Chapter XXI: Preface (19)

="Prize Poems."= Dining one day last year at Trinity College, Cambridge, with that enthusiastic young Browning scholar, Mr. E. H. Blakeney (himself a poet of great promise), we discussed the question of the comparative popularity of Browning's shorter poems, and it was decided that he should ask the editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ to put it to the vote in his columns. A prize was offered for the list of fifty poems which came nearest to the standard list obtained by collating the lists of all the competitors. The fifty "prize poems" selected by the _plébiscite_ as Browning's best, arranged in the order of the votes they severally received, were the following:--

1. How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.

2. Evelyn Hope.

3. Abt Vogler.
Saul.

5. Rabbi Ben Ezra.

6. The Lost Leader.

7. The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

8. Prospice.

9. Hervé Riel.

10. Andrea del Sarto.

11. The Last Ride Together.

12. A Grammarian's Funeral.

13. Home Thoughts from Abroad.

14. The Boy and the Angel.

15. Epilogue to Asolando.

16. By the Fireside.
Fra Lippo Lippi.

18. Caliban upon Setebos.

19. One Word More.

20. Any Wife to Any Husband.

21. An Epistle of Karshish.

22. Incident of the French Camp.

23. The Guardian Angel.

24. Love among the Ruins.

25. Apparent Failure.
A Forgiveness.

27. A Death in the Desert.
A Woman's Last Word.

29. Count Gismond.

30. In a Gondola.

31. The Patriot.

32. A Toccata of Galuppi's.

33. My Last Duchess.

34. The Worst of It.
Truth and Art.

36. The Statue and the Bust.

37. The Bishop orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's Church.

38. Cristina.

39. Clive.

40. Confessions.

41. Two in the Campagna.

42. Summum Bonum.

43. After.

44. Holy Cross Day.
The Italian in England.

46. Up at a Villa.

47. Before.

48. James Lee's Wife.
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister.

50. Old Pictures in Florence.

=Prologue to Dramatic Idyls.= (_Second Series._) When we are suffering from bodily illness, doctors often disagree as to the diagnosis of our complaint. We go from specialist to specialist, and each physician declares that we are suffering from that disorder which he makes his special study: the brain doctor says it is all brain trouble; the heart man, the liver and lung specialists, are all pretty certain to diagnose their own favourite malady. And so even the wisest are ignorant of man's body. But when we come to soul, there is no difficulty at all: they pounce on our malady in a trice. They can see the body, and cannot tell what is the matter with it; the soul, which they cannot see, presents no difficulties whatever to their wise heads! Mr. Sharp, in his paper on _Dramatic Idyls_ II., says this Epilogue is the key to the leading idea of each poem in the volume. _Echetlos_ deals with patriotic action. We think Miltiades and Themistocles true patriots, but history shows that they only served their own turn. _Clive_ dreaded death less than a lie, yet committed suicide: was this due to courage or fear? _Mulyekeh_ loved his mare, but sacrificed her to his pride. _Pietro of Abano_ did benevolent actions, yet had no love in his heart. _Doctor ----_ did good actions from a motive of hate. _Pan and Luna_: this poem deals with an act of love from opposite extremes--Pan gross and brutal, Luna pure and modest; yet she does not spurn Pan. This was not due to want of modesty, but to the power of love, and Pan was not actuated by brute passion. _The Epilogue_ is to oppose the idea that poets sing spontaneously about anything. Browning says his rocks are hard and forbidding, yet they hold, like Alpine crags, pine seeds of truth.

=Prologue to Ferishtah's Fancies.= This is intended to describe the peculiar construction of the volume of poems. The poet tells his readers how ortolans are eaten in Italy: the birds are stuck on a skewer, some dozen or more, each having interposed between himself and his neighbour on the spit a bit of toast and a strong sage leaf; and the eater is intended to bite through crust, seasoning, and bird altogether, so the lusciousness is curbed and the full flavour of the delicacy is obtained. The poem, we are told, is dished up on the same principle. We have sense, sight and song here, and all is arranged to suit our digestion. We have the fancy or fable, then a dialogue, and a melodious lyric to conclude; so, in the twelve poems, we may see twelve ortolans, with their accompanying toast and sage leaf.

NOTES.--_Ortolans_ (_Emberiza hortulana_): the garden bunting, a native of Continental Europe and Western Asia. It is very much like the yellowhammer. They are netted, and fed in a darkened room with oats and other grain. They soon become very fat, and are then killed for the table; the birds are much prized by gourmands. _Gressoney_, a village in the valley of the Aosta. _Val d'Aosta_, valley of the Aosta, in northern Piedmont.

=Prologue to Pacchiarotto.= The poet is imprisoned on a long summer day with his feet on a grass plot and his eyes on a red brick wall. True, the wall is clothed with a luxuriant creeper through which the bricks laugh, and the robe of green pulsates with life, beautifying the barrier. He reflects that wall upon wall divide us from the subtle thing that is spirit: though cloistered here in the body-barrier, he will hope hard, and send his soul forth to the congenial spirit beyond the ring of neighbours which, like a fence of brick and stone, divides him from his love.

=Prospice= == "Look forward" (_Dramatis Personæ_, 1864) was written in the autumn following Mrs. Browning's death. St. Paul speaks of those "who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage": the author of _Prospice_ and the Epilogue to _Asolando_ was not of this class. Few men have written as nobly as he on the awful "minute of night," and its fight with the "Arch Fear." Estimating it at its fullest import, as only a great imaginative mind can do, he is in face of "the black minute" and "the power of the night"--the Mr. Greatheart of the pilgrims to the dark river. Nothing grander has been written on the subject than the poems we have named. In the short poem _Prospice_ is concentrated the strength of a great soul and the courage of one who is prepared for the worst, with eyes unbandaged. As an example of the poet's power nothing can be finer. The dramatic intensity of the opening lines--the fog, the mist, the snow, and the blasts which indicate the journey's end, "the post of the foe"--is unsurpassed even by Shakespeare himself. It is a defiance of death, a challenge to battle.

=Protus.= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Romances_, 1863; _Dramatic Romances_, 1868.) There is no historical foundation for the poem. In the declining years of the Roman Empire such rapid transitions of power were not uncommon. A baby Emperor Protus is described in some ancient work as absorbing the interest of the whole empire: queens ministered at his cradle. The world rose in war till he was presented at a balcony to pacify it. Greek sculptors and great artists strove to impress his graces on their work, his subjects learned to love the letters of his name; and on the same page of the history it was recorded how the same year a blacksmith's bastard, by name John the Pannonian, arose and took the crown and wore it for six years, till his sons poisoned him. What became of the young Emperor Protus was then but mere hearsay: perhaps he was permitted to escape; he may have become a tutor at some foreign court, or, as others say, he may have died in Thrace a monk. "Take what I say," wrote the annotator, "at its worth."

=Puccio.= (_Luria._) The officer in the Florentine army who was superseded by the Moorish leader Luria.

=Queen, The.= (_In a Balcony._) The middle-aged woman who, though married, falls in love with Norbert, the lover of Constance. She prepares to divorce her husband and marry her officer. When, however, she discovers the truth about the young lovers, she is the prey of jealousy and offended dignity, and the drama closes with ominous prospects for the unfortunate couple.

=Queen Worship.= Under this title were originally published two poems: i., _Rudel and the Lady of Tripoli_; and ii., _Cristina_.

=Quietism.= See MOLINISTS.

=Rabbi Ben Ezra.= (_Dramatis Personæ_, 1864.) The character is historical. The _Encyclopædia Britannica_ gives the name as Abenezra, or Ibn Ezra, the full name being Abraham Ben Meir Ben Ezra; he was also called Abenare or Evenare. "He was one of the most eminent of the Jewish literati of the Middle Ages. He was born at Toledo about 1090, left Spain for Rome about 1140, resided afterwards at Mantua in 1145, at Rhodes in 1155 and 1166, in England in 1159, and died probably in 1168. He was distinguished as a philosopher, astronomer, physician, and poet; but especially as a grammarian and commentator. The works by which he is best known form a series of _Commentaries_ on the books of the Old Testament, which have nearly all been printed in the great Rabbinic Bibles of Bomberg (1525-26), Buxtorf (1618-19), and Frankfurter (1724-27). Abenezra's commentaries are acknowledged to be of very great value. He was the first who raised biblical exegesis to the rank of a science, interpreting the text according to its literal sense, and illustrating it from cognate languages. His style is elegant, but is so concise as to be sometimes obscure; and he occasionally indulges in epigram. In addition to the commentaries, he wrote several treatises on astronomy or astrology, and a number of grammatical works." He appears to have possessed extraordinary natural talents; to these he added "indefatigable ardour and industry in the pursuit of knowledge, and he enjoyed besides, in his youth, the advantage of the best teachers, among whom was the Karaite, Japhet Hallevi or Levita, to whom he is believed to have owed his taste for etymological and grammatical investigation, and his preference for the literal to the allegorical and cabalistic interpretation of Scripture. He was afterwards married to Levita's daughter." He did not consider his life a fortunate one as men look upon life. "I strive to grow rich," he said; "but the stars are against me. If I sold shrouds, none would die. If candles were my wares the sun would not set till the day of my death." The cause of his leaving Spain was an outbreak against the Jews. Hitherto, he said of himself, he had been "as a withered leaf; I roved far away from my native land, from Spain, and went to Rome with a troubled soul." He seems to have written no books until after his exile, and then he actively engaged in literary work. The most complete catalogue of his works is contained in Furst's _Bibliotheca Judaica_ (Leipzig, 1849). "Maimonides, his great contemporary, esteemed his writings so highly for learning, judgment, and elegance, that he recommended his son to make them for some time the exclusive object of his study. By Jewish scholars he is preferred, as a commentator, even to Raschi in point of judiciousness and good sense; and in the judgment of Richard Simon, confirmed by De Rossi, he is the most successful of all the rabbinical commentators in the grammatical and literal interpretation of the Scriptures" (_Imp. Dict. Biog._). According to Rabbi Ben Ezra, man's life is to be viewed as a whole. God's plan in our creation has arranged for youth and age, and no view of life is consistent with it which ignores the work of either. Man is not a bird or a beast, to find joy solely in feasting; care and doubt are the life stimuli of his soul: the Divine spark within us is nearer to God than are the recipients of His inferior gifts. So our rebuffs, our stings to urge us on, our strivings, are the measure of our ultimate success: aspiration, not achievement, divides us from the brute. The body is intended to subserve the highest aims of the soul: it will do so if we live and learn. The flesh is pleasant, and can help soul as that helps the body. Youth must seek its heritage in age; in the repose of age he is to take measures for his last adventure. This he can do with prospect of success proportionate to his use of the past. Wait death without fear, as you awaited age. Sentence will not be passed on mere "work" done: our purposes, thoughts, fancies, all that the coarse methods of human estimates failed to appreciate, these will be put in the diamond scales of God and credited to us. God is the Potter; we are clay, receiving our shape and form and ornament by every turn of the wheel and faintest touch of the Master's hand. The uses of a cup are not estimated by its foot or by its stem; but by the bowl which presses the Master's lips to slake the Divine thirst. We cannot see the meaning of the wheel and the touches of the potter's hand and instrument; we know this, and this only,--our times are in His hand who has planned a perfect cup.--I am indebted to Mr. A. J. Campbell for the following notes, the result of his researches in endeavouring to trace the real Rabbi Ibn Ezra in the poem _Rabbi Ben Ezra_. His fellow-religionists say of the Rabbi that he was "a man of strongly marked individuality and independence of thought, keen in controversy, yet genial withal; and it is in words such as these that the final estimate of his own people is given. 'He was the wonder of his contemporaries and of those who came after him ... profoundly versed in every branch of knowledge, with unfailing judgment, a man of sharp tongue and keen wit' (Dr. J. M. Jost, _Geschichte des Judenthums_, 2nd Abth., p. 419). And again: 'This man possessed an immense erudition; but his masterly spirit is far more to be wondered at than the mass of knowledge he acquired' (Id., _Geschichte des Israeliten_, 6{te} Theil, p. 162)." Mr. Campbell thinks that the distinctive features of the Rabbi of the poem were drawn by Mr. Browning from the writings of the real Rabbi, and that the philosophy which he puts into the mouth of Rabbi Ben Ezra was actually that of Rabbi Ibn Ezra. "It was no worldly success that gave peace to his age; but he had won a spiritual calm, no longer troubled by the doubts that at one time or another must come to all who think. 'While this remarkable man was roving about from east to west and from north to south, his mind remained firm in the principles he had once for all accepted as true.... His advocacy of freedom of thought and research, his views concerning angels, concerning the immortality of the soul, are the same in the earlier commentaries ... as with [those] which were written later; the same in his grammatical works as in his theological discourses'" (Dr. M. Friedlander, _Essays on Ibn Ezra_, Preface and p. 139). "Our times are in His hand," says Browning's Rabbi; so, too, Ibn Ezra, in a poem quoted by Dr. Michael Sachs (_Die Religiose Poesie der Juden in Spanien_, p. 117)--"In deiner Hand liegt mein Geschichte." Says Dr. Friedlander, "He had very little money, and very much wit, and was a born foe to all superficiality. So he had spent his youth in preparing himself for his future career by collecting and storing up materials, in cultivating the garden of his mind so that it might at a later period produce the choicest and most precious fruits" (Ibn Ezra's _Comment., Isaiah_, Introduction by Dr. Friedlander). Mr. Campbell says that the keynote of Ibn Ezra's teaching is that the essential life of man is the life of the soul. "Man has the sole privilege of becoming superior to the beast and the fowl, according to the words 'He teacheth him to raise himself above the cattle of the earth'" (Ibn Ezra, _Comment., Job_ xxxv. 11). "He ascribes to man's soul a triple nature, or three faculties roughly corresponding to the division of St. Paul of man into body, soul and spirit. The soul of man, he holds, can exist with or without the body, and did, in fact, pre-exist" (Friedlander, _Essays on Ibn Ezra_, pp. 27-8). This is Browning's theory in verse 27. In Browning's poem the Rabbi describes man's life as the _lone_ way of the soul (verse 8). Ibn Ezra, in his _Commentary, Psalm_ xxii. 22, says, "The soul of man is called lonely because it is separated during its union with the body from the universal soul, into which it is again received when it departs from its earthly companion." When Rabbi Ben Ezra, in Mr. Browning's poem, speaks of the body at its best projecting the soul on its way (verse 8), he is uttering the thought of Ibn Ezra, who says, "It is well known that, as long as the bodily desires are strong, the soul is weak and powerless against them, because they are supported by the body and all its powers: hence those who only think of eating and drinking will never be wise. By the alliance of the intellect with the animal soul [sensibility, the higher quality of the body] the desires [the lower quality or appetite of the body] are subordinated, and the eyes of the soul are opened a little, so as to comprehend the knowledge of material bodies; but the soul is not yet prepared for pure knowledge, on account of the animal soul which seeks dominion and produces all kinds of passion; therefore, after the victory gained with the support of the animal soul over the desires, it is necessary that the soul should devote itself to wisdom, and seek its support for the subjection of the passions, in order to remain under the sole control of knowledge" (Ibn Ezra, _Comment., Eccl._ vii. 3). Mr. Campbell has shown how much Mr. Browning has assimilated Ibn Ezra's philosophy in many other points in the poem. (For an extended explanation of the poem see my _Browning's Message to his Time_, pp. 157-72.)

=Rawdon Brown.= "Mr. Rawdon Brown, an Englishman of culture, well known to visitors in Venice, died in that city in the summer of 1883. He went to Venice for a short visit, with a definite object in view, and ended by staying forty years. During one of his rare runs to England, I met him at Ruskin's at Denmark Hill, somewhere about 1860. He englished, abstracted, and calendared for our Record Office, a large number of the reports of the Venetian Ambassadors in England in the days of Elizabeth, etc. His love for Venice was so great, that some one invented about him the story which Browning told in the following sonnet, which was printed by Browning's permission, and that of Mrs. Bronson--at whose request it was written--in the _Century Magazine_ 'Bric-à-Brac' for February 1884" (Dr. Furnivall in _Browning Society's Papers_, vol. i., p. 132*).

"Tutti ga i so gusti, e mi go i mii."--_Venetian Saying._
(_Tr._ Everybody follows his taste, and I follow mine.)

Sighed Rawdon Brown: "Yes, I'm departing, Toni!
I needs must, just this once before I die,
Revisit England: _Anglus_ Brown am I,
Although my heart's Venetian. Yes, old crony--
Venice and London--London's 'Death the bony'
Compared with Life--that's Venice! What a sky,
A sea, this morning! One last look! Good-bye.
Cà Pesaro! No, lion--I'm a coney
To weep--I'm dazzled; 'tis that sun I view
Rippling the--the--_Cospetto_, Toni! Down
With carpet-bag, and off with valise-straps!
_Bella Venezia, non ti lascio più!_"
Nor did Brown ever leave her: well, perhaps
Browning, next week, may find himself quite Brown!

_Nov. 28th, 1883._ ROBERT BROWNING.

=Reason and Fancy.= The discussion between Reason and Fancy is in _La Saisiaz_.

=Red Cotton Night-cap Country, or Turf and Towers= (1873). This may be termed a pathological poem, a study of suicidal mania and religious insanity in a young man of dissipated habits whose "mind" was scarcely worthy of the poet's analysis. The title given to the work was so bestowed in consequence of Mr. Browning having met Miss Thackeray in a part of Normandy which she jokingly christened "White Cotton Night-cap Country," on account of its sleepiness. Mr. Browning having heard the tragedy which his story tells, said "Red Cotton Night-cap Country" would be the more appropriate term. The alternative title, "Turf and Towers," is much more likely to have been suggested by the scenery of the place than by the more fanciful reasons which have sometimes been imagined for it. The scene of the story is in the department of Calvados, close to the city of Caen. The whole country is very interesting, from its historical associations and architectural remains, and the scenery is exceedingly beautiful. M. de Caumont, the distinguished archæologist of Caen, enumerates nearly seventy specimens of the Norman architecture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries existing in it. Battlemented walls furnished with towers, picturesque chateaux, old churches and tall spires in a landscape of luxuriant pastures and grey and purple hills, justified the title "Turf and Towers," even apart from the particular circumstances connected with the story. Mr. Browning visited St. Aubin's in 1872, and was interested in the singular history of the family which owned Clairvaux, a restored priory in the locality. Léonce Miranda, the son and heir of a wealthy Paris jeweller, led a dissipated life in his times of leisure, but industriously pursued his calling in strictly business hours. After devoting his attentions to a number of light-o'-loves, he one day fell in love with an adventuress, one Clara Mulhausen, who succeeded in securing him in her toils. As she was already married, the connection was of a nature to be carried on in seclusion, and the jeweller accordingly left a manager in charge of his business, retiring with the woman to Clairvaux, where his father had already purchased property. For five years the couple lived together in what was considered to be happiness. Then Miranda was suddenly called to Paris to account to his mother for his extravagance: he had spent large sums in building operations, having amongst other things erected a Belvedere (a sort of tower above the roof built for viewing the scenery). He so felt the reproaches of his mother that he attempted to commit suicide by throwing himself into the Seine. He was saved, however, and having been restored by Clara's nursing, was convalescent when he was again urgently summoned to his mother, only to find her dead. He was told that his conduct was responsible for his mother's death; and his relatives, careless of the consequences to a mind so unhinged as Miranda's, spared him none of their upbraidings. All this had the anticipated effect: he gave up the bulk of his property to his relatives, reserving only enough for his decent support and that of Clara. When the day arrived for the legal arrangements to be completed, he was found in a room reading and burning in the fire a number of letters. He had afterwards, so it was discovered, placed a number of the papers in a bag and held it in the fire till his hands were destroyed, at the same time crying, "Burn, burn and purify my past." If anything more than what had already happened were necessary to prove the man's insanity, the fact that he inflicted this terrible injury upon himself was sufficient evidence on the point. He declared that he was working out his salvation, and had to be dragged from the room protesting that the sacrifice was incomplete: "I must have more hands to burn!" He lay in a fevered condition for three months, raving against the temptress. When he was sufficiently restored to health he took her back to his heart, saying however, "Her sex is changed: this is my brother--he will tend me now." He disposed of the jeweller's shop to his relatives, and went back to Clairvaux with the woman. At this point Mr. Browning brings the would-be suicide under the influence of religion; the man devoted his substance liberally to the poor, and made many gifts to the Church: it was "ask and have" with this kind Miranda, who was striving to save his soul by acts of charity. It happened that there was a pilgrimage chapel of _La Déliverande_ near Clairvaux, called in the poem, rather oddly, "The Ravissante." The Norman sailors and peasants have resorted to this place of devotion for the last eight hundred years. Murray says: "It is a small Norman edifice. The statue of the Virgin, which now commands the veneration of the faithful, was resuscitated in the reign of Henry I. from the ruins of a previous chapel destroyed by the Northmen, through the agency of a lamb constantly grubbing up the earth over the spot where it lay. Such is the tenor of the legend. The reputation of the image for performing miracles, especially in behalf of sailors, has been maintained from that time to the present." Of course Miranda paid many visits to Our Lady's shrine; many prayers had been heard and answered there,--why should not La Déliverande help him? One splendid day in spring he mounts the stairs of his view-tower, and, as the poet imagines, addresses the Virgin in exalted phrase. He declares that he burned his hands off because she had prompted, "Purchase now by pain pleasure hereafter in the world to come." He had lightened his purse even if his soul still retained forbidden treasure, and "Where is the reward?" He reproaches Our Lady that she has done nothing to help him. She is Queen of Angels: will she suspend for him the law of gravity if he casts himself from the tower? He tells her it will restore religion to France, to the world, if this miracle is worked. He sees Our Lady smile assent: he will trust himself. He springs from the balustrade, and lies stone dead on the turf the next moment. "Mad!" exclaimed a gardener who saw him fall. "No! Sane," says Mr. Browning. "He put faith to the proof. He believed in Christianity for its miracles, not for its moral influence on the heart of man; better test such faith at once--'kill or cure.'" By a later will Miranda had bequeathed all his property to the Church, reserving sufficient for the support of Clara. Of course the relatives interfered, with the idea of securing the property for themselves. This led to a trial, which was decided in the lady's favour, and she was châtelaine of Clairvaux where Browning saw her in 1872. The real names of the persons and places are not given in the poem, and there is no good purpose to be served by giving a key to them.

NOTES.--[The pages are those of the first edition of the Poem.] Page 2, "_Un-Murrayed_": unfrequented by tourists who carry Murray's or Bædeker's guide-books. p. 4, _Saint-Rambert_ == St. Aubin, a pretty bathing-place in Calvados, Normandy; _Joyous-Gard_: the estate given by King Arthur to Sir Launcelot of the Lake for defending Guinevere. p. 6, _Rome's Corso_: the principal modern thoroughfare of Rome is the Corso. p. 18, _Guarnerius_, Andreas, and his son Giuseppe, early Italian violin makers; _Straduarius_, Antonio: a famous violin maker of Cremona (1649-1737). p. 19, _Corelli_ (1653-1713): a celebrated violin player and composer; _cushat-dove_ == the ring-dove or wood-pigeon; _giga_ == _gigg_: a jig, a dance; _Saraband_: a grave Spanish dance in triple time. p. 23, "_Quod semel, semper, et ubique_": what was once, and is always and everywhere. This would seem to be intended for the celebrated rule of St. Vincent of Lerins as to the Catholic Faith--"Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ad omnibus creditum est. Hoc est etenim vere proprieque catholicum" (_Comm._, c. 3)--that is to say, the Catholic doctrine is that which has been believed in all places, at all times, and by all the faithful. p. 24, _Rahab-thread_: see Joshua ii. 18. p. 25, _Octroi_: a tax levied at the gate of Continental cities on food, etc., brought within the walls. p. 29, _The Conqueror's country_: Normandy, the native country of William the Conqueror. p. 30, _Lourdes_ and _La Salette_: celebrated places of pilgrimage in France. p. 37, _Abaris_: a priest of Apollo; he rode through the air, invisible, on a golden arrow, curing diseases and giving oracles. p. 42, _Madrilene_, of Madrid. p. 73, _Father Secchi_: the great Jesuit astronomer of Rome. p. 83, _Acromia_: in anatomy, the outer extremities of the shoulder-blades. p. 84, _Sganarelle_: the hero of Molière's comedy _Le Mariage Forcé_. A man aged about fifty-four proposes to marry a fashionable young woman, but he has certain scruples which, however, are allayed by the cudgel of the lady's brother. p. 87, _Caen_: an ancient and celebrated city of Normandy. p. 88, "_Inveni ovem [meam] quæ perierat_": "I have found my sheep which was lost" (St. Luke xv. 6). p. 108, _Favonian breeze_: the west wind, favourable to vegetation; _Auster_: an unhealthy wind, the same as the Sirocco. p. 140, _L'Ingegno_, Andrea Luigi. p. 141, _Boileau_: the great French poet, born at Paris 1636; _Louis Quatorze_: Louis XIV., king of France; _Pierre Corneille_: the great dramatic poet (1606-84), born at Rouen. p. 177, "_Religio Medici_": a doctor's religion; the title of the celebrated book of Sir Thomas Browne, a devout Christian writer; the new religion of the hyper-scientific school of doctors is mere materialism. p. 193, _Rouher_, Eugene: French politician (1814-84); _Oecumenical Assemblage at Rome_: a general or universal council of the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. p. 202, _fons et origo_: the fount and origin. p. 203, "_On Christmas morn--three Masses_": the first is the midnight mass, the second at break of day, the third is the Christmas morning mass. p. 204, _Cistercian monk_: of an Order established at Citeaux, in France, by Robert, abbot of Moleme. The Order is very severe; but its rule is similar to that of the Benedictines; _Capucin_: a monk of the Order of St. Francis; _Benedict_: St. Benedict, "the most illustrious name in the history of Western monasticism": he was born at Nursia, in Umbria, about the year 480; _Scholastica_: St. Scholastica was the sister of St. Benedict: she established a convent near Monte Cassino. p. 210, _Star of Sea_: Stella Maris, one of the titles of Our Lady, because _mare_ means "the sea" in Latin. p. 229, _Commines_ (more correctly Comines): Philippe de Comines (1445-1509), called "the father of modern history." Hallam says that his _Memoirs_ "almost make an epoch in modern history." p. 234, "_Queen of Angels_": one of the titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary. p. 235, "_Legations to the Pope_": ambassadors or envoys to the Pope of Rome. p. 238, _Alacoque_: the Ven. Margaret Mary Alacoque, who founded the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in France; "_Renan burns his book_": Ernest Renan, born 1823, the famous French philologist and historian, author of the Rationalistic _Life of Jesus_, which of course he did not burn! "_Veuillot burns Renan_": Louis Veuillot (1813-83), a celebrated French writer of the Ultramontane school, who would gladly have suppressed Renan if he had had the opportunity; "_The Universe_": the famous Catholic journal edited by Veuillot. p. 245, _Lignum vitæ_: Guaiacum wood, used in rheumatism, etc.; _grains of Paradise_: an aromatic drug with carminative properties, like ginger. p. 268, "_Painted Peacock_": the butterfly whose scientific name is the _Vanessa io_; _Brimstone-wing_: the species of butterfly so called from its bright yellow colour. Its scientific name is the _Rhodocera Rhamna_.

=Religious Belief of Browning.= There was little or no dogmatism in Browning's religious faith. He was at least a Theist. "He believed in Soul, and was very sure of God." Whether the orthodox would consider him a Christian in the sense of the old churches is a matter we cannot discuss here; in the widest sense, however, he has given abundant evidence that he was a Christian. Those who maintain him to be a believer in the Divinity of Christ ground their opinion on such poems as _A Death in the Desert_ and _The Epistle of Karshish_--which, nevertheless, it is objected, are merely dramatic utterances, and cannot fairly be held to set forth the poet's own convictions; to such an opponent I should be content to point to the following letter, published just after the poet's death in _The Nonconformist_, and reprinted in the Transactions of the Browning Society. It was written by Browning in 1876 to a lady, who, believing herself to be dying, wrote to thank him for the help she had derived from his poems, mentioning particularly _Rabbi Ben Ezra_ and _Abt Vogler_, and giving expression to the deep satisfaction of her mind that one so highly gifted with genius should hold, as Browning held, to the great truths of our religion, and to a belief in the glorious unfolding and crowning of life in the world beyond the grave:--"_19, Warwick Crescent, W., May 11th, 1876._ Dear Friend,--It would ill become me to waste a word on my own feelings, except inasmuch as they can be common to us both in such a situation as you described yours to be--and which, by sympathy, I can make mine by the anticipation of a few years at most. It is a great thing--the greatest--that a human being should have passed the probation of life, and sum up its experience in a witness to the power and love of God. I dare congratulate you. All the help I can offer, in my poor degree, is the assurance that I see ever more reason to hold by the same hope--and that, by no means in ignorance of what has been advanced to the contrary; and for your sake I would wish it to be true that I had so much of 'genius' as to permit the testimony of an especially privileged insight to come in aid of the ordinary argument. For I know I myself have been aware of the communication of something more subtle than a ratiocinative process, when the convictions of 'genius' have thrilled my soul to its depth, as when Napoleon, shutting up the New Testament, said of Christ--'Do you know that I am an understander of men? Well, He was no man!' ('Savez-vous que je me connais en hommes? Eh bien, celui-là ne fut pas un homme.') Or as when Charles Lamb, in a gay fancy with some friends as to how he and they would feel if the greatest of the dead were to appear suddenly in flesh and blood once more--on the final suggestion, 'And if Christ entered this room?' changed his manner at once, and stuttered out--as his manner was when moved, 'You see--if Shakespeare entered, we should all rise; if _He_ appeared, we must kneel.' Or, not to multiply instances, as when Dante wrote what I will transcribe from my wife's Testament--wherein I recorded it fourteen years ago--'Thus I believe, thus I affirm, thus I am certain it is, that from this life I shall pass to another better, there, where that lady lives, of whom my soul was enamoured.' Dear Friend, I may have wearied you in spite of your good will. God bless you, sustain, and receive you! Reciprocate this blessing with yours affectionately, ROBERT BROWNING." The Agnostic school is indefatigable in endeavouring to secure Browning as a great representative of their "know-nothingism," whatever that may be. They might as reasonably claim Robert Browning on the side of Agnosticism as John Henry Newman on the side of Atheism, which also certain wiseacres in their crass hebetude or vain affectation have pretended to do.

=Religious Poems.= (1) More or less expressions of the poet's own faith are "La Saisiaz," "Christmas Eve and Easter Day," "The Epistle of Karshish," "Rabbi Ben Ezra," "The Pope" (in _The Ring and the Book_), and "Prospice." (2) Dramatic utterances concerning religion may be found in "Caliban upon Setebos," "A Death in the Desert," "Saul," and "Johannes Agricola," amongst many others.

=Renan= (Epilogue to _Dramatis Personæ_). The "second speaker" in the Epilogue is described as Renan. Joseph Ernest Renan, philologist, member of the Institute of France, was born Feb. 27th, 1823. He is best known by his _Life of Jesus_.

=Rephan= (_Asolando_, 1889). "Suggested," as the poet says in a note prefixed to the poem, "by a very early recollection of a pure story by the noble woman and imaginative writer, Jane Taylor, of Norwich."[3] It will assist the reader to understand the poem if I give an outline of the story which lived so long in Browning's memory and suggested these verses. "Rephan" is the star mentioned in Jane Taylor's beautiful story "How it Strikes a Stranger," contained in the first volume of her work entitled _The Contributions of Q. Q._ Mrs. Oliphant, in her _Literary History of the Nineteenth Century_, vol. ii., p. 351, thus describes "How it Strikes a Stranger." "A little epilogue in which the supposed impression made upon the mind of an angel whose curiosity has tempted him, even at the cost of sharing their mortality, to descend among men, is the theme, recurs to our mind from the recollections of youth with considerable force." In one of the most ancient and magnificent cities of the East there appeared, in a remote period of antiquity, a stranger of extraordinary aspect. He had no knowledge of the language of the country, and was ignorant of its customs. One day, when residing with one of the nobles of the city, after having been taught the language of the people and having learned something of their modes of thought, he was seen to be gazing with fixed attention upon a certain star in the heavens. He explained that this was his home: he was lately an inhabitant of that tranquil planet, from whence a vain curiosity had tempted him to wander. When the first idea of death was explained to him, he was but slightly moved; but when he was informed that the happiness or misery of the immortal life depended upon a man's conduct in the present stage of existence, he was deeply moved, and demanded that he should be at once minutely instructed in all that was necessary to prepare himself for death. He lost all interest in wealth and pleasures, and astonished his friends by his absorption in the thoughts which concerned another life. Soon, people treated him with contempt, and even enmity; but this did not annoy him,--he was always kind and compassionate to those about him. To every invitation to do anything inconsistent with his real interests, his one answer was, "I am to die! I am to die!" As we might expect, Mr. Browning takes this simple and beautiful story, and imbues it with his own philosophy till he has made it his own. In the poem the wanderer from the star (Rephan), in compliance with the request of his friends, gives some account of the manner of his life before his human existence began upon our planet. In the land he has left--his native realm--all is at most, nowhere deficiency or excess; on this planet we but guess at a mean. In "Rephan" there is no want; whatever should be, _is_. There is no growth, for that is change; nothing begins and nothing ends; it fell short in nothing at first, no change was required to mend anything. The stranger explains that, to convey his thoughts, he has to use our language: his own no one who heard him could understand. In "Rephan" better and worse could not be contrasted; all was perfection. Blessing and cursing were alike impossible. There are neither springs nor winters. Time brings no hope and no fear: as is to-day so shall to-morrow be. All were happy, all serene. None were better than he: that would have proved that he lacked somewhat; none worse, for he was faultless. How came it that his perfection grew irksome? How was it his desire arose to become a mortal on our earth? How did soul's quietude burst into discontent? How long had he stagnated there, where weak and strong, wise and foolish, right and wrong are merged in a neutral Best? He could not say, neither could he tell how the passion arose in his breast. He knew not how he came to learn love by hate, to aspire yet never reach, to suffer that one whom he loved might be happy, to wing knowledge for ignorance. He tells his hearers that they fear, they agonise and die, and he asks them have they no assurance that after this earth-life wrong will prove right? Do they not expect that making shall be mending in the sphere to which their yearnings tend? And so when in his pregnant breast the yearnings grew, a voice said to him: "Wouldst thou strive, not rest? burn and not smoulder? win by contest; no longer be content with wealth, which is but death? Then you have outlived "Rephan," you are beyond this sphere. There is a higher plane for you. Thy place now is Earth!" It is the old Browning story, the true mark of his highest teaching: the necessity of evil to evoke the highest good, the need of struggle for development, of contest for strength and victory. Simple, good Jane Taylor would not recognise her pretty fable as it comes from Browning's alembic in the form of _Rephan_.

=Respectability.= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1868.) The world will let us do just what we like, provided only we take out its licence; import what we like, only we must pay the customs duty; bring into the place what we please, only we must not omit the _octroi_. Defy or evade these, and the stamp of respectability being withheld, we lose caste. Everything depends on the Government stamp which the officers chalk-mark on our baggage. By conforming we gain the guinea stamp, but run a risk of losing the gold itself. The world proscribes not love, allows the caress, provided only we buy of it our gloves. What the world fears is our contempt for its licence. It is, however, exceedingly placable, and is quite ready to license anything if we pay it the fee and do it the homage. At the Institute, for example, Guizot, hating Montalembert (as Liberalism hates Ultramontanism in theory), will receive him with courtesy, not to say affection. "We are passing the lamps: put your best foot foremost!"

=Return of the Druses, The.= A TRAGEDY. (_Bells and Pomegranates_, IV., 1843.) [THE HISTORICAL FACTS.] The Syrian Druses occupy the mountainous region of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. They are found also in the Auranitis and in Palestine proper, to the north-west of the Sea of Tiberias. Crypto-Druses--Druses not by race, but by religion--are believed to dwell in Egypt, near Cairo. It is said that the Syrian Druses number over eighty thousand warriors. They covet no proselytes, and are an exceedingly mysterious, uncommunicative people, though they keep on good terms, as far as possible, with their Christian and Mahometan neighbours. They respect the religion of others, but never disclose the secrets of their own. Of their origin very little has with certainty been ascertained. They do not accept the name of Druses, and regard the term as insulting. They call themselves "disciples of Hamsa," who was their Messiah, who came to them in the tenth century from the Land of the word of God. Next in rank to Hamsa are the four throne-angels. One of these was the missionary Bohaeddin. Mr. Browning probably refers to him under the name of Bahumid the Renovator. Moktana Bohaeddin committed the Word to writing and intrusted it to a few initiates. They speak Arabic; but the Druses are not considered by ethnologists to belong to the Semitic family. They have a tradition that they belonged originally to China. Whatever may have been the origin of this people, it is evident that they are now a very mixed race, as their religion also is compounded of Judaism, Christianity, and Mahometanism. Mackenzie says: "They have a regular order of priesthood, and a kind of hierarchy. There is a regular system of passwords and signs." It is certain that there are to be found in their religion traces of Gnosticism and Magianism. One theory of their origin, to which the poet refers in the drama, is to the effect that the Druses are the descendants of a crusader, Count Dreux, who left Godfrey de Bouillon's army to settle in the Lebanon. "The rise and progress of the religion which gives unity to the race," according to the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 9th edition, vol. vii., p. 484, "can be stated with considerable precision. As a system of thought it may be traced back in some of its leading principles to the Shiite sect of the Batenians, or Batiniya, whose main doctrine was that every outer has its inner, and every passage in the Koran an allegorical sense; and to the Karamatians, or Karamita, who pushed this method to its furthest limits; as a creed it is somewhat more recent. In the year 386 A.H. (996 A.D.) Hakim Biamrillahi (_i.e._, he who judges by the command of God), the sixth of the Fatimite caliphs, began to reign; and during the next twenty-five years he indulged in a tyranny at once so terrible and so fantastic, that little doubt can be entertained of his insanity. As madmen sometimes do, he believed that he held direct intercourse with the Deity, or even that he was an incarnation of the Divine intelligence; and in 407 A.H., or 1016 A.D., his claims were made known in the mosque at Cairo, and supported by the testimony of Ismael Darazi.[4] The people showed such bitter hostility to the new gospel that Darazi was compelled to seek safety in flight; but even in absence he was faithful to his god, and succeeded in winning over the ignorant inhabitants of Lebanon. According to Druse authority this great conversion took place in the year 410 A.H. Meanwhile, the endeavours of the caliph to get his divinity acknowledged by the people of Cairo continued. The advocacy of Hasan ben Haidara Fergani was without avail; but in 408 A.H. the new religion found a more successful apostle in the person of Hamze ben Ali ben Ahmed, a Persian mystic, feltmaker by trade, who became Hakim's vizier, gave form and substance to his creed, and by his ingenious adaptation of its various dogmas to the prejudices of existing sects, finally enlisted an extensive body of adherents. In 411 the caliph was assassinated by contrivance of his sister Sitt Almulk; but it was given out by Hamze that he had only withdrawn for a season, and his followers were encouraged to look forward with confidence to his triumphant return. Darazi, who had acted independently in his apostolate, was branded by Hamze as a heretic; and thus, by a curious anomaly, he is actually held in detestation by the very sect which probably bears his name. The propagation of the faith, in accordance with Hamze's initiation, was undertaken by Ismael ben Muhammed _Temins_, Muhammed ben _Wahab_, Abulkhair _Selama_, ben Abdalwahab ben Samurri, and Moktana Bohaeddin, the last of whom was known by his writings from Constantinople to the borders of India. In two letters addressed to the Emperor Constantine VIII. and Michael the Paphlagonian, he endeavours to prove that the Christian Messiah reappeared in the person of Hamze (or Hasam)." The Druses call themselves Unitarians or Muahhidin, and believe in the absolute unity of God. He is the essence of life, and although incomprehensible and invisible, is to be known through occasional manifestations in human form. Like the Hindus, they hold that he was incarnated more than once on earth. Hamsa was the _precursor_ of the last manifestation to be (the tenth _avatar_), not the inheritor of Hakem, who is yet to come. Hamsa was the personification of the "universal wisdom." Bohaeddin, in his writings, calls him the Messiah. They hold ideas on transmigration which are Pythagorean and cabalistic. They have seven great commandments, which are imparted equally to all the initiated. These would seem to be incorrectly given by most of the encyclopædias. Professor A. L. Rawson, of New York, who is an initiate into the mysteries of the religion of the Druses, gives the following as the actual tenets of the faith. (They are termed the seven "tablets").--1. The unity of God, or the infinite oneness of Deity; 2. The essential excellence of truth; 3. The law of toleration as to all men and women in opinion; 4. Respect for all men and women as to character and conduct; 5. Entire submission to God's decrees as to fate; 6. Chastity of body and mind and soul; 7. Mutual help under all conditions. The Druses believe that all other religions were merely intended to prepare the way for their own, and that allegorically it may be discovered in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. They treat with the utmost reverence what are called the Four Books on Mount Lebanon. These are the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Koran. All are bound to keep the seven commandments of Hamsa above mentioned. [THE DRAMA.] Mr. Browning's drama does not appear to be founded upon any historical facts. The time occupied by the tragedy is one day. Djabal is an initiated Druse, a son of the last Emir, who, when his family was massacred in the island which is the scene of the drama, had made his escape to Europe. He has resolved to return to this islet of the southern Sporades, colonised by the Lebanon Druses and garrisoned by the Knights Hospitallers of Rhodes. He has felt within him a Divine call to liberate his country and restore them to the land from which they are exiled. He dwells upon the wrongs which the people have suffered at the hands of their oppressors, and in his passionate love for his country, and a desire to gratify his revenge for the slaughter of his kindred, has determined to become their liberator. The tragedy opens with the deliberations of the Druse initiates, who are expecting the manifestation of the Hakeem, the incarnation of the vanished Khalif who is to free their people, and who is believed by them to have appeared in the person of Djabal, now returned to the oppressed tribe. The island is governed by a prefect appointed by the Knights of Rhodes in Europe. This prefect has used his authority in a cruel and oppressive manner. Djabal has taken upon himself the redemption of his people, and during his stay in Europe has made a firm friend of a young nobleman, Lois de Dreux, who is about to join the Order of the Knights of Rhodes. His period of probation is to be passed in the island, and for this purpose he has accompanied Djabal on his return. Djabal has secretly resolved that upon his return to his people the cruel prefect, who has almost extirpated the sheikhs, shall be slain. He has secured also the alliance of the Venetians, who have promised that a fleet of their ships shall be prepared to transport the Druses to their home in the Lebanon, and shall be in readiness to receive them when the murder of the prefect shall have liberated his countrymen. The complicated part of the story now begins. Anael is a Druse maiden whose devotion to her nation is the strongest passion of her soul, and who has vowed to wed no one but the man who has delivered her people from the tyranny which oppresses them. That he may win her heart Djabal has declared himself to be the Hakeem, who has become incarnate for the salvation of the Druse nation. He has declared himself to be the long hoped and prayed for divinity, and offered himself to the people in that character. His plan has perfectly succeeded. Anael and her tribe believe that Djabal is the real Hakeem, and that he will liberate the people, show himself as Divine, and exalt her with himself when the work is perfected. He has decreed the death of the tyrant, and Anael knows this. To Anael, Djabal is her God as well as her lover; yet she cannot worship him as Divine. "'Oh, why is it,' she asks,

'I cannot kneel to you?
Never seem you--shall I speak the truth?--
Never a God to me!
'Tis the man's hand,
Eye, voice!'"