Life of Robert Browning [6]
efficient financial clerks, and attained to good positions
and fair means.* The eldest, Robert, was a man of exceptional powers.
He was a poet, both in sentiment and expression; and he understood,
as well as enjoyed, the excellent in art. He was a scholar, too,
in a reputable fashion: not indifferent to what he had learnt in his youth,
nor heedless of the high opinion generally entertained for the greatest
writers of antiquity, but with a particular care himself for Horace
and Anacreon. As his son once told a friend, "The old gentleman's brain
was a storehouse of literary and philosophical antiquities.
He was completely versed in mediaeval legend, and seemed to have known
Paracelsus, Faustus, and even Talmudic personages, personally" --
a significant detail, by the way. He was fond of metrical composition,
and his ease and grace in the use of the heroic couplet were the admiration,
not only of his intellectual associates, but, in later days, of his son,
who was wont to affirm, certainly in all seriousness,
that expressionally his father was a finer poetic artist than himself.
Some one has recorded of him that he was an authority
on the Letters of Junius: fortunately he had more tangible claims than this
to the esteem of his fellows. It was his boast that,
notwithstanding the exigencies of his vocation, he knew as much
of the history of art as any professional critic. His extreme modesty
is deducible from this naive remark. He was an amateur artist, moreover,
as well as poet, critic, and student. I have seen several of his drawings
which are praiseworthy: his studies in portraiture, particularly,
are ably touched: and, as is well known, he had an active faculty
of pictorial caricature. In the intervals of leisure
which beset the best regulated clerk he was addicted
to making drawings of the habitual visitors to the Bank of England,
in which he had obtained a post on his return, in 1803, from the West Indies,
and in the enjoyment of which he remained till 1853,
when he retired on a small pension. His son had an independent income,
but whether from a bequest, or in the form of an allowance from his
then unmarried Uncle Reuben, is uncertain. In the first year of his marriage
Mr. Browning resided in an old house in Southampton Street, Peckham,
and there the poet was born. The house was long ago pulled down,
and another built on its site. Mr. Browning afterwards removed
to another domicile in the same Peckham district. Many years later,
he and his family left Camberwell and resided at Hatcham, near New Cross,
where his brothers and sisters (by his father's second marriage) lived.
There was a stable attached to the Hatcham house, and in it
Mr. Reuben Browning kept his horse, which he let his poet-nephew ride,
while he himself was at his desk in Rothschild's bank.
No doubt this horse was the `York' alluded to by the poet
in the letter quoted, as a footnote, at page 189 [Chapter 9] of this book.
Some years after his wife's death, which occurred in 1849,
Mr. Browning left Hatcham and came to Paddington, but finally went to reside
in Paris, and lived there, in a small street off the Champs Elysees,
till his death in 1866. The Creole strain seems to have been
distinctly noticeable in Mr. Browning, so much so that it is possible
it had something to do with his unwillingness to remain at St. Kitts,
where he was certainly on one occasion treated cavalierly enough.
The poet's complexion in youth, light and ivory-toned as it was in later life,
has been described as olive, and it is said that one of his nephews,
who met him in Paris in his early manhood, took him for an Italian.
It has been affirmed that it was the emotional Creole strain in Browning
which found expression in his passion for music.**
--
* The three brothers were men of liberal education and literary tastes.
Mr. W. S. Browning, who died in 1874, was an author of some repute.
His `History of the Huguenots' is a standard book on the subject.
** Mrs. Sutherland Orr, in her "Life and Letters of
and fair means.* The eldest, Robert, was a man of exceptional powers.
He was a poet, both in sentiment and expression; and he understood,
as well as enjoyed, the excellent in art. He was a scholar, too,
in a reputable fashion: not indifferent to what he had learnt in his youth,
nor heedless of the high opinion generally entertained for the greatest
writers of antiquity, but with a particular care himself for Horace
and Anacreon. As his son once told a friend, "The old gentleman's brain
was a storehouse of literary and philosophical antiquities.
He was completely versed in mediaeval legend, and seemed to have known
Paracelsus, Faustus, and even Talmudic personages, personally" --
a significant detail, by the way. He was fond of metrical composition,
and his ease and grace in the use of the heroic couplet were the admiration,
not only of his intellectual associates, but, in later days, of his son,
who was wont to affirm, certainly in all seriousness,
that expressionally his father was a finer poetic artist than himself.
Some one has recorded of him that he was an authority
on the Letters of Junius: fortunately he had more tangible claims than this
to the esteem of his fellows. It was his boast that,
notwithstanding the exigencies of his vocation, he knew as much
of the history of art as any professional critic. His extreme modesty
is deducible from this naive remark. He was an amateur artist, moreover,
as well as poet, critic, and student. I have seen several of his drawings
which are praiseworthy: his studies in portraiture, particularly,
are ably touched: and, as is well known, he had an active faculty
of pictorial caricature. In the intervals of leisure
which beset the best regulated clerk he was addicted
to making drawings of the habitual visitors to the Bank of England,
in which he had obtained a post on his return, in 1803, from the West Indies,
and in the enjoyment of which he remained till 1853,
when he retired on a small pension. His son had an independent income,
but whether from a bequest, or in the form of an allowance from his
then unmarried Uncle Reuben, is uncertain. In the first year of his marriage
Mr. Browning resided in an old house in Southampton Street, Peckham,
and there the poet was born. The house was long ago pulled down,
and another built on its site. Mr. Browning afterwards removed
to another domicile in the same Peckham district. Many years later,
he and his family left Camberwell and resided at Hatcham, near New Cross,
where his brothers and sisters (by his father's second marriage) lived.
There was a stable attached to the Hatcham house, and in it
Mr. Reuben Browning kept his horse, which he let his poet-nephew ride,
while he himself was at his desk in Rothschild's bank.
No doubt this horse was the `York' alluded to by the poet
in the letter quoted, as a footnote, at page 189 [Chapter 9] of this book.
Some years after his wife's death, which occurred in 1849,
Mr. Browning left Hatcham and came to Paddington, but finally went to reside
in Paris, and lived there, in a small street off the Champs Elysees,
till his death in 1866. The Creole strain seems to have been
distinctly noticeable in Mr. Browning, so much so that it is possible
it had something to do with his unwillingness to remain at St. Kitts,
where he was certainly on one occasion treated cavalierly enough.
The poet's complexion in youth, light and ivory-toned as it was in later life,
has been described as olive, and it is said that one of his nephews,
who met him in Paris in his early manhood, took him for an Italian.
It has been affirmed that it was the emotional Creole strain in Browning
which found expression in his passion for music.**
--
* The three brothers were men of liberal education and literary tastes.
Mr. W. S. Browning, who died in 1874, was an author of some repute.
His `History of the Huguenots' is a standard book on the subject.
** Mrs. Sutherland Orr, in her "Life and Letters of