“Subtlest assertor of the soul in song.”
Mr. Domett suddenly disappeared from London life in the manner described in the poem. He shook off, by an overpowering impulse, the restraints of conventional life, and without a word to his dearest friends, vanished into the unknown. As the story is told in the poem, we see a man with large ideas, ambitious, full of great thoughts, inspired by a passion for great things, a man born to rule, and fretting against the restraints of the petty conventionalities of civilised life. Those about him cannot understand, and if they did could in no wise help him; he chafes and longs to break his bonds and live the freer life in which his energies can expand. The poem tells of the cold and unsympathetic criticism he received amongst his friends; and now that he has disappeared, the poet’s spirit yearns for his society once more. He wonders where he has pitched his tent, and in fancy runs through the world to seek him. He has been heard of in a ghostly sort of way. A vision of him has been narrated by one who for a few moments caught sight of him and lost him again in the setting sun. The poet reflects that the stars which set here, rise in some distant heaven. The following obituary notice of Alfred Domett, by Dr. Furnivall, appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette of November 9th, 1887. It has had the advantage of being revised and corrected in a few small details by Mr. F. Young, “Waring’s” cousin. See also an article in Temple Bar, Feb., 1896, p. 253, entitled “A Queen’s Messenger.”
“What’s Become of Waring?”—In Memoriam. (By a Member of the Browning Society.) “What’s become of Waring?” is the first line of one of Mr. Browning’s poems of 1842 (Bells and Pomegranates, Part II.), which, from its dealing with his life in London in early manhood, is a great favourite with his readers. Alas! the handsome and brilliant hero of the Browning set in the thirties died last Wednesday, at the house in St. Charles’s Square, North Kensington, where he had for many years lived near his artist son. Alfred Domett was the son of one of Nelson’s middies, a gallant seaman. He was called to the bar, and lived in the Temple with his friend ‘Joe Arnold,’ a man of great ability, afterwards Sir Joseph, Chief Justice of Bombay, who ultimately settled at Naples, where he died. Having an independency, Alfred Domett lingered in London society for a time,—one of the handsomest and most attractive men there,—till he was induced to emigrate to New Zealand, to join his cousin, William Young, the son of the London shipowner, George Frederick Young, who had bought a large tract of land in the islands. Alfred Domett landed to find his cousin drowned. He was himself soon after appointed to a magistracy with £700 a year. He had a successful career in New Zealand,—where Mr. Browning alludes to him in The Guardian Angel—became Premier, married a handsome English lady, and then returned to England. He first lived at Phillimore Place or Terrace, Kensington, and while there saw a good deal of his old friend Mr. Browning; but after he moved to St. Charles’s Square, the former companions seldom met. On the foundation of the Browning Society, Alfred Domett declined any post of honour, but became an interested member of the body. His grand white head was to be seen at all the Society’s performances and at several of its meetings. He naturally preferred Mr. Browning’s early works to the later ones. He could not be persuaded to write any account of his early London days, but said he would try to find the letters in which his friend ‘Joe Arnold’ reported to him in New Zealand the doings of their London set. Mr. Domett produced with pride his sea-stained copy of Browning’s Bells and Pomegranates, now worth twenty or thirty times its original price. Before he left England, his poem on Venice was printed in Blackwood, and very highly praised by Christopher North. (The reprint is in the British Museum.) His longer and chief poem, Ranolf and Amohia (1872), full of New Zealand scenery, and paying a warm tribute to Mr. Browning, was reprinted by him in two volumes, revised and enlarged, some four or five years ago. A lucky accident to a leg, which permanently lamed him, soon after his arrival in New Zealand, saved his life; for it prevented his accepting the invitation of some treacherous native chiefs to a banquet at which all the English guests were killed. A sterling, manly, independent nature was Alfred Domett’s. He impressed every one with whom he came in contact, and is deeply regretted by his remaining friends. We hope that Mr. Browning will in his next volume give a few lines to the memory of his early friend. Not many of the old set remain, possibly not one save the poet himself; and all his readers will rejoice to hear again of Waring, “Alfred, dear friend.” The Guardian Angel question—
“Where are you, dear old friend?”
needs other answer now than that of 1855—
“How rolls the Wairoa at your world’s far end?
This is Ancona, yonder is the sea.”
Notes.—Canto iv., “Monstr’—inform’—ingens—horren-dous”: from Vergil’s Æn. iii. 657—“Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademtum”: a horrid monster, misshapen, huge, from whom sight had been taken away. vi., Vishnu-land: India, where Vishnu is worshipped; the second person of the modern Hindu Trinity. He is regarded as a member of the Triad whose special function is to preserve. To do this he has nine times in succession become incarnate, and will do so once more. Avatar: the incarnation of a deity. The ten incarnations of Vishnu are—1. Matsya-Avatar, as a fish; 2. Kurm-Avatar, as a tortoise; 3. Varaha, as a boar; 4. Nara-Sing, as a man-lion, last animal stage; 5. Vamuna, as a dwarf, first step toward the human form; 6. Parasu-Rama, as a hero, but yet an imperfect man; 7. Rama-Chandra, as the hero of Ramayána, physically a perfect man, his next of kin, friend and ally Hamouma, the monkey-god, the monkey endowed with speech; 8. Christna-Avatar, the son of the virgin Devanaguy, one formed by God; 9. Gautama-Buddha, Siddhârtha, or Sakya-muni; 10. This avatar has not yet occurred. It is expected in the future; when Vishnu appears for the last time he will come as a “saviour.” (Blavatzky, Isis Unveiled, vol. ii., p. 274.) Kremlin, the citadel of Moscow, Russia. serpentine: a rock, often of a dull green colour, mantled and mottled with red and purple. syenite: a stone named from Syene, in Egypt, where it was first found. “Dian’s fame”: Diana was worshipped by the inhabitants of Taurica Chersonesus. Taurica Chersonesus is now the country called the Crimea. Hellenic speech == Greek. Scythian strands: Taurica is joined by an isthmus to Scythia, and is bounded by the Bosphorus, the Euxine Sea, and the Palus Mæotis. Caldara Polidore da Caravaggio (1495-1543): he was a celebrated painter of frieze, etc., at the Vatican. Raphael discovered his talents when he was a mere mortar carrier to the other artists. The “Andromeda” picture, of which Browning speaks in Pauline, was an engraving from a work of this artist. “The heart of Hamlet’s Mystery”: few characters in literature have been more discussed than that of Hamlet. Schlegel thought he exhausted the power of action by calculating consideration. Goethe thought he possessed a noble nature without the strength of nerve which forms a hero. Many say he was mad, others that he was the founder of the pessimistic school. Junius: the mystery of the authorship of the famous letters of Junius is referred to. Chatterton, Thomas (1752-70): the boy poet who deceived the credulous scholars of his day by pretending that he had discovered some ancient poems in the parish chest of Redcliffe Church, Bristol. Rowley, Thomas: the hypothetical priest of Bristol, said by Chatterton to have lived in the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV., and to have written the poems of which Chatterton himself was the author. ii. 2, Triest: the principal seaport of the Austro-Hungarian empire, situated very picturesquely at the north-east angle of the Adriatic Sea, in the Gulf of Trieste. lateen sail: a triangular sail commonly used in the Mediterranean. “’long-shore thieves”: “along-shore men” are the low fellows who hang about quays and docks, generally of bad character.
“When I vexed you and you chid me.” (Ferishtah’s Fancies.) The first line of the seventh lyric.
Which? (Asolando, 1889.) Three court ladies make
“Trial of all who judged best
In esteeming the love of a man.”