“The reference to Makistos is from the Agamemnon of Æschylus. The town of Makistos had a watch-tower on a neighbouring eminence, from which the beacon lights flashed the news of the fall of Troy to Greece. Clytemnestra says
Sending a bright blaze from Ide,
Beacon did beacon send,
Pass on—the pine-tree—to Makistos’ watch-place.”
This pine tree, as “the brand flamboyant,” which should replenish the beacon-fire of Makistos, Browning takes as symbolic of fame. The Knowledge and Learning of Gibbon constitute the trunk—
This the trunk, the central solid Knowledge
... rooted yonder at Lausanne [where Gibbon’s History was finished].
But Learning is hardly permitted “its due effulgence,” being “dulled by flake on flake of [the] Wit”—nourished at Ferney (sometime the home of Voltaire). To the Learning of Gibbon, the Wit of Voltaire is added in “the terebinth-tree’s resin,” the “all-explosive Eloquence” of Rousseau and of Diodati:[95] whilst in the heights, above all “deciduous trash,” climbs the evergreen of the ivy, significant of the immortality of Byron’s poetic fame. Having lifted “the coruscating marvel,” the watcher on La Salève would likewise stand as a beacon to those millions who
Have their portion, live their calm or troublous day,
Find significance in fireworks.
That by his help they may
Confidently lay to heart ... this:
“He there with the brand flamboyant, broad o’er night’s forlorn abyss,
Crowned by prose and verse; and wielding, with Wit’s bauble, Learning’s rod ...
Well? Why, he at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God.”
Of these three concluding lines Dr. Berdoe writes: “Many writers have thought that ... the poet referred to himself. Of course, any such idea is preposterous; the reference was to Voltaire. Mr. Browning, apart from the question of the egotism involved, could not say of himself, ‘he at least believed in soul.’ There was no minimizing of religious faith in the poet. Still less could he speak of himself as ‘crowned by prose and verse.’” Whence arises Dr. Berdoe’s misapprehension? Apart from the context the significance might not be obvious; taken in connection with the passage immediately preceding, it is valuable as adding emphasis to the conclusions of the foregoing argument, and proclaiming in unmistakable language the worth to Browning as a personal possession of that creed which he has just declared himself to hold. Reflecting upon the widespread influence of those literary men whose presence has rendered celebrated the region lying before him, he attributes it to the “phosphoric fame” which attended the path of each. “Famed unfortunates” all, yet “the world was witched” and became enslaved by their pessimistic theories of life. Forced to believe because “the famous bard believed!” because the renowned man of letters could say, “Which believe—for I believe it.” Such being the power of fame as an agency for influencing the human mind, what might not the author of La Saisiaz achieve, were he, too, armed with this “brand flamboyant!” No pessimistic creed is his, but that which involving an absolute belief in God and in the soul would thence deduce a confidence in “that power and purpose” existent throughout life, indicated and recognized by the presence and revelations of “hope the arrowy.” So would he gather in one the fame of his predecessors in the literary world; would become as Rousseau, “eloquent, as Byron prime in poet’s power”:
Learned for the nonce as Gibbon, witty as wit’s self Voltaire.