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occasion of Eugène Beauharnais' marriage with the Princess of Bavaria.
During the next few years Vogler published various works, chiefly on
acoustics, and at different periods paid visits to Frankfort and certain
towns on the Rhine. In 1807 Vogler was invited by the Grand Duke
Louis I. to go to Darmstadt and accept the post of Kapel-meister.
This he did, founding there his last school. One of his pupils here
was Carl Maria von Weber, another was Meyerbeer. The latter
when a boy of twelve had written a fugue, which Weber sent his
old master Vogler; but instead of the enthusiastic letter he had
expected, Weber received a voluminous treatise on the theory and
practice of the fugue. Weber was disappointed, but Meyerbeer de-
lighted. Vogler's theory was a revelation to him, and setting to work,
he composed another fugue, and sent it to the Abbé, who this time
wrote, "There is a great future before you in the art. Come to me at
Darmstadt; I will receive you like a son." And when Meyerbeer
was fifteen he entered Vogler's school. Of Vogler's method of instruc-
tion we know something through Meyerbeer. After mass in the
morning the Abbé assembled all his pupils, and gave them an oral
lesson in counterpoint; then he gave them a composition to write on
a given theme, and wound up the day's work by a careful examination
and analysis of what each pupil had written. Sometimes, too, Vogler
took his pupils to the principal church, in which were two organs; and
there, seated before the one, and his pupils in turn before the other, he
improvised with them. For two years Meyerbeer studied with Vogler,
when the school was closed, and the Abbé travelled with his pupils
from one town to another. Thus from Vogler's first school proceeded
Winter, Knecht, and Ritter; from his second Weber and Meyerbeer.
Surely a sufficient answer to those who would see in him a mere
"charlatan." That Vogler was much liked by his pupils there can be
no doubt. Weber calls him his "well-beloved" and "cherished" master,
and on hearing of his death, wrote, "Peace be to his ashes. I have
much to thank him for, and he has always shown me the most sincere
affection." That Vogler was not ungrateful, nor, as Mozart says, “a fool
who thinks there is no one greater than himself," we know, too, from
his generous acknowledgment of the debt he owed Valotti. "I did
not invent the whole of my system, but learnt it in 1775 from Father
Valotti, an old man of eighty, who for over fifty years had been Kapel-
meister in Padua." This he writes in his Choral System (1800), in
which he wittily and energetically defends himself against the attacks
and misrepresentations of which he had been a victim. At the end
of this amusing little book, after an earnest wish that "Harmonizers
and professors would harmonize a little more," and "that for once the

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zeal of artists for their art might grow and stifle their envy of fellowartists," he appeals to the "Philistines of Lilliput," his countrymen, "to awake from lethargic slumber," and to

"Hear (music),

See (scores),
Feel (effects),

And think!"

In 1814 Vogler died. During the last few months of his life he lived quietly at Darmstadt, occupied chiefly with the publication of his last works. (Nisard, Vie de L'Abbé Vogler, and Fétis, Biographie Universelle des Musiciens.)

[Those who object that Abt Vogler should not have been taken as the type of a great Musician, because none of his work survives, are reminded that Browning takes Vogler as a great Extemporizer only, and dwells on the evanescence of his art. His title of 'Abbé' justifies the assumption of his deep religious feeling. I have heard Browning say that he thought Mendelssohn's extemporizing more wonderful than his writing.-F.]

SCRAPS.

Conducted

1850. 'Art and Poetry: Being Thoughts towards Nature.' principally by Artists.1 No. 4, April, p. 187-192. A plea justifying Browning's style, by W. M. Rossetti, under the heading "Reviews, Christmas Eve and Easter Day: by Robert Browning," a book not toucht on in the article: this style "is not, in many cases, that which is spoken of as something extraneous, dragged in aforethought, for the purpose of singularity, the result more truly of a most earnest and single-minded labor after the utmost rendering of idiomatic conversational truth; the rejection of all stop-gap words; about the most literal transcript of fact compatible with the ends of poetry and true feeling for Art."

1860. Nightingale Valley / a collection / including a great number / of the choicest Lyrics and short poems / in the English Language / edited by Giraldus. [Motto] London / Bell & Daldy, 186, Fleet Street / 1860.

[A subsequent edition, 1862, adds, "Edited by William Allingham."] Contains, My Last Duchess; Protus; The Laboratory; Up in a Villa, &c.; May and Death.

Note Q, page 143:

"The Laboratory.-A Study of the present lyric will throw some light upon the principles of this wonderful Poet's Versification. Take this verse, for example, and emphasize the words given in italics :—

'He is with her; and they know that I know

Where they are, what they do they believe my tears flow

While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear

Empty church to pray God in for them!-I am here."-T. W. CARSON.

1 The Title to Nos. 1 and 2, Jan. and Feb. 1850, is "The Germ: / Thoughts towards Nature / In Poetry, Literature, and Art." Nos. 3 and 4 are as abuv.

1861. Dante G. Rossetti. Early Italian Poets.'

Preface, p. xi, refers to "Still, what if

"a great living poet", and quotes 14 lines from Sordello, Bk, I
I approach the august sphere," to "If I should falter now."-B. SAGAR.

1873. Poems by the late Isa Blagden. With a Memoir by Alfred Austin. A few lines in the Memoir, p. xiv, saying it will be agreeable to Mr. Browning if record is made that Miss Blagden was kind to Mrs. Browning during her last illness.

1874. Giuseppe Chiarini, Poesie (Storie, Canti, Traduzioni di Heine. Traduzioni di Poesie Inglesi). In Livorno. Quotes on p. 5, Browning's 4 lines "Why take the artistic way to prove so much?" &c. Ring and Book, vol. iv. § xii. 841-4; has on p. 23, in the Al Lettore,' IV. p. 23, these lines on E. B. B. and R. B. (De Gustibus, 1. 43-4.)

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On p. 419, the latter verse is repeated, after 'Da Robert Browning,' and Up at a Villa-Down in the City is translated as "Su in Villa e giù in Città secondo la Distinzione fatta da un ragguardevole Personaggio Italiano." The attempt does not seem to me successful: witness the Virgin-procession bit, Ra ta plan, ra ta plan; suonano i pifferi

"Suona mezzogiorno, e passa
La processione. Portan la Madonna,
Ridente e in gala, con un bel vestito
Di mussolina colore di rosa
Trapuntato di stelle, e sette spade
Conficcate nel cor! Rulla il tamburo,

1876. Bayard Taylor. 'The Echo

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Club, and other Literary Diversions,' p. 21, 25, 33. Discussion of Browning's style mainly, with four imitations of a bit of Sordello, of James Lee's Wife ('By the Sea'), of the Ring and the Book (Angelo orders his Dinner'), and of Love among the Ruins ('On the Track'). It says that "Browning is the most dramatic of poets since Shakspere" (p. 25), that Sordello is perplexity, not profundity (p. 27), and shows the care with which the writer has read that poem by observing that "we have a right to be vexed with Browning, when, in the dedicatory letter to the new edition of Sordello, he says that he had taken pains to make the work something 'which the many might, instead of what the few must like,' but after all, did not choose to publish the revised copy (!). However.. Browning has a royal brain, and we owe him too much to bear malice against him."-Mrs. FitzGerald lent me the book.

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1876. E. D. W. 'Verses.' Sonnet, "To R. Browning." Sonnet, "Browning and Shelley."

1879. G. Barnett Smith. Robert Browning, an article of 19 pp. in the 'International Review' for Feb. 1879. This appears to be, in substance, the same as the memoir in The Portrait.-T. LANE.

1880. 'The Pen,' June 19. Note from Mr. W. G. Kingsland, with an extract from a letter written to him by Browning in 1868 on the charge of obscurity. "I can have little doubt that my writing has been in the main too hard for many I should have been pleased to communicate with; but I never designedly tried to puzzle people, as some of my critics have supposed. On the other hand, I never pretended to offer such literature as should be a substitute for a cigar or a game at dominoes to an idle man. So, perhaps, on the whole I get my deserts, and something over—not a crowd, but a few I value more."

XVIII.

CONSCIENCE AND ART IN BROWNING.

1. Pauline. p. 346.

BY THE REV. PROF. E. JOHNSON, M.A.

1. THE POET OF CONSCIENCE, p. 346.

Conscience in Pauline, | 6. Analysis of Self-Consciousness, p.

2. The Historian of the Soul, p. 348.
3. Divination of the Soul, p. 350.
4. The Dramatic Method; the Self-
Critic, p. 351.

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5. Browning a Subjective Poet, p. 353.

9.

Hopefulness of the Poet, p. 361.

II. POINTS OF ART AND ÆSTHETIC, p. 362.

1. Use of Language, p. 362.
2. The Poet's Function, p. 363.

3. Music in Poetry: Poets of Ear and
Eye, p. 366.

4. Browning a Seer rather than Listener, p. 366.

5. Theories of the Poetic Function, p. 366.

6. Opinions on Esthetic and Art, p.

7.

368.

Ascendancy of Spirit over Nature, p. 370.

III. RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY, p. 372

1. Robert Browning a Mystic, p. 372. 2. Distinction of the Mystic and the Logician, p. 373.

3. Browning and Emerson, p. 375. 4. Christian Theology, p. 377.

Ir has often been remarked, that through all that wondrous spiritual scenery into which the magical art of Browning has led us, there runs a deep current of conviction, self-consistent from first to last, upon all the serious subjects of human thought: upon religion, art, conduct; and in particular upon the calling and functions of the Poet. A patient and united endeavour to "disengage this current" seems to be required of us as the first condition of the fuller understanding of one who has employed his art so distinctly in the service of Didactic. To enjoy this poetry in patches can never suffice us. And if we have started with the notion that poetry or any other form of art may be detached from personal faith, we have soon found that either we must part company with such notion, or with Browning. In compliance with a request, I have to arrange a few imperfect notes on some points of interest, more particularly with reference to the earlier poems, Pauline, Paracel

AT GRs corresponds with Caliban. Here we have the w, anst us, the day school, with no outlook beyond the amusements jimmolate present: the scene, a ball-room in Venice. We hear flash talk, scarcely led as the musician begins.

- I can save of talking when I hear a master play!" Fetterar f the fire we have a music like the thin chirp of a tw city mutated in the monosyllabic verse, a sort of grownaylorua fi of affectations; a silly, inane music which brings is & casty vision of dead men and women, for whom life had

toung people take their leasure, when the sea was warm in May?
as and Hasas zerin at niin on, burning ever to midday,
Warn they make up resa adventures for the morrow, do you say?

Then they et vou for their pleasure, till in due time, one by one,
Sme w⋅ 1 vastane to net: ng, some with deeds as well undone,
Trad sappel se....y and ack them, where they never see the sun.”
And lastly there is de Vr, the music of faith grand and mighty,
wi herkes the sense of spiritual presences,

"am gach sare of the sound at a touch, as when Solomon willed
AS As a star, legens of demons that lurk,"

buting up a world of real harmony-a world true because ideal.
-A, 200 sd & how they be pel would spart now, and now combine,
cus 3 Sn the work, been their master his praise."

We are de bush it in, as at Saxe-Gotha, in a church in which the Oseng but one by one. We are watching a glorious cathedral Ses and theory is ever spreading, and the light is ever Reading higher and higher, until earth and heaven become he bounds of space and time are lost in an eternal present.

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pery race, and the pride of my soul was in sight." The lights are climbing from earth to the sky; we see terrace above tere shine feth, and the lights are spirits ascending heavenward, ere as in Jacob's vision of the angels, ascending ere they descended, and Reming as they lose themselves in the sky, a vision of a Church phant, such as Dante beheld in Paradise.

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mount and march like the excellent minion he was, her, one crowd but with many a crest,

of gold as transparent as glass,

oh his place to the rest."

and up, until the sense of effort is gone,

arthly endeavour is reached, and then the

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