E501213A. Poems (1850).
The Morning Post, 13 December 1850, p. 2.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 331–332.
We have always been of opinion that Elizabeth Browning is the best English poetess that has appeared since the days of Felicia Hemans; and it is with much satisfaction that we hail, in the appearance of this new and greatly-improved edition of her works, the most satisfactory indication that can be required of the progress she has made in the favour of the public. The grace and sensibility which are so charmingly characteristic of female genius are found throughout her poetry, in happy combination with that loftiness of thought and that vigour of expression which are seldom seen in full perfection except in productions of male intellect. Her muse, “Comme un aigle souvent, comme un ange toujours,” is at once bold and delicate, tender and stately, and partakes only so much of the masculine virtues as to render her estimable, without relinquishing those soft graces which compose the proper ornament of her sex. She has a splendid affluence of poetic thought, and her page is irradiated with a variety of illustration and imagery, which gives to her descriptions of external nature a highly pictorial effect. The frequency with which we find the same ideas and metaphors repeated in different of her compositions has been objected to by some; but, for our own part, we confess we are not disposed to take exception to it. The practice has the authority of the greatest poets in the language; nor does it seem possible, or, indeed, desirable to prevent it, for a beautiful thought loves to visit, again and again, the heart to which it first revealed itself; and it is the charming property of a poetic imagination to send it back into the world, each time arranged in colours lovelier and more beautiful than the last. Besides, the conceptions of a poet’s mind, like geraniums and true Christians, will bear any amount of cutting and transplanting. From a poem entitled “The Soul’s Travelling,” we extract the following verses, as a favourable specimen of the author’s skill in description. The reader will acknowledge that it conveys a forcible picture of the sights with which a dweller amid cities is familiar:—
The champ of the steeds on the silver bit,
As they whirl the rich man’s chariot by;
The beggar’s whine as he looks at it—
But it goes too fast for charity.
The trail on the street of the poor man’s broom,
That the lady who walks to her palace-home,
On her silken skirt may catch no dust;
The tread of the business men, who must
Count their per cents, by the paces they take:
The cry of the babe, unheard of its mother
Though it lies on her breast, while she thinks of the other
Laid yesterday where it will not wake.
The flower girl’s prayer to buy roses and pinks,
Held out in the smoke like stars by day;
The gin-door’s oath, that hollowly chinks
Guilt upon grief, and wrong upon hate:
The cabman’s cry to get out of the way;
The dustman’s call down the area grate:
The young maid’s jest and the old wife’s scold,
The haggling talk of the boys at a stall;
The fight in the street which is backed for gold,
The plea of the lawyers in Westminster Hall;
The drop on the stones of the blind man’s staff,
As he trades in his own grief’s sacredness;
The brothel’s shriek, and the Newgate laugh;
The hum upon ’Change, and the organ’s grinding,
The grinder’s face being, nevertheless,
Dry and vacant of even woe,
While the children’s hearts are leaping so
At the merry music’s winding!
The black-plumed funeral’s creeping train,
Long and slow (and yet they will go
As fast as life, though it hurry and strain!)
Creeping the populous houses through,
And nodding their plumes at either side—
At many a house where an infant, new
To the sunshiny world, has just struggled and cried;
At many a house, where sitteth a bride
Trying the morrow’s coronals,
With a scarlet blush, to-day.
We have but one cause of quarrel with this author, and that has reference to her silly propensity to use words which are not to be found in any dictionary, past or present, and which it is little less than an outrage on type to print. If such words as “infinitist,” “contrariousness,” “meseems,” and “undisproved,” belong to our mother tongue, all we can say is that we are very much in the case of Oliver Goldsmith, who was addressed at an hotel in Calais by a fat little waiter, who spoke to him for ten minutes before the poet once found out that he was speaking English! Surely the language which was rich enough for Shakspere and Milton—for Byron and Moore—may suffice for Mrs. Browning.
Reviewed:
Poems (EBB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1850.
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