Art Criticism Inspired by the English Musician, Avison 420
ILLUSTRATIONS
Browning at 23 _Frontispiece_
PAGE
Percy Bysshe Shelley 4
John Keats 10
William Wordsworth 16
Rydal Mount, the Home of Wordsworth 22
An English Lane 33
First Folio Portrait of Shakespeare 60
Charles I in Scene of Impeachment 80
Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford 88
Charles I 114
Whitehall 120
Westminster Hall 157
The Tower, London 170
The Tower, Traitors' Gate 183
An English Manor House 222
An English Park 240
John Bunyan 274
An English Inn 288
Cardinal Wiseman 336
Sacred Heart 342
The Nativity 351
The Transfiguration 366
Handel 426
Avison's March 446
BROWNING'S ENGLAND
CHAPTER I
ENGLISH POETS, FRIENDS AND ENTHUSIASMS
To any one casually trying to recall what England has given Robert
Browning by way of direct poetical inspiration, it is more than likely
that the little poem about Shelley, "Memorabilia" would at once occur:
I
"Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems and new!
II
"But you were living before that,
And also you are living after;
And the memory I started at--
My starting moves your laughter!
III
"I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world, no doubt,
Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone
'Mid the blank miles round about:
IV
"For there I picked up on the heather
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!
Well, I forget the rest."
It puts into a mood and a symbol the almost worshipful admiration felt
by Browning for the poet in his youth, which he had, many years before
this little lyric was written, recorded in a finely appreciative passage
in "Pauline."
"Sun-treader, life and light be thine forever!
Thou are gone from us; years go by and spring
Gladdens and the young earth is beautiful,
Yet thy songs come not, other bards arise,
But none like thee: they stand, thy majesties,
Like mighty works which tell some spirit there
Hath sat regardless of neglect and scorn,
Till, its long task completed, it hath risen
And left us, never to return, and all
Rush in to peer and praise when all in vain.
The air seems bright with thy past presence yet,
But thou art still for me as thou hast been
When I have stood with thee as on a throne
With all thy dim creations gathered round
Like mountains, and I felt of mould like them,
And with them creatures of my own were mixed,
Like things, half-lived, catching and giving life.
But thou art still for me who have adored
Tho' single, panting but to hear thy name
Which I believed a spell to me alone,
Scarce deeming thou wast as a star to men!
As one should worship long a sacred spring
Scarce worth a moth's flitting, which long grasses cross,
And one small tree embowers droopingly--
Joying to see some wandering insect won
To live in its few rushes, or some locust
To pasture on its boughs, or some wild bird
Stoop for its freshness from the trackless air:
And then should find it but the fountain-head,
Long lost, of some great river washing towns
And towers, and seeing old woods which will live
But by its banks untrod of human foot,
Which, when the great sun sinks, lie quivering
In light as some thing lieth half of life
Before God's foot, waiting a wondrous change;
Then girt with rocks which seek to turn or stay
Its course in vain, for it does ever spread
Like a sea's arm as it goes rolling on,
Being the pulse of some great country--so
Wast thou to me, and art thou to the world!
And I, perchance, half feel a strange regret
That I am not what I have been to thee:
Like a girl one has silently loved long
In her first loneliness in some retreat,
When, late emerged, all gaze and glow to view
Her fresh eyes and soft hair and lips which bloom
Like a mountain berry: doubtless it is sweet
To see her thus adored, but there have been
Moments when all the world was in our praise,
Sweeter than any pride of after hours.
Yet, sun-treader, all hail! From my heart's heart
I bid thee hail! E'en in my wildest dreams,
I proudly feel I would have thrown to dust
The wreaths of fame which seemed o'erhanging me,
To see thee for a moment as thou art."
Browning was only fourteen when Shelley first came into his literary
life. The story has often been told of how the young Robert, passing a
bookstall one day spied in a box of second-hand volumes, a shabby little
edition of Shelley advertised "Mr. Shelley's Atheistical Poems: very
scarce." It seems almost incredible to us now that the name was an
absolutely new one to him, and that only by questioning the bookseller
did he learn that Shelley had written a number of volumes of poetry and
that he was now dead. This accident was sufficient to inspire the
incipient poet's curiosity, and he never rested until he was the owner
of Shelley's works. They were hard to get hold of in those early days
but the persistent searching of his mother finally unearthed them at
Olliers' in Vere Street, London. She brought him also three volumes of
Keats, who became a treasure second only to Shelley.
[Illustration: Percy Bysshe Shelley
"Sun-treader, life and light be thine forever."]
The question of Shelley's influence on Browning's art has been one often
discussed. There are many traces of Shelleyan music and idea in his
early poems "Pauline," "Paracelsus," and "Sordello," but no marked nor
lasting impression was made upon Browning's development as a poet by
Shelley. Upon Browning's personal development Shelley exerted a
short-lived though somewhat intense influence. We see the young
enthusiast professing the atheism of his idol as the liberal views of
Shelley were then interpreted, and even becoming a vegetarian. As time
went on the discipleship vanished, and in its place came the recognition
on Browning's part of a poetic spirit akin yet different from his own.
The last trace of the disciple appears in "Sordello" when the poet
addresses Shelley among the audience of dead great ones he has mustered
to listen to the story of Sordello:
--"Stay--thou, spirit, come not near
Now--not this time desert thy cloudy place
To scare me, thus employed, with that pure face!
I need not fear this audience, I make free
With them, but then this is no place for thee!
The thunder-phrase of the Athenian, grown
Up out of memories of Marathon,
Would echo like his own sword's grinding screech
Braying a Persian shield,--the silver speech
Of Sidney's self, the starry paladin,
Turn intense as a trumpet sounding in
The Knights to tilt,--wert thou to hear!"
Shelley appears in the work of Browning once more in the prose essay on
Shelley which was written to a volume of spurious letters of that poet
published in 1851. In this is summed up in a masterful paragraph
reflecting Browning's unusual penetration into the secret paths of the
poetic mind, the characteristics of a poet of Shelley's order. The
paragraph is as follows:
"We turn with stronger needs to the genius of an opposite tendency--the
subjective poet of modern classification. He, gifted like the objective
poet, with the fuller perception of nature and man, is impelled to
embody the thing he perceives, not so much with reference to the many
below as to the One above him, the supreme Intelligence which apprehends
all things in their absolute truth,--an ultimate view ever aspired to,
if but partially attained, by the poet's own soul. Not what man sees,
but what God sees,--the _Ideas_ of Plato, seeds of creation lying
burningly on the Divine Hand,--it is toward these that he struggles. Not
with the combination of humanity in action, but with the primal elements
of humanity, he has to do; and he digs where he stands,--preferring to
seek them in his own soul as the nearest reflex of that absolute Mind,
according to the intuitions of which he desires to perceive and speak.
Such a poet does not deal habitually with the picturesque groupings and
tempestuous tossings of the forest-trees, but with their roots and
fibers naked to the chalk and stone. He does not paint pictures and
hang them on the walls, but rather carries them on the retina of his own
eyes: we must look deep into his human eyes, to see those pictures on
them. He is rather a seer, accordingly, than a fashioner, and what he
produces will be less a work than an effluence. That effluence cannot be
easily considered in abstraction from his personality,--being indeed the
very radiance and aroma of his personality, projected from it but not
separated. Therefore, in our approach to the poetry, we necessarily
approach the personality of the poet; in apprehending it, we apprehend
him, and certainly we cannot love it without loving him. Both for love's
and for understanding's sake we desire to know him, and, as readers of
his poetry, must be readers of his biography too."
Finally, the little "Memorabilia" lyric gives a mood of cherished memory
of the Sun-Treader, who beaconed him upon the heights in his youth, and
has now become a molted eagle-feather held close to his heart.
Keats' lesser but assured place in the poet's affections comes out in
the pugnacious lyric, "Popularity," one of the old-time bits of
ammunition shot from the guns of those who found Browning "obscure." The
poem is an "apology" for any unappreciated poet with the true stuff in
him, but the allusion to Keats shows him to have been the fuse that
fired this mild explosion against the dullards who pass by unknowing and
uncaring of a genius, though he pluck with one hand thoughts from the
stars, and with the other fight off want.
POPULARITY
I
Stand still, true poet that you are!
I know you; let me try and draw you.
Some night you'll fail us: when afar
You rise, remember one man saw you,
Knew you, and named a star!
II
My star, God's glow-worm! Why extend
That loving hand of his which leads you,
Yet locks you safe from end to end
Of this dark world, unless he needs you,
Just saves your light to spend?
III
His clenched hand shall unclose at last,
I know, and let out all the beauty:
My poet holds the future fast,
Accepts the coming ages' duty,
Their present for this past.
IV
That day, the earth's feast-master's brow
Shall clear, to God the chalice raising;
"Others give best at first, but thou
Forever set'st our table praising,
Keep'st the good wine till now!"
V
Meantime, I'll draw you as you stand,
With few or none to watch and wonder:
I'll say--a fisher, on the sand
By Tyre the old, with ocean-plunder,
A netful, brought to land.
VI
Who has not heard how Tyrian shells
Enclosed the blue, that dye of dyes
Whereof one drop worked miracles,
And colored like Astarte's eyes
Raw silk the merchant sells?
VII
And each bystander of them all
Could criticise, and quote tradition
How depths of blue sublimed some pall
--To get which, pricked a king's ambition;
Worth sceptre, crown and ball.
VIII
Yet there's the dye, in that rough mesh,
The sea has only just o'er-whispered!
Live whelks, each lip's beard dripping fresh
As if they still the water's lisp heard
Thro' foam the rock-weeds thresh.
IX
Enough to furnish Solomon
Such hangings for his cedar-house,
That, when gold-robed he took the throne
In that abyss of blue, the Spouse
Might swear his presence shone
X
Most like the centre-spike of gold
Which burns deep in the blue-bell's womb,
What time, with ardors manifold,
The bee goes singing to her groom,
Drunken and overbold.
XI
Mere conchs! not fit for warp or woof!
Till cunning come to pound and squeeze
And clarify,--refine to proof
The liquor filtered by degrees,
While the world stands aloof.
XII
And there's the extract, flasked and fine,
And priced and salable at last!
And Hobbs, Nobbs, Stokes and Nokes combine
To paint the future from the past,
Put blue into their line.
XIII
Hobbs hints blue,--straight he turtle eats:
Nobbs prints blue,--claret crowns his cup:
Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats,--
Both gorge. Who fished the murex up?
What porridge had John Keats?
[Illustration: John Keats
"Who fished the murex up?
What porridge had John Keats?"]
Wordsworth, it appears, was, so to speak, the inverse inspiration of the
stirring lines "The Lost Leader." Browning's strong sympathies with the
Liberal cause are here portrayed with an ardor which is fairly
intoxicating poetically, but one feels it is scarcely just to the
mild-eyed, exemplary Wordsworth, and perhaps exaggeratedly sure of
Shakespeare's attitude on this point. It is only fair to Browning, to
point out how he himself felt later that his artistic mood had here run
away with him, whereupon he made amends honorable in a letter in reply
to the question whether he had Wordsworth in mind: "I can only answer,
with something of shame and contrition, that I undoubtedly had
Wordsworth in my mind--but simply as a model; you know an artist takes
one or two striking traits in the features of his 'model,' and uses them
to start his fancy on a flight which may end far enough from the good
man or woman who happens to be sitting for nose and eye. I thought of
the great Poet's abandonment of liberalism at an unlucky juncture, and
no repaying consequence that I could ever see. But, once call my
fancy-portrait _Wordsworth_--and how much more ought one to say!"
The defection of Wordsworth from liberal sympathies is one of the
commonplaces of literary history. There was a time when he figured in
his poetry as a patriotic leader of the people, when in clarion tones he
exhorted his countrymen to "arm and combine in defense of their common
birthright." But this was in the enthusiasm of his youth when he and
Southey and Coleridge were metaphorically waving their red caps for the
principles of the French Revolution. The unbridled actions of the French
Revolutionists, quickly cooled off their ardor, and as Taine cleverly
puts it, "at the end of a few years, the three, brought back into the
pale of State and Church, were, Coleridge, a Pittite journalist,
Wordsworth, a distributor of stamps, and Southey, poet-laureate; all
converted zealots, decided Anglicans, and intolerant conservatives." The
"handful of silver" for which the patriot in the poem is supposed to
have left the cause included besides the post of "distributor of
stamps," given to him by Lord Lonsdale in 1813, a pension of three
hundred pounds a year in 1842, and the poet-laureateship in 1843.
The first of these offices was received so long after the cooling of
Wordsworth's "Revolution" ardors which the events of 1793 had brought
about that it can scarcely be said to have influenced his change of
mind.
It was during Wordsworth's residence in France, from November 1791 to
December 1792, that his enthusiasm for the French Revolution reached
white heat. How the change was wrought in his feelings is shown with
much penetration and sympathy by Edward Dowden in his "French Revolution
and English Literature." "When war between France and England was
declared Wordsworth's nature underwent the most violent strain it had
ever experienced. He loved his native land yet he could wish for nothing
but disaster to her arms. As the days passed he found it more and more
difficult to sustain his faith in the Revolution. First, he abandoned
belief in the leaders but he still trusted to the people, then the
people seemed to have grown insane with the intoxication of blood. He
was driven back from his defense of the Revolution, in its historical
development, to a bare faith in the abstract idea. He clung to theories,
the free and joyous movement of his sympathies ceased; opinions stifled
the spontaneous life of the spirit, these opinions were tested and
retested by the intellect, till, in the end, exhausted by inward
debate, he yielded up moral questions in despair ... by process of
the understanding alone Wordsworth could attain no vital body of
truth. Rather he felt that things of far more worth than political
opinions--natural instincts, sympathies, passions, intuitions--were
being disintegrated or denaturalized. Wordsworth began to suspect the
analytic intellect as a source of moral wisdom. In place of humanitarian
dreams came a deep interest in the joys and sorrows of individual men
and women; through his interest in this he was led back to a study of
the mind of man and those laws which connect the work of the creative
imagination with the play of the passions. He had begun again to think
nobly of the world and human life." He was, in fact, a more thorough
Democrat socially than any but Burns of the band of poets mentioned in
Browning's gallant company, not even excepting Browning himself.
THE LOST LEADER
I
Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat--
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others, she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags--were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us,--they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freeman,
--He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!
II
We shall march prospering,--not thro' his presence
Songs may inspirit us,--not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done,--while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,
Forced praise on our part--the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him--strike gallantly,
Menace our hearts ere we master his own;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!
Whether an artist is justified in taking the most doubtful feature of
his model's physiognomy and building up from it a repellent portrait is
question for debate, especially when he admits its incompleteness. But
we may balance against this incompleteness, the fine fire of enthusiasm
for the "cause" in the poem, and the fact that Wordsworth has not been
at all harmed by it. The worst that has happened is the raising in our
minds of a question touching Browning's good taste.
Just here it will be interesting to speak of a bit of purely personal
expression on the subject of Browning's known liberal standpoint,
written by him in answer to the question propounded to a number of
English men of letters and printed together with other replies in a
volume edited by Andrew Reid in 1885.
"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 fortune 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 thro' Liberty.
Who then dares hold, emancipated thus,
His fellow shall continue bound? Not I,
Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss
A brother's right to freedom. That is 'Why.'"
[Illustration: William Wordsworth
"How all our copper had gone for his service.
Rags--were they purple, his heart had been proved."]
Enthusiasm for liberal views comes out again and again in the poetry of
Browning.
His fullest treatment of the cause of political liberty is in
"Strafford," to be considered in the third chapter, but many are the
hints strewn about his verse that bring home with no uncertain touch the
fact that Browning lived man's "lover" and never man's "hater." Take as
an example "The Englishman in Italy," where the sarcastic turn he gives
to the last stanza shows clearly where his sympathies lie:
--"Such trifles!" you say?
Fort˘, in my England at home,
Men meet gravely to-day
And debate, if abolishing Corn-laws
Be righteous and wise!
--If 't were proper, Scirocco should vanish
In black from the skies!
More the ordinary note of patriotism is struck in "Home-thoughts, from
the Sea," wherein the scenes of England's victories as they come before
the poet arouse pride in her military achievements.
HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA
Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
In the dimmest North-east distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray;
"Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?"--say,
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.
In two instances Browning celebrates English friends in his poetry. The
poems are "Waring" and "May and Death."
Waring, who stands for Alfred Domett, is an interesting figure in
Colonial history as well as a minor light among poets. But it is highly
probable that he would not have been put into verse by Browning any more
than many other of the poet's warm friends if it had not been for the
incident described in the poem which actually took place, and made a
strong enough impression to inspire a creative if not exactly an exalted
mood on Browning's part. The incident is recorded in Thomas Powell's
"Living Authors of England," who writes of Domett, "We have a vivid
recollection of the last time we saw him. It was at an evening party a
few days before he sailed from England; his intimate friend, Mr.
Browning, was also present. It happened that the latter was introduced
that evening for the first time to a young author who had just then
appeared in the literary world [Powell, himself]. This, consequently,
prevented the two friends from conversation, and they parted from each
other without the slightest idea on Mr. Browning's part that he was
seeing his old friend Domett for the last time. Some days after when he
found that Domett had sailed, he expressed in strong terms to the writer
of this sketch the self-reproach he felt at having preferred the
conversation of a stranger to that of his old associate."
This happened in 1842, when with no good-bys, Domett sailed for New
Zealand where he lived for thirty years, and held during that time many
important official posts. Upon his return to England, Browning and he
met again, and in his poem "Ranolf and Amohia," published the year
after, he wrote the often quoted line so aptly appreciative of
Browning's genius,--"Subtlest assertor of the soul in song."
The poem belongs to the _vers de sociÈtÈ_ order, albeit the lightness is
of a somewhat ponderous variety. It, however, has much interest as a
character sketch from the life, and is said by those who had the
opportunity of knowing to be a capital portrait.
WARING
I
I
What's become of Waring
Since he gave us all the slip,
Chose land-travel or seafaring,
Boots and chest or staff and scrip,
Rather than pace up and down
Any longer London town?
II
Who'd have guessed it from his lip
Or his brow's accustomed bearing,
On the night he thus took ship
Or started landward?--little caring
For us, it seems, who supped together
(Friends of his too, I remember)
And walked home thro' the merry weather,
The snowiest in all December.
I left his arm that night myself
For what's-his-name's, the new prose-poet
Who wrote the book there, on the shelf--
How, forsooth, was I to know it
If Waring meant to glide away
Like a ghost at break of day?
Never looked he half so gay!
III
He was prouder than the devil:
How he must have cursed our revel!
Ay and many other meetings,
Indoor visits, outdoor greetings,
As up and down he paced this London,
With no work done, but great works undone,
Where scarce twenty knew his name.
Why not, then, have earlier spoken,
Written, bustled? Who's to blame
If your silence kept unbroken?
"True, but there were sundry jottings,
Stray-leaves, fragments, blurs and blottings,
Certain first steps were achieved
Already which"--(is that your meaning?)
"Had well borne out whoe'er believed
In more to come!" But who goes gleaning
Hedgeside chance-glades, while full-sheaved
Stand cornfields by him? Pride, o'erweening
Pride alone, puts forth such claims
O'er the day's distinguished names.
IV
Meantime, how much I loved him,
I find out now I've lost him.
I who cared not if I moved him,
Who could so carelessly accost him,
Henceforth never shall get free
Of his ghostly company,
His eyes that just a little wink
As deep I go into the merit
Of this and that distinguished spirit--
His cheeks' raised color, soon to sink,
As long I dwell on some stupendous
And tremendous (Heaven defend us!)
Monstr'-inform'-ingens-horrend-ous
Demoniaco-seraphic
Penman's latest piece of graphic.
Nay, my very wrist grows warm
With his dragging weight of arm.
E'en so, swimmingly appears,
Through one's after-supper musings,
Some lost lady of old years
With her beauteous vain endeavor
And goodness unrepaid as ever;
The face, accustomed to refusings,
We, puppies that we were.... Oh never
Surely, nice of conscience, scrupled
Being aught like false, forsooth, to?
Telling aught but honest truth to?
What a sin, had we centupled
Its possessor's grace and sweetness!
No! she heard in its completeness
Truth, for truth's a weighty matter,
And truth, at issue, we can't flatter!
Well, 'tis done with; she's exempt
From damning us thro' such a sally;
And so she glides, as down a valley,
Taking up with her contempt,
Past our reach; and in, the flowers
Shut her unregarded hours.
[Illustration: Rydal Mount, the Home of Wordsworth]
V
Oh, could I have him back once more,
This Waring, but one half-day more!
Back, with the quiet face of yore,
So hungry for acknowledgment
Like mine! I'd fool him to his bent.
Feed, should not he, to heart's content?
I'd say, "to only have conceived,
Planned your great works, apart from progress,
Surpasses little works achieved!"
I'd lie so, I should be believed.
I'd make such havoc of the claims
Of the day's distinguished names
To feast him with, as feasts an ogress
Her feverish sharp-toothed gold-crowned child!
Or as one feasts a creature rarely
Captured here, unreconciled
To capture; and completely gives
Its pettish humors license, barely
Requiring that it lives.
VI
Ichabod, Ichabod,
The glory is departed!
Travels Waring East away?
Who, of knowledge, by hearsay,
Reports a man upstarted
Somewhere as a god,
Hordes grown European-hearted,
Millions of the wild made tame
On a sudden at his fame?
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?
Or who in Moscow, toward the Czar,
With the demurest of footfalls
Over the Kremlin's pavement bright
With serpentine and syenite,
Steps, with five other Generals
That simultaneously take snuff,
For each to have pretext enough
And kerchiefwise unfold his sash
Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff
To hold fast where a steel chain snaps,
And leave the grand white neck no gash?
Waring in Moscow, to those rough
Cold northern natures born perhaps,
Like the lambwhite maiden dear
From the circle of mute kings
Unable to repress the tear,
Each as his sceptre down he flings,
To Dian's fane at Taurica,
Where now a captive priestess, she alway
Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech
With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach
As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands
Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands
Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry
Amid their barbarous twitter!
In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter!
Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain
That we and Waring meet again
Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane
Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid
All fire and shine, abrupt as when there's slid
Its stiff gold blazing pall
From some black coffin-lid.
Or, best of all,
I love to think
The leaving us was just a feint;
Back here to London did he slink,
And now works on without a wink
Of sleep, and we are on the brink
Of something great in fresco-paint:
Some garret's ceiling, walls and floor,
Up and down and o'er and o'er
He splashes, as none splashed before
Since great Caldara Polidore.
Or Music means this land of ours
Some favor yet, to pity won
By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers,--
"Give me my so-long promised son,
Let Waring end what I begun!"
Then down he creeps and out he steals
Only when the night conceals
His face; in Kent 'tis cherry-time,
Or hops are picking: or at prime
Of March he wanders as, too happy,
Years ago when he was young,
Some mild eve when woods grew sappy
And the early moths had sprung
To life from many a trembling sheath
Woven the warm boughs beneath;
While small birds said to themselves
What should soon be actual song,
And young gnats, by tens and twelves,
Made as if they were the throng
That crowd around and carry aloft
The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure,
Out of a myriad noises soft,
Into a tone that can endure
Amid the noise of a July noon
When all God's creatures crave their boon,
All at once and all in tune,
And get it, happy as Waring then,
Having first within his ken
What a man might do with men:
And far too glad, in the even-glow,
To mix with the world he meant to take
Into his hand, he told you, so--
And out of it his world to make,
To contract and to expand
As he shut or oped his hand.
Oh Waring, what's to really be?
A clear stage and a crowd to see!
Some Garrick, say, out shall not he
The heart of Hamlet's mystery pluck?
Or, where most unclean beasts are rife,
Some Junius--am I right?--shall tuck
His sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife!
Some Chatterton shall have the luck
Of calling Rowley into life!
Some one shall somehow run a muck
With this old world for want of strife
Sound asleep. Contrive, contrive
To rouse us, Waring! Who's alive?
Our men scarce seem in earnest now.
Distinguished names!--but 'tis, somehow,
As if they played at being names
Still more distinguished, like the games
Of children. Turn our sport to earnest
With a visage of the sternest!
Bring the real times back, confessed
Still better than our very best!
II
I
"When I last saw Waring...."
(How all turned to him who spoke!
You saw Waring? Truth or joke?
In land-travel or sea-faring?)
II
"We were sailing by Triest
Where a day or two we harbored:
A sunset was in the West,
When, looking over the vessel's side,
One of our company espied
A sudden speck to larboard.
And as a sea-duck flies and swims
At once, so came the light craft up,
With its sole lateen sail that trims
And turns (the water round its rims
Dancing, as round a sinking cup)
And by us like a fish it curled,
And drew itself up close beside,
Its great sail on the instant furled,
And o'er its thwarts a shrill voice cried,
(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's)
'Buy wine of us, you English Brig?
Or fruit, tobacco and cigars?
A pilot for you to Triest?
Without one, look you ne'er so big,
They'll never let you up the bay!
We natives should know best.'
I turned, and 'just those fellows' way,'
Our captain said, 'The 'long-shore thieves
Are laughing at us in their sleeves.'
III
"In truth, the boy leaned laughing back;
And one, half-hidden by his side
Under the furled sail, soon I spied,
With great grass hat and kerchief black,
Who looked up with his kingly throat,
Said somewhat, while the other shook
His hair back from his eyes to look
Their longest at us; then the boat,
I know not how, turned sharply round,
Laying her whole side on the sea
As a leaping fish does; from the lee
Into the weather, cut somehow
Her sparkling path beneath our bow,
And so went off, as with a bound,
Into the rosy and golden half
O' the sky, to overtake the sun
And reach the shore, like the sea-calf
Its singing cave; yet I caught one
Glance ere away the boat quite passed,
And neither time nor toil could mar
Those features: so I saw the last
Of Waring!"--You? Oh, never star
Was lost here but it rose afar!
Look East, where whole new thousands are!
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?
"May and Death" is perhaps more interesting for the glimpse it gives of
Browning's appreciation of English Nature than for its expression of
grief for the death of a friend.
MAY AND DEATH
I
I wish that when you died last May,
Charles, there had died along with you
Three parts of spring's delightful things;
Ay, and, for me, the fourth part too.
II
A foolish thought, and worse, perhaps!
There must be many a pair of friends
Who, arm in arm, deserve the warm
Moon-births and the long evening-ends.
III
So, for their sake, be May still May!
Let their new time, as mine of old,
Do all it did for me: I bid
Sweet sights and sounds throng manifold.
IV
Only, one little sight, one plant,
Woods have in May, that starts up green
Save a sole streak which, so to speak,
Is spring's blood, spilt its leaves between,--
V
That, they might spare; a certain wood
Might miss the plant; their loss were small:
But I,--whene'er the leaf grows there,
Its drop comes from my heart, that's all.
The poet's one truly enthusiastic outburst in connection with English
Nature he sings out in his longing for an English spring in the
incomparable little lyric "Home-thoughts, from Abroad."
HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD
I
Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England--now!
II
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops--at the bent spray's edge--
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And, though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
--Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
After this it seems hardly possible that Browning, himself speaks in "De
Gustibus," yet long and happy living away from England doubtless dimmed
his sense of the beauty of English landscape. "De Gustibus" was
published ten years later than "Home-Thoughts from Abroad," when Italy
and he had indeed become "lovers old." A deeper reason than mere delight
in its scenery is also reflected in the poem; the sympathy shared with
Mrs. Browning, for the cause of Italian independence.
"DE GUSTIBUS----"
I
Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees,
(If our loves remain)
In an English lane,
By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.
Hark, those two in the hazel coppice--
A boy and a girl, if the good fates please,
Making love, say,--
The happier they!
Draw yourself up from the light of the moon,
And let them pass, as they will too soon,
With the bean-flower's boon,
And the blackbird's tune,
And May, and June!
II
What I love best in all the world
Is a castle, precipice-encurled,
In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine.
Or look for me, old fellow of mine,
(If I get my head from out the mouth
O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands,
And come again to the land of lands)--
In a sea-side house to the farther South,
Where the baked cicala dies of drouth,
And one sharp tree--'tis a cypress--stands,
By the many hundred years red-rusted,
Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted,
My sentinel to guard the sands
To the water's edge. For, what expands
Before the house, but the great opaque
Blue breadth of sea without a break?
While, in the house, for ever crumbles
Some fragment of the frescoed walls,
From blisters where a scorpion sprawls.
A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles
Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons,
And says there's news to-day--the king
Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing,
Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling:
--She hopes they have not caught the felons.
Italy, my Italy!
Queen Mary's saying serves for me--
(When fortune's malice
Lost her--Calais)--
Open my heart and you will see
Graved inside of it, "Italy."
Such lovers old are I and she:
So it always was, so shall ever be!
Two or three English artists called forth appreciation in verse from
Browning. There is the exquisite bit called "Deaf and Dumb," after a
group of statuary by Woolner, of Constance and Arthur--the deaf and dumb
children of Sir Thomas Fairbairn.
DEAF AND DUMB
A GROUP BY WOOLNER.
Only the prism's obstruction shows aright
The secret of a sunbeam, breaks its light
Into the jewelled bow from blankest white;
So may a glory from defect arise:
Only by Deafness may the vexed Love wreak
Its insuppressive sense on brow and cheek,
Only by Dumbness adequately speak
As favored mouth could never, through the eyes.
[Illustration: An English Lane]
There is also the beautiful description in "Balaustion's Adventure" of
the Alkestis by Sir Frederick Leighton.
The flagrant anachronism of making a Greek girl at the time of the Fall
of Athens describe an English picture cannot but be forgiven, since the
artistic effect gained is so fine. The poet quite convinces the reader
that Sir Frederick Leighton ought to have been a Kaunian painter, if he
was not, and that Balaustion or no one was qualified to appreciate his
picture at its full worth.
"I know, too, a great Kaunian painter, strong
As Herakles, though rosy with a robe
Of grace that softens down the sinewy strength:
And he has made a picture of it all.
There lies Alkestis dead, beneath the sun,
She longed to look her last upon, beside
The sea, which somehow tempts the life in us
To come trip over its white waste of waves,
And try escape from earth, and fleet as free.
Behind the body, I suppose there bends
Old Pheres in his hoary impotence;
And women-wailers, in a corner crouch
--Four, beautiful as you four--yes, indeed!--
Close, each to other, agonizing all,
As fastened, in fear's rhythmic sympathy,
To two contending opposite. There strains
The might o' the hero 'gainst his more than match,
--Death, dreadful not in thew and bone, but like
The envenomed substance that exudes some dew
Whereby the merely honest flesh and blood
Will fester up and run to ruin straight,
Ere they can close with, clasp and overcome
The poisonous impalpability
That simulates a form beneath the flow
Of those grey garments; I pronounce that piece
Worthy to set up in our PoikilÈ!
"And all came,--glory of the golden verse,
And passion of the picture, and that fine
Frank outgush of the human gratitude
Which saved our ship and me, in Syracuse,--
Ay, and the tear or two which slipt perhaps
Away from you, friends, while I told my tale,
--It all came of this play that gained no prize!
Why crown whom Zeus has crowned in soul before?"
Once before had Sir Frederick Leighton inspired the poet in the
exquisite lines on Eurydice.
EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS
A PICTURE BY LEIGHTON
But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!
Let them once more absorb me! One look now
Will lap me round for ever, not to pass
Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond:
Hold me but safe again within the bond
Of one immortal look! All woe that was,
Forgotten, and all terror that may be,
Defied,--no past is mine, no future: look at me!
Beautiful as these lines are, they do not impress me as fully
interpreting Leighton's picture. The expression of Eurydice is rather
one of unthinking confiding affection--as if she were really unconscious
or ignorant of the danger; while that of Orpheus is one of passionate
agony as he tries to hold her off.
Though English art could not fascinate the poet as Italian art did, for
the fully sufficient reason that it does not stand for a great epoch of
intellectual awakening, yet with what fair alchemy he has touched those
few artists he has chosen to honor. Notwithstanding his avowed devotion
to Italy, expressed in "De Gustibus," one cannot help feeling that in
the poems mentioned in this chapter, there is that ecstasy of sympathy
which goes only to the most potent influences in the formation of
character. Something of what I mean is expressed in one of his latest
poems, "Development." In this we certainly get a real peep at young
Robert Browning, led by his wise father into the delights of Homer, by
slow degrees, where all is truth at first, to end up with the
devastating criticism of Wolf. In spite of it all the dream stays and is
the reality. Nothing can obliterate the magic of a strong early
enthusiasm, as "fact still held" "Spite of new Knowledge," in his "heart
of hearts."
DEVELOPMENT
My Father was a scholar and knew Greek.
When I was five years old, I asked him once
"What do you read about?"
"The siege of Troy."
"What is a siege and what is Troy?"
Whereat
He piled up chairs and tables for a town,
Set me a-top for Priam, called our cat
--Helen, enticed away from home (he said)
By wicked Paris, who couched somewhere close
Under the footstool, being cowardly,
But whom--since she was worth the pains, poor puss--
Towzer and Tray,--our dogs, the Atreidai,--sought
By taking Troy to get possession of
--Always when great Achilles ceased to sulk,
(My pony in the stable)--forth would prance
And put to flight Hector--our page-boy's self.
This taught me who was who and what was what:
So far I rightly understood the case
At five years old: a huge delight it proved
And still proves--thanks to that instructor sage
My Father, who knew better than turn straight
Learning's full flare on weak-eyed ignorance,
Or, worse yet, leave weak eyes to grow sand-blind,
Content with darkness and vacuity.
It happened, two or three years afterward,
That--I and playmates playing at Troy's Siege--
My Father came upon our make-believe.
"How would you like to read yourself the tale
Properly told, of which I gave you first
Merely such notion as a boy could bear?
Pope, now, would give you the precise account
Of what, some day, by dint of scholarship,
You'll hear--who knows?--from Homer's very mouth.
Learn Greek by all means, read the 'Blind Old Man,
Sweetest of Singers'--_tuphlos_ which means 'blind,'
_Hedistos_ which means 'sweetest.' Time enough!
Try, anyhow, to master him some day;
Until when, take what serves for substitute,
Read Pope, by all means!"
So I ran through Pope,
Enjoyed the tale--what history so true?
Also attacked my Primer, duly drudged,
Grew fitter thus for what was promised next--
The very thing itself, the actual words,
When I could turn--say, Buttmann to account.
Time passed, I ripened somewhat: one fine day,
"Quite ready for the Iliad, nothing less?
There's Heine, where the big books block the shelf:
Don't skip a word, thumb well the Lexicon!"
I thumbed well and skipped nowise till I learned
Who was who, what was what, from Homer's tongue,
And there an end of learning. Had you asked
The all-accomplished scholar, twelve years old,
"Who was it wrote the Iliad?"--what a laugh!
"Why, Homer, all the world knows: of his life
Doubtless some facts exist: it's everywhere:
We have not settled, though, his place of birth:
He begged, for certain, and was blind beside:
Seven cites claimed him--Scio, with best right,
Thinks Byron. What he wrote? Those Hymns we have.
Then there's the 'Battle of the Frogs and Mice,'
That's all--unless they dig 'Margites' up
(I'd like that) nothing more remains to know."
Thus did youth spend a comfortable time;
Until--"What's this the Germans say is fact
That Wolf found out first? It's unpleasant work
Their chop and change, unsettling one's belief:
All the same, while we live, we learn, that's sure."
So, I bent brow o'er _Prolegomena_.
And, after Wolf, a dozen of his like
Proved there was never any Troy at all,
Neither Besiegers nor Besieged,--nay, worse,--
No actual Homer, no authentic text,
No warrant for the fiction I, as fact,
Had treasured in my heart and soul so long--
Ay, mark you! and as fact held still, still hold,
Spite of new knowledge, in my heart of hearts
And soul of souls, fact's essence freed and fixed
From accidental fancy's guardian sheath.
Assuredly thenceforward--thank my stars!--
However it got there, deprive who could--
Wring from the shrine my precious tenantry,
Helen, Ulysses, Hector and his Spouse,
Achilles and his Friend?--though Wolf--ah, Wolf!
Why must he needs come doubting, spoil a dream?
But then "No dream's worth waking"--Browning says:
And here's the reason why I tell thus much
I, now mature man, you anticipate,
May blame my Father justifiably
For letting me dream out my nonage thus,
And only by such slow and sure degrees
Permitting me to sift the grain from chaff,
Get truth and falsehood known and named as such.
Why did he ever let me dream at all,
Not bid me taste the story in its strength?
Suppose my childhood was scarce qualified
To rightly understand mythology,
Silence at least was in his power to keep:
I might have--somehow--correspondingly--
Well, who knows by what method, gained my gains,
Been taught, by forthrights not meanderings,
My aim should be to loathe, like Peleus's son,
A lie as Hell's Gate, love my wedded wife,
Like Hector, and so on with all the rest.
Could not I have excogitated this
Without believing such men really were?
That is--he might have put into my hand
The "Ethics"? In translation, if you please,
Exact, no pretty lying that improves,
To suit the modern taste: no more, no less--
The "Ethics": 'tis a treatise I find hard
To read aright now that my hair is grey,
And I can manage the original.
At five years old--how ill had fared its leaves!
Now, growing double o'er the Stagirite,
At least I soil no page with bread and milk,
Nor crumple, dogsear and deface--boys' way.
This chapter would not be complete without Browning's tribute to dog
Tray, whose traits may not be peculiar to English dogs but whose name
is proverbially English. Besides it touches a subject upon which the
poet had strong feelings. Vivisection he abhorred, and in the
controversies which were tearing the scientific and philanthropic world
asunder in the last years of his life, no one was a more determined
opponent of vivisection than he.
TRAY
Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst
Of soul, ye bards!
Quoth Bard the first:
"Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don
His helm and eke his habergeon...."
Sir Olaf and his bard----!
"That sin-scathed brow" (quoth Bard the second),
"That eye wide ope as though Fate beckoned
My hero to some steep, beneath
Which precipice smiled tempting death...."
You too without your host have reckoned!
"A beggar-child" (let's hear this third!)
"Sat on a quay's edge: like a bird
Sang to herself at careless play,
'And fell into the stream. Dismay!
Help, you the standers-by!' None stirred.
"Bystanders reason, think of wives
And children ere they risk their lives.
Over the balustrade has bounced
A mere instinctive dog, and pounced
Plumb on the prize. 'How well he dives!
"'Up he comes with the child, see, tight
In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite
A depth of ten feet--twelve, I bet!
Good dog! What, off again? There's yet
Another child to save? All right!
"'How strange we saw no other fall!
It's instinct in the animal.
Good dog! But he's a long while under:
If he got drowned I should not wonder--
Strong current, that against the wall!
"'Here he comes, holds in mouth this time
--What may the thing be? Well, that's prime!
Now, did you ever? Reason reigns
In man alone, since all Tray's pains
Have fished--the child's doll from the slime!'
"And so, amid the laughter gay,
Trotted my hero off,--old Tray,--
Till somebody, prerogatived
With reason, reasoned: 'Why he dived,
His brain would show us, I should say.
"'John, go and catch--or, if needs be,
Purchase--that animal for me!
By vivisection, at expense
Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence,
How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'"
CHAPTER II
SHAKESPEARE'S PORTRAIT
Once and once only did Browning depart from his custom of choosing
people of minor note to figure in his dramatic monologues. In "At the
'Mermaid'" he ventures upon the consecrated ground of a heart-to-heart
talk between Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and the wits who gathered at the
classic "Mermaid" Tavern in Cheapside, following this up with further
glimpses into the inner recesses of Shakespeare's mind in the monologues
"House" and "Shop." It is a particularly daring feat in the case of
Shakespeare, for as all the world knows any attempt at getting in touch
with the real man, Shakespeare, must, per force, be woven out of such
"stuff as dreams are made on."
In interpreting this portraiture of one great poet by another it will be
of interest to glance at the actual facts as far as they are known in
regard to the relations which existed between Shakespeare and Jonson.
Praise and blame both are recorded on Jonson's part when writing of
Shakespeare, yet the praise shows such undisguised admiration that the
blame sinks into insignificance. Jonson's "learned socks" to which
Milton refers probably tripped the critic up occasionally by reason of
their weight.
There is a charming story told of the friendship between the two men
recorded by Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, within a very few years of
Shakespeare's death, who attributed it to Dr. Donne. The story goes that
"Shakespeare was godfather to one of Ben Jonson's children, and after
the christening, being in a deep study, Jonson came to cheer him up and
asked him why he was so melancholy. 'No, faith, Ben,' says he, 'not I,
but I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest
gift for me to bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolved at last.' 'I
prythee what?' says he. 'I'faith, Ben, I'll e'en give him a dozen good
Lattin spoons, and thou shalt translate them.'" If this must be taken
with a grain of salt, there is another even more to the honor of
Shakespeare reported by Rowe and considered credible by such
Shakespearian scholars as Halliwell Phillipps and Sidney Lee. "His
acquaintance with Ben Jonson" writes Rowe, "began with a remarkable
piece of humanity and good nature; Mr. Jonson, who was at that time
altogether unknown to the world, had offered one of his plays to the
players in order to have it acted, and the persons into whose hands it
was put, after having turned it carelessly and superciliously over, were
just upon returning it to him with an ill-natured answer that it would
be of no service to their company, when Shakespeare luckily cast his eye
upon it, and found something so well in it as to engage him first to
read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonson and his writings
to the public." The play in question was the famous comedy of "Every Man
in His Humour," which was brought out in September, 1598, by the Lord
Chamberlain's company, Shakespeare himself being one of the leading
actors upon the occasion.
Authentic history records a theater war in which Jonson and Shakespeare
figured, on opposite sides, but if allusions in Jonson's play the
"Poetaster" have been properly interpreted, their friendly relations
were not deeply disturbed. The trouble began in the first place by the
London of 1600 suddenly rushing into a fad for the company of boy
players, recruited chiefly from the choristers of the Chapel Royal, and
known as the "Children of the Chapel." They had been acting at the new
theater in Blackfriars since 1597, and their vogue became so great as
actually to threaten Shakespeare's company and other companies of adult
actors. Just at this time Ben Jonson was having a personal quarrel with
his fellow dramatists, Marston and Dekker, and as he received little
sympathy from the actors, he took his revenge by joining his forces with
those of the Children of the Chapel. They brought out for him in 1600
his satire of "Cynthia's Revels," in which he held up to ridicule
Marston, Dekker and their friends the actors. Marston and Dekker, with
the actors of Shakespeare's company, prepared to retaliate, but Jonson
hearing of it forestalled them with his play the "Poetaster" in which he
spared neither dramatists nor actors. Shakespeare's company continued
the fray by bringing out at the Globe Theatre, in the following year,
Dekker and Marston's "Satiro-Mastix, or The Untrussing of the Humorous
Poet," and as Ward remarks, "the quarrel had now become too hot to
last." The excitement, however, continued for sometime, theater-goers
took sides and watched with interest "the actors and dramatists'
boisterous war of personalities," to quote Mr. Lee, who goes on to
point out that on May 10, 1601, the Privy Council called the attention
of the Middlesex magistrates to the abuse covertly leveled by the actors
of the "Curtain" at gentlemen "of good desert and quality," and directed
the magistrates to examine all plays before they were produced.
Jonson, himself, finally made apologies in verses appended to printed
copies of the "Poetaster."
"Now for the players 'tis true I tax'd them
And yet but some, and those so sparingly
As all the rest might have sat still unquestioned,
Had they but had the wit or conscience
To think well of themselves. But impotent they
Thought each man's vice belonged to their whole tribe;
And much good do it them. What they have done against me
I am not moved with, if it gave them meat
Or got them clothes, 'tis well: that was their end,
Only amongst them I was sorry for
Some better natures by the rest so drawn
To run in that vile line."
Sidney Lee cleverly deduces Shakespeare's attitude in the quarrel in
allusions to it in "Hamlet," wherein he "protested against the abusive
comments on the men-actors of 'the common' stages or public theaters
which were put into the children's mouths. Rosencrantz declared that the
children 'so berattle [_i.e._ assail] the common stages--so they call
them--that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare
scarce come thither [_i.e._ to the public theaters].' Hamlet in pursuit
of the theme pointed out that the writers who encouraged the vogue of
the 'child actors' did them a poor service, because when the boys should
reach men's estate they would run the risk, if they continued on the
stage, of the same insults and neglect which now threatened their
seniors.
"'_Hamlet._ What are they children? Who maintains 'em? How are they
escorted [_i.e._ paid]? Will they pursue the quality [_i.e._ the actor's
profession] no longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards,
if they should grow themselves to common players--as it is most like, if
their means are no better--their writers do them wrong to make them
exclaim against their own succession?
"'_Rosencrantz._ Faith, there has been much to do on both sides, and the
nation holds it no sin to tarre [_i.e._ incite] them to controversy;
there was for a while no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the
player went to cuffs in the question.'"
This certainly does not reflect a very belligerent attitude since it
merely puts in a word for the grown-up actors rather than casting any
slurs upon the children. Further indications of Shakespeare's mildness
in regard to the whole matter are given in the Prologue to "Troylus and
Cressida," where, as Mr. Lee says, he made specific reference to the
strife between Ben Jonson and the players in the lines
"And hither am I come
A Prologue arm'd, but not in confidence,
Of Authors' pen, or Actors' voyce."
The most interesting bit of evidence to show that Shakespeare and Jonson
remained friends, even in the heat of the conflict, may be gained from
the "Poetaster" itself if we admit that the Virgil of the play, who is
chosen peacemaker stands for Shakespeare; and who so fit to be
peacemaker as Shakespeare for his amiable qualities seem to have
impressed themselves upon all who knew him.
Following Mr. Lee's lead, "Jonson figures personally in the 'Poetaster'
under the name of Horace. Episodically Horace and his friends, Tibullus
and Gallus, eulogize the work and genius of another character, Virgil,
in terms so closely resembling those which Jonson is known to have
applied to Shakespeare that they may be regarded as intended to apply to
him (Act V, Scene I). Jonson points out that Virgil, by his penetrating
intuition, achieved the great effects which others laboriously sought to
reach through rules of art.
'His learning labors not the school-like gloss
That most consists of echoing words and terms ...
Nor any long or far-fetched circumstance--
Wrapt in the curious generalities of arts--
But a direct and analytic sum
Of all the worth and first effects of art.
And for his poesy, 'tis so rammed with life
That it shall gather strength of life with being,
And live hereafter, more admired than now.'
Tibullus gives Virgil equal credit for having in his writings touched
with telling truth upon every vicissitude of human existence:
'That which he hath writ
Is with such judgment labored and distilled
Through all the needful uses of our lives
That, could a man remember but his lines,
He should not touch at any serious point
But he might breathe his spirit out of him.'
"Finally, Virgil in the play is nominated by CÊsar to act as judge
between Horace and his libellers, and he advises the administration of
purging pills to the offenders."
This neat little chain of evidence would have no weak link, if it were
not for a passage in the play, "The Return from Parnassus," acted by
the students in St. John's College the same year, 1601. In this there is
a dialogue between Shakespeare's fellow-actors, Burbage and Kempe.
Speaking of the University dramatists, Kempe says:
"Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; aye, and Ben
Jonson, too. O! that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow. He brought up
Horace, giving the poets a pill; but our fellow Shakespeare hath given
him a purge that made him bewray his credit." Burbage continues, "He is
a shrewd fellow indeed." This has, of course, been taken to mean that
Shakespeare was actively against Jonson in the Dramatists' and Actors'
war. But as everything else points, as we have seen, to the contrary,
one accepts gladly the loophole of escape offered by Mr. Lee. "The words
quoted from 'The Return from Parnassus' hardly admit of a literal
interpretation. Probably the 'purge' that Shakespeare was alleged by the
author of 'The Return from Parnassus' to have given Jonson meant no more
than that Shakespeare had signally outstripped Jonson in popular
esteem." That this was an actual fact is proved by the lines of Leonard
Digges, an admiring contemporary of Shakespeare's, printed in the 1640
edition of Shakespeare's poems, comparing "Julius CÊsar" and Jonson's
play "Cataline:"
"So have I seen when CÊsar would appear,
And on the stage at half-sword parley were
Brutus and Cassius--oh, how the audience
Were ravish'd, with what wonder they went thence;
When some new day they would not brook a line
Of tedious, though well-labored, Cataline."
This reminds one of the famous witticism attributed to Eudymion Porter
that "Shakespeare was sent from Heaven and Ben from College."
If Jonson's criticisms of Shakespeare's work were sometime not wholly
appreciative, the fact may be set down to the distinction between the
two here so humorously indicated. "A Winter's Tale" and the "Tempest"
both called forth some sarcasms from Jonson, the first for its error
about the Coast of Bohemia which Shakespeare borrowed from Greene.
Jonson wrote in the Induction to "Bartholemew Fair;" "If there be never
a servant-monster in the Fair, who can help it he says? Nor a nest of
Antics. He is loth to make nature afraid in his plays like those that
beget Tales, Tempests, and such like Drolleries." The allusions here
are very evidently to Caliban and the satyrs who figure in the
sheep-shearing feast in "A Winter's Tale." The worst blast of all,
however, occurs in Jonson's "Timber," but the blows are evidently given
with a loving hand. He writes "I remember, the players have often
mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare that, in his writing, whatsoever
he penn'd, hee never blotted out line. My answer hath beene, would he
had blotted a thousand;--which they thought a malevolent speech. I had
not told posterity this, but for their ignorance who choose that
circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to
justifie mine owne candor,--for I lov'd the man, and doe honor his
memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. Hee was, indeed, honest,
and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasie; brave
notions and gentle expressions; wherein hee flow'd with that facility
that sometime it was necessary he should be stop'd;--_sufflaminandus
erat_, as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his owne
power;--would the rule of it had beene so too! Many times he fell into
those things, could not escape laughter; as when he said in the person
of CÊsar, one speaking to him,--CÊsar thou dost me wrong; hee
replyed,--CÊsar did never wrong but with just cause; and such like;
which were ridiculous. But hee redeemed his vices with his virtues.
There was ever more in him to be praysed then to be pardoned."
And even this criticism is altogether controverted by the wholly
eulogistic lines Jonson wrote for the First Folio edition of Shakespeare
printed in 1623, "To the memory of my beloved, The Author Mr. William
Shakespeare and what he hath left us."[1]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See the Tempest volume in First Folio Shakespeare. (Crowell & Co.)
For the same edition he also wrote the following lines for the portrait
reproduced in this volume, which it is safe to regard as the Shakespeare
Ben Jonson remembered:
"TO THE READER
This Figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the Graver had a strife
With Nature, to out-doo the life:
O, could he but have drawne his wit
As well in brasse, as he hath hit
His face; the Print would then surpasse
All, that was ever writ in brasse.
But, since he cannot, Reader, looke
Not on his Picture, but his Booke.
B. J."
Shakespeare's talk in "At the 'Mermaid'" grows out of the supposition,
not touched upon until the very last line that Ben Jonson had been
calling him "Next Poet," a supposition quite justifiable in the light of
Ben's praises of him. The poem also reflects the love and admiration in
which Shakespeare the man was held by all who have left any record of
their impressions of him. As for the portraiture of the poet's attitude
of mind, it is deduced indirectly from his work. That he did not desire
to become "Next Poet" may be argued from the fact that after his first
outburst of poem and sonnet writing in the manner of the poets of the
age, he gave up the career of gentleman-poet to devote himself wholly to
the more independent if not so socially distinguished one of
actor-playwright. "Venus and Adonis" and "Lucrece" were the only poems
of his published under his supervision and the only works with the
dedication to a patron such as it was customary to write at that time.
I have before me as I write the recent Clarendon Press fac-similes of
"Venus and Adonis" and "Lucrece," published respectively in 1593 and
1594,--beautiful little quartos with exquisitely artistic designs in the
title-pages, headpieces and initials; altogether worthy of a poet who
might have designs upon Fame. The dedication to the first reads:--
"TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE
Henry Wriothesley, Earle of Southampton
and Baron of Litchfield
_Right Honourable, I know not how I shall offend in dedicating
my unpolisht lines to your Lordship, nor how the worlde will
censure mee for choosing so strong a proppe to support so weake
a burthen, onelye if your Honour seeme but pleased, I account my
selfe highly praised, and vowe to take advantage of all idle
houres, till I have honoured you with some great labour. But if
the first heire of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorie
it had so noble a god-father: and never after eare so barren a
land, for feare it yield me still so bad a harvest, I leave it
to your Honourable Survey, and your Honor to your hearts
content, which I wish may alwaies answere your owne wish, and
the worlds hopeful expectation._
Your Honors in all dutie
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE."
The second reads:--
"TO THE RIGHT
HONORABLE, HENRY
Wriothesley, Earle of Southampton
and Baron of Litchfield
The love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end: wherof this
Pamphlet without beginning is a superfluous Moiety. The warrant
I have of your Honourable disposition, nor the worth of my
untutored Lines makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done
is yours, what I have to doe is yours, being part in all I have,
devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duety would shew
greater, meane time, as it is, it is bound to your Lordship; To
whom I wish long life still lengthened with all happinesse.
Your Lordships in all duety.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE."
No more after this does Shakespeare appear in the light of a poet with a
patron. Even the sonnets, some of which evidently celebrate Southampton,
were issued by a piratical publisher without Shakespeare's consent,
while his plays found their way into print at the hands of other pirates
who cribbed them from stage copies.
Such hints as these have been worked up by Browning into a consistent
characterization of a man who regards himself as having foregone his
chances of laureateship or "Next Poet" by devoting himself to a form of
literary art which would not appeal to the powers that be as fitting him
for any such position. Such honors he claims do not go to the dramatic
poet, who has never allowed the world to slip inside his breast, but has
simply portrayed the joy and the sorrow of life as he saw it around him,
and with an art which turns even sorrow into beauty.--"Do I stoop? I
pluck a posy, do I stand and stare? all's blue;"--but to the subjective,
introspective poet, out of tune with himself and with the universe. The
allusions Shakespeare makes to the last "King" are not very definite,
but, on the whole, they fit Edmund Spenser, whose poems from first to
last are dedicated to people of distinction in court circles. His work,
moreover, is full of wailing and woe in various keys, and also full of
self-revelation. He allowed the world to slip inside his breast upon
almost every occasion, and perhaps he may be said to have bought "his
laurel," for it was no doubt extremely gratifying to Queen Elizabeth to
see herself in the guise of the Faerie Queene, and even his dedication
of the "Faerie Queene" to her, used as she was to flattery, must have
been as music in her ears. "To the most high, mightie, and magnificent
Empresse, renouned for piety, vertue, and all gratious government,
Elizabeth, by the Grace of God, Queene of England, Frahnce, and Ireland
and of Virginia. Defender of the Faith, &c. Her most humble servant
Edmund Spenser doth in all humilitie, Dedicate, present, and consecrate
These his labours, To live with the eternity of her Fame." The next year
Spenser received a pension from the crown of fifty pounds per annum.
It is a careful touch on Browning's part to use the phrase "Next Poet,"
for the "laureateship" at that time was not a recognized official
position. The term, "laureate," seems to have been used to designate
poets who had attained fame and Royal favor, since Nash speaks of
Spenser in his "Supplication of Piers Pennilesse" the same year the
"Faerie Queene" was published as next laureate.
The first really officially appointed Poet Laureate was Ben Jonson,
himself, who in either 1616 or 1619 received the post from James I.,
later ratified by Charles I., who increased the annuity to one hundred
pounds a year and a butt of wine from the King's cellars.
Probably the allusion "Your Pilgrim" in the twelfth stanza of "At the
Mermaid" is to "The Return from Parnassus" in which the pilgrims to
Parnassus who figure in an earlier play "The Pilgrimage to Parnassus"
discover the world to be about as dismal a place as it is described in
this stanza.
At first sight it might seem that the position taken by Shakespeare in
the poem is almost too modest, yet upon second thoughts it will be
remembered that though Shakespeare had a tremendous following among the
people, attested by the frequency with which his plays were acted; that
though there are instances of his being highly appreciated by
contemporaries of importance; that though his plays were given before
the Queen, he did not have the universal acceptance among learned and
court circles which was accorded to Spenser.
It is quite fitting that the scene should be set in the "Mermaid." No
record exists to show that Shakespeare was ever there, it is true, but
the "Mermaid" was a favorite haunt of Ben Jonson and his circle of wits,
whose meetings there were immortalized by Beaumont in his poetical
letter to Jonson:--
"What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid? heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life."
Add to this what Fuller wrote in his "Worthies," 1662, "Many were the
wit-combats betwixt him and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a
Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war; Master Jonson (like the
former) was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his
performances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk,
but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take
advantage of all winds by the quickness of his wit and invention," and
there is sufficient poetic warrant for the "Mermaid" setting.
[Illustration: First Folio Portrait of Shakespeare
"Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.
Do I stand and stare? All's blue."]
The final touch is given in the hint that all the time Shakespeare is
aware of his own greatness, perhaps to be recognized by a future age.
Let Browning, himself, now show what he has done with the material.
AT THE "MERMAID"
The figure that thou here seest.... Tut!
Was it for gentle Shakespeare put?
B. JONSON. (_Adapted._)
I
I--"Next Poet?" No, my hearties,
I nor am nor fain would be!
Choose your chiefs and pick your parties,
Not one soul revolt to me!
I, forsooth, sow song-sedition?
I, a schism in verse provoke?
I, blown up by bard's ambition,
Burst--your bubble-king? You joke.
II
Come, be grave! The sherris mantling
Still about each mouth, mayhap,
Breeds you insight--just a scantling--
Brings me truth out--just a scrap.
Look and tell me! Written, spoken,
Here's my life-long work: and where
--Where's your warrant or my token
I'm the dead king's son and heir?
III
Here's my work: does work discover--
What was rest from work--my life?
Did I live man's hater, lover?
Leave the world at peace, at strife?
Call earth ugliness or beauty?
See things there in large or small?
Use to pay its Lord my duty?
Use to own a lord at all?
IV
Blank of such a record, truly
Here's the work I hand, this scroll,
Yours to take or leave; as duly,
Mine remains the unproffered soul.
So much, no whit more, my debtors--
How should one like me lay claim
To that largess elders, betters
Sell you cheap their souls for--fame?
V
Which of you did I enable
Once to slip inside my breast,
There to catalogue and label
What I like least, what love best,
Hope and fear, believe and doubt of,
Seek and shun, respect--deride?
Who has right to make a rout of
Rarities he found inside?
VI
Rarities or, as he'd rather,
Rubbish such as stocks his own:
Need and greed (O strange) the Father
Fashioned not for him alone!
Whence--the comfort set a-strutting,
Whence--the outcry "Haste, behold!
Bard's breast open wide, past shutting,
Shows what brass we took for gold!"
VII
Friends, I doubt not he'd display you
Brass--myself call orichalc,--
Furnish much amusement; pray you
Therefore, be content I balk
Him and you, and bar my portal!
Here's my work outside: opine
What's inside me mean and mortal!
Take your pleasure, leave me mine!
VIII
Which is--not to buy your laurel
As last king did, nothing loth.
Tale adorned and pointed moral
Gained him praise and pity both.
Out rushed sighs and groans by dozens,
Forth by scores oaths, curses flew:
Proving you were cater-cousins,
Kith and kindred, king and you!
IX
Whereas do I ne'er so little
(Thanks to sherris) leave ajar
Bosom's gate--no jot nor tittle
Grow we nearer than we are.
Sinning, sorrowing, despairing,
Body-ruined, spirit-wrecked,--
Should I give my woes an airing,--
Where's one plague that claims respect?
X
Have you found your life distasteful?
My life did, and does, smack sweet.
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
Mine I saved and hold complete.
Do your joys with age diminish?
When mine fail me, I'll complain.
Must in death your daylight finish?
My sun sets to rise again.
XI
What, like you, he proved--your Pilgrim--
This our world a wilderness,
Earth still grey and heaven still grim,
Not a hand there his might press,
Not a heart his own might throb to,
Men all rogues and women--say,
Dolls which boys' heads duck and bob to,
Grown folk drop or throw away?
XII
My experience being other,
How should I contribute verse
Worthy of your king and brother?
Balaam-like I bless, not curse.
I find earth not grey but rosy,
Heaven not grim but fair of hue.
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.
Do I stand and stare? All's blue.
XIII
Doubtless I am pushed and shoved by
Rogues and fools enough: the more
Good luck mine, I love, am loved by
Some few honest to the core.
Scan the near high, scout the far low!
"But the low come close:" what then?
Simpletons? My match is Marlowe;
Sciolists? My mate is Ben.
XIV
Womankind--"the cat-like nature,
False and fickle, vain and weak"--
What of this sad nomenclature
Suits my tongue, if I must speak?
Does the sex invite, repulse so,
Tempt, betray, by fits and starts?
So becalm but to convulse so,
Decking heads and breaking hearts?
XV
Well may you blaspheme at fortune!
I "threw Venus" (Ben, expound!)
Never did I need importune
Her, of all the Olympian round.
Blessings on my benefactress!
Cursings suit--for aught I know--
Those who twitched her by the back tress,
Tugged and thought to turn her--so!
XVI
Therefore, since no leg to stand on
Thus I'm left with,--joy or grief
Be the issue,--I abandon
Hope or care you name me Chief!
Chief and king and Lord's anointed,
I?--who never once have wished
Death before the day appointed:
Lived and liked, not poohed and pished!
XVII
"Ah, but so I shall not enter,
Scroll in hand, the common heart--
Stopped at surface: since at centre
Song should reach _Welt-schmerz_, world-smart!"
"Enter in the heart?" Its shelly
Cuirass guard mine, fore and aft!
Such song "enters in the belly
And is cast out in the draught."
XVIII
Back then to our sherris-brewage!
"Kingship" quotha? I shall wait--
Waive the present time: some new age ...
But let fools anticipate!
Meanwhile greet me--"friend, good fellow,
Gentle Will," my merry men!
As for making Envy yellow
With "Next Poet"--(Manners, Ben!)
The first stanza of "House"--
"Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?
Do I live in a house you would like to see?
Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf?
'Unlock my heart with a sonnet-key?'"--
brings one face to face with the interminable controversies upon the
autobiographical significance of Shakespeare's Sonnets. As volumes upon
the subject have been written, it is not possible even adequately to
review the various theories here. The controversialists may be broadly
divided into those who read complicated autobiographical details into
the sonnets, those who scout the idea of their being autobiographical at
all, and those who take a middle ground. Of the first there are two
factions: one of these believes that the opening sonnets were addressed
to Lord William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and the other that they were
addressed to Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton. The first
theory dates back as far as 1832 when it was started by James Boaden, a
journalist and the biographer of Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. This theory
has had many supporters and is associated to-day with the name of Thomas
Tyler, who, in his edition of the Sonnets published in 1890, claimed to
have identified the dark lady of the Sonnets with a lady of the Court,
Mary Fitton and the mistress of the Earl of Pembroke. The theory, like
most things of the sort, has its fascinations, and few people can read
the Sonnets without being more or less impressed by it. It is based,
however, upon a supposition so unlikely that it may be said to be proved
incorrect, namely, that the dedication of the Sonnets to their "Onlie
Begettor, Mr. W. H." is intended for "Mr. William Herbert." There was a
Mr. William Hall, later a master printer, and the friend of Thomas
Thorpe, the publisher of the Sonnets, who is much more likely to be the
person meant. Lord Herbert was far too important a person to be
addressed as Mr. W. H. As Mr. Lee points out, when Thorpe did dedicate
books to Herbert he was careful to give full prominence to the titles
and distinction of his patron. The Sonnets as we have already seen were
not published with Shakespeare's sanction. In those days the author had
no protection, and if a manuscript fell into the hands of a printer he
could print it if he felt so disposed. Mr. William Hall was in the
habit of looking out for manuscripts and before he became a printer, in
1606, had one published by Southwell of which he himself wrote the
dedication, to the "Vertuous Gentleman, Mathew Saunders, Esquire W. H.
wisheth, with long life, a prosperous achievement of his good desires."
"There is little doubt," writes Mr. Lee, "that the W. H. of the
Southwell volume was Mr. William Hall, who, when he procured that
manuscript for publication, was an humble auxiliary in the publishing
army." To sum up in Mr. Lee's words his interesting and convincing
chapter on "Thomas Thorpe and Mr. 'W. H.'" "'Mr. W. H.,' whom Thorpe
described as the 'only begetter of these ensuing sonnets,' was in all
probability the acquirer or procurer of the manuscript, who,
figuratively speaking, brought the book into being either by first
placing the manuscript in Thorpe's hands or by pointing out the means by
which a copy might be acquired. To assign such significance to the word
'begetter' was entirely in Thorpe's vein. Thorpe described his rÙle in
the piratical enterprise of the 'Sonnets' as that of 'the well-wishing
adventurer in setting forth,' _i.e._, the hopeful speculator in the
scheme. 'Mr. W. H.' doubtless played the almost equally important
part--one as well known then as now in commercial operations--of the
'vender' of the property to be exploited."
The Southampton theory is reared into a fine air-castle by Gerald Massey
in his lengthy book on the Sonnets--truly entertaining reading but too
ingenious to be convincing.
Finally Mr. Lee in his book looks at the subject in an unbiased and
perfectly sane way. He thinks the opening Sonnets are to the Earl of
Southampton, known to be Shakespeare's patron, but he warns us that
exaggerated devotion was the hall-mark of the Sonnets of the age, and
therefore what Shakespeare says of his young patron in these Sonnets
need not be taken too literally as expressing the poet's sentiments,
though he admits there may be a note of genuine feeling in them. Also he
thinks that some of the sonnets reflecting moods of melancholy or a
sense of sin may reveal the writer's inner consciousness. Possibly, too,
the story of the "dark lady" may have some basis in fact, though he
insists, "There is no clue to the lady's identity, and speculation on
the topic is useless." Furthermore, he thinks it doubtful whether all
the words in these Sonnets are to be taken with the seriousness implied,
the affair probably belonging only to the annals of gallantry.
It will be seen from the poem that Browning took the uncompromisingly
non-autobiographical view of the Sonnets. In this stand present
authoritative opinion would not justify him, but it speaks well for his
insight and sympathy that he was not fascinated by the William Herbert
theory which, at the time he wrote the poem, was very much in the air.
In "Shop" is given, in a way, the obverse side of the idea. If it is
proved that the dramatic poet does not allow himself to appear in his
work, the step toward regarding him as having no individuality aside
from his work is an easy one. The allusions in the poem to the
mercenariness of the "Shop-Keeper" seem to hit at the criticisms of
Shakespeare's thrift, which enabled him to buy a home in his native
place and retire there to live some years before the end of his life. In
some quarters it has been customary to regard Shakespeare as devoting
himself to dramatic literature in order to make money, as if this were a
terrible slur on his character. The superiority of such an independent
spirit over that of those who constantly sought patrons was quite
manifest to Browning's mind or he would not have written this sarcastic
bit of symbolism, between the lines of which can be read that Browning
was on Shakespeare's side.
HOUSE
I
Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?
Do I live in a house you would like to see?
Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf?
"Unlock my heart with a sonnet key?"
II
Invite the world, as my betters have done?
"Take notice: this building remains on view,
Its suites of reception every one,
Its private apartment and bedroom too;
III
"For a ticket, apply to the Publisher."
No: thanking the public, I must decline.
A peep through my window, if folk prefer;
But, please you, no foot over threshold of mine!
IV
I have mixed with a crowd and heard free talk
In a foreign land where an earthquake chanced:
And a house stood gaping, nought to balk
Man's eye wherever he gazed or glanced.
V
The whole of the frontage shaven sheer,
The inside gaped: exposed to day,
Right and wrong and common and queer,
Bare, as the palm of your hand, it lay.
VI
The owner? Oh, he had been crushed, no doubt!
"Odd tables and chairs for a man of wealth!
What a parcel of musty old books about!
He smoked,--no wonder he lost his health!
VII
"I doubt if he bathed before he dressed.
A brasier?--the pagan, he burned perfumes!
You see it is proved, what the neighbors guessed:
His wife and himself had separate rooms."
VIII
Friends, the goodman of the house at least
Kept house to himself till an earthquake came:
'Tis the fall of its frontage permits you feast
On the inside arrangement you praise or blame.
IX
Outside should suffice for evidence:
And whoso desires to penetrate
Deeper, must dive by the spirit-sense--
No optics like yours, at any rate!
X
"Hoity toity! A street to explore,
Your house the exception! '_With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart_,' once more!"
Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!
SHOP
I
So, friend, your shop was all your house!
Its front, astonishing the street,
Invited view from man and mouse
To what diversity of treat
Behind its glass--the single sheet!
II
What gimcracks, genuine Japanese:
Gape-jaw and goggle-eye, the frog;
Dragons, owls, monkeys, beetles, geese;
Some crush-nosed, human-hearted dog:
Queer names, too, such a catalogue!
III
I thought "And he who owns the wealth
Which blocks the window's vastitude,
--Ah, could I peep at him by stealth
Behind his ware, pass shop, intrude
On house itself, what scenes were viewed!
IV
"If wide and showy thus the shop,
What must the habitation prove?
The true house with no name a-top--
The mansion, distant one remove,
Once get him off his traffic-groove!
V
"Pictures he likes, or books perhaps;
And as for buying most and best,
Commend me to these City chaps!
Or else he's social, takes his rest
On Sundays, with a Lord for guest.
VI
"Some suburb-palace, parked about
And gated grandly, built last year:
The four-mile walk to keep off gout;
Or big seat sold by bankrupt peer:
But then he takes the rail, that's clear.
VII
"Or, stop! I wager, taste selects
Some out o' the way, some all-unknown
Retreat: the neighborhood suspects
Little that he who rambles lone
Makes Rothschild tremble on his throne!"
VIII
Nowise! Nor Mayfair residence
Fit to receive and entertain,--
Nor Hampstead villa's kind defence
From noise and crowd, from dust and drain,--
Nor country-box was soul's domain!
IX
Nowise! At back of all that spread
Of merchandize, woe's me, I find
A hole i' the wall where, heels by head,
The owner couched, his ware behind,
--In cupboard suited to his mind.
X
For why? He saw no use of life
But, while he drove a roaring trade,
To chuckle "Customers are rife!"
To chafe "So much hard cash outlaid
Yet zero in my profits made!
XI
"This novelty costs pains, but--takes?
Cumbers my counter! Stock no more!
This article, no such great shakes,
Fizzes like wildfire? Underscore
The cheap thing--thousands to the fore!"
XII
'Twas lodging best to live most nigh
(Cramp, coffinlike as crib might be)
Receipt of Custom; ear and eye
Wanted no outworld: "Hear and see
The bustle in the shop!" quoth he.
XIII
My fancy of a merchant-prince
Was different. Through his wares we groped
Our darkling way to--not to mince
The matter--no black den where moped
The master if we interloped!
XIV
Shop was shop only: household-stuff?
What did he want with comforts there?
"Walls, ceiling, floor, stay blank and rough,
So goods on sale show rich and rare!
'_Sell and scud home_' be shop's affair!"
XV
What might he deal in? Gems, suppose!
Since somehow business must be done
At cost of trouble,--see, he throws
You choice of jewels, everyone,
Good, better, best, star, moon and sun!
XVI
Which lies within your power of purse?
This ruby that would tip aright
Solomon's sceptre? Oh, your nurse
Wants simply coral, the delight
Of teething baby,--stuff to bite!
XVII
Howe'er your choice fell, straight you took
Your purchase, prompt your money rang
On counter,--scarce the man forsook
His study of the "Times," just swang
Till-ward his hand that stopped the clang,--
XVIII
Then off made buyer with a prize,
Then seller to his "Times" returned;
And so did day wear, wear, till eyes
Brightened apace, for rest was earned:
He locked door long ere candle burned.
XIX
And whither went he? Ask himself,
Not me! To change of scene, I think.
Once sold the ware and pursed the pelf,
Chaffer was scarce his meat and drink,
Nor all his music--money-chink.
XX
Because a man has shop to mind
In time and place, since flesh must live,
Needs spirit lack all life behind,
All stray thoughts, fancies fugitive,
All loves except what trade can give?
XXI
I want to know a butcher paints,
A baker rhymes for his pursuit,
Candlestick-maker much acquaints
His soul with song, or, haply mute,
Blows out his brains upon the flute!
XXII
But--shop each day and all day long!
Friend, your good angel slept, your star
Suffered eclipse, fate did you wrong!
From where these sorts of treasures are,
There should our hearts be--Christ, how far!
These poems are valuable not only for furnishing an interesting
interpretation of Shakespeare's character as a man and artist, but for
the glimpses they give into Browning's stand toward his own art. He
wished to be regarded primarily as a dramatic artist, presenting and
interpreting the souls of his characters, and he must have felt keenly
the stupid attitude which insisted always in reading "Browning's
Philosophy" into all his poems. The fact that his objective material was
of the soul rather than of the external actions of life has no doubt
lent force to the supposition that Browning himself can be seen in
everything he writes. It is true, nevertheless, that while much of his
work is Shakespearian in its dramatic intensity, he had too forceful a
philosophy of life to keep it from sometimes coming to the front.
Besides he has written many things avowedly personal as this chapter
amply illustrates.
To what intensity of feeling Browning could rise when contemplating the
genius of Shakespeare is revealed in his direct and outspoken tribute.
Here there breathes an almost reverential attitude toward the one
supremely great man he has ventured to portray.
THE NAMES
Shakespeare!--to such name's sounding, what succeeds
Fitly as silence? Falter forth the spell,--
Act follows word, the speaker knows full well;
Nor tampers with its magic more than needs.
Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads
With his soul only: if from lips it fell,
Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven and hell,
Would own, "Thou didst create us!" Naught impedes
We voice the other name, man's most of might,
Awesomely, lovingly: let awe and love
Mutely await their working, leave to sight
All of the issue as--below--above--
Shakespeare's creation rises: one remove,
Though dread--this finite from that infinite.
CHAPTER III
A CRUCIAL PERIOD IN ENGLISH HISTORY
"Whom the gods destroy they first make mad." Of no one in English
history is this truer than of King Charles I. Just at a time when the
nation was feeling the strength of its wings both in Church and State,
when individuals were claiming the right to freedom of conscience in
their form of worship and the people were growing more insistent for the
recognition of their ancient rights and liberties, secured to them, in
the first place, by the Magna Charta,--just at this time looms up the
obstruction of a King so imbued with the defunct ideal of the divine
right of Kings that he is blind to the tendencies of the age. What
wonder, then, if the swirling waters of discontent should rise higher
and higher until he became engulfed in their fury.
The history of the reign of Charles I. is one full of involved details,
yet the broader aspects of it, the great events which chiseled into
shape the future of England stand out in bold relief in front of a
background of interminable bickerings. There was constant quarreling
between the factions within the English church, and between the
Protestants and the Catholics, complicated by the discontent of the
people and at times the nobles because of the autocratic, vacillating
policy of the King.
Among these epoch-bringing events were the emergence of the Puritans
from the chaos of internecine church squabbles, the determined raising
of the voice of the people in the Long Parliament, where King and people
finally came to an open clash in the impeachment of the King's most
devoted minister, Wentworth, Earl Strafford, by Pym, the great leader in
the House of Commons, ending in Strafford's execution; the Grand
Remonstrance, which sounded in no uncertain tones the tocsin of the
coming revolution; and finally the King's impeachment of Pym, Hampden,
Holles, Hazelrigg and Strode, one of the many ill-advised moves of this
Monarch which at once precipitated the Revolution.
These cataclysms at home were further intensified by the Scottish
Invasion and the Irish Rebellion.
[Illustration: Charles I in Scene of Impeachment]
It is not surprising that Browning should have been attracted to this
period of English history, when he contemplated the writing of a play on
an English subject. His liberty-loving mind would naturally find
congenial occupation in depicting this great English struggle for
liberty. Yet the hero of the play is not Pym, the leader of the people,
but Strafford, the supporter of the King. The dramatic reasons are
sufficient to account for this. Strafford's career was picturesque and
tragic and his personality so striking that more than one interpretation
of his remarkable life is possible.
The interpretation will differ according to whether one is partisan in
hatred or admiration of his character and policy, or possesses the
larger quality of sympathetic appreciation of the man and the problems
with which he had to deal. Any one coming to judge him in this latter
spirit would undoubtedly perceive all the fine points in Strafford's
nature and would balance these against his theories of government to the
better understanding of this extraordinary man.
It is almost needless to say that Browning's perception of Strafford's
character was penetrating and sympathetic. Strafford's devotion to his
King had in it not only the element of loyalty to the liege, but an
element of personal love which would make an especial appeal to
Browning. He, in consequence, seizes upon this trait as the key-note of
his portrayal of Strafford.
The play is, on the whole, accurate in its historical details, though
the poet's imagination has added many a flying buttress to the
structure.
Forster's lives of the English Statesmen in Lardner's CyclopÊdia
furnished plenty of material, and he was besides familiar with some if
not all of Forster's materials for the lives. One of the interesting
surprises in connection with Browning's literary career was the fact
divulged some years ago that he had actually helped Forster in the
preparation of the Life of Strafford. Indeed it is thought that he wrote
it almost entirely from the notes of Forster. Dr. Furnivall first called
attention to this, and later the life of Strafford was reprinted as
"Robert Browning's Prose Life of Strafford."[2] In his Forewords to this
volume, Dr. Furnivall, who, among many other claims to distinction, was
the president of the "London Browning Society," writes, "Three times
during his life did Browning speak to me about his prose 'Life of
Strafford.' The first time he said only--in the course of chat--that
very few people had any idea of how much he had helped John Forster in
it. The second time he told me at length that one day he went to see
Forster and found him very ill, and anxious about the 'Life of
Strafford,' which he had promised to write at once, to complete a volume
of 'Lives of Eminent British Statesmen' for Lardner's 'Cabinet
CyclopÊdia.' Forster had finished the 'Life of Eliot'--the first in the
volume--and had just begun that of Strafford, for which he had made full
collections and extracts; but illness had come on, he couldn't work, the
book ought to be completed forthwith, as it was due in the serial issue
of volumes; what _was_ he to do? 'Oh,' said Browning, 'don't trouble
about it. I'll take your papers and do it for you.' Forster thanked his
young friend heartily, Browning put the Strafford papers under his arm,
walked off, worked hard, finished the Life, and it came out to time in
1836, to Forster's great relief, and passed under his name." Professor
Gardiner, the historian, was of the opinion from internal evidence that
the Life was more Browning's than Forster's. He said to Furnivall, "It
is not a historian's conception of the character but a poet's. I am
certain that it's not Forster's. Yes, it makes mistakes in facts and
dates, but, it has got the man--in the main." In this opinion Furnivall
concurs. Of the last paragraph in the history he exclaims, "I could
swear it was Browning's":--The paragraph in question sums up the
character of Strafford and is interesting in this connection, as giving
hints, though not the complete picture of the Strafford of the Drama.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Estes and Lauriat, Boston, Mass.
"A great lesson is written in the life of this truly extraordinary
person. In the career of Strafford is to be sought the justification of
the world's 'appeal from tyranny to God.' In him Despotism had at length
obtained an instrument with mind to comprehend, and resolution to act
upon, her principles in their length and breadth,--and enough of her
purposes were effected by him, to enable mankind to 'see as from a tower
the end of all.' I cannot discern one false step in Strafford's public
conduct, one glimpse of a recognition of an alien principle, one
instance of a dereliction of the law of his being, which can come in to
dispute the decisive result of the experiment, or explain away its
failure. The least vivid fancy will have no difficulty in taking up the
interrupted design, and by wholly enfeebling, or materially emboldening,
the insignificant nature of Charles; and by according some half-dozen
years of immunity to the 'fretted tenement' of Strafford's 'fiery
soul',--contemplate then, for itself, the perfect realization of the
scheme of 'making the prince the most absolute lord in Christendom.'
That done,--let it pursue the same course with respect to Eliot's noble
imaginings, or to young Vane's dreamy aspirings, and apply in like
manner a fit machinery to the working out the projects which made the
dungeon of the one a holy place, and sustained the other in his
self-imposed exile.--The result is great and decisive! It establishes,
in renewed force, those principles of political conduct which have
endured, and must continue to endure, 'like truth from age to age.'" The
history, on the whole, lacks the grasp in the portrayal of Wentworth to
be found in the drama. C. H. Firth, commenting upon this says truly,
"One might almost say that in the first, Strafford was represented as he
appeared to his opponents, and in the second as he appeared to himself;
or that, having painted Strafford as he was, Browning painted him again
as he wished to be. In the biography Strafford is exhibited as a man of
rare gifts and noble qualities; yet in his political capacity, merely
the conscious, the devoted tool of a tyrant. In the tragedy, on the
other hand, Strafford is the champion of the King's will against the
people's, but yet looks forward to the ultimate reconciliation of
Charles and his subjects, and strives for it after his own fashion. He
loves the master he serves, and dies for him, but when the end comes he
can proudly answer his accusers, 'I have loved England too.'"
The play opens at the important moment of Wentworth's return to London
from Ireland, where for some time he had been governor. The occasion of
his return, according to Gardiner, was a personal quarrel with the
Chancellor Loftus, of Ireland. Both men were allowed to come to England
to plead their cause, which resulted in the victory of Wentworth. In the
play Pym says, "Ay, the Court gives out His own concerns have brought
him back: I know 'tis the King calls him." The authority for this remark
is found in the Forster-Browning Life. "In the danger threatened by the
Scots' Covenant, Wentworth was Charles's only hope; the King sent for
him, saying he desired his personal counsel and attendance. He wrote:
'The Scots' Covenant begins to spread too far, yet, for all this, I will
not have you take notice that I have sent for you, but pretend some
other occasion of business.'" Certain it is that from this time
Wentworth became the most trusted counsellor of Charles, that is, as
far as Charles was capable of trusting any one. The condition of affairs
to which Wentworth returned is brought out in the play in a thoroughly
alive and human manner. We are introduced to the principal actors in the
struggle for their rights and privileges against the government of
Charles meeting in a house near Whitehall. Among the "great-hearted" men
are Hampden, Hollis, the younger Vane, Rudyard, Fiennes--all leaders in
the "Faction,"--Presbyterians, Loudon and other members of the Scots'
commissioners. A bit of history has been drawn upon for this opening
scene, for according to the Forster-Browning Life, "There is no doubt
that a close correspondence with the Scotch commissioners, headed by
Lords Loudon and Dumferling, was entered into under the management of
Pym and Hampden. Whenever necessity obliged the meetings to be held in
London, they took place at Pym's house in Gray's Inn Lane." In the talk
between these men the political situation in England at the time from
the point of view of the liberal party is brought vividly before the
reader.
There has been no Parliament in England for ten years, hence the people
have had no say in the direction of the government. The growing
dissatisfaction of the people at being thus deprived of their rights
focussed itself upon the question of "ship-money." The taxes levied by
the King for the maintainance of a fleet were loudly objected to upon
all sides. That a fleet was a necessary means of protection in those
threatening times is not to be doubted, but the objections of the people
were grounded upon the fact that the King levied these taxes upon his
own authority. "Ship-money, it was loudly declared," says Gardiner, "was
undeniably a tax, and the ancient customs of the realm, recently
embodied in the Petition of Right, had announced with no doubtful voice
that no tax could be levied without consent of Parliament. Even this
objection was not the full measure of the evil. If Charles could take
this money without the consent of Parliament, he need not, unless some
unforeseen emergency arose, ever summon a Parliament again. The true
question at issue was whether Parliament formed an integral part of the
Constitution or not." Other taxes were objected to on the same grounds,
and the more determined the King was not to summon a Parliament, the
greater became the political ferment.
[Illustration: Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford]
At the same time the religious ferment was centering itself upon
hatred of Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury. His policy was to silence
opposition to the methods of worship then followed by the Church of
England, by the terrors of the Star Chamber. The Puritans were smarting
under the sentence which had been passed upon the three pamphleteers,
William Prynne, Henry Burton, and John Bastwick, who had expressed their
opinions of the practises of the church with great outspokenness. Prynne
called upon pious King Charles "to do justice on the whole Episcopal
order by which he had been robbed of the love of God and of his people,
and which aimed at plucking the crown from his head, that they might set
it on their own ambitious pates." Burton hinted that "the sooner the
office of the Bishops was abolished the better it would be for the
nation." Bastwick, who had been brought up in the straitest principles
of Puritanism, had ended his pamphlet "_Flagellum Pontificis_," with
this outburst, "Take notice, so far am I from flying or fearing, as I
resolve to make war against the Beast, and every hint of Antichrist, all
the days of my life. If I die in that battle, so much the sooner I shall
be sent in a chariot of triumph to heaven; and when I come there, I
will, with those that are under the altar cry, 'How long, Lord, holy
and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood upon them that dwell
upon the earth?'"
These men were called before the Star Chamber upon a charge of libel.
The sentence was a foregone conclusion, and was so outrageous that its
result could only be the strengthening of opposition. The "muckworm"
Cottington, as Browning calls him, suggested the sentence which was
carried out. The men were condemned to lose their ears, to pay a fine of
£5000 each, and to be imprisoned for the remainder of their lives in the
castles of Carnarvon, Launceston, and Lancaster. Finch, not satisfied
with this, added the savage wish that Prynne should be branded on the
cheek with the letters S. L., to stand for "seditious libeller," and
this was also done.
The account of the execution of this sentence is almost too horrible to
read. Some one who recorded the scene wrote, "The humours of the people
were various; some wept, some laughed, and some were very reserved."
Prynne, whose sufferings had been greatest for he had been burned as
well as having his ears taken off, was yet able to indulge in a grim
piece of humor touching the letters S. L. branded on his cheeks. He
called them "Stigmata Laudis," the "Scars of Laud," on his way back to
prison. Popular demonstrations in favor of the prisoners were made all
along the road when they were taken to their respective prisons, where
they were allowed neither pen, ink nor books. Fearful lest they might
somehow still disseminate their heretical doctrines to the outer world,
the council removed them to still more distant prisons, in the Scilly
Isles, in Guernsey and in Jersey. Retaliation against this treatment
found open expression. "A copy of the Star Chamber decree was nailed to
a board. Its corners were cut off as the ears of Laud's victims had been
cut off at Westminster. A broad ink mark was drawn round Laud's name. An
inscription declared that 'The man that puts the saints of God into a
pillory of wood stands here in a pillory of ink!'"
Things were brought to a crisis in Scotland also, through hatred of Laud
and the new prayer-book. The King, upon his visit to Scotland, had been
shocked at the slovenly appearance and the slovenly ritual of
the Scottish Church, which reflected strongly survivals of the
Presbyterianism of an earlier time. The King wrote to the Scottish
Bishops soon after his return to England: "We, tendering the good and
peace of that Church by having good and decent order and discipline
observed therein, whereby religion and God's worship may increase, and
considering that there is nothing more defective in that Church than the
want of a Book of Common Prayer and uniform service to be kept in all
the churches thereof, and the want of canons for the uniformity of the
same, we are hereby pleased to authorise you as the representative body
of that Church, and do herewith will and require you to condescend upon
a form of Church service to be used therein, and to set down the canons
for the uniformity of the discipline thereof." Laud, who as Archbishop
of Canterbury had no jurisdiction over Scottish Bishops, put his finger
into the pie as secretary of the King. As Gardiner says, "He conveyed
instructions to the Bishops, remonstrated with proceedings which shocked
his sense of order, and held out prospects of advancement to the
zealous. Scotchmen naturally took offense. They did not trouble
themselves to distinguish between the secretary and the archbishop. They
simply said that the Pope of Canterbury was as bad as the Pope of Rome."
The upshot of it all was that in May, 1637, the "new Prayer-book" was
sent to Scotland, and every minister was ordered to buy two copies on
pain of outlawry. Riots followed. It was finally decided that it must be
settled once for all whether a King had any right to change the forms of
worship without the sanction of a legislative assembly. Then came the
Scottish Covenant which declared the intention of the signers to uphold
religious liberty. The account of the signing of this covenant is one of
the most impressive episodes in all history. The Covenant was carried on
the 28th of February, 1638, to the Grey Friars' Church to which all the
gentlemen present in Edinburgh had been summoned. The scene has been
most sympathetically described by Gardiner.
"At four o'clock in the grey winter evening, the noblemen, the Earl of
Sutherland leading the way began to sign. Then came the gentlemen, one
after the other until nearly eight. The next day the ministers were
called on to testify their approval, and nearly three hundred signatures
were obtained before night. The Commissioners of the boroughs signed at
the same time.
"On the third day the people of Edinburgh were called on to attest their
devotion to the cause which was represented by the Covenant. Tradition
long loved to tell how the honored parchment, carried back to the Grey
Friars, was laid out on a tombstone in the churchyard, whilst weeping
multitudes pressed round in numbers too great to be contained in any
building. There are moments when the stern Scottish nature breaks out
into an enthusiasm less passionate, but more enduring, than the frenzy
of a Southern race. As each man and woman stepped forward in turn, with
the right hand raised to heaven before the pen was grasped, every one
there present knew that there would be no flinching amongst that band of
brothers till their religion was safe from intrusive violence.
"Modern narrators may well turn their attention to the picturesqueness
of the scene, to the dark rocks of the Castle crag over against the
churchyard, and to the earnest faces around. The men of the seventeenth
century had no thought to spare for the earth beneath or for the sky
above. What they saw was their country's faith trodden under foot, what
they felt was the joy of those who had been long led astray, and had now
returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls."
Such were the conditions that brought on the Scotch war, neither Charles
nor Wentworth being wise enough to make concessions to the Covenanters.
The grievances against the King's Minister Wentworth are in this opening
scene shown as being aggravated by the fact that the men of the
"Faction" regard him as a deserter from their cause, Pym, himself being
one of the number who is loth to think Wentworth stands for the King's
policy.
The historical ground for the assumption lies in the fact that Wentworth
was one of the leaders of the opposition in the Parliament of 1628.
The reason for this was largely personal, because of Buckingham's
treatment of him. Wentworth had refused to take part in the collection
of the forced loan of 1626, and was dismissed from his official posts in
consequence. When he further refused to subscribe to that loan himself
he was imprisoned in the Marshalsea and at Depford. Regarding himself as
personally attacked by Buckingham, he joined the opposition. Yet, as
Firth points out, "fiercely as he attacked the King's ministers, he was
careful to exonerate the King." He concludes his list of grievances by
saying, "This hath not been done by the King, but by projectors." Again,
"Whether we shall look upon the King or his people, it did never more
behove this great physician the parliament, to effect a true consent
amongst the parties than now. Both are injured, both to be cured. By one
and the same thing hath the King and people been hurt. I speak truly
both for the interest of the King and the people."
His intention was to find some means of cooperation which would leave
the people their liberty and yet give the crown its prerogative, "Let us
make what laws we can, there must--nay, there will be a trust left in
the crown."
It will be seen by any unbiased critic that Wentworth was only half for
the people even at this time. On the other hand, it is not astonishing
that men, heart and soul for the people, should consider Wentworth's
subsequent complete devotion to the cause of the King sufficient to
brand him as an apostate. The fact that he received so many official
dignities from the King also leant color to the supposition that
personal ambition was a leading motive with him. With true dramatic
instinct Browning has centered this feeling and made the most of it in
the attitude of Pym's party, while he offsets it later in the play by
showing us the reality of the man Strafford.
There is no very authentic source for the idea also brought out in this
first scene that Strafford and Pym had been warm personal friends. The
story is told by Dr. James Welwood, one of the physicians of William
III., who, in the year 1700, published a volume entitled "Memoirs, of
the most material transactions in England for the last hundred years
preceding the Revolution of 1688." Without mentioning any source he
tells the following story; "There had been a long and intimate
friendship between Mr. Pym and him [Wentworth], and they had gone hand
in hand in everything in the House of Commons. But when Sir Thomas
Wentworth was upon making his peace with the Court, he sent to Pym to
meet him alone at Greenwich; where he began in a set speech to sound Mr.
Pym about the dangers they were like to run by the courses they were in;
and what advantages they might have if they would but listen to some
offers which would probably be made them from the Court. Pym
understanding his speech stopped him short with this expression: 'You
need not use all this art to tell me you have a mind to leave us; but
remember what I tell you, you are going to be undone. But remember, that
though you leave us now I will never leave you while your head is upon
your shoulders.'"
Though only a tradition this was entirely too useful a suggestion not to
be used. The intensity of the situation between the leaders on opposite
sides is enhanced tenfold by bringing into the field a personal
sentiment.
The attitude of Pym's followers is reflected again in their opinion of
Wentworth's Irish rule. Although Wentworth's policy seemed to be
successful in Ireland, the very fact of its success would condemn it in
the eyes of the popular party; besides later developments revealed its
weaknesses. How it appeared to the eyes of a non-fanatical observer at
this time may be gathered from the following letter of Sir Thomas Roe to
the Queen of Bohemia, written in 1634.
"The Lord Deputy of Ireland doth great wonders, and governs like a King,
and hath taught that Kingdom to show us an example of envy, by having
parliaments, and knowing wisely how to use them; for they have given the
King six subsidies, which will arise to £240,000, and they are like to
have the liberty we contended for, and grace from his Majesty worth
their gift double; and which is worth much more, the honor of good
intelligence and love between the King and people, which I would to God
our great wits had had eyes to see. This is a great service, and to
give your Majesty a character of the man,--he is severe abroad and in
business, and sweet in private conversation; retired in his friendships,
but very firm; a terrible judge and a strong enemy; a servant violently
zealous in his Master's ends, and not negligent of his own; one that
will have what he will, and though of great reason, he can make his will
greater when it may serve him; affecting glory by a seeming contempt;
one that cannot stay long in the middle region of fortune, being
entreprenant; but will either be the greatest man in England, or much
less than he is; lastly, one that may (and his nature lies fit for it,
for he is ambitious to do what others will not), do your Majesty very
great service, if you can make him."
In order to be in sympathy with the play throughout and especially with
the first scene all this historical background must be kept in mind, for
the talk gives no direct information, it merely in an absolutely
dramatic fashion reveals the feelings and opinions of the men upon the
situation, just as friends at a dinner party might discuss one of our
own less strenuous political situations--all present being perfectly
familiar with the issues at stake.
STRAFFORD
ACT I
SCENE I.--_A House near Whitehall._
_HAMPDEN, HOLLIS, the +younger+ VANE, RUDYARD, FIENNES and many of the
Presbyterian Party: LOUDON and other Scots' Commissioners._
_Vane._ I say, if he be here--
_Rudyard._ (And he is here!)--
_Hollis._ For England's sake let every man be still
Nor speak of him, so much as say his name,
Till Pym rejoin us! Rudyard! Henry Vane!
One rash conclusion may decide our course
And with it England's fate--think--England's fate!
Hampden, for England's sake they should be still!
_Vane._ You say so, Hollis? Well, I must be still.
It is indeed too bitter that one man,
Any one man's mere presence, should suspend
England's combined endeavor: little need
To name him!
_Rudyard._ For you are his brother, Hollis!
_Hampden._ Shame on you, Rudyard! time to tell him that,
When he forgets the Mother of us all.
_Rudyard._ Do I forget her?
_Hampden._ You talk idle hate
Against her foe: is that so strange a thing?
Is hating Wentworth all the help she needs?
_A Puritan._ The Philistine strode, cursing as he went:
But David--five smooth pebbles from the brook
Within his scrip....
_Rudyard._ Be you as still as David!
_Fiennes._ Here's Rudyard not ashamed to wag a tongue
Stiff with ten years' disuse of Parliaments;
Why, when the last sat, Wentworth sat with us!
_Rudyard._ Let's hope for news of them now he returns--
He that was safe in Ireland, as we thought!
--But I'll abide Pym's coming.