The Browning Cyclopaedia Part 8

His philosophy, he admits, may be wrecked to-morrow, but he speaks from past experience. He cannot live the life of his fellow, yet he knows of those who are not so blessed as to live in Persia, yet it would not be wise to say: "No sun, no grapes,--then no subsistence!" There are lands where snow falls; he will not trouble about cold till it comes to Persia.

But the Indian sage, the Buddha, concluded that the best thing of Life was that it led to Death! The dervish replied that though Sakya Muni said so he did not believe it, as he lived out his seventy years and liked his dinner to the last--he lied, in fact. The pupil demands truth at any cost, and is told to take this: G.o.d is all-good, all-wise, all-powerful. What is man? Not G.o.d, yet he is a creature, with a creature's qualities. You cannot make these two conceptions agree: G.o.d, that only can, does not; man, that would, cannot. A carpet web may ill.u.s.trate the meaning: the sage has asked the weaver how it is that apart the fiery-coloured silk, and the other of watery dimness, when combined, produce a medium profitable to the sight. The artificer replies that the medium was what he aimed at. So the quality of man blended with the quality of G.o.d a.s.sists the human sight to understand Life's mystery. Man can only know _of_ and think _about_, he cannot understand, earth's least atom. He cannot know fire thoroughly, still less the mystery of gravitation. But, it is objected, force has not mind; man does not thank gravitation when an apple drops, nor summer for the apple: why thank G.o.d for teeth to bite it? Forces are the slaves of supreme power. The sense that we owe a debt to somebody behind these forces a.s.sures us there is somebody to take it. We eat an apple without thanking it. We thank Him but for whose work orchards might grow gall-nuts.

Ferishtah in the Lyric asks no praise for his work on behalf of mankind.

He who works for the world's approval, or even for its love, must not be surprised if both are withheld. He has sought, found and done his duty.

For the rest he looks beyond.

=Beatrice Signorini= (_Asolando_, 1889) was a n.o.ble Roman lady who married Francesco Romanelli, a painter, a native of Viterbo, in the time of Pope Urban VIII. He was a favourite of the Barberini family. Soon after his marriage he became attached to Artemisia Gentileschi, a celebrated lady painter. One day he proposed to her that she should paint him a picture filled with fruit, except a s.p.a.ce in the centre for her own portrait, which he would himself insert. He kept this work amongst his treasures; and one day, wishing to make his wife jealous, he unveiled it in her presence, dilating on the graces and beauty of the original. His wife was a very beautiful woman also, and was not inclined to tolerate this rivalry for her husband's affections; she therefore destroyed the face of the fair artist in the picture, so that it could not be recognised. Her husband was not angry at this, but admired and loved his wife all the more for this outburst of natural wrath, and soon ceased to think further of his quondam love. Artemisia Gentileschi, daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, lived 1590-1642. She was a pupil of Guido, and acquired great fame as a portrait painter. She was a beautiful woman; her portrait painted by herself is in Hampton Court. Her greatest work is the picture of Judith and Holofernes, in the Pitti Palace, Florence. She came to England with her father in the reign of Charles I., and painted for him David with the head of Goliath.

She soon returned to Italy, and pa.s.sed the remainder of her life at Naples. Baldinucci tells the story of Romanelli.

=Beer.= See NATIONALITY IN DRINKS (_Dramatic Lyrics_).

="Before and After."= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1868.) Two men have quarrelled, and a duel is proposed. It is urged that the injured man should forgive his enemy, but a philosophical adviser considers that Christianity is hardly equal to this particular matter: "Things have gone too far." Forgiveness is all very well in good books, but these men are sunk in a slough where they must not be left to "stick and stink." As the offender never pardons, and the offended in this case will not, there is nothing for it but to fight. Besides, "while G.o.d's champion lives" (the just man), "wrong shall be resisted" and the wrong-doer punished. These two men have quarrelled, and it is impossible to say which of them is the injured and which the injurer. Wrong has been done--this much is certain; beyond that human judgment is at fault, and the Divine must be invoked. Let them fight it out, then! Of course the poet is speaking dramatically, and not laying down the principle that where we see evil done, especially in our own concerns, we are bound to avenge the wrong. This sentiment is that of the philosophical observer of the feud, though there are phrases here and there quite in accord with Mr.

Browning's axioms: "Better sin the whole sin"; "Go, live his life out"; "Life will try his nerves." [This teaching is much in the way of that in the concluding verses of _The Statue and the Bust_ (_q.v._)] For the culprit there, the speaker says, it is better he should add daring courage to face the consequences of his crime, than by running away from them be coward as well as criminal. He may come off victor, but his future life, his garden of pleasure, will have a warder, a leopard-dog thing (his sin), ever at his side. This leering presence, this "sly, mute thing," crouching under every "rose wall" and "grape-tree," will exact the penalty of past sin, and mayhap sting the sinner to repentance. "So much for the culprit." The injured, "the martyred man," has borne so much, he can at least bear another stroke--"give his blood and get his heaven." If death end it, well for him--"he forgives"; if he be victor he has punished sin as G.o.d's minister of justice. In "After," what is not said is more powerful than any words which could have filled the intervening s.p.a.ce between these two poems. The imagination here is all-sufficient. The chill presence of death has altered the aspect of everything. The rush of thought, the casuistry, the intensity of the preceding poem, is all hushed and silent here. Death makes things so real in its presence, masks drop off from souls' faces, and truth can make her voice heard above the contentions of sophistry. The victor speaks--he has no desire to masquerade here as G.o.d's avenging angel; he recognises that even his foe has the rights of a man, and as the spirit of the dead man wanders, absorbed in his new life, he heeds not his wrongs nor the vengeance of his slayer; the great realities of the other world make those of this world trivial, and the victor estimates at its true value the worthlessness of his conquest. If they could be as they were of old! So forgiveness would have been better and Christ's command is vindicated--"I say unto you that ye resist not evil." There are some victories which are always the worst of defeats.

="Bells and Pomegranates."= Under this t.i.tle Mr. Browning published a cheap edition, in serial form, of his poems in 1841. The following works appeared in this manner:--_Pippa Pa.s.ses_; _King Victor and King Charles_; _Dramatic Lyrics_; _The Return of the Druses_; _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_; _Colombe's Birthday_; _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_; _Luria_; and _A Soul's Tragedy_. ("A golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, upon the hem of the robe round about."--EXOD. xxviii. 34, 35.) "The reason supposed in the Targum for the directions given to the priest is that the priest's approach should be _cautious_ to the innermost 'Holy of Holies,' or Sanctuary of the Tabernacle. The sound of the small bells upon his robe was intended to announce his approach before his actual appearance." Philo says the bells were to denote the harmony of the universe. St. Jerome says they also indicated that every movement of the priest should be for edification. Mr. Browning, however, intimated that he had no such symbolical intention in the choice of his t.i.tle. In the preface to the last number of the series, he said: "Here ends my first series of 'Bells and Pomegranates,' and I take the opportunity of explaining, in reply to inquiries, that I only meant by that t.i.tle to indicate an endeavour towards something like an alternation or mixture of music with discoursing, sound with sense, poetry with thought; which looks too ambitious, thus expressed, so the symbol was preferred. It is little to the purpose that such is actually one of the most familiar of the many Rabbinical (and Patristic) acceptations of the phrase; because I confess that, letting authority alone, I supposed the bare words, in such juxtaposition, would sufficiently convey the desired meaning. 'Faith and good works' is another fancy, for instance, and, perhaps, no easier to arrive at; yet Giotto placed a pomegranate fruit in the hand of Dante, and Raffaelo crowned his theology (in the _Camera della Segnatura_) with blossoms of the same; as if the Bellari and Vasari would be sure to come after, and explain that it was merely '_simbolo delle buone opere--il qual Pomogranato, fu per usato nelle vesti del Pontefice appresso gli Ebrei_.'--R. B."

="Ben Karshook's Wisdom."= Mr. Sharp says, in his _Life of Browning_, "In the late spring (April 27th, 1854), also, he wrote the short dactylic lyric, "Ben Karshook's Wisdom." This little poem was given to a friend for appearance in one of the then popular _keepsakes_--literally given, for Browning never contributed to magazines. As "Ben Karshook's Wisdom,"

though it has been reprinted in several quarters, will not be found in any volume of Browning's works, and was omitted from _Men and Women_ by accident, and from further collections by forgetfulness, it may be fitly quoted here. _Karshook_, it may be added, is the Hebraic word for a thistle.

"'Would a man 'scape the rod?'-- Rabbi Ben Karshook saith, 'See that he turns to G.o.d, The day before his death.'

'Ay, could a man inquire, When it shall come!' I say, The Rabbi's eye shoots fire-- 'Then let him turn to-day!'

Quoth a young Sadducee,-- 'Reader of many rolls, Is it so certain we Have, as they tell us, souls?'--

'Son, there is no reply!'

The Rabbi bit his beard; 'Certain, a soul have _I_,-- We may have none,' he sneered.

Thus Karshook, the Hiram's-Hammer, The Right-hand Temple column, Taught babes in grace their grammar, And struck the simple, solemn."

(ROME, _April 27th, 1854_.)

The reference in the last verse is to 1 Kings vii. 13-22. Hiram was a Phnician king, and a skilful builder of temples. The Temple columns referred to were called Jachin and Boaz, and were made of bra.s.s and set up at the entrance; Boaz (_strength_) on the left hand, and Jachin (_stability_) on the right. The Freemasons have adopted the names of these pillars in their ceremonial and symbolism.

=Bernard de Mandeville= [THE MAN] (1670-1733) was a native of Rotterdam, and the son of a physician who practised in that city. He studied medicine at Leyden, and came to England "to learn the language." He did this with such effect that it was doubted if he were a foreigner. He practised medicine in London, and is known to fame by his celebrated book _The Fable of the Bees_, a miscellaneous work which includes "_The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves Turned Honest_; _An Inquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue_; _An Essay on Charity Schools_; and _A Search into the Origin of Society_."

When, in 1705, the country was agitated by the question as to the continuance of Marlborough's war with France, Mandeville published his _Grumbling Hive_. All sorts of charges were being made against public officials; every form of corruption and dishonesty was freely charged on these persons, and it was in the midst of this agitation that Mandeville humorously maintained that "private vices are public benefits,"--that self-seeking, luxury, ambition, and greed are all necessary to the greatness and prosperity of a nation. "Fools only strive to make a great and honest hive." "The bees of his fable," says Professor Minto, "grumbled, as many Englishmen were disposed to do,--cursed politicians, armies, fleets, whenever there came a reverse, and cried, 'Had we but honesty!'" Jove, at last, in a pa.s.sion, swore that he would "rid the canting hive of fraud," and filled the hearts of the bees with honesty and all the virtues, strict justice, frugal living, contentment with little, acquiescence in the insults of enemies. Straightway the flourishing hive declined, till in time only a small remnant was left; this took refuge in a hollow tree, "blest with content and honesty," but "dest.i.tute of arts and manufactures." "He gives the name of virtue to every performance by which man, contrary to the impulse of nature, should endeavour the benefit of others, or the conquest of his own pa.s.sions, out of a rational ambition of being good"; while everything which, without regard to the public, man should commit to gratify any of his appet.i.tes, is vice." He finds self-love (a vice by the definition) masquerading in many virtuous disguises, lying at the root of asceticism, heroism, public spirit, decorous conduct,--at the root, in short, of all the actions that pa.s.s current as virtuous." He taught that "the moral virtues are the political offspring which flattery begot upon pride." Politicians and moralists have worked upon man to make him believe he is a sublime creature, and that self-indulgence makes him more akin to the brutes. In 1723 Mandeville applied his a.n.a.lysis of virtue in respect to the then fashionable inst.i.tution of charity schools, and a great outcry was raised against his doctrines. His book was presented to the justices, the grand jury of Middles.e.x, and a copy was ordered to be burned by the common hangman. It is probable that Mandeville was not serious in all he wrote; much of his writings must be considered merely as a political _jeu d'esprit_. His was an age of speculation upon ethical questions, and a humorous foreigner could not but be moved to satirise English methods, which are frequently peculiarly open to this kind of attack.

[THE POEM.] (_Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in their Day_: London, 1887.) The sketch of Mandeville's opinion given above will afford a key to the drift of Mr. Browning's poem. His aim is to point out the great truths which, on a careful examination, will be found to underlie much of the old philosopher's paradoxical teaching; not as understood by fools, he says, but by those who let down their sounding line below the turbid surface to the still depths where evil harmoniously combines with good, Mandeville's teaching is worthy of examination. We must take life as we find it, ever remembering that law deals the same with soul and body; life's rule is short, infancy's probation is necessary to bodily development; and we might as well expect a new-born infant to start up strong, as the soul to stand in its full-statured magnificence without the necessary faculty of growth. Law deals with body as with soul. Both, stung to strength through weakness, strive for good through evil. And all the while the process lasts men complain that "no sign, no stirring of G.o.d's finger," indicates His preference for either. Never promptly and beyond mistake has G.o.d interposed between oppression and its victim. But suppose the Gardener of mankind has a definite purpose in view when he plants evil side by side with good? How do we know that every growth of good is not consequent on evil's neighbourhood? As it is certain that the garden was planted by intelligence, would not the sudden and complete eradication of evil repeal a primal law of the all-understanding Gardener? "But," retorts the objector, "suppose these ill weeds were interspersed by an enemy?"

Man's faculty avails not to see the whole sight. When we examine the plan of an estate, we do not ask where is the roof of the house--where the door, the window. We do not seek a thing's solid self in its symbol: looking at Orion on a starry night, who asks to see the man's flesh in the star-points? If it be objected that we have no need of symbols, and that we should be better taught by facts, it is answered that a myth may teach.

The rising sun thrills earth to the very heart of things; creation acknowledges its life-giving impulse and murmurs not, but, unquestioning, uses the invigorating beams. Is man alone to wait till he comprehends the sun's self to realise the energy that floods the universe? Prometheus drew the sun's rays into a focus, and made fire do man service. Thus to utilise the sun's influence was better than striving to follow beam and beam upon their way, till we faint in our endeavour to guess their infinitude of action. The teaching of the poem is, that to make the best use of the world as we find it, is wiser than torturing our brains to comprehend mysteries which by their nature and our own weakness are insoluble.

=Bifurcation.= (_Pacchiarotto and other Poems_: London, 1876.) A woman loves a man, but "prefers duty to love"--enters a convent, perhaps, or adopts some life for reasons which she considers imperative, and so cannot marry. Rejecting love, she thinks she rejects the tempter's bribe when the paths before her diverge. It is a sacrifice, she feels, and a great one; but her heart tells her, probably because it has been suggested by those whose influence over her was very great, that heaven will repair the wrongs of earth. She chooses the darkling half of life, and waits her reward in the world "where light and darkness fuse." The man loved the woman. Love was a hard path for him, but duty was a pleasant road. When the ways parted, and his love forsook him to abide by duty, she told him their roads would converge again at the end, and bade him be constant to his path, as she would be to hers, that they might meet once more. But, when the guiding star is gone, man's footsteps are apt to stray, and every stumbling-block brought him to confusion. And after his falls and flint-piercings he would rise and cry "All's well!" and struggle on, since he must be content with one of the halves that make the whole. He would have the story of each inscribed on their tomb, and he demands to know which tomb holds sinner and which holds saint! If love be all--if earth and its best be our highest aim--then the woman was the sinner for not marrying her lover, and settling down in a suburban villa, and surrounding herself with children and domestic pleasures. But if the ideal life--if a love infinitely higher and purer than any earthly affection--be taken into account; if in her soul she had heard the call, "Leave all and follow Me,"

and she obeyed with breaking heart, in a perfect spirit of self-sacrifice, then was she no sinner, but saint indeed. Surely there are higher paths in life than even the holy one of wedded love. Mr. Browning's own married life was so ideally perfect that he has been led into some exaggeration of its advantages to the ma.s.s of mankind.

=Bishop Blougram's Apology.= (_Men and Women_, vol. i., 1855.) Bishop Blougram is a _bon vivant_, a man of letters, of fastidious taste and of courtly manners--a typical Renaissance prince of the Church, in fact. He has been successful in life, as he understands it, and there seems no reason why he should make any apology for an existence so in every way congenial to his nature. Mr. Gigadibs is a young literary man, smart at "articles" for the magazines, but possessing no knowledge outside the world of books, and incapable of deep thought on the great problems of life and mind. He can settle everything off-hand in his flippant, free-thinking style, and he has arrived at the conclusion that a man of Blougram's ability cannot really believe in the doctrines which he pretends to defend, and that he is only acting a part; as such a life cannot be "ideal," he considers his host more or less of an impostor. By some means he finds himself dining with the Bishop, and after dinner he is treated to his lordship's "Apology." The ecclesiastic has taken the measure of his man, and good-humouredly puts the case thus: "You say the thing is my trade, that I am above the humbug in my heart, and sceptical withal at times, and so you despise me--to be plain. For your own part you must be free and speak your mind. You would not choose my position if you could you would be great, but not in my way. The problem of life is not to fancy what were fair if only it could be, but, taking life as it is, to make it fair so far as we can. For a simile, we mortals make our life-voyage each in his cabin. Suppose you attempt to furnish it after a landsman's idea. You bring an Indian screen, a piano, fifty volumes of Balzac's novels and a library of the cla.s.sics, a marble bath, and an "old master" or two; but the ship folk tell you you have only six feet square to deal with, and because they refuse to take on board your piano, your marble bath, and your old masters, you set sail in a bare cabin. You peep into a neighbouring berth, snug and well-appointed, and you envy the man who is enjoying his suitable sea furniture; you have proved your artist nature, but you have no furniture. Imagine we are two college friends preparing for a voyage; my outfit is a bishop's, why won't you be a bishop too? In the first place, you don't and can't believe in a Divine revelation; you object to dogmas, so overhaul theology; you think I am by no means a fool, so that I must find believing every whit as hard as you do, and if I do not say so, possibly I am an impostor. Grant that I do not believe in the fixed and absolute sense--to meet you on your own premise--overboard go my dogmas, and we both are unbelievers. Does that fix us unbelievers for ever? Not so: all we have gained is, that as unbelief disturbed us by fits in our believing days, so belief will ever and again disturb our unbelief, for how can we guard our unbelief and make it bear fruit to us? Just when we think we are safest a flower, a friend's death, or a beautiful s.n.a.t.c.h of song, and lo! there stands before us the grand Perhaps! The old misgivings and crooked questions all are there--all demanding solution, as before. All we have gained by our unbelief is a life of doubt diversified by faith, in place of one of faith diversified by doubt. "But," says Gigadibs, "if I drop faith and you drop doubt, I am as right as you!" Blougram will not allow this: "the points are not indifferent; belief or unbelief bears upon life, and determines its whole course; positive belief brings out the best of me, and bears fruit in pleasantness and peace. Unbelief would do nothing of the sort for me: you say it does for you? We'll try! I say faith is my waking life; we sleep and dream, but, after all, waking is our real existence--all day I study and make friends; at night I sleep. What's midnight doubt before the faith of day? You are a philosopher; you disbelieve, you give to dreams at night the weight I give to the work of active day; to be consistent, you should keep your bed, for you live to sleep as I to wake--to unbelieve, as I to still believe. Common-sense terms you bedridden: common-sense brings its good things to me; so it's best believing if we can, is it not? Again, if we are to believe at all, we cannot be too decisive in our faith; we must be consistent in all our choice--succeed, or go hang in worldly matters. In love we wed the woman we love most or need most, and as a man cannot wed twice, so neither can he twice lose his soul. I happened to be born in one great form of Christianity, the most p.r.o.nounced and absolute form of faith in the world, and so one of the most potent forms of influencing the world. External forces have been allowed to act upon me by my own consent, and they have made me very comfortable. I take what men offer with a grace; folks kneel and kiss my hand, and thus is life best for me; my choice, you will admit, is a success. Had I n.o.bler instincts, like you, I should hardly count this success; grant I am a beast, beasts must lead beasts' lives; it is my business to make the absolute best of what G.o.d has made. At the same time, I do not acknowledge I am so much your inferior, though you do say I pine among my million fools instead of living for the dozen men of sense who observe me, and even they do not know whether I am fool or knave. Be a Napoleon, and if you disbelieve, where's the good of it? Then concede there is just a chance: doubt may be wrong--just a chance of judgment and a life to come. Fit up your cabin another way. Shall we be Shakespeare? What did Shakespeare do? Why, left his towers and gorgeous palaces to build himself a trim house in Stratford. He owned the worth of things; he enjoyed the show and respected the puppets too. Shakespeare and myself want the same things, and what I want I have. He aimed at a house in Stratford--he got it; I aim at higher things, and receive heaven's incense in my nose. Believe and get enthusiasm, that's the thing. I can achieve nothing on the denying side--ice makes no conflagration." Gigadibs says, "But as you really lack faith, you run the same risk by your indifference as does the bold unbeliever; an imperfect faith like that is not worth having; give me whole faith or none!" Blougram fixes him here. "Own the use of faith, I find you faith!" he replies. "Christianity may be false, but do you wish it true? If you desire faith, then you've faith enough. We could not tolerate pure faith, naked belief in Omnipotence; it would be like viewing the sun with a lidless eye. The use of evil is to hide G.o.d. I would rather die than deny a Church miracle." Gigadibs says, "Have faith if you will, but you might purify it." Blougram objects that "if you first cut the Church miracle, the next thing is to cut G.o.d Himself and be an atheist, so much does humanity find the cutting process to its taste." If Gigadibs says, "All this is a narrow and gross view of life," Blougram answers, "I live for this world now; my best pledge for observing the new laws of a new life to come is my obedience to the present world's requirements. This life may be intended to make the next more intense. Man ever tries to be beforehand in his evolution, as when a traveller throws off his furs in Russia because he will not want them in France; in France spurns flannel because in Spain it will not be required; in Spain drops cloth too c.u.mbrous for Algiers; linen goes next, and last the skin itself, a superfluity in Timbuctoo. The poor fool was never at ease a minute in his whole journey. I am at ease now, friend, worldly in this world, as I have a right to be. You meet me," continues Blougram, "at this issue: you think it better, if we doubt, to say so; act up to truth perceived, however feebly. Put natural religion to the test with which you have just demolished the revealed, abolish the moral law, let people lie, kill, and thieve, but there are certain instincts, unreasoned out and blind, which you dare not set aside; you can't tell why, but there they are, and there you let them rule, so you are just as much a slave, liar, hypocrite, as I--a conscious coward to boot, and without promise of reward. I but follow my instincts, as you yours. I want a G.o.d--must have a G.o.d--ere I can be aught, must be in direct relation with Him, and so live my life; yours, you dare not live. Something we may see, all we cannot see. I say, I see all: I am obliged to be emphatic, or men would doubt there is anything to see at all" Then the Bishop turns upon his opponent and presses him: "Confess, don't you want my bishopric, my influence and state? Why, you will brag of dining with me to the last day of your life! There are men who beat me,--the zealot with his mad ideal, the poet with all his life in his ode, the statesman with his scheme, the artist whose religion is his art--such men carry their fire within them; but you, you Gigadibs, poor scribbler,--but not so poor but we almost thought an article of yours might have been written by d.i.c.kens,--here's my card, its mere production, in proof of acquaintance with me, will double your remuneration in the reviews at sight. Go, write,--detest, defame me, but at least you cannot despise me!" The average superficial reasoner is in the constant habit of setting down as insincere such learned persons as make a profession of faith in the dogmas of Christianity. The ordinary man of the world considers the ma.s.s of Christian people as bound to their faith by the fetters of ignorance. Such men, however, as it is impossible to term ignorant, who profess to hold the dogmas of Christianity in their integrity, are actuated, they say, by unworthy motives, self-interest, the desire to make the best of both worlds, unwillingness to cast in their lot with those who put themselves to the pain and discredit of thinking for themselves, and casting off the fetters of superst.i.tion. So, say these cynics, the dignified clergy of the Established Church repeat creeds which they no longer believe, that they may live in splendour and enjoy the best things of life, while the poorer clergy retain their positions as a decent means of gaining a livelihood. When such flippant thinkers and impulsive talkers contemplate the lives of such men as Cardinal Wiseman or Cardinal Newman, who were acknowledged to be learned and highly cultivated men, they say it is impossible such men can be sincere when they profess to believe the teachings of the Catholic Church, which they hold to be contemptible superst.i.tion; they must be actuated by unworthy motives, love of power over men's minds, craving for worldly dignities and the adulation of men and the like. That a man like Newman should give up his intellectual life at Oxford "to perform mummeries at a Catholic altar" in Birmingham, was plainly termed insanity, intellectual suicide, or sheer knavery. The late Cardinal Wiseman was an exceedingly learned man, of great scientific ability, and such admirable _bonhomie_ that this cla.s.s of critic had no difficulty whatever in relegating his Eminence to what was considered his precise moral position. Mr. Browning in this monologue accurately postulates the popular conception of the Cardinal's character in the utterances of one Gigadibs, a young man of thirty who has rashly expressed his opinions of the great churchman's religious character. The poet, though completely failing to do justice to the Bishop's side of the question, has presented us with a character perfectly natural, but which in every aspect seems more the picture of an eighteenth-century fox-hunting ecclesiastic than that of a bishop of the Roman Church, who would have had a good deal more to say on the subject of faith as understood by his Church than the poet has put into the mouth of his Bishop Blougram. As it is impossible to see in the description given of the Bishop anybody but the late Cardinal Wiseman, it is necessary to say that the description is to the last degree untrue, as must have been obvious to any one personally acquainted with him. A review of the poem appeared in the magazine known as the _Rambler_, for January 1856, which is credibly supposed to have been written by the Cardinal himself. "The picture drawn in the poem," says the article in question, "is that of an arch hypocrite, and the frankest of fools." The writer says that Mr.

Browning "is utterly mistaken in the very groundwork of religion, though starting from the most unworthy notions of the work of a Catholic bishop, and defending a self-indulgence which every honest man must feel to be disgraceful, is yet in its way triumphant."

NOTES.--"_Brother Pugin_," a celebrated Catholic architect, who built many Gothic churches for Catholic congregations in England. "_Corpus Christi Day_," the Feast of the Sacrament of the Altar, literally the Body of Christ; it occurs on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. _Che, che_, what, what! _Count D'Orsay_ (1798-1852), a French savant, and an intellectual dandy. "_Parma's pride--the Jerome_" the St. Jerome by Correggio, one of the most important paintings in the Ducal Academy at Parma. There is a curious story of the picture in Murray's Guide to North Italy. _Marvellous Modenese_--the celebrated painter Correggio was born in the territory of Modena, Italy. "_Peter's Creed, or rather, Hildebrand's_," Pope Hildebrand (Gregory VII., 1073-85). The temporal power of the popes, and the authority of the Papacy over sovereigns, were claimed by this pope. _Verdi and Rossini_, Verdi wrote a poor opera, which pleased the audience on the first night, and they loudly applauded. Verdi nervously glanced at Rossini, sitting quietly in his box, and read the verdict in his face.

_Sch.e.l.ling_, Frederick William Joseph von, a distinguished German philosopher (1775-1854). _Strauss_, David Friedrich (1808-74), who wrote the Rationalistic _Life of Jesus_, one of the Tubingen philosophers. _King Bomba_, a soubriquet given to Ferdinand II. (1810-59), late king of the Two Sicilies; it means King Puffcheek, King Liar, King Knave. _lazzaroni_, Naples beggars--so called from Lazarus. _Antonelli_, Cardinal, secretary of Pope Pius IX., a most astute politician, if not a very devout churchman. "_Naples' liquefaction._" The supposed miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius the Martyr. A small quant.i.ty of the saint's blood in a solid state is preserved in a crystal reliquary; when brought into the presence of the head of the saint it melts, bubbles up, and, when moved, flows on one side. It is preserved in the great church at Naples. On certain occasions, as on the feast of St. Januarius, September 19th, the miracle is publicly performed. See Butler's _Lives of the Saints_ for September 19th. The matter has been much discussed, but no reasonable theory has been set up to account for it. Mr. Browning is quite wrong in suggesting that belief in this, or any other of this cla.s.s of miracles, is obligatory on the Catholic conscience. A man may be a good Catholic and believe none of them. He could not, of course, be a Catholic and deny the miracles of the Bible, because he is bound to believe them on the authority of the Church as well as that of the Holy Scriptures. Modern miracles stand on no such basis. _Fichte_, Johann Gottlieb (1762-1814). An eminent German metaphysician. He defined G.o.d as the _moral order_ of the universe. "_Pastor est tui Dominus_," the Lord is thy Shepherd. _In partibus, Episcopus_, A bishop _in partibus infidelium_. In countries where the Roman Catholic faith is not regularly established, as it was not in England before the time of Cardinal Wiseman, there were no bishops of sees in the kingdom itself, but they took their t.i.tles from heathen lands; so that an English bishop would perhaps be called Bishop of Mesopotamia when he was actually appointed to London. This is now altered, so far as this country is concerned.

="Bishop orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's Church, The"= (Rome, 15--.

_Dramatic Romances and Lyrics--Bells and Pomegranates_ No. VII., 1845).--First published in _Hood's Magazine_, 1845, and the same year in _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_; in 1863 it appeared under _Men and Women_: St. Praxed or Praxedes. An old _t.i.tle_ or parish church in Rome bears the name of this saint. It was mentioned in the life of Pope Symmachus (A.D.

498-514). It was repaired by Adrian I. and Paschal I., and lastly by St.

Charles Borromeo, who took from it his t.i.tle of cardinal. He died 1584; there is a small monument to his memory now in the church. St. Praxedes, Virgin, was the daughter of Pudens, a Roman senator, and sister of St.

Pudentiana. She lived in the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Pius. She employed all her riches in relieving the poor and the necessities of the Church. The poem is a monologue of a bishop of the art-loving, luxurious, and licentious Renaissance, who lies dying, and, instead of preparing his soul for death, is engaged in giving directions about a grand tomb he wishes his relatives to erect in his church. He has secured his niche, the position is good, and he desires the monument shall be worthy of it. Mr.

Ruskin, in _Modern Painters_, vol. iv., pp. 377-79, says of this poem: "Robert Browning is unerring in every sentence he writes of the Middle Ages--always vital, right, and profound; so that in the matter of art, with which we are specially concerned, there is hardly a principle connected with the mediaeval temper that he has not struck upon in these seemingly careless and too rugged lines of his" (here the writer quotes from the poem, "As here I lie, In this state chamber dying by degrees," to "Ulpian serves his need!"). "I know no other piece of modern English prose or poetry in which there is so much told, as in these lines, of the Renaissance spirit--its worldliness, inconsistency, pride, hypocrisy, ignorance of itself, love of art, of luxury, and of good Latin. It is nearly all that I have said of the central Renaissance, in thirty pages of the _Stones of Venice_, put into as many lines, Browning's also being the antecedent work." It was inevitable that the great period of the Renaissance should produce men of the type of the Bishop of St. Praxed's; it would be grossly unfair to set him down as the type of the churchmen of his time. As a matter of fact, the Catholic church was undergoing its Renaissance also. The Council of Trent is better known by some historians for its condemnation of heresies than for the great work it did in reforming the morals of Catholic nations. The regulations which it established for this end were fruitful in raising up in different countries some of the n.o.blest and most beautiful characters in the history of Christianity. St. Charles Borromeo, archbishop of Milan, whose connection with St. Praxed's Church is noticed above, was the founder of Sunday-schools, the great restorer of ecclesiastical discipline and the model of charity. St. Theresa rendered the splendour of the monastic life conspicuous, leading a life wholly angelical, and reviving the fervour of a great number of religious communities. The congregation of the Ursulines and many religious orders established for the relief of corporeal miseries--such as the Brothers Hospitallers, devoted to nursing the sick; the splendid missionary works of St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis Xavier--all these, and many other evidences of the awakening life of the Catholic Church, were the products of an age which is as often misrepresented as it is imperfectly understood. There were bishops of St.

Praxed's such as the poet has so inimitably sketched for us; but had there been no others of a more Christian type, religion in southern Europe would have died out instead of starting up as a giant refreshed to win, as it did, the world for Christ. The worldly bishop of the poem is an "art for art's sake" ecclesiastic, who is not at all anxious to leave a life which he has found very satisfactory for a future state about which he has neither anxiety nor concern. What he is concerned for is his tomb. His old rival Gandolf has deprived him of the position in the church which he longed for as a resting-place, but he hopes to make up for the loss by a more tasteful and costly monument, with a more cla.s.sical inscription than his. The old fellow is as much Pagan as Christian, and his ornaments have as much to do with the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of old Rome as with the Church of which he is a minister. In all this Mr. Browning finely satirises the Renaissance spirit, which, though it did good service to humanity in a thousand ways, was much more concerned with flesh than spirit.

NOTES.--_Basalt_, trap rock of a black, bluish, or leaden-grey colour; _peach-blossom marble_, an Italian marble used in decorations; _olive-frail_ == a rush basket of olives; _lapis lazuli_, a mineral, usually of a rich blue colour, used in decorations; _Frascati_ is a beautiful spot on the Alban hills, near Rome; _antique-black_ == Nero antico, a beautiful black stone; _thyrsus_, a Baccha.n.a.lian staff wrapped with ivy, or a spear stuck into a pine-cone; _travertine_, a cellular calc-tufa, abundant near Tivoli; _Tully's Latin_ == Cicero's, the purest cla.s.sic style; _Ulpian_, a Roman writer on law, chiefly engaged in literary work (A.D. 211-22). "_Blessed mutter of the ma.s.s_"; To devout Catholics the low monotone of the priest saying a low ma.s.s, in which there is no music and only simple ceremonies, is more devotional than the high ma.s.s, where there is much music and ritual to divert the attention from the most solemn act of Christian worship; _mortcloth_, a funeral pall; _elucescebat_, he was distinguished; _vizor_, that part of a helmet which defends the face; _term_, a bust terminating in a square block of stone, similar to those of the G.o.d Terminus; _onion-stone_ == cippolino, cipoline, an Italian marble, white, with pale-green shadings.

=Blot in the 'Scutcheon, A.= (Part V. of _Bells and Pomegranates_, 1843.) _A Tragedy._ Time, 17--. The story is exceedingly dramatic, though simple.

Thorold, Earl Tresham, is a monomaniac to family pride and conventional morality: his ancestry and his own reputation absorb his whole attention, and the wreck of all things were a less evil to him than a stain on the family honour. He is the only protector of his motherless sister, Mildred Tresham, who has in her innocence allowed herself to be seduced by Henry, Earl Mertoun, whose estates are contiguous to those of the Treshams. He, too, has a n.o.ble name, and he could have lawfully possessed the girl he loved if he had not been deterred by a mysterious feeling of awe for Lord Tresham, and had asked her in marriage. But he is anxious to repair the wrong he has done, and the play opens with his visit to Thorold to formally present himself as the girl's lover. Naturally the Earl, seeing no objection to the match, makes none. The difficulty seems at an end; but, unfortunately, Gerard, an old and faithful retainer, has seen a man, night after night, climb to the lady's chamber, and has watched him leave.

He has no idea who the visitor might be, and, after some struggles with contending emotions, decides to acquaint his master with the things which he has seen. Thorold is in the utmost mental distress and perturbation, and questions his sister in a manner that is as painful to him as to her.

She does not deny the circ.u.mstances alleged against her. Her brother is overwhelmed with distress at the sudden disgrace brought upon his n.o.ble line, and confounded at the idea of the attempt which has been made to involve in his own disgrace the n.o.bleman who has sought an alliance with his family. Mildred refuses to say who her lover is, and weakly--as it appears to her brother--determines to let things take the proposed course.

Naturally Thorold looks upon his sister as a degraded being who is dead to shame and honour, and he rushes from her presence to wander in the grounds in the neighbourhood of the house, till at midnight he sees the lover Mertoun preparing to mount to his sister's room. They fight, and the Earl falls mortally wounded. In the chamber above the signal-light in the window has been placed as usual by Mildred, who awaits Thorold in her room. He does not appear, and her heart tells her that her happiness is at an end. Now she sees all her guilt, and the consequences of her degradation to her family. In the midst of these agonising reflections her brother bursts into her room. She sees at once that he has killed Mertoun, sees also that he himself is dying of poison which he has swallowed. Her heart is broken, and she dies. Mildred's cousin Gwendolen, betrothed to the next heir to the earldom, Austin Tresham, is a quick, intelligent woman, who saw how matters stood, and would have rectified them had it not been rendered impossible by the adventure in the grounds, when the unhappy young lover allowed Thorold to kill him. Mr. Forster, in his _Life of Charles d.i.c.kens_ (Book iv. I), says: "This was the date [1842], too, of Mr. Browning's tragedy of the _Blot in the 'Scutcheon_, which I took upon myself, after reading it in the ma.n.u.script, privately to impart to d.i.c.kens; and I was not mistaken in the belief that it would profoundly touch him. 'Browning's play,' he wrote (November 25th), 'has thrown me into a perfect pa.s.sion of sorrow. To say that there is anything in its subject save what is lovely, true, deeply affecting, full of the best emotion, the most earnest feeling, and the most true and tender source of interest, is to say that there is no light in the sun and no heat in blood. It is full of genius, natural and great thoughts, profound and yet simple and beautiful in its vigour. I know nothing that is so affecting--nothing in any book I have ever read--as Mildred's recurrence to that "I was so young--I had no mother!" I know no love like it, no pa.s.sion like it, no moulding of a splendid thing after its conception like it. And I swear it is a tragedy that MUST be played; and must be played, moreover, by Macready. There are some things I would have changed if I could (they are very slight, mostly broken lines); and I a.s.suredly would have the old servant _begin his tale upon the scene_, and be taken by the throat, or drawn upon, by his master in its commencement. But the tragedy I never shall forget, or less vividly remember, than I do now. And if you tell Browning that I have seen it, tell him that I believe from my soul there is no man living (and not many dead) who could produce such a work.'" Mr. Browning wrote the play in five days, at the suggestion of Macready, who read it with delight. The poet had been led to expect that Macready would play in it himself, but was annoyed to hear that he had given the part he had intended to take to Mr. Phelps, then an actor quite unknown. Evidently Macready expected that Mr. Browning would withdraw the play. On the contrary, he accepted Phelps, who, however, was taken seriously ill before the rehearsal began. The consequence was (though there was clearly some shuffling on Macready's part) that the great tragedian himself consented to take the part at the last moment. It is evident that Macready had changed his mind. He had, however, done more: he had changed the t.i.tle to _The Sisters_, and had changed a good deal of the play, even to the extent of inserting some lines of his own. Meanwhile, Phelps having recovered, and being anxious to take his part, Mr. Browning insisted that he should do so; and, to Macready's annoyance, the old arrangement had to stand. The play was vociferously applauded, and Mr.

Phelps was again and again called before the curtain. Mr. Browning was much displeased at the treatment he had received, but his play continued to be performed to crowded houses. It was a great success also when Phelps revived it at Sadlers Wells. Miss Helen Faucit (who afterwards became Lady Martin) played the part of Mildred Tresham on the first appearance of _The Blot_ in 1843. The Browning Society brought it out at St. George's Hall on May 2nd, 1885; and again at the Olympic Theatre on March 15th, 1888, when Miss Alma Murray played Mildred Tresham in an ideally perfect manner. It was, as the _Era_ said, "a thing to be remembered. From every point of view it was admirable. Its pa.s.sion was highly pitched, its elocution pure and finished, and its expression, by feature and gesture, of a quality akin to genius. The agonising emotions which in turn thrill the girl's sensitive frame were depicted with intense truth and keen and delicate art, and an excellent discretion defeated any temptation to extravagance." It cannot be seriously held by any unprejudiced person that _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_ has within it the elements of success as an acting play. The subject is unpleasant, the conduct of Thorold monomaniacal and improbable, the wholesale dying in the last scene "transpontine." The characters philosophise too much, and dissect themselves even as they die. They come to life again under the stimulation of the process, only to perish still more, and to make us speculate on the nature of the poison which permitted such self-a.n.a.lysis, and on the nature of the heart disease which was so subservient to the patient's necessities. An a.n.a.lytic poet, we feel, is for the study, not for the boards.

=Bluphocks.= (_Pippa Pa.s.ses._) The vagabond Englishman of the poem. "The name means _Blue-Fox_, and is a skit on the _Edinburgh Review_, which is bound in a cover of blue and fox." (Dr. Furnivall.)

=Bombast.= The proper name of _Paracelsus_; "probably acquired," says Mr.

Browning in a note to _Paracelsus_, "from the characteristic phraseology of his lectures, that unlucky signification which it has ever since retained." This is not correct. Bombast, in German _bombast_, cognate with Latin _bombyx_ in the sense of cotton. "Bombast, the cotton-plant growing in Asia" (Phillips, _The New World of Words_). It was applied also to the cotton wadding with which garments were lined and stuffed in Elizabeth's time; hence inflated speech, fustian. (See Stubbes, _The Anatomy of Abuses_, p. 23; Trench, _Encyc. Dict._, etc.)

=Boot and Saddle.= No. III. of the "Cavalier Songs," published in _Bells and Pomegranates_ in 1842, under the t.i.tle "Cavalier Tunes."

=Bottinius.= (_The Ring and the Book._) Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius was the Fisc or Public Prosecutor and Advocate of the Apostolic Chamber at Rome. The ninth book of the poem contains his speech as prosecutor of Count Guido.

=Boy and the Angel, The.= (_Hood's Magazine_, vol. ii., 1844, pp. 140-42.) Reprinted, revised, and with five fresh couplets, in "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics" (1845), No. VII. _Bells and Pomegranates._ Theocrite was a poor Italian boy who, morning, evening, noon and night, ever sang "Praise G.o.d!" As he prayed well and loved G.o.d, so he worked well and served his master faithfully and cheerfully. Blaise, the monk, heard him sing his _Laudate_, and said: "I doubt not thou art heard, my son, as well as if thou wert the Pope, praising G.o.d from Peter's dome this Easter day"; but Theocrite said: "Would G.o.d I might praise Him that great way and die!"

That night there was no more Theocrite, and G.o.d missed the boy's innocent praise. Gabriel the archangel came to the earth, took Theocrite's humble place, and praised G.o.d as did the boy, only with angelic song,--playing well, moreover, the craftsman's part, content at his poor work, doing G.o.d's will on earth as he had done it in heaven. But G.o.d said: "There is neither doubt nor fear in this praise; it is perfect as the song of my new-born worlds; I miss my little human praise." Then the flesh disguise fell from the angel, and his wings sprang forth again. He flew to Rome: it was Easter Day, and the new pope Theocrite, once the poor work-lad, stood in the tiring room by the great gallery from which the popes are wont to bless the people on Easter morning, and he saw the angel before him, who told him he had made a mistake in bringing him from his trade to set him in that high place; he had done wrong, too, in leaving his angel-sphere: the stopping of that infant praise marred creation's chorus; he must go back, and once more that early way praise G.o.d--"back to the cell and poor employ"; and so Theocrite grew to old age at his former home, and Rome had a new pope, and the angel's error was rectified. Legends and stories of saints, angels, and our Lord Himself, are common in all Catholic countries, where these heavenly beings are far more real to the minds of the people than they are to the colder intelligence of Protestant and more logical lands. In southern Europe, hosts of such stories as these cl.u.s.ter round our Lady and the Saints. The Holy Virgin does not disdain to take her needle and sew b.u.t.tons on the clothing of her worshippers, and the angels and saints think nothing of a little domestic or trade employment if it will a.s.sist their devout clients.

In _Notes and Queries_, 3rd Series, xii. 6, July 6, 1867, there appeared two queries on this poem by "John Addis, Jun.": "1. What is the precise inner meaning? 2. On what legend is it founded? With regard to my first question, I see dimly in the poem a comparison of three kinds of praise--viz., human, ceremonial, and angelic. Further, I see dimly a contrasting of Gabriel's humility with Theocrite's ambition.... The poem ... has been recalled to me by reading 'Kyng Roberd of Cysille' (Hazlitt's _Early Popular Poetry_, vol. i., p. 264). There is a general a.n.a.logy (by contrast perhaps rather than likeness) between the two poems, which points, I think, to the existence of a legend kindred to 'Kyng Roberd' as the prototype of Browning's poem, rather than to 'Kyng Roberd' itself as that prototype.... To 'Sir Gowghter' and the Jovinia.n.u.s story of _Gesta Romanorum_, I have not present access; but both I fancy (while akin to 'Kyng Roberd of Cysille') have nothing in common with 'The Boy and the Angel.'" At page 55 another correspondent says that according to Warton (ii. 22), "'Sir Gowghter' is only another version of 'Robert the Devil,'

and therefore of 'King Roberd of Cysille.' He goes on to say that Longfellow has closely followed the old poem in 'King Robert of Sicily'

printed in _Tales of a Wayside Inn_; but no answer is given to Mr. Addis'

queries about 'The Boy and the Angel'" (_Browning Notes and Queries_, No.

13, Pt. I., vol. ii.) Leigh Hunt, in his _Jar of Honey_, chap. vi., gives the story of King Robert of Sicily. We can only include the following abbreviation here of the beautiful legend told so delightfully by the great essayist.

One day, when King Robert of Sicily was hearing vespers on St. John's Eve, he was struck by the words of the _Magnificat_--"Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles" ("He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble"). He asked a chaplain near him what the words meant; and when they were explained to him, scoffingly replied that men like himself were not so easily put down, much less supplanted by those contemptible poor folk. The chaplain was horrified, and made no reply, and the king relieved his annoyance by going to sleep. After some time the king awoke and found himself in the church with no creature present except an old deaf woman who was dusting it. When the old lady saw the man who was trying to make her hear, she cried "Thieves!" and scuttled off to the door, closing it behind her. King Robert looked at the door, then at the empty church, then at himself. His ermine robe was gone, his coronet, his jewels, all the insignia of his royalty had disappeared. Raging at the door, he demanded that it should be opened; but they only mocked him through the keyhole and threatened him with the constable; but as the s.e.xton mocked the captive king the great door was burst open in his face, for the king was a powerful man and had dashed it down with his foot. He strode towards his palace, but they would not admit him, and to all his raving replied "Madman!" Then the king caught sight of his face in a gla.s.s, which he tore from the hands of one of his captains who was admiring himself, and saw that he was changed: it was not his own face.

Fear came upon him: he knew it was witchcraft, and his violence was increased when the bystanders laughed to hear him declare he was his majesty changed. Next the attendants came from the palace to say the king wanted to see the madman they had caught; and so he was taken to the presence chamber, where he found himself face to face with another King Robert, whom the changed king called "hideous impostor," which made the court laugh consumedly, because the king on the throne was very handsome, and the man who fell asleep in the church was very coa.r.s.e and vulgar. And now the latter could see that it was an angel who had taken his place, and hated him accordingly. He was still more disgusted when the king told him he would make him his court fool, because he was so amusing in his violence; and he had to submit while they cut his hair and crowned the king of fools with the cap and bells. King Robert then gave way, for he felt he was in the power of the devil and it was no use to resist; and so went out to sup with the dogs, as he was ordered. Matters went on in this way for two years. The new king was good and kind to everybody except the degraded monarch, whom he never tired of humiliating in every possible way. At the end of two years the king went to visit his brother the Pope and his brother the Emperor, and he dressed all his court magnificently, except the fool, whom he arrayed in fox-tails and placed beside an ape.

The crowds of people who came out to see the grand procession laughed heartily at the sorry figure cut by the poor fool. He, however, was glad he was going to see the Pope, as he trusted the meeting would dispel the magic by which he was enchained; but he was disappointed, for neither Pope nor Emperor took the slightest notice of him. Now, it happened that day it was again St. John's Eve, and again they were all at vespers singing: "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and exalted the humble." And now with what different feelings he heard those words! The crowded church was astonished to see the poor fool in his ridiculous disguise bathed in tears, meekly kneeling in prayer, his head bowed in penitence and sorrow.

Somehow every one felt a little holier that day: Pope and Emperor wished to be kinder and more sympathetic to their people, and the sermon went to every one's heart, for it was all about charity and humility. After service they told the angel-king of the singular behaviour of the fool. Of course he knew all about it, though he did not say so; but he sent for the fool, and, when he had him in private (except that the ape was there, to whom the fool had become much attached), he asked him, "Art thou still a king?" "I am a fool, and no king." "What wouldst thou, Robert?" asked the angel gently. "What thou wouldst," replied poor King Robert. Then the angel touched him, and he felt an inexpressible calm diffuse itself through his whole being. He knelt, and began to thank the angel. "Not to me," the heavenly being said--"not to me! Let us pray." They knelt in prayer; and when the King rose from his knees the angel was gone, the ermine was once more on the King's shoulder and the crown upon his brow; his humiliation was over, but his pride never returned. He lived long and reigned n.o.bly, and died in the odour of sanct.i.ty. Mr. Browning may have drawn upon some Italian legend for his story of Theocrite: it may even have been suggested by the legend of King Robert; but he must have been so familiar with the Catholic idea of the interest in human affairs taken by angels and saints, that he might readily have invented the story. Nothing can be easier to understand than its lesson. With G.o.d there is no great or small, no lofty or mean, nothing common or unclean. To do the will of G.o.d in the work lying nearest us, to praise G.o.d in our daily task and the common things of life as they arise, this is better for us and more acceptable service to Him than doing some great thing, as we, with our false estimates of things, may be led to apprise it.

=By the Fireside.= (First published in vol. i. of _Men and Women_, 1855.) A man of middle life and very learned is addressing his wife. He looks forward to his old age, and prophesies how it will be pa.s.sed. He will pursue his studies; but, deep as he will be in Greek, his soul will have no difficulty in finding its way back to youth and Italy, and he will delight to reconstruct the scene in his imagination where he first made all his own the heart of the woman who blessed him with her love and became his wife. Once more he will be found on that mountain path, again he will conjure from the past the Alpine scene by the ruined chapel in the gorge, the poor little building where on feast days the priest comes to minister to the few folk who live on the mountain-side. The bit of fresco over the porch, the date of its erection, the bird which sings there, and the stray sheep which drinks at the pond, the very midges dancing over the water, and the lichens clinging to the walls,--all will be present, for it was there heart was fused with heart, and two souls were blent in one.

"With whom else," he asks his wife, "dare he look backward or dare pursue the path grey heads abhor?" Old age is dreaded by the young and middle-aged, none care to think of it; but the speaker dreads it not, he has a soul-companion from whom not even death can separate him, and with the memory of this moment of irrevocable union he can face the bounds of life undaunted. "The moment one and infinite," to which both their lives had tended, had wrought this happiness for him that it could never cease to bear fruit, never cease to hallow and bless his spirit; the mountain stream had sought the lake below, and had lost itself in its bosom; two lives were joined in one without a scar. "How the world is made for each of us!" everything tending to a moment's product, with its infinite consequences--the completion, in this case, of his own small life, whereby Nature won her best from him in fitting him to love his wife. The

"great brow And the spirit small hand propping it,"

refer to Mrs. Browning, and the whole poem, though the incidents are imaginary, is without doubt a confession of his love for her, and its influence on his own spiritual development.