p. 56. (102) In this Br. remonstrates with himself, and points out, dramatically, his own fault: he speaks naked thoughts,' whilst Song' is his art. So again :--"But here's your fault: grown men want thought' you think; "Thought's what they mean by verse, and seek in verse:' Boys seek for images and melody;

Men have reason. . . .

QUITE OTHERWISE. [Men don't want thought, they want pleasure, emotion.]
So come, the harp back to your heart again!"

p. 56. (105) Ben Karshook had better be scand as iambics.

·

p. 57. In 1862 came out 'Last Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. London. 1862. R. B. wrote the Dedication-“To Grateful Florence' [see p. 111 above], to the Municipa.ity, her Representative, and to Tommaseo, its Spokesman, most gratefully," and the "Advertisement. These Poems are given as they occur on a list drawn up last June. A few bad already been printed in periodicals. There is hardly such direct warrant for publishing the Translations; which were only intended, many years ago, to accompany and explain certain Engravings after ancient Gems, in the projected work of a friend, by whose kindness they are now recovered: but as two of the original series (the 'Adonis' of Bion, and Song to the Rose' from Achilles Tatius) have subsequently appeared, it is presumed that the remainder may not improperly follow. A single recent version is added. London, February, 1862."

p. 59. (107) This tells the gradual estrangement of a low-natured husband from a noble-natured artistic wife, and their separation in § IX. In § VIII the peazant girl has been sitting as a model to the artist-wife. The girl's coarse hand is, I suppoze, a lesson to teach the wife that, tho her earthly love leaves her, there's plenty of work for her to do in the world, and then heaven to follow. In § VI the wife speaks, as in all the other stanzas.

p. 61. (113) Rabbi Ben Ezra or Ibn Ezra was a learned Jew, 1092-1167, A.D. He must not be confuzed with the only man of the name in the Biogr. Universelle :-“EZRA (Juan-Josafat Ben), pseudonyme de l'auteur inconnu de la Venida del Mezius (the Coming of the Messiah). On croit que cet auteur était Américain et vivait vers le milieu du dix-huitième siècle. On trouve dans son livre une érudition étendue et une critique hardie. Cet ouvrage a été réédité par P. de Chamrobert, sous le titre de La Venida del Mezias en gloria y magestad; edicion emendada particularmente en cuanto a las citas; Paris, 1826, 5 vol. in 12.-P. de Chamrobert. Préface de son édition. --Wolf, Bibliotheca Hebraica,-Rossi, Dizionario storico degli Autori Ebrei." Ibn Ezra, and Maimonides, whom he is said to have visited in Egypt, were two of the four great Philosophers or Lights of the Jews in the Middle Ages. Ibn Ezra was born at Toledo in Spain, about 1092 or 1093 A.D., or in 1088 according to Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, vi. 198. He was poor, but studied hard, composed poems wherewith to "Adorn my own, my Hebrew nation," married, had a son Isaac (a poet too), traveld to Africa, the Holy Land, Rome in 1140, Persia, India, Italy, France, England. He wrote many treatises, on Hebrew Grammar, astronomy, mathematics, &c., commentaries on the books of the Bible, &c.-many of them in Rome-and two pamflets in England for a certain Salomon of London.' Joseph of Maudeville was one of his English pupils. He died in 1167, at the age of 75, either in Kalahorra, on the frontier of Navarre, or in Rome. His commentary on Isaiah has been englisht by M. Friedländer, and publisht by the Society of Hebrew Literature, Trübner, 1873. From the Introduction to that book I take these details. Ibn Ezra believd in a future life. In his Commentary on Isaiah lv. 3, "And your soul shall live," he says (p. 253), "That is, your soul shall live for ever after the death of the body, or you will receive new life through Messiah, when you will return to the Divine Law.' See also p. 168, on Isaiah xxxix. 18. Of the potter's clay passage, Is. xxix. 16, he has only a translation, "Shall man be esteemed as the potter's clay,' and no comment that could have given Browning a hint for his use of the metaphor in his poem, even if he had ever seen Ibn Ezra's commentary.

p. 61. (122) Apparent Failure: the bodies were seen in the Morgue by Browning himself.

p. 61. (113) See Rabbi ben Ezra's fine "Song of Death" in stanzas 12-20 of the grimly humourous Holy-Cross Day, no. 92.

p. 62. In the reading of Luria at our house in November last, I noted many improvements in the text in the '68 edition as compar'd with my '63 one. Probably many other poems and plays were revized for the new 6-vol. edition.

Mr. Ernest Radford has made another interesting discovery about Br.'s sympathy with Art. In Luria I. 121-7, the Secretary tells Braccio that Luria drew the charcoal sketch that attracted his notice, a Moorish front to the unfinisht Duomo or Cathedral of Florence, typifying Luria's leadership of the Florentine army. And Br. makes Braccio say, "I see: A Moorish front, nor of such ill design!" Br. had instinctively felt that the lines of the Duomo lent themselves to eastern treatment. Well, Mr. Radford, poking about, went to a small and rarely visited museum, cald the Opera del Duomo, containing drawings and models relating to the Cathedral, and there his eye was caught by a drawing of the Duomo completed by a Moorish front (drawn in 1822, and given to the Museum in 1833). Some architect or artist had been moved by the same feeling as Br., and had carried it out on paper. Br. had of course never seen or heard of this drawing.

p. 65. (127) Hervé Riel: the facts of the story had been forgotten and were denied at St. Malo, but the Reports to the French Admiralty at the time were lookt up, and the facts establisht. See the account in the Promenade au Croisic, par Gustave Grandpré, iii. 186, and Notes sur le Croisic, par Caillo Jeune, p. 67, a 'Croisic Guide-Book.' Browning's only alteration is that Hervé Riel's holiday to see his wife "La Belle Aurore," was not to last a day only, but his life-time : ce brave homme ne demanda pour récompense d'un service aussi signalé, qu'un congé absolu pour rejoindre sa femme, qu'il nommait la Belle Aurore.' The battle of La Hogue was fought on May 19, 1692.

p. 66. (129) Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau.1 Mrs. Orr on: "The Emperor is supposed to describe or imagine the leading actions of his reign under three different aspects as they appear in the light of his own conscience, as they would have been if they had conformed to a general rule of right, and as they must have appeared to those who measured them by such a rule. He begins by admitting and defending his wavering policy as dictated by the highest expedience; and then proceeds to enumerate the acts and motives which eulogistic historians of the Thiers and Hugo type would impute to him; opposing to this ideal version, step by step, the rejected suggestions of sagacity, which depict his actual thoughts and deeds in the obvious shallowness of their temporizing worldly wisdom. The argument which occupies the first half of the book is an elaborate vindication of the policy of leaving things as they are, saving only such improvement as implies no radical change. A piece of paper lying close to the speaker's hand supplies him with an illustration. The paper has two blots upon it, and he mechanically draws a line from one to the other; it does not occur to him to make a third, but it does occur to him to connect the two already made. That he does this, and no more, is typical of his conduct through life. He has not been gifted with the genius that could create, but he has been gifted with the sober intelligence which appreciates the risk of destroying. The great renewing changes of life are wrought by special agencies and under special conditions, as in the physical world. . . . And he is convinced that the highest wisdom of a non-inspired ruler is to assist those who are subject to his rule, to live the life into which they were born, trusting to the deeper laws of existence to vindicate good through evil, and perfection through imperfection. He too has recognized the destroying folly of sects and opinions, (p. 939) but he has seen that to suppress the one would be to give predominance to the other, and has thought it best to leave truth to assert itself in the balance of error; he has thought society best saved by being left alone. He too has had dreams of a higher utility. . . 'Hear ye not still Be Italy again"?' But with the time for action had come a new sense of responsibility; nearer duties to fulfil, more urgent needs to satisfy; mouths craving food, hands craving work, eyes that begged only for the light of life-and he has worked first for these. In this strain he continues... At the end of the book [is] an appeal, half playful, half pathetic, from the vanity of words to the incommuni

1 Hohen Schwangau is one of the Castles of the King of Bavaria. He disappeard suddenly from it, just before Christmas, 1881.

cable essence of individual truth." (On p. 946-7 Mrs. Orr expounds her view that "The dominant impression that all truth is a question of circumstance, and consequently all picturesque force a question of detail, explains every peculiarity of form and conception [in Br.]. It explains more or less directly everything that charms us in his writings, and everything that repels us." I hope other readers who turn to the passage will get more help from it than I have been able to do.)

p. 71 (no. 166). Pietro of Abano. In Bp. Thirlwall's 'Letters to a Friend,' 1881, ii. 77-9, is a story like Peter's. "A young student calls on Don Manuel at Seville, and asks for a spell to get him along in life. Don Manuel calls to his housekeeper, 'Jacinta, roast the partridges. Don Diego will stay to dinner.' The student makes a grand career; is Dean, Bishop, and then Pope soon after he is fourty. When Don Manuel calls on him in Rome, he threatens the magician, who has made him, with the prisons of the Holy Office. And then hears Don Manuel call out, Jacinta, you need not put down the partridges. Don Diego will not stay to dinner.' And, lo! Diego found himself at Don Manuel's door,-with his way yet to make in the world." This is from an englishing of an old Spanish collection of stories, El Conde Lucanor. Mr. Matthew gives me the reference. Mr. Garnett has since handed me a cutting from the 'St. James's Gazette' of Aug. 1880, telling the same story from the German poet Chamisso, who had versified it, but treated it simply as an anecdote. Mr. Sharpe's Paper on this Poem (below) is an admirable one.

p. 72. Browning's Printed Letters. Jn. Forster cites several to himself from R. B. about Landor, in his 'W. S. Landor, a Biography,' 1869. ii. 563 (Aug. 13, 1859); ii. 565-6 (close of August, Sept. 5, and Oct. 1859); ii. 566 (Dec. 9, 1859); ii. 570 (June 15, 1860). See too mentions of B. on ii. 576, 590; and i. 178.

In 1859, Landor wrote to Forster: "Nothing can exceed Mr. Browning's continued kindness. Life would be almost worth keeping for that recollection alone." ii. 568. Mr. Domett has printed part of a letter of R. B. to him in 1872, on his poem 'Ranolf and Amohia,' in a sheet of critical Notices of that poem.

p. 90. Landor's short poem "To Robert Browning" first appeard in 'The Morning Chronicle,' Saturday, Nov. 22, 1845, p. 5, col. 1, at foot.

p. 102. Mr. Domett's lines are from his 'Ranolf and Amohia,' 1872, Canto XIX, p. 342-3. As the copy sent me before was not correct, I print them again :— 'strange melodies'

That lustrous Song-Child languished to impart,

Breathing his boundless Love through boundless Art

Impassioned Seraph, from his mint of gold

By our full-handed Master-Maker flung;

By him, whose lays, like eagles, still upwheeling
To that shy Empyrean of high feeling,
Float steadiest in the luminous fold on fold
Of wonder-cloud around its sun-depths rolled.
Whether he paint, all patience and pure snow,
Pompilia's fluttering innocence unsoiled ;-
In verse, though fresh as dew, one lava flow
In fervour-with rich Titian-dyes aglow-
Paint Paracelsus to grand frenzy stung,
Quixotic dreams and fiery quackeries foiled;-
Or-of Sordello's delicate Spirit unstrung (p. 343)
For action, in its vast Ideal's glare

Blasting the Real to its own dumb despair,-
On that Venetian water-lapped stair-flight,
In words condensed to diamond, indite

SHORT INDEX.

Only those Poems are indext which are commented on in the book, and only the best

Reviews.

|

Critics, R. B.'s, lines on, p. 68; the Jingle's opinion on Poetry, p. 27.