His Fourth Period I begin with Balaustion (No. 128) in 1871.1 Long may it be before that ends! Unless indeed he will close it now, and begin a Fifth Period of mainly un-dramatic work, speaking straight out to us in 1882 the message of his three-score years and ten. That he has much still to say to the world for its behoof, none of us can doubt. And we can only hope that it will come to us in poems of the kind of Rabbi ben Ezra, Prospice, Saul, Easter-Eve, which have lately cald forth to me such witnesses as these: 1. "I bow down before Mr. Browning because I know that he has made me a better woman than I used to be. I never read his writings without feeling stronger, more earnest, more real, truer to my better self than I was before." 2. "I daily admire him more and more. He doesn't pick out the difficulties and doubts and failures of life, and raise a mighty howl over them, like and -. He has an intelligible theory of life, which, not shirking the difficulties, scatters them all to the winds; and not blinking the failures, steps across them and over them, ahead to honest, healthy work, and effort and success. I do like a man who tells us to be cheery and trust and strive, and use the light we have; instead of the men who are always groaning over the light they think they ought to have and have not, and who let all life be hampered and paralysed by the want. Browning has been more to me for the last two years than all the Sermons. . . . To me he is everything that is strong and out The only outside classification of Browning's Poems that I've seen, is in The Contemporary Review of Jan. 1867, p. 11 :— 'I. Poems dramatic in their structure. [Instances: Paracelsus, Pippa Passes, Ir. a Balcony, and the Plays.] 'II. Lyrics and Romances, dramatic in character though not in structure, and dealing chiefly with passions which have man, as such, for their object. [Specimens (58) Up at a Villa-Down in the City, (37) The Englishman in Italy, (62) By the Fireside, (12) My last Duchess, (87) Old Pictures in Florence, (82) Andrea del Sarto, (93) The Guardian Angel-a Picture at Fano, (98) Two in the Campagna, (66) A Serenade at the Villa, (63) Any Wife to any Husband, (59) A Woman's last Word, (86) In a Year, (107) James Lee's Wife, (9-11) Cavalier Tunes, (38) The Lost Leader, (99) A Grammarian's Funeral, (30) Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis, (22) The Pied Piper, (23) Flight of the Duchess, (18) Waring. 'III. Poems representing forms, true or false, healthy or morbid, of religious life.' [Samples (4) Johannes Agricola in Meditation, (97) The Heretic's Tragedy, (80) Bishop Blougram's Apology, (121) Mr. Sludge the Medium, (115) Caliban upon Setebos, (114) A Death in the Desert, (108) A Legend of Pornic, (64) An Epistle of Karshish, (48) Saul, (122) Apparent Failure, (113) Rabbi ben Ezra, (123) The Epilogue to Dramatis Persona, (53) Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day.] But I am not satisfied with this classification,-as many of III might fairly be claimd for II, and some of II for III,-tho I do not know the Poems well enough to propose a better scheme. The reviewer says of Browning's own classification of his shorter poems under 'Lyrics,' 'Romances,' 'Men and Women,' it "does not seem to us a very felicitous one. The Romances and Lyrics might change place almost ad libitum, and every one of them might legitimately come under the last le," Men and Women. to men like Mr. James Thomson and myself don't care for the special Christian al side of Browning's work, we can yet feel the worth of his teaching as a thinker, and admire his imaginative power, his strength and subtlety. spoken, and healthy and Christian, without a taint of " goodyism"; and the reason I like his view of life better than any one else's is, that he lumps time and eternity together, and works them as a whole, instead of separating the two and working the first alone, which, if there is an Eternity, as I doubt not there is, must be a mistaken starting-point. Whether man has 70 years, or man has For Ever," must make an entire difference in the whole dealing with life; but most religious people divide time and eternity into two in a manner that Browning certainly doesn't.” 66 These writers know who is right: Browning, who said, in 1851, that Poets should strive to see things as God sees them, and tell men how that is; Arnold, who said, later, that Poetry is a criticism of Life; or Jingle, who says that 'the object of Poetry is to please'; and, so long as he gets his lines musical and his rymes right, is content to let thought be out of them or in, base or poor, as the whim takes him. Well, after the Alphabetical List comes the Chronological one, of the Works in their order of time. Its few notes from contemporary sources are mainly due to Mr. Shepherd and Mr. Carson, diligent collectors of Browning scraps. Any sent to me hereafter shall be printed in a Supplement. The great variety of Browning's metres I am not able to describe properly, but the schemes of his rymes, and the number of measures in his lines, I have noted. The words 'iambic,' 'dactylic,' &c., occasionally include their opposites as well as their equivalents. Very little collation of the different texts of the Poems have I made.1 Reprints from stereotype-plates I have not notist as separate editions. The 4 volumes of Selections, and the first Trial-List of Criticisms on Browning, are shunted into an Appendix, with the ryme-changed 2 and fresh lines in the revized Sordello of 1863, Books V and VI of which our Member, the Rev. T. W. Carson of Dublin has kindly done for me. As the Society will have hardly any money for printing Papers this year, I shall give it this Bibliography' and the Reprint of Browning's 1 Only by rymes, The King, Porphyria, Johannes Agricola, The Boy and Angel, Saul, Part I, James Lee, Gold Hair, and Sordello. More collation is needed. A writer says in 1869: "it would only be necessary to take up an early work of the author and trace it through the editions from first to last, to find that he [R. B.] frequently revises [see (7') The King, and (31) The Boy and Angel, below]-touching out slight blemishes, and amending here and there obscure places. Nor does this remark apply to early works only: it is evidently the habit of the poet to touch and retouch his poems. Many of the Men and Women have been very considerably altered since their publication in 1855; and in the Dramatis Persona, published in 1864, several important changes were made when a second edition was printed the same year: last year again, some of the poems were altered and beautified, and this not only in minor details-a section of James Lee's Wife, for instance, being greatly amplified and improved [see (107) below]."-London Quarterly Review, July 1869, vol. xxxii, p. 326-7, note. The same note says "a selection from Shelley's poetry, announced by Messrs. Moxon some years ago as forthcoming with a preface by Browning, has never made its appearance.' 2 Many lines, whose rymes are unchanged, are alterd in their earlier parts. Shelley Essay. Will any one else give it-or help to give it-one or both of the next two working issues that it wants, A Subject-Index to Browning's Works, and a short Statement of the Story and Purpose of each of those Works? The latter can stand over till the Browning Primer is written, but would be of very great use if it could be prepared and printed within three months. Till the number of the Society's Members is multiplied by ten, those of them who can spare any money will have to ask themselves whether they care only a guinea a year for BROWNING or not; and if they feel they care more, they should act on their conviction. There is much to be done before all the needful helps are provided for the study of this manliest and thoughtfullest of our modern English poets whom we are united to honour. 2 3 For help in the present Bibliography, I thank Mr. Richard Garnett, Mr. Austin Dobson, Mr. J. T. Nettleship, Miss E. H. Hickey, Mr. W. G. Stone, Prof. Johnson,5 Prof. Corson, Mr. F. G. Stephens,6 Mr. Kirkman, and other friends. My special thanks are due to the Rev. T. W. Carson of Dublin, for his numerous ana, and collating Sordello, Bks. V and VI, also to Mr. Richard Herne Shepherd, the well-known Bibliographer of Ruskin, Tennyson, &c., for the copy of Karshook, the notes on Pauline, Hervé Riel, the notice of Balaustion, for looking thro my proofs, and adding the many Ana and bits of information to which "S" is put. Above all I have to acknowledge the kindness of Robert Browning himself, for answering such questions as I felt free to ask him, and for his leave to reprint his Karshook, p. 56, below. But it will of course be understood that he is in no way bound by any statement or opinion of mine. F. J. FURNIVALL. Castell Farm, Beddgelert, North Wales, July 31, 1881; and 3 St. George's Sq., N. W., Oct. 1. The P.S. The counting of the lines of the poems before 1863 has been done in the edition of the Works in 1863 or in that of 1868. whole number of Browning's lines I reckon at 93,323. Shakspere has unrymed lines among the couplets in his plays, as Browning has in his poems. 1 The latter, Mr. Nettleship has kindly undertaken to make. The former, I hope to get volunteers and an Editor for, among our Members. 2 He has counted the lines of Pauline, Fifine, Inn-Album. 3 She has counted La Saisiaz, Croisic, and Dramatic Idyls i and ii, and added some metrical details. 4 He has counted Pippa Passes and Strafford. 5 He has counted Aristophanes' Apology, Agamemnon, and Hohenstiel-Schwangau. 6 He gave me the Orpheus and Deaf and Dumb references. AN ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ROBERT BROWNING'S WORKS, WITH THEIR ORDER-NUMBERS AND DATES OF PUBLICATION. ("A, An,' 'Le," and "The" are not reckond as initial words. An acute accent to a number, as 151', means that its poem is part of the Work 151. The Prologue and Epilogue to a single Work, are taken as part of it; those to a set of Poems, as separate works.) ... 110 Dîs aliter Visum; or, Le Byron de nos Jours DRAMATIC IDYLS [First Series]: Nos. 156-160 ... DRAMATIS PERSONE: Nos. 107 to 123 ... 1842 1864 Bells & Pom., III. 1864 ... 1880 1879 |