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Second Meeting, Friday, November 25, 1881.

J. T. NETTLESHIP, Esq., in the Chair.

Mr. G. BARNETT SMITH (Author of "Shelley: a Critical Biography," "Poets and Novelists," &c.) read a Paper on Robert Browning, his Genius and Works, of which the following is an Abstract.

Whatever else may be said of Robert Browning, it cannot be denied that he occupies a unique place in our literature, or that his works contain passages of the loftiest order of poetry. He is not master of the arts which are essential to the acquisition of popularity; critics enlarge upon his perversities of thought and diction, yet there can be little doubt that posterity—which "sees with other eyes than ours" will award him great and lasting fame.

One of the chief characteristics of Mr. Browning as a poet is that we are unable to classify him. We cannot say of him that he is a dramatic, a lyric, or an epic poet, and nothing more, for he writes with equal force in the various poetic styles.

No poet ever commenced his career with richer gifts. Intellectual strength, the capacity to appreciate the soul of beauty in all things, a vivid and powerful imagination, dramatic insight of the highest quality, a mind perceptive, receptive, and original, musical and artistic gifts, a great accumulation of learning -such are the equipments with which he began. Add to all this, that he possesses the faculty of humour to a degree not developed in any other living poet of the first rank, and it will easily be seen that he may justly be called a great poet.

I propose rapidly to glance at Mr. Browning's works, and then offer some general observations on their spirit and genius. Pauline, his earliest attempt at "poetry, always dramatic in principle," is somewhat unequal and lacking in artistic draughtsmanship; but it contains many remarkable passages, and is valuable as indicating the class of work which afterwards proceeded from Mr. Browning. In it he shows his grip of humanity; the poem is imbued with true passion and power, and is spiritual too.

Paracelsus, published in 1835, occupies the same position relatively to its author that Adam Bede' does to George Eliot. In both, these authors scaled their first great height and gauged the nature of their powers. Paracelsus is a poem of moods, not incidents. Though some were discouraged by its ruggednesses and quaintnesses of style, there were not wanting critics who recognized the author as the greatest of living poets.

In the rôle of historical tragedy Browning failed, not because his work was bad, but because upon the English stage there were already signs of that deterioration which has since rapidly set in. Though his pieces were well received, they did not hold the stage-partly because their poetry is far superior to their situations; and partly owing to the circumstances attending their production.

In Sordello Browning exhibited something of his earliest manner, but he was more involved in expression. As the controversy upon Mr. Browning's style arose greatly in connection with Sordello, it will be well to deal with this question here. Surely more is made of style than is warranted when we allow it to blind us to the matter. It is safe to say, that where style is natural it is good, where affected, bad. Mr. Browning's style is the outcome of his own personality, and therefore natural, His psychological and analytical power is so strong that his subtleties of thought seem to elude the grasp. We find this is not so when we are determined to enter into his spirit. And this at least he has a right to demand from us. He writes for men, not children; and he who possesses an intellect cannot complain when he is called upon to use it. He does not complain when greater calls are made upon it for other things.

Mr. Browning's genius has been very prolific. His Bells and Pomegranates furnish us with a series of poems almost unexampled in their strength and variety. Pippa Passes ranks amongst the best of these efforts. All the qualities which have justly earned distinction for Mr. Browning are present in this drama, which he has never surpassed in exquisite delineation of passion and intensity of emotion, though subsequently he has worked upon broader conceptions. There is a thorough human interest attaching to the career of Pippa, and the simplicity of the characters in the poem has its counterpart in the simplicity of the poet's eloquence. In this drama we find beauty, tenderness, grace, and passion combined in an unusual degree. The whole poem is permeated with that large faith in God and humanity which has always been characteristic of Mr. Browning. His poetry tends to happiness, as the truest, best, and greatest poetry must.

In 1842 were published King Victor and King Charles and Dramatic Lyrics. In the peculiar efforts attempted in this latter volume Mr. Browning asserted his superiority over his contemporaries. These lyrics are singularly striking representations of human character and passion. Their strength, vigour, and variety are marvellous.

Of all the dramatic poems in the series originally entitled Bells and Pomegranates, probably Luria is the most perfect. The hero is grandly conceived; he is a being whose passions and abilities are equally great; he devotes himself to Florence, and finds himself about to meet with that reward too often meted out to the patriot-expatriation and disgrace.

Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day was published in 1850. This is lofty religious poetry, strongly imbued with divine charity.

In Men and Women (1854) was exhibited growing fervour and force of expression; in Dramatis Persona (issued in 1854) we have a series of powerfullydrawn studies of character.

Mr. Browning's masterpiece, The Ring and the Book, was published in 1869. It is a marvellous production, dealing with the passions of humanity in a manner at once searching and complete. The intellectual labour involved in it is immense, and there are snatches of poetry as splendidly beautiful as anything which has been written in verse since the sixteenth century. It shows the independent temper of the author, and his firm reliance upon the verdict of the future, that in an age of haste and desultoriness, he could deliberately set himself so prodigious a task. A disparity has been suggested between the subject of this epic, and its elaborateness of treatment. With the great poet no subject can be trivial which suggests immortal lessons and brings divine warning and consolation to humanity. If the simplest flower can speak to the poet, why should not human passion engage his loftiest efforts? In this epic, plot is little, character everything. It is a great psychological poem, elucidating the mysteries of fact and nature and of human action. It is superior to all other poems of this century in the depth of its spiritual insight and teaching. When we have made every possible deduction from the value of the work, it still remains a colossal monument of genius, and must prove of inestimable value in developing the genius of the future.

In his renderings of Greek subjects, Mr. Browning has shown great analytical skill and power of reproducing ancient scenes and characters with dramatic force and precision.

Whether we get in Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society, a faithful picture of Louis Napoleon, does not matter so much as that the poem contains many gems of precious thought. We may say the same of Fifine at the Fair, in which Browning handles powerfully a strange question of morals, and of RedCotton Nightcap Country, in which are touches of real tragedy.

The Inn Album is a very powerful work, full of the deepest lines and shadows, and suggestive of the impressive art of Rembrandt.

Pacchiarotto and other Poems, as a volume of subjective poetry, is noticeable and important.

La Saisiaz deals with problems affecting man's spiritual nature, his future life and welfare, immortality, and the subjection of evil. If this work gives the reader some trouble in tracing its noble arguments, the labour is amply repaid by the result.

The Two Poets of Croisic is a satire upon the fickleness of public opinion, and is full of piercing raillery.

The two volumes of Dramatic Idyls may be described as vigorous character sketches, each idyl having a distinct and leading purpose. They require to be considered not separately, but as a whole. They are wonderfully intense in their realism, and show from time to time flashes of genius; thoroughly to assimilate their spirit is to understand the human soul.

In forming our estimate of Mr. Browning as a poet, we should not lose sight of the fact that he has genuine art. His art is perceived in the capacity he exhibits for the creation of real men and women, and the faith he shows in the use of this capacity; also in his unswerving obedience to the dictates of that spiritual insight which is perhaps his greatest gift. He is an artist despite his eccentricities. He has strength, tenderness, music, beauty, and imagination, and intense human sympathy. He has grappled with the great questions which affect humanity in every age, but especially in our own, and he has always thrown his energy and genius upon the nobler side.

His system throughout has been Platonism plus Christianity, and on no occasion has he given an uncertain sound as to the side on which he has ranged himself. He is a true reformer and lover of his species, and sets himself to fight against evil. I confidently anticipate an enduring fame for the works of Robert Browning not on account of their genius alone, but because they offer solutions to the greatest problems of life; because they afford illumination to the soul as it travels onward towards a larger and fuller development.

If I am asked for a reason of my faith in Mr. Browning as a poet, I give it on these grounds: 1. His intense human sympathy; 2. The essential qualities of his poetry, which have been already cited, and which demand my deep admiration; 3. His profound faith. I would say with his Rabbi Ben Ezra,

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Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same."

No discussion following, and a vote of thanks having been unanimously past, Mr. Furnivall rose to read a paper by the Rev. John Sharpe, M.A., on 'Pietro of Abano.' Mr. Furnivall prefaced his reading by a few remarks on the importance of such work as Mr. Sharpe had done, close analysis of separate poems being as much needed as work with a larger scope. Browning, he said, had seen Mr. Sharpe's paper, and had been much gratified by the point of the Clive story being caught, by the understanding of the whole volume which the paper shewd. Mr. Furnivall said he had askt Browning what the allusion was in the tenth verse of Pietro

"Mark within my eye its iris mystic-lettered-"

and had receivd the reply, that there was an old superstition that, if you look into the iris of a man's eye, you see the letters of his name or the word telling his fate.

The Paper had been issued in proof to all Members before the Meeting, and is printed in The Br. Society's Papers, Part II.

The incident of Clive's duel, Mr. Furnivall said, had been told to Browning by Mrs. Jameson a fortnight after Macaulay had told it her. The part in which Clive says that if the bully had, instead of confessing himself a cheat, pardond Clive and spared his life, he should have pickt up the weapon cast away by his foe and uzed it on himself, is Browning's own invention. He considerd it a legitimate deduction from the fact that, when Clive had to face an inquiry into his conduct, he destroyd himself.

On the day of Lord Clive's death, a lady, who was staying in the house, hearing him pass the door of the room she was sitting in, askt him to come in and mend a pen for her. Such was his nerve, that he did so, and then went into the next room and cut his throat with the very penknife he had uzed in her service.

Mr. F. cited the four words, "Cleverness uncurbd by conscience," from Pietro, p. 109, as at once an explanation and a summary of the career of a late political leader of England.

Referring to Mr. Sharpe's leading idea of the Dramatic Idyls, Series II., Mr. Furnivall said that he himself did not believe in, as the Germans say, a central idea of a drama or collection of poems being consciously in a poet's mind when writing; but the thing is there nevertheless. In a poet's story some principle is underlying, though he need not be conscious of it; and the critic's business is to see this, albeit the poet do not see it.

Mr. Sharpe's paper had been most interesting to Mr. F. for its bearing on Shakspere criticism. A certain set of writers on Shakspere always thought they had crusht the real critics of the poet's works when they exclaimd that Shakspere never meant to group or link his plays together by the bonds which the critics saw, or to put certain ideas into his plays which the critics perceivd. These writers could not see that the value of the criticism they objected to, lay in the fact announst by the critics that the bonds before-named were undesignd by Shakspere, that the underlying idea was unconscious to him. But now came this living instance to convince reazonable folk, in the case of the most creative and dramatic, the most Shaksperian, of our modern poets, Browning, and his critic Mr. Sharpe. Tho Browning had designd no bonds between the separate poems of his Dramatic Idyls II, yet the bonds were there, as he recognized when Mr. Sharpe pointed them out. He had no 'leading idea' of the volume consciously before him when writing it; yet 'leading idea' there was. He had never thought, when writing Pietro, of Mr. Sharpe's last deduction from the principle he embodied in the poem; yet he acknowledgd that deduction—or rather, the need of some self-sacrifice on the part of God-to be a just one. Who would be so foolish as to limit a great truth to its utterer's immediate application of it?— The incident threw a flood of light on the relation of critic to artist and student.

Third Meeting, Friday, January 27, 1882.

REV. CANON FARRAR, D.D., in the Chair.

The Chairman said that, broadly speaking, Mr. Browning's works may be divided into three classes. 1. Those poems easily intelligible. To this class belong most of the earlier poems, as Men and Women, and the lyrics, such as Hervé Riel. Even in poems like these, though we gain much by a mere surface reading, a deeper study will bring to light a great deal more than can be taken in at first. 2. Such poems as Paracelsus, The Ring and the Book, Christmas-Ere and EasterDay, and others, which require deep attention. 3. Poems not intelligible without long and profound study. In this class may be placed Fifine, Sordello, and others.

It may be objected that, as the poet is living, we should inquire of him his own meaning. But Mr. Browning might very fairly reply, "Intelligibilia non intellectum affero "—"I bring you things intelligible, but not the intellect requisite to understand them." St. Jerome said of the Latin poet Persius, "Si non vis intelligi non debes legi"-"If you do not want to be understood you ought not to be read." Such a remark might apply to poets whose difficulties were merely difficulties of expression. But where the difficulty arose from the depth of the poct's thoughts, we ought to be grateful to him for guiding us to regions into which we should be unable to penetrate without his aid.

The difficulties of a poet are of two kinds-difficulties of thought and of expression. In the case of Persius the thought can be easily got at; but Mr. Browning's thought presents great difficulties.

We may trace it as it passes into the higher and purer air of reason, rising first slowly and majestically, then triumphantly, and at last with the steady flight of the eagle.

Very many are unable to enter into Browning's thought without assistance, and to such the Browning Society's papers are a real help. It is strange that remarks should be made as to the uselessness of the Society; stranger still that it should even be said that it is rendering Browning ridiculous.

It has already published valuable work in the Bibliography, and the Pictro of Abano by Mr. Sharpe, and much gratitude is due to it for its help.

ABSTRACT OF MISS LEWIS'S PAPER-SOME THOUGHTS ON

BROWNING.2

In one respect the position which Mr. Browning occupies with the English reading public is different from that of any contemporary poet. Of warm admirers he has perhaps as many as the most popular poets of the day; but of casual acquaintances, half and half disciples, occasional readers, he has-none. No one was ever yet found who liked his works a little; strong aversion or still stronger admiration are the sentiments with which they are invariably regarded.

1 We are able to give only a rough approximation to what Dr. Farrar really said. We should be very grateful if some one knowing shorthand would volunteer to report our Chairman's words, and those of any who take part in discussions. 2 This Paper will appear in Macmillan's Magazine, probably in the April or May number, 1882.

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