Life and Letters of Robert Browning [71]
within itself, his position leaves ample room for a withdrawal of faith,
a reversal of judgment, if the ascertained facts of the poet's life
should at any future time bear decided witness against him.
He is also careful to avoid drawing too hard and fast a line between
the two opposite kinds of poet. He admits that a pure instance of either
is seldom to be found; he sees no reason why
`these two modes of poetic faculty may not issue hereafter
from the same poet in successive perfect works. . . .
A mere running-in of the one faculty upon the other' being,
meanwhile, `the ordinary circumstance.'
I venture, however, to think, that in his various and necessary concessions,
he lets slip the main point; and for the simple reason that it is untenable.
The terms `subjective' and `objective' denote a real and very important
difference on the ground of judgment, but one which tends more and more
to efface itself in the sphere of the higher creative imagination.
Mr. Browning might as briefly, and I think more fully, have expressed
the salient quality of his poet, even while he could describe it
in these emphatic words:
`I pass at once, therefore, from Shelley's minor excellencies
to his noblest and predominating characteristic.
`This I call his simultaneous perception of Power and Love in the absolute,
and of Beauty and Good in the concrete, while he throws,
from his poet's station between both, swifter, subtler,
and more numerous films for the connexion of each with each,
than have been thrown by any modern artificer of whom I have knowledge . . .
I would rather consider Shelley's poetry as a sublime fragmentary essay
towards a presentment of the correspondency of the universe to Deity,
of the natural to the spiritual, and of the actual to the ideal than . . .'
This essay has, in common with the poems of the preceding years,
the one quality of a largely religious and, in a certain sense,
Christian spirit, and in this respect it falls naturally
into the general series of its author's works. The assertion
of Platonic ideas suggests, however, a mood of spiritual thought
for which the reference in `Pauline' has been our only,
and a scarcely sufficient preparation; nor could the most definite theism
to be extracted from Platonic beliefs ever satisfy the human aspirations
which, in a nature like that of Robert Browning, culminate in the idea of God.
The metaphysical aspect of the poet's genius here distinctly reappears
for the first time since `Sordello', and also for the last.
It becomes merged in the simpler forms of the religious imagination.
The justification of the man Shelley, to which great part of the Essay
is devoted, contains little that would seem new to his more recent apologists;
little also which to the writer's later judgments continued
to recommend itself as true. It was as a great poetic artist,
not as a great poet, that the author of `Prometheus' and `The Cenci',
of `Julian and Maddalo', and `Epipsychidion' was finally to rank
in Mr. Browning's mind. The whole remains nevertheless
a memorial of a very touching affection; and whatever intrinsic value
the Essay may possess, its main interest must always be biographical.
Its motive and inspiration are set forth in the closing lines:
`It is because I have long held these opinions in assurance and gratitude,
that I catch at the opportunity offered to me of expressing them here;
knowing that the alacrity to fulfil an humble office conveys more love
than the acceptance of the honour of a higher one, and that better,
therefore, than the signal service it was the dream of my boyhood to render
to his fame and memory, may be the saying of a few, inadequate words
upon these scarcely more important supplementary letters of SHELLEY.'
If Mr. Browning had seen reason to doubt the genuineness
of the letters in question, his Introduction could not have been written.
That, while receiving them as genuine, he thought them unimportant,
gave it, as he justly discerned,