III. SAMPLE OF THE END-CHANGED, FRESH, AND LEFTOUT LINES IN "PARACELSUS," eds. 1835 & 1863.

p. 6. He may convince himself, that, p. 5. He may convince himself that, this

p. 8. I would have lived their life, and p. 7. I would have lived their life, and

p. 9. Of our belief in what is man's true pp. 7, 8. Of our best scheme of life, what

IV. TRIAL-LIST OF CRITICISMS AND NOTICES OF

BROWNING'S WORKS, &c.

(Mainly from Mr. Shepherd's (-S) and Mr. Carson's (-C) MS. or materials. The opinions exprest under C are mine.-F. J. F.)

1833. W. J. Fox reviewd Pauline in 'The Monthly Magazine,' New Series, vol. vii. p. 254-262. See the quotation, p. 41 above, in the note.

1835. (John Forster, in) "The Examiner,' Sept. 6, 1835, p. 563-5, on Paracelsus. "It is some time since we read a work of more unequivocal power than this. We conclude that its author is a young man, as we do not recollect his having published before. If so, we may safely predict for him a brilliant career, if he continues true to the present promise of his genius. He possesses all the elements of a fine poet.'

1835. Monthly Repository,' November, No. 107, p. 716-727, review of Paracelsus [by W. J. Fox].

66

1836. (John Forster) 'New Monthly Magazine,' March, vol. xlvi. No. clxxxiii. p. 289-308. "Evidences of a New Genius for Dramatic Poetry.-No. 1." On 'Paracelsus. By Robert Browning.' This is the simple and unaffected title of a small volume, which was published some half-dozen months ago, and which opens a deeper vein of thought, of feeling, and of passion, than any poet has attempted for years. Without the slightest hesitation we name Mr. Robert Browning at once with Shelley, Coleridge, Wordsworth (p. 289). Browning is a man of genius, he has in himself all the elements of a great poet, philosophical as well as dramatic" (p. 290). .

Mr.

1836. J. Heraud. 'Fraser's Magazine,' March. "Asinarii Scenici," p. 363-374, are on Paracelsus.

1836. [Two] Sonnets to the Author of Paracelsus. 'New Monthly Magazine' (London: Henry Colburn), September, 1836 (vol. xlviii. p. 48).—S.

1837. Edinburgh Review,' July, No. 123, vol. lxv. p. 132-151, on Strafford. Fault-finding, with a little patronising.

1837. For Macready's production of Browning's Strafford, at Drury Lane, on May 1, see his (Macready's) 'Reminiscences,' ed. Pollock, 1875, ii. 54-67, and the Daily and other Papers of the time. There are many short notices of Br. in vol. ii. 1837. Browning's Strafford, a Tragedy. 'Edinburgh Review,' July 1837 (vol. lxvi. pp. 132-151).-S.

1840. Revue des deux Mondes.' 4me Série. Tome xxii. 1 Avril 1840, p. 127133. Philarète Chasles on Paracelsus, in an article "De l'art dramatique et du Théatre actuel en Angleterre. École Sentimentale.-École Métaphysique.École Archaïque. Sheridan Knowles.-Robert Browning. -Henri Horne.Leigh Hunt.-Edouard Lytton Bulwer." 'Paracelse, œuvre qui porte, comme on le voit, toutes les traces d'un esprit supérieur, mais. ne se rapproche du drame que par son titre.'

1841. Alfred Domett's Lines to R. B., 1841, on a wretched reviewer of Pippa Passes : see under 1877, p. 103, below.

1842. Charles Dickens on Browning's tragedy of The Blot in the 'Scutcheon, in a letter to John Forster, dated 25th Nov. 1842. See Forster's 'Life of Charles Dickens,' Book iv. § i.-S. It is full of the warmest praise.

1843. For Macready's production of Browning's Blot in the 'Scutcheon, at Drury Lane, on Feb. 11, see Macready's 'Reminiscences,' ed. Pollock, 1875. 1844. A New Spirit of the Age." Edited by R. H. Horne, author of 'Orion.' London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1844. The section devoted to Robert Browning occupies pp. 153-186 of the second volume. The notice is accompanied by a portrait engraved by J. C. Armytage, with facsimile of the poet's autograph.-S. 1846. Walter Savage Landor's 14-line blank-verse Poem "CCCXIII. To Robert Browning," in Works, 1846, ii. 673, col. 1, Miscellaneous Poems, or Works and Life, 1876, viii. 152-3. Since Chaucer was alive and hale,

No man hath walkt along our roads with step
So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue
So varied in discourse.

1846. Browning's Poems. 'Papers on Literature and Art.' By S. Margaret Fuller. Part II. London: Wiley and Putnam, 1846, pp. 31-45.-S. Of some interest. 1848. Browning's Plays and Poems. By James Russell Lowell. North American Review' (Boston), April 1848, vol. lxvi. pp. 357-400.-S. A good article. 1848. Poems, rev. by C. R. Smith, in ‘The Christian Examiner' (Boston, U.S.A.), p. 361.

1849.

Eclectic Review,' London, 4th Series, xxvi. 203-214, on 1. the Poems, 2 vols. 1849, and 2. Sordello. 1840. A sympathetic and excellent review. "The higher the poetry, the fuller, deeper, its spirit, the more consummate and individual its expression, the fewer those competent to receive and welcome it, and the greater the obstacles to its reception, even among these (p. 204) . . . in the right apprehension and faithful account of contemporaneous greatness, consists the highest work of criticism properly so called (ib.). . . Without study, actual bona-fide study, his [R. B.'s] poetry must remain caviare to the most intelligent reader. . . Yet, to our mind, this is a great and original poet . . . His poetic genius is essentially recondite; and its expression could be nothing less... his assuredly must rank as a new manifestation of poetic art. With no modern poet are we conversant, in whom less of resemblance to others can be traced. None stands more absolutely self-entire and independent. It is plain, that to be genuine and true, was, rightly, his great aim. That the realization should square with every chance reader's apprehension, rested not with him. Popular or not, he must be a poet after his own fashion, if at all (p. 206). . . Those very poems, such as Sordello, Pippa Passes, in respect to which, the loudest complaints of obscurity have been raised, are precisely those, in which the fullest wealth of poetry, the highest creative power, have been realized (p. 207) . . . Robert Browning is not one whom we can recommend to the readers of poetry at their ease: gentlemen who would have their hour's amusement out of their poet. we should doubt whether any could be competent to speak of Browning, till having given him a second reading; or fully to estimate him till after, at least, three readings (p. 208)... We ourselves must confess to having gone through our first reading of Sordello with feelings, for the most part, of unmingled perplexity, occasionally passing into angry despair. Not till we had entered on the second reading, did we begin to apprehend its scope or unity, or see the exceeding beauty of its parts. But now, in its subtle, yet broadly-marked developement of character-whether drawn at full, as of the dreamy, irresolute aspirer, Sordello himself, or of the showy, prompt, decisive man of action, the warrior Salinguerra-or sketched

...

"The mottoes [to the accounts of the living authors described in this Book], which are singularly happy and appropriate, were for the most part supplied by Miss Barrett and Robert Browning, then unknown to each other."-Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.. to R. H. Horne, ed. S. R. T.-Mayer, 1877, i. 136.

in brief, at few and slight touches, as of the glorious creature Palma-afar-off shining in the poet's golden shadowing of her beauty, spiritual and material – and of the fervent poet, Eglamour, type of his class; in its consummate wealth of general purely poetic thought, and imaginative beauty, overflooding the whole, the poem stands before us as the most splendid representative conceivable, of all that can be attained by the union, with the purely poetic embodiment of highest thoughtful aspiration—of the fullest luxury of glowing and passionately imaginative vitality (p. 210) . . . Commencing with Sordello, and thence passing to... Paracelsus... from these, to the indeterminate drama, so original and deep-reaching, of Pippa Passes and A Soul's Tragedy; and from these, to the rich suggestive gallery of minor dramatic sketches... as the Madhouse Cells, Pictor Ignotus, St. Praxed's Church, The Confessional, The last Duchess; how shall we convey to those unfamiliar with it, any sense of the wealth herein comprised: the large, many-fronted embodiment of human thought, and feeling, and aspiration, the new world of beauty, directly, or suggestively, in it opened up-the significance of life, actual, or dreamed, laid bare before us? (p. 211) In Browning's unformal drama we find the highest success of poetic and creative power achieved ; in nearly all his lyrics, so living and deeply suggestive; and in the Pippa Passes. In the latter, where the young girl Pippa, on her year's holiday from silk-weaving, during the course of her pleasure-ramble unconsciously influences, through her innocent songs, the various groups of human life she passes ;-the adulterous blood-stained lovers, the dreaming artist, the scheming Italian patriot, the crafty churchman; in this full, shifting drama, we have a deeper, truer dramatic exposition, a larger range, and more completely developed. I than is to be met with throughout the entire series of the poet's professed plays " (p. 212). By Cyrus Edmunds. 1849. The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art,' December, 1849, vol. xviii, no. 4, p. 453-469. Reprint of The English Review's article on "Robert Browning's Poems' -a review of the Poems, 2 vols. 1849. "Mr. Browning is not a poet who can be done justice to in a few words. He must be illustrated and elucidated with care. No author more requires interpreters to stand between him and the public: and where, in the present dearth of taste or common sense in the critical world, are we to look for such inter

...

preters? Mr. Browning must bide his time, secure of his own greatness, and of the world's awaking sooner or later to a just appreciation of it.".. p. 469, col. 1. 1849. 'The Living Authors of England.' By Thomas Powell. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1849. The chapter on Robert Browning' occupies pp. 71-85 of the volume. In the course of Mr. Powell's notice, the poem of Pauline is mentioned. The writer, who was personally acquainted with Mr. Browning (to whom he dedicated one of his dramatic pieces), speaks also of some 66 translations from Horace," done "in his eighth year," and "remarkable for that peculiarity of mirth which he has since carried out to a fatal mannerism." Some curious biographical and personal particulars are given.-S. See p. 92. 1850, June 1. Littell's Living Age,' Boston, U.S.A., No. 315, xxv. 403-9, on Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day. "the book before us can hardly be received but as an expression of the writer's spiritual experiences in their utmost force and intensity.. "Lord, I believe! Help thou my unbelief!" exclaims the inspired writer; and the purpose of the poem is to express belief in Christianity, not without doubts, but against doubts. Between him who discards faith altogether and him who yields it up into others' keeping, between the infallible and the infidel, Mr. Browning takes his stand; to declare with all humility his acceptance of the truth, that only from uncertainty can genuine faith be born, that only from modesty and self-distrust can spring true resolution and selfreliance, and that the materials for a temple to God's service are to be wrought out in human life, amid all its pains and its weaknesses, its "darkness, hunger, toil, distress" (p. 403). . . Mr. Browning . . . will yet win and wear his laurel, and be admitted for what he truly is, one of the most original poets of his time. He is equally a master of thought and emotion, and joins to a rare power of imaginative creation, that which is still more rarely found in union with it— the subtlest power of mental reasoning and analysis. Over the instrument