II
That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;
Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows.
If you loved only what were worth your love,
Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you:
Make the low nature better by your throes!
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!
Two of the longer poems have distinctly English settings: "A Blot in the Scutcheon" and "The Inn Album;" while, of the shorter ones, "Ned Bratts" has an English theme, and "Halbert and Hob" though not founded upon an English story has been given an English mis en scène by Browning.
In the "Blot," we get a glimpse of Eighteenth Century aristocratic England. The estate over which Lord Tresham presided was one of those typical country kingdoms, which have for centuries been so conspicuous a feature of English life, and which through the assemblies of the great, often gathered within their walls, wielded potent influences upon political life. The play opens with the talk of a group of retainers, such as formed the household of these lordly establishments. It was not a rare thing for the servants of the great to be admitted into intimacy with the family, as was the case with Gerard. They were often people of a superior grade, hardly to be classed with servants in the sense unfortunately given to that word to-day.
Besides the house and the park which figure in the play, such an estate had many acres of land devoted to agriculture—some of it, called the demesne, which was[222] cultivated for the benefit of the owner, and some land held in villeinage which the unfree tenants, called villeins, were allowed to till for themselves. All this land might be in one large tract, or the demesne might be separate from the other. Mertoun speaks of their demesnes touching each other. Over the villeins presided the Bailiff, who kept strict watch to see that they performed their work punctually. His duties were numerous, for he directed the ploughing, sowing and reaping, gave out the seed, watched the harvest, gathered and looked after the stock and horses. A church, a mill and an inn were often included in such an estate.
An English Manor House
Pride in their ancient lineage was, of course, common to noble families, though probably few of them could boast as Tresham did that there was no blot in their escutcheon. Some writers have even declared that most of the nobles are descended from tradesmen. According to one of these "The great bulk of our peerage is comparatively modern, so far as the titles go; but it is not the less noble that it has been recruited to so large an extent from the ranks of honorable industry. In olden times, the wealth and commerce of London, conducted as it was by energetic and enterprising men was a prolific source of peerages.[223] Thus, the earldom of Cornwallis was founded by Thomas Cornwallis, the Cheapside merchant; that of Essex by William Capel, the draper; and that of Craven by William Craven, the merchant tailor. The modern Earl of Warwick is not descended from 'the King-maker,' but from William Greville, the woolstapler; whilst the modern Dukes of Northumberland find their head, not in the Percies, but in Hugh Smithson, a respectable London apothecary. The founders of the families of Dartmouth, Radnor, Ducie, and Pomfret were respectively a skinner, a silk manufacturer, a merchant tailor, and a Calais merchant; whilst the founders of the peerages of Tankerville, Dormer, and Coventry were mercers. The ancestors of Earl Romney, and Lord Dudley and Ward, were goldsmiths and jewelers; and Lord Dacres was a banker in the reign of Charles I., as Lord Overstone is in that of Queen Victoria. Edward Osborne, the founder of the dukedom of Leeds, was apprentice to William Hewet, a rich cloth worker on London Bridge, whose only daughter he courageously rescued from drowning, by leaping into the Thames after her, and eventually married. Among other peerages founded by trade are those of Fitzwilliam, Leigh, Petre, Cowper, Darnley, Hill, and Carrington."
[224] Perhaps the imaginary house of Tresham may be said to find its closest counterpart in the Sidney family, for many generations owners of Penshurst, and with a traditional character according to which the men were all brave and the women were all pure. Sir Philip Sidney was himself the type of all the virtues of the family, while his father's care for his proper bringing up was not unlike Tresham's for Mildred. In the words of a recent writer: "The most famous scion of this Kentish house was above all things, the moral and intellectual product of Penshurst Place. In the park may still be seen an avenue of trees, under which the father, in his afternoon walks with the boy, tested his recollection of the morning's lessons conned with the tutor. There, too, it was that he impressed on the lad those maxims for the conduct of life, afterwards emphasized in the correspondence still extant among the Penshurst archives.
"Philip was to begin every day with lifting up his mind to the Almighty in hearty prayer, as well as feelingly digesting all he prayed for. He was also, early or late, to be obedient to others, so that in due time others might obey him. The secret of all success lay in a moderate diet with rare use of wine. A gloomy[225] brow was, however, to be avoided. Rather should the youth give himself to be merry, so as not to degenerate from his father. Above all things should he keep his wit from biting words, or indeed from too much talk of any kind. Had not nature ramparted up the tongue with teeth and the lips with hair as reins and bridles against the tongue's loose use. Heeding this, he must be sure to tell no untruth even in trifles; for that was a naughty custom, nor could there be a greater reproach to a gentleman than to be accounted a liar. Noblesse oblige formed the keynote of the oral and written precepts with which the future Sir Philip Sidney was paternally supplied. By his mother, too, Lady Mary Dudley, the boy must remember himself to be of noble blood. Let him beware, therefore, through sloth and vice, of being accounted a blemish on his race."
Furthermore, the brotherly and sisterly relations of Tresham and Mildred are not unlike those of Sir Philip Sidney and his sister Mary. They studied and worked together in great sympathy, broken into only by the tragic fate of Sir Philip. Although the education of women in those days was chiefly domestic, with a smattering of accomplishments, yet there were exceptional girls who aspired to[226] learning and who became brilliant women. Mildred under her brother's tutelage bid fare to be one of this sort.
The ideals of the Sidneys, it is true, were sixteenth-century ideals. Eighteenth-century ideals were proverbially low. England, then, had not recovered from the frivolities inaugurated after the Restoration. The slackness and unbelief among the clergy, and the looseness of morals in society were notorious, but this degeneration could not have been universal. There are always a few Noahs and their families left to repeople the world with righteousness after a deluge of degeneracy, and Browning is quite right in his portrayal of an eighteenth-century knight sans peur et sans reproche who defends the honor of his house with his sword, because of his high moral ideals. Besides, the Methodist revival led by the Wesleys gained constantly in power. It affected not only the people of the middle and lower classes, rescuing them from brutality of mind and manners, but it affected the established church for the better, and made its mark upon the upper classes. "Religion, long despised and contemned by the titled and the great" writes Withrow, "began to receive recognition and support by men high in the councils of the nation. Many ladies of[227] high rank became devout Christians. A new element of restraint, compelling at least some outward respect for the decencies of life and observances of religion, was felt at court, where too long corruption and back-stair influence had sway."
Like all of his kind, no matter what the century, Tresham is more than delighted at the thought of an alliance between his house and the noble house to which Mertoun belonged. The youth of Mildred was no obstacle, for marriages were frequently contracted in those days between young boys and girls. The writer's English grand-father and mother were married at the respective ages of sixteen and fifteen within the boundaries of the nineteenth century.
The first two scenes of the play present episodes thoroughly illustrative of the life lived by the "quality."