Life of Robert Browning

Pauline" was almost wholly disregard

ly and privately, that intelligent sympathy which is the best sunshine for the flower of a poet's genius. If by "before he gained recognition" is meant a general and indiscriminate acclaim, no doubt Browning had, still has indeed, longer to wait than ma

, or as John Forster wrote in `The Examiner' concerning "Paracelsus", and later in the `New Monthly Magazine', where he had the courage to say of the young and quite unknown poet, "without the slightest hesitation we name Mr. Robert Browning at once with Shelley, Coleridge, Wordsworth." His plays even (which are commonly said to have "fallen flat") were certainly not failures. There is something effeminate, undignified, and certainly uncritical, in this confusion as to what is and what is not failure in literature. So enthusiastic was the applause he encountered, indeed, that had

will look back with clear eyes untroubled by the dust of our footsteps, not to subside till long after we too are dust, will be the place given to this poet, we know not, nor can more than speculatively estimate. That it w

Cunningham in the `Athenaeum', and, in `Tait's Edinburgh Magazine', the succinctly expressed impression of either an indolent or an incapable reviewer: "Pauline; a Fragment of a

ore vital poems: already, even, he had developed towards a more individualistic method. So indifferent was he to an easily gained reputation that he seems to have been really urgent upon his relatives and intimate acquaintances not to betray his authorship. The Miss Flower, however, to whom allusion has already been made, could not repress her admiration to the extent of depriving her friend, Mr. Fox,

er been written. Many years after, when articles upon Robert Browning were as numerous as they once had been scarce, never a word betrayed that their authors knew of

himself informed me that he had never heard this authorship suggested, though some one had spoken to him of a poem of remarkable promise, called "Pauline", which he ought to read. If I remember aright, Rossetti told me that it was on the forenoon of the day when the "Burden of Nineveh" was begun, conceived ra

rt Browning wrote to me, some

re de Ch

e, F

.

d it to be mine, but could not be sure, and wished me to pronounce in the matter - which I did. A year or two after, I had a visit in London from Mr. (William) Allingham and a friend - who proved to be Rossetti. When I heard he was a painter I insisted on calling on him, though he declared he had nothing to show me - which was far enough from the case. Subsequently, on another of my returns to London

lent portrait of Browning here allud

ace at 13 Dorset Street, Portman Square, on the 27th of September 1855, and those present, besides

d he went often to the British Museum, particularly the Library, and to the National Gallery. At the British Museum Reading Room he perused with great industry and research those works in philosophy and medical history which are the bases of "Paracelsus", and those Italian Records bearing upon the story of Sordello. Residence in Camberwell, in 1833, rendered night engagements often impracticable: but nevertheless he managed to mix a good deal in congenial society. It is not commonly known that he was familiar to these early associates as a musician and artist rather tha

ti called fundamental brain-work, in the product of the younger poet, would be beside the mark. The insistence on the supremacy of Browning over all poets since Shakespeare because he has the highest "message" to deliver, because his intellect is the most subtle and comprehensive, because his poems have this or that dynamic effect upon dormant or sluggish or other active minds, is to be seriously and energetically deprecated. It is with presentment that the artist has, fundamentally, to concern himself. If he cannot PRESEN

g thro' the myria

of bees i' the i

'neath the undel

t which dwells not in nature, but only in the visionary eye of man. Form for the mere beauty of form, is a playing with the wind, the accep

fair snow-mountain of Titanic aim melted away. He began to realise the first disenchantment of the artist: the sense of dreams never to be accompl

d of men and women. It was ever a favourite answer of his, when asked i

aged his attention. That, however, his Russian experiences were not fruitless is manifest from the remarkably picturesque and technically very interesting poem, "Ivan Ivanovitch" (the fourth of th

be in

April's

se lines in his

erish

land - how, he

ange tongue make

Italy, who of all our truest poets has not loved her: but who has worshipped her with so manly a passion, so loyal a love, as Browning? One alone indeed may be mated with him here, she who had his heart of

and history, Italian Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Music. From Porphyria and her lover to Pompilia and all the direful Roman tragedy wherein she is as a moo

g was proud, because Mazzini told him he had read this poem to certain of his

Asolo, that white little hill-town of the Veneto, whence he drew hints for "Sordello" and "Pippa Passes", and whith

his period, also, he wrote some short poems, two of them of particular significance. The first of the series was a sonnet, which appeared above the signature `Z' in the August number of the `Monthly Repository' for 1834. It was never reprinted by the auth

n "Pauline", in their novel sentiment, new method, and generally unique quality, is a new voice audible in these two poems. They are very remarkable as the work of so young a poet, and are interesting as showing how rapidly he had outgrown the influence of any other of his poetic kindred. "Johannes Agricola" is significant

lustrate his glowing descriptions of its beauties, the palaces, the sunsets, the moonrises, by a most original kind of etching. Taking up a bit of stray notepaper, he would hold it over a lighted candle, moving the paper about gently till it was cloudily smoked over, and then utilising the darker

ne of a class with which it has nothing in common, from judging it by principles on which it was not moulded, and from subjecting it to a standard to which it was never meant to conform. He then explains that he has composed a dramatic poem, and not a drama in the accepted sense; that he has not set forth the phenomena of the mind or the passions by the operation of persons and events, or by recourse to an external machinery of incidents to create and evolve the crisis sought to be produced. Instead of this, he remarks, "I have ventured to display somewhat minutely the mood itself in

e inferred that Browning had not definitively adopted his characteristic method: that he was far from unwilling to gain the general ear: and that he was alert to the difficulties of popularisation of poetry written on lines similar to those of "Paracelsus". Nor would this inference be w

hus enjoyed, with all the concurrent delights of natural things, the wind moving like a spirit through the tree-branches, the drifting of poignant fragrances, even in winter-tide, from herb and sappy bark, imperceptible almost by the alertest sense in the day's manifold detachments. At this time, too, he composed much in the open air. This he rarely, if ever, did in later life. Not only many p

ehended more by the transmutive shudder of reflected glare thrown fadingly upward against the stars, than by any more direct vision or even far-borne indeterminate hum, dominated his imagination. At that distance, in those circumstances, humanity became mor

those nocturnal experiences: but perhaps few recognise how much we owe to the subtle

mance of that end. Moreover, if readers are unable or unwilling to be their own expositors, there are several trustworthy hand-books which are easily procurable. Some one, I believe, has even, with unselfish consideration for the weaker brethren, turned "Sordello" into prose - a s

or significant poems, and in due course attempt an estimate

the wise sympathy which enabled him to apprehend and understand their weaknesses as well as their lofty qualities. Once having come to the conclusion that Paracelsus was a great and much maligned man, it was natural for him to wish to portray aright the features he saw looming through the mists of legend and history. But over and above this, he half unwittingly, ha

traordinary powers: and, as a pioneer in a science of the first magnitude of importance, deserving of high honour. If ever the famous Ger

poet's presentment of the man - of that strange soul whom he conceived of as having anticipated so far, and as having focussed a

wo particular clai

discovery of incalculab

tismal name, which he i

ar term, `bombast'

oncerning the "maste

eator," the forerunn

who began life with t

Theophrastus Bomba

wning's own learne

ting essay in the Browni

l striving against baffling circumstance. It is full of passages of rare technical excellence, as well as of conceptive beauty: so full, indeed, that the sympathetic reader of it as a drama will be too apt to overlook its radical shortcomings, cast a

reat medical student who began life so brave of aspect and died so miserably at Salzburg: but it is al

aits, of noble and striking and always intensely human women, unparalleled except in Shakespeare. Pauline, of course, exists only as an abstraction, and Porphyria is in no exact sense a portrait from the life. Yet Michal can be revealed only to the sy

ting beauty, and of a unique and exquisite charm. It may be noted, in exemplification of Browning's artistic range, that i

populous

y the ever

d shy lizards an

f the silver-

ugh near, this w

ld or a cane-

itening in th

ccinct method of landscape-paintin

cks the haunts of

whose sides stra

ilk-white minute

tific and the poetic vision than in this magnificent passage - th

e heaves undern

changes like

e bursts up a

tone's heart, ou

es, spots bar

ine sand where

. The wroth sea'

te as the bitt

litary waste,

anoes come up

er with their

easure in their

ill; earth is

like a dancing

st to waken i

upon rough b

e-rests and the

triving with a

ight, the boughs a

ids impatien

orrs are busy

rows, ants ma

ly in merry fl

up, shivering

sleeps; white

strand is purpl

pets; savage

wood and plain

ient ra

is beloved Greeks. There is an anecdote of his walking across a public park (I am told Richmond, but more probably it was Wimbledon Common) with his hat in his left hand and his right waving to and fro declamatorily, while the wind blew his hair around his head like a nimbus: so rapt in his ecstasy over t

ic knowledge is again and agai

evisions of w

onfusedly ev

tures, and all

t dimly the

es too fair to

appears

ted in Browning's

nce, should consult th

y Mr. Edward Berdoe, F.R

ginals the reference

bearing upon Evolution

onomy to

, which have a magic t

nse of it can be conveye

es were a sol

s to wild fowls

eagle why she

st and unex

power informs he

arvels, stren

undless regio

. Gordon, our most revered hero, was wont to declare that nothing in all nonscriptural

o prove

s birds their

What time, wha

t unless God

eballs, sleet o

His good time,

d the bird. In

es not follow that every lofty intellect, every great objective poet, should be labelled "Shakespearian". But there is a certain quality in poetic expression which we so specify, because the intense humanity throbbing in it fi

e secrets are l

ft the follies

h's familiar,

to die, some

rom his go-ca

rinces' smiles,

of favourites.

d, and truly w

f God's fing

n old. And just

g with blank an

enly, and with

te of thick air

t was June; an

lling, harebell

ings could eve

ecious as those

ech without tumultuous pressure of ideas or stammering. It has not, in like degree, the intense human insight of, say, "The Inn Album", but it has that charm of sequent excellence too rarely to be found in many of Browning's later writings. It glides onward like a steadfast stream, the thought moving with the current it animates and controls, and throbbing eagerly beneath. When we read ce

lyrics the freer music

ys went": a song full o

rial, and yet has a free

htful of spont

ed, every

ight into the

and paean

y lyrics I select rather the rich and delicate second of these "Paracelsus" songs, o

, sandal-bud

um, and a

dull nard a

hair: such

de mountain

where tired w

he vast and

half their

int sweetness

fine worm-e

to dust when

perfume, l

t long to

and dropping

er lute and

en, long dead

e lapses from rhythmic energy to which the poet became less and less sensitive, till he could be so deaf to the vanishing

vement, indeed, for an author of Browning's years. Well may we exclaim w

sun

our faith in