Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture."

It can hardly be that any admirers of Robert Browning's works is unfamiliar with the noble poem called Saul, wherein David describes how by the magic of his harp he sought to soothe the agony of the king.

The poem called Master Hugues of Saxe Gotha is the ungainly monologue of a poor organist. Whatever music there may have been in Master Hugues "mountainous fugues" there is certainly none in the verses bearing his name as title.

How the same poet writes such beautiful passages, as for instance, that in the Ring and the Book, beginning—

"O Lyric Love, half angel and half bird."

Or the lines in Paracelsus, beginning

"I hear a voice perchance I heard

Long ago, but all too low,"

and yet can be the author of such metrical work as Master Hugues of Saxe Gotha is almost incomprehensible.

They can have but a superficial knowledge of Browning's writings who deny him the gifts of rhythm and of musical expression; these he manifests again and again but certainly no poet since the birth of English poetry has sinned so often and so grievously against the beautiful art of poetic expression.

Painting would seem to be the art of which Mr. Browning has on the whole the most thorough knowledge, especially that of the Italian Renaissance. His poems connected with painting and painters show not only true artistic sympathy, but also complete knowledge. Mr. Hamerton, in his well-known book, Thoughts About Art, speaking of the true artistic spirit and the true inward sympathy, says "But amongst known writers it is indeed very rare. Robert Browning thoroughly enters into the artistic mind, and sees it from the inside; but no other English poet ever did that. And of prose writers Thackeray understood artists. These two are on the inside; Scott, Byron, and Wordsworth, and their predecessors on the outside only."

The Poems of Mr. Browning's which directly deal with art and artists, are : Old Pictures at Florence, The Guardian Angel, My Last Duchess, Pictor Ignotus, Fra Lippo Lippi, Andrea del Sarto, Youth and Art, Orpheus and Eurydice, Of Pacchiarotto and how he worked in Distemper, ▲ Face, A Likeness, and One Word More. By briefly considering the most important of these we shall realize the more thoroughly how true is this sympathy with art, in Browning, and how deep is his insight.

Old Pictures in Florence is a monologue of the author, standing outside Florence, with eye and thought especially caught by the shining Campanile of Giotto. He thinks of this great master of old, and of his later compeers, far away from the petty carping criticisms of those who look on and pass by, part amused, part indifferent, part praising. In thinking of the great progenitors of European art, he says:

"Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory,

For daring so much before they well did it,"

In

referring to their determination to get to the spirit of things and the soul of man for the mainsprings of their work, and not to be content with mere externals. his own words:

"On which I conclude, that the early painters

To cries of Greek art and what more wish you?'
Replied, To become more self-acquainters,

And paint man,-man whatever the issue.

3* 2

Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray,
New fears aggrandise the rags and tatters;

To bring the invisible full into play;

Let the visible go to the dogs- what matters?'"

In verse xxiii. he tells us that he has ever loved the "dim and dewy spring birth of art," and chiefly amongst sculptors loved Nicolo the Pisan, and amongst painters Cimabue,

Here as in so much else that Mr. Browning has written in connection with art, it is impressed upon us how the ideal must ever be before the true artist; perfect achievement being impossible to the painter, poet or sculptor, who must ever see beyond the symbols which he uses.

The Guardian Angel is one of the most beautiful poems of Robert Browning's, referring in any sense to the arts, and is at the same time one of the finest poems on pictures in our language.

The Guardian Angel is a picture by Guercino, in the church at Fano, on the Italian seaboard. This poem possibly shows the influence of art of the highest type on susceptible natures, not only soothing but elevating and strengthening, "How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!

I think how I should view the earth and skies
And sea, when once again my brow was bared
After thy healing, with such different eyes.
O world, as God has made it! All is beauty,
And knowing this is love, and love is duty,

What further may be sought for or declared?"

My Last Duchess is but a short poem, yet in it Mr. Browning has embodied one of his most masterly character-delineations. It is true to its time; for mediæval history again and again shows us great culture and intense love of art, going hand in hand with an unscrupulous will and the fiercest passions. It is a memorable poem, permeated with the very spirit of history and mediæval art. A Face has been already referred to. In it occur the fine lines characterizing Correggio's manner of painting cherubs and angel faces :

"I know Correggio loves to mass in rifts

Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb,

Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb."

A Likeness is the story of a print, of which the peculiar significance is worth more to its owner than all his other possessions. It is the pictorial record of

"A face to lose youth for, to occupy age

With the dream of, meet death with."

Pictor Ignotus is the bitter monologue of one whom Fame has passed unnoticed. Capable of high effort and possibly noble achievement, the unknown painter recognizes that the hard necessities of life must compel him to work according to the taste of vulgar or indifferent patrons, and not as his spirit would fain dictate. The thought of what he might have done is called up by the name of Rafaelle.

"I could have painted pictures like the youth's

Ye praise so. How my soul springs up? No bar

Stayed me-ah, thought which saddens while it soothes !
Never did fate forbid me, star by star,

To outburst of your night with all my gift

Of fires from God

But a voice changed it."

But in spite of this lost life of the past, he determines at least no longer to traffic with his art, but to devote his remaining powers to religious art. Here his

conscience will be at rest, and his work be removed from the clamour of "vain tongues."

"So die my pictures! surely gently die!

O youth men praise so,-holds their praise its worth?
Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry?

Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth?"

There are probably no two poems of Mr. Browning's more widely and fully appreciated than Fra Lippo and Andrea del Sarto. It is therefore unnecessary to go into any detail in either, but simply to draw attention to the subtle appreciation of character, the perfect knowledge of the subject on hand, and the true light of poetry that illumines both. It is impossible not to sympathize with and excuse, and in a sense love the generous, jovial, if weak, and sometimes sensual painter-priest, Fra Lippo Lippi. The artistic, pseudo-artistic taste of the times is accurately shown in this poem.

The poem of Andrea del Surto, called the Faultless Painter, is as pathetic as it is powerful and beautiful. It is the old story of unfitly mated love, dragging the soul down to the level of common-place life. Andrea feels, like Pictor Ignotus, that he might have rivalled Rafaelle had not circumstances proved stronger than native will.

As strongly as anywhere else can we see in One Word More Mr. Browning's intimate sympathy with art and the artistic spirit. He shows that once, at least, in every true artist's life, there comes the great wish to perpetuate some life-love of fair ideal in imperishable words; and to the poet the same passionate desire to create a visible embodiment of his soul's delight in rare form and beautiful colour.

With the Renaissance spirit in sculpture as in painting Mr. Browning is thoroughly conversant. Nowhere is this knowledge more accurately and newly brought home to us than in The Bishop orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's, which will be briefly touched upon as representing Sculpture. The Statue and the Bust, Deaf and Dumb, and the part relating to Jules in Pippa Passes will be remembered in this connection.

Mr. Ruskin says, speaking of The Bishop orders his Tomb, "I know no other piece of modern English prose or poetry in which there is so much told, as in these lines, of the Renaissance spirit,-its worldliness, its inconsistency, pride, hypocrisy, ignorance of itself; love of art, of luxury, and of good Latin." The Bishop may be taken as the best representative of the corrupt and sensual clerical spirit of the age in question-of low morals, of gross tastes, of cultivated yet merely external appreciation.

The practically imperishable art of the sculptor is well represented in the lines from The Statue and the Bust.

The beautiful octave called Deaf and Dumb is a fitting pendant to the wellknown group by the sculptor Thomas Woolner, for which the lines were written, The most beautiful of the poems connected with sculpture is beyond doubt the scene between Jules and Phene in the studio, in Pippa Passes. It is the opposite to Andrea del Sarto. Here the higher raises the lower, and each supplements the other. Jules tells his young wife how he has worked and striven, getting enthusiastic as he mentions the marble.

"But marble!-'neath my tools

More pliable than jelly-as it were

Some clear primordial creature dug from depths,
In the earth's heart, where itself breeds itself,
And whence all baser substance may be worked."

He tells Phene that they must travel to her native Greece, to reach some isle with the sea's silence on it-and bids her stand aside while he breaks up his models and sculptures-" to begin art afresh."

The exquisite close of the poem, with the repeated music of

"Some unsuspected isle in the far seas!

Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas!"

recalls more than anything else in Browning the marvellous hand that wrote of Magic casements opening on the foam

66

Of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn."

Here, as in so much else that Mr. Browning has written in connection with Art, it is impressed on us how the Ideal must ever be before the true artist; the very fact of perfect achievement being impossible to the painter, poet, or sculptor, who must ever see, to see fully, beyond the symbols which he uses to express himself. "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what's a heaven for?"

But an

The CHAIRMAN proposed a vote of thanks to Mr. Sharp, and to Miss Hickey for reading the paper; he felt her admirable manner of reading would console them to some extent for Mr. Sharp's absence. The allusions in the paper to poetry and music were extremely interesting, but not always relevant. ear for music and an ear for poetry were two entirely distinct things. To call poetry an art in the same sense as music, &c., was giving it a misnomer; poetry is a branch of literature; you may have artistic literature, and you may have literary Art, but the arts and literature are nevertheless quite distinct. However, Mr. Furnivall had said there was to be no discussion, so he would throw no apple of discord into the meeting. He wished Miss Hickey could have read longer, but she certainly could not have read better.

Bibliography, p. 168.

SCRAPS.

In Prof. Morley's English Literature during the reign of Victoria a poor and disappointing book, not to be compared with Justin McCarthy's chapters on the subject in his History of our Times,-the notices of Browning are (says Mr. T. J. Wise) on pages 186, 187, 346, 365, 409, 410. Easter Day, § 12, 1. 332; vol. v, 1. 178. Br. Works, 1877 (iii. 224, Works, 1863).

Prometheus, having told the Chorus of ocean nymphs that he had prevented Zeus from destroying the human race, thus answered their further questions (Prom., ed. F. A. Paley, 1861, 11. 255-258):

ΧΟ. μή πού τι προΰβης τῶνδε καὶ περαιτέρω ;
ΠΡ. θνητούς γ' ἔπαυσα μὴ προδέρκεσθαι μόρον.
ΧΟ. τὸ ποῖον εὑρὼν τῆσδε φάρμακον νόσου ;
ΠΡ. τυφλὰς ἐν αὐτοῖς ἐλπίδας κατῴκισα.

Englished by Paley (Aeschylus translated into English Prose, 1864, p. 38).

Cho Did you not go somewhat even beyond this?

Pro. Yes, I stopped mortals from ever looking forward to their fate.

Cho. By devising what remedy of that malady?

Pro. I caused blind hopes to dwell among them.-W. G. STONE,

Eighth Meeting, Friday, June 23, 1882.

THE Chair was taken by MR. FURNIVALL, who briefly introduced Prof. Corson, saying that he had come all the way from America on purpose to read his paper to the Society.

After the reading of the paper, MR. FURNIVALL propozed a vote of thanks to Professor Corson for his most able and pregnant lecture. They must all, he was sure, have felt how fresh and pregnant it had been-how different from the views taken by most English writers on Browning. He thought that the views of Dr. Corson in regard to Browning's personality would commend itself to them all it was indeed a truth, that came home to every one, that nothing really appeald to us except that which came from another man's very heart. We might not all hold with the Professor's doctrine in regard to Browning's religious teaching, and the personality of Christ, &c., but still we could all join in thanking him for his most able paper.

MR. NETTLESHIP did not feel qualified to discuss the paper, not having had an opportunity of reading it before coming to the meeting. There were two questions with regard to the idea of personality he should like to ask the Professor: -the first was as regards Pippa Passes, the heroine of which acts more or less on all the characters in the play was that personality? Then, secondly, How was personality expressed in the actual poems about pictures? He did not feel justified in further occupying their time, but would join in thanking the lecturer for his paper.

MR. SHARP rather disagreed with Mr. Nettleship with regard to personality as expressed in the Art poems. He considered that Browning spoke more as an artist than any other poet. He did not agree with Prof. Corson's remark that Shelley was not so healthily articulate as Browning: the truth was, Shelley had simply a different temperament. However, Mr. Sharp was greatly pleased with

the paper.

MR. COUPLAND also thoroughly agreed with the views expressed in the able paper of Dr. Corson's. He held that all Browning's writings conveyed the impression that there was nothing of any worth but what came from the deepest essence of a man's being; he thought the Professor had very powerfully brought out that truth in his paper. Browning seemed to think Art was the greatest of all teachers because of its indirectness; and we often learnt more from the side lights than from looking a thing full in the face.

MISS DREWRY was much pleased with the paper. and great to them, that they needed to study it more. and invaluable lecture.

The ideas were all so new
It was a most interesting

MISS HICKEY said that she had very much enjoyed Professor Corson's paper, and thanked him heartily for it.

MR. MARTIN WOOD, who had casually looked in upon them that evening, alluded to the well-worn anecdote of Douglas Jerrold and Sordello, remarking that he considered the Professor had that evening shown that Browning was articulate, and had a method, and had fully vindicated the Poet's mobility and beauty of expression.

DR. TODHUNTER thought very highly of the paper they had heard. It seemed to him that the lecturer had hit on two essential points of Browning's teaching first, man as a spirit; and secondly, the great idea was expounded of how, as a spirit, he was related to God. Those two ideas were most distinctly brought out in the remarks of Professor Corson.