R500400A. Poems (Boston, 1850).
The American Whig Review, April 1850, pp. 388–399.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 349–357.
If Mr. Browning be the poet of a transition state, this may explain one of his worst faults, namely, his occasional obscurity or unintelligibility. If he stands in the twilight of a coming day, it is not strange that familiar shapes emerge indistinctly, here and there, and assume unrecognizable forms, while the new revelations, which shall brighten with glory in the rising sun, still glimmer mystically from the shadows that enshroud them. But whatever be the explanation—and the true one is, perhaps, the indolence or the perversity of the author,—the fact is obvious, and must ever stand in the way of his popularity. There is a cunning mediocrity, which wins admiration by affecting obscurity, and which by enwrapping its paltry truism in a glimmering fog, plays upon its readers the brilliant imposture of making them transfer the excellencies, which they imagine, to words which they do not comprehend. There are in Browning whole pages, which, could we believe him infected with Charlatanism, we should attribute to this cause. But, in point of fact, we believe that he oftener obscures true merit than creates a halo around a sham; and, that the defect results rather from want of labor than from want of ability. He does not dwell upon his conceptions, until they assume that clear and determinate shape, which compels a definite expression. In justice to him, however, it must be said that his later productions are great improvements upon his earlier in this respect.
But if one cause of his obscurity is his imperfect expression, another cause is the abstruse and recondite nature of many of his thoughts. He is guilty of that kind of thinking popularly styled transcendental. Now, with many, this of itself is as bad as the unpardonable blasphemy, and will suffice to shut him out from all mercy, human or divine; while with others, like charity, it will cover the whole multitude of his sins. Without siding with either class, we believe that much of the poetry and of the prose, which is called transcendental, is replete with refined appreciations of both spiritual and sensuous beauty, for which we look in vain elsewhere; that it has widened our sympathies with nature by shedding upon the forms of sense the hues of the spirit; that it has analyzed more perfectly those mysterious visitings of feeling and thought, which cast such elusive flickerings of light and shadow upon the soul, and has woven into tissue, beautiful as morning mists and ærial as gossamer, the fine affinities which connect us with the world of spirits. These things are within the legitimate provence of poetry—but hardly fitted for the drama, because the drama supposes the mind too much absorbed in action to indulge in anything so fine-spun and visionary—but when you come to pure Kantian metaphysics, to speculations upon the essence and the properties of mind and spirit and the absolute nature of things, and other kindred themes, to attempt to extract poetry from them, is like the alchemist’s attempt to make gold out of iron, or the Yankee’s to squeeze milk out of a turnip. The fact is, almost all the great truths which lend a coloring to the affections, passions, and practical life of men, and which are consequently poetical—are simple and intelligible. Belief in divine Providence, and the immortality of the soul, the solemn raptures of devotion, the retributive terrors of conscience, the ennobling fascinations of love, the strength and purity of domestic affection, the aspiring and the grovelling propensities of man, and the beautiful effects of natural scenery, are themes to which the simplest heart gives cordial response and are inexhaustibly rich in poetry. It is the poet’s chief mission to create media, through which these shall be [p. 389→] naturally and vividly expressed. And here he can find full exercise for originality and invention; for whereas truth in itself is one, it yet can shine through a thousand forms and speak in a thousand tones. The poet must select that form, which shall embody without obscuring it, and these tones which shall mingle the least of earthly discord with the music of its voice. He must leave to philosophers the annunciation of new laws and principles, whilst they require argument to support them; or if he would sometimes with Wordsworth and Coleridge, travel far into the twilight regions of consciousness, let him adopt the didactic and lyric, and not the dramatic form of composition.
The first and most ambitious, but to us the least satisfactory, of these plays, is Paracelsus. It is no drama, unless five separate talks upon the same subject, detailing the plans and experiences of a man in the pursuit of one object, without a particle of action, can constitute a drama. The first scene, headed, “Paracelsus aspires,” shows him with his two friends, Festus and Michal, on the eve of departing on his wandering in quest of knowledge. They talk over his plans and hopes, scattering thickly, here and there, hints of his past career and of the strange promptings which induced him to dare to know, to know as Festus says, “the secret of the world, of man and man’s true purpose, path and fate,” a knowledge which is to find “its own reward in itself only, not an alien end to blend therewith.” In his proud self-reliance, he scorns the services of humbler men. He says:
If I can serve ma[n]kind
’Tis well—but there our intercourse must end;
I never will be served by those I serve.
The theme, then, which is proposed is the aim “to know for knowing’s sake,” and the sacrifice of all affections to this end. Festus thus grandly describes Paracelsus.
’Tis no wish of mine,
You should abjure the lofty claims you make,
Although I can no longer seek, indeed,
To overlook the truth, that there will be
A monstrous spectacle upon the earth,
Beneath the pleasant sun among the trees,—
A being knowing not what love is. Hear me!
You are endowed with faculties, which bear
Annexed to them as ’twere a dispensation
To summon meaner spirits to do their will
And gather round them at their need; inspiring
Such with a love themselves can never feel,
Passionless mid their passionate votaries.
I know not if you joy in this or no,
Or even dream that common men can live
On objects you prize lightly; but which make
Their heart’s treasure. The affections seem
Beauteous at most to you, which we must taste
Or die; and this strange quality accords,
I know not how, with you; sits well upon
That luminous brow, though in another it scowls
An eating brand—a shame.
His after-fate, it is true, belies these wonderful attributes, but the above is, probably, the conception which the author wishes us to form of his hero. All the interlocutors of the play except Michal—Heaven bless her loving and truthful heart—are gifted with an inordinate loquacity. When they open their mouths, one, two, three, or four pages of words tumble out, sometimes, very little to the enlightenment of the reader, and, always, very little to the furtherance of dramatic effect. This is an historical characteristic of Paracelsus, he having given one of his names (Bombastus) to a species of eloquence, common before the Fourth of July and just before election, and which it was hardly necessary for Mr. Browning to have taken any particular pains to immortalize. Thus, many words are spent in discussing his plan of acquiring knowledge, which seems to have been merely to roam abroad, at random, gathering by observation the truth scattered up and down the world. Festus makes some very sensible objections, but is finally convinced, by the enthusiastic, mystical, and eloquently obscure replies of Paracelsus, that, with a person of his genius, they can have no application. He sees his way, “as the bird her trackless way,” and, in the end, convinces Festus and Michal that he shall succeed in his enterprize, and departs. We next meet him after the lapse of nine years in Constantinople. Baffled in his object and sick at heart, he has consulted a conjuror to obtain some clue to the truth, which he cannot wring from nature. While soliloquizing over disappointed hopes a poor crazy poet, called Aprile, appears upon the scene. Aprile has been as far misled by his intense love, as Paracelsus by his desire to know. Paracelsus, however, discovers in the poor dying bard the qualities which are wanted for his own perfection. Says he:
Die not Aprile; we must never part:
Are we not halves of one dissevered world [p. 390→]
Whom this strange chance unites once more?
Part? never.
Till thou, the lover, know; and I, the knower,
Love—until both are saved.
But Aprile expires, leaving Paracelsus convinced, that knowledge is precious only in its union with love.
The third scene presents him at Basil, lecturing to admiring pupils, at the zenith of his fame and popularity. Yet the lesson which he has learned from Aprile, to use his wisdom for man’s benefit, has not rooted out his old contempt of his fellows. He despises, while he teaches them, and sees little harm in playing off the tricks of a charlatan upon men, who cannot appreciate true wisdom. He seems to have learned the lesson of love, theoretically, rather than practically. Festus is all admiration of his success; but Paracelsus predicts his own downfall, and still feels, within, the unsubdued desire to attain to perfect knowledge.
In the fourth part Paracelsus again “aspires;” that is, the people of Basil, having come to the conclusion that he is an unconscionable quack, he is about to start again upon his old vagabond life, in search of knowledge. This fourth part is a wonderful talk—the old race of volubility between Festus and Paracelsus, with a new spirit superadded. We had set it down as an astonishing specimen of some new style of poetry, and given up understanding its real or dramatic significance, until we found, by consulting the notes, that, at this time, Paracelsus “scarcely ever ascended the lecture desk, unless half-drunk, and only dictated to his secretaries when in a state of intoxication.” This surely explains an accumulation of incongruities, under which language reels, and reason staggers, although it may raise a question among critics as to the æsthetical propriety of such writing.
In the fifth part Paracelsus once more “attains;” that is, he dies in the faith that he has missed the aim of life, by not mingling love with his thirst for knowledge. This much, at least, we gather from his wild and incoherent rhapsody, strewn here and there, with beautiful thoughts and images, like stars that twinkle tremulously in a nebulous sea of ether. The poet states its moral in these words of Paracelsus:
Let men
Regard me and the poet dead long ago,
Who once loved rashly; and shape forth a third
And better tempered spirit, warned by both.
In his note the author says: “the liberties I have taken with my subject are very trifling; and the reader may slip the foregoing scenes between the leaves of any memoir of Paracelsus he pleases, by way of commentary.” Now, we plead guilty to but slight familiarity with the biographies of the Father of Chemistry, yet we do not hesitate to say, if they are sufficiently enigmatical to need the elucidation of such a commentary, we shall be in no more haste to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Meanwhile, notwithstanding its defects, the poem is full of boldness and originality, far beyond the reach of mediocre minds, which gave ample promise of ripened excellence. There are passages of which any poet might be proud; particularly those passages of description, which evince the observing eye, and personifying imagination of the true poet. And though it is, in a measure, true, as has been said, that Browning seldom expends his strength upon isolated passages, but shows his power in a subordination of the parts to the whole, we shall yet attempt to compensate for our somewhat disparaging criticism, by a few quotations.
As an instance of imaginative force in a single word, we remember few which surpass the following:
Michal, some months hence,
Will say, “this autumn was a pleasant time,”
For some few sunny days, and overlook
Its bleak wind hankering after pining leaves.
Here is a description of an autumnal morning:
Festus. Hush!
Paracelsus. ’Tis the melancholy wind astir
Within the trees; the embers too are gray,
Morn must be near.
Fest. Best ope the casement: see!
The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars,
Is blank and motionless; how peaceful sleep
The tree-tops all together. Like an asp
The wind slips whispering from bough to bough.
Par. Aye; you would doze on a wind-shaken tree
By the hour, nor count time lost.
Fest. So you shall gaze.
Those happy times will come again,—
Par. Gone! Gone!
Those pleasant times. Does not the moaning wind [p. 391→]
Seem to bewail that we have gained such gains,
And bartered sleep for them.
Fest. It is our trust
That there is yet another world to mend
All error and mischance.
Here the descriptions are exquisite, and the transitions all beautifully suggested by natural associations. Yet it is curious to note how, even here, everything tends directly back to that eternal coil of doubt and faith, pride, contempt, and love, and the problems of “providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,” which he keeps unwinding from his bosom, without end. Here is a further description of morning:
See morn at length. The heavy darkness seems
Diluted; grey and clear without the stars,
The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves, as if
Some snake, that weighed them down all night, let go
His hold; and from the east, fuller and fuller,
Day, like a mighty river, is flowing in,
But clouded, wintry, desolate, and cold.
Yet see how that broad, prickly, star-shaped plant,
Half down in the crevice, spreads its woolly leaves,
All thick and glistening with diamond dew.
The following lines, though they remind us of Wordsworth’s account of the origin of the Grecian gods, yet have a beauty all their own:
Man, once descried, imprints forever
His presence on all lifeless things; the winds
Are henceforth voices in a wail or shout,
A querulous matter, or a quick gay laugh,
Never a senseless gust now man is born;
The herded pines commune, and have deep thoughts,
A secret they assemble to discuss
When the sun drops behind their trunks, which glow
Like grates of Hell: the peerless cup afloat
Of the lake-lily is an urn, some nymph
Swims bearing high above her head; no bird
Whistles unseen, but through the gaps above,
That let light in upon the gloomy woods,
A shape peeps from the breezy forest-top,
Arch, with small puckered mouth, and mocking eye;
The morn has enterprise,—deep quiet droops
With evening; triumph takes the sunset hour;
Voluptuous transport ripens with the corn,
Beneath a warm moon, like a happy face.
Thus we might proceed, would our limits permit, quoting passage after passage, shewing a bold, vigorous, and original mind, which only a too decided introversiveness, which time seems fast remedying, prevents from producing a work of the very first order.
The next play, “Pippa Passes,” is simple in its design, and genial in its sentiment. The author’s capacity is fully equal to his conception, and, consequently, the characters are distinctly outlined, and the thoughts no longer float at large in nubibus. The poem seems intended to illustrate the influence of a good word, when spoken in critical moments. The heroine of the piece, Pippa, a poor girl from the silk-mills, who has her New Year’s holiday, passes the “Happiest Tour,” as she supposes, in Asolo, and, fancying herself for the moment the persons themselves, sings her song in their hearing, and, with girlish light-heartedness, trips away. She first passes Ottima, the young wife of an old man. She, with her paramour Sebold, has, the night before, murdered her husband, and, this New Year’s morn, arises from the gratification of their guilty passions, to a life which their wicked deed has stripped of all its real charm. They are conversing in her bed-chamber, habituating their minds to the terrible remembrance, and devising the means of extracting pleasure from their mutual wretchedness. Pippa passes, singing her song, which concludes:
God’s in his Heaven,
All’s right with the world.
The words awaken some old responsive feeling in the heart of Sebold, and he, at once, sees in his beautiful paramour a being hideous and despicable:
Sebold. Leave me!
Go, get your clothes on—dress those shoulders!
Otti. Sebold?
Seb. Wipe off that paint. I hate you.
Otti. Miserable!
Seb. My God, and she is emptied of it now,
Outright now—how miraculously gone
Of all the grace—had she not strange grace once?
Why, the blank cheek hangs listless as it likes
No purpose holds the features up together,
Only the cloven brow and puckered chin
Stay in their places—and the very hair,
That seemed to have a sort of life in it,
Drops a dead web.
Otti. Speak to me—speak not of me.
Seb. That round, great, full-orbed face, where not an angle
Broke the delicious indolence—all broken!
Otti. To me—not of me! Ungrateful, perjured cheat. [p. 392→]
The words italicised are an exquisite stroke of nature. Only a true dramatist would have so intensely conceived the situation of Ottima, as to have felt that the unmistakeable expression of alienation and abhorrence was in the use of the third person—as if seas and mountains had arisen between her and Sebold, or, as if she had suddenly sunk to a lower scale of being—rather than in his words of disgust and contempt.
Pippa next passes a young sculptor with his bride. His rivals, envious of his genius and hating him for some slight eccentricities, by a pretended correspondence carried on in the name of his bride, have deceived him into marrying a girl, whom his fancy has clothed with all conceivable loveliness, but who is, in reality, of very ordinary pretensions. He has just discovered the deception, and is about to discard her at the very moment that the magnetic influence of his presence and conversation have developed the germ of a new life within her; when the song of Pippa resolves him to take noble revenge upon his rivals, by devoting himself to unfolding a nature, which needs only the shining-in of affection and intellect to germinate and bloom with exquisite beauty. “Look,” he says,
Look at the woman here, with the new soul,
Like my own Psyche’s—fresh upon her lips
Alit, the visionary butterfly,
Waiting my word to enter and make bright,
Or flutter off and leave all blank as first.
This body had no soul before, but slept
Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free
From taint or foul with stain, as outward things
Fastened their image on its passiveness;
Now it will wake, feel, live, or die again!
Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff
Be art—and, further, to evoke a soul
From form—be nothing? The new soul is mine.
With like success she passes a youth, meditating the assassination of a tyrant, and a bishop, who is on the point of compromising a high duty to expediency.
We have no disposition to find fault with a poem which so far surpasses its pretensions, and will only note, en passant, one or two blemishes. He makes Pippa say,
Thou art my single day. God lends to heaven
What were all earth else with a feel of heaven.
But Mr. Browning is seldom guilty of such verbal impropriety as this. This couplet also illustrates another fault, somewhat more common, viz. the frequent suppression of the relative pronoun, which or who—a fault that, sometimes, contributes very materially to his obscurity. The song describing the King, who lived long ago “in the morning of the world,” is an admirable “modern antique;” though we have some doubts, whether it be in character with the person who sings it. Yet it is much better in this respect, than some of the metaphysics and school-divinity, mingled in the songs of this little girl, who is represented as singing, as the bird carols, from the fullness of a joyous nature. In this play, too, we note another peculiarity, which has not much decreased with experience,—a fondness for sudden and unexpected transitions—which render some of the dialogue, at the first reading, almost as enigmatical as a Greek chorus, though a more thorough study of the author’s conceptions and a free use of one’s own imagination in the scenical details of the play, remove this objection.
But our three favorites among these plays are, “Colombe’s Birthday,” “A Blot on the ’Scutcheon,” and “Luria.” Of these, perhaps, Colombe’s Birthday will be most generally popular. It is full of stir, incident and vivacity; its characters all speak in propria persona, without showing the author through them, and the dialogue, particularly in the last two acts, is managed with an exquisite grace and tact, which equal or surpass the most charming scenes in Massinger. There are no prolix speeches, no long metaphysical disquisitions, but a brisk interchange of thought and sentiment, a constant development of the plot, and a delicacy and precision of characterization, which awaken an interest in the persons for their own sakes. It is the old theme of love versus money or high social position, or, adopting a broader generalization, of nature versus artificiality, and no where do we remember to have seen it more delightfully treated—no where the claims of love and nature advocated in more manly, healthy, and truly wise and noble style. Cultivated nature speaks in every part, without mawkish sentimentality or drivelling cant, asserting, in the persons of a high-born and honest-hearted woman, and of a simple and lofty-minded man, the homage which is ever her desert.
The plot is briefly this. Colombe is [p. 393→] Duchess of Cleves and Juliers. At the time represented in the play, one year of her rule has passed amid the adulations of a court, and she is now to celebrate her birth-day and the anniversary of her coronation. But the Duchy descends according to Salic law, and, this very day, Berthold, the nearest heir male of her father, backed by the influence of the Pope, the Emperor, and the Kings of France and Spain, demands the throne. The arrival of this demand gives the author a fine opportunity to paint the littleness and inconstancy of men nurtured amid the artifices of courts. Each courtier tries to shift upon the other the unpleasant duty of presenting the demand to the Duchess; and each shrinks from the task, desirous of doing nothing which shall forfeit the favor of their mistress, and, at the same time, of conciliating the new claimant. At this point, Valence, a young advocate, comes with a petition from the inhabitants of Cleves for the redress of their grievances, and, unconscious of its purport, is induced, as the price of an admission, to present the demand. The Duchess is surprised, heaps reproaches on her courtiers, who apologize, shuffle, and temporize. The prince is at the city gates, and they have no counsel for the emergency. Valence, with noble manliness and chivalry, assumes the responsibilities from which they shrink, is invested by the Duchess with their offices, and by his courage and promptitude, at once relieves her from her embarrassments and wins her heart. She submits to him the claims of Berthold, and bids him decide upon their validity. Valence decides in favor of the prince, but before the decision is made known, the prince makes, through Valence, proposals of marriage with the Duchess. This dashes all the hopes of Valence, yet he manfully acquaints her with his decision and Berthold’s offer. The Duchess, during the interview, obtains from him a confession of his love, and then, in the presence of the court, rejects the proposals of the prince, with his prospects of imperial rule, for the hand of the humble advocate of Cleves.
The character of Valence, for in this play the characters become valuable for what they are, as well as for what they say, is drawn with bold yet discriminating touches. Thrown into the midst of courtiers, his large sympathies for humanity and his heart, burning with the wrongs of his townsmen, contrast finely with their intriguing selfishness. While their courtly accomplishments, their paltry shifts and evasions but sink them deeper in trouble, acting from the instincts of nature and loyal to his sovereign, because loyal to his own conscience, he inspires a confidence, which he will use only for Truth and Right. While the Duchess supposes that the fickle impotence of her courtiers has left her succorless, he reveals to her the true sources of sovereignty. When she says, “heard you not I rule no longer,” he replies:
Lady if your rule
Were based alone on such a ground as these
(Pointing to the Courtiers)
Could furnish you—abjure it! They have hidden
A source of true dominion from your sight.
The Duch. You hear them—no source is left.
Val. Hear Cleves!
Whose haggard craftsmen rose to starve this day,
Starve now, and will lie down at night to starve,
Sure of a like to-morrow—but as sure
Of a most unlike morrow—after—that,
Since end things must, end howso’er things may.
What curbs the brute-force instinct in its hour?
What makes, instead of rising, all as one,
And teaching fingers, so expert to yield
Their tool, the broad-sword’s play, or carbine’s trick?
—What makes that there’s an easier help they think,
For you, whose name so few of them can spell,
Whose face scarce one in every hundred saw,
You simply have to understand their wrongs,
And wrong will vanish—so, still trades are plied,
And swords lie rusting, and myself am here?
There is a vision in the heart of each,
Of justice, mercy, wisdom; tenderness
To wrong and pain, and knowledge of its cure,
And these embodied in a woman’s form,
That best transmits them, pure as first received,
From God above her to mankind below.
And when Berthold reiterates his demand in person, speaking of the weakness of the Duchess, he answers:
You see our Lady; there, the old shapes stand!
A Marshal, Chamberlain, and Chancellor,
Be helped their way, into their death put life,
And find advantage! So you counsel us.
But let strength feel alone; seek help itself,
And, as the inland hatched sea-creature hunts
The sea’s breast out; as bittered ’mid the waves,
The desert brute makes for the desert’s joy,
So turns our lady to her true resource, [p. 394→]
Passing o’er hollow fictions, worn-out types,
—So, I am first her instinct fastens on!
And prompt, I say, so clear as heart can speak,
The people will not have you.
Never, in this gentle spot of earth,
Can you become our Colombe, our play-queen,
For whom, to furnish lilies for her hair,
We’d pour our veins forth to enrich the soil.
We would gladly quote the whole scene between the Duchess and Valence, where Valence makes known the Prince’s proposals of marriage, and where the Duchess learns the secret of his love for her. He is hardly an eloquent advocate for the Prince, since his own love has sharpened his vision to the want of it in others. The Duchess asks why Berthold’s offer does not imply love.
Val. Because not one of Berthold’s words and looks
Had gone with Love’s presentment of a flower
To the beloved; because bold confidence,
Open superiority, free pride—
Love owns not, yet were all that Berthold owned,
Because, where reason even finds no flaw,
Unerringly a lover’s instinct may.
But upon this topic we have room to extract only those beautiful lines, in which, when the Prince in person proffers his hand and the Duchess seems about to accept it, he resigns his claims, not only unrepiningly, but with a kind of triumph.
Val. Who thought upon reward? And yet how much,
Comes after—oh what amplest recompense!
Is the knowledge of her, nought? the memory nought?
Lady, should such an one have looked on you,
Ne’er wrong yourself so far as quote the world
And say, Love can go unrequited here!
You will have blessed him to his whole life’s end;
Low passions hindered, baser cares kept back,
All goodness cherished where you dwelt and dwell.
What would he have?
He holds you; you, both form
And mind, in his; where self-love makes such room
For love of you, he would not serve you now
The vulgar way; repulse your enemies,
Win you new realms, or best in saving you,
Die blissfully, that’s past so long!
He wishes you no need, thought, care of him,
Your good, by any means, himself unseen,
Away, forgotten!
Berthold is the counterpart of Valence. With his nature half chivalric and half epicurean, with his aristocratic tastes and worldly views of marriage, he represents the highest class of artificial men. Valence acts always from principle and sentiment, without regard to consequences; but Berthold, even in wooing a bride, keeps in view his darling projects of self-aggrandizement. He thus makes love to the Duchess:
You are what I, to be complete, must have,
Find, now, and may not find, another time.
While I career on all the world for stage,
There needs at home my representative.
The Duch. Such rather would some warrior woman be;
One dowered with lands and gold, or rich in friends;
One like yourself!
Berth Lady, I am myself,
And have all these. I want what’s not myself,
Nor has all these. Why give one hand two swords?
Here’s one already; be a friend’s next gift
A silk glove, if you will—I have a sword!
The Duch. You love me then.
Berth. Your lineage I revere;
Honor your virtue, in your truth believe,
Do homage to your intellect, and bow
Before your peerless beauty.
The Duch. But, for love;
Berth. A further love I do not understand.
Our best course is to say these hideous truths,
And see them, once said, grow considerable,
Like waters shuddering from their central bed,
Black with the midnight bowels of the earth,
That once up-spouted by an earthquake’s throe
A portent and a terror—soon subside,
Freshen apace, take gold and rainbow hues
In sunshine, sleep in shade; and, at last,
Grow common to the earth as hills and trees,
Accepted by all things they came to scare.
The Duch. You cannot love then.
Berth. Charlamagne, perhaps!
And again:
Your will and choice are still as ever free!
Say you have known a worthier than myself
In mind and heart, of happier form and face;
Others must have their birthright! I have gifts
To balance theirs, not blot them out of sight,
Against a hundred other qualities
I lay the prize I offer. I am nothing;
Wed you the Empire?
The Duch. And my heart away?
Berth. When have I made pretension to your heart?
I give none. I shall keep your honor safe;
With mine I trust you as the sculptor trusts
Yon marble woman with the marble rose,
Loose on her hand, she never will let fall,
In graceful, silent, slight security.
But Colombe, like the true and noble woman that she is—and Mr. Browning is surely very successful in his delineations of female character—makes, as we have seen, the choice which her heart dictates. “A [p. 395→] Blot on the ’Scutcheon” surpasses, in beauty and pathos, all that Mr. Browning has written. It is a mournful comment upon a theme, so often illustrated in life, how the sweet forgiveness of heaven for human error is mocked and thwarted by the blind pride and revenge of man. A spirit of sadness and despondency, indeed, broods over it, too like the gloomy fatalism of the Grecian Drama, for the most benignant faith of Christianity. Yet there is a touching appeal from the world and its unkind decisions, to that mercy which sees, through the troubled surface of crime, “a depth of purity immoveable,” hidden from mortal eyes until too late, and a contrite penitence, soothed by the hope of reconciliations above, too lovely to be realized on earth—the sentiments which shed no irradiation upon the terrible doom of the House of Tantalus.
We will give a brief outline of the tragedy, quoting as we proceed such passages as our limits will permit. The house of Tresham are descended from a long, glorious, and untarnished line of ancestry. It consists of three members; Thorold, the head of the house; Austin, who is married to Guendolen; and Mildred the only sister. Orphaned in her infancy, Mildred has been reared under the care of Thorold, who, discharging towards her the office of both parent and brother, has acquired for her an affection of the purest and tenderest character. A marriage is proposed between her and Mertoun, a young Earl of illustrious parentage, and himself endowed with all the manly virtues. In the first act, Mertoun is represented as having just attained the assent of Thorold to the alliance, who, proud as he is of “brooding o’er”
The light of his interminable line
An ancestry with men all paladans,
Can see nothing unworthy in the connection. Says he:
Ever with best desert goes diffidence;
I may speak plainly nor be misconceived.
That I am wholly satisfied with you,
On this occasion, when a falcon’s eye,
Were dull compared with mine to search out faults,
Is somewhat: Mildred’s hand is hers to give
Or to refuse.
Mer. But you, you grant my suit?
I have your word if hers?
Thor. My best of words,
If her’s encourage you. I trust it will.
Have you seen Lady Mildred, by the way?
Mer. I—I—our two demesnes, remember, touch—
I have been used to wander carelessly
After my stricken game—the heron roused
Deep in my woods, has trailed its broken wing
Thro’ thicks and glades a mile in yours; or else
Some eyas ill-reclaimed has taken flight,
And lured me after her from tree to tree,
I marked not whither. I have come upon
The Lady’s wondrous beauty unaware,
And—and then—I have seen her.
Thor. What’s to say
May be said briefly. She has never known
A mother’s care: I stand for father too,
Her beauty is not strange to you, it seems;
You cannot know the good and tender heart,
It’s girl’s trust, and it’s woman’s constancy.
How pure yet passionate, how calm, yet kind,
How grave, yet joyous, how reserved, yet free,
As light where friends are—how imbued with love
The world most prizes, yet the simplest. Yet
The—one might know I talked of Mildred—thus
We brothers talk.
But Mertoun knows far more of Mildred than he does avow. They have met, loved, and their love, through timidity and concealment, has lapsed into guilt. Night after night, he has scaled her chamber window; and this very evening he repeats their secret interviews. The scene between them is pathetic, touching the inmost soul of pity. Regret for their irretrievable error, regret for the dissimulation, so alien to their ingenuous natures, which they are compelled to assume, love, deep as the sources of their being, and unalloyed but by dark stain, trust in the mercy of heaven, of purification through repentance, and marriage as the best atonement for their sin; these are the subjects upon which they converse. We have room but for their parting words, Mildred says:
We’ll love on—you will love me still.
Mer. Oh, to love less what one has injured! Dove
Whose pinion I have rashly hurt, my breast—
Shall my heart’s warmth not nurse thee into strength?
Flower I have crushed, shall I not care for thee?
Bloom o’er my crest, my fight-mask, and device,
Mildred, I love you, and you love me.
Mil. Go!
Be that your last word. I shall sleep to-night.
Mer. One night more.
And then—think, then!
Mer. Then no sweet courtship days,
No dawning consciousness of love for us,
No strange and palpitating births of sense,
From words and looks, no innocent fears and hopes,
Reserves and confidences; morning’s over!
Mer. How else should love’s perfected noon tide follow? [p. 396→]
All the dawn promised shall the day perform.
Mil. So may it be; but—
You are cautious, love?
Are sure that, unobserved, you scaled the walls?
Mer. Oh, trust me! Then our final meeting’s fixed?
To-morrow night?
Mil. Farewell! Stay, Henry. Wherefore?
His foot is on the yew-trew bough—the turf
Receives him—now the moonlight, as he runs,
Embraces him—but he must go—is gone—
Ah, once again he turns—thanks, thanks, my love!
He’s gone—Oh, I’ll believe him, every word!
I was so young—I loved him so—I had
No mother,—God forgot me,—and I fell.
There may be pardon yet—all’s doubt beyond.
Surely the bitterness of death is past!
But their meetings have not been wholly unobserved. For several nights, an old retainer has seen a muffled stranger enter his lady’s chamber, and now, in view of the proposed marriage, his conscience will not permit him, any longer, to defer the discovery of the secret. Thorold is thunderstruck at the disclosure. He sends for her to meet him in the library, on the pretence that “the passage in that old Italian book we hunted for so long is found.
Enter Mildred.
Mil. What book
Is it I wanted, Thorold? Guendolen
Thought you were pale—you are not pale! That look?
That’s Latin surely?
Thor. Mildred, here’s a line—
(Don’t lean on me—I’ll English it for you)
“Love conquers all things.” What love conquers them?
What love should you esteem—best love?
Mil. True love.
Thor. I mean, and I should have said, whose love is best
Of all that love, or that profess to love?
Mil. The list’s so long. There’s father’s, mother’s husband’s—
Thor. Mildred, I do believe a brother’s love
For a sole sister, must exceed them all!
For, see now; only see! there’s no alloy
Of earth that creeps into the perfect’st gold
Of other loves—no gratitude to claim;
You never gave her life—nor even aught
That keeps life—never tended her—instructed,
Enriched her—so, your love can claim no right
O’er hers, save pure love’s claim—that’s what I call
Freedom from earthliness. You’ll never hope
To be such friends, for instance, she and you,
As when you hunted cowslips in the woods,
Or played together in the meadow hay.
Oh, yes—with age, respect comes, and your worth
Is felt; there’s growing sympathy of tastes,
There’s ripened friendship, there’s confirmed esteem,
—Much head these make against the newcomer!
The startling apparition—the strange youth—
Whom one half hour’s conversing with, or, say,
Mere gazing at, shall change (beyond all change
This Ovid ever sang about) your soul
—Her soul,—that is, the sister’s soul! With her
’Twas winter yesterday; now, all is warmth,
The green leaf’s springing, and the turtle’s voice
“Arise and come away.” Come whither?—far
Enough from the esteem, respect, and all
The brother’s somewhat insignificant
Array of rights! all which he knows before—
Has calculated on so long ago!
I think such love (apart from yours and mine)
Contented with its little term of life,
Intending to retire betimes, aware
How soon the background must be a place for it,
I think, am sure, a brother’s love exceeds
All the world’s love in its unwor[l]dliness.
Mil. What is this for?
Thor. This, Mildred, is it for;
Oh, no, I cannot go to it so soon!
That’s one of many points my haste left out—
Each day, each hour throws forth its silk-slight film
Between the being tied to you by birth,
And you, until those slender threads compose
A web, that shrouds her daily life of hopes,
And fears, and fancies, all her life, from yours—
So close you live, and yet so far apart!
I must rend this web, tear up, break down
The sweet and palpitating mystery
That makes her sacred? You—for you I mean,
Shall I speak—shall I not speak?
Mil. Speak!
Thor. I will.
Is there a story men could—any man
Could tell of you, you would conceal from me?
I’d never think there’s falsehood on that lip!
Say “There is no such story men could tell,”
And I’ll believe you, tho’ I disbelieve
The world—the world of better men than I,
And women, such as I suppose you—Speak!
[After a pause.] Not speak? Explain then!
Clear it up then! Move
Some of the miserable weight away,
That presses lower than the grave! Not speak?
Some of the dead weight, Mildred! Ah, if I
Could bring myself to plainly make their charge
Against you! Must I, Mildred? Silent still?
[After a pause.] Is there a gallant that has, night by night,
Admittance to your chamber?
[After a pause.] Then his name!
Till now, I only had a thought for you—
But now,—his name!
Mil. Thorold, do you devise [p. 397→]
Fit expiation for my guilt, if fit
There be! ’tis nought to say, that I’ll endure
And bless you,—that my spirit yearns to purge
Her stains off in the fierce renewing fire—
But do not plunge me into other guilt!
Oh, guilt enough! I cannot tell his name.
Thor. Then judge yourself! How should I act? Pronounce.
Mildred persists in refusing to name her lover, but proposes to proceed in the marriage with the Earl. Thorold, shuddering at what he supposes an infamous fraud upon Mertoun, and a contamination of a holy rite, exposes her guilt to Austin and Guendolen, and, frenzied with madness, roams all day over his estates, to return at night beneath the tree, which Mertoun climbs to reach his lady’s window. Here he meets Mertoun, forces him to unmask himself and draw his sword, then madly slays the unresisting youth. The dying lover reveals to him the true nature of his love, and his proposed reparation. Thorold, stricken with remorse, drinks poison, bears to Mildred the intelligence of the deed, who expires, forgiving him his rash act, and then he himself dies.
We will quote from this play one more passage, where, when Austin and Guendolen, have gathered around the corpse of the Earl, Thorold turns to them, and says:
He fell just here!
Now, answer me. Shall you, in your whole life
—You, that have naught to do with Mertoun’s fate,
Now, you have seen his breast upon the turf,
Shall you ere walk this way if you can help?
When you and Austin wander arm in arm
Thro’ our ancestral grounds, will not a shade
Be ever on the meadow and the waste—
Another kind of shade, than when the night
Shuts the woodside with all its whispers up!
But will you ever so forget his breast
As willingly to cross the bloody turf
Under the black yew avenue? That’s well!
You turn your head! and I then?——
Guen. What is done
Is done! My care is for the living. Thorold,
Bear up against the burthen—more remains
To set the neck to!
Thor. Dear and ancient trees
My fathers planted, and I loved so well!
What have I done that, like some fabled crime
Of gore, lets loose a fury, leading thus
Her miserable dance amidst you all?
Oh, never more for me shall winds intone
With all your tops a vast antiphony,
Demanding and responding in God’s praise!
Hers ye are now—not mine! Farewell—farewell!
Of “Luria” we have no space for a complete analysis. It represents the instinct and feeling of the orient brought into conflict with the calculating intellect of Europe, and nobly vindicating its moral superiority over the cold-hearted Machiavellianism, by which it is entoiled and overmatched. It has been called Mr. Browning’s greatest work; but, in our opinion, though admirable for its thought and philosophy, it is surpassed, as a drama, by either of the two preceding. Its theories are too imperfectly transfused into character. It is poem and commentary in one. The persons, instead of exhaling the philosophy of the piece, unconsciously, as their vital atmosphere, are continually philosophizing upon themselves. Even Luria, the warm-hearted Moor, the fiery creature of feeling, is ever and anon hinting, as it were, “Now, you are going to witness a fine specimen of impulsiveness and instinctive action,” and indulges in ethnological speculations upon the differences between the Asiatic and the European. Luria and Braccio, indeed, seem very much like abstract propositions defining themselves—egotistical transactions. Now, Hamlet, or Iago, or Falstaff, is as representative of a distinct class, as Luria the Arab, or Braccio the Florentine, but in Shakespeare the generic is so individualized, that the abstraction is forgotten in the man. Luria and Othello, for instance, are both Moors, both credulous, generous, impulsive, unschooled in wile or craft; but while Othello imprints his character on every word and act of his, without thinking of it, Luria is constantly reminding us, “I do so and so, because I am the Moor, the representative of Oriental spontaneity, and am not one of your cold, cunning, artful Europeans.”
But we have not room for further remark upon this play, excellent and beautiful, as in many respects it is. Perhaps, if we should compare it with “Colombe’s Birthday,” or with “A Blot on the ’Scutcheon,” we should say that in this play there are the nobler materials, but in the others, they are the more exquisitely wrought.
Mr. Browning’s other plays are “King Victor and King Charles,” “The Return of the Druses,” and “A Soul’s Tragedy,” works of various excellence, and all mark- [p. 398→] ed with his peculiar intellect. We would gladly specify their merits, but must refer the reader to the volumes themselves, and recommend him, by the way, to suspend his judgment, until he has read them twice. We should, likewise, be glad to speak, somewhat in detail, of his “Dramatic Lyrics,” some of which are written with great power and beauty, and some of which, in their abrupt beginning, and mysterious allusions, and sudden transitions, are as simple as a Chinese puzzle—you have only to find out their meaning in order to understand them. We open at random, and come upon “Christina.”
She should never have looked at me
If she meant I should not love her;
There are plenty—men you call such,
I suppose—she may discover
All her soul to, if she pleases,
And yet leave much as she found them;
But I’m not so, and she knew it,
When she fixed me, glancing round them.
This is the first verse. Our first exclamation is, “Who the devil is Christina.” But there is nothing out of the poem, nor in it, that answers the question very satisfactorily. We are left to guess at the reply to all such suggestions of womanish curiosity. We are next struck by the slovenliness of versification, evidently showing that the poem was a mere impromptu. Indeed, the native freshness of none of these poems has been suffered to evaporate in the tedious processes of revision. But, unfortunately, such meteoric corruscations of poetic frenzy are sometimes a little bewildering to men of cooler imagination, and touchingly recall the injunctions of Horace, in regard to “limae labor et mora, and nonumque prematur in annum. Let Mr. Browning recite some of these lyrics to a crowd of listeners, and he would soon appreciate the beauty, as well as the necessity, of a more Homeric clearness and simplicity; or, let him subject one of his plays to the ordeal of the stage, and we know of nothing that would sooner teach him his defects in dramatic composition. Yet, however much they might be improved by a more finished versification, and a more simple diction, no one can read such productions as his “Garden Fancies,” “The Lost Leader,” “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” and “The Boy and the Angel,” without a high estimate of the range, versatility, and originality of his mind.
And here we take our leave of this delightful author, convinced that he has yet high duties to fulfil for his age. Walter Savage Landor has said of him, excepting Shakspeare:
Since Chaucer was alive and hale,
No man hath walkt along our roads with step
So active, so inquiring eye, and tongue
So varied in discourse;
and these endowments, he feels, were given, not merely to amuse and delight his generation, but also to subserve the higher offices of teacher and thinker. His aim is not merely to combine the actual forms of Nature, and of life, so that they may feed the sense of beauty and of mirth. He has come into a mechanical time, to find men enamoured of a material prosperity, to see wealth exacting the homage due only to goodness, to see the leaders of public opinion pandering to that low estimate of education and morals, which regards merely their pecuniary value, to see marriage, friendship, social intercourse, the judgments of mind, and the convictions of conscience, debased in vile thraldom by the despotism of gold; and while he reflects, in the mirror of poetry, all these, and the more lovely and holy characteristics of the age, he is not to forget to pour upon them a luminous effluence from his own spirit, which shall disabuse grosser minds of their false perception, by showing the sad effects of such worldliness upon the undying nature of the soul. He is sent, not merely to create a new world of Fancy, but, likewise, to re-create this old world in a higher spirit, as, indeed, the mission of genius is always rather one of regeneration, than of creation. Forgotten truths, old conceptions of duty, old ideals of excellence, are to be revivified under the new aspects of present life. If men, in reliance upon the inventions of human reason, grow regardless of heavenly grace, he is to restore them to humble trust, not only by showing how illusory is that confidence, but, also, by showing how infallibly men grow into a likeness to that in which they confide. If men have set their hearts upon worldly gains, and honors, and delights, he is to open upon them the vision of unseen principles and ideal truth. If they are [p. 399→] dwarfing their minds by a vain admiration of the miracles of their own medianism, he must point to the consummate glories which go forth with the night, and the ineffable beneficence which returns with the rising sun. If, in their superiority of railroad and telegraphic communication, they exult over antiquity, he must sing to them of a time, when the angels of heaven bore messages of light and love between God and his creatures. If affection is absorbed in intellect, and intellect is made the drudge of the senses, he must lead the mind back through the heart into the wisdom of love and the beauty of holiness. It is in the discharge of these high functions of poet and teacher, that Mr. Browning manifests his highest excellence, surpassing, we had almost said, with the exception of Wordsworth, every poet of his time.
Reviewed:
Poems (RB), Boston: Ticknor, Reed, & Fields, 1850.
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