Browning's England Part 4

"How would you like to read yourself the tale Properly told, of which I gave you first Merely such notion as a boy could bear?

Pope, now, would give you the precise account Of what, some day, by dint of scholarship, You'll hear--who knows?--from Homer's very mouth.

Learn Greek by all means, read the 'Blind Old Man, Sweetest of Singers'--_tuphlos_ which means 'blind,'

_Hedistos_ which means 'sweetest.' Time enough!

Try, anyhow, to master him some day; Until when, take what serves for subst.i.tute, Read Pope, by all means!"

So I ran through Pope, Enjoyed the tale--what history so true?

Also attacked my Primer, duly drudged, Grew fitter thus for what was promised next-- The very thing itself, the actual words, When I could turn--say, b.u.t.tmann to account.

Time pa.s.sed, I ripened somewhat: one fine day, "Quite ready for the Iliad, nothing less?

There's Heine, where the big books block the shelf: Don't skip a word, thumb well the Lexicon!"

I thumbed well and skipped nowise till I learned Who was who, what was what, from Homer's tongue, And there an end of learning. Had you asked The all-accomplished scholar, twelve years old, "Who was it wrote the Iliad?"--what a laugh!

"Why, Homer, all the world knows: of his life Doubtless some facts exist: it's everywhere: We have not settled, though, his place of birth: He begged, for certain, and was blind beside: Seven cites claimed him--Scio, with best right, Thinks Byron. What he wrote? Those Hymns we have.

Then there's the 'Battle of the Frogs and Mice,'

That's all--unless they dig 'Margites' up (I'd like that) nothing more remains to know."

Thus did youth spend a comfortable time; Until--"What's this the Germans say is fact That Wolf found out first? It's unpleasant work Their chop and change, unsettling one's belief: All the same, while we live, we learn, that's sure."

So, I bent brow o'er _Prolegomena_.

And, after Wolf, a dozen of his like Proved there was never any Troy at all, Neither Besiegers nor Besieged,--nay, worse,-- No actual Homer, no authentic text, No warrant for the fiction I, as fact, Had treasured in my heart and soul so long-- Ay, mark you! and as fact held still, still hold, Spite of new knowledge, in my heart of hearts And soul of souls, fact's essence freed and fixed From accidental fancy's guardian sheath.

a.s.suredly thenceforward--thank my stars!-- However it got there, deprive who could-- Wring from the shrine my precious tenantry, Helen, Ulysses, Hector and his Spouse, Achilles and his Friend?--though Wolf--ah, Wolf!

Why must he needs come doubting, spoil a dream?

But then "No dream's worth waking"--Browning says: And here's the reason why I tell thus much I, now mature man, you antic.i.p.ate, May blame my Father justifiably For letting me dream out my nonage thus, And only by such slow and sure degrees Permitting me to sift the grain from chaff, Get truth and falsehood known and named as such.

Why did he ever let me dream at all, Not bid me taste the story in its strength?

Suppose my childhood was scarce qualified To rightly understand mythology, Silence at least was in his power to keep: I might have--somehow--correspondingly-- Well, who knows by what method, gained my gains, Been taught, by forthrights not meanderings, My aim should be to loathe, like Peleus's son, A lie as h.e.l.l's Gate, love my wedded wife, Like Hector, and so on with all the rest.

Could not I have excogitated this Without believing such men really were?

That is--he might have put into my hand The "Ethics"? In translation, if you please, Exact, no pretty lying that improves, To suit the modern taste: no more, no less-- The "Ethics": 'tis a treatise I find hard To read aright now that my hair is grey, And I can manage the original.

At five years old--how ill had fared its leaves!

Now, growing double o'er the Stagirite, At least I soil no page with bread and milk, Nor crumple, dogsear and deface--boys' way.

This chapter would not be complete without Browning's tribute to dog Tray, whose traits may not be peculiar to English dogs but whose name is proverbially English. Besides it touches a subject upon which the poet had strong feelings. Vivisection he abhorred, and in the controversies which were tearing the scientific and philanthropic world asunder in the last years of his life, no one was a more determined opponent of vivisection than he.

TRAY

Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst Of soul, ye bards!

Quoth Bard the first: "Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don His helm and eke his habergeon...."

Sir Olaf and his bard----!

"That sin-scathed brow" (quoth Bard the second), "That eye wide ope as though Fate beckoned My hero to some steep, beneath Which precipice smiled tempting death...."

You too without your host have reckoned!

"A beggar-child" (let's hear this third!) "Sat on a quay's edge: like a bird Sang to herself at careless play, 'And fell into the stream. Dismay!

Help, you the standers-by!' None stirred.

"Bystanders reason, think of wives And children ere they risk their lives.

Over the bal.u.s.trade has bounced A mere instinctive dog, and pounced Plumb on the prize. 'How well he dives!

"'Up he comes with the child, see, tight In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite A depth of ten feet--twelve, I bet!

Good dog! What, off again? There's yet Another child to save? All right!

"'How strange we saw no other fall!

It's instinct in the animal.

Good dog! But he's a long while under: If he got drowned I should not wonder-- Strong current, that against the wall!

"'Here he comes, holds in mouth this time --What may the thing be? Well, that's prime!

Now, did you ever? Reason reigns In man alone, since all Tray's pains Have fished--the child's doll from the slime!'

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

"'John, go and catch--or, if needs be, Purchase--that animal for me!

By vivisection, at expense Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence, How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'"

CHAPTER II

SHAKESPEARE'S PORTRAIT

Once and once only did Browning depart from his custom of choosing people of minor note to figure in his dramatic monologues. In "At the 'Mermaid'" he ventures upon the consecrated ground of a heart-to-heart talk between Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and the wits who gathered at the cla.s.sic "Mermaid" Tavern in Cheapside, following this up with further glimpses into the inner recesses of Shakespeare's mind in the monologues "House" and "Shop." It is a particularly daring feat in the case of Shakespeare, for as all the world knows any attempt at getting in touch with the real man, Shakespeare, must, per force, be woven out of such "stuff as dreams are made on."

In interpreting this portraiture of one great poet by another it will be of interest to glance at the actual facts as far as they are known in regard to the relations which existed between Shakespeare and Jonson.

Praise and blame both are recorded on Jonson's part when writing of Shakespeare, yet the praise shows such undisguised admiration that the blame sinks into insignificance. Jonson's "learned socks" to which Milton refers probably tripped the critic up occasionally by reason of their weight.

There is a charming story told of the friendship between the two men recorded by Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, within a very few years of Shakespeare's death, who attributed it to Dr. Donne. The story goes that "Shakespeare was G.o.dfather to one of Ben Jonson's children, and after the christening, being in a deep study, Jonson came to cheer him up and asked him why he was so melancholy. 'No, faith, Ben,' says he, 'not I, but I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to bestow upon my G.o.dchild, and I have resolved at last.' 'I prythee what?' says he. 'I'faith, Ben, I'll e'en give him a dozen good Lattin spoons, and thou shalt translate them.'" If this must be taken with a grain of salt, there is another even more to the honor of Shakespeare reported by Rowe and considered credible by such Shakespearian scholars as Halliwell Phillipps and Sidney Lee. "His acquaintance with Ben Jonson" writes Rowe, "began with a remarkable piece of humanity and good nature; Mr. Jonson, who was at that time altogether unknown to the world, had offered one of his plays to the players in order to have it acted, and the persons into whose hands it was put, after having turned it carelessly and superciliously over, were just upon returning it to him with an ill-natured answer that it would be of no service to their company, when Shakespeare luckily cast his eye upon it, and found something so well in it as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonson and his writings to the public." The play in question was the famous comedy of "Every Man in His Humour," which was brought out in September, 1598, by the Lord Chamberlain's company, Shakespeare himself being one of the leading actors upon the occasion.

Authentic history records a theater war in which Jonson and Shakespeare figured, on opposite sides, but if allusions in Jonson's play the "Poetaster" have been properly interpreted, their friendly relations were not deeply disturbed. The trouble began in the first place by the London of 1600 suddenly rushing into a fad for the company of boy players, recruited chiefly from the choristers of the Chapel Royal, and known as the "Children of the Chapel." They had been acting at the new theater in Blackfriars since 1597, and their vogue became so great as actually to threaten Shakespeare's company and other companies of adult actors. Just at this time Ben Jonson was having a personal quarrel with his fellow dramatists, Marston and Dekker, and as he received little sympathy from the actors, he took his revenge by joining his forces with those of the Children of the Chapel. They brought out for him in 1600 his satire of "Cynthia's Revels," in which he held up to ridicule Marston, Dekker and their friends the actors. Marston and Dekker, with the actors of Shakespeare's company, prepared to retaliate, but Jonson hearing of it forestalled them with his play the "Poetaster" in which he spared neither dramatists nor actors. Shakespeare's company continued the fray by bringing out at the Globe Theatre, in the following year, Dekker and Marston's "Satiro-Mastix, or The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," and as Ward remarks, "the quarrel had now become too hot to last." The excitement, however, continued for sometime, theater-goers took sides and watched with interest "the actors and dramatists'

boisterous war of personalities," to quote Mr. Lee, who goes on to point out that on May 10, 1601, the Privy Council called the attention of the Middles.e.x magistrates to the abuse covertly leveled by the actors of the "Curtain" at gentlemen "of good desert and quality," and directed the magistrates to examine all plays before they were produced.

Jonson, himself, finally made apologies in verses appended to printed copies of the "Poetaster."

"Now for the players 'tis true I tax'd them And yet but some, and those so sparingly As all the rest might have sat still unquestioned, Had they but had the wit or conscience To think well of themselves. But impotent they Thought each man's vice belonged to their whole tribe; And much good do it them. What they have done against me I am not moved with, if it gave them meat Or got them clothes, 'tis well: that was their end, Only amongst them I was sorry for Some better natures by the rest so drawn To run in that vile line."

Sidney Lee cleverly deduces Shakespeare's att.i.tude in the quarrel in allusions to it in "Hamlet," wherein he "protested against the abusive comments on the men-actors of 'the common' stages or public theaters which were put into the children's mouths. Rosencrantz declared that the children 'so berattle [_i.e._ a.s.sail] the common stages--so they call them--that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither [_i.e._ to the public theaters].' Hamlet in pursuit of the theme pointed out that the writers who encouraged the vogue of the 'child actors' did them a poor service, because when the boys should reach men's estate they would run the risk, if they continued on the stage, of the same insults and neglect which now threatened their seniors.

"'_Hamlet._ What are they children? Who maintains 'em? How are they escorted [_i.e._ paid]? Will they pursue the quality [_i.e._ the actor's profession] no longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players--as it is most like, if their means are no better--their writers do them wrong to make them exclaim against their own succession?

"'_Rosencrantz._ Faith, there has been much to do on both sides, and the nation holds it no sin to tarre [_i.e._ incite] them to controversy; there was for a while no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.'"

This certainly does not reflect a very belligerent att.i.tude since it merely puts in a word for the grown-up actors rather than casting any slurs upon the children. Further indications of Shakespeare's mildness in regard to the whole matter are given in the Prologue to "Troylus and Cressida," where, as Mr. Lee says, he made specific reference to the strife between Ben Jonson and the players in the lines

"And hither am I come A Prologue arm'd, but not in confidence, Of Authors' pen, or Actors' voyce."

The most interesting bit of evidence to show that Shakespeare and Jonson remained friends, even in the heat of the conflict, may be gained from the "Poetaster" itself if we admit that the Virgil of the play, who is chosen peacemaker stands for Shakespeare; and who so fit to be peacemaker as Shakespeare for his amiable qualities seem to have impressed themselves upon all who knew him.

Following Mr. Lee's lead, "Jonson figures personally in the 'Poetaster'

under the name of Horace. Episodically Horace and his friends, Tibullus and Gallus, eulogize the work and genius of another character, Virgil, in terms so closely resembling those which Jonson is known to have applied to Shakespeare that they may be regarded as intended to apply to him (Act V, Scene I). Jonson points out that Virgil, by his penetrating intuition, achieved the great effects which others laboriously sought to reach through rules of art.