The Browning Cyclopaedia Part 38

"How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end?

This is Ancona, yonder is the sea."

NOTES.--Canto iv., "_Monstr'--inform'--ingens--horren-dous_": from Vergil's _aen._ iii. 657--"Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademtum": a horrid monster, misshapen, huge, from whom sight had been taken away. vi., _Vishnu-land_: India, where Vishnu is worshipped; the second person of the modern Hindu Trinity. He is regarded as a member of the Triad whose special function is to preserve. To do this he has nine times in succession become incarnate, and will do so once more. _Avatar_: the incarnation of a deity. The ten incarnations of Vishnu are--1.

Matsya-Avatar, as a fish; 2. Kurm-Avatar, as a tortoise; 3. Varaha, as a boar; 4. Nara-Sing, as a man-lion, last animal stage; 5. Vamuna, as a dwarf, first step toward the human form; 6. Parasu-Rama, as a hero, but yet an imperfect man; 7. Rama-Chandra, as the hero of Ramayana, physically a perfect man, his next of kin, friend and ally Hamouma, the monkey-G.o.d, the monkey endowed with speech; 8. Christna-Avatar, the son of the virgin Devanaguy, one formed by G.o.d; 9. Gautama-Buddha, Siddhartha, or Sakya-muni; 10. This avatar has not yet occurred. It is expected in the future; when Vishnu appears for the last time he will come as a "saviour."

(Blavatzky, _Isis Unveiled_, vol. ii., p. 274.) _Kremlin_, the citadel of Moscow, Russia. _serpentine_: a rock, often of a dull green colour, mantled and mottled with red and purple. _syenite_: a stone named from Syene, in Egypt, where it was first found. "_Dian's fame_": Diana was worshipped by the inhabitants of Taurica Chersonesus. _Taurica Chersonesus_ is now the country called the Crimea. _h.e.l.lenic speech_ == Greek. _Scythian strands_: Taurica is joined by an isthmus to Scythia, and is bounded by the Bosphorus, the Euxine Sea, and the Palus Maeotis.

_Caldara Polidore da Caravaggio_ (1495-1543): he was a celebrated painter of frieze, etc., at the Vatican. Raphael discovered his talents when he was a mere mortar carrier to the other artists. The "Andromeda" picture, of which Browning speaks in Pauline, was an engraving from a work of this artist. "_The heart of Hamlet's Mystery_": few characters in literature have been more discussed than that of Hamlet. Schlegel thought he exhausted the power of action by calculating consideration. Goethe thought he possessed a n.o.ble nature without the strength of nerve which forms a hero. Many say he was mad, others that he was the founder of the pessimistic school. _Junius_: the mystery of the authorship of the famous letters of Junius is referred to. _Chatterton, Thomas_ (1752-70): the boy poet who deceived the credulous scholars of his day by pretending that he had discovered some ancient poems in the parish chest of Redcliffe Church, Bristol. _Rowley, Thomas_: the hypothetical priest of Bristol, said by Chatterton to have lived in the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV., and to have written the poems of which Chatterton himself was the author. ii.

2, _Triest_: the princ.i.p.al seaport of the Austro-Hungarian empire, situated very picturesquely at the north-east angle of the Adriatic Sea, in the Gulf of Trieste. _lateen sail_: a triangular sail commonly used in the Mediterranean. "_'long-sh.o.r.e thieves_": "along-sh.o.r.e men" are the low fellows who hang about quays and docks, generally of bad character.

="When I vexed you and you chid me."= (_Ferishtah's Fancies._) The first line of the seventh lyric.

=Which?= (_Asolando_, 1889.) Three court ladies make

"Trial of all who judged best In esteeming the love of a man."

An abbe sits to decide the wager and say who was to be considered the best Cupid catcher. First, the d.u.c.h.esse maintains that it is the man who holds none above his lady-love save his G.o.d and his king. The Marquise does not care for saint and loyalist, so much as a man of pure thoughts and fine deeds who can play the paladin. The Comtesse chooses any wretch, any poor outcast, who would look to her as his sole saviour, and stretch his arms to her as love's ultimate goal. The abbe had to reflect awhile. He took a pinch of snuff to clear his brain, and then, after deliberation, said--

"The love which to one, and one only, has reference, Seems terribly like what perhaps gains G.o.d's preference."

=White Witchcraft.= (_Asolando_, 1889.) Magic is defined to be of two kinds--Divine and evil. Divine is white magic; black magic is of the devil. Amongst the ancients magic was considered a Divine science, which led to a partic.i.p.ation in the attributes of Divinity itself. Philo-Judaeus, _De Specialibus Legibus_, says: "It unveils the operations of Nature, and leads to the contemplation of celestial powers." When magic became degraded into sorcery it was naturally abhorred by all the world, and the evil reputation attaching to the word, even at the present day, must be attributed to the fact that white witchcraft had a singular affinity for the black arts. Perhaps what is now termed "science" expresses all that was originally intended by the term white magic. The men of science of the past were not unacquainted with black arts, according to their enemies.

Hence Pietro d'Abano, John of Halberstadt, Cornelius Agrippa, and other learned men of the middle ages, incurred the hatred of the clergy.

Paracelsus is made expressly by Browning to abjure "black arts" in his struggles for knowledge. Burton, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_, speaks of white witches. He says (Part II., sec. i.): "Sorcerers are too common: cunning men, wizards, and white-witches, as they call them, in every village, which, if they be sought to, will help almost all infirmities of body and mind--_servatores_, in Latin; and they have commonly St.

Catherine's wheel printed in the roof of their mouth, or in some part about them."

[THE POEM.] One says if he could play Jupiter for once, and had the power to turn his friend into an animal, he would decree that she should become a fox. The lady, if invested with the same power, would turn him into a toad. He bids Canidia say her worst about him when reduced to this condition. The Canidia referred to is the sorceress of Naples in _Horace_, who could bring the moon from heaven. The witch boasts of her power in this respect:--

"Meaeque terra cedit insolentiae.

(Ut ipse nosti curiosus) et Polo An quae movere cereas imagines, Diripere Lunam."

(HORAT., _Canid. Epod._, xvii. 75, etc.)

Hudibras mentions this (Part II., 3);--

"Your ancient conjurors were wont To make her (the moon) from her sphere dismount, And to their incantations stoop."

The _Zoophilist_ for July 1891 gives the following, from Mrs. Orr's _Life of Browning_, as the origin of the reference to the toad in the poem: "About the year 1835, when Mr. Browning's parents removed to Hatcham, the young poet found a humble friend "in the form of a toad, which became so much attached to him that it would follow him as he walked. He visited it daily, where it burrowed under a white rose tree, announcing himself by a pinch of gravel dropped into its hole; and the creature would crawl forth, allow its head to be gently tickled, and reward the act with that loving glance of the soft, full eyes which Mr. Browning has recalled in one of the poems of _Asolando_." The lines are:--

"He's loathsome, I allow; There may or may not lurk a pearl beneath his puckered brow; But see his eyes that follow mine--love lasts there, anyhow."

="Why from the World."= The first words of the twelfth lyric in _Ferishtah's Fancies_.

=Why I am a Liberal= was a poem written for Ca.s.sell & Co. in 1885, who published a volume of replies by English men of letters, etc., to the question, "Why I am a Liberal?"

"WHY I AM A LIBERAL.

"'Why?' Because all I haply can and do, All that I am now, all I hope to be,-- Whence comes it save from future setting free Body and soul the purpose to pursue G.o.d traced for both? If fetters, not a few, Of prejudice, convention, fall from me, These shall I bid men--each in his degree, Also G.o.d-guided--bear, and gayly, too?

But little do or can, the best of us: That little is achieved through Liberty.

Who, then, dares hold, emanc.i.p.ated thus, His fellow shall continue bound? Not I, Who live, love, labour freely, nor discuss A brother's right to freedom. That is 'Why.'"

=Will, The.= (_Sordello._) Mr. Browning uses the term "will" to express Sordello's effort to "realise all his aspirations in his inner consciousness, in his imagination, in his feeling that he is potentially all these things." See Professor Alexander's _a.n.a.lysis of "Sordello,"_ lvii., p. 406 (_Browning Society's Papers_); "The Body, the machine for acting Will" (_Sordello_, Book II., line 1014, and p. 477 of this work).

Mr. Browning's early opinions were so largely formed by his occult and theosophical studies that it is necessary for the full understanding of his theory of the will and its power, to study the following axioms from the work of an occult writer, Eliphas Levi, as a good summary of the teaching so largely imbibed by the poet.

"THEORY OF WILL-POWER.

"_Axiom 1._ Nothing can resist the will of man when he knows what is true and wills what is good. _Axiom 2._ To will evil is to will death.

A perverse will is the beginning of suicide. _Axiom 3._ To will what is good with violence is to will evil, for violence produces disorder and disorder produces evil. _Axiom 4._ We can and should accept evil as the means to good; but we must never practise it, otherwise we should demolish with one hand what we erect with the other. A good intention never justifies bad means; when it submits to them it corrects them, and condemns them while it makes use of them. _Axiom 5._ To earn the right to possess permanently we must will long and patiently. _Axiom 6._ To pa.s.s one's life in willing what it is impossible to retain for ever is to abdicate life and accept the eternity of death. _Axiom 7._ The more numerous the obstacles which are surmounted by the will, the stronger the will becomes. It is for this reason that Christ has exalted poverty and suffering. _Axiom 8._ When the will is devoted to what is absurd it is reprimanded by eternal reason. _Axiom 9._ The will of the just man is the will of G.o.d Himself, and it is the law of nature. _Axiom 10._ The understanding perceives through the medium of the will. If the will be healthy, the sight is accurate. G.o.d said, 'Let there be light!' and the light was.

The will says: 'Let the world be such as I wish to behold it!' and the intelligence perceives it as the will has determined. This is the meaning of Amen, which confirms the acts of faith. _Axiom 11._ When we produce phantoms we give birth to vampires, and must nourish these children of nightmare with our own blood and life, with our own intelligence and reason, and still we shall never satiate them. _Axiom 12._ To affirm and will what ought to be is to create; to affirm and will what should not be is to destroy. _Axiom 13._ Light is an electric fire, which is placed by man at the disposition of the will; it illuminates those who know how to make use of it, and burns those who abuse it. _Axiom 14._ The empire of the world is the empire of light. _Axiom 15._ Great minds with wills badly equilibrated are like comets, which are abortive suns. _Axiom 16._ To do nothing is as fatal as to commit evil, and it is more cowardly. Sloth is the most unpardonable of the deadly sins. _Axiom 17._ To suffer is to labour.

A great misfortune properly endured is a progress accomplished. Those who suffer much live more truly than those who undergo no trials.

_Axiom 18._ The voluntary death of self-devotion is not a suicide,--it is the apotheosis of free-will. _Axiom 19._ Fear is only indolence of will; and for this reason public opinion brands the coward. _Axiom 20._ An iron chain is less difficult to burst than a chain of flowers.

_Axiom 21._ Succeed in not fearing the lion, and the lion will be afraid of you. Say to suffering, 'I will that thou shalt become a pleasure,' and it will prove such, and more even than a pleasure, for it will be a blessing. _Axiom 22._ Before deciding that a man is happy or otherwise seek to ascertain the bent of his will. Tiberius died daily at Caprea, while Jesus proved His immortality, and even His divinity, upon Calvary and the Cross."

="Wish no word unspoken."= (_Ferishtah's Fancies._) The first words of the lyric to the second poem.

=Woman's Last Word, A.= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1868.) In the presence of perfect love words are often superfluous, wild, and hurtful; words lead to debate, debate to contention, striving, weeping. Even truth becomes falseness; for if the heart is consecrated by a pure affection, love is the only truth; and the chill of logic and the precision of a definition can be no other than harmful; therefore hush the talking, pry not after the apples of the knowledge of good and evil, or Eden will surely be in peril. The only knowledge is the charm of love's protecting embrace, the only language is the speech of love, the only thought to think the loved one's thought--the absolute sacrifice of the whole self on the altar of love; but before the altar can be approached sorrow must be buried, a little weeping has to be done; the morrow shall see the offering presented,--"the might of love"

will drown alike both hopes and fears.

=Women and Roses.= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1868.) The singer dreams of a red rose tree with three roses on its branches; one is a faded rose whose petals are about to fall,--the bees do not notice it as they pa.s.s; the second is a rose in its perfection, its cup "ruby-rimmed," its heart "nectar-brimmed,"--the bee revels in its nectar; the third is a baby rosebud. And in these flowers the poet sees types of the women of the ages,--the past, the present, and the future: the shadows of the n.o.ble and beautiful, or wicked women in history and poetry dance round the dead rose; round the perfect rose of the present dance the spirits of the women of to-day; round the bud troop the little feet of maidens yet unborn; and all dance to one cadence round the dreamer's tree. The dance will go on as before when the dreamer has departed, roses will bloom then for other beholders, and other dreamers will see and remember their loveliness; the creations of the poet even must join the dance. As the love of the past, so the love to come, must link hands and trip to the measure.

=Women of Browning.= The best are Pompilia, in _The Ring and the Book_, the lady in the _Inn Alb.u.m_, and the heroine in _Colombe's Birthday_; the others, good and bad, are the wife in _Any Wife to any Husband_; James Lee's Wife, Michal, Pippa, Mildred, Gwendolen, Polixena, Colombe, Anael, Domizia, "The Queen," Constance; and the heroines of _The Laboratory_, _The Confessional_, _A Woman's Last Word_, _In a Year_, _A Light Woman_, and _A Forgiveness_.

=Works of Robert Browning.= The new and uniform edition of the works of Robert Browning is published in sixteen volumes, small crown 8vo. This edition contains three portraits of Mr. Browning, at different periods of life, and a few ill.u.s.trations. Contents of the volumes:--

Vol. 1. _Pauline_ and _Sordello_.

" 2. _Paracelsus_ and _Strafford_.

" 3. _Pippa Pa.s.ses_, _King Victor and King Charles_, _The Return of the Druses_, and _A Soul's Tragedy_; with a portrait of Mr. Browning.

" 4. _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_, _Colombe's Birthday_, and _Men and Women_.

" 5. _Dramatic Romances_, and _Christmas Eve and Easter Day_.

" 6. _Dramatic Lyrics_, and _Luria_.

" 7. _In a Balcony_, and _Dramatis Personae_; with a portrait of Mr.

Browning.

" 8. _The Ring and the Book_: books i. to iv.; with two ill.u.s.trations.

" 9. _The Ring and the Book_: books v. to viii.

" 10. _The Ring and the Book_: books ix. to xii.; with a portrait of Guido Franceschini.

" 11. _Balaustion's Adventure_, _Prince Hohenstiel-Schw.a.n.gau_, Saviour of Society, and _Fifine at the Fair_.

" 12. _Red Cotton Nightcap Country_, and _The Inn Alb.u.m_.

" 13. _Aristophanes' Apology_, including a Transcript from Euripides, being the Last Adventure of Balaustion, and _The Agamemnon of aeschylus_.

" 14. _Pacchiarotto_, and How he worked in Distemper; with other Poems; _La Saisiaz_ and _The Two Poets of Croisic_.