The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-11 00:00:00

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LITERATURE.

*6OB
44
140

POEMS. By Robert Brownink. 2 rota. :41. New
Edition.

A suspicion has long crept over the imagination of
the admirers of Alfred. Tennyson that he has never
yet justified his reputation. Even the "Princess,"
beautiful as it is, and doubly, trebly beautiful as it
appears on each additional perusal, is conceived to be
a mere jeu d'esprit contrasted with what might be
expected from a genius so exquisitely and intensely
poetical. Something more than a "Medley" might
be anticipated from one who has written " Locksley
Hall." Again the author of "Fiesta:ls" is regarded
by many as one destined to do great things in litera-
ture, or to dwindle down into a sort of psychological
monstrosity, as the Opium Eater has half predicted.
Another poet of an equally partial and incomplete
ability is Robert Browning. Having composed
" Paracelsus " he has paused, or rather degenerated.
Like si laverock in early morning, he has soared up
to a great altitude, chaunting a song at the dawn of
his intelligence. Ever since then he has been sinking
down in musical gyrations; until now.a-days we, can
only hear a casual twitter in the grass, or a chirp
from the hedgerow. The fact comes upon our ap-
prehension more conspicuously now that we have
before us the whole of his collective composi-
tions. Turning over the pages (upwards of MOO) we
find here nothing commensurate with what was anti-
cipated from him on the first appearance of his
" Paracelsus." Even that was rather the syllabus
of a work, than a great work itself ; it was rather a
prelude, a symphony, or a recitative, than a complete
achievement. Hence it happens, that graceful as are
the effusions of Robert Browning, his name, come
partitively speaking, is very far from having become
familiarised to the community. We would wager
that although hs is known and appreciated as a man
of elegant fancy and refined taste to the more se-
cluded circles of the literary world, among the
generality of readers he is little less than an entire
stranger. His name has not become a household
name, like that of Barry Cornwall; like that of
Alfred Tennyson ; or like (that even of Elizabeth
Barrett, whom he has recently married. Yet with
the master-minds of the age, the heart and the intel-
lect of Robert Browning are loyed; and honoured.
flow this comes to pass not by any means difficult
t o explain. To our thinking it arises from the volu-
bility with which his rhythmical language pours itself
forth—a volubility, which from being unchecked,
has become diluted into mere garrulity. We wish
there were some intellectual contrivance for the dis-
tillation of his long and miscellaneous writings, and
for the condensation of their quintessence into " one
entire and perfect chryssolite." The truth is that,
with scarcely one exception, his different poems are
admirable in conception, but, generally speaking,
wretchedly mediocre in execution. The thread of
their interest, which, if kept within moderate limits,
would be strong and powerful, is in almost every
instance attenuated to the extremest point of tenuity.
Thus, in " Luria," a theme which, abbreviated, might
have been rendered eminently enthralling, the interest
becomes frittered away in the tedious soliloquies and
still more tedious dialogues. Sometimes again, on
the contrary side, a subject which admits of reason-
able extension is obtruncated to a very torso. As for
example, in the " Blot in the 'Scutcheon"—where
the author set all the laws of the drama at open
defiance by publishing a tragedy in three acts 1 We
rather suspect that he has been, by the way, unin-
tentionally personal (to himself) where he makes
Paracelsus speak of, his
"Rhymes, and all this frothy shower of words I"

For assuredly no verse in all our poetical literature
could more accurately define the character of the
principal portion of his productions. To ourselves,
this is literally marvellous. For knowing, as we do,
how beautiful many of Robert Browning's ideas and
expressions are, we cannot comprehend how a man
so fastidious upon such matters upon occasion, can
pen thirty leaves together with scarcely a line or
syllable in the whole of them worthy of remem-
brance. That he should at intervals condescend to
mere oddities of thought, as where he observes—
" mind is nothing but disease,
And natural health is ignorance ;"
that he should sometimes even allow himself to fritter
away a fine fancy in a grotesque metaphor, as
where, maintaining that noble natures may never
renew confidence, though base one's may, be remarks :
" Twist off the crab's claw, wait a smarting-while,
And something grows and grows and gets to be
A mimic of the lost joint, just so like
As keeps in mind it never, never will
Replace its predecessor! Crabs do that:
But lop the Lion's foot—and"
That he can write thus at periods is comprehensible ;
but that he can produce long dramatic scenes, long
acts, with half-a dozen scenes in them, without a
single point or brilliant articulation, is to us matter
of astonishment, especially seeing that whensoever he
lists he can sing such golden verses. In illustration
of the produce of his better moments, take that line
in extenuation of a love of the earth (it occurs in our
favourite of all Robert Browning's poems, " Pippa
Passes ")
"God must be glad one love's his world so much."
Or take that lovely pa..vage of love in the same, piece
where Ottima reminds Sibald of the hour when their
guilty passion was first articulated—

" speak not ! The past, would you give up the past
such tip, it is, pleasure and crime together?
Give up that noon I owned my love for you—
The garden's silence—oven the single boo
Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopt
And where he hid you only could surmise
By some campanula's chalice set a-swing
As he clung there—' Yes, I love you:""
Hear him cry out with the agonized philosopher—
"A stone floor one may writhe on like a worm."
No mossy pillow, blue with violet'!"
Listen to his exquisite allusion to the dead ones we
have loved and now believe in Heaven—
" And she is gone; sweet human love is gone!
'Tis only when tey spring to heaven that angels
Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day
Beside you, and lie down at night by you,
Who care not for their presence—muse or sleep—
And all at once they leavoyou and you know them !"
Hearken to him one while exclaiming with such
deep poetic truthfulness—

"Respect all such as sing when all alone !"
And, at another, with the daintiest grace remarking—
" Why pansies, eyes that laugh, bear beauty's priza
From violets, eyes that dream."
That one who can at pleasure chaunt such melodies
of poetry should content himself with pouring forth
mere masses of verbiage, is fit. subject for amazement.
It is a noble ejaculation of his in "Paracelsus," that
" God is the Perfect Poet."
If ever Browning is peculiarly felicitous, it is in
transcribing from the visible poetry of the Creator,
in painting with a few vivid and picturesque expres-
sions the min uter aspects of Nature. This circum-
stance will be sufficiently visible in the subjoined
"The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars,
Is blank and motionless: how peaceful sleep
The tree-tops all together! Like an asp,
The wind slips whispering from bough to bough.

The heavy darkness secms
Diluted; grey and clear without the stars;
The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves, as if
Setae snake, that weighed them down all night, let go
His hold; and from the east, fuller and fuller
Day, like a mighty river, is flowing in;
But cloudy, wintry, desolate, and cold:
Yet see how that broad, prickly, star-►haped plant,
Half down in the crevice, spreads its woolly leaves,
All thick and glistering with diamond dew."
It is with similar forcefulness that Festus encourages
his friend Puracelsus, saying—

The Amount of Exchequer Dills issued to meet the Charge on the Consolidated Fused, for the Quartcr ended July,
5, 1849, and paid off out of the growing produce of that Fund for the Quarter ended Oct. 10, 1849............
The Amount issued in the Quarter ended Oct. 10, 1849, in part of the Sums granted by Parliament out of the
Consolidated Fund, for Supply Services •••••••••••••••• • • •• • • • • •• • • • • • •••*•• • ** ' • **** "•
The Surplus of the Conso idated Fund, Quarter ended Oct. 10, • • *• • • •••• • ' • *** • •••••
The Surplus Revenue, after providing for the Charges on the Consolidated Fund, and for theypayment. of Sup-
ply Services in England, in the Quarter ended October 10, 1849 ...................

7,762,108,.
5,865,611

13,627,719

5,107,494
6,117,339

7,791,195
6,117,339

13,908,534

466,953

1.009,845

544,887

" Then, who should sneer at the Convulsive throes,
With which thy deeds were bc)rn, would scorn as wel
The winding-sheet of subterraneous fire
Which, pent and writhing, sends no less at last
Huge islands up amid the.sistmering sea!"
At intervals he can compact yet weightier . truths
within a smaller compass, by way of wholesome
stimulation, as when the philosophic dreamer consoles
himself thus :

" Be sure that God
Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart."
His effusions, moreover, yield not only encourage-
ment to the doubter, but consolation to the sorrowful.
Instance this where it is marked in " A Soul's Tra-
gedy"—" Youth, with its Beauty and Grace, would
seem bestowed on us for some such reason as to
make us partly endurable till we have time for really
becoming so of ourselves without their aid, when they
leave us." Robert Browning knows the full energy
of a well-selected word. See this in the excitement
of his principal hero, when Paracelsus calls aloud—
"My frame
Trembles, my forehead's veins swell out, my hair
Tingles for triumph!"
He is conscious, tco, of the eloquence of en implied
similarity--as when the same great adventurer says,
speaking to his companions—,
" Are there not, Festus, are there not, dear Michel,
Two points in the adventure of the diver:
One—when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge?
One—when, a prince, he rises, with his pearl?
Feet's, I plunge!"
From the fragmentary passages above transcribed, it
must be sufficiently manifest that the author of
" Paracelsus" is capable of noble efforts to win him-
self no mere ephemeral, but a lasting and honourable
reputation. Let him recognise this himself betimes, and
not be satisfied with showering down upon us a cloud
of " Bells and Pomegranates." Let him learn that
there are more splendid themes for historical dramas
than that Sardinian crisis commemorated in his
" King Victor and King Charles." Let him intro-
duce such characters as Valence among worthier
comrades than those surrounding him in " Colombe's
Birth-day." Let him select less recondite materials
than those woven into " The Return of the Druses."
Let him breathe the life of his inspiration into no
mere copies of the creations of his predecessors—as
in Luria, that combination of the Olonzo of Young
and the Othello of Shakspere. " Pippa Passes," we
have said, is our favourite among the poems of Robert
Browning. Yet among his minor Dramatic Ro-
mances and Lyrics there are several of singular ex-
cellence. " Incident of the French Camp'' is both
effective and effecting, particulnrly the concluding
stanza. Immediately afterwards comes a" Soliloquy
of the Spanish Cloister"—one of the happiest pieces
ever penned by our author, although many may not
catch the exact tone of it, so as to recognise in what
it is so peculiarly felicitous.
" Gr-r-r—there go, my heart's abhorrenee!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God's blood, would not mine kill you!"
The spitefulness of the whole thing is absolutely
delicious. Talking about the goblets that will be
furbished up for their repast, this "good hater" con-
tinues—that they will be
"Rinsed like something sacrificial
Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps—
Marked with L. for our ini:ialf
(He, he! here his lily snaps I)"
Then again, as he watches Brother Lawrence tend-
ing his garden, he mutters to himself—
" Row go on your flowers? None double?
Not one fruit sort can you spy ?
Strang* .I—And .1, too, at such trouble,
Keep 'em close nipped on the sly!"
But the end is a master-touch of splenetic exple-
tives—

"Blasted lay that rose acacia
We're so proud of! Hy, Zy,
'St, there's Vespers! Plena Gratin
Ace, Virgo! Gr•r-r—you wine I
Another fragment in a different' strain is in its way
inimitable—" In a Gondola." The chiming of the
recurrent rhymes in the following has an eccentric
charm for us, in which some few may possibly par-
ticipate :

THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD,EL-KADER.
1842.
" As I ride, as I ride,
With a full heart for my guide,
So its tide rocks my side,
As I ride, as I ride,
That, as I were double.eyed,
lie, in whom our Tribes confide,
Is descried, ways untried
As I ride, as I ride.
" As I ride, as I ride
To our Chief and his Allied,
Who dares chide my heart's pride
As I ride, as I ride?
Or are witnesses denied—
Through the desert waste and wide
Do I glide unespied
As I ride, as I ride?
" As I ride, as I ride,
When an inner voice has cried,
The sands slide, nor abide
(As I ride, as I ride)
O'er each visioned Homicide
That came vaunting (has he lied?)
To reside—where he died,
As I ride, as I ride.
" As I ride, as I ride.
Ne'er has spur my swift horse plied,
Yet his hide, streaked and pied,
As I ride, as I ride,
Shows where sweat has sprung and dried,
—Zebra-footed, ostrich- thighed—
How has vied stride with stride
As I ride, as I ride!
"As I ride, as I ride,
Could I loose what Fate has tied,
Ere I pried, she should hide
As I ride, as I ride,
All that's meant me: satisfied
When the Prophet and the Mid()
Stop veins I'd have subsido
As I ride, as I rider

The meaning of the foregoing is about as percep •
tible as the meaning of those exquisitely harmonious
verses written by Coleridge in a dream—a dream
while sleeping, not a day-dream—Kubla Khan.
" The Pied Piper of Hamelin" bears somewhat of a
resemblance to a grotesque production by the author
of the farthing epic " Orion." Other effusions of
various merit will be found clustered together at the
end of these the Collected Writings of Robert
Browning.

THE LORD MAYOR OF LONDON AliD THE EDIN•
BURGH TOWN•COUNCIL.—We understand that Sir James
Duke has, betire relinquishing the honours of the
mayoralty of London, invited the members of the Edin-
burgh Town Council to meet him at dinner at the Man-
sion-house. The invitation has arisen, wo believe, out
of the honour conferred a few weeks ago on Sir James
Duke, in making him a burgess of the city of Edin-
burgh. The dinner has been fixed to take place on
Monday next, and we learn that at least three-tourths
of the Council will be guests of the Lord Mayor
on the occasion.—Scotsman.
Sensitive natures acquire an instinctive dread of
bad-tempered people, as certain nervous minds do of
fire-arms; believing they may go off, even though not
loaee3. —Eliza Cook's JournaL
ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL GRAMMAR SCHOOL.--It
has been reported that the proceedings against Mr.
Whi-iton hove been abandoned. This is not the case.
On the contrary, we have authority for stating that the
Dean and Chapter have overruled Mr. Whiston's de-
murrer, prepared and presented by the advice of the
Solieitor•General, and have given him notice to appear
before them on Wednesday (yesterday) to make answer
to the charges; named in their citation of Aug. 14.--
Xaidatone Joarnal.