Robert Browning

Elgin, Lady, 209

Eliot, George, 217

Englishman in Italy, 72, 73

Epilogue (to "Asolando"), 375, 376

Epilogue (to "Dramatis Personae"), 241

Epilogue (to "Pacchiarotto" volume), 315

Epilogue (to "Two Poets of Croisic"), 359

Epistle to Karshish, 197, 198

Etretat, 209

Evelyn Hope, 183

F

Face, A, 235

Fano, 119

Faraday, M., 158

Faucit, Helen, 45, 52, 155

Fears and Scruples, 318

Ferishtah's Fancies, 361-369

Fifine at the Fair, 176, 279, 301-306

Filippo Baldinucci, 319

Fisher, W., 168

Fitzgerald, Edward, 381

Flaubert, G., 121, 122, 125

Flight of the Duchess, 77, 78

Flower, Eliza, 9, 19

Flower, Sarah, 9

Flush, 92, 96, 101, 105, 153

Forgiveness, 319

Forster, John, 42, 44, 139, 229

Founder of the Feast, 276

Fox, Caroline, 36

Fox, W.J., 19, 44

Fra Lippo Lippi, 174, 192, 370

Francis Farini, 371, 373

Fuller, Margaret (see Ossoli, Countess d')

Furnivall, F.J., 1n, 275, 303, 333, 337n, 338, 339, 340, 345, 347, 384

G

Gagarin, Prince, 21

Garden Fancy, 73

Gerard de Lairesse, 371

Gibson, J., 169, 217

Gladstone, W.E., 295

Glove, 77, 78

Gold Hair, 230, 231, 234, 235, 275

Goldoni, 335, 343

Gosse, E., 12, 20n, 21n, 107, 231, 331, 332, 347n, 380

Grammarian's Funeral, 179, 193

Greek Christian Poets, 228

Gresonowsky, Dr, 216

Gressoney, 338

Grove, Mr, 328, 329

Guardian Angel, 119

Guido Franceschini, 260-262

H

Halbert and Hob, 352

Hatcham, 43

Havre, 210, 272

Hawthorne, N., 208

"Helen's Tower," 275

Herakles, 286-288

Heretic's Tragedy, 194

Hervé Riel, 250, 275, 287

Hickey, Miss E.H., 347

Hillard, G.S., 116

Hippolytus and Aricia, 74

Holy Cross Day, 195, 319

Home, D.D., 158, 159, 160, 161, 165, 219

Hosmer, Harriet, 169

House, 317

How it strikes a Contemporary, 188

How they brought the Good News, 46

Hugo, Victor, 111, 150

Hunt, Leigh, 33

I

Imperante Augusta natus est, 378, 379

In a Balcony, 53, 65, 66, 167

In a Gondola, 77

Inapprehensiveness, 377, 378

In a Year, 182

Inn Album, 268, 270, 279, 310-315

Ion, 45

Italian in England, 76

Ivàn Ivànovitch, 287, 334, 353

Ixion, 359, 360, 384

J

James, Henry, 215n, 216n, 219n,

220, 223n, 224n, 225n, 272n,

332, 333, 345, 381

James Lee's Wife,

230, 246, 247

Jameson, Anna, 93, 96, 99, 104, 105, 108

Jochanan Hakkadosh, 359, 360

Jocoseria, 358-361

Johannes Agricola, 76

Jones, Thomas, 228

Jowett, Benjamin, 251, 252

K

Kean, Charles, 52

Kemble, Fanny, 139, 169, 310n

Kenyon, F.G., 219

Kenyon, John, 50, 81, 96, 98, 152, 204, 205

Kingsley, Charles, 153

King Victor and King Charles, 48, 49, 59, 64, 69

Kirkup, Seymour, 116, 160

L

"La Dame aux Camélias," 121, 150

Lamartine, 150

La Mura, 382

Landor, W.S., 45, 152, 213-215

La Saisiaz, 278, 279, 321-326

Last Poems, 228

Last Ride, 185

Lehmann, R., 165n, 253, 326, 380

Leighton, F., 172

Lever, Charles, 117

Lido, 340, 341

Life in a Love, 183

Likeness, 245

Llangollen, Vale of, 337

Lockhart, J.G., 169

Long, Professor, 9

Lost Leader, 74

Lounsbury, Professor, 51

Love among the Ruins, 187

Love in a Life, 183

Lover s Quarrel, 186

Lucca, Baths of, 120, 166, 167

Luria, 49, 60

Lytton, Robert, 156, 167, 207

M

Maclise, Daniel, 77

Macready, W.C., 42, 44, 45, 51, 52

"Madame Bovary," 121, 122

Magical Nature, 318

Mansoor the Hierophant, 48

Marston, Westland, 36

Martin, Lady (see also Faucit, Helen), 337

Martin, Sir T., 337

Martin Relph, 354

Master Hugues, 188, 235

"Maud" (Tennyson's), 172, 173, 234

May and Death, 9, 245

Mazzini, 151, 152, 212

Mellerio, A., 307

Memorabilia, 177

Men and Women, 155, 167, 175-202

Merrifield, Mr and Mrs, 158, 159

Mers, 277

Mignet, 204

Milsand, Joseph, 34, 148, 149, 203, 273, 274, 330

Mill, J.S., 20

Milnes, Monckton, 153, 204

Milton, 135

Mitford, Miss, 93, 170, 171

Monclar, A. de Ripert, 22

Monodrama, 71

Montecuccoli, Marchese, 344

Moore, Mrs Bloomfield, 336, 387n

Moxon, E., 49

Mr Sludge the Medium, 161-166

Muléykeh, 356

Musset, A. de, 150

My Last Duchess, 79

N

Names, 348

Napoleon, Louis, 113, 138, 154, 211, 212, 213, 296, 297

Narses, 45

Natural Magic, 318

Ned Bratts, 334, 349, 354

Nightingale, Florence, 152

"Nobly, nobly Cape St Vincent," 46

Numpholeptos, 319

O

Ogle, Miss, 253

Old Pictures in Florence, 177, 190, 193

One Way of Love, 184

Only a Player-Girl, 21

Orr, Mrs, 6, 7, 21, 42, 152n, 180n, 226, 253, 268, 276, 277, 294, 301, 327, 334, 337, 343, 344, 379n, 380, 382, 384, 387

Ossian, Macpherson's, 7

Ossoli, Countess d', 116, 117

P

Pacchiarotto, 268, 279, 315-317

Page, Mr, 168

Paget, Sir James, 329

Palazzo Giustiniani Recanati, 339

Palazzo Manzoni, 344, 345

Palazzo Rezzonico, 345

Palgrave, F.T., 230n

Paracelsus, 22-33

Paris, 104, 138

Parker, Theodore, 217

Parleyings with Certain People, 370-375

Patmore, Emily, 235

Patriot, 180

Pauline, 13-20

Pheidippides, 351

Phelps, 5, 57, 52

Pictor Ignotus, 79

Pied Piper, 74

Pietro of Abano, 350

Pio Nono, 112, 155

Pippa Passes, 48, 49, 60, 69, 70

Pippa's Tower, 385

Pisgah Sights, 357

Pisa, 105-108

Plutarch, 280

Poems before Congress, 218

Pompilia, 257, 262, 263

Pope (in "Ring and Book"), 241-242, 257, 258, 266-267

Pope and the Net, 378

Popularity, 188

Pornic, 230, 248

Porphyria's Lover, 76

Portraits, 168

Powers, H., 116

Pretty Woman, 181

Primiero, 339, 379

Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, 279, 295-301, 346

Prinsep, V., 217

Procter ("Barry Cornwall"), 50, 227, 229

Prologue (to "La Saisiaz"), 359

Prospice, 237, 275

Protus, 189

Prout, Father, 117, 146, 209

"Puseyism," 121

R

Rabbi ben Ezra, 135, 236, 237

Ready, Rev. T., 7

Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, 274, 279, 306-310

Rephan, 376, 377

Respectability, 183, 245

Return of the Druses, 48, 49, 69

Reverie, 376

Rhyming, 316

Ring and the Book, 230, 248-268

Ristori, 203, 204

Ritchie, Mrs A. Thackeray, 152n, 227, 273, 274

Rome, 167, 168, 210

Rossetti, D.G., 4, 20, 50, 153, 164, 168, 173, 174, 175, 190, 205, 306n

Rossetti, W.M., 36, 153, 173, 254, 331, 383

Rudel, 77

Ruskin, John, 153, 172

S

Saint-Aubin, 272, 274

Saint-Enogat, 226

St Martin's Summer, 318

St Moritz, 336, 338

St Pierre de Chartreuse, 338

Sainte-Marie, 230, 248

Saint-Victor, Paul de, 281, 284n

Salève, 278

Salvini, 212

Sand, George, 113, 150-152, 204

Sartoris, Adelaide, 169

Saul, 74, 197

Selections (from Browning), 346, 347

Serenade at the Villa, 185, 187

Shah, the, 380

Shakespeare, 348

Sharp, William, 20n, 22, 43, 44

Shelley, P.B., 8, 10, 11, 120, 144-148

Shop, 317

Siena, 121, 220, 249

Silverthorne, James, 9

Smith, Mr, 275

Society, The Browning, 347

Soliloquy in a Spanish Cloister, 75

Solomon and Balkis, 359

Sonnets from the Portuguese, 107,108

Sordello, 33-41, 48, 203

Soul's Tragedy, 50, 69

Speculative, 377

Spiritualism, 157-166

Stanhope, Lord, 153

Statue and the Bust, 185, 186

Stead, Mr F.H., 6n

Stephen, Sir L., 316

Sterling, John, 36

Stillmann, W.J., 3, 330

Story, W.W., 167, 168, 214n, 215, 216n, 219n, 221, 224n, 225, 295, 297, 386

Stowe, Harriet B., 206

Strafford, 45, 46, 61, 65, 67

Swanwick, Anna, 212n, 333

Swedenborg, 157

T

Talfourd, 45, 50

Taylor, Bayard, 139, 140

Tennyson, Alfred, 138, 153, 173, 174, 226, 316

Tennyson, Frederick, 156

Tennyson, Hallam, 153, 154

Thackeray, Miss, see Ritchie, Mrs

Thackeray, W.M., 169

The Worst of It, 246

Toccata of Galuppi's, 188, 286

Too Late, 246

Transcendentalism, 176, 187, 193n

Trelawny, E.J., 52

Trollope, Mrs, 111

Trollope, T.A., 329

Twins, 170

Two in the Campagna, 184, 187

Two Poems by E.B.B. and R. B., 170

Two Poets of Croisic, 279, 280, 321, 326

U

Up at a Villa, 179

V

Vallombrosa, 108, 109

Venice, 47, 137, 334, 335,

339, 386-388

Villers, 278

W

Waring, 73

Warwick Crescent, 227, 342

White, Rev. E., 6

White Witchcraft, 377

Whitman, Walt, 287, 300, 329n

Why am I a Liberal? 110

Wiedemann, William, 4

Wilson (Mrs Browning's maid), 101, 109, 139, 172, 214, 219

Wise, T.J., 16n, 276n

Wiseman, Cardinal, 146, 199

Woman's Last Word, 186, 187

Wordsworth, W., 18, 42, 45

Y

Yates, Edmund, 347

"York" (a horse), 43

York Street Chapels, 5

Youth and Art, 245

1

By Dr Furnivall; see The Academy, April 12, 1902.

2

"Letters of R.B. and E.B.B.," ii. 477.

3

Letter of R.B. to E.B.B.

4

Dr Moncure Conway states that Browning told him that the original name of the family was De Buri. According to Mrs Orr, Browning "neither claimed nor disclaimed the more remote genealogical past which had presented itself as a certainty to some older members of his family."

5

Quoted by Mr Sharp in his "Life of Browning," p. 21, n., from Mrs Fraser Cockran.

6

"Autobiography of a Journalist," i. 277.

7

For my quotations and much of the above information I am indebted to Mr F. Herbert Stead, Warden of the Robert Browning Settlement, Walworth. In Robert Browning Hall are preserved the baptismal registers of Robert (June 14th, 1812), and Sarah Anna Browning, with other documents from which I have quoted.

8

Letters of R.B. and E.B.B., i. 528, 529; and (for Ossian), ii. 469.

9

Browning in a letter to Mr Wise says that this happened "some time before 1830 (or even earlier). The books," he says, "were obtained in the regular way, from Hunt and Clarke." Mr Gosse in Personalia gives a different account, pp. 23, 24.

10

The quotations from letters above are taken from J.C. Hadden's article "Some Friends of Browning" in Macmillan's Magazine, Jan. 1898.

11

Later in life Browning came to think unfavourably of Shelley as a man and to esteem him less highly as a poet. He wrote in December 1885 to Dr Furnivall: "For myself I painfully contrast my notions of Shelley the man and Shelley, well, even the poet, with what they were sixty years ago." He declined Dr Furnivall's invitation to him to accept the presidency of "The Shelley Society."

12

Even the publishers—Saunders and Otley—did not know the author's name.—"Letters of R.B. and E.B.B.," i. 403.

13

"V.A. xx," following the quotation from Cornelius Agrippa means "Vixi annos xx," i.e. "the imaginary subject of the poem was of that age."—Browning to Mr T.J. Wise.

14

Edmund Gosse: "Robert Browning Personalia," pp. 31, 32. Mr W. M. Rossetti in "D.G. Rossetti, his Family Letters," i. 115, gives the summer of 1850 as the date of his brother's letter; and says, no doubt correctly, that Browning was in Venice at the time. Mr Sharp prints a letter of Browning's on his early acquaintance with Rossetti, and on the incident recorded above. I may here note that "Richmond," appended, with a date, to Pauline, was a fancy or a blind; Browning never resided at Richmond.

15

The supposition of Mr Sharp and Mr Gosse that Browning visited Italy after having seen St Petersburg is an error. His first visit to Italy was that of 1838. I may note here that in a letter to E.B.B. (vol. ii. 443) Browning refers to having been in Holland some ten years since; the date of his letter is August 18, 1846.

16

Mrs Bronson; Browning in Venice. Cornhill Magazine, Feb. 1902. pp. 160, 161.

17

Mrs Orr's "Handbook to Browning," pp. 10, 11.

18

Dr Moncure Conway in "The Nation" vol. i. (an article written on the occasion of Browning's death) says that he was told by Carlyle of his first meeting with Browning—as Carlyle rode upon Wimbledon Common a "beautiful youth," walking there alone, stopped him and asked for his acquaintance. The incident has a somewhat legendary air.

19

Lady Martin (Helen Faucit), however, wrote in 1891 to Mrs Ritchie: "The play was mounted in all matters with great care … minute attention to accuracy of costume prevailed.... The scenery was alike accurate."

20

On which occasion Browning—muffled up in a cloak—was asked by a stranger in the pit whether he was not the author of "Romeo and Juliet" and "Othello." "No, so far as I am aware," replied Browning. Two burlesques of Shakespeare by a Mr Brown or Brownley were in course of performance in London. Letters of R.B. and E.B.B., ii. 132.

21

Mrs Orr, "Handbook to the Works of Robert Browning," p. 54 (1st ed.).

22

Mrs Orr, "Handbook to the Works of Robert Browning," p. 54 (1st ed.).

23

A Soul's Tragedy was written in 1843 or 1844, and revised immediately before publication. See Letters of R.B. and E.B.B., i. 474.

24

Letters of D.G. Rossetti to William Allingham, p. 168.

25

The above statement is substantially that of Browning; but on certain points his memory misled him. Whoever is interested in the matter should consult Professor Lounsbury's valuable article "A Philistine View of a Browning Play" in The Atlantic Monthly, December 1899, where questions are raised and some corrections are ingeniously made.

26

An uncle seems to have accompanied him. See Letters of R.B. and E.B.B., i. 57: and (for Shelley's Grave) i. 292; for "Sordello" at Naples, i., 349.

27

In later years no friendship existed between the two. We read in Mr. W.M. Rossetti's Diary for 1869, "4th July.... I see Browning dislikes Trelawny quite as much as Trelawny dislikes him (which is not a little.)" Rossetti Papers, p. 401.

28

See Mr R. Holt Hutton's article on Browning in "Essays Theological and Literary."

29

Luria withdraws from life "to prevent the harm Florence will do herself by striking him." Letters of R.B. and E.B.B., i. 427.

30

In a Balcony, published in Men and Women, 1855, is said to have been written two years previously at the Baths of Lucca.

31

I had written the above—and I leave it as I wrote it—before I noticed the following quoted from the letter of a friend by Mrs Arthur Bronson in her article Browning in Venice: "Browning seemed as full of dramatic interest in reading 'In a Balcony' as if he had just written it for our benefit. One who sat near him said that it was a natural sequence that the step of the guard should be heard coming to take Norbert to his doom, as, with a nature like the queen's, who had known only one hour of joy in her sterile life, vengeance swift and terrible would follow on the sudden destruction of her happiness. 'Now I don't quite think that,' answered Browning, as if he were following out the play as a spectator. 'The queen has a large and passionate temperament, which had only once been touched and brought into intense life. She would have died by a knife in her heart. The guard would have come to carry away her dead body.' 'But I imagine that most people interpret it as I do,' was the reply. 'Then,' said Browning, with quick interest, 'don't you think it would be well to put it in the stage directions, and have it seen that they were carrying her across the back of the stage?'"

32

Browning's eyes were in a remarkable degree unequal in their power of vision; one was unusually long-sighted; the other, with which he could read the most microscopic print, unusually short-sighted.

33

See a very interesting passage on Browning's "odd liking for 'vermin'" in Letters of R.B. and E.B.B.. i. 370, 371: "I always liked all those wild creatures God 'sets up for themselves.'" "It seemed awful to watch that bee—he seemed so instantly from the teaching of God."

34

Of the first part of Saul Mr Kenyon said finely that "it reminded him of Homer's shield of Achilles thrown into lyrical whirl and life" (Letters R.B. and E.B.B. i. 326).

35

Letters of E.B.B., i. 288.

36

See Letters of R.B. and E.B.B., i. 281.

37

E.B.B. to R.B., March 30, 1846.

38

E.B.B. to R.B., Sept. 14, 1846.

39

R.B. to E.B.B., Sept. 14, 1846.

40

"Why am I a Liberal?" Edited by Andrew Reid. London, 1885.

41

Letters of E.B.B., i. 442.

42

To Miss Mitford, August 24, 1848.

43

Casa Guidi Windows, i.

44

"Jane Eyre" was lent to E.B.B. by Mrs Story.

45

To Miss Mitford, Feb. 18, 1850.

46

In January 1859, Pen was reading an Italian translation of Monte Cristo, and announced, to his father's and mother's amusement, that after Dumas he would proceed to "papa's favourite book, Madame Bovary".

47

"Mrs Orr's Life and Letters of R.B.," 173.

48

Browning's Essay on Shelley was reprinted by Dr Furnivall in "The Browning Society's Papers," 1881-84, Part I.

49

Letters of E.B.B. ii. 284. On Milsand, the article "A French friend of Browning," by Th. Bentzon, is valuable and interesting.

50

Mrs Orr says that Browning always thought Mrs Carlyle "a hard and unlovable woman"; she adds, "I believe little liking was lost between them." Mrs Ritchie, in her "Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning" (pp. 250, 251), tells with spirit the story of Browning and Mrs Carlyle's kettle, which, on being told to "put it down," in an absent mood he planted upon her new carpet. "Ye should have been more explicit," said Carlyle to his wife.

51

See Letters of E.B.B. ii. 127.

52

Letters of E.B.B. ii. 99.

53

Letter of F. Tennyson, in Memoir of Alfred Tennyson, by his son, chapter xviii.

54

Mr Kenyon's note, vol. ii. 142 of Letters of E.B.B.

55

Times Lit. Supplement, Dec. 5, 1902.

56

Miss Cobbe's testimony is similar, and Lehmann says that at Home's name Browning would grow pale with passion.

57

See "Story and his Friends," by Henry James, 1903, vol. i. pp. 284, 285.

58

Letters of E.B.B., ii. 345.

59

E.B.B. to Ruskin, Letters, ii. 199.

60

Which, however, did not prevent certain errors noted in a letter of Browning to Dante Rossetti.

61

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His "Family Letters," i. 190, 191.

62

Letters of D.G. Rossetti to William Allingham, 162. See Mrs Browning's letter to Mrs Tennyson in Memoir of Tennyson by his son, I vol. edition, p. 329.

63

Letters of R.B. and E.B.B., i. 388.

64

Mrs Orr's Handbook to Browning's Works, 266, note. For the horse, see stanzas xiii. xiv. of the poem.

65

This poem is sometimes expounded as a sigh for the infinite, which no human love can satisfy. But the simpler conception of it as expressing a love almost but not altogether complete seems the truer.

66

Browning's delight a few years later in modelling in clay was great.

67

Mrs Andrew Crosse, in her article, "John Kenyon and his Friends" (Temple Bar Magazine, April 1900), writes: "When the Brownings were living in Florence, Kenyon had begged them to procure for him a copy of the portrait in the Pitti of Andrea del Sarto and his wife. Mr Browning was unable to get the copy made with any promise of satisfaction, and so wrote the exquisite poem of Andrea del Sarto—and sent it to Kenyon!"

68

The writer of this volume many years ago pointed out to Browning his transposition of the chronological places of Fra Lippo Lippi and Masaccio ("Hulking Tom") in the history of Italian art. Browning vigorously maintained that he was in the right; but recent students do not support his contention. At the same time an error in Transcendentalism, where Browning spoke of "Swedish Boehme," was indicated. He acknowledged the error and altered the text to "German Boehme."

69

Browning maintained to Gavan Duffy that his treatment of the Cardinal was generous.

70

Letters of E.B.B. (To Mrs Jameson), ii. 221.

71

F.G. Kenyon. Letters of E.B.B., ii. 263.

72

"Browning was intimately acquainted," writes Miss Anna Swanwick, "with Salvini." What especially lived in Browning's memory as transcending everything else he had witnessed on the stage was Salvini's impersonation of the blind Oedipus, and in particular one incident: a hand is laid on the blind man's shoulder, which he supposes the hand of one of his sons; he discovers it to be the hand of Antigone; the sudden transition from a look of fiery hate to one of ineffable tenderness was unsurpassable in its mastery of dramatic expression. (Condensed from "Anna Swanwick, a Memoir and Recollections," 1903, pp. 132, 133.)