;  this  is  the  stuff 
of  which  the  character  of  Braccio  is  made.  Machiavelli 
was  not  born  till  1469 ;  but  the  seeds  and  weak  beginnings 
of  the  politics  which  he  embodied  in  '  The  Prince '  had 
long  existed  in  the  State,  controlling  its  domestic  and  its 
foreign  policy  alike,  —  "  the  broad  sure  ground  "  of  Braccio 
that  every  man  was  selfish  at  the  core,  a  knave  at  heart. 
True  to  the  life  also  is  that  idealisation,  that  impersonation 
of  Florence,  as  if  it  were  a  living  creature  to  admire  and 
hate  and  love  and  scorn  and  live  for  or  die  for,  as  the 
need  might  be.  Dante's  great  poem  overflows  with  this 
personification  and  the  appropriate  sentiments  in  heaven 
and  hell  and  on  the  purgatorial  stairs,  as  it  does  also  with 
the  factional  and  party  jealousies  and  hatreds  that  threaten 
to  burn  up  Domizia's  noble  heart. 

But  all  these  things  are  nothing  to  the  one  thing  in 
*  Luria,'  the  play,  that  makes  it  an  unspeakable  possession, 
for  this  is  Luria,  the  man.  In  dramatic  art,  this  kind  of 
thing  is  always  and  unquestionably  the  best,  —  the  creation 
of  a  splendid  personality,  heaven  or  hell  inspired ;  but  if 
of  heaven,  so  much  the  better,  for  it  is  by  the  beauty  of 
holiness,  the  height  of  character,  that  we  are  drawn  to 
better  things  much  more  than  we  are  driven  back  on  them 
by  the  monstrous  vision  of  things  hateful  and  unclean. 
The  tragedy  which  depends  upon  the  poetic  justice  meted 
out  in  the  fifth  act  to  teach  its  moral  lesson,  comes  in  no 
questionable  shape,  as  Shakespeare  used  the  phrase.  It  is 
too  obviously  a  ghost  for  us  to  question  it.  If  Desdemona, 
when  her  Moor  "  puts  out  the  light  and  then  —  puts  out 


*  LTTBIA.'  257 

the  light,"  and  Cordelia  strangled  on  the  breast  of  Lear, 
do  not  allure  us  by  their  intrinsic  qualities,  Shakespeare 
has  failed  of  his  intent.  The  true  function  of  the  drama- 
tist is  to  create  men  and  women  who  think,  speak,  and  act, 
not  as  he  would  have  them,  but  as  they  must,  and  always 
with  the  accent  of  their  individual  life.  When  the  crea- 
tion is  a  personality  that  conquers  us  by  its  intrinsic  grace 
and  charm,  so  that  we  feel  that  we  would  rather  far  be 
such  an  one  in  any  misery  or  distress  than  to  forego  such 
excellence,  then  literature  and  ethics  have  met  together ; 
righteousness  and  art  have  kissed  each  other.  So  have 
they  done  in  Browning's  '  Luria.'  His  Moor  of  Florence 
is  such  a  personality. 

He  has,  it  seems  to  me,  the  reality,  the  solidity,  of  the 
best  dramatic  art.  He  is  no  charcoal  sketch,  like  his  own 
of  the  Duomo,  which  won  Domizia's  approving  smile.  We 
have  no  flat  colour  here,  nor  low  relief,  but  such  modelling 
that  you  can  walk  around  it  and  look  at  it  from  every  side. 
Browning  could  not  have  created  him  without  often  think- 
ing of  the  Moor  of  Venice,  and  we  follow  in  his  steps, 
finding  here  another  large  and  simple  nature,  with  the  breath 
and  freedom  of  the  desert  places  in  his  manners  and  his 
speech.  His  words  drink  colour  up  from  his  own  East. 
His  images  are  all  reversions  to  his  former  state,  as  where 
he  argues  with  himself  in  favour  of  a  faith  built  up  on 
calm  sagacity. 

Such  faith  stays  when  mere  wild  belief  would  go ! 
Yes  —  when  the  desert  creature's  heart,  at  fault         , 
Amid  the  scattering  tempest's  pillared  sands, 
Betrays  its  step  into  the  pathless  drift  — 
The  calm  instructed  eye  of  man  holds  fast 
By  the  sole  bearing  of  the  visible  star, 
Sure  that  when  slow  the  whirling  wreck  subsides, 
The  boundaries,  lost  now,  shall  be  found  again,  — 
The  palm  trees,  and  the  pyramid  over  all. 

The  sun  is  in  his  talk,  as  in  his  blood. 

17 


258  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Ah,  we  Moors  get  blind 
Out  of  our  proper  world,  where  we  can  see  ! 
The  sun  that  guides  is  closer  to  us  !    There  — 
There,  my  own  orb  !     He  sinks  from  out  the  sky ! 

So  in  that  passage  which  is  better  known  than  any  other 
in  the  play,  and  has  done  more  royal  service :  — 

My  own  East ! 

How  nearer  God  we  were !    He  glows  above 
With  scarce  an  intervention,  presses  close 
And  palpitatingly,  his  soul  o'er  ours  : 
We  feel  him,  nor  by  painful  reason  know ! 
The  everlasting  minute  of  creation 
Is  felt  there ;  now  it  is,  as  it  was  then ; 

His  hand  is  still  engaged  upon  his  world. 

In  the  continuance  of  this  splendid  passage,  we  find  that 
Luria,  for  all  his  elemental  largeness  and  simplicity,  is  no 
mere  pulse  of  feeling,  —  no,  nor  was  from  the  beginning. 
He  had  not  escaped  the  fascination  of  the  Tuscan  mind, 
whereby  his  native  hue  of  resolution  had  been  somewhat 
sicklied  o'er ;  but  that  mind  has  drawn  him  from  afar  by 
laying  hold  of  something  in  him  kindred  to  itself.  "  And 
inasmuch,"  he  says,  — 

as  Feeling,  the  East's  gift, 

Is  quick  and  transient  —  comes,  and  lo,  is  gone  — 
While  Northern  Thought  is  slow  and  durable, 
Surely  a  mission  was  reserved  for  me, 
Who,  born  with  a  perception  of  the  power 
And  use  of  the  North's  thought  for  us  of  the  East 
Should  have  remained,  turned  knowledge  to  account, 
Giving  Thought's  character  and  permanence 
To  the  too  transitory  feeling  there  — 
Writing  God's  message  plain  in  mortal  words. 

To  which  Domizia's  answer  is,  and  Browning's  too,  no 
doubt,  that  Northern  Thought  needed  his  Eastern  Feeling 
more  than  this  needed  the  Northern  Thought.  He  is 
one,  — 

Whose  life  re-teaches  us  what  life  should  be : 
What -faith  is,  loyalty  and  simpleness. 


4  LURIA.'  259 

„  Not  only  have  we  in  Luria  "  a  free  and  open  nature 
that  thinks  men  honest  when  they  seem  to  be  so,"  after 
the  manner  of  Othello,  but  in  Braccio  we  have  his  intel- 
lectual antithesis,  as  in  Shakespeare's  play  we  have  lago. 
But  whereas  in  lago's  unmoralised,  unconsecrated  intellect 
we  have  a  badness  so  unmitigated  and  complete  that  we 
have  sometimes  wondered  whether  we  have  here  a  char- 
acter or  merely  the  personification  of  a  quality  of  mind,  in 
Braccio  we  have  a  nature  not  incapable  of  nobleness  nor  of 
responding  to  its  touch.  lago's  love  of  mischief  is  a  love 
of  art  for  art's  sake.  He  has  no  definite  purpose.  He  has 
no  least  anticipation  of  the  hecatomb  of  victims  that  will 
drench  the  altar  of  his  hate.  But  as  he  works  his  scheme, 
the  mischief  has  for  him  an  ever-deepening  fascination. 
He  is  caught  and  hurried  onward  in  the  rush  of  his  own 
ecstasy  of  crime.  But  Braccio's  end  is  clearly  appre- 
hended, and  it  is  a  worthy  end,  —  the  good  of  Florence. 
He  is  devoted  to  her  cause,  her  safety,  her  pre-eminence. 
Nor  does  he  stain  his  fair  intentions  with  foul  acts,  if  I 
may  turn  about  Sir  Thomas  Browne.  He  is  completely  his 
own  dupe.  In  arguing  that  Luria  must  abuse  his  power 
and  victor}^,  he  thinks  that  he  is  going  on  the  broad  sure 
ground,  —  "  the  corruption  of  man's  heart."  Even  if  he 
had  felt  less  confident  of  this,  he  would  have  given  Flor- 
ence and  not  Luria  the  benefit  of  his  doubt.  With  this 
major  premise,  "  Man  seeks  his  own  good  at  the  whole 
world's  cost,"  the  minor  one  need  not  be  much  to  insure 
a  conclusion  fatal  to  the  Moor,  especially  when  this  minor 
premise  is  not  only  compounded  of  such  things  as  Luria's 
simplicity  and  incomprehensible  generosity  (as  where  he 
had  sent  back  Tiburzio's  cohort)  had  furnished,  but  is 
qualified  with  the  necessity  of  making  Florence  safe  .at 
any  cost.  Safe  !  not  merely  from  another  despot,  —  that 
was  not  the  worst,  as  Braccio's  imagination  prefigured  the 
event.  The  worst  was  Luria's  barbaric  force,  so  offensive 
to  his  pride  of  intellect. 


260  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

Brute-force  shall  not  rule  Florence !    Intellect 
May  rule  her,  bad  or  good  as  chance  supplies  :  — 
But  Intellect  it  shall  be,  pure  if  bad. 

Lapo,  his  secretary,  considering  less  curiously,  lei=js  certain 
of  his  major  premise,  so  construing  less  sternly  Luria's 
"  petulant  speeches,  inconsiderate  acts,"  moreover,  without 
Braccio's  passionate  jealousy  for  Florence  and  her  rule  by 
Intellect  alone,  leans  to  the  side  of  Luria  early  in  the 
game. 

That  man  believes  in  Florence  as  the  Saint 
Tied  to  his  wheel  believes  in  God ! 

But  Braccio  is  not  convinced.  He  is  no  more  convinced 
by  Luria's  tearing  of  the  unopened  letter  that  declared  his 
doom.  And  when  he  (Braccio),  acknowledging  the  truth, 
argues  his  case  for  Florence  against  Luria,  we  half  expect 
that  Luria  will  side  with  him  against  himself,  so  evidently 
is  Braccio's  love  of  Florence  and  his  devotion  to  her 
good  the  mainspring  of  his  life.  What  compared  with 
hers  is  any  individual  life  ?  What  had  been  Luria  with- 
out her  ?  So  great  is  Braccio's  confidence  in  his  position 
that  when  Luria  reminds  him  that  he  is  the  captain  of  a 
conquering  army  and  can  call  in  his  troops  to  arbitrate, 
and  asks  Braccio  what  he  will  do  in  that  event,  Braccio 
makes  answer,  — 

I  will  rise  up  like  fire,  proud  and  triumphant 
That  Florence  knew  you  thoroughly  and  by  me, 
And  so  was  saved. 

He  will  make  the  very  stones  of  Florence  cry  against  the 
all-exacting,  noughtrenduring  Luria.  "  Reward !  you  will 
riot  be  worth  punishment."  I  sometimes  wonder  if  this 
mingling  of  the  good  and  bad  in  Braccio's  mind  and  action 
does.,  not  teach  the  most  important  lesson  of  the  play;  if 
here  is  not  the  essence  of  the  tragedy,  as  everywhere  in 
life,  the  "  captive  good  attending  captain  ill,"  the  imper- 
ceptible but  sure  degrees  by  which  the  generous  motive  or 
the  kind!}  disposition  slips  into  the  character  of  vice  and 
crime. 


261 

The  antithesis  of  '  Luria,'  —  the  heart  against  the  head, 
spontaneity  against  reflection,  impulse  against  calculation, 
—  nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  Browning  than  this. 
He  returns  to  it  a  hundred  times.  He  never  wearies  of 
its  illustration.  He  applauds  it  in  '  Ivan  Ivanovitch,'  in 
'  The  Statue  and  the  Bust,'  and  in  *  Cristina.'  Rightly 
interpreted,  as  Mr.  Henry  Jones  has  shown  conclusively, 
the  opposition  between  head  and  heart  is  "  that  between 
a  concrete  experience,  instinct  with  life  and  conviction  and 
a  mechanical  arrangement  of  abstract  arguments."  This 
is  the  antithesis  of  Luria  and  Braccio.  Luria's  feeling, 
heart,  spontaneous  impulse,  is  the  manifold  experience  of 
his  own  and  many  other  lives  concentrated  in  the  vision 
of  the  hour.  His  faith  is  organized  experience,  character 
sublimated  to  nature.  First  thoughts  are  best  in  morals 
because  they  are  the  expression  of  the  total  man,  not  of 
his  mere  logic-chopping  understanding.  When  this  is 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  mandatory  deliverance  of  a  good 
conscience,  it  is  generally  because  the  voice  of  conscience 
seems  too  stern,  and  we  are  seeking  some  excuse  from 
doing  its  entire  behest ;  and  questioning  the  obvious  good 
of  other  men  is  pretty  sure  to  find  the  flaw  it  seeks.  This 
was  what  Jesus  called  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  so 
hard  to  be  forgiven.  Why,  but  because  to  be  forgiven, 
we  must  first  believe  in  the  forgiving  heart.  This  is 
Braccio's  sin.  His  is  that  casuist's  return-  on  the  sim- 
plicity, nay,  the  coherent  unity  of  the  moral  sentiment, 
which  paralyses  faith,  and  which,  as  Browning's  dialectic 
has  so  often  shown,  can  make  white  black,  wrong  right, 
and  heaven  hell.  His  defect,  whatever  Browning  meant 
it  to  appear,  was  not  excess  of  intellect  or  lack  of  heart, 
but  that  he  had  in  him  the  mind  of  Rochefoucauld,  and 
not  "  the  mind  of  Christ." 

And  still  we  dally  in  the  porch  of  'Luria's '  significance 
for  our  moral  life.  Step  we  across  the  threshold  and  look 
up,  and  its  great  dome  overarches  us  like  Brunelleschi's 


262  BOSTON   BBOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

there  on  that  Duomo  in  whose  shadow  Luria  liked  to  see 
the  happy  people  keeping  festival.  What  is  it  but  the 
daily  miracle  of  the  development  of  character  by  the 
influence  of  personality?  This  is  how  virtue  can  be 
taught.  This  it  is  that  wears  the  fine  old  motto  noblesse 
oblige,  but  with  a  difference,  for  it  is  the  nobility  which 
shames  our  weakness  and  complacency  and  compels  us  to 
rise  into  its  height,  compels  us  to  believe  in  nobleness ; 
wish  it  might  be  ours ;  will  it  to  be  so.  But  our  life  is  so 
different  from  that  of  this  mercenary  Moor  fighting  against 
Pisa,  Lucca,  and  Siena  a  hundred  years  before  Columbus 
came,  "  sailing  straight  on  into  chaos  untried " !  Our 
battle-fields  are  such  narrow  ones,  hemmed  in  by  the  four 
walls  of  kitchens,  nurseries,  counting-rooms,  manufac- 
tories, school-rooms,  and  the  like.  Our  enemies  do  not 
come  up  against  us  with  swords  and  spears,  with  musketry 
and  cannon.  They  are  not  foreign  enemies.  They  house 
in  our  own  breasts.  They  are  the  passions  lurking  there, 
—  the  selfishness,  the  greed,  the  anger,  the  revenge,  the 
base  indifference  to  social  good,  the  aimlessness  and  idle- 
ness, the  slack  performance  of  our  daily  work,  our  railing 
accusation  of  the  bad,  as  if  we  knew  what  blasts  had 
blown  upon  them  from  the  tropic  or  the  arctic  zone.  True, 
very  true !  But  Luria's  real  battle-field  was  narrower 
than  any  street  in  Florence,  any  nursery  or  counting-room 
in  Boston  or  New  York.  It  was  his  own  clouded,  rent,  and 
bursting  heart,  —  to  love  Florence  as  Othello  Desdemona, 
and  to  know  that  she  had  played  him  false.  There  are 
such  battles  raging  all  the  time  in  proud  and  humble 
hearts  upon  our  streets,  though  we  do  not  suspect  it, 
except  now  and  then,  when,  with  Emily  Dickinson,  we 

like  a  look  of  agony 
Because  we  know  it  'a  true. 

And  the  help  to  fight  such  battles  comes  from  whence  ? 
From  men  and  women  who  touch  our  lives  in  the  same 
way  as  Puccio's  and  Jacopo's  and  Domizia's  and  Braccio's 


'LURIA.'  263 

were  touched  by  Luria's.  The  circumstances  are  never 
twice  the  same.  The  spiritual  laws  are  as  invariable  as 
those  which  keep  the  stars  from  wrong ;  and  that  which 
Luria  did  somewhere  between  -Florence  and  Pisa,  or 
nowhere  save  in  Browning's  glorious  imagination,  is  being 
done  by  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  whom  no  poet 
ever  sings;  and  that  which  those  plotting  and  counter- 
plotting against  Luria  had  done  for  them  by  his  nobility, 
thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  every  day  are  having 
done  for  them  by  men  and  women  who  are  no  Lurias  in 
their  height  of  circumstance,  but  only  in  their  height  of 
soul.  They  conquer  by  the  vision  of  a  truth  and  good- 
ness whose  beseeching  cannot  be  withstood.  It  is  not 
anything  they  say,  but  what  they  do,  that  is  their  criticism 
on  our  folly,  and  their  invitation  and  incitement  to  the 
higher  things.  The  most  of  us  can  find  such  without 
painful  searching.  We  desire  them,  and  they  are  sitting 
at  our  doors.  One  of  the  best  in  literature  is  Browning's 
Luria.  In  literature  and  life  they  furnish  us  the  incre- 
ments by  which  "  inexhaustibly  the  spirit  grows "  in 
power  and  use  and  happy  faith  in  Nature,  Man,  and  God. 
Let  us  walk,  our  weak  hands  in  their  strong  hands. 

Through  such  souls  alone 
God  stooping  shows  sufficient  of  his  light 
For  us  i'  the  dark  to  rise  by.  And  I  rise. 


'THE  RETURN   OF  THE   DRUSES.' 

BY  GAMALIEL  BRADFORD,  JR. 

[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  April  24,  1894.] 

IT  requires  some  courage  to  present  oneself  as  an  outsider 
and  critic  before  a  company  of  professed  lovers  and  stu- 
dents of  a  poet  like  Browning.  To  appreciate  fully  a 
writer  of  such  breadth  and  volume,  to  get  oneself  into  his 
inner  life,  to  nestle  in  his  brain,  as  Emerson  says  of  Plato, 
it  seems  almost  necessary  to  have  spent  years  in  his  com- 
pany, to  have  grown  up  with  him,  to  have  tried  and  tested 
him  in  all  moods  and  on  all  occasions.  My  own  acquaint- 
ance with  Browning  has  not  been  of  this  nature.  It  has 
been  less  a  gradual  growth  of  insight  into  new  beauty  and 
helpfulness  than  the  result  of  systematic  critical  study; 
and  I  therefore  myself  recognise  in  it  a  tendency  to  insist, 
perhaps  too  strongly,  on  the  literary  side  rather  than  on 
the  emotional  and  moral.  I  do  not  wish,  however,  for  a 
minute  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  Browning's  great 
influence  and  importance  are  largely  owing  to  the  ethical 
quality  of  his  work. 

Of  the  dramas  of  Browning  two  only  are,  properly  speak- 
ing, historical :  '  Strafford  '  and  '  King  Victor  and  King 
Charles.'  '  Paracelsus  '  may  rather  be  called  biographical, 
if  even  that.  In  '  The  Return  of  the  Druses,'  however, 
though  neither  characters  nor  incidents  appear  to  have  any 
historical  foundation,  so  much  reference  is  made  to  the 
manners  and  religion  of  a  very  peculiar  people,  that  I  feel 
it  necessary  to  call  your  attention  first  to  that  portion  of 
my  subject. 


'THE  RETURN  OF  THE  DRUSES.'  265 

The  small  tribe  known  by  the  name  of  Druses  and  in- 
habiting the  southern  part  of  the  region  of  Mt.  Lebanon, 
has  been  for  ages  a  marked  and  distinct  race,  holding  aloof 
equally  from  their  Maronite  Christian  neighbours  and  from 
the  Mohammedan  Turks.  Their  religion  and  history, 
though  they  have  been  made  the  subject  of  a  good  deal  of 
study,  still  remain  involved  in  some  obscurity.  It  is  not 
even  positively  known  from  what  division  of  mankind  they 
originally  sprang.  Though  Arabic  in  speech,  good  authori- 
ties tell  us  that  they  are  not  Arabic  by  blood.  The  tradi- 
tion referred  to  in  Browning's  play,  that  they  are  descended 
from  a  body  of  Crusaders,  led  by  a  wandering  Count  of 
Dreux,  seems  to  be  entirely  unfounded,  and  is  even  ana- 
chronistic as  used  by  Browning,  since  it  was  not  invented 
till  the  sixteenth  century.  They  themselves  have  a  theory 
that  they  are  connected  by  race  with  China,  and  that  many 
devotees  of  their  creed  are  to  be  found  in  that  country. 
The  latest  authority  that  I  have  consulted,  Mr.  Haskett 
Smith,  maintains  in  all  seriousness  that  they  are  the  lineal 
offspring  of  the  Masons  who  built  King  Solomon's  Temple, 
and  instances  in  proof  of  this  that  one  of  them  pressed  his 
hand  with  the  precise  grip  peculiar  to  modern  free-masonry, 
and  seemed  to  be  initiate  in  other  mysteries  of  the  craft. 

Whatever  be  the  origin  of  the  Druses,  the  life  they  lead 
seems  more  closely  akin  to  Semitic  than  to  European 
habits.  They  are  monogamists  in  theory,  but  divorce  is 
very  common  among  them,  almost  as  common  as  in  some 
parts  of  the  United  States. 

The  Druses,  like  the  Arabs  and  other  pastoral  races,  are 
noted  for  their  hospitality.  Every  one  who  has  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  them  dwells  on  this  side  of  their  character. 
At  the  same  time,  while  ever  ready  to  welcome  the  stranger 
and  receive  him  within  their  doors,  they  are  singularly 
uncommunicative  and  reluctant  to  impart  any  of  the 
secrets  of  their  religion.  It  is  this  which  makes  it  so 
extremely  difficult  to  get  at  the  facts  about  them,  and  it  is 


266  BOSTON  BKOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEES. 

only  by  actual  theft  that  enthusiastic  travellers  have  been 
able  to  possess  themselves  of  any  of  the  sacred  Druse 
writings.  In  one  case,  at  least,  the  fanaticism  of  these 
people  was  carried  so  far  that  they  burned  the  house  of  a 
man  who  had  stolen  valuable  manuscripts  in  order  that 
they  might  be  destroyed. 

Nevertheless  the  nineteenth  century  is  persistent  when 
its  curiosity  is  once  aroused,  and  opposition  only  whets  its 
ardour.  It  is  possible  nowadays  to  glean  from  various 
sources  a  fairly  good  general  idea  of  the  Druse  religion 
both  as  to  history  and  as  to  doctrines.  Before  the  actual 
appearance  of  Hakim,  the  way  was  prepared  by  a  schism 
in  the  Mohammedan  religion  caused  by  the  sect  of  the 
Shiis  and  afterwards  developing  in  a  variety  of  forms,  the 
main  tendency  of  which  was  to  refine  and  subtilise 
the  sternly  practical  note  of  the  Koran  by  allegorical  and 
mystical  interpretations.  These  later  abnormal  phases  of 
Mohammedanism  may,  I  suppose,  be  traced  to  the  influ- 
ence of  Alexandrian  Platonism  and  Platonised  Christianity. 
At  any  rate  they  lent  themselves  admirably  to  the  devices 
of  an  ingenious  priesthood,  who  conceived  a  complicated 
system  of  initiation  into  the  profounder  doctrines,  and  by 
means  of  it  worked  upon  the  natural  enthusiasm  and 
credulity  of  the  Oriental  peoples. 

The  especial  doctrines  of  the  Druse  religion  depend, 
however,  upon  what  might  almost  be  called  a  historical 
accident.  In  the  year  1019  the  Khalif  Hakim  Biamrillahi 
began  to  reign  in  Alexandria.  He  offers  us  one  of  those 
instances  in  history  where  an  average  brain  and  heart  come 
into  possession  of  absolute  power  and  are  completely  be- 
sotted by  it,  toppled  over  into  the  very  insanity  of  tyranny. 
In  this  he  was  like  Nero  and  Caligula,  and,  like  them  also, 
he  came,  after  a  few  years  of  supreme  domination,  to 
regard  himself  as  raised  above  the  ordinary  level  of  man- 
kind, as  the  incarnation  of  the  Deity  on  earth.  The 
Oriental  temper,  at  once  more  servile  and  more  fanatical 


'THE  RETURN   OF  THE  DRUSES.'  267 

than  the  Aryan,  enabled  him  to  indulge  this  delusion  with 
far  more  freedom  than  did  his  Roman  predecessois.  We 
are  told  by  the  historian  that  "  those  who  sought  audience 
of  him  were  obliged  to  say  on  entering  his  presence : 
'  Hail,  thou  One  and  only  One,  who  givest  life  and  death, 
who  bestowest  riches  and  poverty.'  Nothing  pleased  him 
more  than  this  salutation.  One  of  his  adulators,  having 
entered  the  place  of  prayer  at  Mecca,  struck  the  black 
stone  which  is  there  with  his  spear,  and  cried  out,  '  O 
fools!  Why  do  you  bow  down  to  and  kiss  that  which 
can  neither  benefit  nor  injure  you,  while  you  neglect  him 
who  is  in  Egypt,  who  has  the  issues  of  life  and  death  in 
his  hands  ?  '  On  one  occasion,  being  exasperated  by 
some  slight  attempt  at  resistance,  "  he  called  together  his 
council  and  the  chief  officers  of  his  army,  and  gave  the 
latter  orders  to  surround  Cairo,  set  fire  to  it,  pillage  it,  and 
massacre  all  its  inhabitants  who  showed  any  resistance. 
The  African  troops  and  his  own  corps  of  slaves  proceeded 
to  execute  his  orders  with  the  greatest  alacrity.  The  in- 
habitants endeavoured  to  defend  themselves,  but  in  vain. 
The  fire  gained  ground  on  all  sides,  and  the  work  of  pillage 
and  massacre  went  on  for  three  entire  days.  Hakim,  in 
the  mean  time,  went  daily  to  the  heights  of  Karafa,  where 
he  could  have  a  good  view  of  the  fighting  and  hear  the 
cries  of  the  combatants.  Coolly  pretending  not  to  know 
what  was  happening,  he  asked  the  standers-by  what  was 
the  cause  of  these  disturbances,  and  on  being  told  that 
the  troops  and  slaves  were  sacking  the  town,  he  exclaimed : 
'  The  curse  of  God  be  upon  them !  Who  gave  them  orders 
to  do  it?'" 

This  interesting  personage  is  the  Messiah  of  the  Druse 
religion,  the  incarnate  Deity  who  is  supposed  to  have  re- 
appeared in  the  Djabal  of  Browning's  play.  Sects  have 
been  founded  by  saints,  by  philosophers,  by  fanatics,  even 
by  voluptuaries  ;  but  I  doubt  whether  there  is  any  record 
of  another  religion  which  has  at  the  bottom  of  it  a  liar,  a 


268  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

murderer,  and  a  maniac  combined.  It  is  to  the  credit  of 
human  nature  that  the  worship  of  Hakim  did  not  survive 
him  in  the  country  which  was  immediately  fresh  and 
smarting  from  his  atrocities,  but  was  only  maintained  in 
the  far  distant  land  of  Lebanon,  where,  under  the  austere 
and  melancholy  cedars,  any  vestiges  of  historical  fact  that 
may  have  lingered  in  it  were  soon  shrouded  in  the  silver 
mist  of  mythical  tradition.  The  first  missionary  who 
preached  this  new  creed  was  Isniael  Darazzi.  Darazzi 
began  by  asserting  Hakim's  claim  to  divinity  in  Cairo,  but 
Mussulman  orthodoxy  revolted,  and  the  enthusiastic  Apostle  - 
was  obliged  to  fly.  He  betook  himself  to  the  Lebanon 
and  there  preached  to  the  Druses,  who,  however,  according 
to  one  tradition,  had  not  before  been  known  by  that  name, 
but  received  it  as  being  followers  of  Darazzi.  This  is  one 
of  the  instances,  like  that  of  Amerigo  Vespucci,  where  a 
name  gets  attached  in  the  wrong  place ;  for  the  Druses  of 
a  later  day  came  to  regard  Darazzi  with  all  possible  de- 
testation, after  he  had  been  anathematised  by  the  later  and 
more  popular  prophet  Hamze'. 

This  Hamze',  more  politic  than  Darazzi,  kept  his  position 
at  Hakim's  side  until  the  death  or  disappearance  of  the 
latter,  and  then  became  the  real  elaborator  and  founder  of 
Hakim-worship.  The  inconvenient  escapades  above  alluded 
to,  which  would  seem  so  inconsistent  with  the  character  of 
a  candidate  for  divine  honours,  were  explained  by  Hamze'  in 
a  mystical  fashion.  "  A  letter  has  reached  me,"  he  writes 
in  one  of  his  works,  "  on  the  part  of  some  of  our  brother 
Unitarians,"  —  the  Druses  are  very  proud  of  the  name 
Unitarian,  —  "  in  which  they  state  certain  remarks  which 
have  been  made  by  some  men  void  of  all  religion,  who  give 
a  licence  to  their  tongues  conformable  to  the  nature  of 
their  works,  as  regards  the  actions  of  our  Lord  and  of  all 
the  things  which  he  permitted  to  be  done  in  his  presence. 
These  actions,  however,  contain  infinite  wisdom  (but  all 
warning  is  thrown  away  upon  them)  and  are  far  different 


'THE   EETUEX   OF   THE   DRUSES.'  269 

from  those  of  this  gross  and  ignorant  world,  whose  works 
are,  for  the  most  part,  but  a  jest  and  a  play.  They  do  not 
know  —  those  persons  —  that  all  the  actions  of  our  Lord 
—  whether  in  play  or  in  earnest,  are  filled  with  infinite 
richness  and  depth,  the  wisdom  of  which  he  will  make 
known  in  his  own  good  time." 

It  would  be,  of  course,  impossible  to  give  in  limited 
space  any  detailed  account  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Druse 
religion.  Those  who  are  curious  on  the  subject  may  con- 
sult the  two  thick  octavo  volumes  which  De  Sacy  has 
devoted  to  it.  The  fundamental  dogma  is  that  the  One 
God  has  no  attributes  whatever.  Intelligence,  Universal 
Intelligence,  is  the  first  of  his  creatures,  but  is  represented 
as  a  creature  only  in  order  that  the  total  lack  of  determi- 
nation in  the  Deity  may  not  be  interfered  with.  The  One 
God  has  appeared  on  earth  in  ten  successive  incarnations, 
of  which  Hakim  is  the  last  and  will  remain  so,  until  he 
himself  re-appears  at  the  appointed  day.  Just  as  the 
Deity  is  incarnated  in  these  various  human  shapes,  so  the 
Universal  Intelligence  also  appears  in  each  successive 
incarnation,  as  an  accompanying  prophet,  and  thus  we 
have  a  place  conveniently  arranged  for  Hamze*.  It  has 
occurred  to  me  that  Browning  may  have  had  this  in  mind 
when  he  introduces  Khalil  in  the  play  as  the  companion  of 
Djabal,  though  I  do  not  remember  anything  that  would 
actually  indicate  it.  The  relation  of  Drusism  to  Chris- 
tianity is  much  that  of  Mohammedanism :  that  is,  Christ, 
though  not  looked  upon  as  properly  divine,  is  given  a  high 
place  in  the  list  of  prophets. 

The  Druses  hold  the  doctrine  of  transmigration,  and  say  — 
curiously  enough  —  that  the  number  of  souls  in  existence 
is  fixed  and  unchangeable ;  and  further  that  the  proportion 
belonging  to  all  religions  is  equally  fixed.  When  a 
Mohammedan  dies,  his  soul  passes  into  another  Moham- 
medan and  a  Christian  into  a  Christian.  But  when  a 
Druse  dies,  his  soul  may,  after  a  life  of  especial  purity  and 


270  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

holiness,  pass  away  from  earth  and  enter  into  an  angel  or 
some  superior  heavenly  being.  On  the  other  hand,  after  a 
debased  and  evil  life,  it  may  have  to  pass  to  some  lower 
animal,  a  dog,  a  wolf,  or  a  tiger.  Thus  they  believe  that 
the  way  of  eternal  life  is  only  to  be  found  in  their  religion  ; 
but  they  hold  that  they  and  they  only  are  in  danger  of 
damnation. 

According  to  Churchill,  whose  book  is  interesting,  though 
extremely  disorderly,  the  Druses  make  use  neither  of 
religious  ceremonial  nor  of  prayer.  The  Ockals,  or  ini- 
tiates, who  are  supposed  to  have  penetrated  all  the  mys- 
teries of  religion,  form,  it  is  said,  about  fifteen  per  cent  of 
the  adult  population,  and  the  remainder,  Jehals,  as  they 
are  called,  simply  obey,  their  refusal  to  give  information 
to  strangers  being  probably  largely  founded  on  their  own 
ignorance.  As  Hotspur  says  :  — 

I  well  believe 

Thou  wilt  not  utter  what  thou  dost  not  know 
And  so  far  will  I  trust  thee,  gentle  Kate. 

Morally  the  Druses  observe  with  considerable  strictness 
the  injunction  laid  upon  them  by  their  religion.  Their 
conduct  in  regard  to  marriage  I  have  already  referred  to. 
The  rest  of  the  moral  law  is  laid  down  in  the  seven  laws, 
which  are  given  with  considerable  differences  in  different 
writers.  You  will  find  a  statement  of  them,  on  apparently 
excellent  authority,  in  the  '  Browning  Cyclopaedia.'  Strict 
and  entire  veracity  is  everywhere  inculcated,  but  the  effect 
of  this  on  the  Western  mind  is  somewhat  diminished  when 
we  find  that  the  law  applies  only  so  far  as  Druses  are  con- 
cerned, and  that  a  considerable  amount  of  dissimulation  is 
permitted  in  dealing  with  outsiders,  the  natural  result, 
alas,  in  a  community  who  feel  that  their  hand  is  against 
every  man  and  every  man's  hand  against  them.  The 
Druses  have  not,  however,  in  general  the  fierce  aversion  to 
Christians  which  characterises  the  Mohammedans;  yet  it 
is  stated  by  one  writer  that  in  spite  of  their  use  of  mission- 


'THE   RETURN   OF   THE   DRUSES.'  271 

ary  schools  and  apparent  sympathy  with  Christian  tenden- 
cies, no  Druse  has  ever  yet  been  converted  to  Christianity. 
The  careful  study  of  Druse  history  and  manners  shows 
itself  everywhere  in  Browning's  play.  For  instance,  when 
in  Act  II.  Anael  in  arraying  herself  for  her  nuptials  puts 
on  the  khandjar,  or  dagger, — 

You  tell  me  how  a  khandjar  hangs  ? 
The  sharp  side,  thus,  along  the  heart,  see,  marks 
The  maiden  of  our  class. 

Churchill  tells  us  that  "Another  ordinance  of  Hakim 
enjoins  all  his  subjects,  great  and  little,  near  or  at  a  dis- 
tance, to  carry  arms  attached  to  their  girdles."  On  the 
other  hand,  when  Djabal  says  of  the  Prefect,  — 

I  discharge  his  weary  soul 
From  the  flesh  that  pollutes  it !    Let  him  fill 
Straight  some  new  expiatory  form,  of  earth 
Or  sea,  the  reptile,  or  some  aery  thing, — 

he  seems  to  be  contradicting  the  belief  above  referred  to, 
that  Druses  alone  enter  into  animals  after  death.  More- 
over, it  is  necessary  to  understand  the  general  character  of 
the  Druse  religion  and  especially  the  prominence  of  the 
traditional  and  deified  Hakim,  in  order  to  appreciate  fully 
the  position  of  Djabal,  who  is  the  central  figure  in  the 
play.  Nevertheless,  there  would  seem  to  be  no  historical 
basis  for  the  stoiy,  and  the  date  left  half-blank  is  sufficient 
evidence  of  an  imaginary  plot.  The  scene  is  laid  on  a 
small  island  of  the  Western  Mediterranean,  one  of  the 
Sporades,  where  a  band  of  Druses,  exiled  from  Lebanon  by 
the  Turks,  have  taken  refuge.  The  island  is  under  the 
control  of  the  Knights  Hospitallers,  who  figure  in  another 
English  drama  of  quite  a  different  character  from  Brown- 
ing's, — '  The  Knight  of  Malta,'  by  no  means  the  poorest  of 
the  great  collection  of  plays  which  goes  by  the  name  of 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  The  government  of  the  Prefect 
appointed  by  the  Hospitallers  has  been  oppressive  and 


272  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

cruel  to  the  last  degree,  and  the  Druses,  driven  to  mad- 
ness, are  just  on  the  point  of  revolting  when  the  play 
opens. 

Nearly  the  whole  of  the  first  act  is  occupied  in  making 
clear  the  situation,- though  with  a  good  deal  of  bustle  and 
vivacity.  Various  subordinate  Druses  are  introduced, 
anxious  to  begin  their  rebellion  by  pillage.  They  are 
checked  by  Khalil,  who  thus  has  an  opportunity  to  repeat  to 
them  and  the  audience  what  has  been  done  for  them  and 
is  to  be  done  by  Djabal,  the  prophet,  the  Messiah,  the  re- 
incarnation of  Hakim,  who  is  to  be  their  leader.  Note 
that  the  same  device  is  employed  by  Shakespeare,  who 
makes  Prospero  in  wrath  chide  the  mutinous  Ariel  by  re- 
calling to  him  details  necessary  to  explain  the  play.  It  is 
one  of  the  many  expedients  invented  by  dramatists  to 
avoid  the  dreary  necessity  of  telling  the  audience  what 
they  ought  to  know,  better  at  any  rate  than  the  bald  pro- 
logues of  Euripides  or  the  eternal  two-gentlemen-meeting  of 
the  lazy  Fletcher.  Toward  the  end  of  the  act  Loys  arrives 
from  Rhodes,  —  Loys,  the  friend  and  foil  of  Djabal  through- 
out the  play,  the  one  Christian  who  is  beloved  by  the  Druses, 
whom  Djabal  has  got  rid  of  on  that  account,  and  who  now 
returns,  —  having  been  appointed  prefect  by  the  Knights 
Hospitallers  and  being  full  of  enthusiastic  hopes  of  bene- 
fiting his  Druse  friends  in  the  future.  This  appointment 
and  these  hopes  Loys  refrains  from  discovering:  it  is  an 
important  element  in  the  action  of  the  play,  but  I  am  not 
sure  that  it  is  wholly  consistent  with  the  open,  boyish  char- 
acter of  Loys,  who  would  be  more  likely  to  proclaim  it  at 
once  and  toss  his  cap  in  the  air. 

Act  II.  brings  us  to  Djabal,  who  is  the  centre-piece  of 
the  play.  I  shall  have  something  to  say  about  him  in 
detail  later  on ;  but  whether  he  be  drawn  successfully  or 
not,  the  whole  interest  turns  upon  the  conflict  in  his  mind 
between  the  desire  to  play  Hakim,  to  be  the  Messiah  and 
Saviour  of  his  people,  and  the  strong  impulse  of  honesty, 


'THE  KETUKN   OF   THE  DRUSES.'  273 

backed  by  the  European  tinge  which  his  nature  has  ac- 
quired by  a  sojourn  in  France  and  in  the  family  of  Loys. 
On  the  stage  his  incessant  self-dissection  could  not  but  be 
wearisome.  Again  and  again  he  falls  into  the  approved 
monologue  strain.  But  here,  as  in  his  other  plays,  Brown- 
ing, with  immense  ingenuity,  contrives  to  relieve  the 
tedium  of  long  speeches  by  melodramatic  management, 
which,  as  Arnold  says  of  the  horn  in  '  Hernani,'  must  thrill 
the  human  nerves  as  long  as  they  are  what  they  are.  This 
combination  of  a  lack  of  real,  comprehensive  action  with 
skilful  stage  effect  is  so  characteristic  of  all  Browning's 
dramas  that  I  must  call  your  attention  to  the  numerous 
examples  of  it  in  this  play.  So,  just  as  Djabal  concludes 
his  long  debate,  deciding  against  his  prophetic  mission,  — 

No  Khalif, 
But  Sheikh  once  more !  mere  Djabal  — not 

[Enter  KHALIL.] 

—  God  Hakeem! 
'T  is  told !     The  whole  Druse  nation  knows  thee,  Hakeem. 

Throughout  the  second  act  Djabal  continues  balancing 
the  situation,  his  agony  being  augmented  by  a  dialogue 
with  Anael,  sister  of  Khali  1,  and  the  devoted  adorer  of 
Djabal  both  as  god  and  man.  A  debate  likewise  goes  on 
in  Anael's  mind  between  these  two  points  of  view,  and 
there  is  an  extraordinary  scene  in  which  the  two  are  repre- 
sented, each  involved  in  a  tempest  of  doubt  and  discussing 
it  in  long  asides,  while  the  play  stands  still.  This  is 
broken  up  by  the  appearance  of  Loys,  again  most  skilfully 
managed. 

Djabal '.    Loys  —  of  mankind  the  only  one 
Able  to  link  my  present  with  my  past, 

Thence  able  to  unmask  me,  —  I  've  disposed 
Safely  at  last  at  Rhodes,  and  — 

[Enter  KHALIL.] 

Khalil.  Loys  greets  thee  ! 

18 


274  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

In  Act  III.  Loys  declares  his  love  to  Anael,  which,  of 
course,  affords  her  a  basis  of  comparison  between  his  frank, 
joyous  manhood  and  the  dubious  deity  of  Djabal.  Then 
the  Prefect  reveals  to  Loys  that  his  own  recall  and  Loys' 
appointment  were  brought  about  at  his  own  desire,  he  hav- 
ing squeezed  the  island  dry  and  being  afraid  of  the  ven- 
geance of  the  Druses,  at  which  Loys  is  naturally  somewhat 
aghast.  The  talk  between  them  concludes  with  another 

o 

piece  of  stage  effect,  when  the  Prefect,  just  going  to  his 
death,  raises  the  arras  and  says,  — 

This  is  the  first  time  for  long  years  I  enter 
Thus  without  feeling  just  as  if  I  lifted 
The  lid  up  of  my  tomb. 

You  will  understand  that  I  am  not  finding  fault  with  this 
sort  of  melodramatic  management.  A  little  of  it  is  very- 
effective,  and  in  writers  professedly  picturesque  and  super- 
ficial like  Scott,  or  Dumas,  or  Calderon,  we  cannot  com- 
plain. But  in  a  writer  who  professes  to  strike  at  once 
right  down  to  the  roots  of  human  nature,  we  do  not  want 
our  attention  distracted  by  —  shall  I  say  pyrotechnics  ? 

As  we  pass  on  to  the  next  act,  the  same  thing  meets  us 
again.  Let  us  take  it  with  Shakespeare  full  in  our  view. 
Djabal,  just  on  the  point  of  killing  the  Prefect,  waits  in 
the  anteroom.  It  is  the  second  act  and  the  great  crisis  of 
'  Macbeth.' 

Djabal.     Round  me,  all  ye  ghosts  !     He  '11  lift  — 
Which  arm  to  push  the  arras  wide  ?     Or  both  ? 
Stab  from  the  neck  down  to  the  heart  —  there  stay ! 
Near  he  comes  —  nearer  —  the  next  footstep  !     Now ! 
[As  he  dashes  aside  the  arras,  ANAEL  is  discovered.} 

Could  any  nerves  forbear  to  thrill  at  that?  And  after- 
wards ?  How  does  it  help  us  the  least  in  the  world  to  get 
at  Djabal's  character,  which  is  all  that  interests  now? 

Anael  has  killed  the  Prefect.  Djabal,  overcome,  con- 
fesses his  falsehood,  the  vanity  of  his  pretensions.  In 
striving  to  be  more  than  man  he  has  become  less.  Anael, 


'THE  RETURN   OF   THE  DRUSES.'  275 

crushed  with  utter  horror,  flies,  after  reproaching  him  bit- 
terly and  threatening  to  tell  the  Druses.  Djabal  deter- 
mines to  persist  in  his  mission.  Lojs  enters  at  last  to 
make  his  ill-fated  revelation.  The  guards  of  the  Nuncio, 
who  has  just  arrived  from  Rhodes,  having  discovered  the 
murder  of  the  Prefect,  arrest  Djabal,  and  Loys,  when  fully 
convinced  of  his  guilt,  rejects  him  utterly. 

Act  V.  opens  impressively  with  a  tumultuous  crowd  of 
Druses  speaking  the  nervous  and  energetic  prose  of  'A 
Soul's  Tragedy.1  The  Nuncio,  with  but  a  very  small 
force,  finds  himself  in  a  very  delicate  position.  Finally  he 
works  on  the  ignorance  of  the  people,  brings  Djabal  before 
them,  and  urges  him  to  prove  his  divinity.  Djabal  retains 
his  courage  and  overawes  them,  till  at  length  Anael  is  pro- 
duced, veiled,  as  his  accuser.  When  Djabal  recognises 
her,  overcome  by  his  better  nature,  he  prepares  to  accept 
his  defeat ;  but  she,  with  one  cry  of  triumphant  anguish, 
salutes  him  Hakeem  and  dies.  The  Druses  are,  of  course, 
more  than  convinced,  the  Nuncio  in  despair ;  and  Khalil 
makes  a  speech  full  of  grovelling  adoration,  imploring 
Hakeem  to  restore  Anael,  a  speech  consistent  enough  with 
character  and  situation,  but  one  of  those  revelations  of  the 
abysmal  depth  of  human  gullibility  which  Browning  some- 
times brings  before  us.  Then,  for  the  first  time,  I  think, 
in  the  play,  Djabal  seems  really  to  take  himself  momen- 
tarily for  Hakeem,  and  upbraiding  the  Druses  with  their 
want  of  faith,  charging  Loys  to  guide  and  lead  them,  turn- 
ing with  a  few  last  words  of  love  and  affection  to  the  body 
of  Anael,  he  plants  the  dagger  in  his  heart. 

The  character  of  Djabal  is,  as  I  have  said,  the  centre, 
the  turning-point  of  the  piece.  Is  he  enough  of  an  Atlas 
to  sustain  so  great  a  weight?  Apparently  Browning 
wished  to  give  us  a  study  of  that  religious  enthusiasm,  not 
to  say  fanaticism,  so  common  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
especially  in  the  Orient,  which  half-educated,  half  intelli- 
gent, obscurely  conscious  at  instants  of  its  own  falsehood, 


276  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

yet  for  the  most  part  is  hurried  by  intense  mystical  feeling, 
by  the  sense  of  a  great  moral  duty  to  perform,  by  the  devoted 
sympathy  of  others,  by  the  sweet  titillations  of  vanity,  to 
the  assumption  of  a  mission  supernatural  and  even  divine, 
which  shall  liberate  and  rejuvenate  the  world.  It  is  a  fasci- 
nating subject,  but  a  terribly  difficult  one,  for  it  is  necessary 
to  steer  narrowly  between  despicable  self-delusion  on  the 
one  side  and  a  hypocritical  self-consciousness  on  the  other. 
Indeed,  most  characters  of  this  description  fall  into  one  pit 
or  the  other  in  real  life,  and  the  history  of  religion  fur- 
nishes a  thousand  maniacs  or  impostors  for  one  Mohammed. 
But,  as  I  understand  it,  Browning  aimed  to  draw  a 
Mohammed,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  he  failed.  If  Djabal 
is  not  a  sheer  impostor,  it  is  only  because  he  is  so  terribly 
afraid  of  being  one.  On  his  very  first  appearance  he  be- 
gins to  discuss  the  inconsistency  of  his  position,  and  con- 
tinues to  do  so  till  he  is  actually  forced  at  the  conclusion 
to  recognise  himself.  He  does,  indeed,  tell  us  in  his  first 
speech  that  he  never  felt  hesitation  or  doubt  in  his  course 
before,  but  that,  though  eminently  convenient  for  the 
dramatist,  is  hopelessly  inconsistent  with  the  overwhelm- 
ing fashion  in  which  the  mood  takes  hold  of  him  later  on. 
Nor  is  his  own  explanation,  that  his  love  for  Anael  first 
made  him  ashamed  of  himself,  sufficient.  Men  of  that 
stamp,  Orientals  especially,  do  not  overset  their  whole 
career  for  love.  Here,  I  suspect,  is  the  whole  root  of  the 
trouble.  Djabal  is  not  an  Oriental.  He  is  a  modern 
Englishman  placed  in  an  anomalous  situation.  He  is,  in 
short  —  Robert  Browning.  When  he  talks  about  "  trans- 
cendental helps,"  when  he  says,  — 

I  learn  from  Europe  :  all  who  seek 
Man's  good,  must  awe  man,  by  such  means  as  these. 
We  too  will  be  divine  to  them  —  we  are  ! 
or,— 

I  with  my  Arab  instinct,  thwarted  ever 

By  my  Frank  policy,  — and  with,  in  turn, 

My  Frank  brain,  thwarted  by  my  Arab  heart,  — 


'THE   RETURN   OF   THE  DRUSES.'  277 

While  these  remaine    in  equipoise,  I  lived 
—  Nothing  ;  had  either  been  predominant, 
As  a  Frank  schemer  or  an  Arab  mystic, 
I  had  been  something,  — 

we  are  listening  to  Browning,  all  Browning,  nothing  but 
Browning. 

But  perhaps  it  will  be  said  that  the  last  passage  gives 
the  real  clue  to  Djabal's  character,  and  that  he  is  not  at  all 
meant  to  be  the  fanatical  enthusiast,  but  rather,  the  doubter, 
who  perceives  a  great  opportunity  and  is  unable  to  seize  it 
—  in  short,  a  Druse  Hamlet.  This  is  certainly  borne  out 
by  his  attitude  all  through  the  play ;  but  I  think  it  is  in 
fact  wholly  inconsistent  with  his  situation.  Hamlet  never 
acts,  has  never  acted.  Action  is  thrust  upon  him,  but  he 
is  wholly  passive,  wholly  unequal  to  it.  Djabal  has  been 
the  heart  and  soul  of  the  Druse  revolt,  has  contrived  every- 
thing, arranged  everything — and  suddenly  he  is  stricken  with 
an  utter  paralysis  and  begins  to  analyse  himself  endlessly  for 
the  benefit  of  the  audience.  The  inconsistency  is  hopeless. 

Now  look  at  Anael.  She  offers  a  strong  contrast  to 
Djabal  both  in  her  eager,  feminine  devotion,  and  in  her 
strong,  unthinking  Oriental  energy,  which  acts  sooner  than 
it  speaks.  This  is  the  main  outline  of  her  character,  better 
preserved  than  that  of  Djabal.  Yet  she,  too,  analyses  her- 
self, she,  too,  is  harassed  with  doubts  as  to  the  single-hearted 
and  religious  quality  of  her  affection  for  Djabal :  — 

My  faith  fell,  and  the  woeful  thought  flashed  first 

That  each  effect  of  Djabal's  presence,  taken 

For  proof  of  more  than  human  attributes 

In  him,  by  me  whose  heart  at  his  approach 

Beat  fast,  whose  brain  while  he  was  by  swam  round, 

Whose  soul  at  his  departure  died  away, 

—  That  every  such  effect  might  have  been  wrought 

In  other  frames,  though  not  in  mine,  by  Loys, 

Or  any  merely  mortal  presence. 

She,  too,  indulges  in  metaphysical  speculation,  interesting 
in  itself  and  appropriate  to  a  young  lady  of  the  nineteenth 


278  BOSTON  BEOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

century,  a  member  of  the  Browning  Society,  but  singularly 
sophisticated  in  an  Oriental  maiden,  — 

Death !  —  a  fire  curls  within  us 
From  the  foot's  palm,  and  fills  up  to  the  brain, 
Up,  out,  then  shatters  the  whole  bubble-shell 
Of  flesh,  perchance. 

To  settle  her  doubts  and  speculations  she  takes  the  best 
(shall  I  say  the  most  feminine  way  ?)  to  settle  all  doubts 
in  this  uncertain  world,  —  action.  She  anticipates  the 
wretched  Djabal  in  killing  the  Prefect.  Then  red-hot 
from  this  murder,  shaken  in  nerve  and  brain,  she  is  met  by 
Djabal's  confession  of  his  own  hypocrisy.  She  refuses  to 
believe  him:  it  is  a  hallucination,  "the  bloody  business 
that  interprets,"  until  she  can  doubt  no  longer.  Rushing 
from  him,  she  refuses  to  have  any  part  in  the  miserable 
cheat.  Her  only  words  when  she  appears  in  the  final 
scene  to  confront  her  former  idol  are  first,  Djabal,  uttering 
her  love  to  him  as  man,  and  then  a  final  cry,  in  which 
wells  out  the  whole  passion  of  her  nature,  Hakeem.  It  is 
not  indicated  to  us  —  nor  is  there  any  reason  why  it  should 
be  —  what  was  Anael's  motive  in  saluting  him  thus  ;  it  is 
natural  to  infer  that  she  was  not  clear  herself  as  to  whether 
the  full  splendour  of  his  divinity  beamed  upon  her  in  that 
supreme  moment  with  no  uncertain  radiance,  or  whether 
she  was  simply  anxious  to  justify  him,  to  secure  his  honour 
and  success  at  the  expense  of  her  own  veracity.  Either 
explanation  would  probably  have  been  regarded  by  Brown- 
ing as  thoroughly  feminine,  if  we  may  judge  from  many 
instances  that  he  has  given  us  of  woman's  devotion.  In 
Anael,  then,  as  in  Djabal,  though  in  a  less  degree,  there  is 
a  very  strong  mixture  of  the  nineteenth  century ;  and  if 
you  wish  to  feel  this  fully,  I  should  advise  reading  Pierre 
Loti's  '  Roman  d'un  Spahi,'  where  you  will  find  the  char- 
acter of  an  Oriental  woman  portrayed  in  a  very  different 
fashion. 


'THE   RETURN   OF   THE   DRUSES.'  279 

Of  the  other  characters  in  this  play  Loys  is  the  most 
important,  and  forms  in  every  respect  a  contrast  to  Djabal. 
Frank,  joyous,  and  boyish,  gentle  and  generous,  the  dis- 
covery of  Djabal's  deceit  is  to  him  as  repulsive. and  dis- 
gusting as  to  Anael.  The  naivete*  of  the  young  knight  is 
perhaps  excessive,  as  is  usual  with  Browning's  heroes,  who 
seem  to  have  walked  through  the  world  with  their  eyes 
upwards,  sublimely  unconscious  of  the  numerous  pitfalls  it 
contains,  and  too  frequently  tumbling  into  them. 

The  Prefect  and  the  Nuncio,  less  prominent  in  the 
action,  are  more  accurate  and  satisfactory  than  the  other 
three  characters.  They  belong,  with  not  very  great  differ- 
ences, to  the  class  of  men  whom  Browning  has  perhaps 
most  powerfully  depicted,  the  Blougrams  more  or  less 
modified,  the  men  who  take  life  and  its  conditions  as  they 
come,  who  aim  not  to  be  moral,  but  to  be  decent  on  the 
outside  and  conform  to  the  conventional.  How  excellent 
is  the  Prefect  stunning  Loys  by  his  infamous  self-revelation ! 

In  order  that  we  may  complete  our  examination  of  '  The 
Return  of  the  Druses,'  I  will  ask  you  to  look  for  a  few 
minutes  at  the  style.  Browning  is  not,  I  think,  sufficiently 
studied  from  this  point  of  view.  Those  who  admire  him 
are  so  engaged  with  the  purely  moral  and  psychological 
side  of  his  work,  that  they  hardly  care  to  pay  great  atten- 
tion to  details  of  execution  and  of  workmanship.  Yet 
surely  it  is  true  of  Browning,  as  of  every  other  poet  and 
writer,  that  all  his  qualities  of  mind  and  thought  are  inti- 
mately bound  up  in  his  manner  of  expression.  This  is  no 
less  universally  true  of  men  of  action  and  of  scientists  than 
of  men  like  Flaubert,  whose  whole  life  is  spent  in  the 
polishing  of  a  few  sentences.  Do  we  not  find  the  swift 
decision  and  the  practical  energy  of  Grant  reflected  in  his 
quick,  strong  language,  and  the  unfailing  sincerity  and 
patience  of  Darwin  in  the  openness  and  perfect  simplicity 
of  his  books  ? 

Metrically  Browning  shows  in  the  play  we  are  consider- 


280  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

ing  the  same  skill  and  resource  as  distinguish  him  always. 
He  is  sometimes  accused  of  harshness  and  roughness  of 
metrical  expression ;  nor  has  he  —  he  does  not  care  to  have 
—  the  liquid  sweetness  of  '  The  Idyls  of  the  King ; '  but 
one  should  bear  in  mind  the  intolerable  monotony  which 
blank  verse  takes  on  in  the  hands  of  one  who  cannot  con- 
trol it,  to  appreciate  the  endless  variety  without  any  feel- 
ing of  effort  of  which  Browning  is  master.  His  dialogue 
has  the  ease  of  conversation,  equally  remote  from  the 
heaviness  of  Marlowe  and  the  jerkiness  of  Massinger. 
Without  falling  into  the  tricks  which  disfigure  the  verse 
of  Fletcher,  he  has  caught  much  of  that  incomparable 
rhetorical  effect,  in  which  Fletcher  is  the  easy  though  un- 
appreciated leader  among  our  dramatic  writers.  Note  the 
magnificent  emphasis  on  the  final  him  in  this  passage, 
where  the  verse  swells  and  falls  like  the  sea  it  expresses :  — 

This  dim  secluded  house  where  the  sea  beats 
Is  heaven  to  me  —  my  people's  huts  are  hell 
To  them  ;  this  august  form  will  follow  me, 
Mix  with  the  waves  his  voice  will,  —  I  have  him  : 

and  here  is  one  in  another  tone,  where  the  bold  welding 
of  the  two  lines  by  the  double-ending  participle  has  a 
magical  effect :  - 

And  see  yon  eight-point  cross  of  white  flame  winking 
Hoar  silvery  like  some  fresh-broke  marble  stone. 

Again,  here  is  a  line  unscannable,  and  just  by  that  very 
thing  immensely  effective  in  its  place,  — 

I  went,  fire  leading  me,  muttering  of  thee. 

But  the  style  in  the  narrower  sense,  the  diction  of  the 
play,  is  curiously  inferior  to  the  verse  ;  and  it  is  on  account 
of  this  contrast  that  I  wish  to  call  your  attention  to  it 
somewhat  in  detail.  We  have  here  and  there  exquisite 
single  lines,  — 

He  'd  tell  by  the  hour 

With  fixed  white  eyes  beneath  his  swarthy  brow 
Plausiblest  stories. 


'THE  KETUKN   OF   THE  DKUSES.'  281 

Where 's  your  tall  bewitcher 
With  that  small,  Arab,  thin-lipped  silver  mouth  ? 

They  pass  and  they  repass  with  pallid  eyes. 

And  there  are  fine  and  striking  passages.  Perhaps  the 
most  striking  in  itself  is  that  at  the  beginning,  from  which 
I  quoted  above.  There  are  others,  like  the  concluding 
speech  of  Djabal,  which  have  immense  dramatic  effect ; 
but  even  that  speech,  taken  in  detail,  is  rather  weak  than 
strong.  And  so  with  almost  all  the  longer  passages :  they 
fail  in  themselves  to  seize  you,  to  carry  you  away ;  they  are 
marred  and  blurred  by  defects  of  expression.  In  the  first 
place  there  is  an  astonishing  amount  of  what  is  sensational, 
of  what  Arnold  calls  "  Surrey  melodrama,"  meaning,  I 
suppose,  something  like  his  own  inconceivable  "  tyrannous 
tempests  of  bale."  I  have  picked  out  a  few  samples  from 
many.  Loys'  — 

Thus  end  thee,  miscreant,  in  thy  pride  of  place. 

On,  Druses,  be  there  found 
Blood  and  a  heap  behind  us,  — 

Khalil's  anti-climax, 

Break 

One  rule  prescribed,  ye  wither  in  your  blood, 
Die  at  your  fault. 

After  withering  in  one's  blood,  whatever  that  may  mean, 
mere  dying  seems  a  little  pale. 

But  occasional  slips  in  this  direction  are  not  all.  One 
can  find  them  in  Victor  Hugo,  a  master  of  words.  One 
can  find  them  in  Shakespeare.  What  is  more  serious  is 
the  lack  of  grasp  on  language  as  a  whole,  tliinness,  pale- 
ness, bloodlessness. 

Loys,  the  boy,  stood  on  the  leading  prow, 
Conspicuous  in  his  gay  attire. 

It  is  feeble. 

How  lone  a  lot,  though  brilliant,  I  embrace. 

And  Djabal's  great  speech  at  the  climax,  which  I  have 
already  placed  beside  Macbeth's  — 


282  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

Round  me,  all  ye  ghosts !  He  '11  lift  — 
Which  arm  to  push  the  arras  wide  ?  —  Or  both  1 
Stab  from  the  neck  down  to  the  heart  —  there  stay  ! 

But  why  should  n't  it  stay  there ;  where  should  it  go  ? 
When  every  word  of  Shakespeare  is  crowded  and  overflow- 
ing with  force,  Browning's  words  seem  almost  superfluous. 
And  still  more  trying  than  this  weakness  and  mere  lack  of 
color,  is  the  introduction  of  a  word  or  phrase  positively 
jarring  and  discordant.  Perhaps  Djabal's  "  transcendental 
helps  "  is  rather  dramatically  than  literarily  improper,  but 
what  shall  we  say  of,  — 

No  majesty  of  all  that  rapt  regard,  — 

or,— 

and  yet  have  no  one 
Great  heart's  word  that  will  tell  her,  — 

or,— 

In  that  enforced,  still  fashion,  word  on  word,  — 
or, — 

Whose  brain,  while  he  was  by,  swam  round,  — 

or,  — 

That  banner  of  a  brow,  — 

or  lastly  Anael's  preposterous, 

And  obstacles  did  sink 
And  furtherances  rose  ? 

Some  of  these  might  almost  be  called  Browningisms,  — 

No  majesty  of  all  that  rapt  regard. 

And  yet  have  no  one 
Great  heart's  word  that  will  tell  her, 

and  may  not  appear  so  objectionable  to  others  as  to  me.  I 
know  many  will  regard  them  as  of  no  importance  one  way 
or  the  other.  But  I  think  that,  occurring  as  frequently  as 
they  do,  they  suggest  very  interesting  generalisations  as 
to  literary  characteristics  that  are  much  more  important. 
Before  leaving  the  subject  I  wish  to  call  attention  to  one 
short  passage.  I  shall  make  no  comment  on  it,  but  simply 
commend  it  as  a  subject  for  study,  containing,  as  I  think 


'THE  RETURN  OF   THE   DRUSES.'  283 

it  does,  in  a  brief  space  many  of  the  excellences  and  defects 
of  Browning's  style.  It  is  the  passage  in  which  Anael 
addresses  Djabal  after  discovering  his  deceit :  — 

Hakeem  would  save  me.    Thou  art  Djabal.     Crouch ! 
Bow  to  the  dust,  thou  basest  of  our  kind  ! 
The  pile  of  thee  I  reared  up  to  the  cloud  — 
Full,  midway  of  our  Fathers'  trophied  tombs, 
Based  on  the  living  rock,  devoured  not  by 
The  unstable  desert's  jaws  of  sand,  — falls  prone, 
Fire,  music,  quenched  :  and  now  thou  liest  there 
A  ruin,  obscene  creatures  will  moan  through. 

Almost  every  word  of  that  passage  might  be  analysed  with 
profit. 

Hitherto  I  have  confined  myself  to  '  The  Return  of  the 
Druses,'  the  work  of  Browning  which  I  was  requested  to 
discuss  ;  but  the  observations  I  have  made  may,  I  think, 
be  readily  extended  to  all  his  other  plays.  If  we  leave 
aside  '  Paracelsus '  and  '  Pippa  Passes,'  which  are  hardly 
plays  in  the  technical  sense,  they  all  —  'A  Blot  in  the 
'Scutcheon,'  '  Colombe's  Birthday,'  'King  Victor  and  King 
Charles,'  '  Luria '  —  turn  in  the  main  upon  some  moral 
debate,  some  knot  of  difficulty  in  the  principal  character, 
which  makes  that  character  the  real  central  point  of  inter- 
est, and  which  also  involves  long  monologues,  to  the  great 
detriment  of  the  movement  of  the  piece.  But  —  and  here 
is  the  noticeable  point  —  any  tediousness  which  might  re- 
sult from  this  is  relieved  by  such  admirable  touches  of 
theatrical  effect  as  we  have  seen  all  through  '  The  Return 
of  the  Druses.'  Opinions  may  differ  as  to  the  legitimate- 
ness  of  these  effects,  as  to  their  literary  value,  but  I  would 
recommend  to  your  attention  the  remarks  of  Mr.  Sharp  on 
'  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,'  which  I  should  be  inclined  to 
extend  to  Browning's  other  dramas.  You  will  find  it 
stated  by  Mr.  Sharp  that  Dickens  declared  that  he  knew 
no  love  like  that  of  Mildred  and  Mertoun,  no  passion  like 
it,  no  moulding  of  a  splendid  thing  after  its  conception 
like  it,  and  that  the  author  of  '  David  Copperfield '  affirmed 


284  BOSTON  BROWNESTG   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

that  he  would  rather  have  written  this  play  than  any  work 
of  modern  times.  Dickens  was  a  most  facile,  versatile, 
and  ingenious  writer;  but  to  be  thus  praised  from  his 
standpoint  seems  to  me  one  of  the  hardest  pieces  of 
Browning's  fate. 

As  to  the  characters  on  whom  this  dramatic  edifice  is 
reared,  they  strike  me  as  in  general,  like  Djabal,  interest- 
ing suggestions,  conceptions,  but  not  equal  in  finish  or 
force  to  sustain  the  burden  that  is  laid  upon  them.  Let 
pass  Mildred  and  Mertoun ;  but  are  Colombe  and  Valence 
much  better  ?  Are  they  struck  and  stamped  down  into  the 
solid  flesh  of  human  nature  ?  Is  not  Valence  just  a  little 
—  niais,  as  the  French  say  ?  In  the  crisis  of  his  feeling,  he 
too  is  pale,  like  Djabal :  — 

The  heavens  and  earth  stay  as  they  were ;  my  heart 
Beats  as  it  beat :  the  truth  remains  the  truth. 
What  falls  away,  then,  if  not  faith  in  her  ? 
Was  it  my  faith,  that  she  could  estimate 
Love's  value,  and,  such  faith  still  guiding  me, 
Dare  I  now  test  her  ?  —  or  grew  faith  so  strong 
Solely  because  the  power  of  test  was  mine  ? 

And  Charles  and  Victor?  D'Ormea  especially  is  but  a 
weak  reflection  of  the  Richelieus  and  the  Bismarcks,  or 
the  Machiavellis,  whom  Browning  apparently  sought  to 
depict.  Domizia  is  one  of  the  most  vigorous  sketches  in 
any  of  the  plays;  but  Luria  is,  after  all,  a  stage  Moor. 
Put  him  beside  Othello,  whose  savage  nature  shows  in  the 
quick  sweep  of  his  unreflecting  passions,  not  in  sentimental 
reflections  like  these  :  — 

Feeling  a  soul  grow  on  me  that  restricts 

The  boundless  unrest  of  the  savage  heart ! 

The  sea  heaves  up,  hangs  loaded  o'er  the  land, 

Breaks  there  and  buries  its  tumultuous  strength ; 

Horror,  and  silence,  and  a  pause  awhile : 

Lo,  inland  glides  the  gulf-stream,  miles  away, 

In  rapture  of  assent,  subdued  and  still, 

'Neath  those  strange  banks,  those  unimagined  skies. 


'THE  RETURN  OF  THE  DRUSES.'  285 

The  truth  is  —  strangely  enough  —  that  Browning's 
plays,  with  all  their  brilliancy  and  versatility,  do  not  give 
us  characters  that  take  possession  of  us  and  dwell  with  us, 
as  do  the  characters,  not  of  Shakespeare  only,  but  of  Beau- 
mont or  Massinger,  of  Sterne  or  Fielding,  of  Scott  or 
Thackeray.  Of  all  the  glories  of  English  literature  this  is 
the  greatest,  from  Chaucer  to  Meredith,  the  endless  fertility 
in  the  creation  of  living  men  and  women ;  yet  Browning, 
with  all  his  command  of  human  nature,  has,  in  his  purely 
dramatic  works,  increased  this  multitude  but  very  little. 

Nor  should  I  hesitate  to  generalise  what  I  have  said  on 
'  The  Return  of  the  Druses '  in  regard  to  style.  Every- 
where through  Browning's  plays  we  find  passages  of 
dramatic  effectiveness ;  much  less  often,  I  think,  passages 
of  flawless  and  satisfying  beauty,  such  as  the  bewitching 
line,  — 

Like  a  late  moon,  of  use  to  nobody. 

On  the  other  hand  we  do  find  frequently  an  infelicity  of 
language,  that  tendency  to  mar  fine  situations  by  insipid 
or  inadequate  expression,  on  which  I  have  already  dwelt  at 
large.  The  bit  in  '  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon '  which  drew 
Mr.  Sharp's  criticism  is  an  example  among  many.  Mildred 
forgives  Thorold  thus  :  — 

You  've  murdered  Henry  Mertoun !    Now  proceed ! 
What  is  it  I  must  pardon  ?    This  and  all  ? 
Well,  I  do  pardon  yon  —  I  think  I  do. 
Thorold,  how  very  wretched  you  must  be ! 

In  all  the  plaj-s,  as  in  '  The  Return  of  the  Druses,'  the  com- 
mand of  rhythm  is  noticeable  and  the  metre  varied  with 
infinite  ingenuity  and  skill. 

Browning's  plays  form  but  a  small  part  of  his  poetical 
work,  and  of  the  rest  I  am  neither  called  upon  nor  com- 
petent to  speak  in  detail.  I  should  like,  however,  to  touch, 
in  closing,  upon  a  few  points.  In  the  first  place  I  think  it 
important  to  observe  how  much  Browning  was  master  of 
the  art  of  dramatic  construction  and  management,  which  I 


286  BOSTON  BEOWNESTG   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

have  already  alluded  to.  '  The  Ring  and  the  Book '  may 
perhaps  be  regarded  constructively  as  a  tour  de  force,  and 
most  readers  probably  weary  at  the  repetition  of  the  story,  in 
spite  of  the  study  of  human  nature.  Yet  this  danger  is 
avoided  with  extraordinary  skill,  those  points  which  are 
dwelt  on  at  length  in  one  narrative  being  touched  lightly 
in  another,  while  new  ones  are  developed  instead ;  and  in 
the  hands  of  any  ordinary  writer  the  book  would  have 
gained  as  much  in  tediousness  as  it  would  have  lost  in 
penetrative  insight ;  though  I  venture  to  observe  that  the 
method  of  proceeding  was  discovered  long,  long  before 
Browning.  In  the  '  Clarissa  Harlowe '  of  Richardson  we 
have  the  same  alternate  display  of  different  points  of  view 
without  the  danger  of  repetition.  But  in  his  later  long 
poems  Browning's  skill  in  construction  appears  fully,  — 
'The  Red  Cotton  Night  Cap  Country,'  'The  Inn  Album.' 

Again,  the  metrical  excellence  of  Browning's  work  as  a 
whole  is  even  more  admirable  than  that  of  his  plays.  To 
say  that  he  has  not  the  lyrical  grace  of  Temryson  or  Swin- 
burne would  be  beside  the  mark:  he  had  no  need  of  it. 
But  for  variety,  for  endless  fertility  of  rhythmical  resource 
in  English  metre,  not  even  Swinburne  can  approach  him. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  Alexandrine  of  '  Fifine  at  the  Fair,' 
a  measure  never  used  before  but  once  for  a  long  poem  by 
any  English  poet;  and  compare  the  variety  and  ease  of 
Browning,  his  masterly  use  of  the  csesura,  with  the  sturdy 
monotony  of  Drayton's  '  Polyolbion ; '  and  the  dancing, 
lilting  rhythm  of  '  The  Flight  of  the  Duchess,'  scintillating 
with  rhyme  more  ingenious  than  that  of  even  Butler,  or 
Swift,  or  Byron,  is  just  as  perfect  in  a  very  different  kind. 

On  the  other  hand,  what  I  have  said  of  Browning's  style 
in  the. plays  would  hardly  hold  for  general  application. 
In  his  later  work  the  inadequacy  largely  fades  away,  and 
gives  place  often  to  a  broad,  firm  touch,  though  sometimes 
to  what  seems  like  wilful  confusion. 

We  are  left  with  the  question  of  character,  and  on  that  I 


'THE  HETUKN   OF   THE  DKUSES.'  287 

shall  not  venture.  The  monologue  of  Browning,  though 
not  particularly  new  (for  how  does  it  differ  from  the 
soliloquy,  which  has  been  a  staple  in  the  dramatic  and 
story-writing  market  since  literature  began  ?),  received  at 
his  hands  so  novel,  so  elaborate  a  treatment,  covers  such  a 
variety  of  subjects,  that  it  seems  almost  like  the  creation 
of  a  new  poetical  world.  Who  can  resist  '  Fra  Lippo,'  or 
'  Blougram,'  or  '  The  Death  in  the  Desert,'  or  a  host  of 
others  ?  Yet  one  feels  just  a  little  doubt  about  the  method. 

I  had  the  pleasure  of  being  present  at  one  of  your  meet- 
ings in  the  earlier  part  of  the  season,  when  a  paper  was 
read,  which  pleased  me  very  much,  dealing,  however,  more 
with  the  moral  than  with  the  literary  side  of  Browning's 
work.  I  was  especially  interested  in  the  discussion  that 
came  afterwards.  Something  in  the  weather  or  the  conditions 
seemed  to  set  every  one  apologising  for  Browning  and  insist- 
ing on  his  exclusive  preoccupation  with  ethical  rather  than 
with  aesthetic  questions.  And  I  remember  your  President 
said  that  Browning  was,  to  be  sure,  ethical,  but  that  this 
was  an  ethical  age,  and  why  should  not  he  be  ethical  in  his 
way  as  others  in  theirs  ? 

Now  this  is  a  delightful  point,  for  the  whole  question  is 
about  the  way.  This  is  an  ethical  age,  a  scientific,  critical, 
psychological  age  ;  and  most  readers,  wishing  to  get  at  the 
intellectual  kernel  of  things,  reject  a  poetic,  artistic,  imagi- 
native husk,  which  hampers  and  obscures  their  vision. 
The  superficial  philosophy  of  the  Augustan  Age  and  the 
eighteenth  century  could  afford  to  dress  itself  in  the  grace- 
ful turns  of  Horace,  and  Addison,  and  Pope.  The  fashion- 
able youth  rolled  it  under  his  tongue  like  a  choice  morsel, 
went  his  way,  and  forgot  what  manner  of  man  he  was. 
But  to-day  people  are  intensely  in  earnest  and  terribly 
hurried ;  they  are  almost  universally  impatient  of  poetical 
expression  even  for  the  very  metre.  Browning's  one 
great  interest  and  object  is  said  to  have  been  the  study  of 
the  human  soul.  Well,  I  will  tell  you  where  you  can  find 


288  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

this  carried  out  after  the  fashion  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
without  poetical  ornament,  simply,  psychologically  :  in  the 
'  Lundis '  of  Sainte-Beuve.  Sainte-Beuve,  too,  was,  above 
all  things,  interested  in  the  human  soul.  "  I  botanise,"  he 
said,  "I  am  a  naturalist  of  souls."  He,  too,  wrote  mono- 
logues after  his  fashion;  for  he  constructed  his  articles 
largely  of  skilfully  arranged  quotations  from  books  and 
letters  of  the  characters  he  studied.  The  true  difference 
between  Browning  and  Sainte-Beuve  lies  in  this :  Sainte- 
Beuve  was  actuated  by  scientific  curiosity ;  good  and  bad 
were  often  no  more  than  names  to  him ;  what  he  cared  for 
was  the  endless  play  and  variety  of  human  nature.  Brown- 
ing was  pre-eminently  moral,  always  moral;  all  mankind 
are,  for  him,  sharply  divided  into  good  and  bad,  and  he 
shudders  with  fascinated  horror  at  the  wicked. 

It  is,  then,  precisely  the  way  in  which  Browning  gives  us 
his  ethical  study  that  is  doubtful.  Can  critical,  scientific 
thinking  ever  embody  itself  successfully  in  poetry  ?  But, 
at  the  same  time,  the  supreme  greatness  of  Browning  lies 
in  this  very  thing.  The  genius  of  his  time  split  itself  into 
two  great  branches  :  one  confining  itself  to  hard,  cold,  clear 
intellectual  research,  to  plain  prose,  the  other  shutting 
itself  off  in  a  musical,  imaginative  world,  the  Parnassus  of 
the  French  poets,  a  literary  ivory  tower,  as  Flaubert  ex- 
presses it,  out  of  the  hurry  and  bustle  of  steam  and  rail- 
roads and  evolution  and  socialism  and  the  dust  and  dirt  of 
common  human  life.  Browning  alone  threw  himself  man- 
fully into  the  gap,  proclaiming  that  poetry,  the  best  birth- 
right of  man,  should  not  succumb,  and  be  lost;  that  it 
should  be  now,  as  formerly,  the  medium  of  all  that  was 
best  and  most  profoundly  important  in  human  life.  It  is 
for  this  effort  and  this  determination,  gospel  one  may 
almost  call  it,  that  he  holds  a  place  apart  from  other  poets, 
and  is  the  most  striking  poetical  phenomenon  of  this 
closing  nineteenth  century. 


'MR.   SLUDGE,   THE  MEDIUM.' 

BY  FRANCIS  B.  HORNBROOKE. 

[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  Dec.  18,  1894.] 

BEFORE  writing  '  Mr.  Sludge,  the  Medium,'  Browning 
had  given  his  readers,  in  '  Caliban  upon  Setebos '  and 
in  '  Bishop  Blougram's  Apology,'  similar  studies  of  the 
philosophy  of  life,  as  based  upon  certain  phases  of  con- 
dition and  character.  These  poems  are  not  to  be  regarded 
as  attacks  upon  any  system  of  religious  thought,  but  rather 
as  attempts  to  disclose  the  way  in  which  some  theories  of 
things  originate  and  develop. 

No  Roman  Catholic,  for  example,  will  blame  our  poet, 
or  think  it  necessary  to  answer  him,  on  account  of  Bishop 
Blougram.  For  he  is  not  set  forth  as  an  exemplar  of  his 
faith,  but  only  as  an  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  some 
natures  might  seek  to  justify  their  relation  to  it,  and  their 
acceptance  of  it.  Every  Roman  Catholic  is  not  a  Bishop 
Blougram,  any  more  than  every  Roman  Catholic  is  the 
Pope  of  '  The  Ring  and  the  Book.'  The  man,  and  not  the 
faith  he  professes,  is  the  real  object  of  the  poet's  consider- 
ation. A  true  faith  may  be  held  in  an  untrue  way,  or  may 
be  maintained  by  dishonest  methods,  or  based  upon  un- 
worthy motives.  A  great  religion  may  be  so  apprehended 
and  applied  as  to  make  it  seem  mean  and  trivial,  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  a  poor  religion  may  be  ennobled  and 
magnified  by  the  use  to  which  an  earnest  and  sincere 
nature  puts  it.  To  depict  a  character  who  holds  certain 
opinions  is  not  necessarily  either  to  condemn  those  opinions 

19 


290  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

or  to  approve  them ;  it  is  merely  to  estimate  the  influence 
of  the  personal  factor  upon  them.  For  this  reason,  it 
would  be  a  mistake  to  regard  '  Mr.  Sludge,  the  Medium,' 
as  merely  an  attack  upon  spiritism,  or  as  an  expression  of 
the  poet's  dislike  of  it.  As  a  man,  indeed,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  as  to  what  Browning  thought  of  it.  Anybody  who 
cares  to  know,  can  easily  learn  that  he  hated  it,  and  had 
no  patience  with  his  wife's  hankering  after  it.  Whether 
in  this  he  was  right  or  wrong  it  is  not  necessary  for  us  to 
decide.  To  the  students  of  Browning's  poetry  it  is  indeed 
a  matter  of  no  special  importance.  They  are  concerned 
with  what  he  has  done  or  tried  to  do  in  his  poem,  not  with 
his  individual  sympathies  or  antipathies. 

Viewed  in  this  way,  'Mr.  Sludge,  the  Medium,'  is  no 
more  an  assault  upon  spiritism  than  '  Bishop  Blougram's 
Apology '  is  an  argument  against  Roman  Catholicism.  I't 
contains  neither  praise  nor  dispraise  of  the  belief  in  spirit- 
ual communications,  but  is  to  be  read  as  a  careful  study 
of  an  unworthy  representative  of  that  belief.  The  most 
that  can  be  said  of  the  poem  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
spiritist  is  that  the  opinion  is  implied  in  it  that  the  belief 
in  spiritism  is  responsible  for  the  nurture  and  growth  of 
Sludges.  But  what  of  that?  -  F,vpry  belief7  like  every 
-inn.n)  Vmq  t.hft  refect  of  Jts  qualities.  We  may,  so  far  as 
the  consideration  of  the  poem  is  concerned,  leave  out  all 
discussion  of  the  merits  or  demerits  of  spiritism,  and  con- 
centrate our  attention  upon  Mr.  Sludge.  He  is  big  enough 
to  fill  our  vision  and  occupy  our  thoughts  for  a  while. 

Nor  ought  we  to  blame  Browning  too  severely  because 
this  study  of  Sludge  has  not  the  poetic  merit  of  '  Caliban 
upon  Setebos '  or  of  '  Bishop  Blougram's  Apology.'  We 
do  indeed  have  a  right  to  think  it  would  have  been  better 
if  he  had  not  attempted  Sludge  as  a  poetic  subject.  We 
cannot  imagine  Tennyson  doing  so,  or  even  thinking  of 
doing  so,  for  a  single  moment.  But  Tennyson  is  not  law 
for  Browning,  any  more  than  Browning  is  law  for 


'ME.    SLUDGE,    THE   MEDIUM.'  291 

Tennyson.  At  any  rate,  Browning  has  seen  fit  to  select 
Sludge  for  his  use,  and  has  done  his  "  human  best "  with 
him,  and  has,  perhaps,  succeeded  almost  as  well  with  him 
as  some  of  his  critics  might  have  done.  To  have  made 
him  as  poetic  as  Caliban  or  Bishop  Blougram,  was  mani- 
festly impossible.  The  material  of  Sludge  was  incapable 
of  being  fashioned  in  the  same  way.  Caliban  is  pictur- 
esque in  his  monstrosity,  and,  like  a  pug-dog,  seems 
beautiful  almost  by  reason  of  his  surpassing  ugliness. 
Bishop  Blougram  belongs  to  an  historic  church,  rich  in 
grand  traditions,  impressive  by  reason  of  sacred  and 
beautiful  associations.  He  himself  is  endowed  with  an 
imposing  personality.  He  is  affable,  courteous,  learned, 
and  subtle.  In  any  conflict  of  wits  he  is  not  likely  to 
come  out  second  best.  Much  as  he  says,  we  cannot  help 
feeling  that  he  could  say  a  great  deal  more.  Both  these 
characters,  then,  are  capable  of  poetic  treatment.  But 
poor  Sludge  is  of  another  and  very  different  order. 

To  begin  with,  he  appears  before  us  in  a  most  humiliat- 
I  ing  position.  He  is  in  a  state  of  pitiable  contrition ;  not 
only  has  he  cheated,  but  what  is  still  worse,  for  him,  he 
has  been  caught.  He  protests  that  it  is  the  first  time,  and 
that  it  would  not  have  happened  then  if  he  had  not  mis- 
taken the  champagne  for  Catawba,  or  if  some  spiteful  spirit 
'had  not  led  him  astray.  His  patron,  it  is  easy  to  see  from 
the  indications  in  the  poem,  is  terribly  angry.  Although 
Sludge  pleads  by  the  memory  of  the  sainted  mother,  he 
has  no  mercy.  Despite  all  his  grovelling,  Sludge  finds 
him  implacable.  Then  Sludge  shows  another  side  of  his 
nature.  He  grows  ugly,  and,  like  a  rat  at  bay,  he  turns 
and  tries  to  bite,  — 

Go  tell  then,  who  the  devil  cares 
"What  such  a  rowdy  chooses  to  — 

But  his  strength  is  not  equal  to  his  spite.  He  is  helpless 
in  the  firm  grip  of  Hiram  H.  Horsefall  —  what  a  mouthful 
for  the  poetic  muse !  —  and  his  abusive  outpouring  is 


292  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

stopped  by  fingers  that  seem  to  pierce  his  windpipe.  Most 
assuredly  Sludge's  first  appearance  does  not  win  him  any 
favour.  He  is  neither  dignified  nor  impressive.  And  the 
portraiture  of  him  throughout  the  poem  shows  him  to  be 
a  most  despicable  personage.  He  is  ready  to  bully,  to 
swagger,  and  to  fight  with  any  lie  he  can  devise.  He  will 
betray  even  the  cause  he  professes  to  serve,  if  only  Horse- 
fall  will  let  him  go  with  the  presents  and  the  "  V-notes." 

Then,  too,  how  ignorant  he  is !  He  does  not  know  the 
difference  between  person  and  Person.  He  spells  Bacon 
with  a  "  y  "  and  a  "  k,"  and  places  him  in  the  times  of 
Oliver  Cromwell.  He  thinks  Herodotus  wrote  his  works 
in  Latin,  —  so  they  were  not  all  Greek  to  him.  Of  course, 
ignorance  is  not  a  sin.  Many  a  good  man  does  not  know 
any  more  about  historical  personages  than  Sludge.  Only 
the  other  day  I  heard  of  a  most  excellent  man  who  asked 
the  keeper  of  the  house  of  John  Knox,  through  which  he 
was  being  shown,  where  that  eminent  divine  was  preach- 
ing now.  But  a  man  who  is  a  knave  and  also  an  igno- 
ramus is  like  a  bitter  pill  without  the  sugar-coating,  — 
harder  to  swallow. 

Then,   according  to   his   own   confession,    Sludge   is  a 
coward.     He  is  unable  to  tell  the  truth.     He  craves  noto- 
'  riety,  and  loves  flashy  clothing  and  big  dinners.     He  re- 
grets all  this,  but  he  does  not  seem  to   find  any  means 
I  of  deliverance  from  it,  —  in  fact,  he  does  not  seem  to  have 
I  agonised  much  to   do   so.      Nor   is   there   any  sense   of 
gratitude  in  the  man,  unless  with  the  cynic  we  define  it  as 
an  expectation  of  favours  to  come.     He  is  always  asking, 
"  How  much  can  I  get  out "  of  people  ?     He  crouches  like 
a  whipped  spaniel  at  Horsefall's  feet,  and  kisses,  or  tries  to 
kiss,  his  hand  with  thankfulness  ;  and  then  the  moment  he 
is  out  of  sight  he  shakes  his  fist  at  him,  and  begins  to  de- 
vise malicious  lies  about  him,  and  to  call  him  a  brute.     To 
his  face  he  calls   Horsefall's  mother  a  saint;  behind  his 
back  he  calls  her  a  hag.     He  takes  money  from  the  man 


'MR.    SLUDGE,    THE   MEDIUM.'  293 

he  hates.  He  whimpers  and  whines,  but  does  not  repent. 
His  tears  are  often  in  his  voice,  but  never  in  his  heart. 
In  short,  Sludge  lives  before  us  an  unwholesome,  slimy 
creature,  who  crouches  and  fawns,  and  then  turns  and 
rends  the  hand  that  feeds  him.  Is  it  any  wonder  that 
Browning  did  not  make  him  more  poetical  ? 

Sludge  is  indeed  a  poor  specimen  of  human  flesh,  —  one 
of  the  very  smallest  of  God's  mercies.  He  has  none  of  the 
qualities  which  sometimes  render  a  rascal  lovable.  He 
is  neither  strong  nor  beautiful.  Smarter  than  Caliban, 
he  lacks  his  honesty.  No  more  worldly  than  Bishop 
Blougram,  he  has  none  of  his  ability.  And  yet  he  is  not 
altogether  unworthy  our  study  or  the  pains  which  a  great 
psychological  poet  has  taken  with  him.  Even  poor  Sludge 
has  some  value  for  us.  We  are  learning  in  these  days  that 
nothing  exists  too  humble  or  too  mean  for  the  considera- 
tion of  man.  What  God  allows  to  be,  must  be  well  for  us 
to  know.  If  the  naturalist  devotes  years  to  the  ear  of 
a  mouse,  why  should  we  be  unwilling  to  give  a  few  hours 
to  the  study  of  the  whole  of  even  a  poor  sort  of  man  ? 
Why  study  a  bug,  and  refuse  to  study  a  humbug?  And 
if  the  psychologist  investigates  the  abnormal  and  diseased, 
in  the  hope  that  he  may  thus  attain  to  clearer  insight  into 
the  normal  and  sound,  may  not  we  also  realise  more 
vividly  what  truth  and  honesty  are  by  tracing  the  sinuous 
career  of  a  perverse  nature  like  Sludge's? 

We  need  not  like  Sludge,  nor  admire  him ;  but  we 
ought  to  understand  him,  because  he  too  is  part  of  the 
whole  to  which  we  ourselves  belong.  But  it  may  be  said : 
"  This  is  true  so  far  as  the  studies  of  naturalist,  physiol- 
ogist, or  psychologist  are  concerned ;  but  poetry  contem- 
plates something  quite  different.  The  poet's  time  and  art 
ought  to  be  occupied  with  something  better  than  the 
portrayal  of  the  unpleasing  and  detestable.  Poetry  should 
not  be  sacrificed  to  any  such  endeavour.  In  fact,  there  is 
no  chance  here  for  poetry  at  all."  Well,  if  one  makes  a 


294  BOSTON    BKOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

definition  of  what  poetry  ought  to  be,  and  with  what  it 
ought  to  concern  itself,  it  will  be  easy  enough  for  him  to 
pronounce  judgment.  The  only  trouble  is  that  somehow 
or  other  the  works  of  the  poets  themselves  compel  constant 
revision  of  all  our  definitions.  Critics  have  been  con- 
structing them  age  after  age,  and  changing  them  to  suit 
new  conditions.  Not  seldom  the  poet  has  compelled  the 
critic  to  enlarge  and  modify  his  rules  of  poetry.  New 
conditions  and  other  minds  create  new  standards.  The 
poetry  of  to-day  has  always  seemed  defective,  —  indeed, 
hardly  poetry  at  all  to  those  whose  rules  are  derived 
from  the  usages  of  yesterday.  "  This  will  never  do,"  said 
Jeffreys  of  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth ;  but  it  has  done. 
"  This  will  not  do,"  the  critic  may  say  of  '  Mr.  Sludge, 
the  Medium ; '  but  it  is  probable  that  the  poem  will  be 
included  in  the  conception  of  poetry  which  is  steadily 
gaining  ground  in  our  day,  and  which  the  poem  itself  may 
be  a  factor  in  forming.  Whether,  then,  '  Mr.  Sludge,  the 
Medium,'  is  good  poetry  or  not  must  depend  upon  the 
definition  of  poetry  which  will  finally  be  approved,  or 
upon  the  taste  which  tends  to  produce  that  definition. 

It  is  useless  to  discuss  the  question  whether  this  work 
is  good  poetry  or  not.  Time  alone  can  fully  decide  that. 
For  myself,  I  am  willing  to  confess  that  there  is  much 
that  is  unpleasing  to  me  in  the  poem.  Its  sentences  are 
often  abrupt  and  unfinished,  and  its  structure  is  rude. 
After  having  read  '  Mr.  Sludge,  the  Medium,'  many  times, 
I  cannot  recall  a  really  great  line  or  a  passage  which  a 
reader  might  select  for  recitation.  It  will  not  bear  com- 
parison with  much  that  Browning  has  written.  No  one 
would  claim  that,  if  this  were  his  only  poem,  it  would 
give  him  a  high  r^ce  among  our  great  English  poets. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  it  has  the  quality  of  permanent 
interest.  But,  for  all  that,  ?lt  poem  has  a  strange  fasci- 
nation for  me,  which  rcF«.  -°adings  only  deepen. 
Others  may  not  be  able  to  i  hould  care  for  it; 


'ME.    SLUDGE,    THE   MEDIUM.'  295 

but  that  may  be  not  so  much  my  fault  as  their  misfortune. 
That  some  people  cannot  enjoy  what  I  do,  does  not  in  the 
least  degree  concern  me.  I  am  under  no  obligation,  in 
such  matters,  to  justify  my  likes  or  dislikes,  and  I  am 
sure  I  could  not  do  it  if  I  tried. 

Suppose  we  grant  the  absence  of  poetic  charm,  does 
not  the  dramatic  interest  make  large  compensation  ? 
Sludge  certainly  lives  before  us  in  the  poem.  We  know 
him ;  indeed,  we  can  see  him.  He  is  not  agreeable,  but 
he  is  palpable;  he  is  no  abstraction,  but  a  creature  en- 
dowed with  reality.  Even  his  companion,  Hiram  H. 
Horsefall,  though  he  never  speaks  a  word  in  the  whole 
course  of  the  poem,  makes  a  vivid  impression  upon  the 
reader.  Sure]y  a  work  so  full  of  dramatic  life  as  'Mr. 
Sludge,  the  Medium,'  ought  not  to  be  lightly  passed 
over. 

And  now  for  the  thought  of  the  poem :  its  main  object 
is  to  unfold  Sludge's  philosophy  of  life ;  it  is  not  Brown- 
ing's philosophy,  but  simply  his  statement  in  explicit  form 
of  the  philosophy  implied  in  Sludge's  constitution  and 
character.  Perhaps  this  might  have  been  taken  for  granted 
were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  students  of  Browning  some- 
times make  him  responsible  for  all  the  opinions  of  his 
characters,  and  condemn  him  for  teaching  a  view  of  things 
which  he  has  only  sought  to  describe. 

Sludge's  philosophy  is  based  upon  the  common  belief 
that  there  is  another  life  after  this, — 

.    .    .    there 's  a  world  beside  this  world, 

With  spirits,  not  mankind,  for  tenantry ; 

That  much  within  that  world  once  sojourned  here, 

That  all  upon  this  world  will  visit  there, 

And  therefore  that  we,  bodily  here  below, 

Must  have  exactly  such  an  interest 

In  learning  what  may  be  the  ways  o'  the  world 

Above  us,  as  the  disembodied  folk 

Have  (by  all  analogic  likelihood) 

In  watching  how  things  go  in  the  old  home 

With  us,  their  sons,  successors,  and  what  not. 


296  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Spirits  are  reported  to  have  appeared  to  people  in  the  past. 
If  so,  then  why  not  now  as  well  as  in  Bible  times  ?  If 
Samuel's  ghost  appeared  to  Saul,  one's  brother  may  appear 
to  him  (Sludge)  to-day.  In  this  way  he  seeks  to  establish 
the  historic  relations  of  his  faith  in  the  revelations  of  the 
spirits  who  have  departed  to  those  who  still  remain. 
He  professes,  it  will  be  seen,  no  unusual  faith,  but  one 
which  has  been  more  or  less  held  from  time  immemorial. 
The  good  people  about  him  profess  to  believe  that  such 
communications  were  once  actual :  why  should  they  not 
be  so  here  and  now  ?  Perhaps  the  presence  of  those  who 
have  gone  before  may  not  be  manifested  in  the  same  way. 
Different  times  and  circumstances  may  call  for  different 
methods.  These  revelations,  whatever  they  may  have 
once  required,  now  demand  the  peculiar  man,  with  the 
adequate  endowment.  In  our  day  we  need  the  medium, — 
"  the  seer  of  the  supernatural ; "  and  Sludge  is  just  the 
man  for  his  day.  So  far — allowing  the  validity  of  his 
premises,  as  the  majority  of  people  do  —  Sludge  occupies 
logically  impregnable  ground.  What  has  happened  once 
may  happen  again ;  and  it  is,  to  say  the  least,  not  unreason- 
able to  suppose  that,  if  we  inhabit  a  spiritual  universe,  and 
if  in  that  universe  the  spirits  of  the  departed  are  ever 
around  us,  there  may  be  those  who  are  fitted  by ; their 
organisation  to  hold  intercourse  with  them.  So  far  Sludge 
deserves  no  censure.  It  may  well  be  that  here  we  have 
one  who  is  only  more  sincere  and  consistent  in  his  appli- 
cation of  the  prevailing  faith  than  those  about  him  ;  one, 
too,  who  honestly  believes  that  in  the  peculiarity  of  his 
nature  he  has  a  divine  indication  of  the  service  he  is  to 
render.  The  defect  in  Sludge  is  not  in  his  belief,  strange 
I  and  improbable  as  it  may  appear  to  many,  but  in  the 
I  attitude  in  which  he  stands  toward  that  belief.  He  is 
not  to  blame  for  his  faith  in  the  manifestation  of  the  spirits 
of  the  dead  to  the  living,  or  even  in  his  conviction  of  his 
special  function  to  mediate  between  the  two,  to  see  what 


'MR.   SLUDGE,    THE   MEDIUM.'  297 

others  could  not  see.  That  faith,  for  all  we  know,  might 
be  perfectly  true,  and  it  is  one  in  which  myriads  of  the 
best  men  and  women  have  lived  and  died.  He  might 
easily  be  mistaken  as  to  the  nature  and  scope  of  his 
capacity ;  but  very  good  people,  who  have  done  service  for 
which  the  world  is  grateful,  have  been  equally  mistaken. 
|  The  real  fault  of  Sludge  is  that  he  makes  this  faith  of  his 
'subservient  to  his  selfish  individual  interests.  He  attempts 
to  read  life  without  reference  to  any  sense  of  righteousness. 
He  sees  everything,  not  in  the  clear  light  of  the  law  of 
right,  but  in  the  confusing  light  of  his  personal  wants  and 
wishes.  Caliban  viewed  life  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
nature  that  loved  physical  pleasure.  Bishop  Blougram 
read  it  from  the  standpoint  of  a  man  who  relished  the 
comfortable  and  convenient.  But  Sludge  views  all  things 
with  an  eye  single  to  his  own  profit.  In  his  philosophy 
the  universe  revolves  about  himself,  and  is  designed  to 
secure  him  what  he  wants.  So  he  cries,  — 

What  do  I  know  or  care  about  your  world 
Which  either  is  or  seems  to  be  ?     This  snap 
O'  my  fingers,  sir !    My  care  is  for  myself ; 
Myself  am  whole  and  sole  reality 
Inside  a  raree-show  and  a  market-mob 
Gathered  about  it :  that 's  the  use  of  things. 

Never  has  the  idealism  of  selfishness  been  reduced  to 
lower  terms.  The  world,  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  stars 
revolve  —  for  Sludge  !  They  were  there,  perhaps,  for 
other  incidental  purposes,  but  in  the  main  to  serve  him. 
Nothing  is  too  great  to  indicate  his  smallest  action,  — 

If  I  spy  Charles's  Wain  at  twelve  to-night, 
It  warns  me,  "  Go  nor  lose  another  day, 
And  have  your  hair  cut,  Sludge !  " 

Nothing  is  too  trivial  to  contain  its  direction  for  his  guid- 
ance. What  is  required  of  him  is  to  study  the  signs.  He 
must  always  be  on  the  look-out  with  those  smart  eyes  of 
his  to  find  "the  influences  at  work  to  profit  Sludge." 


298  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Providence  works  for  him  not  merely  in  the  movement  of 
a  planet,  but  in  the  boiling  of  a  tea-kettle,  in  the  flight  of 
pigeons,  in  the  dime  that  sticks  in  his  pocket  with  a  hole 
in  it.  God  is  behind  the  smallest  objects:  therefore  he 
thinks  himself  "  the  one  i '  the  world,  the  one  for  whom  the 
world  was  made."  Out  of  this  view  of  things  comes  his 
view  of  religion,  — 

Religion  's  all  or  nothing ;  it 's  no  mere  smile 
O'  contentment ;  sigh  of  aspiration,  sir  — 
No  quality  o'  the  finelier-tempered  clay 
Like  its  whiteness,  or  its  lightness ;  rather,  stuff 
0'  the  very  stuff,  life  of  life,  and  self  of  self. 

To  that  we  may  assent,  —  and  do,  in  some  sense  of  our 
own.  Viewed  in  that  way,  the  lines  are  true,  and  even 
attractive.  But  when  we  interpret  them,  as  we  must, 
from  the  Sludgian  standpoint,  all  the  charm  dies  out  of 
them,  and  we  see  that  in  that  conception  of  it  religion  is 
only  an  eager  and  constant  search  among  the  objects  of 
existence  for  what  will  help  one  to  get  on.  Regarded  in 
that  way,  Sludge  is  right  when  he  declares  that  he  is  more 
religious  than  Horsefall.  If  religion  consists  in  looking 
everywhere  and  all  the  time  for  what  may  be  to  one's 
advantage,  he  cannot  be  accused  of  unfaithfulness  to  his 
ideal.  If  that  is  religion,  then  Sludge  deserves  a  place  in 
the  calendar  of  the  saints. 

But  in  looking  about  him  so  carefully  and  so  micro- 
scopically for  the  signs  and  omens  to  guide  him,  it  is 
remarkable  that  he  never  once  asks  whether  these  will 
lead  him  into  the  knowledge  of  what  is  right,  or  enable 
him  to  do  it.  TbP™*  ;s  no  consciousness  on  his  part  of  any 
jieed  of  moral  direction  or  strengthening.  Everything  is 
to  teach  him  how  to  succeed  in  his  dubious  plans;  but 
nothing  seems  ordained  to  help  him  to  tell  the  truth  or  to 
behave  like  an  honest  man.  What  a  strange  theodicy  is 
that  in  which  a  planet  floats  in  space  to  warn  a  man  to 
cut  his  hair,  but  in  which  nothing  even  hints  that  the 


'MR.   SLUDGE,   THE  MEDIUM.'  299 

universe  is  straight,  and  that  a  crooked  man  can  by  no 
means  be  fitted  into  it !  The  only  key  Sludge  has  to 
open  the  way  to  the  secrets  of  the  universe  is  his  smart- 
ness. He  never  looks  within  to  ask  whether  he  ought  to 
cheat,  but  he  puts  apple-pips  in  his  eyes,  and  lets  the 
chance  of  which  one  sticks  or  falls  decide  whether  he  will 
cheat  or  not  the  next  man  he  meets. 

Sludge  claims  that  he  fulfils  a  necessary  mission  in  the 
world.  He  brings  together  the  scattered  facts  which  his 
peculiar  endowment  enables  him  to  perceive,  and  so  makes 
the  miraculous  the  commonplace.  But  granted  that  his 
claim  is  a  just  one,  he  does  not  even  hint  that  it  will 
provide  any  help  for  righteous  living.  He  emphasises 
only  the  advantage  to  which  it  entitles  Sludge. 

Sometimes,  however,  it  happens  that  the  facts  are  not 
sufficient,  —  more  are  needed  to  satisfactorily  demonstrate 
the  fact  of  immortality.  What  shall  be  done  when  these 
are  lacking  ?  A  truthful  nature  would  say,  "  Wait  until 
we  have  them."  Not  so  Sludge  :  he  never  thinks  of  truth, 
but  always  of  the  comfort  which  an  assured  belief  in  im- 
mortality will  give.  By  all  means  make  everybody  happy. 
That  will  help  people  over  the  hard  places,  and  make  them 
think  they  are  walking  on  solid  ground,  —  which  is  just 
the  same  as  if  one  were  walking  on  it.  A  tissue  of  lies 
can  help  the  traveller  over  dizzy  heights  as  well  as  one 
built  on  the  granite  of  fact.  Truth  needs  a  lie  to  leaven 
it,  to  make  it  go. 

Put  a  chalk-egg  beneath  a  clucking  hen, 
She  '11  lay  a  real  one,  laudably  deceived, 
Daily  for  weeks  to  come     .     .     . 
.     .     .     Every  cheat 's  inspired,  and  every  lie 
Quick  with  a  germ  of  truth. 

Sludge  at  last  concludes  that  he  is  a  public  blessing. 
Life  seems  so  flat  and  meaningless !  Opportunity  comes 
when  we  cannot  use  it;  and  when  we  are  able  to  do  so, 
then  the  opportunity  is  gone.  We  are  strong  when  we 


300  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

" '  |  are  not  wise,  and  wise  when  we  are  not  strong.  What 
is  our  knowledge  of  the  life  to  come  ?  Often,  at  the  best, 
that  we  know  nothing.  Then  comes  Sludge,  and,  with 
good  help  of  a  little  lying,  — 

You  find  full  justice  straightway  dealt  you  out, 
Each  want  supplied,  each  ignorance  set  at  ease, 
Each  folly  fooled. 

Why  hesitate  to  lie,  then,  when  men  may  so  easily  be 
made  sure  of  what  they  wish  to  believe?  Then  all  the 
sceptics  are  liars :  why  not  defeat  them  by  lying  on  your 

(own  side,  and  so  make  the  truth  stronger  against  them  ? 
And  then,  too,  he  is  not  the  only  liar.  In  this  world  of 
falsehood  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  lie  in  sheer  self- 
defence.  He  claims  that  he  is  no  more  of  a  liar  than  the 
poets  and  the  historians,  who  are  praised  for  their  im- 
aginative genius.  They  lie  to  be  interesting ;  he  for  the 
comfort  of  others  and  his  own  profit.  That  is  all  the 
difference  he  thinks  there  is  between  them. 

We  all  know  what  to  say  to  such  a  conscienceless  plea 
as  this.  We  know  Sludge  is  wrong,  all  wrong,  and  that 
his  philosophy_is  only  a_  theory  to  justify  his  practice.  It 
is  only  the  apology  of  one  who  hopes  to  get  along  by  his 
smartness  and  by  keeping  his  eyes  wide  open  for  all  signs 
of  personal  profit.  But,  for  all  that,  it  is  an  effective 
argument  against  all  those  who  think  the  events  of  life  are 
ordained  for  the  special  purpose  of  serving  their  individual 
good.  It  is  imlRef|  a  fedurMn  arf,  absurdum  of  the  theory 
of  special  providence.  And  Sludge  is  bright  enough  to/ 
see  that,  and  he  urges  it  with  all  the  force  that  is  in  him. I 
He  reminds  Horsefall  how  on  one  occasion,  having  missed 
his  handkerchief,  he  returned  for  it,  and  so  missed  the 
train  which  carried  thirty-three  "  whom  God  forgot "  to 
death.  That  insignificant  event  Horsefall  regarded  as  a 
special  interference  for  his  welfare,  or  for  what  he  sup- 
posed to  be  such.  But,  urges  Sludge,  if  that  be  so  for 


'MK.    SLUDGE,    THE   MEDIUM.'  301 

you,  why  should  it  not  be  so  for  me  ?  If  Providence  re- 
vealed itself  in  the  missing  handkerchief,  why  not  for  me 
in  the  sale  of  my  dog,  which  went  mad  the  next  week? 
Am  I  of  any  less  importance  than  you,  Hiram  H.  Horse- 
fall,  if  you  are  rich  and  live  in  a  big  house  ?  It  may  seem 
to  make  little  difference  to  you  whether  I  succeed  or  fail, 
live  or  die,  and  so  to  you  it  is ;  but  please  remember  that 
"  Sludge  is  of  all  importance  to  himself."  As  against 
Horsef all,  Sludge  is  right ;  and  it  must  be  allowed  that  he, 
at  least,  has  no  logical  objection  to  interpose.  Just  here 
the  speech  of  Sludge  assumes  a  triumphant  tone.  He  evi- 
dently realizes  that  he  has  met  his  opponent  on  his  own 
ground,  and  come  off  victorious,  — 

Oh,  you  wince  at  this  f 

Ton  'd  fain  distinguish  between  gift  and  gift, 
"Washington's  oracle  and  Sludge's  itch 
0'  the  elbow  when  at  whist  he  ought  to  trump  ? 
With  Sludge  it 's  too  absurd  ?     Fine,  draw  the  line 
Somewhere,  but,  sir,  your  somewhere  is  not  mine  ! 

Nor  is  Sludge's  theory  of  the  value  of  deception,  bad  as 
it  is,  anything  new  or  unusual.  In  fact,  if  he  had  only 
known  it,  he  might  have  cited  ancient  and  honourable 
authority  for  his  position  on  this  matter,  and  have  found  in 
much  present  theory  and  more  present  practice  ample  war- 
rant for  his  course.  Plato  taught  that  it  was  right  to  lie 
for  the  State,  and  Clement  that  it  was  right  to  lie  for  the 
Church.  Why,  then,  should  not  Sludge  lie  in  behalf  of 
man's  faith  in  immortality  ?  Of  the  three  motives,  his  is 
the  noblest.  Again,  when  St.  Chrysostom  preaches  endless 
punishment,  not  because  he  thoroughly  believes  it,  but  be- 
cause he  thinks  the  people  of  Constantinople  need  it,  he  is 
only  a  more  eloquent  Sludge.  So,  too,  when  we  suppress 
some  fact  in  the  interest  of  our  religious  or  scientific 
theory,  or  when  we  are  afraid  the  truth  will  injure  our 
system  of  theology,  or  when  we  imagine  that  some  decep- 
tion may  serve  to  enshrine  the  reality,  or  make  it  more 


302  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

impressive,  or  render.it  more  comforting,  I  do  not  see 
what  right  we  have  to  throw  stones  at  Sludge,  —  we  are 
in  glass  houses  as  well  as  he. 

The  real  answer  to  Sludge  is  that  we  are  in  a  true  uni- 
verse, and  we  ourselves  must  be  true  if  we  would  learn  its 
secrets.  We  are  also  in  a  universe  which  includes  us  all, 
great  or  small,  in  its  wisdom  and  love,  —  and  which  does, 
no  doubt,  reveal  its  meaning  in  the  birth  of  a  rose  as  in  the 
rush  of  a  planet,  in  a  Pompilia  as  well  as  in  the  Pope ;  but 
no  man  need  hope  to  comprehend  that  meaning  unless  he 
is  conscious  of  a  purpose  to  tell  the  truth,  and  to  do  what 
is  right.  To  thp  snnl  Hftvm'rl  of  a.  moral  aim  thp.  nrnvfvrsft 
jfl  a  p1nn1pRa_rnajpj  —  a  confused  assemblage  of  things  and 
events  whose  purport  can  only  be  guessed,  in  the  vague 
hope  that  sometimes  its  guesses  may  perchance  be  correct. 
The  man  who  cares  only  for  what  is  pleasant,  but  who  has 
no  sense  of  loyalty  to  truth,  soon  discovers  that  he  belongs 
not  to  a  cosmos,  but  a  chaos.  He  is  all  adrift,  and  he 
always  will  be  so  long  as  his  philosophy  is  only  the  expres- 
sion of  the  thoughts  and  motives  of  his  lower  self. 

Such  a  man  need  not  hope  to  convince  the  world  of  the 
actuality  of  that  life  in  which  it  already  has  faith ;  for  a 
true  man  is  better  proof  of  immortality  than  any  number 
of  "manifestations."  We  may  doubt  and  explain  away 
the  latter ;  we  cannot  do  so  with  the  former.  We  are  not 
so  sure  that  any  phenomenon  of  spiritism  is  genuine,  and 
proves  what  it  claims  to  prove,  as  we  are  that  our  faith  in 
immortality  must  somehow  find  itself  realised  in  a  universe 
that  wakens  it.  The  Sludges  would  make  another  world 
as  real,  and  as  common  too,  as  this,  by  giving  demonstra- 
tive proof  of  its  existence.  But  may  not  our  ignorance  be 
providential  ?  May  it  not  be  that,  while  we  have  enough 
of  faith  in  the  future  life  to  enlarge  our  vision  of  human 
possibilities,  we  have  not  enough  to  prevent  us  from  put- 
ting our  best  into  the  life  that  now  is  ? 

Like  most  of  us,  Sludge  never  seems  to  suspect  that  his 


'MB.    SLUDGE,    THE   MEDIUM.'  303 

own  aims  and  motives  are  wrong,  but  lays  the  blame  on 
others.  His  is  the  old  cry,  "I  might  not  have  become 
what  I  am  if  others  had  not  urged  me  on."  He  cries,  "  It 's 
all  your  fault,  —  you  curious  gentlefolk  !  "  When  he  had 
thought  he  had  seen  a  ghost,  it  was  they  who  had  encour- 
aged him.  They  had  incited  him,  and  had  suggested  what 
they  would  like  him  to  see  and  to  do.  He  had  only  re- 
sponded to  their  desire  to  witness  still  further  development 
of  his  powers  as  a  medium.  His  patron  coveted  the  glory 
of  "  ferreting  out  a  medium ; "  and  he  had  only  tried  to 
provide  him  with  what  he  longed  for.  If  any  one  thought 
he  was  a  cheat,  he  was  put  down  in  this  rough-shod  man- 
ner :  "  You  see  a  cheat  ?  Here  's  some  twelve  see  an  ass." 
Everybody  about  him,  so  Sludge  urges,  explained  away  his 
mistakes  and  excused  his  faults.  When  he  commits  gross 
blunders,  they  are  at  once  imputed  to  the  disturbing  pres- 
ence of  doubters  who  "  puddled  his  pure  mind."  Then 
those  who  had  no  real  belief  in  anything,  and  who  in  con- 
sequence were  able  to  play  safely  with  superstition,  called 
aloud  for  fair  play,  and  so  gave  him  greater  currency. 
Everything  conspired  to  induce  him  to  become  what  he 
did.  The  literary  man  used  him  for  artistic  purposes, 
while  others  found  in  him  and  his  doings  a  topic  for  con- 
versation somewhat  more  interesting  than  the  weather. 
Sludge's  account  of  the  various  causes  which  had  formed 
him  is  acute  and  valuable,  and  we  may  well  suppose  it  to 
be  true.  Supply  and  demand  usually  correspond.  What 
people  are  anxious  to  have,  they  are  pretty  apt  to  find. 
The  endeavour  to  learn  what  lies  beyond  the  veil  must 
always  make  Sludges  possible.  But  what  of  it?  After 
all,  Sludge  is  none  the  less  blameworthy.  He  chose  to  live 
only  for  Sludge,  —  for  the  materialistic  Sludge,  with  his 
inordinate  love  of  showy  clothes  and  big  dinners  and  noto- 
riety ;  and,  to  get  these,  he  yields  to  the  social  pressure  of 
which  he  now  complains.  But,  at  the  worst,  society  was 
responsible,  not  for  his  creation,  but  only  for  his  nurture, 


304  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

It  can  only  develop  what  is  already  in  a  man.  And  he 
who  cares  more  for  his  momentary  interests  and  the  grati- 
fication of  his  surface  desires  than  he  does  for  the  true  and 
the  right  will  always  yield  to  its  seductive  solicitations. 
He  must  not  blame  these,  but  himself.  The  only  deliver- 
ance from  the  forces  that  tend  to  lead  the  soul  astray  is 
the  love  of  truth. 

IWe  may  well  inquire  whether  Sludge  really  believes  in 
his  own  defence.  It  might  well  seem  that  he  could  not. 
It  overlooks  such  obvious  facts,  and  is  so  full  of  inconsis- 
tent ideas.  But  human  nature  is  a  "  mighty  deep."  The 
prophet  and  cheat  may  be  rolled  in  one.  Sometimes  we 
can  discern  in  the  same  face  the  most  contradictory  quali- 
ties. Not  seldom  do  we  find  in  one  peculiar  personality 
the  insight  of  the  seer  and  the  outlook  of  the  fraud.  Prob- 
ably Sludge  did  somehow  believe  in  himself ;  for  the  de- 
ceiver is  deceived.  The  Unr  l^arn^  tr>  believe  his  own 
stories,  and  the  cheater  is  often  worse  cheated  than  any 
ojie_else.  But  the  sad  fact  faces  us  that  in  kludge  the  better 
side  did  not  win  the  day.  The  moral  sense  was  not  strong 
enough  to  unfold  the  higher  side  of  the  man,  of  which  we 
seem  now  and  then  to  catch  fitful  glimpses.  All  his  fine 
theories,  and  even  all  his  gratitude,  so  profuse  in  its  ex- 
pression, evaporate  in  the  heat  of  a  hate  made  more  intense 
by  the  consciousness  of  discomfiture  and  financial  loss. 
And  so  the  last  we  see  or  hear  of  him  is  not  the  possible 
man  of  Browning  —  not  Sludge  as  God  in  His  loving  pur- 
pose meant  him  to  become,  but  the  superficial  Sludge  in 
the  baleful  glare  of  his  moral  putrescence.  He  has  left 
his  old  patron,  with  his  money  in  his  hands  and  the  words, 
"Bl-1-less  you,  sir!"  on  his  lips.  But  now  he  is  alone, 
and  this  is  what  he  says, — 

R-r-r,  you  brute-beast  and  blackguard  !     Cowardly  scamp  ! 
I  only  wish  I  dared  burn  down  the  house 
And  spoil  your  sniggering !     O  what,  you  're  the  man "? 
You  're  satisfied  at  last  ?     You  've  found  out  Sludge  ? 


'MK.    SLUDGE,    THE   MEDIUM.'  305 

We  '11  see  that  presently :  my  turn,  sir,  next ! 

I  too  can  tell  my  story  :  brute  —  do  you  hear  1  — 

You  throttled  your  sainted  mother,  that  old  hag, 

In  just  such  a  fit  of  passion  :  no,  it  was  .  .  . 

To  get  this  house  of  hers,  and  many  a  note 

Like  these.  .  .  .  I'll  pocket  them,  however  .  .  .  five, 

Ten,  fifteen  .  .  .  ay,  you  gave  her  throat  the  twist, 

Or  else  you  poisoned  her !     Confound  the  cuss ! 

Where  was  my  head  ?     I  ought  to  have  prophesied 

He  '11  die  in  a  year  and  join  her  :  that 's  the  way 

...  I  said  he  'd  poisoned  her, 
And  hoped  he  'd  have  grace  given  him  to  repent, 
Whereon  he  picked  this  quarrel,  bullied  me 
And  called  me  cheat :  I  thrashed  him,  —  who  could  help  ? 
He  howled  for  mercy,  prayed  me  on  his  knees 
To  cut  and  run  and  save  him  from  disgrace  : 
I  do  so,  and  once  off,  he  slanders  me. 
An  end  of  him  !    Begin  elsewhere  anew ! 
Boston  's  a  hole,  the  herring-pond  is  wide, 
V-notes  are  something,  liberty  still  more  ! 
Beside,  is  he  the  only  fool  in  the  world  1 

And  so  he  went;  but,  if  we  may  trust  in  recent  police 
items  in  our  papers,  he  has  returned  with  seven  others 
worse  than  himself.  In  one  thing  Sludge  is  absolutely 
right,  —  Horsef all  is  not  the  only  fool  in  the  world. 


20 


THE 

OPTIMISM   OF  WORDSWORTH  AND  BROWNING,  IN 
RELATION   TO  MODERN  PHILOSOPHY. 

BY  A.  J.   GEORGE. 
[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  March  24,  1895.] 

THE  literature  of  this  century  derives  its  distinction 
from,  if  not  its  superiority  over,  that  of  any  preceding 
century,  from  the  fact  that  it  has  kept  close  to  life  —  its 
passion,  its  pathos,  its  power. 

The  movement  it  has  told  of  life, 
Its  pain  and  pleasure,  rest  and  strife. 

It  has  revealed 

The  thread  which  binds  it  all  in  one, 
And  not  its  separate  parts  alone. 

We  hear  much  in  these  days  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Age, 
and  perhaps  too  little  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Ages.  The  spirit 
of  any  age,  however  enlightened  it  may  be,  is  an  unsafe 
guide  if  it  does  not  embody  the  best  of  what  the  ages  have 
found  to  be  true.  We  are  constantly  elevating  costume 
above  character,  the  transient  above  the  abiding,  phenom- 
ena above  noumena,  method  above  spirit.  Our  attention 
is  directed  away  from  the  great  sources  of  power  to  the 
forms  under  which  that  power  has  revealed  itself. 

The  moral  progress  of  the  world  is  most  impressive 
and  instructive  when  viewed  in  the  great  moments  of  the 
inner  life,  —  those  moments  awful  when  power  streamed 
forth;  and  the  soul  received  "the  Light  reflected,  as  a 
light  bestowed."  These  are  the  periods  when  earnest  souls 


OPTIMISM   OF   WOKDSWOKTH   AND   BKOWNING.        307 

get  glimpses  of  the  eternal  truths ;  it  is  then  that  a  height 
is  reached  in  life  from  which  are  glimpses  of  "  a  height  that 
is  higher."  This  is  merely  affirming  that,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  the  race  has  lived  and  moved  and  had  its 
being  in  one  or  the  other  of  two  great  conceptions  of 
human  life :  the  ideal  or  the  material ;  or,  in  terms  of 
philosophy,  Idealism  or  Materialism.  The  various  forms 
of  Art  are  but  the  revelations  of  man's  ascent  of  the  heights 
and  his  vision  there.  The  Vedic  Hymns,  the  Hebrew 
Psalms,  Greek  Art  in  all  its  forms,  are  but  the  meeting- 
place  of  the  finite  and  the  infinite.  Where  there  is  no  vision 
the  people  perish,  is  the  revelation  of  history. 

The  history  of  English  literature  reflects  the  same  move- 
ment from  Chaucer  to  Tennyson  ;  and  even  in  our  own  time 
we  find  that,  after  the  vision  of  the  closing  years  of  the  last 
century  had  faded  into  the  light  of  common  day,  in  the 
early  years  of  this  we  were  again  stirred  to  new  activity  by 
the  vision  and  the  voice  of  Carlyle,  Tennyson,  Browning, 
Ruskin,  and  Emerson,  and  this  has  been  the  message : 

Tis  life  whereof  our  nerves  are  scant, 
Oh  life,  not  death  for  which  we  pant ; 
More  life  and  fuller  that  I  want. 

As  the  man  of  rich  and  varied  interests  has  been  the 
man  of  the  largest  influence,  —  the  most  interesting  charac- 
ter, —  because  of  his  sympathy  with  the  life  of  our  common 
humanity  and  his  belief  that  it  is  at  heart  sound,  so  the 
literature  which  has  reflected  this  godlike  enthusiasm  has 
been  the  literature  of  the  greatest  uplift  in  an  age  of  mar- 
vellous material  interests,  —  an  age  which,  in  its  worship 
of  the  actual,  was  in  danger  of  losing  the  real.  The  in- 
spired singers  and  prophets  of  the  century  have  sounded 
this  note :  — 

In  faultless  rhythm  the  ocean  rolls, 
A  rapturous  silence  thrills  the  skies ; 

And  on  this  earth  are  lovely  souls, 
That  softly  look  with  aidful  eyes. 


308  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Though  dark,  0  God,  thy  course  and  track, 
We  think  Thou  must  at  least  have  meant 

That  nought  which  lives  should  wholly  lack 
The  things  that  are  more  excellent. 

Mr.  Richard  Holt  Hutton  has  given  us  a  study  of  four 
leaders,  guides  to  thought  in  matters  of  faith,  —  Newman, 
Arnold,  Carlyle,  and  George  Eliot,  —  who  influenced  the 
age  through  the  art  of  prose.  They  represent  certain 
phases  of  movement  toward  the  new  world  where  human- 
ity is  regarded  as  a  spiritual  totality,  living,  moving,  and! 
having  its  being  in  the  life  of  the  Eternal.  One  of  our 
own  members  has  done  a  similar  work  in  '  The  Life  of  the 
Spirit  in  the  Modern  English  Poets ; '  l  for  it  is  in  the  poetry 
of  Byron,  Shelley,  and  Keats,  Arnold,  Clough,  and  Ros- 
set.ti,  Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning,  that  we 
find  most  clearly  reflected  the  great  awakening.  If  these 
writers  found  a  volume  necessary  to  represent  adequately 
their  impressions  of  this  movement,  but  little  will  be  ex- 
pected of  one  who  attempts  to  treat  it  in  a  single  hour. 
My  aim  is  a  simple,  and  I  trust  a  modest,  one  of  trying  to 
show  how  one  of  the  earliest  of  this  gladsome  choir,  —  the 
poet  of  serene  and  blessed  moods,  —  whence  came  visions 
of  — 

Something  far  more  deeply  interfused 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns,  — 

clasps  hands  across  the  century  with  that  later  fellow- 
labourer,  —  the  poet  of  tasks  who,  as  he  inarched  breast 
forward,  cried,  "  Speed,  fight  on,  strive  and  thrive." 

It  is  indeed  worth  our  while  to  study  the  mind  and  art 
of  such  teachers  at  a  time  when  certain  other  aspirants  for 
leadership  come  to  us  and  say :  "  You  can  dismiss  as  a  fond 
dream  the  doctrine  of  a  Divine  Father.  You  are  of  age, 
and  do  not  need  a  Father."  Or  again  :  "  We  are  realists, 
looking  facts  in  the  face,  and  see  no  evidence  in  the  world 
that  throughout  the  ages  one  unceasing  purpose  of  wisdom 
and  goodness  runs." 

«  Miss  Vida  D.  Bcudder. 


OPTIMISM   OF   WORDSWORTH   AXD   BROW^TLNG.        309 

There  is  a  story,  told  with  a  great  deal  of  satisfaction  by 
the  dalesmen  of  the  little  valley  of  Seathwaite  in  the  English 
Lakes,  of  an  old  rector  who  in  time  of  drought  had  been 
ordered  by  the  bishop  to  offer  prayers  for  rain.  On  the  day 
appointed  for  that  service  he  went  out  and  made  the  usual 
observations  as  to  sky  and  wind,  and  then  went  to  his  chapel 
and  announced  to  his  congregation  that  it  was  of  no  use 
for  them  to  pray  for  rain  so  long  as  the  wind  was  blowing 
over  Hard-Nott.  He  did  not  think  it  wise  to  fly  in  the 
face  of  Providence  as  revealed  in  the  laws  of  nature. 

We  are  not  always  so  wise  as  was  this  Cumberland  dales- 
man, for  we  often  invoke  blessings  from  the  .great  creators 
of  literature  in  defiance  of  the  fact  that  the  wind  is  blow- 
ing over  Hard-Nott.  We  do  not  study  the  conditions 
governing  our  own  natures,  —  we  forget  that  the  wind  is 
blowing  over  Hard-Nott. 

There  was  a  time  when  it  was  thought  possible  to  fully 
understand  a  great  author,  or  a  great  era  in  history,  by 
confining  one's  attention  to  that  author  or  that  era ;  but 
methods  of  interpretation  in  literature  and  history  have 
been  revolutionised  by  the  application  of  the  great  prin- 
ciple of  Evolution.  The  greatest  obstacle  to  progress  in 
the  new  methods  has  been  the  disposition  of  a  coterie  or  a 
clique  to  close  its  eyes  to  everything  but  the  one  object 
of  veneration,  be  that  object  a  person,  a  book,  or  a  given 
period  in  the  world's  history. 

We  have  had  during  the  last  quarter  of  our  century 
some  striking  illustrations  of  the  new  spirit,  the  most 
noteworthy  being  in  the  sphere  of  what  is  known  as 
Higher  Criticism.  The  Lowell  Institute  lectures  of  two 
years  ago,  by  a  prominent  College  president  and  orthodox 
clergyman,  furnished  a  beautiful  example  of  the  new  spirit 
and  the  new  method.  The  lecturer  sought  for  the  religious 
content  in  institutions  and  in  literature  which  twenty-five 
years  ago  would  have  been  considered  as  totally  irreligious. 

When    the    Wordsworth   Society  was    instituted,   Mr. 


310  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Matthew  Arnold  took  great  pains  to  warn  its  members 
against  the  spirit  of  a  clique.  —  He  said :  "  If  we  are  to 
get  Wordsworth  recognised  by  the  public,  we  must  recom- 
mend him,  not  in;  the  spirit  of  a  clique  but  in  the  spirit  of 
disinterested  lovers  of  poetry." 1  We  must  avoid  the  his- 
torical estimate,  and  the  personal  estimate,  and  we  must 
seek  the'  real  estimate.  Stopford  Brooke  not  long  after 
Browning's  death  warned  us  against  those  "  who  deceive 
themselves  into  a 'belief  that  they  enjoy  poetry  because 
they  enjoy  Browning,  while  they  never  open  Milton  and 
have  only  heard  of  Chaucer  and  Spenser."  2 

A  third  great  teacher  and  interpreter  of  literature,  Pro- 
fessor Dowden,  has  sounded  the  same  note  of  warning  and 
has  pointed  out  the  only  method  by  which  we  can  arrive 
at  a  real  estimate.  "  Our  prime  object,"  says  he,  "  should 
be  to  get  into  living  relation  with  a  man,  with  the  good 
forces  of  nature  and  humanity  that  play  in  and  through 
him.  Approach  a  great  writer  in  the  spirit  of  cheerful 
and  trustful  fraternity ;  this  is  better  than  hero-worship. 
A  great  master  is  better  pleased  to  find  a  brother  than  a 
worshipper  or  a  serf."  In  keeping  close  to  the  great 
writers  from  Homer  to  Tennyson,  we  keep  close  to  life, 
and  we  thus  become  "  members  of  the  one  Catholic  Apos- 
tolic Church  of  literature,  and  it  will  matter  little  who 
may  be  the  bishop  of  our  particular  diocese."  3  . 

I  present  no  literary  creed  to  which  I  demand  assent, 
nor  do  I  hold  a  brief  as  for  a  client.  I  shall  try  to  reveal 
an  attitude  of  mind  which  has  been  produced  by  reading 
and  reflection,  —  an  attitude  which  may  be  modified  or 
even  supplanted  by  further  reading  and  reflection.  My 
position  is  neither  that  of  a  defendant  nor  that  of  a  judge, 
but  that  of  a  guide.  Now,  the  requisites  for  a  good  guide 
are  :  familiarity  with  the  ground,  and  a  willingness  to 

1  '  Essays  in  Criticism,'  '  Wordsworth.' 

1  Century  Magazine,  Dec.  1892,  '  Impressions  of  Browning.' 

3  '  Transcripts  and  Studies,'  '  The  Interpretation  of  Literature.' 


OPTIMISM   OF    WORDSWORTH   AND   BROWNING.        311 
•MM 

keep  himself  in  the  background  and  allow  us  to  do  our 
own  seeing. 

The  disposition  which  we  call  optimism  as  it  reveals 
itself  in  literature  and  life  is  difficult  of  exact  definition, 
and  yet  "  we  must  image  the  whole,  then  execute  the 
parts."  We  need  such  a  conception  as  will  admit  of  the 
poetic  and  the  philosophic  essentials,  —  that  will  not  be 
so  poetic  as  to  be  vague  nor  so  philosophic  as  to  be  ab- 
struse, —  and  we  find  such  in  the  affirmation  of  the  essential 
spiritual  nature  of  the  universe.  This  enthrones  man  upon 
the  heights,  for  it  regards  liim  in  his  threefold  nature  - 

What  Does,  what  Knows,  what  Is;  three  souls,  one  man  — 

as  the  goal  of  Creative  Energy  and  the  special  object  of 
God's  love.  Pessimism  is  the  denial  of  any  such  spiritual 
element  in  the  universe  and  the  consequent  dethronement 
of  man.  "If  indeed  there  were  a  Rational  Author  of 
Nature,  and  if  in  any  degree,  even  the  most  insignificant, 
we  shared  His  attributes,  we  might  well  conceive  ourselves 
as  of  finer  essence  and  more  intrinsic  worth  than  the 
material  world  which  we  inhabit,  immeasurable  though  it 
may  be.  But  if  we  be  the  creation  of  that  world;  if  it 
made  us  what  we  are,  and  will  again  unmake  us :  how 
then  ?  "  1  Of  course  life  can  then  have  no  more  significance 
to  us  than  to  an  earth-worm.  We  are  — 

Finished  and  finite  clods,  untroubled  by  a  spark. 

"  Once  dethrone  Humanity,  regard  it  as  a  mere  local 
incident  in  an  endless  and  aimless  series  of  cosmical 
changes,  and  you  arrive  at  a  doctrine,  which,  under  what- 
ever specious  name  it  may  be  veiled,  is  at  bottom  neither 
more  nor  less  than  Atheism."  2 

There  is  a  class  of  writers  claiming  to  be  teachers  who, 
while  accepting  what  they  call  the  demonstrations  of  the 
understanding  as  to  man's  origin  and  destiny,  yet  attempt 

1  A.  J.  Half  our  :  '  Foundations  of  Belief.' 
1  John  Fiske  :  '  Destiny  of  Man.' 


312  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

to  save  him  from  the  inevitable  abyss,  —  from  being 
"  drown'd  in  the  deeps  of  a  meaningless  Past." 

Of  Heaven  or  Hell  I  have  no  power  to  sing, 

I  cannot  ease  the  burden  of  your  fears, 
Or  make  quick-coming  death  a  little  thing, 

Nor  for  my  words  shall  ye  forget  your  tears.1 

Love  deep  as  the  sea  as  a  rose  must  wither, 
As  the  rose-red  seaweed  that  mocks  the  rose. 

Shall  the  dead  take  thought  for  the  dead  to  love  them  ? 
What  love  was  ever  as  deep  as  the  grave  ? 

They  are  loveless  now  as  the  grass  above  them, 
Or  the  wave.2 

We  may  delight  in  these  pretty  theories  while  life  moves 
serenely,  but  when  the  storm  and  stress  comes  we  then 
find  we  have  need  of  such  revelations  as  the  world  has 
tested.  The  future  of  the  human  race,  according  to  the 
creed  of  these  social  reformers,  is  to  be  "  a  kind  of  affec- 
tionate picnic."  What  is  all  this  but  "  a  murmur  of  gnats 
in  the  gloom,  or  a  moment's  anger  of  bees  in  their  hive  ?  " 
It  is  when  we  turn  from  such  "  idle  singers  of  an  empty 
day  "  to  the  great  poets,  that  we  are  thrilled  with  the  wild 
joys  of  living. 

With  the  optimism  of  Wordsworth  and  Browning,  we 
are  all  more  or  less  familiar,  but  are  we  equally  familiar 
with  the  causes  and  the  nature  of  this  personal  note  in 
each,  by  which  one  became  the  bearer  of  "  plenteous  health, 
exceeding  store  of  joy,  and  an  impassioned  quietude ; " 
and  the  other  became  "  the  Subtlest  Assertor  of  the  Soul 
in  Song"? 

In  any  attempt  to  assign  causes  for  the  optimism  of  a 
great  teacher  the  influences  of  hereditary  predisposition 
and  of  environment  must  be  given  a  place,  but  a  place 
subordinate  to  that  third  somewhat,  —  which  we  can 
neither  analyse  nor  define,  but  which  we  know  as  the 
essential  self,  —  the  individuality. 

1  William  Morris.  J  A.  C.  Swinburne. 


OPTIMISM   OF   WORDSWORTH   AND   BROWNING.        313 

In  the  case  of  Wordsworth,  heredity  and  early  environ- 
ment were  no  doubt  of  deep  significance,  and  I  fear  that 
too  often  they  have  been  used  as  a  sufficient  cause  of  his 
optimism.  I  wish  to  show  that  they  were  efficient,  but  not 
sufficient;  that  in  Wordsworth's  work  we  have  not  only 
the  profoundest  thought,  but  well-ordered  thought,  in 
union  with  poetic  sensibility  unique  and  unmatchable  ; 
that  in  the  union  of  "  natural  magic  and  moral  profundity  " 
the  great  body  of  his  work  is  making  for  "  rest  and  peace, 
and  shade  for  spirits  fevered  with  the  sun"  in  a  time 
when  "  there  is  no  shelter  to  grow  ripe,  no  leisure  to  grow 
wise."  Emerson  gave  a  just  estimate  of  the  value  of 
heredity  and  environment  in  the  problem  which  Words- 
worth was  to  work  out,  when  he  said :  "  It  is  very  easy  to 
see  that  to  act  so  powerfully  in  this  practical  age  —  as  this 
solitariest  and  wisest  of  poets  did  —  he  needed,  with  all  his 
Oriental  abstraction,  the  indomitable  vigour  rooted  in  ani- 
mal constitution  for  which  his  countrymen  are  marked." 

I  shall  seek  for  my  materials  in  that  storehouse  of  youth- 
ful power  and  passion,  the  '  Prelude ' :  that  story  of  the 
"  Love  of  Nature  leading  to  the  love  of  Man,"  where  are 
revealed  the  sources  of  Wordsworth's  power  as  man  and  as 
poet. 

His  school  days  were  spent  in  the  rural  valley  of  Hawks- 
head,  at  the  Edward  VI.  School.  There  he  lived  the 
simple  life  of  the  dalesmen,  until  he  was  prepared  for  the 
work  of  the  university.  He  was  a  lover  of  the  woods, 
the  hills  and  the  lakes,  and  these  localities  are  rich  in 
associations  with  his  boyish  sports,  of  harrying  the  raven's 
nest,  of  "setting  springes  for  woodcock  that  run  along 
the  smooth  green  turf,"  and  of  boating  on  Esthwaite  and 
Windermere.  The  first  period,  or  seed-time  of  his  soul, 
may  be  called  the  period  of  unconscious  relation  to  Nature, 
and  it  is  of  importance  to  bear  in  mind  the  fact,  that  in  it 
he  was  living  the  free,  simple,  spontaneous  life  of  a  boy 
among  boys,  with  nothing  to  distinguish  him  from  his 


314  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

mates.     He  was  thus  saved  from  becoming  either  a  prig  or 

a  prodigy. 

Yes,  I  remember  when  the  changeful  earth 
And  twice  five  summers  on  my  mind  had  stamped 
The  faces  of  the  moving  year,  even  then 
I  held  unconscious  intercourse  with  beauty 
Old  as  creation,  drinking  in  a  pure 
Organic  pleasure  from  the  silver  wreaths 
Of  curling  mist,  or  from  the  level  plain 
Of  waters  coloured  by  impending  clouds. 

But  in  due  time  came  the  period  of  conscious  love  of  Nature, 
which  is  a  step  of  profound  significance ;  here  is  the  begin- 
ning of  the  "  philosophic  mind :  "  — 

Those  incidental  charms  which  first  attached 
My  heart  to  rural  objects,  day  by  day 
Grew  weaker,  and  I  hasten  on  to  tell 
How  Nature,  intervenient  till  this  time 
And  secondary,  now  at  length  was  sought 
For  her  own  sake. 

It  was  in  this  period  that  the  basis  of  his  optimism  was 
laid ;  then  it  was  that  the  essential  spiritual  nature  of  the 
universe  was  revealed  to  him.  It  is  this  note  that  charac- 
terises all  of  his  poems  on  Nature.  It  is  his  master  vision 
—  God  in  nature.  He  mow  sees  into  the  life  of  things 

By  observation  of  affinities 

In  objects  where  no  brotherhood  exists 

To  passive  minds. 

I  was  only  then 

Contented,  when  with  bliss  ineffable 
I  felt  the  sentiment  of  Being  spread 
O'er  all  that  moves  and  all  that  seemeth  still ; 
O'er  all  that,  lost  beyond  the  reach  of  thought 
And  human  knowledge,  to  the  human  eye 
Invisible,  yet  liveth  to  the  heart 
O'er  all  that  leaps  and  runs,  and  shouts  and  sings, 
Or  beats  the  gladsome  air ;  o'er  all  that  glides 
Beneath  the  wave,  yea,  in  the  wave  itself, 
And  mighty  depth  of  waters.     Wonder  not 
If  high  the  transport,  great  the  joy  I  felt, 


OPTIMISM   OF   WORDSWORTH   AND  BROWNING.       315 

Communing  in  this  sort  through  earth  and  heaven 
With  every  form  of  creature,  as  it  looked 
Towards  the  Uncreated  with  a  countenance 
Of  adoration,  with  an  eye  of  love. 

To  every  Form  of  being  is  assigned 
An  active  principle  :  —  howe'er  removed 
From  sense  and  observation,  it  subsists 
In  all  things,  in  all  natures ;  in  the  stars 
Of  azure  heaven,  the  unenduring  clouds, 
In  flower  and  tree,  in  every  pebbly  stone 
That  paves  the  brooks,  the  stationary  rocks, 
The  moving  waters,  and  the  invisible  air. 
Whate'er  exists  hath  properties  that  spread 
Beyond  itself,  communicating  good, 
A  simple  blessing,  or  with  evil  mixed ; 
Spirit  that  knows  no  insulated  spot, 
No  chasm,  no  solitude  ;  from  link  to  link 
It  circulates,  the  Soul  of  all  the  worlds. 

This  was  a  note  absolutely  new  in  English  poetry.  It 
is  the  note  which  is  sounded  in  every  poem  written  be- 
fore he  rises  into  the  sphere  of  the  humanities  and  becomes 
the  poet  of  man.  I  could  illustrate  it  from  thousands  of 
his  verses.  It  rises  to  its  highest  point  of  exultation  in  the 
'  Tintern  Abbey ' :  — 

And  I  have  felt 

A  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts ;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man ; 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought 
And  rolls  through  all  things. 

The  significance  of  this  revelation  as  poetry  has  had  its 
due  recognition,  but  in  the  closing  years  of  the  century  we 
are  getting  its  significance  as  philosophy. 

Those  who  have  followed  the  movements  of  modern 
thought  have  not  failed  to  notice  that  the  theist  no  longer 
gives  much  time  to  defending  the  outposts,  when  the  central 


316  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

citadel  is  attacked ;  this  central  citadel  is  the  spiritual 
content  of  nature  itself.  Such  works  as  Martineau's 
1  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion,'  Fiske's  '  Destiny  of  Man ' 
and  'Idea  of  God,'  Marshall's  'Lectures  on  Evolution,' 
Knight's  'Aspects  of  Theism,'  Caird's  'Philosophy  of 
Religion,'  Myers's  'Science  and  a  Future  Life,'  and  Bal- 
four's  'Foundations  of  Belief  make  this  very  evident. 
"  The  decisive  battles  of  Theology  are  fought  beyond  its 
frontiers.  It  is  not  over  purely  religious  controversies  that 
the  cause  of  Religion  is  lost  or  won.  The  judgments  we 
shall  form  upon  its  special  problems  are  commonly  settled 
for  us  by  our  general  mode  of  looking  at  the  Universe." l 
Mr.  John  Fiske,  in  his  address  upon  the  '  Everlasting  Signi- 
ficance of  the  Idea  of  Religion,'  gave  especial  prominence 
to  this  same  idea,  as  in  the  preface  to  his  '  Idea  of  God '  he 
had  said  :  "  It  is  enough  to  remind  the  reader  that  Deity 
is  unknowable,  just  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  manifested  to 
consciousness  through  the  phenomenal  world,  —  knowable, 
just  in  so  far  as  it  is  thus  manifested  ;  unknowable  (in  its 
entirety)  in  so  far  as  it  is  infinite  and  absolute,  —  knowable 
in  a  symbolic  way  as  the  Power  which  is  disclosed  in  every 
throb  of  the  mighty  rhythmic  life  of  the  Universe."  Again, 
in  Chapter  I. :  "  As  in  the  roaring  loom  of  Time  the  end- 
less web  of  events  is  woven,  each  strand  shall  make  more 
and  more  clearly  visible  the  living  garment  of  God."  Both 
Wordsworth  and  Fiske  have  had  the  vague  and  uninstruc- 
tive  epithet  of  "  Pantheist "  hurled  at  them  by  those  who 
feared  the  results  of  sustained  and  accurate  thinking. 
"Christianity  assumes  an  unseen  world,  and  then  urges 
that  the  life  of  Christ  is  the  fittest  way  in  which  such  a 
world  could  come  into  contact  with  the  world  we  know. 
The  essential  spirituality  of  the  universe,  in  short,  is  the 
basis  of  religion,  and  it  is  precisely  this  basis  which  is  now 
assailed.  ...  It  is  on  the  ground  of  the  cosmic  law  of 
interpenetrating  worlds  that  I  would  claim  for  Wordsworth 

1  A.  J.  Balfour :  '  Foundations  of  Belief.' 


OPTIMISM   OF   WORDSWORTH   AND   BROWNING.        317 

a  commanding  place  among  the  teachers  of  this  century."  l 
"  The  special  question,  however,  which  we  have  to  answer, 
is  this  :  Is  there,  or  is  there  not,  a  spiritual  principle  at  the 
heart  of  things  ?  Wordsworth  saw,  as  very  few  have  ever 
seen,  that  an  incessant  apocalypse  is  going  on  in  Nature, 
which  many  of  us  altogether  miss,  and  to  which  we  all,  at 
times,  are  blind ;  and  that  in  the  apprehension  of  this,  — 
which  is  a  real  disclosure  of  the  Infinite  to  the  finite,  as  con- 
stant as  the  sunrise,  or  as  the  ebbing  and  the  flowing  of  the 
tide  —  we  find  the  basis  of  Theism  laid  for  us."2  Can  there 
be  any  doubt  as  to  the  cause  of  Wordsworth's  optimism  or 
as  to  the  significance  of  it  in  modern  thought  ?  Is  it  any 
wonder  that  he  could  sing  of  man,  of  Nature,  and  of  human 
life  with  hardly  a  note  of  despondency,  and  never  one  of 
despair  ? 

Wisdom  and  Spirit  of  the  universe ! 
Thou  Soul  that  art  the  eternity  of  thought, 
That  givest  to  forms  and  images  a  breath 
And  everlasting  motion,  not  in  vain 
By  day  or  star-light  thus  from  my  first  dawn 
Of  childhood  didst  thou  intertwine  for  me 
The  passions  that  build  up  our  human  soul ; 
Not  with  the  mean  and  vulgar  works  of  man, 
But  with  high  objects,  with  enduring  things  — 
With  life  and  nature  —  purifying  thus 
The  elements  of  feeling  and  of  thought, 
And  sanctifying,  hy  such  discipline, 
Both  pain  and  fear,  until  we  recognise 
A  grandeur  in  the  beatings  of  the  heart. 

The  final  step  in  his  ascent  is  that  by  which  he  rises 
from  the  love  of  Nature  to  the  love  of  man.  It  was  a 
critical  moment  for  him  when  he  was  transferred  from  the 
calm  delights  and  simple  manners  of  Hawkshead  to  that 
world  within  a  world  —  a  great  university.  "  Migration 
strange  for  a  stripling  of  the  hills."  Cambridge  could 
present  nothing  in  kind  to  take  the  place  of  those  sights 
and  sounds  sublime  with  which  he  had  been  conversant, 

1  F.  W.  Myers:  'Science  and  a  Future  Life.' 
«  Wm.  Kuight:  'Aspects  of  Theism.' 


318  BOSTON  BKOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

but  she  offered  him  those  treasures  which  had  been  created 
for  her  by  the  hand  of  man. 

Oft  when  the  dazzling  show  no  longer  new 

Had  ceased  to  dazzle,  ofttimes  did  I  quit 

My  comrades,  leave  the  crowd,  buildings  and  groves, 

And  as  I  paced  alone  the  level  fields 

Far  from  those  lovely  sights  and  sounds  sublime 

With  which  I  had  been  conversant,  the  mind 

Drooped  not ;  but  there  into  herself  returning, 

With  prompt  rebound  seemed  fresh  as  heretofore. 

At  least  I  more  distinctly  recognised 

Her  native  instincts :   let  me  dare  to  speak 

A  higher  language,  say  that  now  I  felt 

What  independent  solaces  were  mine, 

To  mitigate  the  injurious  sway  of  place 

Or  circumstance,  how  far  soever  changed 

In  youth,  or  to  be  changed  in  after  years. 

Here  we  have  a  still  higher  note  of  optimism,  and  again  we 
must  study  origins.  His  mind  drooped  not  because  he  had 
as  an  everlasting  possession  the  harvest  of  that  first  period 
of  unconscious  intercourse  with  Nature,  —  the  riches  which 
came  to  him  in  that  period  of  health  and  happiness  were 
the  riches  of 

Spontaneous  wisdom  breathed  by  health  — 
Truth,  breathed  by  cheerfulness. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  this  is  the  most  immediately 
helpful  of  all  the  poet's  revelations.  It  is  the  fundamental 
note  in  the  '  Character  of  the  Happy  Warrior.' 

Who  is  the  happy  Warrior  ?     Who  is  he 
That  every  man  in  arms  should  wish  to  be  ? 
—  It  is  the  generous  Spirit,  who,  when  brought 
Among  the  tasks  of  real  life,  hath  wrought 
Upon  the  plan  that  pleased  his  boyish  thought : 
Whose  high  endeavours  are  an  inward  light 
That  makes  the  path  before  him  always  bright : 
Who,  with  a  natural  instinct  to  discern 
What  knowledge  can  perform,  is  diligent  to  learn ; 
Abides  by  this  resolve,  and  stops  not  there, 
But  makes  his  moral  being  his  prime  care ; 

'T  is,  finally,  the  Man,  who,  lifted  high, 
Conspicuous  object  iu  a  Nation's  eye, 


OPTIMISM  OF   WORDSWORTH   AND   BROWNING.        319 

Or  left  unthought-of  in  obscurity,  — 
Who,  with  a  toward  or  untoward  lot, 
Prosperous  or  adverse,  to  his  wish  or  not  — 
Plays,  in  the  mauy  games  of  life,  that  one 
Where  what  he  most  doth  value  must  be  won : 
Whom  neither  shape  of  danger  can  dismay, 
Nor  thought  of  tender  happiness  betray ; 
Who,  not  content  that  former  worth  stand  fast, 
Looks  forward,  persevering  to  the  last, 
From  well  to  better,  daily  self-surpast : 
Who,  whether  praise  of  him  must  walk  the  earth 
For  ever,  and  to  noble  deeds  give  birth, 
Or  he  must  fall  to  sleep  without  his  fame, 
And  leave  a  dead  unprofitable  name  — 
Finds  comfort  in  himself  and  in  his  cause ; 
And,  while  the  mortal  mist  is  gathering,  draws 
His  breath  in  confidence  of  Heaven's  applause  : 
This  is  the  happy  Warrior ;  this  is  He 
That  every  Man  in  arms  should  wish  to  be. 

It  is  this  power  to  transmute  sorrow,  disappointment,  and 
defeat  into  means  of  strength  that  makes  his  poetry  such  a 
tonic  to  the  weary  and  heavy  laden.  When  we  rise  to  the 
heights,  and  can  say  in  the  face  of  disappointment,  — 

We  will  grieve  not,  rather  find 
Strength  in  what  remains  behind, 

we  have  gained  the  secret  of  Wordsworth's  optimism,  and 
then  "  deep  distress  will  humanise  our  souls,"  or  as  Tenny- 
son expresses  it  in  '  In  Memoriam,'  "  will  make  us  kindlier 
with  our  kind." 

Farewell,  farewell  the  heart  that  lives  alone, 
Housed  in  a  dream,  at  distance  from  the  Kind ! 
Such  happiness,  wherever  it  be  known, 
Is  to  be  pitied ;  for  't  is  surely  blind. 

But  welcome  fortitude,  and  patient  cheer, 
And  frequent  sights  of  what  is  to  be  borne ! 
Such  sights,  or  worse,  as  are  before  me  here.  — 
Not  without  hope  we  suffer  and  we  mourn. 

I  cannot  leave  this  feature  of  Wordsworth's  optimism 
without  alluding  to  the  effect  it  has  had  upon  two  different 


320  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

types  of  men.  It  will  show  what  a  sure  retreat  great  souls 
offer  in  times  of  bewilderment.  John  Stuart  Mill,  in  that 
crisis  of  life  when  he  had  lost  all  substantive  joy,  in  pro- 
found despondency  went  to  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth. 
He  says :  "  What  made  Wordsworth's  poems  a  medicine 
for  my  state  of  mind  was  that  from  them  I  learned  what 
were  the  perennial  sources  of  happiness,  and  I  felt  myself 
at  once  better  and  happier  as  I  came  under  their  influence." 
Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  says  :  "  Other  poetry  becomes  trifling 
when  we  are  making  our  inevitable  passages  through  the 
Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death.  Wordsworth's  alone 
retains  its  power.  We  love  the  more  as  we  grow  older, 
and  become  more  deeply  impressed  with  the  sadness  and 
seriousness  of  life."  Lowell,  who  was  by  no  means  unduly 
sympathetic  in  his  criticism  of  Wordsworth,  everywhere 
pays  tribute  to  his  splendid  optimism,  and  says :  "  He  reads 
the  poems  of  Wordsworth  without  understanding,  who  does 
not  find  in  them  the  noblest  incentives  to  faith  in  man  and 
the  grandeur  of  his  destiny."  I  shall  never  forget  the 
emphasis  with  which  the  late  Bishop  Brooks,  on  receiving 
a  copy  of  the  '  Prelude,'  affirmed  to  me  his  admiration  for 
Wordsworth's  magnificent  optimism,  — "  an  optimism," 
said  he,  "  which  is  as  sound  and  wholesome  as  the  air  of 
the  forest." 

I  shall  close  my  review  of  the  optimism  of  Wordsworth 
with  the  testimony  of  Professor  Caird,  Master  of  Balliol 
College,  Oxford. 

"  In  the  '  Prelude '  Wordsworth  seeks  to  exhibit  to  us, 
not  so  much  of  his  own  personal  career,  as  the  way  in 
which,  amid  the  difficulties  of  the  time,  a  human  soul 
might  find  peace  and  freedom.  He  rejects  any  claim  to 
exceptional  privileges,  and  takes  his  stand  upon  the  rights 
|of  simple  humanity.  Out  of  this  sense  of  the  spiritual 
greatness,  the  '  Godhead '  of  human  nature,  springs  what 
we  might  call,  in  philosophical  terms,  the  optimism  of 
Wordsworth,  —  his  assertion  that  good  is  stronger  than 


OPTIMISM   OF    WORDSWORTH   AND   BROWNING.        321 

evil,  and  even  that  the  latter  is  but  the  means  of  the 
development  of  the  former.  Wordsworth's  optimism  has 
no  fear  of  sorrow  or  of  evil.  He  can  stand  in  the  shadow 
of  death  and  pain,  ruin  and  failure,  with  sympathy  that  is 
almost  painful  in  its  quiet  intensity ;  the  faith  in  the 
omnipotence  '  of  love  and  man's  unconquerable  mind '  is 
never  destroyed  or  weakened  in  him.  The  contemplation 
of  evil  and  pain  always  ends  with  him,  by  an  inevitable 
recoil,  in  an  inspired  expression  of  his  faith  in  the  good 
which  transmutes  and  transfigures  it,  as  the  clouds  are 
changed  into  manifestations  of  the  sunlight  they  strive  to 
hide."  ! 

In  passing  from  the  optimism  of  Wordsworth  to  that  of 
Browning  we  cannot  do  better  than  maintain  the  dis- 
position shown  by  the  older  to  the  younger  poet  that 
evening  at  the  rooms  of  Talf ourd,  when  —  in  the  presence 
of  Macready,  Landor,  Miss  Mitford,  and  others,  —  the 
host  proposed  "  The  Poets  of  England,"  and  with  a  kindly 
grace  having  alluded  to  the  company  of  great  men  honour- 
ing him  with  their  presence,  presented  "  Mr.  Robert 
Browning,  the  author  of  '  Paracelsus.' ':  Miss  Mitford, 
in  speaking  of  the  pride  which  Browning  must  have  felt 
at  that  moment,  says  :  "  He  was  prouder  still  when  Words- 
worth leaned  across  the  table  and  with  stately  affability 
said,  '  I  am  proud  to  drink  your  health,  Mr.  Browning.'  " 
All  Wordsworthians,  all  disinterested  lovers  of  poetry,  are 
proud  to  drink  the  health  of  Robert  Browning. 

We  have  seen  that  Wordsworth's  optimism  did  not 
result  from  any  victory  of  the  intellect  over  the  perplexi- 
ties of  a  scientific  age.  The  era  of  modern  science  had 
not  begun  when  this  poet  did  his  great  work,  but  yet  he 
foresaw  what  was  sure  to  come  with  such  an  age.  He 
foresaw  that  men  would  "pore,"  and  was  disturbed  with 
the  thought  that  they  might  "dwindle  as  they  pored," 
and  yet  he  had  no  fears  that  the  most  extensive  researches 

1  E.  Caird  :  'Literature  and  Philosophy.' 
21 


322  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

of  science  would  cut  the  nerve  of  poetry.     He  saw  the 
dangers  of  the  new  age,  and  yet  he  could  say :  — 

I  exult, 

Casting  reserve  away,  exult  to  see 
An  intellectual  mastery  exercised 
O'er  the  bliud  elements. 

"The  knowledge,  both  of  the  Poet  and  the  Man  of 
science,"  he  says,  "  is  pleasure ;  but  the  knowledge  of  the 
one  cleaves  to  us  as  a  necessary  part  of  our  existence,  our 
natural  and  inalienable  inheritance ;  the  other  is  a  personal 
and  individual  acquisition.  The  Man  of  science  cherishes 
and  loves  truth  in  solitude ;  the  poet  singing  a  song  in 
which  all  human  beings  join  with  him,  rejoices  in  the 
presence  of  truth  as  our  visible  friend  and  hourly  com- 
panion. Poetry  is  the  breath  and  finer  spirit  of  all  knowl- 
edge; it  is  the  impassioned  expression  which  is  in  the 
countenance  of  all  Science.  ...  If  the  time  should  ever 
come  when  what  is  now  called  Science,  shall  be  ready  to 
put  on,  as  it  were,  the  form  of  flesh  and  blood,  the  Poet 
will  lend  his  divine  spirit  to  aid  the  transfiguration,  and  will 
welcome  the  Being  thus  produced  as  a  dear  and  genuine 
inmate  of  the  household  of  man." J 

The  student  of  Tennyson  and  Browning  in  tl\e  closing 
years  of  bur  century  is  witnessing  the  fulfilment  of  this 
prophecy  of  the  last  year  of  the  previous  century.  Tennyson 
in  accepting  what  was  once  thought  to  be  a  step  toward 
atheism,  i.  e.  Evolution,  says  :  — 

If  my  body  come  from  brutes  tho'  somewhat  finer  than  their  own, 
I  am  heir,  and  this  my  kingdom.    Shall  the  royal  voice  be  mute  ? 

No,  but  if  the  rebel  subje:  t  seek  to  drag  me  from  the  throne, 

Hold  the  sceptre,  Human  Soul,  and  rule  thy  Province  of  the  brute. 

I  have  climbed  to  the  snows  of  Age  and  I  gaze  at  a  field  in  the  Past, 
Where  I  sank  with  the  body,  at  times,  in  the  sloughs  of  a  low  desire, 

But  I  hear  no  yelp  of  the  beast,  and  the  Man  is  quiet  at  last 

As  he  stands  on  the  heights  of  his  life  with  a  glimpse  of  a  height  that  is 
higher. 

1  '  Prefaces  and  Essays  on  Poetry,'  A.  J.  George,  ed. 


OPTIMISM  OF   WORDSWORTH  AND   BROWNING.        323 

Again, 

Who  loves  not  Knowledge  ?     Who  shall  rail 
Against  her  beauty "?     May  she  mix 
With  men  and  prosper !     Who  shall  fix, 

Her  pillars  ?     Let  her  work  prevail. 

What  is  she,  cut  from  love  and  faith, 
But  some  wild  Pallas  from  the  brain 

Of  Demons.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  Let  her  know  her  place ; 
She  is  the  second,  not  the  first. 

Browning  with  his  first  plunge  into  the  depths  said  in 
'  Paracelsus '  — 

Know,  not  for  Knowing's  sake, 
But  to  become  a  star  to  men  for  ever ; 
Know,  for  the  gain  it  gets,  the  praise  it  brings, 
The  wonder  it  inspires,  the  love  it  breeds : 
Look  one  step  onward,  and  secure  that  step  ! 

To  KNOW 

Rather  consists  in  opening  out  a  way 
Whence  the  imprisoned  splendour  may  escape, 
Than  in  effecting  entry  for  a  light 
Supposed  to  be  without. 

Thus  we  see  that  neither  of  these  great  poets  feared  to 
follow  wherever  science  might  lead. 

In  '  Paracelsus '  we  have  united  the  two  great  princi- 
ples which  lie  at  the  basis  of  all  Browning's  work:  one, 
which  has  for  its  end,  knowledge ;  the  other,  which  has 
for  its  end,  conduct.  The  first  is  Browning's  philoso- 
phy ;  the  second,  Browning's  art.  These  correspond  very 
well  to  the  two  great  classes  of  literature  as  given  by 
Matthew  Arnold :  Scientific,  ministering  to  our  instinct 
for  knowledge ;  Poetic,  ministering  to  our  instinct  for 
conduct  and  beauty.  Along  these  lines  all  life  must 
move,  and  the  poet  who  attempts  to  lead  here  needs  all 
the  courage  of  the  most  resolute :  — 

Must  keep  ever  at  his  side 
The  tonic  of  a  wholesome  pride. 


324  BOSTON   BROWNING  SOCIETY  PAPEKS. 

For,  ah  !  so  much  he  has  to  do : 
Be  painter  and  musician  too ! 
The  aspect  of  the  moment  show, 
The  feeling  of  the  moment  know ! 
But,  ah,  then  comes  his  sorest  spell 
Of  toil, —  he  must  life's  movement  tell! 
The  thread  which  binds  it  all  iu  one 
And  not  its  separate  parts  alone. 
The  movement  he  must  tell  of  life, 
Its  pain  and  pleasure,  rest  and  strife ; 
His  eye  must  travel  down  at  full 
The  long  unpausing  spectacle ; 
With  faithful  nnrelaxiug  force 
Attend  it  from  its  primal  source, 
Attend  it  to  the  last  repose, 
And  solemn  silence  of  its  close. 

Browning,  more  than  any  poet  of  modern  times,  has 
that  intellectual  fearlessness  which  is  thoroughly  Greek; 
he  looks  unflinchingly  upon  all  that  meets  him,  and  he 
apparently  cares  not  for  consequences.  This  impetuosity 
of  mental  action,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  resulted 
in  that  duality  which  he  seemed  so  careless  about  uni- 
fying, —  philosophy  and  ethics.  It  is  admitted  by  all  that 
Browning  appeals  to  the  head  for  the  solution  of  the 
problem  of  evil,  and  that  when  he  does  this  he  works,  not 
as  an  artist  and  poet,  dealing  with  life  as  a  whole,  but  as 
a  philosopher  interested  in  certain  problems  suggested  by 
the  mind  itself.  His  solution  of  the  problem  of  evil  can 
be  stated  in  a  few  words.  Starting  with  the  great  principle 
of  evolution,  that  man  is  ever  becoming,  "  made  to  grow 
not  stop,"  - 

A  thing  nor  God  nor  beast, 
Made  to  know  that  he  can  know  and  not  more : 
Lower  than  God  who  knows  all  and  can  all, 
Higher  than  beasts  which  know  and  can  so  far 
As  each  beast's  limit, 

Browning  is  bound  to  follow  life  through  all  its  stages  of 
pain  and  pleasure,  victory  and  defeat,  faith  and  doubt,  and 
face  the  stern  realities.  How  is  he  able  to  do  this  and  not 


OPTIMISM  OF   WORDSWORTH  AND  BROWNING.        325 

become  a  pessimist  ?  He  sees  clearly  all  the  struggle  and 
misery ;  he  selects  a  Guido  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  Saul 
on  the  other ;  here  a  student  "  dead  from  the  waist  down," 
there  a  faithful  teacher  left  to  die  in  the  desert,  in  order 
that  he  may  be  certain  that  he  has  seen  life  as  it  actually 
is.  Nothing  can  save  him  from  despair  but  the  idea  that 
man  is  working  out  a  moral  ideal,  in  which  God  is  omni- 
present, and  that  the  manifestation  of  God's  presence  in 
man  is  love : 

Be  warned  by  me, 

Never  yon  cheat  yourself  one  instant !    Love, 
Give  love,  ask  only  love,  and  leave  the  rest ! 

Now  this  love  is  made  perfect  through  suffering.  "  Man 
is  a  god  though  in  the  germ."  This  is  perception,  not 
demonstration,  and  Browning  has  sought  refuge  in  poetry, 
not  philosophy ;  but  he  will  do  better  next  time  ?  Let  us 
see  what  he  does  when  asked  to  demonstrate  the  truth  of 
this  faith  in  the  unity  of  God  and  man :  — 

Take  the  joys  and  bear  the  sorrows  —  neither  with  extreme  concern  ! 
Living  here  means  nescience  simply,  't  is  next  life  that  helps  to  learn. 

again,  — 

Knowledge  means 
Ever-renewed  assurance  by  defeat, 
That  victory  is  somehow  still  to  reach. 

There  is  no  demonstration  here  surely :  — 

To  each  mortal  peradventure  earth  becomes  a  new  machine, 
Pain  and  pleasure  no  more  tally  in  our  sense  than  red  and  green. 

Each  man  has  his  own  criterion  —  to  question  is  absurd. 
Can  it  be  that  Browning  is  teaching  a  fatal  agnosticism  ? 

Wholly  distrust  thy  knowledge,  then,  and  trust 
As  wholly  love  allied  to  ignorance  ! 
There  lies  thy  truth  and  safety. 

What  shall  we  say  to  attaining  even  a  moral  life  by  such  a 
sacrifice  ?  Shall  we  cast  doubt  upon  the  head  in  order  to 
secure  the  heart  ?  This  seems,  at  least,  to  be  an  entire 


326  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

abandonment  of  the  principle  from  which  modern  philoso- 
phy had  its  origin,  —  Cogito  ergo  sum.  It  is  philosophical 
suicide  to  say  that  man  possesses 

Of  knowledge  —  just  so  much  as  shows  that  still 
It  ends  in  ignorance  on  every  side. 

He  says  if  knowledge  were  not  relative,  knowledge  could 
not  be,  and  moral  activity  would  have  no  sphere  — 

Make  evident  that  pain 
Permissibly  masks  pleasure  —  you  abstain 
From  outstretch  of  the  finger-tip  that  saves 
A  drowning  fly. 

This  is  the  argument  of  the  'Epistle  of  Karshish,'  — 
and  what  is  the  result?  It  is  a  flat  denial  of  the  basal 
idea  of  modern  philosophy,  that  "  all  true  thought  is  divine 
thought,  —  thought,  that  is,  which  is  not  arbitrary  and 
accidental,  but  in  which  the  individual  mind  surrenders 
its  narrow  individualism,  and  enters  into  the  region  of 
universal  and  absolute  truth.  If,  therefore,  rational 
knowledge  is,  in  one  point  of  view,  man's  knowledge  •  of 
God,  it  is  in  another  God's  knowledge  of  himself."  All 
of  this  Browning  clearly  and  explicitly  denies ;  with  him 
God  is  the  Unknowable,  and  yet  he  worships.  Here  the 
self-contradiction  lies  —  for  "  worship  of  the  Unknow- 
able is  an  impossible  attitude  of  mind."  The  doctrine  of 
relativity  of  human  knowledge  is  that  which,  beginning 
with  Kant,  continued  by  Sir  William  Hamilton  and  Man- 
sel,  has  had  its  chief  defender  in  Herbert  Spencer.  Is 
Browning  the  thinker  tending  in  the  same  direction? 
Those  who  are  no  enemies  of  the  great  poet,  but  who 
know  his  mental  attitude,  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  "  Yes,  we 
must  confess  it,  Browning  the  philosopher  fails  us  here  ; 
there  is  no  optimism  here  ;  we  must  turn  to  Browning  the 
poet." 

We  need  not  be  disturbed  in  the  least  at  the  results 
reached  in  our  study  of  Browning  the  philosopher;  we 


OPTIMISM   OF   WORDSWORTH  AND   BROWNING.        327 

should  be  willing  to  look  facts  in  the  face.  We  all  know 
that  the  best  criticism  of  Browning  (the  most  thorough 
and  sympathetic)  has  insisted  upon  Browning  the  poet  as 
the  Browning  who  is  to  live.  Modern  philosophy  takes  no 
notice  of  Browning  except  to  show  that  his  philosophy  — 
if  philosophy  it  can  be  called  —  leads  to  agnosticism.  I  know 
there  are  those  who  claim  that  Browning's  final  utterances 
are  to  be  found  in  the  argumentative  poems  because  they 
were,  for  the  most  part,  his  latest  utterances.  Even  were 
these  believed  by  the  poet  himself  to  be  of  the  highest 
worth,  he  could  not  persuade  us  to  that  conclusion.  Stop- 
ford  Brooke  says :  "  The  very  highest  scientific  intellect  is 
a  joke  in  comparison  with  the  intellectual  power  of  Homer, 
Dante  and  Shakespeare,"  and  so  we  say  that  the  scientific 
Browning  is  a  joke  in  comparison  with  the  poetic  Brown- 
ing. Again  says  Mr.  Brooke  :  "  I  hold  fast  to  one  thing  — 
that  the  best  work  of  our  poet,  that  by  which  he  will 
always  live,  is  not  in  his  intellectual  analysis,  or  in  his 
preaching,  or  in  his  difficult  thinkings,  but  in  the  simple, 
sensuous,  and  impassioned  things  he  wrote  out  of  the 
overflowing  of  his  heart."  1 

Mr.  William  Sharp  says :  "  It  is  as  the  poet  he  will  live  ; 
not  merely  as  the  '  novel  thinker '  in  verse ;  logically,  his 
attitude  as  thinker  is  unimpressive." 2  "A  Philosophy  of 
life,"  says  Professor  Jones,  "  which  is  based  on  agnosticism 
is  an  explicit  self-contradiction,  which  can  help  no  one. 
We  must  appeal  from  Browning  the  philosopher  to  Brown- 
ing the  poet."  3  "  It  was  not  much  of  a  philosophy,"  says 
Mr.  Saintsbury.  "this  which  the  poet  half  echoed  from 
and  half  taught  to  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. But  the  poet  is  'always  saved  by  his  poetry,  and  this 
is  the  case  with  Browning."  4  I  could  continue  this  list 
indefinitely.  These  men  are  not  hostile  to  Browning ;  they 

1  '  Impresssons  of  Browning.' 

2  '  Browning,'  Great  Writers'  Series. 

3  '  Browning  as  a  Philosophical  and  Religious  Teacher.' 

4  '  Corrected  Impressions.' 


328  BOSTON  BROWISTING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

are  his  most  sympathetic  interpreters :  but  they  appeal  from 
the  Aristotelianism  of  Browning  to  his  Platonism,  and 
here  too  much  cannot  be  said ;  here  his  optimism  is  no 
trailing  cloud,  but  a  bright  consummate  star,  shining  clear 
and  steady  in  the  heavens  from  which  so  many  have  paled 
their  ineffectual  fire. 

Browning  the  poet  quietly  ignores  the  logical  conse- 
quences of  the  theories  held  by  Browning  the  philosopher, 
and  gives  us,  not  what  is  contrary  to  philosophy  in  general, 
but  what  is  contrary  only  to  his  own  poor  argument ;  he 
gives  us  the  very  thing  which  poetiy  is  bound  to  give  — 
"  such  a  living  faith  in  God's  relation  to  man  as  leaves  no 
place  for  that  helpless  resentment  against  the  appointed 
order  so  apt  to  rise  within  us  at  the  sight  of  undeserved 
pain.  This  faith  is  manifested  in  the  highest  form  in 
Christian  Theism."  l  Browning's  optimism  as  poet  and' 
man  is  the  result  of  Browning's  Christian  Theism. 

But  before  passing  on  let  me  forestall  any  thought  on 
your  part  that  I  believe  optimism  must  always  be  born  out 
of  our  poetic  —  our  intuitional  nature.  It  by  no  means 
follows  that  because  Browning's  philosophy  fails  philo- 
sophic thought  fails,  —  that  the  rationalising  activity  of 
our  age  must  be  feared.  While  immediate  and  spontane- 
ous experience  is  clothed  with  more  interest,  more  vivacity, 
more  fulness  and  glow  of  life,  we  must  never  consider  the 
inevitable  processes  of  reflection  vain  or  valueless.  Our 
trust  in  the  heart  need  not  weaken  our  belief  in  the  head. 
"  The  human  spirit  is  not  a  thing  divided  against  itself,  so 
that  faith  and  reason  can  subsist  side  by  side  in  the  same 
mind,  each  asserting  as  absolute,  principles  which  are  con- 
tradicted by  the  other."  We  are  not  shut  up  to  the  alter- 
native of  giving  either  a  bad  reason,  or  no  reason  at  all 
for  our  highest  convictions.  If  it  is  not  possible  to  explain 
them  rationally  without  explaining  them  away,  the  out- 
come is  universal  scepticism.  There  is  a  profounder  logic 

1  A.  J.  Balfour :  '  Foundations  of  Belief.' 


OPTIMISM   OF  WORDSWORTH  AND   BROWNING.        329 

than  the  syllogism,  —  "  the  logic  which  enters  into  the 
genesis  and  traces  the  secret  rhythm  and  evolution  of 
thought,  which  grasps  the  constituent  elements  in  that 
living  process  of  which  all  truth  consists."  l 

I  have  alluded  to  the  fact  that  Browning  as  a  poet  dared 
to  do  what  Wordsworth  predicted  the  poet  of  the  age  of 
science  could  do.  He  has  dared  to  follow  side  by  side 
with  the  scientist,  and  use  the  material  of  the  scientist  for 
the  ends  of  poetry.  This  work  is  distinctly  different  from 
that  which  Browning  the  philosopher  does.  This  is  no- 
where more  clearly  revealed  to  us  than  in  that  very  sug- 
gestive little  book  by  Dr.  Berdoe,  — '  Browning's  Message 
to  his  Time.'  Dr.  Berdoe  nowhere  claims  for  Browning  a 
place  among  the  great  philosophers ;  but  he  rightly  claims 
for  him  a  place  among  the  prophets.  Browning  as  a 
prophet  moves  in  a  sphere  for  ever  undisturbed  by  the 
revelations  of  the  scientist,  simply  because  it  is  the  sphere 
of  poetry,  the  sphere  of  man's  loves,  man's  hopes,  man's 
aspirations.  As  Wordsworth  did  more  for  mankind  by 
his  '  Ode  to  Duty  '  and  his  '  Ode  on  Intimations  of  Immor- 
tality '  than  by  his  '  Ecclesiastical  Sonnets,'  as  Tennyson 
sounded  a  higher  note  in  his  '  In  Memoriam '  than  in  his 
'  Two  Voices  '  and  the  '  Supposed  Confessions  of  a  Second- 
rate  Sensitive  Mind,'  so  Browning  contributed  more  to  the 
spiritual  movement  of  the  age  by  his  '  Saul,'  '  Apparent 
Failure,'  *  Prospice,'  '  Abt  Vogler,'  etc.,  than  by  all  his 
argumentative  verse.  These  are  indeed  veritable  fountain- 
heads  of  spiritual  power.  "  High  art,"  says  Mr.  Myers, 
"  is  based  upon  unprovable  intuitions,  and  of  all  the  arts 
it  is  poetry  whose  intuitions  take  the  brightest  glow,  and 
best  illumine  the  mystery  without  us  from  the  mystery 
within."  2  This  I  should  say  was  the  secret  of  Browning's 
work  as  an  optimist,  —  he  illumines  the  mystery  without 
by  the  mystery  within  :  — 

1  J.  Caird  : '  Philosophy  of  Religion.' 
-  '  Science  and  A  Future  Life.' 


330  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

Strong  is  the  soul,  and  wise  and  beautiful ; 
The  seeds  of  God-like  power  are  in  us  still ; 
Gods  are  we,  bards,  saints,  heroes,  if  we  will ! 
Dumb  judges,  answer,  truth  or  mockery  ? 

This  is  the  note  sounding  everywhere  in  Browning's 
poetry.  It  is  an  appeal  to  the  God-consciousness  in  every 
man  —  "  what  a  man  may  waste,  desecrate,  never  quite 
lose." 

He  is  far  in  advance  of  our  institutional  Christianity, 
and  he  leads  the  column  of  our  Christian  socialism : 

Would  you  have  your  songs  endure  ? 
Build  on  the  human  heart. 

What  think  you  would  be  the  result  if  our  churches 
caught  even  a  faint  glimpse  of  this  great  truth  and  lived 
it  for  one  short  day?  — 

And  God  is  seen  God 
In  the  star,  in  the  stone,  in  the  flesh,  in  the  soul,  and  the  clod. 

When  we  see  the  mad  scramble  for  wealth  and  position 
by  those  who  have  never  for  one  moment  stopped  to  ask 
themselves  what  is  the  great  gulf  between  the  actual  and 
the  real,  are  we  not  tempted  to  say  with  our  poet  — 

Fool,  all  that  is,  at  all, 
Lasts  ever,  past  recall; 
Earth  changes,  but  thy  soul  and  God  stand  sure  ? 

If  we  go  to  tho  sorrowing  multitude  about  us  in  an 
attempt  to  console  and  lift  them,  are  not  our  words  "  va- 
cant chaff,  well  meant  for  grain,"  unless  we  can  charge 
them  with  the  magnificent  hope  of,  "  On  the  earth  the 
broken  arcs ;  in  the  heaven  a  perfect  round  "  ?  If  this  is 
a  delusion,  then  "  't  were  better  not  to  be."  Is  there  any 
finer  scorn  of  the  world  and  the  ways  of  it  than  in  — 

Not  on  the  vulgar  mass 

Called  "  work,"  must  sentence  pass, 
Things  done,  that  took  the  eye  and  had  the  price ; 

O'er  which,  from  level  stand, 

The  low  world  laid  its  hand, 
Found  straightway  to  its  mind,  could  value  in  a  trice : 


OPTIMISM  OF   WORDS  WOKTH  AJSTD   BROWNING.        331 

But  all,  the  world's  coarse  thumb 
And  finger  failed  to  plumb, 

All  I  could  never  be, 
All,  men  ignored  in  me, 
This,  I  was  worth  to  God. 

It  is  no  easy-going  moral  creed  that  we  find  in  — 

Progress  is  the  law  of  life,  man  is  not  Man  as  yet. 

A  principle  of  restlessness 

Which  would  be  all,  have,  see,  know,  taste,  feel,  all. 

Oh  if  we  draw  a  circle  premature,  heedless  of  far  gain, 
Greedy  for  quick  returns  of  profit, 
Surely,  bad  is  our  bargain. 

Browning  enunciates  the  same  law  for  the  soul  that 
socialists  do  for  man's  physical  life,  —  that  there  shall  be 
no  monopoly  of  the  means  by  which  it  may  be  developed. 
He  is  a  socialist  of  the  purest  type,  when  he  asserts  that 
if  we  put  impediments  in  the  way  of  the  free  development 
of  one  of  God's  creatures  we  incur  the  anathema  pro- 
nounced on  those  who  offend  one  "  of  these  little  ones," 
"  For  the  All-great  were  the  all-loving  too." 

We  see,  therefore,  that  the  optimism  of  Browning  is  the 
optimism  of  Christianity  in  its  simplicity  and  directness  : 

Are  they  perfect  of  lineament,  perfect  of  stature  ? 

In  both  of  such  lower  types  are  we  ; 
Precisely  because  of  our  wider  nature  ; 

For  time,  theirs ;  —  ours,  for  eternity. 

To-day's  brief  passion  limits  their  range ; 

It  seethes  with  the  morrow  for  us  and  more. 
They  are  perfect  —  how  else  ?  they  shall  never  change  : 

We  are  faulty  —  why  not  ?  we  have  time  in  store. 

The  joyous  fearless  activity  of  Browning ;  the  noble 
aspirations  of  his  intellect  and  the  mighty  passions  of  his 
heart ;  the  steady  certainty  that  God  and  man  are  one  in 
kind,  naturally  suggest  to  my  mind  an  utterance  of  the 


332  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

great  poet-preacher  of  our  time :  "  One  is  ready,"  he  says, 
"  to  have  tolerance,  respect,  and  hope  for  any  man,  who, 
reaching  after  God,  is  awed  by  God's  immensity  and  his 
own  littleness,  and  falls  back  crushed  and  doubtful.  His 
is  a  doubt  which  is  born  in  the  secret  chambers  of  his  own 
personal  conscientiousness.  It  is  independent  of  his  circum- 
stances and  surroundings.  The  soul  that  has  truly  come 
to  a  personal  doubt  finds  it  hard  to  conceive  of  any  ages  of 
most  implicit  faith  in  which  it  could  have  lived,  in  which 
that  doubt  would  not  have  been  in  it.  All  that  one  un- 
derstands, and  the  more  one  understands  it,  the  more  unin- 
telligible does  it  seem  to  him,  that  any  earnest  soul  can 
really  lay  its  doubt  upon  the  age,  the  set,  or  the  society  it 
lives  in.  No :  our  age,  our  society  is  what  we  have  been 
calling  it.  It  is  the  furnace.  Its  fire  can  set  and  fix  and 
fasten  what  the  man  puts  into  it.  But,  properly  speaking, 
it  can  create  no  character.  It  can  make  no  truly  faithful 
soul  a  doubter.  It  never  did.  It  never  can." 

Now  in  closing  let  us  unite  the  optimism  of  these  two 
prophets  with  a  golden  link  forged  by  that  third  great  seer 
in  our  century  :  — 

We  desire  no  isles  of  the  West,  no  quiet  seats  of  the  just, 
To  rest  in  a  golden  prove,  or  to  bask  in  a  summer  sky  : 
Give  us  the  wages  of  going  on,  and  not  to  die. 

I  can  see  no  better  ground  for  optimism  than  that  of 
these  poets  — 

While  blossoms  and  the  budding  spray 
Inspire  us  in  our  own  decay ; 
Still,  as  we  nearer  draw  to  life's  dark  goal, 
Be  hopeful  Spring  the  favourite  of  the  Soul. 

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  accursed. 


OPTIMISM   OF   WORDSWORTH  AND  BROWNING.        333 

These  surpassing  spirits  —  in  their  serene  faith  in  God  and 
immortality,  in  their  yearning  for  expansion  of  the  subtle 
thing  called  Spirit,  — 

Never  turn  their  backs,  but  march  breast  forward, 

Never  doubt  clouds  will  break, 

Never  dream,  though  right  be  worsted,  wrong  will  triumph, 
Hold  we  fall  to  rise,  are  baffled  to  fight  better, 

Sleep  to  wake. 


'  SORDELLO.' 

BY  CHAKLES  CARROLL  EVERETT. 

[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  April  28,  1895.] 

BROWNING  is  sometimes  not  easy  reading,  but  I  think 
that  his  obscurity  has  been  greatly  exaggerated.  I  see  no 
reason  why  the  greater  part  of  his  poems  should  be  con- 
sidered more  difficult  than  the  plays  and  sonnets  of  Shake- 
speare. By  common  consent  the  palm  for  obscurity  has 
been  given,  and  rightly,  to  '  Sordello.'  It  would  be  inter- 
esting to  discuss  at  more  length  than  there  is  here  space 
for  the  sources  of  the  difficulties  that  the  student  of 
Browning  meets  in  general,  and  in  this  poem  in  particular. 
In  '  Pacchiarotto  '  the  poet  implies  that  his  obscurity  arises 
from  the  greatness  of  his  thoughts.  He  there  says  to  his 
critics,  — 

But  had  you  to  put  in  one  small  line 

Some  thought  big  and  bouncing  —  as  noddle 

Of  goose,  born  to  cackle  and  waddle 

And  bite  at  man's  heel  as  goose-wont  is, 

Never  felt  plague  its  puny  os  frontis  — 

You  'd  know,  as  you  hissed,  spat  and  spluttered 

Clear  cackle  is  easily  uttered  ! 

I  doubt,  however,  if  the  thought  of  Browning  is  often  so 
large  that  it  cannot  be  clearly  expressed.  So  far  as  the 
poem  before  us  is  concerned,  it  must  be  confessed  that  its 
obscurity  consists,  in  part  at  least,  in  what  in  any  other 
author  would  be  considered  bad  writing.  The  sentences, 
as  is  not  uncommon  in  Browning,  are  often  greatly  in- 
volved. The  construction  is  sometimes  so  forced  as  to  put 
a  slight  strain  even  on  the  rules  of  grammar.  We  have, 


'  SOKDELLO.'  335 

for  instance,  relatives  looking  wildly  for  their  antecedents, 
who  are  too  much  occupied  to  pay  them  any  attention. 
Besides  this  form  of  obscurity  that  results  from  lack  of 
command  of  the  material,  there  is  another  which  is  more 
peculiar  to  Browning,  and  springs  indeed  from  the  quality 
of  his  genius.  He  sees  relations  more  far-reaching  than 
are  commonly  discerned.  These  look  so  clear  to  him  that 
it  does  not  occur  to  him  that  they  will  not  be  equally  ob- 
vious to  the  reader.  Thus  he  has  sudden  turns  of  expres- 
sion which  are  not  always  easy  to  follow.  While  speaking 
of  one  thing,  he  will  suddenly  pass  to  another,  and  the 
reader  may  fail  to  see  the  connection.  The  reader  is  a 
little  like  a  caterpillar  who  should  start  out  for  a  walk 
with  an  amiable  grasshopper.  They  begin  very  fairly 
together ;  but  suddenly  he  sees  his  friend  swinging  on  a 
spear  of  grass  feet  away,  and  how  he  got  there  and  how  he 
is  to  be  followed  are  difficult  questions.  To  take  a  strik- 
ing example,  —  near  the  beginning  of  the  poem  Browning 
seems  to  himself  to  be  surrounded  not  only  by  a  human, 
but  also  by  a  ghostly  audience. .  One  of  these  spirits  he 
warns  away  in  an  eloquent  apostrophe,  feeling  that  his  own 
verses  would  sound  harsh  beside  the  song  of  the  poet 
whose  spiritual  presence  he  thus  deprecates.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  poem  to  show  who  is  meant.  In  a  later 
edition  Browning  added  a  running  commentary  at  the  top 
of  the  page,  so  that  we  now  know  that  he  referred  to 
Shelley.  At  the  end  of  the  third  book  there  is  an  apos- 
trophe to  a  poet  whom  those  thoroughly  familiar  with  his 
writings  would  recognise  as  Landor.  Most  readers  have 
to  learn  this,  if  they  learn  it  at  all,  from  the  commentators. 
These  are  only  examples  of  the  kind  of  allusion  with  which 
these  pages  bristle.  Sometimes  they  are  to  obscure  his- 
torical events  or  personages.  Sometimes  they  are  to  pass- 
ing fancies.  In  this  latter  case,  close  attention  and  a  little 
play  of  imagination  on  the  reader's  part  will  often  help 
him  over  the  difficulty.  Where  the  trouble  springs  from 


336  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

ignorance  there  is  no  help  but  in  the  commentaries,  and 
not  always  in  them. 

A  part  of  the  difficulty  which  some  experience  in  read- 
ing Browning  springs  from  the  fact  that  they  try  to  under- 
stand more  than  is  absolutely  necessary,  and  are  troubled 
because  they  cannot  do  this.  Browning  makes  an  allusion, 
for  instance,  the  appositeness  of  which  is  obvious.  One 
does  well  often  to  let  this  stand  as  it  is,  and  not  try  to 
piece  out  the  whole  story.  Take,  for  instance,  the  allu- 
sion at  the  opening  of  '  Sordello '  to  "  Pentapolin  named 
o'  the  Naked  Arm,"  and  the  "  friendless  people's  friend." 
It  was  long  before  I  understood,  not  being  fresh  from  my 
'  Don  Quixote,'  who  these  personages  might  be,  and  I  did 
not  care  very  much  to  inform  myself  of  their  story.  It  is 
a  magnificent  picture  at  which  the  poet  hints.  It  makes 
us  feel  the  magic  of  his  power  as  he  singles  out 

Sordello  compassed  murkily  abont 

With  ravage  of  six  long,  sad,  hundred  years, 

and  I  felt  that  all  the  dictionaries  and  histories  in  the  city 
library  could  hardly  add  to  the  effect.  Why,  then,  should 
I  lose  the  enjoyment  of  this  picture  because,  forsooth,  I 
did  not  know  who  'f  Pentapolin  named  o'  the  Naked  Arm  " 
was.  Recently  a  friend  kindly  enlightened  my  ignorance ; 
but  I  confess  that  I  do  not  find  my  enjoyment  of  the  poem 
increased  by  the  information.  In  reading  Browning  one 
has,  thus,  often  to  exercise  a  self-restraint  to  keep  one's 
place  simply  at  the  point  of  proper  focus,  and  enjoy  the 
picture  which  the  poet  places  before  us,  asking  no 
questions. 

I  will  venture  to  say  further  that  a  little  obscurity  is  not 
necessarily  a  fault  in  a  poem.  In  the  first  place,  it  fixes 
the  attention.  When  we  read  with  perfect  ease  we  may 
pass  over  the  ground  so  rapidly  that  some  of  the  beauties 
that  we  meet  do  not  impress  themselves  upon  us  as  they 
should.  We  may  even  wholly  overlook  them.  I  am  in- 


'  SOKDELLO.'  337 

clined  to  think  that  many  readers  fail  to  recognise  the 
profundity  of  certain  passages  in  Tennyson  because  they 
float  so  easily  and  so  rapidly  over  the  clear  depths. 

Further,  a  certain  amount  of  obscurity  may  add  real 
force  to  the  style.  One  of  the  heresies  of  Herbert  Spencer 
is  his  insistence  that  strength  in  style  is  measured  by  ease 
of  apprehension.  This  is  much  like  saying  that  the  hose 
of  a  fire-engine  throws  water  with  a  force  that  is  measured 
by  the  ease  of  its  outlet ;  so  that  the  most  open-mouthed 
hose  would  throw  water  the  farthest.  In  a  perfectly  lucid 
style  we  reach  the  author's  thought  easily  and  gradually. 
It  is  built  up  before  us  by  slow  degrees.  If  the  style  has 
some  little  obscurity,  we  hesitate  in  regard  to  the  signifi- 
cance of  a  sentence.  The  expressions  have  at  first  little 
meaning  to  us ;  the  mind  is  under  a  strain  of  suspense. 
At  last  we  reach  the  key-word,  and  the  whole  meaning 
flashes  upon  us  at  once.  We  have  a  certain  shock  of  sur- 
prise and  pleasure. 

Of  course  this  is  true  only  within  certain  limits  and  of 
certain  kinds  of  obscurity.  The  writer  must  have  genius 
enough  to  stimulate  this  strain  of  suspense  and  to  repay  it. 
There  are  certain  relations  of  things  that  cannot  be  taken 
in  at  a  glance.  Certain  involutions  of  expression  may 
best  bring  these  to  consciousness.  The  motif  of  a  move- 
ment in  a  symphony  of  Beethoven  can  be  expressed  simply 
enough ;  but  who  finds  fault  with  the  great  composer  be- 
cause he  sees  fit  to  present  it  in  ways  that  put  a  strain  on 
the  attention  even  of  the  expert  ? 

It  seemed  proper  to  introduce  an  examination  of  '  Sor- 
dello  '  by  a  few  words  in  regard  to  Browning's  obscurity, 
for  this  obscurity  is  all  that  the  title  suggests  to  many 
minds.  It  must  be  admitted  that  in  this  poem  obscurity  is 
sometimes  carried  beyond  the  lines  within  which  it  gives 
strength.  The  poet  himself  was  somewhat  troubled  by 
the  difficulty  that  so  many  found  in  reading  it.  He  began 
to  rework  it,  but  decided  to  leave  it  for  the  most  part  as  it 

22 


338  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEES. 

was.  He  did  add  a  sort  of  running  explanation  at  the  top 
of  the  pages.  This,  as  I  have  already  stated,  makes  clear 
to  us  in  one  place  that  Shelley  is  referred  to,  but,  so  far  as 
I  have  noticed,  it  throws  in  general  little  light  on  difficult 
passages.  The  poet  further  implies  that  the  reader  need 
not  trouble  his  head  with  the  historical  background,  "  the 
incidents  in  the  development  of  a  soul  "  being  all  that  is 
worth  study.  He  seems  to  have  the  impression  that  the 
difficulty  lies  largely  with  the  historical  allusions.  These 
are  sometimes  obscure  enough ;  but  "  the  incidents  in  the 
development  of  a  soul "  are  not  always  quite  clear  with- 
out a  little  study.  The  poet  further,  I  am  sorry  to  say, 
slightly  loses  his  temper.  He  thinks  that  with  "  care  for  a 
man  or  a  book "  such  difficulties  would  be  easily  sur- 
mounted. The  grasshopper  thinks  that  if  the  caterpillar 
really  cared  for  his  company,  they  might  keep  on  very  well 
together.  He  adds,  however,  "  I  blame  nobody  —  least  of 
all  myself." 

It  is  an  interesting  question  why  '  Sordello '  should  have 
this  pre-eminence  of  obscurity.  It  is  not  more  profound 
than  many  of  the  other  poems,  '  Paracelsus,'  for  instance. 
Browning's  first  poem,  '  Pauline,'  is  in  its  theme  not  wholly 
unlike  '  Sordello.'  This  was  followed  by  '  Paracelsus.' 
Then  '  Sordello '  was  begun.  I  gather  that  the  first  two 
books  of  this  poem  had  been  written  when  it  was  broken 
off  in  order  that  'Strafford'  might  be  created.  Neither 
'  Pauline '  nor  4  Paracelsus '  is  difficult  reading,  and  '  Straf- 
ford' is  as  easy  as  any  one  could  desire.  Why  should 
4  Sordello,'  preceded  by  two  of  these,  and  having  the  other 
interjected  into  its  very  heart,  be  so  different  ? 

The  first  answer  that  suggests  itself  is  that  while 
4  Pauline '  and  4  Paracelsus '  are  written  in  blank  verse  and 
4  Strafford  '  in  prose,  4  Sordello  '  is  written  in  rhyme.  It 
may  be  that  the  poet  was  thus  hampered  by  conditions 
with  which  he  was  not  familiar  and  of  which  he  had  not 
obtained  the  mastery.  Perhaps  even  more  important  than 


'  SORDELLO.'  339 

the  limitations  of  rhyme  and  metre  was  the  fact  that  they 
brought  a  peculiar  inspiration  with  them.  The  poet  may 
have  felt  more  a  poet.  It  may  have  seemed  to  him  that  a 
simple  and  straightforward  telling  of  his  story  was  hardly  in 
keeping  with  the  rhymed  diction.  He  thus  may  have  been 
moved  to  freer  fancies  and  more  intricate  constructions, 
to  minor  affectations  and  mannerisms,  which  seemed  to  him 
to  belong  with  the  more  ornamental  metre  and  rhyme. 

Still  more  important  I  conceive  to  be  the  fact  that 
'  Sordello '  is  not,  like  most  of  the  works  of  Browning,  a 
dramatic  poem.  The  dramatic  form  must  obviously  tend 
to  produce  a  certain  clearness  and  directness  of  utterance. 
When  one  speaks  to  an  auditor,  whether  real  or  imagined, 
one  speaks  to  be  understood.  When  one  soliloquises,  it 
makes  comparatively  little  difference  whether  one  is  under- 
stood or  not.  Most  poets  do  not  need  this  protection. 
The  instinct  of  form  may  be  sufficient  to  keep  them  within 
the  proper  limits.  It  may  be  that  they  have  their  readers 
or  hearers  present  to  their  thought.  It  may  be  that  their 
imagination  is  so  well  under  command  that  it  can  be  left 
to  itself.  With  Browning  the  instinct  of  form  was  not 
sufficiently  developed  to  control  his  expression,  while  his 
imagination  was  so  active,  his  fancies  so  abundant  and 
eager,  his  thought  so  agile,  that  when  the  restraint  of  an 
interlocutor,  real  or  fancied,  was  absent,  they  held  high 
carnival  together. 

The  question  now  forces  itself  upon  us,  why  is  'Sor- 
dello' thus  exceptional  among  Browning's  poems?  We 
find  the  dramatic  form  in  nearly  all  his  poems,  why  not  in 
this  ?  On  the  first  page  of  *  Sordello  '  he  tells  us  that  he 
would  have  preferred  the  dramatic  form. 

.     .    .    Never,  —  I  should  warn  you  first,  — 
Of  my  own  choice  had  this,  if  not  the  worst 
Yet  not  the  best  expedient,  served  to  tell 
A  story  I  conld  body  forth  so  well 
By  making  speak,  myself  kept  out  of  view, 
The  very  man  as  he  was  wont  to  do. 


340  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

The  reason  he  gives  for  not  doing  this  is  a  very  lame  one, 
if  indeed  it  can  be  called  a  reason ;  and  we  must  try  to 
solve  the  difficulty  for  ourselves.  The  question  leads  us 
to  the  very  heart  of  our  subject. 

In  a  paper  which  I  had  the  honour  to  present  to  this  society 
some  years  ago,  which  was  afterward  published  in  'The 
Andover  Review,' 1  and  which  was  entitled,  '  The  Tragic 
Motif  in  Browning's  Dramas,'  I  tried  to  show  that  all  or 
nearly  all  these  dramas  are  based  upon  some  form  or  other 
of  a  collision  between  feeling  and  thought ;  or,  as  we 
might  phrase  it,  between  the  heart  and  the  head.  I  have 
been  greatly  interested  to  notice  that  in  the  important 
work  of  Professor  Jones  on  '  Browning  as  a  Philosophical 
and  Religious  Teacher,'  the  author,  working,  of  course, 
without  any  reference  to  my  paper,  finds  a  like  collision 
indicated  in  much  of  Browning's  later  poetry.  In  the 
plays  these  elements  are  embodied  in  different  personali- 
ties. We  have  Paracelsus  representing  the  intellect  over 
against  Aprile  representing  the  heart.  In  '  Luria'  we 
have  the  two  elements  of  the  nature  represented  by  the 
Moorish  general  Luria,  and  Braccio,  the  cold,  calculating 
diplomatist.  In  the  plays,  the  collision  being  an  outward 
one,  the  form  is  naturally  dramatic.  I  ventured  to  illus- 
trate this  collision  by  a  reference  to  '  Sordello.'  This 
reference  was  so  far  justified  that  in  Sordello  the  head 
and  the  heart  are  at  variance,  though  this  statement  by  no 
means  exhausts  the  complexity  of  the  inner  division  by 
which  the  spirit  of  Sordello  is  torn.  In  '  Sordello,'  how- 
ever, the  collision  is  no  longer  an  outward  one.  The 
warring  elements  no  longer  stand  over  against  one  another 
embodied  in  separated  personalities.  There  is,  properly 
speaking,  to  the  story  only  one  hero.  The  different  parts 
of  his  nature  are  at  war  with  one  another,  and  in  the  strife 
he  falls.  The  history  is  thus  fitted  to  be  the  theme  of  an 
epic  poem  rather  than  of  a  tragedy. 

1  Volume  xi.  page  113. 


4  SOKDELLO.'  341 

The  theme  of  '  Pauline  '  is  indeed  somewhat  similar  to 
that  of  '  Sordello.'  In  this  we  have  a  nature  divided 
against  itself,  and  the  struggle  is  also  an  inner  one  ;  but 
in  it,  however,  we  have  the  dramatic  form.  The  hero  is 
the  spokesman,  and  tells  the  story  of  his  life  to  the  lady  of 
his  love.  This  poem  is,  however,  comparatively  short,  and 
its  success  wras  hardly  sufficient  to  justify  a  similar  experi- 
ment on  a  larger  scale.  The  spirit  that  is  a  prey  to  con- 
tending passions,  that  yields  now  to  one  ideal  and  now  to 
another,  that  is  never  content  with  itself,  can  hardly  be 
expected  to  give  a  satisfactory  account  of  its  inner  life. 
'  Pauline  '  is  the  incoherent  cry  of  a  struggling  soul.  It 
contains  passages  of  rare  beauty,  but  as  a  whole  the  author 
considered  it  a  failure. 

We  notice,  thus,  in  'Sordello,'  two  conditions.  In  the 
first  place,  the  author  was  trammelled  by  the  unaccustomed 
rhyme.  In  the  second  place,  he  was  free  from  the  control 
of  the  dramatic  form.  The  first  of  these  conditions  would 
naturally  lead  to  certain  artificial  or  involved  forms  of 
expression ;  the  second  would  imply  the  absence  of  any- 
thing which  should  correct  this  tendency,  and  indeed 
would  itself  favour  a  looseness  and  vagueness  of  expression. 
To  these  conditions  we  will  add  that  the  poet  was  still 
young,  and  that  the  poem  was  to  be  a  .long  one. 

There  is  another  side  to  all  this.  The  freedom  from  the 
bonds  imposed  by  the  dramatic  form,  united  with  the  ten- 
dency to  play  with  the  metrical  machinery,  would  give  the 
poet  an  opportunity  to  show  his  powers  under  a  different 
aspect  from  that  in  which  they  ordinarily  appear.  He  is 
free  to  play.  He  may  give  free  scope  to  his  fancies  and 
his  impulses.  This,  as  we  have  seen,  may  give  place  to 
obscurities  that  might  not  exist  under  other  circumstances. 
At  the  same  time  it  gives  place  to  unwonted  beauties. 
Pegasus,  we  may  say,  is  enjoying  the  freedom  of  the 
pasture.  His  movements  are  irregular,  but  they  are  full 
of  grace.  In  fact,  some  of  the  most  beautiful  utterances  of 


342  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

the  poet  are  found  in  this  work.  While  this  is  true 
of  the  whole  poem,  I  think  it  is  especially  true  of  the 
first  two  books  and  of  the  last.  The  subject  treated  in 
the  first  two  has  a  special  charm,  and  the  poet  felt  the 
fresh  inspiration  of  his  theme.  It  was,  you  will  remember, 
at  about  the  close  of  the  second  book  that  he  broke  off  his 
work  to  write  '  Straff ord.'  The  last  book  presents  the 
culmination  of  the  story.  I  must  admit,  however,  that 
sometimes  in  reading  the  other  books  I  am  inclined  to 
deny  the  superiority  of  those  to  which  I  have  specially 
referred. 

'  Sordello  '  is,  as  I  have  intimated,  the  story  of  a  life  that 
was  a  failure  because  it  was  divided  against  itself.  We 
may  regard  it  as  having  two  stages.  The  first  of  these 
closes  with  the  second  book.  This  presents  the  failure  of 
Sordello  as  a  poet.  The  remaining  four  books  describe  his 
failure  as  a  man.  Both  failures  have  the  same  cause. 
They  spring  from  a  lack  of  spiritual  coherence.  Amid 
conflicting  ideals  and  passions,  with  all  his  powers,  Sor- 
dello accomplished  nothing.  The  final  defeat  had,  indeed, 
an  aspect  according  to  which  it  has  a  certain  air  of  victory, 
so  that  the  hero  receives  not  merely  our  compassion,  but  to 
a  certain  extent  our  applause.  Further,  there  is  intimated  a 
possible  means  by  which  the  discordant  nature  of  Sordello 
might  have  been  brought  into  harmony  with  itself  and 
thus  into  working  order. 

Let  us  now  glance  more  directly  at  the  development  of 
the  story,  though  it  is  an  ungrateful  task  to  detach  the 
incidents  of  the  poem  from  the  music  and  the  fancy  in 
which  the  poet  has  embodied  them. 

The  hero  first  appears  in  a  pretty  castle,  where  he  lives 
almost  alone.  A  few  old  women  attend  to  his  wants,  and 
once  in  a  while  he  catches  a  glimpse  of  Adelaide,  the  lady 
of  the  castle,  skilled,  so  it  is  believed,  in  magic  rites,  and 
feared  rather  than  loved.  With  her  he  has  sometimes  a 
glimpse  of  Palma,  the  fair  daughter  of  the  lord  of  the 


'  SORDELLO.'  343 

castle,  Ecelin,  by  a  former  marriage.     He  is  "  a  slender 
boy  in  a  loose  page's  dress." 

His  face, 

—  Look  —  now  he  turns  away !    Yourselves  shall  trace 
(The  delicate  nostril  swerving  wide  and  fine, 
A  sharp  and  restless  lip,  so  well  combine 
With  that  calm  brow)  a  soul  fit  to  receive 
Delight  at  every  sense  ;  you  can  believe 
Sordello  foremost  in  the  regal  class 
Nature  has  broadly  severed  from  her  mass 
Of  men,  and  framed  for  pleasure,  as  she  frames 
Some  happy  lands,  that  have  luxurious  names, 
For  loose  fertility.     ... 
You  recognise  at  once  the  finer  dress 
Of  flesh  that  amply  lets  in  loveliness 
At  eye  and  ear,  while  round  the  rest  is  furled 
(As  though  she  would  not  trust  them  with  her  world) 
A  veil  that  shows  a  sky  not  near  so  blue, 
And  lets  but  half  the  sun  look  fervid  through. 

"  How  can  such  love  ? "  asks  the  poet,  and  a  little  later 
adds,  — 

To  remove 

A  curse  that  haunts  such  natures  —  to  preclude 
Their  finding  out  themselves  can  work  no  good 
To  what  they  love  —  nor  make  it  very  blest 
By  their  endeavour,  —  they  are  fain  invest 
The  lifeless  thing  with  life  from  their  own  soul. 

One  characteristic  marks  such  persons,  —  it  is  — 

A  need  to  blend  with  each  external  charm, 
Bury  themselves,  the  whole  heart  wide  and  warm,  — 
In  something  not  themselves ;   they  would  belong 
To  what  they  worship. 

There  is  another  class  that,  instead  of  giving  up  them- 
selves in  passionate  love  to  the  beauty  that  they  discover, 
refer  each  quality  that  they  recognise  to  themselves.  If 
they  have  not  already  manifested  such  qualities,  they  think 
that  it  is  because  circumstances  did  not  favour  such  mani- 
festation. It  belongs  to  them  none  the  less. 

A  little  singularly,  while  we  have  thus  presented  to  us 
different  classes  of  minds  that  seem  to  be  antithetic  to  one 


344  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

another,  Sordello  appears  to  belong  to  them  both.  The 
description  of  the  gentler  class  starts  from  the  portraiture 
of  Sordello ;  and  the  description  of  the  second  class  passes 
into  a  portraiture  of  the  same.  Perhaps  one  represents 
his  earlier,  and  the  other  his  somewhat  later,  experience. 
At  any  rate,  it  is  with  the  later  that  we  have  to  do  in  fol- 
lowing the  story.  Sordello  is  one  of  those  self-conscious 
spirits  that  imagine  themselves  equal  to  any  achievement, 
while  at  the  same  time  they  long  with  a  passionate  eager- 
ness for  recognition  from  tlie  world. 

At  this  point  the  poet  pauses  to  give  us  a  hint  of  that 
element  in  the  nature  of  Sordello  that  is  to  prove  his  ruin. 
It  is  this,  that  he  will  not  put  forth  his  power  because  the 
opportunities  that  the  world  offers  are  not  sufficient  to 
fully  manifest  its  greatness :  — 

Or  if  yet  worse  befall, 
And  a  desire  possess  it  to  put  all 
That  nature  forth,  forcing  our  straitened  sphere 
Contain  it,  —  to  display  completely  here 
The  mastery  another  life  should  learn, 
Thrusting  in  time  eternity's  concern,  — 
So  that  Sordello  — 

Here  the  poet  breaks  off  abruptly,  not  finishing  his  sen- 
tence, and  exclaims,  — 

Fool,  who  spied  the  mark 
Of  leprosy  upon  him,  violet-dark 
Already  as  he  loiters  ? 

The  condition  first  described  is  that  of  the  spirit  pictured 
in  one  of  the  most  noteworthy  of  the  poems  of  Emerson ; 
a  spirit  which  — 

Even  in  the  hot  pursuit  of  the  best  aims 
And  prizes  of  ambition  checks  its  hand, 
Like  Alpine  cataracts  frozen  as  they  leaped, 
Chilled  with  a  miserly  comparison 
Of  the  toy's  purchase  with  the  length  of  life. 

The  other  is  that  of  one  who  undertakes  to  embody  a  per- 
fect ideal,  —  an  ideal  for  which  earth  has  no  place,  —  and 


'  SORDELLO.'  345 

fails  because  he  strives  to  accomplish  in  time  what  belongs 
only  to  eternity. 

The  poet  quickly  draws  a  veil  over  this  revelation,  and 
proceeds  to  picture  the  life  of  Sordello  in  the  midst  of  the 
beautiful  nature  that  surrounded  him.  He  found  in  the 
companionship  of  this  nature  all  the  happiness  he  needed. 
All  the  fair  objects  that  encompassed  him  were  his  tribu- 
taries. The  world  was  -pledged  to  break  up,  sooner  or 
later,  this  happy  life ;  but  its  disenchantment  could  touch 
but  tardily  the  youth  that  was  so  fenced  about  "  from  most 
that  nurtures  judgment,  —  care  and  pain."  It  was  a  self- 
ish life,  no  doubt ;  but  what  was  there  to  call  out  unself- 
ishness in  him  ?  It  was  a  peaceful  existence,  without  the 
"  throes  and  stings  "  that  the  conventional  hero-worshipper 
assumes  to  mark  the  birth  of  genius.  Time,  however,  at 
last  put  an  end  to  this  life  of  simple  harmony  with  nature. 
The  adoration  of  trees  and  flowers  was  no  longer  enough. 
The  fancies  that  encompassed  him  detached  themselves 
from  simple,  natural  objects,  and  took  form  in  imagined 
persons  that  surrounded  him  and  paid  him  their  homage. 
For  himself  he  claimed  all  high  qualities.  Whatever 
heroic  act  he  heard  of  stimulated  his  fancy.  Ecelin,  it 
seems,  had  with  his  sword  overpowered  a  hired  assassin 
that  would  take  his  life.  Sordello  felt  that  surely  he 
could  do  as  much.  He  tried  to  wield  the  brand,  but  it 
was  too  heavy  for  him.  The  time  will  come,  he  thinks, 
and  bring  the  means  for  acting  out  himself.  He  strives  to 
bend  the  rough-hewn  ash-bow,  but  lets  it  fall  from  an  ach- 
ing wrist.  It  is  better  now  to  dream :  — 

Straight,  a  gold  shaft  hissed 
Into  the  Syrian  air,  struck  Malek  down 
Superbly !     "  Crosses  to  the  breach  !     God's  Town 
Is  gained  Him  back  !  "    Why  bend  rough  ash  bows  more  ? 

Thus  he  dreams,  gathering  to  himself  all  strength  and 
glory.  He  is  not  only  Ecelin,  he  is  the  Emperor  Frederick. 
He  is  still  more ;  he  is  Apollo,  the  god  of  all  strength  and 


346  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

grace ;  and  since  he  learns  that  Palrna  has  rejected  Count 
Richard's  suit,  she  seems  worthy  to  figure  in  his  dreams 
and  share  his  honours. 

This  life  in  dreams,  this  identifying  himself  with  one 
hero  and  another,  we  might  almost  venture  to  guess  was 
not  wholly  foreign  to  the  experience  of  Browning  himself. 
At  least  it  formed  a  part  of  his  early  ideal  of  aspiring  and 
romantic  youth.  We  find  something  similar  in  '  Pauline.' 
In  this  the  speaker  tells  how  he  revelled  in  romances,  and 
how  he  identified  himself  with  the  heroes  of  them. 

At  last  Bordello  grew  weary  and  impatient.  Fancies 
were  not  sufficient  for  his  life.  There  came  to  his  quiet 
corner  no  change.  He  resolves  to  go  out  and  show  himself 
to  the  great  world.  He  might  meet  Palma.  He  might  in 
some  way  be  recognised  for  what  he  felt  himself  to  be. 

There  was  a  festival  in  the  city,  a  court  of  love.  Sor- 
clello  found  himself,  at  last,  face  to  face  with  the  reality  of 
life.  No  acclaim  greeted  him.  There  sat  Palma,  —  the 
Palma  of  his  dream;  but  to  her  he  was  nothing.  He 
looked  to  see  the  hero,  who  might  have  been  himself,  place 
himself  by  her  side.  Instead  of  this,  "  a  showy  man  ad- 
vanced." This  was  Eglamor,  the  troubadour.  He  sang 
his  song,  which  was  received  with  delighted  applause. 
Sordello  felt  his  heart  stir  within  him ;  not  in  vain  had 
been  his  life  of  idle  dreaming.  He  saw  the  imperfection  of 
the  poem.  He  sprang  into  the  place  of  the  singer.  He 
took  the  same  story  and  retold  it.  The  people  recognised 
the  difference  :  — 

.     .     .     But  the  people  —  but  the  cries, 
The  crowding  round,  and  proffering  the  prize  ! 
—  For  he  had  gained  some  prize. 

He  found  himself  at  the  feet  of  Palma,  who  laid  her  scarf 
about  his  neck.  Amidst  smiles  and  congratulations  he 
was  escorted  to  his  home.  He  was  told  that  Eglamor  had 
died  of  shame  at  his  defeat,  and  that  Palma  had  chosen 
him  as  her  minstrel. 


'  SOEDELLO.'  347 

No  part  of  the  poem  is  sweeter  and  tenderer  than  that 
which  describes  the  fate  of  Eglamor.  This  singer  was  the 
precise  antithesis  to  Sordello.  His  heart  was  wholly  in  his 
song.  He  had  no  other  dream,  no  other  ambition.  His 
nature  was  a  simple  unity.  His  poetiy  was  commonplace 
enough,  but  the  spirit  of  poetiy  was  in  it,  and  the  love  of 
all  beautiful  things.  Sordello  meets  the  little  train  that 
bears  him  to  his  last  resting-place.  He  takes  from  his  own 
brow  his  wreath  and  lays  it  on  the  poet's  breast. 

This  whole  experience  makes  a  great  change  in  the 
inner  life  of  Sordello.  He  has  also  learned  the  story  that 
was  current  of  himself.  He  who  had  dreamed  such  great 
things  was  simply  the  son  of  a  poor  archer.  His  ambition 
narrowed  itself.  He  had  a  special  calling ;  he  was  to  be  a 
poet.  This,  however,  seemed  to  him  the  sum  of  all  lives, 
for  to  the  poet  all  lives  are  open.  He  passes  from  one 
phase  of  life  to  another,  extracting  the  beauty  and  the  joy 
of  all.  Sordello  believed  that  men  would  see  in  him  the 
glory  and  the  possibility  of  all  these  lives.  Browning,  how- 
ever, throws  in  a  word  making  a  gentle  mock  of  this  desire 
of  one  who  felt  himself  so  exalted  above  the  world  to  win 
the  recognition  and  applause  of  the  world  that  he  despised. 

We  now  approach  the  first  grand  crisis  in  the  story  of 
Sordello.  He  is  summoned  to  Mantua  to  fulfil  his  task  as 
minstrel.  The  inspiration  was  gone.  "  'T  was  the  song's 
effect  he  cared  for,  scarce  the  song  itself,"  and  we  are  told 
that  at  last  the  rhymes  were  E  glamor's.  Here  we  are 
shown  how  the  life  of  Sordello  was  utterly  broken  up,  — 
distracted  by  opposing  ideals  and  ambitions.  The  man 
part  of  him  and  the  poet  part  were  at  variance ;  the  man 
part  hankered  after  the  actual  joys  and  experiences  of  life. 
The  poet's  art  seemed  hardly  worth  the  while  unless  it 
helped  to  these.  Poetry  did  not  bring  the  kind  of  recog- 
nition he  had  hoped  for.  He  had  fancied  that  men  would 
applaud  in  him  the  courage  and  the  strength  of  the  hero 
of  whom  he  sang.  Their  applause  passed  over  him  to 


348  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

reacli  the  hero  whom  he  had  praised.  Instead  of  crying, 
How  great  is  Sordello,  they  cried,  How  great  is  Montfort, 
who  was  the  hero  of  his  song. 

He  refined  his  language  till  it  became  too  delicate  for 
his  purpose.  He  elaborated  his  characters  till  thought 
took  the  place  of  perception.  He  cared  little  for  the 
Mantuans  to  whom  he  sang.  He  found  that  he  had  to 
idealize  them  as  he  had  done  his  trees  and  his  flowers.  He 
could  not  meet  them  on  equal  terms.  They  would  come 
to  him  with  a  question. 

A  speedy  aiiswer  followed ;  but,  alas, 
One  of  God's  large  ones,  tardy  to  condense 
Itself  into  a  period.     .     .     . 

Then  he  tried  to  meet  them  in  their  own  superficial  way ; 
but  he  could  not  quite  hit  the  mark. 

Weeks,  months,  years  went  by, 
And  lo,  Sordello  vanished  utterly, 
Sundered  in  twain ;  each  spectral  part  at  strife 
With  each     .     .     . 

.  But  the  complete  Sordello,  Man  and  Bard, 
John's  cloud-girt  angel,  this  foot  on  the  land, 
That  on  the  sea,  with,  open  in  his  hand, 
A  bitter- sweetling  of  a  book  —  was  gone. 

Thus  ends  the  first  division  of  the  story.  As  a  poet,  he 
failed  because  his  nature  was  not  in  harmony.  His  ideals 
clashed.  What  his  heart  aspired  to,  his  intellect  could  not 
compass.  His  inclinations  and  passions  dragged  him  in 
opposite  directions.  He  felt  that  he  was  a  failure.  On 
the  eve  of  a  festival  at  which  he  was  to  sing  he  fled  and 
found  himself  again  in  the  familiar  haunts  of  his  youth. 
At  first  he  enjoyed  the  quiet  and  the  beauty.  It  was  not, 
however,  quite  the  old  thing.  His  double  consciousness 
still  haunted  him. 

He  slept,  but  was  aware  he  slept, 

So,  frustrated  :  as  who  brainsick  made  pact 

Erst  with  the  overhanging  cataract 

To  deafen  him,  yet  still  distinguished  plain 

His  own  blood's  measured  clicking  at  his  brain. 


*  SOEDELLO.'  349 

He,  therefore,  welcomed  a  call  to  appear  again  in  the 
world  as  Palma's  minstrel.  This  leads  up  to  his  second 
great  failure.  His  divided  nature  had  caused  failure  as  a 
poet.  He  was  now  for  the  same  cause  to  fail  as  a  man. 

Having  introduced  the  personality  of  Sordello,  con- 
sidered as  poet,  so  fully,  I  shall  be  able  to  pass  over  this 
portion  of  the  story  more  rapidly,  dwelling  only  on  the  final 
catastrophe  of  the  failure  of  Sordello  considered  as  man. 

As  Sordello  found  himself  amid  the  throng  of  men,  his 
first  sense  was  that  of  disappointment.  They  were  not 
what  he  had  dreamed.  How  few  he  saw  that  were  worthy 
to  be  chiefs  !  Then  the  thought  of  the  people  seized  him, 
and  a  profound  sympathy  for  them  filled  his  soul.  He 
marvelled  that  in  his  dreams  of  ambition  he  had  left  them 
wholly  out  of  the  account.  He  found  that  the  cause  of  the 
Guelph,  which  was  the  cause  of  the  Pope,  was  also  the 
people's  cause  ;  a.nd  a  passion  took  possession  of  him  to 
build  Rome  up  to  a  new  glory.  Summoned  to  appear 
before  Taurello  Salinguerra,  whom  he  met  in  the  presence 
of  Palma,  he  pleaded  with  this  great  Ghibelline  thief  to 
take  up  the  Guelph  cause,  and  strike  for  the  Pope  and  the. 
people.  I  must  confess  that  his  speech,  however  eloquent, 
was  singularly  little  fitted  to  accomplish  its  end.  Finally 
it  was  explained  by  Palma  that  Sordello  was  not  the  son 
of  a  poor  archer,  as  he  had  supposed,  but  of  Salinguerra 
himself. 

Sordello  thus  found  himself  in  the  presence  of  oppor- 
tunities to  satisfy  at  once  his  love  and  his  ambition.  He 
could  marry  Palma.  He  could  take  his  place  as  the  leader 
of  the  Ghibellines.  The  world  could  not  have  opened 
more  dazzlingly  before  him.  But  how  about  his  new-found 
devotion  to  the  cause  of  the  people  ?  Should  he  sacrifice 
the  cause  which  embodied  his  whole  ideal  of  duty  and 
humanity  ?  Or  should  he  abandon  the  delight  of  love,  of 
power,  and  of  the  splendours  of  the  world?  The  badge 
which  represented  authority  was  already  laid  upon  him. 


350  BOSTON   BROWNING    SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

Salinguerra  and  Palma  left  him,  and  he  remained  alone 
with  his  own  thoughts. 

The  sixth  and  last  book  of  the  poem  which  contains  the 
record  of  this  inner  struggle  forms  the  climax  of  the  work. 
It  is  pre-eminent  for  depth  of  insight  and  strength  of  pre- 
sentation. Though  somewhat  crude,  it  is  yet,  by  its 
dialectic  subtlety,  not  unworthy  to  stand  by  the  side  of 
'  Bishop  Blougram's  Apology,'  or  any  other  exhibition  of 
psychological  subtlety  that  is  found  in  Browning's  more 
mature  works,  while  it  is  rilled  with  the  very  fire  and 
passion  of  youth. 

Sordello  looked  back  over  his  life.  "Every  shift  and 
change,  effort  with  counter  effort,"  opened  to  his  gaze. 
No  one  of  them  seemed  wrong,  except  as  it  checked  some 
other.  "  The  real  way  seemed  made  up  of  all  the  ways." 
If  only  there  could  have  been  some  overmastering  will  that 
should  have  united  the  divided  forces  of  his  life  and  have 
brought  them  to  bear  upon  some  one  great  end !  What  he 
needed  was  a  "  soul  above  his  soul,"  "  power  to  uplift  his 
power,"  the  "  moon's  control  over  the  sea-depths."  But 
the  sky  was  empty.  He  had  thus  been  without  a  function. 
Others  without  half  his  strength  attained  to  the  crown  of 
life.  Neither  Palma's  love  nor  a  Salinguerra's  hate  could 
master  him  completely.  Should  he  for  this  doubt  that 
there  was  some  moon  to  match  his  sea  ? 

He  seems  next  to  turn  the  view  of  life  which  so  often 
serves  as  a  basis  for  philanthropy  into  an  argument  for  his 
selfishness.  I  refer  to  the  idea  of  the  community  of  being, 
which  Schopenhauer  presents  as  the  source  of  love  and 
self-sacrifice.  Suppose,  he  cries,  there  is  no  external  force 
such  as  he  had  been  wishing  should  control  his  life.  Sup- 
pose that  he  was  ordained  to  be  a  law  to  his  own  sphere. 
Suppose  all  other  laws  seemed  foreign  only  because  they 
were  veiled,  while  really  they  were  manifestations  of  him- 
self. Suppose  the  people  whom  he  yearned  to  help  were 
simply  himself  presented  to  himself,  why  should  he  feel 


'  SOKDELLO.'  351 

bound   to   sacrifice   himself   specially   for   them  ?      "  No  ! 
All 's  himself :  all  service  therefore  rates  alike." 

Yet  he  would  gladly  help  the  people  if  he  could  only  be 
sure  that  he  could  really  help  them.  If  only  the  true 
course  would  open  itself  plainly  before  him ;  if  the  right 
and  the  wrong  were  only  separated  more  sharply  from  one 
another,  — 

if  one  man  bore 

Brand  upon  temples,  while  his  fellow  wore 
The  aureole,  — 

all  would  be  easy. 

Then  he  faced  as  he  had  never  done  before  the  great 
problem  of  life.  He  saw  how  what  we  call  good  is  de- 
pendent upon  what  we  call  evil.  Indeed,  what  would 
become  of  good  if  there  were  no  evil  ?  Faith  and  courage 
spring  from  suffering.  Evil  is  as  natural  in  the  world  as 
good.  Why,  then,  should  he  ruin  his  life  in  the  attempt 
to  destroy  evil,  when  he  would,  if  he  succeeded,  destroy 
also  the  possibility  of  good  ?  If  suffering  were  taken  from 
the  earth,  joy  would  disappear  with  it.  Joy  comes  from 
the  enlargement  of  life ;  it  is  an  escape.  Sordello  remem- 
bers that  he  himself,  in  his  early  home,  where  there  was 
only  beauty,  felt  beauty  pall  upon  him.  Men  are  like 
those  who  climb  a  mountain.  As  they  rise,  each  step  opens 
new  grandeur.  Once  on  the  mountain  top,  with  "  leave  to 
look,  not  leave  to  do,"  the  looker  would  soon  be  sated. 
Thus,  if  he  yielded  to  the  impulse  to  devote  himself  to  the 
people,  he  would  give  what  would  ruin  him,  and  would  not 
really  help  them.  It  will  be  noticed  that  here  Sordello 
presents  quite  accurately  the  theory  of  happiness  and  pain 
which  forms  the  basis  of  the  pessimism  of  Schopenhauer. 
It  is  that  happiness  is  merely  negative,  consisting  in  the 
removal  of  unhappiness.  When  the  unhappiness  has  gone, 
the  happiness  has  gone  with  it.  So  long  as  one  has  thirst, 
what  pleasure  the  water  gives  !  As  the  thirst  is  quenched, 
the  water  loses  its  charm. 


352  BOSTON    BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

In  the  next  thought  that  Sordello  utters,  he  assumes 
that  the  world  of  life  is  making  steady  advance  toward  the 
heights  of  peace.  The  world  is  moving  on ;  but  men 
travel  at  different  rates  of  speed.  Why  should  any  grudge 
it  to  him  if  he  reaches  the  height  of  joy  a  little  before  the 
rest  ? 

Then  the  passion  seized  him  to  make  the  most  of  this 
life ;  to  seize  what  the  present  offered ;  not  waiting  for  the 
chance  of  something,  better  perhaps,  but  belonging  to  the 
future. 

Wait  not  for  the  late  savour,  leave  untried 
Virtue,  the  creaming  honey-wine,  quick  squeeze 
Vice  like  a  biting  spirit  from  the  lees 
Of  life  !    Together  let  wrath,  hatred,  lust, 
All  tyrannies  in  every  shape,  be  thrust 
Upon  this  Now,  which  time  may  reason  out 
As  mischiefs,  far  from  benefits,  no  doubt; 
But  long  ere  then  Sordello  will  have  slipt 
Away. 

He  would  thus  live  the  life  that  was  given  him  in  the 
present,  and  trust  that  in  this  way  he  would  best  prepare 
himself  for  that  which  is  to  follow. 

Oh  life,  life-breath, 

Life-blood,  — ere  sleep,  come  travail,  life  ere  death! 
Tin's  life  stream  on  my  soul,  direct,  oblique, 
But  always  streaming  !     Hindrances  ?     They  pique  . 
Helps  ?     Such     .     .     .     but  why  repeat,  ray  soul  o'ertops 
Each  height,  than  every  depth  profoundlier  drops  ? 
Enough  that  I  can  live,  and  would  live  !     Wait 
For  some  transcendent  life  reserved  by  Fate 
To  follow  this  ?     Oh,  never !     Fate,  I  trust 
The  same,  my  soul  to ;  for,  as  who  flings  dust, 
Perchance  (so  facile  was  the  deed)  she  chequed 
The  void  with  these  materials  to  affect 
My  soul  diversely  :  these  consigned  anew 
To  nought  by  death,  what  marvel  if  she  threw 
A  second  and  superber  spectacle 
Before  it  1     What  may  serve  for  sun,  what  still 
Wander  a  moon  above  me  ?     What  else  wind 
About  me  like  the  pleasures  left  behind, 
And  how  shall  some  new  flesh  that  is  not  flesh 
Cling  to  me  ?     What 's  new  laughter  *     Soothes  the  fresh 


'  SORDELLO.'  353 

Sleep  like  sleep  ?     .    .    . 

.    .     .    Oh,  't  were  too  absurd  to  slight 

For  the  hereafter  the  to-day's  delight ! 

Quench  thirst  at  this,  then  seek  next  well-spring ;  wear 

Home-lilies  ere  strange  lotus  in  my  hair ! 

Living  the  earthly  life,  it  is  the  earthly  life  that  he  would 
live. 

Were  heaven  to  forestall  earth,  I  'd  say 
I,  is  it,  must  be  blest  ?     Then,  my  own  way 
Bless  me  !  give  firmer  arm  and  fleeter  foot, 
I  '11  thank  you :  but  to  no  mad  wings  transmute 
These  limbs  of  mine  —  our  greensward  was  so  soft ! 
Nor  camp  I  on  the  thunder-cloud  aloft  : 
We  feel  the  bliss  distinctlier,  having  thus 
Engines  subservient,  not  mixed  up  with  us. 
Better  move  palpably  through  heaven  :  nor,  freed 
Of  flesh,  forsooth,  from  space  to  space  proceed 
'Mid  flying  synods  of  worlds !    No :  in  heaven's  marge 
Show  Titan  still,  recumbent  o'er  his  targe 
Solid  with  stars  —  the  Centaur  at  his  game, 
Made  tremulously  out  in  hoary  flame ! 

Then  he  recalls  the  martyrs  who  have  borne  the  most 
fearful  tortures,  because  the  death  that  he  would  fly  "re- 
vealed so  oft  a  better  life  this  life  concealed."  Their 
example  does  not  move  him,  for  they  saw  what  he  does  not 
see.  He  exclaims :  — 

'T  was  well  for  them  ;  let  me  become  aware 
As  they,  and  I  relinquish  life,  too !    Let 
What  masters  life  disclose  itself  !    Forget 
Vain  ordinances,  I  have  one  appeal  — 
I  feel,  am  what  I  feel,  know  what  I  feel ; 
So  much  is  truth  to  me. 

Things,  he  urges,  present  different  aspects  to  different 
persons.  Who  shall  decide  that  what  is  true  to  one  is  not 
as  really  true  as  that  which  is  true  to  another  ?  He  thus 
refers  to  facts  which  have  furnished  support  to  philosophi- 
cal scepticism  as  making  the  attainment  of  absolute  truth 
impossible.  He  reasons,  however,  as  Professor  Royce  has 
recently  done,  that  these  facts  taken  by  themselves  would 
make  error  impossible.  He  cries,  — 

23 


354  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

What  Is,  then  ?     Since 
One  object,  viewed  diversely,  may  evince 
Beauty  and  ugliness  —  this  way  attract, 
That  way  repel,  —  why  gloze  upon  the  fact  ? 
Why  must  a  single  of  the  sides  be  right  ? 
What  bids  choose  this  and  leave  the  opposite  ? 
Where  's  abstract  Right  for  me  ? 

As  he  looked  more  deeply,  he  seemed  to  see  that  the  dis- 
tinctions of  which  we  make  so  much  might  be,  after  all, 
merely  phenomena  that  meet  us  in  the  present  state  of 
being,  and  have  no  relation  to  the  absolute  truth  of  things 

The  sudden  swell 

Of  his  expanding  soul  showed  111  and  Well, 
Sorrow  and  Joy,  Beauty  and  Ugliness, 
Virtue  and  Vice,  the  Larger  and  the  Less, 
All  qualities,  in  fine,  recorded  here, 
Might  be  but  modes  of  Time  and  this  one  sphere, 
Urgent  on  these,  but  not  of  force  to  bind 
Eternity,  as  Time  —  as  Matter  —  Mind, 
If  Mind,  Eternity,  should  choose  assert 
Their  attributes  within  a  Life  :  thus  girt 
With  circumstance,  next  change  beholds  them  cinct 
Quite  otherwise.     .    .     . 

.    .     .     Once  this  understood, 
As  suddenly  he  felt  himself  alone, 
Quite  out  of  Time  and  this  world :  all  was  known. 

He  seemed  to  himself  to  have  discovered  that  happiness 
consists  in  reaching  just  the  equipoise  between  the  soul 
and  the  conditions  in  which  it  finds  itself.  One  should 
seek  to  live  the  sort  of  life  which  can  be  lived  perfectly  in 
this  present  world.  One  should  attempt  a  life  no  larger 
than  can  be  lived  where  he  is.  If  this  equipoise  is  pre- 
served in  every  stage  of  being,  then  each  stage  will  be 
filled  out  in  its  turn,  and  the  career  of  the  soul  in  its 
successive  existences  will  be  one  of  triumphant  success. 
When,  however,  the  soul  undertakes  to  interfere  too  much 
with  the  concerns  of  the  body,  —  the  word  "  body  "  stand- 
ing for  the  whole  worldly  life,  —  then  this  existence  is 
spoiled.  Something  is  undertaken  which  cannot  be  per- 
formed, and  the  result  is  a  failure. 


'  SOEDELLO.'  355 

If  the  soul  in  every  stage  thus  strives  to  anticipate  what 
can  be  accomplished  only  in  the  life  that  is  next  to  follow, 
existence  will  be  a  long  succession  of  failures.  Thus  he 
cries,  — 

Let  the  soul's  attempt  sublime 
Matter  beyond  the  scheme  and  so  prevent 
By  more  or  less  that  deed's  accomplishment, 
And  Sorrow  follows :   Sorrow  how  avoid  ? 
Let  the  employer  match  the  thing  employed, 
Fit  to  the  finite  his  infinity, 
And  thus  proceed  for  ever,  in  degree 
Changed,  but  in  kind  the  same,  still  limited 
To  the  appointed  circumstance  and  dead 
To  all  beyond.    A  sphere  is  but  a  sphere ; 
Small,  Great,  are  merely  terms  we  bandy  here ; 
Since  to  the  spirit's  absoluteness  all 
Are  like. 

The  soul,  however,  as  I  have  intimated,  may  interfere  in 
such  a  way  as  to  spoil  this  balance.  It  may  undertake  too 
much. 

She  chose  to  understand  the  body's  trade 
More  than  the  body's  self  —  had  fain  conveyed 
Her  boundless  to  the  body's  bounded  lot. 
Hence,  the  soul  permanent,  the  body  not,  — 
Scarcely  its  minute  for  enjoying  here,  — 
The  soul  must  needs  instruct  her  weak  compeer, 
Eun  o'er  its  capabilities  and  wring 
A  joy  thence,  she  held  worth  experiencing : 
Which,  far  from  half  discovered  even,  — lo 
The  minute  gone,  the  body's  power  let  go 
Apportioned  to  that  joy's  acquirement ! 

Thus  does  the  soul  attempt  to  fill  out  the  weakness  of 
the  body  from  her  infinity :  — 

And  the  result  is,  the  poor  body  soon 

Sinks  under  what  was  meant  a  wondrous  boon, 

Leaving  its  bright  accomplice  all  aghast. 

Must  such  failure  go  on  for  ever  ?  Must  life  be  ever  just 
escaped,  which  should  have  been  enjoyed,  which  would 
have  been  enjoyed  if  soul  and  body  had  worked  harmo- 
niously together,  the  soul  not  striving  to  put  more  into  life 


356  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

than  its  fmiteness  can  hold  ?  If  the  proper  relation  were 
preserved,  soul  and  body  would  be  fitted  to  one  another 
like  the  heaven  and  the  placid  water  of  the  bay  in  which 
it  is  reflected.  They  would  match '  one  another  like  the 
two  wings  of  an  angel.  Thus  would  each  stage  of  the 
endless  journey  be  filled  with  the  joy  that  is  its  due,  — 

But  how  so  order  life  ?     Still  brutalise 
The  soul,  the  sad  world's  way,  with  muffled  eyes 
To  all  that  was  before,  all  that  shall  be 
After  this  sphere  —  all  aud  each  quality 
Save  some  sole  and  immutable  Great,  Good 
And  Beauteous  whither  fate  has  loosed  its  hood 
To  follow  ?     Never  may  some  soul  see  All 
—  The  Great  Before  and  After,  and  the  Small 
Now,  yet  be  saved  by  this  the  simplest  lore, 
And  take  the  single  course  prescribed  before, 
As  the  king-bird  with  ages  on  his  plumes 
Travels  to  die  in  his  ancestral  glooms  ? 
But  where  descry  the  Love  that  shall  select 
That  course  ?     Here  is  a  soul  whom,  to  affect, 
Nature  has  plied  with  all  her  means,  from  trees 
And  flowers  e'en  to  the  Multitude !  —  and  these, 
Decides  he  save  or  no  ?     One  word  to  end  ! 

Here  the  poet  intercepts  in  his  own  person  and  speaks 
of  a  divine-human  revelation  that  would  bring  succour  and 
guidance. 

Ah  my  Sordello,  I  this  once  befriend 

And  speak  for  yon.     Of  a  Power  above  you  still 

Which  utterly  incomprehensible 

Is  out  of  rivalry,  which  thus  you  can 

Love,  tho?  unloving  all  conceived  by  man  — 

What  need  !     And  of     ... 

.     .     .    a  Power  its  representative 
Who,  being  for  authority  the  same, 
Communication  different,  should  claim 
A  course,  the  first  chose  and  this  last  revealed  — 
This  Human  clear,  as  that  Divine  concealed  — 
What  utter  need ! 

I  am  not  sure  that  this  last  passage  does  not  give  what 
was,  in  the  author's  mind,  the  culmination  and  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  whole  poem.  It  points  to  the  divine-human 


4  SOKDELLO.'  357 

revelation  which  might  bring  peace  and  guidance  into  the 
troubled  and  doubtful  lives  of  men.  You  may  remember 
that  we  have  already  seen  that  Sordello  had  felt  that  the 
failure  of  his  life  had  been  caused  by  the  lack  of  some 
overmastering  and  directing  power.  It  may  help  us  to 
understand  the  importance  which  this  apostrophe  had  for 
the  poet  to  remember  the  longing  expressed  by  the  name- 
less hero  of  '  Pauline.'  After  an  extremely  touching  ref- 
erence to  the  Christ,  he  cries  :  — 

A  mortal,  sin's  familiar  friend,  doth  here 
Avow  that  he  will  give  all  earth's  reward, 
But  to  believe  and  humbly  teach  the  faith, 
In  suffering  and  poverty  and  shame, 
Only  believing  he  is  not  unloved. 

However  this  may  be,  the  apostrophe  in  *  Sordello '  was 
introduced  with  marvellous  rhetorical  skill.  It  distracts 
our  attention  from  Sordello  at  the  very  moment  when  his 
mental  struggle  reached  its  crisis.  Those  without  heard  a 
cry.  Salinguerra  and  Palma  rushed  to  the  spot :  — 

They  mount,  have  reached  the  threshold,  dash  the  veil 

Aside  —  and  you  divine  who  sat  there  dead, 

Under  his  foot  the  badge  :  still,  Palma  said, 

A  triumph  lingering  in  the  wide  eyes, 

Wider  than  some  spent  swimmer's  if  he  spies 

Help  from  above  in  his  extreme  despair, 

And,  head  far  back  on  shoulder  thrust,  turns  there 

With  short  quick  passionate  cry :  as  Palma  pressed, 

In  one  great  kiss,  her  lips  upon  his  breast, 

It  beat. 

In  all  this  colloquy  of  Sordello  with  himself,  of  which  I 
have  given  scanty  extracts,  there  is  no  word  which  urged 
the  great  act  of  self-sacrifice.  We  have  simply  the  per- 
sonal desires  encompassing  the  soul  with  all  the  sophistries 
of  the  intellect.  The  heart  which  discerns  the  higher  and 
truer  course  makes  no  reply.  It  simply  breaks  through 
the  toils  of  the  intellect  with  a  mighty  effort.  It  has 
beaten  off  the  foe,  but  it  was  a  life-and-death  struggle,  and 


358  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

death  was  the  issue.  As  we  read,  we  have  a  sense  of  vic- 
tory. To  the  poet  it  was  no  victory,  but  a  drawn  battle. 
Of  course  he  was  not  altogether  unmindful  of  the  heroic 
nature  of  the  struggle.  He  gave  an  intimation  at  the  end 
of  the  third  book  that  after  all  we  should  not  find  that 
Sordello  was  quite  as  bad  as  he  might  appear.  You  re- 
member, however,  the  poem  entitled  '  The  Statue  and  the 
Bust.'  Browning  believed  in  decision  and  in  act.  The 
story  of  Sordello  is  that  of  a  life  that  was  wasted  by  inde- 
cision, because  it  was  always  attracted  by  different  and 
irreconcilable  ideals.  It  is  the  story  of  a  nature,  the  ele- 
ments of  which  were  in  constant  strife  ;  the  head  and  the 
heart,  the  ideal  and  the  personal,  were  always  at  war 
within  him,  and  the  result  was  a  life  that  was  no  life. 
The  poet  has  no  word  of  congratulation  in  regard  to  what 
to  us  seems  a  spiritual  triumph.  He  describes  the  wretched 
condition  in  which  things  were  left  at  the  death  of  Sordello, 
the  ignoble  strifes,  the  petty  but  destructive  ambitions,  the 
warring  factions  that  occupied  the  scene,  till  we  feel  that 
it  might  have  been  better  if  Sordello  had  worn  the  badge, 
and  taken  the  position  to  which  he  had  been  born.  All 
the  trace  that  he  left  behind  him  was  found  in  the  fragment 
of  a  song  which  a  boy  sang  as  he  climbed  the  hills. 

I  have  tried  simply  to  give  some  hints  of  this  story  of  a 
soul.  Of  the  brilliant '  picturing  of  contemporary  life  I 
have  said  nothing,  nor  of  the  historical  allusions,  which 
sometimes  tax  our  power  of  comprehension.  The  few 
characters  that  figure  in  the  story  are  for  the  most  part 
well  defined  and  sharply  drawn  by  a  few  touches  of  a  mas- 
ter's hand.  There  is  Ecelin,  the  head  of  the  Ghibelline 
party,  crafty,  cruel,  and  weak ;  who  needed  to  be  continu- 
ally braced  up  by  Adelaide,  his  wife,  and  who  at  her  death 
sought  refuge  in  a  monastery  to  make  atonement  for  his 
many  sins.  There  is  Adelaide,  the  possessor  of  magical 
gifts,  hated  and  feared.  There  is  Taurello  Salinguerra, 
the  bluff,  good-natured  soldier,  who  preferred  to  be  second 


'  SOEDELLO.'  359 

when  he  might  have  been  the  first.  There  is  Naddo,  the 
genius  hunter  and  haunter,  the  superficial  and  conventional 
critic,  who  seemed  to  worship  a  poet,  but  would  not  for  the 
world  that  his  son  should  be  a  poet.  There  is  Eglamor, 
the  sweet  singer,  whose  life  all  went  into  his  common- 
place songs,  and  who  died  of  grief  at  his  defeat.  Palma,  I 
am  sorry  to  say,  cannot  be  placed  among  these  clearly 
marked  characters.  To  tell  the  truth,  she  is  little  more 
than  a  lay  figure,  or,  more  properly  perhaps,  a  succession 
of  lay  figures.  There  is  a  very  pretty  picture  of  her  in  her 
young  girlhood;  but  this  is  rather  Sordello's  fancy  than 
the  real  Palma.  Later,  when  Sordello  met  her  for  a  con- 
fidential talk,  we  read :  — 

But  when  she  felt  she  held  her  friend  indeed 

Safe,  she  threw  back  her  curls,  began  implant  her  lessons. 

This  fling  of  the  curls  makes  us  think  of  a  gay  young 
thing,  or  a  sentimental  damsel,  as  perhaps  she  was.  Then 
she  explained  that  while  Sordello  was  aspiring  to  mastery 
she  had  been  longing  for  some  power  that  should  take 
command  of  her  life ;  and  this  aspiration  is  very  prettily 
related.  It  seems,  too,  that  she  had  chosen  Sordello  as  he 
had  chosen  her.  Later,  however,  when  the  occasion  offered 
itself,  she  did  not  hesitate  to  take,  nominally  at  least,  the 
position  of  commander-in-chief  of  the  Ghibelline  forces, 
and  to  assume  the  practical  direction  of  Sordello  himself. 
Once  she  unexpectedly  appears  to  Sordello,  in  the  night, 
in  the  midst  of  the  crowd  that  thronged  the  streets.  I  fear 
that  her  longing  for  some  master-spirit  to  control  her  life 
was  rather  sentimental  than  real.  There  is  no  evidence 
that  Sordello's  affection  for  her  was  very  profound.  Con- 
sidered as  a  love-story,  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  poem 
is  a  failure.  The  power  that  created  Pippa  and  Mildred, 
Anael  and  Colombe,  seems  not  yet  to  have  been  aroused. 
It  is,  however,  not  at  all  as  a  love-story  that  the  poem 
should  be  regarded.  It  is,  as  Browning  himself  tells  us, 


360  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

the   story  of  the    "Development  of  a  soul,"  and  to  this 
everything  else  is  subsidiary. 

There  is  an  extremely  interesting  passage  at  the  end  of 
the  third  book,  in  which  the  poet  breaks  loose  from  his 
story  and  appears  in  his  own  person,  musing  on  a  ruined 
palace-step  at  Venice.  This  passage,  extending  over  some 
dozen  pages,  is  not  always  of  the  clearest,  but  has  for  me  a 
great  fascination.  One  point  in  it  has  a  special  interest,  as 
possibly  throwing  light  upon  the  poet's  interest  in  his 
dramatic  creations.  The  poet  touches  upon  the  problem 
of  evil.  He  says  :  — 

Ask  moreover,  when  they  prate 
Of  evil  meii  past  hope,  "  Don't  each  contrive, 
Despite  the  evil  you  abuse,  to  live  ?  — 
Keeping,  each  losel,  through  a  maze  of  lies, 
His  own  conceit  of  truth  ?  to  which  he  hies 
By  obscure  windings,  tortuous,  if  you  will, 
But  to  himself  not  inaccessible ; 
He  sees  truth,  and  his  lies  are  for  the  crowd 
Who  cannot  see  ;  some  fancied  right  allowed 
His  vilest  wrong,  empowered  the  losel  clutch 
One  pleasure  from  a  multitude  of  such 
Denied  him. 

This  inner  self-justification  of  every  life  would  appear  to 
be  that  which  especially  interests  Browning  in  the  por- 
trayal of  the  widely  different  characters  which  he  presents 
to  us.  It  is  this  inner  life,  the  way  in  which  every  man 
appears  to  himself,  which,  if  I  understand  the  passage 
aright,  is  what  the  "  Makers  see "  are  to  reveal  to  the 
world. 

We  may  take  in  connection  with  this  a  very  curious 
passage  which  was  written  by  Browning  on  the  fly-leaf  of 
a  copy  of  '  Pauline  ' : 

"  'Pauline '  .  .  .  written  in  pursuance  of  a  foolish  plan  I  for- 
get, or  have  no  wish  to  remember,  involving  the  assumption  of 
several  distinct  characters :  the  world  was  never  to  guess  that 
such  an  opera,  such  a  comedy,  such  a  speech  proceeded  from 


'SOKDELLO.'  361 

the  same  notable  person.  .  .  .  Only  this  crab  remains  of  the 
shapely  Tree  of  Life  in  my  Fool's  Paradise." 1 

Although  Browning  here  speaks  so  slightingly  of  this 
scheme,  it  seems  to  indicate  what  was  to  be  the  work  of 
his  life.  He  was  to  represent  in  the  first  person  the  most 
widely  different  characters;  while  the  quotation  that  I 
just  made  from  '  Sordello '  would  seem  to  show  the  spirit 
in  which  this  was  to  be  done  and  the  inspiring  motive.  It 
is  pleasant  to  see  at  the  very  beginning  of  his  career  its 
entire  course  so  distinctly  foreshadowed. 

In  conclusion  it  may  be  asked  what  has  the  Sordello  of 
Browning  to  do  with  the  Sordello  of  history  ?  What  may 
we  suppose  to  have  impelled  the  poet  to  take  this  char- 
acter and  make  him  the  hero  of  this  tale  ?  Students  of 
Browning  have  taken  great  pains  to  search  out  all  that  can 
be  known  of  the  original  Sordello.  Mr.  Cooke,  in  his 
'  Guidebook,'  sums  up  the  result  of  these  investigations 
thus :  "  Sordello  lived  during  the  first  part  of  the  thir- 
teenth century ;  and  he  was  a  poet,  a  troubadour,  a  soldier 
by  profession,  and  a  politician  of  some  ability.  Little  is 
now  known  about  him,  and  that  little  is  much  obscured  by 
tradition  and  legend."  Mr.  Cooke  suggests  that  "  it  is 
probable  that  two  persons  have  in  some  way  been  mixed 
together  in  the  accounts  given  of  him."  The  most  inter- 
esting thing  in  regard  to  him  is  the  admiration  with  which 
Dante  speaks  of  him.  Perhaps  the  most  important  fact  of 
his  life  is  one  which  Dante  commemorates  ;  namely,  that  in 
his  poems  he  did  much  toward  the  formation  of  the  Tuscan 
tongue.  When  we  survey  these  meagre  results,  the  diffi- 
culty of  understanding  in  what  way  this  hardly  known 
personage  fascinated  Browning  seems,  at  first  sight,  greater 
than  ever. 

I  think  that  the  inspiration  which  came  to  Browning 
sprang  x>ut  of  this  very  meagreness.  In  Sordello  he  found 

1  See  Cooke's  Browning  Guidebook,  page  286. 


362  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

a  man  of  great  genius.  If  he  had  not  been  such,  Dante 
would  not  so  have  honoured  him.  He  was  a  man  who  ex- 
celled in  poetry,  in  war,  and  in  diplomacy.  He  was  one 
of  the  creators  of  the  magnificent  Tuscan  speech.  Yet  so 
far  as  his  personality  was  concerned,  how  little  record  has 
he  left  of  himself !  A  few  poems  remain,  which  the  com- 
mentators try  to  understand,  and  to  guess  what  power  they 
may  have  had  for  those  who  first  heard  them.  We  have 
thus  a  splendid  personality  and  small  accomplishment. 
May  it  not  be  that  he  frittered  his  strength  away  in  these 
various  pursuits,  each  of  which  had  a  certain  interest  for 
him  ?  May  it  not  be  that  in  his  effort  to  refine  his  lan- 
guage he  took  from  it  something  of  its  force?  May  it 
not  be  that,  standing  as  he  did_jn-fcke-early  days  of  the 
Renaissance  in  which  the  spirits  of  men  were  impelled  in 
various  oifections"and  were  attracted  byTlifferent  ideals, 
his  own  spirit  lost  its  unity,  and  that,  thus  distracted,  his 
life  found  no  worthy  expression  ?  Out  of  such  question- 
ings I  conceive  that  the  Sordello  of  Browning  drew  its 
suggestion  and  its  inspiration. 


THE   CLASSICAL   ELEMENT   IN  BROWNING'S 
POETRY. 

BY  WILLIAM  CRANSTON  LAWTON. 
[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  Dec.  31,  1895.] 

As  a  whole,  our  English  poetry  has  been  more  deeply  in- 
fluenced by  antiquity,  in  closer  sympathy  with  the  loftiest 
spirits  of  both  Greece  and  Rome,  than  has  perhaps  any 
other  modern  national  school.  Several  of  our  poets  — 
Milton,  Gray,  Swinburne  —  have  been  themselves  really 
learned  Grecians.  Browning's  great  contemporary,  Ten- 
nyson, called  his  first  Arthurian  idyll  "  weak  Homeric 
echoes,"  and  Tennyson  has  really  more  reminiscences  of 
Homer  than  of  Shakespeare,  shows  more  clearly  the  effect 
of  Virgil  or  Theocritus  than  even  of  Milton.  Browning 
himself  was  the  son  of  one  classical  scholar — and  the 
husband  of  another.  He  was  lulled  to  sleep  as  a  child  in 
his  father's  library  with  the  Greek  verses  of  Anacreon  (or 
rather  the  Anacreontics,  we  suspect).  If  we  interpret  the 
poem  'Development'  literally,  he  began  Greek  by  his 
eighth  year,  and  read  Homer  through  as  soon  as  he  had 
"  ripened  somewhat,"  which  would  hardly  point  beyond  his 
twelfth  summer.  Indeed  he  speaks  of  himself  as  "  the  all- 
accomplished  scholar  "  at  that  age :  mockingly  of  course, 
but  indicating  that  he  really  had  finished  the  'Iliad,'  at 
least.  Certainly  Browning  as  a  young  student  must  have 
been  fully  acquainted  with  the  best  Greek  and  Roman 
poets  in  their  own  speech.  '  Balaustion,'  however,  his  first 
important  essay  in  translation,  appeared  in  the  poet's 


364  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

sixtieth  year.  If  we  examine  the  whole  body  of  his  work 
up  to  that  time,  we  shall  iind  surprisingly  little  of  direct 
allusion,  even,  to  classical  themes  and  persons. 

The  explanation  for  this  is  not  altogether  evident  or 
simple.  It  is  not,  indeed,  likely  that  the  boy  fell  under 
the  influence  of  any  teacher  in  England,  seventy  years  ago, 
who  could  adequately  reveal  to  him  the  full  beauty  and 
meaning,  the  manifold  illumination  of  life  and  art,  to  be 
discovered  in  Sophocles,  or  Pindar,  or  Lucretius.  Yet  his 
affection  for  Homer,  for  Ovid,  and  some  others,  is  un- 
mistakable. 

But  the  very  perfection,  the  rounded  completeness  of  an_ 


4  Odyssey,'  or  an  '  Antigone,'  set  their  creators  farther  away 
from  the  eager,  struggling,  throbbing  heart  of  the  young 
Browning. 

What  'a  come  to  perfection  perishes, 

he  cries. 

They  are  perfect  —  how  else  ?  they  shall  never  change: 
We  are  faulty  —  why  not  ?  we  have  time  in  store. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  citations  from  the  poem  '  Old 
Pictures  in  Florence,'  where  this  thought  is  copiously 
illustrated. 

Then  again,  though  the  Greek  drama  could  not  (or 
would  not)  portray  violent  action  in  realistic  fashion  (as 
Horace  puts  it,  "  Let  not  Medea  slay  her  children  before 
the  people,"  but  behind  the  scenes),  yet  nearly  all  the 
ancient  poets  depict  men  and  women  acting,  or  at  least 
talking.  Even  when  an  Homeric  hero  is  utterly  alone,  he 
does  n't  ponder  in  silence  a  complex  thought,  but  "  Thus 
he  speaks  —  to  his  own  stout  heart  "  (e.  g.  '  Odyssey,'  V. 
855).  One  monologue  in  '  Paracelsus,'  moreover,  perhaps 
excels  in  length  all  the  soliloquies  of  the  '  Iliad  '  and  the 
'  Odyssey  '  combined.  True,  there  is  a  famous  soliloquy 
in  the  'Medea'  itself  (vss.  764-810),  but  it  is  in  reality  a 
thrilling  dialogue  —  between  the  loving  mother  and  the 
woman  scorned  —  and  we  listen,  eager  to  know  which  will 


CLASSICAL   ELEMENT   IN   BROWNING'S   POETEY          365 

conquer  and  determine  her  action.  Moreover,  the  women 
of  the  chorus  are  present,  and  are  at  one  point  directly 
appealed  to  (line  797,  fyiXai). 

In  one  sense  Browning  is  objective  enough,  too.  He 
did  not  merely,  as  the  young  Longfellow  bade,  "  look  into  " 
his  own  "  heart  and  write."  Porphyria's  lover  is  not  young 
Browning,  nor  even  one  impulse  of  his  given  free  rein,  but 
a  madman,  of  whom  the  poet  was  making  an  exhaustive 
study  —  one  of  the  thousand  hearts  into  whose  uttermost 
depths  he  gazed,  and  found  that  which  he  recorded.  Yet 
it  is  man  thinking  and  feeling,  the  inner  life  and  growth, 
that  always  drew  his  eye.  "  My  stress,"  he  says,  "  lay  on 
the  incidents  in  the  development  of  a  soul :  Tittle  else  is 
worth  study.  I,  at  least,  always  thought  so."  This,  from 
the  dedication  of  '  Sordello '  in  1863,  nearly  a  quarter-cen- 
tury after  its  first  appearance,  is  really  the  key  to  almost 
all  his  work. 

But  that  simple  phrase  about  the  "development  of  a 
soul_!*  could  probably  not  have  been  made  intelligible  at 
all  to  any  of  the  earlier  Greek  poets,  at  least.  They  hardly 
felt,  even,  in  regard  to  a  living  man,  the  dualism  implied 
in  our  "  body  and  soul."  What  faith  in  immortality  they 
had  grew  out  of  their  delight  in  this  physical  life,  and  was 
but  a  pale  reflection  of  it  in  the  Unknown  (vide  e.  g. 
'Odyssey,'  XI.  488-91),  quite  the  reverse  of  the  eager 
confidence  in  higher  reaches  of  soul-life,  voiced  so  glori- 
ously in  '  Prospice.'  It  may  be  doubted  if  any  Greek 
before  Socrates  could  have  understood  such  words  about 
Death  as  — 

A  battle  's  to  fight  ere  the  guerdon  be  gained, 
The  reward  of  it  all. 

No  early  Hellenic  poet  would  have  said  even  — 

Grow  old  along  with  me ! 
The  best  is  yet  to  be. 
The  last  of  life,  for  which  the  first  was  made. 

Rabbi  Ben  Ezra. 


366  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEES. 

It  is  necessary  to  emphasise  some  of  these  diversities.  It 
is  almost  too  hackneyed  to  call  Browning  a  Gothic  man, 
but  it  is  irresistibly  true.  The  typical  Greek  loved  life  for 
its  own  sweet  sake,  fully  enjoyed  it,  wished  it  no  other, 
only  unending.  Browning,  as  another  great  Englishman 
has  frankly  confessed,  could  not  have  endured  heaven 
itself  under  such  conditions.  Struggle,  ascent,  growth, 
were  sweet  to  him.  To  be  still  learning  was  better  than 
to  know. 

The  very  architecture  of  the  Greeks,  the  level  architrave, 
the  steadfast  columns,  the  completeness,  simplicity,  and 
restfulness  of  the  outlines,  the  due  subordination  of  every 
detail  to  the  general  effect  —  all  this  wearies  and  cramps 
the  true  Gothic  mind.  (They  were  no  Vandals  who  more 
than  once  muttered  to  me  under  Attic  skies  that  the 
Acropolis  was  the  eye-sore  of  Athens!) 

Probably  most  of  us  sympathise  somewhat  with  this  half- 
rebellion  against  Classicism.  "  Nature  is  Gothic,  too," 
said  a  fearless  woman  the  other  day.  Something  of  the 
turmoil  and  complexity  of  life,  as  much  as  possible  of  its 
discontent  and  aspiration,  we  crave  to  see  echoed  in  our 
art.  The  struggling  spire  —  even  Giotto's' unfinished  tower 
—  uplift  the  soul,  with  the  eye,  higher  than  the  eagle  of 
the  Hellenic  pediment  ever  soared. 

The  clearest  evidence  that  Browning  resisted,  so  to 
speak,  the  alien  influence  of  Greek  art  is.  afforded  by  the 
fragment  called  4  Artemis  Prologizes.'  Upon  the  proof  he 
wrote :  "  The  above  is  nearly  all  retained  of  a  tragedy  I 
composed  much  against  my  endeavour,  while  in  bed  with 
a  fever  two  years  ago.  It  went  farther  into  the  story  of 
1 1  ippolytus  and  Aricia;  but  when  I  got  well,  putting  only 
thus  much  down  at  once,  I  soon  forgot  the  remainder." 
The  one  hundred  and  twenty  or  so  verses  are  a  single 
speech  of  Artemis  in  the  Euripidean  manner.  The  best 
of  it  is  a  fine  account  of  Hippolytos'  disaster,  transcribed 
rather  freely  from  the  messenger's  speech  in  the  Greek 


CLASSICAL   ELEMENT   IN   BROWNING'S   POETKY.         367 

play.  Now,  this  undertaking  was  not  to  be  in  essence  a 
mere  translation  at  all,  but  would  have  worked  out  a  fea- 
ture of  the  myth  not  alluded  to  by  Euripides,  —  probably 
not  known  to  him,  —  namely,  the  resuscitation  of  the  dead 
prince  Hippolytos  by  the  goddess  Artemis,  and  his  mad 
love  for  one  of  her  attendant  nymphs.  This  resuscitation, 
it  will  be  noticed,  is  akin  to  the  chief  motif  in  '  Alkestis.' 
And  yet,  with  returning  health,  his  own  independent 
tastes  asserted  themselves,  and  this  project  was  abandoned 
altogether.  All  this  occurred  about  1841. 

In  their  flowing  rhythm  and  easy  construction  these 
verses  are  much  more  Euripidean  than  some  of  the  later 
attempts.  But  as  his  full  vigour  revived,  Browning,  at 
twenty-nine,  could  no  longer  remain  submissive,  even  in 
forms,  to  the  restraints  of  classicism.  He  loved  the  frag- 
ment —  as  Goethe  did  his  but-begun  '  Achilleid,'  for  he 
included  it  in  his  volume  of  selections  which  best  illus- 
trated his  own  development.  But  neither  Goethe  nor 
Browning  found  time  in  a  long  life  to  complete  what  he 
had  begun. 

The  unquestioned  culmination  of  Mr.  Browning's  ca- 
reer is  '  The  Ring  and  the  Book.'  Unless  our  multiplica- 
tion is  greatly  at  fault,  that  contains  nearly  twenty-four  - 
thousand  lines,  or  just  about  as  much  as  the  entire  body  of 
nineteen  Greek  tragedies  by  Euripides  still  extant.  Its 
action  might  possibly  have  sufficed  for  one,  after  the  man- 
ner of  the  '  Medea.'  That  world-famous  masterpiece  con- 
tains fourteen  hundred  lines,  or  about  one-third  as  much  as 
4  Fifine  at  the  Fair,'  less  verses  by  far  than  are  devoted  to 
one  of  Browning's  Americans :  4  Mr.  Sludge  the  Medium.' 
In  choice  of  subjects,  in  the  point  of  view  from  which  he 
studied  them,  and  in  the  mass  and  measure  of  treatment, 
Browning  Avas  pre-eminently  un-Greek,  unclassical. 

It  appears  likely,  then,  that  when  Browning's  own  crea- 
tive activity  began  in  earnest,  his  Greek  studies,  almost 
immediately,  seemed  but  far-away,  beautiful  pictures  from 


368  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

his  student-past :  rarely  coming  near  the  fields  in  which  he 
worked. 

In  '  Pauline,'  the  speaker  says  :  — 

Old  delights 
Had  flocked  like  birds  again ; 

and  the  first  of  these  fleeting  memories  is  of 

that  king 
Treading  the  purple  calmly  to  his  death, 

that  is,  the  splendid  tragic  figure  of  the  home-returning 
Agamemnon.  It  is  worth  noting  that  to  this,  the  earliest 
of  his  classical  allusions,  Browning  returned  nearly  a  half- 
century  later  for  his  last  great  essay  in  translation.  The 
far  more  vivid  and  tender  allusion  to  Andromeda,  on  a 
later  page  of  '  Pauline,'  was  inspired  by  no  classical  poet  — 
not  even  Ovid  (who  was  apparently  closer  to  Browning's 
heart  than  almost  any  Greek)  —  but  by  an  actual  picture, 
an  engraving  after  Caravaggio.1  '  Pauline  '  contains  also 
one  of  Browning's  rare  allusions  to  Sophocles :  — 

Or  I  will  read  great  lays  to  thee  —  how  she, 
The  fair  pale  sister,  went  to  her  chill  grave 
With  power  to  love  and  to  be  loved  and  live. 

(Cf .  Sophocles' '  Antigone,'  819-23.)  There  is  perhaps  one 
"  weak  Homeric  echo  "  in  '  Pauline,'  if  the  lotus-eaters  are 
glimpsed  at  in  the  lines  — 

And  one  isle  harboured  a  sea-beaten  ship, 

And  the  crew  wandered  in  its  bowers  and  plucked 

Its  fruits  and  gave  up  all  their  hopes  of  home. 

But  how  slight  is  this  compared  with  the  poem  of  Tenny- 
son, which  fairly  wrests  the  subject  out  of  the  hands  of 
Homer  pocta  sovrano  ! 

In  '  Paracelsus,'  even  such  allusions  are  rarer  still,  de- 
spite the  scholastic  atmosphere.  The  remotest  of  myths 
is  used  once,  to  point  a  moral  Hesiod  hardly  saw :  — 

1  G.  W.  Cooke,  '  Browning  Guidebook,'  p.  288 ;  cf.  Ovid,  '  Metamorphoses,'  IV.  672-5. 


CLASSICAL  ELEMENT   IN   BROWNING'S   POETRY.         369 

"We  get  so  near  —  so  very,  very  near! 
'T  is  an  old  tale  :  Jove  strikes  the  Titans  down, 
Not  when  they  set  about  their  mountain  piling, 
But  when  another  rock  would  crown  the  work. 

Then  after  a  similar  glance  at  the  tale  of  Phaethon  — 
probably  once  more  betraying  Ovid  as  the  source  of 
the  remembrance  —  the  muttering  dreamer  dismisses  the 
thought  in  the  words,  "all  old  tales!" 

The  name  of  Apollo  occurs  with  curious  persistency  on 
the  pages  of  '  Sordello,'  but  it  seems  to  be  but  part  of  the 
hern's  own  half-morbid  passion  for  supremacy  in  las  art. 
The  definite  echoes  we  can  detect  are  apt  to  be  after  Ovid 
or  Horace,  e.  g. :  — 

Apollo,  seemed  it  now,  perverse  had  thrown 
Quiver  and  bow  away,  the  lyre  alone 
Sufficed. 

(Cf.  Horace,  Odes,  II.  10, 17-20.) 

But  these  are  mere  faint  figures  of  speech  at  best.  With 
how  different  a  hand  does  Mr.  Browning  sketch  in  his 
mediaeval  detail,  though  he  does  declare  that  it  "  was 
purposely  of  no  more  importance  than  a  background 

requires." 

May  Boniface  be  duly  damned  for  this ! 
Howled  some  old  Ghibellin,  as  up  he  turned, 
From  the  wet  heap  of  rubbish  where  they  burned 
His  house,  a  little  skull  with  dazzling  teeth. 

Such  drawing  as  this,  or  the  '  Ordering  of  the  Tomb  at 
St.  Praxed's,'  could  only  be  attained  by  one  who  had  com- 
pletely and  lovingly  immersed  himself  in  the  very  spirit 
of  that  alien  age.  To  most  of  us  the  Hellas  of  the  fifth 
or  fourth  century  is  infinitely  nearer  and  more  intelligible 
than  the  Lombardy  of  Eccelino  Romano  and  Azzo  of  Este. 
If  it  be  asked  whether  Browning  in  his  prime  ever  de- 
picted that  Hellenic  life,  '  Cleon '  will  probably  be  men- 
tioned, which  was  written  in  1855.  But_npt  even  Cleon 
himself  —  much  less  his  friend  the  tyrant  —  is  drawn 

24 


370  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

from  life.  The  colour,  the  background,  is  vivid  and 
beautiful,  but  cannot  be  localised  anywhere.  The  all-accom- 
plished Cleon,  who  shapes  epics  and  folk-song,  sculptures  the 
sun-god  and  paints  the  Stoa,  writes  inventively  on  music 
and  destructively  on  psychology,  even  if  Greek  at  all,  is  so 
utterly  a  character  of  the  Decadence  that  he  seems  almost 
nearer  to  Michael  Angelo  than  to  Phidias.  The  main  les- 
son of  the  poem,  if  I  grasp  its  meaning,  is  that  every 
thoughtful  pagan  was  a  bewildered  pessimist :  and  this 
doctrine  (which  I  am  most  reluctant  to  accept)  is  enforced 
with  arguments  as  modern  as  they  are  subtle,  in  a  style  no 
Greek  ever  wrote,  or  could  have  understood. 

4  Balaustion's  Adventure  '  appeared,  as  we  said,  in  the 
poet's  sixtieth  year.  It  includes  a  paraphrase,  often  inter- 
rupted, of  nearly  the  entire  4  Alkestis.'  The  metre  is  blank 
verse  throughout.  Four  years  later  Browning  printed  a 
second  Adventure  of  Balaustion,  called  'Aristophanes' 
Apology,'  in  which  the  Euripidean  tragedy,  '  Heracles 
Mad,'  is  recited  in  an  episode  by  the  Rhodian  girl,  but 
without  interruption.  The  choral  odes  are,  moreover, 
rhymed.  Finally,  two  years  later  still,  the  '  Agamemnon  ' 
of  ^Eschylos,  commanded,  he  says,  by  Thomas  Carlyle, 
was  published  as  a  translation  pure  and  simple,  with 
merely  a  brief  prose  preface  in  which  he  claims  the  merit 
of  absolute  literalness. 

These  are  our  chief  landmarks,  and  they  clearly  show 
that  it  was  only  very  gradually  and,  as  it  were,  accident- 
ally, that  Mr.  Browning  became  a  translator,  even  in  his 
old  age.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  him  assuming  patiently 
and  for  long  periods  the  attitude  of  a  merely  passive  inter- 
preter, as  Longfellow  did  so  contentedly  till  all  the  hun- 
dred cantos  of  the  4  Commedia '  were  faithfully  Englished, 
line  for  line.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  '  Alkestis '  version 
is  but  part  —  indeed,  hardly  a  third  in  total  amount  —  of 
an  eager,  subtle,  and  far-reaching  argument,  a  far  deeper 
psychological  study  than  Euripides  ever  dreamed  of !  The 


CLASSICAL  ELEMENT   IX   BRCAVXIXG'S   POETRY.         371 

second  poem,  'Aristophanes'  Apology,'  is  four  times  as 
long  as  any  extant  Greek  tragedy. 

It  was  not  strange  that  Browning  was  attracted  to 
Euripides,  and  felt  him  to  be  among  all  the  great  ancient 
poets  the  most  modern,  or,  as  Mrs.  Browning  had  called 
him, 

Euripides 
The  human,  with  his  droppings  of  warm  tears. 

Euripides,  like  Mr.  Browning  himself,  was  a  bold  inno- 
vator.  Both  used  the  dramatic  form  for  materials,  and  in 
a  spirit  which  their  conservative  contemporaries  angrily 
stigmatised  as  undramatic.  It  is  indeed  difficult  to  imag- 
ine all  the  monologues  of  'Paracelsus'  tolerated  at  full 
length  in  any  theatre.  So  Aristophanes  ridiculed  Eurip- 
ides, particularly  ('The  Frogs,'  passim,  especially  vss. 
1182-1247),  for  his  long  prologues  and  messengers' 
descriptions. 

Still,  the  Greek  poet  is  almost  always,  at  least,  describ- 
ing actions,  not  merely  emotions.  Balaustion  —  that  is, 
Mr.  Browning  —  constantly  interrupts  the  speakers  in  the 
'  Alkestis,'  and  chiefly  to  tell,  sometimes  at  great  length, 
what  they  are  thinking  about.  For  instance,  to  the  slave 
who  has  entertained  Heracles  with  such  ill  grace,  seventy 
(extra-Euripidean)  lines  are  devoted,  in  order  to  make 
clear  why  his  shallow  mind  misliked,  and  failed  to  recog- 
nise, the  hero. 

When  we  chance  to  be  in  full  agreement  with  this  addi- 
tional chorus,  as  we  may  call  it,  it  is  thoroughly  enjoyable. 
Thus  for  every  word  of  contempt  poured  on  the  selfish  and 
cowardly  Admetos,  all  thanks.  Even  Professor  Moulton's 
persuasiveness  can  make  no  hero  of  him !  On  the  other 
hand,  Mr.  Browning  has  seized  upon  Heracles  as  the  chief 
heroic  figure,  and  has  lavished  upon  him  a  wealth  and 
splendour  of  description  and  eulogy  that  quite  overwhelm 
the  slight  sketch  in  the  Greek  original.  This  has  been 
very  fully  set  forth  by  Professor  Verrall  in  his  recent 


372  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

book,  ;  Euripides  the  Rationalist.'  Whatever  Euripides' 
artistic  purpose  may  have  been,  his  title  itself  points  out  de- 
cisively the  truly  central  character,  the  heroine  of  the  play. 
Heracles  seems  unmistakably  a  comic  figure  in  great  part. 
His  voracity  and  drunkenness  help  more  than  aught  else 
to  explain  why  this  piece  was  performed  fourth  in  Eurip- 
ides' tetralogy,  in  the  place  of  the  regular  farcical  after- 
piece with  chorus  of  satyrs,  of  which  the  '  Cyclops '  is  the 
only  extant  example.  Professor  Verrall,  indeed,  believes 
that  the  drama  as  a  whole  was  chiefly  planned  to  destroy 
all  belief  in  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Alkestis.  He 
thinks  every  intelligent  listener  perceived,  if  he  did  not 
share,  the  poet's  belief  that  Alkestis  merely  swooned  from 
nervousness  under  the  delusion  of  a  doom  appointed  her, 
and  that  Heracles  found  her  recovering  as  naturally  as 
Juliet. 

Professor  Verrall's  ingenious  argument  will  hardly  con- 
vince those  who,  despite  all  the  incongruities  and  distress- 
ing silences  of  the  little  play,  have  learned,  with  Milton, 
to  love  the  heroic  wife  and  mother.  That  we  all  wish  the 
drama  somewhat  other,  or  more,  than  it  is,  may  be  frankly 
confessed.  Above  all,  no  one  would  grudge  Admetos  a 
scene  in  which  he  should  be  reluctantly  convinced  by  his 
queen  that  it  is  as  clearly  his  duty  to  live  for  his  people 
as  it  is  her  privilege  to  die  for  him.  We  are  unable  to 
"  supply  it  from  the  context,"  or  calmly  take  it  for  granted 
as  self-evident. 

On  the  whole,  Browning  (who  is  Balaustion)  perhaps 
holds  a  brief  for  Euripides  as  compared  with  his  two  less- 
criticised  brethren.  Still,  he  not  only  goes  on,  nominally 
under  the  Greek  poet's  inspiration,  to  sketch  out  at  the 
close  his  own  radically  different  treatment  of  the  theme, 
in  which  Alkestis  drives  the  hard  but  irrevocable  bargain 
with  Apollo  beforehand,  without  her  husband's  knowledge ; 
but  both  here  and  once  before  (when  the  chorus  fails  to 
show  Admetos  and  his  father  that  they  are  both  alike 


CLASSICAL   ELEMENT   IN   BROWNING'S   POETEY.        373 

ignoble),  it  is  confessed  that  Sophocles  would  have  guided 
the  action  more  worthily. 

It  may  be  mentioned  here  that  very  near  the  end  of  his 
life  Mr.  Browning  composed  a  sort  of  Prologue  in  Heaven 
for  the  '  Alkestis ' :  a  dialogue  between  Apollo  and  the 
Fates.  The  Greek  element  in  this  poem  is  not  large. 

To  sum  up,  then :  Mr.  Browning's  keen,  alert  critical 
powers  have  thrown  many  a  brilliant  cross-light  on  this 
perplexing  little  drama  —  his  descriptions  of  Death,  of 
Heracles,  and  other  passages  are  splendid  creative  poetry 
in  themselves  —  but  it  is  impossible  to  accept  his  version 
of  the  Greek  play  as  a  finality.  Indeed  his  own  preference 
would  doubtless  have  been  to  arouse  and  interest  rather 
than  to  satisfy  a  passive  circle  of  disciples.  He  tells  us  so 
plainly,  taking  his  own  place  among  — 

poets,  the  one  royal  race 
That  ever  was,  or  will  be,  in  this  world ! 
They  give  no  gift  that  bounds  itself  and  ends 
I'  the  giving  and  the  taking. 

He  bids  us  all  — 

share  the  poet's  privilege, 
Bring  forth  new  good,  new  beauty,  from  the  old. 

There  are  many  little  wilfulnesses  of  expression,  largely 
due  to  an  intermittent  struggle  for  absolute  literalness ; 
e.  g.  the  first  three  Greek  words,  *fi  Scalar'  'AS^ret'  are 
rendered  "  O  Admeteian  domes."  Neither  the  word  dome 
nor  the  plural  form  can  be  defended  on  English  soil. 
Indeed  there  were  no  domes  in  Euripides'  time,  much  less 
in  Admetos'  day.  Such  a  method  would  make  Antigone 
hail  her  kinswoman  in  the  first  verse  of  Sophocles'  master- 
piece :  "  O  common  self-sistered  Ismene's  head  "  !  But 
Browning,  happily,  forgets  such  pedantries,  for  the  most 
part,  in  the  delight  of  a  poet  who  is  interpreting  a  poet. 

The  favourite  Browningesque  forms  "o'  the,"  "!'  the," 
etc.,  are  not  noticeably  frequent  in  these  versions.  They 
are  no  doubt  due  largely  to  the  overcrowding  of  Brown- 


374  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEES. 

ing's  own  lines  with  weighted  thought,  and  this  pressure 
is  naturally  less  felt  in  translation.  Moreover,  though  no 
chronological  study  of  the  appearance  and  growth  of  this 
trick  in  Browning's  style  is  known  to  me,  I  have  always 
supposed  that  it  developed  not  under  Greek  but  Italian 
influence,  and  was  an  effort  to  emulate  the  tempting  del, 
al,  dal,  etc. :  "  del  bel  paese  dove  il  si  suona."  See  espe- 
cially the  '  Stornelli '  in  '  Fra  Lippo  Lippi ' :  "  Flower  o' 
the  broom,"  "  Flower  o'  the  clove,"  etc. 

Browning's  transliteration  of  Greek  names  caused  much 
angry  and  excited  discussion.  Few  even  among  professional 
scholars,  in  work  intended  only  for  learned  readers,  have 
ever  gone  so  far  toward  literalness.  His  ending  -os  and  -on, 
-oi  and  -ai,  his  persistent  use  of  k,  even  where  c  would 
have  the  same  sound,  all  this  gained  few  adherents  —  and 
of  those  few  some  have  gradually  back-slidden  into  the 
more  familiar  forms.  ("  And  in  that  number  am  I  found, 
myself,"  as  Dante's  Virgil  puts  it!) 

Two  points  only  I  will  make  in  passing.  First,  any 
word  once  well  known  and  fixed  in  English  literature 
escapes  from  the  power  of  scholars  to  mar  or  to  correct. 
Aigospotamoi  may  be,  perhaps,  successfully  taught  to 
another  generation,  but  Athenai  for  Athens,  never. 

And,  secondly,  Browning's  rejection  of  ?/,  and  substitu- 
tion of  u,  in  words  like  Pnyx,  Thucydides,  ^Eschylus,  etc., 
is  a  sin  against  the  very  accuracy  he  sought.  The  Greeks 
used  at  will,  for  this  one  vowel,  two  forms,  quite  like  our 
V  and  Y.  The  simpler  V  only  was  taken  over  in  the 
early  Roman  alphabet,  and  eventually  differentiated  into 
our  V  and  U.  In  Homeric  Greek  it  probably  had  every- 
where the  sound  of  oo  in  moon.  In  Roman  speech  that 
value  for  U  has  remained  unaltered  down  to  the  present 
moment.  But  in  Greek  this  vowel  later  underwent  exactly 
the  same  modification  as  in  French  (or  as  the  '•u  with 
umlaut '  in  German).  In  order  to  represent  this  modified 
or  '  broken '  Greek  U  accurately  in  transliterating  Greek 


CLASSICAL   ELEMENT   IN   BROWNING'S   POETRY.         375 

names  —  and  for  no  other  purpose  whatsoever —  the  Romans 
borrowed  '  upsilon '  a  second  time,  with  the  form  Y.  The 
Greek  name  and  value  are  still  retained  hi  various  modern 
languages.  This  '  breaking '  of  U  did  not  extend  to  the 
Greek  diphthongs  OT,  AT,  ET.  Indeed,  OT  assumed  in 
Attic  Greek,  and  has  kept  ever  since,  the  original  or  '  un- 
broken '  phonetic  value  of  early  T. 

So,  when  Cicero  transliterated  ©OTKTAIAH2  as  Thucy- 
dides,  he  represented  every  sound  of  the  Greek  word  with 
painful  accuracy.  Browning  writes  llwukudides.  The  k 
can  be  defended,  since  we  would  no  longer  give  c  the 
sound  intended.  The  unlovely  ou  in  the  first  syllable  does 
no  harm,  unless  it  mislead  any  to  pronounce  as  in  tJwu. 
But  the  u  in  the  second  syllable  certainly  suggests  the 
sound  of  could,  or  else  of  cud,  which  is  much  farther  from 
the  truth  (kiid)  than  is  our  kid  (or  Cid).  But  enough,  surely, 
of  such  philological  quiddities  !  The  little  I  had  to  offer 
of  carping  criticism  on  details  is  intentionally  disposed  of 
thus  early,  that  our  discussion  of  Browning's  later  work 
may  proceed  upon  larger  lines. 

The  criticisms,  good  and  bad,  upon  his  '  Balaustion '  evi- 
dently drove  Browning  to  a  far  more  exhaustive  study  of 
the  entire  field  covered  by  Greek  drama.  '  Aristophanes' 
Apology'  (1875)  is  a  remarkably  learned  work,  which 
'  Balaustion '  (1871)  is  not.  Already  in  '  Fifine  '  (published 
in  1872)  we  find  a  line  (=  *  Prometheus,'  116),  and  again 
a  phrase  (from  'Prometheus,'  518),  out  of  JEschylos' 
'  Prometheus '  quoted  —  dragged  in,  good  sooth  —  in  Eng- 
lish letters !  The  myth  followed  by  Euripides  in  his 
'  Helen '  (that  only  a  phantom  of  the  famous  beauty  was 
carried  away  by  Paris  and  fought  for  so  long)  is  beautifully 
told  —  for  its  own  sake,  again,  rather  than  for  any  espe- 
cial appropriateness  —  in  the  course  of  the  same  most  un- 
Hellenic  poem.1  Other  similar  indications  in  verse  written 
during  this  Olympic  period  1871-1875  could  be  named. 

1  This  turn  of  the  Helen-myth  is  traced  to  Stesichoros.    See  Plato,  '  Phaedrus,'  243  A. 


376  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

All  "this  learning  is,"  however,  as  Mr.  Symonds  has 
well  said  (Academy,  April  17,  1875),  "  lightly  borne  "  in 
the  '  Apology.'  It  is  indeed  all  built,  by  a  great  construc- 
tive and  imaginative  poet,  into  a  grand  dramatic  scene. 
The  first  adventure  of  Balaustion,  in  the  Syracusan  harbour, 
was  a  beautiful  invention,  and  the  thousands  of  pallid-faced 
Athenian  captives,  the  wreck  of  that  glorious  expedition 
which  had  left  Athens  stripped  of  wealth  and  men,  formed 
a  background  at  once  tragic  and  historical.  Infinitely 
more  impressive,  however,  is  this  later  dialogue,  when  the 
Long  Walls  themselves  seem  already  tottering,  and  the 
fleet  of  Lysander  hovers  like  a  black  shadow  in  the  offing. 
This  gives  a  bitter  mockery  to  Aristophanes'  words  of 
braggadocio,  when  he  claims  that  his  comedies  have  led 
the  Athenians  to  accept  wisely  the  blessings  of  honourable 
peace :  - 

Such  was  my  purpose  :  it  succeeds,  I  say ! 
Have  not  we  beaten  Kallikratidas  ? 
Not  humbled  Sparta  ?     Peace  awaits  our  word. 
My  after-counsels  scarce  need  fear  repulse. 
Athenai,  taught  prosperity  has  wings, 
Cages  the  glad  recapture. 

Demos  .     .    .    sways  and  sits 
Monarch  of  Hellas  !    Ay,  and  sage  again, 
No  longer  jeopardises  chieftainship. 

From  such  dreams  the  awakening  was  to  be  bitter  indeed ! 

That  Browning  is,  in  this  great  scene,  just  to  Aris- 
tophanes, whom  he  hates,  and  only  just  to  Euripides,  whom 
he  reveres,  few  will  contend.  Indeed,  many  untimely  con- 
cessions and  self-contradicting  boasts  are  put  into  the 
half-drunken  comedian's  mouth,  which  too  often  remind  us 
that  he  who  works  the  wires  detests  his  puppet.  (For 
those  who  quail  at  the  entire  dialogue,  a  briefer  test  of  the 
treatment  accorded  to  Aristophanes  may  be  seen  in  the 
outline  Balaustion  gives  of  his  masterpiece,  '  The  Frogs.') 

Still,  the  scene  is  nobly  and  imaginatively  planned  and 
executed.  Let  us  recall  it  in  brief  outline.  The  tidings 


CLASSICAL   ELEMENT   IN   BROWNING'S   POETKY.        377 

of  Euripides'  death,  and  the  aged  Sophocles'  entrance  with 
the  command  that  his  own  next  chorus  shall  appear  in 
mourning  for  his  rival,  have  interrupted  the  festive  supper 
with  which  Aristophanes  and  his  crew  celebrate  the  suc- 
cess of  his  comedy,  the  '  Thesmophoriazousai,'  wherein  the 
great  departed  poet  himself  had  been  "  monkeyed  to  heart's 
content  that  morning."  Half  sobered  to  regret,  and  half 
defiant,  the  master  of  the  revels  now  leads  his  troop  to 
storm  the  hospitable  doors  of  Rhodian  Balaustion  and 
her  Phocian  husband,  the  two  known  even  in  Athens  as 
Euripides'  stanchest  admirers.  Here,  deserted  by  his 
timid  band,  Aristophanes  alone  withstands  the  wonder- 
ing eyes  of 

Statuesque  Balaustion  pedestalled 
On  much  disapprobation, 

and  makes  defence,  rather  than  apology,  for  his  art. 

Perhaps  it  is  irreverent  to  desire  that  the  gifts  of  gods, 
or  Titans,  were  other  than  they  are.  Else  we  would  dare 
wish  Browning  had  actually  given  us  here  a  dramatic  form, 
if  only,  as  '  In  a  Balcony,'  without  change  of  scene ;  and 
we  will  add,  yet  more  audaciously,  something  of  Hellenic 
restraint  and  limitation  would  not  have  injured  it.  One 
of  Aristophanes'  speeches  is  longer  than  the  whole  Greek 
drama  of  '  Alkestis,'  and  Balaustion's  reply  —  a  young  ma- 
tron's to  a  midnight  reveller  —  quite  equals  the  entire 
dialogue  of  the  same  Greek  play,  apart  from  the  choral 
songs.  Into  a  really  dramatic  Apology  such  as  is  here 
imagined,  the  version  of  an  entire  Greek  tragedy  could 
hardly  have  been  thrust ;  but  at  least  the  fine  choral  ode 
in  the  '  Heracles  Mad,'  glancing  at  all  the  hero's  chief 
exploits,  might  still  have  been  utilised  quite  as  effectively 
as  is,  in  the  actual  poem  of  Browning,  the  beautiful  frag- 
ment from  the  '  Kresphontes,'  qn  the  blessedness  of  peace. 

Much  of  the  whole  argument  in  '  Aristophanes'  Apology ' 
is  so  abstruse,  so  rapid,  so  allusive,  that  it  needs  more 
comment  and  elucidation  than  any  Hellenic  tragedy  or 


378  BOSTON  BKOWNIXG   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

Pindaric  ode.  Such  a  comment  it  should  some  day  have, 
for  here,  in  rugged  verse,  is  much  of  the  best  literary  criti- 
cism Greek  drama  has  ever  received.  Thus  three  lines 
sum  up  Euripides'  main  purpose  better  than  Mr.  Verrall's 
heavy  volume :  — 

Because  Euripides  shrank  not  to  teach, 
If  gods  be  strong  and  wicked,  man,  though  weak, 
May  prove  their  match  by  willing  to  be  good. 

The  action  of  the  Athenians,  in  fining  Phrynichos  for  re- 
minding them  in  drama  of  their  own  folly  and  of  recent 
loss,  has  waited  twenty-four  centuries  for  this  couplet 
to  give  the  coup  de  grcLce  :  — 

Ah  my  poor  people,  whose  prompt  remedy 
Was  —  fine  the  poet,  not  reform  thyself ! 

Yet  this  poem  as  a  whole,  a  mine  of  wealth  to  scholars, 
full  of  thrilling  inspiration  to  the  poetic  soul,  is,  I  fully 
believe,  a  sealed  book,  a  hopelessly  bolted  gate,  to  the 
average  reader.  He  must  answer  "  No  "  when  Browning 

asks  :  — 

May  not  looks  be  told, 

Gesture  made  speech,  and  speech  so  amplified 
That  words  find  bloodwarmth  which,  coldwrit,  they  lose  ? 

Still,  the  classical  student  may  well  keep  the  volume  open 
upon  his  drawing-room  table,  with  scores  of  the  lines 
marked  for  the  stranger's  casual  eye  to  catch  upon.  When 
was  the  death  of  the  triumphant  artist  ever  so  nobly 
announced  ? 

"  Speak  good  words ! "     Much  misgiving  faltered  I. 
"  Good  words,  the  best,  Balaustion  !     He  is  crowned, 
Gone  with  his  Attic  ivy  home  to  feast, 
Since  Aischulos  required  companionship. 
Pour  a  libation  for  Euripides !  " 

Even  the  hint  of  Shakespeare,  if  it  is  he,  as  the  future 
master  who  shall  combine  all  the  chords  of  tragedy  and 
comedy,  is  not  too  broad,  and  does  no  violence  to  the 
probabilities.  Indeed,  Plato's  '  Symposium '  culminates 
(223  D)  in  nearly  the  same  thought. 


CLASSICAL  ELEMENT   IN   BROWNING'S   POETEY.         379 

The  consummate  stroke  of  genius,  in  building  up  this 
plot,  was  the  identification  of  Balaustion's  husband  with 
that  unnamed  Phocian  who,  as  Plutarch  says  ('  Life  of 
Lysander,'  §  XV),  saved  helpless  Athens  by  aptly  quoting, 
in  the  angry  council  of  her  victors,  a  passage  from  Eurip- 
ides' '  Electra.'  J  This  makes  a  magnificent  response  of 
destiny  to  Aristophanes'  freshly-remembered  boast.  Not 
he,  but  dead  Euripides,  through  the  lips  of  his  two  faithful 
adherents,  snatches  for  Athens  the  only  peace  and  rest  she 
can  possibly  obtain  in  her  utter  failure  and  wreck. 

Of  course,  with  all  its  accurate  and  wide-gathered  learn- 
ing, '  Aristophanes'  Apology  '  is  not  precisely  a  safe  source 
qf_information  on  the  detailed  history  of  Attic  drama. 
Most  of  Aristophanes'  words  are  deliberately  distorted 
from  the  truth  as  Browning  sees  it.  The  counter-argu- 
ment is  sometimes  only  less  partial  in  the  other  direction. 
Of  actual  slips,  or  even  Homeric  nods,  on  Browning's  part, 
very  few  have  been  noted  ;  but  certainly  not 

Once  and  only  once,  trod  stage, 
Sang  and  touched  lyre  in  person,  in  his  youth, 
Our  Sophokles,  —  youth,  beauty,  dedicate 
To  Thamuris  who  named  the  Tragedy. 

That  story  of  Sophocles'  dramatic  appearance  is  well  au- 
thenticated, but  no  better  than  another,  which  interests  me 
far  more.  He  appeared2  also  in  '  Nausicaa,  or  the  Wash- 
ers,' and  won  great  applause  by  his  skilful  dancing  and 
ball-play  in  the  character  of  —  Nausicaa  herself  !  That 
this  also  was  in  his  beardless  youth  is  more  than  probable. 
Again,  it  is  asserted  that  Euripides  "  doled  out  "  but  five 
satyr-dramas.  Seven  or  eight  were  extant  in  Alexandrian 
times,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  think  he  ever  omitted  the 
comic  afterpiece,  unless  the  '  Alkestis  '  be  accounted  such 
an  exception.  Browning  apparently  overlooked  the  fact 
that  comparatively  few  satyr-dramas  were  preserved  even 


166-67.     The  rendering  is  very  free. 
s  Vide  Nauck,  '  Frag.  Trag.  Grsec,'  *  p.  228. 


380  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

in  Aristarchus'  day.     Perhaps  there  was  not  in  every  case 
a  literary  text  -at  all. 

Between  the  '  Alkestis,'  as  incrusted  in  the  early  Balaus- 
tion  poem,  and  the  '  Heracles  Mad,'  which  the  young  Rho- 
dian  matron  (against  all  the  probabilities)  now  recites 
entire  to  the  unwearied  reveller  before  the  long,  sleepless 
night  is  over  —  the  link  between  these  two  translations,  I 
say,  is  found  in  these  words  :  — 

The  sweet  and  strange  Alkestis,  which  saved  me, 

.     .     .    ends  nowise,  to  my  mind, 
In  pardon  of  Admetos.     Hearts  are  fain 
To  follow  cheerful  weary  Herakles 
Striding  away  from  the  huge  gratitude, 
Bound  on  the  next  new  labour  "  height  o'er  height 
Ever  surmounting  —  destiny's  decree !  " 
Thither  He  helps  us :  that 's  the  story's  end ! 

For  myself,  I  still  believe  Euripides  named  his  drama 
aright,  the  4  Alkestis.'  In  order  to  create  there  an  ade- 
quate hero,  Browning  has  put  into  his  own  poem  of 
'Balaustion,'  as  Mr.  Verrall  clearly  points  out,  several 
magnificent  descriptions  of  Heracles,  digressions  upon  his 
heroism  and  his  exploits  —  in  short,  an  overwhelming  mass 
of  material  which  only  a  poet  can  find  between  the  lines 
of  Euripides'  brief  and  slight  melodrama.  With  that 
method  of  viewing  the  '  Alkestis  '  he  is  here  imperially 
consistent. 

The  'Heracles  Mad,'  too,  answers  better  to  such  an 
introduction  as  this  than  any  other  extant  tragedy  would 
have  done ;  but  by  no  means  perfectly  —  though  Balaustion 
calls  it  "  the  perfect  piece,"  as  she  begins  the  recital.  It 
is,  indeed,  largely  filled  with  the  praises  of  Heracles.  The 
first  half,  however,  describing  his  return  from  Hades, 
prompt  rescue  of  his  wife  and  children,  and  vengeance  on 
the  murderous  King  Lycos,  would  have  been  more  effective 
than  the  whole. 

When  Frenzy,  led  thither  reluctant  by  Iris  at  Hero's 
bidding,  comes,  in  the  moment  of  his  triumph,  and  turns 


CLASSICAL   ELEMENT   IN  BROWNING'S   POETEY.         381 

the  hero's  hand  against  those  very  sons  whose  lives  he  has 
just  saved  —  it  is  hard  to  see  any  sequence  in  such  a  plot. 
Not  only  are  these  gods  "  strong  and  wicked,"  but  the 
poet  here  as  elsewhere  seems  really  to  have  a  secondary 
purpose,  namely,  to  raise  a  doubt  whether  such  gods  can 
really  exist  at  all.  We  join  in  Heracles'  cry  :  — 

Who  would  pray 

To  such  a  goddess  ?  —  that  begrudging  Zeus 
Because  he  loved  a  woman,  ruins  me,  — 
Lover  of  Hellas,  faultless  of  the  wrong  ! 

If  Browning  felt,  in  Euripides'  art,  any  such  subtle 
double  purpose  —  the  agnostic  philosopher  staying  the 
dramatist's  hand  —  it  would  only  attract  the  more  the  most 
subtle  of  all  poets.  That  such  casuistry  is  effectively 
dramatic,  however,  will  hardly  be  maintained.  This  most 
powerful,  perverse,  and  perplexing  tragedy,  '  Heracles 
Mad,'  Browning  has  rendered  with  unflinching  literalness. 
Where  Mr.  Coleridge,  in  his  excellent  prose  version,  di- 
lutes Heracles'  line  upon  the  ingratitude  of  the  Thebans 
whom  he  had  saved  of  old  :  — 


into,  "  Do  they  make  so  light  of  my  hard  warring  with 
theJVIinyse  ?  "  Browning  gives  us  the  coarse,  rugged  truth  : 
"  The  Minuae-wars  I  waged  —  they  spat  forth  these  ?  " 
Sometimes  this  very  literalness  in  words  leads  the  reader 
far  astray,  as  when  mention  of  "  skipping  beyond  the 
Atlantic  bounds  "  occurs  in  the  Greek  text  and  is  echoed 
without  comment. 

The  choral  songs  are  translated  in  rhymed  verses  of 
various  lengths  and  irregular  sequences,  with  no  attempt 
to  preserve  any  Greek  movement  —  not  even  the  pairing 
of  stanzas  in  strophe  and  antistrophe.  In  these  rhymed 
passages,  of  course,  absolute  literalness  cannot  be  demanded, 
nor  attained.  Yet  Browning,  who  in  easy  mastery  of 
rhyme  is  perhaps  the  superior  even  of  Ruckert,  often 


382  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

achieves  the  impossible.  The  little  detail  he  has  added  is 
rarely  modern  or  in  any  way  un-Hellenic.  Indeed,  the 
minute  faithfulness  and  self-suppression  of  this  task  must 
have  .been  most  irksome  to  a  nature  so  alert  and  self- 
moved.  If,  as  before,  he  felt  that  Sophocles,  or  himself, 
could  have  carried  the  plot  to  a  fitter  issue,  it  is  nowhere 
indicated,  nor  glanced  at  by  a  word.  Even  when  the  long 
recitation  is  done,  Aristophanes  himself,  advocatus  diaboli 
though  he  is,  hardly  hints  at  any  flaw  in  "  the  perfect 
piece." 

We  are,  however,  conscious  that  Browning,  or  his  lovely 
Balaustion,  holds  no  brief,  this  time,  upon  the  whole,  for 
Euripides  alone,  but  rather  for  the  great  tragic  trio  among 
whom  death  has  just  made  all  rivalry  impossible ;  or,  again, 
for  the  nobler,  serious  art,  against  lawlessness,  obscenity, 
mere  catering  to  the  vulgar  taste,  as  personified  (not  with 
impartial  justice)  in  the  greatest  comic  poet  of  all  time, 
Aristophanes.  Though  the  first  quotation  that  occurs, 
early,  in  the  '  Apology '  is  from  the  Euripidean  '  Hera- 
clidse,'  it  is  hardly  approved  by  the  speaker.1  A  few  lines 
later  a  splendid  figure  reminds  us  naturally  of  JEschylus' 
greatest  trilogy :  — 

Memories  asleep,  as,  at  the  altar  foot, 
Those  Furies  in  the  Oresteian  song. 

And   presently   we   have   the    masters   of    tragedy  all 

worthily  grouped :  — 

^' 

What  hinders  that  we  treat  this  tragic  theme 
As  the  Three  taught  when  either  woke  some  woe, 
—  How  Klutaimnestra  hated,  what  the  pride 
Of  lokaste,  why  Medeia  clove 
Nature  asunder  — 

1  Or  didst  thou  sigh 

Rightly  with  thy  Makaria  ?    "  After  life, 
Better  no  sentiency  than  turbulence ; 
Death  cures  the  low  contention."    Be  it  so  I 
Yet  progress  means  contention,  to  my  mind. 

This  seems  to  give  the  essence  of  Macaria's  last  words.    Cf.  Eurip.  '  Heracles,'  vss.  591- 
96 ;  but  the  version  is  a  very  free  one ! 


CLASSICAL   ELEMENT   IN   BROWNING'S   POETKY.         883 

The  choice  of  three  impious  women  as  types  may  merely 
indicate  how  much  there  was  in  common,  after  all,  in  the 
three  masters. 

We  should  hardly  be  surprised,  then,  that  the  next  essay 
in  translation  was  from  ^Eschylus.  To  Sophocles,  as  the 
calm,  steadfast  master  of  an  art  that  seems  as  effortless 
as  Raphael's,  Browning  would,  it  will  doubtless  be  agreed, 
be  naturally  less  attracted.  In  ^Eschylus,  as  in  Euripides, 
there  is  felt  the  fierce  strife  of  a  transitional  age.  He  is, 
however,  the  spokesman  of  a  triumphant  generation,  the 
singer  of  that  Salaminian  victory  which,  more  than  almost 
any  other  battle,  might  well  seem  to  have  been  miracu- 
lously decided  by  divine  interposition.  Right  is  supreme, 
in  all  his  dramas.  Even  the  wild  Oresteian  trilogy, 
seen  as  a  whole,  ends  in  reconcilement  and  peace  at  last. 
Browning's  'Agamemnon'  is  therefore  truly  but  a  frag- 
ment, as  is  the  Prometheus  play,  which  alone  remains 
extant.  Each  is  but  the  first  third  of  a  three -act 
drama. 

For  this  and  many  other  reasons,  the  '  Heracles,'  not  the 
later  'Agamemnon,'  seems  to  me  Browning's  completest 
success  in  translation.  In  the  case  of  foreign  poems  so 
elaborate  both  in  thought  and  in  metrical  structure  as 
is  any  Greek  tragedy,  there  are  two  widely  divergent 
roads  open  to  the  translator.  Professor  Jebb's  and  Mr. 
Fitzgerald's  treatment,  respectively,  of  the  CEdipus  plays 
will  best  illustrate  both.  Professor  Jebb,  in  masterly  prose, 
expresses  every  shade  of  the  thought  which  close  literal- 
ness  or  freer  paraphrase,  according  as  need  and  idiom 
serve,  can  reproduce  in  English  at  all.  For  the  metrical 
form,  however,  we  must  depend  wholly  upon  the  Greek 
text,  which  Mr.  Jebb  gives  us  in  parallel  pages.  Mr. 
Fitzgerald,  unsurpassed  master  of  rhythm  and  phrase,  has 
built  up  a  single  splendid  poem  on  the  general  lines  of  the 
Greek  CEdipus  tragedies,  fusing  the  two,  re-arranging, 
suppressing,  even  adding  a  word,  a  verse,  an  entire  ode, 


384  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

whenever  his  artistic  sense  has  demanded  it.  Neither,  of 
course,  is  Sophocles'  very  soul  —  or  body.  Still,  each  of 
these  two  translators  has  set  up  a  high  yet  attainable  goal 
—  and  has  measurably  attained  it. 

Browning  twice  attempted,  like  the  Colossus  that  he 
was,  to  bestride  that  wide  divergence  between  the  two 
methods.  He  undertakes  to  be  absolutely  literal  —  and 
yet  to  make  each  line  poetical,  each  choral  ode  a  rhythmic, 
rhymed,  ornate  English  poem.  Absolute  success  was  un- 
attainable. No  language  is  so  elastic  as  to  bear  that  strain. 
The  result  in  the  'Heracles'  is,  however,  a  marvellous 
approach  to  the  Greek  thought,  and,  at  the  same  time,  a 
form  which,  while  quite  unlike  the  Greek,  is  for  the  most 
part  poetical,  graceful,  and  natural. 

As  to  the  'Agamemnon,'  I  wish  to  speak  most  seriously 
and  with  fullest  humility.  There  is  a  great  deal  in  the 
Greek  play  I  never  understood.  A  few  passages  I  used 
to  have  irreverent  doubts  whether  even  the  professor,  even 
the  poet  himself,  could  fathom !  But  there  really  are  also 
a  great  many  lines  where  I  can  only  construe  and  compre- 
hend Browning's  rugged  verse  when  I  have  the  Greek 
before  me  to  interpret  it.  (When  this  paper  was  first 
read,  as  a  lecture  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society, 
this  last  statement  was  heartily  echoed  by  the  best-known 
schoolmaster  in  America.) 

In  other  words:  JEschylus'  thought,  above  all  in  this 
drama,  is  tenser,  swifter,  loftier  far  than  Euripides'  could 
ever  be.  His  language  and  rhythmic  movement,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  also  incomparably  more  rapid,  remote,  and 
difficult  than  anything  the  later  poet  has  left  us.  When 
Browning  attempts  to  render  these  most  difficult  ^Eschylean 
choral  songs  in  English  verse,  and  rhymed  verse,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  be  ruggedly,  solemnly,  absolutely  literal,  the 
result  is  too  often  but  the  disjecta  membra  of  articulate 
speech  and  connected  thought. 

Let  us  take  a  passage  almost  at  random : 


CLASSICAL   ELEMENT   IX   BROWNING'S   POETRY.         385 

Only  have  care  lest  grudge  of  any  gods  disturb 

With  cloud  the  unsullied  shiue  of  that  great  force,  the  curb 

Of  Troia,  struck  with  damp 

Beforehand  in  the  camp ! 

For  euvyingly  is 

The  maiden  Artemis 

Toward  —  her  father's  flying  hounds  —  this  house  — 

The  sacrificers  of  the  piteous 

And  cowering  beast. 

With  all  reverence  for  the  subtlest  thinker  and  the  most 
ingenious  rhymer  who  has  used  our  English  speech,  I  sub- 
mit that  this  is  not  intelligible  to  any  English  reader ;  it 
does  not  even  construe  (no  one  can  parse  envyingly)  ;  and 
rhymes  like  is  with  Artemis,  house  with  piteous,  are  no  true 
ornament.  The  latter,  indeed,  almost  rivals  our  gentle 
Emerson's  bold  rhyme  of  bear  with  —  woodpecker  !  In  the 
Greek  original  this  is  a  loftily  poetical  passage.  The  com- 
parison of  the  Atridse  to  a  pair  of  eagles,  the  winged 
hounds  of  Zeus  (Agamemnon,  49-54),  is  one  of  the  lordli- 
est in  all  poetry,  and  must  have  made  Pindar  hail  a  kin- 
dred spirit  —  if  he  had  not  descried  him  long  before  —  be- 
yond the  hostile  Attic  border.  But  — 

We  must,  I  think,  inscribe  upon  this  powerful,  and  often 
splendid,  piece  of  translation  the  epitaph  of  Phaethon 
(Ovid,  Met.  II.  327-28). 

In  any  case,  the  '  Agamemnon '  should  not  be  studied 
or  read  alone,  but  always  with  the  '  Choephoroi '  and 
'  Eumenides.'  If  the  splendours  of  Morshead's  '  House 
of  Atreus '  make  too  vivid  an  impression  of  horror  upon 
the  imagination,  the  version  of  Miss  Anna  Swanwick, 
while  tamer,  is  at  the  same  time  closer  in  detail  to  the 
Greek  text. 

Perhaps  a  word  will  be  expected  upon  the  poem  called 
'  Numpholeptos.'  The  title  is  certainly  Greek,  and  means, 
just  as  Browning  says,  "  rapt  by  a  nymph ; "  but  beyond 
that  there  is  not  a  single  word  in  Browning's  explanation, 

25 


886  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

nor  even  in  the  poem  itself,  that  stoops  to  the  level  of  our 
comprehension.  Rather  than  close  with  that  humiliating 
confession,  let  us  add  a  word  upon  the  latest  Hellenic 
poem  of  Browning. 

'  Pheidippides '  is  in  no  sense  a  translation.  The  en- 
counter of  the  gallant  runner  and  the  great  god  Pan  is 
one  of  the  many  marvels  with  which  Herodotus  embroiders 
the  story  of  the  Persian  Wars  (Herodotus,  VI.  105-6). 
The  latter  end  of  the  tale  is,  however  (as  Mr.  Cooke's 
most  helpful  handbook  states),  a  modern  invention,  though 
the  notion  that  an  early  heroic  death  is  the  gods'  greatest 
boon  is  also  Herodotean.1  The  metre  of  this  poem  inter- 
ests me,  for  it  appears  to  be  Browning's  suggestion  for  a 
rhymed  approximation  to  the  hexameter. 

"  Halt  Pheidippides  !  "  —  halt  I  did,  my  brain  of  a  whirl : 
"Hither  to  me!     Why  pale  in  my  presence  ?  "  he  gracious  began. 
"  How  is  it,  —  Athens  only  in  Hellas  holds  me  aloof  ?  " 

These  lines  lack  only  a  final  syllable  each  to  be  remark- 
ably perfect  heroic  verse. 

Let  us  end  with  a  word  of  good  omen,  which  the  master 
uttered  of  his  hero,  and  we  may  say  in  turn  of  him,  in  all 
confidence  and  trust  — 

So  is  Pheidippides  happy  for  ever,  —  the  noble  strong  man. 

Browning  was  too  noble,  too  strong,  too  fully  alive,  ever 
to  be  merely  a  servile  translator.  His  great  experiments 
in  this  field  have  shed  a  flood  of  light  on  the  theory  and 
the  art  of  translation.  One  of  these  experiments,  the 
'Heracles,'  may  long  remain  the  best  single  version  in 
English  of  a  masterly  Greek  drama.  His  original  writ- 
ing upon  classical  subjects — above  all  the  'Apology'  —  is 
even  more  instructive,  and  deeply  learned  as  well.  But  the 
creative  genius  of  Browning  himself  is  as  remote  as  could 

1  See  e.  g.  the  famous  tale  of  Cleobis  and  Biton,  Herodotus,  I.  31. 


CLASSICAL  ELEMENT   IX  BROWNING'S  POETRY.        887 

well  be  from  classicism.  Upon  the  most  perfect  master- 
pieces of  Hellenic  poetry  —  the  'Odyssey,'  the  'Antigone.' 
the  'Odes'  of  Pindar — -he  has  hardly  uttered  a  word. 
They  may  have  moved  him  no  more  than  the  Parthenon 
—  whether  as  a  glorious  ruin  to-day  or  in  all  its  original 
splendour  —  would  have  moved  the  artist  who  had  put  his 
whole  soul  into  the  groined  arches,  the  clustered  statues, 
the  heaven-scaling  spires  of  a  Gothic  cathedral. 


HOMER  AND   BROWNING. 

BY  PRENTISS  CUMMINGS. 

[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  January  28,  1896.] 

IT  has  been  said  by  some  of  Browning's  admirers  that 
he  was  the  Homer  of  this  generation.  I  assume  that  such 
admirers  were  discriminating  persons  who  had  a  meaning 
beyond  idle  panegyric  ;  and  in  view  of  the  purpose  of  this 
Society  to  consider  Browning  the  present  year  in  connec- 
tion with  Greek  literature  and  art,  it  has  seemed  to  the 
essayist  that  an  hour  might  profitably  be  spent  in  deter- 
mining the  sense,  if  any,  in  which  such  a  generalization  is 
true. 

If  such  statement  be  understood  to  mean  that  Browning 
is  the  supreme  poet  of  this  generation,  I  have  intimated 
that  I  do  not  deem  it  worth  discussing.  Different  preachers, 
painters,  and  poets  appeal  to  different  orders  of  mind ;  and 
one  will  strike  a  sympathetic  chord  in  certain  hearts  where 
the  others  fail.  Tennyson  and  Browning  are  now  lying 
side  by  side  in  Westminster  Abbey,  and  near  them  are 
memorials  of  Longfellow  and  Lowell,  all  men  who,  Prome- 
theus-like, brought  fire  from  heaven  wherewithal  to  com- 
municate to  us  commonplace  mortals  something  of  light 
and  warmth.  The  relative  greatness  of  such  men  is  a 
matter  of  no  great  moment,  and  comparisons  are  liable  to 
be  odious.  It  is  the  secret  of  such  men's  power,  their 
methods  and  aims,  their  way  of  looking  at  things  and 
stating  them,  whereof  investigation  and  discussion  is 
profitable. 


HOMER   AXD   BROWNIXG.  389 

Again,  Homer  holds  a  certain  place  in  literature  that  is 
unapproachable.  As  Horace  says  of  Jupiter,  "  No  other  is 
equal,  or  second  to  him."  I  do  not  mean  this  in  an  artistic 
sense,  although  Homer's  genius  is  so  consummate  that  he 
has  been  the  despair  of  imitators  and  of  translators  for  the 
last  three  thousand  years,  but  refer  to  certain  special  rea- 
sons why  he  holds  a  place  in  the  imagination  of  mankind 
that  is  altogether  unique. 

First:  the  works  that  bear  his  name  are  the  earliest 
extant  compositions  that  can  fairly  be  called  literature  ; 
and  are  of  peculiar  interest  to  us,  as  they  give  the  first 
vivid  picture  of  our  own,  the  Aryan  Race.  The  Penta- 
teuch, which  represents  Semitic  thought,  if  written  by 
Moses,  may  possibly  be  older,  though  even  that  is  ques- 
tionable. If  the  Pentateuch  was  put  in  its  present  form 
after  the  captivity,  —  which  many  enlightened  heretics  of 
to-day  maintain,  —  it  is  later  than  Homer  by  several 
centuries. 

Secondly :  Homer  has  a  certain  greatness  which  places 
him  beyond  ordinary  comparison,  owing  to  his  direct  and 
indirect  influence  on  human  thought.  I  refer  to  his  direct 
influence  on  the  Greek  race,  and  ^his  indirect  influence 
through  that  race  on  all  subsequent  peoples.  Neither  fact 
can  well  be  stated  too  strongly.  The  probable  date  of 
Homer  —  who,  for  the  purposes  of  this  paper,  I  assume  was 
a  real  person  —  may  be  stated  roughly  as  1200  B.  c.  Mr. 
Gladstone  places  him  more  than  a  century  earlier.  Homer's 
works  were  first  carefully  edited  in  the  reign  of  Pisistratus, 
about  600  B.  c.  During  a  large  portion  of  the  interval 
between  those  dates,  it  is  probable  the  poems  were  pre- 
served only  in  the  memory  of  rhapsodists,  or  public  reciters, 
—  a  tribute  to  the  vitality  and  the  popular  estimate  of 
these  extraordinary  compositions  which  can  hardly  be 
overstated.  In  fact,  Homer's  works,  not  only  during  the 
pre-hisix>ric  period,  but  ever  after  as  long  as  Greek  was  a 
living  language,  were  to  his  countrymen  a  sort  of  Bible,  a 


390  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

book  of  books,  —  an  authority  on  matters  of  religion,  his- 
tory, conduct,  and  even  philosophy,  a  standard  of  taste  not 
only  in  poetry,  but  in  rhetoric  and  oratory,  and  a  textbook 
in  the  schools  as  the  foundation  of  all  learning.  As  late 
as  Plato's  time  it  appears  that  there  were  gentlemen  at 
Athens  who  could  repeat  his  entire  works  from  memory ; 
and  Plutarch,  in  the  second  century  of  the  Christian  era, 
tells  of  the  evening  meetings  of  himself  and  friends  to  dis- 
cuss Homeric  questions.  The  frequency  with  which  his 
lines  are  quoted  indicate  that  the  Greek  public  all  through 
their  history  were  more  familiar  with  Homer  than  most  of 
us  are  with  our  own  Bible ;  and  attempts  were  made  to 
gloss  over  what  did  not  accord  with  the  ethics  of  a  later 
age,  and  to  give  mystical  interpretations  of  his  sayings,  not 
unlike  what  we  see  to-day  in  reference  to  the  Bible.  The 
Greek  drama  was  largely  founded  on  Homeric  myths,  and 
its  best  sculpture  was  an  attempt  to  represent  his  gods  and 
heroes. 

As  Homer  thus  dominated  Greek  thought,  Greece  has 
dominated  the  thought  of  the  world.  The  whole  of  Greece, 
including  its  islands,  has  an  area  of  less  than  one  third 
that  of  New  England,  and  its  intellectual  life  centred  in 
Athens,  a  city  which  in  its  proudest  estate  was  smaller 
both  in  extent  and  population  than  Boston ;  yet  that  little 
country  produced  the  greatest  poets,  tragedians,  comedians, 
historians,  philosophers,  sculptors,  and  orators  the  world 
has  ever  known ;  and  nearly  all  belonged  to  Athens,  and 
flourished  within  a  period  of  four  hundred  years.  And 
not  only  has  Greece  given  us  our  philosophy,  and  our 
standards  in  literature  and  art,  but  has  had  a  vast  influ- 
ence on  our  religion  by  furnishing  not  only  the  language, 
but  much  of  the  thought  of  the  New  Testament  and  of  the 
early  Christian  Fathers. 

Again,  Homer  stands  apart  from  the  -poets  of  to-day  in 
that  he  represents  a  style  of  composition  that  the  world 
has  outgrown.  Perhaps  there  is  no  less  heroism  now  than 


HOMER   AND  BROWNING.  391 

formerly,  but  we  talk  less  about  it.  Homer's  '  Iliad '  and 
Browning's  '  Ring  and  the  Book '  are  on  their  face  both 
founded  on  certain  infelicities  of  married  life.  Browning's 
treatment  of  the  subject  is  mainly  limited  to  its  ethical, 
social,  and  personal  aspects.  All  this  to  Homer  is  of 
secondary  importance,  but  instead  he  weaves  the  story  into 
a  great  national  theme  that  involves  the  fate  of  cities  and 
the  interference  of  the  gods.  In  fact,  Homer  uncon- 
sciously took  a  subject  the  interest  whereof  has  not  failed 
even  yet.  The  Trojan  War  doubtless  has  some  historic 
basis,  and  was  but  the  beginning  of  a  series  of  conflicts, 
ostensibly  for  other  causes,  but  really  involving  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  Eastern  or  Western  civilisation  should 
prevail  on  the  Continent  of  Europe.  The  invasion  of 
Xerxes,  the  conquests  of  Alexander,  the  great  wars  between 
Rome  and  Carthage,  between  Spain  and  the  Moors,  the 
Crusades,  the  memorable  sieges  by  the  Turks  of  Rhodes 
and  Malta,  the  late  Russian  war,  and  even  the  recent 
Armenian  troubles  are  all  parts  of  the  same  great  drama  to 
which  Homer's  story  was  but  the  prelude.  Many  a  time 
has  our  civilisation  stood  in  extreme  peril.  The  "  Eastern 
Question"  is  a  burning  question  still;  and  the  gaze  of  the 
world  is  still  turned  towards  the  Hellespont,  where  Homer's 
heroes  began  the  fight  before  the  dawn  of  authentic  history. 
In  order  to  make  an  intelligent  comparison  of  Homer 
and  Browning,  it  is  obviously  necessary  to  consider  Homer 
first.  We  have  no  certain  knowledge  of  him  as  a  man,  for 
the  so-called  lives  of  Homer  are  valueless ;  and,  unlike 
Browning,  Homer  never  talked  of  himself.  In  six  in- 
stances of  invocation  Homer  says  "  Sing  to  me,  O  Muse ;  " 
and  the  Greek  word  of  three  letters  meaning  "  to  me  "  is 
absolutely  the  only  allusion  he  has  made  to  himself;  and 
he  neither  points  morals  nor  expresses  personal  opinions. 
His  works  afford  the  only  clue  to  his  character;  and  from 
them  we  can  but  infer  that  he  was  quite  unlike  the  con- 
sumptive-looking individual  represented  by  the  bust  that 


392  BOSTON  BROWKDsG   SOCIETY  PAPERS.       . 

bears  his  name.  Like  Browning,  he  evidently  was  a  man 
of  the  world,  keen-sighted  and  robust,  with  a  wide  expe- 
rience of  life  in  all  its  phases ;  but  the  vividness  of  his 
descriptions  of  camps,  hunting-scenes,  and  keen  debates 
leads  to  the  inference  that  if  not  himself  a  man  of  affairs, 
he  had  a  taste  for  war,  politics,  and  the  activities  of  life, 
while  Browning's  works  indicate  more  exclusively  a  man 
of  thought. 

HOMER'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

It  would  be  a  mistake,  however,  to  suppose  that  Homer 
was  a  shallow  thinker.  The  ancients  were  deficient  in 
much  that  we  call  knowledge;  but  there  is  nothing  to 
indicate  that  the  powers  of  the  human  mind  are  greater 
to-day  than  they  were  three  thousand  years  ago.  But 
while  Browning  lets  us  into  his  mental  workshop  and 
shbws  us  the  processes  of  thought,  Homer  gives  us  only 
the  results  of  thought.  I  surmise  that  his  mental  processes 
were  so  rapid  that  he  was  scarcely  conscious  of  them,  and 
his  conclusions  seem  intuitive.  The  words  of  the  Homeric 
Age  show  that  in  some  way  a  solution  had  been  attempted 
of  certain  philosophic  questions.  The  great  problem  in 
philosophy  is  to  ascertain  the  source  or  basis  of  human 
knowledge.  Plato  represents  Socrates  on  all  occasions  as 
inquiring  how  it  is  that  we  know  things.  We  have  no 
evidence  that  our  Aryan  ancestors  discussed  this  question, 
but  they  had  a  solution  of  it.  The  Greek  word  meaning 
"  to  know  "  is  a  second  perfect  of  the  verb  "  to  see."  This 
is  not  the  same  as  "seeing  is  knowing,"  but  implies  that 
we  know  because  we  have  seen  ;  that  is  to  say,  our  knowl- 
edge is  based  upon  sense  perception  coupled  with  reflection. 
This  is  substantially  the  foundation  principle  of  Locke's 
great  treatise,  and  of  other  sensational  philosophies,  includ- 
ing Herbert  Spencer's.  The  doctrine  of  the  relativity  of 
knowledge  would  naturally  follow ;  but  the  ancients  were 
saved  from  this  by  the  belief  that  the  gods  were  constantly 


HOMER   AXD   BROWNING.  893 

putting  suggestions  into  men's  minds,  so  that  in  fact  they 
were  transcendentalists. 

To  give  another  instance,  —  volumes  have  been  written 
on  the  question  whether  reasoning  is  possible  without  the 
use  of  language,  and  that  problem  is  discussed  and  lectured 
upon  every  year  in  every  great  university  of  the  world. 
Homer  presents  the  views  of  his  age  on  this  question  in 
the  word  vJTrios,  the  classical  Greek  word  for  infant,  but 
which  in  Homer  three  times  out  of  five  means  fool.  It 
literally  means  "  wordless,"  —  that  is  to  say,  the  wordless 
person  is  the  thoughtless  person.  The  Greek  words  for 
beautiful  and  ugly  have  secondary  meanings  of  honorable 
and  base,  that  is  to  say,  ethics  is  assumed  to  be  a  branch  of 
aesthetics,  —  an  idea  quite  contrary  to  our  New  England 
bringing  up.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  philosophy  in  the 
Homeric  poems,  only  it  is  not  stated  in  abstract  proposi- 
tions, but  is  the  unspoken  assumption  behind  concrete 
illustrations. 

I  will  give  an  instance  of  Homer's  intuitive  perception 
of  truth,  taken  from  common  life,  —  wherein  he  shows  the 
vital  evil  of  slavery  in  a  way  Mrs.  Stowe  did  not.  Agnes 
Repplier  says  that  after  reading  '  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  '  she 
felt  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  had  been  a  ghastly  mis- 
take ;  for  "  If  the  result  of  slavery  was  to  produce  a  race 
so  infinitely  superior  to  common  humanity ;  if  it  bred 
strong,  capable,  self-restrained  men  like  George,  beautiful, 
courageous,  tender-hearted  women  like  Eliza,  visions  of 
innocent  loveliness  like  Emmeline,  marvels  of  acute  in- 
telligence like  Cassey,  children  of  surpassing  precocity  and 
charm  like  little  Harry,  mothers  and  wives  of  patient, 
simple  goodness  like  Aunt  Chloe,  and  finally,  models  of 
all  known  chivalry  and  virtue  like  Uncle  Tom  himself,  — 
then  slavery  was  the  most  ennobling  institution  in  the 
world,  and  we  had  committed  a  grievous  crime  in  degrad- 
ing a  whole  heroic  race  to  our  narrower,  viler  level." 
Now  this  is  more  than  funny,  —  it  is  a  piece  of  just  and 


394  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

acute  criticism.  Homer  had  not  lost  what  Ruskin,  in  the 
art  of  drawing,  calls  the  "  innocency  of  the  eye,"  and  he 
saw  that  the  real  evil  of  slavery  was  its  effect  in  degrad- 
ing character,  and  has  one  of  his  dramatis  personce  sum 
it  up  in  the  two  best  lines  ever  written  on  the  slavery 
question  :  — 

Straightway  a  slave's  doom  on  a  man  is  fastened 
Far-sighted  Zeus  takes  half  his  worth  away. 

Homer  has  given  us  quite  distinctly  his  idea  of  the 


NATURE  OF  THE  POETIC  GIFT. 

I  will  give  the  original  evidence  bearing  upon  this 
point,  —  not  that  the  passages  cited  are  particularly  fine, 
but  because  the  subject  is  interesting,  and  also  to  show 
Homer's  method  of  stating  abstract  truths  concretely,  and 
as  it  were  incidentally. 

In  the  '  Iliad '  no  bard  is  mentioned,  and  there  is  but 
one  allusion  to  minstrelsy,  —  where  the  night  embassy  to 
Achilles  to  induce  him  to  return  to  the  war  find  him  by 
his  camp-fire  playing  upon  a  lyre  with  a  silver  yoke,  and 
singing  the  glorious  deeds  of  heroes.  Several  times,  how- 
ever, in  that  poem  Homer  himself  calls  upon  the  Muse  for 
information  as  to  facts  and  names,  saying  that  man's  knowl- 
edge of  the  past  is  nothing  except  the  Muses  aid  him.  In 
the  '  Odyssey '  bards  are  mentioned  on  four  different  occa- 
sions. In  the  first,  Penelope  is  represented  as  bursting 
into  tears  while  listening  to  a  song  relating  the  sad  return 
of  the  Greeks  from  Troyland,  and  begs  the  bard  to  desist, 
while  Telemachus  gently  tells  her  that  the  poet  has  only 
sung  the  truth,  and  for  that  truth  Zeus  is  to  blame,  not  he. 
The  second  allusion  is  merely  incidental  to  a  marriage 
feast  at  the  house  of  Menelaus,  where  as  part  of  the  enter- 
tainment a  divine  bard  is  singing  and  accompanying  him- 
self upon  the  lyre.  The  third  is  among  the  Phseacians, 


HOMER  AXD   BROWNING.  395 

where  the  gifts  of   the  bard  Demodocus  are  more  fully 
described.     Homer  says :  — 

Then  a  page  drew  near,  leading  the  beloved  minstrel  whom 
dearly  the  Muse  loved,  but  gave  him  both  good  and  evil.  Of 
his  eyes  she  reft  him,  but  gifted  him  with  sweet  song.  .  .  . 
And  accordingly  the  Muse  impelled  him  to  sing  the  glorious 
deeds  of  heroes,  even  that  lay  whereof  the  fame  had  then 
reached  the  wide  heaven,  etc. 

Later,  after  listening  to  Demodocus  with  great  emotion, 
Odysseus  thus  addresses  him :  — 

"  Demodocus,  thee  I  praise  far  beyond  all  mortal  men, 
whether  it  be  the  Muse,  daughter  of  Zeus,  that  taught  thee, 
or  even  Apollo,  for  right  accurately  dost  thou  sing  the  fate  of 
the  Achaeans,  even  all  they  did  and  suffered,  and  all  their  toil 
just  as  if  thou  hadst  been  present,  or  heard  the  tale  from  an- 
other. Come  now,  change  thy  strain,  and  sing  the  story  of  the 
wooden  horse  .  .  .  and  if  thou  rehearse  this  aright  I  will 
straightway  declare  unto  all  men  how  bounteously  God  hath 
gifted  thee  with  divine  song."  Thus  spake  he,  and  Demodocus 
was  moved  by  the  god,  and  sang. 

Near  the  end  of  the  '  Odyssey,'  where  Odysseus  is  slay- 
ing the  suitors,  Phemius,  who  had  been  their  minstrel, 
successfully  begs  for  quarter  on  the  ground  of  his  sacred 
calling,  as  follows  :  — 

Show  mercy  on  me,  Odysseus.  On  thine  own  self  here- 
after will  sorrow  come  if  thou  slayest  me  who  am  a  minstrel, 
and  sing  before  gods  and  men.  For  I  am  inspired,  and  God 
hath  put  in  my  heart  all  manner  of  lays. 

From  these  several  passages  we  see  that  Homer  regarded 
the  poet  as  neither  Jborn  nor  made,  but  inspired ;  and  that 
inspiration  is  plenary,  since  it  is  knowledge  of  facts  and 
even  the  lay  itself  that  God  puts  in  his  heart.  In  his  own 
case  Homer  implies  that  he  sings  to  men  simply  what  the 


396  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Muse  sings  to  him.  I  think  that  both  Homer  and  Brown- 
ing believed  that  poetry  should  be  didactic.  The  only 
other  singers  mentioned  by  Homer,  the  Syrens,  tempt 
Odysseus  to  land  with  the  promise  of  knowledge,  assuring 
him  that  they  not  only  have  voices  sweet  as  the  honey- 
comb, but  know  all  that  has  happened  and  will  hereafter 
happen  on  the  fruitful  earth ;  and  that  after  listening  to 
them  he  will  go  away  a  wiser  man.  Homer  nowhere  sug- 
gests that  poets  sing  for  fame,  or  for  any  other  motive 
than  simply  to  obey  a  divine  impulse,  and  express  the 
lays  with  which  Heaven  has  filled  their  hearts. 

While  not  accepting  fully  Homer's  theory,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  he  expresses  his  honest  conviction,  and  that  the 
form  and  substance  of  his  poetry  presented  itself  to  his 
mind  so  vividly,  and  the  impulse  toward  expression  was  so 
overmastering  that  he  believed  the  gods  spoke  through 
him.  If  Homer  had  resolved  not  to  be  a  poet  I  think  he 
would  have  failed  to  keep  his  resolution.  I  do  not  feel 
the  same  certainty  as  to  Browning.  What  little  he  says 
of  poets  and  poetry  is  on  a  different  plane  from  Homer's. 
He  early  in  life  resolved  to  be  a  poet,  and  the  world  has 
reason  to  be  glad  of  it ;  but  perhaps  he  might  have  found 
adequate  means  of  expression  other  than  verse.  He  was 
certain  to  be  a  transcendentalist  in  some  direction,  but  it 
seems  to  me,  if  not  a  transcendental  philosopher  or  theo- 
logian like  Hegel  or  Swedenborg,  he  might  have  been  a 
transcendental  painter  or  musician  like  Turner  or  Wagner. 
Like  Browning,  all  those  men  spoke  a  language  which  the 
world  in  general  could  not  comprehend,  but  which  to  a 
select  few  was  intelligible  and  priceless.  Perhaps  better 
judges  will  not  assent  to  this  view  as  to  Browning's  trans- 
cendentalism ;  but  it  appears  to  me  that  his  whole  nature 
was  intuitional,  and  that  he  did  violence  to  that  nature  in 
yielding  an  intellectual  assent  to  the  philosophies  of  his 
day ;  that  his  reasoning  is  made  up  of  two  things  which 
cannot  be  united,  the  intuitional  and  the  positive  ;  that 


HOMER  AND  BROWNING.  397 

the  poet  above  all  men  should  be  intuitional ;  that  Brown- 
ing's, achievements  are  due  to  prodigious  powers  of  mind, 
and  that  he  was  hampered  by  forcing  his  mind  to  work  by 
methods  that  to  him  were  unnatural. 


HOMER'S  STYLE. 

So  perfect  in  form  are  the  Homeric  poems  that  we  can 
almost  believe  the  Muses  composed  them  and  put  them  in 
his  heart  as  completed  lays. 

His  style  has  best  been  described  in  an  essay  by  Matthew 
Arnold,  who  says  that  Homer  both  in  thought  and  move- 
ment is  always  rapid,  in  thought  and  diction  always 
simple ;  that  he  is  always  direct,  and  always  noble. 
Measuring  Homer's  translators  by  this  standard  Arnold 
justly  condemns  them  all ;  but  he  admits  that  even  a  fairly 
good  English  translation  to  suit  all  those  requirements  is 
well-nigh  impossible.  English  poetry,  particularly  rhymed 
poetry,  is  inconsistent  with  simplicity  and  directness. 
The  danger  of  attempting  to  preserve  Homer's  nobleness, 
particularly  in  that  plain  narrative  which  must  often  occur 
in  epic  poetry,  is  that  it  will  degenerate  into  bombast,  —  a 
thing  which  Homer  has  the  supreme  gift  to  avoid  and  yet 
preserve  the  grand  style.  Every  sentence  is  as  simple  and 
direct  as  prose,  with  every  word  in  the  right  place  to  pre- 
serve the  proper  emphasis,  —  and  yet  is  in  exquisite  poetic 
form,  and  in  a  most  exacting  metre.  No  prose  translation 
can  do  Homer  any  kind  of  justice ;  and  yet,  I  think,  all 
things  considered,  the  prose  translations  of  him  are  the 
best.  What  in  Homer  impresses  a  reader  most  profoundly 
is  a  certain  sense  of  mastery,  —  an  absolute  spontaneity 
both  of  thought  and  expression,  so  that  nothing  appears  to 
have  been  worked  up  or  inserted  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
serving some  other  telling  phrase  or  sentence.  The  like 
cannot  be  said  even  of  so  great  an  English  masterpiece  as 
Gray's  '  Elegy.' 


398  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

The  lines 

Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen 
And  waste  its  sweetness  on  the  desert  air, 

are  remembered  and  quoted  by  everybody.  The  two  lines 
preceding  are  seldom  quoted,  yet  they  are  exquisitely 
wrought.  The  trouble  with  them  is  that  they  are  wrought, 
—  and  wrought  with  a  purpose  of  harmonising  in  rhyme, 
metre,  and  sentiment  with  the  lines  I  have  given,  lines 
which  were  thought  of  first,  which  were  spontaneous,  and 
which  the  poet  wished  to  preserve  in  their  simple  form. 
In  Homer  everything  is  spontaneous  and  in  a  most  simple 
and  natural  form,  or  at  least  appears  so. 

One  marked  result  of  Homer's  style  is  a  wonderful 
clearness  of  statement,  and  a  vividness  in  the  series  of 
pictures  with  which  his  pages  are  full.  An  English-speak- 
ing person  with  a  fair  knowledge  of  Greek  will  find  Homer 
easier  to  read  than  Browning.  The  following  from  Brown- 
ing's pen  shows  his  appreciation  of  the  clearness  of  the 
ancient  classics :  — 

They  came  to  me  in  my  first  dawn  of  life 

Which  passed  alone  with  wisest  ancient  books 

All  halo-girt  with  fancies  of  my  own ; 

And  I  myself  went  with  the  tale  — a  god 

Wandering  after  beauty,  or  a  giant 

Standing  vast  in  the  sunset  —  an  old  hunter 

Talking  with  gods,  or  a  high-crested  chief 

Sailing  with  troops  of  friends  to  Tenedos. 

I  tell  you,  nought  has  ever  been  so  clear 

As  the  place,  the  time,  the  fashion  of  those  lives : 

I  had  not  seen  a  work  of  lofty  art, 

Nor  woman's  beauty,  nor  sweet  nature's  face, 

Yet,  I  say,  never  morn  broke  clear  as  those 

On  the  dim  clustered  isles  in  the  blue  sea, 

On  deep  groves  and  white  temples  and  wet  caves : 

And  nothing  ever  will  surprise  me  now  — 

Who  stood  before  the  naked  Swift-footed, 

Who  bound  my  forehead  with  Proserpine's  hair. 

In  this  passage  Browning  refers  not  only  to  the  clearness 
of  the  ancient  authors,  but  to  the  clearness  of  the  youthful 


HOMER    AND   BROWNING.  399 

imagination ;  but  both  ideas  are  pertinent  to  the  matter  in 
hand.  It  is  an  important  part  of  Homer's  art  that  he  leaves 
so  much  to  the  imagination,  and  says  just  enough  to  stimu- 
late the  imagination.  His  figures  appear  upon  the  stage  like 
"  a  giant  standing  vast  in  the  sunset,"  —  always  clear  in 
outline,  and  silhouetted  against  a  brilliant  background.  I 
mean  that  is  the  way  Homer  leaves  them  ;  but  the  reader's 
imagination  completes  the  picture  till  it  is  clear-cut,  almost 
like  a  cameo.  Homer  was  an  impressionist.  In  so  styling 
him  I  do  not  refer  to  his  reputed  blindness,  nor  even  to  the 
recent  theory  that  he  was  colour-blind,  but  to  the  fact  that 
he  paints  his  pictures  with  a  few  masterly  touches  that 
convey  the  general  impression  desired,  without  excessive 
use  of  pigment,  and  without  details.  Whenever  Helen 
appears  we  always  feel  the  effect  of  her  bewildering 
beauty,  yet  Homer  never  even  tells  us  whether  she  was  large 
or  small,  a  blonde  or  a  brunette,  nor  gives  any  specific  de- 
scription of  face  or  figure.  We  are  told  in  different  pas- 
sages that  she  is  white-armed,  fair-cheeked,  long-robed,  has 
lovely  hair,  is  a  goddess  among  women,  and  is  like  golden 
Aphrodite,  and  that  is  all.  Every  one  imagines  her  accord- 
ing to  his  personal  taste.  Probably  no  two  readers  have 
precisely  the  same  picture  presented  to  their  minds,  and  it  is 
for  that  very  reason  that  every  one  gets  the  general  impres- 
sion that  Homer  intended ;  and  it  is  largely  for  this  reason 
that  Homer  is  so  great  to  people  of  every  age  and  every 
stage  of  culture,  —  why  he  is  the  world's  poet,  —  the  poet 
not  simply  of  one  generation,  but  of  all  generations. 

DEFECTS  IN  BROWNING'S  STYLE. 

In  the  matter  of  style,  probably  no  two  great  authors 
are  more  unlike  than  Homer  and  Browning.  The  latter 
is  not  rapid  in  movement,  simple  in  thought  or  diction, 
is  not  direct,  nor  always  noble.  I  do  not  think  it  is 
Browning's  acknowledged  thoughtfulness  or  depth  of 


400  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

meaning  that  makes  him  so  difficult  to  follow,  but  because 
he  is  not  rapid,  simple,  or  direct.  I  have  heard  it  claimed 
that  Browning  is  rapid,  and  that  it  is  his  rapidity  that  pre- 
vents the  ordinary  mind  from  keeping  pace  with  him,  but 
cannot  assent  to  either  view.  Homer's  rapidity  does  not 
make  him  hard  to  understand.  His  rapidity  is  natural,  he 
sees  his  objective  point,  goes  straight  for  it,  and  knows 
when  he  gets  there ;  whereas  Browning's  rapidity,  such  as 
it  is,  is  unnatural,  like  a  man  with  seven-league  boots  on, 
whose  stride  carries  him  by  the  objective  point,  and  who 
keeps  retracing  his  steps,  commenting,  meanwhile,  on  all 
that  he  sees  from  his  several  points  of  view.  Mrs.  Orr,  in 
.  her  '  Life  of  Browning,'  makes  a  criticism  somewhat  sim- 
ilar, saying  that  his  neglect  in  youth  of  such  studies  as  logic 
and  mathematics  "  led  to  involutions  and  overlappings  of 
thought  and  phrase  due  to  his  never  learning  to  follow  the 
processes  of  more  normally  constituted  minds."  Perhaps 
I  can  find  a  better  comparison  to  explain  my  meaning  that 
Browning  was  not  rapid  in  movement  notwithstanding  his 
seven-league  boots.  We  all  know  the  difference  between  the 
air  of  'Home,  Sweet  Home,'  and  'Home,  Sweet  Home,  with 
Variations.'  In  the  latter  the  fingers  of  the  pianist  move 
with  much  greater  rapidity  than  in  the  former,  and  many 
more  notes  and  chords  are  struck  in  a  given  time  ;  but  the 
movement  of  the  theme  is  slow,  and  great  skill  is  required 
in  the  rendering  to  prevent  the  "  variations "  from  over- 
laying and  obscuring  the  theme.  Here,  I  think,  is  the 
vice  in  Browning's  style  which  makes  him  difficult  to  fol- 
low, —  that  however  simple  his  theme  he  involves  it  in 
complex  variations,  and  thus  he  is  neither  simple,  nor 
direct,  nor  (so  far  as  the  action  is  concerned)  rapid,  and 
the  ordinary  mind  becomes  weary  and  confused  before  any 
objective  point  is  reached.  So  much  time  is  required  in 
searching  for  the  lost  chord  that  the  reader  is  apt  to  con- 
clude that  there  is  no  such  chord,  or,  at  all  events,  that 
the  quest  is  not  for  him.  With  Homer,  on  the  other  hand, 


HOMER   AND   BROWNING.  401 

it  is  the  action  that  is  rapid ;  and  this  the  mind  follows 
with  ease.  As  to  his  rapidity  of  form  and  diction  Homer's 
trail-footed  translators  give  the  reader  no  conception.  It  is 
doubtful  if  the  same  effect  of  rapidity  could  be  produced 
even  in  the  Greek  of  the  classical  period,  and  still  less 
in  our  modern  English.  It  is  fair  to  say,  however,  that 
in  this  respect  and  all  other  respects,  Homer  far  surpassed 
the  authors  who  were  most  nearly  his  contemporaries. 

Browning,  speaking  through  Cleon,  in  the  poem  of  that 
name,  claims  that  ancient  men  like  Homer,  though  supreme 
in  one  direction,  are  inferior,  on  the  whole,  to  the  modern 
man,  who  is  composite  and  great  in  many  directions.  That 
proposition  involves  an  interesting  question  which  it  is  not 
within  the  province  of  this  paper  to  discuss ;  but  it  con- 
tains an  element  of  truth  to  which  I  shall  recur  later.  A 
suggestion  even  more  important  he  makes  elsewhere  in 
three  or  four  different  poems,  that  the  aim  and  scope  of 
Greek  art  was  finite,  was  limited  to  form  and  feature  and 
what  pertains  to  this  world,  and  therefore  capable  of  per- 
fection, while  modern  art  aims  at  the  infinite,  at  the  ex- 
pression of  the  inner  man  rather  than  the  outer,  and 
accepts  imperfection  as  the  necessary  price.  This  raises  a 
second  great  question  not  to  be  discussed  here,  —  whether 
art  should  be  limited  in  its  purpose  with  perfection  possi- 
ble, or  should  aim  at  the  unattainable  with  failure  certain. 
Browning  chose  the  latter  of  these  alternatives^  while 
Homer  adopted  the  former,  not  from  choice,  but  because 
with  his  philosophy  he  could  not  help  it.  Browning  began 
life  with  the  resolve  to  become  a  poet  and  portray  the 
growth  of  the  soul ;  but  Homer  did  not  suppose  man  had 
a  soul  in  our  sense  of  that  word.  Man's  future  life  was  a 
shadowy,  almost  unconscious  existence,  and  from  it  there 
was  no  escape.  The  present  life,  therefore,  comprised  all 
possible  hopes  and  aspirations  for  man.  Even  Homer's 
gods  were  finite  ;  and  he  apparently  had  no  idea  that  any- 
thing was  infinite.  Herbert  Spencer  says  we  have  no  such 

26 


402  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

idea  either,  that  the  infinite  is  unthinkable ;  but  Browning 
did  not  really  believe  him.  From  a  simply  artistic  point 
of  view,  Homer's  limitations  may  have  been  liis  good  for- 
tune ;  but  Browning's  daring  flights  are  his  great  glory, 
even  if,  like  one  of  Juvenal's  contemporaries,  he  flew 
with  dripping  wings. 

RELIGION. 

Perhaps  in  this  connection  it  will  be  appropriate  to 
speak  of  the  vast  difference  in  the  points  of  view  of  these 
two  authors  growing  out  of  difference  in  religion.  The 
accepted  religion  of  an  age  profoundly  influences  even  the 
irreligious.  It  is  said  that  Browning  was  sceptical  as  to 
the  religion  of  the  Bible;  yet  his  works  are  deemed  of 
very  special  value  by  theologians  and  preachers.  I  shall 
not  dwell  upon  Browning's  theology,  because  that  subject  is 
to  be  treated  in  a  special  paper  by  another,  later  in  the  year ; 
but  will  say  in  passing  that  in  '  Cleon '  he  implies  that 
some  form  of  revelation  is  necessary  to  save  man  from 
hopelessness  as  to  a  future  life,  and  to  make  the  present 
life  seem  rational.  Thus  Browning's  optimism  must  have 
been  based  on  some  religious  faith,  though  perhaps  that 
faith  did  not  run  on  the  precise  lines  of  any  accepted  creed. 
The  Bible  teaches  that  God's  power  is  infinite,  and  his 
wisdom  and  goodness  past  finding  out ;  and  while  man  is 
free  and  can  go  astray,  he  is  also  free  to  redeem  himself, 
and  a  self-conscious  immortality  is  promised.  Thus  a  reli- 
gion of  hope  is  possible.  Browning  being  brought  up  in 
such  an  atmosphere,  and  accepting  the  general  features  of 
this  belief,  had  the  requisite  temperament,  and  was  an 
optimist. 

Homer,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  prince  of  pessimists 
among  great  authors.  With  his  theology  and  his  view  of 
life  and  death  he  could  not  be  otherwise.  His  gods  were 
superhuman,  but  still  were  finite ;  and  their  powers  were 
used  capriciously,  —  sometimes  for  man's  good,  but  more 


HOMER   AND   BROWNING.  403 

often  to  betray  him.  Man  was  a  free  agent  to  a  limited 
extent ;  but  in  the  main  his  life  was  governed  by  a  destiny 
over  which  he  had  no  control.  Homer's  gods  were  much 
less  ethical  than  his  men  and  women ;  their  favourites  were 
the  gifted  and  not  the  good,  and  they  had  neither  the 
power  nor  the  disposition  to  alleviate  human  misery.  Zeus 
is  represented  as  saying  that  "  Of  all  that  liveth  and 
moveth  upon  the  earth  man  is  the  most  wretched ; "  and 
Homer  so  depicts  human  life.  No  one  of  his  leading 
characters  is  happy ;  and  even  among  subordinate  charac- 
ters, when  the  curtain  is  lifted,  little  appears  but  sorrow 
and  disappointment.  The  women  weeping  about  the  body 
of  the  dead  Patroclus,  Homer  tells  us  "  ostensibly  mourned 
for  Patroclus,  but  really  each  for  her  own  woes."  The 
name  "  Achilles  "  has  the  same  root  as  the  English  word 
"  ache,"  and  the  fundamental  root  of  the  word  "  Odysseus  " 
means  "  ill-starred  "  or  "  unfortunate." 

Nor  was  there  anything  more  hopeful  in  the  life  to  come. 
The  shades  had  just  enough  self-consciousness  to  know 
that  their  existence  was  joyless.  Even  the  haughty 
Achilles,  meeting  Odysseus  in  Hades,  says  when  congratu- 
lated on  being  a  king  among  the  dead,  — 

Speak  not  lightly  of  Death,  noble  Odysseus.  I  would 
rather  be  a  hireling  on  earth,  even  of  a  master  unportioned  and 
ill- to-do,  than  reign  over  all  the  nations  of  the  departed  dead. 

Yet  to  show  that  a  noble  man  can  make  a  noble  use  even 
of  pessimism,  I  will  quote  the  following  passage  from  the 
4  Iliad,'  where  Sarpedon  addresses  Glaucus  when  about  to 
enter  battle: 

Glaucus,  wherefore  do  we  twain  hold  the  highest  honours,  — 
seats  of  honour,  and  feasts,  and  full  cups  in  Lycia,  and  all  men 
look  on  us  as  sods?  Wherefore  hold  we  wide  lands  of  orchard 

O 

and  wheat-bearing  fields?  In  return  for  these  things  it  be- 
hoveth  us  to  take  our  stand  in  the  forefront  of  the  Lycians  and 
face  the  heat  of  the  battle,  that  the  well-armed  Lycians  may 


404  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

say,  "  Verily  our  Kings  are  not  unworthy  men,  they  that  eat  fat 
sheep  and  drink  the  choice,  sweet  wine ;  they  also  excel  in 
valour,  and  fight  in  the  front  ranks  of  the  Lycians."  Ah,  com- 
rade, if  by  escaping  from  this  one  battle  we  should  for  ever  be 
ageless  and  immortal,  neither  would  I,  myself,  fight  in  the  front 
ranks,  nor  send  thee  into  man-ennobling  battle ;  but  as  it  is, 
since  ten  thousand  fates  of  death  on  every  hand  beset  us  which 
it  is  not  in  mortal  man  to  evade  or  avoid,  let  us  on,  and  glory 
win  or  glory  give. 

Sarpedon  says  in  substance  that  if  man  had  anything  to 
lose  that  was  of  real  value  he  might  well  hesitate  to  im- 
peril it,  and  that  on  this  occasion  he  probably  would  skulk 
himself ;  but  man's  lot  is  hopeless,  and  therefore  during 
his  brief  day  he  should  fulfil  his  manhood  and  the  claims 
of  duty.  There  is  nothing  in  Homer  of  the  sentiment 
"  Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  He  is  no 
less  pessimistic  than  Cleon ;  he  is  not  a  composite  man  like 
Cleon  ;  but  in  his  simplicity  he  takes  a  much  nobler  view 
of  duty  and  life. 

POINTS  OF  RESEMBLANCE. 

I  have  dwelt  at  some  length  upon  the  points  wherein 
Homer  and  Browning  differ,  both  because  the  differences 
must  be  ascertained  before  we  can  determine  their  points 
of  resemblance,  and  also  to  show  that  no  man  of  this 
generation,  even  if  he  had  Homer's  genius,  could  be  a 
second  Homer.  Homer  and  Browning  were  men  of  marked 
individuality,  and  no  other  great  writer  is  much  like  either ; 
but  after  all,  the  great  difference  between  Homer  and 
Browning,  or  any  other  modern  poet,  is  due  to  differences 
in  the  ages  wherein  they  lived,  —  differences  in  civilisation, 
religion,  points  of  view,  and  the  whole  manner  of  life  and 
thought.  Even  the  differences  in  style  are  not  wholly  due 
to  individuality,  but  are  owing  in  part  to  the  unlikeness 
between  the  ancient  and  the  modern  world.  Homer  repre- 
sented an  age  of  great  simplicity ;  and  the  thoughts  and 


HOMER   AND   BROWNING.  405 

motives  of  his  men  and  women  ran  on  simple  lines  so  that 
they  had  neither  the  complicated  virtues  nor  the  compli- 
cated vices  of  the  present  day.  Simplicity  and  directness 
of  style  would  follow  naturally;  while  Browning,  repre- 
senting a  complex  age,  and  deeming  himself,  as  he  says 
through  Cleon,  a  composite  man,  and  the  greater  for  his 
compositeness,  when  he  attempted  to  represent  himself  and 
his  age,  was  under  a  certain  constraint  to  adopt  a  composite 
style  of  composition. 

These  differences  suggest  a  most  important  resemblance, 
—  that  Homer  and  Browning  were  each  the  poet  that  best 
represented  his  age.  That  this  is  true  of  Homer  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  his  poems  were  preserved  while  his  literary 
contemporaries  are  unknown,  and  still  better  shown  by  the 
naturalness  and  encyclopaedic  character  of  the  works  them- 
selves. They  are  an  epitome  of  a  civilisation  that  otherwise 
would  have  been  forgotten  twenty-five  hundred  years  ago, 
and  represent  every  phase  of  the  life,  aspirations,  and  thought 
of  those  days.  Of  what  we  call  knowledge  Homer  had 
almost  nothing.  Outside  of  Greece  and  Asia  Minor  the 
world  was  to  him  little  more  than  a  place  of  fable  and 
enchantment ;  there  was  no  scientific  thought,  and  no  one 
had  the  opportunity,  even  if  he  had  had  the  disposition,  to 
discuss  abstruse  problems  of  ethics  as  metaphysics.  Dar- 
win's law  is  imperative  ;  and  views  and  ideals  of  life  must 
turn  mainly  on  what  is  necessary  to  sustain  and  preserve 
it.  With  the  Homeric  peoples  peace  and  security  were 
scarcely  dreamed  of,  and  life  was  a  struggle  only  to  be 
preserved  by  valour,  cunning,  and  endurance.  Thus  valour, 
cunning,  and  endurance  of  necessity  became  the  typical 
virtues  of  the  age,  and  the  hero  of  the  '  Iliad '  represents 
heroic  valour,  and  the  hero  of  the  '  Odyssey '  heroic  endur- 
ance coupled  with  cunning.  The  action,  passion,  and 
pathos  of  such  a  life,  the  heroic  struggle  against  fate 
and  circumstance,  were  all  there  was  for  Homer  to 
depict. 


406  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEES. 

The  necessities  of  the  Homeric  environment  required 
brawn  ;  the  necessities  of  to-day  require  brains.  Modern 
life  makes  demands  upon  science  and  political  economy, 
on  law  and  ethics,  on  art  and  philosophy,  —  at  least  that 
phase  of  philosophy  which  deals  with  life  and  living.  The 
life  of  the  Homeric  Age  was  an  outward  life,  and  could  be 
presented  in  a  series  of  pictures.  Modern  life  is  inward, 
and  involves  a  series  of  problems.  The  ordinary  poet 
lives  in  dreamland ;  but  Browning  lived  in  the  real  world 
and  appreciated  that  this  is  an  age  of  problems ;  and  these 
problems  he  has  presented  and  discussed.  This  distinctive 
feature  of  the  nineteenth  century  either  was  not  perceived 
by  other  poets,  or  they  shrank  from  the  task  of  represent- 
ing it.  Most  of  the  writings  of  Tennyson  and  his  great 
contemporaries  deal  with  the  past,  or  with  subjects  and 
ideas  that  might  belong  to  any  age.  Even  where  a  modern 
subject  is  taken,  as  in  Tennyson's  '  Princess,'  it  all  seems 
to  be  in  an  ideal  and  not  the  real  world.  Browning,  on 
the  other  hand,  no  matter  how  far  back  he  goes  in  time,  as 
in  '  Paracelsus,'  or  '  Sordello,'  or  even  '  Cleon,'  gives  us  the 
thoughts  and  the  problems  of  to-day.  Dreamland  is  one  of 
the  great  powers,  and  I  mean  no  disrespect  for  its  envoys 
who  bring  with  them  fitting  credentials ;  but  on  the  simple 
question,  Which  of  our  great  poets  best  represented  the 
spirit  of  the  nineteenth  century?  I  think  there  is  no  ques- 
tion that  it  is  Browning.  Indeed,  I  doubt  if  any  prose 
writer  would  give  to  a  future  historian  of  this  century  so 
much  real  insight  into  its  thought  as  he.  Browning  also 
perceived  that  this  complex  life  has  developed  phases  of 
vice  and  virtue  of  which  Homer  never  dreamed.  This  is 
an  age  of  humbug,  and  Browning  has  given  us  Mr.  Sludge, 
the  Medium.  This  is  an  age  when  scepticism  walks  up 
the  steps  into  the  pulpit,  and  he  gives  us  Bishop  Blougram. 
This  is  the  age  of  a  nobility  bankrupt  in  fortune  and  in 
character,  and  he  gives  us  Guido;  an  age  when  youth, 
beauty,  and  money  are  sold  by  managing  mothers  in  ex- 


HOMER   AND   BROWNING.  407 

change  for  a  title,  and  he  gives  us  Pompilia";  yes,  and  he 
also  gives  the  life  led  by  the  victims  of  such  ill-starred 
marriages.  It  is  an  age  of  slang,  and  Mr.  Browning  does 
not  mind  giving  us  a  little  expressive  slang  himself. 
Homer  is  often  eloquent.  Mr.  Gladstone  pronounces  the 
speech  of  Achilles  in  'Book  IX  of  the  Iliad'  the  finest 
specimen  of  eloquence  in  all  literature.  Browning  seldom 
aims  at  eloquence,  and  evidently  feels  most  at  home  in  the 
colloquial  style  which  he  adopts  so  often. 

Concerning  the  matters  wherein  Homer  and  Browning 
are  alike  in  genius  and  spirit,  many  resemblances  of  a 
superficial  character  may  be  given.  For  example,  both 
have  high  ideals  of  womanhood,  and  a  soul  toward  the 
sex  that  is  full  knightly,  though  it  seems  to  have  occurred 
to  neither  that  political  power  is  essential  to  woman's  true 
dignity  or  development.  Neither  are  poets  of  nature; 
though  their  occasional  descriptions  of  natural  scenery 
and  phenomena  are  exquisite.  These  two  points  of  re- 
semblance, however,  suggest  another  that  is  fundamental, 
and  of  the  highest  consequence :  the  interest  of  both  is 
centred  on  men  and  women,  and  the  reason  for  it  is  that 
the  spirit  of  both  is  in  the  highest  degree  dramatic.  I 
think  all  Homeric  scholars,  if  asked  what  is  the  most  dis- 
tinguishing mark  of  Homer's  genius,  —  what  has  given  his 
works  their  enduring  interest,  —  would  without  hesitation 
answer  that  it  was  his  dramatic  quality.  If,  at  the  time 
when  Greek  tragedy  was  at  its  height,  Athenian  scholars 
had  been  asked  who  was  their  most  dramatic  author,  they 
would  have  agreed  without  dissent  that  it  was  Homer. 
jEschylus  himself  says  something  to  the  effect  that  he 
and  his  associates  simply  serve  up  the  crumbs  that  fell 
from  the  table  of  the  great  master.  Out  of  curiosity,  the 
essayist  has  counted  up  in  several  books  of  the  '  Iliad ' 
taken  at  random  the  number  of  lines  purporting  to  be 
spoken  by  his  characters,  and  finds  that  they  comprise 
from  three  to  four  fifths  of  the  whole ;  and  quotations 


408  BOSTON  BKOWKLNG   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

within  quotations  are  constant  in  Homer  as  in  Browning. 
One  special  point  in  Homer's  dramatic  quality  may  be 
interesting.  I  refer  to  the  difficulty  of  expressing  public 
sentiment  in  dramatic  form.  Where  music  is  admissible, 
public  sentiment  may  be  expressed  by  a  chorus,  as  in  the 
Greek  dramatists,  and  in  oratorio.  Shakespeare  gets  over 
the  difficulty  by  conversations  between  unnamed  parties, 
designated,  for  example,  as  "  first  Roman  gentleman  "  and 
"second  Roman  gentleman."  Homer  expresses  this  by 
the  use  of  the  indefinite  pronoun  "riV  which  means  "a 
certain  one."  That  is  to  say,  Homer  often  sets  forth  that 
"  a  certain  one  "  said  something  "  to  his  neighbour  stand- 
ing near,"  and  always  means  thereby  that  this  "certain 
one "  was  expressing  public  opinion.  Browning  accom- 
plishes the  same  object  in  *  The  Ring  and  the  Book '  by 
representing  three  different  unnamed  individuals  as  giv- 
ing the  views  of  "one  half  Rome,"  "the  other  half  of 
Rome,"  and  "  tertium  quid."  Perhaps  it  was  Homer,  per- 
haps it  was  Shakespeare,  perhaps  it  was  his  native  genius 
that  suggested  this  method  to  Browning. 

On  Browning's  dramatic  spirit  it  is  unnecessary  to  en- 
large. Everything  presented  itself  to  his  mind  in  dramatic 
form,  even  when  stating  abstract  truths.  Poems  like 
'Cleon'  are  thoroughly  dramatic.  The  lines  respecting 
Greek  statuary, — 

They  are  perfect  —  how  else  ?     They  shall  never  change : 
We  are  faulty  —  why  not?     We  have  time  in  store,  — 

are  put  in  the  form  of  question  and  answer,  as  if  two 
people  were  in  animated  discussion.  The  two  authors 
differ  in  this  respect,  that  Homer  is  full  of  action,  and 
Browning  full  of  thought ;  but  the  cause  of  that  difference 
I  have  attempted  to  explain  elsewhere.  Thus  the  most 
distinguishing  feature  of  Homer  and  Browning  —  the 
feature  that  gives  character  and  form  to  their  entire  works 
—  is  the  same ;  and  in  dramatic  spirit  Browning  is  indeed 
the  Homer  of  this  generation.  One  of  the  effects  of  this 


HOMES,   AXD   BROWNINTG.  409 

spirit  on  Browning  appears,  I  think,  in  his  choice  of  sub- 
jects. I  mean  the  choice,  in  his  most  important  works,  of 
some  old  story  that  is  full  of  inconsistencies,  to  which  he 
undertakes  to  give  unity,  either  by  having  it  told  by  dif- 
ferent persons,  or  some  other  dramatic  artifice. 

One  result  of  this  dramatic  tendency  in  both  poets  is 
a  universal  sympathy,  a  broad  humanity,  which  covers  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  the  sinner  as  well  as  the  saint. 
Both  are  the  poets  of  sinful  man.  The  case  in  behalf  of 
Guido  and  Mr.  Sludge  are  strongly  put  by  Browning,  and 
Homer  is  equally  fair  and  eloquent  in  behalf  of  Penelope's 
suitors.  This  sympathy,  however,  never  obscures  the 
moral  judgment  of  either  Homer  or  Browning;  in  fact, 
both  are  severe  in  their  moral  judgments.  Browning, 
in  '  Ivan  Ivanovitch,'  tells  the  story  of  the  mother  whose 
children  were  sacrificed  to  the  wolves  in  a  way  to  excite 
the  deepest  sympathy.  We  take  in  fully  her  instinctive 
love  of  life,  her  genuine  love  for  her  children,  and  how 
she  was  benumbed  with  cold  and  terror,  but  after  stating 
all  this  most  eloquently,  when  the  peasant  without  answer- 
ing a  word  chops  off  her  head  with  his  axe,  Browning  tells 
us  it  was  the  judgment  of  God.  Homer,  in  like  manner, 
shows  us  all  the  palliating  circumstances  affecting  the 
suitors  of  Penelope,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  that  ex- 
perienced matron  hoodwinked  and  coquetted  with  the  mis- 
guided young  men  in  a  very  artful  manner;  but  Homer 
never  forgot  that  they  were  in  the  wrong,  and  when  the 
time  comes  there  is  no  escape  from  their  just  doom. 
Odysseus  throws  off  the  rags  in  which  he  was  disguised, 
bends  his  fatal  bow,  and  the  bully  among  the  suitors  is 
the  first  to  fall.  The  hypocrite  is  allowed  to  live  just 
long  enough  to  make  one  more  hypocritical  speech,  but 
falls  next,  and  the  slaughter  is  kept  up  until  all  have  per- 
ished. Homer  even  follows  the  suitors  beyond  this  life, 
and  tells  how  their  shades  were  driven  by  Hermes  with 
his  magic  wand  down  the  mouldering  pathway,  by  the 


410  BOSTON   BKOWNLSTG   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

White  Rocks  and  the  streams  of  the  ocean,  beyond  the 
gates  of  the  sunset  and  the  land  of  dreams,  to  the  meadow 
of  asphodel  where  dwell  the  dead,  the  phantoms  of  worn- 
out  men;  and  thus  they  go  "gibbering  like  bats"  to 
Hades,  where  he  leaves  them. 

To  the  question  then,  whether  Browning  is  the  Homer 
of  this  generation,  I  think  an  affirmative  answer  within 
the  limits  I  have  set  can  fairly  be  rendered. 

Homer  has  been  the  chiefest  among  poets  for  three 
thousand  years.  Browning's  lines  — 

The  Artificer's  hand  is  iiot  arrested 

With  us ;  we  are  rough-hewn,  nowise  polished  : 

They  stand  for  our  copy,  and,  once  invested 

With  all  they  can  teach,  we  shall  see  them  abolished, 

are  neither  truth  nor  poetry.  Neither  Greek  art  nor 
Greek  literature  will  be  "abolished"  while  our  civilisa- 
tion lasts.  Will  Browning's  fame  be  equally  enduring? 
That  there  will  be  no  second  Browning  in  the  next  three 
thousand  years  I  can  easily  believe ;  but  he  is  at  great  dis- 
advantage as  compared  with  Homer.  Homer's  age  was 
so  simple  that  he  could  represent  it  without  what  may  be 
called  "  fashion."  We  know  how  out-of-date  a  photograph 
looks  in  a  short  time,  where  clothing  or  other  fashion  is 
shown.  This  is  why  the  nude  in  art  is  so  important ;  and 
there  is,  so  to  speak,  a  certain  simple  nudity  in  Homer,  so 
that  his  artistic  effects  defy  time  and  change.  Browning, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  all  fashion,  —  the  fashion  of  a  com- 
plex, unsettled,  and  peculiarly  transitional  age.  We  have 
Scripture  warrant  that  the  fashion  of  this  world  passeth 
away.  Browning  has  never  been  generally  popular,  but 
has  a  great  charm  and  long  will  have  a  great  charm  for 
certain  classes  of  minds ;  but  it  is  a  question  whether  three 
thousand  years  hence  his  most  characteristic  works  will 
not  be  valued  by  the  historian  and  the  lover  of  literary 
curiosities  rather  than  by  the  lover  of  poetry. 


BALAUSTION'S   OPINION   OF  EURIPIDES. 

BY  PHILIP  STAFFORD  MOXOM. 
[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  February  25, 1896.] 

FORTUNATELY,  my  theme  does  not  demand  from  me  a 
critical  judgment  on  Euripides  as  a  dramatic  craftsman, 
or  a  comparison  of  Euripides  with  his  great  predecessor, 
jEschylus,  and  his  equally  great  contemporary,  Sophocles, 
—  a  task  for  which  I  have  not  the  necessary  qualifications. 
Whatever  expression  I  may  give  of  the  opinions  of  dra- 
matic critics,  or  of  my  own  estimate  of  "  sad  Electra's  poet," 
will  be  incidental  to  a  true  report  of  the  opinion  of  the 
Rhodian  maid  and  wife  concerning  the  poet  by  whose 
"  strangest,  saddest,  sweetest  song  "  she  saved  her  life  in 
the  harbour  of  Syracuse,  and  whose  "  choric  flower,"  flung 
in  the  face  of  "  Spartd's  brood,"  saved  Athenai's  "  maze  of 
marble  arrogance  "  from  utter  destruction  when  the  city  lay 
in  abject  helplessness  at  the  feet  of  Lysander. 

Balaustion's  opinion  of  Euripides  means,  of  course, 
Browning's  opinion  of  Euripides,  —  at  least  in  so  far  as 
Browning's  opinion  finds  expression,  through  Balaustion, 
in  the  two  poems,  '  Balaustion's  Adventure '  and  '  Aristo- 
phanes' Apology.'  The  large-souled,  radiant  Greek  woman 
is  but  the  vehicle  of  our  poet's  thought.  She  is  a  pure 
invention,  yet  so  perfect  is  the  invention,  and  with  such 
powerful  dramatic  art  is  she  set  before  us,  that  we  find 
ourselves  compelled  to  deal  with  her  as  with  a  living  per- 
sonality. Of  all  the  characters  in  Browning's  works  none 
is  more  real,  not  even  Pompilia  or  Caponsacchi,  than  this 


412  BOSTON  BKOWOTNG   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

"  lyric  girl."  We  can  see  her  standing  on  the  steps  of  the 
Herakleian  temple,  the  sea-breeze  lifting  the  dark  masses 
of  her  abundant  hair,  her  lithe  form  erect  with  courage 
and  vibrating  with  noble  passion,  and  her  great  eyes  flash- 
ing out  her  ardent  soul  upon  her  Syracusan  audience,  as 
she  pours  forth  the  story  of  Alkestis;  or,  when  girl  has 
blossomed  into  woman  and  maid  has  ripened  into  wife,  we 
see  her  again  in  the  home  at  Athens,  with  stately  dignity 
vindicating  her  poet  against  the  gibes  and  half  sophistical, 
sometimes  wholly  brutal,  arguments  of  Aristophanes ;  or, 
again,  when  the  doom  has  fallen  and  Athens  lies  stript 
and  wasted  under  the  ravaging  hand  of  Lysander,  she 
stands  with  her  Euthukles  on  the  deck  of  the  ship  that 
bears  them 

from  —  not  sorrow  but  despair, 
Not  memory  but  the  present  and  its  pang ! 

from  poor,  ruined  Athens  to  rosy,  sea-girt  Rhodes.  There 
she  stands,  with  "those  warm  golden  eyes,"  now  full  of 
inextinguishable  sadness,  turned  backward  toward  the  lost 
glory,  and  with  marks  of  deep  anguish  on  her  fair  face ; 
yet  by  each 

twelve  hours'  sweep 
Of  surge  secured  from  horror,  .  .  . 
Quieted  out  of  weakness  into  strength. 

It  is  only  by  a  strong  effort  of  the  will  that,  as  we  read 
these  two  poems,  we  can  dissociate  our  minds  from  Balaus- 
tion  the  Greek  woman,  and  listen  solely,  with  critical  ear 
alert,  to  Browning,  the  modern  scholar  and  critic  as  well 
as  poet,  while  he  discloses  to  us  the  judgment  of  his  intel- 
lect as  well  as  of  his  heart  on  the  last,  yet  not  the  least,  of 
the  three  great  tragic  poets  of  Greece. 

Since  the  time  of  Schlegel  and  Goethe  there  has  devel- 
oped a  new  and  more  sympathetic  interest  in  the  study  and 
interpretation  of  Euripides.  Quite  the  noblest  and  most 
significant  expression  of  that  interest  appears  in  these 
two  poems,  '  Balaustion's  Adventure '  and  '  Aristophanes' 


BALAUSTION'S  OPINION  OF  EURIPIDES.          413 

Apology.'  The  first  is  a  beautiful  dramatic  poem,  the 
heart  of  which  is  a  rendering,  in  powerful  verse,  of  the 
4  Alkestis.'  This  rendering,  while  not  a  mere  translation, 
yet  satisfies  the  critical  sense  by  its  faithfulness  to  the 
essential  meaning  of  the  Greek.  It  is  an  interpretation 
as  well  as  a  translation,  for  there  is  occasional  interjection 
of  explanatory  comment,  and  sometimes  the  words  of  the 
chorus  appear  in  paraphrase.  We  might  almost  call  it 
Euripides  cast  in  the  larger  mould  of  Browning.  The 
judgment  of  Mahaffy  is  that  "  by  far  the  best  translation 
[of  the  '  Alkestis  ']  is  Mr.  Browning's." 

The  second  is  a  poem,  ensphering  also,  like  the  first,  a 
play  from  Euripides.  This  play,  the  'Herakles,'  is  ren- 
dered with  all  the  force  and  fidelity  that  mark  the  ren- 
dering of  the  4  Alkestis,'  but  with  stricter  regard  for  the 
form  of  the  original,  and  with  none  of  the  interpretative 
paraphrase  that  is  so  prominent  a  feature  of  the  preceding 
work.  The  reason  of  this  is  that  in  '  Balaustion's  Adven- 
ture '  the  '  Alkestis '  is  dramatically  told,  or  recited,  to  a 
group  of  girls  to  whom  it  is  strange,  and  without  any  of 
the  accessories  of  the  stage ;  while  in  '  Aristophanes'  Apol- 
ogy '  the  '  Herakles  '  is  read  by  Balaustion  from  the  original 
manuscript  of  Euripides,  to  an  author  who  knew  the  writer 
and  did  not  need  the  interpretative  comment  which,  in 
the  former  instance,  the  absence  of  scenic  setting  rendered 
necessary. 

In  the  second  case  the  drama  is  only  an  element  of  the 
larger  poem.  With  less  of  lyric  charm  than  '  Balaustion's 
Adventure,'  4  Aristophanes'  Apology  '  is  a  poem  of  greater 
scope  and  power,  abounding  in  lines  that  "flash  with 
the  lightning  and  leap  with  the  live  thunder "  of  the 
maker ;  but  still  more,  it  is  an  acute  and  masterly  criti- 
cism of  the  Greek  drama  as  represented  especially  by 
Euripides  and  his  brilliant  detractor  Aristophanes.  For 
centures  Euripides  has  suffered  from  both  a  prejudiced 
and  an  uncritical  comparison  of  his  work  with  that  of 


414  BOSTON  BROWNING  SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

./Eschylus  and  Sophocles.  The  prejudice  with  which  he 
has  been  treated  has  been  due  mainly  to  the  calumnies 
uttered  with  persistent  iteration  and  an  unscrupulous  use 
of  coarse  caricature  by  Aristophanes  in  his  Comedies.  At 
last  the  prejudice  has  yielded  to  a  deeper  study,  a  juster 
and  more  sympathetic  criticism,  and  a  profounder  under- 
standing of  the  phases  of  Greek  life  and  thought  which 
found  expression  in  Euripides.  I  quote  with  pleasure  the 
statement  of  Mahaffy  that  "  Mr.  Browning  has  treated  the 
controversy  between  Euripides  and  Aristophanes  with 
more  learning  and  ability  than  all  other  critics  in  his 
'  Aristophanes'  Apology,'  which  is,  by  the  way,  an  Euripi- 
des' Apology  also,  if  such  be  required  in  the  present  day." 
As  an  expression  of  Browning's  estimate  of  Euripides, 
'  Aristophanes'  Apology '  is  much  more  full  than  '  Balaus- 
tion's  Adventure.'  In  the  latter  we  have  an  interpretation 
of  the  great  dramatist  mainly  through  one  of  his  plays ;  in 
the  former  we  have,  besides  the  interpretation  through 
that  "  perfect  piece,"  the  '  Herakles,'  a  prolonged  critical 
discussion  in  which  the  various  phases  of  Euripides'  genius 
are  exhibited  as,  perhaps,  only  Browning  could  exhibit 
them.  Though  the  scope  of  '  Balaustion's  Adventure '  is 
narrower,  it  affords,  so  far  as  it  goes,  as  true  an  index  of 
Browning's  appreciation  of  Euripides  as  the  longer  and 
more  technical  'Apology.' 

I  will  now  give  some  account  of  these  two  poems,  of 
course  quite  briefly,  and  in  a  broadly  suggestive  rather 
than  in  a  minutely  critical  way. 

The  story  of  the  first  poem  is  this :  A  girl,  whose  name 
we  know  not,  but  who  receives  the  name  "  Balaustion," 
"  pomegranate  flower,"  because  of  her  lyric  gifts  and  her 
great  charms  of  both  mind  and  person,  a  native  of  the 
island  of  Rhodes,  though  child  of  an  Athenian  mother, 
hears  with  others  in  Kameiros  of  the  disaster  which  has 
befallen  Athens  in  the  overwhelming  defeat  of  Nikias  and 
Demosthenes  at  Syracuse.  Instantly  there  is  a  clamorous 


BAJLAUSTION'S  OPINION  or  EUEIPLDES.  415 

demand  among  the  people  that  Rhodes  shall  abandon  her 
alliance  with  Athens  and  join  the  Spartan  League,  for 
Sparta  and  Syracuse  are  allies.  While  the  revolters  wait 
for  naval  help  from  Knidos,  Balaustion  gathers  a  company 
of  kindred  spirits  who  are  loyal  to  Athens,  — 

the  life  and  light 
Of  the  whole  world  worth  calling  world  at  all ! 

and  proceeding  to  Kaunos,  finds  a  captain  who,  with  like 
loyalty  to  Athens,  consents  to  take  them  thither  in  his 
ship.  These,  who  would 

Rather  go  die  at  Athens,  lie  outstretched 

For  feet  to  trample  on,  before  the  gate 

Of  Diomedes  or  the  Hippadai, 

Before  the  temples  and  among  the  tombs, 

Than  tolerate  the  grim  felicity 

Of  harsh  Lakonia, 

turned  "  the  glad  prow  westward,"  and  "  soon  were  out  at 
sea."  Blown  out  of  course  by  an  adverse  Avind,  after 
several  days  they  were  startled  by  the  appearance  of  a 
pirate-ship  — 

Lokrian,  or  that  bad  breed  off  Thessaly. 

At  the  same  moment  they  sight  land  which  they  suppose 
to  be  friendly  Crete.  Despite  their  efforts  the  Rhodians 
see  the  pirates  sloAvly  but  surely  gaining  on  them.  Then 
the  inspired  Balaustion  springs  upon  the  altar  by  the 
mast  and  sings, 

That  song  of  ours  which  saved  at  Salamis, 

a  song  from  the  great  heart  of  ^schylus,  — 

O  sons  of  Greeks,  go,  set  your  country  free ! 

Electrified  by  her  song,  the  sailors  "churn  the  black 
water  white,"  and  are  drawing  away  from  the  fell  pirates, 
who  come  "  panting  up  in  one  more  throe  and  passion  of 
pursuit,"  when  suddenly  they  discover  that  they  have  run 
straight  upon  hostile  Syracuse.  A  galley  meets  them  and 


416  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

demands  who  they  are.  The  captain  cautiously  answers, 
"  Kaunians ; "  whereupon  they  are  charged  with  being 
Athenians  or  sympathisers  with  Athens,  and  are  bidden 
back.  The  fragment  of  song  from  ^Eschylus  has  betrayed 
them.  In  vain  they  plead  for  mercy  and  deliverance  from 
the  pirate  waiting  grimly  seaward.  Discouraged,  they  are 
about  to  turn  back  to  their  fate,  when  some  one  of  the 
Syracusans  calls  out  — 

Wait! 
That  song  was  veritable  Aischulos, 

.    .    .     How  about  Euripides  ? 
Might  you  know  any  of  his  verses  too  ? 

Then  the  weary  voyagers  remember  the  tale  told  of  wounded 
and  captive  Athenians  nursed  and  liberated  if  they  knew 
aught  of  the  new  poet,  Euripides,  which  they  could  recite 
to  eager  Syracusans.  The  captain  shouts  with  joy 

Euoi,  praise  the  God  ! 
.     .     .     Here  she  stands, 
Balaustion  !     Strangers,  greet  the  lyric  girl ! 
Euripides  ?     .     .     . 

Why,  fast  as  snow  in  Thrace,  the  voyage  through, 
Has  she  been  falling  thick  in  flakes  of  him! 

Now  it  was  some  whole  passion  of  a  play ; 

Now,  peradventure,  but  a  honey-drop 

That  slipt  its  comb  i'  the  chorus.     If  there  rose 

A  star,  before  I  could  determine  steer 

Southward  or  northward  —  if  a  cloud  surprised 

Heaven,  ere  I  fairly  hollaed  "  Furl  the  sail ! " 

She  had  at  fingers'  end  both  cloud  and  star ; 

Some  thought  that  perched  there,  tame  and  tunable, 

Fitted  with  wings;  and  still,  as  off  it  flew, 

"  So  sang  Euripides  "  she  said.     .     .     . 

Sing  them  a  strophe,  with  the  turn-again, 

Down  to  the  verse  that  ends  all,  proverb-like, 

And  save  us,  thou  Balaustion,  bless  the  name  ! 

Balaustion,  with  her  quick  woman's  wit,  proposes  that  they 
all  go  ashore,  and  she,  standing  on  the  steps  of  the  temple 
of  Herakles,  the  Syracusans'  tutelary  god,  will  recite  for 


BALAUSTION'S  OPINION  OF  EURIPIDES.  417 

them  a  whole  new  play  in  which  Euripides  does   honour 
to  their  god  — 

That  strangest,  saddest,  sweetest  song  of  his, 
ALKESTIS. 

Then,  because  Greeks  are  Greeks,  and  hearts  are  hearts, 

And  poetry  is  power,  — they  all  outbroke 

In  a  great  joyous  laughter  with  much  love  : 

"  Thank  Herakles  for  the  good  holiday  ! 

Make  for  the  harbour !     Row,  and  let  voice  ring, 

'  In  we  row,  bringing  more  Euripides  ! '  " 

Soon  all  the  city  is  astir.  The  multitude  pours  out  "  to 
the  superb  temple,"  and  there,  for  three  successive  days, 
Balaustion  delights  the  crowding  listeners  by  repeating 
again  and  again  the  'Alkestis.'  Then,  having  gained 
liberty  for  herself  and  her  companions,  and  much  praise, 
and  withal  a  lover,  Balaustion  sets  sail  once  more  for 
Athens.  The  voyage  is  made  in  safety,  she  sees  Euripides, 
the  master,  kisses  his  hand,  tells  her  story,  and  content,  in 
time,  marries  the  youth,  Euthukles,  who  lost  his  heart  to 
her  by  the  temple  steps  in  Syracuse,  and  makes  her  home 
in  the  city  of  her  love. 

When  she  recounts  the  whole  story  of  the  adventure 
and  its  issue  to  her  companions,  she  pays  this  tribute  to 
her  poet :  — 

Ah,  but  if  you  had  seen  the  play  itself ! 
They  say,  my  poet  failed  to  get  the  prize  : 
Sophokles  got  the  prize,  —  great  name  !    They  say, 
Sophokles  also  means  to  make  a  piece, 
Model  a  new  Admetos,  a  new  wife : 
Success  to  him  !     One  thing  has  many  sides. 
The  great  name  !    But  no  good  supplants  a  good, 
Nor  beauty  undoes  beauty.     Sophokles 
Will  carve  and  carry  a  fresh  cup,  brimful 
Of  beauty  and  good,  firm  to  the  altar-foot, 
And  glorify  the  Dionusiac  shrine  : 
Not  clash  against  this  crater  in  the  place 
Where  the  God  put  it  when  his  mouth  had  drained, 
To  the  last  dregs,  libation  life-blood-like, 
And  praised  Euripides  forevermore  — 
The  Human  with  his  droppings  of  warm  tears. 
27 


418  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

The  limits  prescribed  by  my  theme  prohibit  me  from 
considering  the  conclusion  of  the  poem,  in  which  Brown- 
ing tries  his  own  hand  at  a  purely  subjective  treatment  of 
the  Alkestis  legend,  with  such  success  as  to  make  us  feel 
more  deeply  than  ever  his  peculiar  power  as  pre-eminently 
the  poet  of  human  life. 

'Aristophanes'  Apology,'  as  its  name  implies,  is  a  de- 
fence of  Aristophanes  by  himself ;  but  it  is  also  quite  as 
much  an  Euripides'  Apology,  since,  in  the  person  of  Balaus- 
tion,  Browning  defends  Euripides  against  the  coarse  and 
savage  assaults  of  his  comic  foe,  and  vindicates  his  art, 
his  truth,  and  his  loftiness  of  spirit  and  aim.  Balaustion, 
repelling  attack  on  her  poet,  "  carries  the  war  into  Africa," 
and  forces  Aristophanes  to  draw  on  all  his  resources  of 
argument  and  raillery  in  self-defence.  The  poem  is  at  once 
difficult  and  fascinating.  It  is  difficult,  not  because  of  any 
exceptional  obscurity  of  style,  but  because  of  its  freight  of 
learning ;  to  understand  and  enjoy  it  thoroughly  one  needs 
a  very  considerable  knowledge  of  Greek  life  in  the  fifth 
century  B.  c.  It  is  fascinating  because  of  its  acute  and 
nimble  argument,  its  appeal  to  a  great  variety  of  emotions, 
and  its  wealth  of  poetic  thought  and  imagery.  As  in  the 
preceding  poem,  so  also  in  this,  the  main  interest  centres 
in  Balaustion,  and  in  both  Balaustion  is  inseparable  from 
Euripides.  In  the  former,  a  play  of  Euripides  saves  her 
and  her  companions  from  death  or  captivity  ;  in  the  latter, 
a  "choric  flower"  from  the  'Electra'  saves  Athens  from 
utter  demolition.  In  '  Balaustion's  Adventure '  we  have 
the  girl's  fine  enthusiasm  for  her  poet  flooding  the  whole 
poem  with  rosy  light ;  in  '  Aristophanes'  Apology '  we  have 
the  enthusiasm  still,  but  we  have  also  the  woman's  mature 
thought,  penetrating  insight,  swift  and  effective  argument, 
and,  at  times,  the  lambent  flame  of  her  pure  indignation. 
At  first,  the  former  poem  has  the  greater  charm,  but  to  a 
deeper  reading  the  latter  poem  discloses  its  superior  attrac- 
tion and  its  more  varied  appeal  to  the  mind  and  heart. 


BALATJSTION'S  OPINION  or  EURIPIDES.  419 

A  brief  outline  of  the  poem  is  as  follows  :  It  begins  with 
Balaustion  and  Euthukles,  on  board  ship,  returning  to 
Rhodes,  after  the  shameful  defeat  of  the  Athenian  fleet  at 
Aigispotamoi,  and  the  subsequent  capture  and  humiliation 
of  Athens  by  Lysander.  Balaustion  pours  out  a  lament 
over  the  fallen  city  of  her  love :  — 

Athenai,  live  thou  hearted  in  my  heart : 
Never,  while  I  live,  may  I  see  thee  more, 
Never  again  may  these  repugnant  orbs 
Ache  themselves  blind  before  the  hideous  pomp, 
The  ghastly  mirth  which  mocked  thine  overthrow 
—  Death's  entry,  Haides'  outrage  ! 

Doomed  to  die,  — 

Fire  should  have  flung  a  passion  of  embrace 
About  thee  till,  resplendently  inarmed 
(Temple  by  temple  folded  to  his  breast, 
All  thy  white  wonder  fainting  out  in  ash) 
Lightly  some  vaporous  sigh  of  soul  escaped, 
And  so  the  Immortals  bade  Athenai  back ! 
Or  earth  might  sunder  and  absorb  thee,  save, 
Buried  below  Olumpos  and  its  gods, 
Akropolis  to  dominate  her  realm 
For  Kore,  and  console  the  ghosts ;  or,  sea, 
What  if  thy  watery,  plural  vastitude, 
Rolling  unanimous  advance,  had  rushed, 
Might  upon  might,  a  moment,  —  stood,  one  stare, 
Sea-face  to  city  face,  thy  glaucous  wave 
Glassing  that  marbled  last  magnificence, — 
Till  Fate's  pale  tremulous  foam-flower  tipped  the  grey, 
And  when  wave  broke  and  overswarmed  and,  sucked 
To  bounds  back,  multitudinously  ceased, 
And  land  again  breathed  unconfused  with  sea, 
Attike  was,  Athenai  was  not  now ! 

But  the  temptation  to  quote  must  be  resisted.  Balaus- 
tion, possessed  by  the  tragic  memories  of  the  past  year, 
tells  out  the  story  while  Euthukles,  her  patient  and  devoted 
scribe,  writes  it  down.  The  story  opens  with  the  night 
when  the  news  of  Euripides'  death  came  to  Athens.  Ba- 
laustion proposes  that  they  celebrate  the  event  by  reading 
Euripides'  play,  the  '  Herakles,'  which  the  poet  had  given 
her  when  she  last  saw  him. 


420  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Suddenly  they  are  interrupted  by  cries  from  a  troop  of 
revellers  outside,  and  a  knocking  at  the  door  with  the 
demand,  in  the  name  of  Bacchos,  that  they  open.  At  first 
they  hesitate,  then,  in  a  moment,  they  hear 

One  name  of  an  immense  significance, 

and  Euthukles  opens  the  door.  There  they  find  Aristopha- 
nes, crowned  with  ivy,  the  chorus  of  his  just-rendered 
successful  play,  the  '  Thesmophoriazusai,'  and  a  crowd  of 
dancers  and  flute-girls,  all  more  or  less  drunk.  One  flash 
from  Balaustion's  eyes  quells  the  tumult,  and  all  slink 
away  abashed,  save  Aristophanes.  Balaustion's  portrait  of 
Aristophanes,  as  he  stood  at  the  door  of  her  house,  is 
inimitable :  — 

There  stood  in  person  Aristophanes. 

And  no  ignoble  presence !     On  the  bulge 

Of  the  clear  baldness,  —  all  his  head  one  brow,  — 

True,  the  veins  swelled,  blue  network,  and  there  surged 

A  red  from  cheek  to  temple,  —  then  retired 

As  if  the  dark-leaved  chaplet  damped  a  flame,  — 

Was  never  nursed  by  temperance  or  health. 

But  huge  the  eyeballs  rolled  back  native  fire, 

Imperiously  triumphant :  nostrils  wide 

Waited  their  incense ;  while  the  pursed  mouth's  pout 

Aggressive,  while  the  beak  supreme  above, 

While  the  head,  face,  nay,  pillared  throat  thrown  back, 

Beard  whitening  under  like  a  vinous  foam, 

These  made  a  glory,  of  such  insolence  — 

I  thought,  — such  domineering  deity 

Hephaistos  might  have  carved  to  cut  the  brine 

For  his  gay  brother's  prow,  imbrue  that  path 

Which,  purpling,  recognised  the  conqueror. 

Impudent  and  majestic :  drunk,  perhaps, 

But  that 's  religion  ;  sense  too  plainly  snuffed : 

Still,  sensuality  was  grown  a  rite. 

Aristophanes,  sobering  himself  by  a  powerful  effort  of 
will,  greets  Balaustion  half-mockingly,  half  deferentially. 
He  is  bidden  to  enter.  The  night  is  passed  in  an  argument 
between  Balaustion  and  Aristophanes,  the  main  point  of 
contention  being  the  merits  of  Euripides  as  contrasted 


BALAUSTION'S  OPINION  OF  EURIPIDES.  421 

with  his  critic,  Aristophanes ;  but  the  discussion  covers  the 
wide  field  of  the  genesis,  development,  and  functions  of 
Comedy,  with  suggestions  of  its  relation  to  Tragedy. 

Aristophanes  begins  by  attacking  Euripides,  but  is  soon 
thrown  back  on  self-defence,  and  the  argument  of  Balaus- 
tion  culminates  finally  in  her  reading  to  him  the  '  Herakles.' 
At  the  conclusion  of  the  reading,  after  a  few  words  more, 
Aristophanes  departs.  Having  thus  recalled  in  detail  the 
whole  discussion,  Balaustion,  with  the  added  light  of  the 
intervening  year's  experience,  sums  up  the  controversy  in 
a  noble  passage,  which  ends  the  argument  and  the  poem. 

I  forbear  giving  a  consecutive  report  and  analysis  of  the 
argument,  and  content  myself,  for  the  present,  with  mak- 
ing several  somewhat  desultory  remarks. 

In  the  first  place,  naturally,  since  he  speaks  primarily  as 
a  poet  and  not  as  a  critic,  Browning  makes  little  explicit 
statement  of  his  critical  judgment  on  Euripides  in  either 
of  these  poems.  His  feeling  for  the  tragic  Greek  is  strong 
and  pervasive,  and  the  dramatic  unfolding  of  the  two 
poems,  especially  of  the  later  one,  reveals  his  judgment 
with  much  greater  force  than  any  formal  prose  criticism 
could  command.  But  in  both  poems  there  are  passages  or 
sentences  here  and  there  that  disclose  the  nature  of  his 
judgment  as  by  a  flash.  These,  of  course,  are  less  numer- 
ous in  '  Balaustion's  Adventure '  than  they  are  in  '  Aris- 
tophanes' Apology  ; '  for  the  motives  of  the  two  poems  are 
different,  that  of  the  latter  being  distinctly  apologetic,  in 
the  strict  logical  sense  of  the  term.  The  latter  poem  is 
also  far  wider  in  scope,  as  well  as  greater  in  bulk  and 
power,  than  the  former. 

Thus,  in  '  Balaustion's  Adventure,'  he  characterises 
Euripides  as 

The  meteoric  poet  of  air  and  sea, 
Planets  and  the  pale  populace  of  heaven, 
The  mind  of  man,  and  all  that 's  made  to  soar. 

In  answer  to  those  Athenians  who 


422  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

wondered  strangers  were  exorbitant 
In  estimation  of  Euripides. 
He  was  not  Aischulos  nor  Sophokles, 

he  makes  Balaustion  say :  — 

Men  love  him  not : 

How  should  they  ?     Nor  do  they  much  love  his  friend 
Sokrates :  but  those  two  have  fellowship ; 
Sokrates  often  comes  to  hear  him  read, 
And  never  misses  if  he  teach  a  piece. 
Both,  being  old,  will  soon  have  company, 
Sit  with  their  peers  above  the  talk. 

Browning  clearly  accepts  the  judgment  of  his  wife  as 
his  own,  in  lines  that  are  full  of  tender  reminiscence :  — 

Honour  the  great  name  ! 

All  cannot  love  two  great  names ;  yet  some  do : 
I  know  the  poetess  who  graved  in  gold, 
Among  her  glories  that  shall  never  fade, 
This  style  and  title  for  Euripides, 
The  Human  with  his  droppings  of  warm  tears. 

It  is  significant  that  he  quotes  this  last  line  twice  in  his 
poem.  In  the  concluding  paragraph,  after  he  has  noticed 
Sir  Frederick  Leighton's  famous  picture,  —  a  picture  that, 
with  all  its  merit,  is  indebted  to  Browning  for  a  consid- 
erable part  of  its  fame,  —  he  thus  makes  Balaustion  ex- 
press his  appreciation  of  Euripides'  play:  — 

And  all  came,  —  glory  of  the  golden  verse, 
And  passion  of  the  picture,  and  that  fine 
Frank  outgush  of  the  human  gratitude 
Which  saved  our  ship  and  me,  iu  Syracuse,  — 
Ay,  and  the  tear  or  two  Irhicb  slipt  perhaps 
Away  from  you,  friends,  while  I  told  my  tale, 
—  It  all  came  of  this  play  that  gained  no  prize! 
Why  crown  whom  Zeus  has  crowned  in  soul  before  ? 

In  '  Aristophanes'  Apology '  there  are  many  lines  that 
are  telltale  of  Browning's  subtle  and  profound  apprecia- 
tion of  Euripides.  When  Euthukles  returned  to  his  home 
from  the  streets  of  Athens,  with  news  of  Euripides' 
death,  he 


BALAUSTION'S  OPINION  OF  EURIPIDES.          423 

entered,  grave, 

Grand,  may  I  say,  as  who  brings  laurel-branch 
And  message  from  the  tripod :  such  it  proved. 

Balaustion,  who  is  recounting  the  incident,  continues  :  — 

He  first  removed  the  garland  from  his  brow, 
Then  took  my  hand  and  looked  into  my  face. 

"  Speak  good  words !  "  much  misgiving  faltered  I. 

"  Good  words,  the  best,  Balaustion.     He  is  crowned, 
Gone  with  his  Attic  ivy  home  to  feast, 
Since  Aischulos  required  companionship. 
Pour  a  libation  for  Euripides!" 

When  we  had  sat  the  heavier  silence  out  — 

"  Dead  and  triumphant  still ! "  began  reply 

To  my  eye's  question.     "  As  he  willed,  he  worked  : 

And,  as  he  worked,  he  wanted  not,  be  sure, 

Triumph  his  whole  life  through,  submitting  work 

To  work's  right  judges,  never  to  the  wrong, 

To  competency,  not  ineptitude." 

The  words  with  which  Euthukles  concludes  his  com- 
ment on  the  tragic  poet's  work  are  full  of  suggestion  on 
the  point  before  us  :  — 

Euripides 

Last  the  old  hand  on  the  old  phorminx  flung, 
Clashed  thence  '  Alkaion,'  maddened  '  Pentheus  '  up ; 
Then  music  sighed  itself  away,  one  moan 
Iphigeneia  made  by  Aulis'  strand ; 
With  her  and  music  died  Euripides. 

Later  in  the  poem,  after  demonstrating  to  Aristophanes 
the  f ruitlessness  of  his  confessed  attempts  to  overthrow  cer- 
tain ones  whom  he  considers  a  menace  to  society  and  the 
State,  Balaustion  says:  — 

.     .     .     The  statues  stand  —  mud-stained  at  most  — 
Titan  or  pygmy :  what  achieves  their  fall 
Will  be,  long  after  mud  is  flung  and  spent, 
Some  clear  thin  spirit-thrust  of  lightning  —  truth ! 

A  little  later  she  says :  — 


424  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

So  much  for  you ! 
Now,  the  antagonist  Euripides  — 
Has  he  succeeded  better  ?     Who  shall  say? 
He  spoke  quite  o'er  the  heads  of  Kleou's  crowd 
To  a  dim  future. 

In  some  lines  which  he  makes  Balaustion  suggest  to 
Aristophanes,  Browning  seems  to  indicate  that  Euripides, 
joined  with  the  Comic  Poet,  at  his  best,  is  the  true  pre- 
cursor of  Shakespeare,  the 

Imaginary  Third 

Who,  stationed  (by  mechanics  past  my  guess) 
So  as  to  take  in  every  side  at  once, 
And  not  successively,  —  may  reconcile 
The  High  and  Low  in  tragic-comic  verse,  — 
He  shall  be  hailed  superior  to  us  both 
When  born  —  in  the  Tin-islands ! 

In  these  lines  Browning  consciously,  or  unconsciously, 
echoes  the  sentiment  of  the  profound  and  prophetic  re- 
mark of  Socrates,  ascribed  to  him  in  the  *  Symposium,'  that 
"  the  genius  of  Comedy  was  the  same  as  that  of  Tragedy, 
and  that  the  writer  of  tragedy  ought  to  be  a  writer  of 
comedy  also."  To  some  extent,  at  least,  Euripides  ful- 
filled this  idea. 

In  the  conclusion  of  the  poem,  by  a  curious  anachronism, 
unless  we  construe  the  passage  as  a  prophecy,  Browning 
makes  Balaustion  refer  to  the  famous  remark  of  Philemon, 
the  founder  of  the  New  Attic  School  of  Comedy,  who  was 
not  yet  born.  The  passage  is  somewhat  long,  but  its  value 
in  determining  our  poet's  estimate  of  Euripides  is  so  great, 
and  it  is  so  full  of  his  own  peculiar  suggestiveness,  that  I 
shall  be  justified  in  quoting  the  whole.  Balaustion  has 
just  described  the  burial-place  of  Euripides, — 

He  lies  now  in  the  little  valley,  laughed 

And  moaned  about  by  those  mysterious  streams, 

Boiling  and  freezing,  like  the  love  and  hate 

Which  helped  or  harmed  him  through  his  earthly  course. 


BALATJSTION'S  OPINION  OF  EURIPIDES.          425 

Then,  after  a  few  words  recounting  her  disposition  of 
"the  tablets  and  the  psalterion,"  Euripides'  farewell  gift 
to  her,  she  exclaims :  — 

And  see  if  young  Philemon,  —  sure  one  day 

To  do  good  service  and  be  loved  himself,  — 

If  he  too  have  not  made  a  votive  verse  ! 

"  Grant,  in  good  sooth,  our  great  dead,  all  the  same, 

Retain  their  sense,  as  certain  wise  men  say, 

I'd  hang  myself  —  to  see  Euripides." 

Hands  off,  Philemon  !  nowise  hang  thyself. 

But  pen  the  prime  plays,  labour  the  right  life, 

And  die  at  good  old  age  as  grand  men  use,  — 

Keeping  thee,  with  that  great  thought,  warm  the  while,  — 

That  he  does  live,  Philemon !    Ay,  most  sure ! 

"  He  lives  ! "  hark,  —  waves  say,  winds  sing  out  the  same, 

And  yonder  dares  the  citied  ridge  of  Rhodes 

Its  headlong  plunge  from  sky  to  sea,  disparts 

North  bay  from  south,  —  each  guarded  calm,  that  guest 

May  enter  gladly,  blow  what  wind  there  will,  — 

Boiled  round  with  breakers,  to  no  other  cry  ! 

All  in  one  chores,  —  what  the  master-word 

They  take  up  ?  hark !     "  There  are  no  gods,  no  gods ! 

Glory  to  God  —  who  saves  Euripides ! '' 

So  our  poet  declares  the  Greek  poet's  immortality  and 
absolves  him  from  the  Aristophanic  charge  of  atheism,  by 
subtly  suggesting  the  deep  theism  which  underlies  his 
scepticism  as  to  the  gods  of  the  common  faith. 

My  second  remark  is,  that  Browning  preferred  Euri- 
pides to  both  of  his  great  predecessors,  ^Eschylus  and 
Sophocles,  —  the  latter,  though  a  contemporary  in  point  v 
of  time,  was  really  a  predecessor  in  the  form  and  spirit  of 
his  work.  This  preference  is  unmistakably  and  strongly 
shown  both  in  the  translations  of  the  '  Alkestis '  and  the 
'  Herakles,'  and  in  the  entire  dramatic  action  and  argu- 
ment of  the  two  poems.  The  reasons  for  it  are  not  diffi- 
cult to  find.  Euripides  was  much  more  humane  in  his 
work  than  either  of  the  others.  He  had  far  more  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature ;  his  characters  are  real  men  and 
women,  expressing  something  of  the  actual  thought  and 


426  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

passion  of  contemporary  life,  even  his  deities  sharing  in 
the  common  feeling,  instead  of  being  conventional  sym- 
bols of  the  dramatist's  ideas.  Sophocles  is  said  to  have 
remarked  that  he  represented  men  as  they  ought  to  be, 
while  Euripides  represented  them  as  they  are.  It  is  true 
that  Euripides,  though  confined  to  the  narrow  circle  of 
themes  prescribed  by  the  conventional  law  of  the  Greek 
drama,  made  the  action  of  his  plays  a  transcript  of  life 
as  he  saw  it.  Psychologically,  Euripides  presents  a  much 
more  difficult  and  a  more  interesting  problem  than  either 
^Eschylus  or  Sophocles.  He  was  more  complex  in  intellect 
and  character.  His  mind,  cultivated  and  widened  in  view 
by  all  the  learning  of  his  time,  was  also  full  of  the  uncer- 
tainty and  unrest  of  his  time.  He  expressed  the  intellectual 
and  moral  transition,  through  which,  in  the  latter  half  of 
his  life,  Greece  was  passing,  putting  into  his  dramas  its 
perplexity,  its  scepticism,  and  both  its  desire  for  truth  and 
its  demand  for  novelty. 

All  this  appealed  strongly  to  a  mind  like  Browning's, 
which  gathers  up  into  itself  all  the  intellectual  eagerness, 
the  doubt,  the  passion  for  truth,  the  perplexity  and  the 
aspiration  of  our  own  time.  It  may  have  been,  too,  that 
he  found  a  point  of  sympathetic  contact  with  Euripides 
in  the  latter's  interpretation  and  expression  of  woman  in 
such  characters  as  Alkestis,  Makaria,  Polyxena,  Elektra, 
and  Iphigeneia. 

Euripides'  treatment  of  the  gods  was  new  and  startling 
among  poets.  In  his  plays,  they  are  no  longer,  as  in  the 
works  of  ^schylus,  mere  symbols,  but  real  personalities, 
akin  to  man,  and  sometimes  even  questionable  personali- 
ties. He  "  shrank  not  to  teach,"  says  Balaustion,  that, 

If  gods  be  strong  and  wicked,  man,  though  weak, 
May  prove  their  match  by  willing  to  be  good. 

In  the  '  Herakles '  he  makes  Amphitruon  say :  — 

O  Zeus,    .     .     . 

In  vaiii  I  called  thee  father  of  my  child ! 


BALAUSTION'S  OPINION  OF  EUKIPIDES.          427 

Thou  wast  less  friendly  far  than  thou  didst  seem. 

I,  the  mere  man,  o'ermatch  in  virtue  thee 

The  mighty  god :  for  I  have  not  betrayed 

The  Herakleian  children,    .     .    . 

.    .    .    when  it  comes  to  help 

Thy  loved  ones,  there  thou  lackest  wit  indeed  ! 

Thou  art  some  stupid  god,  or  born  unjust. 

The  hero,  after  he  has  recovered  from  his  madness,  gives 
to  Theseus  an  account  of  his  labours  and  sufferings,  which 
he  charges  to  the  enmity  of  Herd,  and  then  exclaims :  — 

Who  would  pray 

To  such  a  goddess  1  —  that,  begrudging  Zeus 
Because  he  loved  a  woman,  ruins  me  — 
Lover  of  Hellas,  faultless  of  the  wrong  ! 

In  answer  to  his  passionate  outburst,  Theseus  cynically 
replies :  — 

None,  none  of  mortals  boasts  a  fate  unmixed, 
Nor  gods  —  if  poets'  teaching  be  not  false. 
Have  not  they  joined  in  wedlock  against  law 
With  one  another  ?  not,  for  sake  of  rule, 
Branded  their  sires  in  bondage  1     Yet  they  house, 
All  the  same,  in  O.lumpos,  carry  heads 
High  there,  notorious  sinners  though  they  be ! 

To  this  Herakles  responds  with  protest,  in  which  is 
mingled,  however,  the  inevitable  doubt :  — 

Ah  me,  these  words  are  foreign  to  my  woes  ! 

I  neither  fancy  gods  love  lawless  beds, 

Nor,  that  with  chains  they  bind  each  other's  hands, 

Have  I  judged  worthy  faith,  at  any  time  ; 

Nor  shall  I  be  persuaded  —  one  is  born 

His  fellows'  master!  since  God  stands  in  need — 

If  he  is  really  God  —  of  nought  at  all. 

In  Euripides,  also,  the  stern  and  awful  sense  of  Nemesis, 
which  so  profoundly  characterises  the  plays  of  the  older 
dramatists,  is  softened  into  a  sad  sense  of  the  mysterious 
vicissitudes  of  life. 

In  many  important  particulars,  Euripides'  mind  was 
more  akin  to  that  of  the  modern  man,  and  his  dramatic 


428  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

genius  was  far  less  removed  from  the  many-sidedness  of 
Shakespeare  than  were  the  mind  and  art  of  any  other  poet 
of  his  time.  He  not  only  reflected  his  age  but  he  also 
anticipated  the  coming  spirit. 

"  Euripides,"  says  Bury,  "  was  the  first  Greek  who 
pointed  beyond  the  Greek  to  a  new  world ;  the  beginnings 
of  the  modern  spirit  appear  in  him." 

It  is  equally  clear  that  Browning  much  preferred  the 
"  Euripidean  art  and  aims  to  the  Aristophanic  naturalism." 
With  the  inevitable  instinct  of  the  true  poet  he  appreciated 
and  admired  Aristophanes'  boldness,  vigour,  satiric  power, 
and  lyrical  charm  but  he  detested  his  immitigable  coarse- 
ness, his  outrageous  buffoonery,  and,  above  all,  his  fre- 
quent offences  against  truth.  It  was 

the  cold  iron  malice,  the  launched  lie 
Whence  heavenly  fire  has  withered, 

that  roused  his  ire.  Aristophanes,  in  his  attacks  on 
Euripides,  passed  all  bounds  of  legitimate  satire,  and 
Browning  shows  his  resentment  of  this,  particularly  in  the 
fine  passage  which  he  puts  into  the  lips  of  Balaustion, 
beginning  with :  — 

Aristophanes  f 

The  stranger- woman  sues  in  her  abode  — 
"  Be  honoured  as  our  guest ! "    But,  call  it  —  shrine, 
Then  "  No  dishonour  to  the  Daimou !  "  bids 
The  priestess,  "  or  expect  dishonour's  due ! "  — 

and  ending  thus :  — 

But,  throw  off  hate's  celestiality,  — 

Show  me,  apart  from  song-flash  and  wit-flame, 

A  mere  man's  hand  ignobly  clenched  against 

Yon  supreme  calmness,  —  and  I  interpose, 

Such  as  you  see  me  !     Silk  breaks  lightning's  blow  ! 

It  appears  again  later  in  the  discussion,  in  Balaustion's 
caustic  comment  on  Aristophanes'  claim  that  if  he  used 
muck  it  was  only  to  fight  truth's  battle  against  the 
sophists. 


BALAUSTION'S  OPINION  OF  EURIPIDES.          429 

Friend,  sophist-hating !  know,  —  worst  sophistry- 
Is  when  man's  own  soul  plays  its  own  self  false, 
Reasons  a  vice  into  a  virtue. 

And  the  Browning  temper  shows  unmistakably  in  her 
conclusion :  — 

But  I  trust  truth's  inherent  kingliness, 
Trust  who,  by  reason  of  much  truth,  shall  reign 
More  or  less  royally  —  may  prayer  but  push  . 
His  sway  past  limit,  purge  the  false  from  true. 

My  third  remark  is,  that,  in  the  picturesque  and  exqui- 
sitely varied  expression  of  his  preference  for  Euripides, 
Browning  has  the  rare  merit  of  doing  no  injustice  to  the 
other  Greek  dramatists.  Even  in  his  treatment  of  Aris- 
tophanes, whose  coarseness  he  loathes  and  whose  insincer- 
ity he  exposes  with  consummate  skill,  he  does  not  fail  of 
a  just  appreciation  of  the  real  genius  and  strength  of  that 
marvellous  but  unlovely  Titan  of  Greek  Comedy. 

In  the  two  poems,  '  Balaustion's  Adventure  '  and  '  Aris- 
tophanes' Apology,'  Euripides  is  exhibited  in  the  most 
attractive  light.  It  is  a  fair  question:  Has  Browning 
justly  and  adequately  represented  Euripides  ?  It  has  been 
intimated  by  Symonds  that  he  is  guilty  of  special  pleading, 
that  he  has,  in  a  word,  to  some  extent  idealised  his 
favourite  Greek  poet.  The  intimation,  however,  is  not 
serious,  nor  is  it  pressed.  On  the  whole  it  is  my  convic- 
tion that  Browning's  judgment,  with  perhaps  some  slight 
reduction  of  the  high  colour  which  Balaustion's  feminine 
devotion  imparts,  will  stand.  But  how  about  his  transla- 
tions ?  Of  the  '  Herakles  '  there  can  be  no  question.  As 
a  translation  it  leaves  almost  nothing  to  be  desired  in 
faithfulness  to  the  original.  In  this  respect  it  serves  as  a 
model  for  the  ablest  workers  in  the  field  of  translation 
from  the  Greek  classics. 

A  question  remains  as  to  the  '  Alkestis.'  In  his  render- 
ing of  this  exquisite  drama,  has  Browning  fairly  inter- 
preted Euripides  ?  In  one  instance,  at  least,  this  has  been 


430  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

answered  in  the  negative.  The  single  point,  or  at  least 
the  main  point,  of  criticism  is  his  representation  of  the 
character  of  Admetos  as  that  appears  in  connection  with 
the  substitutionary  death  of  his  wife.  In  a  paper  read 
before  the  London  Browning  Society,  in  1891,  and  after- 
wards published  in  the  Society's  Papers,  Mr.  R.  G. 
Moulton  took  strong  ground  on  the  negative  side  of  this 
question.  The  title  of  his  paper  is  a  succinct  expression 
of  his  judgment :  '  Balaustion's  Adventure  as  a  Beautiful 
Misrepresentation  of  the  Original ; '  and  he  begins  with 
the  frank  avowal :  "  My  position  is  that  Browning,  in  com- 
mon with  the  greater  part  of  modern  readers,  has  entirely 
misread  and  misrepresented  Euripides'  play  of  '  Alcestis.' ' 

With  all  deference  to  Mr.  Moulton,  as  a  superior  classi- 
cal scholar,  I  contend  that  Browning's  transcript  is  not  a 
misrepresentation  of  the  Greek  dramatist.  Mr.  Moulton's 
argument  turns  mainly  on  the  assumption  that  Alkestis 
died  for  the  State,  and  not  merely  for  her  husband ;  and 
he  finds  an  important,  indeed  the  chief,  dramatic  motive  of 
the  play  in  the  glorification  of  hospitality,  of  which  Adme- 
tos is  presented  as  an  eminent  example.  He  contends, 
further,  that  Admetos  was  not  selfish  in  allowing  the  sub- 
stitution of  Alkestis  for  himself,  and  that  he  endeavoured  to 
save  her,  but  was  unable  to  do  so  because  Fate  had  decreed 
her  death  and  there  could  be  no  second  substitution. 

Now,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  impossible  to  maintain, 
from  the  play,  that  Alkestis  dies  for  the  State.  Her  death 
is  not  a  sacrifice  like  that  of  Menoikeus  in  the  '  Phoenissse,' 
or  that  of  Iphigeneia  in  the  '  Iphigeneia  in  Aulis  '  which 
Mr.  Moulton  cites,  or  even  like  that  of  Polyxena  in  the 
'Hecuba.'  Of  the  'Alkestis'  Mahaffy  says:  "In  this 
play  the  heroine  voluntarily  resigns  her  life  under  no 
pressure  of  misfortune,  with  no  lofty  patriotic  enthusiasm, 
but  simply  to  save  the  life  of  her  husband,  for  whom 
Apollo  has  obtained  the  permission  of  an  exchange." ] 

»  '  Classical  Writers,  Euripides,'  Mahaffy,  p.  94. 


BALAUSTION'S  OPINION  OF  EURIPIDES.  481 

Mr.  Moulton  says :  "  We  celebrate  as  a  brave  patriot  the 
soldier  who  dies  in  his  country's  battle,  but  had  he  hesi- 
tated we  should  have  called  him  a  traitor  and  a  coward. 
So  it  was  glorious  of  Alcestis  to  die  for  her  royal  husband : 
but  she  herself  applies  the  term  '  treachery  '  to  the  thought 
of  refusing."  Unfortunately  for  his  argument,  the  pas- 
sage which  he  cites  utterly  fails  to  sustain  it.  Alkestis 
dies  for  Admetos,  not  as  the  head  of  the  State,  but  as  her 
husband  and  the  father  and  natural  protector  of  her  chil- 
dren, rather  than  live,  a  widow,  without  him,  or  form  a  new 
union.  It  is  not  even  for  love  of  Admetos  that  she  dies  ; 
for  while  she  shows  a  high  sense  of  wifely  duty,  there  is  no 
trace  of  any  passionate  fondness  for  her  weak  and  selfish 
husband.  "  She  represents,"  says  Mahaffy,  "  that  peculiar 
female  heroism,  which  obeys  the  demands  of  affection  in 
the  form  of  family  ties,  as  the  dictates  of  the  highest 
moral  law.  We  see  these,  the  heroines  of  common  life, 
around  us  in  all  classes  of  society.  But  I  venture  to 
assert  that  in  no  case  does  this  heroic  devotion  of  self- 
sacrifice  come  out  into  such  really  splendid  relief,  as  when 
it  is  made  for  selfish  and  worthless  people."  1 

In  the  passage  which  Mr.  Moulton  cites,  Alkestis  thus 
addresses  her  marriage  bed :  — 

Farewell :  to  thee 

No  blame  do  I  impute,  for  me  alone 
Hast  thou  destroyed  ;  disdaining  to  betray 
Thee,  and  my  lord,  I  die. 

She  recognises  her  doom  as  the  decree  of  the  Fates,  and 
accepts  it;  yet,  in  accepting  it,  protests  her  freedom  to 
have  chosen  otherwise,  and  mildly  reproaches  Admetos' 
parents,  either  one  of  whom  reasonably,  considering  their 
almost  spent  lives,  might  have  accepted  the  lot  of  death 
and  saved  both  him  and  her.  I  quote  from  Potter's 
translation  of  the  play :  — 

1  '  Greek  Classical  Literature,'  Mahaffy,  Vol.  I.,  Part  H.,  p.  103. 


432  BOSTON  BROWNING  SOCIETY  PAPEES. 

Thou  seest,  Admetos,  what  to  me  the  Fates 

Assign  ;  yet,  ere  I  die,  I  wish  to  tell  thee 

What  lies  most  near  my  heart.    I  honour'd  thee, 

And  in  exchange  for  thine  my  forfeit-life 

Devoted ;  now  I  die  for  thee,  though  free 

Not  to  have  died  ;  but  from  Thessalia's  Chiefs 

Preferring  whom  I  pleased  in  royal  state, 

To  have  lived  happy  here  ;  I  had  no  will 

To  live  bereft  of  thee  with  these  poor  orphans. 

I  die  without  reluctance,  though  the  gifts 

Of  youth  are  mine  to  make  life  grateful  to  me. 

Yet  he  that  gave  thee  birth,  and  she  that  bore  thee, 

Deserted  thee,  though  well  it  had  beseem'd  them 

With  honour  to  have  died  for  thee,  to  have  saved 

Their  son  with  honour,  glorious  in  their  death. 

They  had  no  child  but  thee,  they  had  no  hope 

Of  other  offspring,  shouldst  thou  die ;  and  I 

Might  thus  have  lived,  thou  mightst  have  lived  till  age 

Crept  slowly  on,  nor  wouldst  thou  heave  the  sigh 

Thus  of  thy  wife  deprived,  nor  train  alone 

Thy  orphan  children. 

Contrast  these  last  words  with  those  of  Menoikeus,  who 
is  about  to  sacrifice  himself  in  order  to  save  Thebes.  The 
city  is  besieged,  and  Tiresias  has  revealed  to  Creon  that 
the  city  can  be  saved  only  by  the  sacrifice  of  Menoikeus, 
Creon's  son.  Creon  feigns  assent,  but,  when  alone  with 
his  son,  urges  the  latter  to  fly.  Menoikeus,  in  his  turn, 
seems  to  accede  to  his  father's  wishes,  but  the  moment  he 
is  left  to  himself  he  announces  his  resolution  to  make  the 
sacrifice,  and  save  Thebes. 

With  an  honest  fraud  my  words 
Have  calmed  my  father's  fears,  effecting  thence 
My  purpose.    Distant  far  he  bids  me  fly, 
Robbing  his  country  of  its  fortune,  me 
To  cowardice  assigning :  to  his  age 
This  may  be  pardon'd  ;  but  for  me,  should  I 
Betray  my  country,  whence  I  drew  my  breath, 
There  could  be  no  forgiveness.     Be  assured, 
I  go  to  save  my  country ;  for  this  land 
Freely  I  give  my  life.    .    .    . 
.     .     .    This  is  my  firm  resolve. 
To  death  devoted,  no  inglorious  offering, 
I  go  to  save,  to  free  this  suffering  land. 


BALATJSTION'S  OPINION  or  EUEIPIDES.  433 

Contrast  also  the  last  words  of  Alkestis  with  those  of 

Iphigeneia :  — 

Hear  then  what  to  my  miiid 
Deliberate  thought  presents :  it  is  decreed 
For  me  to  die  :  this  then  I  wish,  to  die 
With  glory,  all  reluctance  banish'd  far. 
My  mother,  weigh  this  well,  that  what  I  speak 
Is  honour's  dictate  :  all  the  powers  of  Greece 
Have  now  their  eyes  on  me  ;  on  me  depends 
The  sailing  of  the  fleet,  the  fall  of  Troy : 

.     .     .    To  be  too  fond  of  life 

Becomes  not  me ;  nor  for  thyself  alone, 

But  to  all  Greece  a  blessing  didst  thou  bear  me. 

.     .     .     For  Greece  I  give  my  life. 

Slay  me ;  demolish  Troy ;  for  these  shall  be 

Long  time  my  monuments,  my  children  these, 

My  nuptials,  and  my  glory. 

No  such  note  as  sounds  through  both  of  these  speeches 
is  heard  in  the  final  utterances  of  Alkestis.  Neither  she 
nor  Admetos  says  one  word,  throughout  the  play,  intimat- 
ing that  Alkestis'  death  was  a  sacrifice  for  the  State.  Not 
even  does  the  chorus,  which  almost  inevitably  discloses  the 
real  motive  of  a  Greek  play,  hint  that  Alkestis'  death  is  a 
sacrifice  for  the  State.  After  she  has  disappeared,  the 
chorus,  commenting  on  her  deed,  sings :  — 

For  thou,  O  best  of  women,  thou  alone, 

For  thy  lord's  life  daredst  give  thy  own. 
Light  lie  the  earth  upon  that  gentle  breast, 

And  be  thou  ever  bless'd  ! 

When,  to  avert  his  doom, 

His  mother  in  the  earth  refused  to  lie ; 

Nor  would  his  ancient  father  die 
To  save  his  son  from  an  untimely  tomb  ; 

Though  the  hand  of  time  had  spread 

Hoar  hairs  o'er  each  aged  head  ; 
In  youth's  fresh  bloom,  in  beauty's  radiant  glow, 

The  darksome  way  thou  daredst  to  go, 
And  for  thy  youthful  lord's  to  give  thy  life. 

Be  mine  so  true  a  wife, 
Though  rare  the  lot :  then  should  I  prove 
The  indissoluble  bond  of  faithfulness  and  love. 
28 


434  BOSTON   BKOWNING  SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

The  last  line  is  weighty  with  meaning,  and  it  is  directly 
opposed  to  Mr.  Moulton's  theory  of  the  play. 

Even  in  the  passage  in  which,  after  Alkestis  has  gone, 
Admetos  bewails  his  lot,  declares  that  he  ought  not  to  live, 
and  confesses  his  own  cowardly  baseness,  and  in  which  he 
certainly  would  have  urged,  in  self-defence,  so  important  a 
consideration  as  the  good  of  the  State,  had  that  been  in- 
volved, he  has  no  word  to  say  about  the  State.  His  sorrow 
grows  bitter  with  compunction  and  the  beginnings,  at 
least,  of  self-contempt,  as  he  anticipates  the  way  in  which 
men,  all  too  truthfully,  will  speak  of  him. 

And  if  oue  hates  me,  he  will  say :  "  Behold 
The  man  who  basely  lives,  who  dared  not  die ; 
But  giving,  through  the  meanness  of  his  soul, 
His  wife,  avoided  death,  yet  would  be  deem'd 
A  man  :  he  hates  his  parents,  yet  himself 
Had  not  the  spirit  to  die."    These  ill  reports 
Cleave  to  me :  why  then  wish  for  longer  life, 
On  evil  tongues  thus  fallen,  and  evil  days  ? 

If  Alkestis'  death  was  not  a  sacrifice  for  the  State,  then 
there  is  no  shred  of  reason  left  for  doubt  that  Admetos 
(notwithstanding  his  admitted  virtue  of  hospitality,  a  virtue 
which  selfish  men  not  infrequently  have)  was  both  weak 
and  selfish  in  accepting  the  substitution  of  his  wife  for 
himself.  Such  Euripides  represents  him,  and  such  Brown- 
ing, in  his  transcript  of  Euripides'  play,  represents  him, 
only,  perhaps,  with  increased  vividness.  Mr.  Moulton's 
argument,  that,  Fate  having  decreed  the  death  of  Alkestis, 
Admetos  is  helpless  to  save  her,  even  if  he  wished  to  do 
so,  by  himself  submitting  to  the  doom,  goes  too  far ;  the 
same  argument  would  prove  that  even  Herakles  could  not 
rescue  her. 

Mr.  W.  B.  Donne,  in  his  excellent  little  volume  on 
Euripides,1  says :  "  Admetus  makes  almost  as  poor  a  figure 
in  this  play  as  Jason  does  in  the  'Medea.'  Self-preser- 
vation is  the  leading  feature  in  his  character.  He  loves 

1  In  the  aeries  of  '  Ancient  Classics  for  English  Readers,'  pp.  83,  84. 


BALAUSTION'S  OPINION  or  EURIPIDES.  435 

Alcestis  much,  but  he  loves  himself  more.  .  .  .  When 
the  inexorable  missive  comes  for  her,  he  is  indeed  deeply 
cast  down :  yet  even  then  there  is  not  a  spark  of  manliness 
in  him." 

Mr.  Berdoe,  in  his  useful  '  Browning  Cyclopaedia,'  has 
done  Browning  marked  injustice  in  giving,  as  the  only 
comment  on  his  rendering  of  the  '  Alkestis,'  a  long  digest 
of  Mr.  Moulton's  paper,  and  the  single  remark :  "  The 
design  of  this  tragedy  is  to  recommend  the  virtue  of  hos- 
pitality, so  sacred  among  the  Grecians,  and  encouraged  on 
political  grounds,  as  well  as  to  keep  alive  a  generous  and 
social  benevolence."  On  the  point  of  the  glorification  of 
hospitality  in  the  '  Alkestis '  it  is  important  to  observe 
that  the  hospitality  of  Admetos  is  represented  in  Brown- 
ing's version  of  the  play  quite  as  strongly  as  it  is  in  the 
original. 

It  seems  unnecessary  to  spend  any  more  time  on  Mr. 
Moulton's  argument,  for  if  his  contention  breaks  down  at 
the  single  point  of  the  motive  of  Alkestis'  self-sacrifice,  as 
I  venture  to  think  it  does,  its  force  is  gone  as  a  demonstra- 
tion of  Browning's  misrepresentation  of  Euripides. 

On  one  point,  however,  I  linger  for  a  moment.  Mr. 
Moulton  says :  "  The  foundation,  the  turning-point,  and 
the  consummation  of  the  plot  are  all  made  by  Euripides  to 
rest  upon  the  hospitality  of  Admetos."  He  is  not  quite 
consistent,  however,  for  near  the  conclusion  of  his  paper  he 
affirms  that  he  considers  "  the  real  motive  of  the  play,  the 
conception  which  underlies  the  whole,  and  welds  the  sepa- 
rate parts  into  a  unity,"  to  be  "a  contrast,  not  between 
two  characters  —  the  selfish  Admetus  and  the  devoted 
Alcestis  —  but  between  two  ideals :  the  ancient  ideal  of 
public  splendour,  and  the  modern  ideal  of  domestic  love." 
But  here  he  abandons  his  main  idea  of  the  voluntary  self- 
sacrifice  of  Alkestis  for  the  sake  of  the  State,  and  even  his 
positivo  affirmation  that  "  the  foundation,  the  turning-point, 
and  the  consummation  of  the  plot  are  all  made  by  Euripides 


436  BOSTON  BROWNING  SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

to  rest  upon  the  hospitality  of  Admetus."  In  his  later 
statement,  as  to  a  conflict  between  two  ideals  constituting 
"  the  real  motive  of  the  play  "  there  is  some  truth,  but  it 
entirely  defeats  his  contention  that  Browning  has  misrepre- 
sented Euripides.  May  not  "  the  real  motive  of  the  play  " 
have  been  deeper  still  ?  May  not  Euripides,  not  denying, 
but  implicitly  recognising  the  common  ideals  both  of  devo- 
tion to  the  State  and  of  hospitality,  really  have  sought  to 
set  forth  the  very  thought  which  Browning  has  so  finely 
developed,  namely,  the  contrast  between  the  selfishness  of 
Admetos  and  the  self-sacrifice  of  Alkestis,  and  the  regener- 
ation of  Admetos'  character  by  the  discipline  of  the  tragic 
experience  through  which  he  passed,  leading  him  to  self- 
knowledge,  repentance,  and  the  attainment  of  a  nobler 
spirit?  If  this  be  a  fair  conjecture,  as  I  think  it  is,  it 
vindicates  the  fidelity  of  Browning  in  interpreting  the 
Greek  poet  through  his  own  deep  poetic  feeling  and 
insight.  Instead  of  "  the  assumption  of  selfishness  in 
Admetos  reducing  the  story  to  an  artistic  and  moral 
chaos,  in  which  a  god  at  the  beginning  and  a  demigod 
at  the  close  set  themselves  to  work  miracles  in  the  sole 
interest  of  a  weak  and  heartless  man,"  as  Mr.  Moulton 
declares  it  does,  it  gives  to  the  drama  the  unity  of  the 
moral  regeneration  of  a  king  who  is  "  weak  and  heart- 
less "  because  he  is  predominantly  selfish. 

But  these  poems  have  a  value  apart  from  their  merit  as 
representations  of  Euripides.  In  the  story  of  Balaustion 
Browning  has  seized  upon  two  incidents  of  exceptional 
dramatic  interest,  —  one,  the  release  of  Athenian  prisoners 
because  they  were  able  to  recite  passages  from  Euripides' 
plays,  which  seems  to  be  authentic  ;  the  other,  the  modifi- 
cation of  Lysander's  iconoclastic  resolution  because  a  man 
of  Phokis,  present  at  the  council  of  the  Spartan  and  allied 
generals,  recited  a  passage  from  the  'Electra,'  for  the 
authenticity  of  which  we  have,  at  least,  the  testimony  of 
Plutarch.  These  incidents  Browning  has  utilised  with 


BALAUSTION'S  OPINION  OF  EURIPIDES.  437 

consummate  art,  making   them  critical   moments   in  the 
development  of  his  poems. 

Though  each  poem  is  distinct  and  complete  in  itself, 
they  unite  in  a  Balaustion-epic,  the  interest  of  which  does 
not  fail  from  beginning  to  end,  while  throughout  we  find 
much  of  Browning's  characteristic  lyric  beauty,  dramatic 
power,  skill  in  portraiture,  love  of  truth,  and  invincible 
optimism. 


THE   GREEK   SPIRIT  IN  SHELLEY   AND 
BROWNING. 

BY  VIDA   D.   SCUDDER. 
[Read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  April  22,  1896.] 

THE  Spirit  of  the  Age  is  mighty;  but  the  spirits  of  all 
time  are  mightier  yet.  Looking  backward,  we  love  to  play 
with  antitheses,  and  to  set  century  off  against  century. 
Looking  inward,  we  note  with  seeming  glee  the  symptoms 
of  our  own  decadence.  Novelty,  novelty!  is  our  cry: 
give  us  at  any  cost  the  distinctive,  the  peculiar.  But  all 
the  time,  while  we  chatter  about  that  which  passes,  Nature 
busies  herself  with  that  which  endures.  Serene  and  unify- 
ing artistic  forces  move  unobtrusively  through  the  ages, 
binding  our  petty  self-expression  into  a  wider  harmony. 
To  follow  their  interplay  is  to  penetrate  far  into  the  secrets 
of  the  intellectual  loves  of  our  race. 

One  of  the  most  important  of  these  enduring  influences 
makes  toward  us  no  doubt  from  classic  shores,  from  the 

shores  of  Hellas  :  — 

If  Greece  must  be 

A  wreck,  yet  shall  its  fragments  reassemble, 
And  build  themselves  again  impregnably 

In  a  diviner  clime, 

To  Amphionic  music,  on  some  cape  sublime, 
Which  frowns  above  the  idle  foam  of  time. 

So  sang  Shelley,  and  the  "  diviner  clime  "  where  Hellas 
melodiously  builds  herself  ever-renewed  habitations,  is 
the  clime  of  poetry.  Very  early  the  Greek  spirit  showed, 
in  its  reaction  on  Roman  literature,  its  intense  power  to 
modify,  almost  to  recreate,  an  alien  genius.  The  more 


GREEK   SPIRIT  IN   SHELLEY   AND   BROWNING.        439 

powerful  force  of  Christianity  checked  it  in  seeming,  but 
received  from  it  unconsciously  more  than  was  realised. 
Coming  in  with  a  rush  at  the  Renascence,  the  Hellenic 
influence  has  from  that  time,  in  spite  of  the  Hebraising 
eddy  of  Puritanism,  never  failed  to  hold  its  own,  even  if 
we  are  not  quite  prepared  to  claim  with  Matthew  Arnold 
that  it  has  on  the  whole  dominated  civilisation,  out  of 
England,  for  the  last  three  hundred  years.  A  vivid  Pagan 
revival  has,  at  all  events,  marked  our  own  day.  The 
Greek  impulse  has  reached  us  directly,  through  the  origi- 
nal sources,  instead  of  filtering  through  French  and  Latin, 
as  it  did  in  the  last  century.  Owing  to  countless  subtle 
spiritual  causes  also,  it  has  wrought  entirely  different 
results  from  those  produced  either  in  the  sixteenth  or  in 
the  eighteenth  century.  To  the  literary  student  the  chief 
interest  in  tracing  the  movement  of  a  great  artistic  force 
like  that  of  the  Greek  ideal  through  the  world,  is  to  note 
not  only  its  advance,  but  also  and  chiefly  its  successive 
modifications  as  it  blends  with  the  mood  of  various  periods. 
It  is  always  fascinating  to  dwell  on  the  wedding  of  Faust 
and  Helen.  Helen  is  immortal ;  but  each  generation  sees 
a  new  Faust,  and  Euphorion,  the  offspring  of  that  wedlock, 
reappears  with  quite  new  features  from  age  to  age. 

Nothing  can  be  more  delightful  than  to  watch  the  vari- 
ous results  of  the  action  of  classic  influence  in  the  time, 
say,  of  Spenser,  the  time  of  Addison,  the  time  of  Swinburne 
and  Leconte  de  Lisle.  But  we  are  not  to  explore  so  wide 
a  territory  to-day;  we  are  simply  to  study  classic  influ- 
ences in  the  work  of  two  of  the  great  moderns,  —  Shelley 
and  Browning.  The  subject  is  broad  enough  still ;  for 
with  Shelley  we  have  Hellenism  at  work  in  revolutionary 
times,  with  Browning  in  the  age  of  Victoria ;  with  Shelley 
we  have  a  disciple  of  Greece,  with  Browning  a  critic ; 
with  Shelley  we  watch  classical  influence  at  play  in  a 
nature  essentially  lyrical,  with  Browning  in  a  nature 
essentially  dramatic.  Yet  Browning  by  his  own  reverent 


440  BOSTON  BROWNING  SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

claim  is  the  spiritual  successor  of  Shelley.  It  is  signifi- 
cant that  these  are  the  two  great  moderns  in  whom  Hel- 
lenism is  most  vital  and  vivid.  So  daemonic  is  the  spirit 
of  Greece,  that  it  has  a  way  of  accenting  the  master-passion 
of  each  successive  age.  The  time  of  Addisou  revelled  in 
the  correctness,  finality,  exquisite  moderation  which  it 
found  in  the  classic  ideal.  Following  this  lead,  we  should 
expect  Wordsworth  and  Tennyson,  high-minded  teachers 
of  obedience  and  law,  to  preserve  the  serene  and  sym- 
metrical classical  tradition.  Yet  Tennyson  and  Words- 
worth treat  Greek  subjects  seldom  and'  from  afar.  It  is 
Shelley,  it  is  Browning,  who  turn  most  eagerly  for  inspira- 
tion to  the  ancient  world.  These  poets,  each  in  his  own 
way  an  impassioned  votary  of  Freedom,  express  the  on- 
ward-sweeping force  of  a  century  whose  watchword  is 
not  Conservation  but  Advance.  They  find  in  classicism 
no  gospel  of  the  proprieties.  Their  instinct  for  revolt, 
their  audacity  of  temper,  their  brilliant  spontaneity,  seize 
on  quite  a  different  aspect  of  Greek  life,  —  the  life,  after 
all,  of  a  nation  made  up  of  dreamers,  sea-rovers,  and 
fighters  quite  as  much  as  of  law-givers;  a  nation  always 
trying  experiments  in  art  and  government,  and  notable  from 
the  very  fact  that  it  shook  itself  free  at  the  outset  from 
oriental  stability,  and  joyously  faced  the  world's  future. 
We  are  to  study  the  affinity  for  this  Greece  of  our  two  most 
adventurous  modern  natures.  And  first  we  take  Shelley, 
bright  young  herald  of  revolution,  in  whom  our  great 
epoch  of  expansion  found  its  most  buoyant  prophet. 

We  are  tempted  to  say  that  had  Greece  not  existed 
Shelley  would  have  invented  it,  so  curiously  did  his  nature 
conform  to  the  Hellenic  type,  despite  the  romantic  fanta- 
sies of  his  youth.  At  once  subtle  and  childlike,  he  was  a 
bright  estray  in  our  modern  world,  akin  to  the  beautiful 
keen-witted  youths  of  the  Platonic  dialogues,  and  be- 
wildered as  they  might  be  by  his  modern  environment. 
Our  moral  perceptions  nowadays  have  a  trick  of  becom- 


GREEK   SPIEIT   IX   SHELLEY   AXD   BEOWXLNG.         441 

ing  more  subtle  than  our  thought ;  hence  our  uncomfort- 
able  pre-occupation  with  problems.  In  Shelley,  as  in  the 
Greeks,  it  is  quite  the  other  way ;  a  wonderful,  childlike 
simplicity  of  moral  instinct  is  joined  to  clear  and  keen 
intellectual  power,  "  this  way  and  that  dividing  the  swift 
mind."  Son  of  light  as  he  was,  the  Gothic  and  Christian 
obsession  with  sin  and  struggle  was  wholly  alien  to  Shelley. 
Rarely  was  he  beset  by  problems ;  his  quick  thought  darted 
contentedly  to  its  convictions,  and  rested  there.  His  very 
style  was  Greek.  Surely  there  are  no  other  "  winged 
words  "  in  English  so  luminous,  penetrating,  pure.  Says 
Walter  Bagehot :  — 

The  peculiarity  of  his  style  is  its  intellectuality.  .  .  .  Over 
the  most  intense  excitement,  the  grandest  objects,  the  keenest 
agony,  the  most  buoyant  joy,  he  throws  an  air  of  subtle  mind. 
...  At  the  dizziest  height  of  meaning  the  keenness  of  the 
words  is  greatest.  It  was  from  Plato  and  Sophocles,  doubt- 
less, that  he  gained  the  last  perfection  in  preserving  the  accu- 
racy of  the  intellect  in  treating  of  the  objects  of  imagination ; 
but  in  its  essence  it  was  a  peculiarity  of  his  own  nature. 

Such  a  nature  must,  sooner  or  later,  find  its  home  in 
the  great  classic  tradition.  During  his  impetuous  boyhood 
Shelley  was  under  the  sway  of  the  French  eighteenth- 
century  philosophers ;  but  his  mind  was  wistful  and  exiled 
till  it  found  its  true  fatherland  in  Greece.  The  author  of 
4  Epipsychidion '  could  not  remain  a  follower  of  Voltaire. 
In  1815,  he  read  Plato  in  the  original.  The  master  was 
discovered,  and  at  once,  as  it  seems,  the  genius  of  the 
disciple  broke  into  blossom ;  for  this  was  the  first  year  of 
Shelley's  mature  greatness,  the  year  of  '  Alastor.'  From 
this  time  the  classic  influence  was  dominant  with  him. 
It  reached  him  through  many  channels,  through  plastic 
beauty,  history,  scenery,  as  well  as  through  books ;  but  of 
course  literature  was  its  chief  instrument.  Shelley  was 
no  erudite  pedant.  He  read  Greek  as  a  man  of  letters,  not 


442  BOSTON  BEOWXESTG   SOCIETY   PAPEES. 

a  scholar ;  but  he  read  it  enthusiastically,  constantly,  with 
remarkable  swiftness  and  ease.  The  little  volume  of 
^Eschylus,  found  in  his  pocket  after  death,  bore  witness  to 
a  life-long  fellowship.  He  knew  well  Homer,  Aristophanes, 
the  tragedians,  the  idyllic  and  elegiac  poets,  less  well  the 
historians ;  and  all  these,  but  above  all  his  beloved  master, 
Plato,  penetrated  his  mind  as  intimately  as  light  the  air. 
His  sober  estimate  of  Greek  civilisation  is  found  in  pas- 
sage after  passage  of  his  prose  writings.  "  The  study  of 
modern  history,"  he  says,  "is  the  study  of  kings,  finan- 
ciers, statesmen,  and  priests.  The  history  of  ancient 
Greece  is  the  study  of  legislators,  philosophers,  and  poets ; 
it  is  the  history  of  men  compared  to  the  history  of  titles. 
What  the  Greeks  were  was  a  reality,  not  a  promise.  And 
what  we  are  and  hope  to  be  is  derived,  as  it  were,  from 
the  influence  and  inspiration  of  those  glorious  genera- 
tions." 1  Shelley  roamed  far  and  wide  with  impassioned 
joy  through  many  literatures ;  now  Dante,  now  Goethe, 
now  Calderon,  made  him  dizzy  with  delight.  But  from 
all  these  friendly  excursions  he  returned  with  deepened 
reverence  to  his  lords  and  masters,  the  Greeks. 

Lords  and  masters,  indeed,  in  no  pedantic  sense.  Shelley 
treats  his  classics  with  a  splendidly  audacious  fellowship, 
hailing  them  delightedly  as  comrades  across  a  whole  inter- 
vening civilisation.  It  is  a  proof  of  the  spontaneous  and 
instinctive  nature  of  his  classicism  that  his  poetry  does  not 
set  to  work  to  imitate  Greek  models.  He  translates  the 
pastoral  poets,  and  blends  their  exquisite  utterances  with 
his  own  elegiac  strain  in  the  '  Adonais ; '  he  serenely  adopts 
and  reshapes  for  his  own  purposes  the  Promethean  myjfch. 
But  never  would  it  occur  to  him  laboriously  to  concoct  a  so- 
called  "  classical  drama,"  copied  point  by  point  from  the  old 
form,  like  Arnold's  '  Merope,'  or  Swinburne's  '  Erechtheus.' 
He  treats  his  material  in  quite  a  different  way,  with  sweet, 
frank  mastership.  He  sighs  not  after  vanished  gods,  like 

1  Discourse  on  the  Manners!  of  the  Ancients  relative  to  the  Subject  of  Love. 


GREEK   SPIRIT   IN   SHELLEY   AND   BROWNING.       443 

our  later  neo-pagans.  Why  should  he?  From  him,  at 
least,  they  have  never  withdrawn  their  gracious  company. 
Nay,  he  can  create  with  his  mere  breath  new  denizens  of 
Olympus.  Nothing  is  more  striking  indeed,  in  our  revolu- 
tionary poets,  than  their  mythopoeic  instinct.  As  a  merry 
breeze  from  far  hill-pastures  blows  into  a  still  drawing- 
room,  this  fresh  instinct  swept  into  the  blase  traditions  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  The  halls  of  poetry  were  filled 
with  courtly  folk,  dancing  minuets,  or  sipping  scandal 
with  their  tea ;  in  a  few  years  the  halls  melted  away,  and 
poetry  found  itself  in  the  forest,  peopled  with  dryads,  and 
visited  by  immortals.  Keats  and  Shelley  were  her  chief 
guides  in  this  fresh  woodsy  world  of  antiquity  and  child- 
hood. Their  imagination  has  something  primeval  and 
cosmic ;  it  touches  the  old  myths,  which  had  become 
stock-in-trade  of  the  versifier,  myths  of  Phoebus,  Aurora, 
Aphrodite,  and  they  laugh  into  life.  Shelley's  '  Arethusa,' 
his  '  Hymn  of  Pan,'  his  '  Hymn  of  Apollo,'  are  serene  and 
alive  with  conviction. 

The  sleepless  Hours  who  watch  me  as  I  lie, 

Curtained  with  star-inwoven  tapestries 
From  the  broad  moonlight  of  the  sky, 

Fanning  the  busy  dreams  from  my  dim  eyes, 
Waken  me  when  their  Mother,  the  grey  Dawn, 
Tells  them  that  dreams  and  that  the  moou  is  gone. 

Then  I  arise,  and  climbing  Heaven's  blue  dome, 
I  walk  over  the  mountains  and  the  waves, 

Leaving  my  robe  upon  the  ocean  foam  ; 

My  footsteps  pave  the  clouds  with  fire ;  the  caves 

Are  filled  with  my  bright  presence,  and  the  air 

Leaves  the  green  earth  to  my  embraces  bare. 

I  am  the  eye  with  which  the  Universe 

Beholds  itself,  and  knows  itself  divine ; 
All  harmony  of  instrument  or  verse, 

All  prophecy,  all  medicine,  are  mine, 
All  light  of  Art  or  Nature ;  —  to  my  song, 
Victory  and  praise  in  their  own  right  belong. 

What  could  be  more  nobly,  more  entirely  classic  ? 


444  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Often  the  myth-impulse  is  evidenced  in  new,  exquisite 
creations.  A  poem  like  '  The  Cloud '  is  trembling  into 
myth  throughout :  — 

That  orbed  maiden,  with  white  fire  laden, 

Whom  mortals  call  the  Moon, 
Glides  glimmering  o'er  my  fleece-like  floor, 

With  the  midnight  breezes  strewn  ; 
And  wherever  the  beat  of  her  unseen  feet, 

Which  only  the  angels  hear, 
May  have  broken  the  woof  of  my  tent's  thin  roof, 

The  stars  peep  behind  her  and  peer ; 
And  I  laugh  to  see  them  whirl  and  flee 

Like  a  swarm  of  golden  bees, 
While  I  widen  the  rent  in  my  wind-built  tent, 

Till  the  calm  rivers,  lakes,  and  seas, 
Like  strips  of  the  sky  fallen  through  me  on  high, 

Are  all  paved  with  the  moon  and  with  these. 

Nothing  could  witness  more  delightfully  to  the  inherent 
classicism  of  Shelley's  genius  than  the  ease  with  which 
these  new  incarnations  of  ideas  which  the  Greek  would 
not  have  conceived,  blend  in  mystical  and  perfect  har- 
mony with  real  Greek  gods  and  goddesses.  This  fusion 
is,  of  course,  most  obvious  in  the  '  Prometheus  Unbound,' 
that  strange  drama  where  images  drawn  from  the  classic 
past  mingle  with  fair  dreams  of  a  yet  unrealised  future, 
all  to  reveal  the  abiding,  present,  modern  form  of  suffering 
Humanity.  The  early  parts  of  the  drama  have  passages 
purely  Hellenic ;  the  last  act  sweeps  us  upward,  with  no 
violent  break,  into  a  scientific  attitude  emphatically  modern. 
Apollo,  Mercury,  and  Faunus  meet  on  equal  terms  the  em- 
bodiments of  modern  Pantheism,  and  echoes  of  a  music 
yet  unborn  float  through  the  valley-glades  of  antiquity. 

Shelley  moves  in  the  world  of  classical  imagination  with 
the  free  grace  of  a  native  of  the  air.  But  we  are  only  at 
the  beginning  of  our  study.  Greek  by  instinct,  he  is  also 
Greek  by  thought.  And  here  we  part  company  with  Keats, 
whose  pagan  impulse,  purely  innate,  was  nourished  from 
no  more  original  spring  than  a  Dictionary  of  Mythology. 


GREEK   SPIRIT   IN   SHELLEY   AND   BROWNING.        445 

It  is  wonderful  enough  that  '  Endymion '  and  '  Hyperion ' 
should  have  had  no  other  suggestion.  Keats'  lovely  myths 
"  tease  us  out  of  thought  as  doth  eternity."  His  neo- 
paganism  is  pjurely  aesthetic.  In  Shelley,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  intellect  as  well  as  the  imagination  was  possessed 
with  Hellenic  influences,  and  the  innate  Greek  instinct 
was  reinforced  by  long  study  and  impassioned  contempla- 
tion^ We  may  trace  his  classic  feeling  in  three_ways  ;  his 
poetry  is  permeated  by  Greek  conceptions  of  beauty,  by 
the  Greek  ideal  of  freedom,  and  by  the  Platonic  philosophy. 
Shelley's  charming  '  Letters  of  Travel '  show  what  a  spell 
was  cast  upon  him  by  classic  antiquity,  and  especially  by 
Greek  art.  The  statues  in  the  Italian  galleries  left  him 
without  words,  transported  out  of  reach  of  time  and  of 
decay.  In  scenery  his  imagination  craved  and  claimed 
the  most  classic  elements.  He  never  visited  Greece ;  but 
in  southern  Italy  he  found  loveliness  of  a  similar  type,  and 
bathed  his  spirit  in  it.  There  are  few  more  splendid  bits 
of  English  prose  than  the  letter  in  which  Shelley  describes 
his  visit  to  the  Temples  of  Paestum  —  as  yet  uninvaded 
by  the  tourist ;  and  the  Bay  of  Naples  became  instantly  a 
part  of  his  mental  life.  These  influences  play  through  all 
his  poetic  work  in  subtle  under-suggestion.  Shelley,  in 
describing,  deals  very  little  with  form  or  outline;  his 
effects  are  wrought  in  colour,  atmosphere,  and  fragrance, 
and  constantly  tremble  into  subjectivity.  Yet  in  all  his 
vaporous  pictures  there  is  the  implied  presence  of  a  classic 
ideal.  "Wide  reaches  of  azure  ocean,  broken  by  fair  moun- 
tain-islands and  promontories  temple-crowned,  form  his 
backgrounds.  In  these  scenes  with  their  lovely  desolation 
his  genius  is  as  much  at  home  as  Wordsworth's  in  green 
English  fields.  Through  a  classical  landscape,  irradiated 
by  that  light  which  is  of  no  time,  wander  his  dream- 
creations,  and  their  forms  are  those  of  the  statues  of  the 
Italian  galleries,  endowed  with  breathing  grace.  Laon, 
Lionel,  all  Shelley's  young  champions  of  freedom,  are  of 


446  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

the  family  of  Harmodius  and  Aristogiton,  and  have  the 
bright  daring  and  beauty  of  the  heroes  of  the  youth  of  the 
world.  Suggestions  from  the  lovely  reliefs  to  be  seen  at 
Naples  and  elsewhere  may  be  traced  through  the  poems  — 
as  where  Panthea  and  lone  sit  with  folded  wings  and  deli- 
cate grace  at  the  feet  of  the  Titan,  or  Cythna,  standing  on 
the  steps  of  the  great  Altar  of  the  Federation,  white  against 
bluest  heaven,  chants  in  the  presence  of  the  triumphant 
procession  her  Ode  to  Freedom.  Shelley  rarely  treats  of 
old  age.  For  him,  as  for  the  Greeks,  life  belongs  to  the 
young.  But  his  few  old  men  —  he  never  gave  us  an 
old  woman,  except  Mother  Earth  —  Zonoras  in  '  Prince 
Athanase,'  the  Hermit  in  4  The  Revolt  of  Islam '  • 
are  august,  venerable,  simple,  like  the  classic  statues  of 
age.  Least  sculptural  of  poets,  in  a  way,  his  work  is  yet 
haunted  by  memories  of  classic  sculpture. 

Shelley's  affinity  for  Greek  form  is  never  more  evident, 
or  more  unconscious,  than  in  his  great  tragedy,  'The 
Cenci.'  He  meant  to  follow  the  minor  Elizabethans. 
But  the  whole  thing  is  utterly  remote  from  the  lawless 
romantic  temper.  The  stately  relentless  tragic  movement, 
unrelieved  by  play  of  niixed  motive  or  note  of  humour  or 
fancy,  witnesses  no  less  than  the  highly  abstract  method  of 
character-treatment  to  a  really  antique  instinct.  Beatrice 
is  sister  to  Antigone,  not  to  the  Duchess  of  Main",  and  it  is 
as  futile  to  criticise  the  absence  of  the  modern  psychologi- 
cal method  in  Shelley  as  in  Sophocles. 

Greece  did  more  for  Shelley  than  to  form  his  aesthetic 
ideals.  She  was  not  only  a  vision  of  beauty ;  she  was  "  the 
Mother  of  the  Free."  In  political  and  social  passion,  he 
was  a  true  son  of  the  victors  of  Marathon.  One  is  some- 
times tempted  to  say  that  he  never  went  any  further. 
This  would  be  quite  unjust,  in  view  of  his  intense  intui- 
tion of  the  wide  commonalty  of  love,  and  of  that  passionate 
championship  of  the  weak  which  is  so  essential  to  his  faith, 
so  alien  to  the  temper  of  Hellas.  Yet  it  remains  true  that 


GREEK  SPIRIT   IN   SHELLEY  AND  BROWNING.       447 

there  is  something  singularly  classic  in  his  revolutionary 
ardours,  in  their  simplicity  and  wholeness,  their  disregard 
of  obstacles,  their  ignorance  of  modern  conditions.  His 
poetiy  glows  and  sings  and  vibrates  with  invocations  to 
Liberty,  and  he  is  never  tired  of  glorifying  Greece  for  her 
part  in  the  manifestation  of  this  divine  Power.  We  all 
remember  the  splendid  passages  in  the  first  Canto  of  '  The 
Revolt  of  Islam '  and  in  the  majestic  '  Ode  to  Liberty.' 
In  this  last  poem,  by  the  way,  Shelley  gives  us  a  really 
noble  reading  of  history,  and  a  more  evolutionary  concep- 
tion of  the  advance  of  Freedom  than  he  elsewhere  shows. 
But  on  the  whole,  his  idea  of  Liberty  is  nearer  that  of 
Leonidas  than  that  either  of  the  modern  constitutional  re- 
former, or  of  the  social  democrat.  His  friendship  with 
Prince  Mavrocordato,  and  his  enthusiasm  for  the  Greek 
war  of  independence,  finally  inspired  him  to  the  splendid 
lyrical  outburst  of  '  Hellas,'  —  a  poem  in  which  his  impas- 
sioned loyalty  to  Greece  and  his  sense  of  her  high  mission 
find  supremely  beautiful  expression  :  — 

Semi-chorus.   I.     "With  the  gifts  of  gladness 

Greece  did  thy  cradle  strew; 

II.     With  the  tears  of  sadness 

Greece  did  thy  shroud  bedew ; 

I.     With  an  orphan's  affection 

She  followed  thy  bier  through  Time  ; 

//.     And  at  thy  resurrection 

Reappeareth,  like  thou,  sublime  ! 

I.    If  Heaven  should  resume  thee, 

To  Heaven  shall  her  spirit  ascend  ; 

II.    If  Hell  should  entomb  thee, 

To  Hell  shall  her  high  hearts  bend. 

I.     If  Annihilation  — 
II.        Dust  let  her  glories  be ; 
And  a  name  and  a  nation 
Be  forgotten,  Freedom,  with  thee ! 


448  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEES. 

And  still,  in  talking  of  the  incentive  to  imagination  and 
to  the  social  passion  which  Shelley  found  in  Greece,  we  have 
only  skirted  the  outer  regions  of  his  devotion.  At  his  heart 
lay  a  deep  and  controlling  discipleship  to  the  power  which 
had  set  him  free  in  early  youth,  and  continued  to  the  end  to 
exalt  and  satisfy  his  spirit.  Shelley's  mind  was  exactly  of 
the  type  to  assimilate  most  eagerly  the  Platonic  metaphysic. 
It  would  be  a  fascinating  quest  to  follow  the  influence  of 
Platonism  in  our  English  poets.  I  think  there  is  only  one 
other  poet  —  him  of  '  The  Faery  Queen '  —  in  whom  it  is 
so  strong  a  spiritual  force  as  in  Shelley.  And  even  Spenser 
has  so  Christianised  his  idealism  that  it  is  not  so  near  Plato 
as  is  the  purely  natural  mysticism  of  the  poet  of  '  Adonais.' 
Thoroughly  to  discuss  Shelley's  Platonism  —  that  is,  his 
whole  idealist  philosophy,  which  is  pervaded  by  Plato  — 
would  be  outside  the  scope  of  this  paper.  I  can  only  ask 
you  to  remember  the  constancy  of  his  Platonic  studies,  and 
then  to  glance  with  me  at  that  beautiful  translation  of  the 
'Symposium'  in  which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  Shelley  has 
given  a  great  treasure  to  our  English  prose.  I  think 
you  will  be  surprised  to  see  how  many  of  Shelley's  root- 
ideas  are  found  even  in  this  one  dialogue,  and  how  abso- 
lutely his  distinctive  thought  coincides  with  that  of  his 
master. 

The  '  Symposium  '  is  of  course  a  dialogue  about  Love ; 
and  the  conception  of  love,  approached  from  one  point  of 
view  after  another  in  the  Socratic  fashion,  is  finally  un- 
folded in  full  beauty  by  Socrates  himself.  Even  in  the 
earlier  and  inferior  speeches,  we  find  many  ideas  sym- 
pathetic to  Shelley.  The  very  first,  bringing  out  the 
power  of  love  as  the  one  incentive  to  noble  life  and  deed, 
finds  echo  in  his  whole  work :  the  second  speaker,  Pau- 
sanias,  emphasises  that  distinction  between  earthly  and 
heavenly  love,  which  is  never  far  from  Shelley's  mind,  and 
is  expressed  with  special  stress  in  the  '  Athanase  '  and  the 
'  Epipsychidion.'  But  it  is  when  Socrates  begins  that  we 


GREEK   SPIRIT  IN   SHELLEY   AND   BROWNING.       449 

feel  ourselves  definitely  in  the  presence  of  Shelley's  master. 
First,  the  old  sage  laughs  gently  at  some  of  the  preceding 
ideas,  the  pretty  sentimental  notions  of  the  young  poet, 
who  thinks  of  Love  as  a  fair  god  and  gracious,  dwelling  in 
the  place  of  flowers  and  fragrance,  Lord  of  Joy  and  Glory 
of  gods  and  men.  He  sets  aside  without  comment  the 
crude  or  rollicking  materialism  of  the  doctor  or  the  comic 
poet.  He  goes  on  to  give  his  own  idea,  in  one  of  those 
delicate  and  marvellous  Platonic  myths  which  show  the 
great  philosopher  equally  great  as  a  poet.  Love,  says 
Socrates,  is  not  the  offspring  of  Aphrodite ;  he  is  the  Child 
of  Poverty  and  Plenty,  and  has  in  him  something  of  the 
nature  of  both  parents.  He  interprets  between  gods  and 
men,  being  neither  mortal  nor  immortal.  Hence  he  ever 
seeks  and  never  finds,  he  is  squalid,  mean,  terrible,  implor- 
ing, he  wanders  through  life  the  Companion  of  Want,  and 
the  same  fate  rests  on  those  who  join  his  fellowship.  Now 
in  this  myth  it  seems  to  me  we  have  the  whole  temper  and 
spirit  of  Shelley,  the  whole  philosophy  of  his  wistful  life. 
Xot  to  possession,  but  to  yearning,  is  his  song  attuned :  — 

The  desire  of  the  moth  for  the  star, 

Of  the  night  for  the  morrow, 
The  longing  for  something  afar 

From  the  sphere  of  our  sorrow. 

Love's  pilgrim,  Companion  of  Want,  his  brief  years  were 
dedicated  to  a  quest  for  ever  baffled,  ever  renewed,  —  "  the 
desire  of  generation  in  the  Beautiful." 

Love,  Socrates  goes  on  to  say,  must  never  be  confined  to 
one  object.     Shelley  would  quite  agree  with  him:  — 

True  love  in  this  differs  from  gold  or  clay 
That  to  divide  is  not  to  take  away, 

he  cries  in  the  '  Epipsychidion.'  His  conception,  like 
Plato's,  is  sometimes  baffling  in  its  impersonality.  But 
the  impersonality  of  the  Platonic  idea  has  a  noble  source. 
Love  can  rest  in  no  one  object  because  it  seeks  the  Arche- 


450  BOSTON   BROWNING    SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

typal  Loveliness,  the  One  Spiritual  Substance,  free  from 
material  taint.  In  the  last  part  of  the  '  Symposium  '  Plato 
soars  from  the  lesser  to  the  greater  mysteries,  and  reaches 
a  vision  never  transcended.  Few  spirits  could  feel  at  home 
in  this  high  region,  but  of  these  spirits  Shelley  is  one. 
On  the  wide  ocean  of  intellectual  beauty  —  to  quote  his 
own  echo  of  Plato  —  his  little  bark  set  sail.  Plato's  con- 
ception is  indeed  profoundly  progressive  and  intellectual. 
From  frequenting  fair  forms  in  youth,  the  soul  is  to  mount 
to  fair  practices ;  thence  to  the  vision  of  laws,  of  science, 
of  One  Science,  supreme  and  eternal.  Love  is  the  quest 
of  the  Immortal ;  and  its  final  aim  is  Truth. 

An  enemy  might  claim  that  Shelley  never  quite  rose 
from  the  region  of  fair  forms  into  the  region  of  unem- 
bodied  realities,  or  at  least  that  he  never  long  sustained 
himself  in  the  upper  air.  The  frail  spirit  even  of  a  Shelley 
craves  indeed  the  air  of  earth.  Yet  in  the  main  he  was 
true  to  his  quest.  On  his  eager  boyhood  fell  the  Shadow 
of  Intellectual  Beauty ;  he  clasped  his  hands  in  ecstasy  and 
swore  that  to  the  Power  of  the  Unseen  Ideal  he  would 
dedicate  his  life.  "  Have  I  not  kept  the  vow  ?  '"  he  could 
proudly  cry  in  later  years.  To  Shelley  as  to  Plato  all 
earthly  substance  is  reflection  only,  and  the  Ideal  itself,  as 
apprehended  by  the  human  mind,  a  "  shadow  of  beauty 
unbeheld." 

For  love  and  beauty  and  delight 

There  is  no  death  nor  change  ;  their  might 

Exceeds  our  organs,  which  endure 

No  light,  being  themselves  obscure. 

Shelley's  Platonism  is  deep  as  his  thought,  deep  as  his 
faith.  It  blends  with  his  very  life. 

Thus  Greece  became  to  Shelley  far  more  than  a  country. 
She  became  a  great  Fact,  a  great  Idea,  aglow  with  life. 
She  comprehended  the  best  he  could  conceive  of  creative 
beauty,  of  high  social  passion,  of  intellectual  and  spiritual 
wisdom.  And  so  he  proclaimed  her  immortality :  — 


GREEK   SPIRIT   IN   SHELLEY   AND   BROWNING.        451 

Greece  and  her  foundations  are 
Built  below  the  tide  of  war, 
Based  on  the  crystalline  sea 
Of  thought,  and  its  eternity. 

A  third  of  a  century  flies  past  us  ;  we  are  in  the  Victo- 
rian age  ;  a  new  poetic  generation  is  murmuring  in  our 
ears.  What  message  has  Greece  for  our  Victorians  ?  Her 
work  for  Shelley  was  clear.  The  Greek  spirit  was  "  the 
eagle  fed  with  morning  "  which  swept  this  young  Gany- 
mede up  from  the  prosaic  leve-ls  of  eighteenth  century 
thought  to  a  seat  with  the  Immortals.  Such  triumphs  she 
is  to  know  in  our  century  no  more.  Her  power  is  to 
move  in  a  medium  either  alien  or  impotent.  The  fact 
is  all  the  more  striking  because  the  desire  of  the  poets  is 
largely  the  other  way.  Classical  models  are  more  con- 
scientiously studied;  the  classical  ethics  and  philosophy 
are  more  zealously  followed ;  there  is  a  strained  deliberate 
effort  to  return  to  Hellenic  standards  in  art,  thought,  and 
faith.  But  where  is  the  Hellenic  spirit?  Our  neo- 
paganism  is  no  longer  instinctive  but  defiant,  no  longer 
natural  but  assumed.  Shelley  writes  a  classic  drama  while 
he  is  tr}ring  to  do  something  quite  different.  Swinburne 
and  Arnold  with  splendid  equipment  try  their  best  to 
write  one,  produce  a  perfect  imitation  in  form,  —  and 
fail.  The  failures  are  beautiful  to  be  sure,  but  their  beauty 
is  an  insult  to  real  classicism.  They  are  written  on  theory, 
not  .impulse.  Swinburne  says  to  himself :  The  Greek 
drama  is  fatalist ;  go  to !  I  will  be  more  fatalist  still.  So 
he  heaps  tragic  motive  on  motive  —  four  deep  in  the 
4  Atalanta  in  Calydon  '  —  adorns  the  whole  with  supreme 
melody  —  and  produces  a  drama  from  which  any  Greek 
would  recoil  in  bewildered  dismay.  He  offends  by  the 
Too  Much.  Arnold,  on  the  other  hand,  says  to  himself: 
The  note  of  the  Greek  moral  temper  is  moderation ;  I  will 
be  more  moderate.  And  he  writes  the  '  Merope,'  whereof 
the  end  is  tamejaess.  He  offends  by  the  Too  Little.  Both 


452  BOSTON   BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

these  true  poets  wish  to  be  Greek,  try  to  be  Greek  —  both 
with  Leconte  de  Lisle,  Carducci,  and  others  are  children  of 
the  latest  neo-pagan  reaction.  But  how  futile,  how  pitifnl 
their  attempts  —  though  interesting  always,  even  at  times 
felicitous  in  a  studied  way  —  beside  the  heroic  ease  and 
buoyancy  and  free  joyousness  of  Shelley's  classical  work ! 

An  entirely  different  relation  to  classical  ideals  i&  shown- 
in  Browning.  No  attempt  in  him  to  return  to  antiquity, 
casting  off  from  his  feet  the  dust  of  the  present !  He  ex- 
ults in  that  modern  life  which  our  minor  and  weaker  Vic- 
torian poets  with  one  accord  deplore.  A  man  of  our  own 
time,  his  genial  and  large  presence  seems  still  among  us, 
proclaiming  harmony  in  our  jangles  and  discords.  No- 
body, I  suppose,  could  be  more  un- Greek  than  Browning, 
by  nature.  He  is  modern,  Christian,  Gothic,  Teutonic, 
what  you  will  —  but  Greek  —  never !  In  Italy,  where 
Shelley  has  eyes  for  nothing  artistic  except  Greek  statues, 
Browning  sees  first  and  foremost  mediaeval  Christian  art. 
We  all  remember  his  deliberate,  spirited  vindication  of 
his  preferences  in  'Old  Pictures  in  Florence '-  — his  repu- 
diation, once  and  for  ever,  of  the  Pagan  ideal.  How  terse, 
how  final,  it  is!  Put  it  beside  passages  from  Shelley's 
Letters,  if  you  would  see  the  difference  df  spirit :  — 

May  I  take  upon  me  to  instruct  you"? 
When  Greek  Art  ran  and  reached  the  goal, 

Thus  much  had  the  world  to  boast,  infructu  — 
The  Truth  of  Man,  as  by  God  first  spoken,  — 

Which  the  actual  generations  garble, 
Was  re-uttered,  and  Soul  (which  Limbs  betoken) 

And  Limbs  (Soul  informs)  made  new  in  marble. 

So,  you  saw  yourself  as  you  wished  you  were, 

As  you  might  have  been,  as  you  cannot  be ; 
Earth  here,  rebuked  by  Olympus  there  : 

And  grew  content  in  your  poor  degree 
With  your  little  power,  by  those  statues'  godhead, 

And  your  little  scope,  by  those  eyes'  full  sway, 
And  your  little  grace,  by  their  grace  embodied, 

And  your  little  date,  by  their  forms  that  stay. 


GREEK   SPIRIT   IX   SHELLEY  AXD   BROWNING.        453 

Growth  came  when,  looking  your  last  on  them  all, 

You  turned  your  eyes  inwardly  one  fine  day 
And  cried  with  a  start  —  What  if  we  so  small 

Are  greater  aiid  grander  the  while  than  they1? 
Are  they  perfect  of  lineament,  perfect  of  stature? 

In  both,  of  such  lower  types  are  we 
Precisely  because  of  our  wider  nature ; 

For  Time,  theirs  —  ours,  for  eternity. 

To-day's  brief  passion  limits  their  range  ; 

It  seethes  with  the  morrow  for  us,  and  more. 
They  are  perfect  —  how  else?  they  shall  never  change : 

We  are  faulty  —  why  not?  we  have  time  in  store. 
The  Artificer  s  hand  is  iiot  arrested 

With  us ;  we  are  rough-hewn,  nowise  polished  : 
They  stand  for  our  copy,  and  once  invested 

With  all  they  can  teach,  we  shall  see  them  abolished. 

It  will  be  interesting  to  see  what  a  poet  of  this  defi- 
antly modern  attitude  will  make  of  Greek  subjects.  De- 
spite his  alleged  indifference,  he  cannot  let  them  alone. 
Through  the  long  sequence  of  his  work,  beginning  in 
boyhood,  there  are  allusions,  suggestions,  there  are  not- 
able occasional  poems.  Finally,  in  later  life,  his  delight- 
ful imaginative  curiosity,  satiated  with  roaming  through 
his  own  times  and  the  Renascence,  turns  back  to  that  wide 
world  of  antiquity,  explores  it  a  little,  and  presents  us  on 
its  return  with  '  Balaustion's  Adventure,'  .'Aristophanes' 
Apology,'  and  the  translation  of  the  'Agamemnon.' 

We  notice  at  once  that  Browning  pays  no  attention 
whatever  to  those  elements  in  the  Hellenic  ideal  which 
swayed  and  shaped  Shelley's  genius :  its  mythopceic  im- 
pulse, its  conception  of  beauty,  its  passion  for  freedom, 
its  philosophic  thought.  Myth-making  ?  Browning  has 
something  better  to  do;  he  creates  not  myths,  but  men. 
Ideas  of  beauty?  No  statue-reminiscences  for  the  poet 
whose  souls,  stripped  bare  almost  of  fleshly  vesture,  are 
permitted  to  pause  one  iastant  only  in  their  bewildering 
flight  through  eternity,  to  reveal  their  past  and  their 
future.  Of  outward  beauty,  indeed,  Browning  takes  curi- 


454  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

ously  little  account  —  less  perhaps  than  any  other  great 
poet  except  Shakespeare.  He  suggests  it,  but  as  for  be- 
ing dizzy  in  its  presence,  like  Shelley,  the  only  presence 
in  which  Browning's  sturdy  genius  becomes  rapt  is  that 
of  a  moral  victory.  So, — 

bring  the  invisible  full  into  play ! 
Let  the  visible  go  to  the  dogs  —  what  matters  ? 

There  's  his  idea  —  What  then  of  the  Greek  passion  for 
freedom,  the  incentive  to  noble  social  and  political  ideals 
to  be  found  in  the  great  annals  of  antiquity  ?  How  about 
Greece,  the  Mother  of  the  Free  ?  Why,  of  course  Brown- 
ing admits  all  that,  as  any  school-boy  does,  and  gives  it 
lip-homage.  But  real  vital  personal  enthusiasm  over  the 
abstract  idea  of  Greece,  I  cannot  find.  Our  great  poet 
was  not  much  stirred,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  by  the  Des- 
tiny^ of  Nations ;  he  was  too  passionately  absorbed  in  the 
destiny  of  souls.  The  wide  social  and  political  concep- 
tions of  the  Revolution,  Browning,  after  '  Sordello,'  simply 
passes  by,  except  when  he  uses  the  passion  for  liberty,  or 
patriotism — usually  the  latter  —  as  a  motive  for  such  a 
character-study  as  Luigi  or  Djabal.  I  said  at  the  out- 
set, and  truly,  that  he  is  a  great  prophet  of  Freedom.  But 
the  truth  is  that  Freedom,  which  to  the  poets  of  the  Revo- 
lution, as  to  the  Greeks,  was  a  political  collective  aim, 
quite  consistent,  at  least  in  Shelley,  with  a  fatalistic 
philosophy  concerning  the  individual,  is  to  Browning  pro- 
foundly personal  and  inward,  a  spiritual,  not  a  social  state. 
Sometime,  I  hope  a  poet  will  come  to  show  us  that  it  must 
be  both  to  be  either,  but  we  have  not  found  him  yet. 

Finally,  as  to  Platonism,  I  speak  with  diffidence,  but  it 
does  not  seem  to  me  that  Browning  was  a  Platonist,  ex- 
cept as  every  civilised  man,  especially  every  idealist,  must 
be  one.  Certainly,  the  points  in  Plato's  thought  on  which 
we  have  just  seen  Shelley  seizing  most  eagerly,  have  no 
attraction  for  Browning.  Shelley,  following  Plato,  thinks 


GREEK   SPIRIT   IN   SHELLEY   AND   BBOWSIXG.        455 

of  each  human  love  as  imperfect  shadow  of  the  Archetype, 
to  be  discarded  as  the  soul  goes  on.  Browning's  plea  for 
fickleness — he  has  one,  vide  'Fifine' —  rests  on  quite  a  dif- 
ferent basis.  With  the  emotional  communism  of  Shelley 
and  Plato  he  has  no  sympathy  at  all.  He  is  as  personal 
in  his  thought  of  love  as  he  is  everywhere.  To  him,  each 

beloved  individual  —  Constance,  Colombe,  Caponsacchi 

is  a  substantial,  final,  concrete  fact  —  not  a  shadow  of  Eter- 
nal Beauty,  but  a  part  of  it.  People  are  not  shadows  to 
Browning,  even  of  the  infinite;  they  are  more,  —  they  are 
men  and  women.  In  the  Platonic  picture  of  Love  hov- 
ering between  Poverty  and  Plenty,  we  come  nearer  to 
the  thought  of  the  man  who,  truly  as  Shelley,  is  the 
prophet  of  aspiration ;  yet  here  too  the  likeness  is,  I  think, 
chiefly  apparent.  To  Plato  and  Shelley,  a  passion  while 
it  exists  is  ultimate  and  absolute ;  advance  comes  through 
discarding  it  for  a  new  and  higher  love.  But  to  Brown- 
ing at  .his  best,  growth  is  innate  within  each  noble  love. 
A  great  passion,  like  the  life-giving  air  of  spring,  supplies 
an  atmosphere  within  which  the  nature  expands  to  its  per- 
fection. Not  only  through  desire  but  through  possession, 
the  great  law  of  development  goes  on. 

Browning  is  at  no  point  touched  to  sympathy  with  Shel- 
ley on  classic  themes.  Neither  his  aesthetic  nor  his  politi- 
cal nor  his  philosophic  self  is  influenced,  far  less  pervaded, 
by  Greek  thought.  And  now,  is  it  not  a  tribute  to  the 
inexhaiistibleness  of  classic  civilisation  that  this  man,  this 
alien,  should  dip  into  its  great  store-house  —  turning  away 
from  the  treasures  of  the  Christian  World  —  and  bring  forth 
things  entirely  new,  genuinely  Greek,  which  Shelley  would 
never  have  had  either  eyes  to  see  or  heart  to  love  ?  This 
is  what  Browning  has  done.  His  treatment  of  Greece  lias 
been  so  fruitful,  so  illuminating,  that  many  of  us  get  from 
it  entirely  new  ideas  of  much  in  that  great  Greek  world. 
Let  us  not  talk  in  negatives  any  longer ;  let  us  ask  what 
our  poet  has  to  tell  us  about  Greece. 


456  BOSTON  BROWNING  SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

I  cannot  find  that  Browning  in  early  life  plunged  very 
eagerly  into  Greek  literature.  Incorrigible  modern  that  he 
was,  Shelley  seems  to  have  done  for  him  very  much  what 
the  Greeks  did  for  Shelley.  His  father,  who  was  a  scholar 
and  read  Greek,  told  him  the  '  Tale  of  Troy '  and  rocked 
him  to  sleep  with  '  Anacreon '  when  he  was  a  baby ;  but 
it  is  doubtful  if  the  '  Anacreon '  was  appreciated.  He 
must,  however,  have  been  familiar  with  a  good  many 
classic  masterpieces  before  writing  '  Pauline.'  The  classic 
allusions  in  that  poem  are  so  interesting  that  I  quote  them. 
Browning  has  not  at  all  found  himself  in  this  first  poem  of 
his.  It  is,  of  course,  written  under  the  controlling  influ- 
ence of  Shelley,  and  the  classical  bits  seem  to  me  viewed 
through  Shelley's  mind,  and  treated  in  Shelley's  manner. 
He  is  describing  his  early  reading  :  — 

They  came  to  me  in  my  first  dawn  of  life 

Which  passed  alone  with  wisest  ancient  books 

All  halo-girt  with  fancies  of  my  own  ; 

And  I  myself  went  with  the  tale  —  a  god 

Wandering  after  beauty,  or  a  giant 

Standing  vast  in  the  sunset  —  an  old  hunter 

Talking  with  gods,  or  a  high-crested  chief 

Sailing  with  troops  of  friends  to  Tenedos. 

I  tell  you,  naught  has  ever  been  so  clear 

As  the  place,  the  time,  the  fashion  of  those  lives : 

I  had  not  seen  a  work  of  lofty  art, 

Nor  woman's  beauty  nor  sweet  nature's  face, 

Yet,  I  say,  never  morn  broke  clear  as  those 

On  the  dim  clustered  isles  in  the  blue  sea, 

The  deep  groves  and  white  temples  and  wet  caves ; 

And  nothing  ever  will  surprise  me  now  — 

Who  stood  beside  the  naked  Swift-footed, 

Who  bound  my  forehead  with  Proserpine's  hair. 

And  these  vivid  lines  on  the  great  tragedies,  two  of 
which  he  afterwards  translated:  — 

The  lore 

Loved  for  itself  and  all  it  shows  —  the  king 
Treading  the  purple  calmly  to  his  death, 
While  round  him,  like  the  clouds  of  eve,  all  dusk, 


GREEK   SPIRIT  IN   SHELLEY   AND   BROWNING.        457 

The  giant  shades  of  fate,  silently  flitting, 
Pile  the  dim  outline  of  the  coming  doom ; 
And  him  sitting  alone  in  blood,  while  friends 
Are  hunting  far  in  the  sunshine ;  and  the  boy 
With  his  white  breast  and  brow  and  clustering  curls 
Streaked  with  his  mother's  blood,  and  striving  hard 
To  tell  his  story  ere  his  reason  goes. 

Again :  — 

Andromeda* 

And  she  is  with  me  :  years  roll,  I  shall  change, 
But  change  can  touch  her  not  —  so  beautiful 
With  her  fixed  eyes,  earnest  and  still,  and  hair 
Lifted  and  spread  by  the  salt-sweeping  breeze, 
And  one  red  beam,  all  the  storm  leaves  in  heaven, 
Resting  upon  her  eyes  and  hair,  such  hair, 
As  she  awaits  the  snake  on  the  wet  beach 
By  the  dark  rock,  and  the  white  wave  just  breaking 
At  her  feet ;  quite  naked  and  alone ;  a  thing 
I  doubt  not,  nor  fear  for,  secure  some  god 
To  save  will  come  in  thunder  from  the  stars. 

Those  are  very  lovely  passages;  and  the  dwelling  on 
the  ideal  beauty  and  the  mythology  of  Greece  seems  to  me 
quite  in  Shelley's  manner.  At  the  same  time,  I  like  to 
note  how  Browning  peeps  out,  in  the  choice  of  unusual 
epithet  like  "  salt-sweeping,"  and  above  all  in  the  dramatic 
instinct,  the  note  of  personal  interest,  as  in  the  three  vivid 
lines  of  the  Orestes'  story.  He  never  did  just  this  sort  of 
thing  again.  After  '  Pauline,'  Greece  practically  vanished 
from  his  early  work.  In  '  Sordello  '  and  '  Paracelsus '  he 
turned  to  study  far  more  congenial  periods,  — the  Middle 
Ages,  and  the  revival  of  learning.  In  'Pippa  Passes,' 
where  Browning's  .genius  seems  to  me  to  burn  clear  for 
the  first  time,  there  is  a  fine  description  of  a  bas-relief,  and 
Jules,  the  young  sculptor,  is  an  ardent  devotee  of  classic 
art;  a  few  exquisite  touches  .describe  the  pure  and  alas ! 
deceptive  beauty  of  Phene,  the  Greek  bride.  But  Jules 
deserts  his  classical  ideas  at  the  end,  and  "breaks  his 
paltry  models  up,  to  begin  Art  afresh."  A  Shelley  hero 
would  not  have  done  that.  I  remember  no  classic  work  in 


458  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

the  other  dramas.  Then  comes  the  long  central  period  of 
Browning's  genius,  —  the  '  Men  and  Women '  and  '  Dra- 
matis Personse,'  —  a  period  of  poems  short,  but,  as  many 
still  feel,  his  greatest.  In  the  range  of  these  brilliant 
poems,  which  almost  run  the  gamut  of  possible  experience 
in  every  age,  it  would  be  strange  indeed  if  we  found  no 
classic  studies.  But  the  hour  of  Greece  has  not  yet  struck 
for  Browning.  Such  studies  are  very  few;  these  few, 
however,  brilliant  and  noteworthy.  The  first  is  '  Artemis 
Prologises,'  a  fragment  of  a  tragedy  dealing  with  the 
Phredra-Hippolutos  story,  composed,  Browning  tells  us, 
much  against  his  will  while  he  lay  ill  in  bed  with  a  fever. 
Artemis,  standing  beside  Asclepios  in  the  forest  while  he 
seeks  to  resuscitate  the  dead  youth,  tells  in  terse,  pure, 
direct  lines  the  tale  of  his  tragic  death :  — 

I  am  a  goddess  of  the  ambrosial  courts, 
And  save  by  Here,  Queen  of  Pride,  surpassed 
By  none  whose  temples  whiten  this  the  world. 
Through  heaven  I  roll  my  lucid  moon  along; 
I  shed  in  hell  o'er  my  pale  people  peace ; 
On  earth  I,  caring  for  the  creatures,  guard 
Each  pregnant  yellow  wolf  and  fox-bitch  sleek, 
And  every  feathered  mother's  callow  brood, 
And  all  that  love  green  haunts  and  loneliness. 
Of  men,  the  chaste  adore  me,  hanging  crowns 
Of  poppies  red  to  blackness,  bell  and  stem, 
Upon  my  image  at  Athenai  here  ; 
And  this  dead  youth,  Asclepios  bends  above, 
Was  dearest  to  me. 

She  then  tells  the  story  in  a  way  very  still,  sustained, 
intense,  and,  as  it  seems  to  me,  eminently  classic.  There 
is  great  rapidity  and  spirited  conciseness  of  style  in  the 
lines  describing  the  overthrow  of  the  chariot  by  the  sea- 
beast,  and  the  dragging  of  Hippolutos  along  the  shore  : 

then  fell  the  steeds, 

Head-foremost,  crashing  in  their  mooned  fronts, 
Shivering  with  sweat,  each  white  eye  horror-fixed. 
His  people,  who  had  witnessed  all  afar, 
Bore  back  the  ruins  of  Hippolutos, 


GEEEK   SPIRIT   IN   SHELLEY   AND   BROWNING.        459 

But  when  his  sire,  too  swoln  with  pride,  rejoiced 

(Indomitable  as  a  mail  foredoomed) 

That  vast  Poseidon  had  fulfilled  his  prayer, 

I,  in  a  flood  of  glory  visible, 

Stood  o'er  my  dying  votary,  and,  deed 

By  deed,  revealed,  as  all  took  place,  the  truth. 

Proceed  thou  with  thy  wisest  pharmacies ! 
And  ye,  white  crowd  of  woodland  sister-nymphs, 
Ply,  as  the  sage  directs,  these  buds  and  leaves 
That  strew  the  turf  around  the  twain  !     While  I 
Await,  in  fitting  silence,  the  event. 

This  noble  poem  certainly  avoids  the  criticism  pro- 
nounced by  Matthew  Arnold  in  his  letters,  anent  Swin- 
burne's 'Atalanta,'  —  that  the  moderns  will  only  tolerate 
the  antique  on  condition  of  having  it  more  beautiful,  ac- 
cording to  their  ideas,  than  the  antique  itself.  There  is  no 
touch  of  ornament  here,  only  the  severe  story ;  the  beautjr, 
true  to  Greek  fashion,  is  in  subject  and  situation :  the 
virgin-goddess  beside  the  aged  Healer,  bending  over  the 
virgin-youth ;  no  sentimentalising  permitted  in  treatment. 
One  can  well  imagine  that  these  cool  verses  brought  re- 
freshment to  a  fevered  brain.  I  suppose  it  was  with  inten- 
tion that  Browning,  when  he  re-arranged  his  works,  placed 
this  poem  immediately  before  '  The  Strange  Medical  Expe- 
rience of  Karshish,  an  Arab  Physician,'  the  Pagan  legend 
of  resurrection,  with  its  serene  physical  character,  quite 
devoid  of  spiritual  suggestion,  before  his  wonderful  medi- 
tation on  the  Christian  Story  of  Lazarus.  He  was  fond 
of  such  juxtapositions. 

'_Cleon '  is  the  next  classic  study  which  we  find.  The 
poem,  very  brilliant,  is,  if  I  mistake  not,  of  especial  signifi- 
cance ;  for  in  it  Browning  first  shows  his  peculiar  attitude 
toward  antiquity,  —  an  attitude  which  I  think  he  is  alone 
in  holding  among  our  modern  poets,  —  that  of  the  critic. 
'  Cleon '  is  a  study  of  the  mind  of  a  cultured  Greek  of  the 
decadence,  when  Greek  civilisation  has  run  its  course  and 
told  its  whole  story,  —  a  characteristic  moment  for  Brown- 


460  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

ing  to  choose.  It  opens  with  four  lines  that  set  before  us 
the  outer  scene,  and  certain  vivid  hints  of  the  manners  of 
the  time,  their  courtesy,  and  their  respect  for  the  arts :  — 

Cleon  the  poet  (from  the  sprinkled  isles, 

Lily  on  lily,  that  o'er-lace  the  sea, 

And  laugh  their  pride  when  the  light  wave  lisps  "  Greece  ")  — 

To  Protus  ill  his  tyranny,  much  health  ! 

Vivid  though  the  setting  is,  Browning  cares  little  for  it. 
He  writes  out  of  no  enthusiasm  for  Greece,  but  out  of 
keen  desire  to  penetrate  her  intellectual  secrets,  and  to 
show  the  inadequacy  of  her  conception  of  life.  He  wishes 
to  analyse  the  "profound  discouragement  "  into  which, 
according  to  his  idea,  her  children  fall,  as  in  old  age  they 
realise  the  futility  of  seeking  to  comprehend  all  the  truth 
and  beauty  their  clear  spirit  sees,  within  finite  limits  of 
personality  or  time.  Cleon,  the  poet,  artist,  philosopher, 
the  versatile  and  cultured  man,  touching  all  arts,  achieving 
highest  excellence  in  none,  calls  upon  One  who  shall 
manifest  all  human  possibilities  in  one  supreme  perfection. 
Cleon,  the  elderly  man,  his  every  power  just  brought 
by  long  study  to  the  point  of  critical  fineness  where  life 
could  truly  be  enjoyed,  cries  out  in  despair,  menaced  by 
the  Final  Darkness.  The  dramatic  point  of  the  poem  is 
found  in  the  two  passages,  full  of  strange  pathos,  where 
Cleon  unconsciously  shows  the  two  great  Christian  truths 
necessary  to  make  his  Pagan  life  worth  living  :  — 

I.cng  since,  I  imaged,  wrote  the  fiction  out, 
That  [Zeus],  or  other  God,  descended  here, 
And,  once  for  all,  showed  simultaneously 
What,  in  its  nature,  never  can  be  shown, 
Piecemeal  or  in  succession  ;  —  showed,  I  say, 
The  worth  both  absolute  and  relative 
Of  all  his  children  from  the  birth  of  time. 

and 

It  is  so  horrible, 

I  dare  at  times  imagine  to  my  need 
Some  future  state  revealed  to  us  by  Zeus, 
Unlimited  in  capability 


GREEK   SPIRIT   IN   SHELLEY  AXD   BROWNING.        461 

For  joy,  as  this  is  in  desire  for  joy, 

.     .    .    But  no ! 

Zeus  has  not  yet  revealed  it ;  and  alas, 
He  must  have  done  so  —  were  it  possible  ! 

Thus  the  old  Pagan  civilisation,  according  to  Browning, 
reduces  itself  ad  absurdum,  and  Cleon,  its  mouthpiece  and 
representative,  declares :  — 

Where  is  the  sign  ?  I  ask, 
And  get  no  answer,  and  agree  in  sum, 

0  king,  with  thy  profound  discouragement, 
Who  seest  the  wider  but  to  sigh  the  more. 
Most  progress  is  most  failure  :  thou  sayest  well. 

There  's  a  splendid  dramatic  turn  at  the  end.  Cleon,  in 
his  desperate  sense  of  need,  has  cried :  — 

Zeus  has  not  yet  revealed  it ;  and  alas 
He  must  have  done  so  —  were  it  possible  ! 

He  turns,  with,  the  courteous  scorn  which  only  the  man  of 
culture  can  show,  to  answer  one  last  question  of  his 
correspondent :  — 

Live  long  and  happy,  and  in  that  thought  die; 
Glad  for  what  was !     Farewell.     And  for  the  rest, 

1  cannot  tell  thy  messenger  aright 
Where  to  deliver  what  he  bears  of  thine 

To  one  called  Paulus ;  we  have  heard  his  fame 

Indeed,  if  Christus  he  not  one  with  him  — 

I  know  not,  nor  am  troubled  much  to  know. 

Thou  canst  not  think  a  mere  barbarian  Jew 

As  Paulus  proves  to  be,  one  circumcised, 

Hath  access  to  a  secret  shut  from  us  ? 

Thou  wrongest  our  philosophy,  O  king, 

In  stooping  to  inquire  of  such  an  one, 

As  if  his  answer  could  impose  at  all! 

He  writeth,  doth  he  1     Well,  and  he  may  write. 

Oh,  the  Jew  findeth  scholars  !  certain  slaves 

Who  touched  on  this  same  isle,  preached  hi^i  and  Christ; 

And  (as  I  gathered  from  a  bystander) 

Their  doctrine  could  be  held  by  no  sane  man. 

Thus  confronting  dying  Greece  with  new-born  Christian- 
ity, Browning  turns  away.  We  are  left  to  imagine  how  the 
reply  of  Paul  to  Protus  would  differ  from  that  of  Cleon. 


462  BOSTON  BEOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEKS. 

I  have  dwelt  on  this  poem  because  of  its  significance, 
and  also  because  it  is,  for  a  long  time,  Browning's  last 
classical  study.  He  had  said  his  say,  —  a  short  one,  —  pro- 
nounced his  judgment,  and  passed  on.  The  poem  was 
written  in  1855.  Not  till  1871  did  he  give  the  world  his 
next  poem  on  a  Greek  subject,  '  Balaustion's  Adventure.' 
In  the  mean  time  he  had  published  '  Dramatis  Personse ' 
and  'The  Ring  and  the  Book.'  His  married  life  had 
closed.  His  message  had  been  given.  Through  all  Chris- 
tianised civilisation  his  spirit  had  roamed,  interpreting 
with  rare  passion  and  power  the  intensely  varied  possi- 
bilities of  human  experience.  In  '  The  Ring  and  the 
Book,'  in  particular,  he  had  made  close  study  of  Christian 
society  at  its  most  corrupt  period.  The  monologue  of  the 
Pope,  in  a  brilliant  passage  which  might  well  be  put  beside 
Cleon,  compares  the  results  of  Christian  civilisation  with 
those  which  might  be  pleaded  by  Euripides.  This  passage, 
if  I  mistake  not,  is  the  first  indication  of  Browning's  de- 
votion to  Euripides.  All  this  strong,  varied,  and  fiery 
work  —  the  work  of  his  prime  —  Browning  had  produced. 
Then  suddenly  he  turned  aside  —  from  what  impulse  who 
shall  say  ?  Perhaps  from  simple  wish  for  new  manifesta- 
tions of  human  life  to  explore ;  perhaps  from  a  little 
weariness  with  over-complex  Christianised  conditions,  a 
little  craving  for  the  freshness  and  savour  of  an  elder 
world.  Only  three  years  separate  Pompilia  from  Balaus- 
tion.  Slighted  Greece  claimed  her  own,  as  she  claims  it 
from  each  master-spirit.  Nor  would  she  leave  him  till 
her  claim  was  granted,  and  her  annals  enriched  by  'Ba- 
laustion's Adventure,'  '  Aristophanes'  Apology,'  —  the 
transcripts  from  Euripides,  and  the  translation  of  the 
'Agamemnon.'  The  decade  between  1871  and  1880  in- 
cludes all  Browning's  longer  classic  poems,  and  witnesses 
the  fervour  with  which  he  threw  his  great  intellect  at  its 
prime  back  upon  Hellenic  antiquity. 

The  two  short  Greek  poems  of  this  period  — '  Pheidip- 


GREEK   SPIRIT  IN   SHELLEY  AND   BROWNING.       463 

pides '  and  '  Echetlos '  —  have  a  different,  more  purely 
artistic  interest.  They  give  Browning's  splendid  and 
mature  power  in  classical  experiment.  The  poem  '  Phei- 
dippides,'  in  particular,  should  be  put  beside  the  early 
passages  in  '  Pauline,'  to  show  how  the  old  dream-mist  has 
faded  away,  and  the  images  stand  out  clean-cut,  masterly, 
seen  through  pure,  autumnal  air.  Chairete,  Nikomen —  the 
words  ring  through  our  ears.  Here  we  have  Browning  on 
Shelley's  own  ground.  Here,  for  once,  is  the  delighted 
rendering  of  a  Greek  myth,  here  the  statuesque  conception 
of  athletic  prowess,  here  the  splendid  passion  For  Greece 
and  freedom.  But  we  wear  our  rue  with  a  difference. 
The  beautiful  statue  is  poised  on  no  relief;  he  races  in 
long  steady  stress  between  Athens  and  Sparta,  a  real 
youth,  whose  panting  breath  keeps  time  to  our  own  across 
the  centuries.  The  god,  too,  is  no  bright  emanation  of  air 
and  intellect,  like  Shelley's  Olympians ;  he  is  a  splendid, 
grotesque,  shaggy  creature,  over  whose  kindly  counte- 
nance spreads  the  "  good  gigantic  smile  o'  the  brown 
old  earth." 

There,  in  the  cool  of  a  cleft,  sat  he  —  majestioal  Pan  ! 

Ivy  drooped  wanton,  kissed  his  head,  moss  cushioned  his  hoof. 

All  the  great  God  was  good,  in  the  eyes  grave-kindly  — the  curl 

Carved  on  the  bearded  cheek,  amused  at  a  mortal's  awe, 

As,  under  the  human  trunk,  the  goat-thighs  grand  I  saw. 

The  passion  for  freedom  is  no  longer  lyrical  and  abstract; 
it  is  embodied  in  history,  enhanced  by  the  background  of 
contention  between  Athens  and  Sparta,  and  carried  onward 
into  the  very  field  of  Marathon.  Character  and  fact  have 
replaced  abstraction  and  fantasy. 

In  the  greater  poems,  which  the  Browning  Society  has 
this  year  so  carefully  considered,  Browning's  distinctive 
method  of  treating  classic  subjects  reaches  full  develop- 
ment. And  how  unique  it  is !  Regardless  of  Greek 
myths  or  Greek  ideals,  he  makes  straight  for  Greek 
life :  — 


464  BOSTON   BKOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Lo,  the  past  is  hurled 

In  twain :  up-thrust,  out-staggering  ou  the  world, 
Subsiding  into  shape,  a  darkness  rears 
Its  outline,  kindles  at  the  core,  appears  — 

not  Verona  this  time,  but  Athens.  His  imagination  works 
directly  on  the  complex  social  and  artistic  conditions  of 
that  ancient  city.  I  do  not  know  any  man  of  vision  who 
has  given  so  brilliant  a  delineation  of  Greek  society  as 
Browning.  I  know  none  who  has  attempted  it  except 
Walter  Savage  Landor,  and  I  wish  some  enterprising  mem- 
ber of  our  Society  would  set  his  '  Pericles  and  Aspasia ' 
against  '  Balaustion  '  and  '  Aristophanes.'  Perhaps  these 
poems,  with  their  easy  wealth  of  illustration  and  their 
wide  intellectual  interest,  could  hardly  have  been  written 
before  the  epoch  of  modern  scholarship.  The  imagination 
plays  in  them  on  the  results  of  close  classical  study.  As 
we  owe  the  Hellenic  poems  of  Shelley  to  an  aesthetic  and 
philosophical  inspiration,  derived  from  classic  literature,  so 
in  lirowning  the  historic  sense  comes  into  play,  nourished 
on  the  records  of  Hellenic  life. 

The  first  thing  to  strike  us  as  we  read  these  brilliant 
poems,  is  that  Browning  is  in  his  own  way  as  great  an 
enthusiast  for  Greece  as  Shelley  himself,  or  Swinburne,  or 
Che'nier.  No  imaginative  writer  has  proved  himself  more 
splendidly  appreciative  of  what  we  consider  the  classic 
ideal  of  beauty,  with  its  bright  dignity.  The  beauty 
centres  of  course  in  Balaustion,  one  of  his  loveliest  crea- 
tions. Pure  Greek  assuredly  she  is ;  single-hearted,  ardent, 
unconscious,  gracious,  yet  with  all  her  high  simplicity  keen 
of  wits  and  swift  in  scorn.  She  is  set  apart  from  Brown- 
ing's modern  women  by  her  pure  directness  of  passion 
and  intent.  What  could  be  fairer  setting  to  her  first 
Adventure  than  the  sight  of  her,  surrounded  by  her  four 
listening  friends  —  Petals',  Phullis,  Charope*,  Chrusion, 
clustering  around  her, 

with  each  red-ripe  mouth 

Crumpled  so  close,  no  quickest  breath  it  fetched 
Could  disengage  the  lip-flower  furled  to  hud. 


GEEEK   SPIRIT   IN   SHELLEY   AND   BROWNING.        465 

What  classical  idealist  could  fail  to  be  satisfied  with  the 
picture  of  Balaustion,  springing  on  the  ship's  altar  and 
swaying  and  singing  there,  while  to  the  music  of  her  high 
song  the  rowers  drive  the  pursued  ship  fiercely  forward 
through  the  black  sea  ?  As  she  stands  in  her  impassioned 
purity  on  the  steps  of  the  Temple  of  Herakles,  pressed  by 
the  eager  Syracusans  breathless  for  the  Alkestis-tale,  while 
Euthukles  sits  reverent  at  her  feet,  our  thought  goes  back 
to  the  Cythna  of  Shelley,  chanting  the  psean  of  freedom  by 
the  Altar  of  the  Federation.  The  beauty  is  the  same;  but 
warm  human  interest,  and  emotions  historically  possible, 
have  replaced  Shelley's  bright  dream. 

The  Greece  of  Shelley  lives  in  the  heart  of  Balaustion ; 
but  how  much  more  besides !  Through  the  lips  of  this 
"  lyric  girl,"  rather  than  through  a  disquisition,  Browning 
elects  to  tell  us  of  the  prime  and  decadence  of  the  arts  in 
Greece.  Incidentally,  many  of  the  chief  features  of  Greek 
intellectual  life  come  out  —  always  against  the  suggested 
background  of  political  turmoil.  The  picture  is  vividly 
alive,  and,  at  least  in  the  first  poem,  inspiriting.  The 
wholesome  vigour  of  a  civilisation  where  the  arts  were  the 
heritage  of  all,  natural  as  air  to  the  entire  populace,  instead 
of  being,  as  too  often  to-day,  the  monopoly  of  a  languid 
aesthetic  aristocracy,  never  has  been  better  rendered.  There 
is  a  delightful  simplicity  and  sanity  about  the  whole  thing. 
True  to  fact,  and  to  his  own  constant  impulse,  Browning 
gives  us  no  cloudy  vision  of  glory  and  freedom,  but  a 
society  in  flux  of  life,  where  fermenting  forces  are  at  work, 
moving,  alas !  to  deterioration.  Two  stages  of  a  great 
civilisation  are  imaged  in  these  poems. 

It  is  characteristic  of  our  Victorian  poet  that  he  does  not 
choose  for  his  study  the  Age  of  Pericles.  That  splendid 
Thirty  Years  —  it  was  no  more  —  still  to  the  instinct  of 
the  world  as  to  the  instinct  of  Shelley  means  the  whole 
concept  "  Greece."  Browning's  first  poem  gives  us  Greece 
yet  aglow  with  more  than  the  memory  of  the  great  age. 

30 


466  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

Spphokles  and  Euripides  still  uphold  the  high  tradition 
of  Art  and  Freedom ;  yet  already  Nikias  is  defeated,  and 
the  islands  rise  against  the  dominion  of  Athens.  Fac- 
tions are  virulent,  though,  "  because  Greeks  are  Greeks,  and 
hearts  are  hearts,  and  poetry  is  power,"  Balaustion  is  able 
for  one  brief  splendid  hour  to  lift  men  into  high  loyalty 
to  art  and  Hellas.  'Aristophanes'  is  placed  soine  years 
later.  The  disaster  has  come.  Balaustion  once  more 
speeds  across  the  ^gean,  humiliated,  scornful.  Sparta 
has  triumphed ;  the  walls  of  Athens  are  laid  low.  Look- 
ing back,  the  Lady  with  her  warm  golden  eyes  reviews  for 
us  the  conditions  which  led  to  the  great  downfall.  "  The 
poetry  and  prose  of  a  life  "  Browning  always  loved  to  show 
us  in  successive  acts.  Balaustion's  first  Adventure  is  the 
poetry  of  Greece ;  her  second,  its  prose.  Aristophanes 
succeeds  Euripides  ;  surrounded  by  his  rollicking  chorus 
of  scoffers,  he  bursts  into  Balaustion's  presence.  Before 
her  grave  Greek  purity,  —  how  effective  the  picture !  —  the 
ribald  crowd  slinks  abashed  away  :  — 

Witness  whom  you  scare, 
Superb  Balaustion, 

chuckles  the  comic  poet,  with  swift  dramatic  sense.  Dis- 
missing these  attendants,  the  great  and  grotesque  Master 
makes  his  Apology  to  Balaustion  and  to  us ;  reveals  with 
keenest  satire  the  weak  side  of  that  brilliant  society,  its 
foibles  which  he  flattered,  its  scandal  which  he  fostered, 
its  impatience  of  high  aims  in  politics  or  art.  Greece  is 
still  Greece,  and  Aristophanes,  subtle,  slippery,  scintillat- 
ing, has  the  old  intellectual  brilliance.  But  subtlety  in 
him  has  gone  too  far,  and  his  shifting  sophistry,  his  casu- 
istical excuses  for  loose  speech  and  life,  the  side-lights 
thrown  on  the  fickleness  and  irreverence  of  the  Athenian 
populace,  show  better  than  pages  of  historical  disquisi- 
tion how  that  bright  Pagan  life  moved  to  disaster.  It 
is  the  Athens  of  the  decadence  which  he  gives  us,  in  brief 
vignette  of  theatre,  street,  or  banquet,  —  a  city  crossed  now 


GREEK   SPIRIT  IN   SHELLEY  AND   BROWNING.        467 

and  then  by  the  grave  pale  shadow  of  Sophokles,  or  hushed 
into  brief  respect  by  the  message  of  the  death  of  its  third 
great  tragedian,  only  to  break  forth  into  fiercer  carousing. 
This  Greece  —  imaged  in  environment  by  Aristophanes' 
talk,  in  essence  by  his  personality  —  this  Greece  was  bound 
to  fall.  Close  to  history,  close  to  the  inexorable  truths  of 
the  moral  law,  Browning  has  given  us  an  entirely  new 
revivification  of  classic  fact. 

Close  to  history  —  but  are  we  sure  of  the  statement? 
Plenty  of  readers  are  found  to  deny  the  claim  a  bit  scorn- 
fully ;  to  assert  that  '  Aristophanes'  Apology '  is  no  more 
really  Greek  than  '  Ferishtah's  Fancies  '  is  Persian,  —  that 
both  are  a  convenient  garb  for  English  Browning.  Proba- 
bly the  style  is  chiefly  responsible  for  this  impression.  Our 
neo-pagan  imitations  as  a  rule,  from  Shelley  to  Arnold  and 
Swinburne,  are  limpid,  simple,  and  pure,  —  smooth  reading, 
in  which  tongue  and  thought  slip  easily  along,  assured  that 
no  incorrectness  or  obscurity  will  break  the  even  tenor 
of  dignity.  Browning's  style  can  be  dignified  and  even 
with  the  best;  yet  how  often  it  brings  up  the  hapless 
reader  with  a  jolt,  sets  him  to  hair-splitting  subtleties, 
maddens  a  slow  brain  by  elisions,  contractions,  and  hints, 
and  a  pleasure-loving  one  by  harsh  concatenation  of  con- 
sonants !  Very  modern,  doubtless ;  and  yet  —  I  speak 
timidly,  lest  student-recollections  play  me  false  —  is  there 
not  another  aspect  to  Greek  style  besides  serenity  and 
lucidity?  Did  not  that  amazing  people  write  at  times 
with  a  lofty  abruptness  which  clashes  harshly  upon  ear 
and  mind,  with  swift,  bewildering  condensation,  with  sud- 
den turns  and  subtle  hints  enough  to  require  volumes  of 
footnotes  from  a  languid  generation?  If  I  am  wrong,  cer- 
tain hours  spent  over  tragic  choruses,  and  over  pages  of 
Thucydides  —  I  beg  Browning's  pardon,  Thoukudides  — 
were  strangely  misleading.  Plenty  of  poets  are  eager  to 
imitate  the  clearness  and  self-restraint  and  harmony  of 
Greek  style;  I  know  none  except  Browning  who  has 


468  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEES. 

seized  on  its  difficulty,  its  intense  almost  rude  concise- 
ness, thought-freighted,  thought-divided.  These  are  the 
qualities  which  make  his  rugged  translation  of  the 
'  Agamemnon '  so  imposing  to  me :  — 

The  tenth  year  this,  since  Priamos'  great  match, 
King  Menelaos,  Agamemnon  king, 
—  The  strenuous  yoke-pair  of  the  Atreiclai's  honour  — 
Two-throned,  two-sceptred,  whereof  Zeus  was  donor, 
Did  from  this  land  the  aid,  the  armament  despatch, 
The  thousaud-sailored  force  of  Argives  clamouring 
"  Ares  "  from  out  the  indignant  breast. 

I  think  that  much  more  sincere  work  than :  — 

This  year  is  the  tenth  since  to  plead  their  right 
'Gainst  Priam  with  arms  in  the  court  of  fight 
Two  monarchs  of  throned  and  sceptred  reign 
Vicegerents  of  Zeus,  the  Atridae  twain, 

Led  from  this  coast  their  warlike  host, 
With  a  thousand  vessels  to  cross  the  main, 

From  their  soul  fierce  battle  crying. 

It  may  of  course  be  urged  that  much  roughness  and 
obscurity  in  the  narrative  portions  of  Greek  tragedy  are 
due  to  corruption  of  the  text,  and  that  a  translator  should 
not  follow  this  accidental  effect.  Yet  when  all  is  said, 
Browning's  'Agamemnon'  bears  much  the  same  relation 
to  our  ordinary  classic  transcripts  that  the  majestic  shat- 
tered remains  of  the  Temple  of  Poseidon  at  Psestum 
bear  to  modern  Greek  architecture,  such  for  instance  as 
our  Bostonian  St.  Paul's  on  Tremont  Street. 

The  question  of  accuracy  is  yet  more  subtle  and  unan- 
swerable when  we  turn  to  the  delineation  of  Greek  life. 
We  can  never,  of  course,  reach  any  surety  in  such  a  ques- 
tion, since  no  living  mortal  can  escape  the  modern  per- 
sonal equation  in  judgment.  Browning  is  certainly  no 
belated  Greek,  and  the  spirit  of  Hellas  never  leaps  in 

his     VeinS.          TTp     IS     a     Christian      prmc^/raining     T^mcolf.     £a 

enter  an  alien  ^world.  His  sub-conscious  appeal  to  the 
modern  audience  is  never  absent ;  in  a  word,  he  is  not  the 


GEEEK   SPIEIT   IN   SHELLEY  AND  BKOWNLNG.       469 


countryman  but  the  critic  of  his  p.rpa.t.inryi.  But  the  critic 
to-day  no  longer  looks  at  his  subject  from  afar,  or  touches 
it  with  cool,  distant  finger.  He  darts  to  the  centre  of  his 
subject  and  speaks  thence  ;  be  has  become  the  interpreter. 
So  Browning,  in  these  poems,  projects  the  light  of  his 
whole  rare  intelligence  and  imagination  upon  Greek  soci- 
ety, and  he  would  be  a  pedant  indeed  who  found  the  result 
without  value.  Specific  inconsistencies  and  inaccuracies 
of  detail  might  indeed  be  discovered.  Would  a  high- 
minded  woman  of  that  period,  we  may  ask,  be  able  to  play 
the  public  part  of  Balaustion  ?  More  serious,  in  a  way,  are 
the  points  where  the  modern  man  drops  his  ancient  mask, 
and  Browning  resorts  to  his  favourite  device  and  puts  into 
the  mouth  of  his  characters  unconscious  prophecy.  One 
detail  of  this  kind  is  the  constant  reaching  forward  through 
the  aesthetic  discussion  to  the  poet  who  shall  combine  com- 
edy and  tragedy,  the  Shakespeare  who  is  to  be.  I  am 
never  sure  how  far  this  trick  of  Browning's  is  legitimate, 
but  it  is  always  interesting.  In  these  poems,  however,  it 
is  of  infrequent  occurrence.  Despite  slips  in  fact  and 
spirit,  I  do  not  see  how  any  one  can  read  the  poems 
without  feeling  that  the  poet  of  Christianity  and  the 
Renascence  has  for  the  time  being  retreated  in  a  really 
masterly  way  within  the  spiritual  and  intellectual  horizon 
open  before  the  time  of  Christ.  If  proof  of  Browning's 
imaginative  scholarship  were  needed,  a  mere  comparison 
of  the  range  of  thought  and  feeling  in  Christian  Pompilia 
and  Greek  Balaustion  will  be  convincing  witness. 

Greece  was  only  an  episode  to  Browning.  Once  more, 
in  the  '  Parleyings  with  Gerard  de  Lairesse,'  he  returned 
to  delightful  brooding,  something  after  the  '  Pauline  ' 
manner,  over  fair  classic  myths,  only  to  end  with  deliber- 
ate plea  for  the  modern  and  the  real.  His  pilgrim  mind 
pressed  out  into  our  present  world  where  paradoxes 
thicken,  the  world  of  Napoleon  III.  and  Le*once  Miranda. 
His  powers  played  with  the  old  freedom  again  on  Chris- 


470  BOSTON  BEOWNCSTG   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

tian  thought  in  '  Ferishtah's  Fancies,'  on  personal  revela- 
tions in  '  Asolando.'  Only  one  short  episode  in  a  varied 
intellectual  career.  But  what  an  episode  !  Browning  the 
alien  gives  us  in  this  handful  of  poems  more  of  real 
Greece,  the  Greece  of  history,  than  has  Shelley  or  Swin- 
burne or  any  neo-pagan  by  instinct  and  by  choice.  To 
Shelley,  Athens  is 

a  city  such  as  vision 

Builds  from  the  purple  crags  aud  silver  towers 
Of  battlemeuted  cloud. 

To  Browning,  it  is  the  home  of  men  and  women,  whose 
eager  interests  we  may  share,  and  whose  warm  friendship 
may  be  ours.  His  way  and  Shelley's  are  both  good: 
good  to  respond  with  the  idealist  to  the  Vision  of  wisdom, 
beauty,  freedom  —  good  also,  with  the  psychologist  and 
dramatist,  to  feel  the  strong  strange  fellowship  of  human 
life,  spanning  centuries  and  civilisations.  Greece,  the 
k'  Mother  of  the  Free  ! "  She  has  shaped  and  controlled 
the  spirit  of  the  poet  who  chiefly  among  moderns  sings 
the  liberty  of  the  race ;  and  she  has,  if  not  shaped,  yet 
enriched  and  diversified  the  power  of  the  poet  who,  chief 
among  moderns,  has  revealed  the  liberty  of  the  soul.  She 
is  unexhausted  yet;  who  can  tell  what  new  inspiration 
she  may  hold,  what  new  spiritual  affinities  she  may 
awaken,  in  the  poet  of  the  future?  The  calm  correctness 
of  Addison,  the  revolt  of  Shelley  and  Swinburne,  the  weary 
resignation  of  Arnold,  the  realistic  subtlety  of  Browning, 
all  hark  back  to  Greece,  all  present  themselves  in  her 
name  and  with  her  sanction.  Assuredly,  those  yet  to 
come  will  bring  new  treasures  to  the  race  still  in  that 
sacred  name. 


THE   NATURE   ELEMENT  IN   BROWNING'S 
POETRY. 

Br  EMMA  ENDICOTT  MAREAN. 

[Read  before  the  Bostou  Browning  Society,  March  23,  1897.] 

NATURE  has  always  exercised  a  compelling  influence  over 
the  mind  of  man.  The  glory  of  the  heavens,  the  solem- 
nity of  the  forest  shades,  the  hush  of  early  dawn,  and  the 
mystery  of  the  ever-changing  ocean,  touched  him  ages  ago 
with  irresistible  attraction.  The  early  mythologies  are  a 
proof  of  their  power  to  subdue,  to  uplift,  and  to  renew. 
The  hymn  of  the  Aryan  worshipper  at  daybreak,  the  chant 
of  the  American  Indian,  the  handkiss  of  the  Persian,  have 
all  had  back  of  them  that  instinctive  reverence  of  the  soul 
in  the  presence  of  an  eternal  witness  to  some  power  greater 
than  itself. 

Yet  there  have  been  changes  in  the  spirit  with  which 
man  has  approached  nature,  none  the  less  real  because 
they  are  in  some  respects  hard  to  define.  Speaking  briefly, 
one  may  say  that  the  characteristic  of  the  nature  element 
in  Greek  literature  is  form  rather  than  suggestion,  and 
that  the  word  of  nature  to  man  was  embodied  in  definite 
legend  rather  than  in  the  expression  of  conscious  sym- 
pathy or  suggestion.  The  love  of  nature  for  its  own  sake 
was  practically  unrecognised  even  where  it  may  be  de- 
tected, and  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  appreciate  the  delicacy 
and  ingenuousness  of  that  emotion  which  created  the 
myths,  and  repeated  them  again  and  again.  This  Greek 
feeling  for  nature  allures  while  it  baffles  us.  Our  poets 


472  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

sigh  backward  for  the  old-world  unconsciousness  and  wish 
that  they 

had  been  born  in  nature's  day, 
When  man  was  in  the  world  a  wide-eyed  boy. 

The  new  glow  of  life  and  exuberance  of  feeling  that 
flooded  the  world  with  the  advent  of  the  Elizabethans  was 
expressed  in  their  interpretations  of  nature  hardly  less 
than  in  the  swing  and  spirit  with  which  they  set  forth 
dramatic  action,  or  revealed  with  masterly  strokes  the 
many-sidedness  of  human  nature.  The  breath  of  outdoor 
life  was  genuine,  and  betrayed  no  hint  of  the  study  or 
of  the  stage.  Its  sincerity  was  made  evident  by  simple 
touches  of  incidental  description,  too  fine  and  accurate  not 
to  have  been  the  outcome  of  experience ;  secondly,  there 
was  in  it  the  glow  and  richness  of  imagination,  equal  to 
creating  a  new  world  of  light  and  colour;  and,  finally, 
nature  appeared,  not  as  a  background,  or  with  definite, 
fixed  significance,  as  in  the  days  of  the  Greeks,  but  with  a 
bewildering  variety  of  suggestion  that  illustrated  human 
nature,  and  might  be  compared  with  it.  The  imagination 
that  could  interpret  the  world  of  human  life  by  the  objec- 
tive universe,  the  exquisite  comparisons  that  wove  the  two 
together,  might  almost  have  seemed  to  leave  nothing  over 
for  later  poets  to  express ;  but  with  the  coming  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  two  entirely  new  elements  entered 
into  the  poetry  of  nature,  influencing  new  periods  of  poetic 
vitality. 

The  first  of  these  two  elements  came  in  the  reaction 
against  all  traditional  or  conventional  authority  which 
dominated  the  thinkers  and  the  poets  of  the  opening  cen- 
tury. The  causes  that  led  to  the  French  Revolution,  the 
clash  of  opinions,  and  the  conflict  of  ideals  which  accom- 
panied it,  influenced  deeply  the  thoughts  of  men  in  Eng- 
land, and  the  new  tendency  showed  itself,  not  only  in  the 
enthusiasm  for  freedom  in  political  and  social  directions, 
but  in  a  desire  to  throw  off  the  bonds  of  ecclesiastical  and 


NATURE   ELEMENT  IN  BROWNING'S   POETRY.        473 

theological  restraint  and  to  put  in  their  place  attractions 
and  feelings  deeper  but  far  less  definite.  The  wonderful 
poetry  of  the  Elizabethans,  born  out  of  the  fresh  feeling 
and  eager  spirit  of  the  age,  must  be  compared  with  poetry, 
equally  vital  and  genuine,  equally  the  expression  of  inten- 
sified national  ideals. 

The  glory  of  external  nature  thrilled  the  souls  of  the 
new  poets  through  and  through.  In  it  they  found  re- 
vealed a  diviner  beauty  and  goodness  than  their  creeds  had 
taught,  and  they  yielded  themselves  to  a  pantheistic  adora- 
tion, whose  spiritual  passion  thrills  us  yet.  The  love  of 
nature  was  itself  a  religion.  Through  it  they  could  look 
to  the  God  of  nature,  here  revealed  as  nowhere  else. 
There  is  a  rapture,  a  self-surrender,  about  the  writings  of 
their  poets  that  is  not  repeated  by  their  successors.  Even 
Wordsworth,  reflective  as  he  is,  addresses  the  skylark  with 

There  's  madness  about  thee,  and  joy  divine 

In  that  song  of  thine ; 

Lift  me,  guide  me  high  and  high 

To  thy  dwelling-place  in  the  sky ; 

and  he  could  listen  to  the  wandering  voice  of  the  cuckoo 
until  the  earth  seemed  an  unsubstantial,  fairy  place,  and 
the  bird  itself  rather  "a  hope,  a  voice,"  longed  for  but 
never  seen,  than  a  veritable  creature  of  English  woods  and 
air.  The  intense,  compelling  emotion  of  Keats'  'Ode  to 
the  Nightingale  '  is  hardly  more  than  representative,  and 
Shelley's  '  Ode  to  the  West  Wind '  is  as  ardent  and  heart- 
thrilling  as  any  expression  of  religious  devotion. 

No  one  would  claim  that  these  poets  were  indifferent  to 
the  world  of  activity  around  them,  unless  one  may  except 
Keats;  but  their  writings  reveal  a  distinct  tendency  to 
exalt  nature  at  the  expense  of  man.  Byron,  whose  rebel- 
lious individualism  was  balanced  neither  by  the  intellec- 
tual serenity  of  Wordsworth,  nor  by  Shelley's  boundless 
sympathy  with  suffering,  aspiring  humanity,  nor  by  Keats' 


474  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY   PAPERS. 

passionate  longing  for  harmony  between  the  inward  vision 
and  the  outward  symbol,  wrote  — 

High  mountains  are  a  feeling,  but  the  hum 

Of  human  cities  torture ;  I  can  see 

Nothing  to  loathe  iu  nature,  save  to  be 

A  link  reluctant  in  a  fleshly  chain, 

Classed  among  creatures,  when  the  soul  can  flee 

And  with  the  sky,  the  peak,  the  heaving  plain 

Of  ocean  and  the  stars,  mingle  and  not  in  vain. 

Even  Wordsworth,  with  his  unwavering  insistence  on 
duty,  and  the  joys  to  be  found  in  simple  affections,  wrote 
about  "  our  meddling  intellects,"  and  supplies  various 
illustrations  of  this  tendency.  All  the  poets  witness  to  the 
fact  that  with  this  period  a  new  element  of  worship  entered 
into  the  poetry  of  nature,  of  which  one  must  take  account 
in  order  to  understand  the  significance  of  their  successors. 
The  second  and  later  element  which  modified  the  char- 
acteristic of  which  I  have  just  spoken,  and,  in  some  re- 
spects, absolutely  reversed  the  attitude  of  poets  and  critics 
alike,  has  been,  of  course,  science.  Many  a  critic  has 
deplored  the  results  likely  to  appear  from  the  introduction 
of  this  new  element,  with  its  inevitable  tendencies  toward 
realism  and  exactness  of  statement.  It  was  Stedman  who 
wrote  in  1875,  "  The  truth  is,  that  our  schoolgirls  and 
spinsters  wander  down  the  lanes  with  Darwin,  Huxley, 
and  Spencer  under  their  arms ;  or  if  they  carry  Tennyson, 
Longfellow,  and  Morris,  read  them  in  the  light  of  spec- 
trum analysis,  or  test  them  by  the  economics  of  Mill  and 
Bain."  Mr.  George  Willis  Cooke  wrote  in  1886:  "Theo- 
retically, science  should  put  no  obstacles  in  the  way  of  a 
poet,  but,  practically,  it  has  acted  as  a  check  of  the  most 
serious  kind ; "  and  he  felt  that  the  results  of  the  scientific 
impulse  and  method  on  poetry  might  be  noted  by  depres- 
sion and  exhaustion.  With  all  due  respect  to  the  familiar 
formula,  "  An  age  of  science  cannot  be  an  age  of  song," 
one  need  simply  say  with  Professor  Norton  and  Miss  Vida 


NATURE   ELEMENT   IN   BROWNING'S   POETRY.        475 

Scudder,  "  Ah,  but  it  has  been,"  and  call  the  roll  of  the 
poets,  who  but  yesterday  lived  among  us. 

The  true  poets  themselves  have  never  feared  the  effect 
of  science  on  their  Muse,  in  spite  of  the  declaration  made 
in  1870,  by  the  present  poet  laureate  of  England,  that  not 
even  Shakespeare  himself  could  have  written  poetry  in  an 
age  of  such  intellectual  discord  as  our  own.  It  has  been 
pointed  out  more  than  once  that  the  poets  have  prefigured 
by  their  imagination  what  the  scientists  have  afterwards 
formulated  for  us  as  fact.  The  fifth  act  of  Browning's 
'  Paracelsus,'  and  the  one  hundred  and  seventeenth  canto 
of  Tennyson's  '  In  Memoriam,'  appeared  long  before  '  The 
Origin  of  Species ; '  yet  both  are  as  clear  and  as  poetic 
statements  of  the  evolution  theory  as  could  ever  have  been 
made  of  life  on  the  basis  of  special  creation,  and  Words- 
worth's famous  prophecy  was  fulfilled  without  a  question. 
The  entire  drama  of  '  Paracelsus  '  is  at  once  a  welcome  to 
the  new  scientific  ideal,  and  a  recognition  of  the  truth  that 
man  cannot  live  by  science  alone.  No  matter  how  much 
we  may  learn,  and  however  far  back  we  may  pusli  the 
limits  of  knowledge,  still  our  reach  will  for  ever  exceed 
our  grasp,  and  the  heaven  of  a  complete  life  must  include 
the  development  and  satisfaction  of  many  tendencies  and 
longings. 

The  poets  then  were  not  unfriendly  to  the  new  divinity 
thus  shaping  their  ends.  Nevertheless,  it  was  inevitable 
that  new  thoughts  of  evolution  and  unity  should  put  a 
new  significance  into  the  entire  universe,  and  it  became 
necessary  to  readjust  our  thoughts  of  the  relation  in  which 
man  stands  to  the  eternal  forces  working  in  and  through 
it.  The  twin  ideas  of  democracy  and  science  have  in- 
vested man  in  his  every  condition  with  a  new  interest. 
Nature  poetry  has  been  not  outgrown,  not  in  any  sense 
outgrown,  but  correlated  with  wider  thoughts  of  man  and 
his  development.  Problems  of  the  spirit  engaged  the 
poets  as  well  as  the  thinkers.  They  wrestled  with  the 


476  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

treacheries  of  doubt,  the  demands  of  the  intellect,  the  new 
conceptions  of  social  progress.  In  a  time  like  this,  nature 
became  the  refuge  and  the  comfort,  the  restorer  of  the 
wearied  soul.  The  sadness  of  the  earlier  nature  poetry, 
which  contrasted  the  change  and  decay  of  human  life  with 
the  unconscious  perfection  of  the  exterior  universe,  yielded 
to  the  thought  of  life  eternal  in  eternally  changing  form. 
The  sphinx  took  on  a  merry  mood  and  turned  on  man  with 
the  challenge,  "  Thou  art  the  unanswered  question." 

Again,  these  poets,  touched  by  the  spirit  of  a  scientific 
age,  ceased  to  dream  and  began  to  observe.  The  observa- 
tion has  often  been  loving,  sometimes  even  rapturous,  but 
it  has  been  observation,  not  absorption  nor  self-surrender. 
They  have  not  resigned  the  poet's  prerogative  to  press 
nature  into  the  service  of  the  heart,  but  they  do  this  with 
a  fidelity  to  truth  that  courts  the  test  of  analysis  as  well 
as  the  test  of  suggestion. 

Although  the  Victorian  poets  have  certain  characteris- 
tics in  common,  distinguishing  them  from  the  poets  of 
other  periods,  yet  there  are  interesting  and  significant 
differences  between  their  individual  dependence  on  nature, 
no  less  distinctive  than  the  differences  between  their  poetic 
work  taken  as  a  whole.  The  artist  among  them  is  Tenny- 
son. His  lovely  landscapes,  suggestive  of  careful  culture, 
lifelike  as  scenes  one  can  remember,  seem  especially  in  his 
earlier  work  to  ally  most  closely  the  art  of  painting  and 
the  art  of  poetry.  Later  nature  is  used  more  often  to 
reflect  the  mood  of  the  poem.  Emerson  is  our  priest, 
who  sees  in  each  fresh  manifestation  of  nature  the  divin- 
ity behind  it,  who  seeks  ever  for  the  absolute  meaning, 
and  whose  eye  reads  omens  where  it  goes.  On  him  the 
world-soul  presses  close,  and  the  stars  tell  secrets  of  being. 
Nevertheless,  to  him  as  to  the  other  poets  of  his  truth-seek- 
ing age,  man  is  "  the  salt  of  all  the  elements,  world  of  the 
world."  The  Parthenon,  the  pyramids,  the  English  abbeys, 
are  of  equal  date  with  Andes  and  with  Ararat.  He  can 


NATURE  ELEMENT   IN  BROWNING'S  POETRY.        477 

spare  nothing  out  of  his  world,  neither  "  water  nor  wine, 
tobacco-leaf  nor  poppy  nor  rose."  Everything  is  akin  to 
him,  but  he  says  "  I  will  sift  it  all."  For  him  the  world 
was  built  in  order  and  the  atoms  inarched  in  tune.  The 
pine-tree  sang  of  the  genesis  of  things,  of  eternal  tenden- 
cies, of  star-dust  and  of  rounded  worlds,  but  he  yielded 
nothing  of  his  own  individuality.  Ruskin's  "pathetic 
fallacy  "  had  no  delusions  for  him,  and  he  kept  his  cherub 
scorn  for  those  whose  botany  consists  in  knowing  Latin 
names,  and  who  are 

strangers  to  the  stars, 

And  strangers  to  the  mystic  bird  and  beast, 
And  strangers  to  the  plant  and  to  the  mine. 

When  we  come  to  the  nature  poetry  of  Browning,  we 
find  that  with  him  nature  is  less  a  means  of  ornamentation 
than  it  is  Avith  Tennyson,  less  a  source  of  personal  enjoy- 
ment and  universal  revelation  than  it  is  with  Emerson, 
less  a  refuge  or  anodyne  for  pain  than  it  is  with  Arnold. 
It  is  subordinated  to  human  nature  to  a  degree  not  found 
in  any  other  poet  except  Shakespeare,  who  uses  it  in  much 
the  same  fashion.  The  development  of  a  soul  and  inci- 
dents in  that  development  have  always  the  first,  the  su- 
preme, the  absorbing  interest  for  Browning,  and  he  frankly 
announces  his  position  more  than  once,  as  in  an  interlude 
of  '  Ferishtah's  Fancies ' :  — 

Round  us  the  wild  creatures,  overhead  the  trees, 

Under  foot  the  moss-tracks,  —  life  and  love  with  these  ! 

I  to  wear  a  fawn-skin,  thou  to  dress  in  flowers : 

All  the  long  lone  Summer-day,  that  greenwood  life  of  ours ! 

So,  for  us  no  world  ?     Let  throngs  press  thee  to  me ! 

Up  and  down  amid  men,  heart  by  heart  fare  we! 

Welcome  squalid  vesture,  harsh  voice,  hateful  face! 

God  is  soul,  souls  I  and  thou  :  with  souls  should  souls  have  place. 

In  '  Fra  Lippo  Lippi '  he  puts  it  thus  :  — 

You  've  seen  the  world 

—  The  beauty  and  the  wonder  and  the  power, 
The  shapes  of  things,  their  colours,  lights  and  shades, 


478  BOSTON  BROWNING  SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Changes,  surprises,  —  and  God  made  it  all ! 

Do  you  feel  thankful,  ay  or  no, 
For  this  fair  town's  face,  yonder  river's  line, 
The  mountain  round  it  and  the  sky  above, 
Much  more  the  figures  of  man,  woman,  child, 
These  are  the  frame  to  ? 

Then  there  is  that  other  poem  for  which  so  many  need- 
lessly mystical  explanations  have  been  made,  'Wanting 
is  —  what  ? '  To  me  it  expresses  that  longing  which 
sometimes  takes  possession  of  one  in  the  loveliest  and 
most  soul-satisfying  of  solitary  places,  the  longing  for  a 
companionship  of  enjoyment.  Without  the  sense  of  hu- 
man companionship  the  world  remains  a  blank,  "Frame- 
work which  waits  for  a  picture  to  frame." 

Despite  the  witness  of  expressed  statement  and  of  the 
whole  body  of  Browning's  work  to  the  truth  that  with  him 
human  life  is  the  main  interest,  yet  he  was  far  from  indif- 
ferent to  nature  or  unobservant  of  its  varying  phases.  If 
he  belongs  to  the  number  of  those  whose  songs,  as  John 
Chadwick  puts  it, 

have  grown  a  part  for  me 
Of  mountain  splendour  and  of  mobile  sea 
until 

Which  are  most  God's,  in  sooth,  I  cannot  tell, 

it  will  become  known  rather  by  illustration  than  by 
argument. 

In  the  first  place,  has  Browning  the  power  of  presenting 
to  the  mind  a  vivid,  life-like  picture,  complete  in  itself 
even  if  separated  from  the  thought  to  which  it  may  serve 
as  background;  that  is,  is  he  ever  the  artist  pure  and 
simple?  Not  often,  it  is  true,  if  we  keep  in  mind  the 
whole  body  of  his  work ;  and  contrary  to  what  we  might 
expect,  and  contrary  to  what  is  found  true  in  the  work  of 
Tennyson,  the  most  finished  pictures  must  be  sought  in 
his  later  work.  In  'Pauline,'  that  poem  to  which  one 
naturally  turns  first  for  nature  descriptions,  he  crowds 
together  pictures  indeed,  but  rarely  one  into  which  some 


NATURE  ELEMENT   IN  BROWNING'S   POETRY.        479 

comparison  with  human  experience  is  not  introduced. 
For  instance,  the  songs  of  the  morning  swallows  sound 
to  him  like  words  ;  the  sunshine  comes  again  "  like  an  old 
smile,"  the  trees  bend  over  the  pool  in  the  heart  of  the 
woods  "  like  wild  men  o'er  a  sleeping  girl."  Again  the 

ebbing  day  dies  soft, 

As  a  lean  scholar  dies  worn  o'er  his  book, 
And  in  the  heaven  stars  steal  out  one  by  one 
As  hunted  men  steal  to  their  mountain  watch. 

Once  more 

Flower 

And  tree  can  smile  in  light  at  the  sinking  sun 
Just  as  the  storm  comes,  as  a  girl  would  look 
On  a  departing  lover  —  most  serene. 

Then  there  is  the  lovely  bit, 

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. 

This  reversal  of  the  ordinary  terms  of  comparison,  all 
taken  from  this  early  poem,  seems  to  me  both  interesting 
and  significant.  Let  one  more  illustration,  also  from 
4  Pauline,'  be  added :  — 

Autumn  has  come  like  spring  returned  to  us, 
Won  from  her  girlishness ;  like  one  returned 
A  friend  that  was  a  lover,  nor  forgets 
The  first  warm  love,  but  full  of  sober  thoughts 
Of  fading  years  ;  whose  soft  mouth  quivers  yet 
With  the  old  smile,  but  yet  so  changed  and  still ! 

For  pure  description  we  must  turn  to  later  poems,  in 
which  there  are  two  or  three  landscapes  which  indicate 
not  only  the  careful  observer  but  the  artist  whose  eye 
sees  effects  in  combination  and  reproduces  their  unity. 
For  instance,  there  is  the  scene  which  greeted  the  younger 


480  BOSTON  BEOWNING   SOCIETY  PAPEES. 

personage  in  'The  Inn  Album,'  when  he  opens  his  win- 
dow in  the  morning,  a  scene  which  is  alive  with  light  and 
atmosphere :  — • 

lie  leans  into  a  living  glory-bath 

Of  air  and  light  where  seems  to  float  and  move 

The  wooded  watered  country,  hill  and  dale 

And  steel-bright  thread  of  stream,  a-smoke  with  mist, 

A-sparkle  with  May  morning,  diamond  drift 

O'  the  sun-touched  dew.     Except  the  red-roofed  patch 

Of  half  a  dozen  dwellings  that,  crept  close 

For  hill-side  shelter,  make  the  village  clump, 

This  inn  is  perched  above  to  dominate  — 

Except  such  sign  of  human  neighbourhood, 

(And  this  surmised  rather  than  sensible) 

There 's  nothing  to  disturb  absolute  peace, 

The  reign  of  English  nature  —  which  means  art 

And  civilised  existence. 

Still  more  definite  in  detail  is  the  picture  of  the  deep 
hollow  in  the  woods, 

where  combine 

Tree,  shrub  and  briar  to  roof  with  shade  and  cool 
The  remnant  of  some  lily-strangled  pool, 
Edged  round  with  mossy  fringing  soft  and  fine. 
Smooth  lie  the  bottom  slabs,  and  overhead 
Watch  elder,  bramble,  rose,  and  service  tree 
And  one  beneficent  rich  barberry, 
Jewelled  all  over  with  fruit-pendents  red. 

As  an  example  of  Browning's  success  in  catching  the 
evanescent  glory  of  some  transition  scene  in  nature,  one 
may  take  that  other  passage,  also  from  '  Gerard  de 
Lairesse ' :  — 

But  morning's  laugh  sets  all  the  crags  alight 

Above  the  baffled  tempest :  tree  and  tree 

Stir  themselves  from  the  stupor  of  the  night, 

And  every  strangled  branch  resumes  its  right 

To  breathe,  shakes  loose  dark's  clinging  dregs,  waves  free 

In  dripping  glory.     Prone  the  runnels  plunge, 

While  earth,  distent  with  moisture  like  a  sponge, 

Smokes  up,  and  leaves  each  plant  its  gem  to  see, 

Each  grass-blade's  glory-glitter. 


NATURE   ELEMENT   IN   BROWNING'S   POETRY.        481 

These  seem  to  me  to  be  examples  of  what  Matthew 
Arnold  would  call  the  Greek  way  of  treating  nature.  The 
Celtic  magic  enchants  us  rather  in  such  lines  as  these, 
when  the  poet  watches  with  Luigi  the 

great  stars 

That  had  a  right  to  come  first  aiid  see  ebb 
The  crimson  wave  that  drifts  the  sun  away ; 

or  when  he  waits  among  the  ruins  for  the  girl  with  eager 
eyes  and  yellow  hair, 

while  thus  the  quiet-coloured  eve 

Smiles  to  leave 
To  their  folding,  all  our  many-tinkling  fleece 

In  such  peace, 
And  the  slopes  and  rills  in  undistinguished  grey 

Melt  away ; 

or  when,  floating  in  the  gondola,  with  the  stars  helping 
and  the  sea  bearing  part  and  the  very  night  clinging 
closer  to  Venice'  streets  for  the  sake  of  that  one  sweet 
face,  the  lover  sings  in  tones  that  the  lotus-eaters  might 
drowsily  echo :  — 

Oh,  which  were  best,  to  roam  or  rest? 
The  land's  lap  or  the  water's  breast? 
To  sleep  on  yellow  millet-sheaves, 
Or  swim  in  lucid  shallows  just 
Eluding  water-lily  leaves  ? 

Perhaps  one  understands  best  the  strength  and  delicacy 
of  Browning's  nature-feeling  when  reading  those  short 
passages,  which  are  struck  off  with  swift,  sure  stroke,  and 
distinguished  rather  by  aptness  of  selection  and  fidelity  of 
combination  than  by  elaboration  of  detail.  Such  are  the 
well-known  lines  of  '  Meeting  at  Night,'  or  those  in  which 
he  shows  us  the  mountain  from  which  the  breastplate  of 
a  year's  snows  has  just  slipped  at  the  spring's  arrowy  sum- 
mons, or  when  he  reminds  us  of  the  "  warm,  slow,  yellow 
moon-lit  nights,"  which  stay  in  the  soul  long,  long  after 
they  are  gone;  or  in  many  lines  that  might  be  quoted 

31 


482  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

from  '  Sordello '  or  '  The  Flight  of  the  Duchess,'  or  from 
the  songs  of  'Paracelsus.' 

No  one  can  doubt  the  personal  enjoyment  which  Brown- 
ing always  found  in  outdoor  life  and  in  direct  contact  with 
nature.  It  is  not  often  that  he  gives  us  a  word  of  out- 
spoken longing  or  delight  such  as  we  have  in  the  '  Home 
Thoughts  from  Abroad,'  with  its  note  of  pure  joy  in  the 
blossoming  pear-tree  and  the  wise  thrush,  but  there  is  the 
thrill  of  actual  experience  in  the  lines  from  '  Saul '  which 
glorify  the  life  of  unrestrained  physical  activity.  It  speaks 
too  from  the  more  personal  poem  '  La  Saisiaz.'  He  exults 
in  the  feat  of  honest  mountain-climbing  with  its  sense 
of  achievement.  Then  comes  the  rare  observation  that 
notices  how  five  days  have  scarcely  served 

to  entice,  from  out  its  den 

Splintered  in  the  slab,  this  pink  perfection  of  the  cyclamen ; 
Scarce  enough  to  heal  and  coat  with  amber  gum  the  sloe-tree's  gash, 
Bronze  the  clustered  wilding  apple,  redden  ripe  the  mountain-ash. 

Then  beyond  and  above  the  beauty  that  fringes  the  path- 
way, the  tangle-twine  of  leaf  and  bloom,  the  dusky  gleam 
of  the  lake,  the  wrinkle  of  the  blue  water  where  the  mazy 
Arve  rushes  into  it,  beyond  and  above  all  these  is  the  true 
nature-lover's  rapture  of  feeling  awakened  by  the  sight  of 
Mont  Blanc,  "  supreme  above  his  earth-brood,"  with  a  glory 
that  "strikes  greatness  small." 

Nothing  is  unworthy  Browning's  observation.  Often 
with  a  single  word  he  fixes  a  flower  or  an  insect  so  that 
thereafter  it  is  named  and. known  for  us  by  his  expression. 
The  contumacious  grasshopper,  the  fairy-cupped,  "elf- 
needled  mat  of  moss,  the  red  effrontery  of  the  poppies,  the 
mimic  sun  of  RudeFs  flower,  what  more  is  needed  to  char- 
acterise ?  Then  how  he  revels  in  colour,  painting  in  verse 
the  red  fans  of  the  butterfly  that  scorch  the  rock  on  which 
it  rests  "  like  a  drop  of  fire  from  a  brandished  torch ;  "  or 
the  wild  tulip  that  "  blows  out  its  great  red  bell,  like  a 
thin  clear  bubble  of  blood;  "  or  the  summit  of  Saleve,  that-, 


NATURE   ELEMENT  IN   BROWNING'S  POETRY.        483 

thrilled  and  magnific,  burns  from  black  to  gold;  or  the 
city  of  Madrid,  "  all  fire  and  shine  ;  "  or  the  peach-blossom 
marble  of  the  tomb  at  St.  Praxed's,  rare  and  ripe  "as 
fresh-poured  red  wine ; "  or  "  that  other  kind  of  water, 
green-dense  and  dim-delicious,  bred  o'  the  sun."  The 
glory  moments  of  dawn  and  sunset  attract  him  with  com- 
pelling charm  ;  but  he  can  soften  his  strokes  and  show  us 
forth  the  still  night,  touched  to  enchantment  by  the  moon, 
or  with  a  single  star  gleaming  through  the  darkness.  The 
moonlight  scenes  in  'Pan  and  Luna,'  'Christmas  Eve,' 
'  Paracelsus,'  '  Sordello,'  and  '  Ferishtah's  Fancies  '  make 
up  a  gallery  by  themselves. 

Perhaps  it  will  not  be  going  too  far  away  from  the  sub- 
ject to*  instance  as  a  proof  of  Browning's  feeling  about 
birds  that  little  poem  which  ought  to  be  studied  by  every 
woman  who  so  far  stifles  her  womanly  instincts  and  so 
seriously  transgresses  the  laws  of  artistic  fitness  as  to  wear 
a  dead  bird  or  a  part  of  a  dead  bird  in  her  bonnet.  In 
'  The  Lady  and  the  Painter,'  the  artist  is  rebuked  for 
using  a  model  to  help  out  his  art  study,  and  is  asked  if  he 
does  not  consider  that  he  thus  degrades  womanhood  in  the 
person  of  his  model.  He  returns, 

What 

—  (Excuse  the  interruption)  —  clings 
Half-savage-like  around  your  hat  ? 

•    She.     Ah,  do  they  please  you  ?     Wild-bird-wings. 
Next  season,  — Paris-prints  assert,  — 
We  must  go  feathered  to  the  skirt  : 
My  modiste  keeps  on  the  alert. 
Owls,  hawks,  jays  —  swallows  most  approve. 

Then  seriously,  sadly,  the  Artist  replies  that  a  greater 
wrong  has  been  done  to  womanhood  by  her  who  stands 
clothed  with  the  murder  of  God's  best  of  harmless  beings, 
than  by  the  Model,  who  knows  well  what  absolves  her,  the 
reverent  praise  of  the  Artist  for  God's  surpassing  good, 
the  divinity  of  the  human  form. 


484  BOSTON   BKOWXING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

The  thought  of  Wordsworth  in  his  k  Ode  to  Immor- 
tality '  was  that  a  glory  passes  away  from  earth  with  the 
passing  of  childhood.  Browning  touches  the  same  theme 
in  the  prologue  to  '  Asolando.'  True  is  it,  he  says,  that  in 
youth  an  alien  glow  surrounds  ever}'-  common  object,  and 
the  bush  burns  with  terror  and  beauty  but  is  unconsumed. 
In  age  the  lambent  flame  is  lost  from  the  world,  and  though 
Italia's  rare  beauty  crowds  the  eye,  yet  the  bush  is  bare  of 
the  living  presence.  Yet,  which  is  better,  the  optic  glass 
which  drapes  each  object  in  ruby  and  emerald,  or  that 
which  reveals  its  shape  clear-outlined,  its  inmost  self 
shrouded  by  no  fancy-haze  ?  Browning  has  never  a  com- 
plaint to  make  of  age.  It  is  God  who  transcends  and  to 
whom  he  has  come  nearer  by  the  plain  truth,  slowly  and 
painfully  attained.  Yet  sweet  and  mournful,  for  us  at 
least,  is  the  look  backward :  — 

How  many  a  year,  my  A  solo, 

Since  —  one  step  just  from  sea  to  land  — 

I  found  you,  loved  yet  feared  you  so. 

There  are  a  few  poems  in  which  the  nature  element  is 
so  interwoven  with  the  human  emotion  that  they  cannot 
be  separated.  In  '  Two  in  the  Campagna  '  Browning  has 
almost  caught  in  words  that  vague  sense  of  an  immanent 
personality  of  which  we  are  ourselves  a  part,  that  feeling 
that  there  is  possible  some  mental  or  spiritual  attainment 
which  includes  all  nature  and  all  personality  in  itself.  It 
is  an  impression,  an  aspiration,  born  out  of  some  moment 
of  exquisite  harmony,  when  it  seems  as  if  the  bars  were 
about  to  be  broken,  not  only  between  life  and  life  but 
between  the  soul  of  man  and  the  mystery  of  nature.  In  a 
moment  the  mood  has  vanished,  and  there  is  left  only  the 
infinite  passion  and  the  pain  of  finite  hearts.  Personality 
is  sacred,  inviolate  for  ever,  no  matter  how  we  may  dream 
of  escaping  its  limitations.  Yet  for  a  moment  everything 
seems  possible,  and  in  this  seeming  nature  bears  its  own 
part. 


NATURE  ELEMENT  IN   BROWNING'S   POETRY.         485 

Another  poem  of  this  sort,  in  which  however  the  inter- 
weaving of  nature  and  meaning  is  for  a  different  purpose 
and  expressed  in  a  different  way,  is  '  Childe  Roland,'  that 
splendid,  heart-bracing  romance  of  long  endurance  and 
indomitable  will.  The  terrible  journey  which  many  of  us, 
perhaps  most  of  us,  perhaps  all  of  us,  must  make  and  make 
alone,  is  symbolised  at  every  step  by  the  strange  country 
through  which  the  knight  passes,  taking  on  the  colour  of 
his  own  thoughts  and  influencing  them  again  in  continued 
reaction.  This  is  a  poem  in  which  every  reader  may 
legitimately  find  his  own  meaning,  just  as  he  may  in  any 
other  tale  of  a  quest,  but  its  descriptive  power  is  of  an 
order  not  dependent  on  the  significance  of  the  Round 
Tower  at  which  it  leaves  us. 

There  are  other  poems  in  which  this  close  pressure  of 
nature  upon  human  experience  is  expressed,  as  in  a  few 
stanzas  of  '  By  the  Fireside,'  when  the  lights  and  the 
shades  made  up  a  spell  which  the  forests  completed  and 
then  "  relapsed  to  their  ancient  mood."  In  '  James  Lee's 
Wife '  the  wind  lends  its  moan  to  the  unhappy  wife,  wail- 
ing like  a  dumb,  wronged  tiling  that  would  be  righted, 
and  the  song  goes  on  in  long-drawn  words  that  fit  mar- 
vellously to  the  theme :  — 

I  know  not  any  tone 

So  fit  as  thine  to  falter  forth  a  sorrow  : 
Dost  think  men  would  go  mad  without  a  moan, 

If  they  knew  any  way  to  borrow 
A  pathos  like  thy  own  ? 

An  example  no  less  noteworthy  is  the  scene  in  'Pippa 
Passes,'  when  Ottima  reminds  Sebald  of  the  thunderstorm 
in  the  forest :  — 

Buried  in  woods  we  lay,  you  recollect ; 

Swift  ran  the  searching  tempest  overhead  ; 

And  ever  and  anon  some  bright  white  shaft 

Burned  thro'  the  pine-tree  roof,  here  burned  and  there, 

As  if  God's  messenger,  thro'  the  close  wood  screen, 

Plunged  and  re-plunged  his  weapon  at  a  venture, 


486  BOSTON  BROWNING   SOCIETY  PAPERS. 

Feeling  for  guilty  thee  and  me  ;  then  broke 
The  thunder  like  a  whole  sea  overhead. 

One  more  scene  in  which  nature  is  brought  into  inti- 
mate, most  intimate,  relations  with  human  feeling  must  be 
remembered.  The  closing  lines  of  '  Saul '  are  a  fit  ending  - 
to  that  poem  in  which  Browning  has  gone  the  whole  round 
of  creation.  In  so  supreme  a  moment  of  revelation  as  that 
here  imagined,  nature  is  swept  far  beyond  all  limitations 
of  actual  existence.  Its  emotion  is  transcendent  even  as 
the  revelation  itself  is  transcendent,  and  experience  has 
nothing  to  say  to  a  moment  like  this.  Nothing  in  the 
entire  poem  is  more  revelatory  of  Browning's  genius  than 
that  he  could  close  by  such  exquisite  modulations,  thoughts 
and  words  of  such  scope.  After  the  gradually  increasing  > 
passion  of  the  poem,  rising  higher  and  higher  until  the 
consummate  vision  of  the  Christ  that  is  to  be  breaks  full 
on  the  mind  of  David,  and  the  words  of  annunciation  seem 
fairly  wrenched  from  the  agony  of  his  inspiration,  the 
reader  holds  himself  breathless,  and  if  he  did  not  hasten  to 
the  conclusion,  it  would  be  almost  impossible  to  imagine 
how  Browning  could  release  him  from  that  surpassing 
moment  without  a  loss  of  dignity,  —  how,  feeling  for  the 
common  chord  again,  the  poet  could  slide  by  semi-tones 
and  reach  the  resting-place,  the  C  Major  of  this  life. 
Browning  has  done  just  this  by  putting  all  nature  into 
sympathy  with  the  word  of  God  uttered  to  man.  David 
goes  home  through  the  witnesses,  the  cohorts  about  him, 
as  a  runner  beset  by  the  populace,  and  the  strong  mono-  / 
syllables  give  a  wonderful  impression  of  power  held  in 
restraint,  when 

the  stars  of  night  beat  with  emotion,  and  tingled  and  shot 
Out  in  fire  the  strong  pain  of  pent  knowledge. 

Then  when  the  earth  had  at  last  sunk  to  rest,  he  saw  the 
trouble  and  the  tumult 


NATURE   ELEMENT   IN   BROWNING'S  POETRY.        487 

die  out  in  the  day's  tender  birth ; 

In  the  gathered  intensity  brought  to  the  grey  of  the  hills ; 
In  the  shuddering  forests'  held  breath  ;  in  the  sudden  wind-thrills ; 
In  the  startled  wild  beasts  that  bore  off,  each  with  eye  sidling  still 
Though  averted  with  wonder  and  dread  ;  in  the  birds  stiff  and  chill 
That  rose  heavily,  as  I  approached  them,  made  stupid  with  awe : 
E'en  the  serpent  that  slid  away  silent,  —  he  felt  the  new  law. 
The  same  stared  in  the  white  humid  faces  upturned  by  the  flowers ; 
The  same  worked  in  the  heart  of  the  cedar,  and  moved  the  vine-bowers. 
And  the  little  brooks  witnessing  murmured,  persistent  and  low, 
With  their  obstinate,  all  but  hushed  voices  —  "  E'en  so,  it  is  so !  " 


INDEX. 


'AuT  VOGLER,'  15,  33,  52,  177,  329. 

Addison,  287,  439,  440,  470. 

'  Adonais,'  Shelley's,  122,  442. 

^Eschylus,  Browning's  translation  of 
his  '  Agamemnon,'  370,  383,  384, 
385 ;  compared  with  Euripides,  384, 
425,  426 ;  on  Homer,  407  ;  and  see 
7,  191,  375,  382,  414,  415,  442. 

'  Agamemnon,'  Browning's  transla- 
tion from  ^Eschylus,  370,  383,  453, 
462 ;  difficult  in  both  Greek  and 
English,  384 ;  unintelligibility  of 
Browning's  version  illustrated,  385 ; 
its  ruggedness  true  to  the  Greek 
original,  468 ;  and  see  368.  Quoted, 
385,  468. 

Agnosticism,  Browning's  philosophy 
leads  to,  325-327. 

'Alastor,'  Shelley's,  47,  441. 

'  Alkestis,'  Euripides',  Browning's 
paraphrase  in  '  Balaustion's  Ad- 
venture,' 370, 371, 413,  417  ;  Brown- 
ing's interpretation,  30,  31,  372, 
380,418  ;  Professor  Moulton's  criti- 
cism of  the  paraphrase,  430-436. 

Anacreon,  363,  456. 

'  Ancient  Mariner,  The,'  Coleridge's, 
45,  186. 

Anderson,  Mary,  description  of 
Browning,  6. 

'Andrea  del  Sarto,'  64,  106,  107,  110, 
117,  139,  173,  181.  Quoted,  110. 

'  Antigone,'  Sophocles',  40,  364,  387, 
446. 

Antithesis  of  Love  and  Knowledge 
in  '  Paracelsus,'  222-225,  227,  240, 
243,  245,  340;  in  'Reverie,'  225, 


230 ;  in  '  Luria,'  261,  340 ;  in '  Sor- 
dello,'  340,  342,  358. 

'Any  Wife  to  any  Husband/  91. 

'Apparent  Failure,'  329.  Quoted, 
332. 

Aristophanes,  371,  376,  382,  413,  428, 
429,  442. 

'Aristophanes'  Apology,'  its  length, 
371,  377 ;  its  learning,  375,  377- 
379,  386,  414,  418;  story  of  the 
poem,  376,  377,  379,  419-421 ;  a  de- 
fence of  Greek  tragedists  against 
Aristophanes,  382,  421 ;  presents 
Browning's  opinion  of  Euripides, 
411,  413,  414,  418,  421,  422-425, 
428,  429 ;  depicts  Athens  in  its  de- 
cadence, 466;  and  see  370,  453, 
462,  also  under  '  Heracles  Mad.' 
Quoted,  376,  et  seq.,  412,  419,  420, 
423,  et  seq.,  464. 

Aristotle,  his  theism,  11,  12,  13,  14, 
17,  21,  23  ;  on  tragedy,  41,  193. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  his  classification 
of  literature,  323 ;  on  Homer's 
style,  397  ;  his  '  Merope,'  442,  451  ; 
style  of  his  Greek  imitations,  467  ; 
and  see  37,  39,  308,  439,  459,  470, 
477,481.  Quoted,  281,  310. 

Art,  the  Greek  theory,  40,  41,  and 
see  107,  108,  307,  364,  401,  410; 
the  modern  problem,  41,  42,  401  ; 
relation  to  philosophy,  99-106 ; 
ethical  significance  to  Browning, 
106,  206,  323 ;  Renaissance  influ- 
ence on,  113-115;  the  relativity 
of  all  art  as  a  basis  of  criticism, 
162. 


490 


INDEX. 


'Artemis  Prologizes,'  366,  458,  459. 

Quoted,  458. 
'As  You    Like    It,'    Shakespeare's, 

quoted,  179. 
'Asolaudo,'  28,  166,  470,  484.     See 

also  '  Reverie  '  and  '  Epilogue.' 
'  At  the  Mermaid,'  quoted,  205.  ; 
'  Atalanta  in  Calydou,'  Swinburne's, 

451,  459. 

'  Athanase,'  Shelley's,  448. 
'Aurora   Leigh,'    Mrs.   Browning's, 

quoted,  115,  128. 

BAGEHOT,  WALTER,  quoted,  441. 

'  Balaustiou's  Adventure,'  a  study 
containing  a  paraphrase  of  Euri- 
pides' 'Alkestis,'  370-376,  462; 
and  see  '  Alkestis ; '  personality  of 
Balaustion,  411,  464,  465,  469; 
Balaustion's  opinion  of  Euripides, 
411,  et  seq. ;  story  of  the  poem, 
414-417;  imagination  and  classical 
study  shown  in  the  poem,  453,  464, 
469.  Quoted,  373,  415,  416,  417, 
421,422. 

Balfour,  A.  J.,  quoted,  311,  316,  328. 

Barrett,  Lawrence,  on  '  The  Blot  in 
the  'Scutcheon  '  as  an  acting  play, 
250. 

Beaumont,  285  ;  and  Fletcher,  271. 

Beauty,  Plato's  teaching  about,  41, 
450;  contrast  between  the  Greek 
and  Christian  ideals  of,  107,  108 ; 
beauty  and  dogma  in  Renaissance 
Art,  118,  114;  Shelley  influenced 
by  Greek  conceptions  of,  445 ; 
Browning's  little  regard  for  out- 
ward, 453  ;  the  classic  ideal  reached 
in  Balanstion,  464 ;  and  see  1 88. 

'  Bells  and  Pomegranates,'  2,  5,  249. 

Berdoe,  Dr.,  as  a  Browning  critic, 
223,  329,  435. 

'  Bishop  Blougram's  Apology,'  an  un- 
natural monologue,  64,  1 84 ;  the 
strength  of  the  poem,  176 ;  not  an 
argument  against  Roman  Catholi- 
cism, 289,  290;  and  see  19,  59, 
132,  188,  215,  279,  287,  291,  297, 
.350,  406.  Quoted,  20,  176,  178. 

'  Bishop  Orders  his  Tomb  at  St. 
Praxed's  Church,  The/  369,  483. 


Blackwood's,  criticism  of  Wordsworth, 
153. 

Blank  Verse,  Milton's,  157  ;  Brown- 
ing's skill  in,  280. 

'  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,  A,'  romantic 
love  in,  92 ;  the  moral  strain  un- 
natural, 211-213;  as  an  acting 
play,  250 ;  Dickens'  praise,  283 ; 
a  criticism  of  Mr.  Sharp's,  285  ; 
and  see  172,  219.  Quoted,  92,  211, 
212,  213,  285. 

Botticelli,  Sandro,  107,  114,  254. 

'  Bridge  of  Sighs,  The,'  Hood's,  the 
triple  rhymes,  171. 

Brooke,  Stopford,  on  Browning,  310, 
327. 

Brooks,  Bishop,  on  Wordsworth's 
optimism,  320. 

Browning,  Mrs.,  allusions  to  her  in 
Browning's  poems,  94-96  ;  '  Aurora 
Leigh,'  quoted,  115,  128;  rhyme 
in  '  Cowper's  Grave,'  171;  her 
judgment  of  Euripides,  371,422. 

Browning,  Robert,  growth  of  his 
fame  in  America  and  England,  2, 
3,  4  ;  compared  with  Tennyson,  4, 
5,6;  his  appearauce;  6  ;  his  theism, 
7-34 :  original  treatment  of  the 
conception  of  God,  8,  9,  16  ;  intui- 
tion of  God  as  Power,  16-21  ;  of 
God  as  Love,  21-26 ;  interest  in 
the  relation  and  reconciliation  of 
the  two  intuitions,  22,  26,  31,  33, 
34 ;  interest  in  the  Incarnation,  25, 
26 ;  his  theism  an  intuition,  not  a 
philosophy,  34 ;  use  of  monologue, 
35-66 :  his  character  and  the  age 
as  determining  his  choice  of  the 
monologue,  36-45  ;  earliest  experi- 
ments, '  Pauline,'  '  Paracelsus,'  and 
'  Sordello,'  46-55  ;  tendency  to  cold- 
ness and  monotony,  48,  52,  55,  65, 
66  ;  "  discovery  "  of  Italy,  55,  56 ; 
his  masterpiece,  '  The  Ring  and 
the  Book,'  56 ;  value  of  the  plot 
to  him,  59,  62,  63 ;  his  '  Caliban,' 
67,  et  seq. ;  his  meaning  in  the 
poem,  78-83  ;  conception  of  the 
CJixist,  80 ;  theory  of  romantic  love, 
(84-9^;)  conception  of  love,  84,  91, 
;  influenced  by  Plato,  Pe- 


INDEX. 


491 


trarch,  and  Dante,  89,  90,  91,  94, 
96 ;  examples  of  his  treatment  of 
romantic  love,  89-92 ;  treatment 
of  domestic  love,  93,  94  ;  romantic 
element  in  his  own  lovej.94-96  ;  his 
philosophy  of  art,  99- 11 7^  need  of 
artistic  expression,  "TUO,  101 ;  rela- 
tion to  nineteenth  century  philos- 
ophy, 102,  103  ;  both  a  realist  and 
an  idealist,  104-106;  his  art-poems 
studies  of  character,  106-115;  on 
objective  and  subjective  poets,  115, 
116;  combined  the  characteristics 
of  each,  117  ;  showed  in  '  A  Gram- 
marian's Funeral '  that  apparent 
failure  may  be  triumph,  118-129: 
attitude  toward  Love,  Will,  and 
Knowledge,  123-125;  put  stress  on 
aim,  not  achievement,  125,  126; 
ethical  value  of  his  characters,  128  ; 
studies  of  conduct,  131,  et  seq.; 
characters  of  the  calculating  type, 
132  ;  the  uncalculatiug  type  illus- 
trated in  '  A  Soul's  Tragedy,'  133- 
138;  his  sympathy  with  the  uucal- 
culating  soul,  138-142  ;  his  central 
teaching  —  being  more  than  doing, 
145  ;  anticipation  in  '  Paracelsus ' 
of  evolution  theory,  150, 151  ;  early 
criticism  of  Browning,  161 ;  his 
affinity  to  the  new  criticism,  162; 
a  master  of  rhyme,  164-172  :  vari- 
ety of  stanza-forms,  165,  166; 
avoidance  of  "  end-stopt "  lines, 
166-169;  faulty  rhymes,  169-171  ; 
use  of  double  and  triple  rhymes, 
172;  over-elaboration,  173;  little 
use  of  imagery,  174-189 :  compared 
with  Shakespeare  in  this  respect, 
175-181  ;  sentiment  more  than 
imagery,  178;  realism,  182,  183; 
imagination,  188;  used  an  original 
motive  in  'Strafford,'  190-202: 
'  Strafford  '  compared  with  '  Julius 
Ca=sar,'  193-196;  additions  to  his- 
torical fact,  197,  198;  original 
treatment  of  the  trial-scene,  199, 
200  ;  as  a  dramatic  poet,  203-220  : 
essentially  dramatic,  205,  207,  208 ; 
contrasted  with  Shakespeare,  205- 
215,  217-219;  supreme  interest  — 


development  of  a  soul,  206 ;  artis- 
tic limitations,  206,  208-210;  his 
dramas  not  placed  in  a  natural  en- 
vironment, 210-213,  218,219;  the 
main  idea  too  obtrusive,  214,  215  ; 
Truth  and  Love  in  his  dramas, 
215-217;  each  character  embodies 
one  mood,  217,  218;  humour  rare, 
219;  monologue,  his  true  vehicle, 
220 ;  depicted  a  mood  in  '  Paracel- 
sus,' 222 ;  his  use  of  Love  and 
Knowledge,  223,  et  seq. ;  his  creed, 
strennousness,  224 ;  his  Paracelsus 
and  the  real  Paracelsus,  225-228, 
231,  et  seq.;  fondness  for  mysti- 
cism, 227,  239,  240,  242.  243;  his 
view  of  the  divine  revelation,  229- 
231, 239-241,  243  ;  showed  in '  Para- 
celsus '  the  defect  of  the  occultists, 
239-242 ;  reason  for  his  tardy 
fame,  249,  250;  his  dramas  not 
good  acting  plays,  250,  251  ;  his 
careful  revision  of  'Luria,'  251; 
his  small  debt  to  historical  fact 
in  'Luria/  251-253;  his  Luria 
reminiscent  of  Othello,  257 ;  his 
characteristic  antithesis  of  heart 
against  head  illustrated  in  '  Luria,' 
261 ;  his  influence  due  to  the  ethi- 
cal quality  of  his  work,  264 ;  his 
'  Return  of  the  Druses '  shows 
careful  study  of  Druse  history,  271 ; 
melodramatic  effects  in  his  dramas, 
273,  274,  283 ;  his  failure  in  '  Re- 
turn of  the  Druses '  to  reproduce 
Oriental  character,  275-278 ;  his 
most  skilful  portraits,  279 ;  metri- 
cal skill,  279,  280,  285,  286  ;  de- 
fects in  diction  in  the  plays,  280- 
283,  285  ;  few  living  characters  in 
his  plays,  285  ;  constructive  inge- 
nuitv,  285,  286  ;  poetical  treatment 
of  ethical  subjects  the  ground  of 
his  unique  position,  287,  Kf\ 
compared  with  Sainte-Beuve,  288  ; 
'  Mr.  Sludge,  the  Medium '  a  study 
of  character,  not  an  attack  on  spir- 
itism, 289,  290 ;  had  an  unpromis- 
ing subject  for  poetic  treatment  in 
Sludge,  290-294;  not  responsible 
for  Sludge's  philosophy,  295;  hia 


492 


INDEX. 


optimism  and  Wordsworth's,  306- 
333 :  a  representative  of  the  new 
spirit  in  literature,  307,  308  ;  meet- 
ing with  Wordsworth,  321 ;  knowl- 
edge and  conduct  as  the  basis  of 
Browning's  philosophy  and  art, 
323,  324 ;  his  philosophy,  324-327  ; 
his  poetry,  327,  328  ;  his  optimism 
based  on  his  Christian  theism,  328, 
330,  331  ;  as  a  prophet,  329 ;  his 
obscurity,  especially  in  '  Sordello/ 
334-338  ;  hampered  by  the  rhyme, 
338  ;  lacked  the  restraint  of  dra- 
matic form,  339  ;  reason  for  aban-  • 
douing  in  '  Sordello  '  the  dramatic 
form,  339-341  ;  beautiful  utter- 
ances in  '  Sordello,'  341  ;  signifi- 
cance of  the  poem  to  Browning, 
356 ;  and  see  358,  361,  362  ;  nature 
of  his  interest  in  his  dramatic  crea- 
tions, 360,  361 ;  classical  element 
iii  his  poetry,  363-387  :  classical 
allusions,  364,  369,  375,  386;  un- 
Greek  in  subject,  point  of  view, 
and  treatment,  364-367,  377,  386, 
387  ;  Greek  paraphrases  and  trans- 
lations, 370-373,  375-385  ;  ability 
as  translator,  370,  381,  384,  386; 
as  critic  of  Greek  drama,  373,  378 ; 
his  spelling  of  Greek  names,  374 ; 
unjust  to  Aristophanes,  376  ;  com- 
pared with  Homer,  388-410:  un- 
like Homer  in  his  ethical  interest, 
391,  401,406;  their  different  con- 
ceptions of  the  poetic  gift,  394- 
396 ;  a  transcendentalist,  396 ; 
Homer's  style  aud  Browning's  con- 
trasted, 397-402,  404,  405  ;  Brown- 
ing an  optimist,  Homer  a  pessimist, 
402-404 ;  representative  of  their 
respective  ages,  405-407 ;  alike  in 
dramatic  quality,  407-409 ;  severe 
in  their  moral  judgments,  409 ; 
duration  of  their  fame,  410;  his 
opinion  of  Euripides  as  shown  in 
the  Balaustion  poems,  411-437  :  as 
a  scholar  and  critic,  412-414,  429  ; 
expressions  of  judgment  on  Euri- 
pides, 421-425 ;  preference  for 
Euripides  over  ^Eschylus  and 
Sophocles,  425,  426;  attitude  to- 


wards Aristophanes,  428,  429 ;  his 
'  Alkestis '  criticised  as  misrepre- 
senting Euripides,  429-436 ;  his 
artistic  use  in  the  Balaustion  poems 
of  two  historical  incidents,  436 ; 
Browning's  affinity  for  Greece, 
440,  453,  463,  464;  un-Greek  by 
nature,  452,  468 ;  differences  in 
Greek  influence  on  Browning  and 
Shelley,  453-455,  470;  his  treat- 
ment of  Greece,  original  and  fruit- 
ful, 455,  et  seq. :  early  classical  al- 
lusions in  Shelley's  manner,  456, 
457  ;  minor  Greek  poems,  458-461, 
462,  469 ;  as  a  critic  of  antiquity, 
459,  469  ;  first  indication  of  devo- 
tion to  Euripides  in  '  The  Ring 
and  the  Book,'  462;  the  longer 
classic  poems  as  showing  his  dis- 
tinctive method,  462,  463-467  ;  his 
rendering  of  Greek  style,  467,  468 ; 
value  of  his  delineations  of  Greek 
life,  468-470  ;  nature  in  his  poetry, 
471-487:  attitude  towards  science, 
475 ;  subordinated  nature  to  human 
nature,  477  ;  not  indifferent  to  na- 
ture, 478,  482  ;  comparisons  in  his 
early  descriptions,  478,  479 ;  later 
examples,  479,  480;  his  best  de- 
scriptions delicate  and  apt,  not  de- 
tailed and  elaborate,  481  ;  sense 
for  colour,  482  ;  on  nature  and  old 
age  in '  Asolaudo,'  484  ;  interweav- 
ing of  nature  and  human  emotion, 
especially  in  '  Saul,'  484-487.  For 
quotations,  see  titles  of  poems. 

Brutus,  in  'Julius  Cffisar,'  compared 
with  Pym,  in  '  Strafford,'  194-196. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  149. 

Bury,  on  Euripides,  428. 

Butier,  Samuel,  286. 

'  By  the  Fireside,'  a  picture  of  do- 
mestic love,  93  ;  and  see  252,  485. 
Quoted,  94. 

Byron,  Lord,  171,  205,  286,  308,  473. 
Quoted,  474. 

CAIRD,  EDWARD,    on   Wordsworth, 

320. 

Caird,  John,  316.     Quoted,  329. 
Calderon,  274,  442. 


INDEX. 


493 


'  Caliban  upon  Setebos/  study  of  the 
poem,  67-83  :  sources,  67,  68  ;  Cal- 
iban's conception  of  God,  70,  etseq.; 
belief  in  an  Over-God  (the  Quiet), 
72,  73  ;  deductions  from  the  poem, 
81-83;  and  see  15,  16,  20,26,28, 
188,  289,  290,  291,  297.  Quoted, 
70,  et  seq. 

Carducci,  452. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  1,  37,  38,  188,  307, 
308,  370. 

'  Cavalier  Songs,'  the  rhyme  of,  169. 

'  Ceuci,  The,'  Shelley's,  446. 

Chadwick,  John,  quoted,  478. 

Charming,  W.  E.,  quoted,  82;  and 
see  70,  149. 

'  Character  of  the  Happy  Warrior,' 
Wordsworth's,  quoted,  318. 

'  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade,'  Ten- 
nyson's, the  measure,  172. 

'  Charles  Avison,  Parley iugs  with,' 
quoted,  162. 

Chaucer,  6,  203,  285. 

Che'nier,  464. 

'  Childe  Roland/  an  illustration  of 
indomitable  will,  124;  the  rhyme, 
166;  descriptions  of  nature,  185- 
187,  485.  Quoted,  186. 

'  Christabel,'  Coleridge's,  154,  186. 

'  Christmas-Eve,'  15,  25, 483.  Quoted, 
78. 

Cicero,  quoted,  144. 

Cimabue,  107,  114. 

Clark.  Miss  Elizabeth  M.,  on  Brown- 
ing's rhymes,  169-171. 

Classic  ideal  of  art.  40. 

Classicism,  Browning's  relation  to, 
367,  387 ;  Shelley's,  spontaneous, 
442,  444;  and  see  366.  See  also 
Greece. 

'Cleon,'  as  a  picture  of  Greek  life 
and  character,  369,  370;  study  of 
a  Greek  of  the  decadence,  459- 
461  ;  and  see  401.  402,  404,  405, 
406,  462.  Quoted,  460,  461. 

'  Cloud,  The,'  Shelley's,  quoted,  444. 

Clongh,  A.  H.,  308. 

Cockney  School,  153,  160. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  1,  184,  381  ;  and 
see  '  Ancient  Mariner,'  and  '  Chris- 
tabel.' 


'  Colombo's  Birthday,'  Truth  and  Love 
in,  215,  216  ;  and"  see  139,  218,  250, 
283,  284,  359.  Quoted,  216,  284. 

Colour,  Browning's  sense  for,  482. 

Comedy,  Browning  and,  209  ;  union 
of  Iragedy  and  Comedy,  378,  424, 
469 ,  discussion  of  1  ragedy  and 
Comedy  iu  '  Aristophanes'  Apol-- 
ogy,'  421 ;  and  see  187,  429. 

Conduct,  Browning's  study  of,  131 ; 
relation  to  Browning's  art,  323. 

Cooke,  George  Willis,  his  Guide- 
Book,  quoted,  253,  255,  361,  474. 

Cordelia  in  'King  Lear,'  213,  219, 
257. 

Corot,  37. 

Corson,  Prof.  Hiram,  quoted,  81,  171. 

'  Count  Gismond,'  quoted,  168. 

'  Cristina,'  a  study  of  romantic  love, 
89,  90;  the  antithesis  of,  261. 
Quoted,  90. 

Criticism,  early  nineteenth  century, 
154,  161;  of  the  Elizabethan  Age, 
155-157;  of  the  classical  era,  157, 
158  ;  the  latter  gave  rise  to  a  school 
of  criticism,  158 ;  the  new  criticism, 
161-163;  the  'Higher  Criticism/ 
309  ;  Browning's  criticism  of  Greek 
Drama,  378,  413,  414,  421. 

DAXTE,  romantic  love  in,  84,  86,  87, 
88,  96,  97  ;  mention  of  Bordello, 
361  ;  and  see  4,  43,  94,  95,  101, 
188,  254,  256,  442.  Quoted,  96, 
98,  137. 

Darwin,  Charles,  1,  151,  279,  405. 

'  Death  in  the  Desert,  A/  287  :  see 
also  (John)  17,  25,  28;  (Pamphy- 
lax)  184.  Quoted,  103. 

Dennis,  John,  criticism  of  Pope,  1 58. 

Desdemona,  in  'Othello/  59,  213, 
256,  262. 

'  Development/  363. 

Dickens,  on  '  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutch- 
eon/283 ;  and  see  38,  187. 

'Dis  Aliter  Visum/  its  internal 
rhyme,  166. 

'Divine  Comedy/  Dante's,  101,  370. 

Domett,  Alfred,  quoted,  249. 

'  Don  Juan/  Byron's,  its  rhymes, 
171. 


494 


INDEX. 


Donne,  W.  B.,  quoted,  434. 

Dowden,  Professor,  quoted,  67,  310. 

Drama,  not  congenial  to  the  spirit  of 
the  times,  44,  45 ;  the  best  instru- 
ment for  revealing  character,  206  ; 
Greek  Drama,  364,  390 ;  Brown- 
ing's able  criticism  of  Greek  Drama, 
378,  413  ;  Swinburne's  and  Arnold's 
imitations  of  Greek  Drama,  451. 

Dramatic  Poetry:  motive,  190-192; 
characteristics  of  Browning's,  205, 
et  seq. ;  273,  274,  283,  340 ;  the  re- 
straints of  dramatic  form,  339 ; 
dramatic  quality  in  Homer,  407. 

'  Dramatis  Personae,'  458,  462. 

Draytou,  his  '  Polyolbion,'  286. 

Druses.     See  '  Return  of  the  Druses.' 

Drydeu,  157,  158,  159. 

Dumas,  274. 

•EASTER-DAY/  15,  25.     Quoted,  168. 

'  Echetlos,'  463. 

Eckhart,  Meister,  13. 

Edinburgh  Review,  The,  153.  Quoted, 
154. 

'Electra,'  Euripides ',  379,  418,  426, 
436. 

Elizabethan  Age,  criticism  in  the, 
155,158;  poetical  activity,  159,  and 
see  472,  473. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  his  '  Thren- 
ody,' 122;  'Rhodora,'  148;  rela- 
tion to  nature,  476;  and  see  38, 
150,264,307,385.  Quoted,  1,  41, 
78,  127,  144,  148,  149,  151,  253, 
313,344. 

'  Endymion,'  Keats',  154,  445. 

'Englishman  in  Italy,  The,'  128. 

'  Epilogue '  to  '  Asolando,'  quoted, 
333. 

'  Epipsychidiou,'  Shelley's,  441,  448. 
Quoted,  449. 

'  Erechtheus,'  Swinburne's,  442. 

'Essay  on  Criticism,'  Pope's,  158. 

'Essay  on  Shelley,'  Browning's,  115. 
Quoted,  116. 

Ethical  element  in  Browning's  work, 
128.  206.  264,  287,  288,  391,  406. 

Ethics,  the  popular  form  of  philos- 
ophy to-day,  37  ;  evolution  applied 
to  ethics,  146-151;  the  completest 


science  of  man,  209 ;  literature  and 
ethics  united,  257  ;  duality  of  phi- 
losophy and  ethics  in  Browning, 
324 ;  a  branch  of  aesthetics  to  the 
Greeks,  393. 

Euripides,  Browning's  preference  for, 
27,  30,  371,  372,  376,  381,  425,  428, 
429,  462 ;  his  theistic  belief  as  de- 
picted in  '  The  Ring  and  the  Book,' 
27,  29-31  ;  Fate  in  his  plays,  191, 
427  ;  '  Medea,'  364,  367 ;  Professor 
Verrall's  '  Euripides  the  Rational- 
ist,' quoted,  372,  380 ;  '  Helen,'  375 ; 
Browning's  critical  estimate  of 
Euripides,  378,  411,  et  seq.;  '  Elec- 
tra/ 379,  418,  436;  compared  with 
^Eschylus,  383,  384 ;  the  precursor 
of  Shakespeare,  424,  427 ;  con- 
trasted witli  Sophocles  and  ^Eschy- 
lus,  425,  426 ;  treatment  of  the 
gods,  426  ;  and  see  272.  See  also 
'  Alkestis  '  and  '  Heracles  Mad.' 

'  Evelyn  Hope,'  romantic  love  in,  89, 
91. 

Evil,  the  problem  of,  Browning's  so- 
lution, 31-33,324,  ft  seq.;  Shelley's 
solution,  32  ;  Sordello  on  the,  351. 

Evolution,  and  ethics,  146-151  ;  the 
theory  foreshadowed  in  '  Paracel- 
sus,' 151,475;  as  applied  to  liter- 
ary interpretation,  309 ;  Tennysou 
on,  322,  475. 

Examiner,  The,  153. 

'  Excursion,  The,'  Wordsworth's,  56. 

FARADAY,  144. 

Faust,  221,  222,  223,  244,  439;  Goe- 
the's '  Faust,'  4. 

'  Felix  Holt,'  George  Eliot's,  quoted, 
144. 

'Ferishtah's  Fancies,'  15,  25,  26,467, 
470,  483.  Quoted,  477,  and  see 
'  A  Pillar  at  Sebzevar.' 

Fielding,  Henry,  285. 

'  Fifine  at  the  Fair,'  the  Alexandrine 
measure,  286 ;  Greek  element  in, 
375  ;  and  see  215,  220,  367,  455. 
Quoted,  218. 

Fiske,  John,  his  '  Idea  of  God  '  and 
'  Destiny  of  Man,'  151, 316.  Quoted, 
311,316. 


INDEX. 


495 


Fitzgerald,  his  CEdipus  translation, 
383. 

Flaubert,  Gustave,  279,  288. 

Fletcher,  272,  280;  Beaumont  and, 
271. 

'  Flight  of  the  Duchess,  The,'  its 
rhyme,  172,  286  ;  and  see  482. 

Florence,  Browning's  studies  of  its 
painters,  102,  106,  et  seq. ;  its  in- 
fluence in  '  Luria,'  254-256. 

'  Forgiveness,  A,'  173,  181,  183,  185. 
Quoted,  182. 

Fra  Angelico,  114,  116,  254. 

'  Fra  Lippo  Lippi,'  illustrates  Brown- 
ing's philosophy  of  art,  112-116; 
and  see  59,  64,  107,  117,  139,  181, 
184,  287,  374.  Quoted,  112,  114, 
115,  177,477. 

'  Francis  Furini,  Parleyings  with,' 
quoted,  125,  326. 

Freedom,  Shelley  and  Browning  vo- 
taries of,  440 ;  influence  on  Shelley 
of  the  Greek  ideal,  445,  446.  447 ; 
Browning's  conception,  454 ;  and 
see  188,  472. 

Fuller,  Margaret,  2,  4. 

'  Fust  and  his  Friends,'  in  '  Parley- 
ings,'  15. 

GARDINER,  S.  R.,  on  Strafford,  191, 

197,  198. 

Gascoigne,  George,  quoted,  164. 
George    Eliot,    37,     38,     217,     308. 

Quoted,  138,  144. 
'  Gerard  de  Lairesse,  Parleyings  with,' 

469.     Quoted,  480. 
Giotto,  107,  114,  145,  255,  366. 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  389,  407. 
'  Glove,  The,'  its  rhyme,  1 72. 
Goethe,  place  in  German  literature, 

4;  and  see  38,  105,  125,  221,  367, 

412,  442. 

Goncourt,  quoted,  5. 
Gordon,  "Chinese,"  'Paracelsus'  his 

favourite  poem,  143 ;  anecdote,  143. 
Gothic   element   in    Browning,   366, 

452  ;  wanting  in  Shelley,  441. 
'  Grammarian's   Funeral,  A/  as  ex- 

empMfying  strenuousness,  23,  224; 

comments  on  the  poem,  118-129: 

a  song  of  exultation,  118,  122;  the 


Grammarian,  118,  119,  121,  122; 
vocabulary  and  style,  121,  128, 129  ; 
compared  with  famous  dirges,  122, 
123  ;  the  key-note,  124, 128  ;  nature 
in  the  poem,  128.  Quoted,  118, 
119,  122,  125,  129,  145. 

Gray,  Thomas,  the  '  Elegy,'  122, 397  ; 
and  see  363.  Quoted,  398. 

Greece,  her  domination  of  the  thought 
of  the  world,  390,  438-440,  462, 
470  ;  in  Euripides'  time,  426  ;  Shel- 
ley's instinct  for,  440-451,  465, 
470 ;  Greece  and  the  Victorian 
poets,  451  ;  Browning's  relation  to 
Greece,  452-470. 

HAMILTON,  Sir  WILLIAM,  326. 

'  Hamlet,'  Shakespeare's,  Browning's 
dramas  compared  with,  211,  218; 
and  see  45,  173,  181,  188,  210,  277. 
Quoted,  179. 

Harvey,  Gabriel,  155,  157. 

Hawkwood,  Sir  John,  252. 

Hegel,  106,  396. 

Heine,  4. 

'  Helen,'  Euripides',  375. 

'  Hellas,'  Shelley's,  quoted,  447. 

'  Heracles  Mad  '  of  Euripides,  Brown- 
ing's translation  in  '  Aristophanes' 
Apology,'  370,  377,  380,  413,  419, 
421 ;  excellence  of  the  translation, 
381,382,383,  384,  386,429;  frank 
criticism  of  the  gods,  in  the  diama, 
426,  427. 

Herodotus,  386. 

Hesiod,  368. 

'  Home  Thoughts  from  Abroad,'  482. 
Quoted,  178. 

Homer,  the  voice  of  his  generation, 
43,  405  ;  compared  with  Browning, 
388-410:  reasons  for  his  unique 
position,  389-391,  399;  a  man  of 
the  world,  392;  his  philosophy, 
392-394  ;  the  poetic  gift  — his  idea 
and  Browning's,  394-396  ;  his  style, 
397-399  ;  his  style  and  Browning's 
compared,  399-402;  a  pessimist, 
402-404 ;  points  in  common  with 
Browning,  404-409 ;  his  enduring 
fame,  410 ;  and  see  7,  42,  363,  364, 
368,  442.  Quoted,  394,  395,  403. 


496 


INDEX. 


Hood,    Thomas,    rhymes    in    'The 

Bridge  of  Sighs,'  171. 
Horace,  42,  155,  287,  364,  369. 
'  House,'  quoted,  205. 
'  How  it  Strikes  a  Contemporary,'  6. 
'  How  They  Brought  the  Good  News,' 

169,  250. 
Hugo,     Victor,     1,     188,     190,    281. 

Quoted,  144. 

Humour,  rare  in  Browning,  219. 
'  Hymn  of  Apollo,'  Shelley's,  quoted, 

443. 
'  Hyperion,'  Keats',  445. 

IAGO,  in  '  Othello,'  compared  with 
Braccio,  in  '  Luria,'  259  ;  and  see 
62. 

Idealism,  Browning's,  20,  104,  105, 
231,  239 ;  of  the  old  Florentine 
painters,  107,  et  seq. ;  of  Kant  and 
his  followers,  105,  229,  231,  232, 
236  ;  and  see  307,  448. 

'  Idyls  of  the  King,'  Tennyson's, 
280. 

'  Iliad,'  Homer's,  interest  of  the  story, 
391 ;  depicts  the  typical  virtues, 
405 ;  eloquence,  407 ;  dramatic 
quality,  407  ;  and  see  167,  363,  364, 
394.  Quoted,  403. 

Imagery,  poetic,  Browning's  little  use 
of,  1 74,  1 85  ;  examples  from  Shake- 
speare and  Browning,  175-177; 
these  poets  compared  in  use  of 
imagery,  178-181  ;  distinguished 
from  description,  181-183  ;  as  or- 
nament to  narrative,  184-186. 

'  Imitation  of  Christ,'  14. 

Impressionist,  Browning  not  an,  183  ; 
Homer  was  one,  399. 

'  In  a  Balcony,'  Truth  and  Love  in, 
215,  216;  and  see  212,  219,  377. 
Quoted,  178,  216,  325. 

'  In  a  Gondola,'  250.     Quoted,  481. 

'  In  a  Year,'  quoted,  20,  1 68. 

Incarnation,  Browning's  interest  in 
the  doctrine  of  the,  25,  26,  241  ; 
and  see  29,  31. 

'  In  Memoriam,'  Tennyson's,  its  bad 
rhymes,  170;  statement  of  evolu- 
tion theory,  475  ;  and  see  5,  17, 
329.  Quoted,  319. 


'  Inn  Album,    The,'   132,   220,   286. 

Quoted,  480. 
Isaiah,  176,  188. 

Italian  art,  102, 106,  et  seq. ;  254,  255. 
Italy,    Browning    aud,    55,   56,   66, 

452. 

'  Ivan  Ivanovitch,'  173,  181,  261,  409. 
'  Ixion,'  15,  26,  28,  29.     Quoted,  23. 

JACOBS,  JOSEPH,  on  Tennyson's  bad 
rhymes,  169,  170. 

James  Lee's  Wife,'  185, 485.  Quoted, 
177,  485. 

Jebb,  Professor,  his  translation  of 
'  CEdipus,'  383. 

Jones,  Henry,  his  'Browning  as 
a  Philosophical  and  Religious 
Teacher,'  quoted,  105,  261,  327, 
340. 

Jonson,  Ben,  157,  217. 

'  Julius  Caesar,'  Shakespeare's,  com- 
parison of  '  Straff ord'  and,  193- 
196.  Quoted,  179. 

KANT,  the  idealism  of,  105,  229,  231, 
232,  236;  and  see  106,  230,  326. 

Karshish.  See  'Strange  Medical 
Experience  of  Karshish.' 

Keats,  John,  his  '  Ode  on  a  Grecian 
Urn,'  41 ;  influence  seen  in  '  Pau- 
line,' 47,  48 ;  Greek  spirit  in,  443, 
444,  445 ;  nature  worship,  473 ; 
and  see  39,  154,  157,  160,  308. 
Quoted,  42,  55. 

'  King  Victor  and  King  Charles,' 
215,  264,  283,  284. 

Knight,  William,  his  'Aspects  of 
Theism,'  quoted,  317. 

Knowledge,  Browning's  attitude 
towards,  1 25  ;  antithesis  between 
Love  and  Knowledge  in  '  Paracel- 
sus,' 223-225,  227,  230,  240,  243. 

'LABORATORY,  The,'  182. 

'  Lady  and  the  Painter,  The,'  quoted, 
483. 

Lake  School,  critics  and  the,  153, 
154. 

Landor,  Walter  Savage,  commenda- 
tion of  Browning,  6,  250;  and  see 
184,  321,  335,  464. 


INDEX. 


49T 


Lanier,  Sidney,  on  rhyme,  164. 

'La  Saisiaz,'  expresses  Browning's 
own  belief,  15,  19;  nature  and  the 
human  element  in,  128,  482. 
Quoted,  19,  125,  325,  482. 

'  Last  Ride  Together,  The,'  125. 

Leighton,  Sir  Frederick,  422. 

Lessing,  quoted,  76. 

'  Letters  of  Travel,'  Shelley's,  445. 

'  Life  in  a  Love,'  33. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  150. 

Lisle,  Leconte  de,  439,  452. 

Literary  Gazette,  The,  on  '  Prome- 
theus,' 154. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  as  translator  con- 
trasted with  Browning,  370 ;  and 
see  172,  365,  388.  Quoted,  126. 

Loti,  Pierre,  278. 

Love,  Browning's  doctrine  of  the 
divine,  22-24  ;  Plato's  conception 
of  love,  84-86,  448-450  ;  romantic 
love  in  Dante  and  Petrarch,  87-89  ; 
in  Browning,  89-97 ;  Love  and 
Knowledge  in  '  Paracelsus,'  223- 
225,  227,  230,  240,  243 ;  of  Nature 
in  Wordsworth,  313,  et  seq. ;  differ- 
ence in  Shelley's  and  Browning's 
conceptions  of  love,  455 ;  and  see 
124,  215. 

'Love  among  the  Ruins,'  quoted,  481. 

'  Love  in  a  Life,'  33. 

'  Lovers'  Quarrel,  A,'  the  rhyme  of, 
166. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  an  early  reviewer  of 
Browning,  2 ;  on  Wordsworth, 
320 ;  and  see  388. 

'  Luria,'  its  first  appearance,  249,  250 ; 
historical  basis,  251-253 ;  Flor- 
ence, —  the  scene,  254-256  ;  Luria, 
the  man,  256-258;  Braccio,  259, 
260 ;  antithesis  of  the  play,  261, 
and  see  215,  340;  moral  signifi- 
cance, 262,  263  ;  Luria  compared 
with  Othello,  284  ;  and  see  56, 139, 
218,  283.  Quoted,  215,  255,  257, 
258,  260,  284. 

Luther,  150.     Quoted,  144. 

'Lycidas,'  Milton's,  122. 

'  MACBETH,'  Shakespeare's,  a  striking 
image  in,  1 75 ;  scene  in  '  Return 


of  the  Druses '  compared,  274,  281  • 
and  see  212,  217.  Quoted,  175. 

Machiavelli,  256. 

Macready,  3,  321. 

'  Mad-House  Cells,'  63. 

Mahaffy,  J.  P.,  quoted,  413,  414,  430, 
431. 

Manner,  as  a  test  of  a  poet's  original- 
ity, 7,  8. 

Marlowe,  280. 

Martineau,  James,  quoted,  144 ;  and 
see  316. 

Massinger,  280,  285. 

'Master  Hugues  of  Saxe-Gotha,' 
quoted,  214. 

Maupassant,  Guy  de,  'The  Confes- 
sion,' quoted,  182. 

'  Medea '  of  Euripides,  364,  367. 

Medisevalism,  Browning's  interest  in, 
369.  See  also  Middle  Ages. 

'  Meeting  at  Night,'  481. 

Melodramatic  effects  in  Browning's 
plays,  273,  274,  283. 

'Men  and  Women,'  33,  94,  166,  458. 

Mencius,  quoted,  144. 

'  Merchant  of  Venice,'  Shakespeare's, 
179.  Quoted,  210. 

Meredith,  George,  1 53,  285. 

Meres,  Francis,  on  Shakespeare,  156, 
158. 

'  Merope,'  Arnold'?,  442,  451. 

Metre,  Browning's  skill  in,  279,  280, 
286  ;  of  '  Pheidippides,'  386. 

Michael  Angelo,  188,  252,  254,  370. 
Quoted,  255. 

Michelet,  188. 

Middle  Ages,  painting  in  the,  102 ; 
religious  fanaticism  of  the,  275; 
Browning's  interest  in  the,  457 ; 
and  see  44,  54,  118. 

'  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,'  Shake- 
speare's, quoted,  185,  187. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  on  Wordsworth's 
poetry,  320 ;  and  see  37,  102. 

Millet,  37,  65. 

Milton,  as  an  epic  poet,  42,  44,  45, 
208  ;  '  Lycidas,'  122  ;  contemporary 
criticism,  157;  and  see  203,  363, 
372. 

'  Minor  Prophet,  A,'  George  Eliot's, 
quoted,  138. 


32 


498 


INDEX. 


Monism,  Oriental,  an  element  in 
Christian  faith,  13,  14;  in  Brown- 
ing's conception  of  God,  17,  18,  21, 
26  ;  in  Paracelsus'  creed,  242,  248. 

Monologue,  Browning's  development 
of  the,  44,  45,  184,  287  ;  early  ex- 
amples, '  Pauline,'  Paracelsus,'  and 
'  Sordello,'  46-55  ;  '  The  Ring  and 
the  Book,'  as  the  crowning  exam- 
ple, 56,  et  seq. ;  monologue  peculiar- 
ly suited  to  Browning,  65,  66,  220; 
in  Browning's  dramas,  273,  283; 
Sainte-Beuve's  monologues,  288. 

Monotheism,  Ethical,  of  Israel,  an 
element  in  Christian  theology,  10, 
11,  14  ;  Aristotle's,  11,  12,  21." 

Morris,  William,  quoted,  312. 

Moschns,  122. 

Moulton,  R.  G.,  on  '  Balaustion's  Ad- 
venture,' 430-436. 

Mulnhausen,  the  minnesinger,  87. 

'My  Last  Duchess,'  181,  182,  183, 
184.  Quoted,  167. 

Myers,  F.  W.,  his  '  Science  and  a 
Future  Life '  quoted,  316,  329. 

Mysticism,  in  Christian  theology,  14; 
of  Paracelsus,  225,  231,  et  seq.; 
Browning's,  240,  242,  243. 

NATURE,  in  Browning's  theistic 
belief,  16,  et  seq.,  229;  in  Euripi- 
des' theism,  30;  Giotto's  love  of, 
114;  to  Paracelsus  and  the  Occul- 
tists, 231,  et  seq.;  Wordsworth's 
relation  to,  313-318,  473,  474;  in 
Greek  literature,  471  ;  in  the 
Elizabethan  poets,  472  ;  effect  of 
democratic  and  scientific  ideas  on 
the  poetry  of  nature,  472-476 ;  in 
Tennyson  and  Emerson,  476 ;  char- 
acteristics of  Brown-ing's  poetic 
use  of  nature,  477-487,  and  see 
'  A  Grammarian's  Funeral,' '  Childe 
Roland,'  and  '  Saul.' 

'Ned  Bratts,'  139. 

Neo-Paganism,  Arnold's  and  Swin- 
burne's contrasted  with  Shelley's, 
442,  451 ;  Keats'  different  from 
Shelley's,  445. 

Newman,  J.  H.,  37,  38,  308. 

'  Numpholeptos,'  177,  385. 


OBJECTIVITY,     Shakespeare's,    207 ; 

Browning's,  365  ;  and  see  116,  117. 
Obscurity,  Lake  and  Cockney  Schools 

criticised  for,   153,  154;  nature  of 

Browning's,    334-336,     399,    400; 

in   '  Sordello,'   334,   337-341  ;    not 

always  a  fault,  336,  337. 
Occultism,  of  Paracelsus,  231,  et  seq. 
'  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn,'  Keats',  41. 

Quoted,  42. 
'  Ode  to  Immortality,'  Wordsworth's, 

153,  329,  484. 

'  Ode  to  Liberty,'  Shelley's,  447. 
'Odyssey,'    Homer's,   its   perfection, 

364,  387 ;    the  bards  in,  394,  395 ; 

typical    Greek    virtues      in,    405. 

Quoted,  395,  403. 

CEdipus  plays  of  Sophocles,  transla- 
tions of,  383. 
'Old  Pictures  in  Florence,'  102,  107. 

Quoted,    108    (331,  364,  408,  410, 

452,  454). 

Omar  Khayyam,  177. 
'  One   Word  More,'  94.     Quoted,  94 

(178),  95,  185. 

Optimism,  basis  of,  311,  312  ;  Words- 
worth's, 312-321 ;  Browning's,  321- 

333 ;  and  see  402,  437. 
'Origin  of   Species,'  Darwin's,   151, 

475. 
Originality,  tests  of  a  poet's,  7,  8 ; 

Browning's,  as  tested  by  his  manner 

of  treating  the  conception  of  God, 

8,  9,  16. 
Orr.  Mrs.  Sutherland,  in  her  'Life  of 

Browning,'  227,  400. 
'Othello,'   Shakespeare's,    182,    188, 

218,    253 ;    Luria  compared   with 

Othello,   257,   259,    284.     Quoted, 

179. 

Over-God,  the,  27-31  ;  and  see  72,  73. 
Ovid,  364,  368,  369. 

'  PACCHIAROTTO,'  its  rhymes,  172; 
and  see  139.  Quoted,  334. 

'  Pan  and  Luna,'  483. 

Pantheism,  influence  on  the  Chris- 
tian conception  of  God,  13,  14,  24; 
and  see  21,  316,  444. 

'  Paracelsus/ a  monologue  in  dialogue 
form,  46,  49 ;  Browning's  expla- 


INDEX. 


499 


nation  of  the  method  used,  49  ; 
sketch  of  the  poem,  49-52;  lyric 
heauties,  52,  53 ;  Paracelsus'  fail- 
ure, 123,  126;  as  illustrating  the 
uncalculating  soul,  140-142 ;  as 
foreshadowing  Evolution,  150,  151, 
475;  the  problem  of  the  poem, 
221-248:  a  poem  of  the  'Fausfc- 
cycle,'  221 ;  the  motive,  the  anti- 
thesis between  "loving"  and 
"  knowing,"  222-225,  227,  240,  243, 
245  ;  character  of  Paracelsus,  225- 
228, 231,  et  seq. ;  his  occultism,  231- 
233,  236,  237  ;  his  quest,  233-239, 
244,  245  ;  the  defects  of  occultism, 
239,  240,  242 ;  Aprile,  the  "  lover," 
243  ;  parallelism  with  '  Karshish,' 
and  'Saul,'  239,  240,  241,  243; 
siguificance  of  the  meeting  of 
Paracelsus  and  Aprile,  245,  246  ; 
Paracelsus'  failure  at  Basel,  246, 
247  ;  the  meaning  of  the  poem  — 
not  outer  nature  but  human  nature 
reveals  God,  248 ;  length  of  the 
monologues,  364,  371 ;  rare  classi- 
cal allusions,  368 ;  descriptions  of 
nature,  482,  483  ;  and  see  2,  4,  5, 
15,  16,  18,  21,  25,48,  54,  79,  220, 
264,  323,  338,  340,  406,  457. 
Quoted,  22,  50,  52,  53,  79,  105,  123, 
140,  141,  142,  143,  150,  151,  180, 
233,  .234,  235,  243,  323,  331,  369. 

'Paradise  Lost,'  Milton's,  157. 

'  Parleyings,'  1 5  ;  and  see  '  Charles 
Avison/  '  Francis  Furini,'  and 
'  Gerard  de  Lairesse.' 

1  Pauline,'  reception  of  the  poem,  2, 

46,  161  ;  a  monologue,  46  ;  shows 
influence  of    Keats  and    Shelley, 

47,  48,  456,  457  ;  quotable  lines  in, 
48 ;  compared  with  '  Sordello,'  338, 
341,    346;     Browning's    plan     in 
writing   the    poem,  360 ;   classical 
allusions,  368,  456,  457  ;  nature  de- 
scriptions, 478,  479;   and  see  21, 
463,  469.     Quoted,  47,  48,  49,  357, 
368,  398  (456),  457,  479. 

'  Pericles  and  Aspasia,'  Landor's,  464. 
Pessimirm,  311,  351  ;  Homer's,  402, 

403. 
Petrarch,  4,  84,  87,  88,  89. 


'Phaadrus,'  Plato's,  85,  86,  91. 

'  Pheidippides,'  an  artistic  rendering 
of  a  Greek  myth,  386,  463 ;  and 
see  17,  139.  Quoted,  132,  386,  463. 

Philosophy,  Greek,  influence  on 
Christian  belief,  11,  12;  relation 
to  art,  99-106;  Browning's  phi- 
losophy of  art  in  his  art-poems,  107, 
et  seq.;  Wordsworth's  optimism 
and  philosophy,  315-317;  relation 
of  Browning's  philosophy  to  his 
optimism,  324-328  ;  Homer's,  392- 
394  ;  Shelley's,  448-450 ;  and  see 
Kant,  Plato,  Spencer,  Idealism, 
T'ranscendentalism. 

'Pictor  Ignotus,'  111,  139.  Quoted, 
111. 

'Pied  Piper  of  Hamliu,  The,'  219, 
250. 

'  Pillar  at  Sebzevar,  A,'  quoted,  125, 
325. 

Pindar,  364,  385,  387. 

'  Pippa  Passes,'  classic  element  in, 
457  ;  and  see  2,  56,  59,  128,  139, 
175,249,359.  Quoted,  175  (485J, 
178  (231). 

Plato,  contribution  to  theistic  doc- 
trine, 1 1  ;  influence  on  Browning, 
21,  89,  90,  91,  454,  455 ;  on  Love  in 
the  '  Symposium,'  84,  85,  448-450  ; 
in  the  '  Phaedrus,'  85,  86,  91  ;  in- 
fluence on  Shelley,  441,  442.  448- 
450;  and  see  41,  87,97,  105,301, 
390,392.  Quoted,  100. 

Plutarch,  86,  379,  390,  436. 

Poetry,  of  the  nineteenth  century,  38, 
39,  41,  42;  classic  ideal  of,  40; 
anticipates  science,  150,  151,  475; 
Browning's  "  gospel  "  of  the  prov- 
ince of  poetry,  288,  and  see  38,  65, 
100,  401  ;  the  varying  standards, 
294  ;  relation  of  science  and  poetry, 
321-323 ;  Homer's  conception  of, 
394-396  ;  poetry  of  nature  as  af- 
fected by  democracy  and  science, 
472-476. 

Pollock,  Lady,  3. 

Pope,  Alexander,  reflected  the  taste 
of  his  time,  157,  159 ;  present 
opinion  of  him,  158;  his  rhymes, 
166,  167  ;  and  see  287. 


500 


INDEX. 


'  Porphyria's  Lover,'  365. 

Posnett,  on  the  relativity  of  art,  162. 

Potter,  Robert,  his  translations  from 

Euripides  quoted,  432,  433,  434. 
'Prelude,  The,'   Wordsworth's,  313 

320.     Quoted,  314,  317,  318. 
'  Prince  Hohenstiel  Schwangau,'  132, 

215. 

'  Princess,  The,'  Tennyson's,  406. 
'Prologue'    to    'Asolando,'  quoted, 

484. 

'  Prometheus,'  -(Eschylus',  375,  383. 
'  Prometheus,'  Shelley's,  31,32,154, 

442,  444. 
'  Prospice,'  329,  365.     Quoted,  365. 

Quarterly   Review,   2,   153.      Quoted 

154. 
Queen  Elizabeth,  37,  38,  160. 

'  RABBI   BEN  EZRA,'  fine  image  in, 
176  ;  and  see  15,  33,  128.     Quoted,' 
-24,  80,  145  (178),  330,  331,  365. 

Rabelais,  176. 

Raphael,  94,  95,  117,  254,  383. 

Realism,  Browning's,  104,  182,  183  ; 
Andrea  del  Sarto's,  106,  110,  117. 

'Red  Cotton  Night-Cap  Country,' 
139,  286. 

Relativity  of  art,  162  ;  of  knowledge, 
326,  392. 

Religion,  Homer's,  402-404 ;  and 
see  Theism. 

Renaissance,  in  Browning's  poetry, 
21,  119,  221,  242,  255,  362,  453, 
469;  influence  on  art,  113-115; 
and  see,  439. 

Repplier,  Agnes,  quoted,  393. 

'  Return  from  Parnassus,  The,'  con- 
temporary comment  on  Shake- 
speare and  the  status  of  poets,  156. 

'  Return  of  the  Druses,  The,'  a  study 
of,  264-288  :  the  Druses,  265-271  ; 
the  plot,  271-275;  melodramatic 
effects,  273,  274  ;  Djahal,  the  cen- 
tral figure,  275-277  ;  Anael,  277, 
278 ;  other  characters,  279 ;  its 
style,  279-283  ;  beauties  of  metre, 
280,  285  ;  defects  in  diction,  280- 
283.  Quoted,  271,  273,  274,  276, 
277,  278,  280,  et  seq. 


'  Reverie '  in  '  Asolando,'  expresses 
Browning's    theology,      15,    229; 
Love  and  Power  in,   18,  225,  230. 
Quoted,  19,  230. 
Revival  of  Learning,  119,  457. 
'Revolt  of    Islam,    The,'   Shelley's, 

446,  447. 

Rhyme,  Browning  a  master  of,  1 64, 
165,  286,  381  ;  his  complex  rhyme- 
structure,  165,  166;  heroic  coup- 
lets with  "  run-on  "  lines,  167,  168  ; 
faulty  rhymes  in  Browning  and 
Tennyson,  169-171,  and  see  385 ; 
double  and  triple  rhymes,  171, 
172;  Browning's  first  rhymed 
poem,  '  Sordello,'  338,  339. 
Richardson,  Samuel,  his  '  Clarissa 

Harlowe,'  286. 

'  Ring  and  the  Book,  The,'  Brown- 
ing's masterpiece,  46,  56,  220,  367  ; 
the  plot,  56-58;  the  characters: 
Pompilia,  as  a  literary  creation,  36, 
59,  188;  her  character,  60,  128; 
and  see  29,  95,  184,  407,  411,  462, 
469;  Caponsacchi,  61,  128,  139; 
Count  Guido,  his  theology,  15,  16, 
26,  28,  29;  his  defence,  61,  62; 
Browning's  interest  in  the  char- 
acter, 132,  215,  325,  406,  409;  the 
Pope,  his  theology,  15,  18,  19,  29  ; 
and  see  63,  184,  289,  462 ;  the 
lawyers,  64,  65;  artistic  advan- 
tages in  the  plot,  62,  63  ;  the  con- 
struction, 63-65,  286 ;  dramatic 
quality,  207,  408  ;  contrasted  with 
the  '  Iliad,'  391  ;  a  study  of  Chris- 
tian society  in  a  corrupt  period, 
462.  Quoted,  30,  38,  57,  60,  61, 
62,  95,  100,  139,215,  220. 
Ritchie,  Mrs.  Anne  Thackeray,  com- 
parison of  Tennyson  and  Brown- 
ing, 4. 

Rome,  Half  Rome  and  The  Other 
Half,  in  '  The  Ring  and  the  Book,' 
64,  408. 

Rossetti,  D.  G.,  39,  49,  308. 
Ruckert,  381. 
Ruskin,  John,  307,  394,  477. 

ST.  BERNARD,  his  '  Hymn  to  the 
Crucified  One,'  108. 


INDEX. 


501 


Sainte-Beuve,  288. 

Saintsbury,  G.  E.  B.,  quoted,  327. 

'Sandpiper,  The,'  Celia  Thaxter's, 
quoted,  147. 

Sardou,  187. 

'  Saul,'  David's  prophecy  of  the  In- 
carnation, 25,  241,  486,  and  see  27, 
28,  29  ;  descriptions  of  nature,  184, 
185,  482  ;  parallelism  of  thought 
in  '  Paracelsus,'  243 ;  harmony  of 
nature  and  human  emotion,  486 ; 
and  see  15,  128,  325,  329.  Quoted, 
145,  241,  330,  487. 

Schiller,  4,  105,  106.     Quoted,  228. 

Schopenhauer,  350,  351. 

Science,  the  Calibanism  of,  83  ;  in- 
fluence on  Browning,  104;  Sainte- 
Beuve  a  representative  of  the  sci- 
entific spirit  in  literature,  288; 
poetry  and  science,  see  Poetry. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  1, 207, 208,  274, 285. 

Seriousness,  the  note  of  the  passing 
generation,  37. 

Shakespeare,  use  of  earlier  plays,  7, 
251  ;  his  Caliban  the  germ  of 
Browning's,  67.  68  ;  contemporary 
opinion  of,  156,  158,  159;  his  im- 
agery compared  with  Browning's, 
175,  179,  181,  185;  creative  power, 
188  ;  the  Nemesis  of  Conscience  in 
his  dramas,  191,  192 ;  Browning's 
'  Strafford  '  compared  with  '  Julius 
Caesar,'  193-196;  comparison  of 
Shakespeare  and  Browning  as 
dramatic  poets,  205-219 :  Shake- 
speare's objectivity,  205,  207  ;  his 
Comedy,  208 ;  the  natural  envi- 
ronment of  his  plays,  210,  211,  212, 
217,  218,  219;  the  subtle  unity, 
214,  215  ;  reference  to  Shakespeare 
in  '  Aristophanes'  Apology,'  378, 
424,  469 ;  likeness  of  Euripides  to 
Shakespeare,  428  ;  and  see  37,  45, 
128,  161,  203,  256,  274,  281,  282, 
285,  363,  408,  454,  477.  Quoted, 
68,  175,  179,  185,  187,  195,  270. 

Sharp,  William,  2,  283,  285.  Quoted, 
327. 

Shelley,  Mrs.,  188. 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  conflict  be- 
tween Love  and  Power  in  his  '  Pro- 


metheus,' 31-33;  classed  with 
Wordsworth  and  Browning,  39 ; 
influence  on  Browning's  '  Pauline,' 
47,  48,  456,  457  ;  his  '  Adonais,' 
122,  442;  unfinished  play  on 
Charles  I.,  192 ;  Greek  spirit  in, 
439-451 :  disciple  of  Greece,  439, 
440;  acquaintance  with  Greek  lit- 
erature, 441 ;  his  myth  impulse, 
443,  444 ;  fusion  of  classic  and 
modern  iii  '  Prometheus  Unbound,' 
444 ;  influence  of  Greek  conception 
of  beauty,  445;  of  Greek  ideal  of 
freedom,  446 ;  of  Platonic  phi- 
losophy, 448-450 ;  classic  influence 
on  Browning  and  Shelley  con- 
trasted, 453-455,  463,  464,  465, 
467,  470  ;  and  see  56,  105,  308,  335,' 
452,  473.  Quoted,  159,  438,  442, 
443,  444,  447,  449,  450,  451,  470. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  37,  156.  Quoted, 
156. 

Signorelli,  Luca,  114. 

'  Skeleton  in  Armour,  The,'  Longfel- 
low's, the  measure,  172. 

'  Sludge  the  Medium,  Mr.,'  Sludge 
as  an  object  of  interest  to  Brown- 
ing, 132,  406,  409;  the  poem  not 
an  attack  on  spiritism,  290 ;  Sludge 
as  a  poetic  subject,  290,  293  ;  traits 
of  Sludge's  character,  291-293; 
value  of  the  study,  293 ;  dramatic 
interest,  295 ;  Sludge's  philosophy 
of  life,  295-303 ;  his  defence  of 
lying,  299 ;  and  see  184,  367. 
Quoted,  291,  295,  297,  et  seq.,  304. 

Snider,  Denton,  on  Shakespeare,  195. 

Socrates,  365,  392  ;  in  Plato's  '  Sym- 
posium,' 424,  448,  449. 

'  Soliloquy  of  the  Spanish  Cloister,' 
181. 

Sophocles,  Fate  in  his  dramas,  191  ; 
the  perfection  of  '  Antigone,'  364, 
387 ;  Browning's  allusions  to,  368, 
373,  379;  least  attractive  of  the 
Greek  tragedists  to  Browning,  383  ; 
compared  with  Euripides,  414, 
425  ;  and  see  7,  377,382,  384,  411, 
446,  466,  467. 

'Sordello,*  as  a  monologue,  46,  54, 
55  ;  sketch  of,  53  ;  Browning's  first 


502 


INDEX. 


poem  of  Italy,  55  ;  a  masterpiece 
of  rhyme,  167;  its  obscurity,  334, 
et  seq. :  due  to  its  rhyme  and  its 
lack  of  dramatic  form,  338,  339, 
341  ;  collision  of  head  and  heart 
in  the  poem,  340,  342,  358;  its 
beauties,  341,  347,  357;  the  story 
and  its  meaning,  342-362 ;  the 
hero's  failure  as  poet,  344-348 ; 
failure  as  man,  349-358  ;  the  other 
characters,  358 ;  Dante's  mention 
of  the  Sordello  of  history,  361  ; 
and  see  5,  249,  365,  369,  406,  454, 
457,  482,  483.  Quoted,  127,  330, 
336,  339,  343,  et  seq.,  365,  369, 
464. 

« Soul's  Tragedy,  A,' the  story,  133- 
136  ;  its  lessons,  136-138.  Quoted, 
133,  134,  135,  136,  145. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  his  philosophy, 
102,  103,  326,  392,  401,  and  see  17  ; 
on  style,  337  ;  and  see  37,  151. 

Spenser,  contemporary  praise  of,  155, 
156;  his  Platonism,  448;  and  see 
37,  203,  439. 

'  State  of  Innocence,  The,'  Dryden's, 
157. 

'Statue  and  the  Bust,  The,'  23,  124, 
261,358.  Quoted,  180,  224. 

Stedman,  E.  C.,  quoted,  474. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  on  Wordsworth,  320. 

Sterne,  Laurence,  285. 

Stowe,  Mrs.,  criticism  of  '  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin,'  393. 

'  Strafford,'  difficulty  of  the  subject, 
190-192;  "England's  fate"  the 
motive,  191,  197,  198;  compared 
with  'Julius  Caesar,'  193-196; 
sketch  of  the  play,  196-202 ;  Brown- 
ing's liberties  with  historical  record, 
197;  originality  of  the  trial-scene, 
199  ;  and  see  2,  215,  250,  264,  338. 
Quoted,  199,  200.  201,  202. 

'  Strange  Medical  Experience  of  Kar- 
shish.  The,'  bears  witness  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  25, 
240;  and  see  29,  31  ;  Karshish  an 
occultist,  239,  240 ;  parallel  with  the 
thought  of  '  Paracelsus '  and  '  Saul,' 
241,  243;  and  see  15,  326,  459. 
Quoted,  185,  240,  241. 


Strenuousness,  as  an  element  of  Love, 
23,  32,  224;  of  Paracelsus,  244, 
245,  246. 

Style,  Browning's,  not  sufficiently 
studied,  279,  and  see  8, 78 ;  obscur- 
ity may  add  force  to,  337  ;  a  trick 
of  Browning's,  373 ;  Homer's,  397- 
399 ;  defects  in  Browning's,  399- 
402;  Greek  quality  of  Shelley's, 

.  441 ;  Browning's  rendering  of 
Greek,  467. 

Subjective  poet,  Browning  on  the, 
116. 

Sumuer,  Charles,  144. 

'  Sun,  The,'  26. 

Sweden borg,  22,  396.     Quoted,  144. 

Swift,  Deau,  286. 

Swinburne,  Algeruon  Charles,  his 
neo-paganism,  442,  451,  464,  467, 
470;  and  see  39,  286,  363,  439. 
Quoted,  312. 

Symonds,  J.  Addiugton,  on  '  Aris- 
tophanes' Apology,'  376,  429. 
Quoted,  100,  153,  162. 

Symons,  Arthur,  quoted,  164, 172,223. 

'Symposium,'  Plato's,  84,  85,  378, 
424,  448-450;  Shelley's  transla- 
tion, 448. 

TADDEO  GADDI,  107,  114. 

'Tears,  Idle  Tears,'  Tennyson's,  5. 

'Tempest,  The,'  Shakespeare's  Cali- 
ban in,  67.  Quoted,  68. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  his  fame  and 
Browning's,  3,  4,  5 ;  his  appear- 
ance, 6 ;  contemporary  criticism 
of,  160,  161;  bad  rhymes  in  'In 
Memoriam,'  170;  attitude  towards 
Evolution,  322,  475  ;  his  profun- 
dity, 337;  classical  influence  on, 
363,  368.  440;  less  the  poet  of 
to-day  than  Browning,  406 ;  the 
artist  among  Victorian  poets.  476  ; 
and  see  1,  17,  172,  249,  286,  290, 
307,  308,  329,  388,  477,  478. 
Quoted,  126,  322,  323. 

Thackeray,  Miss  Anne.  See  Mrs. 
Ritchie. 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  37,  38,  285. 

Theism,  Christian,  three  elements  of, 
9-15;  Browning's,  15-34:  based 


INDEX. 


503 


on  two  intuitions  —  God  is  Power, 
16-21,  God  is  Love,  21-26;  rela- 
tion and  reconciliation  of  the  two, 
22,  26,  31,  33,  34;  interest  in  the 
Incarnation,  25,  26,  241 ;  Brown- 
ing's optimism  the  result  of -his 
theism,  328 ;  Euripides',  as  sug- 
gested in  '  Aristophanes'  Apology/ 
425. 

Theocritus,  363. 

'  Threnody/  Emerson's,  122. 

'Through  the  Metidja,'  the  rhyme 
of,  165,  169. 

'  Tintern  Abbey/  Wordsworth's, 
quoted,  315. 

'  Toccata  of  Galuppi's,  A/  52. 

Transcendentalism,  of  the  ancients, 
392  ;  Browning's,  396. 

Translation,  of  Homer,  inadequacy 
of  all,  397,  401  ;  Browning's  ability 
in,  384,  386,  413,  429 ;  and  see  370. 

Transliteration  of  Greek  names, 
Browning's, .  374. 

Turgenieff,  37. 

Turner,  396. 

•Two  in  the  Campagna/  91,  484. 
Quoted,  92. 

'Two  Poets  of  Croisic,  The/  160, 
173. 

Tyndall,  1. 


VERKALL,   Professor,  on  Euripides, 

371,  372,  378,  380. 
Victorian  Age,  criticism  in  the,  161 ; 

Greek  spirit  in  the,  439,  451,  452  ; 

nature  to  the  poets  of  the,  476,  477. 
Virgil,  122,  155,  175,  363. 
Voltaire,  160,  441. 

WAGNEK,  396. 

'  Wanting  is  —  What  ?  '  478. 

Whitman,  Walt,  188. 

Wordsworth,  William,  classed  with 
Shelley  and  Browning,  39  ;  Mill's 
recourse  to  the  poetry  of,  102,  320; 
his  early  critics,  153,  294;  most 
personal  and  most  impersonal  of 
poets,  205  ;  his  optimism,  312-322 : 
unconscious  relation  to  nature,  313, 
318  ;  conscious  love  of  nature,  314 ; 
revealed  spiritual  element  in  na- 
ture, 314-317  ;  his  power  to  change 
defeat  into  strength,  318,  319; 
tributes  to  his  optimism,  320;  on 
science  and  poetry,  321,  322;  sel- 
dom treated  Greek 
rapture  in  his  nature 
474 ;  and  see  1,  37,  f 
308,  445,  484.  Quot 
317,  318,  319,322,  473." 

'  Worst  of  It,  The/  92.    Quoted,  92. 


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