The large charity, the liberal human sympathy, the keen critical acumen of this essay, make one wish that the author had spared us a "Sludge the Medium" or a "Pacchiarotto", or even a "Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau", and given us more of such honourable work in "the other harmony".
Glad as the Brownings were to be home again at Casa Guidi, they could not enjoy the midsummer heats of Florence, and so went to the Baths of Lucca. It was a delight for them to ramble among the chestnut-woods of the high Tuscan forests, and to go among the grape-vines where the sunburnt vintagers were busy. Once Browning paid a visit to that remote hill-stream and waterfall, high up in a precipitous glen, where, more than three-score years earlier, Shelley had been wont to amuse himself by sitting naked on a rock in the sunlight, reading `Herodotus' while he cooled, and then plunging into the deep pool beneath him — to emerge, further up stream, and then climb through the spray of the waterfall till he was like a glittering human wraith in the middle of a dissolving rainbow.
Those Tuscan forests, that high crown of Lucca, must always have special associations for lovers of poetry. Here Shelley lived, rapt in his beautiful dreams, and translated the `Symposium' so that his wife might share something of his delight in Plato. Here, ten years later, Heine sneered, and laughed and wept, and sneered again — drank tea with "la belle Irlandaise", flirted with Francesca "la ballerina", and wrote alternately with a feathered quill from the breast of a nightingale and with a lancet steeped in aquafortis: and here, a quarter of a century afterward, Robert and Elizabeth Browning also laughed and wept and "joyed i' the sun," dreamed many dreams, and touched chords of beauty whose vibration has become incorporated with the larger rhythm of all that is high and enduring in our literature.
On returning to Florence (Browning with the MS. of the greater part of his splendid fragmentary tragedy, "In a Balcony", composed mainly while walking alone through the forest glades), Mrs. Browning found that the chill breath of the `tramontana' was affecting her lungs, so a move was made to Rome, for the passing of the winter (1853-4). In the spring their little boy, their beloved "Pen",* became ill with malaria. This delayed their return to Florence till well on in the summer. During this stay in Rome Mrs. Browning rapidly proceeded with "Aurora Leigh", and Browning wrote several of his "Men and Women", including the exquisite `Love among the Ruins', with its novel metrical music; `Fra Lippo Lippi', where the painter, already immortalised by Landor, has his third warrant of perpetuity; the `Epistle of Karshish' (in part); `Memorabilia' (composed on the Campagna); `Saul', a portion of which had been written and published ten years previously, that noble and lofty utterance, with its trumpet-like note of the regnant spirit; the concluding part of "In a Balcony"; and `Holy Cross Day' — besides, probably, one or two others. In the late spring (April 27th) also, he wrote the short dactylic lyric, `Ben Karshook's Wisdom'. This little poem was given to a friend for appearance in one of the then popular `Keepsakes' — literally given, for Browning never contributed to magazines. The very few exceptions to this rule were the result of a kindliness stronger than scruple: as when (1844), at request of Lord Houghton (then Mr. Monckton Milnes), he sent `Tokay', the `Flower's Name', and `Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis', to "help in making up some magazine numbers for poor Hood, then at the point of death from hemorrhage of the lungs, occasioned by the enlargement of the heart, which had been brought on by the wearing excitement of ceaseless and excessive literary toil." As `Ben Karshook's Wisdom', though it has been reprinted in several quarters, will not be found in any volume of Browning's works, and was omitted from "Men and Women" by accident, and from further collections by forgetfulness, it may be fitly quoted here. Karshook, it may be added, is the Hebraic word for a thistle.
I.
"`Would a man 'scape the rod?' —
Rabbi Ben Karshook saith,
`See that he turns to God
The day before his death.'
`Ay, could a man inquire
When it shall come!' I say.
The Rabbi's eye shoots fire —
`Then let him turn to-day!'
II.
Quoth a young Sadducee, —
`Reader of many rolls,
Is it so certain we
Have, as they tell us, souls?' —
`Son, there is no reply!'
The Rabbi bit his beard:
`Certain, a soul have I ——
WE may have none,' he sneer'd.