Bombast. The proper name of Paracelsus; “probably acquired,” says Mr. Browning in a note to Paracelsus, “from the characteristic phraseology of his lectures, that unlucky signification which it has ever since retained.” This is not correct. Bombast, in German bombast, cognate with Latin bombyx in the sense of cotton. “Bombast, the cotton-plant growing in Asia” (Phillips, The New World of Words). It was applied also to the cotton wadding with which garments were lined and stuffed in Elizabeth’s time; hence inflated speech, fustian. (See Stubbes, The Anatomy of Abuses, p. 23; Trench, Encyc. Dict., etc.)
Boot and Saddle. No. III. of the “Cavalier Songs,” published in Bells and Pomegranates in 1842, under the title “Cavalier Tunes.”
Bottinius. (The Ring and the Book.) Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius was the Fisc or Public Prosecutor and Advocate of the Apostolic Chamber at Rome. The ninth book of the poem contains his speech as prosecutor of Count Guido.
Boy and the Angel, The. (Hood’s Magazine, vol. ii., 1844, pp. 140-42.) Reprinted, revised, and with five fresh couplets, in “Dramatic Romances and Lyrics” (1845), No. VII. Bells and Pomegranates. Theocrite was a poor Italian boy who, morning, evening, noon and night, ever sang “Praise God!” As he prayed well and loved God, so he worked well and served his master faithfully and cheerfully. Blaise, the monk, heard him sing his Laudate, and said: “I doubt not thou art heard, my son, as well as if thou wert the Pope, praising God from Peter’s dome this Easter day”; but Theocrite said: “Would God I might praise Him that great way and die!” That night there was no more Theocrite, and God missed the boy’s innocent praise. Gabriel the archangel came to the earth, took Theocrite’s humble place, and praised God as did the boy, only with angelic song,—playing well, moreover, the craftsman’s part, content at his poor work, doing God’s will on earth as he had done it in heaven. But God said: “There is neither doubt nor fear in this praise; it is perfect as the song of my new-born worlds; I miss my little human praise.” Then the flesh disguise fell from the angel, and his wings sprang forth again. He flew to Rome: it was Easter Day, and the new pope Theocrite, once the poor work-lad, stood in the tiring room by the great gallery from which the popes are wont to bless the people on Easter morning, and he saw the angel before him, who told him he had made a mistake in bringing him from his trade to set him in that high place; he had done wrong, too, in leaving his angel-sphere: the stopping of that infant praise marred creation’s chorus; he must go back, and once more that early way praise God—“back to the cell and poor employ”; and so Theocrite grew to old age at his former home, and Rome had a new pope, and the angel’s error was rectified. Legends and stories of saints, angels, and our Lord Himself, are common in all Catholic countries, where these heavenly beings are far more real to the minds of the people than they are to the colder intelligence of Protestant and more logical lands. In southern Europe, hosts of such stories as these cluster round our Lady and the Saints. The Holy Virgin does not disdain to take her needle and sew buttons on the clothing of her worshippers, and the angels and saints think nothing of a little domestic or trade employment if it will assist their devout clients.
In Notes and Queries, 3rd Series, xii. 6, July 6, 1867, there appeared two queries on this poem by “John Addis, Jun.”: “1. What is the precise inner meaning? 2. On what legend is it founded? With regard to my first question, I see dimly in the poem a comparison of three kinds of praise—viz., human, ceremonial, and angelic. Further, I see dimly a contrasting of Gabriel’s humility with Theocrite’s ambition.... The poem ... has been recalled to me by reading ‘Kyng Roberd of Cysillé’ (Hazlitt’s Early Popular Poetry, vol. i., p. 264). There is a general analogy (by contrast perhaps rather than likeness) between the two poems, which points, I think, to the existence of a legend kindred to ‘Kyng Roberd’ as the prototype of Browning’s poem, rather than to ‘Kyng Roberd’ itself as that prototype.... To ‘Sir Gowghter’ and the Jovinianus story of Gesta Romanorum, I have not present access; but both I fancy (while akin to ‘Kyng Roberd of Cysillé’) have nothing in common with ‘The Boy and the Angel.’” At page 55 another correspondent says that according to Warton (ii. 22), “‘Sir Gowghter’ is only another version of ‘Robert the Devil,’ and therefore of ‘King Roberd of Cysillé.’ He goes on to say that Longfellow has closely followed the old poem in ‘King Robert of Sicily’ printed in Tales of a Wayside Inn; but no answer is given to Mr. Addis’ queries about ‘The Boy and the Angel’” (Browning Notes and Queries, No. 13, Pt. I., vol. ii.) Leigh Hunt, in his Jar of Honey, chap. vi., gives the story of King Robert of Sicily. We can only include the following abbreviation here of the beautiful legend told so delightfully by the great essayist.
One day, when King Robert of Sicily was hearing vespers on St. John’s Eve, he was struck by the words of the Magnificat—“Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles” (“He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble”). He asked a chaplain near him what the words meant; and when they were explained to him, scoffingly replied that men like himself were not so easily put down, much less supplanted by those contemptible poor folk. The chaplain was horrified, and made no reply, and the king relieved his annoyance by going to sleep. After some time the king awoke and found himself in the church with no creature present except an old deaf woman who was dusting it. When the old lady saw the man who was trying to make her hear, she cried “Thieves!” and scuttled off to the door, closing it behind her. King Robert looked at the door, then at the empty church, then at himself. His ermine robe was gone, his coronet, his jewels, all the insignia of his royalty had disappeared. Raging at the door, he demanded that it should be opened; but they only mocked him through the keyhole and threatened him with the constable; but as the sexton mocked the captive king the great door was burst open in his face, for the king was a powerful man and had dashed it down with his foot. He strode towards his palace, but they would not admit him, and to all his raving replied “Madman!” Then the king caught sight of his face in a glass, which he tore from the hands of one of his captains who was admiring himself, and saw that he was changed: it was not his own face. Fear came upon him: he knew it was witchcraft, and his violence was increased when the bystanders laughed to hear him declare he was his majesty changed. Next the attendants came from the palace to say the king wanted to see the madman they had caught; and so he was taken to the presence chamber, where he found himself face to face with another King Robert, whom the changed king called “hideous impostor,” which made the court laugh consumedly, because the king on the throne was very handsome, and the man who fell asleep in the church was very coarse and vulgar. And now the latter could see that it was an angel who had taken his place, and hated him accordingly. He was still more disgusted when the king told him he would make him his court fool, because he was so amusing in his violence; and he had to submit while they cut his hair and crowned the king of fools with the cap and bells. King Robert then gave way, for he felt he was in the power of the devil and it was no use to resist; and so went out to sup with the dogs, as he was ordered. Matters went on in this way for two years. The new king was good and kind to everybody except the degraded monarch, whom he never tired of humiliating in every possible way. At the end of two years the king went to visit his brother the Pope and his brother the Emperor, and he dressed all his court magnificently, except the fool, whom he arrayed in fox-tails and placed beside an ape. The crowds of people who came out to see the grand procession laughed heartily at the sorry figure cut by the poor fool. He, however, was glad he was going to see the Pope, as he trusted the meeting would dispel the magic by which he was enchained; but he was disappointed, for neither Pope nor Emperor took the slightest notice of him. Now, it happened that day it was again St. John’s Eve, and again they were all at vespers singing: “He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and exalted the humble.” And now with what different feelings he heard those words! The crowded church was astonished to see the poor fool in his ridiculous disguise bathed in tears, meekly kneeling in prayer, his head bowed in penitence and sorrow. Somehow every one felt a little holier that day: Pope and Emperor wished to be kinder and more sympathetic to their people, and the sermon went to every one’s heart, for it was all about charity and humility. After service they told the angel-king of the singular behaviour of the fool. Of course he knew all about it, though he did not say so; but he sent for the fool, and, when he had him in private (except that the ape was there, to whom the fool had become much attached), he asked him, “Art thou still a king?” “I am a fool, and no king.” “What wouldst thou, Robert?” asked the angel gently. “What thou wouldst,” replied poor King Robert. Then the angel touched him, and he felt an inexpressible calm diffuse itself through his whole being. He knelt, and began to thank the angel. “Not to me,” the heavenly being said—“not to me! Let us pray.” They knelt in prayer; and when the King rose from his knees the angel was gone, the ermine was once more on the King’s shoulder and the crown upon his brow; his humiliation was over, but his pride never returned. He lived long and reigned nobly, and died in the odour of sanctity. Mr. Browning may have drawn upon some Italian legend for his story of Theocrite: it may even have been suggested by the legend of King Robert; but he must have been so familiar with the Catholic idea of the interest in human affairs taken by angels and saints, that he might readily have invented the story. Nothing can be easier to understand than its lesson. With God there is no great or small, no lofty or mean, nothing common or unclean. To do the will of God in the work lying nearest us, to praise God in our daily task and the common things of life as they arise, this is better for us and more acceptable service to Him than doing some great thing, as we, with our false estimates of things, may be led to apprise it.
By the Fireside. (First published in vol. i. of Men and Women, 1855.) A man of middle life and very learned is addressing his wife. He looks forward to his old age, and prophesies how it will be passed. He will pursue his studies; but, deep as he will be in Greek, his soul will have no difficulty in finding its way back to youth and Italy, and he will delight to reconstruct the scene in his imagination where he first made all his own the heart of the woman who blessed him with her love and became his wife. Once more he will be found on that mountain path, again he will conjure from the past the Alpine scene by the ruined chapel in the gorge, the poor little building where on feast days the priest comes to minister to the few folk who live on the mountain-side. The bit of fresco over the porch, the date of its erection, the bird which sings there, and the stray sheep which drinks at the pond, the very midges dancing over the water, and the lichens clinging to the walls,—all will be present, for it was there heart was fused with heart, and two souls were blent in one. “With whom else,” he asks his wife, “dare he look backward or dare pursue the path grey heads abhor?” Old age is dreaded by the young and middle-aged, none care to think of it; but the speaker dreads it not, he has a soul-companion from whom not even death can separate him, and with the memory of this moment of irrevocable union he can face the bounds of life undaunted. “The moment one and infinite,” to which both their lives had tended, had wrought this happiness for him that it could never cease to bear fruit, never cease to hallow and bless his spirit; the mountain stream had sought the lake below, and had lost itself in its bosom; two lives were joined in one without a scar. “How the world is made for each of us!” everything tending to a moment’s product, with its infinite consequences—the completion, in this case, of his own small life, whereby Nature won her best from him in fitting him to love his wife. The
“great brow
And the spirit small hand propping it,”
refer to Mrs. Browning, and the whole poem, though the incidents are imaginary, is without doubt a confession of his love for her, and its influence on his own spiritual development.