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Robert Browning.

London Smith,

Elder, and Co., 15,

Waterloo Place, 1873. p. i-vi, 1-282. Dated at end, p. 282, 'January 23, 1873.' Dedicated "To Miss Thackeray," since Mrs. Richmond Ritchie. Blank verse, 4247 lines.

1875. ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY including a Transcript from Euripides1 132 being the LAST Adventure of BALAUSTION By Robert Browning London Smith, Elder, and Co., 15 Waterloo Place 1875. p. i-viii, 1-366. Aristophanes' Apology, p. 1-208, 327-366; Herakles [the "Transcript from Euripides"], p. 209-327. In all, 5767 lines. Mainly blank verse, save choruses, &c.

1875. THE INN ALBUM. By Robert Browning.

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London: Smith,

Elder, and Co., 15, Waterloo Place, 1875. p. i-iv, 1-211 (in 8 Sections).2 Blank verse. 3078 lines.

1876. PACCHIAROTTO and how he worked in Distemper: with other Poems. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 15, Waterloo Place, 1876. p. i-viii, 1-241.

1 That is, from his tragedy of Herakles Mainomenos, or Hercules Furens.

2 Germand by E. Leo, 1877. "Das Fremdenbuch von Robert Browning. Aus dem Englischen von E. Leo. Autorisirte Uebersetzung. Hamburg. W. Mauke Söhne, vormals Perthes-Besser & Mauke." 1877. p. i-iv, 1-176.

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...

The story told by Mr. Browning in this poem is, in its main outlines, a real one, that of Lord [De Ros], once a friend of the great Duke of Wellington, and about whom there is much in the Greville Memoirs. The original story was, of course, too repulsive to be adhered to in all its details, of, first, the gambling lord producing the portrait of the lady he had seduced and abandoned, and offering his expected dupe, but real beater, an introduction to the lady, as a bribe to induce him to wait for payment of the money he had won; secondly, the eager acceptance of the bribe by the young gambler, and the suicide of the lady from horror at the base proposal of her old seducer. (The story made a great sensation in London, over thirty years ago...) Readers of the Inn Album know how grandly Mr. Browning has lifted the base young gambler, through the renewal of that old love which the poet has invented, into one of the most pathetic creations of modern time, and has spared the baser old roué the degradation of the attempt to sell the love which was once his delight, and which, in the poem, he seeks to regain, with feelings one must hope are real, as the most prized possession of his life. As to the lady, the poet has covered her with no false glory or claim on our sympathy. From the first, she was a law unto herself; she gratified her own impulses, and she reaped the fruit of this. Her seducer has made his confession of his punishment, and has attributed, instead of misery, comfort and ease to her. She has to tell him, and the young man who has given her his whole heart, that that supposed comfort and ease have been to her simply hell; and tell, too, why she still prefers that hell to the renewed temptations of her beguiler, why she cannot accept the true love that, under other conditions, would have been her way back to heaven and life. What, then, can be her end? No higher power has she ever sought. Self-contained, she has sinned and suffered. She can no more. By her own hand she ends her life, and the curtain falls on the most profoundly touching and most powerful poem of modern times. The Inn Album not live? It will be in men's mouths when its detractors' ashes are in the dust, and their opinions, if unearthed by any painful antiquary, looked at with wonder and contempt."-5 Notes and Queries, v. 244-5, March 25, 1876. (I wrote this with reference to the review of the poem in the Spectator, and in the hope that its reviewer in The Academy might be led to repent of his misapprehension of it.)

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CONTENTS.

Prologue ( the old wall here), 6 verses of 4, abab (calld “A Wall"
in Selections, 1880, p. 1). 24 lines. 4-measure iambics ...

Of Pacchiarotto, and how he worked in Distemper (Query: was ever
a quainter), 29 sections. 603 lines. 3 and 4-measure couplet-ryme;
iambs and amphibrachs

At the 'Mermaid' (I—“ Next Poet?" No, my hearties), 18 stanzas
of 8 (double four, abab cdcd). 144 lines. 4-measure, trochaic
House (Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?), 10 verses of 4, abab,
4-measure: 2, 3, or 4 syllables in each. 40 lines. (Against the
critics who wanted Browning to write out his inmost feelings.)
Shop (So, friend, your shop was all your house!), 22 stanzas of 5,
ababb, 4-measure iambics. 110 lines

Pisgah-Sights. 1. (Over the ball of it.) 4 stanzas of 8, abab cdcd;
2-measure, dactylic. 32 lines
Pisgah-Sights. 2. (Could I but live again.) 4 stanzas of 8, abab
cdcd; 2-measure, dactylic. 32 lines

Fears and Scruples (Here's my case), 12 verses of 4, abab; 5-measure
trochaics. 48 lines
Natural Magic (All I can say is), 2 stanzas of 9, abc cba dda; a bi
three-measure; b2 c d four-measure. Dactyls and amphibrachs.
18 lines ...

Magical Nature (Flower-I never fancied), 2 verses of 4, abcd. 4-
measure, 3 or 4 syllables to a measure. 8 lines
Bifurcation (We were two lovers), 5-measure alternates, with one
couplet at end. 42 iambic lines

Numpholeptos (Still you stand), (5-measure couplets, with 5 triplets,
and 1. 134 "obtuse "-unrymed). 152 iambic lines
Appearances (And so you found that poor room dull), 2 stanzas of 6,
aba bcc, 4-measure. 12 iambic lines

St. Martin's Summer (No protesting, dearest), 17 stanzas of 6, abc
abc; ai bi three-measure, cz two-measure, the rest 4-measure.
102 trochaic lines

Hervé Riel (reprinted from Cornh. Mag., March 1871: see p. 65, above)
A Forgiveness (I am indeed the personage you know), 396 lines of
5-measure couplet-ryme: iambic
Cenciaja (May I print, Shelley), blank verse. 300 iambic lines
Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial (a Reminiscence of
A.D. 1676). (No boy, we must not.) 58 stanzas of 4-measure
eights (two alternates), abab cdcd. 464 iambic lines
Epilogue ("The poets pour us wine, [2] Said the dearest poet I ever
knew"), 28 stanzas of 8, ab ccc baa; a1 a3 three-measure, the rest 4-.
224 iambic lines. [In this poem Browning answers some of his
stupidly-grumbling critics.] ...

1877. THE AGAMEMNON OF ÆSCHYLUS, transcribed by Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 15, Waterloo Place, 1877. p. i-xi (prose Forewords, v-xi), 1-148. "The gods I ask deliverance from these labours." 1748 lines. Very varied metres.

1878. LA SAISIAZ: THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. By Robert Browning. 153 London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 15, Waterloo Place, 1878.

1

Pisgah-Sights. 3." in Selections, Second Series, 1880, p. 350 is the Proem to (152) La Saisiaz, "Good to forgive."

2 E. Barrett Browning, in "Wine of Cyprus," st. xxi, 1. 8, "And the poets poured us wine."-Works, 1856, iii. 31.

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1879. 155

p. i-viii (Dedicated to Mrs. Sutherland Orr). p. 1-201. Proem, p. 3-4 ("Good, to forgive "), 2-measure. 24 lines. La Saisiaz, A. E. S., September 14, 18771 (“Dared and done"), p. 5-82. 618 trochaic lines. Date at end Nov. 9, 1877.' 642 lines. Proem, p. 85-6 ("Such a starved bank of moss "2), 12 lines; 3 verses of 4, abab, 2-measure; a 2 dactyls; b 2 spondees. The Two Poets of Croisic, p. 87-191 (Fame!' Yes, I said it and you read it), 160 stanzas of 8, ababab cc, 5-measure iambics: 1280 lines. Epilogue, p. 193-201 ("What a pretty tale you told me"), 18 stanzas of 6, abab cc; b 3-measure, a & c 4-measure; trochaics, but b & c end with monosyllables. 108 lines. The three, 1400 lines. The whole volume, 2042 lines. "Oh Love, Love:" the Lyric of Euripides in his Hippolytus (B.c. 428), l. 525 sqq., englisht: in J. P. Mahaffy's Euripides,— in Macmillan's Eighteen-penny Series of Classical Writers, Edited by John Richard Green,-1879, p. 116, n.

After quoting Euripides's 2 stanzas, Mr. Mahaffy says, p. 115: "Mr. Browning has honoured me (Dec. 18, 1878) with the following translation of these stanzas, so that the general reader may not miss the meaning or the spirit of the ode. The English metre, though not a strict reproduction, gives an excellent idea of the original.

I.

Oh Love, Love, thou that from the eyes diffusest
Yearning, and on the soul sweet grace inducest―
Souls against whom thy hostile march is made-
Never to me be manifest in ire,

Nor, out of time and tune, my peace invade !

Since neither from the fire

No, nor the stars-is launched a bolt more mighty

Than that of Aphrodité

Hurled from the hands of Love, the boy with Zeus for sire.

II.

Idly, how idly, by the Alpheian river

And in the Pythian shrines of Phoebus, quiver

Blood-offerings from the bull, which Hellas heaps :

While Love we worship not-the Lord of men!

Worship not him, the very key who keeps

Of Aphrodité, when

She closes up her dearest chamber-portals :

-Love, when he comes to mortals,

Wide-wasting, through those deeps of woes beyond the deep!" 4

This is the date of the death of "A. E. S.," Miss Anne Egerton Smith, the Proprietress of the Liverpool Mercury, a great admirer of Browning's, who was at La Saisiaz with him and his sister, and whose sudden death gave rise to the Poem, in which the Soul and the Future Life, and God's dealing with man are dealt with. There was a review in her paper of The Ring and the Book.

2 Calld "Apparitions" in Selections, 1880, p. 3.

3 Calld "A Tale" in Selections, 1880, p. 367.

4 On p. 117, Mr. Mahaffy quotes

a fragment from the Cresphontes, as we have it in Mr. Browning's version (Arist. Apol., p. 179).” "Peace" to "banish Strife."

1879. DRAMATIC IDYLS by Robert Browning London Smith, Elder, and Co., 15 Waterloo Place 1879. p. i-vi, 1-143. post 8vo. 1131 lines.

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Martin Relph (My grandfather says), alternates: 7-measure 4's, aabb.
152 (mainly) iambic lines
Pheidippides (First I salute this soil), 15 stanzas: 13 of 8, abcdd
cab; 2 of 7, one line unrymed: St. VIII abc dd ab; St. XI ab ccc
ac: 6-measure (dactyls, &c.). 118 lines
Halbert and Hob (Here is a thing that happened), couplet-rymes in
16 stanzas: 2 six-line, 12 four-line, 2 three-line. 6-measure (last
line sometimes 7-measure). 66 lines: dactyls, &c.
Ivan Ivanovitch (They tell me, your carpenters), rymed couplets :
6-measure. 424 iambic lines, with a few anapæstic1
Tray (Sing me a hero!), 9 stanzas of 5, aabba: 4-measure iambics.
45 lines. (A protest against Vivisection, of Dogs, at least.2)
Ned Bratts ('Twas Bedford's Special Assize), ryme-couplets:
6-measure. 326 mainly iambic and anapæstic lines. (The working
of conscience two villains converted by reading Bunyan.)

[On Tuesday, June 10, 1879, the Honorary degree of LL.D. was conferd on Browning by the University of Cambridge.3]

"How perfectly rightly our poet passes from the iambs in Ivàn Ivànovitch when describing the wolves coming:

"'Tis the rég | ular pád | of the wolves | in pursuit | of the life | in the slédge |,' &c. Sense and sound go so admirably together. One hears the wolves."-E. H. Hickey. 2 "Protest against Vivisection. A memorial-signed by Sir Wm. Ferguson, Mr. Ruskin, Sir Wm. Erle, Mr. Carlyle, MR. BROWNING, Mr. Tennyson, the Bishop of Exeter, and the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas-publicly protesting against the horrible cruelties too often perpetrated under the colourable pretence of scientific vivisection, will be left on the table before the Council of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals."-Dublin Mail, 25 Jan. 1875.-T. W. Carson. 3 The Cambridge Chronicle of June 14, 1879, says: "Of Mr. Browning, the Orator [Mr. J. E. Sandys] spoke in particularly complimentary language, and after referring to his poems, as being, like Pindar's, 'vocal to the wise,' he referred in glowing terms to Mr. Browning's deep knowledge of human nature, his intellectual subtlety, and his power of psychological analysis. He also spoke of his devotion to the muse of the drama as well as to the muse of lyric verse; to his exemplification of the power of music in 'Saul' and 'Abt Vogler,' and to the picture which he has painted of the life of the blameless painter of Florence in his twilight poem, 'Andrea del Sarto,' concluding as follows:-Vesperi quotiens,""&c. The Athenæum of June 23, 1879, prints Mr. Sandys's 'felicitous eulogium': Quanta subtilitate ipsa corda hominum reserat, intimos mentis recessus explorat, varios animi motus perscrutatur. Quod ad tragœdiam antiquiorem attinet, interpretatus est, uti nostis omnes, non modo Eschylum quo nemo sublimior, sed etiam Euripidem quo nemo humanior; quo fit ut etiam illos qui Græce nesciunt, misericordia tangat Alcestis, terrore tangat Hercules, Recentiora argumenta tragica cum lyrico quodam scribendi genere coniunxit, duas Musas et Melpomenen et Euterpen simul veneratus. Musica miracula quis dignius cecinit? Pictoris Florentini sine fraude vitam quasi inter crepuscula vesperas centem coloribus quam vividis depinxit. Vesperi quotiens, dum foco adsidemus, hoc iubente resurgit Italia. Vesperi nuper, dum huius idyllia forte meditabar, Cami inter arundines mihi videbar vocem magnam audire clamantis, Пav o péyaç où TέOvηKEV. Vivit adhuc Pan ipse, cum Marathonis memoria ["Echetlos"] et Pheidippidis velocitate immortali consociatus."

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1880.1 DRAMATIC IDYLS. Second Series. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 15, Waterloo Place, 1880.

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CONTENTS.

p. i-viii,

[Proem (You are sick, that's sure), 1 stanza of 6, ababab; 1 of 5,
abbbd: 11 lines, 2-measure, iambs, with anapasts, &c.
Echetlos (Here is a story, shall stir you), 10 triplets: 6-measure,
mainly dactylic. 30 lines

Clive (I and Clive were friends), ryme-couplets: 6-measure, mainly
dactylic. 240 lines

Muléykeh (If a stranger passed the tent of Hoseyn), 19 stanzas of 6,
abc abc, 6-measure. 114 lines: iambs, with anapasts, dactyls, &c.
Pietro of Abano (Petrus Aponensis-There was a magician!), 55
stanzas of 8, aba, cdbde, and 1 of 4, abac. 4-measure and 5-,
dactylic and amphibrachic (with stress on the 2nd syllable).
444 lines

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Doctor (A Rabbi told me), 86 linkt stanzas: 85 of 3 (aba, bcb, cdc, ded, efe, &c.), st. 86 of 4. 5-measure iambics. 259 lines Pan and Luna (O worthy of belief), 13 stanzas of 8, ab ab ab cc. 104 iambic lines [Epilogue (Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke), 2 stanzas of 5, ababb. 10 lines. 6-measure trochaics (54) On the Poet Objective and Subjective; on the Latter's Aim; on SHELLEY as Man and Poet. By Robert Browning. (Being a Reprint of the Introductory Essay to [25 spurious] "Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley." Moxon, 1852.) Publisht for the Browning Society, by N. Trübner & Co., 57 & 59 Ludgate Hill, London, 1881, p. 1-20. 564 lines. Pages 3-4 contain A Foretalk by F. J. Furnivall; p. 5-19 the Essay; p. 19-20 the Prospectus of the Browning Society (by F. J. F.), dated 27 July, 1881.

BROWNING'S PRINTED LETTERS.

1841. Letter to Laman Blanchard [? April, 1841], dated "Craven Cottage, Saturday," and signed "Robert Browning.2" Printed in the Memoir, by Blanchard Jerrold, prefixed to The Poetical Works of Laman Blanchard. Lond. Chatto & Windus, 1876, pp. 6-8.--S.

[1845.] Letter to Henry Fothergill Chorley, on his novel of Pomfret. [1860.] on his novel of Roccabella.3 Printed in the "Autobiography, Memoir and Letters of Henry Fothergill Chorley, compiled by Henry G. Hewlett." Lond. Bentley, 1873, vol. ii. pp. 25-26; 169-174.-S.

1 In 1880 was publisht "Selections from the Poetical Works of Robert Browning, Second Series. London Smith, Elder and Co., 15 Waterloo Place 1880." See p. 79-80. 2 It "describes his journey from Camberwell to Bond Street, in quest of the 'Offerings.'"--Memoir, p. 6.-T. W. Carson.

3 Pref. p. vii, Thanks to R. B. for leave to print letters. i. 212, Intimacy with R. B.-T. W. Carson.