Life of Robert Browning [5]
was tolerant of all religious forms,
but with a natural bias towards Anglican Evangelicalism.
In appearance there was, perhaps, something of the Semite in Robert Browning:
yet this is observable but slightly in the portraits of him
during the last twenty years, and scarcely at all in those which represent him
as a young man. It is most marked in the drawing by Rudolf Lehmann,
representing Browning at the age of forty-seven, where he looks out upon us
with a physiognomy which is, at least, as much distinctively Jewish
as English. Possibly the large dark eyes (so unlike both in colour and shape
what they were in later life) and curved nose and full lips,
with the oval face, may have been, as it were, seen judaically by the artist.
These characteristics, again, are greatly modified in Mr. Lehmann's
subsequent portrait in oils.
The poet's paternal great-grandfather, who was owner of the Woodyates Inn,
in the parish of Pentridge, in Dorsetshire, claimed to come of good
west-country stock. Browning believed, but always conscientiously maintained
there was no proof in support of the assumption, that he was
a descendant of the Captain Micaiah Browning who, as Macaulay relates
in his `History of England', raised the siege of Derry in 1689
by springing the boom across Lough Foyle, and perished in the act.
The same ancestral line is said to comprise the Captain Browning
who commanded the ship `The Holy Ghost', which conveyed Henry V. to France
before he fought the Battle of Agincourt, and in recognition of whose services
two waves, said to represent waves of the sea, were added to his coat of arms.
It is certainly a point of some importance in the evidence,
as has been indicated, that these arms were displayed
by the gallant Captain Micaiah, and are borne by the present family.
That the poet was a pure-bred Englishman in the strictest sense,
however, as has commonly been asserted, is not the case.
His mother was Scottish, through her mother and by birth, but her father
was the son of a German from Hamburg, named Wiedemann, who, by the way,
in connection with his relationship as maternal grandfather to the poet,
it is interesting to note, was an accomplished draughtsman and musician.*
Browning's paternal grandmother, again, was a Creole. As Mrs. Orr remarks,
this pedigree throws a valuable light on the vigour and variety
of the poet's genius. Possibly the main current of his ancestry is as little
strictly English as German. A friend sends me the following paragraph
from a Scottish paper: -- "What of the Scottish Brownings? I had it long ago
from one of the name that the Brownings came originally from Ayrshire,
and that several families of them emigrated to the North of Ireland
during the times of the Covenanters. There is, moreover,
a small town or village in the North of Ireland called Browningstown.
Might not the poet be related to these Scottish Brownings?"
--
* It has frequently been stated that Browning's maternal grandfather,
Mr. Wiedemann, was a Jew. Mr. Wiedemann, the son of a Hamburg merchant,
was a small shipowner in Dundee. Had he, or his father, been Semitic,
he would not have baptised one of his daughters `Christiana'.
--
Browning's great-grandfather, as indicated above, was a small proprietor
in Dorsetshire. His son, whether perforce or from choice,
removed to London when he was a youth, and speedily obtained
a clerkship in the Bank of England, where he remained for fifty years,
till he was pensioned off in 1821 with over 400 Pounds a year.
He died in 1833. His wife, to whom he was married in or about 1780,
was one Margaret Morris Tittle, a Creole, born in the West Indies.
Her portrait, by Wright of Derby, used to hang in the poet's dining-room.
They resided, Mr. R. Barrett Browning tells me, in Battersea,
where his grandfather was their first-born. The paternal grandfather
of the poet decided that his three sons, Robert, William Shergold, and Reuben,
should go into business, the two younger in London, the elder abroad.
All three became
but with a natural bias towards Anglican Evangelicalism.
In appearance there was, perhaps, something of the Semite in Robert Browning:
yet this is observable but slightly in the portraits of him
during the last twenty years, and scarcely at all in those which represent him
as a young man. It is most marked in the drawing by Rudolf Lehmann,
representing Browning at the age of forty-seven, where he looks out upon us
with a physiognomy which is, at least, as much distinctively Jewish
as English. Possibly the large dark eyes (so unlike both in colour and shape
what they were in later life) and curved nose and full lips,
with the oval face, may have been, as it were, seen judaically by the artist.
These characteristics, again, are greatly modified in Mr. Lehmann's
subsequent portrait in oils.
The poet's paternal great-grandfather, who was owner of the Woodyates Inn,
in the parish of Pentridge, in Dorsetshire, claimed to come of good
west-country stock. Browning believed, but always conscientiously maintained
there was no proof in support of the assumption, that he was
a descendant of the Captain Micaiah Browning who, as Macaulay relates
in his `History of England', raised the siege of Derry in 1689
by springing the boom across Lough Foyle, and perished in the act.
The same ancestral line is said to comprise the Captain Browning
who commanded the ship `The Holy Ghost', which conveyed Henry V. to France
before he fought the Battle of Agincourt, and in recognition of whose services
two waves, said to represent waves of the sea, were added to his coat of arms.
It is certainly a point of some importance in the evidence,
as has been indicated, that these arms were displayed
by the gallant Captain Micaiah, and are borne by the present family.
That the poet was a pure-bred Englishman in the strictest sense,
however, as has commonly been asserted, is not the case.
His mother was Scottish, through her mother and by birth, but her father
was the son of a German from Hamburg, named Wiedemann, who, by the way,
in connection with his relationship as maternal grandfather to the poet,
it is interesting to note, was an accomplished draughtsman and musician.*
Browning's paternal grandmother, again, was a Creole. As Mrs. Orr remarks,
this pedigree throws a valuable light on the vigour and variety
of the poet's genius. Possibly the main current of his ancestry is as little
strictly English as German. A friend sends me the following paragraph
from a Scottish paper: -- "What of the Scottish Brownings? I had it long ago
from one of the name that the Brownings came originally from Ayrshire,
and that several families of them emigrated to the North of Ireland
during the times of the Covenanters. There is, moreover,
a small town or village in the North of Ireland called Browningstown.
Might not the poet be related to these Scottish Brownings?"
--
* It has frequently been stated that Browning's maternal grandfather,
Mr. Wiedemann, was a Jew. Mr. Wiedemann, the son of a Hamburg merchant,
was a small shipowner in Dundee. Had he, or his father, been Semitic,
he would not have baptised one of his daughters `Christiana'.
--
Browning's great-grandfather, as indicated above, was a small proprietor
in Dorsetshire. His son, whether perforce or from choice,
removed to London when he was a youth, and speedily obtained
a clerkship in the Bank of England, where he remained for fifty years,
till he was pensioned off in 1821 with over 400 Pounds a year.
He died in 1833. His wife, to whom he was married in or about 1780,
was one Margaret Morris Tittle, a Creole, born in the West Indies.
Her portrait, by Wright of Derby, used to hang in the poet's dining-room.
They resided, Mr. R. Barrett Browning tells me, in Battersea,
where his grandfather was their first-born. The paternal grandfather
of the poet decided that his three sons, Robert, William Shergold, and Reuben,
should go into business, the two younger in London, the elder abroad.
All three became