The Browning Cyclopaedia Part 36

NOTES.--Act I., Scene i. _Pym_, the great and learned champion of English liberty, was an intimate friend of Wentworth, and deeply felt his desertion of the popular cause. _Sir Benjamin Rudyard_ was a prominent member of the Long Parliament. When the quarrel broke out between Charles and the Parliament, Rudyard quitted his parliamentary pursuits and joined Hampden and Pym's party. He opposed the attainder of Strafford. He ultimately became anxious for a compromise between the King and the Commons; he acted, however, to the last with the patriots. _Henry Vane_, Sir, the younger, was a disciple of Pym, and was of considerable talents and equal fanaticism. He purloined from his father's cabinet a very important doc.u.ment, which was used against Strafford on his trial. After the Restoration he was brought to trial and executed. _Hampden, John_, a gentleman of Buckinghamshire, quiet, courteous, and submissive; but with a correct judgment, an invincible spirit, and the most consummate address.

In 1626 he was imprisoned for refusing to contribute towards the forced loan; he resisted the payment of ship-money. He threw himself heartily into the work of the Long Parliament, and commanded a troop in the parliamentary army. He was a great patriot and defender of the rights of the people. _Denzil Hollis, Lord_: "In 1629, when the Speaker refused to put to the vote Sir John Eliot's remonstrance against the illegal levying of tonnage and poundage, and against Catholic and Arminian innovations, Hollis read the resolutions, and was one of two members who forcibly held the Speaker in the chair till they were pa.s.sed. He was in consequence committed to the Tower. He was one of the 'five members,' as they were called, whom Charles accused of high treason in January 1642. He took no part in the proceedings against Strafford, who was his brother-in-law"

(_Imp. Dict. Biog._). _The Bill of Rights_: the third great charter of English liberties must not be confounded with "the Pet.i.tion of Right."

"The Bill of Rights" was pa.s.sed in the reign of William and Mary, in 1689.

"_much worn Cottington_": he was amba.s.sador to Madrid. "_maniac Laud_": Archbishop Laud was detested by the Puritans because he endeavoured to a.s.similate the doctrines and ritual of the Church of England to those of Rome. He was charged by Holles with high treason, and executed.

_Runnymead_: the place where Magna Charta was signed. _renegade_: one faithless to principle or party; a deserter of a cause. _Haman_: see the Book of Esther. Haman resolved to extirpate the Jews out of the Persian empire, but Haman fell and Mordecai was advanced to his place. _Ahitophel_ was a conspirator with Absalom against David, who prayed the Lord to turn the counsel of Ahitophel into foolishness (2 Sam. xv. 31); whence the term "Ahitophel's counsel." _League and Covenant_: the "Solemn League and Covenant" was designed by the Scotch to carry out in their integrity the principles of the Reformation and to establish the Presbyterian in lieu of the Episcopal Church. _Eliot_: Sir John Eliot compared Buckingham to Seja.n.u.s in l.u.s.t, rapacity and ambition, in the House of Commons, and seconded the motion for his impeachment. Eliot was sent to the Tower.

"_The Philistine_": the giant slain by David. "_Exalting Dagon where the ark should be_" (1 Sam. v.). Dagon was an idol, half man and half fish. He was worshipped by the Philistines. When they captured the "ark" from the Jews, it was placed in his temple, the idol fell, and the palms of his hands were broken off. _scourge and gag_: instruments of torture well understood in those days. "_The Midianite drove Israel into dens_" (Judges vi. 2): the Israelites for their sins were oppressed by Midian, and were compelled to hide from them in dens and caves of the mountains. _Gideon_: the Israelites prayed to G.o.d for deliverance from their enemies, and an angel sent Gideon, who destroyed Baal's altar and delivered Israel (Judges vi.). _Loudon_: Scottish lord and covenanter; committed to the Tower for soliciting the aid of the king of France: he was sent to Scotland by Charles. _Hamilton_, Marquess of: sent by Charles to Scotland as commissioner to suppress the Covenant, he dared not land; was suspected of treason, and fled; was restored to the King's favour, and became a leader of the royalists; was defeated by the parliamentary troops; fined 100,000, and executed. _Joab_: David, when dying, gave charge to Solomon to put his enemy Joab to death, which was done (1 Kings ii. 28-34). "_No Feltons_": J. Felton a.s.sa.s.sinated Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and was executed. _Gracchus_: Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, the celebrated Roman tribunes, were after their death worshipped as G.o.ds, and their mother esteemed herself the happiest of Roman matrons in having given birth to such ill.u.s.trious sons. _The Pet.i.tion of Right_, the second great charter of English liberties, was directed against those grievances which Wentworth thus described in his speech in the third parliament: "the raising of money by loans, strengthened by commission, with unheard-of instruction; the billeting of soldiers by the lieutenants.... Our persons have been injured both by imprisonment without law (the King exercised an absolute right to imprison any one without legal proceedings), and by being designed to some office, charge, and employment, foreign or domestic, as a brand of infamy and mark of disgrace" (Prof. Gardiner).

_Aceldama_: "a field said to have lain south of Jerusalem, purchased with the bribe which Judas took for betraying his Master, and therefore called the _field of blood_;--sometimes used in figurative sense" (_Webster's Dict._). _Nathaniel Fiennes_ was the second son of William Fiennes; he was a lawyer, and in 1640 sat in the House of Commons for Banbury. He was a rigid Presbyterian, and a member of nearly all Cromwell's parliaments.

_Ship money_: "An imposition formerly charged on the ports, towns, cities, boroughs and counties of England, for providing and furnishing certain ships for the king's service. The attempt made by Charles I. to revive and enforce this imposition was resisted by John Hampden, and was one of the causes which led to the death of Charles. It was finally abolished"

(_Webster's Dict._). "_Wentworth's influence in the North_": Wentworth represented Yorkshire in parliament, and had great influence in the north of England.--Scene ii. "_Old Vane_" was secretary of state and comptroller of the household under Charles I. _Savill_: George Savill, Marquis of Halifax (?). _Holland, Earl of_: raised forces against the parliament after espousing its cause against Charles; he was tried after the King's death and executed. "_Lady Carlisle_ was the daughter of the ninth Earl of Northumberland. In 1639 she had been for three years a widow. Her husband was James, Lord Hay, created successively Viscount Doncaster and Earl of Carlisle" (from Miss Hickey's _Strafford_). _Weston, Sir Richard_, Chancellor of the Exchequer, made Earl of Portland; denounced by Sir J.

Eliot as an enemy of the Commonwealth. "_This frightful Scots affair_": Professor Gardiner shows that Strafford opposed peace with the Scots, supported the harshest measures, and urged the King to invade Scotland (_Encyc. Brit._, vol xxii., p. 586). "_In this Ezekiel chamber_": in the eighth chapter of Ezekiel the prophet has a vision of the chambers of imagery where he saw "wicked abominations." "_The Faction_," a party acting in opposition to the const.i.tuted authority.--Act II., Scene i.

"_Subsidies_," says Blackstone, were taxes, not immediately on property, but on persons in respect of their reputed estates, after the nominal rate of 4_s._ in the pound for lands and 2_s._ 8_d._ for goods. _c.o.c.katrice_: "The basilisk; a fabulous serpent, said to be produced from a c.o.c.k's egg brooded by a serpent. Its breath, and even its look, is fabled to be fatal" (_Webster's Dict._). _Star Chamber_: "The origin of this court is derived from the most remote antiquity. Its t.i.tle was derived from the _Camera Stellata_ or Star Chamber, an apartment in the king's palace at Westminster, in which it held its sittings; it exercised an illegal control over the ordinary courts of justice, and in the reign of Charles I. became very tyrannical and offensive as a means of a.s.serting the royal prerogative. It was abolished by the Long Parliament" (_Student's Hume_, p. 358).--Scene ii. _The George_: a figure of St. George on horseback, worn by knights of the Garter. _A masque_, a species of dramatic entertainment. Fletcher and Ben Jonson wrote many masques which were acted at Court. The most beautiful work of this kind is the Comus of Milton. Act III., Scene i.--_The new Parliament_: "The Long Parliament," which met Nov. 3rd, 1640; it voted the House of Lords as useless. _The Great Duke_: Buckingham.--Scene ii. _Windebank_, one of the secretaries of state, was impeached by the Commons for treason, and escaped to France. "_sly, pitiful intriguing with the Scots_": "Charles, in his eagerness to conclude the negotiation, was induced to concede many points which he would otherwise have refused" (Lingard, _Hist. Eng._, vol. vii., p. 232).

"_The Crew and the Cabal_": the "crew" was a number of people a.s.sociated together; the "cabal" a number of persons united to promote their private views in church or state by intrigue. What is usually understood by the "cabal" was a name given to a ministry under Charles II., the initial letters of the names of its members forming the word cabal. _Mainwaring, Dr._, a clergyman who preached in favour of the general loan. He was impeached by the Commons. _Goring, Colonel_: he was Governor of Portsmouth, was an officer of distinguished merit, and devoted to the King.--Scene iii., _rufflers_, bullies, swaggerers. "_Are we in Geneva?_": Calvin's city, where all sorts of puritanical restrictions were enforced against harmless amus.e.m.e.nts as well as breaches of morality. _St. John, Oliver_: St. John was Solicitor-General; he was one of the leaders of the Independents. _stockishness_, hardness, stupidity, blockishness (rare).

_Maxwell, Usher of the Black Rod._ He received Strafford as his prisoner, after his impeachment, and required him to deliver his sword.--Act IV., Scene i. _Hollis_: Strafford was his brother-in-law, and so he took no part in the proceedings against him. "_A blind moth-eaten law_": Strafford said on his trial that "it was two hundred and forty years since any man was touched for this crime."--Scene ii. "_Prophet's rod_": "Moses took the rod of G.o.d in his hand" (Exod. iv. 20). _Haselrig, Sir Arthur_: was one of the five members of the House of Commons whom Charles tried to impeach.

_Laud, Archbishop_: had been impeached by Sir Harry Vane, and was a prisoner in the Tower. _Bill of attainder_: _The Student's Hume_ says (p.

399): "The student should bear in mind the difference between an _Impeachment_ and a _Bill of Attainder_. In an impeachment the Commons are the accusers, and the Lords alone the judges. In a bill of attainder the Commons are the judges as well as the Lords; it may be introduced in either House; it pa.s.ses through the same stages as any other bill; and when agreed to by both Houses it receives the a.s.sent of the Crown."--Act V., Scene ii. "_O bell' andare_": "The Italian boat-song is from Redi's _Bacco_, long since naturalised in the joyous and delicate version of Leigh Hunt" (R. B.) _Term_, or _Terminus_: the Roman G.o.d of bounds, under whose protection were the stones which marked boundaries. _Genius_: the Italian peoples regarded the Genius as a higher power which creates and maintains life, a.s.sists at the begetting and birth of every individual man, determines his character, tries to influence his destiny for good, accompanies him through life as his tutelary spirit, and lives on in the _Lares_ after his death. (Seyffert's _Dict. Cla.s.s. Ant._) "_Garrard--my newsman_": was a clergyman who, when Wentworth went to Ireland as Lord Deputy, in 1633, was instructed to furnish him with news and gossip. (Miss Hickey.) _Tribune_: in ancient Rome, a magistrate chosen by the people to protect them from the oppression of the patricians or n.o.bles. _Seja.n.u.s, aelius_: distinguished himself at the court of Tiberius, who made a confidant of this fawning favourite, who made himself the darling of the senate, and the army. He was commander of the praetorian guards, and used every artifice to make himself important. He became practically head of the empire. He ridiculed the Emperor by introducing him on the stage; Tiberius then ordered him to be accused before the senate; he was subsequently imprisoned and strangled, A.D. 31. _Richelieu, Cardinal_: fomented the first commotions in Scotland, and secretly supplied the Covenanters with money and arms. He was prime minister to Louis XIII. of France. "_A mask at Theobald's_": Theobald's, in Hertfordshire, was a beautiful house, inherited by Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, from his father, William Cecil, Lord Burleigh. King James liked this house so much that, in 1607, he offered Robert Cecil the Queen's dower-house at Hatfield in exchange for it. Several of Ben Jonson's masques were written for performance at Theobald's. (Prof. Morley.) _Prynne_: William Prynne was a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, of a morose and gloomy disposition, and a thorough-going Puritan; he particularly hated theatres, dancing, hunting, card playing, and Christmas festivities. He wrote a great book against all these things, which he called _Histrio-Mastix_. He was indicted as a libeller of the Queen, condemned to stand in the pillory, to lose both his ears, to pay 5000 fine to the King, and to be imprisoned for life.

"_Strafford shall take no hurt_": Charles had said to Strafford, "Upon the word of a king you shall not suffer in life, honour, or fortune." "_Put not your trust in princes_": Psalm cxlvi. 3. _Wandesford_: Sir Christopher Wandesford was Master of the Rolls, and Privy Councillor in Ireland, and had been deputy there during Strafford's absence. He was an intimate friend of Strafford's, and is said to have died of grief at hearing of Strafford's arrest. (Miss Hickey's _Strafford_.) _Radcliffe, Sir George_: was appointed by Strafford guardian of his children; he was charged by Pym with treason. _Balfour_: Lieutenant of the Tower. "_Too late for sermon at St. Antholin's_": the Government had appropriated the Church of St.

Antholin to the use of the Scotch commission. (Miss Hickey.) _Billingsley_: Balfour was desired by the King to admit Captain Billingsley and one hundred men to the Tower to effect Strafford's escape.

(Miss Hickey's notes.) "_I fought her to the utterance_": the last or utmost extremity--the same as Fr. _a outrance_. "_David not more Jonathan_": were inseparable friends. The allusion is to David the psalmist and Jonathan the son of Saul. David's lamentation at the death of Jonathan was never surpa.s.sed in pathos and beauty. (2 Sam. i. 19-27.) "_His dream--of a perfect church_." Laud wished to make the Church of England "Catholic"; he endeavoured to a.s.similate its doctrines and ceremonies to those of the Catholic Church, ignoring the fact that "the Tudor settlement" was Protestant. Laud desired to appropriate all that to him appeared valuable in the Roman Catholic system, and to reject all that to him seemed objectionable. His "perfect church" was, as Browning puts it, "a dream."

=Summum Bonum.= (_Asolando_, 1889.) A Latin phrase meaning the chief or ultimate good. "In ethics it was a phrase employed by ancient philosophers to denote that end in the following and attainment of which the progress, perfection and happiness of human beings consist. Cicero treated of the subject very fully in his _De Finibus_." (_Encyc. Dict._) Concentration is the key-note of the poem: in the honey-bag of one bee there is the breath and bloom of a year; in a single gem is represented all the chemistry of nature, from the condensation of the gases which went to form the earth; in the beauty of a single pearl is all the wonder of the sea, just as in a lump of coal are the imprisoned sun-rays of prehistoric forests. But truth and trust are brighter and purer than gems and pearls; in the love of a young girl Mr. Browning sees the concentration of the brightest truth and purest trust in the universe, so holy a thing to him is love. The _Summum Bonum_ of St. Augustine is, of course, the true, ultimate good of man--the Love of G.o.d--of which the love of the purest of mankind is but a dim reflection.

=Sun, The.= (_Ferishtah's Fancies_, 5.) Some one told one of Ferishtah's pupils that it had been reported that "G.o.d once a.s.sumed on earth a human shape," and he desired to know how the strange idea arose. Ferishtah replied that in days of ignorance men took the sun for G.o.d. "Let it be considered as the symbol of the Supreme," said the Dervish. "There must be such an Author of life and light somewhere: let us suppose the sun to be that Author. This ball of fire gives us all we enjoy on earth, and so inspires us with love and praise. If we eat a fig we praise the planter; and so on up to the sun, which gathers to himself all love and praise. The sun is fire, and more beside. Does the force know that it gives us what it does? Must our love go forth to fire? If we must thank it, there must be purpose with the power--a humanity like our own. Power has no need of will or purpose; and no occasion for beneficence when all that is, so is and so must be. As these qualities imply imperfection, let us 'eject the man, retain the orb,' and then 'what remains to love and praise?' We cannot be expected to thank insentient things. No! man's soul can only be moved by what is kindred soul: man's way it receives good; man's way it must make acknowledgment. If man were an angel, his love and praise, right and fit enough now, would go forth idly. Man's part is to send love forth, even if it go astray." "But," says the objector, "man is bound by man's conditions, can only judge as good and right what his faculty adjudges such: how can we then accept in this one case falsehood for truth? We lack an union of fire with flesh; but lacking is not gaining: is there any trace of such an union recorded?" Ferishtah replies, "Perhaps there may be; perhaps the greatly yearned-for once befell; perhaps the sun was flesh once." The pupil demands "An union inconceivable once was fact?" The Dervish replies, "There is something pervading the sun which it does not consume: is it not fitter to stand appalled before a conception unattainable by man's intelligence?" Firdausi, in the Shah Nameh, records that Husheng was the first who brought out fire from stone; and from that circ.u.mstance he founded the religion of the fire-worshippers, calling the flame which was produced the light of the Divinity. Husheng was the second king of the Peshadian dynasty; from his time the fire faith seems to have slept till the appearance of Zerdusht, in the reign of Gushtasp, many centuries afterwards, when Isfendiyar propagated it by the sword. After Husheng had discovered fire by hurling a stone against a rock, thereby producing a spark, which set light to the herbage, he made an immense fire, and gave a royal entertainment, calling it the Feast of Siddeh. The lyric explains that the divine element of fire is enshrined in the earthly flint when the spark escapes; the relationship is difficult to remember.

So G.o.d was once incarnate in the form of man; and this some find it as hard to believe.

=Tab.= (_Ned Bratts._) Tabitha Bratts, who was converted by John Bunyan, and who went with her husband to the Chief Justice at the a.s.sizes, asking to be hanged, and whose request was favourably entertained.

=Tale, A.= The Epilogue to the _Two Poets of Croisic_ is included in the second series of _Selections_ under this t.i.tle.

=Taurello Salinguerra.= (_Sordello._) His name, says Mr. W. M. Rossetti, may be translated as "Bullock Sally-in-war," or "Dash-into-fight." He belonged to the family of the Torelli, one of the two leading families of Ferrara. He married Sofia, a daughter of Eccelin the Monk, and he became the ruler of his native city. He was the right-hand man of Eccelin, and also of his son. The great authority on this character is Muratori (_Annali d' Italia, compilati da Lodovico Antonio Muratori_). Mr. W. M.

Rossetti read a paper to the Browning Society in November 1889 on "Taurello Salinguerra," and I am indebted to this valuable essay for the following dates and particulars concerning this interesting character. He was born about the year 1160. In 1200, when he was head of the Ghibelline faction in Ferrara, he suddenly a.s.sailed the town of Argenta with the Ferrarese army, and having taken it, sacked it. In 1205 the head of the Guelf faction, both in Ferrara and the March of Verona, was Azzo VI., Marquis of Este. Naturally they quarrelled, and Azzo took the castle of La Fratta from Salinguerra and dismantled it. This was the beginning of the many dissensions between them. In 1207 Azzo VI. was compelled by Eccelino da Onara and others to retire from Verona. Then it was that Salinguerra, head of the Ghibellines in Ferrara, declaring himself the intimate friend of Eccelino, expelled from that city all the adherents of Marquis Azzo; and, leaving no room for him, began to act as Lord of Ferrara. In 1208 Marquis Azzo VI. re-established himself in Verona. Reaching Ferrara with an army, he expelled Salinguerra. In 1209 Salinguerra re-entered Ferrara, stripped Azzo VI. of Este of its dominion, and sent his partisans into exile. In 1210, the Emperor Otho IV. professing that the March of Ancona belonged to the empire, Azzo obtained the invest.i.ture of it from the Emperor. Probably at this time peace was re-established between Azzo VI.

and Salinguerra, the compet.i.tors for the lordship of Ferrara. In 1213 Aldrovandino, Marquis of Este and Ancona, succeeded his father Azzo VI.

and continued to hold, along with Count Richard of San Bonifazio, the dominion of Verona, where he was created Podesta in this year. He had contests with Salinguerra in Ferrara. In 1215 Aldrovandino, Marquis of Este, died, and was succeeded by Azzo VII., a minor. In 1221 Azzo VII. and his adherents a.s.sailed Salinguerra at Ferrara, and forced him to abandon the city, and consigned the palace of Salinguerra to the flames. After mediation, the expelled men returned to their homes. In 1222 the Ghibelline cause prevailed at Ferrara: Azzo and the Guelfs had to leave the city. He collected an army at Rovigo, and returned to Ferrara.

Salinguerra, a crafty fox, made peace, for fear the people should turn against him. The peace was only a trap, however, by which to catch Azzo.

In 1224 Azzo VII. returned to lay siege to Ferrara. The astute Salinguerra sent emba.s.sies to Count Richard of San Bonifazio, to induce him, with a number of hors.e.m.e.n, to enter Ferrara under pretext of concluding a friendly pact. But on entering he was at once made prisoner, with all his company; and therefore the Marquis of Este, disappointed, retired from the siege. Enraged at this result, Marquis Azzo proceeded to the siege of the castle of La Fratta, a favourite stronghold of Salinguerra, and starved it into submission. Salinguerra complained of this to Eccelino da Romana, his brother-in-law, and they both studied more a.s.siduously than ever how best to crush the Guelfs, of which the Marquis of Este was chief. In 1225 the Lombard League procured the release of Count Richard, who returned to Verona; but he was expelled, when he took refuge in Mantua. He ultimately returned to Verona. In 1227 Eccelino the younger was established in Verona, and Count Richard again expelled. In 1228 Eccelino da Onara, father of Eccelino da Romana and of Alberic, had become a monk, and led the life of a hypocrite, finally showing himself to be a Paterine heretic.

In 1230 Verona was in trouble: the Ghibellines raised a riot and imprisoned Count Richard; Salinguerra was made Podesta. In 1240 Pope Gregory IX. incited the Lombards and the Marquis of Este to besiege Ferrara. The Doge of Venice attended in person; the Mantuans concurred, as also did Alberico da Romana. After some months peace was proposed, and Salinguerra came to the camp of the confederates to ratify them.

Salinguerra was entrapped, and was transferred as a prisoner to Venice; where, treated courteously, he ended his days in holy peace; and the House of Este, after so many years, re-entered Ferrara.

=Templars.= The poem _The Heretic's Tragedy_ deals with the suppression of the order of the Knights Templars.

=Theocrite.= (_The Boy and the Angel._) The boy who wishes to praise G.o.d "the Pope's great way," and who leaves his common task, and is replaced by the angel Gabriel. As neither boy nor angel please G.o.d in their changed positions, each returns to his appropriate sphere.

="The Poets pour us wine."= (Epilogue to _Pacchiarotto_.) These words are the beginning of the Epilogue named, and are quoted from a poem of Mr.

Browning's ent.i.tled _Wine of Cyprus_, the last verse but one, the last line of which is "And the poets poured us wine."

="There's a Woman like a Dewdrop."= (_A Blot in the 'Scutcheon._) The song in Act I., Scene iii., begins with this line. It is sung by Earl Mertoun as he climbs to Mildred Tresham's chamber.

="The Year's at the Spring."= (_Pippa Pa.s.ses._) The song which Pippa sings as she pa.s.ses the house of Ottima, and thereby brings conviction to her lover Sebald.

=Thorold, Earl Tresham.= (_A Blot in the 'Scutcheon._) The brother of Mildred Tresham, who challenges Mertoun, her lover, on his way to a stolen interview with his sister, and kills him, thinking he has disgraced the family.

=Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kader.= (1842.) The Metidja is an extensive plain near the coast of Algeria, "commencing on the eastern side of the Bay of Algiers, and stretching thence inland to the south and west. It is about sixty miles in length by ten or twelve in breadth" (_Encyc. Brit._).

Algiers was conquered by the French in 1830; but, after the conquest, constant outbreaks of hostilities on the part of the natives occurred, and in 1831 General Bertherene was despatched to chastise the rebels. Later in the same year General Savary was sent with an additional force of 16,000 men for the same purpose. He attempted to suppress the outbreaks of hostilities with the greatest cruelty and treachery. These acts so exasperated the people against their new ruler that such tribes as had acquiesced in the new order of things now armed themselves against the French. It was at this time that the world first heard of Abd-el-Kader. He was born in 1807, and was a learned and pious man, greatly distinguished amongst his people for his skill in horsemanship and athletic sports. He now rapidly collected an army of ten thousand men, marched to Oran and attacked the French, who had taken possession of the town; but was repulsed with great loss. He was so popular with his people that he had little difficulty in recruiting his forces, and he made himself so dangerous to the French that they found it expedient to offer him terms of peace, and he was recognised as emir of the province of Mascara. The peace did not last long, and hostilities broke out, leading to a defeat of the French in 1835. Constant troubles were caused the French by the opposition of Abd-el-Kader, and reinforcements on a large scale were sent against him from France. After varying fortunes, Abd-el-Kader was at last reduced to extremities, and was compelled to hide in the mountains with a few followers; at length he gave himself up to the French, and was imprisoned at Pau, and afterwards at Amboise. He afterwards obtained permission to remove to Constantinople, and from thence to remove to Damascus. The poem describes an incident of the war which took place in 1842, when the Duke d'Aumale fell upon the emir's camp and took several thousand prisoners, Abd-el-Kader escaping with difficulty.

="Thus the Mayne glideth."= (_Paracelsus._) The song which Festus sings to Paracelsus in the closing scene in his cell in the Hospital of St.

Sebastian.

=Tiburzio.= (_Luria._) The general of the army of the Pisans, who exposes to Luria the treachery of the Florentines, and whose letter the Moor destroys without reading it.

=Time's Revenges.= A SOLILOQUY. (_Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_, in _Bells and Pomegranates_, VII., 1845; _Romances_, 1863; _Dramatic Romances_, 1868.) "Love begets love," they say: probably this is not much truer than proverbs usually are. The speaker in the poem has a friend who would do anything in the world for him; in return, he barely likes him. As a compensation, inasmuch as "human love is not the growth of human will,"

the lady to whom the soliloquiser is pa.s.sionately devoted, the woman for whom he is prepared to sacrifice body, soul, everything he holds dear, cares nothing at all for him; she would roast him before a slow fire for a coveted ball-ticket. And why not? if love be what the poet says it is--the merging by affinity of one soul in another--where no affinity exists no union can result. Lovers should study the elements of chemistry, and the laws which govern the affinities of the elementary bodies; or, if they are not inclined to so serious a task, let them take to heart the Spanish proverb, "Love one that does not love you, answer one that does not call you, and you will run a fruitless race."

=Toccata of Galuppi's, A.= (_Men and Women_, 1855.) Balda.s.sare Galuppi (1706-85) was a celebrated Italian composer, who was born in 1706 near Venice. His father was a barber with a taste for music, and he taught his son sufficient of the elements of music to enable him to enter the Conservatorio degli Incurabile, where Lotti was a teacher. He produced an opera at the age of sixteen, but it was a failure; seven years after, however, he produced a comic opera _Dorinda_, which was a great success.

The young composer's great abilities were now everywhere recognised, and his fame a.s.sured. He was a most industrious writer, and left no less than seventy operas; which, however, have not survived to our time. Galuppi resided and worked in London from 1741 to 1744. He went to Russia, where he lived at the court of the Empress Catherine II. (at whose invitation he went) in great honour, and did much for the improvement of musical taste in that country. In 1768 he left Russia, and became organist of St.

Mark's, Venice. He died in 1785, and left fifty thousand lire to the poor of that city. His best comic opera is his _Il Mondo della Luna_. _A Toccata_ is a "_Touch_-piece," a prelude or overture. "It does but _touch_ its theme rapidly, even superficially, for the most part; so that the interpolation of solemn chords and emotional phrases, inconsistent with its traditional character, may naturally, by force of contrast, lead to some suggestion or recognition of the many irregularities of life" (Mrs.

Alexander Ireland). In the admirable paper on this poem written by Mrs.

Alexander Ireland for the Browning Society, she continues: "_A Toccata of Galuppi's_ touches on deep subjects with a mere feather-touch of light and capricious suggestiveness, interwoven with the graver mood, with the heart-searching questionings of man's deep nature and mysterious spirit.

The _Toccata_ as a form of composition is not the measured, deliberate working-out of some central musical thought, as is the _Sonata_ or _sound_-piece, where the trained ear can follow out the whole process to its delightful and orderly consummation, where the student marks the introduction and development of the subject, its extension, through various forms, and its whole sequence of movement and meaning, to its glorious rounding-off and culmination, spiritually noting each stage of the climbing structure and acknowledging its perfection with the inward silent verdict, 'It is well.' The _Toccata_, in its early and pure form, possessed no decided subject, made such by repet.i.tion, but bore rather the form of a capricious Improvisation or "Impromptu." It was a very flowing movement, in notes of equal length, and a h.o.m.ophonous character, the earliest examples of any importance being those by Gabrieli (1557-1613), and those by Merulo (1533-1604); while Galuppi, who was born in 1706 and died in 1785, produced a further advanced development of this particular form of musical composition, with chords freely introduced and other important innovations." Vernon Lee, in her _Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy_ (III. "The Musical Life") says of the Venetian, Balda.s.sare Galuppi, surnamed Buranello, that he was "an immensely prolific composer, and abounded in melody, tender, pathetic and brilliant, which in its extreme simplicity and slightness occasionally rose to the highest beauty.... He defined the requisites of his art to Burney in very moderate terms: 'Chiarezza, vaghezza, e buona modulazione'--clearness, beauty, and good modulation, without troubling himself much about any others.... Galuppi was a model of the respectable, modest artist, living quietly on a moderate fortune, busy with his art and the education of his numerous children, beloved and revered by his fellow-artists; and when some fifteen years later [than 1770] he died, honoured by them with a splendid funeral, at which all the Venetian musicians performed; the great Pacchiarotti writing to Burney that he had sung with much devotion to obtain a rest for Buranello's (Galuppi's) soul" (p. 101). In a note Vernon Lee adds: "Mr. Browning's fine poem, 'A Toccata of Galuppi's,' has made at least his name familiar to many English readers." Ritter, in his _History of Music_ (p. 245), has a concise but expressive notice of Galuppi.

"_Balthasar Galuppi_, called Buranello (1706-85), a pupil of Lotti, also composed many comic operas. The main features of his operas are melodic elegance and lively and spirited comic forms; but they are rather thin and weak in their execution. He was a great favourite during his lifetime."

The poem deals with two cla.s.ses of human beings--the mere pleasure-takers with their b.a.l.l.s and masks (Stanza iv.), and the scientists (Stanza xiii.) with their research and their 'ologies. The Venetians--who seemed to the poet merely born to blow and droop, who lived frivolous lives of gaiety and love-making--lived lives which came to nothing, and did deeds better left undone--heard the music which dreamily told them they must die, but went on with their kissing and their dancing till death took them where they never see the sun. The other cla.s.s, immersed in the pa.s.sion for knowledge, the cla.s.s which despises the vanities and frivolities of the b.u.t.terfly's life, and consecrates itself to science, not the less surely dissipates its energies and misses the true end of life if it has nothing higher to live for than "physics and geology."

NOTES.--ii., _St. Mark's_. The great cathedral of Venice, named after St.

Mark, because it is said that the body of that Evangelist was brought to Venice and enshrined there. "_where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings_": the Doge was the chief magistrate of Venice when it was a republic. "The ceremony of wedding the Adriatic was inst.i.tuted in 1174 by Pope Alexander III., who gave the Doge a gold ring from off his own finger in token of the victory achieved by the Venetian fleet at Istria over Frederick Barbarossa, in defence of the Pope's quarrel. When his Holiness gave the ring, he desired the Doge to throw a similar ring into the sea annually, in commemoration of the event" (Dr. Brewer). iii., "_the sea's the street there_": there are neither horses nor carriages in Venice; you go everywhere by gondola--to church, to theatre, to market; your gondola meets you at the railway station; in a word, the sea is the street.

_Shylock's Bridge_: they show you Shylock's house in the old market place by the Rialto Bridge. vi., _clavichord_, a keyed and stringed instrument, not now in use, being superseded by the pianoforte. viii., _dominant's persistence_. The dominant in music is the name given to the fifth note of the scale of any key, counting upwards. The dominant plays a most important part in cadences, in which it is indispensable that the key should be strongly marked (Grove). "_dear dead women_": the ladies of Venice are celebrated for their beauty. An article in _Poet Lore_, October 1890, p. 546, thus explains the technical musical allusions in _A Toccata of Galuppi's_. These are all to be found in the seventh, eighth, and ninth verses. "The lesser thirds are, of course, minor thirds, and are of common occurrence; but the diminished sixth is an interval rarely used. So rare is it, that I have seen it stated by good authorities that it is never used harmonically. Ordinarily a diminished sixth (seven semitones), exactly the same interval as a perfect fifth, instead of giving a plaintive, mournful, or minor impression, would suggest a feeling of rest and satisfaction. As I have said, however, there is one way in which it can be used--as a suspension, in which the root of the chord on the _lowered_ super-tonic of the scale is suspended from above into the chord with added seventh on the super-tonic, making a diminished sixth between the root of the first and the third of the second chord. The effect of this progression is most dismal, and possibly Browning had it in mind, though it is doubtful almost to certainty if Galuppi knew anything of it.

Whether it be an anachronism or not, or whether it is used in a scientifically accurate way or not, the figure is true enough poetically, for a diminished interval--namely, something less than normal--would naturally suggest an effect of sadness. _Suspensions_, as may already have been guessed by the preceding example, are notes which are held over from one chord into another, and must be made according to certain musical rules as strict as the laws of the Medes and Persians. This holding over of a note always produces a dissonance, and must be followed by a concord,--in other words, a _solution_. Sevenths are very important dissonances in music, and a commiserating seventh is most likely the variety called a minor seventh. Being a somewhat less mournful interval than the lesser thirds and the diminished sixths, whether real or imaginary, yet not so final as 'those solutions' which seem to put an end to all uncertainty, and therefore to life, they arouse in the listeners to Galuppi's playing a hope that life may last, although in a sort of dissonantal, Wagnerian fashion. The 'commiserating sevenths' are closely connected with the 'dominant's persistence' in the next verse:--

'Hark! the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to: So an octave struck the answer.'

The dominant chord in music is the chord written on the fifth degree of the scale, and it almost always has a seventh added to it, and in a large percentage of cases is followed by the tonic, the chord on the first degree of the scale. Now, in fugue form a theme is repeated in the dominant key, the latter being called the answer. After further contrapuntal wanderings of the theme, the fugue comes to what is called an episode, after which the theme is presented first, in the dominant. 'Hark!

the dominant's persistence' alludes to this musical fact; but, according to rule, this dominant must be answered in the tonic an octave above the first presentation of the theme; and 'so an octave struck the answer.'

Thus the inexorable solution comes in after the dominant's persistence.

Although life seemed possible with commiserating sevenths, the tonic, a resistless fate, strikes the answer that all must end--an answer which the frivolous people of Venice failed to perceive, and went on with their kissing. The notion of the tonic key as a relentless fate seems to suit well with the formal music of the days of Galuppi: while the more hopeful tonic key of Abt Vogler, the C major of this life, indicates that fate and the tonic key have both fallen more under man's control."--Miss Helen Ormerod's paper, read before the Browning Society, May 27th, 1887, throws additional light on some of the difficulties of this poem. "That the minor predominated in this quaint old piece (_Toccata_, by the way, means a _touch_ piece, and probably was written to display the delicacy of the composer's touch) is evident from the mention of--

"Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh, Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions,--'Must we die?'

Those commiserating sevenths--'Life might last! we can but try!'"

The interval of the third is one of the most important; the signature of a piece may mislead one, the same signature standing for a major key and its relative minor; but the third of the opening chord decides the question, a lesser 'plaintive' third (composed of a tone and a semitone) showing the key to be _minor_; the greater third (composed of two whole tones) showing the key to be _major_. Pauer tells us that 'the minor third gives the idea of tenderness, grief and romantic feeling.' Next come the 'diminished sixths': these are sixths possessing a semitone less than a minor sixth,--for instance, from C sharp to A flat: this interval in a different key would stand as a perfect fifth. 'Those suspensions, those solutions'--a suspension is the stoppage of one or more parts for a moment, while the others move on; this produces a dissonance, which is only resolved by the parts which produced it moving on to the position which would have been theirs had the parts moved simultaneously. We can understand that 'those suspensions, those solutions' might teach the Venetians, as they teach us, lessons of experience and hope; light after darkness, joy after sorrow, smiles after tears. 'Those commiserating sevenths,' of all dissonances, none is so pleasing to the ear, or so attractive to musicians, as that of minor and diminished sevenths, that of the major seventh being crude and harsh; in fact, the minor seventh is so charming in its discord as to suggest concord. Again, to quote from Pauer: 'It is the ant.i.thesis of discord and concord which fascinates and charms the ear; it is the necessary solution and return to unity which delights us.' After all this, the love-making begins again; but kisses are interrupted by the 'dominant's persistence till it must be answered to.'

This seems to indicate the close of the piece, the dominant being answered by an octave which suggests the perfect authentic cadence, in which the chord of the dominant is followed by that of the tonic. The Toccata is ended, and the gay gathering dispersed. I cannot help the thought that this old music of Galuppi's was more of the head than the heart--more formal than fiery, suggestive rather of the chill of death than the heat of pa.s.sion. The temporary silence into which the dancers were surprised by the playing of the Maestro is over, and the impressions caused by it are pa.s.sed away, just as the silence of death was to follow the warmth and brightness of the glad Venetian life."

=To Edward Fitzgerald.= In the _Athenaeum_ of July 13th, 1889, appeared this sonnet:--

"TO EDWARD FITZGERALD.

"I chanced upon a new book yesterday; I opened it, and, where my finger lay 'Twixt page and uncut page, these words I read-- Some six or seven at most--and learned thereby That you, Fitzgerald, whom by ear and eye She never knew, 'thanked G.o.d my wife was dead.'

Ay, dead! and were yourself alive, good Fitz, How to return you thanks would task my wits.

Kicking you seems the common lot of curs-- While more appropriate greeting lends you grace, Surely to spit there glorifies your face-- Spitting from lips once sanctified by hers.