Life and Letters of Robert Browning [50]
`Cornhill Magazine', 1870,
indeed proves that it was so. But the offer of a blank cheque
would not have tempted him, for his own sake, to this concession,
as he would have deemed it, of his integrity of literary purpose.
`In a Gondola' grew out of a single verse extemporized for a picture
by Maclise, in what circumstances we shall hear in the poet's own words.
The first proof of `Artemis Prologuizes' had the following note:
==
`I had better say perhaps that the above is nearly all retained
of a tragedy I composed, much against my endeavour, while in bed with a fever
two years ago -- it went farther into the story of Hippolytus and Aricia;
but when I got well, putting only thus much down at once,
I soon forgot the remainder.'*
--
* When Mr. Browning gave me these supplementary details for the `Handbook',
he spoke as if his illness had interrupted the work,
not preceded its conception. The real fact is, I think, the more striking.
--
==
Mr. Browning would have been very angry with himself if he had known
he ever wrote `I HAD better'; and the punctuation of this note,
as well as of every other unrevised specimen which we possess
of his early writing, helps to show by what careful study of the literary art
he must have acquired his subsequent mastery of it.
`Cristina' was addressed in fancy to the Spanish queen. It is to be regretted
that the poem did not remain under its original heading of `Queen Worship':
as this gave a practical clue to the nature of the love described,
and the special remoteness of its object.
`The Pied Piper of Hamelin' and another poem were written in May 1842
for Mr. Macready's little eldest son, Willy, who was confined to the house
by illness, and who was to amuse himself by illustrating the poems
as well as reading them;* and the first of these, though not intended
for publication, was added to the `Dramatic Lyrics', because some columns
of that number of `Bells and Pomegranates' still required filling.
It is perhaps not known that the second was `Crescentius, the Pope's Legate':
now included in `Asolando'.
--
* Miss Browning has lately found some of the illustrations,
and the touching childish letter together with which
her brother received them.
--
Mr. Browning's father had himself begun a rhymed story on the subject
of `The Pied Piper'; but left it unfinished when he discovered
that his son was writing one. The fragment survives as part of a letter
addressed to Mr. Thomas Powell, and which I have referred to
as in the possession of Mr. Dykes Campbell.
`The Lost Leader' has given rise to periodical questionings
continued until the present day, as to the person indicated in its title.
Mr. Browning answered or anticipated them fifteen years ago
in a letter to Miss Lee, of West Peckham, Maidstone. It was his reply
to an application in verse made to him in their very young days
by herself and two other members of her family, the manner of which
seems to have unusually pleased him.
==
Villers-sur-mer, Calvados, France: September 7, '75.
Dear Friends, -- Your letter has made a round to reach me --
hence the delay in replying to it -- which you will therefore pardon.
I have been asked the question you put to me -- tho' never asked
so poetically and so pleasantly -- I suppose a score of times:
and I can only answer, with something of shame and contrition,
that I undoubtedly had Wordsworth in my mind -- but simply as `a model';
you know, an artist takes one or two striking traits
in the features of his `model', and uses them to start his fancy
on a flight which may end far enough from the good man or woman
who happens to be `sitting' for nose and eye.
I thought of the great Poet's abandonment of liberalism,
at an unlucky juncture, and no repaying consequence that I could ever see.
But -- once call my fancy-portrait `Wordsworth' -- and how much more
ought one to say, -- how much more would not I have attempted to say!
There is my apology, dear friends, and your acceptance of it will
indeed proves that it was so. But the offer of a blank cheque
would not have tempted him, for his own sake, to this concession,
as he would have deemed it, of his integrity of literary purpose.
`In a Gondola' grew out of a single verse extemporized for a picture
by Maclise, in what circumstances we shall hear in the poet's own words.
The first proof of `Artemis Prologuizes' had the following note:
==
`I had better say perhaps that the above is nearly all retained
of a tragedy I composed, much against my endeavour, while in bed with a fever
two years ago -- it went farther into the story of Hippolytus and Aricia;
but when I got well, putting only thus much down at once,
I soon forgot the remainder.'*
--
* When Mr. Browning gave me these supplementary details for the `Handbook',
he spoke as if his illness had interrupted the work,
not preceded its conception. The real fact is, I think, the more striking.
--
==
Mr. Browning would have been very angry with himself if he had known
he ever wrote `I HAD better'; and the punctuation of this note,
as well as of every other unrevised specimen which we possess
of his early writing, helps to show by what careful study of the literary art
he must have acquired his subsequent mastery of it.
`Cristina' was addressed in fancy to the Spanish queen. It is to be regretted
that the poem did not remain under its original heading of `Queen Worship':
as this gave a practical clue to the nature of the love described,
and the special remoteness of its object.
`The Pied Piper of Hamelin' and another poem were written in May 1842
for Mr. Macready's little eldest son, Willy, who was confined to the house
by illness, and who was to amuse himself by illustrating the poems
as well as reading them;* and the first of these, though not intended
for publication, was added to the `Dramatic Lyrics', because some columns
of that number of `Bells and Pomegranates' still required filling.
It is perhaps not known that the second was `Crescentius, the Pope's Legate':
now included in `Asolando'.
--
* Miss Browning has lately found some of the illustrations,
and the touching childish letter together with which
her brother received them.
--
Mr. Browning's father had himself begun a rhymed story on the subject
of `The Pied Piper'; but left it unfinished when he discovered
that his son was writing one. The fragment survives as part of a letter
addressed to Mr. Thomas Powell, and which I have referred to
as in the possession of Mr. Dykes Campbell.
`The Lost Leader' has given rise to periodical questionings
continued until the present day, as to the person indicated in its title.
Mr. Browning answered or anticipated them fifteen years ago
in a letter to Miss Lee, of West Peckham, Maidstone. It was his reply
to an application in verse made to him in their very young days
by herself and two other members of her family, the manner of which
seems to have unusually pleased him.
==
Villers-sur-mer, Calvados, France: September 7, '75.
Dear Friends, -- Your letter has made a round to reach me --
hence the delay in replying to it -- which you will therefore pardon.
I have been asked the question you put to me -- tho' never asked
so poetically and so pleasantly -- I suppose a score of times:
and I can only answer, with something of shame and contrition,
that I undoubtedly had Wordsworth in my mind -- but simply as `a model';
you know, an artist takes one or two striking traits
in the features of his `model', and uses them to start his fancy
on a flight which may end far enough from the good man or woman
who happens to be `sitting' for nose and eye.
I thought of the great Poet's abandonment of liberalism,
at an unlucky juncture, and no repaying consequence that I could ever see.
But -- once call my fancy-portrait `Wordsworth' -- and how much more
ought one to say, -- how much more would not I have attempted to say!
There is my apology, dear friends, and your acceptance of it will