and a blessing, for it goads on to further effort, and points to perfection behind the veil. In Parleyings, Browning deals with various art questions. He indignantly opposes the attack on the nude in art, in Francis Furini, as he does in The Lady and the Painter, and, implicitly, in Fra Lippo Lippi, and in Aristophane's Apology, XIII. 21, 120. In Christopher Smart1 it is interesting to see what modern painters Browning joins with the august names of Michael Angelo, Rafael, and Leonardo. In the lines in Aristophanes' Apology 2 that describe the listeners to Balaustion's adventure, we can fancy Greek girlhood as depicted by Sir Frederick Leighton, who is, in reality, the 'great Kaunian painter's whose work is described in the earlier narrative. In the first section of Furini, there is what, if not intended as such, serves as a criticism on the paintings of a great poet, Rossetti. Browning's descriptions of objects of art both steal and give beauty, e.g. the della Robbia in The Statue and the Bust, the Eastern weapons in A Forgiveness, and the font in the castle. of Goito.5 Browning's descriptions constantly suggest pictures. Such are the landscape in "Childe Roland," the group of the gipsy queen, the lady, and Jacynth 'in. a rosy sleep along the floor,' in The Flight of the Duchess, and Pompilia, a portrait with which even Dante's Madonna Pia cannot compare. Browning's love of music has given birth to what is perhaps his most faultless poem, Abt Vogler, and to A Toccata of Galuppi's, Master Hugues of SaxeGotha, and Charles Avison. Music not only gives Browning intense emotional pleasure, but it is to him the truest truth; how and why are explained in Avison.1 Browning claims the highest place for poetry, because it impinges on and illuminates the other arts.' He throws light on his own poetic methods in the lines "Who is a poet needs must understand Alike both speech and thoughts which prompt to speak." 2 Browning draws a sharp line between the dilettant and the artist,3 and, while giving a grim smile to the former's make-believe, he emphasises the strenuous labour of the artist's life. In Furini, he speaks of the agony' of 'art's high-strung brain.' In describing poets, Browning constantly dwells on the separateness of the genius and the man, in each. This idea is thoroughly worked out in Sordello. Even in Rabbi Ben Ezra (xxiii.-xxv.), we meet with a similar view: a man's work is not himself. The same feeling tinges Browning's references to his own poetry. One Word More contains a highly poetic expression of this separation between the artist and the man, and 1 XVI. 227, etc. 2 XII. 138. Red Cotton Night-Cap Country. Shop sounds, from the other end of the scale, a protest against a man's profession, his 'shop,' constituting his life. There is no doubt that Browning drew the idea from his own experience, and in this way it throws considerable light on the dramatic shape of his mind. Very beautiful are the wreaths which Browning lays at the feet of his predecessors in the kingdom of poetry. He celebrates Dante in Sordello and One Word More, and Shelley in Pauline, Sordello,1 Memorabilia, and Cenciaja, as well as in his prose Introductory Essay to Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1852. Popularity is sacred to the memory of Keats, who is again referred to in a similar vein at the commencement of The Two Poets of Croisic. Beside At the "Mermaid," House, and Aristophanes' Apology, XIII. 234, Browning has, in Bishop Blougram's Apology, at least three vivid lines on Shakspere, and "His power and consciousness and self-delight,” "He leaves his towers and gorgeous palaces To build the trimmest house in Stratford town." 2 5 3 4 In Prince Hohenstiel - Schwangau, Fifine, Epilogue to Pacchiarotto, At the "Mermaid," and La Saisiaz, Browning derides Byron for his contempt of men and 1 I. 53-54. 2 See also V. 248. Christmas Eve and Easter - Day; and Browning's uncollected Sonnet, The Names. 3 XI. 145-147. 6 XIV. 35. 4 XI. 277-279. 7 XIV. 200-201. 5 XIV. 149. glorification of waste nature, and for his slipshod way of writing; but in La Saisiaz a tenderness for the 'Pilgrim' escapes him.1 Like 'Childe Harold' before him, Browning, in La Saisiaz, pauses before those illustrious men of letters who made their homes round Lake Leman. He approaches Voltaire, Gibbon, Rousseau, and Byron himself, to weigh what they gave by what they received. Browning often flashes out a phrase that contains a volume of criticism, as in 'Addison's tye-wig preachment,'2 and it is interesting to note how he esteems a comparatively recent poetical writer, that singular mind, Thomas Lovell Beddoes.3 Browning's works almost defy an orderly arrangement according to subjects. Too many a poem eludes classification, or demands a class to itself. Only after reading through the poems in the order in which they were written, do we gain a true idea of Browning's immense range. 5. The Art of Browning. — Only those who know Browning intimately can say what an education he is in the resources of language. His memory and circumstantial lore seem boundless. As each of his dissolving views disappears to give place to its successor, Browning seems to steep himself in every appropriate phrase and befitting suggestion that may give vividness to his next creation. We notice instances in Ned Bratts, in 1 XIV. 200, 202-203. 2 XVI. 120. Bernard de Mandeville. 3 XIV. 270. The Two Poets of Croisic. "A burden at your back, Good Master Christmas?" (Ned Bratts means 'Christian') "To-morrow brings Tom Bearward with his bears: One new black-muzzled brute beats Sackerson he swears." ('Sackerson' was the famous bear kept at Paris Garden), and "I rather see the fruit of twelve years' pious reign- He Browning might well call himself the 'far-flyer.'1 He has the curiosities of all dictionaries at his fingers' ends. He uses technical and obsolete words with the most familiar usage, coining new and amplifying old for his purposes. All sorts of colloquialisms and rarities help to feather his dramatic nest. This habit helps to make up the total impression made by Browning of intellectual resource and power. often repeats his turns of phrase, and many parallelisms may be cited from his works. Such slovenliness as 'better than them all' never appears in Browning, his grammar being exquisitely accurate, sometimes even to pedantry. His mental associations are akin to his vocabulary in variety and unexpectedness. As instances, we may take from among his illustrations Goethe's Weimar Estate in Bernard de Mandeville and Joan of Arc in Francis Furini. Among Browning's finest similes and metaphors are the cabin (sophistical) in Bishop Blougram's Apology and 2 |