MR. BROWNING'S NEW VOLUME.*

Ma. Baowmwo does not condescend more generously to the minds of his readers in age than he did in youth. The Dean of St. Paul's, in the gracious and exquisitely written interpretation of Bordello which he has just put forth in Macmillan's Maga- zine, says very justly that the readers of that enigmatic poem feel that they are " in strong hands, and with eyes that have really seen,—seen, with keenness, with truth, with thought,— only their owner is not disposed to save us any trouble in making us see what he has seen." Say rather that Mr. Browning, in such works as Bordello and the present volume, is determined to give his readers more trouble than ninety-nine out of a hundred readers of poetry will take, in catching even a glimpse of what he means to say ; that he appears to wish to sift out the keen-sighted and painstaking readers from among the dull-sighted and careless readers, and to spare himself the indignity of receiving either admiration or so much as misunder- standing on the part of the latter,—for we will venture to say that without considerable effort, the greater number of these pages cannot even be misunderstood ; they will simply present to the superficial reader a face of perfect inscrutability. In the first place, the " persons of importance in their day " with whom Mr. Browning converses, are not, on the whole, remembered at all in our day. The present writer knew that Bernard de Mande- ville had written A Fable of the Bees ; that Christopher Smart had translated Horace into very poor prose ; and that George Bubb Dodington was a corrupt politician. But of the other " persons of importance in their day " ho had never heard. Bartoli, Furini, De Lairesee, and Charles Avison were not even names to him. That, however, does not add much to the difficulty ; for Mr. Browning gives us enough hints as to the character of the persons with whom he holds discourse, to apprehend his meaning if he would but expound his meaning with more care and continuity of thought. But this is just what ho will not do. He frequently dashes off, suddenly and without warning, at a tangent to his previous train of thought; he is habitually highly elliptical; he often leaves it matter of guesswork to whom his various pronouns refer. All this makes the mastery of Mr. Browning's drift an effort of no mean kind ; and though he constantly gives one a brilliant glimpse of landscape, or a quaint touch of humour, to reward one's progress, it is with the sense of walking down a long and dark passage, with here and there, in an embrasure, a window commanding a fine view, that we toil through his volume,—which has hardly, indeed, enough unity of subject to make the whole, when read, a very lucid com- mentary on the more obscure parts.

In general, we should say, judging by the discussion in the Prologue between Apollo and the Fates, and by the Epilogue on the inventorrof printing, as well as by the drift of several of the separate poems,—that it has been Mr. Browning's chief object to show that life is an exceedingly complex matter, in which evil and good are so indissolubly interwoven that the very thread which seems evil in one light seems good in another, and the tares seem as necessary to the wheat as the ground from which it grows. As the Fates say in the Prologue :- " Do we strive to declare

What is ill, what is good in our spinning ? Worst, beet, Change hues of a sadden : now here and now there Flits the sign which decides all about, yet no-where."

And again, as Fast mournfully asks his friends in the Epilogue :—

" Ah, friends, the first triumph soon flickers, fast fades ! I hailed Word's dispersion : could heart-leaps but tarry !

Through me does Print furnish Truth wings ? The some aids Cause Falsehood to range jest as widely."

So, too, the subject of the first " parleying " with Bernard de Mandeville is the presumption—.

" That every growth of good Sprang consequent on evil's neighbourhood."

The second parleying, with Bartoli, contains an account of a heroic woman who gave up a man she loved, and a ducal throne, to prevent a sacrifice of duty and power which she

• Parleying* with Certain People of Importance in their Day : to nit, Bernard de Mandeville, Daniel Barton, Christopher Smart, Georg. Bubb Dodington, Francis Burin:, Girard de Lairr¢te, and Char/es Amen. Introdoced by a Dialogue between Apollo and the Fates; concluded by another between Jobs Fast and his Friends. By Robert Dreaming. London Smith, Elder, and Co. regarded as the betrayal of a trust on his part, with, of course, the mixed results which were likely to follow from such a preference of public to private feeling. The third parleying is the discussion of the rationale of the sudden transfiguration which a mere mediocrity (like Smart, the dull translator of Horace) now and then undergoes, thereby betraying its affinity to true genius, as, for instance, when Smart wrote that true poem, " The Song of David." This poem also suggests, of course, the close affinity of true genius to mere mediocrity,— shows ns hownear intellectual grandeur is to intellectual poverty. The fourth parleying, with George Babb Dodington, is a discus- sion of the true source of popularity with the democracy, and appears to intimate that the man who wields true democratic power must be able to strike terror to the heart of the people he masters, and to make them believe that, with all his apparent deference to them, he more or less despises them in his heart. The fifth parleying, with Farini, is a discussion of the relation between spiritual and fleshly art, and the writer argues that the true spiritual artist must make the world see that he fully under- stands the body of man, and rises through his knowledge of that up to knowledge of the spirit of man. The sixth, with Gerard de Lairesee, is a refutation of the old notion that Art finds its great subjects in the distant past, and not in the present and the future, though Mr. Browning is not without a liking for those who held it, and who worked from that point of view. The last parleying, with Charles Avison, is a demonstration that feeling, as it represents itself in good music, may be adapted by very slight changes of manner to the mental attitudes of Guile different epochs, so that the same march which "in Georgian years " fitted " the step precise o British Grenadiers may, with very slight modification, be made to suit either the tramp of "federated England," that is, the " march-music " of the future, or, by a change in the opposite direction, be altered into the march of the people who guarded " Hollis, Hs.selrig, Strode, Hampden, and Pym " in the quarrel between Charles I. and his Parliament. The thesis is that though one style of music dethrones another as the ages pass, there is a core of reality common to all the music of high feeling, so that it cannot be said that in the world of Art all is mere temporary taste, and that there is no permanent truth of feeling in it. Such is the general drift of Mr. Browning's volume. And it will be seen that while there is one prevailing idea in it,—the idea of the high com- plexity of life, and the inextricable connection between evil and good, so that it is hard to say whether what looks like evil may not in some other light show the clearest evidence of good, and vice versd,—there is yet so wide a variation of theme, that there seems at times little continuity between one poem and another, or, indeed, between various portions of the same poem ; no that even when the whole has been carefully read, and we go back to the obscurer parts with the whole before us, we still find much that is too difficult for anything but guesswork interpreta- tion. Mr. Browning's translator, if this work should ever be translated into any foreign language, will come upon difficulties to which even the difficulties of translators of a corrupt chorus in the Agamemnon will be trivial.

Perhaps the least obscure of these pieces is the one on George Bubb Dodington, the corrupt politician who pretended to be the people's friend with no much desire to deceive that he deceived no one. Him Mr. Browning despises, and he depicts by way of contrast, as the true master of democracies, one who should, while professing to serve the people, give it not very indistinctly to be understood that he rather despises them, and commands the secret of a policy which they are not in any way competent to understand. This sends a thrill of fear through those by whose help power is attained :- " Oaf, man, beast—

How should we qualify the statesman-shape I fancy standing with our world agape ? Disguise, flee, fight against with tooth and nail The outrageous designation ! ' Quack' men quail

Before You see, a little year ago

They heard him thunder at the thing which, lo, To-day he vaunts for unscathed, while what erst Heaven-high be landed, lies hell-low, accursed ! And yet where's change Who, awe-struck, cares to point Critical finger at a dubious joint In armour, true are triplex, breast and back Binding about, defiant of attack, An imperturbability that's—well, Or innocence or impudence—how tell One from the other ? Could ourselves broach lies,

Yet brave mankind with those unaltered eyes,

Those lips that keep the quietude of troth ?

Dare we attempt the like ? What quick uncouth Disturbance of thy smug economy, 0 coward visage ! Straight would all descry Back on the man's brow the boy's blush once more !

No he goes deeper—could our sense explore—

Finds conscience beneath conscience such as ours.

Genius is not so rare,—prodigious powers—

Well, others boast such,—but a power like this

Mendacious intrepidity—quid vise'

Besides, imposture plays another game, Admits of no diversion from its aim Of onptivating hearts, seta zeal a-flare In every shape at every turn,—nowhere Allows subsidence into ash. By stress Of what does guile succeed but earnestness, Earnest word, look and gesture ? Touched with aught Bat earnestness, the levity were fraught With rain to guile's film-work. Grave is guile; Mere no act wants its qualifying smile, Its covert pleasantry to neutralise The outward ardour. Can our chief despise

Even while most he seems to adulate ?

As who should say ' What though it be my fate To deal with fools ? Among the crowd must lurk Some few with faculty to judge my work Spite of its way which suits, they understand, The erase majority :—the Sacred Band, No doping them forsooth!' So tells a touch

Of eubintelligential nod and wink—

Turning foes friends. 'Bat here 'tie through Our recognition of his service, wage

Well earned by work, he mounts to such a stage Above competitors as all save Bubb

Would agonize to keep. Yet—here's the rub— So slightly does he hold by our esteem Which solely fixed him fast there, that we seem Mocked every minute to our face, by gibe And jest—acorn in:suppressive : what ascribe The rashness to ?'

Last resource

Should be to what but—exquisite disguise Disguise-abjuring, truth that looks like lies, Frankness so sure to meet with unbelief ? Say—you bold in contempt—not them in chief— But first and foremost your own self ! No use In men but to make sport for you, induce The puppets now to dance, now stand stock-still, Now knock their heads together, at your will For will's sake only—while each plays his part Submissive: why ? through terror at the heart : Can it be—this bold man, whose band we saw Openly pall the wires, obeys some law Quite above Man's—nay, God's ?' On face fall they. This was the secret missed, again I say, Out of your power to grasp conception of, Much less employ to purpose. Hence the scoff That greets your very name folks see but one Fool more, as well as knave, in Dodington."

Does that last passage contain a silhouette of Prince Bismarck ? This is rough enough ; yet if all were as clear in drift as this, Mr. Browning's new volume would be comparatively easy reading,

whereas no one will find it easy reading, and many will give it up in despair. But it contains some very fine descriptions, as this, for instance, of Prometheus chained on the Caucasus :—

" Thunders an thunders, doubling and redoubling Doom o'er the mountain, while a sharp white fire

Now shone, now sheared its rusty herbage, troubling

Hardly the fir-boles, now discharged its ire

Fall where some pine-tree's solitary spire Crashed down, defiant to the last till—lo, The motive of the malice !—all a-glow, Circled with flame there yawned a sudden rift I' the rock-face, and I saw a form erect Front and defy the outrage, while—as checked,

Chidden, beside him dauntless in the drift— Cowered a heaped creature, wing and wing outspread

In deprecation o'er the crouching head Still hungry for the feast foregone awhile.

O thou, of scorn's unconquerable smile, Was it when this—Jove's feathered fury—slipped

Gore-glutted from the heart's oore whence he ripped— This eagle-hound—neither reproach nor prayer—

Baffled, in one more fierce attempt to tear Fate's secret from thy safeguard,—was it then That all these thunders rent earth, ruined air To reach thee, pay thy patronage of men ?

He thundered,—to withdraw, as beast to lair, Before the triumph on thy pallid brow.

Gather the night again about thee now,

Hate on, love ever ! Morn is breaking there—

The granite ridge pricks through the mist, turns gold As wrong tarns right. 0 laughters manifold Of ocean's ripple at dull earth's despair !"

still more beautiful is the little lyric to Spring which closes the parleying with the blind artist, Gerard de Lairesse :— " Dance, yellows and whites and reds,— Lead your gay orgy, leaves, stalks, heads Astir with the wind in the tulip-beds I There's sunshine; scarcely a wind at all Disturbs starved grass and daisies small On a certain mound by a churchyard wall. Daisies and grass be my heart's bedfellows On the mound wind spares and sunshine mellows Dance you, reds and whites and yellows !"