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From The Contemporary Review. sitions of "Paracelsus" and "Fifine at MR. BROWNING'S PLACE IN LITERATURE. the Fair," his first known and his latest No writer has aroused in his own original work, without disturbing any time and within his own sphere a more preconceived judgment of promise in the positive interest than Mr. Browning. one or finality in the other. In their acHe has been sincerely loved and cor- tual relation, each appears in its right dially disliked. For many persons, both place. We see in "Paracelsus" the men and women, his works have pos- idealism of a young and lofty intellisessed the support, the sympathy, and gence; in "Fifine" the semi-material the suggestiveness of a secular Gospel; philosophy which comes of prolonged whilst with others they have become a contact with life; but if "Fifine" had bye-word for ambiguousness of thought been written when its author was twentyand eccentricity of expression. He has two, it would have seemed full of the been abundantly reviewed in each iso- sophistry of a youthful spirit, dazzled by lated poem; isolated aspects of his ge- the variety of life, and striving to comnius have been strongly appreciated and bine incompatible enjoyments and to receven subtly defined; nevertheless, he oncile incompatible feelings. And if has been writing for forty years, and the "Paracelsus" were published now, we public are more than ever at issue con- should hail in it the final utterance of a cerning the fundamental conditions of mind wearied by its own eccentricities his creative life; the question is more than ever undecided whether he is what he professes to be, a poet, whose natural expression is verse, or what many believe him to be- —a deep, subtle, and imaginative thinker, who has chosen to write in verse.

and giving in its solemn adherence to the time-honoured methods of human labour and human love. "Fifine at the Fair" exhibits one sign of a riper genius in the tone of satire which does not spare even itself; but "Paracelsus" bears a still fuller stamp of maturity in its complete refinement of imagery and expression. It shows the touch of a master hand.

We do not mean to assert that during Mr. Browning's long literary career the manner of his inspiration has undergone no change. It has changed so far, that if we compare the first twenty years with the last we shall find emotion predominant in the one period and reflection in the other; but reflection is considered to have acquired a morbid development in "Sordello," and flashes of intense feeling occur even in the coldest of his later works. The change has been too gradual to draw a boundary line across any moment of his life; and though it is in the nature of things that a change so gradual should be permanent, there is something in Mr. Browning's nature which prevents our feeling it as such. It appears too restless to crystallize.

The fact is, perhaps, less strange than it appears. Either opinion may be supported by reference to his writings; whether either is absolutely true can only be discovered through a complete survey of them; and a survey complete enough for such a purpose is by no means easily obtained. Mr. Browning's collective writings are not too voluminous to be read, but their substance is too solid to be compressed into a written review, and with all its variety, too uniform for the species of classification by which reviewing is generally assisted. As a poet, he has had no visible growth; he displays no divisions into youth, manhood, and age; no phases particularly marked by the predominance of an aim, a manner, or a conviction. His genius is supposed to have reached its zenith in "The Ring and the Book," because nothing he has written before or since has afforded so To exist thus as a haunting presence large an illustration of it, but we have no in the literary world, never old and never. reason to believe that his writing it when young, always distinctly self-asserting, he did, instead of before or afterwards, never thoroughly defined, is to possess was due to anything but its external the prestige of mystery which Mr. cause; and we might reverse the po- Browning is by some persons wrongly

supposed to covet; and it is precisely other creations of an equally esoteric because we believe that he does not kind, and in thought, though not in excovet it, that his mysteriousness lies in no pression, it is essentially a youthful intentional involvement of his thoughts, work. It is the half-delirious self-revealbut in the complex individuality which ing of a soul maddened by continued inis probably, though in a different way, trospection, by the irrepressible craving as mysterious to him as to us, that we do to extend its sphere of consciousness, not think his literary reputation has and by the monstrosities of subjective much to gain by any possible solution of experience in which this self-magnifying it. To those for whom he is a poet, he and self-distorting action has involved it. appeals in the manner of "deep calling The sufferer tells his story to a woman unto deep" in that infinite sense of sym- who loves him, and to whom he has been pathetic existence which needs no ex- always more or less worthily attached; plaining; to those for whom he is not, and ends by gently raving himself into a his mode of self-manifestation will re- rest which is represented as premonitory main uninteresting or obnoxious, what- of death, and in which the image of a ever its principles may be. But every perfect human love rises amidst the tuwriter has a certain number of responsi- mult of the disordered brain, transfusing ble critics whose function is not merely its chaotic emotions into one soft harto endorse such impressions but to de- mony of life and hope. The same funtermine their causes and in some meas-damental idea recurs in "Paracelsus," ure to judge them. No true critic can but in a more subdued and infinitely dispense with all knowledge of the gene- more objective form. We find there the sis of the ideas which he is called upon same consciousness of intellectual powto judge; and Mr. Browning's critics er, but with a stronger sense of responcan be true neither to themselves nor to sibility; the same restless ambition, but him till they have taken the evidence of directed towards a more definite and more his collective works on this one great ques-unselfish end. There is also the same tion of what he is and what he has striven acceptance of love as the one saving reto do. We think that, if rightly ques-ality of life, but the earthly adorer of tioned, their answer will be unequivocal. Pauline has become the exponent of the We have said that Mr. Browning's heaven-born, universal love; and we genius had no perceptible growth, be- shall see in one of Mr. Browning's more cause it was full-grown when first pre- recent poems how the final expression sented to the world. This does not im- of these two modes of feeling may be ply that it had no period of manifest be-imaginatively resolved into one. "Paucoming; and there is evidence of such a line" is strongly distinguished from its phase in a fragment called "Pauline," author's subsequent works by an exceswhich became known much later than sive luxuriance of imagery, employed, his other works, but in the last edition not as the illustration of a distinct idea, of them occupies its proper place at the but as the spontaneous embodiment of a beginning. The difference of manner complex and intense emotion. It resemand conception which divides it from bles them in its very delicate and power"Paracelsus" gives the rate of the prog-ful rendering of the passion of Love. ress which carried him in three years One passage especially breathes a perfect from the one to the other, whilst the aroma of tenderness: — comparative crudeness of the earlier poem affords a curious insight into the yet seething elements of that almost colossal power. We cannot judge how far “Pauline" was a deliberate product of the author's imagination or a spontaneous overflowing of poetic feeling; but this does not affect its relation to his

I am very weak,
Still sit by me with beating breast and hair
But what I would express is, - Leave me not,
Loosened, be watching earnest by my side,
Turning my books or kissing me when I
Look up— like summer wind! Be still to me
A key to music's mystery when mind fails-
A reason, a solution, and a clue!

scène of the monologue, and the introduction of the Lais of Leicester Square is, indeed, a violation of good taste which could only be accepted on the ground of entire poetic fitness. But there is even more than poetic fitness-there is historic truth in this ideal approximation of the princely exponent of hand-to-mouth existence to its typical embodiment in the lowest social form.

The one quality of Mr. Browning's in- | which they are intended to depict. Some tellectual nature which is at present most objection has been taken to the mise en universally recognized is its casuistry his disposition to allow an excessive weight to the incidental conditions of human action, and consequently to employ sliding scales in the measurement of it. The most remarkable evidence of this quality, supplied by his later works, is to be found in "Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau." It is displayed with more audacity in "Fifine at the Fair," with larger and more sustained effect in "The Ring and The Emperor is supposed to describe the Book." But "Fifine at the Fair," or imagine the leading actions of his though very subjective in treatment, reign under three different aspects as verges too much on the grotesque to be they appear in the light of his own conaccepted as a genuine reflection of the science, as they would have been if they author's mind; and "The Ring and the had conformed to a general rule of right, Book" represents him as a pleader, but and as they must have appeared to those at the same time as a judge. It de- who measured them by such a rule. He scribes the case under discussion from begins by admitting and defending his every possible point of view, but does not wavering policy as dictated by the highdescribe it as subject to any possi- est expedience; and then proceeds to ble moral doubt. "Prince Hohenstiel- enumerate the acts and motives which Schwangau " is a deliberate attempt on the eulogistic historians of the Thiers and author's part to defend a cause which he Hugo type would impute to him; opposknows to be weak, and as such is a typi-ing to this ideal version step by step the cal specimen, as it is also a favourable rejected suggestions of sagacity, which one, of his genius for special pleading. depicts his actual thoughts and deeds in It places in full relief the love of opposi- the obvious shallowness of their tempotion which impels him to defend the rizing worldly wisdom. The argument weaker side, and the love of fairness which which occupies the first half of the book always makes him subsume in the defence is an elaborate vindication of the policy every argument that may be justly ad- of leaving things as they are, saving only vanced against it; and it also exhibits such improvement as implies no radical that double-refracting quality of his mind change. A piece of paper lying close to which can convert a final concession to the speaker's hand supplies him with an the one side into an irresistible last word illustration. The paper has two blots in favour of the other. It is unfortunate upon it, and he mechanically draws a line that a slight ambiguity in one or two pas- from one to the other; it does not occur sages obscures the drift of the poem, and to him to make a third, but it does occur disinclines its readers for taking the other- to him to correct the two already made. wise small amount of trouble required for That he does this and no more is typical its comprehension, for this supposed solil- of his conduct through life. He has not oquy of the ex-Emperor of the French is in been gifted with the genius that could every respect a striking expression of the create, but he has been gifted with the non-pathetic side of its author's genius. sober intelligence which appreciates the Both narrative and argument have a risk of destroying. The great renewing coursing rapidity which rather fatigues changes of life are wrought by special the mind, but they are vivid, humorous, agencies and under special conditions, as and picturesque, carry some serious in the physical world

thought in solution, and leave behind as

their residue a distinct dramatic impres- New teeming growth, surprises of strange life sion of the easy-going Bohemianism Impossible before a world broke up

And re-made, order gained by law destroyed. | the natural inclination to do so. It apNot otherwise in our society

Follow like portents, all as absolute
Regenerations: they have birth at rare,
Uncertain, unexpected intervals
O' the world, by ministry impossible
Before and after fulness of the days.

And he is convinced that the highest wisdom of a non-inspired ruler is to assist those who are subject to his rule to live the life into which they were born, trusting to the deeper laws of existence to vindicate good through evil, and perfection through imperfection. He too has recognized the destroying folly of sects and opinions; but he has seen that to suppress the one would be to give predominance to the other, and has thought it best to leave truth to assert itself in the balance of error; he has thought society best saved by being left alone. He too has had dreams of a higher utility, dreams suggested by the

Crumbled arch, crushed aqueduct, Alive with tremors in the shaggy growth Of wild-wood, crevice-sown, that triumphs there,

Imparting exultation to the hills!
Sweep of the swathe when only the winds
walk,

And waft my words above the grassy sea,
Under the blinding blue that basks o'er
Rome, -
Hear ye not still —

Be Italy again?

But with the time for action had come a new sense of responsibility; nearer duties to fulfil, more urgent needs to satisfy; mouths craving food, hands craving work, eyes that begged only for the light of life and he has worked first for these. In this strain he continues.

It would be difficult to do a more equal justice than Mr. Browning has done to the abstract truth of the case, and to the concrete circumstances by which such truth might be suspended; nor could anything be more philosophical than his appreciation of the conditional nature of all earthly good, and the fruitlessness of Utopian attempts at reform. Nevertheless, we scarcely. ever feel during this first part of the book that we are standing on quite firm ground. Its idea of preservation floats between that intelligent protection of an existing social order which strengthens the good and weakens the evil contained in it, and the mere "laisser-faire," which implies no judgment on the present, and invites the deluge for the future; and the speaker nowhere clearly distinguishes the divine mission to work in a certain groove from

pears to us that he defends from a religious point of view ideas which are the natural outcome of an Atheistical philosophy; and it is the habit of thus interfusing confusing we cannot call it principles which other minds keep apart, or in strict subordination to each other, which is so characteristic of Mr. Browning's reasonings upon life. At the end of the book he drops the balance altogether in an appeal, half playful, half pathetic, from the vanity of words to the incommunicable essence of individual truth.

"Bishop Blougram's Apology" is still more sophistical in tone, and though the author represents it in his conclusion as a possible course of argument rather than a just one, it leaves a certain misgiving as to the extent to which he endorses it. It would not be necessary to adduce this monologue in support of the impression conveyed by that of "Prince HohenstielSchwangau," ," but that it derives a fresh significance from its much earlier date, which proves the co-existence of this I casuistic mood with the most poetic phase of its author's imaginative life.

The Bishop excuses himself for having a Church of which he does not fully beaccepted the honours and emoluments of lieve the doctrines, on the plea that disbelief is of its nature as hypothetical as belief, and that it must be not only wise but right to give oneself both temporally and spiritually the benefit of the doubt. He does not say, "My belief is too negative to justify me in renouncing the power for good which I derive from the appearance of belief; or too negative to give me the courage to renounce the good it affords to myself." But he implicitly says, "I am not gifted with positive opinions; I am gifted with a positive appreciation of the refinements of life and a positive desire for them. I am clearly violating the intentions of Providence if, whilst rejecting a possible truth, I refuse to the one part of my nature that for which I can find no compensation in the other." This palpable confusing of belief with conformity, the higher wisdom with common expediency, worldly profit with spiritual gain, scarcely provokes discussion; and Mr. Browning's concluding lines appear at first sight to value such reasoning at its worth; but we cannot overlook the fact that, while he has put sound objections into the mouth of the Bishop's opponent, he considers the Bishop's unsound arguments to have been a

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Just when we are safest, there's a sunset touch,
A fancy from a flower bell, some one's death,
A Chorus ending from Euripides, -
And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears
As old and new at once as Nature's self,
To rap and knock and enter in our soul,
Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring,
Round the ancient idol on his base again, -
The grand Perhaps !

The author takes no account of the many minds in which the disbelief in certain things has assumed the positive character of belief, but his lines are a noble tribute to the tenacity of religious association, even where regret for the displaced idol has no longer power to re

instate it.

in some measure, the equal justification of the varied possibilities of life. Mr. Browning considers all things as good in their way. The more familiar aspects of

this idea are illustrated in the Introduc-
tion to "The Ring and the Book," in a
passage which gives also some insight
into the natural connection between the
author's æsthetic impressions of exist-
ence and his moral judgments upon it.

Rather learn and love
Each facet-flash of the revolving year!
Red, green, and blue that whirl into a white,
The variance now, the eventual unity,
Which make the miracle. See it for your-
selves

This man's act, changeable because alive!
Action now shrouds, now shows the informing
thought;

Man, like a glass ball with a spark a-top,
Out of the magic fire that lurks inside,
Shows one tint at a time to take the eye :
Which, let a finger touch the silent sleep,
Shifted a hair's breadth shoots you dark for
bright,

Your sentence absolute for shine or shade.
Suffuses bright with dark, and baffles so

If we observe the variety of speculaThe empirical morality which recomtive opinion to which Mr. Browning con-mends itself to so many less religious siders all questions of human conduct to minds is the more remote from his conbe subject, together with the frequent ception that he cannot accept the "greatreference in his works to a Supreme est happiness" standard on which it is Being in whose will alone lies the absolute based. An objective standard of happisolution of such questions, we cannot ness derived from the natural exercise of avoid the inference that the religious natural human activities is as unmeaning sense is far stronger in him than the moral to him as a natural morality to be discovsense. It is evident at least that his mind ered in the balance of them; and as naturally subordinates the general laws of little as he accepts the greatest happiness morality to the specialities of circum-test of the truth of a philosophic belief, stance, and to a feeling of the distinc- so little would he recognize a generaltive position of every human soul. This misery proof of the non-existence of God belief in a special and continuous relation of the human and the divine, or simply in special Providence, is the mainspring of his religious writings, and sceptic as he is, the material mysticism of Low Church Christianity has seldom found amongst its own disciples a more faithful and earnest exponent. But Christianity is based upon a revelation which he does not profess to acknowledge, and whilst the existence and omnipresence of God are proved to him by the nature of things, he recognizes in nature no distinct expression of His will. It is easy, therefore, to conceive that to a mind at once so sensuous and so poetic, so strongly impressed with the connection between the lowest experiences and the highest consciousness of humanity, sanction will appear everywhere stronger than prohibition, and the Every serious expression of Mr. very belief in a divine ordaining become, Browning's casuistry appears to point to

or his malevolence. Happiness is with
him something eminently subjective; as
far as possible removed from a net result
of determinable conditions; to be defined
in its permanent form as a courageous
struggling between aspiration and circum-
stance; in its more intense expression as
a fugitive balance of the two. He rejects
every enjoyment that brings with it a
sense of finality as the negation of all
spiritual and intellectual life.
joys three parts pain," says his Rabbi
ben Ezra. In one of the religious poems,
"Easter Day," are the lines:

How dreadful to be grudged

"Be our

No ease henceforth, as one that's judged
Condemned to earth forever, shut
From Heaven!

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