ROBERT BROWNING.

THE father of Robert Browning was a clerk in the Bank of England whose ear was attuned to other melodies than the chink of gold upon the counter: the companions of his leisure hours were Horace, Anacreon and the Talmud. Thę poet was born in London in 1812. Shelley and Keats first stirred the singing spirit within him; their influence is easily perceptible in Pauline (1833). In Paracelsus (1835) he found a congenial subject, -the History of a Soul: upon this theme he constructed the first in his long series of psychological epics. For Macready he wrote his first play, Strafford (1837), followed in the next eight years by six other plays. The devotees of Browning assure us that on the rare occasions when any of these plays have been acted, they have succeeded. Is it so? Why then so rare ? In the preface to Sordello, Browning clearly states his poetic belief: 'My stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul: little else is worth study.' Mrs. Carlyle read this poem (?) and declared herself unable to make out whether Sordello was a man, a city or a book; other readers not less intelligent, had even more disastrous experiences. The 21,116 lines (to be exact) in that Realistic Romance of the Police Court, The Ring and The Book, argue an astonishing perseverance in both author and reader, but for the few and evil days allotted man upon this earth, most people will prefer the lyrics in Pippa Passes and the incomparable portraits in Men and Women (1855) and in Dramatis Personae (1864). In 1846 Browning married Elizabeth Barrett and from that time until her death (1861) resided principally in Italy. The poems of these fifteen years are full of rich Italian coloring. During the last twentyfive years of his life Browning wrote a large amount of religious and metaphysical verse, but very little poetry, save when he rendered into English the Alkestis of Euripides and the Agamemnon of Eschylus. To compensate him for the decline of his poetic faculty, he enjoyed perfect health, an easy fortune, unbounded faith in God, Immortality and Humanity, and the worship of the appreciative and the undiscriminating banded together in the Browning Society. He died in Venice in 1889 and was duly honored with a grave in Westminster Abbey.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

LIFE AND TIMES.— The innumerable magazine articles that appeared at Browning's death will be found classified in Poole's Index for 1890. Sharp's Life of Robert Browning (Gt. Wr.) is written by one who knew the poet well: while it has the charm of a story told by an eye-witness and a disciple, it is yet free from that hero-worship which makes so much Browning-talk a weariness

to the flesh. The Life and Letters of Robert Browning, by Mrs. Southerland Orr, indulges in much personalia, and contains some interesting remarks by Browning on his own works.

CRITICISM. — The world of Browning Criticism is so wide that any exploration of it in these Notes would be quite impossible. All that can here be done is to indicate some safe guides for those who would climb its sublimities, descend into its abysses, and skirt around its banalities.

F. Mary Wilson: A Primer of Browning. Contains a brief account of the life of the poet, of the characteristics of his poetry, and a series of simple introductions to the poems.

W. J. Alexander: Introduction to the Poetry of Browning. Somewhat more advanced in thought and style than the foregoing: contains a statement of the scope of Browning's philosophy, with careful interpretation of a few of the principal poems.

G. W. Cooke: A Guide Book to the Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning. Contains, among other things, (1) a carefully selected and (necessarily) short Bibliography of the Best Things said of Browning; (2) mention of the dates, places, and circumstances under which the poems were written; (3) sources of the poems; (4) Browning's own explanations of his poems; (5) explanations of many historical, biographical, and artistic allusions; (6) descriptions of the principal characters in Browning's poems; (7) accounts of the stage presentation of such dramas as have been acted.

Edward Berdoe: The Browning Cyclopædia. An exhaustive Dictionary of the sources of the poems and of the historical and literary material and allusions necessary to an understanding of them. Contains also a Bibliography (much inferior to that in Cooke) and a Table of Contents of the publications of the Browning Society.

A TRANSCRIPT FROM EURIPIDES.

The full title of the poem from which this extract is taken is Balaustion's Adventure, Including a Transcript from Euripides. The scene is laid in the year 413 B.C., when the inhabitants of Rhodes determined to transfer their allegiance from Athens to Sparta. Balaustion (Wild-pomegranate-flower), a maiden of Kameiros in Rhodes, was so loyal to the Athenian tradition, that she persuaded her family to fly with her to Athens. Driven out of their course by a storm, they were chased by a pirate to the entrance of the port of Syracuse. The hostile Syracusans, cherishing bitter memories of the recent Athenian expedition against their city, refused harborage to the vessel carrying Balaustion and her friends; in despair, they were about to turn and face death from the pirate, when the Syracusans demanded if any on board could recite verses from Euripides. Balaustion knew the Alkestis almost by heart: —

We landed; the whole city, soon astir
Came rushing out of gates in common joy
To the suburb temple; there they stationed me
O' the topmost step: and plain I told the play,
Just as I saw it; what the actors said,
And what I saw, or thought I saw the while,

At our Kameiros theatre, clean-scooped
Out of a hill-side, with the sky above
And sea before our seats in marble row:
Told it, and, two days more, repeated it,
Until they sent us on our way again

With good words and great wishes.

See note on Childe Harold, iv. 16, for the incident in Plutarch on which Balaustion's adventure is founded.

Non-classical readers who are interested to notice in what respects Browning has departed from his original, should consult Potter's Translation of Euripides (Morley's Universal Library, No. 54); R. G. Moulton's Browning's Balaustion, a Beautiful Perversion of Euripides' Alcestis (Browning Society's Papers, Part xiii. No. 67); J. R. Dennett in the N. Y. Nation, xiii. 178.

1-3. Admetos. King Admetos had been sick unto death: at the request of Apollo, the Fates had agreed to spare his life, on condition that some one would die in his stead. Of all his friends and dependents, his faithful wife Alkestis was the only one found willing to save him. This sacrifice Admetos meanly accepted. The play opens on the day appointed for her death. - For the story in full see Cl. Myths, § 80-81.

Pelias: Cl. Myths,

4-33. Chorus of Ancient Servitors. § 147. Paian (Paeon): in Homer, the god of Healing. (See Iliad v. 900-904). Later, used as here, as an epithet of Apollo. clipt locks (25). Compare Eneid iv. 693-706, from which we gather it was a common belief that no one could die until Proserpina had clipt a lock from the head and thus consigned the soul to Pluto. 34-52. Iolkos (Iolcus): an ancient city of Thessaly. The Argonautic expedition started thence.

53-54. Here Admetos speaks. quotes the words of Charon. 70-72: Admetos.

55-60: Alkestis. In 58-60 she 60-63: Admetos. 64-69: Alkestis. 79-86: Admetos.

73-78: Alkestis.

87-149. Passages of such pathos as this, make Euripides the most modern in tone of all the Greek poets.

that

150-178. A little care in study will show the lines appropriate to each character. In line 166, Alkestis means it is not necessary Admetos should sacrifice himself: her death is sufficient to appease the Fates.

179-200. There is nothing in the original to correspond with these lines: they are, of course, the interpretation of Balaustion. A great voice: the voice of Herakles. this dispirited old age: the chorus of Ancient Servitors.

201-203.

ship.

204-227.

Herakles and Admetos were bound by ties of long friend

Balaustion again, and so in many subsequent places

that will hardly need indication. their monarch tried, etc. (218) their monarch tried to discover if any loved him more than he loved them.

228-248. In the lines omitted after line 248, Admetos gives ambiguous answers to Herakles' questions as to the cause of grief. This is a weak point in the play: Admetos admits that he must inter a certain corpse to-day,' and the dramatist must dower Herakles with preternatural stupidity to keep him from stumbling on the true explanation.

249-271. In this episode the character of Admetos appears in its most favorable light. In the main, he is a contemptible fellow. 272-293. the snake: the Lernean Hydra. the lion's hide the Nemean lion. For the exploits of Herakles, see Cl. Myths, § 139143.

294-331. Chaplet (317); myrtle-sprays (318). See Alexander's Feast, line 7, and note thereon.

332-359. Tiruns (Tiryns) a city in Argolis, where Herakles made his home during the twelve years in which he was accomplishing his Twelve Labors. Hence he is sometimes called Tirynthius. boltered : clotted. This is a very rare word that seems to have survived only in the Warwickshire dialect. Shakespeare (a Warwickshire man) uses it in Macbeth, iv. 1. 123.

For the blood-bolter'd Banquo smiles upon me.

Koré (Core) = The Maiden, a title of Persephone (Proserpina). 360-397. By the stand-still: by the stopping of the funeral procession on its return from the tomb. peplos (peplum): an upper garment worn over one arm and draped at will around the body: richer and more voluminous than the himation.

398-419. Too late Admetos recognizes his own selfishness and the worth of her he had lost.

420-482. the king o' the Bistones Diomedes. His horses lived on human flesh; to capture them was the eighth labor of Herakles. 483-535- This is certainly a strong dramatic situation. Compare Shakespeare's treatment of a similar theme in the Winter's Tale, v. 3.

536-588. Do we feel assured that the soul of Admetos is thoroughly purified by suffering? He says so, but he is not put to the proof by action.

589-702. And save, that sire, his offspring (659) = And may that sire [Zeus] save his offspring. the son of Sthenelos (683) = Eurystheus, to whom Herakles was made subject by the gods for the space of twelve years. See note on Tiruns, line 334.

703-718. Sophokles: generally acknowledged to be a much greater dramatist than Euripides. Of the 130 plays ascribed to him, only seven have come down to us; the Alkestis is not among these. The only direct evidence we have that Sophocles wrote a play on this subject, is a line which Plutarch quotes in his Treatise on Oracles (xiv.) and which he ascribes to a play of Sophocles called Admetos. Dionusiac. The Alkestis of Euripides was first performed at Athens in 438 B.C. in the theatre dedicated to Dionysus (Bacchus). Aristotle, in his Poetics, tells us that Tragedy originated with the leaders of the Dithyramb, originally nothing more than the song of peasants celebrating the vintage. See Cl. Myths, § 46. in its original (Greek) meaning of 'goblet.' his droppings of warm tears. This line is from Mrs. Browning's Wine of Cyprus.

crater,

The Human with

Despite jagged and uncouth lines not a few, every reader of Browning must feel how much that poet gains in presentation when he brings himself under the clarifying and restraining power of even so ordinary a stylist as Euripides. Experience seems to show plainly that no poetry lacking in clearness of expression and beauty of form can exercise any wide-spread or permanent influence; Browning either was unable or was too careless to give this form and this expression to the great majority of his verses: we may be tolerably sure, then, that a volume or two will contain all of his poetry that future ages (less realistic than this) will care to read. Theologians and metaphysicians may long continue to gain ideas from him, but neither theology nor metaphysics is the province of poetry. If this judgment be wrong, err in good company: Matthew Arnold did not consider it worth while to read any of Browning's later works, and Schopenhauer asserts, even too emphatically perhaps, that everything has been sung, everything has been cursed in due order, and that with poetry everything is now a matter of style.