Life of Robert Browning [30]
and with stately affability said,
"I am proud to drink your health, Mr. Browning:" when Landor,
also, with a superbly indifferent and yet kindly smile,
also raised his glass to his lips in courteous greeting.
Of Wordsworth Browning saw not a little in the ensuing few years,
for on the rare visits the elderly poet paid to London,
Talfourd never failed to ask the author of "Paracelsus",
for whom he had a sincere admiration, to meet the great man.
It was not in the nature of things that the two poets could become friends,
but though the younger was sometimes annoyed by the elder's pooh-poohing
his republican sympathies, and contemptuously waiving aside as a mere nobody
no less an individual than Shelley, he never failed of respect
and even reverence. With what tenderness and dignity he has commemorated
the great poet's falling away from his early ideals, may be seen
in "The Lost Leader", one of the most popular of Browning's short poems,
and likely to remain so. For several reasons, however,
it is best as well as right that Wordsworth should not be more
than merely nominally identified with the Lost Leader.
Browning was always imperative upon this point.
Towards Landor, on the other hand, he entertained a sentiment
of genuine affection, coupled with a profound sympathy and admiration:
a sentiment duly reciprocated. The care of the younger for the elder,
in the old age of the latter, is one of the most beautiful incidents
in a beautiful life.
But the evening was not to pass without another memorable incident,
one to which we owe "Strafford", and probably "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon".
Just as the young poet, flushed with the triumphant pleasure of the evening,
was about to leave, Macready arrested him by a friendly grip of the arm.
In unmistakable earnestness he asked Browning to write him a play.
With a simplicity equal to the occasion, the poet contented himself
with replying, "Shall it be historical and English? What do you say
to a drama on Strafford?"
Macready was pleased with the idea, and hopeful that his friend would be
more successful with the English statesman than with the eunuch Narses.
A few months elapsed before the poet, who had set aside the long work
upon which he was engaged ("Sordello"), called upon Macready
with the manuscript of "Strafford". The latter hoped much from it.
In March the MS. was ready. About the end of the month
Macready took it to Covent Garden Theatre, and read it to Mr. Osbaldiston,
"who caught at it with avidity, and agreed to produce it without delay."
It was an eventful first of May -- an eventful twelvemonth, indeed,
for it was the initial year of the Victorian era, notable, too,
as that wherein the Electric Telegraph was established, and, in letters,
wherein a new dramatic literature had its origin. For "Strafford",
already significant of a novel movement, and destined, it seems to me,
to be still more significant in that great dramatic period towards which
we are fast converging, was not less important to the Drama in England,
as a new departure in method and radically indicative of a fresh standpoint,
than "Hernani" was in France. But in literary history
the day itself is doubly memorable, for in the forenoon
Carlyle gave the first of his lectures in London. The play was a success,
despite the shamefully inadequate acting of some of those entrusted with
important parts. There was once, perhaps there were more occasions than one,
where success poised like the soul of a Mohammedan on the invisible thread
leading to Paradise, but on either side of which lies perdition.
There was none to cry `Timbul' save Macready, except Miss Helen Faucit,
who gained a brilliant triumph as Lady Carlisle. The part of Charles I.
was enacted so execrably that damnation for all was again and again
within measurable distance. "The Younger Vane" ranted so that a hiss,
like an embodied scorn, vibrated on vagrant wings throughout the house.
There was not even any extraneous aid to a fortunate impression.
The house was in ill repair:
"I am proud to drink your health, Mr. Browning:" when Landor,
also, with a superbly indifferent and yet kindly smile,
also raised his glass to his lips in courteous greeting.
Of Wordsworth Browning saw not a little in the ensuing few years,
for on the rare visits the elderly poet paid to London,
Talfourd never failed to ask the author of "Paracelsus",
for whom he had a sincere admiration, to meet the great man.
It was not in the nature of things that the two poets could become friends,
but though the younger was sometimes annoyed by the elder's pooh-poohing
his republican sympathies, and contemptuously waiving aside as a mere nobody
no less an individual than Shelley, he never failed of respect
and even reverence. With what tenderness and dignity he has commemorated
the great poet's falling away from his early ideals, may be seen
in "The Lost Leader", one of the most popular of Browning's short poems,
and likely to remain so. For several reasons, however,
it is best as well as right that Wordsworth should not be more
than merely nominally identified with the Lost Leader.
Browning was always imperative upon this point.
Towards Landor, on the other hand, he entertained a sentiment
of genuine affection, coupled with a profound sympathy and admiration:
a sentiment duly reciprocated. The care of the younger for the elder,
in the old age of the latter, is one of the most beautiful incidents
in a beautiful life.
But the evening was not to pass without another memorable incident,
one to which we owe "Strafford", and probably "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon".
Just as the young poet, flushed with the triumphant pleasure of the evening,
was about to leave, Macready arrested him by a friendly grip of the arm.
In unmistakable earnestness he asked Browning to write him a play.
With a simplicity equal to the occasion, the poet contented himself
with replying, "Shall it be historical and English? What do you say
to a drama on Strafford?"
Macready was pleased with the idea, and hopeful that his friend would be
more successful with the English statesman than with the eunuch Narses.
A few months elapsed before the poet, who had set aside the long work
upon which he was engaged ("Sordello"), called upon Macready
with the manuscript of "Strafford". The latter hoped much from it.
In March the MS. was ready. About the end of the month
Macready took it to Covent Garden Theatre, and read it to Mr. Osbaldiston,
"who caught at it with avidity, and agreed to produce it without delay."
It was an eventful first of May -- an eventful twelvemonth, indeed,
for it was the initial year of the Victorian era, notable, too,
as that wherein the Electric Telegraph was established, and, in letters,
wherein a new dramatic literature had its origin. For "Strafford",
already significant of a novel movement, and destined, it seems to me,
to be still more significant in that great dramatic period towards which
we are fast converging, was not less important to the Drama in England,
as a new departure in method and radically indicative of a fresh standpoint,
than "Hernani" was in France. But in literary history
the day itself is doubly memorable, for in the forenoon
Carlyle gave the first of his lectures in London. The play was a success,
despite the shamefully inadequate acting of some of those entrusted with
important parts. There was once, perhaps there were more occasions than one,
where success poised like the soul of a Mohammedan on the invisible thread
leading to Paradise, but on either side of which lies perdition.
There was none to cry `Timbul' save Macready, except Miss Helen Faucit,
who gained a brilliant triumph as Lady Carlisle. The part of Charles I.
was enacted so execrably that damnation for all was again and again
within measurable distance. "The Younger Vane" ranted so that a hiss,
like an embodied scorn, vibrated on vagrant wings throughout the house.
There was not even any extraneous aid to a fortunate impression.
The house was in ill repair: