E660113A. Selection From the Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1866).
The London Review, 13 January 1866, p. 78.
Listed in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 391.
A Selection From the Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. (Chapman & Hall.)—It is with a feeling of reverence that we open this selection from the writings of Mrs. Browning, and read on the first page the following remarks with the signature “R.B.”:—“It has been attempted to retain and to dispose the characteristics of the general poetry, whence this is an abstract, according to an order which should allow them the prominency and effect they seem to possess when considered in the larger, not exclusively the lesser, works of the poet. A musician might say, such and such chords are repeated, others made subordinate by distribution, so that a single movement may imitate the progress of the whole symphony. But there are various ways of modulating up to and connecting any given harmonies; and it will be neither a surprise nor a pain to find that better could have been done, as to both selection and sequence, than, in the present case, all care and the profoundest veneration were able to do.” We cannot think that Mr. Browning has very clearly expressed his meaning in these rather involved sentences; but we can well understand what a labour of love, of sympathy, and of conscience, the compilation of this volume must have been to him, and in his hands there can be little doubt that the selection has been made in such a way as to bring out all the more striking elements of Mrs. Browning’s genius. Among the poetess’s minor pieces, most of those which have acquired a general celebrity are to be found. The passionate and terrible “Cry of the Children,” the thoughtful “Dead Pan,” the wonderful “Portuguese Sonnets” (so-called), several of the lyrical stories, and a few of the authoress’s later poems on the progress of Italian affairs, are included. We regret, however, not to see “Casa Guidi Windows,” and probably a minute comparison of the selection with the complete works would reveal some other omissions which most readers would regret. Selections, indeed, are always open to objection, and we trust that the habit of publishing portions of celebrated authors is not spreading, though some recent facts would seem to show that it is. A portrait of Mrs. Browning as a child accompanies the volume. It is a pretty, smiling face, with great, soft, tender eyes, and a mouth that seems asking to be kissed; the expression gay and lively rather than meditative, yet with all noble possibilities of thought lurking about the upper part of the face. A vignette on the title-page shows us Mrs. Browning’s sitting-room in Casa Guidi, June, 1861—the month saddened by the death of her who has rendered that chamber illustrious in the eyes of Englishmen and Italians alike.
Reviewed:
A Selection from the Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, London: Chapman and Hall, 1866.
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