A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) | Page 9

less
misleading. We cannot even divide it into periods, for if the first three
poems represent the author's intellectual youth, the remainder are one
long maturity; while even in these the poetic faculty shows itself
full-grown. We cannot trace in it the evidence of successive manners
like those of Raphael, or successive moods like those of Shakespeare;
or, if we do, this is neutralized by the simple fact that Mr. Browning's
productive career has been infinitely longer than was Raphael's, and
considerably so than Shakespeare's; and that changes which meant the
development of a genius in their case, mean the course of a life in his.
And this is the central fact of the case. Mr. Browning's work is himself.

His poetic genius was in advance of his general growth, but it has been
subject to no other law. "The Ring and the Book" was written at what
may be considered the turning-point of a human life. It was in some
degree a turning-point in the author's artistic career: for most of his
emotional poems were published before, and most of the argumentative
after it; and in this sense his work may be said to divide itself into two.
But the division is useless for our purpose. The Browning of the second
period is the Browning of the first, only in a more crystallized form. No
true boundary line can be drawn even here.
My endeavour will, therefore, be to bring the sense of this real
continuity into the divisions which I must impose on Mr. Browning's
work; and thus also to infuse something of his life into the meagre
statement of contents to which I am forced to reduce it. The few words
of explanation by which I preface each group may assist this end. At
the same time I shall resist all temptation to "bring out" what I have
indicated as Mr. Browning's leading ideas by headings, capitals, italics,
or any other artificial device whatever; as in so doing I should destroy
his emphasis and hinder the right reading, besides effacing the usually
dramatic character, of the individual poems. The impressions I have
received from the collective work will, I trust, be confirmed by it.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: I stated in my first edition that Mr. Browning was
descended from the "Captain Micaiah Browning" who raised the siege
of Derry in 1689 by springing the boom across Lough Foyle, and
perished in the act (the incident being related in Macaulay's "History of
England," vol. iv., pp. 244 and 245 of the edition of 1858). I am now
told that there is no evidence of this lineal descent, though there are
circumstances which point to some kind of relationship. Another
probable ancestor is Captain ---- Browning, who commanded the ship
"Holy Ghost," which conveyed Henry V. to France before he fought the
battle of Agincourt; and in return for whose services two waves, said to
represent waves of the sea, were added to his coat of arms. The same
arms were worn by Captain Micaiah Browning, and are so by the
present family.]

[Footnote 2: Wiedemann is the second baptismal name of Mr.
Browning's son; and, in his infantine mouth, it became (we do not
exactly guess how), the "Penini," shortened into "Pen," which some
ingenious interpreters have derived from the word "Apennine."]
[Footnote 3: And--we are bound to admit--the singular literary
obtuseness of the England of fifty years ago.]
[Footnote 4: A distinguished American philologist, the late George P.
Marsh, has declared that he exceeds all other modern English writers in
his employment of them.]
[Footnote 5: In "In Memoriam" we have such rhymes as:--
{now {curse {mourn {good {light {report
{low {horse {turn {blood
{delight {port
In the blank verse of "The Princess," and of "Enoch Arden" such
assonances as:--
{sun {lost {whom {wand
{noon {burst {seem {hand.
{known {clipt {word
{down {kept {wood, etc.
I take these instances from the works of so acknowledged a master of
verse as Mr. Tennyson, rather than from those of a smaller poet who
would be no authority on the subject, because they thus serve to show
that the poetic ear may have different kinds as well as degrees of
sensibility, and must, in every case, be accepted as, to some extent, a
law to itself.]
[Footnote 6: "La Saisiaz," for instance, is written in the same measure
as "Locksley Hall," fifteen syllables, divided by a pause, into groups of
four trochees, and of three and a half--the last syllable forming the
rhyme. It is admirably suited to the sustained and incisive manner in
which the argument is carried on. "Ixion" in "Jocoseria," is in alternate
hexameter and pentameter, which the author also employs here for the
only time; it imitates the turning of the wheel on which Ixion is bound.

"Pheidippides" is in a measure