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BROWNING'S POEMS.

it will cover the whole multitude of his sins. Without siding with either class, we believe that much of the poetry and of the prose, which is called transcendental, is replete with refined appreciations of both spiritual and sensuous beauty, for which we look in vain elsewhere; that it has widened our sympathies with nature by shedding upon the forms of sense the hues of the spirit; that it has analyzed more perfectly those mysterious visitings of feeling and thought, which cast such elusive flickerings of light and shadow upon the soul, and has woven into tissue, beautiful as morning mists and ærial as gossamer, the fine affinities which connect us with the world of spirits. These things are within the legitimate provence of poetry-but hardly fitted for the drama, because the drama supposes the

IF Mr. Browning be the poet of a transition state, this may explain one of his worst faults, namely, his occasional obscurity or unintelligibility. If he stands in the twilight of a coming day, it is not strange that familiar shapes emerge indistinctly, here and there, and assume unrecognizable forms, while the new revelations, which shall brighten with glory in the rising sun, still glimmer mystically from the shadows that enshroud them. But whatever be the explanation and the true one is, perhaps, the indolence or the perversity of the author, -the fact is obvious, and must ever stand in the way of his popularity. There is a cunning mediocrity, which wins admiration by affecting obscurity, and which by enwrapping its paltry truism in a glimmering fog, plays upon its readers the brilliant imposture of making them transfer the ex-mind too much absorbed in action to incellencies, which they imagine, to words which they do not comprehend. There are in Browning whole pages, which, could we believe him infected with Charlatanism, we should attribute to this cause. But, in point of fact, we believe that he oftener obscures true merit than creates a halo around a sham; and, that the defect results rather from want of labor than from want of ability. He does not dwell upon his conceptions, until they assume that clear and determinate shape, which compels a definite expression. In justice to him, however, it must be said that his later produc-ligible. Belief in divine Providence, and tions are great improvements upon his earlier in this respect.

But if one cause of his obscurity is his imperfect expression, another cause is the abstruse and recondite nature of many of his thoughts. He is guilty of that kind of thinking popularly styled transcendental. Now, with many, this of itself is as bad as the unpardonable blasphemy, and will suffice to shut him out from all mercy, human or divine; while with others, like charity,

dulge in anything so fine-spun and visionary-but when you come to pure Kantian metaphysics, to speculations upon the essence and the properties of mind and spirit and the absolute nature of things, and other kindred themes, to attempt to extract poetry from them, is like the alchemist's attempt to make gold out of iron, or the Yankee's to squeeze milk out of a turnip. The fact is, almost all the great truths which lend a coloring to the affections, passions, and practical life of men, and which are consequently poetical-are simple and intel

the immortality of the soul, the solemn raptures of devotion, the retributive terrors of conscience, the ennobling fascinations of love, the strength and purity of domestic affection, the aspiring and the grovelling propensities of man, and the beautiful effects of natural scenery, are themes to which the simplest heart gives cordial response and are inexhaustibly rich in poetry. It is the poet's chief mission to create media, through which these shall be

naturally and vividly expressed. And here he can find full exercise for originality and invention; for whereas truth in itself is one, it yet can shine through a thousand forms and speak in a thousand tones. The poet must select that form, which shall embody without obscuring it, and these tones which shall mingle the least of earthly discord with the music of its voice. He must leave to philosophers the annunciation of new laws and principles, whilst they require argument to support them; or if he would sometimes with Wordsworth and Coleridge, travel far into the twilight regions of consciousness, let him adopt the didactic and lyric, and not the dramatic form of composition.

The first and most ambitious, but to us the least satisfactory, of these plays, is Paracelsus. It is no drama, unless five separate talks upon the same subject, detailing the plans and experiences of a man in the pursuit of one object, without a particle of action, can constitute a drama. The first scene, headed, "Paracelsus aspires," shows him with his two friends, Festus and Michal, on the eve of departing on his wandering in quest of knowledge. They talk over his plans and hopes, scattering thickly, here and there, hints of his past career and of the strange promptings which induced him to dare to know, to know as Festus says, "the secret of the world, of man and man's true purpose, path and fate," a knowledge which is to find "its own reward in itself only, not an alien end to blend therewith." In his proud self-reliance, he scorns the services of humbler He says:

men.

"If I can serve makind 'Tis well-but there our intercourse must end; I never will be served by those I serve."

The theme, then, which is proposed is the aim" to know for knowing's sake," and the sacrifice of all affections to this end. Festus thus grandly describes Paracelsus.

"Tis no wish of mine, You should abjure the lofty claims you make, Although I can no longer seek, indeed, To overlook the truth, that there will be A monstrous spectacle upon the earth, Beneath the pleasant sun among the trees,A being knowing not what love is. Hear me! You are endowed with faculties, which bear Annexed to them as 'twere a dispensation To summon meaner spirits to do their will And gather round them at their need; inspiring

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Or even dream that common men can live

Such with a love themselves can never feel,
Passionless mid their passionate votaries.
I know not if you joy in this or no,
On objects you prize lightly; but which make
Their heart's treasure. The affections seem
Beauteous at most to you, which we must taste
Or die; and this strange quality accords,
I know not how, with you; sits well upon
That luminous brow, though in another it scowls
An eating brand-a shame."

His after-fate, it is true, belies these wonderful attributes, but the above is, probably, the conception which the author wishes us to form of his hero. All the interlocutors of the play except MichalHeaven bless her loving and truthful heart -are gifted with an inordinate loquacity. When they open their mouths, one, two, three, or four pages of words tumble out, sometimes, very little to the enlightenment of the reader, and, always, very little to the furtherance of dramatic effect. This is an historical characteristic of Paracelsus, he having given one of his names (Bombastus) to a species of eloquence, common before the Fourth of July and just before election, and which it was hardly necessary for Mr. Browning to have taken any particular pains to immortalize. Thus, many words are spent in discussing his plan of acquiring knowledge, which seems to have been merely to roam abroad, at random, gathering by observation the truth scattered up and down the world. Festus makes some very sensible objections, but is finally convinced, by the enthusiastic, mystical, and eloquently obscure replies of Paracelsus, that, with a person of his genius, they can have no application. He sees his way,

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as the bird her trackless way," and, in the end, convinces Festus and Michal that he shall succeed in his enterprize, and departs. We next meet him after the lapse of nine years in Constantinople. Baffled in his object and sick at heart, he has consulted truth, which he cannot wring from nature. a conjuror to obtain some clue to the While soliloquizing over disappointed hopes ges a poor crazy poet, called Aprile, appears upon the scene. Aprile has been as far misled by his intense love, as Paracelsus by his desire to know. Paracelsus, however, discovers in the poor dying bard the qualities which are wanted for his own perfection. Says he :

"Die not Aprile; we must never part: Are we not halves of one dissevered world

Whom this strange chance unites once more?
Part? never.
Till thou, the lover, know; and I, the knower,
Love-until both are saved."

But Aprile expires, leaving Paracelsus convinced, that knowledge is precious only in its union with love.

The third scene presents him at Basil, lecturing to admiring pupils, at the zenith of his fame and popularity. Yet the lesson which he has learned from Aprile, to use his wisdom for man's benefit, has not rooted out his old contempt of his fellows. He despises, while he teaches them, and sees little harm in playing off the tricks of a charlatan upon men, who cannot appreIciate true wisdom. He seems to have learned the lesson of love, theoretically, rather than practically. Festus is all admiration of his success; but Paracelsus predicts his own downfall, and still feels, within, the unsubdued desire to attain to perfect knowledge.

In the fourth part Paracelsus again "aspires;" that is, the people of Basil, having come to the conclusion that he is an unconscionable quack, he is about to start again upon his old vagabond life, in search of knowledge. This fourth part is a wonderful talk-the old race of volubility between Festus and Paracelsus, with a new spirit superadded. We had set it down as an astonishing specimen of some new style of poetry, and given up understanding its real or dramatic significance, until we found, by consulting the notes, that, at this time, Paracelsus "scarcely ever ascended the lecture desk, unless half-drunk, and only dictated to his secretaries when in a state of intoxication." This surely explains an accumulation of incongruities, under which language reels, and reason staggers, although it may raise a question among critics as to the æsthetical propriety of such writing.

In the fifth part Paracelsus once more (( attains;" that is, he dies in the faith that he has missed the aim of life, by not mingling love with his thirst for knowledge. This much, at least, we gather from his wild and incoherent rhapsody, strewn here and there, with beautiful thoughts and images, like stars that twinkle tremulously in a nebulous sea of ether. The poet states its moral in these word sof Paracelsus:

"Let men

Regard me and the poet dead long ago,
Who once loved rashly; and shape forth a third
And better tempered spirit, warned by both."

In his note the author says: "the liberties I have taken with my subject are very trifling; and the reader may slip the foregoing scenes between the leaves of any memoir of Paracelsus he pleases, by way of commentary." Now, we plead guilty to but slight familiarity with the biographies of the Father of Chemistry, yet we do not hesitate to say, if they are sufficiently enigmatical to need the elucidation of such a commentary, we shall be in no more haste to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Meanwhile, notwithstanding its defects, the poem is full of boldness and originality, far beyond the reach of mediocre minds, which gave ample promise of ripened excellence. There are passages of which any poet might be proud; particularly those passages of description, which evince the observing eye, and personifying imagination of the true poet. And though it is, in a measure, true, as has been said, that Browning seldom expends his strength upon isolated passages, but shows his power in a subordination of the parts to the whole, we shall yet attempt to compensate for our somewhat disparaging criticism, by a few quotations.

As an instance of imaginative force in a single word, we remember few which surpass the following:

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Seem to bewail that we have gained such | from producing a work of the very first gains, order.

It is our trust

And bartered sleep for them.
Fest.
That there is yet another world to mend
All error and mischance."

Here the descriptions are exquisite, and the transitions all beautifully suggested by natural associations. Yet it is curious to note how, even here, everything tends direetly back to that eternal coil of doubt and faith, pride, contempt, and love, and the problems of "providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate," which he keeps unwinding from his bosom, without end. Here is a further decription of morning:

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let go

His hold; and from the east, fuller and fuller,
Day, like a mighty river, is flowing in,
But clouded, wintry, desolate, and cold.
Yet see how that broad, prickly, star-shaped
plant,

Half down in the crevice, spreads its woolly leaves,

All thick and glistening with diamond dew."

The following lines, though they remind us of Wordsworth's account of the origin of the Grecian gods, yet have a beauty all their own:

"Man, once descried, imprints forever His presence on all lifeless things; the winds Are henceforth voices in a wail or shout, A querulous mutter, or a quick gay laugh, Never a senseless gust now man is born; The herded pines commune, and have deep thoughts,

A secret they assemble to discuss

When the sun drops behind their trunks, which glow

Like grates of Hell: the peerless cup afloat
Of the lake-lily is an urn, some nymph
Swims bearing high above her head; no bird
Whistles unseen, but through the gaps above,
That let light in upon the gloomy woods,
A shape peeps from the breezy forest-top,
Arch, with small puckered mouth, and mocking
eye;

The morn has enterprise,-deep quiet droops
With evening; triumph takes the sunset hour;
Voluptuous transport ripens with the corn,
Beneath a warm moon, like a happy face."

Thus we might proceed, would our limits permit, quoting passage after passage, shewing a bold, vigorous, and original mind, which only a too decided introversiveness, which time seems fast remedying, prevents

The next play, "Pippa Passes," is simple in its design, and genial in its sentiment. The author's capacity is fully equal characters are distinctly outlined, and the to his conception, and, consequently, the thoughts no longer float at large in nubibus. The poem seems intended to illustrate the influence of a good word, when spoken in critical moments. The heroine silk-mills, who has her New Year's holiof the piece, Pippa, a poor girl from the day, passes the "Happiest Tour," as she supposes, in Asolo, and, fancying herself for the moment the persons themselves, sings her song in their hearing, and, with girlish light-heartedness, trips away. She first passes Ottima, the young wife of an old man. She, with her paramour Sebold, has, the night before, murdered her husband, and, this New Year's morn, arises from the gratification of their guilty passions, to a life which their wicked deed has stripped of all its real charm. They are conversing in her bed-chamber, habituating their minds to the terrible remembrance, and devising the means of extracting pleasure from their mutual wretchedness. Peppa passes, singing her song, which concludes:

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The words italicised are an exquisite | let also illustrates another fault, somewhat stroke of nature. Only a true dramatist more common, viz. the frequent suppression would have so intensely conceived the sit- of the relative pronoun, which or who—a uation of Ottima, as to have felt that the fault that, sometimes, contributes very maunmistakeable expression of alienation and terially to his obscurity. The song desabhorrence was in the use of the third per- cribing the King, who lived long ago "in son-as if seas and mountains had arisen the morning of the world," is an admirable between her and Sebold, or, as if she had "modern antique;" though we have some suddenly sunk to a lower scale of being doubts, whether it be in character with the rather than in his words of disgust and con- person who sings it. Yet it is much better tempt. in this respect, than some of the metaphysics and school-divinity, mingled in the songs of this little girl, who is represented as singing, as the bird carols, from the fullness of a joyous nature. In this play, too, we note another peculiarity, which has not much decreased with experience,—a fondness for sudden and unexpected transitions

Pippa next passes a young sculptor with his bride. His rivals, envious of his genius and hating him for some slight eccentricities, by a pretended correspondence carried on in the name of his bride, have deceived him into marrying a girl, whom his fancy has clothed with all conceivable loveliness, but who is, in reality, of very ordinary pretensions. He has just discovered the deception, and is about to discard her at the very moment that the magnetic influence of his presence and conversation have developed the germ of a new life within her; when the song of Pippa resolves him to take noble revenge upon his rivals, by devoting himself to unfolding a nature, which needs only the shining-in of affection and intellect to germinate and bloom with exquisite beauty. "Look," he says,

"Look at the woman here, with the new soul,
Like my own Psyche's-fresh upon her lips
Alit, the visionary butterfly,

Waiting my word to enter and make bright,
Or flutter off and leave all blank as first.
This body had no soul before, but slept
Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free
From taint or foul with stain, as outward things
Fastened their image on its passiveness;
Now it will wake, feel. live, or die again!
Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff
Be art-and, further, to evoke a soul
From form-be nothing? The new soul is

mine."

which render some of the dialogue, at the first reading, almost as enigmatical as a Greek chorus, though a more thorough study of the author's conceptions and a free use of one's own imagination in the scenical details of the play, remove this objection.

But our three favorites among these plays are, "Colombe's Birthday," "A Blot on the 'Scutcheon," and "Lusia." Of these, perhaps, Colombe's Birthday will be most generally popular. It is full of stir, incident and vivacity; its characters all speak in propria persona, without showing the author through them, and the dialogue, particularly in the last two acts, is managed with an exquisite grace and tact, which equal or surpass the most charming scenes in Massinger. There are no prolix speeches, no long metaphysical disquisitions, but a brisk interchange of thought and sentiment, a constant development of the plot, and a delicacy and precision of characterization, which awaken an interest in the persons for their own sakes. It is the old theme of love versus money or high social position, or, adopting a broader generalization, of nature versus artificiality, and no

With like success she passes a youth, meditating the assassination of a tyrant, and a bishop, who is on the point of compro-where do we remember to have seen it mising a high duty to expediency.

We have no disposition to find fault with a poem which so far surpasses its pretensions, and will only note, en passant, one or two blemishes. He makes Pippa say,

"Thou art my single day. God lends to heaven What were all earth else with a feel of heaven."

But Mr. Browning is seldom guilty of such verbal impropriety as this. The coup

claims of love and nature advocated in
more delightfully treated-no where the
more manly, healthy, and truly wise and
noble style. Cultivated nature speaks in
every part, without mawkish sentimentality
or drivelling cant, asserting, in the persons
of a high-born and honest-hearted woman,
and of a simple and lofty-minded man, the
homage which is ever her desert.
The plot is briefly this. Colombe is

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