The fashion of this world passed away, but the fashion of those things which belonged to the world of imagination—and it was most emphatically in that world that Mr. Browning had worked—endured and never passed. In 1848 Mr. Browning said in a preface to a collection of his poems that many of them were out of print and of the rest a great number had been withdrawn from circulation, which implied that even at that time the size of his public was very small. But he had fully demonstrated that he stood in no need of a Browning Society to reinforce his native vigor, for, in spite of the indifference of the public, he had constantly gone on, from that time to this, producing and deepening the impression which he had made upon all thinking minds. It had been said that he had no sense of form, but this question depended upon the meaning to be attached to that word. One thing he thought was certain, and that was that men who had discussed form most, as for instance Goethe, had not always been the most successful in producing examples of it. Certainly no one with any sense of form could call “Faust” other than formless. If form meant the use of adequate and harmonious means to produce a certain artistic end, then he knew no one who had given truer examples of it than the great poet after whom that society took its name. He thought there was one danger in a Browning Society, which was that it might lead them to be partisans, and he thought he had seen some symptoms of it. They might be apt to insist upon people admiring the inferior work of the artist with his better work, and this he thought would be an evil. Every one who read Browning with attention, and who loved him, must at the same time admit that he was occasionally whirled away by the sweep and torrent of his own abundance. But after making these deductions, there was no poet who had given us a greater variety or who had shown more originality. Mr. Browning abided with them. He was not a fashion, nor did he belong to any one period of their lives. What they felt more clearly than anything else was his strength. He was of all others a masculine, a virile poet.
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V.
AT THE UNVEILING OF THE GRAY MEMORIAL.
The following address was delivered on the occasion of the unveiling of the bust of the poet Gray in the hall of Pembroke College, Cambridge, May 26, 1885:
I have been asked to say a few words, but they must be very few, as the train is waiting for me that takes me back to keep an engagement. Mr. Gosse has told you he has been present at many memorial unveilings, and the newspapers inform me that I also have been present at the unveiling of perhaps too many. But never have I been present on any occasion with more pleasure than on this. You have now, in the words which Lord Houghton quoted, and which I would extend in a wider sense than he did, a beautiful memorial to Gray in permanent form. We also, thanks to Mr. Gosse, possess a photograph of this memorial in permanent form. But we have in our hearts and memories, I think, a memorial to the man quite as true and quite as permanent—that is, permanent for us. Very few words are fitting on an occasion which commemorates the one of the English poets who has written less and pleased more perhaps than any other. There is a certain appropriateness in my speaking here to-day. I come here to speak simply as the representative of several countrymen and countrywomen of mine who have renewed that affirmation, which I like always to renew, of the unity of our English race by giving something more solid than words in commemoration of the poet they loved. And, I think there is another claim which I perhaps have for speaking here to-day, and that is that the most picturesque anecdote relative to the life of Gray—perhaps the most picturesque related of the life of any poet, certainly of any English poet—belongs to the Western hemisphere; I mean the anecdote which connects the name of Wolfe with that of Gray. Nothing could have been more picturesque than the surroundings of that saying of Wolfe’s—of that English hero—and nothing could have been more momentous than the action and the consequence that followed from it, and which made the United States, which I have lately represented, possible. That, I think, gives me a certain right also to speak here.
I know that sometimes criticisms are made upon Gray. I think I have often heard him called by some of our juniors “commonplace.” Upon my word, I think it a compliment. I think it shows a certain generality of application in what Gray has done, for if there is one thing more than another—I say this to the young men whom I see seated around both sides of the hall—which insures the lead in life, it is the commonplace. I have to measure my poets, my authors, by their lasting power, and I find Gray has a great deal of it. He not only pleases my youth and my age, but he pleases other people’s youth and age; and I cannot help thinking this is a proof that he touches on human nature at a great many periods and at a great many levels, and, perhaps, that is as high a compliment as can be paid to the poet. There is, I admit, a certain commonplaceness of sentiment in his most famous poem, but I think there is also a certain commonplaceness of sentiment in some verses that have been famous for more than 3000 years. I think that when Homer saw somebody smiling through her tears he said, on the whole, a commonplace thing, but it touched our feelings for a great many centuries; and I think that in the “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” Gray has expressed a simple sentiment, and as long as there are young men and middle-aged men, Gray’s poem will continue to be read and loved as in the days when it was written. There is a Spanish proverb which rebukes those people who ask something better than bread. Let those who ask for something better get something better than what Gray produced. For my own part I ask nothing better. He was, perhaps, the greatest artist in words that English literature has possessed. In conclusion, let me say one word for myself. This will probably be the last occasion on which I shall have the opportunity of addressing Englishmen in public; and I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude for the kindness which has surrounded me both in my official and private life, and to say that while I came here as a far-off cousin, I feel you are sending me away as something like a brother.
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VI.
BEFORE THE TOWN COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF WORCESTER.