R481100A. Pippa Passes.
Sharpe’s London Magazine, November 1848, pp. 60–62; December 1848, pp. 122–127.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 15, 382–389.
“The world knows nothing of its greatest men:” so at least says an excessively mediocre poet in that embodiment of mediocrity, yclept “Philip von Artevelde.” As a general rule, nothing can be more opposed to truth. Genius of a high order always has obtained, and always must obtain, the world’s recognition, “in the long run.” Such talents are not communicated by Providence to serve no purpose. There is no instance on record of the discovery of an anonymous work which could pretend to merit of a lofty nature. The German middle-age poems, “Das Niebelungenlied,” and “Reynard,” despite their force and oddity, are not sufficiently beautiful to be admitted as exceptions to the rule. Nevertheless, though the world always does, sooner or later, know something of its greatest men, yet true it is, that genius has certain primary difficulties to encounter and surmount, which do not beset the path of mediocrity. Genius frequently selects an unusual form for its development; or it expresses a phase of thought and feeling which is not familiar to the critics of the day, and which they consequently shrink for some time from acknowledging. Thus, Tennyson was long passed over by the majority of critics, from their ignorance and cowardice, whilst others were audacious enough to ridicule and condemn. None, at first, had sufficient courage to admire. Taylor, on the other hand, who walked according to the traditions of the past, who observed the wonted forms, and fell in with the conventional errors frequent in English poetry, and more especially characteristic of the English drama, (employing a false didactic style, essentially inimical to dramatic truth, but long naturalised among us;)—Taylor, we say, was at once hailed by Quarterly and Edinburgh, and, consequently, by all the smaller fry, as the dramatist of the age, and, indeed, as one of our greatest modern bards. The line quoted at the head of these remarks will be found (as nine-tenths of our readers may know) in this author’s “Philip von Artevelde,” and has “fait les délices”—in plain English, charmed the souls—of all the small babblers and scribblers of the literary world. It was written, we may remark, before its originator had been hailed as one of these said “greatest men;” but we may venture to assert that such a sentiment could only have proceeded from one who felt the spirit of mediocrity strong within him, and so protested beforehand against the final judgment of posterity.
But to our theme. Robert Browning, then, of whom we purpose to discourse, is certainly anything but unknown. Walter Savage Landor has recognised him in one of his fugitive pieces, as gifted with the freshest soul that ever bard possessed since Chaucer’s days: (always excepting, we presume, that incomparable Swan of Avon, who soars above the condition of humanity). Sergeant Talfourd has celebrated him as the most rising dramatist of the age, in the preface to his own classic “Ion;” and Charles Dickens (to complete a worthy triad) is known to consider and declare this poet’s “Blot on the Scutcheon” the most poetic, pathetic, and generally beautiful of domestic tragedies. Some readers, perhaps, would not give Dickens credit for such elevated taste; yet, remembering the childhood of little Dombey, they surely cannot wonder that he who conceived such exquisite prose-poetry should be able to appreciate the loftiest creations of art.
Nevertheless, though Robert Browning is thus appreciated by the best and worthiest, he is not generally popular. We think he should be so; and, since we address a public of many thousands, through the medium of Sharpe’s Magazine, we shall labour on the present occasion to bring the perception of his merits [p. 61→] home to those as yet unacquainted with this poet, and endeavour to convince them, that, despite the occasional audacity of his conceptions and the frequent harshness of his diction, the beauty of thought and feeling which they will invariably find beneath the surface, should recommend his works to their immediate attention and most careful study.
Before we proceed to the examination of “Pippa passes,” we are moved to take a cursory survey of the state of our Poetic Literature (very cursory it shall be), since it would otherwise be difficult for us to place our readers at the point of view we wish them to occupy, for the thorough estimation of Robert Browning’s poetic and dramatic merits. We have said, then, that he was “a genius.” Now, genius is no hourly or daily visitor in any age; and certainly in our own its angel-apparitions are few and far between. The Georgian era, when Byron discoursed in such passionate, but also such faulty strains; when Southey soared to the highest glories of epic song; when Scott chanted his romantic lays of chivalry; when Burns, Moore, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Campbell, Keats, Shelley, Milman, and many others, woke the lyre and stirred the world to admiration, has been naturally followed by a period of comparative rest, of seeming inertion. Moore and Wordsworth are still indeed among us, yet no longer of us. Coleridge and Campbell have at last departed. Milman has subsided into a somewhat rationalistic Church historian. However, certain new lights have arisen. Landor, in those days but little known, has since given his “Hellenics,” his “Pericles and Aspasia,” his “Trial of Shakspeare,” his “Decamerone,” and other works, to the world; mostly fraught with the spirit of classical antiquity, reflected with chastened outlines, and in pale, though pleasing hues. Then Tennyson, also, has appeared, the greatest of living lyric bards, who has found the means of restoring to us the ballad-poetry of the middle-ages in a modern form, etherealized and subtilized by the spirit of the nineteenth century, and breaking a strain of loftier and deeper passion than found utterance in those simple days. Miss Barratt [sic], now Mrs. Browning, may be named as a poetess, of a high order, despite her occasional mannerisms and seeming affectations of thoughts and style: she, too, is gifted with the soul of passion, and compels the reader’s heart to vibrate with the thrill of sympathy. Other poetesses we have had among us during the last five-and-twenty years; this comparatively barren era, as contrasted with the first quarter of the century. Mrs. Hemans’s sweet, but somewhat monotonous strains, have found many admirers, and, perhaps, more lovers, yet have tended, in a degree, to lower the popular taste for poetry, by substituting a languid sentiment for deeper and fresher emotions, and so erecting a conventional standard, which almost every poetaster might venture to approach. L.E.L. sinned more flagrantly in the same direction, substituting sentimentality for sentiment. Keble, it may be remarked, approximates in some respects to Mrs. Hemans, but is distinguished by a far higher and deeper apprehension of sacred things, calm devotional fervour, and occasional sublimity. He is, however, faulty as an artist, wanting concentration, both in thought and expression, and frequently leaving his main idea to wander on some side-path conducting to an anti-climax. Yet, despite these artistic foibles, and that tendency to doctrinal novelty, which sadly mars the “Lyra Innocentium,” his name will not easily pass away. Williams is even more diffuse, but has also more freshness. Neither of these can be placed on an artistic level with the evangelic Cowper. Monckton Milnes should also be adverted to in any general notice of living poets, though frequently diffuse and feeble; as he is still distinguished by a certain delicacy of thought and feeling, which should seem to be the leading quality of the modern school. Of Barry Cornwall we will not discourse; but Macaulay, with his trumpet notes from Ivry and from Rome, seems to challenge our attention. Of him, then, we must say, that, in his quality of essayist and critic, he seems to us a brilliant wordmonger; glittering and glaring like the sunshine, but never penetrating beneath the surface; deficient, indeed, in the first qualities requisite for critical appreciation; but we cannot deny that his strains seem to glow with living fire, and that in rapid battle-panoramas he is without a rival. Marston also should be remembered here. He is waxing, alas! more and more artificial; and will, we fear, never achieve the wreath which once seemed within his grasp. His “Gerald” promised noble things. That promise has not been kept. He is like a racer on the Olympic course, who should foot it on the stilted and weighty Cothurn, when his own feet, unimpeded, would have borne him swiftly to the goal. Finally, let us commemorate Martin Farquhar Tupper, fresh, genial, and eminently English; at moments even “John Bullish,” but capable of the loftiest elevation of thought and feeling. His is the maytide of sunshine, full of life and joy.
But though we have named many worthy names, one yet is left behind, whose owner we should place, in some respects, above all these worthies, more especially for the combination of creative genius with the most truthful and most touching sentiment; and this one is Robert Browning. He is, indeed, preeminently, if not exclusively, a dramatist, and therefore should not be compared with those who excel in such distinct departments. But it is our impression, for reasons to be named hereafter, that his works may yet be studied with most devotion of all these. We say, studied: for study, unfortunately, is requisite to obtain a just appreciation of their merit. His first acknowledged production was unintelligible to the general reader, and displeasing even to the believing student, because the portraiture of an unhealthful and imperfect nature,—“Sordello,” supposed to perish because his powers of execution prove unequal to the active task he has conceived. This was a painful poem, and gave a false impression of its author’s powers; more especially as a certain clique of literary men happened to be connected with Browning, (them- [p. 62→] selves, for the most part, unsuccessful dramatists,) who extolled him for his very faults, instead of directing attention to his beauties, thereby exciting a very natural prejudice against him. The style of this poem was conversational, and “would-be” natural, to such an extent as to be supremely unnatural, and almost unintelligible. And here be it observed, that a tendency to the same bold simplicity is even yet visible at times in Browning’s artistic creations. “Paracelsus,” a very fine dramatic poem, came next, which, with beauties of the highest order, had also its measure of deficiencies, being somewhat vague and shadowy, and, consequently, unacceptable to the general reader. Then came the “Bells and Pomegranates,” to which we propose at present to direct attention,—a series of plays, and dramatic utterances in the shape of lyrics, published by Moxon, in shilling numbers; and these “Bells and Pomegranates,” as a whole, are masterly, and stamp their author as one of the most singular poets of his age and country. By the bye, we must not altogether omit to notice our author’s “Strafford,” a very remarkable tragedy, produced by Mr. Macready, who performed the principal character, and repeated it many nights with great effect. We do not wish to dwell on this play; its political and historical sympathies being diametrically opposed to our own, but, as a work of art, it has great merit.
It is not, however, in technical adaptability for performance, but intensity of passion and truthfulness of characterisation, combined with high dramatic interest, that Robert Browning’s plays surpass the productions of the English school. We do not imply so much of laudation, in saying this, as might at first sight appear. Of course, the matchless Shakspeare pertains to no school, and is beyond all parallel; but Beaumont and Fletcher, despite their brilliant gifts of imagination, are unartistically vulgar and painfully immoral—nay, base; and Massinger is harsh and crude; and the lawless Ford, and the colourless Shirley, and the “minor Elizabethans” generally, do appear to us to be little better than talented barbarians, sadly deficient in nobility of thought, and therefore wearisome, and for the more part even repulsive. The masques of rare Ben Jonson are “beautiful exceedingly,” but his tragedies and comedies are intolerably laborious, and void of dramatic vitality. The barbarism of Dryden is yet more disagreeable, he having added the false refinements of a “pinchbeck” age to a substratum of native coarseness. “All for Love,” indeed, has merit, but is wholly devoid of originality. We cannot bestow more admiration on the tediously immoral Rowes and Otways in whom our fathers delighted, and whom we have left behind us, it is to be hoped, for ever.
Superior to all these dramatists of the past is the living Sheridan Knowles, who has feeling, fancy, and dramatic impulse, but is, alas! deficient in the highest qualities of conception, and executes in a borrowed strain, closely reflecting all the conventionalisms, the “i’fecks” and the “quothas,” of the Elizabethan school. By casting his ideas into a by-gone mould, by returning to what might be considered the infancy of Art in this country, (despite the one glorious exception who transcended all ages,) he has compelled us to entertain some doubts of his originality of genius. Nevertheless, he was and is our most successful acting dramatist since Shakspeare, and will always maintain an honourable position in our country’s literature. (We speak, of course, only with reference to the effusions of the tragic muse, and would not detract from the fame of the clever but not over-moral Congreve, Farquhar, Sheridan, &c.) Other living dramatists, it may be added, have surpassed those that went before them. Sergeant Talfourd has given us a classical creation in “Ion,” and his “Glencoe” has much merit. Bulwer also, though subject to the charge of conventionalism, has exhibited real dramatic power, and may yet accomplish far higher things in this sphere, than he has till now attempted. Leigh Hunt has given us a sweet drama in his “Legend of Florence.”
We have no great respect for the so-called unacted drama. Mr. Stephens’s plays, though indicative of talent, are obviously the fruits of a diseased imagination, mainly corrupted by Elizabethan studies, which scorns the trammels of common sense, and absolutely delights in heaping together the most incongruous epithets and far-fetched and unnatural similes. R.H. Horne appears to us a painstaking, laborious student—nothing more. Mr. Heraud’s dramas are certainly not dramatic, whatever their other merits may be: witness the extraordinary “Roman Brother.” One more writer of dramatic poems must be referred to, already mentioned, whom it is, or perhaps rather has been, the fashion to regard as a poet of lofty genius: the author of “Philip von Artevelde.” We will only say, for the present, that we are utterly unable to discover this gentleman’s merits, whether as dramatist or poet, (though we believe him to be a sensible and noble-hearted man,) inasmuch as he appears to us to be devoid of impulse or of dramatic vitality, and, further, addicted to many conventional errors.
[Continued in the issue of December 1848.] [p. 122→]
To return to Robert Browning, we recognise in him a genius which soars above all the trammels of conventionalism, and which may even be said to have laid the foundation for a new school. He has none of the faults, and perhaps not all the merits, of the Elizabethan dramatists. He approximates in one respect to the French dramatic bards, namely, in unity both of conception and execution. These are qualities which English critics are least able to appreciate; they hunt for show-passages—passages independent of the context, consequently dramatic blots; and if they do not discover these, they can see little or nothing to admire. Now, in Browning’s plays, not a speech, not a line, scarcely a word is introduced, which does not tend to exhibit some phase of character, which has not a direct bearing on the development of the plot, which does not contribute to the unity of the whole creation. This, almost as of course, has not been appreciated (speaking generally), and thus Robert Browning’s works have been neglected and slighted by the smaller fry of critics in the literary organs of the day. But, despite this, our author has succeeded in placing a series of plays before us in his so-called “Bells and Pomegranates,” which will live and be honoured as long as our country’s tongue endures.
And now, without further preamble, we will proceed to notice the first work in this series, entitled “Pippa passes,” which is couched in a peculiar form and vein, but which, nevertheless, must command the sympathies of all who have once learned to understand it. And here let us confess that a certain needless obscurity is but too characteristic of Browning’s strains, and suffices in some degree to account for the slow progress he has made in popular estimation. He is not only in the habit of omitting [p. 123→] all relative pronouns and various other small words, as well as stage directions, for brevity’s sake, but he also endeavours to concentrate both thought and passion within the narrowest possible space—to express a world of meaning sometimes by a word. Again, he assumes the reader’s knowledge of all recondite facts, historical, geographical, philosophical, natural and social, which may be accidentally adverted to in his dramas, and he further does appear (there is no denying it,) to take some slight pleasure in perplexing the said reader’s brains. Now these are very serious defects, which make the first perusal of one of Browning’s works rather a study than an ordinary reading; and though they justify not the dullness of the critic who should have broken through such barriers, they do account for the absence of just appreciation on the part of the general public. But, allons! à l’ouvrage! Let us discharge our duty with the utmost possible celerity.
“Pippa passes,” then, is a dramatic poem, the scene of which is laid at the Italian village of Azolo [sic], in the Trevisan, and the time of which occupies little more than twelve hours, from sunrise to sunset. It is the first day of the new year, and yet more a summer’s than a winter’s day in that warm clime. Pippa, a young girl who works in the silk-mills of Azolo, and who looks on this as the great holiday of the whole long year, springs out of bed in the morning in her poor little chamber, and bursts into the following soliloquy, in the exuberance of delight. (The italics are ours.)
Day!—
Faster and more fast
O’er night’s brim day boils at last;
Boils, pure gold, o’er the cloud-cup’s brim,
Where spurting and supprest it lay:
For not a froth-flake touched the rim
Of yonder gap in the solid gray
Of eastern cloud, an hour away:—
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled;
Till the whole sunrise, not to be supprest,
Rose-reddened, and its seething breast
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.—
Day! If I waste a wavelet of thee,
Aught of my twelve hours’ treasure,—
One of thy gazes, one of thy glances,
(Grants thou art bound to, gifts above measure,)
One of thy choices, one of thy chances,
(Tasks God imposed thee, freaks at thy pleasure,)
Day! if I waste such labour or leisure,
Shame betide Azolo, mischief to me!
How touchingly innocent, graceful and naïve is this exordium, and how bounding and natural is its rhythm, and how striking its imagery! How poetical and yet how dramatic and suggestive of character the whole speech! And yet, there is a peculiarity in its style which may not commend itself at first sight. But we must not pause for comment. We continue, expressing our author’s pregnant poetry in yet briefer but plainer prose. Thus sweetly does the pretty Pippa proceed. “Treat me not, day,” she says, “as those who have all other days beside thee—I have but thee. It is Pippa thou misusest if thou prov’st sullen,—me, whose old year’s sorrow, who, except thee, can chase before to-morrow?” Here follow allusions to the characters afterwards introduced in the four main compartments of the poem: first, the haughty Ottima, the wife of old Luca, owner of the silk-mills in which Pippa works, and her lover Sebald, whose tale of guilty passion she (Ottima) is suspected of approving; secondly, Jules, a young student of sculpture and Phene his betrothed, who is to become his bride that day; thirdly, the gentle Luigi and his mother, so happy in their mutual tenderness; and finally, Monsignor, the lord of the manor and a cardinal, who has come to Azolo to say masses that night for the soul of his brother, the late proprietor. All these great people, says Pippa, will not suffer, should this day prove unkind; but it is my only day, and therefore my day only. And now her attention is called off (all this time she is supposed to be attiring herself), first, to a golden sunbeam caught in her ewer, then to a little flower which stands on her window-sill, and which she addresses lovingly, in her heart’s gladness:—
Laugh through my pane then! solicit the bee!
Gibe him, be sure, and, in midst of thy glee,
Worship me!
“Worship whom else?” she continues, “for am not I this day whate’er I please?—Who shall I seem to-day? Morn, noon, eve, night—how must I spend my day? In the morning,” she continues, (we give the meaning only, not the words of our author,) “I will be Ottima; and the fine house and gardens shall be mine, and Sebald shall steal, as he is wont, to flatter, whilst old Luca sleeps; and I—I shall give abundant cause for prate, to the talkers in our little town below.” The innocence with which all this is said, the kindness of heart, the sweet simplicity of character developed in every word, these are very charming. Beautiful is the trusting confidence which leads her to think, after all, there is more harm fancied than done, and which finds utterance in that simple line of condemnation—
How we talk in the little town below!
But to proceed. At noon, Pippa will be the bride of the young artist, Jules; the pale bride, with her snow-white cheek and black tresses, whom she herself saw arrive the night before. “A bride to look at and scarce touch!” she says—
For are not such
Used to be tended, flower-like every feature,
As if one’s breath would fray the lily of a creature?
“But her I will not envy,” Pippa continues; “that kind of love I covet not, to bind and to enslave me. No! rather a parent’s love for me; one that should have lapped me round from the beginning. Well, at eve, what prevents that I should think myself Luigi, when he and his mother commune in their turrets?—I will be Luigi,” she says, and then, after a pause, continues—
If I only knew
What was my father like;—my mother too. [p. 124→]
She is an orphan, then; and yet not all an orphan—“Nay,” she resumes—
Nay, if you come to that, the greatest love of all
Is God’s.
“Well, then,—to feel God’s love upon one, as it will rest on Monsignor to-night, when he says masses for his brother’s soul:”
I, to-night at least,
Will be that holy and beloved priest.
“But, after all,—I myself share in God’s love. I need not be a holy priest for that. Why, else, should New-year’s hymn declare,
All service ranks the same with God.
If now, (as formerly he trod
Paradise,) God’s presence fills
Our earth, and each but as God wills
Can work—God’s puppets, best and worst,
Are we. There is no last nor first!—
Say not, a small event! Why small?
Costs it more pain, this thing ye call
A great event should come to pass
Than that?
“May not, then, my very passing by these high folks in some way affect them?—Oh! prove that true!” she says to Heaven, “and at least such passing may give joy to me. A mere look at all these happy people may teach me not to grieve for the past, and to endure the future.”
I am just as great, no doubt,
As they!
she continues, in her happy consciousness of joy, and then thus concludes her soliloquy:—
A pretty thing to care about
So mightily,—this single holiday!—
Why repine?—
With thee to lead me, Day of mine,
Down the grasspath grey with dew,
’Neath the pinewood, blind with boughs,
Where the swallow never flew
As yet, nor cicale dared carouse;
No! dared carouse! [She enters the street.]
Thus ends the first scene, or introduction; which is like an innocent pastoral ushering in more stormy and passionate passages, themselves no less replete with the spirit of genius and of poesy. But we must be hasty. The second scene, then, entitled “Morning,” introduces us to the interior of the “shrubhouse” in old Luca’s garden. His wife Ottima, and her paramour, Sebald, are together. The morning is somewhat more advanced. A fearful deed of darkness has been wrought. The lover has murdered the husband! He is now drinking and carolling fragments of wild songs, in the vain endeavour to bury the remembrance of his crime. Ottima, the wife, is more collected. She strives to calm her guilty lover’s fears, to draw his attention to the scene around them.
Ah! the clear morning!
she says,
“I can see St. Mark’s:
That black streak is the belfry.—Stop! Vicenza
Should lie—there’s Padua, plain enough—that blue—
Look o’er my shoulder—follow my finger”—
“Morning!” cries the guilty Sebald:
“It seems to me a night with a sun added.
Where’s dew? where’s freshness?”
This is an awful scene—terrible, because psychologically truthful: a study for the dramatist which can scarcely be too often made: a lesson to every human heart, tracing as it does the gradual progress of crime, and realizing all its horrors. We shall pass it over with a general tribute to its power and truth. This dialogue, had he written nothing else, would suffice to prove Robert Browning a great dramatist. At last, the guilty Ottima, who for her lover’s sake conceals her own remorse, prevails on him to promise oblivion of the past. “Crown me your queen,” she says, “your spirit’s arbitress—magnificent in sin. Say that!”
Sebald [repeating]. I crown you
My great white queen, my spirit’s arbitress,
Magnificent——
Pippa [without, passing].
The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn:
Morning’s at seven;
The hillside’s dew-pearled.
The lark’s on the wing,
The snail’s on the thorn:
God’s in His heaven—
All’s right with the world!
[Pippa passes.]
Sebald. God’s in His heaven! Do you hear that? &c.
But we can afford no more space for extracts here. Suffice it to say, that simple song, those childish words, flash conviction of the depth of his iniquity on Sebald’s soul. Ottima appears to him his direst foe. He resolves to curse her, and deliver himself up to justice. But she, too, has been rebuked and chastened by the words of innocence. “Kill me, Sebald!” she says, “Mine was the crime. I always meant to kill myself.”
Let us leave the guilty pair in the throes of agony and remorse, and turn to the second, scarcely less exciting, compartment of the poem, “Noon,” introduced by a short scene amongst a body of foreign students, assembled before the house of Jules, the intended bridegroom. From their conversation we learn that they have practised an odious deception on him. They have written letters to him in the name of Phene, the girl he is about to marry, as from her; and he weds her in the belief that she is the painter’s ideal in soul, whilst she is nothing but a poor and altogether ignorant, yet innocent; girl, herself another victim to the deception. Mortification, at the superiority assumed by Jules to themselves and their pleasures, seems to have been the incentive to this cruel pleasantry. This scene is written in pungent and pregnant prose. It is very dramatic; giving in a few words the clue to the individual character of each student, and more especially portraying the German tobacco-smoker, “Schramm,” with no little humour. But now the great scene ensues. Jules and his bride arrive, and enter the house. The doors are closed behind them, the students are in suspense without. The poet introduces us to the sacred privacy of the artist’s studio; and the interview which follows forms one of the most beautiful dramatic creations we are acquainted with. It is [p. 125→] by no means devoid of faults, indeed, but its beauties infinitely outweigh them. Jules’ deep love, his artist passion for his bride, are first expressed; and then the memories of his past life are contrasted with his future, as husband and as lover.
O, my life to come!
My Tydeus must be carved, that’s there in clay;
And how be carved, with you about the chamber?—
Where must I place you? When I think that once
This room full of rough block-work, seem’d my heaven,
Without you!—Shall I ever work again?—
Get fairly into my old ways again?
Bid each conception stand, while, trait by trait,
My hand transfers its lineaments to stone?
Will they, my fancies, live near you, my truth,—
The live truth—passing and repassing me,—
Sitting beside me?
And then follow the bright retrospect on the first letters that passed between them, and on all their loving plots to gain each other; and the still brighter anticipation of days of joy to come. The remainder of the speech is exquisite, but we have not space to quote from it. At last Jules pauses, struck by the deathlike paleness of his loved one. He conjures her to speak. She does speak. What he has said she understands not, but she feels that it is beautiful. But she must sing—sing a song which Lutwyche, one of the students, and her mother Natalia, have taught her; a song which reveals the fatal secret, that she is a poor innocent, wholly ignorant of that art for the love of which Jules loves her, and the will-less tool of his enemies. Her first simple accents almost disclose the truth. He turns deadly pale. She prays him not “to change so,” thinking he is angry because she sings not. Her ditty follows: it teaches that as love may lie concealed in hate, so hate may cower in seeming love.
Thus I, Jules! hating thee,
she concludes—
Sought, long and painfully——
[Jules interposes.]
Jules [after a pause]. Lutwyche?—Who else!—
But all of them, no doubt,
Hated me,—them at Venice! Presently
For them, however!——You [to Phene] I shall not meet.
If I dreamt, saying that would wake me!——Keep
What’s here:—this too.—We cannot meet again,
Consider,—and the money was but meant
For two years’ travel, which is over now;
All chance, or hope, or care, or need of it!—
This, and what comes from selling these—(my casts
And books and medals excepted)—let them go
Together! So the produce keeps you safe
Out of Natalia’s clutches. If by chance
(For all’s chance here) I should survive the gang
At Venice—root out all fifteen of them—
We might meet somewhere, since the world is wide.
The deep despairing resignation of this speech, the first dawn of conviction, then the terrible certainty, then the awful calm, are all evidences of a most intimate knowledge of the human heart, or rather, of the highest dramatic powers. But now, at this climax of utter despair, “Pippa passes,” singing as before. Her song is of a page’s love for his mistress, a queen. The page mourns that she he loves is already so high he can do nothing for her; and love would always bestow. “Were she wronged,” he says,—“to the rescue of her honour! Were she poor, for her he then might gain the world!” But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her, “this works his sorrow.” But he is not unheard, the page. Of this the “refrain” of the song informs us.
“Nay, list!” bade Kate the queen.
Vainly does some idle courtier or some haughty dame reply, carelessly,
“Only a page, that carols unseen,
Fitting your hawks their jesses.”
The page has been heard. The queen shall be his consort! Pippa has passed.—And now, after a long pause, young Jules resumes:—
Kate? Queen Cornaro, doubtless, who renounced
Cyprus, to live and die the lady here
At Azolo. And whosoever loves
Must be, in some sort, god or worshipper,
The blessing or the blest one, queen or page.
I find myself queen here, it seems!——How strange!—
Shall to produce forms out of shapelessness
Be art? and, further, to evoke a soul
From form be nothing?—This new soul is mine:—
Now, to kill Lutwyche, what would that do? Save
A wretched dauber, men will hoot to death
Without me.—— To Ancona—Greece—some isle!
I wanted silence only: there is clay
Everywhere. One may do whate’er one likes
In art. The only thing is, to be sure
That one does like it, which takes pains to know.—
—Scatter all this, my Phene, this mad dream!
Who, what is Lutwyche? what, Natalia!
What the whole world, except our love, my own,
Own Phene? But I told you, did I not?
Ere night we travel for your land: some isle
With the sea’s silence on it.——Stand aside!
I do but break these paltry models up
To begin art afresh!
Is not this stirring, in its noble truthfulness, almost to tears? There, on this isle, will he trace “some dusky mountain,
Whole brotherhoods of cedars on its brow:
And you are ever by me, while I trace—
Are in my arms, as now—as now—as now!—
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas!
Some unsuspected isle in far off seas!
Most exquisite! We have no space to dilate on the manifold beauties of this scene. We trust that we have already said enough to induce those who have not seen it to read it for themselves forthwith; and those who have perused it but hastily, to study it with care. The next scene connects the second and third compartments. It introduces us to an English vagabond with the strange appellation of Bluphocks (query, Bluefox?), who talks in the strain of the cynic “Spiegelberg,” in Schiller’s “Robbers.” We spoke, before, of “Monsignor,” the cardinal. This Bluphocks, it appears, has received orders from the cardinal’s steward or “intendant,” to carry some scheme of villany into execution, which scheme turns out to be the seduction and consequent ruin of little Pippa; the motive for which (according to Browning’s usual unfortunate habit) we only discover much later. We, however, being in the secret, may as well state at [p. 126→] once what it is. Pippa, then, is the daughter of the eldest brother of the cardinal, supposed to be no longer in existence by the world; the second brother, just deceased, having given orders for her assassination to the steward, which he believed were carried into execution, in order that he might come into possession of the family property. But the steward was too wily not to preserve poor Pippa’s life, so as to retain power over his employers. She is now to be decoyed to Rome, and there ruined, through the medium of this English scoundrel, Bluphocks, (but not, be it observed, with the connivance of the cardinal), and the fiendish quiet with which this rascal sets about his task is positively appalling. His first step is to bribe some girls who work in Pippa’s silk-mills, to talk to her of an English gentleman who admires her, and thus excite her girlish curiosity.—It will further be remembered that we adverted to “Luigi and his Mother,” the chief personages of the third compartment. Now, in the course of this scene we discover that Luigi is an Italian republican, or, at all events, a “patriot,” inimical to the Austrian government, and will be seized by the police unless he leaves Azolo that evening. We cannot explain at length. The third compartment, “Evening,” commences. Luigi and his mother are in their tower. The scene which follows is beautiful in parts, yet inferior as a whole to the two former episodes (if we may well call them so), because its bearing is less distinct. So much, however, we discover. Luigi has actually formed the design of slaying the Austrian chief, either the viceroy or the emperor, we know not which. Nay, he is one of a club of self-styled patriots, who have voted the necessity for this deed of blood, and he is to be its executor. The unreasoning, passionate fervour of the Italian nature is finely expressed in this youth’s speeches. His loving mother is the advocate for peace. She strives to work on his sense of honour, his fears, his feelings; all in vain. “Well, you shall go,” she says, and continues, in a bitterly truthful and wholesome strain—
If patriotism were not
The easiest virtue for a selfish man
To acquire!—He loves himself: and then, the world,
If he must love beyond; but nought between.
As a short-sighted man sees nought betwixt
His body and the sun above.
* * * *
Once more, your ground for killing him?—Then, go!
Luigi. Now, do you ask me, or make sport of me?—
How first the Austrians got these provinces?
(If that is all, I’ll satisfy you soon;)
Never by warfare, but by treaty; for
That treaty whereby——
Or, better go at once to modern times!—
He has—they have—In fact, I understand,
But can’t restate the matter; that’s my boast!
Others could reason it out to you, and prove
Things they have made me feel.
How characteristic! how truthful! And now the mother refers to his loved one, his Chiara,
——with her blue eyes upturned,
As if life were one sweet and long surprise!
But even this memory does not dissuade him from his purpose. And now “Pippa passes,” and chants a mystic ballad, the application of which is the only really unintelligible thing we can discover in this dramatic poem. The issue of it is that Luigi exclaims to his mother:—
Farewell, farewell! How could I stay? Farewell!
and rushes out. He has departed, therefore, for Vienna, and so escaped the police. We trust that he may be supposed to have abandoned his execrable design. Indeed, we cannot conceive it possible that an author, animated in general by such Christian feelings as Robert Browning, should recommend regicide, in cold blood, as a deed praiseworthy and heroic. But he has erred greatly in leaving the slightest doubt upon such a subject; unless, indeed, our lack of comprehension be alone responsible for the error. But we do not like playing with edged tools.
Now ensues the preparatory scene for the fourth and last compartment. It contains a conversation among the girls whom Bluphocks has bribed to speak of him to Pippa, and is clever, but painful. There are exquisite passages in this scene, but they will not bear extraction. At its conclusion, Pippa is seen approaching, and the girls call to her to speak with them. And now we have arrived at the fourth compartment, “Night.” We are in the palace of “Monsignor” the cardinal. He dismisses his friends and attendants for the night, retaining only the intendant or steward, and an interview ensues between them. This scene is written in the most masterly prose, reminding us forcibly of the very best parts of Goethe’s “Egmont” and “Götz von Berlichingen.” The Italian cardinal, cold, wily, polite, sanctimonious, jesuitical, is wonderfully portrayed. He tells the steward he is acquainted with the latter’s crime in murdering his niece, his eldest brother’s child, for which he intends to consign him to condign punishment; and this he says with the blandest of smiles. But the steward is ready prepared. He reveals the truth—the child lives still, is at hand. If Monsignor will not listen to reason she shall be brought forward. Monsignor remains calm. However, he will listen. The steward proceeds to develope his plan for the ruin of the child. The cardinal attends with seeming resignation, nay, appears about to yield, when “Pippa passes” without, singing this charming though childish strain—this ideal of nursery rhymes:—
Over head the tree-tops meet,
Flowers and grass spring ’neath our feet.
What are the voices of birds,
Ay, and beasts too, but words, our words?
Only so much more sweet!—
That knowledge with my life begun:
But I had so near made out the sun,
Could count yon stars, the seven and one,
Like the fingers of my hand;
Nay, could all but understand
How and wherefore the moon ranges:
And just, when out of her soft fifty changes,
No unfamiliar face might overlook me,
Suddenly God took me. [Pippa passes.]
Monsignor [springing up]. My people—one and all—all—within there! Gag this villain—tie him hand and foot! He dares—I know not half he dares—but [p. 127→] remove him—quick! Miserere mei, Domine! Quick, I say!
And thus this scene closes. And now we arrive at the epilogue of the poem, or concluding section. Once more we are in Pippa’s chamber, as at the beginning: and she enters it. And then, singing and merrily talking to herself, she prepares to lay herself down for the sleep of innocence. Her childish curiosity respecting this English stranger who admires her, her firm resolution to toil industriously throughout the livelong coming year, her happy and yet half-mournful recollections of the holiday she has passed—all these form a charming whole, which is, for the most part, beautifully expressed. The soliloquy and the poem both end thus:—
Now, one thing I should like to really know:
How near I ever might approach all these
I only fancied being, this long day:
Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so
As to—in some way—move them, if you please,—
Do good or evil to them some slight way.——
For instance, if I wind
Silk to-morrow, silk may bind
And border Ottima’s cloak’s hem.—
[She sits on the bedside.]
Ah me! And my important passing them.
This morning’s hymn half promised, when I rose!—
True, in some sense or other, I suppose.
[As she lies down.]
God bless me, though I cannot pray to-night!—
No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right:——
“All service is the same with God—
Whose puppets, best and worst,
Are we——” [She sleeps.]
And thus concludes the poem of “Pippa passes.” That it will amply repay the most attentive and repeated perusals we can assure the reader; though, after the extracts we have given, we can scarcely imagine such assurance to be needful. Want of space forbids further comments on the spirit of purity which pervades the work, despite the painful nature of some passages; or on its leading moral, that God can work out great ends by small means, and give power to the child’s song to change the hearts of the mighty. Some of our readers will remember the poem of “Naaman’s servant.”
Browning is, undoubtedly, not a perfect artist: far from it. But a certain exquisite and eminently “patrician,” let us add Christian, delicacy of sentiment will be found to be the prevailing characteristic of his works, combined with a force and truthfulness which are sometimes surprising. Will he ever be popular, in the widest sense of the term? This is very questionable: for, no doubt, this remarkable poet is obscure. When we first perused one of his dramas (we think, “The Last of the Druses”), we were so annoyed by its seeming confusion and mysticism, that we got through the first scene with difficulty; and though recognising great beauties here and there, made our way but slowly to an accurate appreciation of the play. Indeed, while first studying all these works, we feel as though treading the maze of a dark forest in the starlight night. Awhile, all seems obscurity around us; but, by degrees, as our eyes grow accustomed to the forest twilight, they discern a thousand beauties that passed at first unnoticed, in every brake and bower. The dark shadows, that stretched across our path in sullen gloom, seem to add a deeper charm to the scene; while the golden star-beams, shining in betwixt green leaves above, fall on lovely flowers beneath our feet, which we trod o’er unheeded, but which prove the more lovely and fragrant the more we examine into their nature and inhale their sweetness. Then, too, there is a sacred melody breathing through the wood: a low continuous warbling, as from a distant chorus of sweet nightingales. All that seemed confusion is order. The very gnarled forest-trunks, with their wide-spread and interwoven branches, the very clouds that pass above, and momently dim the pure stars—the very midnight breezes that wail from afar—add to the beauty, to the unity, of the scene. And, finally, where we at first drew back with a feeling of dismay, we weep, perchance, from the overflowing of our hearts in love, and recognise the presence of the Divine.
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates (RB), Collected ed., London: Edward Moxon, 1846.
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