MAY AND DEATH

Rydal Mount, the Home of Wordsworth

Oh, could I have him back once more,This Waring, but one half-day more!Back, with the quiet face of yore,So hungry for acknowledgmentLike mine! I'd fool him to his bent.Feed, should not he, to heart's content?I'd say, "to only have conceived,Planned your great works, apart from progress,Surpasses little works achieved!"23I'd lie so, I should be believed.I'd make such havoc of the claimsOf the day's distinguished namesTo feast him with, as feasts an ogressHer feverish sharp-toothed gold-crowned child!Or as one feasts a creature rarelyCaptured here, unreconciledTo capture; and completely givesIts pettish humors license, barelyRequiring that it lives.

Ichabod, Ichabod,The glory is departed!Travels Waring East away?Who, of knowledge, by hearsay,Reports a man upstartedSomewhere as a god,Hordes grown European-hearted,Millions of the wild made tameOn a sudden at his fame?In Vishnu-land what Avatar?Or who in Moscow, toward the Czar,With the demurest of footfallsOver the Kremlin's pavement brightWith serpentine and syenite,Steps, with five other GeneralsThat simultaneously take snuff,For each to have pretext enoughAnd kerchiefwise unfold his sashWhich, softness' self, is yet the stuffTo hold fast where a steel chain snaps,And leave the grand white neck no gash?Waring in Moscow, to those rough24Cold northern natures born perhaps,Like the lambwhite maiden dearFrom the circle of mute kingsUnable to repress the tear,Each as his sceptre down he flings,To Dian's fane at Taurica,Where now a captive priestess, she alwayMingles her tender grave Hellenic speechWith theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beachAs pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy landsRapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strandsWhere breed the swallows, her melodious cryAmid their barbarous twitter!In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter!Ay, most likely 'tis in SpainThat we and Waring meet againNow, while he turns down that cool narrow laneInto the blackness, out of grave MadridAll fire and shine, abrupt as when there's slidIts stiff gold blazing pallFrom some black coffin-lid.Or, best of all,I love to thinkThe leaving us was just a feint;Back here to London did he slink,And now works on without a winkOf sleep, and we are on the brinkOf something great in fresco-paint:Some garret's ceiling, walls and floor,Up and down and o'er and o'erHe splashes, as none splashed beforeSince great Caldara Polidore.Or Music means this land of oursSome favor yet, to pity won25By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers,—"Give me my so-long promised son,Let Waring end what I begun!"Then down he creeps and out he stealsOnly when the night concealsHis face; in Kent 'tis cherry-time,Or hops are picking: or at primeOf March he wanders as, too happy,Years ago when he was young,Some mild eve when woods grew sappyAnd the early moths had sprungTo life from many a trembling sheathWoven the warm boughs beneath;While small birds said to themselvesWhat should soon be actual song,And young gnats, by tens and twelves,Made as if they were the throngThat crowd around and carry aloftThe sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure,Out of a myriad noises soft,Into a tone that can endureAmid the noise of a July noonWhen all God's creatures crave their boon,All at once and all in tune,And get it, happy as Waring then,Having first within his kenWhat a man might do with men:And far too glad, in the even-glow,To mix with the world he meant to takeInto his hand, he told you, so—And out of it his world to make,To contract and to expandAs he shut or oped his hand.Oh Waring, what's to really be?26A clear stage and a crowd to see!Some Garrick, say, out shall not heThe heart of Hamlet's mystery pluck?Or, where most unclean beasts are rife,Some Junius—am I right?—shall tuckHis sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife!Some Chatterton shall have the luckOf calling Rowley into life!Some one shall somehow run a muckWith this old world for want of strifeSound asleep. Contrive, contriveTo rouse us, Waring! Who's alive?Our men scarce seem in earnest now.Distinguished names!—but 'tis, somehow,As if they played at being namesStill more distinguished, like the gamesOf children. Turn our sport to earnestWith a visage of the sternest!Bring the real times back, confessedStill better than our very best!

"When I last saw Waring...."(How all turned to him who spoke!You saw Waring? Truth or joke?In land-travel or sea-faring?)

"We were sailing by TriestWhere a day or two we harbored:A sunset was in the West,When, looking over the vessel's side,27One of our company espiedA sudden speck to larboard.And as a sea-duck flies and swimsAt once, so came the light craft up,With its sole lateen sail that trimsAnd turns (the water round its rimsDancing, as round a sinking cup)And by us like a fish it curled,And drew itself up close beside,Its great sail on the instant furled,And o'er its thwarts a shrill voice cried,(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's)'Buy wine of us, you English Brig?Or fruit, tobacco and cigars?A pilot for you to Triest?Without one, look you ne'er so big,They'll never let you up the bay!We natives should know best.'I turned, and 'just those fellows' way,'Our captain said, 'The 'long-shore thievesAre laughing at us in their sleeves.'

"In truth, the boy leaned laughing back;And one, half-hidden by his sideUnder the furled sail, soon I spied,With great grass hat and kerchief black,Who looked up with his kingly throat,Said somewhat, while the other shookHis hair back from his eyes to lookTheir longest at us; then the boat,I know not how, turned sharply round,Laying her whole side on the seaAs a leaping fish does; from the lee28Into the weather, cut somehowHer sparkling path beneath our bow,And so went off, as with a bound,Into the rosy and golden halfO' the sky, to overtake the sunAnd reach the shore, like the sea-calfIts singing cave; yet I caught oneGlance ere away the boat quite passed,And neither time nor toil could marThose features: so I saw the lastOf Waring!"—You? Oh, never starWas lost here but it rose afar!Look East, where whole new thousands are!In Vishnu-land what Avatar?

"May and Death" is perhaps more interesting for the glimpse it gives of Browning's appreciation of English Nature than for its expression of grief for the death of a friend.

I wish that when you died last May,Charles, there had died along with youThree parts of spring's delightful things;Ay, and, for me, the fourth part too.

A foolish thought, and worse, perhaps!There must be many a pair of friendsWho, arm in arm, deserve the warmMoon-births and the long evening-ends.

So, for their sake, be May still May!Let their new time, as mine of old,Do all it did for me: I bidSweet sights and sounds throng manifold.

Only, one little sight, one plant,Woods have in May, that starts up greenSave a sole streak which, so to speak,Is spring's blood, spilt its leaves between,—

That, they might spare; a certain woodMight miss the plant; their loss were small:But I,—whene'er the leaf grows there,Its drop comes from my heart, that's all.

The poet's one truly enthusiastic outburst in connection with English Nature he sings out in his longing for an English spring in the incomparable little lyric "Home-thoughts, from Abroad."

Oh, to be in EnglandNow that April's there,And whoever wakes in EnglandSees, some morning, unaware,30That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheafRound the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,While the chaffinch sings on the orchard boughIn England—now!

And after April, when May follows,And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedgeLeans to the field and scatters on the cloverBlossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice overLest you should think he never could recaptureThe first fine careless rapture!And, though the fields look rough with hoary dew,All will be gay when noontide wakes anewThe buttercups, the little children's dower—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

After this it seems hardly possible that Browning, himself speaks in "De Gustibus," yet long and happy living away from England doubtless dimmed his sense of the beauty of English landscape. "De Gustibus" was published ten years later than "Home-Thoughts from Abroad," when Italy and he had indeed become "lovers old." A deeper reason than mere delight in its scenery is also reflected in the poem; the sympathy shared with Mrs. Browning, for the cause of Italian independence.

Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees,(If our loves remain)In an English lane,By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.Hark, those two in the hazel coppice—A boy and a girl, if the good fates please,Making love, say,—The happier they!Draw yourself up from the light of the moon,And let them pass, as they will too soon,With the bean-flower's boon,And the blackbird's tune,And May, and June!

What I love best in all the worldIs a castle, precipice-encurled,In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine.Or look for me, old fellow of mine,(If I get my head from out the mouthO' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands,And come again to the land of lands)—In a sea-side house to the farther South,Where the baked cicala dies of drouth,And one sharp tree—'tis a cypress—stands,By the many hundred years red-rusted,Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted,My sentinel to guard the sandsTo the water's edge. For, what expandsBefore the house, but the great opaque32Blue breadth of sea without a break?While, in the house, for ever crumblesSome fragment of the frescoed walls,From blisters where a scorpion sprawls.A girl bare-footed brings, and tumblesDown on the pavement, green-flesh melons,And says there's news to-day—the kingWas shot at, touched in the liver-wing,Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling:—She hopes they have not caught the felons.Italy, my Italy!Queen Mary's saying serves for me—(When fortune's maliceLost her—Calais)—Open my heart and you will seeGraved inside of it, "Italy."Such lovers old are I and she:So it always was, so shall ever be!

Two or three English artists called forth appreciation in verse from Browning. There is the exquisite bit called "Deaf and Dumb," after a group of statuary by Woolner, of Constance and Arthur—the deaf and dumb children of Sir Thomas Fairbairn.

A GROUP BY WOOLNER.

Only the prism's obstruction shows arightThe secret of a sunbeam, breaks its lightInto the jewelled bow from blankest white;So may a glory from defect arise:33Only by Deafness may the vexed Love wreakIts insuppressive sense on brow and cheek,Only by Dumbness adequately speakAs favored mouth could never, through the eyes.

An English Lane

There is also the beautiful description in "Balaustion's Adventure" of the Alkestis by Sir Frederick Leighton.

The flagrant anachronism of making a Greek girl at the time of the Fall of Athens describe an English picture cannot but be forgiven, since the artistic effect gained is so fine. The poet quite convinces the reader that Sir Frederick Leighton ought to have been a Kaunian painter, if he was not, and that Balaustion or no one was qualified to appreciate his picture at its full worth.

"I know, too, a great Kaunian painter, strongAs Herakles, though rosy with a robeOf grace that softens down the sinewy strength:And he has made a picture of it all.There lies Alkestis dead, beneath the sun,She longed to look her last upon, besideThe sea, which somehow tempts the life in usTo come trip over its white waste of waves,And try escape from earth, and fleet as free.Behind the body, I suppose there bendsOld Pheres in his hoary impotence;And women-wailers, in a corner crouch—Four, beautiful as you four—yes, indeed!—Close, each to other, agonizing all,34As fastened, in fear's rhythmic sympathy,To two contending opposite. There strainsThe might o' the hero 'gainst his more than match,—Death, dreadful not in thew and bone, but likeThe envenomed substance that exudes some dewWhereby the merely honest flesh and bloodWill fester up and run to ruin straight,Ere they can close with, clasp and overcomeThe poisonous impalpabilityThat simulates a form beneath the flowOf those grey garments; I pronounce that pieceWorthy to set up in our Poikilé!"And all came,—glory of the golden verse,And passion of the picture, and that fineFrank outgush of the human gratitudeWhich saved our ship and me, in Syracuse,—Ay, and the tear or two which slipt perhapsAway from you, friends, while I told my tale,—It all came of this play that gained no prize!Why crown whom Zeus has crowned in soul before?"

"And all came,—glory of the golden verse,And passion of the picture, and that fineFrank outgush of the human gratitudeWhich saved our ship and me, in Syracuse,—Ay, and the tear or two which slipt perhapsAway from you, friends, while I told my tale,—It all came of this play that gained no prize!Why crown whom Zeus has crowned in soul before?"

Once before had Sir Frederick Leighton inspired the poet in the exquisite lines on Eurydice.

A PICTURE BY LEIGHTON

But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!Let them once more absorb me! One look nowWill lap me round for ever, not to passOut of its light, though darkness lie beyond:35Hold me but safe again within the bondOf one immortal look! All woe that was,Forgotten, and all terror that may be,Defied,—no past is mine, no future: look at me!

Beautiful as these lines are, they do not impress me as fully interpreting Leighton's picture. The expression of Eurydice is rather one of unthinking confiding affection—as if she were really unconscious or ignorant of the danger; while that of Orpheus is one of passionate agony as he tries to hold her off.

Though English art could not fascinate the poet as Italian art did, for the fully sufficient reason that it does not stand for a great epoch of intellectual awakening, yet with what fair alchemy he has touched those few artists he has chosen to honor. Notwithstanding his avowed devotion to Italy, expressed in "De Gustibus," one cannot help feeling that in the poems mentioned in this chapter, there is that ecstasy of sympathy which goes only to the most potent influences in the formation of character. Something of what I mean is expressed in one of his latest poems, "Development." In this we certainly get a real peep at young Robert Browning, led by his wise father into the delights of Homer, by slow degrees, where all is truth at first, to36end up with the devastating criticism of Wolf. In spite of it all the dream stays and is the reality. Nothing can obliterate the magic of a strong early enthusiasm, as "fact still held" "Spite of new Knowledge," in his "heart of hearts."

My Father was a scholar and knew Greek.When I was five years old, I asked him once"What do you read about?""The siege of Troy.""What is a siege and what is Troy?"WhereatHe piled up chairs and tables for a town,Set me a-top for Priam, called our cat—Helen, enticed away from home (he said)By wicked Paris, who couched somewhere closeUnder the footstool, being cowardly,But whom—since she was worth the pains, poor puss—Towzer and Tray,—our dogs, the Atreidai,—soughtBy taking Troy to get possession of—Always when great Achilles ceased to sulk,(My pony in the stable)—forth would pranceAnd put to flight Hector—our page-boy's self.This taught me who was who and what was what:So far I rightly understood the caseAt five years old: a huge delight it provedAnd still proves—thanks to that instructor sageMy Father, who knew better than turn straightLearning's full flare on weak-eyed ignorance,Or, worse yet, leave weak eyes to grow sand-blind,Content with darkness and vacuity.37It happened, two or three years afterward,That—I and playmates playing at Troy's Siege—My Father came upon our make-believe."How would you like to read yourself the taleProperly told, of which I gave you firstMerely such notion as a boy could bear?Pope, now, would give you the precise accountOf what, some day, by dint of scholarship,You'll hear—who knows?—from Homer's very mouth.Learn Greek by all means, read the 'Blind Old Man,Sweetest of Singers'—tuphloswhich means 'blind,'Hedistoswhich means 'sweetest.' Time enough!Try, anyhow, to master him some day;Until when, take what serves for substitute,Read Pope, by all means!"So I ran through Pope,Enjoyed the tale—what history so true?Also attacked my Primer, duly drudged,Grew fitter thus for what was promised next—The very thing itself, the actual words,When I could turn—say, Buttmann to account.Time passed, I ripened somewhat: one fine day,"Quite ready for the Iliad, nothing less?There's Heine, where the big books block the shelf:Don't skip a word, thumb well the Lexicon!"I thumbed well and skipped nowise till I learnedWho was who, what was what, from Homer's tongue,And there an end of learning. Had you askedThe all-accomplished scholar, twelve years old,"Who was it wrote the Iliad?"—what a laugh!"Why, Homer, all the world knows: of his lifeDoubtless some facts exist: it's everywhere:38We have not settled, though, his place of birth:He begged, for certain, and was blind beside:Seven cites claimed him—Scio, with best right,Thinks Byron. What he wrote? Those Hymns we have.Then there's the 'Battle of the Frogs and Mice,'That's all—unless they dig 'Margites' up(I'd like that) nothing more remains to know."Thus did youth spend a comfortable time;Until—"What's this the Germans say is factThat Wolf found out first? It's unpleasant workTheir chop and change, unsettling one's belief:All the same, while we live, we learn, that's sure."So, I bent brow o'erProlegomena.And, after Wolf, a dozen of his likeProved there was never any Troy at all,Neither Besiegers nor Besieged,—nay, worse,—No actual Homer, no authentic text,No warrant for the fiction I, as fact,Had treasured in my heart and soul so long—Ay, mark you! and as fact held still, still hold,Spite of new knowledge, in my heart of heartsAnd soul of souls, fact's essence freed and fixedFrom accidental fancy's guardian sheath.Assuredly thenceforward—thank my stars!—However it got there, deprive who could—Wring from the shrine my precious tenantry,Helen, Ulysses, Hector and his Spouse,Achilles and his Friend?—though Wolf—ah, Wolf!Why must he needs come doubting, spoil a dream?But then "No dream's worth waking"—Browning says:And here's the reason why I tell thus muchI, now mature man, you anticipate,39May blame my Father justifiablyFor letting me dream out my nonage thus,And only by such slow and sure degreesPermitting me to sift the grain from chaff,Get truth and falsehood known and named as such.Why did he ever let me dream at all,Not bid me taste the story in its strength?Suppose my childhood was scarce qualifiedTo rightly understand mythology,Silence at least was in his power to keep:I might have—somehow—correspondingly—Well, who knows by what method, gained my gains,Been taught, by forthrights not meanderings,My aim should be to loathe, like Peleus's son,A lie as Hell's Gate, love my wedded wife,Like Hector, and so on with all the rest.Could not I have excogitated thisWithout believing such men really were?That is—he might have put into my handThe "Ethics"? In translation, if you please,Exact, no pretty lying that improves,To suit the modern taste: no more, no less—The "Ethics": 'tis a treatise I find hardTo read aright now that my hair is grey,And I can manage the original.At five years old—how ill had fared its leaves!Now, growing double o'er the Stagirite,At least I soil no page with bread and milk,Nor crumple, dogsear and deface—boys' way.

37It happened, two or three years afterward,That—I and playmates playing at Troy's Siege—My Father came upon our make-believe."How would you like to read yourself the taleProperly told, of which I gave you firstMerely such notion as a boy could bear?Pope, now, would give you the precise accountOf what, some day, by dint of scholarship,You'll hear—who knows?—from Homer's very mouth.Learn Greek by all means, read the 'Blind Old Man,Sweetest of Singers'—tuphloswhich means 'blind,'Hedistoswhich means 'sweetest.' Time enough!Try, anyhow, to master him some day;Until when, take what serves for substitute,Read Pope, by all means!"So I ran through Pope,Enjoyed the tale—what history so true?Also attacked my Primer, duly drudged,Grew fitter thus for what was promised next—The very thing itself, the actual words,When I could turn—say, Buttmann to account.

Time passed, I ripened somewhat: one fine day,"Quite ready for the Iliad, nothing less?There's Heine, where the big books block the shelf:Don't skip a word, thumb well the Lexicon!"

I thumbed well and skipped nowise till I learnedWho was who, what was what, from Homer's tongue,And there an end of learning. Had you askedThe all-accomplished scholar, twelve years old,"Who was it wrote the Iliad?"—what a laugh!"Why, Homer, all the world knows: of his lifeDoubtless some facts exist: it's everywhere:38We have not settled, though, his place of birth:He begged, for certain, and was blind beside:Seven cites claimed him—Scio, with best right,Thinks Byron. What he wrote? Those Hymns we have.Then there's the 'Battle of the Frogs and Mice,'That's all—unless they dig 'Margites' up(I'd like that) nothing more remains to know."

Thus did youth spend a comfortable time;Until—"What's this the Germans say is factThat Wolf found out first? It's unpleasant workTheir chop and change, unsettling one's belief:All the same, while we live, we learn, that's sure."So, I bent brow o'erProlegomena.And, after Wolf, a dozen of his likeProved there was never any Troy at all,Neither Besiegers nor Besieged,—nay, worse,—No actual Homer, no authentic text,No warrant for the fiction I, as fact,Had treasured in my heart and soul so long—Ay, mark you! and as fact held still, still hold,Spite of new knowledge, in my heart of heartsAnd soul of souls, fact's essence freed and fixedFrom accidental fancy's guardian sheath.Assuredly thenceforward—thank my stars!—However it got there, deprive who could—Wring from the shrine my precious tenantry,Helen, Ulysses, Hector and his Spouse,Achilles and his Friend?—though Wolf—ah, Wolf!Why must he needs come doubting, spoil a dream?

But then "No dream's worth waking"—Browning says:And here's the reason why I tell thus muchI, now mature man, you anticipate,39May blame my Father justifiablyFor letting me dream out my nonage thus,And only by such slow and sure degreesPermitting me to sift the grain from chaff,Get truth and falsehood known and named as such.Why did he ever let me dream at all,Not bid me taste the story in its strength?Suppose my childhood was scarce qualifiedTo rightly understand mythology,Silence at least was in his power to keep:I might have—somehow—correspondingly—Well, who knows by what method, gained my gains,Been taught, by forthrights not meanderings,My aim should be to loathe, like Peleus's son,A lie as Hell's Gate, love my wedded wife,Like Hector, and so on with all the rest.Could not I have excogitated thisWithout believing such men really were?That is—he might have put into my handThe "Ethics"? In translation, if you please,Exact, no pretty lying that improves,To suit the modern taste: no more, no less—The "Ethics": 'tis a treatise I find hardTo read aright now that my hair is grey,And I can manage the original.At five years old—how ill had fared its leaves!Now, growing double o'er the Stagirite,At least I soil no page with bread and milk,Nor crumple, dogsear and deface—boys' way.

This chapter would not be complete without Browning's tribute to dog Tray, whose traits may not be peculiar to English dogs40but whose name is proverbially English. Besides it touches a subject upon which the poet had strong feelings. Vivisection he abhorred, and in the controversies which were tearing the scientific and philanthropic world asunder in the last years of his life, no one was a more determined opponent of vivisection than he.

Sing me a hero! Quench my thirstOf soul, ye bards!Quoth Bard the first:"Sir Olaf, the good knight, did donHis helm and eke his habergeon...."Sir Olaf and his bard——!"That sin-scathed brow" (quoth Bard the second),"That eye wide ope as though Fate beckonedMy hero to some steep, beneathWhich precipice smiled tempting death...."You too without your host have reckoned!"A beggar-child" (let's hear this third!)"Sat on a quay's edge: like a birdSang to herself at careless play,'And fell into the stream. Dismay!Help, you the standers-by!' None stirred."Bystanders reason, think of wivesAnd children ere they risk their lives.Over the balustrade has bouncedA mere instinctive dog, and pouncedPlumb on the prize. 'How well he dives!41"'Up he comes with the child, see, tightIn mouth, alive too, clutched from quiteA depth of ten feet—twelve, I bet!Good dog! What, off again? There's yetAnother child to save? All right!"'How strange we saw no other fall!It's instinct in the animal.Good dog! But he's a long while under:If he got drowned I should not wonder—Strong current, that against the wall!"'Here he comes, holds in mouth this time—What may the thing be? Well, that's prime!Now, did you ever? Reason reignsIn man alone, since all Tray's painsHave fished—the child's doll from the slime!'"And so, amid the laughter gay,Trotted my hero off,—old Tray,—Till somebody, prerogativedWith reason, reasoned: 'Why he dived,His brain would show us, I should say."'John, go and catch—or, if needs be,Purchase—that animal for me!By vivisection, at expenseOf half-an-hour and eighteenpence,How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'"

Sing me a hero! Quench my thirstOf soul, ye bards!Quoth Bard the first:"Sir Olaf, the good knight, did donHis helm and eke his habergeon...."Sir Olaf and his bard——!

"That sin-scathed brow" (quoth Bard the second),"That eye wide ope as though Fate beckonedMy hero to some steep, beneathWhich precipice smiled tempting death...."You too without your host have reckoned!

"A beggar-child" (let's hear this third!)"Sat on a quay's edge: like a birdSang to herself at careless play,'And fell into the stream. Dismay!Help, you the standers-by!' None stirred.

"Bystanders reason, think of wivesAnd children ere they risk their lives.Over the balustrade has bouncedA mere instinctive dog, and pouncedPlumb on the prize. 'How well he dives!

41"'Up he comes with the child, see, tightIn mouth, alive too, clutched from quiteA depth of ten feet—twelve, I bet!Good dog! What, off again? There's yetAnother child to save? All right!

"'How strange we saw no other fall!It's instinct in the animal.Good dog! But he's a long while under:If he got drowned I should not wonder—Strong current, that against the wall!

"'Here he comes, holds in mouth this time—What may the thing be? Well, that's prime!Now, did you ever? Reason reignsIn man alone, since all Tray's painsHave fished—the child's doll from the slime!'

"And so, amid the laughter gay,Trotted my hero off,—old Tray,—Till somebody, prerogativedWith reason, reasoned: 'Why he dived,His brain would show us, I should say.

"'John, go and catch—or, if needs be,Purchase—that animal for me!By vivisection, at expenseOf half-an-hour and eighteenpence,How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'"

SHAKESPEARE'S PORTRAIT

Onceand once only did Browning depart from his custom of choosing people of minor note to figure in his dramatic monologues. In "At the 'Mermaid'" he ventures upon the consecrated ground of a heart-to-heart talk between Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and the wits who gathered at the classic "Mermaid" Tavern in Cheapside, following this up with further glimpses into the inner recesses of Shakespeare's mind in the monologues "House" and "Shop." It is a particularly daring feat in the case of Shakespeare, for as all the world knows any attempt at getting in touch with the real man, Shakespeare, must, per force, be woven out of such "stuff as dreams are made on."

In interpreting this portraiture of one great poet by another it will be of interest to glance at the actual facts as far as they are known in regard to the relations which existed between Shakespeare and Jonson. Praise and blame both are recorded on Jon43son's part when writing of Shakespeare, yet the praise shows such undisguised admiration that the blame sinks into insignificance. Jonson's "learned socks" to which Milton refers probably tripped the critic up occasionally by reason of their weight.

There is a charming story told of the friendship between the two men recorded by Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, within a very few years of Shakespeare's death, who attributed it to Dr. Donne. The story goes that "Shakespeare was godfather to one of Ben Jonson's children, and after the christening, being in a deep study, Jonson came to cheer him up and asked him why he was so melancholy. 'No, faith, Ben,' says he, 'not I, but I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolved at last.' 'I prythee what?' says he. 'I'faith, Ben, I'll e'en give him a dozen good Lattin spoons, and thou shalt translate them.'" If this must be taken with a grain of salt, there is another even more to the honor of Shakespeare reported by Rowe and considered credible by such Shakespearian scholars as Halliwell Phillipps and Sidney Lee. "His acquaintance with Ben Jonson" writes Rowe, "began with a remarkable piece of humanity44and good nature; Mr. Jonson, who was at that time altogether unknown to the world, had offered one of his plays to the players in order to have it acted, and the persons into whose hands it was put, after having turned it carelessly and superciliously over, were just upon returning it to him with an ill-natured answer that it would be of no service to their company, when Shakespeare luckily cast his eye upon it, and found something so well in it as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonson and his writings to the public." The play in question was the famous comedy of "Every Man in His Humour," which was brought out in September, 1598, by the Lord Chamberlain's company, Shakespeare himself being one of the leading actors upon the occasion.

Authentic history records a theater war in which Jonson and Shakespeare figured, on opposite sides, but if allusions in Jonson's play the "Poetaster" have been properly interpreted, their friendly relations were not deeply disturbed. The trouble began in the first place by the London of 1600 suddenly rushing into a fad for the company of boy players, recruited chiefly from the choristers of the Chapel Royal, and known as the "Chil45dren of the Chapel." They had been acting at the new theater in Blackfriars since 1597, and their vogue became so great as actually to threaten Shakespeare's company and other companies of adult actors. Just at this time Ben Jonson was having a personal quarrel with his fellow dramatists, Marston and Dekker, and as he received little sympathy from the actors, he took his revenge by joining his forces with those of the Children of the Chapel. They brought out for him in 1600 his satire of "Cynthia's Revels," in which he held up to ridicule Marston, Dekker and their friends the actors. Marston and Dekker, with the actors of Shakespeare's company, prepared to retaliate, but Jonson hearing of it forestalled them with his play the "Poetaster" in which he spared neither dramatists nor actors. Shakespeare's company continued the fray by bringing out at the Globe Theatre, in the following year, Dekker and Marston's "Satiro-Mastix, or The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," and as Ward remarks, "the quarrel had now become too hot to last." The excitement, however, continued for sometime, theater-goers took sides and watched with interest "the actors and dramatists' boisterous war of personalities," to quote Mr. Lee, who46goes on to point out that on May 10, 1601, the Privy Council called the attention of the Middlesex magistrates to the abuse covertly leveled by the actors of the "Curtain" at gentlemen "of good desert and quality," and directed the magistrates to examine all plays before they were produced.

Jonson, himself, finally made apologies in verses appended to printed copies of the "Poetaster."

"Now for the players 'tis true I tax'd themAnd yet but some, and those so sparinglyAs all the rest might have sat still unquestioned,Had they but had the wit or conscienceTo think well of themselves. But impotent theyThought each man's vice belonged to their whole tribe;And much good do it them. What they have done against meI am not moved with, if it gave them meatOr got them clothes, 'tis well: that was their end,Only amongst them I was sorry forSome better natures by the rest so drawnTo run in that vile line."

Sidney Lee cleverly deduces Shakespeare's attitude in the quarrel in allusions to it in "Hamlet," wherein he "protested against the abusive comments on the men-actors of 'the common' stages or public theaters which were put into the children's mouths. Rosencrantz declared that the children 'so berattle47[i.e.assail] the common stages—so they call them—that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither [i.e.to the public theaters].' Hamlet in pursuit of the theme pointed out that the writers who encouraged the vogue of the 'child actors' did them a poor service, because when the boys should reach men's estate they would run the risk, if they continued on the stage, of the same insults and neglect which now threatened their seniors.

"'Hamlet.What are they children? Who maintains 'em? How are they escorted [i.e.paid]? Will they pursue the quality [i.e.the actor's profession] no longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players—as it is most like, if their means are no better—their writers do them wrong to make them exclaim against their own succession?

"'Rosencrantz.Faith, there has been much to do on both sides, and the nation holds it no sin to tarre [i.e.incite] them to controversy; there was for a while no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.'"

This certainly does not reflect a very belligerent attitude since it merely puts in a word for the grown-up actors rather than48casting any slurs upon the children. Further indications of Shakespeare's mildness in regard to the whole matter are given in the Prologue to "Troylus and Cressida," where, as Mr. Lee says, he made specific reference to the strife between Ben Jonson and the players in the lines

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