"Garden Fancies, II. Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis." ("Dramatic
Lyrics." Published in "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)
"HOLY-CROSS DAY" was the occasion of an "Annual Christian Sermon,"
which the Jews in Rome were forced to attend; and the poem which bears
this title is prefaced by an extract from an imaginary "Diary by a
Bishop's Secretary," dated 1600; and expatiating on the merciful
purpose, and regenerating effect of this sermon. What the assembled Jews
may have really felt about it, Mr. Browning sets forth in the words of
one of the congregation.
This man describes the hustling and bustling, the crowding and
packing--the suppressed stir as of human vermin imprisoned in a small
space; the sham groans, and sham conversions which follow in their due
course; and as he thus dwells on his national and personal degradation,
his tone has the bitter irony of one who has both realized and accepted
it. But the irony recoils on those who have inflicted the
degradation--on the so-called Christians who would throttle the Jew's
creed while they "gut" his purse, and make him the instrument of their
own sins; and is soon lost in the emotion of a pathetic and solemn
prayer; the supposed death-bed utterance of Rabbi Ben Ezra.
The prayer is an invocation to the justice, and to the sympathy of
Christ. It claims His help against the enemies who are also His own. It
concedes, as possible, that He was in truth the Messiah, crucified by
the nation of which He claimed a crown. But it points to His Christian
followers as inflicting on Him a still deeper outrage: a belief which
the lips profess, and which the life derides and discredits. It urges,
in the Jew's behalf, the ignorance, the fear, in which the deed was
done; the bitter sufferings by which it has been expiated. It pleads his
long endurance, as testimony to the fact, that he withstands Barabbas
now, as he withstood Christ "then;" that he strives to wrest Christ's
name from the "Devil's crew," though the shadow of His face be upon him.
The invocation concludes with an expression of joyful confidence in God
and the future.
(Giacomo) "PACCHIAROTTO" was a painter of Siena.[91] His story is told
in the "Commentary on the Life of Sodoma" by the editors of Vasari;
Florence, 1855; and this contains all, or nearly all, the incidents of
Mr. Browning's "Pacchiarotto," as well as others of a similar kind but
of later occurrence, which are not mentioned in it.
This painter was a restless, aggressive personage, with a craze for
reform; and a conspicuous member of the "Bardotti:" a society of
uncommissioned reformers, whose occupation was to cry down abuses, and
prescribe wholesale theoretical measures for removing them. (Hence their
title; which signifies "spare" horses or "freed" ones: they walk by the
side of the waggon while others drudge at, and drag it along). But he
discovered that men would not be reformed; and bethought himself, after
a time, of a new manner of testifying to the truth. He selected a room
in his own house, whitewashed it (we conclude); and, working in
"distemper" or fresco, painted it with men and women of every condition
and kind. He then harangued these on their various shortcomings. They
answered him, as he imagined, in a humble and apologetic manner; and he
then proceeded to denounce their excuses, and strip the mask from their
sophistries and hypocrisies--doing so with every appearance of success.
But he presumed too much on his victory. A famine had broken out in
Siena. The magistrates were, of course, held responsible for it. The
Bardotti assembled, and prescribed the fitting remedies. Everything
would come right if only the existing social order was turned
topsy-turvy, and men were released from every tie. Pacchiarotto was
conspicuous by his eloquence. But when he denounced the chief of the
municipal force, and hinted that if the right man were in the right
place, that officer would be he, all the other "spare horses" rushed
upon him and he was obliged to run for his life. The first hiding-place
which presented itself was a sepulchre, in which a corpse had just been
laid. He squeezed himself into this, and crawled forth from it at at the
end of two days, starving, covered with vermin, and thoroughly converted
to the policy of living and letting live. The authentic part of the
narrative concludes with his admission into a neighbouring convent (the
Osservanza) where he was cleansed and fed. But Mr. Browning allows Fancy
the just employment of telling how the Superior improved the occasion,
and how his lesson was received.
"It is a great mistake," this reverend person assures his guest--though
one from which his own youth has not been free--"to imagine that any one
man can preach another out of his folly. If such endeavours could
succeed, heaven would have begun on earth. Whereas, every man's task is
to leaven earth with heaven, by working towards the end to which his
Master points, without dreaming that he can ever attain it. Man, in
short, is to be not the 'spare horse,' but the 'mill-horse' plodding
patiently round and round on the same spot."
And Pacchiarotto replies that his monitor's arguments are, by his own
account, doomed to be ineffectual: but that he is addressing himself to
one already convinced. He (Pacchiarotto) never was so by living man; but
he has been convinced by a dead one. That corpse has seemed to ask him
by its grin, why he should join it before his time because men are not
all made on the same pattern: "Because, above, one's Jack and
one--John." And the same grin has reminded him that this life is the
rehearsal, not the real performance: just an hour's trial of who is fit,
and who isn't, to play his part; that the parts are distributed by the
author, whose purpose will be explained in proper time; and that when
his brother has been cast for a fool's part, he is no sage who would
persuade him to give it up. He is now going back to his paint-pot, and
will mind his own business in future.
By an easy transition, Mr. Browning turns the laugh against his own
critics, whom he professes to recognize on this May morning, as flocking
into his garden in the guise of sweeps. He does not, he says, grudge
them their fun or their one holiday of the year, the less so that their
rattling and drumming may give him some inkling how music sounds; and he
flings them, by way of a gift, the story he has just told, bidding them
dance, and "dust" his "jacket" for a little while. But that done, he
bids them clear off, lest his housemaid should compel them to do so. He
has her authority for suspecting that in their professional character
they bring more dirt into the house than they remove from it[92].
"FILIPPO BALDINUCCI" was the author of a history of art ("Notizie dei
Professori del Disegno da Cimabue in qua"); and the incident which Mr.
Browning relates as "a reminiscence of A.D. 1670," appears there in a
notice of the life of the painter Buti. (Vol. iii. p. 422.)
The Jewish burial ground in Florence was a small field at the foot of
the Monte Oliveto. A path ascending the hill skirted its upper end, and
at an angle of this stood a shrine with one side blank, the other
adorned by a painting of the Virgin Mary. The painting was intended to
catch the eye of all believers who approached from the neighbouring
city-gate (Porta San Friano or Frediano); and was therefore so turned
that it overlooked the Jewish cemetery at the same time. The Jews,
objecting to this, negotiated for its removal with the owner of the
ground; and his steward, acting in his name, received a hundred ducats
as the price of his promise that the Virgin should be transferred to the
opposite side of the shrine. The task was undertaken by Buti, but
carried on in the privacy of a curtained scaffolding; and when the
curtains were withdrawn, it was seen that the picture _had_ been
transferred; but that a painting of the Crucifixion occupied its
original place. Four Rabbis, the "sourest and ugliest" of the lot, were
deputed to remonstrate with the steward; but this person coolly replied
that they had no ground of complaint whatever. "His master had amply
fulfilled his bond. Did they fancy their 'sordid' money had bought his
freedom to do afterwards what he thought fit?" And he advised them to
remove themselves before worse befell them. The Jews retired
discomfited; and, as the writer hopes, took warning by what had
happened, never again to tempt with their ill-earned wealth "the
religious piety of good Christians."
Mr. Browning gives this story, with unimportant variations, in the
manner of Baldinucci himself; and does full justice to the hostile and
contemptuous spirit in which the attitude of the Jews is described by
him. But he also heightens the unconscious self-satire of the narrative
by infusing into this attitude a genuine dignity and pathos. He enlists
all our sympathy by the Chief Rabbi's prayer that his people, so sorely
tried in life, may be allowed rest from persecution in their graves; and
he concludes with an imaginary incident which leaves them masters of the
situation. On the day after what the historian calls this "pleasing
occurrence," the son of the High Priest presented himself at Buti's
shop, where he and the so-called "farmer" were still laughing over the
event; and in tones of ominous mildness begged to purchase that pretty
thing--the picture in oils, from which the fresco painting of the Virgin
had been made. He was a Herculean young man, and Buti, who white and
trembling had tried to slip out of his way, was so bewildered by the
offer, that he asked only the proper price for his work. The farmer,
however, broke forth in expressions of pious delight, "Mary had surely
wrought a miracle, and _converted_ the Jew!"
The Jew turned like a trodden worm. "Truly," he replied, "a miracle has
been wrought, by a power which no canvas yet possessed, in that I have
resisted the desire to throttle you. But my purchase of your picture is
not due to a miracle. It means simply that I have been cured of my
prejudices in respect to art. Christians hang up pictures of heathen
gods. Their 'Titians' paint them. A cardinal will value his Leda or his
Ganymede beyond everything else which he possesses. If I express wonder
at this sacrifice of the truth, I am told that the truth of a picture is
in its drawing and painting, and that these are valued precisely because
they _are_ true. Why then should not your Mary take her place among my
Ledas and the rest; be judged as a picture, and, since--as I
fear--Master Buti is not a Titian, laughed at accordingly?"
"So now," the speaker concludes, "Jews buy what pictures they like, and
hang them up where they please, and,"--with an inward groan--"no, boy,
you must not pelt them." This warning, which is supposed to be addressed
by the historian in his old age to a nephew with a turn for throwing
stones, reveals the motive of the story: a sudden remembrance of the
good old pious time, when Jews _might_ be pelted.
"UP AT A VILLA--DOWN IN THE CITY" is a lively description of the
amusements of the city, and the dulness of villa life, as contrasted by
an Italian of quality, who is bored to death in his country residence,
but cannot afford the town. His account of the former gives a genuine
impression of dreariness and monotony, for the villa is stuck on a
mountain edge, where the summer is scorching and the winter bleak, where
a "lean cypress" is the most conspicuous object in the foreground, and
hills "smoked over" with "faint grey olive trees" fill in the back;
where on hot days the silence is only broken by the shrill chirp of the
cicala, and the whining of bees around some adjacent firs. But the other
side of the picture, though sympathetically drawn, is a perfect parody
of what it is meant to convey. For the speaker's ideal "city" might be a
big village, with its primitive customs, and its life all concentrated
in the market-place or square; and it is precisely in the square that he
is ambitious to live. There the church-bells sound, and the diligence
rattles in, and the travelling doctor draws teeth or gives pills; there
the punch-show or the church procession displays itself, and the last
proclamation of duke or archbishop is posted up. It is never too hot,
because of the fountain always plashing in the centre; and the bright
white houses, and green blinds, and painted shop-signs are a perpetual
diversion to the eye.... But alas! the price of food is prohibitive; and
a man must live where he can.
"ANOTHER WAY OF LOVE" is the complement to "One Way of Love," and
displays the opposite mood. The one lover patiently gathers June roses
in case they may catch his lady's eye. The other grows tired of such
patience even when devoted to himself; he tires of June roses, which are
always red and sweet. His lady-love is bantering him on this frame of
mind. It is true, she says, that such monotony is trying to a man's
temper: there is no comfort in anything that can't be quarrelled with;
and the person she addresses is free to "go." She reminds him, however,
that June may repair her bower which his hand has rifled, and the next
time "consider" which of two courses she prefers: to bestow her flowers
on one who will accept their sweetness, or use her lightnings to kill
the spider who is weaving his films about them.
"SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS" is apparently the name of an old pedant
who has written a tiresome book; and the adventures of this book form
the subject of the poem. Some wag relates how he read it a month ago,
having come into the garden for that purpose; and then revenged himself
by dropping it through a crevice in a tree, and enjoying a picnic lunch
and a chapter of "Rabelais" on the grass close by. To-day, in a fit of
compunction, he has raked the "treatise" out; but meanwhile it has
blistered in the sun, and run all colours in the rain. Toadstools have
grown in it; and all the creatures that creep have towzed it and browsed
on it, and devoted bits of it to their different domestic use. It is
altogether a melancholy sight. So the wag thinks his victim has
sufficiently suffered, and carries it back to his book-shelf, to
"dry-rot" there in all the comfort it deserves.