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Anything very hideous or revolting taints the air around it, and produces a sensation of loathing, from which we do not immediately recover. Hence poets, even when their situations are of the most tragic natureeven when they are dealing with subjects questionable in moralitydo, for the most part, sedulously avoid anything like coarseness of expression, and frame their language so as to convey the general idea without presenting special images which are calculated to disgust. Indeed, whilst reading this poem, which abounds in references to art, we have been impressed with a doubt whether, with all her genius, accomplishment, and experience, Mrs. Browning has ever thought seriously of the principles upon which art is founded. For genius, as we all know, or ought to know, is not of itself sufficient for the construction of a great poem. Artists, like architects, must work by rulenot slavishly indeed, but ever keeping in mind that there are certain principles which experience has tested and approved, and that to deviate from these is literally to court defeat. Not that we should implicitly receive the doctrines laid down by critics, scholiasts, or commentators, or pin our faith to the formula of Longinus ; but we should regard the works of the great masters, both ancient and modern, as profitable for instruction as well as for delight, and be cautious how we innovate. We may consider it almost as a certainty that every leading principle of art has been weighed and sifted by our predecessors; and that most of the theories, which are paraded as discoveries, were deliberately examined by them, and rejected because they were false or impracticable. In the fifth book of this poem there is a dissertation upon poetry, in which Mrs. Browning very plainly indicates her opinion that the chief aim of a poet should be to illustrate the age in which he lives.

"But poets should
Exert a double vision; should have eyes
To see near things as comprehensively
As if afar they took their point of sight,
And distant things, as intimately deep,

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But still, unscrupulously epic, catch
Upon the burning lava of a song,
The full-veined, heaving, double-breasted Age:
That, when the next shall come, the men of

that

May touch the impress with reverent hand, and
say,

That bosom seems to beat still, or at least
It sets ours beating. This is living art,
Which thus presents, and thus records true
life.'"

'Behold, behold the paps we have all sucked!"

This, in our apprehension, would lead to a total sacrifice of the ideal. It is not the province of the poet to depict things as they are, but so to refine and purify as to purge out the grosser matter; and this he cannot do if he attempts to give a faithful picture of his own times. For in order to be faithful, he must necessarily include much which is abhorrent to art, and revolting to the taste, for which no exactness of delineation will be accepted as a proper excuse. All poetical characters, all poetical situations must be idealised. language is not that of common life,

The

As if they touched them. Let us strive for which belongs essentially to the do

this.

I do distrust the poet who discerns

main of prose. Therein lies the dis

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"Parted. Face no more, voice no more, love no more! wiped wholly out like some ill scholar's scrawl from heart and slate-ay, spit on, and so wiped out utterly by some coarse scholar. I have been too coarse, too human. Have we business in our rank with blood in the veins? I will have henceforth none; not even to keep the colour at my lip. A rose is pink and pretty without blood,

tinction between a novel and a poem. Is that poetry? Assuredly not. Is In the first, we expect that the lan- it prose? If so, it is as poor and guage employed by the characters faulty a specimen as ever was preshall be strictly natural, not ex- sented to our notice. It would not cluding even imperfections, and that pass muster even in a third-rate their sentiments shall not be too novel, where sense is an element of elevated or extravagant for the occa- minor consideration, and style is sion. In the second, we expect ideal- habitually disregarded. Here is an isation-language more refined, more extract from an epistle by Lady adorned, and more forcible than that Waldemar :which is ordinarily employed; and sentiments purer and loftier than find utterance in our daily speech. Whilst dealing with a remote subject the poet can easily effect this, but not so when he brings forward characters of his own age. We have been told that both the late John Kemble and his sister Mrs. Siddons had become so accustomed to the flow of blank verse that they carried the trick of it into private life, and used sorely to try the risible faculties of the company by demanding beef or beer in tragic tones and rhythm. That which would have sounded magnificently on the stage was ludicrous at a modern table. Mrs. Browning has evidently felt the difficulty, but she cannot conquer it. In this poem she has wilfally alternated passages of sorry prose with bursts of splendid poetry; and her prose is all the worse because she has been compelled to dislocate its joints in order to make it read like blank verse. Let us again revert to the experiment of exhibiting one or two of these passages printed in the usual form :

"We are sad to-night. I saw-(goodnight, Sir Blaise! ah Smith-he has slipped away) I saw you across the room, and stayed, Miss Leigh, to keep a crowd of lion-hunters off, with faces toward your jungle. There were three; a spacious lady five feet ten, and fat, who has the devil in her (and there's room) for walking to and fro upon the earth from Chippewa to China; she requires your autograph upon a tinted leaf 'twixt Queen Pomare's and Emperor Soulouque's; pray give it; she has energies, though fat; for me, I'd rather see a rick on fire than such a woman angry. Then a youth fresh from the backwoods, green as the underboughs, asks modestly, Miss Leigh, to kiss your shoe, and adds, he has an epic in twelve parts, which when you've read, you'll do it for his boot,-all which I saved you, and absorb next week both manuscript and man."

why not a woman? When we've played in vain the game, to adore,-who have re

sources still, and can play on at leisure, swearing at my feet that I'm the typic being adored: here's Smith already She. Away with Smith!-Smith smacks of Leigh, and henceforth, I'll admit no Socialist within three crinolines, to live and have his being. But for you, though insolent your letter and absurd, and though I hate you frankly, take my Smith! For when you have seen this famous marriage tied, a most unspotted Earl to a noble Leigh (his love astray on one he should not love), how beit you should not want his love, beware, you'll want some comfort. So I leave you Smith; take Smith !"

What a rare specimen of a rhythmical fashionable letter! Still more singular is the effect when the mob becomes articulate :—

"Then spoke a man, 'Now look to it, coves, that all the beef and drink be not filched from us like the other fun; for beer's spilt easier than a woman is. This gentry is not honest with the poor; they bring us up to trick us.' 'Go it, Jim,' a woman screamed back. 'I'm a tender soul; I never banged a child at two years old, and drew blood from him, but I sobbed for it next moment-and I've had a plague of seven. I'm tender: I've no stomach even for beef, until I know about the girl that's lost-that's killed, mayhap. I did misdoubt, at first, the fine lord meant no good by her or us. He maybe got the upper hand of her by holding up a wedding-ring, and then . . a choking finger on her throat last night, and just a clever take to keep us still, as she is, poor lost innocent!'"

Reading such passages as these so flat, distorted, and unworthyshall we not exclaim with Mrs. Browning herself,

"Weep, my Eschylus,

But low and far, upon Sicilian shores?"

It is not the part of critics to strain their vision so as to detect spots on the disc of the sun; but it is their duty to mark the appearance of even a partial eclipse. It is far easier, as it is more pleasant, to praise than to condemn; but praise, injudiciously or indiscriminately bestowed, cannot be commended, since it leads to the perpetuation of error. In dealing with the works of authors of high name and established repute, it is of the utmost importance that the judgment should be clear and calm; for we know by experience that the aberrations or eccentricities of a distinguished artist are immediately copied by a crew of imitators, who, unable to vie with their original in beauties, can at least rival him in his faults. We doubt not that, before a year is over, many poems on the model of Aurora Leigh will be written and published; and that conversations in the pot-house, casino, and even worse places, will be reduced to blank verse, and exhibited as specimens of high art. To dignify the mean, is not the province of poetry-let us rather say that there are atmospheres so tainted that in them poetry cannot live. Its course is in the empyrean or in the fresh wholesome air, but if it attempts to descend to pits and charnel-vaults, it is stifled by the noxious exhalationa. We by no means confound the humble with the mean. The most sanctified affections, the purest thoughts, the holiest aspirations, are as likely to be found in the cottage as in the castle. Wherever there is a flower, however lowly, beauty may be seen; the prayer of a monarch is not more heeded in heaven than the supplication of an outcast; the cry of a mother is as plaintive from the dungeon as though it sounded from the halls of a palace. This very poem which we are reviewing affords a remarkable illustration of the æsthetical point which we are anxious to enforce. We have already

said that the character of Marian Erle is beautifully drawn and well sustained, and yet it is the humblest of them all. But in depicting her, Mrs. Browning has abstained from all meanness. If she errs at all, it is by making the girl appear more refined in thought and expression than is justified by her previous history, but that is an error on the safe side, and one which may be readily excused. Marian, little better than a pariahgirl, does undoubtedly attract our sympathies more than the polished and high-minded Aurora, the daughter of a noble race-not certainly as the bride of Romney, but as the mother of a hapless child. There, indeed, Mrs. Browning has achieved a triumph; for never yetno, not in her "Cry of the Children," one of the most pathetic and tearstirring poems in the English language has she written anything comparable to the passages which refer to Marian and her babe. Take for example this description :

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And, staring out at us with all their blue,
As half perplexed between the angelhood
He had been away to visit in his sleep,
And our most mortal presence,-gradually
He saw his mother's face, accepting it

In change for heaven itself, with such a smile

As might have well been learnt there, never moved,

But smiled on, in a drowse of ectasy,

not dignify ignoble thoughts or common sentiments by admitting them to that lofty chariot. Mrs. Browning follows the march of modern improvement. She makes no distinction between her first and her third class passengers, but rattles them along at

So happy (half with her and half with the same speed upon her rhythmical

heaven)

He could not have the trouble to be

stirred,

railway.

There is no instance of a poem of

But smiled and lay there. Like a rose, I considerable length which is free

said:

As red and still indeed as any rose,
That blows in all the silence of its leaves,
Content, in blowing, to fulfil its life."

Now contrast that with the stuff, which we have put into the form of prose, and then tell us, good reader, if we are not justified in feeling annoyed, and even incensed, that a lady capable of producing so exquisite a picture, should condescend to fashion into verse what is essentially mean, gross, and puerile? We must have no evasions here, for this is an important question of art. We may be told that Shakespeare, in his highest tragedies, has introduced the comic element; and his example, so distinguished as almost to amount to an unimpeachable authority, may be cited in defence of Mrs. Browning. But, on examination, we shall find that there is no analogy. In the first place, whenever Shakespeare descends to low comedy, he makes his characters discourse in prose, thereby marking broadly the elevation of sentiment and dignity which belongs to verse, and he does so even when low comedy is excluded. When Hamlet is familiar, as with the players, Polonius, the gravediggers, or Osric, he speaks in prose; and the rhythmical periods are reserved for the higher and more impassioned situations. So in Othello, in the scenes between Iago, Cassio, and Roderigo. So in Julius Casar (in which, being a classical play, the temptation lay towards stateliness), whenever the citizens or the cynical Casca are introduced; and in Henry V., in the night-scene

from faults and blemishes; and whatever may be said to the contrary, the detection of existing faults is the real business of the critic. He either is, or is supposed to be, the holder of the touchstone, by means of which true metal is distinguished from that which is base, and he is bound in duty to declare the result of his investigation. the present instance, while dealing with Aurora Leigh, we have been at some pains to arrive at the metal. Our task has been rather that of an Australian or Californian gold-seeker, who puts into his cradle or his pan a spadeful of doubtful material. From the first shaking there emerges mud

In

from the second, pebbles-but, after clearance, the pure gold is found at the bottom, and in no inconsiderable quantities.

If we have not been able conscientiously to praise the story, either as regards conception or execution, no such restriction is laid upon us while dealing with isolated passages. Mrs. Browning possesses in a very high degree the faculty of description, presenting us often with the most brilliantly coloured pictures. In this respect, if we may be allowed to institute such a comparison, she resembles Turner, being sometimes even extravagant in the vividness of her tints. By this we mean that she has a decided tendency, not only to multiply, but to intensify images, and occasionally carries this so far as to bewilder the reader. The following sketch of London is drawn in her most florid manner :

"So, happy and unafraid of solitude,

the sun

On lurid morns or monstrous afternoons, Like some Druidic idol's fiery brass,

before Agincourt, there is even a I worked the short days out,-and watched more remarkable instance of this. It was evidently the view of Shakespeare that verse is the proper vehicle for poetry alone: he would

With fixed unflickering outline of dead heat,

In which the blood of wretches pent inside

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Push out through fog with his dilated disk,
And startle the slant roofs and chimney-
pots

With splashes of fierce colour. Or I saw
Fog only, the great tawny weltering fog,
Involve the passive city, strangle it
Alive, and draw it off into the void,
Spires, bridges, streets, and squares, as if
a sponge

Had wiped out London, or as noon and
night

Had clapped together and utterly struck

out

The intermediate time, undoing themselves
In the act. Your city poets see such things,
Not despicable. Mountains of the south,
and mad with elemental
When, drunk

wines,
They rend the seamless mist and stand up
bare,

Make fewer singers, haply. No one sings,
Descending Sinai: on Parnassus mount,
You take a mule to climb, and not a muse,
Except in fable and figure: forests chant

Their anthems to themselves, and leave
you dumb.

But sit in London, at the day's decline,
And view the city perish in the mist,

Like Pharaoh's armaments in the deep Red
Sea-

The chariots, horsemen, footmen, all
host,

the

Sucked down and choked to silence then,

surprised

By a sudden sense of vision and of tune,
You feel as conquerors though you did not

fight,

And you and Israel's other singing girls,
Ay, Miriam with them, sing the song you

choose."

There can be no doubt as to the power which is here exhibited, but in our opinion the passage is overwrought. There is a prodigality of illustration which mars the general effect by creating confusion. marked contrast to it is our next extract. Aurora, returning to Italy, is watching on deck for the first glimpse of her native land.

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They stood: I watched beyond that Tyrian
belt

of intense sea betwixt them and the ship,
Down all their sides the misty olive-woods
Dissolving in the weak congenial moon,

And still disclosing some brown convent-
tower

That seems as if it grew from some brown
rock,-

Or many a little lighted village, dropt
Like a fallen star, upon so high a point,
You wonder what can keep it in its place
From sliding headlong with the waterfalls
Which drop and powder all the myrtle-
groves

With spray of silver. Thus my Italy
Was stealing on

day;

us.

Genoa broke with

The Doria's long pale palace striking out,
From green hills in advance of the white

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That is poetry-splendid, magnificent poetry-without intermixture of conceits or far-fetched images. Our younger poets, who, as a class, aspire to dazzle rather than to please, might derive a very useful lesson from the study of these extracts. The first is undoubtedly gorgeous, but it is so overlaid with ornament that it leaves no distinct impression on the mind; the second is a perfect picture, which once seen can never be forgotten. To these we are tempted to add a third, descriptive of Florence :

"I found a house, at Florence, on the hill
Of Bellosguardo. "Tis a tower that keeps

A post of double-observation o'er
The valley of Arno (holding as a hand
The outspread city) straight toward Fiesole
And Mount Morello and the setting sun,-
The Vallombrosan mountains to the right,
Which sunrise fills as full as crystal cups
Wine-filled, and red to the brim because
it's red.

No sun could die, nor yet be born, unseen
By dwellers at my villa: morn and eve
Were magnified before us in the pure
Illimitable space and pause of sky,
Intense as angels' garments blanched with
God,

Less blue than radiant. From the outer
wall

Of the garden, dropped the mystic floating grey

Of olive-trees (with interruptions green

From maize and vine) until it was caught

and torn

On that abrupt black line of cypresses
Which signed the way to Florence. Beauti-
ful

The city lay along the ample vale,
Cathedral, tower and palace, piazza and
street;

The river trailing like a silver cord

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