Browning and His Century

by Helen A. Clarke

One feels a little like asking why did not Browning let his enthusiasm carry him for once into a contemporary expression of admiration for Sir Robert Peel? Perhaps the tortuous windings of parliamentary proceedings obscured to a near view the true greatness of Peel’s action.

The year of this great change in England’s policy was the year of Robert Browning’s marriage and his departure for Italy, where he lived for fifteen years. During this time and for some years after his return to England there is no sign that he was taking any interest in the political affairs of his country. Human character under romantic conditions in a social environment, or the thought problems of the age, as we have already seen, occupied his attention, and for the subject matter of these he more often than not went far afield from his native country.

In “Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau” is the poet’s first deliberate portrayal of a person of contemporary prominence in the political world. The alliance of Napoleon III with England brought his policy of government into strong contrast with that of the liberal leaders in English politics, a contrast which had been emphasized through Lord Palmerston’s sympathy with the coup d’état.

The news of the manner in which Louis Napoleon had carried out his policy of smashing the French constitution caused horror and consternation in England, and the Queen at once gave instructions that nothing should be done by her ambassador in Paris which could be in any way construed as an interference in the internal affairs of France. Already, however, Lord Palmerston had expressed to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs his entire approbation in the act of Napoleon and his conviction that he could not have acted otherwise than as he had done. When this was known, the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, wrote Palmerston a letter, causing his resignation, which was accepted very willingly by the Queen. The letter was as follows:

“While I concur in the foreign policy of which you have been the adviser, and much as I admire the energy and ability with which it has been carried into effect, I cannot but observe that misunderstandings perpetually renewed, violations of prudence and decorum too frequently repeated, have marred the effects which ought to have followed from a sound policy and able admirers. I am, therefore, most reluctantly compelled to come to the conclusion that the conduct of foreign affairs can no longer be left in your hands with advantage to the country.”

When England’s fears that Louis Napoleon would emulate his illustrious predecessor and invade her shores were allayed, her attitude was modified. She forgot the horrors of the coup d’état and formed an alliance with him, and her hospitable island became his refuge in his downfall.

A prominent figure in European politics for many years, Louis Napoleon had just that combination of greatness and mediocrity which would appeal to Browning’s love of a human problem. Furthermore, Napoleon was brought very directly to the poet’s notice through his Italian campaign and Mrs. Browning’s interest in the political crisis in Italy, which found expression in her fine group of Italian patriotic poems.

The question has been asked, “Will the unbiased judgment of posterity allow to Louis Napoleon some extenuating circumstances, or will it pronounce an unqualified condemnation upon the man who, for the sake of consolidating his own power and strengthening his corrupt government, spilled the blood of no less than a hundred thousand Frenchmen?”

When all Europe was putting to itself some such question as this, and answering it with varying degrees of leniency, Browning conceived the idea of making Napoleon speak for himself, and at the same time he added what purports to be the sort of criticism of him indulged in by a Thiers or a Victor Hugo. The interest of the poem centers in Napoleon’s own vindication of himself as portrayed by Browning. What Browning wrote of the poem in a letter to a friend in 1872 explains fully his aim, as well as showing by indirection, at least, how much he was interested in political affairs at this time, though so little of this interest crops out in his poetry: “I think in the main he meant to do what I say, and but for weakness—grown more apparent in his last years than formerly—would have done what I say he did not. I thought badly of him at the beginning of his career, et pour cause; better afterward, on the strength of the promises he made and gave indications of intending to redeem. I think him very weak in the last miserable year. At his worst I prefer him to Thiers’s best.” At another time he wrote: “I am glad you like what the editor of the Edinburgh calls my eulogium on the Second Empire, which it is not, any more than what another wiseacre affirms it to be, ‘a scandalous attack on the old constant friend of England.’ It is just what I imagine the man might, if he pleased, say for himself.”

Browning depicts the man as perfectly conscious of his own limitations. He recognizes that he is not the genius, nor the creator of a new order of things, but that his power lies in his faculty of taking an old ideal and improving upon it. He contends that in following out his special gifts as a conservator he is doing just what God intended him to do, and as to his method of doing it that is his own affair. God gives him the commission and leaves it to his human faculties to carry it out, not inquiring what these are, but simply asking at the end if the commission has been accomplished.