=Summum Bonum.= (_Asolando_, 1889.) A Latin phrase meaning the chief or

ultimate good. "In ethics it was a phrase employed by ancient philosophers

to denote that end in the following and attainment of which the progress,

perfection and happiness of human beings consist. Cicero treated of the

subject very fully in his _De Finibus_." (_Encyc. Dict._) Concentration is

the key-note of the poem: in the honey-bag of one bee there is the breath

and bloom of a year; in a single gem is represented all the chemistry of

nature, from the condensation of the gases which went to form the earth;

in the beauty of a single pearl is all the wonder of the sea, just as in a

lump of coal are the imprisoned sun-rays of prehistoric forests. But truth

and trust are brighter and purer than gems and pearls; in the love of a

young girl Mr. Browning sees the concentration of the brightest truth and

purest trust in the universe, so holy a thing to him is love. The _Summum

Bonum_ of St. Augustine is, of course, the true, ultimate good of man--the

Love of God--of which the love of the purest of mankind is but a dim

reflection.

=Sun, The.= (_Ferishtah's Fancies_, 5.) Some one told one of Ferishtah's

pupils that it had been reported that "God once assumed on earth a human

shape," and he desired to know how the strange idea arose. Ferishtah

replied that in days of ignorance men took the sun for God. "Let it be

considered as the symbol of the Supreme," said the Dervish. "There must be

such an Author of life and light somewhere: let us suppose the sun to be

that Author. This ball of fire gives us all we enjoy on earth, and so

inspires us with love and praise. If we eat a fig we praise the planter;

and so on up to the sun, which gathers to himself all love and praise. The

sun is fire, and more beside. Does the force know that it gives us what it

does? Must our love go forth to fire? If we must thank it, there must be

purpose with the power--a humanity like our own. Power has no need of will

or purpose; and no occasion for beneficence when all that is, so is and so

must be. As these qualities imply imperfection, let us 'eject the man,

retain the orb,' and then 'what remains to love and praise?' We cannot be

expected to thank insentient things. No! man's soul can only be moved by

what is kindred soul: man's way it receives good; man's way it must make

acknowledgment. If man were an angel, his love and praise, right and fit

enough now, would go forth idly. Man's part is to send love forth, even if

it go astray." "But," says the objector, "man is bound by man's

conditions, can only judge as good and right what his faculty adjudges

such: how can we then accept in this one case falsehood for truth? We lack

an union of fire with flesh; but lacking is not gaining: is there any

trace of such an union recorded?" Ferishtah replies, "Perhaps there may

be; perhaps the greatly yearned-for once befell; perhaps the sun was flesh

once." The pupil demands "An union inconceivable once was fact?" The

Dervish replies, "There is something pervading the sun which it does not

consume: is it not fitter to stand appalled before a conception

unattainable by man's intelligence?" Firdausí, in the Sháh Námeh, records

that Húsheng was the first who brought out fire from stone; and from that

circumstance he founded the religion of the fire-worshippers, calling the

flame which was produced the light of the Divinity. Húsheng was the second

king of the Peshadian dynasty; from his time the fire faith seems to have

slept till the appearance of Zerdusht, in the reign of Gushtasp, many

centuries afterwards, when Isfendiyár propagated it by the sword. After

Húsheng had discovered fire by hurling a stone against a rock, thereby

producing a spark, which set light to the herbage, he made an immense

fire, and gave a royal entertainment, calling it the Feast of Siddeh. The

lyric explains that the divine element of fire is enshrined in the earthly

flint when the spark escapes; the relationship is difficult to remember.

So God was once incarnate in the form of man; and this some find it as

hard to believe.

=Tab.= (_Ned Bratts._) Tabitha Bratts, who was converted by John Bunyan,

and who went with her husband to the Chief Justice at the assizes, asking

to be hanged, and whose request was favourably entertained.

=Tale, A.= The Epilogue to the _Two Poets of Croisic_ is included in the

second series of _Selections_ under this title.

=Taurello Salinguerra.= (_Sordello._) His name, says Mr. W. M. Rossetti,

may be translated as "Bullock Sally-in-war," or "Dash-into-fight." He

belonged to the family of the Torelli, one of the two leading families of

Ferrara. He married Sofia, a daughter of Eccelin the Monk, and he became

the ruler of his native city. He was the right-hand man of Eccelin, and

also of his son. The great authority on this character is Muratori

(_Annali d' Italia, compilati da Lodovico Antonio Muratori_). Mr. W. M.

Rossetti read a paper to the Browning Society in November 1889 on

"Taurello Salinguerra," and I am indebted to this valuable essay for the

following dates and particulars concerning this interesting character. He

was born about the year 1160. In 1200, when he was head of the Ghibelline

faction in Ferrara, he suddenly assailed the town of Argenta with the

Ferrarese army, and having taken it, sacked it. In 1205 the head of the

Guelf faction, both in Ferrara and the March of Verona, was Azzo VI.,

Marquis of Este. Naturally they quarrelled, and Azzo took the castle of La

Fratta from Salinguerra and dismantled it. This was the beginning of the

many dissensions between them. In 1207 Azzo VI. was compelled by Eccelino

da Onara and others to retire from Verona. Then it was that Salinguerra,

head of the Ghibellines in Ferrara, declaring himself the intimate friend

of Eccelino, expelled from that city all the adherents of Marquis Azzo;

and, leaving no room for him, began to act as Lord of Ferrara. In 1208

Marquis Azzo VI. re-established himself in Verona. Reaching Ferrara with

an army, he expelled Salinguerra. In 1209 Salinguerra re-entered Ferrara,

stripped Azzo VI. of Este of its dominion, and sent his partisans into

exile. In 1210, the Emperor Otho IV. professing that the March of Ancona

belonged to the empire, Azzo obtained the investiture of it from the

Emperor. Probably at this time peace was re-established between Azzo VI.

and Salinguerra, the competitors for the lordship of Ferrara. In 1213

Aldrovandino, Marquis of Este and Ancona, succeeded his father Azzo VI.

and continued to hold, along with Count Richard of San Bonifazio, the

dominion of Verona, where he was created Podestà in this year. He had

contests with Salinguerra in Ferrara. In 1215 Aldrovandino, Marquis of

Este, died, and was succeeded by Azzo VII., a minor. In 1221 Azzo VII. and

his adherents assailed Salinguerra at Ferrara, and forced him to abandon

the city, and consigned the palace of Salinguerra to the flames. After

mediation, the expelled men returned to their homes. In 1222 the

Ghibelline cause prevailed at Ferrara: Azzo and the Guelfs had to leave

the city. He collected an army at Rovigo, and returned to Ferrara.

Salinguerra, a crafty fox, made peace, for fear the people should turn

against him. The peace was only a trap, however, by which to catch Azzo.

In 1224 Azzo VII. returned to lay siege to Ferrara. The astute Salinguerra

sent embassies to Count Richard of San Bonifazio, to induce him, with a

number of horsemen, to enter Ferrara under pretext of concluding a

friendly pact. But on entering he was at once made prisoner, with all his

company; and therefore the Marquis of Este, disappointed, retired from the

siege. Enraged at this result, Marquis Azzo proceeded to the siege of the

castle of La Fratta, a favourite stronghold of Salinguerra, and starved it

into submission. Salinguerra complained of this to Eccelino da Romana,

his brother-in-law, and they both studied more assiduously than ever how

best to crush the Guelfs, of which the Marquis of Este was chief. In 1225

the Lombard League procured the release of Count Richard, who returned to

Verona; but he was expelled, when he took refuge in Mantua. He ultimately

returned to Verona. In 1227 Eccelino the younger was established in

Verona, and Count Richard again expelled. In 1228 Eccelino da Onara,

father of Eccelino da Romana and of Alberic, had become a monk, and led

the life of a hypocrite, finally showing himself to be a Paterine heretic.

In 1230 Verona was in trouble: the Ghibellines raised a riot and

imprisoned Count Richard; Salinguerra was made Podestà. In 1240 Pope

Gregory IX. incited the Lombards and the Marquis of Este to besiege

Ferrara. The Doge of Venice attended in person; the Mantuans concurred, as

also did Alberico da Romana. After some months peace was proposed, and

Salinguerra came to the camp of the confederates to ratify them.

Salinguerra was entrapped, and was transferred as a prisoner to Venice;

where, treated courteously, he ended his days in holy peace; and the House

of Este, after so many years, re-entered Ferrara.

=Templars.= The poem _The Heretic's Tragedy_ deals with the suppression of

the order of the Knights Templars.

=Theocrite.= (_The Boy and the Angel._) The boy who wishes to praise God

"the Pope's great way," and who leaves his common task, and is replaced by

the angel Gabriel. As neither boy nor angel please God in their changed

positions, each returns to his appropriate sphere.

="The Poets pour us wine."= (Epilogue to _Pacchiarotto_.) These words are

the beginning of the Epilogue named, and are quoted from a poem of Mr.

Browning's entitled _Wine of Cyprus_, the last verse but one, the last

line of which is "And the poets poured us wine."

="There's a Woman like a Dewdrop."= (_A Blot in the 'Scutcheon._) The song

in Act I., Scene iii., begins with this line. It is sung by Earl Mertoun

as he climbs to Mildred Tresham's chamber.

="The Year's at the Spring."= (_Pippa Passes._) The song which Pippa sings

as she passes the house of Ottima, and thereby brings conviction to her

lover Sebald.

=Thorold, Earl Tresham.= (_A Blot in the 'Scutcheon._) The brother of

Mildred Tresham, who challenges Mertoun, her lover, on his way to a stolen

interview with his sister, and kills him, thinking he has disgraced the

family.

=Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kader.= (1842.) The Metidja is an extensive

plain near the coast of Algeria, "commencing on the eastern side of the

Bay of Algiers, and stretching thence inland to the south and west. It is

about sixty miles in length by ten or twelve in breadth" (_Encyc. Brit._).

Algiers was conquered by the French in 1830; but, after the conquest,

constant outbreaks of hostilities on the part of the natives occurred, and

in 1831 General Bertherene was despatched to chastise the rebels. Later in

the same year General Savary was sent with an additional force of 16,000

men for the same purpose. He attempted to suppress the outbreaks of

hostilities with the greatest cruelty and treachery. These acts so

exasperated the people against their new ruler that such tribes as had

acquiesced in the new order of things now armed themselves against the

French. It was at this time that the world first heard of Abd-el-Kader. He

was born in 1807, and was a learned and pious man, greatly distinguished

amongst his people for his skill in horsemanship and athletic sports. He

now rapidly collected an army of ten thousand men, marched to Oran and

attacked the French, who had taken possession of the town; but was

repulsed with great loss. He was so popular with his people that he had

little difficulty in recruiting his forces, and he made himself so

dangerous to the French that they found it expedient to offer him terms of

peace, and he was recognised as emir of the province of Mascara. The peace

did not last long, and hostilities broke out, leading to a defeat of the

French in 1835. Constant troubles were caused the French by the opposition

of Abd-el-Kader, and reinforcements on a large scale were sent against him

from France. After varying fortunes, Abd-el-Kader was at last reduced to

extremities, and was compelled to hide in the mountains with a few

followers; at length he gave himself up to the French, and was imprisoned

at Pau, and afterwards at Amboise. He afterwards obtained permission to

remove to Constantinople, and from thence to remove to Damascus. The poem

describes an incident of the war which took place in 1842, when the Duke

d'Aumale fell upon the emir's camp and took several thousand prisoners,

Abd-el-Kader escaping with difficulty.

="Thus the Mayne glideth."= (_Paracelsus._) The song which Festus sings to

Paracelsus in the closing scene in his cell in the Hospital of St.

Sebastian.

=Tiburzio.= (_Luria._) The general of the army of the Pisans, who exposes

to Luria the treachery of the Florentines, and whose letter the Moor

destroys without reading it.

=Time's Revenges.= A SOLILOQUY. (_Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_, in _Bells

and Pomegranates_, VII., 1845; _Romances_, 1863; _Dramatic Romances_,

1868.) "Love begets love," they say: probably this is not much truer than

proverbs usually are. The speaker in the poem has a friend who would do

anything in the world for him; in return, he barely likes him. As a

compensation, inasmuch as "human love is not the growth of human will,"

the lady to whom the soliloquiser is passionately devoted, the woman for

whom he is prepared to sacrifice body, soul, everything he holds dear,

cares nothing at all for him; she would roast him before a slow fire for a

coveted ball-ticket. And why not? if love be what the poet says it is--the

merging by affinity of one soul in another--where no affinity exists no

union can result. Lovers should study the elements of chemistry, and the

laws which govern the affinities of the elementary bodies; or, if they are

not inclined to so serious a task, let them take to heart the Spanish

proverb, "Love one that does not love you, answer one that does not call

you, and you will run a fruitless race."

=Toccata of Galuppi's, A.= (_Men and Women_, 1855.) Baldassare Galuppi

(1706-85) was a celebrated Italian composer, who was born in 1706 near

Venice. His father was a barber with a taste for music, and he taught his

son sufficient of the elements of music to enable him to enter the

Conservatorio degli Incurabile, where Lotti was a teacher. He produced an

opera at the age of sixteen, but it was a failure; seven years after,

however, he produced a comic opera _Dorinda_, which was a great success.

The young composer's great abilities were now everywhere recognised, and

his fame assured. He was a most industrious writer, and left no less than

seventy operas; which, however, have not survived to our time. Galuppi

resided and worked in London from 1741 to 1744. He went to Russia, where

he lived at the court of the Empress Catherine II. (at whose invitation he

went) in great honour, and did much for the improvement of musical taste

in that country. In 1768 he left Russia, and became organist of St.

Mark's, Venice. He died in 1785, and left fifty thousand lire to the poor

of that city. His best comic opera is his _Il Mondo della Luna_. _A

Toccata_ is a "_Touch_-piece," a prelude or overture. "It does but _touch_

its theme rapidly, even superficially, for the most part; so that the

interpolation of solemn chords and emotional phrases, inconsistent with

its traditional character, may naturally, by force of contrast, lead to

some suggestion or recognition of the many irregularities of life" (Mrs.

Alexander Ireland). In the admirable paper on this poem written by Mrs.

Alexander Ireland for the Browning Society, she continues: "_A Toccata of

Galuppi's_ touches on deep subjects with a mere feather-touch of light and

capricious suggestiveness, interwoven with the graver mood, with the

heart-searching questionings of man's deep nature and mysterious spirit.

The _Toccata_ as a form of composition is not the measured, deliberate

working-out of some central musical thought, as is the _Sonata_ or

_sound_-piece, where the trained ear can follow out the whole process to

its delightful and orderly consummation, where the student marks the

introduction and development of the subject, its extension, through

various forms, and its whole sequence of movement and meaning, to its

glorious rounding-off and culmination, spiritually noting each stage of

the climbing structure and acknowledging its perfection with the inward

silent verdict, 'It is well.' The _Toccata_, in its early and pure form,

possessed no decided subject, made such by repetition, but bore rather the

form of a capricious Improvisation or "Impromptu." It was a very flowing

movement, in notes of equal length, and a homophonous character, the

earliest examples of any importance being those by Gabrieli (1557-1613),

and those by Merulo (1533-1604); while Galuppi, who was born in 1706 and

died in 1785, produced a further advanced development of this particular

form of musical composition, with chords freely introduced and other

important innovations." Vernon Lee, in her _Studies of the Eighteenth

Century in Italy_ (III. "The Musical Life") says of the Venetian,

Baldassare Galuppi, surnamed Buranello, that he was "an immensely prolific

composer, and abounded in melody, tender, pathetic and brilliant, which in

its extreme simplicity and slightness occasionally rose to the highest

beauty.... He defined the requisites of his art to Burney in very

moderate terms: 'Chiarezza, vaghezza, e buona modulazione'--clearness,

beauty, and good modulation, without troubling himself much about any

others.... Galuppi was a model of the respectable, modest artist, living

quietly on a moderate fortune, busy with his art and the education of his

numerous children, beloved and revered by his fellow-artists; and when

some fifteen years later [than 1770] he died, honoured by them with a

splendid funeral, at which all the Venetian musicians performed; the great

Pacchiarotti writing to Burney that he had sung with much devotion to

obtain a rest for Buranello's (Galuppi's) soul" (p. 101). In a note Vernon

Lee adds: "Mr. Browning's fine poem, 'A Toccata of Galuppi's,' has made at

least his name familiar to many English readers." Ritter, in his _History

of Music_ (p. 245), has a concise but expressive notice of Galuppi.

"_Balthasar Galuppi_, called Buranello (1706-85), a pupil of Lotti, also

composed many comic operas. The main features of his operas are melodic

elegance and lively and spirited comic forms; but they are rather thin and

weak in their execution. He was a great favourite during his lifetime."

The poem deals with two classes of human beings--the mere pleasure-takers

with their balls and masks (Stanza iv.), and the scientists (Stanza xiii.)

with their research and their 'ologies. The Venetians--who seemed to the

poet merely born to blow and droop, who lived frivolous lives of gaiety

and love-making--lived lives which came to nothing, and did deeds better

left undone--heard the music which dreamily told them they must die, but

went on with their kissing and their dancing till death took them where

they never see the sun. The other class, immersed in the passion for

knowledge, the class which despises the vanities and frivolities of the

butterfly's life, and consecrates itself to science, not the less surely

dissipates its energies and misses the true end of life if it has nothing

higher to live for than "physics and geology."

NOTES.--ii., _St. Mark's_. The great cathedral of Venice, named after St.

Mark, because it is said that the body of that Evangelist was brought to

Venice and enshrined there. "_where the Doges used to wed the sea with

rings_": the Doge was the chief magistrate of Venice when it was a

republic. "The ceremony of wedding the Adriatic was instituted in 1174 by

Pope Alexander III., who gave the Doge a gold ring from off his own finger

in token of the victory achieved by the Venetian fleet at Istria over

Frederick Barbarossa, in defence of the Pope's quarrel. When his Holiness

gave the ring, he desired the Doge to throw a similar ring into the sea

annually, in commemoration of the event" (Dr. Brewer). iii., "_the sea's

the street there_": there are neither horses nor carriages in Venice; you

go everywhere by gondola--to church, to theatre, to market; your gondola

meets you at the railway station; in a word, the sea is the street.

_Shylock's Bridge_: they show you Shylock's house in the old market place

by the Rialto Bridge. vi., _clavichord_, a keyed and stringed instrument,

not now in use, being superseded by the pianoforte. viii., _dominant's

persistence_. The dominant in music is the name given to the fifth note of

the scale of any key, counting upwards. The dominant plays a most

important part in cadences, in which it is indispensable that the key

should be strongly marked (Grove). "_dear dead women_": the ladies of

Venice are celebrated for their beauty. An article in _Poet Lore_, October

1890, p. 546, thus explains the technical musical allusions in _A Toccata

of Galuppi's_. These are all to be found in the seventh, eighth, and ninth

verses. "The lesser thirds are, of course, minor thirds, and are of common

occurrence; but the diminished sixth is an interval rarely used. So rare

is it, that I have seen it stated by good authorities that it is never

used harmonically. Ordinarily a diminished sixth (seven semitones),

exactly the same interval as a perfect fifth, instead of giving a

plaintive, mournful, or minor impression, would suggest a feeling of rest

and satisfaction. As I have said, however, there is one way in which it

can be used--as a suspension, in which the root of the chord on the

_lowered_ super-tonic of the scale is suspended from above into the chord

with added seventh on the super-tonic, making a diminished sixth between

the root of the first and the third of the second chord. The effect of

this progression is most dismal, and possibly Browning had it in mind,

though it is doubtful almost to certainty if Galuppi knew anything of it.

Whether it be an anachronism or not, or whether it is used in a

scientifically accurate way or not, the figure is true enough poetically,

for a diminished interval--namely, something less than normal--would

naturally suggest an effect of sadness. _Suspensions_, as may already have

been guessed by the preceding example, are notes which are held over from

one chord into another, and must be made according to certain musical

rules as strict as the laws of the Medes and Persians. This holding over

of a note always produces a dissonance, and must be followed by a

concord,--in other words, a _solution_. Sevenths are very important

dissonances in music, and a commiserating seventh is most likely the

variety called a minor seventh. Being a somewhat less mournful interval

than the lesser thirds and the diminished sixths, whether real or

imaginary, yet not so final as 'those solutions' which seem to put an end

to all uncertainty, and therefore to life, they arouse in the listeners to

Galuppi's playing a hope that life may last, although in a sort of

dissonantal, Wagnerian fashion. The 'commiserating sevenths' are closely

connected with the 'dominant's persistence' in the next verse:--

'Hark! the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to:

So an octave struck the answer.'

The dominant chord in music is the chord written on the fifth degree of

the scale, and it almost always has a seventh added to it, and in a large

percentage of cases is followed by the tonic, the chord on the first

degree of the scale. Now, in fugue form a theme is repeated in the

dominant key, the latter being called the answer. After further

contrapuntal wanderings of the theme, the fugue comes to what is called an

episode, after which the theme is presented first, in the dominant. 'Hark!

the dominant's persistence' alludes to this musical fact; but, according

to rule, this dominant must be answered in the tonic an octave above the

first presentation of the theme; and 'so an octave struck the answer.'

Thus the inexorable solution comes in after the dominant's persistence.

Although life seemed possible with commiserating sevenths, the tonic, a

resistless fate, strikes the answer that all must end--an answer which the

frivolous people of Venice failed to perceive, and went on with their

kissing. The notion of the tonic key as a relentless fate seems to suit

well with the formal music of the days of Galuppi: while the more hopeful

tonic key of Abt Vogler, the C major of this life, indicates that fate and

the tonic key have both fallen more under man's control."--Miss Helen

Ormerod's paper, read before the Browning Society, May 27th, 1887, throws

additional light on some of the difficulties of this poem. "That the minor

predominated in this quaint old piece (_Toccata_, by the way, means a

_touch_ piece, and probably was written to display the delicacy of the

composer's touch) is evident from the mention of--

"Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh,

Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions,--'Must we

die?'

Those commiserating sevenths--'Life might last! we can but try!'"

The interval of the third is one of the most important; the signature of a

piece may mislead one, the same signature standing for a major key and its

relative minor; but the third of the opening chord decides the question, a

lesser 'plaintive' third (composed of a tone and a semitone) showing the

key to be _minor_; the greater third (composed of two whole tones) showing

the key to be _major_. Pauer tells us that 'the minor third gives the idea

of tenderness, grief and romantic feeling.' Next come the 'diminished

sixths': these are sixths possessing a semitone less than a minor

sixth,--for instance, from C sharp to A flat: this interval in a different

key would stand as a perfect fifth. 'Those suspensions, those

solutions'--a suspension is the stoppage of one or more parts for a

moment, while the others move on; this produces a dissonance, which is

only resolved by the parts which produced it moving on to the position

which would have been theirs had the parts moved simultaneously. We can

understand that 'those suspensions, those solutions' might teach the

Venetians, as they teach us, lessons of experience and hope; light after

darkness, joy after sorrow, smiles after tears. 'Those commiserating

sevenths,' of all dissonances, none is so pleasing to the ear, or so

attractive to musicians, as that of minor and diminished sevenths, that of

the major seventh being crude and harsh; in fact, the minor seventh is so

charming in its discord as to suggest concord. Again, to quote from Pauer:

'It is the antithesis of discord and concord which fascinates and charms

the ear; it is the necessary solution and return to unity which delights

us.' After all this, the love-making begins again; but kisses are

interrupted by the 'dominant's persistence till it must be answered to.'

This seems to indicate the close of the piece, the dominant being answered

by an octave which suggests the perfect authentic cadence, in which the

chord of the dominant is followed by that of the tonic. The Toccata is

ended, and the gay gathering dispersed. I cannot help the thought that

this old music of Galuppi's was more of the head than the heart--more

formal than fiery, suggestive rather of the chill of death than the heat

of passion. The temporary silence into which the dancers were surprised by

the playing of the Maestro is over, and the impressions caused by it are

passed away, just as the silence of death was to follow the warmth and

brightness of the glad Venetian life."

=To Edward Fitzgerald.= In the _Athenæum_ of July 13th, 1889, appeared

this sonnet:--

"TO EDWARD FITZGERALD.

"I chanced upon a new book yesterday;

I opened it, and, where my finger lay

'Twixt page and uncut page, these words I read--

Some six or seven at most--and learned thereby

That you, Fitzgerald, whom by ear and eye

She never knew, 'thanked God my wife was dead.'

Ay, dead! and were yourself alive, good Fitz,

How to return you thanks would task my wits.

Kicking you seems the common lot of curs--

While more appropriate greeting lends you grace,

Surely to spit there glorifies your face--

Spitting from lips once sanctified by hers.

"ROBERT BROWNING. _July 8th, 1889._"

The passage referred to is as follows: "Mrs. Browning's death is rather a

relief to me, I must say: no more Aurora Leighs, thank God! A woman of

real genius, I know; but what is the upshot of it all! She and her sex had

better mind the kitchen and the children; and perhaps the poor. Except in

such things as little novels, they only devote themselves to what men do

much better, leaving that which men do worse or not at all." (_Life and

Letters of Edward Fitzgerald_. Edited by Aldis Wright.)--_Browning Society

Papers_, Notes, 229.

=Tokay.= See NATIONALITY IN DRINKS. (_Dramatic Lyrics_, III.)

=Too Late.= (_Dramatis Personæ_, 1864.) A man addressing a dead woman whom

he has loved and lost, tells how he feels that she needs help in her grave

and finds none; wants warmth from a heart which longs to send it. She

married another who did not love her "nor any one else in the world." This

great sorrow was the rock which stopped the even flow of his life current.

Some devil must have hurled it into the stream, and so thwarted God, who

had made these two souls for each other. Just a thread of water escaped

from the obstacle, and that wandered "through the evening country" down to

the great sea which absorbs all our life streams. He has hoped at times

that some convulsion of nature might roll the stone from its place and let

the stream flow undisturbed. But all is past hope now: Edith is dead that

should have been his. What should he have done that he omitted? Had he not

taken her "No" too readily? Men do more for trifling reasons than he had

done for his life's whole peace. Perhaps he was proud--perhaps helpless as

a man paralysed by a great blow; anyway, she was gone from his life, and

he was desolate henceforth. She was not handsome,--nobody said that. She

had features which no artist would select for a model; but she was his

life, and even now that she is dead he will be her slave while his soul

endures. The poem is full of concentrated emotion, and is the expression

of a strong man's life passion for a woman's soul; a passion unalloyed by

any gross affection; such a love of one soul for another congenial soul as

proves that man is more than matter.

=Transcendentalism: a Poem in Twelve Books.= (_Men and Women_, 1855.) This

poem is probably intended by Mr. Browning as an answer to his critics. It

has been said of Mr. Browning's poetry by a hundred competent writers that

he does not sing, but philosophises instead; that he gives the world his

naked thoughts, his analyses of souls not draped in the beauty of the

poet's art, but in the form of "stark-naked thought." There is no

objection, says his interviewer, if he will but cast aside the harp which

he does not play but only tunes and adjusts, and speak his prose to Europe

through "the six-foot Swiss tube which helps the hunter's voice from Alp

to Alp." The fault is, that he utters thoughts to men thinking they care

little for form or melody, as boys do. It is quite otherwise he should

interpret nature--which is full of mystery--to the soul of man: as Jacob

Boehme heard the plants speak, and told men what they said; or as John of

Halberstadt, the magician, who by his will-power could create the flowers

Boehme thought about. The true poet is a poem himself, whatever be his

utterance. Take back the harp again, and "pour heaven into this short home

of life." Jacob Boehme (1575-1624) was a German mystical writer, who began

life as a shoemaker and developed into a "seer" of the highest order. He

was a follower of the school of Paracelsus, and professed to know all

mysteries by actually beholding them. He saw the origin of love and

sorrow, heaven and hell. Nature lay unveiled to him; he saw into the being

of God, and into the heart of things. Mr. Browning refers to this in the

line of the poem, "He noticed all at once that plants could speak."

"William Law (1686-1761) was a follower of Boehme's system of philosophy.

The Quakers have been much influenced by the Boehmenists. The old

magicians thought they had discovered in the ashes of plants their

primitive forms, which were again raised up by the force of heat. Nothing,

they say, perishes in Nature; all is but a continuation or a revival. The

germina of resurrection are concealed in extinct bodies, as in the blood

of men; the ashes of roses will again revive into roses, though smaller

and paler than if they had been planted. The process of the

_Palingenesis_--this picture of immortality--is described. These

philosophers, having burnt a flower by calcination, disengaged the salts

from its ashes, and deposited them in a glass phial; a chemical mixture

acted on it till in the fermentation they assumed a bluish and spectral

hue. This dust, thus excited by heat, shoots upwards into its primitive

form; by sympathy the parts unite, and while each is returning to its

destined place we see distinctly the stalk, the leaves, and the flower

arise; it is the pale spectre of a flower coming slowly forth from its

ashes." (Disraeli's _Curiosities of Literature_, art. "Dreams at the Dawn

of Philosophy.") John of Halberstadt was the magician who made the flowers

on some such principles as is fabled above. He was an ecclesiastic, and

had probably some knowledge of alchemy, often considered in those days as

more or less a diabolical kind of learning. Transcendentalism is thus

described by Webster: "Transcendental, Empirical.--These terms, with the

corresponding nouns _transcendentalism_ and _empiricism_, are of

comparatively recent origin. _Empirical_ refers to knowledge which is

gained by the experience of actual phenomena, without reference to the

principles or laws to which they are to be referred, or by which they are

to be explained. _Transcendental_ has reference to those beliefs or

principles which are not derived from experience, and yet are absolutely

necessary to make experience possible or useful. Such, in the better sense

of the term, is the transcendental philosophy, or transcendentalism. The

term has been applied to a kind of investigation, or a use of language

which is vague, obscure, fantastic, or extravagant." The reference in the

title of the poem is purely imaginary: there is no such work.

=Tray.= (_Dramatic Idyls_, 1879.) Three bards sing each a song of a hero;

but the bard who sings of Olaf the Dane, and he who tells of the hero

standing unflinching on the precipice, have not their song rewarded here:

the place of honour is reserved by the poet for a dog story. Tray was the

poet's hero of the three. A beggar child fell into the Seine in Paris. The

bystanders prudently bethought themselves of their families ere risking

their lives to save her. While the people were wondering how the child was

to be extricated, "a mere instinctive dog" jumped over the balustrade and

brought her to land. The people applauded the dog, who had no sooner

deposited his burden on the shore than he was off again, apparently to

save another child whom nobody had seen fall. The dog was so long under

the water that he was thought to have been carried away by the current;

but in a few minutes he was seen swimming to land with the child's doll in

his mouth. The people began to pride themselves on man's possession of

reason, and to vaunt the superiority of our race over that of the dog.

Meanwhile Tray trotted off; till one of the crowd, with a larger share of

"reason" than the rest, bade his servant go and catch the animal for him,

that, by expenditure "of half an hour and eighteen-pence," he might

vivisect it at the physiological laboratory and see "how brain secretes

dog's soul." This was poor Tray's reward at the hands of humanity, endowed

with the "reason" which had been denied to the brave and faithful little

brain of the "lower animal." (See VIVISECTION.)

=Twins, The.= (Originally published in a little volume with a poem of Mrs.

Browning's, on behalf of the Ragged Schools of London, 1854; then in _Men

and Women_, 1855; _Romances_, 1863; _Dramatic Romances_, 1868.) In Martin

Luther's _Table Talk_ there is a story which is the foundation of this

poem. In the talk "On Justification" (No. 316), he says: "Give, and it

shall be given unto you: this is a fine maxim, and makes people poor and

rich.... There is in Austria a monastery which, in former times, was very

rich, and remained rich so long as it was charitable to the poor; but when

it ceased to give, then it became indigent, and is so to this day. Not

long since, a poor man went there and solicited alms, which were denied

him; he demanded the cause why they refused to give for God's sake? The

porter of the monastery answered, 'We are become poor'; whereupon the

mendicant said, 'The cause of your poverty is this: ye had formerly in

this monastery two brethren--the one named _Date_ (give), and the other

_Dabitur_ (it shall be given to you): the former ye thrust out, and the

other went away of himself.'... Beloved, he that desires to have anything

must also give: a liberal hand was never in want or empty." (Mr.

Browning's poem is simply the above narrative in verse.)

=Two Camels.= (_Ferishtah's Fancies_, 8: "Self-mortification.") Is

self-mortification necessary for the attainment of wisdom? Two camels

started on a long journey with their loads of merchandise. One, desiring

to please his master, refused to eat the food which was provided for him:

he died of exhaustion on the road, and thieves secured his burden. The

other ate his provender thankfully, and safely reached his destination

with his load. Which beast pleased his master? We are here to do our day's

work: help refused is hindrance sought. We are to desire joy and thank God

for it. The Creator wills that we should recognise our creatureship and

call upon Him in our need. As we are God's sons, He cannot be indifferent

to our needs and sorrows. Neither work nor the spirit of self-dependence

are antagonistic to prayer. The "ear, hungry for music," is a more

intelligible phrase when we know that the organ of Corti in the human ear

has three thousand arches, with keys ranged like those of a piano,

marvellously adapted for the appreciation of every tone-shade. The

"seven-stringed instrument" refers to light and the seven colours of the

spectrum.--In the lyric, the chemical combination of two harmless

substances produces an effect which either by itself would have been

powerless to produce. How know we what God intends to work in us by the

influences by which we are surrounded? We are not to reject the joys of

earth, the bliss produced by slight and transient mental stimuli; they

suffice to move the heart. There is earth-bliss which heaven itself cannot

improve, but may make permanent: why despise it?

=Two in the Campagna.= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic

Lyrics_, 1868.) The Campagna di Roma is that portion of the area almost

coinciding with the ancient Latium, which lies round the city of Rome.

Gregorovius says we might mark its circumference "by a series of

well-known points: Civita Vecchia, Tolfa, Ronciglione, Soracte, Tivoli,

Palestrina, Albano, and Ostia." Anciently it was the seat of numerous

cities, and is now dotted with ruins in its whole extent. In summer its

vast expanse is little better than an arid steppe, and is very dangerous

on account of the malaria almost everywhere prevalent. In winter and

spring it is safer, and affords abundant pasture for sheep and cattle.

There is a solemnity and beauty about the Campagna entirely its own. To

the reflective mind, this ghost of old Rome is full of suggestion: its

vast, almost limitless extent, as it seems to the traveller; its abundant

herbage and floral wealth in early spring; its desolation, its crumbling

monuments, and its evidences of a vanished civilisation, fill the mind

with a sweet sadness, which readily awakens the longing for the infinite

spoken of in the poem, the key-note of which is undoubtedly found in the

lines--

"Only I discern

Infinite passion, and the pain

Of finite hearts that yearn."

Says Pascal: "This desire and this weakness cry aloud to us that there was

once in man a true happiness, of which there now remains to him but the

mark and the empty trace, which he vainly tries to fill from all that

surround him; seeking from things absent the succour he finds not in

things present; and these are all inadequate, because this infinite void

can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object--that is to say,

only by God Himself." The speaker in the poem says to the woman, "I would

that you were all to me." As pleasure, learning, wealth, have failed to

satisfy the soul of man, so not even Love, the holiest passion of the

soul, can satisfy the human heart, which can rest in God alone. Dr.

Martineau says that "all finite loves are only _half-born_, wandering in a

poor twilight, unknowing of their peace and power, till they lie within

the encompassing and glorifying love of God." The restful music, the

anodyne for the pain of yearning hearts, comes from no earth-born love,

however pure.

=Two Poets Of Croisic, The.= (1878, with _La Saisiaz_.) Le Croisic is an

old town in Brittany, in the department of Loire Inférieure. Murray

describes it as "a popular watering-place. Croisic was formerly a place

of some importance--was fortified, and had a castle, and reached its

greatest prosperity in the sixteenth century, when it sent vessels to the

cod-fishery, and had some six thousand inhabitants; but, like many other

towns, was ruined by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. There is a

chapel of St. Gourtan to the west of the town, with a miraculous well near

it. When there is a storm from the south the sailors' wives pray at St.

Gourtan; when from the north, at the Chapel of the Crucifix, at the east

of the town. About half a mile due north-west of the church is a menhir

eight feet high, situated on a mound overlooking the sea. The rocky cliffs

on the sea shore near it, for about a mile, have been worn by the waves

and weather into the most extraordinary and fantastic shapes, and are well

worth a visit." Croisic is one of the principal ports of the sardine

fishery. Guérande and Batz, also referred to in the poem, are close to Le

Croisic, the former being "a very curious old town, still surrounded,"

says Murray, "by the ditches and walls built by Duke John V. about 1431.

On Sundays, the assemblage of Bretons from the north, peat-diggers from

the east, and salt-makers from the west, is very striking. Soon after

leaving Guérande the road descends into a wide plain covered with pits and

salterns. This plain is of great extent, below the level of the sea, and

protected by dykes. The water is admitted at high water, by channels or

rivers, into reservoirs called _vasières_, from which it is passed into

shallow, irregularly-formed receptacles called _fares_. In these a

considerable portion of the water is evaporated, and the brine is allowed

to run into square basins called _oeillets_, where the sun finally

evaporates the water and leaves a layer of salt. The salt is scraped off

to square patches between the _oeillets_, and is thence carried to a

conical heap on the high ground, where it is left without protection from

the rain until the autumn, when the heap is covered with wood, and so left

until it can be sold. The men engaged in the work are called _paludiers_,

and receive one-fourth of the salt, the owner of the salterns receiving

the other three-fourths." Mr. Browning refers to such a process in

_Sordello_, to illustrate his theory of the necessity of evil:--

"Where the salt marshes stagnate, crystals branch;

Blood dries to crimson; Evil's beautified

In every shape."

"The _paludiers_, and their assistants, called _saulniers_, inhabit Batz,

Pouliguen, Saillié, and other villages, and form a most peculiar class.

Their usual dress is an enormous black flapped hat, a long white frock or

waistcoat, huge baggy white breeches, white gaiters and white shoes. The

men of _Batz_ are a magnificent race of large, stalwart, evident

Saxons."--The opening stanzas of the poem are descriptive of a scene in

winter, round a good log-fire of old shipwood. As the flames ascend, they

are tinted with various brilliant colours, due to the chemicals with which

the old timber is impregnated and the metals which are attached to it.

Sodium salts from the sea brine account for the yellow and crimson flames;

the greenish flame owes its tint to the copper; the flake brilliance is

due to the zinc; and so forth. All this flame splendour suggests the flash

of fame--brilliant for a few minutes, and then subsiding into darkness. At

the eleventh stanza begins a description of Croisic, Guérande, and Batz,

and the salt industry as described above. An island opposite was the

Druids' chosen chief of homes; where their women were employed, building a

temple to the sun, destroying it and rebuilding it every May. Even at the

present day women steal to the sole menhir standing and the rude stone

pillars, with or without still ruder inscriptions, found in many parts of

Brittany. But Croisic has had its men of note: two poets must be

remembered who lived there. René Gentilhomme, in the year 1610, flamed

forth a liquid ruby; he was of noble birth, and page to the Prince of

Condé, whom men called "the Duke." His cousin the King had no heir, so men

began to call him "Next King," and he to expect the dignity. His page René

was a poet, and had written many sonnets and madrigals. One day, when he

sat a-rhyming, a storm came on; and, struck by lightning, a ducal crown,

emblem of the Prince, was dashed to atoms. René ceased his sonnets, and,

considering the destruction as an omen of the ruined hopes of the Duke,

wrote forty lines, which he gave to the man, who asked how it came his

ducal crown was wrecked--"Sir, God's word to you!" It happened as the poet

foresaw: at the year's end was born the Dauphin, who wrecked the Prince's

hopes. King Louis honoured René with the title "Royal Poet," inasmuch as

he not only poetised, but prophesied. The other famous poet of Croisic,

represented by the green flame, was a dapper gentleman, Paul Desforges

Maillard, who lived in Voltaire's time, and did something which made

Voltaire ridiculous. He wrote a poem, which he submitted to the Academy,

but which the Forty ignominiously rejected. When the poet's rage subsided,

he made bold to offer his work to the Chevalier La Roque, editor of the

_Paris Mercury_, who rejected it with the polite excuse that he could not

offend the Forty. Flattered, though enraged at this excuse, the poet

abused the editor till he explained that his poetry was execrable, but he

had sought to conceal the truth in his rejection. Maillard had a sister,

who determined to help him by strategy. Copying out some of her brother's

verses, she sent them as the efforts of a young girl, who threw herself on

the great editor's mercy, and begged his introduction to a literary career

under the name of Malcrais. The editor fell into the trap, and published

the poems from time to time till she grew famous. He even went so far as

to fall in love with the authoress, and to offer her marriage. Voltaire

moreover was deceived, and wrote "a stomach-moving tribute" in her honour.

Naturally the brother, finding that his poetry had such value, was

unwilling that he should be any longer deprived of the glory attaching to

it; so he determined to go to Paris and confront the editor who had

insulted him with the proofs of his incapability, by explaining who the

real Malcrais was. This step was his ruin: the world does not like to be

convicted of its foolishness. Voltaire was not the man to enjoy a jibe at

his own expense. Maillard's literary career was over. Piron wrote a famous

play on this subject, entitled _Métromanie_.

=Up at a Villa--Down in the City.= As distinguished by an Italian person

of quality. (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic Lyrics_,

1868.) The speaker likes city life: it is expensive, he admits, but one

has something for one's money there. The whole day long life is a perfect

feast; but up in the villa on the mountain side the life is no better than

a beast's. In the city you can watch the gossips and the passers-by;

whereas up in the villa there is nothing to see but the oxen dragging the

plough. Even in summer it is no better, and it is actually cooler in the

city square with the fountain playing. He hates fireflies, bees, and

cicalas, about which folks talk so much poetry: what he prefers is the

blessed church-bells, the rattle of the diligence, the ever succeeding

news, the quack doctor, the fun at the post office, the execution of

"liberals," and the gay church procession in the streets on festivals, the

drum, the fife, the noise and bustle. Of course it is dear; you cannot

have all these luxuries without paying for them, and that is why he is

compelled to live a country life; but oh, the pity of it,--the

processions, the candles, the flags, the Duke's guard, the drum, the

fife!--

"Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!"

NOTES.--Stanza ii., "_By Bacchus_": Per Bacco--Italians still swear by the

wine-god. Stanza ix., "_with a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven

swords stuck in her heart!_" The "seven sorrows of Our Lady" are referred

to here. They are (1) Her grief at the prophecy of Simeon; (2) Her

affliction during the flight into Egypt; (3) Her distress at the loss of

her Son before finding Him in the Temple; (4) Her sorrow when she met her

Son bearing His cross; (5) Her martyrdom at the sight of His agony; (6)

The wound to her heart when His was pierced; and (7) Her agony at His

burial. The contrast of these sorrows with the pink gown, the spangles,

and the smiles, is an exquisite satire on some peculiarities in

Continental devotions, very distasteful to English people. Stanza x.,

"_Tax on salt_": salt is taxed in Italy; the salt monopoly, the lottery,

the grist tax and an octroi are the more important items of Italy's

immoral system of taxation. "_what oil pays passing the gate_": the

_octroi_ or town-dues have to be paid on all provisions entering the

cities of Italy. _yellow candles_: these are used at funerals, and in

penitential processions in the Roman Church.

=Valence.= (_Colombe's Birthday._) The advocate of Cleves who marries

Colombe.

="Verse-making was the least of my Virtues."= (=Ferishtah's Fancies.=) The

first line of the ninth lyric.

=Villains.= Browning's principal villains are the following:--Halbert and

Hob; Ned Bratts; Count Guido Franceschini; the devil-like elder man of the

_Inn Album_; Paolo and Girolamo in _The Ring and the Book_; Ottima and the

Intendant of the Bishop, Uguccio, Stefano and Sebald, in _Pippa Passes_

(Bluphocks, in the same poem, is rather a tool of others than a great

villain on his own account); Louscha, the mother, in _Ivan Ivanovitch_;

Chiappino in _A Soul's Tragedy_.

=Vincent Parkes.= (_Martin Relph._) He was Rosamund Page's lover. The girl

is accused of being a spy, and unless she can clear herself within a given

time is to be shot. Parkes arrives at the place of execution with the

proofs of the girl's innocence just as the fatal volley is fired.

=Violante Comparini.= (_The Ring and the Book._) The supposed mother of

Pompilia. She was the wife of Pietro, and by him had no children; she

bought Pompilia of a courtesan, and brought the child up as her own, and

was murdered, with her husband and Pompilia, by Count Guido.

=Vivisection=, or the cutting into living animals for scientific purposes.

Mr. Browning was to the last a Vice-President of the Victoria Street

Society for the Protection of Animals, and he always expressed the utmost

abhorrence of the practices which it opposes. The following letter was

written by Mr. Browning on the occasion of the presentation of the

memorial to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in

1875:--"19, Warwick Crescent, W., December 28th, 1874.--DEAR MISS

COBBE,--I return the petition unsigned, for the one good reason--that I

have just signed its fellow forwarded to me by Mrs. Leslie Stephen. You

have heard, 'I take an equal interest with yourself in the effort to

supress vivisection.' I dare not so honour my mere wishes and prayers as

to put them for a moment beside your noble acts; but this I know: I would

rather submit to the worst of the deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a

single dog or cat tortured on the pretence of sparing me a twinge or two.

I return the paper, because I shall be probably shut up here for the next

week or more, and prevented from seeing my friends. Whoever would refuse

to sign would certainly not be of the number.--Ever truly and gratefully

yours, ROBERT BROWNING."--In two of his poems the poet has expressed his

emphatic opinion upon Vivisection: in _Tray_, and in _Arcades Ambo_. See

my chapter "Browning and Vivisection" in _Browning's Message to his Time_.

In the recently published _Life and Letters of Robert Browning_, by Mrs.

Sutherland Orr, there are many interesting incidents connected with the

great poet's love for animals, which characterised him from infancy till

death. Mrs. Orr says (p. 27) this fondness for animals was conspicuous in

his earliest days. "His urgent demand for 'something to do' would

constantly include 'something to be caught' for him: 'they were to catch

him an eft'; 'they were to catch him a frog.'" He would refuse to take his

medicine unless bribed by the gift of a speckled frog from among the

strawberries: and the maternal parasol, hovering above the strawberry bed

during the search for this object of his desires, remained a standing

picture in his remembrance. But the love of the uncommon was already

asserting itself; and one of his very juvenile projects was a collection

of rare creatures, the first contribution to which was a couple of

lady-birds, picked up one winter's day on a wall and immediately consigned

to a box lined with cotton-wool, and labelled 'Animals found Surviving in

the Depths of a Severe Winter.' Nor did curiosity in this case weaken the

power of sympathy. His passion for beasts and birds was the counterpart of

his father's love of children, only displaying itself before the age at

which child-love naturally appears. His mother used to read _Croxall's

Fables_ to his little sister and him. The story contained in them of a

lion who was kicked to death by an ass affected him so painfully that he

could no longer endure the sight of the book; and as he dare not destroy

it, he buried it between the stuffing and the woodwork of an old

dining-room chair, where it stood for lost, at all events for the time

being. When first he heard of the adventures of the parrot who insisted on

leaving his cage, and who enjoyed himself for a little while and then died

of hunger and cold, he--and his sister with him--cried so bitterly that it

was found necessary to invent a different ending, according to which the

parrot was rescued just in time and brought back to his cage to live

peacefully in it ever after. As a boy he kept owls and monkeys, magpies

and hedgehogs, an eagle, and even a couple of large snakes; constantly

bringing home the more portable creatures in his pockets, and transferring

them to his mother for immediate care. I have heard him speak admiringly

of the skilful tenderness with which she took into her lap a lacerated

cat, washed and sewed up its ghastly wound, and nursed it back to health.

The great intimacy with the life and habits of animals which reveals

itself in his works is readily explained by these facts."

=Wall, A.= The prologue to _Pacchiarotto_ (_q.v._) bears this title in the

_Selections_, Series the Second (published in 1880).

=Wanting is--what?= (Prologue to _Jocoseria_, 1883.) In every phase of

human life, and in every human action, there is imperfection--always

something still to come. In the characters depicted and the incidents

narrated in the volume called _Jocoseria_ the poet asks us to say what is

wanting to perfect them. His question "Wanting is--what?" governs the

whole volume. In _Solomon and Balkis_ what was wanting was not mere

wisdom, but a sanctified nature. In _Christina and Monaldeschi_ the woman

was wanting in forgiveness. Here the love was not perfect. In _Mary

Wollstonecraft and Fuseli_ what was wanting was self-sacrifice. Had Mary

really loved Fuseli, she would not have attempted to ruin his life by

endeavouring to win him from his wife. In _Adam, Lilith, and Eve_, there

was wanting, says Mr. Sharpe, "the union of perfect love with perfect

holiness." In _Ixion_ was wanting a just conception of the Fatherhood of

God. God is not the tyrannical Master of the world, but the Loving

All-Father. In _Jochanan Hakkadosh_, Mr. Sharpe says, in answer to the

question, "Wanting is--what?" "One who shall combine perfect wisdom with

the full experience of life, and the completeness of these intuitions of

the Spirit." "Is not this the Christ?" In _Never the Time and the Place_,

to completely develop our souls we need perfect conditions of existence.

We shall not find them till we reach heaven. In _Pambo_ the saint

recognised that he could not perfectly fulfil the smallest of God's

commandments, nor can we perfectly keep God's law. Wanting is the

Atonement.

NOTE.--"_Come, then, complete incompletion, O Comer, Pant through the

blueness_,"--_i.e._ descend from heaven. The Rev. J. Sharpe, M.A., thus

explains the title "_O Comer_": "[Greek: ho erchomenos], in the New

Testament, is one of the titles of the Messiah--the Future One, He who

shall come (Matt. xi. 3, xxi. 9; Luke vii. 19, 20; John xii. 13; also John

vi. 14, xi. 27). So in the periphrase of the name Jehovah, [Greek: ho ôn

kai o ên kai ho erchomenos] (Rev. i. 4, 8; iv. 8).--Robinson's _Greek

Lexicon of the New Testament_. The title hints at the connection between

this preface and the stories from the Talmud which follow. The

Incarnation, the union of God and man, of Creator and creation, supplies

the solution of the problem raised by the incompleteness and death all

around us. The beauty is no longer without meaning, for it is a revelation

of God; the huge mass of death is no longer revolting, for 'all things

were created by Him, and for Him ... and by Him all things consist,' and

He will 'reunite all things ... whether they be things on earth or things

in heaven.'" In the character of _Donald_, what was wanting was the

development of "the latent moral faculty." He did not recognise the rights

of the stag, which the commonest principles of justice, to say nothing of

gratitude, should have made obvious to the sportsman.

=Waring.= Waring was the name given by the poet to his friend Mr. Alfred

Domett, C.M.G., son of Mr. Nathaniel Domett, born at Camberwell, May 20th,

1811. He matriculated at Cambridge in 1829, as a member of St. John's

College. In 1832 he published a volume of poems. He then travelled in

America for two years, and after his return to London, about 1836-7, he

contributed some verses to _Blackwood's Magazine_. Mr. Domett afterwards

spent two years in Italy, Switzerland, and other continental countries. He

was called to the bar in 1841. Having purchased some land of the New

Zealand Company, he went as a settler to New Zealand in 1842. In 1851 he

became Secretary for the whole of that country. He accepted posts as

Commissioner of Crown Lands and Resident Magistrate at Hawke's Bay.

Subsequently he was elected to represent the town of Nelson in the House

of Representatives. In 1862 Mr. Domett was called upon to form a

Government, which he did. Having held various important offices in the

Legislature, and rendered great services to the country, he was created a

Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (1880). He returned

to England and published several volumes of poems. His chief work is

_Ranolf and Amohia_, full of descriptions of New Zealand scenery, and

paying a warm tribute to Mr. Browning, whom he calls

"Subtlest assertor of the soul in song."

Mr. Domett suddenly disappeared from London life in the manner described

in the poem. He shook off, by an overpowering impulse, the restraints of

conventional life, and without a word to his dearest friends, vanished

into the unknown. As the story is told in the poem, we see a man with

large ideas, ambitious, full of great thoughts, inspired by a passion for

great things, a man born to rule, and fretting against the restraints of

the petty conventionalities of civilised life. Those about him cannot

understand, and if they did could in no wise help him; he chafes and longs

to break his bonds and live the freer life in which his energies can

expand. The poem tells of the cold and unsympathetic criticism he received

amongst his friends; and now that he has disappeared, the poet's spirit

yearns for his society once more. He wonders where he has pitched his

tent, and in fancy runs through the world to seek him. He has been heard

of in a ghostly sort of way. A vision of him has been narrated by one who

for a few moments caught sight of him and lost him again in the setting

sun. The poet reflects that the stars which set here, rise in some distant

heaven. The following obituary notice of Alfred Domett, by Dr. Furnivall,

appeared in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of November 9th, 1887. It has had the

advantage of being revised and corrected in a few small details by Mr. F.

Young, "Waring's" cousin. See also an article in _Temple Bar_, Feb., 1896,

p. 253, entitled "A Queen's Messenger."

="What's Become of Waring?"=--IN MEMORIAM. (By a Member of the Browning

Society.) "What's become of Waring?" is the first line of one of Mr.

Browning's poems of 1842 (_Bells and Pomegranates_, Part II.), which, from

its dealing with his life in London in early manhood, is a great favourite

with his readers. Alas! the handsome and brilliant hero of the Browning

set in the thirties died last Wednesday, at the house in St. Charles's

Square, North Kensington, where he had for many years lived near his

artist son. Alfred Domett was the son of one of Nelson's middies, a

gallant seaman. He was called to the bar, and lived in the Temple with his

friend 'Joe Arnold,' a man of great ability, afterwards Sir Joseph, Chief

Justice of Bombay, who ultimately settled at Naples, where he died. Having

an independency, Alfred Domett lingered in London society for a time,--one

of the handsomest and most attractive men there,--till he was induced to

emigrate to New Zealand, to join his cousin, William Young, the son of the

London shipowner, George Frederick Young, who had bought a large tract of

land in the islands. Alfred Domett landed to find his cousin drowned. He

was himself soon after appointed to a magistracy with £700 a year. He had

a successful career in New Zealand,--where Mr. Browning alludes to him in

_The Guardian Angel_--became Premier, married a handsome English lady, and

then returned to England. He first lived at Phillimore Place or Terrace,

Kensington, and while there saw a good deal of his old friend Mr.

Browning; but after he moved to St. Charles's Square, the former

companions seldom met. On the foundation of the Browning Society, Alfred

Domett declined any post of honour, but became an interested member of the

body. His grand white head was to be seen at all the Society's

performances and at several of its meetings. He naturally preferred Mr.

Browning's early works to the later ones. He could not be persuaded to

write any account of his early London days, but said he would try to find

the letters in which his friend 'Joe Arnold' reported to him in New

Zealand the doings of their London set. Mr. Domett produced with pride his

sea-stained copy of Browning's _Bells and Pomegranates_, now worth twenty

or thirty times its original price. Before he left England, his poem on

Venice was printed in _Blackwood_, and very highly praised by Christopher

North. (The reprint is in the British Museum.) His longer and chief poem,

_Ranolf and Amohia_ (1872), full of New Zealand scenery, and paying a warm

tribute to Mr. Browning, was reprinted by him in two volumes, revised and

enlarged, some four or five years ago. A lucky accident to a leg, which

permanently lamed him, soon after his arrival in New Zealand, saved his

life; for it prevented his accepting the invitation of some treacherous

native chiefs to a banquet at which all the English guests were killed. A

sterling, manly, independent nature was Alfred Domett's. He impressed

every one with whom he came in contact, and is deeply regretted by his

remaining friends. We hope that Mr. Browning will in his next volume give

a few lines to the memory of his early friend. Not many of the old set

remain, possibly not one save the poet himself; and all his readers will

rejoice to hear again of Waring, "Alfred, dear friend." The _Guardian

Angel_ question--

"Where are you, dear old friend?"

needs other answer now than that of 1855--

"How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end?

This is Ancona, yonder is the sea."

NOTES.--Canto iv., "_Monstr'--inform'--ingens--horren-dous_": from

Vergil's _Æn._ iii. 657--"Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen

ademtum": a horrid monster, misshapen, huge, from whom sight had been

taken away. vi., _Vishnu-land_: India, where Vishnu is worshipped; the

second person of the modern Hindu Trinity. He is regarded as a member of

the Triad whose special function is to preserve. To do this he has nine

times in succession become incarnate, and will do so once more. _Avatar_:

the incarnation of a deity. The ten incarnations of Vishnu are--1.

Matsya-Avatar, as a fish; 2. Kurm-Avatar, as a tortoise; 3. Varaha, as a

boar; 4. Nara-Sing, as a man-lion, last animal stage; 5. Vamuna, as a

dwarf, first step toward the human form; 6. Parasu-Rama, as a hero, but

yet an imperfect man; 7. Rama-Chandra, as the hero of Ramayána, physically

a perfect man, his next of kin, friend and ally Hamouma, the monkey-god,

the monkey endowed with speech; 8. Christna-Avatar, the son of the virgin

Devanaguy, one formed by God; 9. Gautama-Buddha, Siddhârtha, or

Sakya-muni; 10. This avatar has not yet occurred. It is expected in the

future; when Vishnu appears for the last time he will come as a "saviour."

(Blavatzky, _Isis Unveiled_, vol. ii., p. 274.) _Kremlin_, the citadel of

Moscow, Russia. _serpentine_: a rock, often of a dull green colour,

mantled and mottled with red and purple. _syenite_: a stone named from

Syene, in Egypt, where it was first found. "_Dian's fame_": Diana was

worshipped by the inhabitants of Taurica Chersonesus. _Taurica

Chersonesus_ is now the country called the Crimea. _Hellenic speech_ ==

Greek. _Scythian strands_: Taurica is joined by an isthmus to Scythia, and

is bounded by the Bosphorus, the Euxine Sea, and the Palus Mæotis.

_Caldara Polidore da Caravaggio_ (1495-1543): he was a celebrated painter

of frieze, etc., at the Vatican. Raphael discovered his talents when he

was a mere mortar carrier to the other artists. The "Andromeda" picture,

of which Browning speaks in Pauline, was an engraving from a work of this

artist. "_The heart of Hamlet's Mystery_": few characters in literature

have been more discussed than that of Hamlet. Schlegel thought he

exhausted the power of action by calculating consideration. Goethe thought

he possessed a noble nature without the strength of nerve which forms a

hero. Many say he was mad, others that he was the founder of the

pessimistic school. _Junius_: the mystery of the authorship of the famous

letters of Junius is referred to. _Chatterton, Thomas_ (1752-70): the boy

poet who deceived the credulous scholars of his day by pretending that he

had discovered some ancient poems in the parish chest of Redcliffe Church,

Bristol. _Rowley, Thomas_: the hypothetical priest of Bristol, said by

Chatterton to have lived in the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV., and

to have written the poems of which Chatterton himself was the author. ii.

2, _Triest_: the principal seaport of the Austro-Hungarian empire,

situated very picturesquely at the north-east angle of the Adriatic Sea,

in the Gulf of Trieste. _lateen sail_: a triangular sail commonly used in

the Mediterranean. "_'long-shore thieves_": "along-shore men" are the low

fellows who hang about quays and docks, generally of bad character.

="When I vexed you and you chid me."= (_Ferishtah's Fancies._) The first

line of the seventh lyric.

=Which?= (_Asolando_, 1889.) Three court ladies make

"Trial of all who judged best

In esteeming the love of a man."

An abbé sits to decide the wager and say who was to be considered the best

Cupid catcher. First, the Duchesse maintains that it is the man who holds

none above his lady-love save his God and his king. The Marquise does not

care for saint and loyalist, so much as a man of pure thoughts and fine

deeds who can play the paladin. The Comtesse chooses any wretch, any poor

outcast, who would look to her as his sole saviour, and stretch his arms

to her as love's ultimate goal. The abbé had to reflect awhile. He took a

pinch of snuff to clear his brain, and then, after deliberation, said--

"The love which to one, and one only, has reference,

Seems terribly like what perhaps gains God's preference."

=White Witchcraft.= (_Asolando_, 1889.) Magic is defined to be of two

kinds--Divine and evil. Divine is white magic; black magic is of the

devil. Amongst the ancients magic was considered a Divine science, which

led to a participation in the attributes of Divinity itself. Philo-Judæus,

_De Specialibus Legibus_, says: "It unveils the operations of Nature, and

leads to the contemplation of celestial powers." When magic became

degraded into sorcery it was naturally abhorred by all the world, and the

evil reputation attaching to the word, even at the present day, must be

attributed to the fact that white witchcraft had a singular affinity for

the black arts. Perhaps what is now termed "science" expresses all that

was originally intended by the term white magic. The men of science of the

past were not unacquainted with black arts, according to their enemies.

Hence Pietro d'Abano, John of Halberstadt, Cornelius Agrippa, and other

learned men of the middle ages, incurred the hatred of the clergy.

Paracelsus is made expressly by Browning to abjure "black arts" in his

struggles for knowledge. Burton, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_, speaks of

white witches. He says (Part II., sec. i.): "Sorcerers are too common:

cunning men, wizards, and white-witches, as they call them, in every

village, which, if they be sought to, will help almost all infirmities of

body and mind--_servatores_, in Latin; and they have commonly St.

Catherine's wheel printed in the roof of their mouth, or in some part

about them."

[THE POEM.] One says if he could play Jupiter for once, and had the power

to turn his friend into an animal, he would decree that she should become

a fox. The lady, if invested with the same power, would turn him into a

toad. He bids Canidia say her worst about him when reduced to this

condition. The Canidia referred to is the sorceress of Naples in _Horace_,

who could bring the moon from heaven. The witch boasts of her power in

this respect:--

"Meæque terra cedit insolentiæ.

(Ut ipse nosti curiosus) et Polo

An quæ movere cereas imagines,

Diripere Lunam."

(HORAT., _Canid. Epod._, xvii. 75, etc.)

Hudibras mentions this (Part II., 3);--

"Your ancient conjurors were wont

To make her (the moon) from her sphere dismount,

And to their incantations stoop."

The _Zoophilist_ for July 1891 gives the following, from Mrs. Orr's _Life

of Browning_, as the origin of the reference to the toad in the poem:

"About the year 1835, when Mr. Browning's parents removed to Hatcham, the

young poet found a humble friend "in the form of a toad, which became so

much attached to him that it would follow him as he walked. He visited it

daily, where it burrowed under a white rose tree, announcing himself by a

pinch of gravel dropped into its hole; and the creature would crawl forth,

allow its head to be gently tickled, and reward the act with that loving

glance of the soft, full eyes which Mr. Browning has recalled in one of

the poems of _Asolando_." The lines are:--

"He's loathsome, I allow;

There may or may not lurk a pearl beneath his puckered brow;

But see his eyes that follow mine--love lasts there, anyhow."

="Why from the World."= The first words of the twelfth lyric in

_Ferishtah's Fancies_.

=Why I am a Liberal= was a poem written for Cassell & Co. in 1885, who

published a volume of replies by English men of letters, etc., to the

question, "Why I am a Liberal?"

"WHY I AM A LIBERAL.

"'Why?' Because all I haply can and do,

All that I am now, all I hope to be,--

Whence comes it save from future setting free

Body and soul the purpose to pursue

God traced for both? If fetters, not a few,

Of prejudice, convention, fall from me,

These shall I bid men--each in his degree,

Also God-guided--bear, and gayly, too?

But little do or can, the best of us:

That little is achieved through Liberty.

Who, then, dares hold, emancipated thus,

His fellow shall continue bound? Not I,

Who live, love, labour freely, nor discuss

A brother's right to freedom. That is 'Why.'"

=Will, The.= (_Sordello._) Mr. Browning uses the term "will" to express

Sordello's effort to "realise all his aspirations in his inner

consciousness, in his imagination, in his feeling that he is potentially

all these things." See Professor Alexander's _Analysis of "Sordello,"_

lvii., p. 406 (_Browning Society's Papers_); "The Body, the machine for

acting Will" (_Sordello_, Book II., line 1014, and p. 477 of this work).

Mr. Browning's early opinions were so largely formed by his occult and

theosophical studies that it is necessary for the full understanding of

his theory of the will and its power, to study the following axioms from

the work of an occult writer, Eliphas Levi, as a good summary of the

teaching so largely imbibed by the poet.

"THEORY OF WILL-POWER.

"_Axiom 1._ Nothing can resist the will of man when he knows what is

true and wills what is good. _Axiom 2._ To will evil is to will death.

A perverse will is the beginning of suicide. _Axiom 3._ To will what

is good with violence is to will evil, for violence produces disorder

and disorder produces evil. _Axiom 4._ We can and should accept evil

as the means to good; but we must never practise it, otherwise we

should demolish with one hand what we erect with the other. A good

intention never justifies bad means; when it submits to them it

corrects them, and condemns them while it makes use of them. _Axiom

5._ To earn the right to possess permanently we must will long and

patiently. _Axiom 6._ To pass one's life in willing what it is

impossible to retain for ever is to abdicate life and accept the

eternity of death. _Axiom 7._ The more numerous the obstacles which

are surmounted by the will, the stronger the will becomes. It is for

this reason that Christ has exalted poverty and suffering. _Axiom 8._

When the will is devoted to what is absurd it is reprimanded by

eternal reason. _Axiom 9._ The will of the just man is the will of God

Himself, and it is the law of nature. _Axiom 10._ The understanding

perceives through the medium of the will. If the will be healthy, the

sight is accurate. God said, 'Let there be light!' and the light was.

The will says: 'Let the world be such as I wish to behold it!' and the

intelligence perceives it as the will has determined. This is the

meaning of Amen, which confirms the acts of faith. _Axiom 11._ When we

produce phantoms we give birth to vampires, and must nourish these

children of nightmare with our own blood and life, with our own

intelligence and reason, and still we shall never satiate them. _Axiom

12._ To affirm and will what ought to be is to create; to affirm and

will what should not be is to destroy. _Axiom 13._ Light is an

electric fire, which is placed by man at the disposition of the will;

it illuminates those who know how to make use of it, and burns those

who abuse it. _Axiom 14._ The empire of the world is the empire of

light. _Axiom 15._ Great minds with wills badly equilibrated are like

comets, which are abortive suns. _Axiom 16._ To do nothing is as fatal

as to commit evil, and it is more cowardly. Sloth is the most

unpardonable of the deadly sins. _Axiom 17._ To suffer is to labour.

A great misfortune properly endured is a progress accomplished. Those

who suffer much live more truly than those who undergo no trials.

_Axiom 18._ The voluntary death of self-devotion is not a suicide,--it

is the apotheosis of free-will. _Axiom 19._ Fear is only indolence of

will; and for this reason public opinion brands the coward. _Axiom

20._ An iron chain is less difficult to burst than a chain of flowers.

_Axiom 21._ Succeed in not fearing the lion, and the lion will be

afraid of you. Say to suffering, 'I will that thou shalt become a

pleasure,' and it will prove such, and more even than a pleasure, for

it will be a blessing. _Axiom 22._ Before deciding that a man is happy

or otherwise seek to ascertain the bent of his will. Tiberius died

daily at Caprea, while Jesus proved His immortality, and even His

divinity, upon Calvary and the Cross."

="Wish no word unspoken."= (_Ferishtah's Fancies._) The first words of the

lyric to the second poem.

=Woman's Last Word, A.= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic

Lyrics_, 1868.) In the presence of perfect love words are often

superfluous, wild, and hurtful; words lead to debate, debate to

contention, striving, weeping. Even truth becomes falseness; for if the

heart is consecrated by a pure affection, love is the only truth; and the

chill of logic and the precision of a definition can be no other than

harmful; therefore hush the talking, pry not after the apples of the

knowledge of good and evil, or Eden will surely be in peril. The only

knowledge is the charm of love's protecting embrace, the only language is

the speech of love, the only thought to think the loved one's thought--the

absolute sacrifice of the whole self on the altar of love; but before the

altar can be approached sorrow must be buried, a little weeping has to be

done; the morrow shall see the offering presented,--"the might of love"

will drown alike both hopes and fears.

=Women and Roses.= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic

Lyrics_, 1868.) The singer dreams of a red rose tree with three roses on

its branches; one is a faded rose whose petals are about to fall,--the

bees do not notice it as they pass; the second is a rose in its

perfection, its cup "ruby-rimmed," its heart "nectar-brimmed,"--the bee

revels in its nectar; the third is a baby rosebud. And in these flowers

the poet sees types of the women of the ages,--the past, the present, and

the future: the shadows of the noble and beautiful, or wicked women in

history and poetry dance round the dead rose; round the perfect rose of

the present dance the spirits of the women of to-day; round the bud troop

the little feet of maidens yet unborn; and all dance to one cadence round

the dreamer's tree. The dance will go on as before when the dreamer has

departed, roses will bloom then for other beholders, and other dreamers

will see and remember their loveliness; the creations of the poet even

must join the dance. As the love of the past, so the love to come, must

link hands and trip to the measure.

=Women of Browning.= The best are Pompilia, in _The Ring and the Book_,

the lady in the _Inn Album_, and the heroine in _Colombe's Birthday_; the

others, good and bad, are the wife in _Any Wife to any Husband_; James

Lee's Wife, Michal, Pippa, Mildred, Gwendolen, Polixena, Colombe, Anael,

Domizia, "The Queen," Constance; and the heroines of _The Laboratory_,

_The Confessional_, _A Woman's Last Word_, _In a Year_, _A Light Woman_,

and _A Forgiveness_.

=Works of Robert Browning.= The new and uniform edition of the works of

Robert Browning is published in sixteen volumes, small crown 8vo. This

edition contains three portraits of Mr. Browning, at different periods of

life, and a few illustrations. Contents of the volumes:--

Vol. 1. _Pauline_ and _Sordello_.

" 2. _Paracelsus_ and _Strafford_.

" 3. _Pippa Passes_, _King Victor and King Charles_, _The Return of

the Druses_, and _A Soul's Tragedy_; with a portrait of

Mr. Browning.

" 4. _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_, _Colombe's Birthday_, and _Men and

Women_.

" 5. _Dramatic Romances_, and _Christmas Eve and Easter Day_.

" 6. _Dramatic Lyrics_, and _Luria_.

" 7. _In a Balcony_, and _Dramatis Personæ_; with a portrait of Mr.

Browning.

" 8. _The Ring and the Book_: books i. to iv.; with two

illustrations.

" 9. _The Ring and the Book_: books v. to viii.

" 10. _The Ring and the Book_: books ix. to xii.; with a portrait

of Guido Franceschini.

" 11. _Balaustion's Adventure_, _Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau_,

Saviour of Society, and _Fifine at the Fair_.

" 12. _Red Cotton Nightcap Country_, and _The Inn Album_.

" 13. _Aristophanes' Apology_, including a Transcript from

Euripides, being the Last Adventure of Balaustion, and _The

Agamemnon of Æschylus_.

" 14. _Pacchiarotto_, and How he worked in Distemper; with other

Poems; _La Saisiaz_ and _The Two Poets of Croisic_.

" 15. _Dramatic Idyls_, first series; _Dramatic Idyls_, second

series, and _Jocoseria_.

" 16. _Ferishtah's Fancies_, and _Parleyings with certain People of

Importance in their Day_, with a portrait of Mr. Browning.

Also Mr. Browning's last volume, _Asolando_, _Fancies and Facts_.

=Worst of it, The.= (_Dramatis Personæ_, 1864.) A fleck on a swan is

beauty spoiled; a speck on a mottled hide is nought. A man had angel

fellowship with a young wife who proved false to him; he loves her still,

and mourns that she ruined her soul in stooping to save his; he made her

sin by fettering with a gold ring a soul which could not blend with his.

He sorrows, not for his own loss, but that his swan must take the crow's

rebuff. He desires her good, and hopes she may work out her penance, and

reach heaven's purity at last. He will love on, but if they meet in

Paradise, will pass nor turn his face.

=Xanthus.= (_A Death in the Desert._) One of the disciples of St. John in

attendance upon the dying apostle in the cave.

="You groped your way across my room."= (_Ferishtah's Fancies._) The first

line of the third lyric.

="You'll love me yet."= (_Pippa Passes._) A song.

=Youth and Art.= (_Dramatis Personæ_, 1864.) A meditation on what might

have been, had two young people who had the chance not missed it and lost

it for ever. They lodged in the same street in Rome. The man was a

sculptor who had dreams of demolishing Gibson some day, and putting up

Smith to reign in his stead; the woman was a singer who hoped to trill

bitterness into the cup of Grisi, and make her envious of Kate Brown. The

warbler earned in those days as little by her voice as the chiseller by

his work. They were poor, lived on a crust apiece, and for fun watched

each other from their respective windows. She was evidently dying for an

introduction to him; she fidgeted about with the window plants, and did

her best to attract his attention in a quiet sort of way; she did not

like his models always tripping up his stairs, which she could not ascend,

and was glad to have the opportunity of showing off the foreign fellow who

came to tune the piano. But life passed, he made no advances, and so in

process of time she married a rich old lord, and he is a knight, R.A., and

dines with the Prince. With all this show of success neither life is

complete, neither soul has achieved the sole good of its earth wanderings.

Their lives hang patchy and scrappy; they have not sighed, starved,

feasted, despaired, and been happy. There was once the chance of these

things; they were missed, and eternity cannot make good the loss. As for

life "_Love_," as Browning is always telling us, "_is the sole good of

it_." This poem may be compared with the moral of _The Statue and the

Bust_. In the one case reasons of prudence and the restrictions of

religion and society prevented the duke and the lady from following the

inclinations of their hearts; in the other case mere worldly motives

operated to the same end--the missing of the union of the actors' souls.

In both cases the lives were spoiled. In _Youth and Art_ the woman's

character cuts a very poor figure: love is subordinated to her art, and

that to the mere worldly advantage of a rich marriage and the opportunity

of becoming "queen at bals-parés." The man was cold, not because his art

made him so, but because of his overwhelming prudence, which we may be

sure did not make him a Gibson after all.

NOTE.--Verse ii., _Gibson, John_ (1790-1866), the sculptor, best known to

fame by his "Tinted Venus." He died at Rome. Verse iii., _Grisi,

Giulietta_ (born in Milan, 1812), one of the most distinguished singers of

our time She came to London in 1834, and at once took a leading position

in the operatic world. Verse xv., _bals-parés_ == dress-balls.

APPENDIX.

=Epistle Of Karshish.= Dr. R. Garnett published the following note on this

poem in the _Academy_ of 10th October, 1896:--

"BRITISH MUSEUM,

"_16th Sept., 1896_.

"Browning, in his 'Epistle of Karshish,' commits an oversight, as it

seems to me, in making Lazarus fifty years of age at the eve of the

siege of Jerusalem, _circa_ 68 A.D. The miracle of which he was the

subject is supposed to have been wrought about 33 A.D. He would

consequently have been only about fifteen at the time, which is quite

inconsistent with the general tenor of the narrative. According to

tradition, Lazarus was thirty at the time, and lived thirty years

longer, not surviving, therefore, to the date intimated in Browning's

poem.

'A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear.'

If I do not mistake, there is no such thing as a black lynx, except as

a _lusus naturae_. It is easy to see how the generally accurate

Browning fell into this error. The Syrian lynx, which he is

describing, has black tufted ears--the whole outer surface of the ear

is black--and the Turkish name by which it is commonly known,

_cara-cal_, means 'black ear.' Browning, intent on the creature's

special characteristic, has extended the blackness from the ear to the

entire body."

=Pietro of Abano.= Verse 10.

"ALPHABET ON A MAN'S EYES.

"In Alonzo Lee, of Atlanta, Galveston, the Americans have found a

singular phenomenon, nothing less than the alphabet marked quite

plainly on the edge of the iris of each of his eyes similar to the

figures on a watch. This wonder is said to have been caused by his

mother, who was an illiterate woman, desiring to educate herself. In

each eye the entire alphabet is plainly marked in capital letters,

not, however, in regular order. The 'W' is in the lower part of the

iris and 'X' at the top. They appear to be made if white fibre wove

cord, being connected at the top by another cord seemingly linked to

the upper extremity of each letter. The eye itself is blue, with white

lines radiating from the centre almost to the letters themselves:

these letters do not slope exactly in the direction that the radials

extend from the centre. Beginning at the bottom with 'W' and following

the letters like the hands of a watch they can be more readily

distinguished. So too, the irregularity is a striking feature, showing

how the mother learned her letters in broken patches, as a child

learns when beginning to read. Lee, who has been three times divorced,

has a son whose eyes are similar to his father's."

_Echo_, 23rd March, 1896.

=The Ring and the Book.= Book I., l. 902. "_Caritellas_," evidently for

"carretellas." "A kind of drosky with a single pony harnessed to the near

side of the pole." See _The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton_, vol. ii., p.

538.

Book I. "_O Lyric Love_," etc. The following letter was sent to me as

likely to be interesting on account of Mr. Browning's own explanation of

his terms _Whiteness_ and _Wanness_. My correspondent says: "I happen to

have an original letter from R. Browning in which he says, 'The greater

and lesser lights indicate the greater and less proximity of the person,'"

etc. Wanness should be taken as meaning simply less bright than absolute

whiteness, as Keats speaks of "wannish fire," etc.

Book VIII., l. 329. The torture referred to by De Archangelis as the

_Vigiliarum_, is evidently identical with that called the "Vigilia" and

which is described in Hare's _Walks in Rome_. "Upon a high joint-stool,

the seat about a span large, and, instead of being flat, cut in the form

of pointed diamonds, the victim was seated; the legs were fastened

together and without support; the hands bound behind the back, and with a

running knot attached to a cord descending from the ceiling; the body was

loosely attached to the back of the chair, cut also into angular points. A

wretch stood near pushing the victim from side to side; and now and then,

by pulling the rope from the ceiling, gave the arms most painful jerks. In

this horrible position the sufferer remained forty hours, the assistants

being changed every fifth hour.

Book IX., l. 1109. "_The sole joke of Thucydides._" Mr. F. C. Snow,

writing from Oxford to the _Daily News_, says: "Browning was misled by a

scholiast. The ancient critics said, 'Here the lion laughs,' with

reference to the passage of Thucydides where the story of Cylon is told

(l. 126, see also the Scholia). But they did not mean that the passage

contained any joke, only that the narrative style was unusually genial.

There are other passages of Thucydides where his grim humour comes much

nearer to the modern idea of pleasantry."

"The lion, lo, hath laughed!" in the context, proves the correctness of

Mr. Snow's explanation.

=Sordello.= Book III., l. 975. In the _Athenæum_, 12th December, 1896, Mr.

Alfred Forman published a letter on this passage which is an important

contribution to our commentary on _Sordello_.

"In a review of Dr. Berdoe's _Browning Cyclopædia_, I have seen it

asked: 'In what form did Empedocles put up with Ætna for a stimulant?'

In what form indeed! But I think a more pertinent question would have

been: How can either Empedocles or, as is usually alleged, Landor have

anything to do with the passage referred to? To me it has always

appeared to be Æschylus whom Browning (vol. i, pp. 169-70, of the

seventeen-volume edition, 1888-94, Smith, Elder & Co.) addresses as

'Yours, my patron-friend,

Whose great verse blares unintermittent on

Like your own trumpeter at Marathon,--

You who, Platæa and Salamis being scant,

Put up with Ætna for a stimulant.

I need not recall the legend of the Greek tragedian having fought at

Marathon as well as at Salamis and Platæa (the 'stimulants' to his

'Persæ'), but his ancient biographer further says: 'Having arrived in

Sicily, as Hiero was then engaged in founding the city of Ætna, he

exhibited his "Women of Ætna" by way of predicting a prosperous life

to those who contributed to colonise the city.' After a perusal of pp.

52-53, we may imagine that Æschylus was one of Browning's audience

('few living, many dead'), and not unlikely, as coming from the realm

where Browning says he had 'many lovers' (p. 53), to be designated a

'patron-friend,' while the 'great verse' that 'blares unintermittent

on,' etc., is surely identical (pp. 53-4) with

'The thunder-phrase of the Athenian, grown

Up out of memories of Marathon.

"I have not been able to discover any substantiating facts in the

life, or passages in the works, of Landor; but possibly some

correspondent of yours may be able to lay me under an obligation by

pointing such out. A simple statement to the effect that 'Browning

said so' could not, I think, in such a case as the one in question, be

deemed satisfactory. Dr. Garnett writes to me on the matter as

follows:--

"'Could the poet alluded to in _Sordello_ possibly be R. H. Horne?

Horne was, I think, an intimate friend of Browning's; he was more

Æschylean than any other contemporary; he had served as soldier and

sailor in the Mexican War; and, having given up arms for letters,

might be said to have forsaken Marathon and Salamis for Ætna, although

the introduction of Ætna would be quite incomprehensible but for the

historical fact of Æschylus's secession thither. I do not feel

convinced that the identification of Horne with Browning's

"patron-friend" is the correct interpretation, but it seems to me to

deserve attention.'

"While on the subject of _Sordello_, may I ask how (as I have seen it

assumed in 'Browning' books) the 'child barefoot and rosy' of p. 288

can be Sordello himself? In the first place, are not the words he is

singing taken from Sordello's own 'Goito lay' (cf. pp. 97, 249, 289),

with which he vanquished Eglamor, long after he had ceased to be, if

he ever was, a rosy and barefoot child? And, in the second place, is

there any indication in the whole poem that Sordello was ever 'by

sparkling Asolo,' where the aforesaid child is described as being?

"ALFRED FORMAN."

Book VI., l. 614:--

"_The old fable of the two eagles._" They--

"Went two ways

About the world: where, in the midst, they met,

Though on a shifting waste of sand, men set

Jove's temple."

The story is referred to in Pindar's "Fourth Pythian Ode," where he speaks

of "Jove's golden eagles." These were placed near the Delphic tripod, and

probably gave rise to the story of the two birds sent by Jupiter, one from

the east and the other from the west, and which met at Pytho or Delphi.

Mr. Browning seems to be in error here. Delphi was not "on a shifting

waste of sand," but on a mountain; and the temple was not that of Jove,

but of Apollo. The poet appears to have sent the eagles to the oasis of

Ammon, which was in the middle of a sandy desert and had a most famous

oracle of Zeus.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] One of the most remarkable instances of the use made of antithesis I

ever heard was at Friern Barnet Church, into the porch of which I strolled

when walking one summer day some twenty-five years ago. I was just in time

to hear the preacher use words which I have never forgotten. The

antithesis of the sentence was perfect:

"If _thou_ wouldst _hereafter be_ where _Christ_ is, see _thou_ be not

found _now_ where _He_ is _not_, lest _when He come_ he say to _you_, what

_now_ by your conduct you say to _Him_ 'Depart from Me--where _I_ am _you_

cannot come!'" If any one would investigate this principle of antithetic

reading further, let him take Macaulay's "Essay on Von Ranke's Popes,"

vol. ii., p. 128, and beginning at the words, "There is not, and there

never was," see how to place the correct emphasis by observation of the

opposed ideas. This is the one great secret of good reading. Printers'

punctuation is horribly misleading, and should usually be disregarded.

[2] See _Browning Society's Papers_, Pt. XII., p. 81.

[3] This is a mistake: it should be Ongar, not Norwich.

[4] The name Druses is generally, but not universally, believed to be

derived from this Darazi.--E. B.

[5] By means of riddles, as related in the Bible.

[6] The above sonnet, by Robert Browning, is copied from _The Monthly

Repository_ (edited by W. J. Fox) for 1834, New series, vol. viii., p.

712.

[7] For the above suggestions I am indebted to the _Notes of the Browning

Society_, Part VII., p. 42*.

[8] Browning stopped his work on _Sordello_ to write _Strafford_.

[9] Compare this use of the Light metaphor with Browning's frequent use of

it in his poems, as I explain in the article on "Browning as a Scientific

Poet" in my _Browning's Message to his Time_.

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.

Passages in bold are indicated by =bold=.

Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}.

Punctuation has been corrected and standardized without note.

Some quotes are opened with marks but are not closed. Obvious errors

have been silently closed while those requiring interpretation have

been left open.

The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these

letters have been replaced with transliterations.

The original text includes Hebrew characters. For this text version these

letters have been replaced with transliterations.

The original text includes several circles. This is noted in this text as

[circle].

The following misprints have been corrected:

"his" corrected to "this" (first ad page)

"hnsband" corrected to "husband" (page 34)

"Chöephoræ" standardized to "Choëphoræ" (page 43)

"Lacedemonians" corrected to "Lacedæmonians" (page 47)

"sly, mutething" corrected to "sly, mute thing" (page 67)

"jeu d esprit" corrected to "jeu d'esprit" (page 71)

"indiffererence" corrected to "indifference" (page 112)

"Idylls" corrected to "Idyls" (page 115)

"whree" corrected to "where" (page 130)

"sink's" corrected to "sinks" (page 138)

"Deminus" corrected to "Dominus" (page 138)

"Muleykeh" standardized to "Muléykeh" (page 141)

"hat" corrected to "that" (page 142)

"seeks" corrected to "seek" (page 169)

"eceived" corrected to "received" (page 190)

"thi" corrected to "this" (page 193)

"yuor" corrected to "your" (page 201)

"resouces" corrected to "resources" (page 241)

"Hooa's" corrected to "Hood's" (page 243)

"gras" corrected to "grass" (page 249)

"s" corrected to "is" (page 249)

"stragner" corrected to "stranger" (page 274)

"o" corrected to "of" (page 354)

"particulary" corrected to "particularly" (page 429)

"repa" corrected to "repay" (page 463)

"savation" corrected to "salvation" (page 473)

"o" corrected to "of" (page 500)

"tryanny" corrected to "tyranny" (page 505)

"interual" corrected to "interval" (page 547)

"Personae" standardized to "Personæ" (page 570)

"loosley" corrected to "loosely" (page 574)

Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and

hyphenation have been retained from the original.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Browning Cyclopædia, by Edward Berdoe