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A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) by Mrs. Sutherland Orr

M >> Mrs. Sutherland Orr >> A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.)



A HANDBOOK TO THE WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING

BY MRS. SUTHERLAND ORR

"No pause i' the leading and the light!"
_The Ring and the Book_, vol. ix. p. 226.

LONDON G. BELL AND SONS, LTD. 1927

_First Published May 1885._
_Second Edition, 1886._
_Third Edition, 1887._
_Fourth Edition, 1889._
_Fifth Edition, 1890._
_Sixth Edition, 1892._
_Reprinted 1895, 1899, 1902, 1907,
1910, 1913, 1919, 1923._

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY PURNELL AND SONS PAULTON, SOMERSET, ENGLAND




PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.


This book was written at the request of some of the members of the
Browning Society, and was originally intended to be a primer. It bears
the marks of this intention in its general scheme, and in the almost
abrupt brevity which the desired limits of space seemed to impose on its
earlier part. But I felt from the first that the spirit of Mr.
Browning's work could neither be compressed within the limits, nor
adapted to the uses, of a primer, as generally understood; and the book
has naturally shaped itself into a kind of descriptive Index, based
partly on the historical order and partly or the natural classification
of the various poems. No other plan suggested itself, at the time, for
bringing the whole series of these poems at once under the reader's eye:
since a description which throughout followed the historical order would
have involved both lengthiness and repetition; while, as I have tried to
show, there exists no scheme of natural classification into which the
whole series could have been forced. I realize, only now that it is too
late, that the arrangement is clumsy and confusing: or at least has
become so by the manner in which I have carried it out; and that even if
it justify itself to the mind of my readers, it can never be helpful or
attractive to their eye, which had the first right to be considered.
That I should have failed in a first attempt, however earnest, to meet
the difficulties of such a task, is so natural as to be almost beyond
regret, where my credit only is concerned; but I shall be very sorry if
this result of my inexperience detracts from any usefulness which the
Handbook might otherwise possess as a guide to Mr. Browning's works. I
note also, and with real vexation, some blunders of a more mechanical
kind, which I might have been expected to avoid.

I have been indebted for valuable advice to Mr. Furnivall; and for
fruitful suggestion to Mr. Nettleship, whose proposed scheme of
classification I have in some degree followed.

A. ORR.

_March 2nd, 1885._


PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

In preparing the Handbook for its second edition, my first endeavour has
been to correct, as far as possible, the faults which I acknowledged in
my Preface to the first. But even before the time for doing so had
arrived, I had convinced myself that where construction or arrangement
was concerned, these faults could not be corrected: that I, at least,
could discover no more artistic method of compressing into a small
space, and to any practical purpose, an even relatively just view of Mr.
Browning's work. The altered page-headings will, where they occur,
soften away the harshness of the classification, while they remove a
distinct anomaly: the discussion of such a poem as "Pauline" under its
own title, such a one as "Aristophanes' Apology," under that of a group;
but even this slight improvement rather detracts from than increases
what little symmetry my scheme possessed. The other changes which, on my
own account, I have been able to make, include the re-writing of some
passages in which the needful condensation had unnecessarily mutilated
the author's sense; the completing of quotation references which through
an unforeseen accident had been printed off in an unfinished state; and
the addition of a few bibliographical facts. By Mr. Browning's desire, I
have corrected two mistakes: the misreading, on my part, of an
historical allusion in "The Statue and the Bust," and of a poetical
sentiment expressed in "Pictor Ignotus"--and, by the insertion of a word
or sentence in the notice of each, expanded or emphasized the meaning of
several of the minor poems. I should have stated in my first Preface,
had not the fact appeared to me self-evident, that I owe to Mr.
Browning's kindness all the additional matter which my own reading could
not supply: such as the index to the Greek names in "Aristophanes'
Apology," and the Persian in "Ferishtah's Fancies;" the notes to
"Transcendentalism," and "Pietro of Abano;" and that he has allowed me
to study in the original documents the story of "The Ring and the Book."
The two signed notes by which he has enriched the present edition have
grown out of recent circumstances.

A. ORR.

_January 11th, 1886._


PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

The present edition of the Handbook includes a summary of Mr. Browning's
"Parleyings," which from the contents of this volume, as well as from
its recent appearance, finds its natural place in a Supplement.

I have added an Index to the six volumes of the "Works," which has been
desired for greater facility of reference.

Various corrections and improvements of the nature indicated in the
Preface to my second edition have been also made in the book.

A. ORR.

_June 25th, 1887._


PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.

The deeply painful circumstances in which the Handbook re-appears have
compelled me to defer the fulfilment of Mr. Browning's wish, that its
quotation references should be adapted to the use of readers of his new
edition. They also leave it the poorer by some interesting notes which
he more than once promised me for my next reprint; I had never the heart
to say to him: "Is it not safer to give them now?"

The correction, p. 149, of the note referring to p. 184 of
"Aristophanes' Apology," was lately made by Mr. Browning in the
Handbook, pending the time when he could repeat it in his own work. The
cancelled footnote on my 353rd page means that he did remove the
contradiction of which I spoke.

An open discussion on "Numpholeptos," which took place some months ago,
made me aware that my little abstract was less helpful even than its
brevity allowed, because I had emphasized the imagery of the poem where
it most obscured--or least distinctly illustrated--its idea; and I
re-wrote a few sentences which I now offer in their amended form. A
phrase or two in "One Word More" has been altered for the sake of more
literal accuracy. No other correction worth specifying has been made in
the book.

A. ORR.

_January 7th, 1890._


PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.

The changes made in the present edition have been almost entirely
bibliographical. Their chief object was that indicated in an earlier
preface, of bringing the Handbook into correspondence with the latest
issue of Mr. Browning's works. I felt reluctant when making them, to
entirely sacrifice the convenience of those students of Browning who
from necessity, or, as in my own case, from affection, still cling to
the earlier editions; and would gladly have retained the old references
while inserting the new. All however that seemed practical in this
direction was to combine the index of 1868 with that of 1889 in so far
as they run parallel with each other.

A long felt want has been supplied by the addition to the Handbook of a
Bibliography of Mr. Browning's works, based on that of Dr. Furnivall,
and thoroughly revised by Mr. Dykes Campbell. The bibliographical
details scattered throughout the work have also been made more complete.

The time and trouble required for the altered quotation references have
been reduced to a minimum by the thoughtful kindness of my friend Miss
Fanny Carey of Trent Leigh, Nottingham; who voluntarily, many months
ago, prepared for me a list of the new page numbers, leaving them only
to be transcribed when the time came. I have also to thank Mr. G. M.
Smith for a copy of his general Index to the works.

A. ORR.

_Dec. 1st, 1891._




TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION v

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION vi

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION vii

PREFACE TO FIFTH EDITION viii

PREFACE TO SIXTH EDITION ix


GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.

THE NATURE OF MR. BROWNING'S GENIUS. HIS CHOICE
AND TREATMENT OF SUBJECT. VERSIFICATION.
CONTINUOUS CHARACTER OF HIS WORK. 1


INTRODUCTORY GROUP.

"Pauline." "Paracelsus." "Sordello" 17


NON-CLASSIFIED POEMS.

DRAMAS.

"Strafford." "Pippa Passes." "King Victor and King Charles."
"The Return of the Druses." "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon."
"Colombe's Birthday." "A Soul's Tragedy." "Luria." "In a
Balcony" (A Fragment) 53

"THE RING AND THE BOOK" 75

TRANSCRIPTS FROM THE GREEK, with "Artemis Prologizes" 118


CLASSIFIED GROUPS.

ARGUMENTATIVE POEMS. SPECIAL PLEADINGS.

"Aristophanes' Apology," with "Balaustion's Adventure."
"Fifine at the Fair." "Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour
of Society." "Bishop Blougram's Apology." "Mr. Sludge, 'The
Medium'" 121


ARGUMENTATIVE POEMS CONTINUED. REFLECTIONS.

"Christmas-Eve and Easter-day." "La Saiziaz." "Cleon." "An
Epistle containing the Strange Medical Experience of
Karshish, the Arab Physician." "Caliban upon Setebos; or,
Natural Theology in the Island" 178


DIDACTIC POEMS.

"A Death in the Desert." "Rabbi Ben Ezra." "Deaf and Dumb: a
group by Woolner." "The Statue and the Bust" 198


CRITICAL POEMS.

"Old Pictures in Florence." "Respectability." "Popularity."
"Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha." "A Light Woman."
"Transcendentalism." "How it Strikes a Contemporary." "Dis
aliter Visum; or, Le Byron de nos Jours." "At the
'Mermaid.'" "House." "Shop." "Pisgah-Sights" I.
"Pisgah-Sights," II. "Bifurcation." "Epilogue" "Pacchiarotto
and other Poems" 207

EMOTIONAL POEMS. LOVE.

LYRICAL LOVE POEMS. "One Word More. To E. B. B." "Prospice."
"Numpholeptos." "Prologue" (to "Pacchiarotto and other
Poems."). "Natural Magic." "Magical Nature." Introductory
Poem to "The Two Poets of Croisic." Concluding Poem to "The
Two Poets of Croisic" (a Tale). DRAMATIC LOVE POEMS.
"Cristina." "Evelyn Hope." "Love among the Ruins." "A
Lovers' Quarrel." "By the Fireside." "Any Wife to any
Husband." "Two in the Campagna." "Love in a Life." "Life in
a Love." "The Lost Mistress." "A Woman's Last Word." "A
Serenade at the Villa." "One Way of Love." "Rudel to the
Lady of Tripoli." "In Three Days." "In a Gondola."
"Porphyria's Lover." "James Lee's Wife." "The Worst of it."
"Too Late." 219


EMOTIONAL POEMS CONTINUED.

RELIGIOUS, ARTISTIC, AND EXPRESSIVE OF THE FIERCER
EMOTIONS.

"Saul." "Epilogue to Dramatis Personae." "Fears and
Scruples." "Fra Lippo Lippi." "Abt Vogler." "Pictor
Ignotus." "The Bishop orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's
Church." "A Toccata of Galuppi's." "The Guardian-Angel: a
picture at Fano." "Eurydice to Orpheus: a picture by
Leighton." "A Face." "Andrea del Sarto." "The Laboratory."
"My Last Duchess." "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister." "The
Confessional." "A Forgiveness." 237


HISTORICAL POEMS, OR POEMS FOUNDED ON FACT.

"Red Cotton Night-Cap Country; or, Turf and Towers."
"Cenciaja." "The Two Poets of Croisic." "The Inn Album."
"The Heretic's Tragedy: a Middle-Age Interlude" 254


ROMANTIC POEMS.

"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." "The Flight of the
Duchess" 271


HUMOROUS OR SATIRICAL POEMS.

"Holy-Cross Day." "Pacchiarotto, and how he Worked in
Distemper." "Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial."
"Up at a Villa--Down in the City." "Another Way of Love."
"Garden Fancies--II. Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis" 277


DESCRIPTIVE POEMS.

"De Gustibus--." "Home-Thoughts, from Abroad." "The
Englishman in Italy" 285



NON-CLASSIFIED POEMS CONTINUED.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS--INCLUDING SONGS, LEGENDS, DRAMATIC
POEMS, AND EPISODES.

"The Lost Leader." "Nationality in Drinks." "Garden
Fancies--I. The Flower's Name." "Earth's Immortalities."
"Home-Thoughts, from the Sea." "My Star." "Misconceptions."
"A Pretty Woman." "Women and Roses." "Before." "After."
"Memorabilia." "The Last Ride Together." "A Grammarian's
Funeral." "Johannes Agricola in Meditation." "Confessions."
"May and Death." "Youth and Art." "A Likeness."
"Appearances." "St. Martin's Summer." Prologue to "La
Saisiaz." "Cavalier Tunes." "How they Brought the Good News
from Ghent to Aix." "Song." "Incident of the French Camp."
"Count Gismond." "The Boy and the Angel." "The Glove." "The
Twins." "The Pied Piper of Hamelin; a Child's Story." "Gold
Hair: a Story of Pornic." "Herve Riel." "Through the Metidja
to Abd-el-Kadr." "Meeting at night." "Parting at Morning."
"The Patriot: an Old Story." "Instans Tyrannus."
"Mesmerism." "Time's Revenges." "The Italian in England."
"Protus." "Apparent Failure." "Waring" 289


CONCLUDING GROUP.

DRAMATIC IDYLS. JOCOSERIA.

DRAMATIC IDYLS, I. SERIES: "Martin Relph." "Pheidippides."
"Halbert and Hob." "Ivan Ivanovitch." "Tray." "Ned Bratts."
DRAMATIC IDYLS, II. SERIES. "Prologue." "Echetlos." "Clive."
"Muleykeh." "Pietro of Abano." "Doctor ----." "Pan and
Luna." "Epilogue." "Jocoseria." "Wanting is--what?"
"Donald." "Solomon and Balkis." "Cristina and Monaldeschi."
"Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli." "Adam, Lilith, and Eve."
"Ixion." "Jochanan Hakkadosh." "Never the Time and the
Place." "Pambo" 308


SUPPLEMENT.

Ferishtah's Fancies 331

Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in their day:
To wit: Bernard de Mandeville, Daniel Bartoli, Christopher
Smart, George Bubb Dodington, Francis Furini, Gerard de
Lairesse, and Charles Avison. Introduced by a Dialogue
between Apollo and the Fates: concluded by Another between
John Fust and his Friends. 339


NOTE 363

BIBLIOGRAPHY 365

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF BROWNING'S WORKS 395

INDEX TO FIRST LINES OF POEMS 411

INDEX 417




HANDBOOK TO BROWNING'S WORKS

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.

THE NATURE OF MR. BROWNING'S GENIUS.


If we were called upon to describe Mr. Browning's poetic genius in one
phrase, we should say it consisted of an almost unlimited power of
imagination exerted upon real things; but we should have to explain that
with Mr. Browning the real includes everything which a human being can
think or feel, and that he is realistic only in the sense of being never
visionary; he never deals with those vague and incoherent fancies, so
attractive to some minds, which we speak of as coming only from the
poet's brain. He imagines vividly because he observes keenly and also
feels strongly; and this vividness of his nature puts him in equal
sympathy with the real and the ideal--with the seen and the unseen. The
one is as living to him as the other.

His treatment of visible and of invisible realities constitutes him
respectively a dramatic and a metaphysical poet; but, as the two kinds
of reality are inseparable in human life, so are the corresponding
qualities inseparable in Mr. Browning's work. The dramatic activity of
his genius always includes the metaphysical. His genius always shows
itself as dramatic and metaphysical at the same time.

Mr. Browning's genius is dramatic because it always expresses itself in
the forms of real life, in the supposed experiences of men and women.
These men and women are usually in a state of mental disturbance or
conflict; indeed, they think much more than they act. But their thinking
tends habitually to a practical result; and it keeps up our sense of
their reality by clothing itself always in the most practical and
picturesque language which thought can assume. It has been urged that he
does not sink himself in his characters as a completely dramatic writer
should; and this argument must stand for what it is worth. His
personality may in some degree be constructed from his works: it is, I
think, generally admitted, that that of Shakespeare cannot; and in so
far as this is the test of a complete dramatist, Mr. Browning fails of
being one. He does not sink himself in his men and women, for his
sympathy with them is too active to admit of it. He not only describes
their different modes of being, but defends them from their own point of
view; and it is natural that he should often select for this treatment
characters with which he is already disposed to sympathize. But his
women are no less living and no less distinctive than his men; and he
sinks his individuality at all times enough to interest us in the
characters which are not akin to his own as much as in those which are.
Even if it were otherwise, if his men and women were all variations of
himself, as imagined under differences of sex, of age, of training, or
of condition, he would still be dramatic in this essential quality, the
only one which bears on our contention: that everything which, as a
poet, he thinks or feels, comes from him in a dramatic, that is to say,
a completely living form.

It is in this way also that his dramatic genius includes the
metaphysical. The abstract, no less than the practical questions which
shape themselves in his mind, are put before us in the thoughts and
words, in the character and conduct of his men and women. This does not
mean that human experience solves for him all the questions which it can
be made to state, or that everything he believes can be verified by it:
for in that case his mode of thought would be scientific, and not
metaphysical; it simply means, that so much of abstract truth as cannot
be given in a picture of human life, lies outside his philosophy of it.
He accepts this residue as the ultimate mystery of what must be called
Divine Thought. Thought or spirit is with him the ultimate fact of
existence; the one thing about which it is vain to theorize, and which
we can never get behind. His gospel would begin, "In the beginning was
the Thought;" and since he can only conceive this as self-conscious, his
"Alpha and Omega" is a Divine intelligence from which all the ideas of
the human intellect are derived, and which stamps them as true. These
religious conceptions are the meeting-ground of the dramatic and the
metaphysical activity of his poetic genius. The two are blended in the
vision of a Supreme Being not to be invested with human emotions, but
only to be reached through them.

To show that Mr. Browning is a metaphysical poet, is to show that he is
not a metaphysical _thinker_, though he is a thinker whose thought is
metaphysical so far as principle goes. A metaphysical thinker is always
in some way or other thinking about _thought_; and this is precisely
what Mr. Browning has no occasion to do, because he takes its
assumptions upon trust. He is a constant analyst of secondary motives
and judgments. No modern freethinker could make a larger allowance for
what is incidental, personal, and even material in them: we shall see
that all his practical philosophy is bound up with this fact. But he has
never questioned the origin of our primary or innate ideas, for he has,
as I have said, never questioned their truth. It is essential to bear in
mind that Mr. Browning is a metaphysical poet, and not a metaphysical
thinker, to do justice to the depth and originality of his creative
power; for his imagination includes everything which at a given moment a
human being can think or feel, and often finds itself, therefore, at
some point to which other minds have _reasoned_ their way. The
coincidence occurs most often with German lines of thought, and it has
therefore been concluded that he has studied the works in which they are
laid down, or has otherwise moved in the same track; the fact being that
he has no bond of union with German philosophers, but the natural
tendencies of his own mind. It may be easily ascertained that he did not
read their language until late in life; and if what I have said of his
mental habits is true, it is equally certain that their methods have
been more foreign to him still. He resembles Hegel, Fichte, or
Schelling, as the case may be, by the purely creative impulse which has
met their thought, and which, if he had lived earlier, might have
forestalled it. Mr. Browning's position is that of a fixed centre of
thought and feeling. Fifty years ago he was in advance of his age. He
stood firm and has allowed the current to overtake him, or even leave
him behind. If I may be allowed a comparison: other mental existences
suggest the idea of a river, flowing onwards, amidst varying scenes, and
in a widening bed, to lose itself in the sea. Mr. Browning's genius
appears the sea itself, with its immensity and its limits, its
restlessness and its repose, the constant self-balancing of its ebb and
flow.

As both dramatic and metaphysical poet, Mr. Browning is inspired by one
central doctrine: that while thought is absolute in itself, it is
relative or personal to the mind which thinks it; so that no one man can
attain the whole truth of any abstract subject, and no other can convict
him of having failed to do so. And he also believes that since
intellectual truth is so largely for each of us a matter of personal
impression, no language is special enough to convey it. The arguments
which he carries on through the mouths of his men and women often
represent even moral truth as something too subtle, too complex, and too
changing, to be definitely expressed; and if we did not see that he
reverences what is good as much as he excuses what is bad, we might
imagine that even on this ground he considered no fixed knowledge to be
attainable. These opinions are, however, closely bound up with his
religious beliefs, and in great measure explained by them. He is
convinced that uncertainty is essential to the spiritual life; and his
works are saturated by the idea that where uncertainty ceases,
stagnation must begin; that our light must be wavering, and our progress
tentative, as well as our hopes chequered, and our happiness even devoid
of any sense of finality, if the creative intention is not to frustrate
itself; we may not see the path of progress and salvation clearly marked
out before us. On the other hand, he believes that the circumstances of
life are as much adapted to the guidance of each separate soul as if
each were the single object of creative care; and that therefore while
the individual knows nothing of the Divine scheme, he _is_ everything in
it.

This faith in personality is naturally abstruse on the metaphysical
side, but it is always picturesque on the dramatic; for it issues in
that love of the unusual which is so striking to every reader of Mr.
Browning's works; and we might characterize these in a few words, by
saying that they reflect at once the extent of his general sympathies,
and his antagonism to everything which is general. But the "unusual"
which attracts him is not the morbid or the monstrous, for these mean
defective life. It is every healthy escape from the conventional and the
commonplace, which are also defective life; and this is why we find in
his men and women those vivid, various, and subtly compounded motives
and feelings, which make our contact with them a slight, but continuous
electric shock.

And since the belief in personality is the belief in human life in its
fullest and truest form, it includes the belief in love and
self-sacrifice. It may, indeed, be said that while Mr. Browning's
judgments are leavened by the one idea, they are steadily coloured by
the other; this again being so evident to his serious renders that I
need only indicate it here. But the love of love does more than colour
his views of life; it is an essential element in his theology; and it
converts what would otherwise be a pure Theism into a mystical
Christianity which again is limited by his rejection of all dogmatic
religious truth. I have already alluded to his belief that, though the
Deity is not to be invested with human emotions, He can only be reached
through them. Love, according to him, is the necessary channel; since a
colourless Omnipotence is outside the conception as outside the
sympathies of man. Christ is a message of Divine love, indispensable and
therefore true; but He is, as such, a spiritual mystery far more than a
definable or dogmatic fact. A definite revelation uttered for all men
and for all time is denied by the first principles of Mr. Browning's
religious belief. What Christianity means for him, and what it does not,
we shall also see in his works.

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