THE CONTINUOUS CHARACTER OF HIS WORK.
The writer of a handbook to Mr. Browning's poetry must contend with exceptional difficulties, growing out of what I have tried to describe as the unity in variety of Mr. Browning's poetic life. This unity of course impresses itself on his works; and in order to give a systematic survey of them, we must treat as a collection of separate facts what is really a living whole; and seek to give the impression of that whole by a process of classification which cuts it up alive. Mr. Browning's work is, to all intents and purposes, one group; and though we may divide and subdivide it for purposes of illustration, the division will be always more or less artificial, and, unless explained away, more or less misleading. We cannot even divide it into periods, for if the first three poems represent the author's intellectual youth, the remainder are one long maturity; while even in these the poetic faculty shows itself full-grown. We cannot trace in it the evidence of successive manners like those of Raphael, or successive moods like those of Shakespeare; or, if we do, this is neutralized by the simple fact that Mr. Browning's productive career has been infinitely longer than was Raphael's, and considerably so than Shakespeare's; and that changes which meant the development of a genius in their case, mean the course of a life in his.
And this is the central fact of the case. Mr. Browning's work is himself. His poetic genius was in advance of his general growth, but it has been subject to no other law. "The Ring and the Book" was written at what may be considered the turning-point of a human life. It was in some degree a turning-point in the author's artistic career: for most of his emotional poems were published before, and most of the argumentative after it; and in this sense his work may be said to divide itself into two. But the division is useless for our purpose. The Browning of the second period is the Browning of the first, only in a more crystallized form. No true boundary line can be drawn even here.
My endeavour will, therefore, be to bring the sense of this real continuity into the divisions which I must impose on Mr. Browning's work; and thus also to infuse something of his life into the meagre statement of contents to which I am forced to reduce it. The few words of explanation by which I preface each group may assist this end. At the same time I shall resist all temptation to "bring out" what I have indicated as Mr. Browning's leading ideas by headings, capitals, italics, or any other artificial device whatever; as in so doing I should destroy his emphasis and hinder the right reading, besides effacing the usually dramatic character, of the individual poems. The impressions I have received from the collective work will, I trust, be confirmed by it.
FOOTNOTES:
I stated in my first edition that Mr. Browning was descended from the "Captain Micaiah Browning" who raised the siege of Derry in 1689 by springing the boom across Lough Foyle, and perished in the act (the incident being related in Macaulay's "History of England," vol. iv., pp. 244 and 245 of the edition of 1858). I am now told that there is no evidence of this lineal descent, though there are circumstances which point to some kind of relationship. Another probable ancestor is Captain —— Browning, who commanded the ship "Holy Ghost," which conveyed Henry V. to France before he fought the battle of Agincourt; and in return for whose services two waves, said to represent waves of the sea, were added to his coat of arms. The same arms were worn by Captain Micaiah Browning, and are so by the present family.
Wiedemann is the second baptismal name of Mr. Browning's son; and, in his infantine mouth, it became (we do not exactly guess how), the "Penini," shortened into "Pen," which some ingenious interpreters have derived from the word "Apennine."
And—we are bound to admit—the singular literary obtuseness of the England of fifty years ago.
A distinguished American philologist, the late George P. Marsh, has declared that he exceeds all other modern English writers in his employment of them.
In "In Memoriam" we have such rhymes as:—
| {now | {curse | {mourn | {good | {light | {report |
| {low | {horse | {turn | {blood | {delight | {port |
In the blank verse of "The Princess," and of "Enoch Arden" such assonances as:—
| {sun | {lost | {whom | {wand |
| {noon | {burst | {seem | {hand |
| {known | {clipt | {word |
| {down | {kept | {wood, etc. |
I take these instances from the works of so acknowledged a master of verse as Mr. Tennyson, rather than from those of a smaller poet who would be no authority on the subject, because they thus serve to show that the poetic ear may have different kinds as well as degrees of sensibility, and must, in every case, be accepted as, to some extent, a law to itself.
"La Saisiaz," for instance, is written in the same measure as "Locksley Hall," fifteen syllables, divided by a pause, into groups of four trochees, and of three and a half—the last syllable forming the rhyme. It is admirably suited to the sustained and incisive manner in which the argument is carried on. "Ixion" in "Jocoseria," is in alternate hexameter and pentameter, which the author also employs here for the only time; it imitates the turning of the wheel on which Ixion is bound. "Pheidippides" is in a measure of Mr. Browning's own, composed of dactyls and spondees, each line ending with a half foot or pause. It gives the impression of firm, continuous, and rhythmic motion, and is generally fitted to convey the exalted sentiment and heroic character of the poem.
In his translation of the "Agamemnon," Mr. Browning has used the double ending continuously, so as to reproduce the extended measure of the Greek iambic trimeter.
As objection has been taken to the opinions conveyed in this paragraph, and Mr. Browning's authority has been even, in a manner, invoked against them, I subjoin by his desire the accompanying note. The question of what is, or is not, a vicious locution is not essential to the purposes of the book; but it is essential that I should not be supposed to have misstated Mr. Browning's views on any point on which I could so easily ascertain them.
"I make use of 'wast' for the second person of the perfect-indicative, and 'wert' for the present-potential, simply to be understood; as I should hardly be if I substituted the latter for the former, and therewith ended my phrase. 'Where wert thou, brother, those three days, had He not raised thee?' means one thing, and 'Where wast thou when He did so?' means another. That there is precedent in plenty for this and many similar locutions ambiguous, or archaic, or vicious, I am well aware, and that, on their authority, I be wrong, the illustrious poet be right, and you, our critic, was and shall continue to be my instructor as to 'every thing that pretty bin.' As regards my objection to the slovenly 'I had' for 'I'd,' instead of the proper 'I would,' I shall not venture to supplement what Landor has magisterially spoken on the subject. An adverb adds to, and does not, by its omission, alter into nonsense the verb it qualifies. 'I would rather speak than be silent, better criticize than learn' are forms structurally regular: what meaning is in 'I had speak, had criticize'? Then, I am blamed for preferring the indicative to what I suppose may be the potential mood in the case of 'need' and 'dare'—just that unlucky couple: by all means go on and say 'He need help, he dare me to fight,' and so pair off with 'He need not beg, he dare not reply,' forms which may be expected to pullulate in this morning's newspaper.
"VENICE, Oct. 25, 1885."
"R. B."