BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT BROWNING, FROM 1833 TO 1881. COMPILED BY FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL. THIRD EDITION. PUBLISHT FOR The Browning Society BY N. TRÜBNER & CO., 57 & 59, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON, 1881. DEDICATED (THO' WITHOUT HIS LEAVE ASKT) ΤΟ ROBERT BROWNING "A MAN" TRUE AS STEEL, A POET SEARCHER OF MEN'S MINDS AND SOULS. F. J. F. 24 "IN A GONDOLA." THOUGHT AND FORM IN POETRY. Note for no. 16, "In a Gondola," p. 45. The origin of this poem is shown by a note sent me by Mr. Shepherd :-DICKENS writes from Albaro (1844):-"In a certain picture called 'The Serenade,' for which Browning wrote that verse in Lincoln's-inn-fields, you, O Mac, painted a sky." To which his biographer subjoins the verse in a note "I send my heart up to thee, all my heart, In this my singing! For the stars help me, and the sea bears part; Closer to Venice' streets, to leave one space Above me, whence thy face May light my joyous heart to thee, its dwelling-place." with the remark:- "Written to express Maclise's subject in the Academy Catalogue."-Forster's Life of Charles Dickens, Book Fourth, § iv. Edn. 1876, vol. ii. p. 365. I have searched the Royal Academy Catalogues from 1835 to 1847 in vain, either for the title of the picture or the verses.'-R. H. S. The picture-of which Maclise painted the whole, not the sky only-is not mentiond in O'Driscoll's Memoir of Daniel Maclise, R.A., 1871, and cannot have been in the Academy. Browning wrote the stanza impromptu on Forster's report of Maclise's subject, and without seeing the picture. When he saw it, he thought it deservd fuller treatment, and accordingly added the rest of "In a Gondola" to his impromptu stanza. The reader of Browning should always bear in mind these words of Ruskin, in his Elements of English Prosody, 1880, p. 30: "The strength of poetry is in its thought, not in its form; and with great lyrists, their music is always secondary, and their substance of saying, primary,much so, that they will even daringly and wilfully leave a syllable or two rough, or even mean, and avoid a perfect rhythm, or sweetness, rather than let the reader's mind be drawn away to lean too definitely on sound. p. 31: On the other hand, the lower order of singers cast themselves primarily into their song, and are swept away with it, (thinking themselves often finer folks for so losing their legs in the stream,) and are in the end little concerned though there be an extremely minute dash and infusion of meaning in the jingle, so only that the words come tuneably. p. 32: While, however, the entire family of poets may thus be divided into higher and lower orders, the higher always subordinating their song to their saying, and the lower their saying to their song,-it is throughout to be kept in mind that the primal essence of a poet is in his being a singer, and not merely a man of feeling, judgment, or imagination." Browning has stated in the Epilogue to Pacchiarotto, 1. 153-4, 1. 160, the subjects he has chosen: "Man's thoughts and loves and hates ;" "Earth is my vineyard; "Mine be Man's thoughts, loves, hates." He has declared in his Forewords to the Sordello of 1863, that little else than the development of souls is worth study. He believs strongly in God and the Immortality of the Soul. He asks every one, in relation to every pursuit, "How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?" (Rabbi ben Ezra, st. viii, 1. 48). Let those whose ends are the same as his, however different their belief, give the earnest study it dezerves, to his "stark strength, Meat for a man" (Epil. to Pacch., st. ii.). N.B. All Browning's books came out and are in post 8vo, except Pauline 1833, in demy 8vo, Bells and Pomegranates in royal 8vo, double-columns, and Dramatis Personce, 1864, and the Shelley Essay, in an 8vo between post and demy (?). FOREWORDS. No one can well set to work at a man's writings till a list of them is before him, and he knows the order of their publishing. I have therefore got together somewhat hastily the following list of Browning's Works for the use of my Fellow-Members of the Browning Society. Had I been able to stay longer in Town, the lists would have containd more details, and would have been followd by a note of the chief criticisms on Browning, with short extracts from them. Some of these I had made, but our Committee thought they should be completed-so far as my time will allow-before any were issued. The Browningiana are therefore kept back for a while. For additions to the very imperfect list of them in the Appendix I shall be grateful. In the following pages An Alphabetical List of Browning's Works' comes first, because, till Mr. George Smith will advise a Collected Edition of Browning's Works, we sha'n't get one, but we shall want a handy reference to the volume in which any Poem we need to look-up appeard. The number before the name of each poem shows whereabouts in Browning's poetic life it was written.2 His first Poem, Pauline, was publisht in 1833 before he was 21. His First-Period work ended (I suppose) in 1845 with the last of the Bells and Pomegranates (Nos. 1 to 52). His Second Period may include the works of his married life, 1846-1861, that is, Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day, 1850; the Shelley Essay, 1851-2; Men and Women, 1855, &c. (Nos. 53 to 106). Looking at the depth and power of some of the Dramatis Personæ, 1864, I propoze to put that, with Hervé Riel,3 and his greatest work, The Ring and the Book, 1868-9 (Nos. 107-127), into his Third Period. 1 The 'while' may be a long one, as I see now (Aug. 27) that the money wanted for these old criticisms may perhaps be better spent in printing new ones from our Members' point of view. 2 In the Collections of the Poems and the Selections from them, the numbers call attention to the difference of date between poems put next to one another. See on p. 63 in Romances, (99), (4), (97) . . . (73), (3), (70). 3 Hervé Riel was written in 1867, tho not publisht till 1871. See p. 65, below. |