April 21, 1894. William Browne of Tavistock.
It has been objected to the author of _Britannia's Pastorals_ that
their perusal sends you to sleep. It had been subtler criticism, as
well as more amiable, to observe that you can wake up again and,
starting anew at the precise point where you dropped off, continue the
perusal with as much pleasure as ever, neither ashamed of your
somnolence nor imputing it as a fault to the poet. For William Browne
is perhaps the easiest figure in our literature. He lived easily, he
wrote easily, and no doubt he died easily. He no more expected to be
read through at a sitting than he tried to write all the story of
Marina at a sitting. He took up his pen and composed: when he felt
tired he went off to bed, like a sensible man: and when you are tired
of reading he expects you to be sensible and do the same.
A placid life.
He was born at Tavistock, in Devon, about the year 1590; and after the
manner of mild and sensible men cherished a particular love for his
birth-place to the end of his days. From Tavistock Grammar School he
passed to Exeter College, Oxford--the old west-country college--and
thence to Clifford's Inn and the Inner Temple. His first wife died
when he was twenty-three or twenty-four. He took his second courtship
quietly and leisurely, marrying the lady at length in 1628, after a
wooing of thirteen years. "He seems," says Mr. A.H. Bullen, his latest
biographer, "to have acquired in some way a modest competence, which
secured him immunity from the troubles that weighed so heavily on men
of letters." His second wife also brought him a portion. More than
four years before this marriage he had returned to Exeter College, as
tutor to the young Robert Dormer, who in due time became Earl of
Carnarvon and was killed in Newbury fight. By his fellow-collegians--as
by everybody with whom he came into contact--he was highly beloved and
esteemed, and in the public Register of the University is styled, "vir
omni humana literarum et bonarum artium cognitione instructus." He
gained the especial favor of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, whom
Aubrey calls "the greatest Mæcenas to learned men of any peer of his
time or since," and of whom Clarendon says, "He was a great lover of
his country, and of the religion and justice, which he believed could
only support it; and his friendships were only with men of those
principles,"--another tribute to the poet's character. He was familiarly
received at Wilton, the home of the Herberts. After his second marriage
he moved to Dorking and there settled. He died in or before the year
1645. In the letters of administration granted to his widow (November,
1645) he is described as "late of Dorking, in the county of Surrey,
Esquire." But there is no entry of his death in the registers at Dorking
or Horsham: so perhaps he went back to lay his bones in his beloved Devon.
A William Browne was buried at Tavistock on March 27th, 1643. This may or
may not have been our author. "Tavistock,--Wilton,--Dorking," says Mr.
Bullen,--"Surely few poets have had a more tranquil journey to the
Elysian Fields."
An amiable poet.
As with his life, so with his poetry--he went about it quietly,
contentedly. He learned his art, as he confesses, from Spenser and
Sidney; and he took it over ready-made, with all the conventions and
pastoral stock-in-trade--swains languishing for hard-hearted nymphs,
nymphs languishing for hard-hearted swains; sheep-cotes, rustic
dances, junketings, anadems, and true-love knots; monsters invented
for the perpetual menace of chastity; chastity undergoing the most
surprising perils, but always saved in the nick of time, if not by an
opportune shepherd, then by an equally opportune river-god or
earthquake; episodes innumerable, branching off from the main stem of
the narrative at the most critical point, and luxuriating in endless
ramifications. Beauty, eluding unwelcome embraces, is never too hotly
pressed to dally with an engaging simile or choose the most agreeable
words for depicting her tribulation. Why indeed should she hurry? It
is all a polite and pleasant make-believe; and when Marina and Doridon
are tired, they stand aside and watch the side couples, Fida and
Remond, and get their breath again for the next figure. As for the
finish of the tale, there is no finish. The narrator will stop when he
is tired; just then and no sooner. What became of Marina after Triton
rolled away the stone and released her from the Cave of Famine? I am
sure I don't know. I have followed her adventures up to that point
(though I should be very sorry to attempt a _précis_ of them without
the book) through some 370 pages of verse. Does this mean that I am
greatly interested in her? Not in the least. I am quite content to
hear no more about her. Let us have the lamentations of Celadyne for a
change--though "for a change" is much too strong an expression. The
author is quite able to invent more adventures for Marina, if he
chooses to, by the hour together. If he does not choose to, well and
good.
Was the composition of _Britannia's Pastorals_ then, a useless or
inconsiderable feat? Not at all: since to read them is to taste a mild
but continuous pleasure. In the first place, it is always pleasant to
see a good man thoroughly enjoying himself: and that Browne thoroughly
"relisht versing"--to use George Herbert's pretty phrase--would be
patent enough, even had he not left us an express assurance:--
"What now I sing is but to pass away
A tedious hour, as some musicians play;
Or make another my own griefs bemoan--"
--rather affected, that, one suspects:
"Or to be least alone when most alone,
In this can I, as oft as I will choose,
Hug sweet content by my retirèd Muse,
And in a study find as much to please
As others in the greatest palaces.
Each man that lives, according to his power,
On what he loves bestows an idle hour.
Instead of hounds that make the wooded hills
Talk in a hundred voices to the rills,
I like the pleasing cadence of a line
Struck by the consort of the sacred Nine.
In lieu of hawks ..."
--and so on. Indeed, unless it be Wither, there is no poet of the time
who practised his art with such entire cheerfulness: though Wither's
satisfaction had a deeper note, as when he says of his Muse--
"Her true beauty leaves behind
Apprehensions in the mind,
Of more sweetness than all art
Or inventions can impart;
Thoughts too deep to be express'd,
And too strong to be suppressed."