chancing to be a little concreter and denser, has presented the illusive appearance of rock. When we have redescended the turrets that we have mounted under Browning's guidance, and "stand on alien ground”; when we sink to the common chord of this life-sorrow that is hard to bear, and doubt that is slow to cure-we cannot but question the objective permanence of the heights that we "rolled from into the deep"; we feel sober acquiescence very difficult; it is hard to find our resting-place. Is the poet in possession of a point or peak that can fix the wandering star of immortality has he found a real spark on earth that reflects the ideal “ball of blaze" in heaven? Or, dropping metaphor, has he established a tenable basis for this great hope, if indeed he holds it, without any aid from that unfortunate dogmatism which is so often made to serve for reasoned truth? Such questions as these will seem of course irrelevant to orthodox Christians, but it is not for "maw-crammed," "crop-full" Christians, who never feel doubt, that Browning writes; it is for men and women, whom indeed he endeavours to make Christian in the widest sense of the word, but not by forcing dogma down their throats by "method abundantly convincing, As I say, to those convinced before, But scarce to be swallowed without Let us try then to see Browning's "scheme of the weal and woe,” that we may, if we can, understand the hope of Caponsacchi, and see the possibility of "worlds not a few" wherein our hopes shall be realized, and their impersonations, our Evelyn Hopes, be revived for us. I. BROWNING'S POINT OF VIEW: INDIVIDUAL. Philosophers, strictly so called, set themselves the problem of explaining the universe, the spheres of Abstract Thought, of Nature, and of Spirit, whose inner bond they try to discover; and this bond constitutes the metaphysics of their system. But history tells us that every system that has yet been elaborated has, in a generation or two, when weighed in the balance, been found wanting, and been superseded by a new system which its author in turn fancied was the "key to all the knowledges"; but soon gates were found with locks of too complicated wards for it, and a new key must be forged. This is the natural consequence of the growth and progress of the human spirit, its increase of knowledge and civilization; and new philosophical schemes must arise till the end of things. But great world-schemes are universal, not individual, and philosophers like Epictetus or Epicurus speak to individuals more than Plato or Aristotle. Individuals, though they may grasp a system with eagerness, as giving them a wide and satisfactory view of the mysteries of mind and nature, must go back into the individual Part III. The method of philosophy. § 60-88. § 60-63. The problem restated, how to rise out of the false into the true. § 64-68. Floating symbolizes the method: immersed in falsehood, a soul can breathe the true. § 69-80. Woman helps us here more than man. i. he is selfish, § 71, 72. she self-sacrificing, § 73. ii. man envies superiority, § 75. iii. man shows himself in hate, § 79. woman in love, which proves to me, I am. § 80. § 81-83. Fifine helps more than Elvire, for difficulty stimulates effort. § 84-88. The gypsy actors avow a false outside; let me seek the true : and from the least spark of truth let soul recreate the ideal. Part IV. The Dream. § 89-125. § 89-93. Introduction: music expresses feeling. § 94-104. The Carnival at Venice. i. viewed by pride, all is ugly, § 94-98. ii. viewed by sympathy, good is discerned, § 99-104. § 105-108. Its lesson universally true. § 109. Welcome what is. § 110-125. Proof of universality. i. All is change, § 110-117. In religion, learning, philosophy, § 110–112. Yet Truth does its work by maintaining faith in In history, morals, art, music, poetry, change is still ii. All is Permanent, § 118-123. Partial truths will blend in one, § 118-120. Not in a learned theory, but the intuitive truth of iii. Under the Changing, seek the Permanent: let soul Part V. The End. The Fall. § 126, 127. We end where we began, in instinctive truths. § 128. A humiliating fact, therefore no self-deception. § 129. Such also is the duty of conjugal fidelity: from the wife evolve Woman. § 130. Am I parted from Elvire? § 131. Never more will I speculate. § 132. The temptation and fall. The key to Fifine is supplied by the passage of Molière, prefixed to the poem. Molière's Elvire says to her husband, whom she suspects of an intrigue, "Why do you not say to me all that a husband ought to say to his wife?" Browning's Don Juan, accordingly, does say all that a man ought to say to his wife, whilst secretly intriguing with Fifine. He puts forward a philosophy partly true, partly sophistical. His avowed object is to study Fifine scientifically, and so to test the truth of a philosophy which deals with the mystery of imperfection and evil in a world of God's creation (§ 13, 29, 43, 67, 86, 101, 108). From the analysis of true love, he evolves a theory applicable to the universe and its development. Outwardly a wife may be faded, and her character imperfect (§ 33, 40): in the eyes of love she is faultless and supremely beautiful (§ 38, 39). For under the imperfect exterior, the soul seeking its complementary soul, discerns traces of beauty from which it reconstructs the whole (§ 44, 50). This ideal soul is the object of love. This method should be applied to all the rest of God's creation. If we regard all mankind with the eyes of love, we shall find beneath moral and physical deformity, traces of goodness and beauty from which we can reconstruct each soul as God designed it, fair and pure (§ 52-58). : So in all things, beneath the false we may discern the true: beneath the changing we may seize the permanent. We cannot soar into absolute truth, but as we float in the sea of speculation we can breathe the pure air of truth sufficiently to keep the soul alive. I desire, therefore, says Don Juan, to study Fifine: bodies show minds, she has a beautiful body, and therefore beneath it a beautiful mind (§ 28): she is an actress, therefore her true self is far removed from the immodesty which she displays on the surface (§ 84): Fifine regarded with sympathy and viewed in the true light, will reveal to me her real soul as God designed it. Elvire is not persuaded by her husband's argument, and leaves him when he receives a note from Fifine. After death she returns to fetch his penitent soul from its house "embrowned with sin and shame." Don Juan knows the good, and deliberately does the evil. Thus Pornic affords another instance of the action of that infection of nature which theologians call Original Sin' (see Gold Hair a story of Pornic'). The mystery of evil remains unsolved 258 Bibliography, p. 45, 169. (16) In a Gondola, 1. 192. "Castelfranco is of course Giorgione: Giorgio Barbarelli, "born in the year 1478, at Castelfranco, in the territory of Treviso, and . . . at a later period called Giorgione [big George], as well from the character of his person as for the exaltation of his mind." He died in his 34th year, 1511, from the plague, caught from the lady he was in love with. He was a fellowstudent with Titian under the Bellini. Vasari englisht, ed. Bohn, ii. 394-402. Bibliography, p. 149, 1. 9, for "another" read "author." p. 152, 1. 2 from foot, for "her father's" read "his (that is, Browning's) father's." In Household Words, vol. iv, p. 213, no. 87, Nov. 22, 1851, there is a sonnet addressed to Browning.-W. G. Stone. Editor in Chief:-F. J. FURNIVALL, Esq., 3, St. George's Sq., Primrose Hill, N.W. Hon. Sec.-W. A. Dalziel, Esq., 67, Victoria Road, Finsbury Park, N. To do honour to CHAUCER, and to let the lovers and students of him see how far the best unprinted Manuscripts of his works differd from the printed texts, this Society was founded in 1868. The founder (Mr. Furnivall) began with The Canterbury Tales, and has given of them (in parallel columns in Royal 4to) six of the best theretofore unprinted Manuscripts known. Inasmuch as the parallel arrangement necessitated the alteration of the places of certain tales in some of the MSS., a print of each MS. has been issued separately, following the order of its original. The first six MSS. printed have been: the Ellesmere (by leave of the Earl of Ellesmere); the Hengwrt (by leave of W. W. E. Wynne, Esq.); the Camb. Univ. Libr., MS. Gg. 4.27; the Corpus, Oxford; the Petworth (by leave of Lord Leconfield); and the Lansdowne 851 (Brit. Mus.). The Harleian 3374 will follow. Of Chaucer's Minor Poems,-the MSS. of which are generally later than the best MSS. of the Canterbury Tales,-all the available MSS, have been printed, so as to secure all the existing evidence for the true text. Of Chaucer's Troilus, a Parallel-Text of the 3 best MSS. has been issued, and a 4th text set opposite its englisht original, Boccaccio's Filostrato, is all in type. The Boece from the best MS. is now in type too. Mr. F. J. Furnivall has read and will read all the texts with their MSS. Autotypes of all the best Chaucer MSS. either have been or will be publisht. The Society's publications are issued in two Series, of which the first contains the texts of Chaucer's works; and the Second, such originals of and essays on these as can be procured, with other illustrative treatises, and Supplementary Tales. Messrs. Trübner & Co., of 57 & 59, Ludgate Hill, London, E. C., are the Society's publishers, Messrs. Clay and Taylor of Bungay its printers, and the Alliance Bank, Bartholomew Lane, London, E. C., its bankers. The yearly subscription is two guineas, due on every 1st January, beginning with Jan. 1, 1868. More Members are wanted. All the Society's Publications can still be had. Those of the first year have just been reprinted. Prof. Child of Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the Society's Honorary Secretary for America. Hon. Sec., W. A. DALZIEL, Esq., 67, Victoria Road, Finsbury Park, N. THE WYCLIF SOCIETY. Founded by Mr. Furnivall in March, 1882, to print the Latin Works of the great early Reformer, JOHN WYCLIF, which have, to England's shame, been left in manuscript for now 500 years. These Latin works are far more important than Wyclif's English ones. Subscription 1 guinea a year, to be sent to the Hon. Sec., J. W. Standerwick, General Post Office, E.C. Books I and II of Wyclif's chief work, Summa Theologia, will be issued in 1882. Probably Books III-V, and VI (De Veritate Scripturæ Sacræ) in 1883 and 1884. The Honorary Secretary of the Ballad Society is Mr. W. A. Dalziel. The Honorary Secretary of the English Dialect Society is J. H. Nodal, Esq., The Grange, Heaton Moor, near Stockport. Subscription a guinea a year. The Hunterian Club, Glasgow, has reprinted in 4to the complete works of Samuel Rowlands, is doing those of Lodge, &c. Subscription 2 guineas a year. Hon. Sec., Mr. John Alexander, Regent Street, West, Glasgow. The Spenser Society, Manchester, 2 guineas a year, is reprinting the complete works of Taylor the Water-Poet, Withers, &c. Messrs. Simms, printers, Manchester. The Honorary Secretary of the Index Society is Mr. Hy. B. Wheatley, 6, Minford Gardens, West Kensington Park, London, W. The Honorary Secretary of the Folk-Lore Society is Mr. Lawrence Gomme, Castlenau, Barnes, London, S.W. Prof. E. Arber's excellent English Reprints, &c., are now publisht.by him t Mason College, Birmingham. He will send a Catalogue to any applicant. |