A MORAL MAN, AND ONE OF RELIGIOUS MIND. homage, as Coleridge says,"-and Paul likewise. And we find in one of his last exquisite fragments, avowedly a record of one of his own mornings and its experience, as it dawned on him at his soul and body's best in his boat on the Serchio-that as surely as "The stars burnt out in the pale blue air, And the thin white moon lay withering there— Day had kindled the dewy woods, just so surely, he tells us (stepping forward from this delicious dancemusic, choragus-like, into the grander measure befitting the final enunciation), "All rose to do the task He set to each, Who shaped us to his ends and not our own; The million rose to learn, and One to teach No more difference than this, from David's pregnant conclusion so long ago! Meantime, as I call Shelley a moral man, because he was true, simple-hearted, and brave, and because what he acted corresponded to what he knew, so I call him a man of religious mind, because every audacious negative cast up by him against the Divine, was interpenetrated with a mood of reverence and adoration,—and because I find him everywhere taking for granted some of the capital dogmas of Christianity, while most vehemently denying their historical basement. There is such a thing as an efficacious knowledge of and belief in the politics of Junius, or the poetry of Rowley, though a man should at the same time. dispute the title of Chatterton to the one, and consider the author of the other, as Byron wittily did, "really, truly, nobody at all." There is even such a thing, we come to learn wonderingly in these very letters, as a profound sensibility and adaptitude for art, while the science of the percipient is so little advanced as to admit of his stronger admiration for Guido (and Carlo Dolce!) than for Michael Angelo. A Divine Being has Himself said, that "a word against the Son of man shall be forgiven 'Or, to take our illustrations from the writings of Shelley himself, there is such a thing as admirably appreciating a work by Andrea Verocchio,- and fancifully characterising the Pisan Torre Guelfa by the Ponte a Mare, black against the sunsets, and consummately painting the islet of San Clemente with its penitentiary for rebellious priests, to the west between Venice and the Lidowhile you believe the first to be a fragment of an antique sarcophagus.-the second, Ugolino's Tower of Famine (the vestiges of which should be sought for in the Piazza de' Cavalieri)—and the third (as I convinced myself last summer at Venice), San Servolo with its madhouse—which, far from being “windowless,” is as full of windows as a barrack. HIS HALLUCINATIONS IN WALES, AT NAPLES, ETC. to a man," while "a word against the Spirit of God" (implying a general deliberate preference of perceived evil to perceived good) "shall not be forgiven to a man." Also, in religion, one earnest and unextorted assertion of belief should outweigh, as a matter of testimony, many assertions of unbelief. The fact that there is a gold-region is established by the finding of one lump, though you miss the vein never so often. Shelley died before his youth ended. In taking the measure of him as a man, he must be considered on the whole and at his ultimate spiritual stature, and not be judged of at the immaturity and by the mistakes of ten years before: that, indeed, would be to judge of the author of "Julian and Maddalo" by "Zastrozzi." Let the whole truth be told of his worst mistake. I believe, for my own part, that if anything could now shame or grieve Shelley, it would be an attempt to vindicate him at the expense of another. In forming a judgment, I would, however, press on the reader the simple justice of considering tenderly his constitution of body as well as mind, and how unfavourable it was to the steady symmetries of conventional life; the body, in the torture of incurable disease, refusing to give repose to the bewildered soul, tos-ing in its hot fever of the fancy, and the laudanum-bottle making but a perilous and pitiful truce between these two. He was constantly subject to "that state of mind" (I quote his own note to "Hellas ")" in which ideas may be supposed to assume the force of sensation, through the confusion of thought with the objects of thought, and excess of passion animating the creations of the imagination :" in other words, he was liable to remarkable delusions and hallucinations. The nocturnal attack in Wales, for instance, was assuredly a delusion; and I venture to express my own conviction, derived from a little attention to the circumstances of either story, that the idea of the enamoured lady following him to Naples, and of the "man in the cloak" who struck him at the Pisan post-office, were equally illusory, the mere projection, in fact, from himself, of the image of his own love and hate. "To thirst and find no fill-to wail and wander With short unsteady steps-to pause and ponder— Till dim imagination just possesses The half-created shadow". of unfelt caresses,-and of unfelt blows as well: to such conditions was his genius subject. It was not at Rome only (where he heard a mystic voice exclaiming, "Cenci, Cenci," in reference to the tragic theme. which occupied him at the time),—it was not at Rome only that BROWNING, 1. SHOWS NATURE AND MAN AS THE IMAGES OF GOD. mistook the cry of "old rags." The habit of somnambulism is said to have extended to the very last days of his life. Let me conclude with a thought of Shelley as a poet. In the hierarchy of creative minds, it is the presence of the highest faculty that gives first rank, in virtue of its kind, not degree; no pretension of a lower nature, whatever the completeness of development or variety of effect, impeding the precedency of the rarer endowment though only in the germ. The contrary is sometimes maintained; it is attempted to make the lower gifts (which are potentially included in the higher faculty) of independent value, and equal to some exercise of the special function. For instance, should not a poet possess common sense? Then the possession of abundant common sense implies a step towards becoming a poet. Yes; such a step as the lapidary's, when, strong in the fact of carbon entering largely into the composition of the diamond, he heaps up a sack of charcoal in order to compete with the Koh-i-noor. I pass at once, therefore, from Shelley's minor excellencies to his noblest and predominating characteristic. This I call his simultaneous perception of Power and Love in the absolute, and of Beauty and Good in the concrete, while he throws, from his poet's station between both, swifter, subtler, and more numerous films for the connexion of each with each, than have been thrown by any modern artificer of whom I have knowledge; proving how, as he says, "The spirit of the worm within the sod, In love and worship blends itself with God." I would rather consider Shelley's poetry as a sublime fragmentary essay towards a presentment of the correspondency of the universe to Deity, of the natural to the spiritual, and of the actual to the ideal, than I would isolate and separately appraise the worth of many detachable portions which might be acknowledged as utterly perfect in a lower moral point of view, under the mere conditions of art. It would be easy to take my stand on successful instances of objectivity in Shelley: there is the unrivalled "Cenci;" there is the "Julian and Maddalo" too; there is the magnificent "Ode to Naples: " why not regard, it may be said, the less organised matter as the radiant elemental foam and solution, out of which would have been evolved, eventually, creations as perfect even as those? But I prefer to look for the highest attainment, not simply the high,-and, seeing it, I hold by it. There is surely enough of the work "Shelley" to be known enduringly among men, and, I believe, to be accepted of God, as human work may; and around the imperfect proportions of such, the most elaborated productions of ordinary art must arrange themselves as inferior illustrations. It is because I have long held these opinions in assurance and gratitude, that I catch at the opportunity offered to me of expressing them here; knowing that the alacrity to fulfil an humble office conveys more love than the acceptance of the honour of a higher one, and that better, therefore, than the signal service it was the dream of my boyhood to render to his fame and memory, may be the saying of a few, inadequate words upon these scarcely more important supplementary letters of SHELLEY. PARIS, Dec. 4th, 1851. THE BROWNING SOCIETY. THIS Society is founded to gather together some, at least, of the many admirers of ROBERT BROWNING, for the study and discussion of his works, and the publication of Papers on them, and extracts from works illustrating them. The Society will also encourage the formation of Browning Reading-Clubs, the acting of Browning's dramas by amateur companies, the writing of a Browning Primer, the compilation of a Browning Concordance or Lexicon, and generally the extension of the study and influence of the poet. Without entering on the vext question of who is the greatest living poet, Mr. Browning's admirers are content to accept the general verdict that he is both one of the greatest, and the most thought-full. They find as his leading note, that which Prof. Spalding declared was Shakspere's : "The presence of a spirit of active and inquiring thought through every page of his writings, is too evident to require any proof. It is exerted on every object which comes under his notice; it is serious when its theme is lofty; and when the subject is familiar, it is content to be shrewd. He has impressed no other of his own mental qualities on all his characters; this quality colours every one of them. . . Imagination is active, powerfully and unceasingly, but she is rebuked by the presence of a mightier influence; she is but the handmaid of the active and piercing understanding; and the images which are her offspring serve but as the breeze to the river, which stirs and ripples its surface, but is not the power which impels its water to the sea."—Letter on the Authorship of the Two Noble Kinsmen': 1833, p. 20-1. (Reprinted by the New Shakspere Society.) That That this very fullness of thought in Mr. Browning, with its lightning darts, abrupt transitions, is hard to take in, difficult to follow, is matter of course. the thought is more worthful to him than its expression, the heart of oak than its bark, has made some men refuse to try and penetrate through the rough covering to the strength beneath. But Eschylus is often obscure; some passages in Shakspere still puzzle the best critics. Browning's themes are the development of Souls, the analysis of Minds, Art, Religion, Love, the relation of Man and Nature to God, of Man to Man and Woman, the Life past, present, and to come. If on some of these great themes Browning's thoughts have not been easily apprehended, may this not come from want of faithful study, default of deadend minds? At any rate the Browning student will seek the shortcoming in himself rather than in his master. He will wish, by conference with other students, by recourse to older scholars, to learn more of the meaning of the poet's utterances; and then, having gladly learnt, "gladly wol he teche," and bring others under the same influence that has benefited himself. To this end The Browning Society has been founded. The Society will consist of all Subscribers of 21s. a year. It will meet once a month from October to June (except in December) at 8 p.m. on the 4th Friday of every such month at University College, Gower St., W.C., for the hearing and discussion of a Paper or Address on some of Browning's poems or his characteristics. The Society's best Papers, and Reports of its Discussions, will be printed either in full or in a Monthly Abstract sent to all members, as funds allow. Till June 23, 1882, the Society will be managed by a Committee of its Founders and Promoters. At that day's Meeting, after the experience of the first Session, the Constitution of the Society will be settled, and its Officers elected for the ensuing year. The Committee are anxious to add to their number those students of Browning in or out of London who will undertake to get up Browning Reading-Clubs in their respective districts, after the example of Prof. Corson, who has directed one in his University (Cornell) for the last four years. It appeals only to thought- The Society may not be a large or permanent one. ful men and women willing to study Browning's works. its Meetings next autumn. It has promises of some Papers for its first Session, but desires more. Its few present Members hope that some, at least, of the many to whom Browning's works have been a help and strength, will join them in their endeavour to know him better, and bring more minds under his influence. To remove misunderstandings that have arisen, the Committee state that any one joining the Society is not in any way pledgd to indiscriminate admiration of BROWNING, but is only supposed to hold that the poet is profound enough in thought, noble enough in character and feeling, eloquent and interesting enough in expression, to deserve more thorough study, and a far wider circle of readers, than he has yet had. The Committee wish for frankness of expression in all Papers, &c.; and they give notice from the first that every writer in the Society's publications is to be held as speaking for himself or herself alone, without any responsibility whatever on the Committee's part. Names of persons willing to join the Society should be sent, with or without subscriptions, to F. J. FURNIVALL, 3, St. George's Square, Primrose Hill, London, N.W., or to the Honorary Secretary Miss E. H. HICKEY, Clifton House, Pond Street, Hampstead, N.W., or to any Member of the Committee. The Inaugural Meeting of the Society will be held at University Coll., Gower St., W.C., at 8 p.m., on Friday, Oct. 28, 1881, when an Address "On the Characteristics of Browning's Philosophy and Poetry" will be deliverd by the Rev. J. Kirkman, M. A. Hon. Sec.: MISS E. H. HICKEY, Clifton House, Pond Street, Hampstead, N.W. Bankers THE NATIONAL BANK, High St., Camden Town, London, N.W. Publishers: N. TRÜBNER & Co., 57 and 59, Ludgate Hill, London, E.C. Agents for America: HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co., Boston, Mass., U. S. A. |