The Browning Cyclopædia: A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning

“Oh Love! Love!” The lyric of Euripides in his Hippolytus (B.C. 428). Translated in J. P. Mahaffy’s “Euripides,” in Macmillan’s Classical Writers. After quoting Euripides’ two stanzas, Mr. Mahaffy says (p. 115): – “Mr. Browning has honoured me (Dec. 18th, 1878), with the following translation of these stanzas, so that the general reader may not miss the meaning or the spirit of the ode. The English metre, though not a strict reproduction, gives an excellent idea of the original one”: —

I

 
“Oh Love! Love, thou that from the eyes diffusest
Yearning, and on the soul sweet grace inducest —
Souls against whom thy hostile march is made —
Never to me be manifest in ire,
Nor, out of time and tune, my peace invade!
Since neither from the fire —
No, nor the stars – is launched a bolt more mighty
Than that of Aphrodité
Hurled from the hands of Love, the boy with Zeus for sire.
 

II

 
“Idly, how idly, by the Alpherian river,
And in the Pythian shrines of Phœbus, quiver
Blood-offering from the bull, which Hellas heaps:
While Love we worship not – the Lord of men!
Worship not him, the very key who keeps
Of Aphrodité when
She closes up her dearest chamber-portals:
Love, when he comes to mortals,
Wide-wasting, through those deeps of woes beyond the deep!”
 

Og. See note to Jochanan Hakkadosh in the Sonnets on the Talmudic legend of the giant Og’s bones and bedstead. Jewish scholars say the Hebrew work quoted has no existence, and that Mr. Browning’s stock of Hebrew was very small.¹³

Ogniben. (A Soul’s Tragedy.) He was the astute Pope’s legate who went to Faenza to suppress the insurrection. He smoothed matters by getting Chiappino to leave the city, and he then complacently went away, saying he had known “four-and-twenty leaders of revolt.”

Old Gandolf. (The Bishop orders his Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church.) The Bishop’s predecessor in his see, and the man whose tomb he desires to outdo.

Old Pictures in Florence. (Men and Women, 1855; Lyrics, 1863; Dramatic Lyrics, 1868.) On a warm March morning the poet from a height looks down upon Florence, gleaming in the translucent air, with all the glory of the beautiful city lying on the mountain side; and of all he saw the startling bell-tower of Giotto was the best to see. But he reproaches Giotto because he has played him false. This was unkind, as he loved him so. And this reflection, in its turn, leads him to think upon Giotto’s brother artists. He recalls the ancient masters, and sees them haunting the churches and cloisters where their work was done, and lamenting the decay and neglect of their frescoes. In particular, he reflects on the wronged great soul of a painter whose work is peeling from the walls, – “a lion who dies of an ass’s kick.” The world wrongs its forgotten great souls, and hums round its famous Michael Angelos and its Raphaels; but perhaps they do not regard it, safe in heaven seeing God face to face, and all, as Browning hopes, attained to be poets. He thinks they can hardly be “quit of a world where their work is all to do,” where the little wits have no ability to understand the relationship of artist to artist, and how one whom the world is pleased to honour derives in direct line from another who is forgotten. Not a word is heard now of men who in their day were as famous as the rest – Stefano, for example, —

 
“Called Nature’s Ape and the world’s despair
For his peerless painting.”
 

He then reflects on the development of the artist Greek art reuttered the truth of man, and Soul and Limbs, each betokened by the other, were made new in marble. Our weakness is tested by the strength, our meagre charms by the beauty of the matchless forms of Greek sculpture. This taught us the perfection of the body, but the artists one day awoke to the beauty and perfection of Soul, and then they worked for eternity, as the Greeks for time. This Greek art was perfect; these bodies could be no more beautiful. Consequently, so far there was arrest of development; they could never change, being whole and complete. Having learned all they have to teach, we shall see their work abolished. But in painting Souls, the artificer’s hand can never be arrested, for soul develops eternally, and things learned on earth are practised in heaven. This is illustrated by the case of Giotto. At a stroke he drew a perfect ⵔ. This could be done no better: it was perfect, complete, not to be surpassed. But Giotto planned a bell-tower, wonderful for beauty, but not even yet completed. The conception outran the power to bring to perfection. Round O’s can be completed; campaniles are still to finish. And so the Greeks finished their bodies. The early masters who began by depicting souls have their work still to finish. Their work is not completed – can, in fact, never be finished – because the soul is infinite. No doubt, he says, the early painters had to meet the objection, “What more can you want than Greek art?” They answered, “To paint man – to make his new hopes shine through his flesh.” New fears glorify his rags. To bring the invisible full into daylight, what matters if the visible go to the dogs? How much they dared, these early masters! The first of this new development, however imperfect, beats the best of the old. Then he reflects that there is a fancy which some lean to (it is an Eastern fancy, now popularised by the Theosophists), that when this life is over we shall begin a fresh succession of lives – lives wherein we shall repeat in large what here we practise in little; and so through an infinite series of lives on a scale that is to be changed. But this is not at all to the poet’s mind. He thinks he has learned his lesson here. He has seen

 
“By the means of evil that good is best,”
 

and considers that the uses of labour may consequently be garnered. He hopes there is rest; he has had troubles enough. And now he turns away from abstract conceptions on this deep problem to concrete matters – to the actual men who have carved and painted the forms he loves; and he brings up the memories of Nicolo the Pisan sculptor, and of the painter Cimabue, and goes on to speak of Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo. Alas! their ghosts are watching their peeling frescoes, their blistered or whitewashed works. He recalls the names of many a draughtsman and craftsman whose works are left to stealers and dealers. Suddenly the poet remembers the grudge he has against Giotto. There was a precious little picture, which Michael Angelo eyed like a lover, which was lost, but which has just turned up; and Browning wanted it, he thinks that he ought to have been prompted by the spirit of Giotto to go to the right quarter for it, and now it is sold – to whom? – he cannot discover. But he shall have it yet, his jewel! Then he expresses his hope that Italy may soon see the last of the hated Austrian; and then what will not the new Italian republic accomplish for man and art. The Bell-tower of Giotto shall soar up to its proper stature,

 
“Completing Florence, as Florence Italy.”
 

He wonders if he will be alive the morning the scaffold is taken down, and the golden hope of the world springs from its sleep.

Notes. – Verse 8, Da Vinci: Leonardo Da Vinci, born 1452, died 1519, artist, sculptor, architect, musician, and man of letters; in addition to these he was a scientist and explorer. 9, Dello, the Florentine painter, born towards the end of the fourteenth century, registered under the name of Dello di Niccolo Delli. He was a sculptor as well as a painter, and was employed by the king of Spain: Stefano: a celebrated Italian painter of Florence (1301? -1350?); his naturalism earned him the title of “Scimia della Natura” (Ape of Nature). Vasari says, “He not only surpassed all those who preceded him in the art, but left even his master, Giotto himself, far behind. Thus he was considered, and with justice, to be the best of all the painters who had appeared down to that time.” He excelled in perspective and foreshortening; Nature’s Ape: Christofano Landino, in the Apology preceding his commentary on Dante, says, “Stefano is called ‘The Ape of Nature’ by every one, so accurately does he express whatever he designs to represent”; Vasari, Georgio, the author of the Lives of the Painters; Theseus, one of the statues of the Parthenon of Athens, now in the British Museum. 13, Son of Priam == Paris; Apollo, the snake-slayer, the Belvedere as described in the Iliad; Niobe, chief figure of the celebrated group of statues “Niobe all tears for her children,” in the Uffizi gallery at Florence; the Racer’s frieze of the Parthenon; dying Alexander, a fine piece of ancient Greek sculpture at Florence. 17, Giotto and the “ⵔ”: Pope Benedict XI. sent a messenger to Giotto to bring him a proof of the painter’s power. Giotto refused to give him any further example of his talents than a ⵔ, drawn with a free sweep of the brush from the elbow. The Pope was satisfied, and engaged Giotto at a great salary to adorn the palace at Avignon (Professor Colvin); Campanile, the bell-tower by the side of the Duomo at Florence. This is greatly praised by Ruskin, who says: “The characteristics of power and beauty occur more or less in different buildings, some in one and some in another. But altogether, and all in their highest possible relative degrees, they exist, as far as I know, only in one building of the world – the Campanile of Giotto.” 23, Nicolo the Pisan: born between 1205 and 1207, died 1278; a sculptor and architect; Cimabue, Giotto’s teacher (1240-1302), the great art reformer; Ghiberti, Lorenzo (1381-1455): he executed the wonderful bronze gates of the Baptistery at Florence, which were said by Michael Angelo to be worthy to have been the gates of Paradise; Ghirlandajo, Domenico, Florentine painter (1449-98), was the son of Tommaso del Ghirlandajo. 26, Bigordi: this is stated by some to have been the family name of Ghirlandajo, but it is disputed; Sandro Botticelli, born at Florence in 1457, died 1515; a celebrated Florentine painter; “the wronged Lippino,” or Filippo Lippi, known as Filippino or Lippino (1460-1505), a Florentine painter, son of Fra Lippo Lippi. Some of his pictures were attributed to other artists, hence the expression “wronged”; Frà Angelico (1387-1455) – Il Beato Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole – was the great Dominican Friar-Painter of Florence, the greatest of all painters of sacred subjects. He was a most holy man, shunning all advancement, and devoted to the poor. He never painted without fervent prayer; Taddeo Gaddi: an Italian painter and architect of the Florentine school (1300-1366), son of Gaddo Gaddi; he was one of Giotto’s assistants for twenty-four years; when Giotto died he carried on the work of the Campanile; intonaco, rough cast, plaster, paint; Jerome, St. Jerome, the translator of the Scriptures into Latin; Lorenzo Monaco, Don Lorenzo, painter and monk, of the Angeli of Florence. First noticed as a painter, 1410. He executed many works in the Camaldoline monastery of his order. He was highly esteemed for his goodness. Verse 27, Pollajolo, Antonio (1433-98), a great painter and sculptor of Florence. He began life, as many of the great Italian artists did, as a goldsmith; tempera, a mixture of water and the yoke of eggs – used to give body to colours: the same as distemper; Alesso Baldovinetti, a Florentine painter (1422-99): he worked in fresco and mosaic. 28, Margheritone of Arezzo, painter, sculptor, and architect (1236-1313); held in high estimation by painters who worked in the Greek manner. He was the first in painting on wood to cover the surface with canvas; barret, a cloak. 29, Zeno, the founder of the sect of the Stoics; Carlino, a painter. 30, “a certain precious little tablet,” a lost picture which turned up while Mr. Browning was in Florence; Buonarroti == Michael Angelo. 31, San Spirito == “Holy Spirit,” a church in Florence, so named; Ognissanti == “All Saints’,” name of a church of Florence; “Detur amanti,” let it be given to the lover; “Jewel of Giamschid”: Byron calls it “the jewel of Giamschid,” Beckford “the carbuncle of Giamschid” (see Brewer’s Reader’s Handbook); Persian Sofi, the name of a dynasty (1499-1736). 32, “worst side of Mont St. Gothard,” the Swiss side; Radetzky, Count, field-marshal Austria (1766-1858), and famous in the wars against the insurrections against Austria by the Lombardians; Morello, a mountain near Florence; 33, Witanagemot, the great national council, the assent of which was necessary for all the laws of the Anglo-Saxon kings; so in Mrs. Browning’s poem she refers to “a parliament of lovers of Italy”; Ex: “Casa Guidi”: Mrs. Browning’s noble poem on Italian liberty; “quod videas ante,” the which see above; Loraine’s, i. e., the Guises of unrivalled eminence in the sixteenth century; Orgagna (1315-76), a painter of Florence. 34, prologuize, to introduce with a formal preface; Chimæra, a fabulous animal. 35, “curt Tuscan”: Tuscan is the literary language of Italy, therefore more dignified and freer from colloquialisms and vulgarisms than more modern forms; -issimo, termination of the superlative degree; Cambuscan, king of Sarra, in Tartary, the model of all royal virtues (see Brewer’s Handbook); “alt to altissimo,” high to the highest; beccaccia, a woodcock; “Duomo’s fit ally”: Giotto’s lovely Bell-tower is a fit companion to the cathedral; braccia, a cubit.

“O Lyric Love, half-angel and half-bird.” The first line of the invocation to the spirit of Mrs. Browning in Book I. of The Ring and the Book. Some stupid readers have thought this poem an invocation to our Lord, catching at the words “to drop down, to toil for man, to suffer, or to die.” They thought they detected some familiar words heard in church; and one incompetent critic went so far as to write, “Though Lyric Love is here a quality personified, it seems to be so interchangeably with Christ… This is the interpretation we attach to the lines, though we have heard that some interpreters have actually considered them to be addressed to his wife!” (The Religion of our Literature, by George McCrie, p. 87.) There is really no difficulty about the lines until we come to parse them. Dr. Furnivall has done this in his grammatical analysis of the poem (Browning Society’s Papers, No. IX., p. 165). An old lady who had read and profited by Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was advised to read Dr. Cheever’s Lectures in explanation of the allegory; asked how she liked the latter work, she said she understood the Pilgrim’s Progress, and hoped, before she died, to understand Dr. Cheever’s interpretation. I think I understand ‘O Lyric Love’: I can never hope to understand Dr. Furnivall’s analysis. It was called, at the time he wrote it, “Furnivall’s Jubilee Puzzle.”

“Once I saw a Chemist take a Pinch of Powder” (Ferishtah’s Fancies). The first line of the eighth lyric.

One Way Of Love. (Men and Women, 1855; Lyrics, 1863; Dramatic Lyrics, 1868.) A song of unrequited love. The lover has strewn the month’s wealth of June roses on his lady’s path: she passes them without notice. For months he has striven to learn the lute: she will not listen to his music. His whole life long he has learned to love, and he has lost. Let roses lie, let music’s wing be folded: he will but say how blest are they who win her. A noble, dignified way of accepting defeat in love! Another Way of Love is a sequel to this poem. In this case the roses of June are actually tiresome to the man to whom they are offered. The woman in the first poem did not notice her roses, the man in the sequel confesses himself weary of their charms. His lady is satirical at his expense, and severely says he may go, and she will be recompensed if June mend the bower which his hand has rifled. June may also bestow her favours on a more appreciative recipient. She may also revenge herself by the lightning she uses to clear away insects and other rose-bower spoilers.

Note. – Verse 2, Eadem semper, always the same.

One Word More. (To E. B. B. [Elizabeth Barrett Browning], 1855.) This poem was originally appended to the collection of poems called Men and Women (q. v.) Browning’s Men and Women, containing amongst other noble poems his Epistle to Karshish, Cleon, Fra Lippo Lippi, and Andrea del Sarto, were fifty in number, and the concluding poem, One Word More, formed the dedication to his wife. The volume was in one sense a return for her Sonnets from the Portuguese, in which she poured out her love to Mr. Browning. In this poem he not less warmly declares his love for his wife, his “moon of poets.” The dedication is happy, because his interest in men and women had been quickened and deepened by his marriage. They had studied human nature together, and each poetic soul had reacted upon the other. He explains why he has desired to give something of his best, some gift which is not a gift to the world but to the woman he loves; and as the meanest of God’s creatures —

 
“Boasts two soul-sides: one to face the world with
One to show a woman when he loves her!”
 

The poor workman, the most unskilful artisan, will strive to do something which shall express his utmost effort, to present to his love, and the greatest geniuses of the world have been actuated by a similar motive. Raphael, not content with painting, must pour out his soul in poetry for the woman of his heart (did she love the volume of a hundred sonnets all her life?), and Mr. Browning says he and his poet-wife would rather read that volume than wonder at the Madonnas by which his name will be ever known. But that volume will never be read. Guido Reni treasured it, but, as treasures do disappear, it vanished. Dante once proposed to paint for Beatrice an angel – traced it perchance with the corroded pen with which he pricked the stigma in the brow of the wicked – “Dante, who loved well because he hated”: hating only wickedness, and that because it hinders loving. Mr. Browning would rather study that angel than read a fresh Inferno, but that picture we shall never see. No artist lives and loves who desires not for once and for one to express himself in a language natural to him and the occasion, but which to others is but an art; and so the painter will forgo his painting and write a poem, the writer will try to paint a picture “once and for one only” —

 
“So to be the man and leave the artist.”
 

Why is this? When a man comes before the world as leader, teacher, prophet, artist or poet, in any capacity which is his proper business, he is open to the unsympathetic criticism of a world which is ever exacting and always ungrateful in exact proportion to the magnitude of the work done for it. Under these circumstances the real self in the man seldom appears; when, however, he presents himself before the sympathetic soul of the woman who loves him, he no longer works for the critic, no longer acts a part, no longer appears in a character distasteful to himself. When Moses smote the rock and saved the Israelites, he had mocking and sneering for his reward: the ungrateful and unbelieving multitude behaved after their manner. Could Moses forget the ancient wrong he bore about him? Dare the man ever put off the prophet? But were there in all that crowd a woman’s face – a woman he could love – he would for her sake lay down the wonder-working rod, for he would be as the camel giving up its store of water with its life. But the poet says he shall never paint pictures, carve statues, nor express himself in music: for his wife he stands on his power of verse alone, and so he bids her take the lines of this love poem, which he has written for her, as the artist in fresco will steal a hair-pencil and cramp his spirit into missal painting for his lady, and the musician who sounds the martial strain will breathe his love through silver to serenade his princess; so he – the Browning men knew for other work – may this once whisper a love song to the ear of his wife. He will speak to her not dramatically, as he spoke in the poems in his book, but in his own true person. She knows him under both aspects, as the moon of Florence is the same which shines in London, though she has put off her Italian glory, and hurries dispiritedly through the gloomy skies of England. Could the moon really love a mortal, she has a side she could turn towards him, unseen as yet by herdsman or astronomer on his turret. Dumb to Homer, to Keats even, she would speak to him. And so the poet has for his love

 
“A side the world has never seen,”
 

the novel

 
“Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of.”
 

Notes. – Verse 2, Century of Sonnets. I can find no evidence that Raphael wrote a hundred sonnets. Some three, or at most four, are all about which I can find anything. Michael Angelo wrote many impassioned sonnets, and was undoubtedly a fine poet; but if Raphael wrote many sonnets, they are, as Mr. Browning says, lost. Probably the whole story is an example of poetical licence. There is a very mediocre sonnet (as Mr. Samuel Waddington describes it in the notes to his Sonnets of Europe) by Raphael, which he has inscribed on one of his drawings now exhibited at the British Museum: —

SONNET

By Raphael

 
“Un pensier dolce erimembrare e godo
Di quello assalto, ma più gravo el danno
Del partir, ch’io restai como quei c’anno
In mar perso la stella, s’el ver odo.
Or lingua di parlar disogli el nodo
A dir di questo inusitato inganno
Ch’ amor mi fece per mio grave afanno,
Ma lui più ne ringratio, e lei ne lodo.
L’ora sesta era, che l’ocaso un sole
Aveva fatto, e l’altro sur se in locho
Ati più da far fati, che parole.
Ma io restai pur vinto al mio gran focho
Che mi tormenta, che dove lon sole
Desiar di parlar, più riman fiocho.”
 

“There are also two other sonnets,” says Mr. Waddington, “attributed to Raphael, but they can hardly be considered worthy of his illustrious name.” Raphael’s “lady of the sonnets” was Margherita (La Fornarina), the baker’s daughter, of whom Raphael was devotedly fond, and whose likeness appears in several of his most celebrated pictures. “Else he only used to draw Madonnas:” Mrs. Jameson, in her Legends of the Madonna, gives the following list of Raphael’s famous Madonnas: del Baldacchino, delle Candelabre, del Cardellino, della Famiglia Alva, di Foligno, de Giglio, del Passeggio, dell’ Pesce, della Seggiola, di San Sisto. Verse 3, “Her San Sisto names”: the Madonna di S. Sisto is the glory of the Dresden gallery. Little is known of its history; no studies or sketches of it exist. It much resembles the Madonna di Foligno, but is less injured by restoration. “Her, Foligno”: the Madonna di Foligno was dedicated by Sigismund Corti, of Foligno, private secretary to Pope Julius II., and a distinguished patron of learning. Sigismund, having been in danger, vowed an offering to Our Lady, to whom he attributed his escape. The picture is in the Vatican. It was painted in 1511. “Her that visits Florence in a Vision”: Mr. Browning, in a letter to Mr. W. J. Rolfe, said: “The Madonna at Florence is that called del Granduca, which represents her ‘as appearing to a votary in a vision’ – so say the describers; it is in the earlier manner, and very beautiful.” It is in the Pitti Palace, Florence. Painted about 1506. “Her that’s left with lilies in the Louvre” (Paris): on this Mr. Browning explained that, “I think I meant La Belle Jardinière– but am not sure – from the picture in the Louvre.” This is a group of three figures: the Mother and Child and St. John. Painted in 1508. Verse 4, “That volume Guido Reni … guarded”: this does not appear to have been a book of Sonnets, as Browning says, but a volume with a hundred designs drawn by Raphael. Reni left this book to his heir Signorini. Verse 5, “Dante once prepared to paint an angel”: Dante was master of all the science of his time. He was a skilful draughtsman, and tells us that on the anniversary of the death of Beatrice he drew an angel on a tablet. He was an intimate friend of Giotto, who has recorded that it was from him he drew the inspiration of the allegories of Virtue and Vice for the frescoes of the Scrovegni Palace at Padua. He was also a musician. Verse 7, Bice is Beatrice, Dante’s “gentle love.” Verse 9, “Egypt’s flesh-pots” (Exod. xvi. 3). Verse 10, “Sinai-forehead’s cloven brilliance” (Exod. xxxiv. 29, 30). Verse 11, Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses (Exod. iii. 1); “Æthiopian bond-slave” (Numb. xii. 1). Verse 14, “Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the Fifty”: there is a distinct caution here to those who seek for Browning’s real opinions on religion and the various subjects with which he deals, that he is speaking dramatically in these poems, and not “in his true person.” Verse 15, Samminiato == San Miniato, a well-known church in Florence. Verse 16, “Zoroaster on his terrace”: the celebrated founder of the doctrine of the Persian Magi. Very little is known about him personally, but his religion is well understood. Ancient historians say he lived five thousand years before the Trojan War. His scriptures are the Zend Avesta. He studied at night the aspect of the heavens. “Galileo on his turret”: Galileo, as an astronomer, required an observatory. Keats: Browning was much influenced by “the human rhythm” of Keats. There is abundant trace of this in Pauline, and in the second of the Paracelsus songs, “Heap cassia, sandal-buds, etc.” “Moonstruck mortal”: see Keats’ poem Endymion, the fable of Endymion’s amours with Diana, or the Moon. The fable probably originated from Endymion’s study of astronomy requiring him to pass the night on a high mountain, to observe the heavenly bodies. “Paved work of a sapphire” (Exod. xxiv. 10). Mr. W. M. Rossetti explains some of the allusions in this poem in the Academy for January 10th, 1891: – “I understand the allusions, but Browning is far from accurate in them. 1. Towards the end of the Vita Nuova, Dante says that, on the first anniversary of the death of Beatrice, he began drawing an angel, but was interrupted by certain people of distinction, who entered on a visit. Browning is therefore wrong in intimating that the angel was painted ‘to please Beatrice.’ 2. Then Browning says that the pen with which Dante drew the angel was perhaps corroded by the hot ink in which it had previously been dipped for the purpose of denouncing a certain wretch —i. e., one of the persons named in his Inferno. This about the ink, as such, is Browning’s own figure of speech not got out of Dante. 3. Then Browning speaks of Dante’s having ‘his left hand i’ the hair o’ the wicked,’ etc. This refers to Inferno, Canto 32, where Dante meets (among the traitors to their country) a certain Bocca degli Abati, a notorious Florentine traitor, dead some years back, and Dante clutches and tears at Bocca’s hair to compel him to name himself, which Bocca would much rather not do. 4. Next Browning speaks of this Bocca as being a ‘live man.’ Here Browning confounds two separate incidents. Bocca is not only damned, but also dead; but further on (Canto 33) Dante meets another man, a traitor against his familiar friend. This traitor is Frate Alberigo, one of the Manfredi family of Faenza. This Frate Alberigo was, though damned, not, in fact, dead; he was still alive, and Dante makes it out that traitors of this sort are liable to have their souls sent to hell before the death of their bodies. A certain Bianca d’Oria, Genoese, is in like case – damned but not dead. 5. Browning proceeds to speak of ‘the wretch going festering through Florence.’ This is a relapse into his mistake – the confounding of the dead Florentine Bocca degli Abati with the living (though damned) Faentine and Genoese traitors, Frate Alberigo and Bianca d’Oria, who had nothing to do with Florence.”

On the Poet, Objective and Subjective; on the latter’s Aim; on Shelley as Man and Poet. By Robert Browning. (The introductory essay to Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Moxon: 1852.) Dr. Furnivall says: “The cause of Browning’s writing this essay was (I believe) as follows: – In or before 1851, a forger clever enough to take in the publishers wrote some ‘letters of Shelley and Byron.’ Moxon bought the forged Shelley letters, and John Murray the Byron ones. Before they were proved spurious, Moxon printed the Shelley letters, and got Browning to write an introductory essay to them. Murray was slower, and, by the discovery of the forgery, was saved the exposure and annoyance that Moxon incurred in publishing, and then having to suppress, his book. The spurious Shelley letters were, as might have been expected, nugatory, barren of any new revelations of Shelley’s character. Browning could actually make nothing of them, and therefore wrote his Essay, not on the Letters, but on the two classes of poets, objective and subjective, and on Shelley. He wanted a chance of writing on the poet he admired; the Letters gave him the chance; and, being told that they were genuine, he accepted them as such without inquiry. Moreover, being in Paris at the time, he had no opportunity of consulting English experts, had even any suspicion of forgery crossed his mind. The worth of his Essay is no way weakened by its having been set before spurious letters.” A brief extract from Mr. Browning’s Essay will indicate his estimate of the poetic method which he selected as his own. Speaking of the subjective poet, he says: “He, gifted like the objective poet with the fuller perception of nature and man, is impelled to embody the thing he perceives, not so much with reference to the many below, as to the One above him, the supreme Intelligence which apprehends all things in their absolute truth – an ultimate view ever aspired to, if but partially attained by the poet’s own soul. Not what man sees, but what God sees – the Ideas of Plato, seeds of creation lying burningly in the Divine Hand – it is toward these that he struggles. Not with the combination of humanity in action, but with the primal elements of humanity he has to do; and he digs where he stands – preferring to seek them in his own soul as the nearest reflex of that absolute Mind, according to the intuitions of which he desires to perceive and speak. Such a poet does not deal habitually with the picturesque groupings and tempestuous tossings of the forest-trees, but with their roots and fibres naked to the chalk and stone. He does not paint pictures and hang them on the walls, but rather carries them on the retina of his own eyes: we must look deep into his human eyes to see those pictures on them. He is rather a seer, accordingly, than a fashioner; and what he produces will be less a work than an effluence. That effluence cannot be easily considered in abstraction from his personality, – being indeed the very radiance and aroma of his personality, projected from it but not separated.” In these words we have not only Mr. Browning’s defence of his work (if any could be needed), but an explanation of the reason why he seems as much interested in dissecting the soul of a villain or a scamp as of a saint and hero. Count Guido in his complex wickedness, brooding in his prison cell, is more interesting to such an analyst than Pompilia fluttering her wings on the borders of heaven. The old roué in the Inn Album, has root fibres worth tracing till they grip the stones. Simple old Rabbi Ben Ezra has nothing to dissect; his innocent soul lies basking in the smile of God. He has nothing to do with him but sit at his feet and listen. This “Essay on Shelley” has been reprinted and published in Part I. of the Browning Society’s Papers.