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