The Press. — London, England, 1856-11-22 00:00:00

I NOVEMBER 22, 1856. after all, every one must feel that throughout she acted much like a fool, and that she did not deserve the good fortune which the author has reserved for her. " Aurora Leigh " is not a poem, but a Browning revelation of what poetry ought to be. It is artificial and egotistical, both to an extreme degree. The book is no more a genuine poem than the antics of a master of the ceremonies are a ball. All is flourish and parade. We look for creative beauty—for that childlike impulse, vehemence, and simpli City, which constitute so large a part of all genuine poetry, and we find only " settled " convictions about Nature and Art." We never meet with a literary character ex alted into a hero and heroine but we blush for our craft. In such characters we rarely find the versatility, the weakness, the foibles, and the liability to temptation which com monly mark literary genius They are, on the contrary, rigid, pompous personages, very Satuns for pride, and very gods for all other qualities. They are always conscious of the amazing sensation they are creating, and are separated from the rest of the world, not from their greater facileness and freedom, but from their spasmodic contortions, and their rude and impertinent speech. Like unpractised sculptors, attempting to mould the human form into godlike proportions, the superna tural merges into caricature. That Mrs. Browning may the easier express her settled convictions of nature aad art, she has written " Aurora Leigh " in blank verse— a form of poetic composition which we should gladly see limited to the drama. Mrs. Brown ing's verse is much in the manner of that of Sheridan Knowles, being pieced out with such expletives as " You sir, you ;" and often differ ing from prose only in being ranged ten sylla bles in a line True poets do not grudge the pains required for their music. They love to sing, not pour such " bald, disjointed chat " as is here spun out by the yard. If the octo-sylla bic verse presents " fatal facility " to poets, what shall we say of such verse as this, sup• posed to he the conversation in church on the morning of a wedding?— —" Yes, really, if we've need to wait in church, We've need to talk there."—" She P 'Tis Lady Ayr, In blue—not purple ! that's the dowager." —" She looks as young."—" She flirts as young, you mean! Why if you had seen her upon Thursday night, You'd call Miss Norris modest."—" You again ! I waltzed with you three hours back. Uluat six, Up still at ten scarce time to change one's shoes. I feel as white and sulky as a gLost, — tio pray don't speak to me, Lord Belcher."—" No, I'll look at you instead, and its enough While you have that face." "In church, my lord ! fie, fic!" —" Adair. you stayed for the Division ?"—' l Lost By one." " The devil it is ! I'm sorry for't. And if 1 had not promised Mistress Grove " . —" You might have kept your word to Liverpool." " Constituents must remember, after all, We're mortal."—" We remind them of it."—" Hark, The bride comes! Here she comes in a stream of milk!" —" There ? Dear, you are asleep still; don't you know The fire Mies ? always dressed in white To show they're ready to be married."—" Lower! The annt is at your elbow."—" Lady Mnud, Did Lady Waldemar tell you she had seen This girl-of Leigh's ?" " No,—wait ! 'twas Mrs. Brookes, Who told me Lady Waldemar told her— No, 'twasn't Mrs. Brookes."—" She's pretty."—" Who' Mrs. Brookes? Lady Waldemar ?"—" How hut! Pray is't the law to day we're not to breathe? You're treading on my shawl—l thank you, air." There is much more to the same effect. As Mrs. Browning has had to fill four hundred pages of tolerably close print, she has not thought it necessary to be very particular as to quality. Poems have commonly two aspects. The interest of the fable is one thing—the merit of the composition is another A critic whose admiration of " Aurora Leigh " is so excessive that he can only express himself in tropes and similes, lets out the truth that it is a " three volume novel" in poetic guise. Of the story we must judge as we would of the plot of a novel or drama ; allowance must be made in modern romance for some exaggeration, but in what is meant for a representation of exist ing life we cannot afford to altogether dispense with truth and probability. Aurora Leigh is the daughter of an English gentleman—a very matter-of-fact person till he went to Italy and was transformed in soul by the beauty of a Tuscan girl whom he first saw in a procession. This girl lie weds, becomes a _?t~v3a~ THE PRESS. poet in heart, and dwells in Italy. His wife dies while Aurora is a child, and he does not long linger after his idol. This part of the story is, in our judgment, the best part of the book. But it occupies only a dozen pages. Aurora is taken to England to live under her aunt's guardianship ; and from this time the poetic character of tho young lady rapidly develops itself. Her aunt is a formalist, and here is at once a specimen of the education Aurora received, anti of the verse in which she records her early recollections : I learnt my complement of classic French ( Kept pure of lialzac and neologism ), And German also, since she liked a range Of liberal education,—tongues, not books. I learnt a little algebra, a little Of the mathematics,—brnshed with extreme flounce The circle of the sciences, because She misliked women who are frivolous. I learnt the royal genealogies Of Oviedo, the internal laws Of the Burmese empire, . . by how many feet Mount Chimborazo outsoars What navigable river— WO spare the reader more of this verse. Mrs. Browning is especially fond of such expres sions as, brushed with extreme flounce The circle of the sciences. Nothing assists her in a metaphysical argu ment like an illustration from a fashion-book. In due time, Aurora, in spite of her aunt's vigi lance, lights on the poets : As the earth Plunges in fury when the internal fires Have reached and pricked her heart, and, throwing fiat The marts and temples, the triumphal gates And towers of observation, clears herself To elemental freedom—thus, my soul, At poetry's divine first finger•touch, Let go conventions and sprang up surprised, Convicted of the great eternities Before two worlds. • • • • • • While your common men Build pyramids, gauge railroads, reign, reap, dine, And dust the flaunty carpets of the world For Kings to walk on, or our senators, The poet suddenly will catch them up With his voice like a thunder—" This is soul, This is life. this word is being said in heaven, Here's God down on us ! what are you about?" This passage is merely characteristic of the style in which the authoress commonly ex presses her " highest convictions upon Nature " and Art." As Lee's tragedies were in fashion once, there is no reason why verse like the above should not have its day. When people are credulous, the boldest kind of imposture answers the best. From first to last our fair poetess, in the slang of the day, " goes the pace " with undoubting confidence. Aurora soon begins to write, and, as her mind gains freedom, her frame gains strength. She loves to wander abroad with her cousin, Romney Leigh. One fine morning early ho discovers her secret through finding a volume of her verse. As he meets her to restore it she has just placed a wreath of ivy round her head ; whereupon a long philosophical conver sation takes place between them, not very easy to follow. He thinks versifying will bring headaches, and that to clamber for ivy is not good for Clean white morning dresses. She answers him with due elolemnity Learn this :—I would rather take my part With God's dead, who afford to walk in white Yet spread His glory, than keep quiet here And gather up my feet from even a step, For fear to soil my gown in so much dust. I choose to walk at all risks. Soon the conversation turns on the manner in which the world can be best benefited. The world can only be regenerated by poetry, per• sists Aurora. Romney demurs,—first, poetry is not woman's main business in life ; next, social ills can only be remedied by socialist schemes. The future disciple of Fourier and Compte " looms out " in such sentences as these : I, I sympathise with man, not God, I think I was a man for chiefly this; And when I stand beside a dying bed, It's death to me. Aurora is indignant that he should rate socialism above poetry, and that he should beseech her to join with him in his cause, slighting her poetic gifts. He asks for love — for " life in fellowship through bitter duties." She replies grandly : 1121 "Now," I said," may God Be witness 'twist us two !" and with the woad, Meseemed I floated into a sudden light Above his stature,—" am 1 proved too weak To stand alone, yet strung enough to bear Such leaners on my shoulder? poor to think, Yet rich enough to sympathise with thought ? Incompetent to sing, as blackbirds can, Yet competent to love like tint?" I paused : Perhaps I darkened as the lighthouse will That turns upon the sea. " It's always so ! Anything does fur a wife." "Aurora, dear, And dearly honoured " . . he pressed in et once With eager utteranee,—" you translate me ill. I do not contradict my thought of you Which is most reverent, with another thought Faund less so. If your sex is weak for art, (And I who said so, did but honour you By using truth in courtship) it is strong For life and duty. Place your fecund heart In mine, and let us blossom for the world That wants love's colour in the grey of time. This conversation is a key to the rest of the story. Rejected by Aurora, Romney devotes himself more resolutely to hib socialist duties. Aurora's father has excluded her from the suc cession to his inheritance by his foreign marriage Romney takes her place. When her aunt dies she is destitute, but grandly refuses thirty thousand pounds he endeavours to trick her into accepting. She goes to London to commence poetess, and he patronises socialism on a grand scale. I'o give the world an example of social equality he determines to marry Marian Erie, the beautiful daughter of a drunken county tramp. Aurora hearing of the intended marriage, visits the gill. The following pas sage may be taken as a sample of the mod.: in which real life is depicted : Two hours afterward, Within St. Margaret's Court I stood alone, Close-veiled. A sick child, from an ague-fit, Whose wasted right hand gambled 'gainst his left With an old brass button, in a blot of sun, Jeered weakly at me as I passed across The uneven pavement; while a woman, rouged Upon the angular cheek-bones, kerchief torn, Thin dangling locks, and flat lascivious mouth, Cursed at a window, both ways, in and out, By turns some bed-rid creature and myself,-- " Lie still there, mother ! liker the dead dog You'll be to morrow. What, we pick our way, Fine madam, with those damnable small feet ! We cover up our face from doing good, As if it were our purse ! What brings you here, My lady? is't to find my gentleman Who visits his tame pigeons in the eaves? Oar cholera catch you with its cramps and spasms, And tumble up your good clothes, veil and all, And turn your whiteness dead blue." I looked up ; I think I could have walked through hell that day, And never flinched. " The dear Christ comfort. you," I said, " you must have been most miserable To be so cruel,"—and I emptied out My purse upon the stones: when, as I had cast The last charm in the cauldron, the whole court Went boiling, bubbling up, from all its doors And windows, with a hideous wail of laughs And roar of oaths, and blows perhaps. She finds Marian (a girl of ineffable sweetness) in a top attic of this court, and hears from her lips the offer Romney had made to her : Marian, I being burn What men call noble, and you, issued from The noble people,—though the tyrannous sword Which pierced Christ's heart, has cleft the world in twain 'Twist class and class, opposing rich to poor,— Shall we keep parted ? Not so. Let us lean And strain together rather, each to each, Compress the red lips of this gaping wound, As far as two souls can,—ay, lean end league, I, trim my superabundance,—from your want, You, joinin o t in a protest 'gainst the wrong On both sides'— Aurora approves, yet is uneasy. Site deter mines to attend the wedding, where for once St. Giles in frieze Was bidden to meet St. James in cloth of gold. The church is thronged by curious crowds ; and no wonder—Romney has promised a marriage feast on Hampstead-heath to all the ragamuffins of the metropolis : Of course the people came in uncompelled, Lame, blind, and worse—sick, sorrowful, and worse, The humours of the peccaut social wound All pressed out. poured out upon Pimlico, Exasperating the unaccustomed air With hideous interfusion. Romney's friends and acquaintances gather round the altar. We have already extracted from thtir conversation. The whole multi tude is expectant, but the bride does not come. At last a letter is put into Romney's A l hand. She has fled, because she believes he does not love her. Romney is obliged to