R421000A. Paracelsus; Sordello; Pippa Passes; King Victor and King Charles; and Strafford.
The Church of England Quarterly Review, October 1842, pp. 464–483.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 381–388.
The career of the author of “Paracelsus,” extending at present over not much more than half the period of Mr. Tennyson, whose poems are noticed in another article, presents different features, some of which appear more fortunate and some less. His reception was comparatively good; we may say very good. Several of those periodicals, in which the critics seem disposed to regard poetry of a superior kind as a thing to be respected and studied, hailed the appearance of Mr. Robert Browning with all the honours which can reasonably be expected to be awarded to a new comer, who is moreover alive. In more than one quarter the young poet was fairly crowned. The less intelligent class of critics spoke of him with praise; guarding their expressions with an eye to retreat, if necessary, at any future time, made various extracts, and set him to grow. The rest [p. 465→] did what is usual. Now, this reception was, all things considered, very good and promising; the poet had no enemies banded together to hunt and hoot him down, and he had admirers among the best class of critics. Here was a fine table-land whereon to build a reputation, and to make visible to all men those new fabrics of loveliness and intellectual glory which were manifestly germinating in his brain. Mr. Browning’s next production was a tragedy, which, “marvellous to relate,” he got acted immediately—an event quite unprecedented on the modern stage, except with those two or three dramatic authors who have previously passed through the customary delays preceding representation. It succeeded, as the saying is, but was not very attractive, and being printed “as acted” did not advance the poet’s reputation. After this, Mr. Browning went to Italy, where he appears to have felt himself far too happy for the work that was before him; his spiritual existence drinking in draughts too deep and potent of the divine air, and all the intense associations of the scenes in which he dwelt, and dreamed, and revelled, to suffer him to apply a steady strength, to master his own impulses, and to subdue the throng of elementary materials, so as to compress them into one definite design, suited to the general understandings of mankind.
After a silence of four years, the poet published “Sordello,” which has proved, and will inevitably continue to prove, the richest puzzle to all lovers of poetry which was ever given to the world. Never was extraordinary wealth squandered in so extraordinary a manner by any prodigal son of Apollo. Its reception, if not already known to the reader, may be guessed without much difficulty; but the poem has certainly never been fairly estimated. The last publications of Mr. Browning are in a dramatic form and spirit; they were issued at intervals, and we trust will continue—the series bearing the title of “Bells and Pomegranates.” The public has treated them hitherto, we believe, with less neglect than is usual with dramatic productions which have not been substantiated to the understanding by stage representation, although it is still to be feared that the title of the series has not induced any anticipative sympathy.
It will be requisite to offer a few remarks on each of the foregoing works separately, assisted and illustrated with an occasional extract.
“Paracelsus” is evidently the work of a young poet of premature powers—of one who sought to project his imagination beyond the bounds of his future, as well as present, experience, and whose intellect had resolved to master all the results thus obtained. We say the powers were premature, simply because [p. 466→] such a design could only be conceived by the most vigorous energies of a spirit just issuing forth with “blazing wings,” too full of strength and too far of sight to believe in the ordinary laws and boundaries of mortality. It is the effort of a mind that wilfully forgets, and resolves to set aside its corporeal conditions. Even its possible failure is airily alluded to at the outset, and treated in the same way, not merely as no sort of reason for hesitating to make the attempt to gain “forbidden knowledge,” but as a result which is solely referable to the cause of its own aspirations and impulses.
What though
It be so? If indeed the strong desire
Eclipse the aim in me? If splendour break
Upon the outset of my path alone,
And duskest shade succeed? What fairer seal
Shall I require to my authentic mission
Than this fierce energy? This instinct striving
Because its nature is to strive? Enticed
By the security of no broad course—
Where error is not, but success is sure.
How know I else such glorious fate my own,
But in the restless irresistible force
That works within me? Is it for human will
To institute such impulses? Still less
To disregard their promptings? What should I
Do, kept among you all; your loves, your cares,
Your life—all to be mine? Be sure that God
Ne’er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart,
Ask the gier-eagle why she stoops at once
Into the vast and unexplored abyss!
What full-grown power informs her from the first,
Why she not marvels, strenuously beating
The silent boundless regions of the sky!
Paracelsus, pp. 18, 19.
We should hasten to observe that we intend to deal exclusively with the poet’s creation, and not to trouble ourselves with the Paracelsus of history. The higher destinies of man, which are conceived by the Paracelsus we are contemplating, as attainable on earth, are thus sublimely intimated:—
The wide East, where old Wisdom sprung;
The bright South, where she dwelt; the populous North,
All are pass’d o’er—it lights on me. ’Tis time
New hopes should animate the world—new light
Should dawn from new revealings to a race
Weigh’d down so long, forgotten so long; so shall
The heaven reserv’d for us at last, receive [p. 467→]
No creatures whom unwonted splendours blind,
But ardent to confront the unclouded blaze,
Whose beams not seldom lit their pilgrimage;
Not seldom glorified their life below.
Paracelsus, p. 20.
With these noble aspirations and objects, Paracelsus commences his career for the attainment of a knowledge of the mysteries of nature; but not unwarned. Michal, the betrothed of his friend Festus, says to him:—
Stay with us, Aureole! cast those hopes away,
And stay with us; an angel warns me, too.
Man should be humble: you are very proud:
And God dethroned, has doleful plagues for such!
Warns me to have in dread no quick repulse,
No slow defeat, but a complete success!
You will find all you seek, and perish so!
Paracelsus, pp. 34, 35.
This Promethean character pervades the poem throughout; in the main design, as well as the varied aspirations and struggles to attain knowledge, and power, and happiness for mankind. But at the same time there is an intense craving after the forbidden secrets of creation, and eternity, and power, which place “Paracelsus” in the same class as “Faust,” and in close affinity with all those works, the object of which is an attempt to penetrate the mysteries of existence—the infinity within us and without us. Need it be said, that the result is in all the same?—and the baffled magic—the sublime occult—the impassioned poetry—all display the same ashes which were once wings. The form, the mode, the impetus and course of thought and emotion, admit, however, of certain varieties, and “Paracelsus” is an original work. The form in which the poem appears is that of a dialogue, and there is no attempt to render this in any way dramatic. The poet’s intention is philosophical throughout; nevertheless, the chief speaker frequently becomes dramatic in himself, and in the effect upon the reader, by the intensity of those thoughts and emotions which he displays with strong individuality, though the theme always deals in generalizations and universalities. It would scarcely be correct to say, that Paracelsus was not a substantive character, and solely an abstraction: there can be no doubt, however, that the latter is in far the greater proportion. He is the abstraction of a class—a comparatively very small one, it is true—the poetical embodiment of that class, which, having a thirst for obtaining the deepest knowledge, and indulging the most subtle speculations, physical and metaphysical, has also a yearning to see the results of all that can be discovered em- [p. 468→] ployed towards elevating and advancing the condition of humanity. It is therefore apparent that the aim of this work was of the highest kind; and we admit that it has been accomplished, in so far as such a design can well be: for since the object of all such abstractions as Paracelsus must necessarily fail, individually and practically, the true end obtained is that of refining and elevating others, by the contemplation of such efforts, and giving a sort of polarity to the vague impulses of mankind towards the lofty and the beneficent. It also endeavours to sound the depths of existence for hidden treasures of being. The poet says there are—
——Two points in the adventure of a diver:
One—when a beggar, he prepares to plunge;
One—when a prince, he rises with his pearl!
Festus, I plunge!
The boldness and vividness of this picture needs no comment.
Living a long life—dreaming a lofty dream—working and suffering, Paracelsus now lies dead before us! Behold an epitome of the course he ran! Paracelsus aspires. He has a glorious vision for the discovery of hidden knowledge never as yet revealed to man. He believes that if he constantly seeks it, and works for it, he shall attain it; and that, were it not possible, these “vast longings” would not be “sent to direct us.” He “stands at first, where all aspire at last,” and pursues the ever-fleeting “secret of the world,” of man and our ultimate destiny. He searches at home and abroad; but, chief of all, he searches within himself, believing that there is “an inmost centre in us all, where truth abides in fulness;” and that to know,
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may dart forth,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.
Filled with the divine portion of truth, which he mistakes for the whole, Paracelsus pursues his labours, “serene amidst the echoes, beams, and glooms,” yet struggling onward with impassioned will, and subduing his life “to the one purpose whereto he has ordained it,” till at length he “attains”—But what?—Imperfect knowledge! He finds that knowledge without love is intellect without heart, and a bitter, as it must ever be a certain, disappointment. Paracelsus looks around him, and renews his labours.
This life of mine
Must be lived out, and a grave thoroughly earned. [p. 469→]
He becomes a miraculous physician—professor of medicine at Basil; and his cures, his doctrines, and his fame are noised abroad in the world. But he is not satisfied: he feels the poverty of such reputation, when compared with what he would do for the human race. Again Paracelsus aspires. What his object now is in this part of the poem is not so clear; but knowledge, and love, and disappointed efforts, and fresh struggles and apprehensions, are all at work, while Paracelsus is at the same time full of anguish at the persecution which now hunts him from place to place, as an impostor and a quack. His feelings often display strong signs of over-tasked powers, and impel his mind along the borders of delirium and madness. He looks back upon the past, where “the heaving sea is black behind;” and in the miseries and horrors of the present, he feels at times that “there is a hand groping amid the darkness to catch us.”
The closing scene is near. Paracelsus finally “attains.” And what?—Purified feelings, and a clear knowledge of what may, and may not be. He is on the brink of the grave, and of eternity; a sublime fire is before his path, a constant music is in his ears, and a melting into “bliss for evermore.” True to his ruling passion, he pauses a moment to speculate on his momentous state—the awful threshold on which he stands—for a last chance of discovering “some further cause for this peculiar mood;” but it “has somehow slipt away” from him. He stands in “his naked spirit so majestical,” and full, once more, of ennobling hopes, looks forward to the time when man shall commence the infancy of a higher state of being. Then, with one last sigh over the “waste and wear” of faculties “displayed in vain, but born to prosper in some better sphere,” the old heart-broken philosopher closes his eyes in death. His awe-stricken friend, standing mute for hours over the pale clay, at length slowly murmurs—
And this was Paracelsus!
That a composition intended for the stage, which was the next production of Mr. Browning, should be very different from an epic or psychological poem, will excite no surprise; but that it should contain so few incidental touches of that peculiar genius which he had previously displayed, is a curious circumstance to remark. Paracelsus was an ebullition of the poet’s powers. The tragedy of “Strafford” is a remarkable instance of the suppression of them. It was a strange mistake, with regard to the tragic principle, which needs the highest consummation of poetry and passion, so that each shall be either or both; whereas “Strafford” was a piece of passionate action with the bones of poetry. It was a maimed thing, all over patches and [p. 470→] dashes, with the light showing through its ribs, and the wind whistling through its arms and legs; while in its head and echoing in its heart, was sung its passion for a king. It was printed “as acted.” What it might have been originally is impossible to say, but we have some difficulty in conceiving how it could have been put together with so many disjointed pieces in the first instance. The number of dashes and gaps of omission made its pages often resemble a Canadian field in winter, after a considerable thoroughfare of snow-shoes. It appeared, however, to please Mr. Macready, who no doubt instituted many of these asthmatic erasures and abrupt intervals, and it was played by him appropriately during several nights.
But it is ever the “trick of genius” to do something which we do not expect; and turning to the series, issued under the pretty and most unsatisfactory title of “Bells and Pomegranates,” we discover Mr. Browning to possess the finest dramatic genius. “King Victor and King Charles” is a complete tragedy. It appears in the form of two main divisions, each of which is also divided into two parts, yet presenting one entire and perfectly united drama. It is properly a tragedy in four acts, with the interval of about a twelvemonth between the second and third. The characters are drawn with a fine and masterly hand, and the scenes in which they appear are full of nice shades and gradations, and subtle casuistries of the passions, and are not only dramatic in an intellectual sense, but would be so to the feeling and to the eye, if duly represented. It is another proof, among the many already existing, that the unacted drama is incomparably superior to the melodramatic plays and farces adopted by managers. “Plighted Troth” was an eminent example.
The action in “King Victor and King Charles” is so finely intervolved, though so very clear to the understanding, and its scenes are so thoroughly dependent upon each other, even for ordinary effect, that extracts can do no justice to its artistic structure. We shall, therefore, offer one only, which will best bear to be insulated. The old king, Victor, having abdicated in favour of his son Charles, in order to avoid a political crisis which his despotic and fraudulent policy has brought about, wishes to resume his crown after that crisis has passed over favourably. King Charles is warned by the crafty minister, D’Ormea that Victor intends to return, but will not believe it.
Cha. [taking it.] The papers also! * * * They prove
My father, still a month within the year
Since he so solemnly consigned it me,
Means to resume his crown? They shall prove that,
Or my best dungeon...... [p. 471→]
D’O. Even my Chamberri!
’Tis vacant, I surmise, by this.
Cha. You prove
Your words or pay their forfeit, sir. Go there!
Polyxena, one chance to rend the veil
Thickening and blackening ’twixt us two. Do say
You’ll see the falsehood of the charges proved!
Do say, at least, you wish to see them proved
False charges—my heart’s love of other times!
Pol. Ah, Charles!
Cha. [to D’Ormea.] Precede me, sir!
D’O. And I’m at length
A martyr for the truth! No end, they say,
Of miracles. My conscious innocence!
[As they go out, enter, by the middle door—at which he pauses—Victor.
Vic. Sure I heard voices? No! Well, I do best
To make at once for this, the heart o’ the place.
The old room! Nothing changed!—So near my seat,
D’Ormea? [Pushing away the stool which is by the King’s chair.
I want that meeting over first,
I know not why. Tush, D’Ormea won’t be slow
To hearten me, the supple knave! That burst
Of spite so eased him! He’ll inform me......
What?
Why come I hither? All’s in rough—let all
Remain rough; there’s full time to draw back—nay,
There’s nought to draw back from as yet; whereas
If reason should be to arrest a course
Of error—reason good to interpose
And save, as I have saved so many times,
My house—admonish my son’s giddy youth—
Relieve him of a weight that proves too much—
Now is the time—or now or never. ’Faith,
This kind of step is pitiful—not due
To Charles, this stealing back—hither because
He’s from his capital! Oh, Victor—Victor—
But thus it is: the age of crafty men
Is loathsome—youth contrives to carry off
Dissimulation—we may intersperse
Extenuating passages of strength,
Ardour, vivacity, and wit—may turn
E’en guile into a voluntary grace—
But one’s old age, when graces drop away
And leaves guile the pure staple of our lives—
Ah, loathsome!
* * * * *
Re-enter Charles, with papers.
Cha. Just as I thought! A miserable falsehood [p. 472→]
Of hirelings discontented with their pay,
And longing for enfranchisement! A few
Testy expressions of old age, that thinks
To keep alive its dignity o’er slaves
By means that suit their natures!
[Tearing them.] Thus they shake
My faith in Victor! [Turning, he discovers Victor.
Vic. [after a pause.] Not at Evian, Charles?
What’s this? Why do you run to close the doors?
No welcome for your father?
Cha. [aside.] Not his voice!
What would I give for one imperious tone
Of the old sort! That’s gone for ever.
Vic. Must!
I ask once more......
Cha. No—I concede it, sir!
You are returned for......true, your health declines—
True, Chamberri’s a bleak unkindly spot—
You’d choose one fitter for your final lodge—
Veneria—or Moncaglier—ay, that’s close,
And I concede it.
Vic. I received advices
Of the conclusion of the Spanish matter
Dated from Evian baths.
Cha. And you forbore
To visit me at Evian, satisfied
The work I had to do would fully task
The little wit I have, and that your presence
Would only disconcert me—
Vic. Charles?
Cha. —Me—set
For ever in a foreign course to yours,
And......
Sir, this way of wile were good to catch,
But I have not the sleight of it. The truth!
Though I sink under it! What brings you here?
Vic. Not hope of this reception, certainly,
From one who’d scarce assume a stranger mode
Of speech did I return to bring about
Some awfulest calamity.
Cha You mean,
Did you require your crown again: Oh yes,
I should speak otherwise! But turn not that
To jesting! Sir, the truth! Your health declines?
Is aught deficient in your equipage?
Wisely you seek myself to make complaint,
And foil the malice of the world, which seizes
On petty discontents; but I shall care
That not a soul knows of this visit. Speak?
Vic. [aside.] Here is the grateful, much-professing son! [p. 473→]
We cannot afford space for extracts from the desultory dramatic scenes entitled “Pippa Passes,” but there is one among them which for profound tragic emotion surpasses anything of a like nature in the modern acted drama, and is worthy of the highest names of any period. We allude to the scene between Ottima and her paramour Sebald, who has murdered her husband. The characters appear to waver, and become untrue to themselves; but this is rather because too much is condensed into a narrow space, and some of the suggestions require more clearness, some outlines a better marking out, and some of the emotions to be more supported by palpable objects. Had this been done (which would certainly have needed two acts, perhaps five), the character of Ottima might have ranked with those of Lady Macbeth, the Duchess of Malfi and Vittoria Corombona, yet unlike to any of them. It should be observed, however, that the scenes of “Pippa Passes” are severally and collectively intended to illustrate an idea, not a dramatic unity of action, and this idea we take to be that of—the influence of a pure and beautiful nature suddenly, though unconsciously, acting upon the fierce passions, wavering virtues, doubtful courses, vicious lives, and almost unredeemable characters, which are seen abroad in the world.
To that somewhat extensive class of readers who are of opinion that poetry, so far from being a thing to study, should be so plain, that “all who run may read,” and who take up the works of Mr. Browning with that view, we should premise that they might just as well run another way. In “Paracelsus,” the difficulties were in the quantity and quality of thought; in “Sordello” there is the additional difficulty of an impracticable style. In proportion to the depth or novelty of a thought, the poet has chosen to render the vehicle difficult in which it is conveyed—sometimes by its erudite elaboration of parenthesis within parenthesis, and question upon query—sometimes by its levity, jaunting indifference, and apparent contempt of everything—sometimes it has an interminable period, or one the right end of which you cannot find; a knotted serpent, which either has no discoverable tail, or has several, the ends of which are in the mouths of other serpents, or else flanking in the air—sometimes it has a series of the shortest possible periods, viz., of one word, or of two or three words. And amidst all this there is at frequent intervals a regular hailstone shower of proper names—names of men and women, and places, and idealities, with which only one general reader in about a thousand can be expected to be familiar, and with the whole of which the style of the poet seems courteously to [p. 474→] assume that all his readers are upon the most familiar terms possible. Under these circumstances, it can be no wonder that such of the miscellaneous public as take up a poem by way of a little relaxation shrunk back in hopeless dismay; nor that the more numerous class of daily and weekly critics, whose judgments are, from the very nature of their position, compelled in most cases to be as hasty as their hands, which “write against time,” should have been glad to dismiss “Sordello” in an angry paragraph. In a few instances the critics appeared to have read a portion of it; in the great majority of instances it was not read at all, which fact was evident in the notice, and in several instances was boldly declared by the irate critic as a task beyond his sublunary powers. And this no doubt was true.
We do not, however, enter upon the task of giving some analytical account, with an attempt at a synthetical estimate of “Sordello,” merely because everybody else has “given it up”—but rather because everybody else has given it up at first sight. Nevertheless, we must apprise our readers that we are by no means about to inflict a long essay upon their patience, nor to adopt any rigidly systematic and elaborate process, but simply to lay before them several extracts, with a passing comment, and then to offer a few opinions on the whole.
Who will, may hear Sordello’s story told:
His story? Who believes me shall behold
The man, pursue his fortunes to the end
Like me; for as the friendless people’s friend
Spied from his hill-top once, despite the din
And dust of multitudes, Pentapolin
Named o’the Naked Arm, I single out
Sordello, compassed murkily about
With ravage of six long sad hundred years:
Only believe me. Ye believe?
Appears
Verona......Never, I should warn you first,
Of my own choice had this, if not the worst
Yet not the best expedient, served to tell
A story I could body forth so well
By making speak, myself kept out of view,
The very man as he was wont to do,
And leaving you to say the rest for him:
Since, though I might be proud to see the dim
Abysmal Past divide its hateful surge,
Letting of all men this one man emerge
Because it pleased me, yet, that moment past,
I should delight in watching, first to last,
His progress as you watch it, not a whit
More in the secret than yourselves who sit [p. 475→]
Fresh chapleted to listen: but it seems
Your setters-forth of unexampled themes,
Makers of quite new men, producing them
Had best chalk broadly on each vesture’s hem
The wearer’s quality, or take his stand
Motley on back and pointing-pole in hand
Beside them; so for once I face ye, friends,
Summoned together from the world’s four ends,
Dropped down from Heaven or cast up from Hell,
To hear the story I propose to tell.
Sordello, pp. 1, 2.
The intervolved style in which this poem is written is fairly represented in the above extract, which is a good average specimen. The historical ground-plan of the work is laid down after the following fashion:—
The Second Friederich wore
The purple, and the Third Honorius filled
The holy chair * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
Envoys apprised Verona that her prince
Count Richard of Saint Boniface, joined since
A year with Azzo, Este’s Lord, to thrust
Taurello Salinguerra, prime in trust
With Ecelin Romano, from his seat.
Ferrara—had stumbled on a peril unaware.
* * * * * Every day
Strengthens the Pontiff; Ecelin, they say,
Dozes at Oliero, with dry lips
Telling upon his perished finger tips
How many ancestors are to depose
E’er he be Satan’s Viceroy when the doze
Deposits him in hell; so Guelfs rebuilt
Their houses; not a drop of blood was spilt
When Cino Bocchimpane chanced to meet
Buccio Virtù; God’s wafer, and the street
Is narrow. Tutti Santi, think, a swarm
With Ghibellins, and yet he took no harm.
This could not last. Off Salinguerra went
To Padua, Podestà, &c.
Sordello, pp. 4, 5, 7.
It is true that the intermediate lines we have omitted, solely for the sake of brevity, would better connect the historical matter intended to be communicated, but we doubt if their insertion would not have a still more confusing effect upon the reader’s mind, owing to the various parenthetical interpolations and digressions. After several precursory snatches of questions, and snaps of answers, we find that— [p. 476→]
Six hundred years ago!
When the new Hohenstauffen dropped the mask,
Flung John of Brienne’s favour from his casque,
Forswore crusading, had no mind to leave
Saint Peter’s proxy leisure to retrieve
Losses to Otho and to Barbaross,
Or make the Alps less easy to recross;
And thus confirming Pope Honorius’ fear,
Was excommunicate that very year.
The triple-bearded Teuton come to life!
Groaned the Great League; and, arming for the strife,
Wide Lombardy, on tiptoe to begin,
Took up, as it was Guelf or Ghibellin,
Its cry; what cry?
The Emperor to come! &c.
Sordello, pp. 9, 10.
Or, The Pope, for us the People, who begun
The People, carries on the People thus,
To keep that Kaiser off and dwell with us!
See you?
Or say, Two Principles that live
Each fitly by its Representative:
Hill-cat…who called him so, our gracefullest
Adventurer? the ambiguous stranger-guest
Of Lombardy (sleek but that ruffling fur,
Those talons to their sheath!) whose velvet purr
Soothes jealous neighbours when a Saxon scout
......Arpo or Yoland, is it? one without
A country or a name, presumes to couch
Beside their noblest; until men avouch
That of all Houses in the Trivisan
Conrad descries no fitter, rear or van,
Than Ecelo! They laughed as they enrolled
That name at Milan on the page of gold
For Godego, Ramon, Marostica,
Cartiglion, Bassano, Loria,
And every sheep-cote on the Suabian’s fief!
No laughter when his son, the Lombard chief
Forsooth, as Barbarossa’s path was bent
To Italy along the Vale of Trent,
Welcomed him at Roncaglia!
Sordello, pp. 11, 12.
The general reader may perhaps by this time have conjectured, that there was once a “Sordello,” who actually figured among his fellow-men upon the face of the earth. A troubadour of that name flourished about the thirteenth century, concerning whom various different accounts are extant. He may be found in the old Chronicle, by Rolandin, but a far more [p. 477→] satisfactory reference may be made to the Latin treatise on the language of Italy, written by Dante; by which it appears that Sordello excelled in poetry and in various dialects, and that he greatly assisted in founding the language of the Italians. His birth-place is uncertain. Dante meets Sordello at the entrance into Purgatory (Canto vi.), who is calling to Virgil, and claiming to be of the same native place, viz., Mantua. Dante gives Sordello the face and look of a lion. He is thought to have been of noble blood—to have been a warrior as well as poet and linguist, and to have come to a violent end. Other accounts relate a certain amour as the chief event of his life. Nostradamus (Vies des plus celebres Poetes Provencaux), tells us that his verses were dedicated to philosophical subjects, and not to love. But many poems attributed to Sordello tend to show the contrary. Adding to the vague or conflicting historical accounts whatever fictions were agreeable to his fancy, the poet has thus successfully succeeded in bewildering himself and his readers, amidst the elaborate webs of all manner of real and ideal events and biographies. Whether to the purpose of his psychologically digressive narrative, or merely as an association suggested (to himself) by the last remark he has made, he never lets you off. Speaking of “Adelaide,” and “the Kaiser’s gold,” and “Monk Hilary,” who is on his knees—
Now, sworn to kneel and pray till God shall please
Exact a punishment for many things
You know and some you never knew; which brings
To memory, Azzo’s sister Beatrix
And Richard’s Giglia are my Alberic’s
And Ecelin’s betrothed; the Count himself
Must get my Palma: Ghibellin and Guelf
Mean to embrace each other. So began
Romano’s missive to his fighting-man
Taurello on the Tuscan’s death, away
With Friedrich, sworn to sail from Naples’ bay
Next month for Syria.
Sordello, p. 81.
Intending to say several things in token of admiration, amidst all the off-hand severities of contemporaries that have been vented upon Sordello, we have nevertheless thought it right to lay some of its heaviest faults before our readers, at the outset. Having done this unsparingly, the far more pleasant, even though the far more arduous task remains. We offer the following, as our opinions and impressions of the work, regarding it as a whole:—
The poem of “Sordello” is an attempt to carry out the impossible design in which the author’s previous hero, “Paracelsus,” [p. 478→] had so admirably failed. It is as though the poet, having created a giant, whose inevitable fall in the attempt to scale the heavens had been so fully explained, was resolved himself to follow in the same tract with all the experience and power thus derived; and, moreover, with the consciousness of being the real and vital essence which had called that idealism into existence, and less likely, therefore, to “go off” into fine air, not being amenable to the same laws. Sordello takes up the asbestos lamp from the inmost chamber of the tomb of Paracelsus, and issues forth with it into the world, being already far on the way towards the outlet which leads to other worlds, or states of being, and perhaps to the borders of infinity. Paracelsus, while dying, came to the conviction that men were already beginning “to pass their nature’s bounds;” that a fine instinct guided them beyond the power of mere knowledge or experience, and that they were—
——all ambitious, upwards tending
Like plants in mines, which never saw the sun,
But dream of him and guess where he may be,
And do their best to climb and get to him.
He had, moreover, a sentient perception, “beyond the comprehension of our narrow thought, but somehow felt and known in every shift and change of the spirit within—of what God is, of what we are, and what life is.” Now, we should reply to Paracelsus, and to all who, like him, have suffered their imaginative sensibilities to reason them into such notions, that they deceive themselves, although the truth is in them. Full, however, of this sublime deception, Sordello tunes his harp, and works through all the complicated chords and mazes of harmony with indefatigable zeal, from the first note to the end. In the last book of “Sordello” we find him almost using the same expressions as in the last book of “Paracelsus.” Here we learn that his truth—
Lighted his old life’s every shift and change,
Effort with counter-effort; nor the range
Of each looked wrong except wherein it checked
Some other—which of these could he suspect
Prying into them by the sudden blaze?
The real way seemed made up of all the ways—
Mood after mood of the one mind in him;
Tokens of the existence, bright or dim,
Of a transcendent all-embracing sense
Demanding only outward influence,
A soul, in Palma’s phrase, above his soul,
Power to uplift his power, &c.
Sordello, pp. 217, 218. [p. 479→]
Exactly so: he only wants that very thing which has been denied to mortality since the beginning of things. Despairing of this, and doubting whether any external power in nature be adequate to forward his desire, So[r]dello finally moots the question of whether he may be ordained a prouder fate—“a law to his own sphere?” Sordello dies, and the whole amount of his transcendental discoveries may be summed up in the poet’s question—
What has Sordello found?
To which no reply is given.
Such is the most simplified account we can give of the main object of the poem of “Sordello,” carved out from the confused “story,” and broken, mazy, dancing sort of narrative no-outline, which has occasioned so much trouble, if not despair, to his most patient and pains-taking admirers. Some have thought that the general purport of the poem was to show that mere material things and matters of fact were a mistaken object of life, only leading to disappointment and sorrow; and that in the ideal world alone, true contentment, satisfaction, and happiness were to be found; others have contended, on the contrary, that it is intended to display the impossibility of attaining to a knowledge of the essences of things, that a life passed amidst idealisms is one of inutility and sorrow, and that the true object of man should be to discover and attain the best realities. But a third view suggests itself to us, through the medium of an amusing dispute we recently heard, as to the name of a character in Pippa Passes. It is that of a not very euphonious personage, called Bluphocks. But how to pronounce this was the question? Should it be pronounced Blup-hocks, Bluff-ox, or Blue-fox? Probably not one of these would be the one intended. In like manner we should say that we think Sordello is not devoted to either of the above purposes exclusively, but comprising both, displays the hopes and the despairs, the value and the inutility of both, when followed with the devotion of the whole being. The selection is left to the reader’s individual nature, in such proportions as may accord with that nature.
As to the poetry of “Sordello,” apart from all these disquisitions, we think it not devoid of beauties. We should offer as one instance (we cannot extract it on account of its length) the matchless description of the poetical mind of the noblest order, as typified in “Sordello,” from the bottom of page 20 to the top of page 25. Of the childhood of Sordello, the following beautiful description is given:—
Beyond the glades
On the fir forest’s border, and the rim [p. 480→]
Of the low range of mountain, was for him
No other world: but that appeared his own
To wander through at pleasure and alone.
* * * * * * * *
The maple-chamber, and the little nooks
And nests, and breezy parapet that looks
Over the woods to Mantua; there he strolled.
Some foreign women-servants, very old,
Tended and crept about him—all his clue
To the world’s business and embroiled ado
Distant a dozen hill-tops at the most.
And first a simple sense of life engrossed
Sordello in his drowsy Paradise;
The day’s adventures for the day suffice—
Its constant tribute of perceptions strange
With sleep and stir in healthy interchange
Suffice, and leave him for the next at ease
Like the great palmer-worm that strips the trees,
Eats the life out of every luscious plant,
And, when September finds them sere or scant,
Puts forth two wondrous winglets, alters quite,
And hies him after unforeseen delight.
Sordello, pp. 26, 27, 28.
The complex working of the youthful mind of the poet is illustrated in a very happy manner:
Thus thrall reached thrall;
He o’er-festooning every interval
As the adventurous spider, making light
Of distance, shoots her threads from depth to height,
From barbican to battlement; so flung
Fantasies forth and in their centre swung
Our architect: the breezy morning fresh
Above, and merry; all his waving mesh
Laughing with lucid dew-drops, rainbow-edged.
This world of ours by tacit pact is pledged
To laying such a spangled fabric low,
Whether by gradual brush or gallant blow.
Sordello, pp. 29.
Here is a piece of equally fine and fearful painting:—
’Twas a dim long narrow place at best;
Midway a sole grate showed the fiery West
As shows its corpse the world’s end some split tomb—
A gloom, a rift of fire, another gloom
Faced Palma—but at length Taurello set
Her free; the grating held one ragged jet
Of fierce gold fire: he lifted her within
The hollow underneath—
Sordello, p. 211. [p. 481→]
At page 69, which contains several passages highly illustrative of some of our previous remarks on the philosophy of Sordello, the following image of beauty suddenly springs to light—
A few adhering rivets loosed, up springs
The angel, sparkles off his mail.
Sordello, p. 69.
The simple matter-of-fact beauty of the following must be apparent to the reader:
In Mantua-territory half is slough,
Half pine-tree forest; maples, scarlet-oaks
Breed o’er the river beds; even Mincio chokes
With sand the summer through; but ’tis morass
In winter up to Mantua walls.
Sordello, p. 17.
We regret that we cannot quote the whole of page 39, for its pastoral loveliness. A few lines from the opening of book ii. is all that we can now afford space to extract.
The woods were long austere with snow: at last
Pink leaflets budded on the beech, and fast
Larches, scattered through pine-tree solitudes,
Brightened, “as in the slumb’rous heart o’ the woods
Our buried year, a witch, grew young again
To placid incantations, and that stain
About were from her caldron, green smoke blent
With those black pines.”
Sordello, p. 44.
Containing, as it does, so many passages of the finest poetry, no manner of doubt can exist but that “Sordello” has been hitherto treated with great injustice. It has been condemned in terms that would lead any one to suppose there was nothing intelligible throughout the whole poem. We have shown its defects in detail, and we have also shown that it has some of the highest beauties. The style, the manner, the broken measure, the recondite form; these have constituted still greater difficulties than even the recondite matter of which it treats—though the latter only were quite enough to “settle” or “unsettle” an ordinary reader.
The poem of “Sordello” is a beautiful globe, which, rolling on its way to its fit place among the sister spheres, met with some accident which gave it such a jar that a multitude of things half slipt into each other’s places. It is a modern hieroglyphic, and should be carved on stone for the use of schools and colleges. Professors of poetry should decypher and comment upon [p. 482→] a few lines every morning before breakfast, and young students should be ground upon it. It is a fine mental exercise, whatever may be said or thought to the contrary. The flowing familiar style sometimes reminds us of Shelley’s “Julian and Maddalo” with a touch of Keat’s “Endymion,” broken up into numerous pit-falls, whether mines of thought or quirks of fancy; but there are also other occasions when it becomes spiral, and of sustained inspiration, not unlike certain parts of the “Prometheus Unbound” put into rhyme; yet is it no imitation of any other poet. Certain portions also remind us of the suggestive, voluble, disconnected, philosophical jargon of Shakspeare’s fools, and with all the meaning which they often have for those who can find it. The poem is thick-sown throughout with suggestions and glances of history, biography, of dark plots, tapestried chambers, eyes behind the arras, clapping doors, dreadful galleries, and deeds in the dark, over which there suddenly bursts a light from on high, and looking up you find a starry shower, as from some remote rocket, descending in silent brilliancy upon the dazzled page. Each book is full of gems set in puzzles. It is like what the most romantic admirers of Goethe insist upon “making out” that he intended in his simplest fables. It is the poetical portion of three epics, shaken together in a sack and emptied over the hand of the intoxicated reader. It is a perfect storehouse of Italian scenery and exotic fruits, plants, and flowers; so much so, that by the force of contrast it brings to mind the half-dozen flowers and pastoral common-places of nearly all our other modern English poets, till the recollection of the sing-song repetitions makes one almost shout with laughter. It is pure Italian in all its materials. There is not one drop of British ink in the whole composition. Nay, there is no ink in it, for it is all written in Tuscan grape juice, embrowned by the sun. It abounds in things addressed to a second sight, and we are often required to see double in order to apprehend its meaning. The poet may be considered the Columbus of an impossible discovery, as a worthy divine pleasantly observed to us. It is a promised land, spotted all over with disappointments, and yet most truly a land of promise, if ever so rich and rare a chaos can be developed into form and order by revision, and its southern fulness of tumultuous heart and scattered vineyards be ever reduced to given proportion, and wrought into a shape that will fit the average mental vision and harmonize with the more equable pulsations of mankind. If this may not be done; if the genius that inspired and sustained this marvellous Song cannot be “constrained by masterie,” and the impulse towards new creations be too strong to enable the poet to return to bygone [p. 483→] labours, which have been cast upon the bleak rocks of public neglect, then would we revert to the dream-song of Paracelsus, in which he describes a throng of devout islanders, who have brought their gods in loaded rafts, intending to erect a shrine for each:—
Then we awoke with sudden start
From our deep dream, and found too late
How bare the rock, how desolate,
Which had received our precious freight;
Yet we called out “Depart!
Our gifts, once given, must here abide;
Our work is done; we have no heart
To mar our work,” we cried.
[Richard Hengist Horne]
Reviewed:
Paracelsus (RB), London: Effingham Wilson, 1835.
Strafford (RB), London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, 1837.
Sordello (RB), London: Moxon, 1840.
Bells & Pomegranates. No. I. Pippa Passes (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1841.
Bells & Pomegranates. No. II. King Victor and King Charles (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1842.
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