Life of Robert Browning

I have named are dramas for mental and not for positive presentation. Each reader must embody for himself the images projected on his brain by the electric quality of the poet's genius: within t

the immediate and remote consequences of a sing

Book"; that thenceforth there was declension. But Browning is not to be measured by common estimates. It is easy to indicate, in the instances of many poets, just where the music rea

upreme heights of accomplishment. Like Balzac, like Shakespeare again, he has revealed to us a territory so vast, that while we bow

orerunners, as in Marlowe's "Faustus", and its ambitious offspring, as in Bailey's "Festu

of separate seas, or is it really one, as the wastes which wash from Arctic to Antarctic, through zones temperate and equatorial, are yet one and indivisible? If it have not this unity it is still a stupendous accomplishment, but it is not a work of art. And though art is but the handmaiden o

ment in which it is entombed for eternity. But the poet looked upon the central incident as the inventive mechanician regards the tiny pivot remote amid the intricate maze of his machinery. Here, as elsewhere, Browning's real subject is too often confounded with the accidents of the subject. His triumph is not that he has created so huge a literary monument, but rather that, notwithstanding its bulk, he has made it shapely and impressive. Str

tion of the Pope, and with the pathetic utterance of Pompilia. It is not a dramatic poem in the sense that "Pippa Passes" is, for its ten Books (the first and twelfth are respectively intro

pposed adultery, by a certain Count Guido Franceschini; and of that noble's trial, sentence, and doom. It is much the same subject matter as underlies the dramas of Webster, Ford, and other Elizabethan poets, but subtlety of insight rather than intensity of emotion and situation distinguishes the Victorian dramatist from his predecessors. The story fascinated Browning,

hinks of the child-wife, Pompilia. She becomes the scapegoat, when the gross selfishness of the contracting parties stands revealed. Count Guido has a genius for domestic tyranny. Pompilia suffers. When she is about to become a mother she determines to leave her husband, whom she now dreads as well as dislikes. Since the child is to be the inheritor of her parents' wealth, she will not leave it to the tender mercies of Count Guido. A young priest, a canon of Arezzo, Giuseppe Caponsacchi, helps her to escape. In due course she gives birth to a son. She has scarce time to learn the full sweetness of her maternity ere she is done to death like a trampled flower. Guido, who has held himself thrall to an imperative patience, till his hold upon the child's dowry should be secure,

d-wife Pompilia. It is clear, therefore, that the greatness of "The Ring and the Book" must depend even l

tricacies of evidence. But there the parallel ends. If "The Ring and the Book" were deflowered of its blooms of poetry and rendered into a prose narrative, it might interest a barrister "getting up" a criminal

at a just estimate it is needful to free the mind not merely from preconceptions, but from that niggardliness of insight which can perceive only the minor flaws and shortcomings almost inevitable to any vast literary ac

ipate the biographical narrative, and state that the finding of the parchment-booklet happened in the fourth y

as follows: - "The story

lates it, forms a

truth; and this cir

which the worke

tal circlet which wi

s too soft to be

lloy to gain the necess

d and embossed, the

ament remains. Mr.

his purpose, though f

`pure crude fact', secre

se experience it had for

under the artistic attem

the alloy of fancy, or

fact being the echo o

own. He breathed i

fe; and when his ring of

in solid strength, h

mped with human t

y aside, and bid h

them unadulterated hum

o congregate above Vallombrosa and the whole valley of Arno: and the air in Florence was painfully sultry. The poet stood by himself on his terrace at Casa Guidi, and as he watched the fir

en

uick shown by op

silently from

gold snow Jove

ed by twos and th

lackness in de

n sense ben

t the terrace-p

tall datura, w

d there, wanting

for the imagination was found in a pamphlet of which he came into possession of in London, where s

s well as in form, that one would, having apprehended its explanatory interest, pass on without regret, were it not for the noble close - the passionate, out-welling lines to "the truest poet I have ev

, half angel

nder and a w

rts that ever

ry within th

dred soul out

the red-ripe

summons from th

thy chambers, bl

of the glory

an, to suffer

voice: can thy

hearken from th

commence my

t taught song

nt head and be

pite the distan

in may be; so

splendour once

tion ancient

de, but raisin

es, that cannot

all sustainmen

p and on, - so

lms of help, tha

ich, I judge, thy

re, I think, thy

.

casional lines of real poetry. Retrospectively, apart from the interest, often strained to the utmost, most readers, I fancy, will recall with lingering pleasure only the opening of "The Other Half Rome", the descriptio

de with Count Guido, of those who are all for Pompilia, and of the "superior person",

em. The extreme intellectual subtlety of Guido's plea stands quite unrivalled in poetic literature. In comparing it, for its poetic beauty, with other sections, the reader must bear in mind that in a poem of a dramatic nature the dramatic proprieties must be dominant. It would be obviously inappropriate to make Count G

cannot have t

, flashing brow

rtal (oh, that

of the pale

d with - that

me, I see throu

oeuvre! Also

do you dare say

for myself

takes a supreme effort of genius to be as simple as a child. How marvellously, after the almost sublime hypocrisy of the end of Guido's defence, after the beautiful dignity of Caponsacchi's closi

nteen years and

one day more,

in the chur

Lucina, a

many names for

Camilla Vi

omparini -

Meredith, but not even the latter, most subtle and delicate of all analysts of the tragi-comedy of human life, has surpassed "Pompilia". The meeting and the swift uprising of love between Lucy and Richard,

ss. Only the sternly strong can be supremely tender

God is that my

born, baptis

ppened, safe f

in God could no

G TO SMILE AND

reet-corner in a lonely niche," with the babe that had sat upon her knees broken off: or that passage, with its exquisite naivete, where Pompilia relates why sh

efuller,

sake than those

s time, - see my

the

all m

y thing that f

be! I thought,

n for once tha

to a laugh at

, eternally

e m

canno

een the ill o

at one is

r, and no dan

st was never

r beautifulle

st is

n through her dark," the "light of the unborn face sent long before:" or those unique li

fortnight; in

led with bliss

not mothers

ised God's b

likest God i

elt like Mary

e on my breas

t with surpassing triumph,

shows sufficie

ark to rise by.

t plaintive voice, so poignantly sweet, that ineffable dying sm

some, a desolate boulder-strewn gorge after the sweet air and sunlit summits of "Caponsacchi" and "Pompilia". In the next "book" Innocent XII. is revealed. All this section ha

n criminal I

ch a suddenn

ples once, a

arce conjecture

y or sea or

lack was burst th

ow on blow, earth

le length of mo

ity thick and p

st disshrouded,

th be flashed

one instant,

to bay and knows that all is lost. Who can forget its unparalleled close, when the wolf-li

l, - Christ, - Ma

l you let the

nds off the tale. But is

uld have come with t

rded as an artistic whole, the most magnificent failure in our literature. It enshrines poetry which no other than our greatest could have written; it has depths to which many of far inferior power have not descended. Surely the poem must be judged by the balance of its success and failure? It is in no presumptuous spirit, but out of my profound admiration of this long-loved and often-read, this superb poem, that I, for one, wish it comprised but the Prologu

e tidal ebb and flow may be observed with singular aptness in Browning's life-work - the tide that first moved shoreward in the loveliness of "Pauline", and, with "long withdrawing roar," ebbed in slow, just p

m to hear the resilient undertone all through the long slow poise of "The Ring and the Book".

entitled, but all in the "Dramatic Romances", "Lyrics", and the "Dramatis Personae", all the short pieces of a ce

, to hold by it. Yet I am not oblivious of the mass of Browning's lofty achievement, "to be known enduringly among men," - an achievement, even on its seconda

g's genius in these unfading blooms which we will agree to include in "Men and Women"? How better - certainly it would be impossi

ent, but not rigidly, a

that masterpiece o

s burned in upon the br

. Then would foll

ma `in petto', where the

ng against that of hi

ection; those delight

", "Through the Met

er of Hamelin"; "

chess"; "The Tomb at

thusiastic praise for it

dle Ages; "Pictor Ignotu

space for individual

t are spoken of else

r's acquaintance with

se first mentione

Abroad"; "Home Tho

e Heretic's Tragedy"; "

Parting at Morning"

"; "Rabbi Ben Ezra"; "

"; Song, "Nay but you

Woman's Last Word"

Wife to Any Husband"; "A

Woman"; "A Light Woma

Last Ride Together"; "A

axe Gotha"; "Abt Vo

efore"; "After"; "In T

rence"; "De Gustibus

leon"; "Two in the Campa

isconceptions"; "May and

Late"; "Confessions"; "Pr

"; "Apparent Failure"

rom end of First Part of

iel"; "Amphibian";

ral Magic"; "Magical N

ances"; "St. Martin's S

rotto volume; Prolo

s of Croisic"; "Epilo

Ivan Ivanovitch"; "E

him ne'er so lightly";

hi"; "Mary Wollstonecra

e Place"; Song, "Round

ken"; Song, "You groped y

"Verse-making"; "Not

word of praise"; "W

Pts. 9, 10, 11, 12 o

; "Rosny"; "Now"; "Poe

"Inapprehensiveness"; "T

"Imperante Augusto";

"Asolando" (

ader into my confidence concerning a certain volume, originally compiled for my own pleasure, though not without thought of one or two dear kinsmen of a

as for double-motto these two lines from

hts and love

neyard, these

Shelley Essay, "I prefer to look for the

1* - 1. "Sun-tread

The Dawn of Beauty; 3

ndal-buds," etc. (so

ur Galleys went" (so

rld ("Paracelsus").*2

The Fugitive Ethi

(Pt. 1, "Pippa Passes"

"). VIII. My Last Duc

m Abroad (1 and 2).

ng. XII. A Gramm

bbi Ben Ezra. XV. L

I. My Star. XVIII. A

X. Memorabilia. XX

gna. XXIII. James Lee'

d the Book" - 1. O Lyr

(ll. 2069 to 2103); 3. P

to 1845); 5. The Pop

ll. 2407 to 2427). XXVI.

Two Poets of Croisic

sic". XXIX. Never

reatures," etc. (song fro

. 9, 10, 11, 12, of "

ord more" (To

59 lines beginning, "Night, and one single ridge of narrow path" (to "delight"). *2* No. IV. comprises the 29 lines beginning, "The centre fire heaves underneath the earth," down to "ancient rapture." *3* No. V. The 6 lines beginning, "That autumn

an unparalleled dramatic poet. The influence he exercises through these, and the incalculably cumulative influence which will leaven many generations to come, is not to be looked for in individuals only, but in the whole thought of the age, which he has moulded to new form, animated anew, and to which he has imparted a fresh stimulus. For this a deep debt is due to Robert Bro

y, of priceless worth. Tried by the severest tests, not merely of substance, but of form, not merely of the melody of high thinking, but of rare and potent verbal music, the larger number of his "Men and Women" poems are as treasurable acquisitions, in kind, to our literature,