this elaborate un-simplicity. As one reads them one is reminded of a passage from Milton's second book on "Church Government" (quoted by the late Dr. John Brown, when speaking of Bailey's "Festus"): "The wily subtleties and influxes of man's thoughts from within" (which is the haunt and main region of Rossetti) "may be painted out, and described with a solid and treatable smoothness." Would that all our inward and analyzing poets nowadays would paint out and describe after this manner! Hill Summit," having told how he has loitered on the hillside all day, and only reached the top at sunset, he concludes thus: his earliest and latest model, in all con- | This is the kind of thing we complain of densed utterance, whether of sonnet or song, was Shakespeare. For the obscurity of meaning which meets us in most of Rossetti's sonnets, the example of Shakespeare might perhaps be pleaded. But it should be remembered that those sonnets of Shakespeare, which take the heart and dwell on the memory, are not obscure, but transparent, and that we know not how much of the difficulty of those which we find obscure, may be due to our ignorance of the subject he was writing of, and to the euphuistic contagion of his time, which even Shakespeare did Here are a few samples of his work, not escape. We regret to see that Mr. where it leaves the shade, and comes out Rossetti's second volume should have re-into open day. In a sonnet entitled "The produced from the first volume most of the unpleasant sonnets we have already complained of. Some of the most offensive indeed have been omitted, but some in the same vein have been added. The more these are veiled in obscurity the better. But there are other sonnets that breathe a different sentiment, whose meaning we would gladly have been able to read plainly. Yet in most of these the sense is so buried beneath a load of artificial diction and labored metaphor, that we believe few but special admirers will take the trouble to unearth their meaning. Wordsworth had thoughts to convey at least as deep as any Rossetti was a master of; yet we doubt if even Wordsworth's obscurest sonnet is not transparent compared with even the average of Rossetti's. We all know the maxim of Horace, Si vis me flere, dolendum est Primum ipsi tibi; and Shelley's saying of poets, that They learn in suffering what they teach in song. Here is a way into which Rossetti beats out that truth in his sonnet called " "The Song-Throe: By thine own tears thy song must tears beget, O singer! magic mirror hast thou none Except thy manifest heart; and save thine own Anguish and ardor, else no amulet. Cisterned in Pride, verse is the feathery jet Than the Dead Sea for throats that thirst and And now that I have climbed and won this height, I must tread downward through the sloping shade, And travel the bewildered tracks till night. Yet for this hour I still may here be stayed, which has a serious, practically earnest ness." One also called "The Monochordon " has often been alluded to. It hints with great power what is so undefinable, the inarticulate yet absorbing emotions so multitudinous, yet so opposite, which are awakened by the finest music. This is the conclusion: Oh, what is this that knows the road I came, The flame turned cloud, the cloud returned to flame, The shifted lifted steeps, and all the way? That draws round me at last this wind-warm As green and close as the young wheat on land: Yet here the cuckoo and the cuckoo flower Plight to the heart spring's perfect imminent hour, Whose breath shall soothe you like your loved one's hand. Perhaps the divisions between the different months may be here somewhat ob. literated; yet as we read sonnets like this with their refreshing out-of-door feeling we are inclined to say, "O si sic omnia!" One word on the lyrics and songs, for each volume contains a different set of these. Of the eleven short pieces in the first volume the last four are all more or less simple and intelligible in style, and condense into a few felicitous lines some fleeting mood, or some one thought which, coming for a moment, would have been lost, had it not been fixed in words. Such are the songs or poems named, "The Woodspurge," which compresses much sadness into little space,." Honeysuckle," "A Young Fir-wood." The lines named "Sea Limits," express well the feeling that there is one life pervading all things in some mysterious way. Consider the sea's listless chime: Time's self it is, made audible, The murmur of the earth's own shell. Secret continuance sublime Is the sea's end. Our sight may pass No furlong further. Since time was This sound hath told the lapse of time. Listen alone beside the sea, Listen alone among the woods; Those voices of twin solitudes Shall have one sound alike to thee; Hark, where the murmurs of thronged men, Surge and sink back and surge againStill the one voice of wave and tree. Gather a shell from the strewn beach, And listen at its lips: they sigh The same desire and mystery, The echo of the whole sea's speech. And all mankind is thus at heart, Not anything but what thou art: And earth, sea, man, are all in each. In the second volume the lyrics have all more or less an undertone of sadness for some loved and lost one, which breaks out here and there into a passionate cry. They dwell mainly on the mystery of our life here and of our destiny. This is expressed in the last of the series, "Cloud Confines," which the author himself, we are told, regarded as his finest lyric work. It repeats the old truth of the inexorable silence which encompasses us, behind, before, and above. Our past is clean forgot, And what betwixt them are we? We who say as we go, There is also a very touching lament named, "Alas! so long!" This and other of these lyrics close with a faintly breathed hope, so little removed from uncertainty that it does not relieve the oppressive sadness. -the hope that there may be a meeting hereafter: Is there a home where heavy earth Melts to bright air that breathes no pain, Where water leaves no thirst again, And springing fire is Love's new birth? Rossetti does not rank with the poets of denial and decided unbelief; there is in his poetry a desire, that almost becomes a hope, for better things. But it is a hope so faint that it seems almost next door to despair, and is nearly as sad as despair. Of this kind of poetry, which is unillumined by the sense of the divine presence in the world, and by the hope of immortality, we have surely had enough in this generation. To young poets we should say, Till you have learned something better to tell us on man's life and destiny, had you not better be silent? The world is weary of these moanings of despair, and can well dispense with any more of them. It is really not worth your while to trouble it with your pipings till you have something to tell it; some authentic message to bring of man and of God, and of man's relation to God. On the whole, we must again repeat our regret that poetic genius, real within a certain range, such as Mr. Rossetti possessed, should, if judged by any high standard, seem to a large extent to have spent itself in vain. The worth of his poetry is vitiated by two grave errors. The first of these is the unwholesome sentiment and the esoteric vein of thought into which he allowed himself to diverge. | The second is the exotic manner and too elaborated style, which, for whatever reason, he adopted. If future poets wish to win the ear of their countrymen, and to merit the honor accorded to the highest poetry, they would be wise to cultivate manlier thought and nobler sentiment, expressed in purer and fresher diction, and to make their appeal, not to the perfumed tastes of over-educated coteries, but to the broader and healthier sympathies of universal man. J. C. SHAIRP. From Macmillan's Magazine. IN one respect the position which Mr. Browning occupies with the English reading public is different from that of any other contemporary poet. Each of the other great masters of verse has a circle of fervent admirers who are intimately acquainted with all he has written; and, in addition, a large number of readers who study him more or less, who know him thoroughly or slightly, who at any rate keep a copy of his principal works in their house and look into it from time to time. Of warm admirers Mr. Browning has perhaps as many as the most popular poets of the day, but casual acquaintances, half-and-half disciples, occasional readers, he has none. No one was ever yet found who liked his works a little; strong aversion, or still stronger admiration, are the sentiments with which they are invariably regarded. This peculiar attitude of the public towards him is typified by many outward signs. We do not see his writings displayed in the shop-windows, in the glories of vellum and gilt edges, neither does Doré illustrate them. There is no "Browning Birthday Book." Among a collection of wedding presents may be found five copies of Tennyson's "Idylls," but not a page of Browning; no doctor or dentist lays one of his works on the wait ing-room table; no railway stall reserves a corner for them. Yet edition after edition comes out, and is sold to purchasers who value the plain brown and green volumes as they value few others on their shelves. They become the possession of men and women, who (not in noisy drawing-room discussions, but in the quiet talks where friend opens bis heart to friend) speak with earnest, loving gratitude of the writer, and tell how he has raised their aims, awakened their energies, quickened their hopes, comforted them under failure, and taught them to live down doubt; or who bear the same testimony in another way, and by work grown heartier, brows clearer, and hearts more calm, seem to say: “Thou hast instructed many; thou hast strengthened the weak hands; thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees." Truly these are the rewards coveted by a poet for "the bestowal of a life upon a labor, hard, slow, and not sure." (Browning's "Essay on Shelley.") My wish is to note down some of the chief characteristics of Mr. Browning's writings, not for readers who are already students of his writings, but for those who, being but little acquainted with them, may have felt disposed to wonder at the enthusiasm which they unquestionably excite in those who know them best. If any of these should be induced to brace themselves up to the study of these poems, my object will have been fully attained. But first, for honesty's sake, and also because it never helps any cause to advocate it in a one-sided manner, I will admit that the nature of Mr. Browning's poetry is not such as to attract at first sight. It takes some time to grow accustomed to his queer choice of subjects, his rugged verse, his strange metaphors, and his involved elliptical language. Why he should, as Calverley says in his clever parody, "The Cock and the Bull," love to dock the smaller parts of speech," why he should give us infinitives without "to's,' nouns without articles, phrases without prepositions, and lines where the conjunction is but ill-replaced by a comma or a dash, he himself best knows. These grammatical peculiarities sorely puzzle the uninitiated, who stumble sadly over such lines as those in which Guido laments the good old days when no silly fuss was made about a murder or two, and describes the manner in which his grand. sire drew rein, slipped saddle, and stabbed knave For daring throw gibe-much less stone from pale. In the preface to "A Soul's Tragedy," he explains that by the title of "Bells and Pomegranates" he had meant to convey "an endeavor towards something like an True it is that the difficulty of the alternation or mixture of music with dispoems, especially that of the later ones, coursing, sound with sense, poetry with is greatly overrated, and that many of thought." Students of rabbinical or those who talk loudest of it, confess, after patristic lore would, he says, know that a little gentle pressure, that their judg- such is the common acceptation of the ment is based on a dimly remembered term, but he goes on very naïvely to ob perusal of Calverley's parody, or a belief serve: "I confess that, letting authority that they "have Mrs. Browning's Selec- alone, I supposed the bare words in such tions' somewhere at home." "Where juxtaposition would sufficiently convey you are ignorant, at least be reverent," said James Hinton, a maxim which this class of critics would do well to remember. Still, deducting the outcry made by these persons, and many more who are only a shade less incompetent, there remains a standing, and I think justifiable, complaint against him of great and unnecessary obscurity. 66 the desired meaning." Does this passage not give an alarming impression of Mr. Browning's estimate of the average human mind? It is very flattering that he should have so exalted an opinion of us; but I, for one, would gladly undergo the humiliation of having him undeceived, if possible. ing study brings with it an honest liking for the straightforward, hard-hitting, rough-and-ready phraseology; but even where this does not happen, the matter of the poems is such as to make the reader very tolerant of any blemishes he may find in their form. As it is, however, unlikely that he will He himself, as is natural, repudiates the make any fresh discoveries on this head, charge, and in "Pacchiarotto" tells us it or will do anything to suit his style to our cannot be otherwise when you want to limited intelligences, let us do the only put a big and bouncing thought" into thing that remains, if we wish to know "one small line." But, to begin with, him train our intelligences to his style, many of his dark passages are not a task well worth the arduous struggle obscured by any particularly gigantic which it costs. In the vast majority of thought; and next, if a "big, bouncing cases indeed a short course of perseverthought "in one line is incomprehensible, how gladly would we see it overflow into a second! All sorts of reasons for his unintelligibility are given by his admirers: he "neglects the form " for the substance; he "writes too hurriedly;) he "only cares to be understood by those who do not grudge the effort." All these excuses may be true to a certain extent, but it often strikes me that there is a further cause as well. I believe that, with all his genius, Mr. Browning has one decided want in his mind, and that he is deficient in the faculty of gauging the apprehensive power of the ordinary intellect; that he does not puzzle us wilfully, but he has never learned, and has no idea, what people can and cannot be expected to understand. I know that I am saying in other words: he has never discovered how very stupid we are. Be it so. He himself tells us, in the "Essay on Shelley," that the poet should be so acquainted and in sympathy with the narrow comprehension of the "average mind" "as to be careful to supply it with no other materials than it can combine into an intelligible whole." Why then has he not measured our stupidity and respected it? And among Mr. Browning's merits, that which I should single out as the one which primarily draws people towards him is his strong, hopeful philosophy of life. It has been said of him that "he brings out of his individuality something which he does not receive from the age, and which he offers it as a gift." This "something" I hold to be the constructiveness of his teaching as opposed to the destructiveness of the school of thought which has prevailed for so many years. He is the embodiment of Goethe's theory that the best literary work is marred by " perpetual negation and fault-finding; not only, he remarks, "does the discontent of the poet infect the reader, but the end of opposition is negation, and negation is nothing. The great point.is not to pull down, but to build up in this humanity finds pure joy." (Eckermann, vol. i., p. 208.) In the "Essay on Shelley," Mr. Brownex-ing, echoing this sentiment, says: "The best way of removing abuses is to stand Let me give an instance of the altogether unreasonable things which he pects us to understand. fast by truth. Truth is one, as they are manifold, and innumerable negative ef fects are produced by the upholding of one positive principle." Such being his point of view, he emphasizes our hopes rather than our fears, our certainties rather than our doubts, our ultimate triumph rather than our present failures: in a word, he is not a condoling poet, but the very reverse. We gather from "The Two Poets of Croisic "that he considers light-heartedness, and a turn for making the best of things, as a proof of intellectual strength. He there tells us that in estimating the relative merits of two eminent bards, we may decide the question by asking, "Which one led a happy life?" If one did-over his antagonist That yelled or shrieked, or sobbed or wept or wailed, Or simply had the dumps — dispute who list – I count him victor. Νο And in "At the Mermaid" he uses language more emphatic than polite to the critics who tell him he will never enter the human heart without appealing to the Weltschmerz common among men. doubt a reader may be in such a frame of mind that this characteristic of Mr. Browning's poetry shall repel rather than attract him. For a space in most men's lives the negative aspect of things suits them best; they like to be told that effort is vain, and love is hollow; that there is no light on earth, and a doubtful God in heaven; but with most healthy minds this state of things passes off early If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars, they say, and they refuse to spend the rest of their lives shackled and enfeebled by this gloomy philosophy. Then it is that Browning's positive teaching comes like a voice from above to strengthen and cheer. And if we ask what is the basis of his invigorating tenets, the reply is, the intense realization of a loving God, and a future life, given him by his "poet's faculty of seeing more clearly, widely, and deeply" than "the common eye." ("Essay on Shelley.") We too behold these things in our rarer moments, but with us, There's provision Of the devil's to quench knowledge; lest we walk the earth in rapture ("Christina.") and we soon fall back to mere belief. But what we only believe, he sees; and in his verse recalls and makes permanent our own momentary gleams. What a triumphant outburst is the following well-known passage from "Abt Vogler," and how finely it expresses man's inward convictions! There shall never be one lost good! What was shall live as before; The evil is null, is nought; is silence implying sound; What was good, shall be good, with for evil so much good more; On the earth the broken arcs, in the heaven a perfect round. All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist; Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist, When eternity affirms the conception of an hour! The key-note of this passage is a vivid faith in a loving God, who gathers up the broken threads of his creature's aspirations and strivings and longings, to restore them one day perfected and completed; a God who looks not to results, but to effort: This intense faith would in itself afford ample consolation under the sting of fail. ure, and the pressure of disappointment; but Mr. Browning finds a second source of comfort in his strongly realized conception of eternity. To him failure is not irretrievable non-success. This life is not the only period for work, progress, and development. Heaven is not the reward of the faithful soul, severed from all connection with its previous state of existence. All good work begun here will go on there without let or hindrance; and therefore man should map out his life not with reference to what he can complete here, but with reference to the endless centuries of futurity. "Aim high," he seems to say, "try not for one hundred but for a whole million; the entire quality of your work will be better than if you adopt a lower standard, and though you will not fully attain here, what does it matter?" or in the words of the " gram. marian: S |