Life of Robert Browning [19]
will look back with clear eyes untroubled by the dust of our footsteps,
not to subside till long after we too are dust, will be the place
given to this poet, we know not, nor can more than speculatively estimate.
That it will, however, be a high one, so far as his weightiest (in bulk,
it may possibly be but a relatively slender) accomplishment is concerned,
we may rest well assured: for indeed "It lives, If precious be
the soul of man to man."
So far as has been ascertained there were only three reviews
or notices of "Pauline": the very favourable article by Mr. Fox
in the `Monthly Repository', the kindly paper by Allan Cunningham
in the `Athenaeum', and, in `Tait's Edinburgh Magazine',
the succinctly expressed impression of either an indolent
or an incapable reviewer: "Pauline; a Fragment of a Confession;
a piece of pure bewilderment" -- a "criticism" which anticipated
and thus prevented the insertion of a highly favourable review
which John Stuart Mill voluntarily wrote.
Browning must have regarded his first book with mingled feelings.
It was a bid for literary fortune, in one sense, but a bid so handicapped
by the circumstances of its publication as to be almost certainly of no avail.
Probably, however, he was well content that it should have mere existence.
Already the fever of an abnormal intellectual curiosity was upon him:
already he had schemed more potent and more vital poems:
already, even, he had developed towards a more individualistic method.
So indifferent was he to an easily gained reputation that he seems
to have been really urgent upon his relatives and intimate acquaintances
not to betray his authorship. The Miss Flower, however,
to whom allusion has already been made, could not repress her admiration
to the extent of depriving her friend, Mr. Fox, of a pleasure
similar to that she had herself enjoyed. The result was the generous notice
in the `Monthly Repository'. The poet never forgot his indebtedness
to Mr. Fox, to whose sympathy and kindness much direct and indirect good
is traceable. The friendship then begun was lifelong,
and was continued with the distinguished Unitarian's family
when Mr. Fox himself ended his active and beneficent career.
But after a time the few admirers of "Pauline" forgot to speak about it:
the poet himself never alluded to it: and in a year or two it was almost
as though it had never been written. Many years after, when articles
upon Robert Browning were as numerous as they once had been scarce,
never a word betrayed that their authors knew of the existence of "Pauline".
There was, however, yet another friendship to come out of this book,
though not until long after it was practically forgotten by its author.
One day a young poet-painter came upon a copy of the book
in the British Museum Library, and was at once captivated by its beauty.
One of the earliest admirers of Browning's poetry, Dante Gabriel Rossetti --
for it was he -- felt certain that "Pauline" could be by none other
than the author of "Paracelsus". He himself informed me that he had
never heard this authorship suggested, though some one had spoken to him
of a poem of remarkable promise, called "Pauline", which he ought to read.
If I remember aright, Rossetti told me that it was on the forenoon of the day
when the "Burden of Nineveh" was begun, conceived rather,
that he read this story of a soul by the soul's ablest historian.
So delighted was he with it, and so strong his opinion it was by Browning,
that he wrote to the poet, then in Florence, for confirmation,
stating at the same time that his admiration for "Pauline" had led him
to transcribe the whole of it.
Concerning this episode, Robert Browning wrote to me, some seven years ago,
as follows: --
==
St. Pierre de Chartreuse,
Isere, France.
. . . . .
"Rossetti's `Pauline' letter was addressed to me at Florence
more than thirty years ago. I have preserved it, but, even were I at home,