Thus? oh, not thus! no type of earth could image that awaking, Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of seraphs, round him breaking, Or felt the new immortal throb of soul from body parted, But felt those eyes alone, and knew—'My Saviour! not deserted!' Deserted! Who hath dreamt that when the cross in darkness rested, Upon the Victim's hidden face, no love was manifested? What frantic hands outstretched have e'er the atoning drops averted? What tears have washed them from the soul, that one should be deserted? ROBERT BROWNING. The head of what has been termed the psychowho for more than thirty years has been recoglogical school of poetry is MR ROBERT BROWNING, nised as one of our most original and intellectual poets. Latterly, the public-to use his own words The British Public, ye who like me not (God love you!), whom I yet have laboured for, have been more indulgent to the poet, and more ready to acknowledge his real merits. Mr Browning first attracted attention in 1836, when he published his poem of Paracelsus. He had previously published anonymously a poem entitled Pauline, a Fragment of a Confession. Paracelsus evinced that love of psychological analysis and that subtle imagination more fully displayed in the author's later works. It is the history of a soul struggling and aspiring after hidden knowledge, power, and happiness All ambitious, upwards tending, but is thwarted and baffled in the visionary pursuit. For an author of twenty-four years of age, this was a remarkable poem. Mr Browning next tried the historical drama. In 1837 his tragedy of Strafford was brought on the stage, the hero It was played several nights, but cannot be said being personated by Macready, a favourite actor. to have been successful. Mr Horne, in his New Spirit of the Age, characterises it as a 'piece of passionate action with the bones of poetry.' Van Dyck's portrait of Strafford, so well known from copies and engravings, will always, we suspect, eclipse or supersede any pen-and-ink delineation of the splendid apostate. The poet now went to Italy, where he resided several years, and in 1841 he sent forth another psychological poem-'the richest puzzle to all lovers of poetry which was ever given to the world'-a thin volume entitled Sordello. Mr Browning's subsequent works were in a dramatic form and spirit, the most popular being Pippa Passes, forming part of a series called Bells and Pomegranates (1841-44), of which a second collection was published containing some exquisite sketches and monologues. 'Pippa is a girl from a silk-factory, who passes the various persons of the play at certain critical moments, in the course of her holiday, and becomes unconsciously to herself a determining influence on the fortune of each.' In 1843 the poet produced another regular drama, a tragedy entitled A Blot in the Scutcheon, which was acted at Drury Lane with moderate success, and is the best of the author's plays. Next to it is King Victor and King Charles, a tragedy in four acts, in which the characters are well drawn and well contrasted. Altogether Mr Browning has written eight plays and two short dramatic sketches, A Soul's Tragedy and In a Balcony. Some of the others-The Return of the Druses, Colombe's Birthday, and Luria-are superior productions both in conception and execution. Two narrative poems, Christmas Eve and Easter Day, present the author's marked peculiarities-grotesque imagery, insight into the human heart, vivid painting, and careless, faulty versification. In principle, the poet is thoroughly orthodox, and treats the two great Christian festivals in a Christian spirit. Of the lighter pieces of the author, the most popular is The Pied Piper of Hamelin, a Child's Story, told with inimitable liveliness and spirit, and with a flow of rattling rhymes and quaint fancies rivalling Southey's Cataract of Lodore. This amusing production is as unlike the usual style of its author as John Gilpin is unlike the usual style of Cowper. In 1855 the reputation of Mr Browning was greatly enhanced by the publication of a collection of poems, fifty in number, bearing the comprehensive title of Men and Women. In 1864 another volume of character sketches appeared, entitled Dramatis Persona; and in 1868 was produced the most elaborate of all his works, "The Ring and the Book, an Italian story of the seventeenth century concerning certain assassins Put to death By heading or hanging, as befitted ranks, At Rome on February twenty-two, Since our salvation sixteen ninety-eight. The latest works of Mr Browning are Balaustion's Adventure, including a Transcript from Euripides (1871)—which is another recital of the story of Alcestes, supposed to be told by a Greek girl who had witnessed the performance; Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society (1871), a name under which is thinly veiled the name of Louis Napoleon; Fifine at the Fair (1872); Red Cotton Night-cap Country (1873); and Aristophanes Apology, including a Transcript from Euripides, being the last Adventure of Balaustion (1875). Of Aristophanes Splendour of wit that springs a thunder ball- we have this bright pen-and-ink portrait : And no ignoble presence! on the bulge Of the clear baldness-all his head one brow- A red from cheek to temple-then retired As if the dark-leaved chaplet damped a flame- Waited their incense; while the pursed mouth's pout While the head, face, nay, pillared throat thrown back, Beard whitening under like a vinous foam- I thought, such domineering deity Hephaistos might have carved to cut the brine In 1875 also appeared from the prolific pen of the poet The Inn Album. A fertile and original author with high and generous aims, Mr Browning has proved his poetic power alike in thought, description, passion, and conception of character. But the effect of even his happiest productions is marred by obscurity, by eccentricities of style and expression, and by the intrusion of familiar phrases and 462 Hudibrastic rhymes or dry metaphysical discussions. His choice of subjects-chiefly Italian— his stories of monastic life, repulsive crimes, and exceptional types of character-are also against his popularity. The Ring and the Book is prolix : four volumes of blank verse, in which the same tale of murder is told by various interlocutors, with long digressions from old chronicles and other sources-such a work must repel all but devoted poetical readers. These, however, Mr Browning has obtained, and the student who perseveres, digging for the pure untempered gold' of poetry, will find his reward in the pages of this master of psychological monologues and dramatic lyrics. Mr Browning is a native of Camberwell in Surrey, born in 1812, and educated at the London University. He is also an honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. In November 1846 he was married, as already stated, to Miss Elizabeth Barrett. Of Mr Browning's many descriptions of the sunny south,' the following is a favourable specimen, and Miss Mitford states that it was admired by Mr Ruskin for its exceeding truthfulness: Picture of the Grape-harvest. But to-day not a boat reached Salerno, Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyards In the vat half-way up on our house-side While your brother all bare-legged is dancing Dead-beaten, in effort on effort To keep the grapes under, For still when he seems all but master, From girls who keep coming and going And eyes shut against the rain's driving, For under the hedges of aloe, And where, on its bed Of the orchard's black mould, the love-apple All the young ones are kneeling and filling Tempted out by the first rainy weather- As to-night will be proved to my sorrow, We shall feast our grape-gleaners-two dozen, Macaroni, so tempting to swallow, In slippery strings, And gourds fried in great purple slices, That colour of kings. Meantime, see the grape-bunch they've brought you- O'er the heavy blue bloom on each globe Still follows with fretful persistence. This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball, Like an onion's, each smoother and whiter; From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper, And end with the prickly pear's red flesh, At last the people in a body To the Town Hall came flocking: ''Tis clear,' cried they, 'our Mayor's a noddy; Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!' IV. An hour they sat in council, At length the Mayor broke silence: It's easy to bid one rack one's brain- Just as he said this, what should hap 'Bless us,' cried the Mayor, 'what's that?' (With the Corporation as he sat, Looking little, though wondrous fat; Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister, Than a too-long-opened oyster, Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous V. 'Come in!'-the Mayor cried, looking bigger : He advanced to the Council-table: And, 'Please your honours,' said he, 'I'm able, On creatures that do people harm, The mole, and toad, and newt, and viper; (And here they noticed round his neck A scarf of red and yellow stripe, To match with his coat of the self-same check; And at the scarf's end hung a pipe ; And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying, As if impatient to be playing Upon this pipe, as low it dangled Over his vesture so old-fangled.) 'Yet,' said he, 'poor piper as I am, In Tartary I freed the Cham, Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats; I eased in Asia the Nizam Of a monstrous brood of vampyre bats : If I can rid your town of rats, Will you give me a thousand guilders?' 'One? fifty thousand ! '-was the exclamation Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation. VII. Into the street the Piper stept, In his quiet pipe the while; To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, From street to street he piped advancing, And step by step they followed dancing, -Save one, who, stout as Julius Cæsar, Swam across, and lived to carry (As he the manuscript he cherished) To Rat-land home his commentary, Which was: 'At the first shrill notes of the pipe, I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards, Is breathed) called out: "O rats, rejoice! Just as methought it said, "Come, bore me!" VIII. You should have heard the Hamelin people IX. A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue; So did the Corporation too. For Council dinners made rare havoc With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock; And half the money would replenish 'Beside,' quoth the Mayor, with a knowing wink, The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood To the children merrily skipping by- 'He never can cross that mighty top! When lo! as they reached the mountain's side, As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed; And the Piper advanced and the children followed, And when all were in to the very last, The door in the mountain-side shut fast. Did I say all? No! one was lame, And could not dance the whole of the way; And in after-years, if you would blame His sadness, he was used to say: 'It's dull in our town since my playmates left; I can't forget that I 'm bereft Of all the pleasant sights they see, For he led us, he said, to a joyous land, Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew, And everything was strange and new; The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here, My lame foot would be speedily cured, XIV. Alas, alas for Hamelin ! There came into many a burgher's pate As the needle's eye takes a camel in! Wherever it was men's lot to find him, And bring the children all behind him. But when they saw 'twas a lost endeavour, And Piper and dancers were gone for ever, They made a decree that lawyers never Should think their records dated duly, If, after the day of the month and year, These words did not as well appear : 'And so long after what happened here On the twenty-second of July, Thirteen hundred and seventy-six :' And the better in memory to fix The place of the children's last retreat, They called it, the Pied Piper's streetWhere any one playing on pipe or tabor, Was sure for the future to lose his labour. Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern To shock with mirth a street so solemn ; But opposite the place of the cavern They wrote the story on a column, That in Transylvania there 's a tribe The outlandish ways and dress, On which their neighbours lay such stress, To their fathers and mothers having risen Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land, XV. So, Willy, let you and me be wipers Of scores out with all men-especially pipers: And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice, If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise. A Parting Scene (1526 A.D.). PARACELSUS and FESTUS. Par. And you saw Luther? Fest. 'Tis a wondrous soul! Par. True: the so-heavy chain which galled mankind Is shattered, and the noblest of us all Must bow to the deliverer-nay the worker Of our own project-we who long before We would have taught, still groaned beneath the load : This he has done and nobly. Speed that may ! Par. 'Tis the melancholy wind astir Within the trees; the embers too are gray; Fest. Best ope the casement. See, The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars, Fest. So you shall gaze. Those happy times will come again. Par. Gone! gone! Those pleasant times! Does not the moaning wind Seem to bewail that we have gained such gains And bartered sleep for them? Fest. It is our trust That there is yet another world, to mend All error and mischance. Par. Another world! And why this world, this common world, to be Love, hope, fear, faith-these make humanity, And these I have lost!-gone, shut from me for ever, Like a dead friend, safe from unkindness more !— The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves, as if go His hold; and from the east, fuller and fuller, Yet see how that broad, prickly, star-shaped plant, Half down the crevice, spreads its woolly leaves From My Last Duchess.' That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands Or blush, at least. She thanked men-good; but thanked Somehow I know not how-as if she ranked My gift of a nine hundred years old name With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame This sort of trifling? |