The Browning Cyclopaedia Part 20

Then he recalls his thoughts from the region of surmise, to which they have wandered, home to stern and sober fact. He needs not the old plausibilities of the "misery done to man" and the "injustice of G.o.d," if another life compensate not for the ills of the present; he is prepared to take his stand as umpire to the champions Fancy and Reason, as they dispute the case between them. FANCY begins the amicable war by conceding that the surmise of life after death is as plain as a certainty, and acknowledges that there are now three facts--G.o.d, the soul, and the future life. REASON a.s.sents, sees there is definite advantage in the acknowledgment, admits the good of evil in the present life, detects the progress of everything towards good, and, as the next life must be an advance upon this one, suggests that, at the first cloud athwart man's sky, he should not hesitate, but die. FANCY then increases its concession, and sees the necessity of a h.e.l.l for the punishment of those who would act the b.u.t.terfly before they have played out the worm. Thus we have five facts now--G.o.d, soul, earth, heaven and h.e.l.l. REASON declares that more is required: are we to shut our eyes, stop our ears, and live here in a state of nescience, simply waiting for the life to come, which is to do everything for the soul? FANCY protests that this present stage of our existence has worth incalculable--that every moment spent here means so much loss or gain for that next life which on this life depends. We have now six plain facts established. REASON points out that FANCY has proved too much by appending a definite reward to every good action and a fixed punishment to every bad one. We lay down laws as stringent in the moral as the material world. If we say, "Would you live again, be just," it is to put a necessity upon man as determined as the law of respiration--"Would you live now, regularly draw your breath." If immortality were anything more than surmise, if heaven and h.e.l.l were as plainly the consequences of our course of life here as a fall of a breach of the laws of gravity, then men would be compelled to do right and avoid evil. Probation would be gone, our freedom would be destroyed, neither merit nor discipline would remain--

"Thus have we come back full circle."

The poet says he hopes,--he has no more than hope, but hope--no less than hope. Standing on the mountain, looking down upon the Lake of Geneva, his eye falls on the places where dwelt four great men: _Rousseau_, who lived at Geneva; _Byron_, lived at the villa called "Diodati," at Geneva; and wrote the _Prisoner of Chillon_ at Ouchy, on the Lake; _Voltaire_, who built himself a chateau at Fernex; _Gibbon_, who wrote the concluding portion of his great work at Lausanne. The somewhat obscure reference to the "pine tree of Makistos," near the close of the poem, has caused considerable puzzling of brains amongst Browning students, none of whom have been able to a.s.sist me in solving the problem. So far as I am able to understand it, the solution seems to be this: The reference to Makistos is from the _Agamemnon_ of aeschylus. The town of Makistos had a watch-tower on a neighbouring eminence, from which the beacon lights flashed the news of the fall of Troy to Greece. Clytemnestra says:

"sending a bright blaze from Ide, _Beacon did beacon send_, Pa.s.s on--the pine-tree--to Makistos' watch-place."

So the famous writers named as connected with that part of the Lake of Geneva contemplated by Mr. Browning, who were all Theists, pa.s.sed on the pine-tree torch of Theism from age to age--Diodati, Rousseau, Gibbon, Byron, Voltaire, who--

"at least believed in Soul, was very sure of G.o.d."

(Voltaire built a church at Ferney, over the portal of which he affixed the ostentatious inscription, "_Deo erexit Voltaire_.") Many writers (Canon Cheyne for one, in the _Origin of the Psalter_, p. 410) have thought that by the lines beginning, "He there with the brand flamboyant,"

etc., the poet referred to himself. Of course, any such idea is preposterous; the reference was to Voltaire. Mr. Browning, apart from the question of the egotism involved, could not say of himself, "he at least believed in soul." There was no minimising of religious faith in the poet Still less could he speak of himself as "crowned by prose and verse."

NOTES.--_Python_, the Rock-snake, the typical genus of Pythonidae; "_Athanasius contra mundum_" == Athanasius against the world. St.

Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, and one of the most ill.u.s.trious defenders of the Christian faith, was born about the year 297. In defending the Nicene Creed he had so much opposition to contend with from the Arian heretics that, in the words of Hooker, it was "the whole world against Athanasius, and Athanasius against it."

=Last Ride Together, The.= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Romances_, 1863; _Dramatic Romances_, 1868.) This poem is considered by many critics to be the n.o.blest of all Browning's love poems; for dramatic intensity, for power, for its exhibition of what Mr. Raleigh has aptly termed Browning's "tremendous concentration of his power in excluding the object world and its relations," the poem is certainly unequalled. It is a poem of unrequited love, in which there is nothing but the n.o.blest resignation; a compliance with the decrees of fate, but with neither a shadow of disloyalty to the ideal, nor despair of the result of the dismissal to the lover's own soul development. The woman may reject him,--there is no wounded pride; she does not love him,--he is not angry with her, nor annoyed that she fails to estimate him as highly as he estimates himself.

He has the ideal in his heart; it shall be cherished as the occupant of his heart's throne for ever--of the ideal he, at least, can never be deprived. This ideal shall be used to elevate and sublimate his desires, to expand his soul to the fruition of his boundless aspiration for human love, used till it transfigures the human in the man till it almost becomes Divine. And so--as he knows his fate--since all his life seemed meant for, fails--his whole heart rises up to bless the woman, to whom he gives back the hope she gave; he asks only its memory and her leave for one more last ride with him. It is granted:

"Who knows but the world may end to-night?"

(a line which no poet but Browning ever could have written. The force of the hour, the value of the quintessential moment as factors in the development of the soul, have never been set forth, even by Browning, with such startling power.) She lay for a moment on his breast, and then the ride began. He will not question how he might have succeeded better had he said this or that, done this or the other. She might not only not have loved him, she might have hated. He reflects that all men strive, but few succeed. He contrasts the petty done with the vast undone,

"What hand and brain went ever paired?

What heart alike conceived and dared?

What act proved all its thought had been?

What will but felt the fleshly screen?"

And the meaning of it all, the reason of the struggle, the outcome of the effort? The poet alone can tell: he _says_ what we _feel_. "But, poet," he asks, "are you nearer your own sublime than we rhymeless ones? You sculptor, you man of music, have you attained your aims?" Then he consoles himself that if here we had perfect bliss, still there is the life beyond, and it is better to have a bliss to die with dim-descried--

"Earth being so good, would heaven seem best?"

What if for ever he rode on with her as now, "The instant made eternity"?

=Lazarus=, who was raised from the dead, is the real hero of the poem _An Epistle_.

=Leonce Miranda.= (_Red Cotton Night-Cap Country._) The princ.i.p.al actor in the drama was the son and heir of a wealthy Paris jeweller. He formed an illicit connection with Clara de Millefleurs, and lived with her at St.

Rambert, finally committing suicide from the tower on his estate. It is said that the real name of the firm of jewellers was "Meller Brothers,"

and that Clara de Millefleurs was Anna de Beaupre.

=Levi Lincoln Thaxter.= _Poet Lore_, vol. i., p. 598 (1889), states that Mr. Browning wrote an inscription for the grave of Levi Lincoln Thaxter, a well known American Browning reader, on the Maine sea-coast. The inscription runs thus:--"Levi Lincoln Thaxter. Born in Watertown, Ma.s.sachusetts, Feb. 1st, 1824. Died May 31st, 1884.

"Thou, whom these eyes saw never! Say friends true Who say my soul, helped onward by my song, Though all unwittingly, has helped thee too?

I gave of but the little that I knew; How were the gift requited, while along Life's path I pace, couldst thou make weakness strong!

Help me with knowledge--for Life's Old----Death's New!"

R. B. to L. L. T., _April 1885_.

=Life in a Love.= (_Men and Women_, 1855, _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1868.) A man is content to spend his whole life on the chance that the woman whose heart he pursues will one day cease to elude him.

When the old hope is dashed to the ground, a new one springs up and flies straight to the same mark. And what if he fail of his purpose here? How can life be better expended than in devotion to one worthy ideal?

=Light Woman, A.= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Romances_, 1863; _Dramatic Romances_, 1868.) A wanton-eyed woman ensnares a man in her toils just to add him to the hundred others she has captured. The victim has a friend who feels equal to conquering the victor. It is a question which is the stronger soul; the woman of a hundred conquests lies in the strong man's hand as tame as a pear from the wall. But the game turns out to be a serious one: the light woman recognises her conqueror as the higher soul, and loves him accordingly. What is he to do? He does not wish to eat the pear; is he to cast it away? It is an awkward thing to play with souls.

Light as she was, she had a heart, though the hundred others could not discover a way to it; this man did, and broke it. The question for the breaker is What does he seem to himself? The last lines of the poem are interesting. The author says of himself:--

"And Robert Browning, you writer of plays, Here's a subject made to your hand."

=Likeness, A.= (_Dramatis Personae_, 1864.) As no two faces are exactly alike in every particular, so no two souls are ever cast in one mould. The very markings of our finger tips differ in every hand, and so each soul has its own language, which must be learned by whomsoever would discover its secret. And here science avails not; soul grammars and lexicons are not written for its tongue. A face, a glance, a word will do; but it must be the right glance, and the true open-sesame. The face which has spoken to us, the soul visitant who has penetrated to our solitude, the book, the deed which has formed the bond between us, speaks not to others as it spoke to us; and the face which is enshrined in our heart of hearts, to them is "the daub John bought at a sale." "Is not she Jane? Then who is she?" asks the stranger who intermeddleth not with our joys. But when that face is confessed to be one to lose youth for, to occupy age with the dream of, to meet death with; then, half in rapture, half in rage, we say, "Take it, I pray; it is only a duplicate!"

=Lilith.= (_Adam, Lilith, and Eve._) "According to the Gnostic and Rosicrucian mediaeval doctrine, the creation of woman was not originally intended. She is the offspring of man's own impure fancy, and, as the Hermetists say, 'an obtrusion.'... First 'Virgo,' the celestial virgin of the Zodiac, she became 'Virgo-Scorpio.' But in evolving his second companion, man had unwittingly endowed her with his own share of spirituality; and the new being whom his 'imagination' had called into life became his 'saviour' from the snares of Eve-Lilith, the first Eve, who had a greater share of matter in her composition than the primitive 'spiritual man.'"--Madame Blavatsky's _Isis Unveiled_, vol. ii., p. 445.

=Lost Leader, The.= (_Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, in Bells and Pomegranates_, No. VII., 1845; _Poems_, 1849; _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1868.) A great leader of a party has deserted the cause, fallen away from his early ideals and forsaken the teaching which has inspired disciples who loved and honoured him. They are sorrowful not so much for their own loss as for the moral deterioration he has himself suffered. The poem is a very popular one, and is generally considered to refer to Wordsworth, who in his youth had strong Liberal sympathies, but lost them, as Mr. John Morley says in his introduction to Wordsworth's poems:--"As years began to dull the old penetration of a mind which had once approached, like other youths, the shield of human nature from the golden side, and had been eager to 'clear a pa.s.sage for just government,' Wordsworth lost his interest in progress. Waterloo may be taken for the date at which his social grasp began to fail, and with it his poetic glow. He opposed Catholic emanc.i.p.ation as stubbornly as Eldon, and the Reform Bill as bitterly as Croker. For the practical reform of his day, even in education, for which he had always spoken up, Wordsworth was not a force."

Browning used to see a good deal of Wordsworth when he was a young man, but there was no friendship between them. Wordsworth treated with contempt Browning's republican sympathies--a contempt heightened, as is usually the case with those who have lapsed from their former ideals, by the remembrance that he had once professed to follow them. But, though the poem has undoubted reference to Wordsworth, it has a certain application also to Southey, Charles Kingsley, and others, who in youth were Radicals and in old age became rigidly Conservative. Browning told Walter Thornbury that Wordsworth was "the lost leader," though he said "the portrait was purposely disguised a little; used, in short, as an artist uses a model, retaining certain characteristic traits and discarding the rest" (_Notes and Queries_, 5th series, vol. i., p. 213.) There is a letter published in Mr. Grosart's edition of Wordsworth's _Prose Works_, which is conclusive on this point:--

"19, WARWICK CRESCENT, W., _February 24th, 1875_.

"DEAR MR. GROSART,--I have been asked the question you now address me with, and as duly answered, I can't remember how many times. There is no sort of objection to one more a.s.surance, or rather confession, on my part, that I _did_ in my hasty youth presume to use the great and venerable personality of Wordsworth as a sort of painter's model; one from which this or the other particular feature may be selected and turned to account. Had I intended more--above all, such a boldness as portraying the entire man--I should not have talked about 'handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon,' These never influenced the change of politics in the great poet--whose defection, nevertheless, accompanied as it was by a regular face-about of his special party, was, to my private apprehension, and even mature consideration, an event to deplore. But, just as in the tapestry on my wall I can recognise figures which have _struck out_ a fancy, on occasion, that though truly enough thus derived, yet would be preposterous as a copy; so, though I dare not deny the original of my little poem, I altogether refuse to have it considered as the 'very effigies' of such a moral and intellectual superiority.

"Faithfully yours, "ROBERT BROWNING."

="Lost, lost! yet come."= The first line of the "Song of April" in _Paracelsus_, Part II.

=Lost Mistress, The.= (_Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_, in _Bells and Pomegranates_, VII., 1845; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1868.) A calm suppression of intensest feeling, the quiet resignation of a great love in a spirit of humility and sacrifice, by a man who has complete control over himself. The pretence of not feeling the blow is exquisitely represented, and the spirit which underlies it is that of the strong-souled contender with the trials of life who wrote the poem. The life's current frozen, the sun sunk in the heart to rise no more, the joy gone out of life, are summed up in "All's over, then!" He remarks the sparrow's twitter and the leaf buds on the vine; the snowdrops appear, but there is no spring in his heart; her voice will stay in his soul for ever, yet he may hold her hand "so very little longer" than may a mere friend.

=Love among the Ruins.= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1868.) While Mrs. Browning was staying with Mr. Browning in Rome, in the winter of 1853-54, she was writing _Aurora Leigh_, and he was busy with _Men and Women_, including this exquisite poem. It is a landscape by Poussin in words, and is melodious and soothing, as befits the subject. It is evening in the Roman Campagna, amid the ruins of cities once great and famous. The landscape cannot fail to touch the soul with deepest melancholy, as we reflect on the evanescence of all human things. A vast city, whose memorials have dwindled to a "so they say"; "the domed and daring palaces "represented by a few blocks of half-buried marble and the shaft of a column, overrun by a vegetation which is the symbol of eternal beauty, lovingly covering the decaying handiwork of a long vanished people. And amid the colonnades and temples, the turrets and the bridges, the spirit of the observer dwells with the mournful reflection that the hand of death and the devouring tooth of time reduce all earthly things to ruin, and the shadows of oblivion fall on the world of spirit and cover the deeds alike of glory and of shame. But from the wreck of the ages, and the scattered memorials of a forgotten metropolis, there came a golden-haired girl with eager eyes of love, and the sad-reflecting contemplator of the past learns, by the glance of her eye and the embrace which extinguishes sight and speech, that whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin, are not to be weighed against that moment when we recognise that Love is best.

=Love in a Life.= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1868.) A lover inhabiting the same house as his love, is constantly eluded by the charmed object of his pursuit. The perfume of her presence is in every room, and he is always promising his heart that she shall soon be found, yet the day wanes with the fruitless quest, for as he enters she goes out, and twilight comes with--

"Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!"

Thus do our ideals ever evade us.

=Love Poems.=--"One Word More," "Evelyn Hope," "A Serenade at the Villa,"

"In Three Days," "The Last Ride Together," "Numpholeptos," "Cristina,"

"Love among the Ruins," "By the Fire Side," "Any Wife to any Husband," "A Lovers' Quarrel," "Two in the Campagna," "Love in a Life," "Life in a Love," "The Lost Mistress," "A Woman's Last Word," "In a Gondola," "James Lee's Wife," "Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli," "O Lyric Love!" (in the first volume of the _Ring and the Book_), "Count Gismond," "Confessions," "The Flower's Name," "Women and Roses," "My Star," "Mesmerism." (These are by no means all, but are, perhaps, some of the best.)

=Lover's Quarrel, A.= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1868.) "A shaft from the devil's bow," in the shape of a bitter word, has divided two lovers who before were all the world to each other.

It seems to him so amazing that the tongue can have power to sever such fond hearts as theirs. He comforts himself with the a.s.surance that though in summertide's warmth heart can dispense with heart, the first chills of winter and the first approach of the storms of life will drive the loved one to his arms.

=Lucrezia.= (_Andrea del Sarto._) She was the wife of the artist--cold, unsympathetic, but beautiful--and was the model for much of his work. In the poem Andrea is conversing with her, and indicating the causes which have arrested his power as an artist.

=Luigi.= (_Pippa Pa.s.ses._) The conspiring young patriot who meets his mother at evening in the turret on the hillside near Asolo. He believes he has a mission to kill the Emperor of Austria. His mother is trying to dissuade him, and he is about to yield, when Pippa's song as she pa.s.ses re-inspires him, and he leaves the tower, and so escapes from the police who are on his track.

=Luitolfo.= (_A Soul's Tragedy._) Chiappino's false friend, and Eulalia's lover.

=Luria, A Tragedy.= (_Bells and Pomegranates_, VIII., 1846.) Time 14--.

The historical incidents which are to some extent the basis of this play had their rise in the constant struggles between the Guelf and Ghibelline factions in Italy, which involved the various republics which arose in consequence of those wars in the most bitter internecine struggles for supremacy. One of the most important of these was the war between the Florentine and the Pisan republics. Wars between different Italian cities were frequent in the middle ages; according to Muratori, the first conflict was waged in 1003, when Pisa and Lucca contended for the mastery.

In the eleventh century the military and real importance of Pisa was greatly developed, and was doubtless due to the necessity of constantly contending against Saracenic invasions. The chroniclers a.s.sert that the first war with Florence, which broke out in 1222, arose from a quarrel between the amba.s.sadors of the rival states at Rome over a lapdog. When so trifling an occasion led to such a result, it is evident there were deeper grounds for hatred and mistrust at work. It is not within the scope of this work to trace the causes which led to the war between the two great Italian republics in the beginning of the fifteenth century. In the early part of the fourteenth century Castruccio became lord of Lucca and Pisa, and was victorious over the Florentines. In 1341 the Pisans besieged Lucca, in order to prevent the entry of the Florentines, to whom the city had been sold by Martino della Scala. The Florentines obtained Porto Talamone from Siena, and established a navy of their own. They attacked the harbour of Pisa, and carried away its chains, which they triumphantly bore to Florence, and suspended in front of the Baptistery, where they remained till 1848. As the war continued the Pisans suffered more and more. In 1369 they lost Lucca; in 1399 Visconti captured Pisa, and in 1406 the Florentines made another attack upon the city, besieging it both by sea and land. As the defenders were starving, they succeeded in entering the city on October 9th. The orders of the Ten of War at Florence were to crush every germ of rebellion and drive out its citizens by measures of the utmost harshness and cruelty. Mr. Browning's play has for its object to show how Pisa fell under the dominion of its powerful rival. The characters are Luria, a Moorish commander of the Florentine forces; Husain, a Moor, his friend; Puccio, the old Florentine commander, now Luria's chief officer; Braccio, commissary of the republic of Florence; Jacopo, his secretary; Tiburzio, commander of the Pisans; and Domizia, a n.o.ble Florentine lady. The scene is Luria's camp, between Florence and Pisa. The time extends only over one day, and the five Acts are named "Morning," "Noon," "Afternoon," "Evening," and "Night." A battle is about to take place which will decide the issue of the war. Luria is Browning's Oth.e.l.lo, and one of the n.o.blest of his characters. He is a simple, honest, whole-souled creature, incapable of guile, and devoted to the welfare of Florence. Puccio was formerly at the head of the Florentine army; he has been deposed for some state reason, and the Moorish mercenary subst.i.tuted, he remaining as the subordinate of that general. The reasons which have induced the Seigniory to abstain from entrusting the command of its army to a Florentine are the most despicable that could influence any public body. They were understood to be afraid that they would have to reward the victorious general, or that he might use his power and influence with the people to make himself master of their city. So they choose a man whom they merely pay to fight for them--a Moor, who can have no friends amongst the citizens, and a stranger who can have no other claim upon them than his wages. They go further: they proceed to try him secretly for treason before he has committed it; they set spies to watch his every movement and to record his every word; they employ for this purpose unscrupulous men, well versed in the art of manufacturing evidence; they weave their toils so skilfully that by the time Luria has won their battle for them, they will have acc.u.mulated all the evidence which is required, and the death sentence will be p.r.o.nounced as the victory is won. The appointment of the displaced Puccio to a secondary position in command was one of the steps taken for this end: he would naturally be discontented, and become a ready tool in the hands of the cold, skilful Braccio, all intellect, and practised in the most devious ways of statecraft. Professor Pancoast, in his valuable papers on _Luria_ in _Poet Lore_, vol. i, p. 555, and vol.

ii., p. 19, says: "It is possible that Mr. Browning may have found the suggestion for this situation in a pa.s.sage in Sapio Amminato's _Istoria Fiorentine_, relating to this expedition against Pisa. "And when all was ready, the expedition marched to the gates of Pisa, under the command of Conte Bartoldo Orsini, a Ventusian captain in the Florentine service, accompanied by Filippo di Megalotti, Rinaldo di Gian Figliazzi, and Maso degli Albizzi, in the character of commissaries of the commonwealth. For, although we have every confidence in the honour and fidelity of our general, you see it is always well to be on the safe side. And in the matter of receiving possession of a city, ... these n.o.bles with the old feudal names! We know the ways of them! An Orsini might be as bad in Pisa as a Visconti, so we might as well send some of our own people to be on the spot. The three commissaries therefore accompanied the Florentine general to Pisa." (Am. xvii., Lib. Goup. 675.) These words throw an instructive light on Mr. Browning's drama, and seem to justify its motive.

From this background of treachery and deceit the grand figure of Luria, honest, transparently ingenuous, generous, and true to the core, boldly stands forth to claim our admiration and our esteem. He knows nothing of their devious ways, can only go straightforward to his aim, and on this eve of the great battle he receives from Tiburzio, the commander of the Pisan forces, a letter which has been intercepted from Braccio to the Florentine Seigniory; he is desired to read it, as it exposes the plots which the Florentines are hatching against him. Luria declines to read the letter, tears it to pieces, and gives battle to the enemy. The victory is a great one: Pisa is in his hands; then he sends for Braccio, charges him with the treachery, and learns what the letter would have told him if he had read it. Braccio does not deny what Luria divines; charges have been prepared against him,--he will be tried that night. He maintains the absolute right of Florence to do as she has done. Domizia, whose brothers suffered shame and death in such manner at the hands of Florence, protests that Florence needs must mistrust a stranger's faith. At this moment Tiburzio, the Pisan general, enters, testifies to the faith of the man who has defeated him, and offers to resign to him his charge, the highest office, sword and shield, with the help which has just arrived from Lucca.