Part 3 (1/2)

But first he went to Russia, and spent so, attracted thither by the invitation of a friend The country interested hied his attention That, however, his Russian experiences were not fruitless is manifest fro poem, ”Ivan Ivanovitch” (the fourth of the _Dramatic Idyls_, 1879) Of a truth, after his own race and country--readers will at once think of ”Ho lines in ”Holand, Now that April's there!”--

or perhaps, those lines in his earliest work--

”I cherish land--how, her naue makes my heart beat!”

--it was of the ht and dreaht have cried: ”O Firdusi! O Ischa after the roses of Schiraz!” As for Italy, who of all our truest poets has not loved her: but who has worshi+pped her with so ?

One alone indeed may be mated with him here, she who had his heart of hearts, and who lies at rest in the old Florentine ceet his lines in ”De Gustibus,”

”Open raved inside of it, Italy”

It would be no difficult task to devote a voluer than the present one to the descriptive analysis of none but the poees and history, Italian Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Music From Porphyria and her lover to Poedy wherein she is as a e tides of passion, what an unparalleled gallery of portraits, what a brilliant phantasoria, what a movement of intensest life!

It is pleasant to know of one of the was proud, because Mazzini told hiland to sho an English Russia the young poet spent the rest of his _Wanderjahr_ in Italy A other places he visited was Asolo, that white little hill-town of the Veneto, whence he drew hints for ”Sordello,” and ”Pippa Passes,” and whither he returned in the last year of his life, as with unconscious significance he himself said, ”on his way homeward”

In the summer of 1834, that is, when he was in his twenty-second year, he returned to Caun, but had set aside for a poehout the autumn of 1834 and winter of 1835, ”Paracelsus” In this period, also, he wrote sonificance The first of the series was a sonnet, which appeared above the signature 'Z' in the August number of the _Monthly Repository_ for 1834 It was never reprinted by the author, whose judgment it is i never wrote a good sonnet, and this earliest effort is not the most fortunate It was in the _Repository_ also, in 1835 and 1836, that the other poe in ”Pippa Passes,” beginning ”A King lived long ago,” was one of these; and the lyric, ”Still ailing, wind? Wilt be appeased or no?”

afterwards revised and incorporated in ”James Lee,” was another But the thich are ricola” and ”Porphyria” Even more distinctively than in ”Pauline,” in their novel sentienerally unique quality, is a new voice audible in these two poe a poet, and are interesting as showing how rapidly he had outgrown the influence of any other of his poetic kindred ”Johannes Agricola” is significant as being the first of those drae self-sophistication, which have afforded so ht In its dranificance, and its unique, if to unaccustomed ears somewhat barbaric, poetic beauty, ”Porphyria” is still h possibly some years later, that Mrs

Bridell-Fox writes:--”I re just returned from his first visit to Venice I cannot tell the date for certain He was full of enthusiaslowing descriptions of its beauties, the palaces, the sunsets, theup a bit of stray notepaper, he would hold it over a lighted candle, ently till it was cloudily s the darker smears for clouds, shadoater, or what not, would etch with a dry pen the forondola on the vague and drea to see Venice dates fros of un about the close of October or early in Nove year It is a poeth of ”Pauline,” with interspersed songs The author divided it into five sections of unequal length, of which the third is the most extensive: ”Paracelsus Aspires”; ”Paracelsus Attains”; ”Paracelsus”; ”Paracelsus Aspires”; ”Paracelsus Attains” In an interesting note, which was not reprinted in later editions of his first acknowledged poe his perfor in co it by principles on which it was notit to a standard to which it was never meant to conform He then explains that he has composed a dramatic poem, and not a drama in the accepted sense; that he has not set forth the phenomena of the mind or the passions by the operation of persons and events, or by recourse to an external ht to be produced Instead of this, he remarks, ”I have ventured to display soress, and have suffered the agency, by which it is influenced and deterenerally discernible in its effects alone, and subordinate throughout, if not altogether excluded: and this for a reason I have endeavoured to write a poem, not a drama” A little further, he states that a work like ”Paracelsus” depends, for its success, ience and sympathy of the reader: ”Indeed, werefancy which, supplying all chashts into one constellation--a Lyre or a Crown”

In the concluding paragraph of this note there is a point of interest--the statement of the author's hope that the readers of ”Paracelsus” will not ”be prejudiced against other productions which may follow in a more popular, and perhaps less difficult for had not definitively adopted his characteristic eneral ear: and that he was alert to the difficulties of popularisation of poetry written on lines similar to those of ”Paracelsus” Nor would this inference be wrong: for, as a matter of fact, the poet, immediately upon the publication of ”Paracelsus,” determined to devote himself to poetic hich should have so direct a contact with actual life that its appeal should reach even to the hts of verse

In his early years Browning had always a great liking for walking in the dark At Ca ht's rest There was, in particular, a wood near Dulwich, whither he ont to go There he would walk swiftly and eagerly along the solitary and lightless byways, finding a potent stiht in the happy isolation thus enjoyed, with all the concurrent delights of natural things, the windof poignant fragrances, even in winter-tide, from herb and sappy bark, imperceptible almost by the alertest sense in the day's manifold detachments At this time, too, he composed much in the open air This he rarely, if ever, did in later life Not only many portions of ”Paracelsus,” but several scenes in ”Strafford,” were enacted first in these ht silences of the Duloodland Here, too, as the poet once declared, he caain, after having read late, or written long, he would steal quietly froraded to the pearl and alow of distant London had affected him to a pleasure that was not without pain, perhaps to a pain rather that was a fine deliriue city, felt in those ht walks of his, and apprehended lare thrown fadingly upward against the stars, than by any more direct vision or even far-borne indeterination At that distance, in those circuht, the consciousness of this ih resolve to be no curious dilettante in novel literary experi of this complex human environment

Those who knew the poet intiard he always had for those nocturnal experiences: but perhaps few recognise how enial isolation he ont to enjoy on fortunate occasions

It is not my intention--it would, obviously, be a futile one, if entertained--to attempt an analysis or elaborate criticis and short, produced by Robert Browning Not one volume, but several, of this size, would have to be allotted to the adequate performance of that end Moreover, if readers are unable or unwilling to be their own expositors, there are several trustworthy hand-books which are easily procurable Some one, I believe, has even, with unselfish consideration for the weaker brethren, turned ”Sordello” into prose--a superfluous task, some scoffers may exclaim Personally, I cannot but think this craze for the exposition of poetry, this passion for ”dissecting a rainbow,” is harh office of Poetry itself, and not infrequently it is ludicrous

I must be content with a feords anent the nificant poems, and in due course attempt an estimate by a broad synthesis, and not by cumulative critical analyses

In the selection of Paracelsus as the hero of his first uided first of all by his keen sympathy with the scientific spirit--the spirit of dauntless inquiry, of quenchless curiosity, of a searching enthusiasm Pietro of Abano, Giordano Bruno, Galileo, were heroes whoarded with an admiration which would have been boundless but for the wise sympathy which enabled him to apprehend and understand their weaknesses as well as their lofty qualities Once having coreat and ned ht the features he saw looend and history But over and above this, he half unwittingly, half consciously, felt the fascination of that mysticism associated with the name of the celebrated German scientist--a mysticised to be the subtlest poetic interpreter in our language, though, profound as its attraction alas for him, never was poet with a more exquisite balance of intellectual sanity

Latest research has proved that whatsoever of a pretender Paracelsus may have been in certain respects, he was unquestionably a man of extraordinary powers: and, as a pioneer in a science of the first h honour If ever the fah place in the history of the modern intellectual 's championshi+p

But of course the extent or shallowness of Paracelsus' claim is a matter of quite secondary interest We are concerned with the poet's presente soul who anticipated so far, and as having focussed all the vagrant speculations of the day into one startling beaross constituents[9]

[Footnote 9: Paracelsus has two particular claiave us laudanu to mankind And from his fourth baptismal name, which he inherited from his father, we have our familiar ter the ”master-mind, the thinker, the explorer, the creator,”

the forerunner of Mesan life with the sounding appellation ”Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bo's own learned appendical note, and Mr Berdoe's interesting essay in the Browning Society Papers, No xlix]

Paracelsus, his friends Festus and his wife Michal, and Aprile, an Italian poet, are the characters who are the personal enius found expression The poeainst baffling circues of rare technical excellence, as well as of conceptive beauty: so full, indeed, that the sympathetic reader of it as a dras, cast as it is in the dra himself distinctly stated he had atteht of this simple stateround