Cornell University Library PR 4238.B32 Browning critiques, 3 1924 013 444 496 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 3444496 BROWNING CRITIQUES BOOKS BY MARGRET HOLMES BATES JASPER FAIRFAX THE CHAMBER OVER THE GATE SILAS KIRZENDOWN'S SONS PAYING THE PIPER IN THE FIRST DEGREE THE PRICE OF THE RING SHYLOCK'S DAUGHTER HILDEGARDE AND OTHER LYRICS BROWNING CRITIQUES BY MARGRET HOLMES BATES "This belongs to a slave, nut to give utterance to what one thinks," — EuRiProES. THE MORRIS BOOK SHOP 24 WABASH AVENUE, CHICAGO MCMXXI Copyright, 1921, by Maegeet Holmes'Baies CONTENTS CHAPTER rAGE Foreword 7 ^I Paracelsus 11 ~II PippA Pas^ 25 III King Victor and King Charles 31 IV Strafford ' 35 -V SOKDELLO 40 yi Return of the Druses 45 i^II A Blot on the 'Scutcheon 52 VIII Colombe's Birthday 55 - IX LuRiA 58 X A Soul's Tragedy 62 XI How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix 65 XII The Confessional 69 XIII By the Fireside 75* XIV Unclassified —r- 81 XV A Group of Poems Treating of Music and Musicians 86 XVI Time's Revenges 90 XVII A Grammarian's Funeral 92 XVIII Doubtful Ethics 96 XIX Was Browning a Christian? 100 XX Christmas .Eve 105 XXI Easter Day 109 XXII Lazarus 114 XXIII Was Browning a Christian? (^Continued) . 126 XXIV A Group of Artists i37 ~ XXV The Ring and the Book 147 XXVI The Ring and the Book (Continued) . . . 159 XXVII The Priest and the Lady 164 5 CONTENTS CHAPTER 'AGE - XXVIII Two Lawyers and a Pope 170 XXIX Balaustion's Adventure I79 XXX Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau 189 XXXI Fifine at the Fair 197 XXXII Pacchiarotto .203 XXXIII Red Cotton Night Cap Country . . . .213 XXXIV La Saisiaz 221 XXXV EhjAMATic Idyls 226 XXXVI Dramatic Idyls (Continued} 233 XXXVII Dramatic Idyls (Second Series) .... 240 XXXVIII JocosERiA 248 XXXIX Ferishtah's Fancies 258 XL Parleyings with Certain People of Impor- tance IN Their Day 272 XLI AsoLANDO 285 FOREWORD FoKASMuCH as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the begin- ning were eye-witnesses, and ministers of the word; It seemed good to me also, having had a perfect understand- ing of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, where- in thou hast been instructed. — St. Luke, i, 1-4. Not that I ever knew Robert Browning personally, but I have been eye-witness and participant in many discussions of his literary work. I have wondered much at some of the interpretations put upon some of his poems. I have been surprised at the charges of ob- scurity. I have been puzzled by the opinions of many students of Browning who were impressed by what they chose to call his faith in a future after death; — by his optimism and his charity. Many students of Browning see in this widely read man, this philosophic, analytic thinker, not the indifiference, the unconcern for the future, that all profound students must arrive at soon or late, but they interpret his content in the present, his careless view of the future, as Christian faith. 8 FOREWORD Nothing of this faith is to be found in his poems, either early or late. He studied all religions and sub- scribed wholly tc> none. Certainly he says nothing of this kind in his own person, but the characters he invents, usually come out first best in the dialogues and arguments they engage in against the Christian belief. In the following pages I have used, not my own opinions, but quotations from many of the poems that have been discussed in the Browning Society of New York — that is, these poems have been talked over and around, but never touched upon in their real meaning. Other quotations are made from poems that are studiously avoided. Why study the literary work of a person, if we are not to face the truth, not accept that person's conclu- sions, but read into his work our own moss-covered opinions, our own outgrown religion? In making excerpts for this book, I have used the "Browning Poems," edited by Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke, published by Thomas Y. Crowell. The Editors, in their "Preface to the Fifth Edition," say: "Opportunity has been taken in this edition to make a few scattered corrections and additions; but, as be- fore, so now, the Editors have considered it their duty to follow and to keep intact Browning's own latest re- vised text." Then some attempts made by other editors to im- prove on Browning's punctuation are mentioned and are pronounced "perilous." However, the Editors of the work to which I have had recourse say further : FOREWORD 9 "A few manifest misprints in Browning's text, how- ever, hitherto left undisturbed by anybody, the Ed- itors have considered might be amended without pre- sumption. . . . "Such justifiable emendations are necessarily few. They do not invalidate the general working rule of this edition — i.e., to follow the poet's text and not to seek occasions to amend it, but rather to seek to avoid such occasions by a sympathetic comprehension of the poet's meaning and habits of writing." Margret Holmes Bates. BROWNING CRITIQUES CHAPTER I PARACELSUS Critics who claim that poets, and perhaps writers generally, must necessarily put their personal experi- ences into their literary work are not wholly wrong — not quite right Not many actual, serious episodes in life can be given the public in unmodified form, excepting in law courts. In hterature some parts must be touched up, even as the photographer treats his best work; as the sketch artist refines his realistic pictures. Up to date, nobody has accused Shakespeare of put- ting himself into his work, though he might be any one of his many characters, in either tragedy, comedy, or history, so vividly does he give us the thoughts, words and actions of his people. The modem college person may call him a psychol- ogist, if he wishes to sum up the matter quite properly, but as yet he has simply been distinguished as the past master reader of human nature. In the language of a much humbler poet, Shakespeare has imagined and understood : II 12 BROWNING CRITIQUES "All thoughts, all feelings, all delights Whatever moves this mortal frame." When Browning wrote "Pauline" at the age of twenty-one, we cannot but believe that the fancied lover, speaking to the merest ghost of a woman named Pauline, was the writer's self. Witness these lines, open confession of his early attempts at verse making : "At first I sang as I in dreams have seen Music wait on a lyrist for some thought Yet singing to herself until it came. I turned to these old times and scenes where all That's beautiful had birth for me, and made Rude verses on them all: and then I paused — I had done nothing, so I sought to know What other minds achieved. No fear outbroke As on the works of mighty bards I gazed In the first joy of finding my own thoughts Recorded,. my own fancies justified. And their aspirings but my ver)^ own." A common experience with much commoner minds, and yet, after this experience in his youth. Browning has never been in any sense a poet of the people. He has been himself thoroughly; he has written for the educated, the leisurely classes. It has never been said of him as Byron was generous enough to exclaim : " 'Tis said, dear Moore, your lays are sung. Can it be true, you lucky man ? By moonlight in the Persian tongue Along the streets of Ispahan." BROWNING CRITIQUES 13 Browning toiled to make his poetry, and though many of his lyrics are melodious, still they must be handled by artists, listened to by trained people. They are not sung on the streets. "The common people heard him gladly" was never said of Browning. The lover of Pauline exclaims : "I envy — how I envy him whose soul Turns its whole energies to some one end. To elevate an aim, pursue success However mean! This restlessness of passion meets in me A craving after knowledge." In that confession we see Paracelsus. Later comes the recantation of his atheistic trend engendered through his admiration of Shelley. Mrs. Orr says : "Nor did he ever in after life speak of this period of negation except as an access of boyish folly with which his mature self could have no concern." That, no doubt, is literally true, but the average student of Browning will most probably decide that the boyish folly was in his public profession of Atheism, and in his later years he kept many things within his own mind, allowing the characters in his poems and dramas to speak for him. Another looking ahead to- ward Paracelsus is in these lines : "I dreamed not of restraint, but gazed On all things ; schemes and systems went and came. And I was proud (being vainest of the weak) In wandering o'er thought's world to seek some one 14 BROWNING CRITIQUES To be my prize, as if you wandered o'er The white way for a star. And my choice fell Not so much on a system as on a man — On one, whom praise of mine shall not offend. Who was as calm as beauty, being such Unto mankind as thou to me, Pauline, — Believing in them, and devoting all His soul's strength to their luring back to peace; Who sent forth hopes and longings for their sake, Clothed in all passion's melodies:" Was not this dreaming of Paracelsus ? Browning's father had a well selected library, and as a boy Robert was a persistent reader. No doubt the biography of Paracelsus made a deep impression on his mind. This man, so anxious to "know" to achieve some great and lasting good for humanity while fully realizing as he thinks any other man might know : "That every common pleasure of the world Affects me as himself; that I have just As varied appetite for joy derived From common things, a stake in life in short Like his ; a stake which rash pursuit of aims That life affords not would soon destroy" — To a highly organized personality, as, no doubt, the boy Browning was at the time of writing, taking up the story of Paracelsus, the idea of self-sacrifice for the good of a great many people was the very height of human achievement. Persons with a vision of martyr- dom by toil never see themselves as one working for, perhaps one other, a broken, helpless, maimed creature, BROWNING CRITIQUES 15 even a blood relation. There's no glory in that, at least none visible. They are willing to climb Golgotha if the crowd sees them climbing. Even the crucifixion is not all bad if the crowd is still there and the earth- quake is the last number on the program. Browning saw Paracelsus as he saw himself when he makes him say : "Oh say on ! Devise some test of love, some ardu- ous feat to be performed for you : say on ! Oh, one day You shall be very proud ! Say on, dear friends." There speaks the latent energy, the awakened ambi- tion of the boy. With the story of Paracelsus, the record of his wanderings, of his searchings into nature, not useless, several medical discoveries are to his credit, there is mingled his consultations with astrolo- gers, his belief in magic, his expectations of miracles. But all these things were common amongst educated people in the time of Paracelsus, and so was the drink habit that Browning does not deny. Still, he clothes Paracelsus with a great faith in himself; he believes he is appointed for a stupendous work, and he answers the question of Festus confidently : "Suppose this, then ; that God selected you To know, (heed well your answers, for my faith Shall meet implicitly what they affirm) I cannot think you dare annex to such Selection aught beyond a steadfast will, An intense hope; not let your gifts create Scorn or neglect of ordinary means i6 BROWNING CRITIQUES Conducive to success, make destiny Dispense with man's endeavor. Dare you answer this?" After a pause Paracelsus answers : "Who will may know The secret'st workings of my soul. What fairer seal Shall I require to my authentic mission Than this fierce energy? Is it for human will To institute such impulses ? What should I Do kept here among you all ? Be sure that God Ne'er dooms to waste the strength He deigns to impart." Does that belief account for the unswerving faith, the patient toiling for years with such niggardly results in the case of Browning? At this period of life he considered all grades of sin merely a lack of develop- ment. Possibly on this theory he would have explained many eccentricities of talented folk. They are not developed symmetrically. They are not four-square. In their creation the Creator did not geometrize. The poet gives to Paracelsus the hope, the longing to obviate this fa.ulty creation. He sets himself the task of wresting from Nature the secret that will give equality of body and mind to every human born. BROWNING CRITIQUES 17 Browning gives to the man of medical science these words : "Make no more giants, God, But elevate the race at once. We ask To put forth just our strength, our human strength; All starting fairly, all equipped alike. Gifted alike, all eagle-eyed, true-hearted — See if we cannot beat thine angels yet! Such is my task. I go to gather this The sacred knowledge, here and there dispersed About the world, long lost, or never found." Long ago Hercules said to Cadmus something like this : "Who cares to know what an idle man has been thinking about?" Millions of defenders of Cadmus answer that question now. And the dreamers ? How many of them after tracing great rivers to their source, planting their country's flag on icy peaks, dis- covering new worlds, building empires, or harnessing that mystery, electricity, and making it a beast of bur- den, how many of these restless brains will say with Paracelsus : "There was a time When yet this wolfish hunger after knowledge Set not remorselessly love's claims aside. This heart was human once." Did Robert Browning in the sublime audacity of twenty-three think he had passed that time ? In the meeting of Paracelsus and Aprile, Browning designed the two extremes. The scholar seeking to i8 BROWNING CRITIQUES know, and like Hogarth's picture of the man in the race for Fame, sacrificing everything in life for that one object, So, too, Aprile : "I would love infinitely and be loved!" All beauty, wealth and excellence of life Aprile would make serve his one passion. So each worships the other. Each one developed extravagantly in direct opposition to the other. Did Browning regret the time spent in toiling over Johnson's Dictionary? Did he begin even now to think he would have been wiser to have indulged in a few flirtations or even downright love-making? One biographer speaks of his preparation for the poetical profession in this wise: "When the decision was made (to adopt poetry as a profession) Brown- ing's first step was to read and digest the whole of Johnson's Dictionary." Sometimes the student wishes, in coming upon some intricate passage, that the poet had had a smaller vo- cabulary, less fluency — in short, had not had such an intimate acquaintance with Mr. Johnson. He might, had he used more direct methods, simpler expressions, been quite as great a poet, and been more easily under- stood. As it is, on first attempts to add Browning to his list of friends, the student loses sight of the senti- ment in keeping in view the involved sentence, and in giving due appreciation to parenthetical remarks. Did Browning have a seer's vision of his own years of fruitless, misunderstood toil, when he starts Para- celsus to reciting his honors to Festus? BROWNING CRITIQUES 19 "Those shelves support a pile Of patents, licenses, diplomas, titles From Germany, France, Spain and Italy; They authorize some honor; ne'ertheless, I set more store by this Erasmus sent; He trusts me; our Frobenius is his friend. And him 'raised,' (nay, read it) 'from the dead.' " This comes in a conversation with Festus, after Para- celsus is installed in a college at Basil and when Festus begins to see the trend of his mind, he exclaims: "Can it be my fears were just? God wills not" — Paracelsus interrupts with : "Now 'tis this I most admire — The constant talk men of your stamp keep up Of God's Will, as they style it ; one would swear Man had but merely to uplift his eye And see the Will in question charactered On the heaven's vault. 'Tis hardly wise to moot Such topics. Doubts are many and faith is weak. I know as much of any will of God As knows some dumb and tortured brute what Man, His stern lord, wills from the perplexing blows That plague him every way." There crops out the influence of Shelley. In his untried youth, Paracelsus felt he was in direct com- munication with some great intelligence that cut out the work to be done by the imperfect creature of his making. Browning makes allowance for the differ- 20 BROWNING CRITIQUES ence of the times after the lapse of several centuries. Paracelsus required to be, perhaps ten years older than Browning, when he revised his religious belief. He had not had the advantage of reading Shelley. After reviewing what he has attempted and all that he claims credit for, giving reasons for burning the books instead of answering them, praising Luther, though he, instead of either burning or answering the books, ignored them, he sums up the situation as touch- ing: "These gangs of peasants — Whom Miinzer leads. And whom the Duke, the landgrave and the elector Will calm in blood!" He adds, it seems lightly, disclaiming responsibility: "Well, well; 'tis not my world!" In study classes, and other small groups where Browning has been discussed more or less informally, it has been my fortune to be frowned upon, cried down, and accused of heresy because of hinting that Brown- ing possessed, and often gave utterance to a frosty but kindly bit of humor. The words he gives to Paracel- sus, surely are of his own imagining. The interviewer was unknown in the days of the great physician and usually biographers are very serious persons. When Festus, in a long conversation tries to persuade his friend of his worthiness and of his wasted ambition; the friend, who seems to be well aware of his deserts, BROWNING CRITIQUES 21 says many wise and humorously philosophic things. Instance : "This life of mine Must be lived out and a grave thoroughly earned ; I am just fit for that and naught beside." Summing up the love and sympathy that Festus holds for him in spite of his failures, he declares he is quite obedient to Festus : "I hope if he commands hope, and believe As he directs me — satiating myself With his enduring love. Festus quits me To give place to some credulous disciple Who holds that God is wise, but Paracelsus has his peculiar merits." In Brov^rning's later pictures he looks the stout, well- fed, serious middle-class Englishman; but who can read those few lines and not fancy the thin-faced boy Robert, chuckling over the scholar, weak, worn, humili- ated by his dismissal from his position as instructor, who was able to see the situation in this fashion ? Who could measure his critics so justly? This in spite of his condition, as he confesses : "I am weary : I know not how ; not even the wine cup soothes My brain to-night." And a little further on, again the influence of Shelley, though in denial, as he says "For I believe we do not wholly die." When the young poet brings his wounded. 22 BROWNING CRITIQUES worn-out man of science to the delirium preceding death, he gives him the thoughts, the words, of many a plain, plodding mortal who looks backward and sees the mistakes he has made, the losses he has suffered for want of a modicum of foresight, a fair guess at conse- quences : "Truly there needs another life to come ! If this be all — (I must tell Festus that) And other life awaits us not — for one, I say 'tis a poor cheat, a stupid bungle, A wretched failure. I for one protest Against it, and I hurl it back with scorn." Who first taught the doctrine of reincarnation ? No- body knows, but that belief, born of the deep medita- tions of Oriental philosophers permeates, unobtru- sively, this western world. It was said during the re- cent Russian- Japanese war, that the little brown men of Japan were recklessly brave because of this religion of theirs. What matter if they perished in youth? It was the greatest of glories to die for one's country. It was the surest guarantee of another incarnation in the near future, and in a much more favorable position in life than the one lost in war. The late Louis Agassiz, realizing how incomplete he must leave his work, concluded that there must be a future life, not only for himself, but for all he needed in his research work. That was not necessarily rein- carnation, but it was a future life, with a retained per- sonality. By professing openly that he believed this life was not all, Agassiz lost caste amongst his fellow BROWNING CRITIQUES 23 scientists, but perhaps if one had insisted, he might have answered, as did the orthodox woman to the free-thinking neighbor : "One's gotta beHeve some- thing." Perhaps. So, as Festus watches by the dying Paracelsus and listens to his statements of his strong purposes, his failures, his complaints of unfair dealings of the out- come, he, too, sees that somewhere there has been a lack of good faith in the power that fashions human abilities and human desires. He says boldly : "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 he 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!" Greater love hath no man; that's enough. In his tales of "The Mermaid Inn" Alfred Noyes makes one of the old cronies on the black settle say the same thing in these words : "Give us the fire and a friend or two." The story of Paracelsus as told by Browning is very human. In a greater or lesser degree, it is a record of all earnest human endeavor. Who ever realized one-half of his wishes? How many of the not at all extravagant dreams of youth ever materialize? How often do we say on seeing some wreck of humanity: 24 BROWNING CRITIQUES "What did he or she dream of being and doing ? Why this obliteration of what should have been? What quality was lacking that would have made for at least a respectable place in life?" Paracelsus was not an utter failure. He exemplified his own theory of one- sided development. He was selfish in his strength, obstinate in his weakness. Browning's strength en- abled him to work on in his chosen profession for thirty years before gaining any appreciable recognition. His myopic weakness and obstinacy led him to object to the placing of a memorial in Westminster Abbey of our own poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. CHAPTER II PIPPA PASSES So many times we hear it said amongst Browning students, in reply to the charge of obscurity : "But we get from the poet the measure that we bring." That is true too. Coming to Browning with a mind set to the easy measure of Walter Scott, or of Mrs. Browning, we are very soon lost in the maze of com- plicated sentences, far-fetched comparisons, and a veri- table barbed wire barricade of parentheses. Still, it is not really necessary to decide at the first chapter that there are hidden meanings, occult imaginings in all the Browning dramas and poems. If the student, or even the casual reader will apply only the plainest kind of everyday reasoning to the words set down, he will find it much more conducive to an understanding, as well as an intelligent enjoyment of all Browning's works. Indeed, many of his shorter poems are very simple, and, if no one else has ever said it, it is high time that somebody should say, some of his rhymes are execrable. There; my oft-repeated thought has taken form, and it is much more easily read than are some of Browning's. One of the most conspicuous examples of critics darkening counsel by words of mistaken knowledge, 25 26 BROWNING CRITIQUES is to be found in the drama of Pippa. If some com- moner man had written the story in any form it would be readily understood. But, Browning! There must be some very fine-spun reasoning here. Something happening that the girl knows nothing about, but, she is in the lime-light. The wires of the whole day's machinery are in her hand. It has been debated and wondered about in Browning clubs — what did he mean? Did he wish to impress on the minds of his readers the idea that much good is done unconsciously ? That idea is true, but, was Pippa, the bare-foot, scantily clad girl, as she says: "All but naked to the knee !" the messenger of God in His heaven to turn the thoughts of the happiest four in Asola from evil? If she was, she should have had her little vacation one day earlier. When the little silk-winder passed the shrub house singing : "God's in His heaven — All's right with the world!" Sebald and Ottima had already killed old Luca and their disillusionment had begun. If Browning had meant her song to do good unconsciously, it was a most obscure way he took to get about it. A day ear- lier would have prevented the murder of the old hus- band and the suicide of the lovers. In that case the in- trigue would have come to its natural ending. Sebald would have gone his way, in due time married some BROWNING CRITIQUES 27 highly respectable girl, and never mentioned Ottima. And she? Bye and bye she'd have been a wealthy and handsome young widow, much given to charity, and of the iciest sort of virtue. Perhaps she'd have taken Pippa into her house, and made a model servant of her, as a thank offering. Then she and Pippa, too, would have been sure that "God's in His heaven — All's right with the world !" What more natural than that this beggarly little silk-winder, working every day in the year btit one, "for only bread and milk" should look on the posses- sions of Ottima, her great stone house to live in, the shrub house for flowers, and not least, her young lover, as, taken all together, the things that make for perfect happiness? It is the time-worn, but ever indulged in story — judging the people about us by what we see. Even while Pippa was passing by in the sunshine, below the shrub house, the lovers were beginning to realize the enormity of their crime, and Sebald recalls the kindness of the old man. In spite of Ottima review- ing the growth of their love, he is entirely, bitterly, remorseful. Pippa can know nothing more of this than any one of us all know how little cause we might have for envy if we saw the real lives of the seeming- ly fortunate. For her, a storm on this day would have been nothing less than a calamity. But for Ottima? "Can rain disturb her Sebald's homage?" 28 BROWNING CRITIQUES Next she reviews the bride and groom : "What care bride and groom Save for their dear selves?" This groom, fooled, tricked by a prank of a party of students, his friends, into marrying a little model, whom, in the first burst of anger and disappointment, he intends to desert, yet, given time for thought, not- ing the beauty and the innocent helplessness of the bride and then as Pippa goes by singing "Kate the Queen," he decides: "Here is a woman with utter need of me, — " and he philosophizes himself into a better temper, de- cides to take his Greek bride : "To Ancona, Greece — some isle. I wanted silence only; there is clay everywhere." Would even a bare-legged little silk-winder envy a bride accepted by her husband as was Phene ? Next in her list of the four happiest in Asola, she places Luigi and his mother. She has seen these two : "At eve the Son and Mother, gentle pair, Commune inside our turret : Where they talk Calmer than lovers, yet more kind than friends." Long the girl speculates on what a blessing it must be to' be loved as the mother loves her son. How happy they must be! She can by no possibility hear their BROWNING CRITIQUES 29 conversation, nor would she understand if she did. How should she know what Luigi means when he ex- claims : "Oh mother, I could dream They got about me — Andrea from his exile. Pier from his dungeon, Gualtier from his grave !" And the mother answers, "Well, you shall go. Yet seems this patriotism The easiest virtue for a selfish man to acquire :" And she asks her son: "Once more, your ground for killing him !" Meaning the king that Luigi means to murder, and as Pippa sees him start on this undertaking she decides that he "Doubtlessly departed On some good errand or another. For he passed just now in traveler's trim." And the Monsignor, Pippa's own uncle, though she knows it not. Is he so very happy? Is he even for- tunate, excepting in the position he occupies ? And this position secured, as he says, through the frauds of his ancestors : "My family is the oldest in Messina, and century after century have my progenitors gone on polluting themselves with every wickedness under heaven." He supports a chapel to rest his father's soul, and 30 BROWNING CRITIQUES confesses that nothing "less than my strenuousest ef- forts will keep myself out of mortal sin, much less keep others out." And any reader, noting his rack- ing cough, and his remark: "I have whole centuries of sin to redeem, and only a month or two of life to do it in," might well understand that the man's lack of health was no doubt a potent factor in keeping him out of mortal sin. Browning frequently ignores that very stubborn fact, that it is really next to impos- sible to escape from one's ancestors. The priest was a sick man, with the Church's fear of the punishment after death. He was doing all the Church required to avert this retribution. Little Pippa was worked and starved down. Here's a question as to her good or ill fortune when she is put in possession of her inheri- tance : "Would the blood of her ancestry show ? And how?" CHAPTER III KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES This drama, written when Browning was thirty years old, is a story of fluctuating fortunes, intrigue, a neglected, misunderstood son, a scheming prime- minister, and a girl wife with unusual faculty for read- ing character. This young woman was Polyxena, wife of Prince Charles, daughter-in-law of King Victor. The events that Browning used for the framework of this play, took place in the year or two following the third of September, 1730. Though in the main Browning has followed history, he has made use of, perhaps invented happenings that would give best setting to his characters. No doubt Charles, because he had been treated as an imbecile all his life, lacked poise and confidence in himself. There- fore, after the abdication of his father, he, admiring the abilities of the older king, imitated him wherever possible, and because he had been dwarfed in spirit by the tyranny of his father, he had great sympathy for his subjects. He won from them a regard and deference that had never been accorded his father. The crafty Prime-Minister, D'Ormea, finds he has no man of putty to deal with and Polyxena, too, comes 31 32 liKOWNING CRITIQUES into her own as queen, when, after plots and counter- plots, the old king dies, suddenly. Before this, however, the news came that the old king after the untangling of state affairs by his son, was about to demand the crown and resume his place as king, and D'Ormea feels that his day is over. Charles has been a real king and when he says to his wife : "Oh, if you but felt the load I'm free of ! I said this year would end Or it or me — but I am free, thank God!" Then replying to the question of his wife : "You do not guess? The day I found Sardinia's hideous coil, at home, abroad, And how my father was involved in it — Of course, I vowed to rest and smile no more Until I cleared his name of obloquy. We did the people right — 'twas much to gain That point, redress our nobles' grievances too — But that took place here, was no crying shame; All must be done abroad, — if I abroad Appeased the justly-angered Powers, destroyed The scandal, took down Victor's name at last From a bad eminence, I then might breathe And rest ! No moment was to lose. Behold The proud result — a Treaty Austria, Spain Agree to — " To this statement, D'Ormea remarks, aside, feeling his day is over : "I shall merely stipulate For an experienced headsman." BROWNING CRITIQUES 33 Is it possible that Browning had read the lines of a newspaper poet whose discarded lover philosophizes : "When one is to die it is pleasant To have the knife sharp and keen. This awkward hacking is horrid ! Work not fit to be seen." Charles continues, ignoring his adviser : "Not a soul Is compromised : the blotted past's a blank : Even D'Ormea escapes unquestioned." The unparalleled generosity of Charles, his suddenly developed ktent wisdom and tact in administration, may not be strictly true, but the affairs of Victor and his son, and their advisers, in their little kingdom, made no specially great impression on Europe. Browning has made quite a delightful story of it, and one may as well, at the distance of nearly two hun- dred years, adopt the opinion of Leigh Hunt, that ran something this way : "History is merely what those most interested agree upon to be true." These are not the exact words, but the idea is Hunt's. Gibbon, too, says: "History, which is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of man- kind." Also Bolingbroke : "I have read somewhere or other, in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I think, that History is philosophy teaching by examples." Braced by these opinions, one may commend Mr. Browning for making a mild and pleasant little drama of the story, and that his characters are more or less 34 BROWNING CRITIQUES admirable is pleasant, too. Let environment have its influence, and call upon Pope for his line : " 'Tis from high life high characters are drawn ;" — In this drama merit wins — there is no tragedy ; "not a soul is compromised," though it is evident that the prime-minister expected something worse, and there is no obscurity of phrase! One may quote from a much humbler poet : "Cleverly done, it is certain. And nobody can complain." CHAPTER IV STRAFFORD To rehabilitate an historic character, one must rea- son backward from effect to cause. To know of a man's acts, his words, his behavior, one must know what was at stake, what were the questions of the hour, what the man's mind conceived was the great thing desired, the object to be attained. Then, from these premises to build the character, to fashion the argu- ments, is not such a difficult matter. We may take Gospel for it: "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh." And one of the surest methods of accumulating fair knowledge of any period of time ■is to read a few biographies of prominent people of that date. What student of history, or even what desultory reader, who loiters over the troubled days of Charles the First, does not regret the many tragedies of that stormy time ? That the king was weak has never been denied. That he had many friends, true as steel, is a well attested fact. That Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, was one of the stanchest of these friends is also well known. If times change for the better within the next two or three hundred years, as they've changed since 1641, the date of the death of Strafford 35 36 BROWNING CRITIQUES by the headsman's ax, we may indulge a reasonable hope for a fair degree of civilization, — sometime. Browning, in his drama of Strafford, has made his characters intensely human, and we may believe, true to the state of religious and political affairs and the general trend of the time. Thete was not, at this period, as much of religious persecution as there had been in the time of James Stuart, father of Charles, and even in his reign there was more of religious liberty than there had been with the Tudors, Mary and Elizabeth, on the throne. Still, the bitterness of differing religious opinions was con- tinually cropping out. Browning gives voice to it in Pym's fling at Laud : "You know when Laud once gets on Church affairs The case is desperate: he'll not be long To-day; he only means to prove, to-day We English are mad to have a hand In butchering the Scots for serving God After their fathers' fashion: only that!" Strafford is made to resent Pym's remark, answering : "Sir, keep your jests for those who relish them!" In the next act he breaks out indignantly : "No fear, when some unworthy scheme grows ripe. Of those who hatched it leaving me to loose The mischief on the world! Laud hatches war Falls to his prayers and leaves the rest to me, And I'm alone." BROWNING CRITIQUES 37 Browning's portrayal of Lady Carlisle, in view of what other writers, contemporaries of his, have said of her, seems shadowy ; and yet, her devotion to Straf- ford, her tact, her watchfulness, her intuitive knowl- edge of the dangers that beset him, her determination to save him, in spite of himself, show her to have been not only a very able, but a very womanly woman. She makes no secret of her affection for Strafford, though she knows that with him the king stands first. The strong will of the Earl, his indomitable energy speaks in these words : "This life is gay and glowing after all : 'Tis worth while Lucy, having foes like mine Just for the bliss of crushing them. To-day Is worth the living for." And she, watchful of every change of color in his face, can only half worship him when he says : "This day ended ; 'tis of slight import How long the ravaged frame subjects the soul In Strafford." He leaves her repeating the phrase the king has used to him : "My friend of friends." And the king, weak, vacillating as he was, no doubt appreciated Strafford's devotion — sometimes. Brown- ing gives this impression clearly when Charles, in con- versation with Pyra, declares : "You think Because you hate the Earl (turn not away) 38 BROWNING CRlTiyUES We know you hate him, — no one else Could love Strafford : but he saved me, some affirm. Think of his pride ! And do you know one strange, One frightful thing? We all have used the man As though a drudge of ours, with not a source Of happy thought except in us ; — and yet Strafford has a wife and childiren, household cares Just as if we had never been."" Charles was generous and selfish, by turns, as are many weak characters. He was cowardly, too; im- pulsive, and unable to see more than one phase of his own affairs or those of others. He had a one-track, narrow gauge mind, and nobody knows now, or knew then, how much in need of repairs. He, like Brown- ing's Pope, in "The Ring and the Book," used what judging faculty God had given him. So, too, like Bishop Blougram, he might have apologized for the sort of man he was, and finished by disavowing all re- sponsibility for himself and others. And why is that view not the right one ? The question of predestination, foreordination, fate as against free-will, and, as Hen- ley calls it, the Captaincy of one's Soul, has disrupted Churches, and built Churches. Very solemnly we are told, "The leopard cannot change his spots" ; then the Oracle starts wondering why this one or that one does not do differently ; why some very mediocre person will, by sheer force of character, rise in life, an ornament to his family, a blessing to his country, while a person of undoubted brilliance of mind is sinking in pov- erty, obscurity and wretchedness. Why is it ? Simply because "the leopard cannot change his spots." Be- BROWNING CRITIQUES 39 cause the second Stuart that sat on the throne of Eng- land was true to his ancestry — he followed Strafford to the headsman's block within a trifle less than eight years. CHAPTER V SORDELLO The reader who takes up this poem with the idea of dawdhng over a nice, long story in rhyme, will change his mind before reading many pages. Not but that the poem is nice, and long, but, as one critic re- marks : "The poem presents, with relation to Dante's politi- cal views, an historical chaos of mediaevalism over which the creative spirit of the young Victorian breathed ardently, but mystically perforce. The per- plexities so caused, account for the fact that Sordello has been ignored and abused ; read in Mosaic-wise, or misread, or, at best, half-read." It has been said, too, that had Browning written the story in dramatic form, much of the difficulty encoun- tered by readers would have been obviated. Possibly. But the labor of that form of telling the story would have been much greater for the writer. To begin, the characters and events are generally historic. The student writer knows what he has for foundation of poem or drama. He has no need, if making a poem, to require each character to develop itself in conversa- tion, soliloquy, or asides. What was done has passed into history with its results. This, in one way, is a 40 BROWNING CRITIQUES 41 help to the reader; in another view, it is a hindrance. One must know something, in fact must be fairly well informed in the political history of Italy in the Thir- teenth Century; must understand the significance of the wars of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, what they each stood for, and what was the attitude of each in relation to Rome. Otherwise one encounters the same difficulty as in reading Carlyle's very dramatically en- tertaining story of the French Revolution of Ninety- three. If some other plain, unornamented account has been absorbed in advance, then Carlyle may be taken up and allowed to carry one along smoothly as an eagle soars, or as an aeroplane sweeps over — London. It's a dramatic entertainment to be enjoyed by the student whose mind is crammed with historic facts that fit the scenes as Carlyle introduces them. So with Sordello, if one has the plain, dry facts with which to clothe the shadowy ghosts Browning resur- rects from the dusty tombs of the Thirteenth Century. The ambitious writer of this and other historic poems has this advantage over his readers : he may idealize his characters, and who dare say after all these cen- turies that he has not made them true to the life they lived ? He may give to these long dead folk some of his own cherished ideas, and rejoice to see these ideas in print — ideas he would never dare to give voice to as his own belief even amongst his nearest friends. Take these lines for example : "Make nothing of my day because so brief? Rather make more : — Enough that I can live, would live ! Wait 42 BROWNING CRITIQUES For some transcendent life reserved by Fate To follow this ? Oh never ! Fate I trust The same, my soul to; Oh, 'twere too absurd to slight For the hereafter the to-day's delight?" These lines, with some others that I lack time to copy, are really quite Byronesque. These following, might be taken from some hitherto unknown poem of Omar, the tent-maker of Naishapur : "Rather, 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'll 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: Better move palpably through Heaven :" Even in these early days of endeavor in his chosen profession. Browning had no use for critics. In this poem, Naddo stands for the whole tribe, and in this wise he pictures the discomfiture of said Naddo when, in spite of the twitchings of his friend the Trouvere, Sordello, at the Court of Love, follows Eglamor in a song and carries the audience by storm, winning the prize for the best Troubadour. He comes, like Scott's disinherited Knight, unexpected, unknown. When his song is finished : "Back fell Naddo, more aghast Than some Egyptian from the harassed bull That wheeled abrupt, bellowing, fronted full His plague, who spied a scarab 'neath the tongue BROWNING CRITIQUES 43 And found 'twas Apis' flank his hasty prong Insulted." That's a strong comparison, and a bit far-fetched, but Mr. Brownnig is rather given to severity in the matter of critics. The following lines are evidently aimed at reformers, social workers, societies for bet- tering human conditions generally : "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 same idea has been expressed in many dififerent ways by as many dififerent people. It is bom of the idea of injustice in apportioning each mortal's share in the good and evil of life. If Browning had never written anything else than this poem, then the soliloquy of the old soldier, Salin- guerra, in Book Fourth, as he dreams over the past, would have been enough to keep his name in remem- brance. Amongst the many wise things said in this dreaming spell, take these lines : "The world's tide Rolls, and what hope of parting from the press 44 BROWNING CRITIQUES Of waves, a single wave though weariness Gently lifted aside, laid upon the shore? My life must be lived out in foam and roar. No question." How could a man of twenty-eight years, Browning's age when this poem was written, know how difficult it is for a person accustomed to action, to sit in idleness even when old ? The old soldier wonders, as no doubt many persons not old wonder, why : "Schemes wherein cold-blooded men embark Prosper, when your enthusiastic sort Fail: While these last are ever stopping short. So much they should — so little they can do! The careless tribe see nothing to pursue If they desist; meantime their scheme succeeds." Doubtless he meant people who are noisy; who call upon their friends and neighbors to see what they expect to do and at last only show : "So much they should — so little they can do." Taking Sordello in its entirety, or in installments, it is a poem that calls for most careful reading, as many witnesses will testify. Then, after this careful read- ing, I would suggest: Read it again. I know that is asking much in these busy, book-crowded days. But, if once in the Sordello mood, the reading becomes in- voluntary. It takes possession of the mind, — -fills it, absorbs thought, — calls into action all faculties to revel in the strength of comparisons, the reach of the imag- ination, the mastery of expression. CHAPTER VI RETURN OF THE DRUSES The author of the story of Job summed up a column of wisdom and a world of contempt in that one answer the afflicted man made to his three friends who inter- preted the situation according to their own light. Job had felt his affliction to be uncalled for; he has care- fully reviewed his life. He has listened with patience and politeness to his friends, and at last, when he feels that he can endure no more, he acknowledges judg- ment in his famous bit of sarcasm : "No doubt ye are the people, and wisdom will die with you." What a pity this tolerance of opinions has not been general, the world over, especially in the matter of re- ligions. It would have saved the world" great wars and sytematized slaughter, as well as much private persecution. To the wise admonition, "Know thy- self," might with profit be added: "Also, know thy neighbor — charitably. ' ' Perhaps Browning, in building the drama of the Druses, had something of this sort in mind. The situa- tion as he has shown it gives a jvery close analogy between the Druse and the Christian religidns, and not 45 46 BROWNING CRITIQUES always in favor of the latter. The Druses have their seven, instead of ten, commandments, and they believe their religion may be allegorically discovered in the Jewish as well as in the Christian Scriptures, and they are well versed in the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Koran. These are their commandments, or creed. They believe in : 1. "The Unity of God, or the infinite Oneness of Deity. 2. The essential excellence of Truth. 3. The law of toleration as to all men and women in opinion; 4. Respect for all men and women as to character and conduct; 5. Entire submission to God's decree as to fate; 6. Chastity of body and mind and soul ; 7. Mutual help under all conditions." The Incarnation is the central religious idea of the Druses, and they teach that there have been ten in- carnations of the divine manifestation. The last of these was the Hakeem — the founder of the Druse re- ligion, who'*disappeared, mysteriously, three hundred years ago. It was in 1843 that an outbreak took place of the Druses against the Maronites, their Christian neigh- bors in Lebanon. This event, no doubt, awakened in the mind of Browning the idea of comparing this little known Arabic people and their religious history with that of the Jews and Christians. One need riot be exceedingly well grounded in the history of the Jews BROWNING CRITIQUES 47 and their expectations of deliverance from foreign op- pressors to see the analogy between Jesus of Nazareth, the Jew, and Djabal, the Druse. Early in the story of Jesus there is the Slaughter of the Innocents by the order of Herod. The Infant Jesus was saved mirac- ulously. When Djabal was an infant, the Prefect endeavored to destroy the last of the Sheikhs; Djabal, the last of the Emir's sons, is saved by a woman, Maani. He is concealed safely, but he knows who he is, and never dreams of delivering his people by using deception until he realizes that in their expectations of the coming of Hakeem, they will accept nothing else. There has been much speculation about the where- abouts of Jesus, from his twelfth year up to the time when he came to John to be baptized in the River Jordan. Likewise, Djabal's history was not known when he came to his people on the island in the Medi- terranean, where they were held in bondage by the Knights of Rhodes. Their constant longing was for their own country, under the shade of the cedars of Lebanon. So did the Jews long for release from the Romans and the restoration to power of their own people. The Druses expected the reincarnation of their Ha- keem — who had disappeared three hundred years be- fore, and when Djabal appears they insist that he is the all-powerful one, the miracle worker, the deliverer, the Hakeem. He reveals himself in this wise in soli- loquy: "That a strong man should think himself a God! I — Hakeem ? To have wandered through the world, 48 BROWNING CRITIQUES Sown falsehood, and thence reaped, now scorn, now faith. For my one chant with many a change, my tale Of outrage, and my prayer for vengeance — this Required, forsooth no mere man's faculty; Naught kss than Hakeem's? Does the day break — is the hour imminent When one deed, when my whole life's deed, my deed Must be accomplished ? Hakeem ? Why the God ? Shout rather, 'Djabal Youssof's child, thought slain With the whole race; The Druse's Sheikhs, this Prefect Endeavored to extirpate, saved, a child, Returns from traveling the world, a man Able to take revenge, lead back the march To Lebanon:' — So shout and who gainsays? But now, because delusion mixed itself Insensibly with this career, all's changed!" A few lines further on he speaks again : — "Found the Prefect here. The Druses here, all here but Hakeem's self. The Khalif of a thousand prophesies, Reserved for such a juncture — could I call My mission aught but Hakeem's? Promised Hakeem More than performs Djabal — you absolve?" Did Browning mean to make this young Arab, with his European training, more modest than was the young Jewish carpenter of Nazareth ? Compare these lines with the Gospel of Matthew, fourth chapter, third to the eleventh verse, giving the much quoted story of the temptation of Jesus. True, he does not affirm that BROWNING CRITIQUES 49 he is really the Son of God by miraculous begetting, but he gives the impression. He evades. Still further Khalil declares : "God Hakeem! 'Tis told! The whole Druse nation knows thee Hakeem As we ! and mothers lift on high their babes Who seem aware, so glisten their great eyes, Thou hast not failed us, ancient brows are proud ; Our elders could not earlier die, it seems Than at thy coming! Esaad we supposed Doting, is carried forth, eager to see The last sun rise on the Isle : he can see now !" In the second chapter of Luke, and the twenty- fourth verse, we read: "And behold there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and the same man was just and de- vout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Ghost was upon him. "And it was revealed to him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord Christ. "And he came by the Spirit into the temple and when the parents brought in the Child Jesus to do for him af- ter the custom of the law, then took he Him up into his arms and blessed God and said : "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace according to Thy Word: For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." To Khalil's further rejoicing and repeating what the people are saying and doing, Djabal makes very little so BROWNING CRITIQUES or no answer, recalling his love for the girl Anael, his knowledge of his own history, his hopes for himself and his people. Khalil, noting his abstraction, ex- plains it in his own way: "Ah he is rapt ! Dare I at such a moment break on him Even to do my sister's bidding ? Yes : The eyes are Djabal's and not Hakeem's yet Though but till I have spoken this, perchance." What woman in the Gospel story did Browning have in mind when he created the beautiful character of Anael? One novelist and one dramatist have spoken, the novelist only to be suppressed, but the drama was successful. Perhaps it was like Browning, non-committal. In the eleventh chapter of Matthew we read : "Now when John heard in prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said unto Him : "Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another?" Jesus answered and said unto them: 'Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see.' " Other parallels may be found that show Browning was not without design in drawing the character of Djabal in contrast to that of Jesus. We know nothing of Jesus in regard to his education. In the Gospel story He is sometimes spoken of as "The Carpenter" and the "Son of the carpenter." He was a Nazarene, and one never forgets the question of Nathanael to Philip : "Can there any good thing come out of Naza- reth?" BROWNING CRITIQUES 51 Djabal the Arab was a man of European culture, the son of a Sheikh, a traveler in many parts of the world, the guest of wealth and leisure, a politician, a leader of men. He knew what he did was a man's work, not a God's. Browning pays his respects to the Christian Church in Khalil's words : "Say I not You, fitted to the Order's purposes Your Sheikhs cut off, your rites, your garb pro- scribed. Must yet receive one degradation more; The Knights at last throw off the mask — transfer As tributary now and appanage. This islet they are but protectors of, To their own ever craving Liege, the Church, Who licenses all crimes that pay her thus ! Sometimes admirers of Browning grow enthusias- tic over his religion, always meaning the Christian be- lief That he was a good man has never even been questioned. That he was one of the most cultured goes without saying. That he was a close student of all known religions is evidenced many times in his literary work ; but that he tied to any special brand of religion as given in the books, is more than doubtful. He had great sympathy with the Jews. Some of his finest ex- pressions are of and for them. This matter will be taken up later in connection with a number of Brown- ing's short poems. CHAPTER VII A BLOT ON THE 'SCUTCHEON If there is a purpose in this tragedy, it must be to show the vanity of caste, the mistakes that may happen under the code of honor as held by the well-bom, the inheritors of titles and estates. It exemplifies Ten- nyson's : "Kind hearts are more than coronets And simple faith than Norman blood." •It is really a story of two children, without Byron's apology : "Both were so young, and one so innocent." This tragedy was written in 1843, when Browning was thirty-one years old. Had he no remembrance of his own childhood and early youth? Perhaps boys are wiser in matters of love between themselves and girls, than girls are, but, in view of the fact that he made his heroine Mildred only fourteen years old, he would have worked to better advantage if he had consulted some well-bred woman of anywhere past twenty, to find out how much the normal girl of fourteen knows of love. True, he had Shakespeare's Juliet of that age 52 BROWNING CRITIQUES 53 as an example, but she was an Italian, and there was her dragon of a nurse. There was no mention of a mother, and if God forgot little Juliet, her nurse was on the job. Ginevra too, the victim of the springlock, "In her fifteenth year became a bride." Rogers makes no mention of a mother for Ginevra, but there was : "The nurse, that ancient lady, preached decorum." Even if Browning's heroine had no mother, and could not depend upon the memory of God, there should at least have been a maid to see that her hair was properly brushed, and other matters of a night toilet attended to. There would have been no chance for a boy lover to climb in at a window. Neither would a well cared for girl of fourteen have been al- lowed to wander in the park alone; not even here in America, where grown girls and women of all ages go about alone, — girls of from babyhood up to at least past fourteen, are not allowed to go about alone in pub- lic places much less through woods and parks where there are secluded nooks. And the Earl of Tresham? Oldest of the family; and a bachelor, as no wife is men- tioned. Does Browning mean to pose him as the orig- inal Sir Galahad ? And all for the purpose of giving the dying boy Earl the chance to say : "We've sinned and die : Never you sin, Lord Tresham! for you'll die And God will judge you." 54 BROWNING CRlTiyUKb Further on the boy speaks, as if to Mildred : "Die Mildred! Leave Their honorable world to them. For God We're good enough, though the world casts us out." Of this tragedy Stopford Brooke speaks very seri- ously in his "The Poetry of Robert Browning," and Vernon Harrington takes him up in his "Browning Studies" quite as seriously; calls Dr. Brooke's criti- cism puerile, and says further: "No excuse can be made for his high-school-girl attitude," etc. If the character of Mildred Tresham, as Browning has drawn it, should be judged by a jury of her peers — a dozen high-school girls — they would most likely con- clude, with Betsey Prig : "There ain't no sich person." That is the criticism of the average well-bred woman. The situation, as created by Browning, is, if not im- possible, quite improbable. Boys and girls have fancies for each other, and do silly things, but as for climbing in at high windows — they don't do that. It would be more like Lord Tresham, bachelor of uncertain age — he has, like his kind, outlived boyish ideas of honor — he would be more hkely to be swept away by passion than a younger man, and he would have the means to buy himself out of the consequences. CHAPTER VIII colombe's birthday This pleasant little love story, with its happy ending, seems to have been supplied to Browning by the his- torical disputes over the succession to the Duchy of Cleves. Briefly the story, as given by Charlotte Porter and Helen Clarke, runs this way : "Duke John William of Cleves died in 1609 without direct heir. His do- main, including the formerly separate Duchies of Julich, Cleves and Berg, and territory on both sides of the Lower Rhine, was claimed by not less than six com- petitors; the Emperor sending the Archduke Leo- pold of Hapsburg to hold it for him, and the Kings of France and Spain, and the people of Holland concern- ing themselves about it in the interests of the Catholic or Protestant contestants. These disputes were set- tled in 1 6 14 by the Treaty of Xanten giving the Duchy to Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, who had mar- ried the late Duke's niece. Browning's supposition, on which the plot is based, that the Duke had concealed his child to shield her better and secure her reign sur- reptitiously, is conceivably historical, though not a matter of record. So then, when Berthold comes to claim the little throne as the rightful heir — with the backing of Pope, 55 56 BROWNING CRITIQUES Emperor and a brace of kings — it is not a large piece of work for a man of imagination to make this claim- ant a cold-blooded, ambitious man, as foil to the lofty- minded, and no doubt handsome, advocate who comes to the young queen of a year, to speak for the over- burdened citizens of Cleves. The story might have been a trifle more gripping (as modern reviewers have it) to have made him fall in love with the girl, deeply, maddeningly; but in this case Browning did not break a heart needlessly. It's much more comfortable to be told that he had no thought of love. He considered his offer of marriage to Colombe as the last word in generosity; and when it was declined, though he was a bit put out about it, it was only because he was not accustomed to having any favor of his slighted. Colombe had almost, at first, recognized Valance as her soul's mate. His poverty and her own were not considered. She was romantic; and the girl who is not, the girl of marriageable age, who does not know instinctively that "There's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream," is a mistake of Nature. She is the reincarnation of her own grandmother, with a seventy-year-old brain — the brain of a worldly-wise woman. So she cannot be expected to take the same view of the matter as does Berthold, when he answers the question of Valance : "I am to say you love her?" BROWNING CRITIQUES 57 "Love has no great concernment, thinks the World, with a Duke's marriage. Say, I have been arrested suddenly In my ambition's course, its rocky course. By this sweet flower : I fain would gather it And then proceed:" The conversation between Colombe and Valance when he gives her the Duke's message is most ingenu- ous. Yet, now quite sure of her humble lover, she must hear what the royal one has to say for himself. To her question : "You love me then?" he answers : "Your lineage I revere. Honor your virtue, in your truth believe. Do homage to your intellect, and bow Before your peerless beauty." She asks : "But for love"— "A further love I do not understand." How wonderfully happy might many women be to meet a man so honest ! Yet, at the last, seeing Valance and the deposed Duchess so perfectly happy, he says: "All is for the best. Too costly a flower were this, I see it now To pluck and set upon my barren helm To wither — any garish plume will do." CHAPTER IX LURIA This drama was written in 1846, and it must have been just before, or soon after Browning's marriage, which occurred September twelfth of that year. The following winter was spent in Pisa, and in April, 1847, the Brownings -went to Florence, and sometime in the summer they went to live in a suite of rooms in the Casa Guido, diagonally across the street from the Pitti Palace. The house is on the corner of the Via Maggio and the Via Mazetta. Here their son was born March 9, 1849. No doubt Browning had studied the his- tories of these two cities some time before this. It is well known that there were wars between the two, but perhaps many people who know this are in the same state of mind as was old Kaspar when trying to ex- plain the Battle of Blenheim to his grandchildren: "It was the English, Kaspar cried, Who put the French to rout: But what they killed each other for, I never could find out." What Browning found out must have soured him on the Florentines, else why should he say, speaking as Luria to Braccio : "In his sly cool way, the true Florentine." 58 BROWNING CRITIQUES 59 In the same conversation, Luria replying to Braccio : "Ah Braccio, you know Florence? Will she, think you, Receive one — what means "fittingly receive?" Receive compatriots, doubtless — I am none: And yet Domizia promises much!" The Moor even then suspected Florence of double- dealing. When he sums up the things that will occupy the hands and heads of the people when peace is estab- lished by his conduct of the war, he asks : "But, Luria — where will then be Luria's place?" At the beginning of Act Second the monologue of Domizia reviewing the wrongs of her house, how her father and her brothers perished miserably, she ex- claims : "Florence was all falseness." Then vowing she will stand by Luria : "None stood by them as I by Luria stand. So, when the stranger, cheated of his due Turns on thee as his rapid nature bids. Then Florence, think, a hireling at thy throat For the first outrage, think who bore thy last. Yet mutely in forlorn obedience died!" The conversation between Luria and Husain, an- other Moor, tells the story, brands the Florentines as false, even while using the Moors to the utmost. Read these fervid lines of Husain : "This hating people, that hate each the other, And in one blandness to us Moors unite — 6o BROWNING CRITIQUES Locked each to each Uke slippery snakes, I say Which still in all their tangles, hissing tongue And threatening tail, ne'er do each other harm." After Husain goes out, Luria, knowing he is right, soliloquizes : "He keeps his instincts, no new culture mars Their perfect use in him." Did Browning, even at this early date, hold a grudge against Florence? He made his home there, in the Casa Guido, for many years, but after the death of Mrs. Browning he never lived there, though her re- mains lie in the little walled cemetery in Florence. The Commander of the Pisan Army, Tiburzio, is one of the finest characters in the play. He, too, un- derstands the attitude of the Florentines toward Luria. He offers to Luria a letter he has intercepted, and the unfavorable answer, as reasons why he should come over to the Pisans. When Luria refuses his tempting offers, he says : "And after all you will look gallantly Found dead here with that letter in your breast." The drama is full of accusations of the Florentines, and shows up the Moor as the man of honor, the great soldier, the real gentleman. So too Othello, Shakespeare's Moorish soldier. This defeated, decaying race, proves the strength of hered- ity. They are honorable in their dealings, brave and true. The remains of their achitecture are object les- BROWNING CRITIQUES 6i sons for artists and builders. Walk in the streets of Gibraltar. Meet the tall, stately, melancholy Moors. Any one of them might be the reincarnation of their last king, Boabdil. But the Florentines : Why is it they are thus branded by Maeterlinck as well as Browning? In his play of "Monna Vanna" Maeterlinck shows the Florentines and the Pisans at war. Florence employs mercenaries : even the Commander-in-Chief of their Army, Prinz- valle, was said to be of barbarian origin, employed by the Florentines because of his genius for war. He was said to be a Basque or a Breton. That he was not an Italian was enough to brand him a barbarian. In one particular the Florentines are not false. They are true in their affection for Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Her grave is well cared for in the walled cemetery in Flor- ence. CHAPTER X A soul's tragedy This little play of two acts, it is a bit difficult to see why it was written, unless to show that a man of certain caliber can change his character and object in life as quickly as an election day in a republic can change its administration. Really the most prominent character, Chiappino, is shown to be selfish, ungen- erous, mean in the last degree. He has accepted the gifts of his friend Luitolfo because he could not have lived without them — but it irks him to feel grateful. He nags the fiancee of Luitolfo, Eulalia, that she does not love him instead of his friend, while proving every minute he is wholly unworthy of love. It seems Browning was at pains to show him, in all particulars, a most despicable character. Then, at the turn of events, through a misunderstanding, he for a few minutes exemplifies the text, "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend." Just for an instant he shows this supreme unselfishness. Then when it is understood that the populace is ready to glorify the assassin of the Provost, he reverts to his true character. It is wholly inconsistent. He takes advantage of the mistake of the people, who suppose he was the assailant. He hopes to marry Eulalia, an- nex Luitolfo's wealth, and become Provost. 63 BROWNING CRITIQUES 63 Up to the last minute, when Luitolfo returns and confesses the attack on the Provost, Chiappino is the same mean, sneering, untruthful, double-dealer that he is first shown. What did Browning mean ? Very likely there are characters like that in the world, but they are not the sort of persons who would ever be radically reformed. That sort of person always has good cause for grievance, good reason to be at odds with the world. Ogniben understands and illustrates this when he says: "I help men to carry out their own principles: if they please to say two and two make five, I assent, so they will but go on and say four and four make ten." The character of Ogniben is excellently drawn. He is quiet, full of the freshest of humor, philosophical, and wise as Solomon. He forces nothing, but in a most unostentatious manner leads events. When Luitolfo is making his confession, and Eu- lalia makes a small speech, Ogniben has a few minutes of silence. Presently he tells the crowd : "Now in these last ten minutes of silence, what have I been doing, deem you? Putting the finishing stroke to a homily of mine, I have long taken thought to per- fect, on the text, 'Let whoso thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.' To your house, Luitolfo! Still si- lent, my patriotic friend? Well, that is a good sign, however. And you will go aside for a time. That is better still. You only do right to believe you must get better as you get older." The little sermon is full of humor of a superlative 64 BROWNING CRITIQUES kind. It is for the benefit of Chiappino, but it might well be appropriated and read frequently by much better people. He traces the ways of the human from infancy to old age, and winds up his sermon most benevolently : "And now give thanks to God, the keys of the Provost's palace to me, and yourselves to profitable meditation at home. I have known Four and twenty leaders of revolts." CHAPTER XI HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX This spirited piece of verse is plain fancy. It is the sort of composition to charm high-school boys. It was written in 1845. The poet was then thirty- three years old. Did he know anything about horses ? Did he not know that for a horse to gallop ninety-one miles without even a breathing space of a minute must be something of a miracle? Perhaps since then there has been organized a society to look out for the proper care of horses. Was it a lack of development along the lines of caring for four-footed flesh and blood that induced Browning to write this poem with such evident approval of Roland's master? "Paul Revere's Ride" was written in 1863. The dis- tance gone over is not stated, but it is most likely that Longfellow knew what a horse might and might not do, and so did Revere; and this was a real happening. Our poet had no need of flourishing poet's license for safety. Thomas Buchanan Read wrote "Sheridan's Ride" some time during our Civil War — in fact, a very short time after the ride took place. That poem, too, glori- fies both man and horse, though it was the opinion of 65 66 BROWNING CRITIQUES some army officers that Sheridan rather deserved trial by court-martial for being twenty-five miles from his command, than a poem. But James Murdoch, who told the story, was billed for something rousing at Pike's Opera House in Cincinnati on a certain evening, only a day or two after this great ride. He went to Read, showed him the news of it, and badgered him into consenting to write something. He said that done, Mrs. Read made a cup of strong tea, and Thomas Buchanan drank it, sat down and wrote "Sheridan's Ride." What was in Browning's cup? Browning wrote another poem of a ride. This has something of an historical basis ; at least it might have happened. It was written in 1842. Abd-el-Kadir, servant of God, had united the Arab tribes to resist the invasion of the French into Algeria. The man of this ride was an Arab insurgent on his way to rejoin his Chief. He cares not if he is seen as he gallops where "the sands slide," nor has he the least complaint to make that he cannot "loose what Fate has tied." When Jenkyn Lloyd Jones reads this bit of rhymed philosophy, he tilts up and down on his boot heels, making a very good imitation of the sound of a gal- loping horse. These forty short lines all rhymed with ride, and telling the story clearly, show the convenience of a large vocabulary. ■ Garden Fancies Under the title, "The Flower's Name," there are forty-eight lines of as sweet a fancy as ever poet put BROWNING CRITIQUES 67 into verse. He had walked in the garden with a Lady — and she gave one special flower its Spanish name. He declares : "I must learn Spanish one of these days Only for that slow, sweet name's sake." His naming of the other flowers is beautiful, but he begs the one with the "slow sweet name" in this wise : "Flower, you Spaniard, look that you grow not. Stay as you are and be loved forever I" There comes a hint of an intention, a hope told only to the silent flowers : "Roses, if I live and do well I may bring her, one of these days, To fix you fast with as fine a spell. Fit you each with his Spanish phrase." Did he fail to "do well," or was it really Elizabeth that walked in the garden and gave the flower its Spanish name ? The second poem in "Garden Fancies" is not so pleasant. In fact, it sounds more like the account of the behavior of a half-grown, irresponsible boy in a fit of petty spite because a book fails to please him. He avails himself of the critic's privilege, in much the fashion that he resents criticism. His opening lines of this poem are not dissimilar to Fitzgerald's criticism of "Aurora Leigh," many years later, though Fitz- gerald was mild by comparison. Read Browning : 68 BROWNING CRITIQUES "Plague take all youf pedants, say I ! He who wrote what I hold in my hand, Centuries back was so good as to die. Leaving this rubbish to cumber the land." He proceeds to not only lambast the writer of the book, but drops it into the crevice of a plum tree anH, hears it splash into the rain drippings. He doe* not say how long he left the book there before be p-ot a rake and fished it out. He's quite hilarious over the state of the book, and speculates as to what the insects may have thought of it. He lets it, ruined as it is, dry in the sun. and then gives it place amongst other books on his shelf, to "Dry-rot at ease till the judgment day!" Fitzgerald was not so merciless by half, but Brown- ing resented what he said, to the extent of prostituting his ability as a poet, and his wide vocabulary, to write twelve lines to call the critic a cur and wishing if the dead man were only alive, to kick him and spit in his face. CHAPTER XII THE CONFESSIONAL Was it the proper thing to locate the happening re- corded in this poem, in Spain ? It is a story of treach- ery in the confessional, and torture following because of the denunciation of the Church, the Pope, the Priests, the Saints and all. Browning's own England had enough of this sort of behavior to answer for within a few centuries back. What European country has not? It has been a game of see-saw. The re- ligious party on the high end of the board cut off the heads of the low-enders, all for the greater glory of the Lord. Even our own fair Salem is only famous for her manner of dealing with the witches. Christina Supposed to be the daughter of Francis I of Naples, born in 1806. Married Ferdinand, seventh King of Spain, in 1829. Became Regent on his death, in 1833, till her daughter, Isabel II, ascended the throne in 1843. In this poem of a not quite hopeless lover, one finds the idea of successive reincarnations : 69 70 BROWNING CRITIQUES "Doubt you, if in some such moment As she fixed me, she felt clearly Ages past the soul existed, Here an age 'tis 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? Doubt you whether That she felt as looking at me Mine and her souls rushed together?" The remainder of this poem has the same trend, and who can prove the contrary? Undoubted evi- dence proves that Browning studied religions as well as Johnson's Dictionary, and understood one quite as well as the other. It is a comforting thing to know that among the great religions there is so much charity, kindliness, love and mercy. Hope, too, and one need not be unduly scared by that "great text in Gala- tians" that Dr. Berdoe takes to be the tenth verse of the third chapter : "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." Perhaps as a reward of merit in one life, one may hope for a next incarnation where this law is unknown, and where "there ain't no ten commandments." Again in the poem, speaking to the dead girl, Evelyn Hope, Browning gives the idea of living many times : "I claim you still for my own love's sake ! Delayed it may be for more lives yet, BROWNING CRITIQUES 71 Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few : Much is to karn and much forget Ere the time be come for taking you." A faithful churchwoman was heard to say : "I want to believe in a religion that makes me happy." Why not believe, then, that we may live in this world re- peatedly, growing wiser and better if we mal