Chapter LIV: Book IX: , l. 1109. "The sole joke of Thucydides." Mr. F. C. Snow,

writing from Oxford to the _Daily News_, says: "Browning was misled by a scholiast. The ancient critics said, 'Here the lion laughs,' with reference to the passage of Thucydides where the story of Cylon is told (l. 126, see also the Scholia). But they did not mean that the passage contained any joke, only that the narrative style was unusually genial. There are other passages of Thucydides where his grim humour comes much nearer to the modern idea of pleasantry."

"The lion, lo, hath laughed!" in the context, proves the correctness of Mr. Snow's explanation.

=Sordello.= Book III., l. 975. In the _Athenæum_, 12th December, 1896, Mr. Alfred Forman published a letter on this passage which is an important contribution to our commentary on _Sordello_.

"In a review of Dr. Berdoe's _Browning Cyclopædia_, I have seen it
asked: 'In what form did Empedocles put up with Ætna for a stimulant?'
In what form indeed! But I think a more pertinent question would have
been: How can either Empedocles or, as is usually alleged, Landor have
anything to do with the passage referred to? To me it has always
appeared to be Æschylus whom Browning (vol. i, pp. 169-70, of the
seventeen-volume edition, 1888-94, Smith, Elder & Co.) addresses as

'Yours, my patron-friend,
Whose great verse blares unintermittent on
Like your own trumpeter at Marathon,--
You who, Platæa and Salamis being scant,
Put up with Ætna for a stimulant.

I need not recall the legend of the Greek tragedian having fought at
Marathon as well as at Salamis and Platæa (the 'stimulants' to his
'Persæ'), but his ancient biographer further says: 'Having arrived in
Sicily, as Hiero was then engaged in founding the city of Ætna, he
exhibited his "Women of Ætna" by way of predicting a prosperous life
to those who contributed to colonise the city.' After a perusal of pp.
52-53, we may imagine that Æschylus was one of Browning's audience
('few living, many dead'), and not unlikely, as coming from the realm
where Browning says he had 'many lovers' (p. 53), to be designated a
'patron-friend,' while the 'great verse' that 'blares unintermittent
on,' etc., is surely identical (pp. 53-4) with

'The thunder-phrase of the Athenian, grown
Up out of memories of Marathon.

"I have not been able to discover any substantiating facts in the
life, or passages in the works, of Landor; but possibly some
correspondent of yours may be able to lay me under an obligation by
pointing such out. A simple statement to the effect that 'Browning
said so' could not, I think, in such a case as the one in question, be
deemed satisfactory. Dr. Garnett writes to me on the matter as
follows:--

"'Could the poet alluded to in _Sordello_ possibly be R. H. Horne?
Horne was, I think, an intimate friend of Browning's; he was more
Æschylean than any other contemporary; he had served as soldier and
sailor in the Mexican War; and, having given up arms for letters,
might be said to have forsaken Marathon and Salamis for Ætna, although
the introduction of Ætna would be quite incomprehensible but for the
historical fact of Æschylus's secession thither. I do not feel
convinced that the identification of Horne with Browning's
"patron-friend" is the correct interpretation, but it seems to me to
deserve attention.'

"While on the subject of _Sordello_, may I ask how (as I have seen it
assumed in 'Browning' books) the 'child barefoot and rosy' of p. 288
can be Sordello himself? In the first place, are not the words he is
singing taken from Sordello's own 'Goito lay' (cf. pp. 97, 249, 289),
with which he vanquished Eglamor, long after he had ceased to be, if
he ever was, a rosy and barefoot child? And, in the second place, is
there any indication in the whole poem that Sordello was ever 'by
sparkling Asolo,' where the aforesaid child is described as being?

"ALFRED FORMAN."