E600400A. Poems Before Congress.
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, April 1860, pp. 490–494.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 371–374.
We are strongly of opinion that, for the peace and welfare of society, it is a good and wholesome rule that women should not interfere with politics. We love the fair sex too well, to desire that they should be withdrawn from their own sphere, which is that of adorning the domestic circle, and tempering by their gentleness the asperities of our ruder nature, to figure in the public arena, or involve themselves in party contests. The Duchess of Devonshire, who canvassed Westminster for Fox, and hesitated not to give kisses as an electoral bribe, was, to our humble thinking, little better than a female Judas; and, to fall back upon more ancient instances, what a hideous spectre of a harridan arises in our minds when we attempt to form a fancy sketch of Cornelia the mother of the Gracchi! We have a tender side for ladies who delight in enveloping their pretty ancles in azure. Whether, inspired by verse, they warble like larks in the firmament, or dole like doves in a coppice, or coo like pigeons in spring—whether, in less ambitious prose, they conduct hero and heroine through a love-story, “passing sweet and amorous withal,” through three octavo volumes, to the inevitable hymeneal altar—or whether they apply themselves to the exposition of the finer arts, or the collection of culinary maxims—we listen, read, comment, perpend, and approve without the slightest feeling that they have in any degree overstepped the pale of propriety. And when we see them engaged in deeds of true charity—in visiting the sick, relieving the distressed, providing food for the hungry and clothing for the naked, or praying at the lonely deathbed,—we acknowledge that it is no vain figure of poetry, no fanciful association of thought, that likens women to the angels!
But very different is the case when women addict themselves to politics. Then they resemble, to our shuddering fancy, in spite of all their charms, not angels, but so many tricoteuses in the gallery of the National Convention. Of all imaginable inflictions and torments, defend us from a domestic female partisan! Belinda on the ballot, Sophia on suffrage, Robina on reform, Barbara on the budget, Isabella on Italy, Henrietta on Hungary, Maggie on Mazzini, Gatty on Garibaldi, and Polly on the Poles—what unhappy male creature could hope to preserve his senses in the midst of so conflicting a concert? To reason they will not listen; to argument they are utterly impervious. They scour the plain like so many swift Camillas, only differing from that gifted damsel, who, according to Virgil, could run over a field of barley without depressing the awns, in this—that each is mounted on a heavy hobby, and that they tread down everything in their way. Before such a charge the most valorous of men is overthrown, utterly humiliated, and, for the remainder of his existence, becomes a Jerry Sneak.
The case is worse when women of real talent take part in political affray. Patriotism in woman we honour. If the integrity of our own country were assailed, or the sanctity threatened of our shores, we know that thousands of our women, overcoming mere feminine instinct, would with their own hands array their lovers, husbands, brothers, for the fight, and love them better than they did before if they fell upon the field of glory. But cosmopolitanism is quite another thing, and so is identification with foreign nationalities. We remember hearing, some years ago, with the deepest disgust, an apparent female lecturing for the avowed purpose of providing funds for furnishing insurgents with pikes. It was a séance that might have sickened Até, so undisguised was her appetite for blood; and, knowing what lengths men will go under the influence of excited passion, we al- [p. 491→] ways shudder to see women, who have far less power of restraint, committing themselves in matters with which it is most unbecoming for them to interfere.
We have not made those remarks without an appropriate text. We have just received a thin volume of verses—for we cannot call them poems—by one who we are proud otherwise to style as a real poetess, and to whose high merit we have before now borne most willing testimony—Elizabeth Barret Browning; and very sincerely do we regret, for her sake, that she has fallen into the error of publishing anything so ineffably bad, if we regard it as poetical composition—so strangely blind, if we look upon it as a political confession of faith—or so utterly unfair to England and English feeling, as has been penned by one of England’s most gifted daughters. Long residence in Italy, especially in Florence, has evidently given Mrs Browning strong Italian tendencies towards the reconstitution, or rather formation, of a nationality. To that we do not, and cannot object. For a long time, the political heavings and throes of Italy, like those of its principal volcanic mountain, indicated a coming eruption; and it may very well be, that the settlement which was made in 1815 could not be expected to last for ever. But, undeniably, it was the best settlement which could be made under the circumstances, and at that time; and the conclusive proof of that is the long period of peace which it procured for Europe. No doubt nationalities went on fermenting. They will always ferment whenever the subjected country can find any real or even fanciful ground for complaint—witness Ireland to indulgent Great Britain. But in Italy there was no nationality to restore. Time out of mind such a thing had not been heard of; and, if you came to test occupation, not by language, but by blood, the men of the north of Italy might be proved of the Teutonic race. However, we may fairly set aside all such considerations, and look to things as they are. The events of last year, and even more those of the present, have entirely overturned the arrangements of the Treaty of Vienna; and the formation of the kingdom of Northern Italy, which is now in progress, by the annexation of Lombardy and the Romagna to Sardinia, and the absorption of the Duchies, has been purchased by the cession of Savoy and Nice, and the extension of the frontier of France. That was the price which Sardinia agreed to pay for French co-operation, which was paraded to the world as a spontaneous act of sublime generosity. The mask is now thrown away, because it can be worn no longer, and Louis Napoleon is calmly proceeding to the appropriation of his spoil. The farce of the Congress is now abandoned. France has the mastery of the position, and cares nothing for the opinion, and will not listen to the advice, of any other cabinet in Europe.
The Emperor of the French is Mrs Browning’s favourite hero. In him she sees the incarnation of justice and of might, and hails him as the great deliverer of the nations. The following extract from the leading poem in the volume, entitled, “Napoleon III. in Italy,” will exhibit, not only the extent of her adoration, but the fustian quality of the verse in which it is set forth:—
But now, Napoleon, now
That, leaving far behind the purple throng
Of vulgar monarchs, thou
Tread’st higher in thy deed
Than stair of throne can lead,
To help in the hour of wrong
The broken hearts of nations to be strong,—
Now, lifted as thou art
To the level of pure song,
We stand to meet thee on these Alpine snows!
And while the palpitating peaks break out
Ecstatic from somnambular repose
With answers to the presence and the shout,
We, poets of the people, who take part
With elemental justice, natural right,
Join in our echoes also, nor refrain.
We meet thee, O Napoleon, at this height
At last, and find thee great enough to praise.
Receive the poet’s chrism, which smells beyond
The priest’s, and pass thy ways;—
An English poet warns thee to maintain
God’s word, not England’s:—let His truth be true
And all men liars! with His truth respond
To all men’s lie. Exalt the sword and smite [p. 492→]
On that long anvil of the Apennine
Where Austria forged the Italian chain in view
Of seven consenting nations, sparks of fine
Admonitory light,
Till men’s eyes wink before convictions new.
Flash in God’s justice to the world’s amaze,
Sublime Deliverer!—after many days
Found worthy of the deed thou art come to do—
Emperor
Evermore.
Having thus anointed him with her “chrism,” which in our nostrils smells rather rancid, Mrs Browning proceeds with her worship. Plutarch says of the Pythoness, “that, going with great reluctancy into the sacred place to be inspired, she came out foaming at the mouth, her eyes goggling, her breast heaving, her voice undistinguishable and shrill, as if she had an earthquake within her labouring for vent.” We grieve to say that Mrs Browning, under the influence of her Cacodæmon, has been seized with a like fit of insanity, and has uttered the following oracular raving, which it would puzzle an interpreting priest to adapt to common understanding:—
Autocrat? let them scoff,
Who fail to comprehend
That a ruler incarnate of
The people, must transcend
All common king-born kings.
These subterranean springs
A sudden outlet winning,
Have special virtues to spend.
The people’s blood runs through him,
Dilates from head to foot,
Creates him absolute,
And from this great beginning
Evokes a greater end
To justify and renew him—
Emperor
Evermore.
What! did any maintain
That God or the people (think!)
Could make a marvel in vain?—
Out of the water-jar there,
Draw wine that none could drink?
Is this a man like the rest,
This miracle, made unaware
By a rapture of popular air,
And caught to the place that was best?
You think he could barter and cheat
As vulgar diplomates use,
With the people’s heart in his breast?
Prate a lie into shape
Lest truth should cumber the road;
Play at the fast and loose
Till the world is strangled with tape;
Maim the soul’s complete
To fit the hole of a toad;
And filch the dogman’s meat
To feed the offspring of God?
Nay, but he, this wonder,
He cannot palter nor prate,
Though many around him and under,
With intellects trained to the curve,
Distrust him in spirit and nerve
Because his meaning is straight.
Measure him ere he depart
With those who have governed and led;
Larger so much by the heart,
Larger so much by the head—
Emperor
Evermore.
We shall not ask whether there be any sense in this, for there can be but one opinion as to that; but it may be worth while inquiring whether, by any stretch of courtesy, this sort of composition can be called poetry, or even verse. We pass on to another strophe:—
He will not swagger nor boast
Of his country’s meeds, in a tone
Missuiting a great man most
If such should speak of his own;
Nor will he act, on her side,
From motives baser, indeed,
Than a man of a noble pride
Can avow for himself at need;
Never, for lucre or laurels,
Or custom, though such should be rife,
Adapting the smaller morals
To measure the larger life.
He, though the merchants persuade,
And the soldiers are eager for strife,
Finds not his country in quarrels
Only to find her in trade,—
While still he accords her such honour
As never to flinch for her sake
Where men put service upon her,
Found heavy to undertake
And scarcely like to be paid:
Believing a nation may act
Unselfishly—shiver a lance
(As the least of her sons may, in fact)
And not for a cause of finance—
Emperor
Evermore.
Without ocular demonstration we could not have believed that the authoress of the Rhyme of the Duchess May and the Cry of the Children could have penned anything so deplorable as this.
We observe that the Preface is dated “Rome, February 1860;” and we cannot help regretting that the publication of the volume had not been delayed for a little, since the revelations of March must, we think, have somewhat altered Mrs Brown- [p. 493→] ing’s estimate of the disinterestedness of the hero of her worship. The following lines read awkwardly when tested by the “inexorable logic of facts.”
Shout for France and Savoy!
Shout for the council and charge!
Shout for the head of Cavour;
And shout for the heart of a King
That’s great with a nation’s joy.
Shout for France and Savoy!
Shout away by all means, since that is to be the order of the day; but we rather apprehend that there will be slight shouting in Savoy, and none at all in Switzerland, when the French dragoons are marched into the territory. We protest, however, against shouting for the head of Cavour. For heaven’s sake let us have no repetition of the guillotine!
The eyes of the public are, we should suppose, by this time, pretty well opened to the designs of our magnanimous ally; and we give Lords Palmerston and John Russell joy of the realisation of the extreme confidence which they did not hesitate to express in the single-heartedness, abnegation, and upright motives of the Emperor of the French. Doubtless they also thought that “this miracle made unaware by a rapture of popular air,” could not “barter and cheat;” and, as they puzzle over the splendid lucubrations of M. de Thouvenel, they must, unless their nerves are thoroughly hardened, feel a shudder of conscious shame creep through them, for having allowed themselves to be so tremendously victimised and befooled. The French Minister, it would seem, holds the opinion that the chief use of language is to conceal thought, for in his last note, addressed to the British Cabinet by way of justifying the annexation of Savoy, we find the following remarkable passage, which in point of lucidity might compare with any one of Mrs Browning’s poems: “Solemn acts, freely adhered to, on the termination of a campaign fortunate for our arms, have established in the most irrefragable manner that we had not for object any territorial aggrandisement when circumstances forced us to intervene in the affairs of Italy. If the Imperial Government has been enabled to foresee, in hypothesis, from which disinterestedness ought not entirely to banish prudence, a situation analogous to that which to-day presents itself, we flatter ourselves not only that we have not sought to bring it about, but that we have, on the contrary, endeavoured, in all conjunctures, to follow the course most fitted to keep it out of the chances of the future.” We trust that no official reticence will baulk our desire to see the reply of our sapient Foreign Minister to this bewildering document.
So much for “Napoleon III. in Italy.” Now let us take a glance at the next poem, called “The Dance.” It would seem that on some occasion the ladies of Florence took a whim to have a galoppe in the open air with certain French officers who were “strolling, gazing, judging lightly,” and that one lady of distinction “took upon her”—we quote verbatim from Mrs Browning—“to speak nobly from her carriage for the rest: ‘Pray these officers from France to do us honour by dancing with us straightway.’” As a matter of course, the gallant leaders of the Chasseurs d’Afrique consented, whereupon—
And they danced there till the blue that overskied us
Swooned with passion, though the footing seemed sedate;
And the mountains, heaving mighty hearts beside us,
Sighed a rapture in a shadow, to dilate,
And touch the holy stone where Dante sate.
Then the sons of France bareheaded, lowly bowing,
Led the ladies back where kinsmen of the south
Stood, received them;—till, with burst of overflowing
Feeling … husbands, brothers, Florence’s male youth,
Turned, and kissed the martial strangers mouth to mouth.
And a cry went up, a cry from all that people!
—You have heard a people cheering, you suppose,
For the Member, mayor … with chorus from the steeple?
This was different: scarce as loud perhaps (who knows?)
For we saw wet eyes around us ere the close. [p. 494→]
And we felt as if a nation, too long borne in
By hard wrongers, comprehending in such attitude
That God had spoken somewhere since the morning,
That men were somehow brothers, by no platitude,
Cried exultant in great wonder and free gratitude.
Comment on this, we venture to think, is unnecessary. Criticism, as well as sense, is utterly baffled by such images as the overskying blue swooning with passion, and mountains, heaving mighty hearts, sighing a rapture in a shadow. We can only suppose, with Armado’s page, that “most maculate thoughts are masked under such colours.” We need not advert to several other pieces, which are utterly devoid of merit, but turn to the last, which is called “A Curse for a Nation.”
Mrs Browning avers that she heard an angel speak, and he said, Write!—
Write a nation’s curse for me,
And send it over the Western Sea.
We are always sorry to be under the necessity of contradicting a lady, but we are decidedly of opinion that no angel desired the gifted authoress to do anything of the kind. The communication came directly from a pernicious little imp who had been turned out of Pandemonium for profanity. Angels, we firmly believe, have a decided objection to all kinds of cursing and swearing; and had Mrs Browning’s good angel been beside her when she penned this very objectionable production, we do think he would have entered his most solemn protest against its publication. For what nation the curse was intended by the diabolical instigating Balak, we do not clearly understand; but from the mention of the Western Sea, we suppose that it applies to America, though what America has to do with European Congresses or the settlement of the affairs of Italy, we cannot comprehend. We have a strong suspicion, however, that it originally had another application. Be that as it may, Mrs Browning maintains that she was exceedingly unwilling to undertake the part of Balaam, but was over-persuaded by the following conclusive argument:
Weep and write,
A curse from the depths of womanhood
Is very salt, and bitter, and good.
We are glad, however, to be able to state that Mrs Browning does not shine in imprecation. She merely scolds, and that neither forcibly nor coherently, which is a great comfort to us, because we should be sorry to see our poetess transformed into a poissarde. But let us ask Mrs Browning in all seriousness whether she considers it her duty to curse any one? To bless and not to curse is woman’s function; and if Mrs Browning, in her calmer moments, will but contrast the spirit which has prompted her to such melancholy aberrations with that which animated Florence Nightingale, she can hardly fail to derive a profitable lesson for the future. We abstain from making any quotation from this preposterous malison, and lay aside the little volume with profound regret that it ever was proffered to the public.
[William Edmonstoune Aytoun]
Reviewed:
Poems Before Congress (EBB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1860.
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