Life and Letters of Robert Browning [4]
life and plays no part in the family history;
and another son who died an infant. The Creole mother died also
when her eldest boy was only seven years old, and passed out of his memory
in all but an indistinct impression of having seen her lying in her coffin.
Five years later the widower married a Miss Smith, who gave him
a large family.
This second marriage of Mr. Browning's was a critical event
in the life of his eldest son; it gave him, to all appearance,
two step-parents instead of one. There could have been little sympathy
between his father and himself, for no two persons were ever more unlike,
but there was yet another cause for the systematic unkindness
under which the lad grew up. Mr. Browning fell, as a hard man easily does,
greatly under the influence of his second wife, and this influence
was made by her to subserve the interests of a more than natural jealousy
of her predecessor. An early instance of this was her banishing
the dead lady's portrait to a garret, on the plea that her husband
did not need two wives. The son could be no burden upon her
because he had a little income, derived from his mother's brother;
but this, probably, only heightened her ill-will towards him.
When he was old enough to go to a University, and very desirous of going --
when, moreover, he offered to do so at his own cost --
she induced his father to forbid it, because, she urged,
they could not afford to send their other sons to college.
An earlier ambition of his had been to become an artist;
but when he showed his first completed picture to his father, the latter
turned away and refused to look at it. He gave himself the finishing stroke
in the parental eyes, by throwing up a lucrative employment
which he had held for a short time on his mother's West Indian property,
in disgust at the system of slave labour which was still in force there;
and he paid for this unpractical conduct as soon as he was of age,
by the compulsory reimbursement of all the expenses which his father,
up to that date, had incurred for him; and by the loss
of his mother's fortune, which, at the time of her marriage, had not been
settled upon her. It was probably in despair of doing anything better,
that, soon after this, in his twenty-second year, he also became a clerk
in the Bank of England. He married and settled in Camberwell, in 1811;
his son and daughter were born, respectively, in 1812 and 1814.
He became a widower in 1849; and when, four years later, he had completed
his term of service at the Bank, he went with his daughter to Paris,
where they resided until his death in 1866.
Dr. Furnivall has originated a theory, and maintains it as a conviction,
that Mr. Browning's grandmother was more than a Creole
in the strict sense of the term, that of a person born of white parents
in the West Indies, and that an unmistakable dash of dark blood
passed from her to her son and grandson. Such an occurrence was,
on the face of it, not impossible, and would be absolutely unimportant
to my mind, and, I think I may add, to that of Mr. Browning's sister and son.
The poet and his father were what we know them, and if negro blood
had any part in their composition, it was no worse for them,
and so much the better for the negro. But many persons among us
are very averse to the idea of such a cross; I believe its assertion,
in the present case, to be entirely mistaken; I prefer, therefore,
touching on the facts alleged in favour of it, to passing them over
in a silence which might be taken to mean indifference,
but might also be interpreted into assent.
We are told that Mr. Browning was so dark in early life,
that a nephew who saw him in Paris, in 1837, mistook him for an Italian.
He neither had nor could have had a nephew; and he was not out of England
at the time specified. It is said that when Mr. Browning senior
was residing on his mother's sugar plantation at St. Kitt's,
his appearance was held to justify his being placed in church
among the coloured members of the congregation. We are
and another son who died an infant. The Creole mother died also
when her eldest boy was only seven years old, and passed out of his memory
in all but an indistinct impression of having seen her lying in her coffin.
Five years later the widower married a Miss Smith, who gave him
a large family.
This second marriage of Mr. Browning's was a critical event
in the life of his eldest son; it gave him, to all appearance,
two step-parents instead of one. There could have been little sympathy
between his father and himself, for no two persons were ever more unlike,
but there was yet another cause for the systematic unkindness
under which the lad grew up. Mr. Browning fell, as a hard man easily does,
greatly under the influence of his second wife, and this influence
was made by her to subserve the interests of a more than natural jealousy
of her predecessor. An early instance of this was her banishing
the dead lady's portrait to a garret, on the plea that her husband
did not need two wives. The son could be no burden upon her
because he had a little income, derived from his mother's brother;
but this, probably, only heightened her ill-will towards him.
When he was old enough to go to a University, and very desirous of going --
when, moreover, he offered to do so at his own cost --
she induced his father to forbid it, because, she urged,
they could not afford to send their other sons to college.
An earlier ambition of his had been to become an artist;
but when he showed his first completed picture to his father, the latter
turned away and refused to look at it. He gave himself the finishing stroke
in the parental eyes, by throwing up a lucrative employment
which he had held for a short time on his mother's West Indian property,
in disgust at the system of slave labour which was still in force there;
and he paid for this unpractical conduct as soon as he was of age,
by the compulsory reimbursement of all the expenses which his father,
up to that date, had incurred for him; and by the loss
of his mother's fortune, which, at the time of her marriage, had not been
settled upon her. It was probably in despair of doing anything better,
that, soon after this, in his twenty-second year, he also became a clerk
in the Bank of England. He married and settled in Camberwell, in 1811;
his son and daughter were born, respectively, in 1812 and 1814.
He became a widower in 1849; and when, four years later, he had completed
his term of service at the Bank, he went with his daughter to Paris,
where they resided until his death in 1866.
Dr. Furnivall has originated a theory, and maintains it as a conviction,
that Mr. Browning's grandmother was more than a Creole
in the strict sense of the term, that of a person born of white parents
in the West Indies, and that an unmistakable dash of dark blood
passed from her to her son and grandson. Such an occurrence was,
on the face of it, not impossible, and would be absolutely unimportant
to my mind, and, I think I may add, to that of Mr. Browning's sister and son.
The poet and his father were what we know them, and if negro blood
had any part in their composition, it was no worse for them,
and so much the better for the negro. But many persons among us
are very averse to the idea of such a cross; I believe its assertion,
in the present case, to be entirely mistaken; I prefer, therefore,
touching on the facts alleged in favour of it, to passing them over
in a silence which might be taken to mean indifference,
but might also be interpreted into assent.
We are told that Mr. Browning was so dark in early life,
that a nephew who saw him in Paris, in 1837, mistook him for an Italian.
He neither had nor could have had a nephew; and he was not out of England
at the time specified. It is said that when Mr. Browning senior
was residing on his mother's sugar plantation at St. Kitt's,
his appearance was held to justify his being placed in church
among the coloured members of the congregation. We are