Chapter X: Preface (8)

Satan protests that this robs him of his rights, as he claims to be Strongest. He is commanded to descend to earth in mortal shape and get married, and so try for himself the bitter draught. It was Solomon who said that "a woman whose heart is snares and nets is more bitter than death" (Ecclesiastes vii. 27), and some commentators on the poem have thought the Rabbinical legend was suggested by this verse. Satan, married, in due time has a son who arrives at maturity, and then the question arises of a profession for him: "I needs must teach my son a trade." Shall he be a soldier? That is too cowardly. A lawyer would be better, but there is too much hard work for the sluggard. There's divinity, but that is Satan's own special line, and that be far from his poor offspring! At last he thinks of the profession of medicine. Physic is the very thing! So _Medicus_ he is appointed; and it is arranged that a special power shall be given to the young doctor's eyes, so that when on his rounds he shall behold the spirit-person of his father at his side. Doctor once dubbed, ignorance shall be no barrier to his success; cash shall follow, whatever the treatment, and fees shall pour in. Satan tells his son that the reason he has endowed him with power to recognise his spirit-form is that he may judge by Death's position in the sick room what are the prospects of the patient's recovery. If he perceive his father lingering by the door, whatever the nature of the illness recovery will be speedy; if higher up the room, death will not be the sufferer's doom; but if he is discovered standing by the head of the bed's the patient's doom is sealed. It happened that of a sudden the emperor himself was smitten with sore disease. Of course Dr. ---- was called in and promised large rewards if he saved the imperial life. As he entered the room he saw at once that all was lost: there stood his father Death as sentry at the bed's head. Gold was offered in abundance; the doctor begged his father to go away and let him win his fee. "No inch I budge!" is the response. Then honours are offered him whom apparently wealth failed to tempt. The result is the same. Then Love: "Take my daughter as thy bride--save me for this reward!" The Doctor again implores a respite from his father, who is obdurate as ever. A thought strikes the physician: "Reverse the bed, so that Death no longer stands at the head;" but "the Antic passed from couch-foot back to pillow," and is master of the situation again. The son now curses his father, and declares that he will go over to the other side. He sends to his home for the mystic Jacob's-staff--a knobstick of proved efficacy in such cases. "Go, bid my mother (Satan's wife, be it remembered) bring the stick herself." The servant rushes off to do his errand, and all the anxious while the emperor sinks lower and lower, as the icy breath of Death freezes him to the marrow. All at once the door of the sick room opens, and there enters to Satan "Who but his Wife the Bad?" The devil goes off through the ceiling, leaving a sulphury smell behind; and, "Hail to the Doctor!" the imperial patient straightway recovers. In gratitude he offers him the promised daughter and her dowry; but the Doctor refuses the fee--"No dowry, no bad wife!" If this Talmudic legend has any relation to Solomon, it is well to bear in mind that his bitter experience, as St. Jerome says, was due to the fact that no one ever fell a victim to impurer loves than he. He married strange women, was deluded by them, and erected temples to their respective idols. His opinion, therefore, on marriage as we understand it is of little importance to us.

=Dominus Hyacinthus De Archangelis.= (_The Ring and the Book._) The procurator or counsel for the poor, who defends Count Guido in the eighth book of the poem.

=Domizia= (_Luria_), a noble lady of Florence. She is loved by the Moorish captain Luria, who commanded the army of the Florentines. Domizia was greatly embittered against the republic for its ingratitude to her two brothers--Porzio and Berto--and hoped to be revenged for their deaths.

=Don Juan.= (_Fifine at the Fair._) The husband of the poem is a philosophical study of the Don Juan of Molière. He is full of sophistries, and an adept in the art of making the worse appear the better reason. In Molière's play Juan's valet thus describes his master: "You see in Don Juan the greatest scoundrel the earth has ever borne--a madman, a dog, a demon, a Turk, a heretic--who believes neither in heaven, hell, nor devil, who passes his life simply as a brute beast, a pig of an epicure, a true Sardanapalus; who closes his ear to every remonstrance which can be made to him, and treats as idle talk all that we hold sacred."

=Donald.= (_Jocoseria_, 1883.) The story of the poem is a true one, and is told by Sir Walter Scott, in _The Keepsake_ for 1832, pp. 283-6. The following abridgement of the account is from the Browning Society's _Notes and Queries_, No. 209, p. 328: "... The story is an old but not an ancient one: the actor and sufferer was not a very aged man, when I heard the anecdote in my early youth. Duncan (for so I shall call him) had been engaged in the affair of 1746, with others of his clan; ... on the one side of his body he retained the proportions and firmness of an active mountaineer; on the other he was a disabled cripple, scarce able to limp along the streets. The cause which reduced him to this state of infirmity was singular. Twenty years or more before I knew Duncan he assisted his brothers in farming a large grazing in the Highlands.... It chanced that a sheep or goat was missed from the flock, and Duncan ... went himself in quest of the fugitive. In the course of his researches he was induced to ascend a small and narrow path, leading to the top of a high precipice.... It was not much more than two feet broad, so rugged and difficult, and at the same time so terrible, that it would have been impracticable to any but the light step and steady brain of the Highlander. The precipice on the right rose like a wall, and on the left sank to a depth which it was giddy to look down upon.... He had more than half ascended the precipice, when in midway ... he encountered a buck of the red-deer species coming down the cliff by the same path in an opposite direction.... Neither party had the power of retreating, for the stag had not room to turn himself in the narrow path, and if Duncan had turned his back to go down, he knew enough of the creature's habits to be certain that he would rush upon him while engaged in the difficulties of the retreat. They stood therefore perfectly still, and looked at each other in mutual embarrassment for some space. At length the deer, which was of the largest size, began to lower his formidable antlers, as they do when they are brought to bay.... Duncan saw the danger ... and, as a last resource, stretched himself on the little ledge of rock ... not making the least motion, for fear of alarming the animal. They remained in this posture for three or four hours.... At length the buck ... approached towards Duncan very slowly ... he came close to the Highlander ... when the devil, or the untameable love of sport, ... began to overcome Duncan's fears. Seeing the animal proceed so gently, he totally forgot not only the dangers of his position, but the implicit compact which certainly might have been inferred from the circumstances of the situation. With one hand Duncan seized the deer's horn, whilst with the other he drew his dirk. But in the same instant the buck bounded over the precipice, carrying the Highlander along with him.... Fortune ... ordered that the deer should fall undermost, and be killed on the spot, while Duncan escaped with life, but with the fracture of a leg, an arm, and three ribs.... I never could approve of Duncan's conduct towards the deer in a moral point of view, ... but the temptation of a hart of grease offering, as it were, his throat to the knife, would have subdued the virtue of almost any deer stalker.... I have given you the story exactly as I recollect it." As the practice of medicine does not necessarily make a man merciful, so neither does sport necessarily imply manliness and nobility of soul. In both cases there is a strong tendency for the professional to be considered the right view. In the story we have the stag, after four hours' consideration, offering terms of agreement which Donald accepted and then treacherously broke. The animal broke Donald's fall, yet he has no gratitude for its having thus saved his life. As one of the poems covered by the question in the prologue, "_Wanting is----What?_" we should reply, Honour and humanity.

=D'Ormea.= (_King Victor and King Charles._) He was the unscrupulous minister of King Victor. He became necessary to King Charles when he received the crown on his father's abdication, and was active in defeating the attempt of the latter to recover his crown.

=Dramas.= For the Stage: _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_, _Colombe's Birthday_, _Strafford_, _Luria_, _In a Balcony_, _The Return of the Druses_. For the Study: _Pippa Passes_, _King Victor and King Charles_, _A Soul's Tragedy_, and _Paracelsus_. _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_, _Strafford_, _Colombe's Birthday_, and _In a Balcony_, have all been recently performed in London, under the direction of the Browning Society, greatly to the gratification of the spectators who were privileged to attend these special performances. Whether such dramas would be likely to attract audiences from the general public for any length of time is, however, extremely problematical. Mr. Browning's poetry is of too subjective and psychological a character to be popular on the stage.

=Dramatic Idyls= (1879-80). _Series I._: Martin Relph, Pheidippides, Halbert and Hob, Ivan Ivanovitch, Tray, Ned Bratts; _Series II._: Proem, Echetlos, Clive, Muléykeh, Pietro of Abano, Doctor ----, Pan and Luna, Epilogue.

=Dramatic Lyrics.= (_Bells and Pomegranates_, No. III., 1842.) Cavalier Tunes: i., Marching Along; ii., Give a Rouse; iii., My Wife Gertrude. Italy and France: i., Italy; ii., France. Camp and Cloister: i., Camp (French); ii., Cloister (Spanish); In a Gondola, Artemis Prologizes, Waring. Queen Worship: i., Rudel and the Lady of Tripoli; ii., Cristina. Madhouse Cells: i., Johannes Agricola; ii., Porphyria. Through the Metidja, The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

=Dramatic Monologue.= Mr. Browning has so excelled in this particular kind of poetry that it may be fitly called a novelty of his invention. The dramatic monologue is quite different from the soliloquy. In the latter case the speaker delivers his own thoughts, uninterrupted by objections or the propositions of other persons. "In the dramatic monologue the presence of a silent second person is supposed, to whom the arguments of the speaker are addressed. It is obvious that the dramatic monologue gains over the soliloquy, in that it allows the artist greater room in which to work out his conceptions of character. The thoughts of a man in self-communion are apt to run in a certain circle, and to assume a monotony" (Professor Johnson, M.A.). This supposed second person serves to "draw out" the speaker and to stimulate the imagination of the reader. _Bishop Blougram's Apology_ is an admirable example of this form of literature, where Mr. Gigadibs, the critic of Bishop Blougram, is the silent second person above referred to.

=Dramatic Romances and Lyrics.= (_Bells and Pomegranates_, No. VII.: 1845.) How they Brought the Good News, Pictor Ignotus, Italy in England, England in Italy, The Lost Leader, The Lost Mistress, Home Thoughts from Abroad, The Tomb at St. Praxed's; Garden Fancies: i. The Flower's Name; ii. Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis. France and Spain: i. The Laboratory; ii. The Confessional. The Flight of the Duchess, Earth's Immortalities, Song, The Boy and the Angel, Night and Morning, Claret and Tokay, Saul, Time's Revenges, The Glove.

=Dramatis Personæ= (1864). James Lee, Gold Hair, The Worst of it, Dîs Aliter Visum, Too Late, Abt Vogler, Rabbi Ben Ezra, A Death in the Desert, Caliban upon Setebos, Confessions, May and Death, Prospice, Youth and Art, A Face, A Likeness, Mr. Sludge, Apparent Failure, Epilogue.

=Dubiety.= (_Asolando_, 1889.) Richardson said that "a state of dubiety and suspense is ever accompanied with uneasiness." Sleep, if sound, is restful; but the poet asks for comfort, and to be comfortable implies a certain amount of consciousness--a dreamy, hazy sense of being in "luxury's sofa-lap." An English lady once asked a British tar in the Bay of Malaga, one lovely November day, if he were not happy to think he was out of foggy England--at least in autumn? The sailor protested there was nothing he disliked so much as "the everlasting blue sky" of the Mediterranean, and there was nothing he longed for so much as "a good Thames fog." So the poet here demands,

"Just a cloud,
Suffusing day too clear and bright."

He does not wish to be shrouded, as the sailor did, but his idea of comfort is that the world's busy thrust should be shaded by a "gauziness" at least. Vivid impressions are always more or less painful: they strike the senses too acutely, as "the eternal blue sky" of the south is too trying for English eyes. As such a light is sometimes too stimulating, so even too much intellectual light may be painful; a "gauziness," a "dreaming's vapour wreath" is to the overwrought brain of the thinker happiness "just for once." In the dim musings, neither dream nor vision, but just a memory, comes the face of the woman he had loved and lost, the memory of her kiss, the impress of the lips of Truth, "for love is Truth."

=Eagle, The.= (_Ferishtah's Fancies_: I. "On Divine Providence.") The story is taken from the fable of Pilpai (or Bidpai, as is the more correct form), called _The Dervish, the Falcon and the Raven_. A father told a young man that all effects have their causes, and he who relies upon Providence without considering these had need to be instructed by the following fable:--

"A certain dervish used to relate that, in his youth, once passing through a wood and admiring the works of the great Author of Nature, he spied a falcon that held a piece of flesh in his beak; and hovering about a tree, tore the flesh into bits, and gave it to a young raven that lay bald and featherless in its nest. The dervish, admiring the bounty of Providence, in a rapture of admiration cried out, 'Behold, this poor bird, that is not able to seek out sustenance for himself, is not, however, forsaken of its Creator, who spreads the whole world like a table, where all creatures have their food ready provided for them! He extends His liberality so far, that the serpent finds wherewith to live upon the mountain of Gahen. Why, then, am I so greedy? wherefore do I run to the ends of the earth, and plough up the ocean for bread? Is it not better that I should henceforward confine myself in repose to some little corner, and abandon myself to fortune?' Upon this he retired to his cell, where, without putting himself to any further trouble for anything in the world, he remained three days and three nights without victuals. At last, 'Servant of mine,' said the Creator to him in a dream, 'know thou that all things in this world have their causes; and though my providence can never be limited, my wisdom requires that men shall make use of the means that I have ordained them. If thou wouldst imitate any one of the birds thou hast seen to my glory, use the talents I have given thee, and imitate the falcon that feeds the raven, and not the raven that lies a sluggard in his nest, and expects his food from another.' This example shows us that we are not to lead idle and lazy lives upon the pretence of depending upon Providence."--_Fables of Pilpay_ (Chandos Classics), p. 53.

Ferishtah is in training for a dervish, and is anxious to feed hungry souls. Mr. Browning makes his charitable bird an eagle, and the moral is that man is not to play the helpless weakling, but to save the perishing by his helpful strength. The dervish, duly admonished, asks which lacks in him food the more--body or soul? He reflects that, as he starves in soul, so may mankind, wherefore he will go forth to help them; and this Mr. Browning proposes to do by the series of moral and philosophical lessons to be drawn from _Ferishtah's Fancies_. The lyric teaches that, though a life with nature is good for meditation and for lovers of solitude, we are human souls and our proper place is "up and down amid men," for God is soul, and it is the poet's business to speak to the divine principle existing under every squalid exterior and harsh and hateful personality.

=Earth's Immortalities.= (First published in _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics--Bells and Pomegranates_ No. VII.) The poet was famous, and not so very long since; but the gravestones above him are sinking, and the lichens are softening out his very name and date. So fades away his fame. And the lover who could be satisfied with nothing less than "for ever" has the fever of passion quenched in the snows that cover the tomb beside the poet's. One demanded to be remembered, the other to be loved, for ever. Thus do "Earth's immortalities" perish either under lichens or snows.

=Easter-Day.= (_Christmas Eve and Easter Day_: Florence, 1850.) The poem is a dialogue. The first speaker exclaims, "How very hard it is to be a Christian!" and says the difficulty does not so much consist in living up to the Christ-ideal,--hard enough, by the very terms, but hard to realise it with the moderate success with which we realise the ordinary aims of life. Of course the aim is greater, consequently the required effort harder: may it not be God's intention that the difficulty of being a Christian should seem unduly great? "Of course the chief difficulty is belief," says the second speaker: "once thoroughly believe, the rest is simple. Prove to me that the least command of God is really and truly God's command, and martyrdom itself is easy." Joint the finite into the infinite life, and fix yourself safely inside, no doubt all external things you would safely despise. The second speaker says, "But faith may be God's touchstone: God does not reward us with heaven because we see the sun shining, nor crown a man victor because he draws his breath duly. If you would have faith exist at all, there must perforce be some uncertainty with it. We love or hate people because either they do or do not believe in us. But the Creator's reign, we are apt to think, should be based on exacter laws: we desire God should geometrise." The first speaker says, "You would grow as a tree, stand as a rock, soar up like fire, be above faith. But creation groans, and out of its pains we have to make our music." The second speaker replies, "I confess a scientific faith is absurd; the end which it was meant to serve would be lost if faith were certainty. We may grant that, but may we not require at least probability? We do not hang a curtain flat along a wall; we prefer it to hang in folds from point to point. We would not mind the gaps and intervals, if at point and point we could pin our life upon God. It would be no hardship then to renounce the world. There are men who live merely to collect beetles, giving up all the pleasures of life to make a completer collection than has been hitherto formed. Another set lives to collect snuff-boxes, or in learning to play chess blindfold. It would not be hard to renounce the world if we had as much _certainty_ as these hermits obtain in their pleasures to inspire them in renouncing the vanities of life. Of course, as some will say, there is evidence enough of a sort: as is your turn of mind, so is your search--you will find just what you look for, and so you get your Christian evidences in a sense; you may comfort yourself in having found a scrap of papyrus in a mummy-case which declares there really was a living Moses, and you may even get over the difficulty of Jonah and the whale by turning the whale into an island or a rock and set your faith to clap her wings and crow accordingly. You may do better: you may make the human heart the minister of truth, and prove by its wants and needs and hopes and fears how aptly the creeds meet these:

"You wanted to believe; your pains
Are crowned--you do!"

If once in the believing mood, the renunciation of pleasures adds a spice to life. Do you say that the Eternal became incarnate--

"Only to give our joys a zest,
And prove our sorrows for the best?"

The believing man is convinced that to be a Christian the world's gain is to be accounted loss, and he asks the sceptic what he counsels in that case? The answer is, he would take the safe side--deny himself. The believer does not relish the idea of renouncing life for the sake of death. The collectors of curiosities at least had something for their pains, and the believer gets--well, hope! The sceptic claims that he lives in trusting ease. "Yes," says the believer, "blind hopes wherewith to flavour life--that is all;" and he proceeds to relate an incident which happened in his life one Easter night, three years ago. He was crossing the common near the chapel (spoken of in _Christmas Eve_), when he fell to musing on what was his personal relationship to Christianity, how it would be with him were he to fall dead that moment--would he lie faithful or faithless? It was always so with him from childhood; he always desired to know the worst of everything. "Common-sense" told him he had nothing to fear: if he were not a Christian, who was? All at once he had this vision. "Burn it!" was written in lines of fire across the sky; the dome of heaven was one vast rack of ripples, infinite and black; the whole earth was lit with the flames of the Judgment Day. In a moment he realised that he stood before the seat of Judgment, choosing the world--his naked choice, with all the disguises of old and all his trifling with conscience stripped away. A Voice beside him spoke:--

"Life is done,
Time ends, Eternity's begun,
And thou art judged for evermore."

The Christ stood before him, told him that, as he had deliberately chosen the world, the finite life in opposition to God, it should be his:--

"'Tis thine
For ever--take it!"

For the world he had lived, for the things of time and sense he had fought and sighed; the ideal life, the truth of God, the best and noblest things, had interested him noway. His sentence, his awful doom--which at first he was so far from realising that he was thrilled with pleasure at the words--was that he should take and for ever keep the partial beauty for which he had struggled. Wedded for ever to the gross material life, in that he imagined he saw his highest happiness! "Mine--the World?" he cried, in transport. "Yes," said the awful Judge: "if you are satisfied with one rose, thrown to you over the Eden-barrier which excludes you from its glory--take it!" Our greatest punishment would be the gratification of our lowest aims. "All the world!" and the sense of infinite possession of all the beauty of earth, from fern leaf to Alpine heights, brought the warmth to the man's heart and extinguished the terror inspired by the Judgment-seat of God. And the great Judge saw the thought, told him he was welcome so to rate the mere hangings of the vestibule of the Palace of the Supreme; and in the scorn of the awful gift the man read his error, and asked for Art in place of Nature. And that, too, was conceded: he should obtain the one form the sculptors laboured to abstract, the one face the painters tried to draw, the perfection in their soul which these only hinted at. But "very good" as God pronounced earth to be, earth can only serve earth's ends; its completeness transferred to a future state would be the dreariest deficiency. The good, tried once, were bad retried. Then the judged man, seeing the World and the World of Art insufficient to satisfy his new condition, cried in anguish, "Mind is best--I will seize mind--forego the rest!" And again it was answered to him that all the best of mind on earth--the intuition, the grasps of guess, the efforts of the finite to comprehend the infinite, the gleams of heaven which come to sting with hunger for the full light of God, the inspiration of poetry, the truth hidden in fable,--all these were God's part, and in no wise to be considered as inherent to the mind of man. Losing God, he loses His inspirations; bereft of them in the world he had chosen, mind would not avail to light the cloud he had entered. And the bleeding spirit of the humbled man prays for love alone. And God said, "Is this thy final choice: Love is best? 'Tis somewhat late! Love was all about thee, curled in its mightiness around all thou hadst to do with. Take the show of love for the name's sake; but remember Who created thee to love, died for love of thee, and thou didst refuse to believe the story, on the ground that the love was too much." Cowering deprecatingly, the man, who now saw the whole truth of God, cried, "Thou Love of God! Let me not know that all is lost! Let me go on hoping to reach one eve the Better Land!" And the man awoke, and rejoiced that he was not left apart in God's contempt; thanking God that it is hard to be a Christian, and that he is not condemned to earth and ease for ever.

NOTES.--Stanza iv., "_In all Gods acts (as Plato cries He doth) He should geometrise_": see Plutarch, _Symposiacs_, viii. 2. "Diogenianas began and said, 'Let us admit Plato to the conference, and inquire upon what account he says--supposing it to be his sentence--that _God always plays the geometer_.' I said: 'This sentence was not plainly set down in any of his books; yet there are good arguments that it is his, and it is very much like his expression.' Tyndares presently subjoined: 'He praises geometry as a science that takes off men from sensible objects, and makes them apply themselves to the intelligible and Eternal Nature, the contemplation of which is the end of philosophy, as a view of the mysteries of initiation into holy rites.'" vi., "_My list of coleoptera_": in entomology, an order of insects having four wings--the beetle tribe. "_A Grignon with the Regent's crest_": Grignon was a famous snuff-box maker, and his name was used for the fashionable boxes. vii., "_Jonah's whale_": The latest theory is that the great deity of Nineveh was a "fish-god." Mr. Tylor considers the story to be a solar myth. Madame Blavatsky says (_Isis Unveiled_, vol. ii., p. 258), "'Big Fish' is Cetus, the latinised form of Keto--[Greek: kêtô], and Keto is Dagon, Poseidon." She suggests that Jonah simply went into the cell within the body of Dagon, the fish-god. _Orpheus_, the mythical poet, whose mother was the Muse Calliope. His song could move the rocks and tame wild beasts (see EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS). _Dionysius Zagrias._ Zagreus was a name given to Dionysus by the Orphic poets. The conception of the Winter-Dionysus originated in Crete: sacrifice was offered to him at Delphi on the shortest day. This is quite evidently one of the myths of winter. xii., _Æschylus_: "_the giving men blind hopes_." In the _Prometheus Chained_ of Æschylus the chorus of ocean nymphs ask Prometheus--

"_Chor._ But had th' offence no further aggravation?
_Pro._ I hid from men the foresight of their fate.
_Chor._ What couldst thou find to remedy that ill?
_Pro._ I sent blind Hope t' inhabit in their hearts.
_Chor._ A blessing hast thou given to mortal man."
Morley's _Plays of Æschylus_, p. 18.

xiv., "_The kingcraft of the Lucomons_": Heads of ancient Etruscan families, and combining both priest and patriarch. The kings were drawn from them. (Dr. Furnivall.) _Fourier's scheme_: Fourierism was the system of Charles Fourier, a Frenchman, who recommended the reorganisation of society into small communities living in common. xx., "_Flesh refine to nerve_": this is a remarkable instance of the poet's scientific apprehension of the process of nerve formation five years before Herbert Spencer speculated on the evolution of the nervous system. (See my _Browning's Message to his Time_: "Browning as a Scientific Poet.") xxvi., _Buonarrotti_ == Michael Angelo.

=Eccelino da Romano III.= (_Sordello._) Known as Eccelin the Monk, or Ezzelin III. He was the Emperor Frederick's chief in North Italy, and was a powerful noble. He was termed "the Monk" because of his religious austerity. He is described by Mr. Browning in the poem as "the thin, grey, wizened, dwarfish devil Ecelin." He was the most prominent of Ghibelline leaders, was tyrant of Padua, and nicknamed "the Son of the Devil." Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_, iii. 33, describes him as

"Fierce Ezelin, that most inhuman lord,
Who shall be deemed by men a child of hell."

"His story," says Longfellow, in his notes to Dante's _Inferno_, "may be found in Sismondi's _Histoire des Républiques Italiennes_, chap. xix. He so outraged the religious sense of the people by his cruelties that a crusade was preached against him, and he died a prisoner in 1259, tearing the bandages from his wounds, and fierce and defiant to the last. 'Ezzelino was small of stature,' says Sismondi, 'but the whole aspect of his person, all his movements, indicated the soldier. His language was bitter, his countenance proud, and by a single look he made the boldest tremble. His soul, so greedy of all crimes, felt no attraction for sensual pleasures. Never had Ezzelino loved women; and this, perhaps, is the reason why in his punishments he was as pitiless against them as men. He was in his sixty-sixth year when he died; and his reign of blood had lasted thirty-four years.'"

=Eccelino IV.= was the elder of the two sons of Eccelino III., surnamed the Monk, who divided his little principality between them in 1223, and died in 1235. In 1226, at the head of the Ghibellines, he got possession of Verona, and was appointed Podesta. He became one of the most faithful servants of the Emperor Frederick II. In 1236 he invited Frederick to enter Italy to his assistance, and in August met him at Trent. Eccelino was soon after besieged in Verona by the Guelfs, and the siege was raised by the Emperor. Vicenza was next stormed and the government given to Eccelino. In 1237 he marched against Padua, which capitulated, when he behaved towards the people with great cruelty. He then besieged Mantua, and mastered the Trevisa. In 1239 he was excommunicated by the Pope and deprived of his estates. He behaved with such terrible cruelty that the Emperor would have gladly been rid of him. Dante, in the _Divina Commedia_, Inferno xii., places Eccelino in the lake of blood in the seventh circle of hell.

=Echetlos.= (_Dramatic Idyls_, Second Series: 1880.) A Greek legend (of which there are many) about the battle of Marathon, in which the Athenians and Platæans, under Miltiades, defeated the Persians, 490 B.C. Wherever the Greeks were hardest pressed in the fight a figure driving a ploughshare was seen mowing down the enemy's ranks. After the battle was over the Greeks were anxious to learn who was the man in the clown's dress who had done them this great service. They demanded of the oracles his name. But the oracles declined to tell: "Call him Echetlos, the Ploughshare-wielder," they said. "Let his deed be his name:

"The great deed ne'er grows small."

NOTES.--"_Not so the great name--Woe for Miltiades, woe for Themistokles!_" After the victory of Marathon, Miltiades sullied his honour by employing the fleet in an attempt to wreak a private grudge on the island of Paros. He was sentenced to a heavy fine, which he was unable to pay, and died in debt and dishonour. Themistocles was accused of having entered into a traitorous communication with the Persians in his own interest. He was banished from Greece, and died at Magnesia.

=Elcorte= (_Sordello_, Book ii.) was a poor archer who perished in saving a child of Eccelin's. He was supposed to be Sordello's father, but the poet discovered that he was not.

=Eglamour.= (_Sordello._) The minstrel defeated by Sordello at the contest of song in the Court of Love. He was the chief troubadour of Count Richard of St. Bonifacio. He died of grief at his discomfiture in the art of song by Sordello. "He was a typical troubadour, who loved art for its own sake; thought more of his songs than of the things about which he sang, or of the soul whose passion song should express" (Fotheringham, _Studies in Browning_, p. 116). Mrs. James L. Bagg, in a comparative study of Eglamour and Sordello, gives the following as the chief characteristics of this poet:--"He was a poet not without effort and often faltering; he exhibits the beautiful as the natural outburst of a heart full of a sense of beauty that possesses it. He loses himself in his song,--it absorbs his life; his art ends with his art, and is its own reward. He understands and loves nature; they are bound up together. He loves all beauty for its own sake, asking no reward. He craves nothing, takes no thought for the morrow. He lacks character, and is dreamy, inactive; and attempting little, fails in little. His life is barren of results as men reckon; he lives and loves, and sings and dies. His life is almost one unbroken strain of harmony--he is pleased to please and to serve. His nature is simple and easily understood; Eglamour is born and dies a creature of perceptions, never conscious that beyond these there lies a world of thought. His life goes out in tragic giving up of love, hope and heart."

=Elvire.= (_Fifine at the Fair._) The wife of Don Juan, who discusses with her husband the nature of conjugal love, after he has been fascinated by the gipsy girl at Pornic fair. She is the Donna Elvira of Molière's _Don Juan_, and the part she plays in this poem of _Fifine_ is suggested by her speech in Act i., Scene 3:--

"Why don't you arm your brow
With noble impudence?
Why don't you swear and vow
No sort of change is come to any sentiment
You ever had for me?"

=Englishman in Italy, The: Piano di Sorrento= (the Plain of Sorrento). (_Dramatic Romances_, published in _Bells and Pomegranates_, VII. 1845.)--Sorrento, in the province of Naples, is situated on the north side of the peninsula that separates the Bay of Naples from the Bay of Salerno. In the time of Augustus it was a finer city than Naples itself. The neighbourhood of this delightful summer resort is the realm of the olive tree, and its plain is clothed with orange and lemon groves. A deep blue sky above and a deep blue sea below, coast scenery unequalled for loveliness even in Italy, and an atmosphere breathing perfume and intoxicating the senses with the soft delights of a land of romance and gaiety, combine to make a residence in this earthly paradise almost too luxurious for a phlegmatic Englishman. It has a drawback in the form of the Scirocco--a hot, oppressive and most relaxing wind, crossing from North Africa over the Mediterranean, and the "long, hot, dry autumn" referred to in the poem. The Englishman is seated by the side of a dark-complexioned tarantella-dancing girl, whom he is sheltering from the approaching storm, and who is timidly saying her rosary, and to whom he is describing the incidents of Italian life which have most interested him--the ripening grapes, the quails and the curious nets arranged to catch them, the pomegranates splitting with ripeness on the trees, the yellow rock-flower on the road side, all the landscape parched with the fierce Southern heat, which the sudden rain-storm was about to cool and moisten. The quail nets are rapidly taken down, for protection; on the flat roofs, where the split figs lie in sieves drying in the sun, the girls are busy putting them under cover; the blue sea has changed to black with the coming storm; the fishing boat from Amalfi--loveliest spot in all the lovely landscape--sends ashore its harvest of the sea, to the delight of the naked brown children awaiting it. The grape harvest has begun, and in the great vats they are treading the grapes, dancing madly to keep the bunches under, while the rich juice runs from beneath; and still the laden girls pour basket after basket of fresh vine plunder into the vat, and still the red stream flows on. And under the hedges of aloe, where the tomatoes lie, the children are picking up the snails tempted out by the rain, which will be cooked and eaten for supper, when the grape gleaners will feast on great ropes of macaroni and slices of purple gourds. And as he dwells on all the Southern wealth of the land, he tempts the timid little maid with grape bunches, whose heavy blue bloom entices the wasps, which follow the spoil to the very lips of the eater; with cheese-balls, white wine, and the red flesh of the prickly pear. Now the Scirocco is loose--down come the olives like hail; fig trees snap under the power of the storm; they must keep under shelter till the tempest is over: and now he amuses the girl by telling her how in a few days they will have stripped all the vines of their leaves to feed the cattle, and the vineyards will look so bare. He rode over the mountains the previous night with her brother the guide, who feasted on the fruit-balls of the myrtles and sorbs, and while he ate the mule plodded on, now and then neighing as he recognised his mates, laden with faggots and with barrels, on the paths below. Higher they ascended till the woods ceased; as they mounted the path grew wilder, the chasms and piles of loose stones showed but the growth of grey fume reed, the ever-dying rosemary, and the lentisks, till they reached the summit of Calvano; then he says--

"God's own profound
Was above me, and round me the mountains, and under, the sea."

The crystal of heaven and its blue solitudes; the "infinite movement" of the mountains, which seem, as they overlook the sensual landscape, to enslave it--filled him with a grave and solemn fear. And now he turns to the sea, wherein slumber the three isles of the siren, looking as they did in the days of Ulysses; he will sail among them, and visit with his companion their strangely coloured caves, and hear the secret sung to Ulysses ages ago. The sun breaks out over Calvano, the storm has passed; the gipsy tinker ventures out with his bellows and forge, and is hammering away there under the wall; the children watch him mischievously. He rouses his sleepy maiden, and bids her come with him to see the preparations at the church for the Feast of the Rosary; for the morrow is Rosary Sunday, and it was on that day the Catholic powers of Europe destroyed the Turkish fleet at the battle of Lepanto, and in every Catholic church the victory is annually commemorated by devotions to Our Lady of the Rosary, whose prayers, they say, won the contest for the Christian arms. The Dominican brother is to preach the sermon, and all the gay banners and decorations are being put up in the church. The altar will be ablaze with lights, the music is to be supplemented by a band, and the statue of the Virgin is to be borne in solemn procession through the plain. Bonfires, fireworks, and much trumpet-blowing will wind up the day; and the Englishman anticipates as great pleasure from the festival as any child, and more--for, "Such trifles!" says the girl. "Trifles!" he replies; "why, in England they are gravely debating if it be righteous to abolish the Corn Laws!"

=Epilogue to "Asolando"= (1889). The words of this poem have a peculiar significance: they are the last which the poet addressed to the world, and the volume in which they appeared was published in London on the very day on which he died in Venice. Had he known when he wrote them that these were the last lines of his message to the world--that he who had for so many years urged men to "strive and thrive--fight on!" would pass away as they were given to the world, would he have wished to close his life's work with braver, better, nobler words than these? All Browning is here. From _Pauline_ to this epilogue the message was ever the same, and the confidence in the ultimate and eternal triumph of right uniform throughout. In the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of February 1st, 1890, there appeared the following reference to this poem: "One evening, just before his death illness, the poet was reading this (the third verse) from a proof to his daughter-in-law and sister. He said, 'It almost looks like bragging to say this, and as if I ought to cancel it; but it's the simple truth; and as it's true, it shall stand.' His faith knew no doubting. In all trouble, against all evil, he stood firm."

=Epilogue to "Dramatic Idyls"= (Second Series). This poem combats the notion that a quick-receptive soil, on which no feather seed can fall without awakening vitalising virtue, is the hot-bed for a poet; rather must we hold that the real song-soil is the rock, hard and bare, exposed to sun and wind-storm, there in the clefts where few flowers awaken grows the pine tree--a nation's heritage. (Compare on this Emerson's _Woodnotes_ II.)

=Epilogue to "Dramatis Personæ."=--FIRST SPEAKER, as _David_. At the Feast of the Dedication of Solomon's Temple, when Priests and Levites in sacrificial robes attended with the multitude praising the Lord as a single man; when singers and trumpets sound and say, "Rejoice in God, whose mercy endureth for ever," then the presence of the Lord filled the house with the glory of His cloud. This is the highest point reached by the purest Theism of the Hebrew people.

SECOND SPEAKER, as _Renan_. A star had beamed from heaven's vault upon our world, then sharpened to a point in the dark, and died. We had loved and worshipped, and slowly we discovered it was vanishing from us. A face had looked from out the centuries upon our souls, had seemed to look upon and love us. We vainly searched the darkling sky for the dwindling star, faded from us now and gone from keenest sight. And so the face--the Christ-face--we had seen in the old records, the Gospels which had seemed to dower us with the Divine-human Friend, and which warmed our souls with love, has faded out, and we search the records and sadly fail to find the face at all, and our hope is vanished and the Friend is gone. The record searchers tell us we shall never more know ourselves are seen, never more speak and know that we are heard, never more hear response to our aspirations and our love. The searcher finds no god but himself, none higher than his own nature, no love but the reflection of his own, and realises that he is an orphan, and turning to his brethren cries, with Jean Paul, "There is no God! We are all orphans!"

THIRD SPEAKER is Mr. Browning himself, who offers us consolation in our bereavement; he asks us to see through his eyes. In head and heart every man differs utterly from his fellows; he asks how and why this difference arises; he bids us watch how even the heart of mankind may have some mysterious power of attracting Nature's influences round himself as a centre. In Arctic seas the water gathers round some rock-point as though the waste of waves sought this centre alone; for a minute this rock-point is king of this whirlpool current, then the waves oversweep and destroy it, hastening off to choose another peak to find, and flatter, and finish in the same way. Thus does Nature dance about each man of us, acting as if she meant to enhance his worth; then, when her display of simulated homage is done with, rolls elsewhere for the same performance. Nature leaves him when she has gained from him his product, his contribution to the active life of the time. The time forces have utilised the man as their pivot, he has served for the axis round which have whirled the energies which Nature employed at the moment. His quota has been contributed; he has not been a force, but the central point of the forces' revolution; as the play of waves demanded for their activity the rock-centre, so the mind forces required for their gyrations the passive man-centre; the rock stood still in the dance of the waves, but their dance could not have existed without its mysterious influence on their motion. The man was necessary to the mind-waves; the play of forces could not have been secured without just that soul-point standing idly as the centre of the dance of influences. The waves, having obtained the whirl they demanded, submerge the rock--the mind forces having gained such direction, such quality of rotation, dispense with the man; the force lives, however, and his contribution to its direction is not lost, hot husbanded. Now, there is no longer any use for the old Temple service of David, neither is the particular aspect of the Christ-face required as at first beheld. The face itself does not vanish, or but decomposes to recompose. The face grows; the Christ of to-day is a greater conception than that which Renan thinks he has decomposed. It is not the Christ of an idea that sufficed for old-world conception, but one which expands with the age and grows with the sentient universe.

=Epilogue to "Ferishtah's Fancies"= (VENICE, _December 1st, 1884_). This poem brings into a focus the rays of the fancies which compose the volume: the famous ones of old, the heroes whose deeds are celebrated in the different poems, were not actors merely, but soldiers, and fought God's battle; they were not cowards, because they had confidence in the supremacy of good, and fighting for the right knew they could leave results to the Leader. But a chill at the heart even in its supremest joy induces the question: What if all be error?--if love itself were responsible for a fallacy of vision?

=Epilogue to "Pacchiaratto and other Poems"= (1876). In this poem the author deals with his critics. "The poets pour us wine," and as they pour we demand the impracticable feat of producing for us wine that shall be sweet, yet strong and pure. One poet gives the world his potent man's draught; it is admitted to be strong and invigorating, yet is swallowed at a gulp, as evidently unpleasant to the taste. Another dispenses luscious sweetness, fragrant as a flower distillation; and men say contemptuously it is only fit for boys--is useless for nerving men to work. Now, it is easy to label a bottle as possessing body and bouquet both, but labels are not always absolute guarantees of that which they cover. Still there is wine to be had, by judicious blending, which combines these qualities of body and bouquet. How do we value such vintage when we do possess it? Go down to the vaults where stand the vats of Shakespeare and Milton wine: there in the cellar are forty barrels with Shakespeare's brand--some five or six of his works are duly appreciated, the rest neglected; there are four big butts of Milton's brew, and out of them we take a few drops, pretending that we highly esteem him the while! The fact is we hate our bard, or we should not leave him in the cellar. The critics say Browning brews stiff drink without any flavour of grape: would the public take more kindly to his wine if he gave it all the cowslip fragrance and bouquet of his meadow and hill side? The treatment received by Shakespeare and Milton proves that the public taste is vitiated, notwithstanding all the pretence of admiration of them. It is our furred tongue that is at fault; it is nettle-broth the world requires. Browning has some Thirty-four Port for those who can appreciate it; as for the multitude, let them stick to their nettle-broth till their taste improves.

NOTES.--Verse i., "_The Poets pour in wine_": the quotation is from Mrs. Browning's "Wine of Cyprus." V. 20, "_Let them 'lay, pray, bray'_": this in ridicule of Byron's grammar in verse clxxx. of Canto IV. of _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_:--"And dashest him again to earth;--there let him lay."

=Epilogue to the "Two Poets of Croisic"= (1878). (Published in the _Selections_, vol. ii., as A TALE). A bard had to sing for a prize before the judges, and to accompany his song on the lute. His listeners were so pleased with his melody that it seemed as though they would hasten to bestow the award even before the end of the song; when, just as the poet was at the climax of his trial, a string broke, and all would have been lost, had not a cricket "with its little heart on fire" alighted on the instrument, and flung its heart forth, sounding the missing note; and there the insect rested, ever at the right instant shrilling forth its F-sharp even more perfectly than the string could have done. The judges with one consent said, "Take the prize--we took your lyre for harp!" Did the conqueror despise the little creature who had helped him with all he had to offer? No: he had a statue of himself made in marble, life-size; on the lyre was "perched his partner in the prize." The author of the volume of poems of which this story forms the epilogue, says that he tells it to acknowledge the love which played the cricket's part, and gave the missing music; a girl's love coming aptly in when his singing became gruff. Love is ever waiting to supply the missing notes in the arrested harmony of our lives.

NOTES.--"_Music's Son_": Goethe. "_Lotte_," of the _Sorrows of Werther_, was Charlotte Buff, who married Kestner, Goethe's friend, the Albert of the novel. Goethe was in love with Charlotte Buff, and her marriage with Kestner roused the temper of his over-sensitive mind. (See _Dr. Brewer's Reader's Handbook_.)