Chapter IV: Robert Browning

VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY DIED THE 12TH OF DECEMBER, 1889

[Picture: Robert Browning. From a painting by Samuel Laurence in the
collection of John Lane]

Towards the end of 1874, as I have already remarked, Miss Cobbe prepared a petition to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of which the chief paragraph ran as follows:--

It is earnestly urged by your memorialists that the great and
influential Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
may see fit to undertake the task (which appears strictly to fall
within its province) of placing suitable restrictions on this rapidly
increasing evil. The vast benefit to the cause of humanity which the
Society has in the past half century effected, would, in our humble
estimation, remain altogether one-sided and incomplete, if, while
brutal carters and ignorant costermongers are brought to punishment
for maltreating the animals under their charge, learned and refined
gentlemen should be left unquestioned to inflict far more exquisite
pain upon still more sensitive creatures; as if the mere allegation
of a scientific purpose removed them above all legal or moral
responsibility.

Miss Cobbe, confident of what Browning's reply would be, sent him this petition and asked him to return it with his signature if he approved of it.

His reply, which I believe has never as yet been published, redounds to his immortal fame as a man of fortitude and humaneness.

This is what he wrote:

19, WARWICK CRESCENT, W.
_December_ 28_th_, '74.

DEAR MISS COBBE,

I return the petition, unsigned for the one good reason--that I have
just signed its fellow forwarded to me by Mr. Leslie Stephen.

You have heard "I take an equal interest with yourself in the effort
to suppress vivisection"; I dare not so honour my mere wishes and
prayers as to put them for a moment beside your noble acts; but, this
I know, I would rather submit to the worst of the deaths, so far as
pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured on the pretence of
sparing me a twinge or two. I return the paper, because I shall be
probably shut up here for the next week or more, and prevented from
seeing my friends: whoever would refuse to sign would certainly not
be of the number.

Ever truly--and gratefully yours,
ROBERT BROWNING.

Five years later in the volume of Dramatic Idyls issued in 1879, Browning published his poem entitled "Tray" which extols the noble heroism of the dog and leaves nothing to be desired in its biting scorn of the vivisectors:

"'Up he comes with the child, see tight
In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite
A depth of ten feet--twelve I bet!
Good dog! What off again? There's yet
Another child to save? All right!

"'How strange we saw no other fall!
It's instinct in the animal.
Good dog! But he's a long while under:
If he got drowned I should not wonder--
Strong current, that against the wall!

"'Here he comes, holds in mouth this time
--What may the thing be? Well, that's prime!
Now did you ever? Reason reigns
In man alone, since all Tray's pains
Have fished--the child's doll from the slime!'

"And so, amid the laughter gay,
Trotted my hero off,--old Tray,--
Till somebody, prerogatived
With reason, reasoned:--'Why he dived
His brain would show us, I should say.

"'John go and catch--or, if needs be
Purchase--that animal for me!
By vivisection, at expense
Of half an hour and eighteen pence
How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'"

Here then is enough to show with what earnest conviction this poet of powerful mind and pure life condemned the practice of vivisection. He was a man who breasted the world with a cheerful philosophy which permitted few external matters to disturb his habitual serenity. But vivisection was one of them, and I have often heard him speak with fierce detestation of what he called "the coward Science."

I do not think he ever addressed a public, or even private, meeting in his life, and that may have left the unlettered world unaware of his deep loathing of the cruelties of the laboratories; but he was one of the earliest Englishmen of unquestioned distinction to join the anti-vivisection movement and to accept the office of Vice-President of our Society.

I venture to think that in aftertimes his sanguine advocacy in this great cause will not be the least of his claims to the gratitude of his fellow men.