R421126A. Dramatic Lyrics.
The Examiner, 26 November 1842, pp. 756–757.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 388–390.
There was an extremely clever dissertation on Mr Browning’s poems in one of the quarterly reviews the other day, in which Sordello was recommended as “a fine mental exercise.” Something of the sort we had said ourselves, and if poetry were exactly the thing to grind professors of metaphysics on, we should pray to Mr Browning for perpetual Sordellos. As it is, we are humble enough and modest enough to be more thankful for Dramatic Lyrics. The collection before us is welcome for its own sake, and more welcome for its indication of the poet’s continued advance in a right direction. Some of this we saw and thanked him for in his Victor and Charles, much more in his delightful Pippa Passes, and in the simple and manly strain of some of these Dramatic Lyrics, we find proof of the firmer march and steadier control. Mr Browning will win his laurel. We were the first to hail his noble start in Paracelsus; the Straffords and Sordellos did not shake our faith in him; and we shall see him reach the goal.
And is there nothing to object to, then, in the Dramatic Lyrics? Oh, plenty—but so much more to praise! Readers as well as critics should oftener remember Rochester’s couplet, which, not having quoted this many a day, we will once again repeat.
It is a meaner part of sense
To find a fault than taste an excellence!
—and there being many more excellences to be tasted in Mr Browning than faults to be found, we propose just now to follow the advice of Lord Rochester.
It is an honourable distinction of Mr Browning that in whatever he writes, you discover an idea of some sort or other. You shall have great difficulty in finding it, when he happens to have the humour of obscurity upon him; and there are many of his wilful humours, in which it shall not be worth the search: but any how there it is. He is never a tagger of verses. There is purpose in all he does. Often there is thought of the profoundest kind, often the most exquisite tenderness, his best passages are full of the best Saxon words, and in the art of versification he must be called a master. It is his surpassing facility in this particular, that now and then plays bewildering pranks with his reader’s ear—distracting, dazing, and confusing it, in mazes of complicated harmony. On more happy occasions, the flow with which his lines gush forth into the kind of music most appropriate to the thoughts that prompt them, is to us extremely charming; and for the neatness of his rhymes in his lighter efforts, we think that Butler would have hugged him. In a word, Mr Browning is a genuine poet, and only needs to have less misgiving on the subject himself, to win his readers to as perfect a trust, and an admiration with as little alloy in it, as any of his living brethren of the laurel are able to lay claim to.
The Lyrics, as their title imports, are for the most part dramatic: full of the quick turns of feeling, the local truth, and the picturesque force of expression, which the stage so much delights in. The three that open the collection are Cavalier Tunes; two follow called Italy and France, apparently designed to show the different estimation of Woman in these different countries: Camp and Cloister is the title of the next two, the purpose being to illustrate, in the carking monk and careless generous soldier, effects of either training. We have afterwards two on the subject of Queen-worship, and two of Madhouse Cells; the rest being matters detached, with stories of their own to tell. Artemis Prologuises in the stately and sonorous march of the Greek drama: two watched and fated lovers rehearse, In a Gondola, their love and their voluptuous fancies, with contrasts of dread and pleasure, till the sudden dagger ends the passionate interchange: and in the piece called Waring, the writer, dramatically assuming the garb of a very commonplace person, seems to regret hugely one of those wonderful friends who are supposed to be able to do everything because they never attempt to do anything. Various is the merit of these various poems: sometimes very grave the faults. But on the whole they confirm what we have said of Mr Browning’s genius, and prove that he is fast reclaiming it from the “vague and formless infinite” of mere metaphysical abstraction.
Here is a Cavalier tune: with drunken, reeling, reckless, noisy gallantry in every word. The chorus rings in the ear:
King Charles, and who’ll do him right now?
King Charles, and who’s ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse: here’s, in Hell’s despite now,
King Charles!
Who gave me the goods that went since?
Who raised me the house that sank once?
Who helped me to gold I spent since?
Who found me in wine you drank once?
(Cho.) King Charles, and who’ll do him right now?
King Charles, and who’s ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse: here’s in Hell’s despite now,
King Charles!
To whom used my boy George quaff else,
By the old fool’s side that begot him?
For whom did he cheer and laugh else,
While Noll’s damned troopers shot him?
(Cho.) King Charles, and who’ll do him right now?
King Charles, and who’s ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse: here’s in Hell’s despite now,
King Charles!
The philosophy of the Cloister is more to our taste than that of the Camp, but the latter we must quote, for the simplicity and force with which its touching anecdote is told:
You know we French stormed Ratisbon:
A mile or so away
On a little mound, Napoléon
Stood on our storming-day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.
Just as perhaps he mused “My plans
That soar, to earth may fall
Let once my army-leader Lannes
Waver at yonder wall,”
Out ’twixt the battery-smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew
Until he reached the mound.
Then off there flung in smiling joy,
And held himself erect
By just his horse’s mane, a boy;
You hardly could suspect—
(So tight he kept his lips compressed
Scarce any blood came thro’)
You looked twice ere you saw his breast
Was all but shot in two.
“Well,” cried he, “Emperor, by God’s grace
We’ve got you Ratisbon!
The Marshal’s in the market-place,
And you’ll be there anon
To see your flag-bird flap his vans
Where I, to heart’s desire,
Perched him!” The Chief’s eye flashed; his plans
Soared up again like fire.
The Chief’s eye flashed; but presently
Softened itself, as sheathes
A film the mother eagle’s eye
When her bruised eaglet breathes:
“You’re wounded!” “Nay,” his soldier’s pride
Touched to the quick, he said:
“I’m killed, Sire!” And, his Chief beside,
Smiling the boy fell dead.
What we have said of purpose and idea in Mr Browning’s writing will be observed in all the Lyrics. He cannot even close with a Child’s Story, but abundant thought and many meanings shall lurk behind the mask of it.
This Child’s Story will delight grown folks as [p. 757→] well as children—Thomas Ingoldsby at the head of them. It is of the Pied Piper of Hamelin: a pretty town on the river Weser, nigh Hanover city, which had the misery, some five centuries gone, to be terribly troubled by vermin.
Rats!
They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And eat the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks’ own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men’s Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women’s chats,
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.
At last the good Hamelin people won’t stand it any longer, and they vote the Mayor a noddy, and the Corporation dolts, and tell them they shall all go packing if the nuisance is not put an end to. Great is consternation accordingly in these worthy officials:
An hour they sate in council,
At length the Mayor broke silence
For a guilder I’d my ermine gown sell;
I wish I were a mile hence!
It’s easy to bid one rack one’s brain—
I’m sure my poor head aches again,
I’ve scratched it so, and all in vain.
Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!
Just as he said this, what should hap
At the chamber door but a gentle tap?
Bless us, cried the Mayor, what’s that?
(With the Corporation as he sate,
Looking little though wondrous fat)
Only a scraping of shoes on the mat?
Anything like the sound of a rat
Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!
Come in!—the Mayor cried, looking bigger:
And in did come the strangest figure!
His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of yellow and half of red;
And he himself was tall and thin,
With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,
And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin,
No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin,
But lips where smiles went out and in—
There was no guessing his kith and kin!
And nobody could enough admire
The tall man and his quaint attire:
Quoth one: It’s as my great grandsire,
Starting up at the Trump of Doom’s tone,
Had walked this way from his painted tomb-stone!
This is the Pied Piper—for they see his pipe when they look more closely, and see that his fingers seem always itching to play with it. He advances to the council table, and offers to clear out all the rats for one thousand guilders. One—exclaim Mayor and Corporation? You shall have fifty!
Into the street the Piper stept,
Smiling first a little smile,
As if he knew what magic slept
In his quiet pipe the while.
Then, like a musical adept,
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled
Like a candle flame where salt is sprinkled;
And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered;
And the muttering grew to a grumbling;
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling.
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats,
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
Cocking tails, and pricking whiskers,
Families by tens and dozens,
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives—
Followed the Piper for their lives.
From street to street he piped advancing,
And step for step they followed dancing,
Until they came to the river Weser
Wherein all plunged and perished
—Save one who, stout as Julius Cæsar,
Swam across and lived to carry
(As he the manuscript he cherished)
To Rat-land home his commentary,
Which was, “At the first shrill notes of the pipe,
I heard a sound as of scraping tripe,
And putting apples, wondrous ripe,
Into a cider-press’s gripe:
And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards,
And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards,
And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks,
And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks;
And it seemed as if a voice
(Sweeter than by harp or by psaltery
Is breathed) called out, Oh rats, rejoice!
The world is grown one vast drysaltery!
So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,
Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!
And just as one bulky sugar puncheon,
Ready staved, like a great sun shone
Glorious scarce an inch before me,
Just as methought it said, Come, bore me!
—I found the Weser rolling o’er me.”
Such the fate of the rats of Hamelin! Whereupon begin boisterous rejoicings, and the Mayor and his friends are devising all manner of future precautions, when up perks the Piper’s face with a “First, if you please, my thousand guilders!”
A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;
So did the Corporation too.
For council dinners made rare havock
With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;
And half the money would replenish
Their cellar’s biggest butt with Rhenish.
To pay this sum to a wandering fellow
With a gipsy coat of red and yellow!
Beside, quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink,
Our business was done at the river’s brink;
We saw with our eyes the vermin sink,
And what’s dead can’t come to life, I think.
So, friend, we’re not the folks to shrink
From the duty of giving you something for drink,
And a matter of money to put in your poke;
But, as for the guilders, what we spoke
Of them, as you very well know, was in joke.
Beside, our losses have made us thrifty;
A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!
The Piper is resolute: he says he’s got to go and clear the Caliph of Bagdat’s kitchen of a nest of scorpions, and he can’t wait, and he won’t bate a stiver: and even hints, if they put him to’t, about piping in another fashion. To which his worship the Mayor, thoroughly roused, tells him he may do his worst, and blow his pipe there till he burst!
Once more he stept into the street;
And to his lips again
Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane;
And ere he blew three notes (such sweet
Soft notes as yet musician’s cunning
Never gave th’ enraptured air)
There was a rustling, that seem’d like a bustling
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling.
Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,
Little hands clapping, and little tongues chattering,
And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is scattering,
Out came the children running.
All the little boys and girls,
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.
And so the little children of Hamelin follow the rats of Hamelin—not indeed into the water, but to some magic country far away, and are heard of in Hamelin no more. One sickly little child comes back, being left alone against his will—just as the one rat came back—to tell the tale. But what the tale is, and what the moral of the tale is, beside teaching us to keep our promises, the children whom it has interested here, big or little, must get the Dramatic Lyrics to ascertain: for here we mean to end. A shilling will purchase them.
[John Forster]
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. III. Dramatic Lyrics (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1842.
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