The Browning Cyclopaedia Part 22

Intimate friends of the Brownings a.s.sure me that Mr. Browning with great difficulty restrained his disgust at the practices of spiritualists, and his annoyance at the fact that his wife devoted so much time and attention to this aspect of human folly. Perhaps the feature which angered him most was the habit of trading upon and outraging the most sacred feelings of the human heart, in the endeavour to gain clients for a money-making occupation.

NOTES.--_Catawba wine_: a white wine of American make, from grapes first discovered about 1801 near the banks of the Catawba river. Its praises have been sung by Longfellow. _Greeley_: Horace Greeley, the eminent American editor. His history was identified with the fortunes of his paper the _Tribune_. "_Nothing lasts, as Bacon came and said_": Bacon's Essay LVIII. is _Of the Vicissitude of Things_. _Phenomena_: the spiritualists'

term for the antics of tables, pats, twitchings, ghostly lights, tinkling of bells, etc., at their _seances_. _The Horseshoe_: the great waterfall of that name at Niagara. _Pasiphae_: the daughter of the Sun and of Perseis, who married Minos, King of Crete. She was enamoured of a bull, or more probably of an officer named Taurus (a bull). _Odic Lights_: Od, the name given by Reichenbach to an _influence_ he believed he had discovered; it was held to explain the phenomena of mesmerism, and to account for the luminous appearances at spirit-rapping circles. "_Canthus of my eye_" == the corner of the eye. _Stomach cyst_, an animalcule which is nothing more than a bag, without limbs or organs; one of the infusoria, the simplest of creatures endowed with animal life. "_The Bridgewater book_": The Earl of Bridgewater (1758-1829) devised by his will 8,000 at the disposal of the President of the Royal Society, to be paid to the authors of treatises "On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of G.o.d as manifested in the Creation."

Several of the treatises are now famous books, as Bell on _The Hand_, Kirby on _Habits and Instincts of Animals_, and Whewell's _Astronomy_.

_Eutopia_ == Utopia.

=Molinos.= _See_ MOLINISTS.

=Molinists, The= (_Ring and the Book_), were followers of Michael Molinos, a Spanish priest and spiritual director of great repute in Rome, who was a cadet of a n.o.ble Spanish family of Sarragossa. He was born on December 21st, 1627. In 1675 he published, during his residence in Rome, his famous work ent.i.tled _The Spiritual Guide_, a book which taught the doctrine known as that of Quietism. This species of mysticism had previously been taught by John Tauler and Henry Suso, as also by St. Theresa and St.

Catherine of Siena, but in a different and more orthodox form than that in which it was presented by Molinos. Butler, in his _Life of St. John of the Cross_, says that the system of perfect contemplation called Quietism chiefly turned upon the following general principles:--1. In perfect contemplation the man does not reason, but pa.s.sively receives heavenly light, the mind being in a state of perfect inattention and inaction. 2. A soul in that state desires nothing, not even its own salvation; and fears nothing, not even h.e.l.l itself. 3. That when the soul has arrived at this state, the use of the sacraments and of good works becomes indifferent.

Pope Innocent XI., in 1687, condemned sixty-eight propositions extracted from this author as heretical, scandalous and blasphemous. Molinos was condemned by the Inquisition at Rome, recanted his errors, and ended his life in imprisonment in 1696.

=Monaldeschi.= (_Cristina and Monaldeschi._) The Marquis Monaldeschi, the grand equerry of Queen Cristina of Sweden. He was put to death at Fontainebleau by order of Cristina, because he had betrayed her.

=Monsignore the Bishop.= (_Pippa Pa.s.ses._) He comes to Asolo to confer with his "Intendant" in the palace by the Duomo; he is contriving how to remove Pippa from his path, when her song as she pa.s.ses stings his conscience, and he punishes his evil counsellor who suggested mischief concerning her.

=Morgue, The=, at Paris. (_Apparent Failure._) The place by the Seine where the dead are exposed for identification.

=Muckle-Mouth Meg= ("Big-Mouth Meg"). (_Asolando_, 1889.) Sir Walter Scott was a descendant of the house of Harden, and of the famous chieftain _Auld Watt_ of that line. Auld Watt was once reduced in the matter of live stock to a single cow, and recovered his dignity by stealing the cows of his English neighbours. Professor Veitch says "the Scots' Border ancestry were sheep farmers, who varied their occupation by 'lifting' sheep and cattle, and whatever else was 'neither too heavy nor too hot.'" The lairds of the Border were, in fact, a race of robbers. Sir Walter Scott was proud of this descent, and his fame as a writer was due to his Border history and poetry. The poem describes the capture red-handed of the handsome young William Scott, Lord of Harden, who was defeated in one of these forays, and taken prisoner by Sir Gideon Murray of Elibank, who ordered him to the gallows. But the Laird's dame interposed, asking grace for the callant if he married "our Muckle-mouth Meg." The young fellow said he preferred the gallows to the wide-mouthed monster. He was sent to the dungeon for a week; after seven days of cold and darkness he was asked to reconsider his decision. He found life sweet, and embraced the ill-favoured maiden.

=Muleykeh=, (_Dramatic Idyls_, Second Series, 1880.) A tale of an Arab's love for his horse. The story is a common one, and seems adapted from a Bedouin's anecdote told in Rollo Springfield's _The Horse and his Rider_.

Hoseyn was despised by strangers for his apparent poverty. He had neither flocks nor herds, but he possessed Muleykeh, his peerless mare, his Pearl: he could afford to laugh at men's land and gold. In the race Muleykeh was always first, and Hoseyn was a proud man. Now, Duhl, the son of Sheyban, withered for envy of Hoseyn's luck, and nothing but the possession of the Pearl would satisfy him: so he rode to Hoseyn's tent, told him he knew that he was poor, and offered him a thousand camels for the mare. Hoseyn would not consider the proposal for a moment. "_I love Muleykeh's face_,"

he said, and dismissed her would-be purchaser. In a year's time Duhl is back again at Hoseyn's tent. This time he would not offer to buy the Pearl. He tells him his soul pines to death for her beauty, and his wife has urged him to go and beg for the mare. Hoseyn said, "It is life against life. What good avails to the life bereft?" Another year pa.s.ses, and the crafty Duhl is back again--this time to steal what he can neither buy nor beg. It is night. Hoseyn lies asleep beside the Pearl, with her headstall thrice wound about his wrist By Muleykeh's side stands her sister Buheyseh, a famous mare for fleetness too: she stands ready saddled and bridled, in case some thief should enter and fly with the Pearl. Now Duhl enters as stealthily as a serpent, cuts the headstall, mounts her, and is "launched on the desert like bolt from bow." Hoseyn starts up, and in a minute more is in pursuit on Buheyseh. They gain on the fugitive, for Muleykeh misses the tap of the heel, the touch of the bit--the secret signs by which her master was wont to urge her to her utmost speed. Now they are neck by croup, what does Hoseyn but shout--

"Dog Duhl. d.a.m.ned son of the Dust, Touch the right ear, and press with your foot my Pearl's left flank!"

Duhl did so: Muleykeh redoubled her pace and vanished for ever. When the neighbours saw Hoseyn at sunrise weeping upon the ground, he told them the whole story, and when they laughed at him for a fool, and told him if he had held his tongue, as a boy or a girl could have done, Muleykeh would be with him then:--

"'And the beaten in speed!' wept Hoseyn: 'You never have loved my Pearl.'"

=Music Poems.= The great poems dealing with music are "Abt Vogler,"

"Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha," "A Toccata of Galuppi's," and "Charles Avison." Other poems which are musical in a lesser degree are "Saul," "A Grammarian's Funeral," "The Serenade," "Up at a Villa," "The Heretic's Tragedy." "Balaustion's Adventure" and "Fifine" also have incidental music references.

=My Last d.u.c.h.ess--Ferrara.= (Published first in _Bells and Pomegranates_, III., under _Dramatic Lyrics_, with the t.i.tle "Italy," in 1842; _Dramatic Romances_, 1868.) A stern, severe, Italian n.o.bleman, with a nine-hundred-years' name, is showing his picture gallery, to the envy of a Count whose daughter he is about to marry. He is standing before the portrait of his last d.u.c.h.ess, for he is a widower, and is telling his companion that "the depth and pa.s.sion of her earnest glance" was not reserved for her husband alone, but the slightest courtesy or attention was sufficient to call up "that spot of joy" into her face. "Her heart,"

said the duke, "was too soon made glad, too easily impressed." She smiled on her husband (she was his property, and that was right); she smiled on others (on every one, in fact), and that was an infringement of the rights of property which this dealer in human souls could not brook, so he "gave commands,"--"then all smiles stopped together." The concentrated tragedy of this line is a good example of the poet's power of compressing a whole life story in two or three words. The heartless duke instantly dismisses the memory of his d.u.c.h.ess and her fount of human love sealed up "by command." "We'll go together down, sir,"--and as they descend he draws his guest's attention to a fine bronze group, and discusses the question of the dowry he is to receive with the woman who is _to succeed_ his last d.u.c.h.ess.

NOTE.--_Fra Pandolf_ and _Claus of Innsbruck_ are imaginary artists.

Without very careful attention several delicate points in this poem will be lost. When the duke said "Fra Pandolf" by design, he desired to impress on the envoy, and his master the Count, the sort of behaviour he expected from the woman he was about to marry. He intimated that he would tolerate no rivals for his next wife's smiles. When he begs his guest to "Notice Neptune----taming a sea horse," he further intimated how he had tamed and killed his last d.u.c.h.ess. All this was to convey to the envoy, and through him to the lady, that he demanded in his new wife the concentration of her whole being on himself, and the utmost devotion to his will.

=My Star.= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1868.) To one observer a beautiful star may appear in iridiscent colours un.o.bserved by others; just as, by looking at a prism from a certain angle, we catch a play of rainbow tints which they might miss by adopting a different point of view. Where strangers see a world, the singer obtains access to a soul which opens to him all its glory, as the prism reveals the const.i.tuent colours which combine to make the cold white ray of light.

The poem has been considered to be a tribute to Mrs. Browning.

=My Wife Gertrude.= See BOOT AND SADDLE.

=Naddo= (_Sordello_) was a troubadour, and the Philistine friend and counsellor of Sordello. He told Sordello not to try to introduce his own ideas to the world: poetry should be founded in common-sense and deal with the common ideas of mankind. The poet should, above all things, try to please his audience. People like calm and repose. He must not attempt to rise to an intellectual level his readers have not reached. Sordello, he said, should be satisfied with being a poet, and not aim at being a leader of men as well. Mr. Browning is in all this defending himself and satirising the popular view of the poet's province.

=Names, The.= A poem written for the "Show-Book" of the Shakespearean Show at the Albert Hall, May 1884, held on behalf of the Hospital for Women in the Fulham Road, London:--

"Shakespeare!--to such name's sounding, what succeeds Fitly as silence? Falter forth the spell,-- Act follows word, the speaker knows full well, Nor tampers with its magic more than needs.

Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads With his soul only: if from lips it fell, Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven, and h.e.l.l, Would own, 'Thou didst create us!' Nought impedes We voice the other name, man's most of might, Awesomely, lovingly: let awe and love Mutely await their working, leave to sight All of the issue as--below--above-- Shakespeare's creation rises: one remove, Though dread--this finite from that infinite."

ROBERT BROWNING, _March 12th, 1884_.

Reprinted in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of May 29th.

The Hebrews will not p.r.o.nounce the sacred tetragrammaton [Hebrew: YHWH]. They subst.i.tute Adonai in reading the ineffable name.

Jahwe (with the J p.r.o.nounced as Y) is the correct p.r.o.nunciation of the unspeakable name. Yet the learned hold that the true mirific name is lost, the word "Jehovah" dating only from the Masoretic innovation.

See a discussion of the whole matter in _Isis Unveiled_ (Blavatsky), vol. ii. p. 398,--a work which contains a good deal of real learning mixed with infinite rubbish.

=Napoleon III.= See PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHw.a.n.gAU.

=Nationality in Drinks.= Under this t.i.tle we have three poems, originally published separately--namely, _Claret_, _Tokay_, and _Beer_. The first and second were published in _Hood's Magazine_, in June 1844. In 1863 the poems were brought under their present t.i.tle in the _Poetical Works_. In _Claret_ the fancy of the poet sees in his claret-flask, as it drops into a black-faced pond, a resemblance to a gay French lady, with her arms held beside her and her feet stretched out, dropping from life into death's silent ocean. In _Tokay_ the bottle suggests a pygmy castle-warder, dwarfish, but able and determined, strutting about with his huge bra.s.s spurs and daring anybody to interfere with him. _Beer_ is in memory of the beverage drunk to Nelson's memory off Cape Trafalgar: it includes an authentic anecdote given to the poet by the captain of the vessel. He said they show a coat of Nelson's at Greenwich with tar still on the shoulder, due to the habit he had of leaning one shoulder up against the mizzen-rigging.

=Natural Magic.= (_Pacchiarotto and other Poems_, 1876.) Hindu conjurors are exceedingly clever, and will produce a tree from apparently nothing at all, in all stages of growth. In the case described the narrator locks a nautch girl in an empty room and takes his stand at the door; in a short time the conjuror is embowered in a ma.s.s of verdure, fruit and flowers. In the same way, by the magic of a charming personality, the singer's life has been transformed from coldness and gloom to warmth and beauty. The poem ill.u.s.trates the supreme power which spirit exerts over matter. The power of the ideal world, the all-absorbing influence of faith in the unseen to the Christian, is always being exerted to produce such effects in the souls of men and women whose lives are spent in the most squalid and unlovely surroundings.

="Nay, but you who do not love her."= (_Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_, in _Bells and Pomegranates_, 1845; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1868.) The first line of a song in praise of some tresses of a lady's hair. Even those who do not love her must admit she is pure gold. As for him, he cannot praise her, he loves her so much: he will leave the praise for those who do not.

=Ned Bratts.= (Published in _Dramatic Idyls_, first series, 1879; written at Splugen.) The story is taken from _The Life and Death of Mr. Badman_, by John Bunyan, the author of the _Pilgrim's Progress_, and published in London 1680. "At a Summer a.s.sizes holden at Hartfort, while the Judge was sitting upon the Bench, comes this old Tod into the Court, cloathed in a green suit, with a Leathern Girdle in his hand, his bosom open and all in a dung sweat, as if he had run for his Life; and being come in, he spake aloud as follows: 'My Lord,' said he, 'Here is the veriest rogue that breathes upon the face of the earth. I have been a thief from a child; when I was but a little one I gave myself to rob orchards, and to do other such-like wicked things, and I have continued a thief ever since. My Lord, there has not been a robbery committed these many years, so many miles of this place, but I have either been at it, or privy to it." The Judge thought the fellow was mad, but after some conference with some of the Justices, they agreed to indict him; and so they did, of several felonious actions, to all which he heartily confessed Guilty, and so was hanged with his wife at the same time." In the poem, _Ned Bratts_, the scene is laid at Bedford. The a.s.sizes are held on a broiling day in June; the court-house is crammed; horse stealers, rogues, puritans and preachers are being tried and sentenced, when through the barriers there burst Publican Ned Bratts and Tabitha his wife, loudly confessing they were the "worst couple, rogue and quean, unhanged," and detailing the various high crimes and misdemeanours of which they had long been guilty. He tells of the laces they had bought of the Tinker in the Bedford cage, and of

"His girl,--the blind young chit who hawks about his wares";

tells of the Book which the girl gave him, the Book her father wrote in prison, which told of "Christmas" [he meant "Christian"]. "Christmas was meant for me," he says,--he must get rid of his burden and hurry from "Destruction," which to him is Bedford town. So fearful are the converted couple that they will fall again into their old sins, and so miss Heaven's gate, they beg the judges to

"Sentence our guilty selves; so, hang us out of hand!"

Ned sank upon his knees in the old court-house, while his wife Tab wheezed a hoa.r.s.e "Do hang us, please!" The Lord Chief Justice wondered what judge ever had such a case before him since the world began, and having thought the matter over, said--

"Hanging you both deserve, hanged both shall be this day!"

And so they were.

=Never the Time and the Place.= (_Jocoseria_, 1883.) It is impossible to doubt that in this exquisite poem is enshrined the memory of Mrs.

Browning. Joy and beauty are all around, time and place are all that heart could wish, but the loved one is absent, and nothing can fill her place.

Yet beyond the reach of storms and stranger they will meet! The eternal value of human love is again a.s.serted in this poem.

=Norbert.= (_In a Balcony._) The young man with whom the Queen has fallen in love, but whose heart is given to Constance.

="Not with my Soul Love."= The tenth lyric in _Ferishtah's Fancies_ begins with these words.

=Now.= (_Asolando_, 1889.) The value of "the quintessential moment," a theme on which Mr. Browning frequently dilates, is emphasized in this poem--

"The moment eternal--just that and nothing more,"

when the a.s.surance comes that love has been definitely won despite of time future and time past.

=Nude in Art, The=, is defended by the poet in _Francis Furini_ and _The Lady and the Painter_.