Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1874-02-11
Miscellany.
Mrs. Browning.


poetesses OF this country. In the first
class only five can be named-Joanns
Baillie and Miss Milford, in right of
their tragedies (the former, too, one of
Great Britain's most exquisite lyrists) !;
Mrs. Hemans, the musical, high-hearted
and impassiOned: and herself - less
complete in execution, it may be, than
the three women of genius already
named, but bolder in imagination and
deeper in learning, with a wider land
wilder) flow of inspiration than any of
those with whom she is here classed.
She has place of her own-rare, noble.
daring, and pure beyond reproach-in
the Golden Book of gifted women.
There has been only one since, Adelaide
Anne Proctor, less ambitions, perhaps,
than her predecessors, but, rs a Wrist,
more complete, more delieate-not less
original, therefore, than any among
them, whose verses have a beauty and
finish that owe nothing to any model.
at must be at least thirty years ago
that l was startled by a new pleasure
a published ballad, signed, l think,
with only initials-in The NclC Nontlaly
NGga=iRe-'The Romaunt of Margret.
l got it by heart; if copied it once, l
copied 1t ten times, and must have
made myself a nuisance, as immature
enthusiasts are apt to do, by talking of
1t, In season and ont of season, as an
appearance of a strange, seizing, origi-
nal genius. L was doubted and put
aside accordingly, in obedience to Eng
iish law and usage, which (as it were)
make us set our teeth and lean our
backs against the door whenever the
same is TO be opened to a real novelty.
The chance, however, that brought me
to the knowledge of that munificent
man and indUlgent friend, John Ken
yon, Miss Barrett's relative, brought
me also the privilege of writing to one
whom l SO sincerely admired, and of
being on the list of those to whom she
was willing to write.
''In those days, no other intercourse
was possible; for she was an invalid
thought to be helpless one-as such,
not to be intruded on (were the candi-
dates as persevering, gifted, and charm
ing as the American interviewers) save
by very few old friends.
"Her letters ought to be published.
In power, versatility, hveliness, and
.fResSe; IN perfect originality of glance,
and yigor of grasp at every topic of the
hour; IN their enthusiastic preferences,
/ preludices, and inconsistencies, | have
never met with any, written by men or
by women, more brilliant, spontaneous,
and characteristic. This was her form
of conversation. 1 have never done q
duty more against the grain than in re-
/ storing those addressed to me to their
rightful possessor-the true poet whom
/ she married, after an intimacy suspected
by none save a very few, under circum-
stances of no ordinary romance, and in
marrying whom she secured for the
residue OF her life an emancipation from
/ prison and an amount of happiness de-
lightful to think of, as falling to the lot
of one who, from darkened chamber,
/ had still exercised such power of de-
/ lighting others. 1t was more like a
fairy tale than any thing in real life l
have ever known, to read, one morning,
in the papers, of her marriage with the
author of 'Paracelsus, and to learn, in
the course of the day, that not only was
she married, but that she was absolutely
on her way to Italy. The energy and
resolution implied were amazing ON the
part of one who had long, as her own
poems tell us, resigned herself to lie
down and die. j cannot recollect when
have been more moved and excited by
any surprise, beyond a circle Of my i'm
mediate hopes and fears.
every letter of hers from Florence
told me of one prospect after another
Frightening, of one hope after another
fuliilled-told with piquant originality
and prejudice not to be overstated nor
under-praised.
'1 never met Mrs. Browning face to
/ face till after her return to England.
| The time is too recent for me to tell
hOtC we met-as correspondents who
had become friends. And her indul-
gent friendship never failed me to the
/ last. in spite of serious differences of
opinion concerning a matter which she
took terribly to heart - the strange,
weird question ofmesmerisn, including
ctairrOydnco. To the marvels of these
two phenomena (admitting both as in
complete discoveries) she lent an ear as
credulous as her trust was sincere and
her heart high-minded. But with wo-
men far more experienced in falsity
than one so noble and one who had
been so secluded from the world as
herself, after they have once crossed
the threshold, there is seldom chance
of after-retreat. Only they become be-
wildered by their tenacious notions of
loyalty. 1t is over these very best and
most generous of their sex that impos-
tors have the most power They are no
matches, as men are, for those misera-
bic creatures who creep about with in
sinuating manners, and would pass off
leger-demain, the tricks of cup and
ball, for real, portentous discoveries.
81 have never seen one more nobly
simple, more entirely guiltless of the
feminine propensity of talking foreffect,
more earnest in assertion, more gentle,
yet pertinacious in difference, than she
was. Like all whose early nurture has
chiefly been from books, she had a
child's curiosity regarding the life be-
yond her books, co-existing with Opin-
ions accepted as certainties concerning
things of which (eyen with the intuition
of genius) she could know little. She
was at once fOrbearing and dOgmatic,
willing to accept differences, resOlute
to admit no argument; without any
more practical knowledge of social life
than nun might have, when, after
long years, she emerged from her clois-
ter and her shroud. How she used her
experiences as a great poetess, is to be
felt andis evinced in her Aurora Leigh,
after every allowance has been made
for an extreme fearlessness in certain
passages of the story and forms of ex-
preston, and that want Of finish in exc
cution with which almost all her efforts
are chargeable. Memoirs IF Henry
F0theTgiH ChorIGy.
In answer to a complaint of the price
of eggs, a grocer took occasion to ex-
plain that it was on account of their
scarcity because of the panic, and upon