SECTION VI.—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

BIOGRAPHY.

In the year 1786, George Browne, Esq., an eminent Liverpool merchant, married Miss Wagner, daughter of the Imperial and Tuscan consul. All the offspringof this marriage were distinguished by superior gifts, cultivated talents, and refined taste. Felicia Dorothea, the fifth child, was born in Duke Street, on the 25th of September, 1793, and was early found to be endowed with the two most coveted of earthly gifts—beauty and genius.

The first six years of her life, were passed in wealth and ease, but at the close of the century, in consequence of commercial difficulties, her father broke up his establishment at Liverpool, and removed to the sea-coast of Denbighshire, in North Wales, near the little town of Abergele, and shortly afterwards emigrated to America, where he died. The education of Felicia Browne thus devolved exclusively on her mother; and under her judicious instruction, she learned with facility the elements of general knowledge—evinced peculiar aptness for the acquisition of languages, drawing, and music—and derived information with extraordinary ease, quickness, and clearness, from all things visible, audible, and tangible. The air at Gwrych is salubrious, and the scenery around beautiful; and often in after-years did the gifted poetess recall those happy hours spent by the sea-shore, listening to the cadence of the waves; or passed in the old house, gazing across the intervening meadows on a range of magnificent mountains; or consumed in the vale of Clwyd, searching for primroses.

Mountains, the sea, and London, have been pronounced important points in education. Felicia Browne had long enjoyed the first and the second, and at the age of eleven completed the mind-enlarging triad, by paying a visit to the great metropolis. Butdespite the attractions of music, the drama, and works of art, the contrast between the hard pavement, crowded streets, and social constraint of London, and the glory, freshness, and freedom of her mountain home, made her more anxious to get away than ever she had been to come. Soon after she appeared in print, and the harsh animadversions of reviewers probably ignorant of the years of the authoress, so distressed the sensitive aspirant as to bring on an illness. In 1809, the family left Gwrych, and went to reside at Bronwylfa, near St. Asaph, in Flintshire. Here the work of intellectual development progressed steadily; and Miss Browne, already mistress of French and Italian, acquired the Spanish and Portuguese, with the rudiments of German.

In 1812, she was married to Captain Hemans, of the 4th foot, lately returned from Spanish service; and removed to Daventry with her husband, who was appointed adjutant to the Northamptonshire militia. The union was not a happy one. Mrs. Hemans had a splendid imagination, generous and active feelings, and a fine frank nature, which made her popular wherever she went. Captain Hemans was a handsome well-bred soldier, but of a cold methodical constitution, as destitute of the romantic element as the branches of trees in winter of all the green, soft luxury of foliage. There never has been a true marriage in this world without sympathy between the husband and the wife. A man of Captain Hemans’ temper was incapable of making a woman constituted like Mrs. Hemans permanently happy. In 1818, after the birth of five children, all sons, a separation took place, ostensibly because the captain,whose health was failing, was advised to try the effect of a warmer climate. He went to Italy, and she remained in England. They never saw each other afterwards.

Subsequently to a step which virtually amounted to a divorce, Mrs. Hemans and her children remained under her mother’s roof at Bronwylfa till the spring of 1825, when Mrs. Browne, with her daughter and grand-children, removed to Rhyllon, a comfortable house about a quarter of a mile distant, on the opposite side of the river Clwyd, with Bronwylfa in full sight. While domiciled at Rhyllon, Miss Jewsbury, with whom she had previously been in correspondence, frequently visited her and soothed her perturbed feelings. Mrs. Hemans took great delight in the company of Miss Jewsbury, and always expressed her sense of obligation to her for leading her more fully into the spirit of Wordsworth’s poetry, and for making her acquainted with many of his compositions. One autumn, on his return from exploring Snowdon, James Montgomery, like a true poet, came to Rhyllon, to offer honest homage to Mrs. Hemans.

Her pious and excellent mother died on the 11th of January, 1827, and soon after Mrs. Hemans removed to Wavertree, near Liverpool. Writing to a friend concerning the sorrows and conflicts of this period, she exclaims: “Oh, that I could lift up my heart, and sustain it at that height where alone the calm sunshine is!” Yet there were many alleviating circumstances connected with this migration. She was returning to the great seaport in which she was born, whose streets she had occasionally trodden, whose spires she had often seen, and which the inhabitantsof Denbighshire and Flintshire had taught her to regard as a North Welsh metropolis. But the leaving of Wales was a great trial, and greatly augmented by the affectionate regrets and enthusiastic blessings of the Welsh peasants, who kissed the very gate-hinges through which she had passed. In her first letter from Wavertree to St. Asaph, she writes: “Oh, that Tuesday morning! I literally covered my face all the way from Bronwylfa, until the boys told me we had passed the Clwyd range of hills. Then something of the bitterness was over.” For the first time in her life she now took upon herself the sole responsibility of household management, became liable to the harassing cares of practical life, and subject to the formal restraints belonging to a great commercial town and its suburbs. In exchanging the ranges of the great hills, for long rows of houses—the blue seas and fresh breezes, for dirty wharves and dingy warehouses—familiar and loving faces, for the rude stare of strangers, and the simper of affected courtesy—her feelings experienced a series of shocks; and she held back from the gay world, and sought social pleasure in the company of a few chosen friends.

In 1829, having accepted an invitation to visit Scotland, where her writings had raised up for her a host of admirers, accompanied by her two elder sons and her maid, she embarked for the Firth of Forth. On their arrival in Edinburgh, her name won general homage, and all kinds of attention were lavished upon her, by the flower of its literature. Remaining a few days, with a keen but mournful interest, she wandered through the antique streets, wynds, and closes of theromantic capital; examined the castle, whose huge battlements command a panorama to which there are few, if any, parallels on earth; visited the Calton Hill, broken with cliffs, enamelled with golden furze, feathered with trees, and studded with monuments for the mighty dead; spent some time at Holyrood Palace, where the young, brilliant, and beautiful Mary reigned in queenly splendour; and having become acquainted with the principal objects of local interest, proceeded to Roxburghshire. At Abbotsford—that “romance of stone and mortar,” as it has been termed—Sir Walter Scott received her and her boys, and treated them with princely hospitality. On leaving Abbotsford, she remarks, “I shall not forget the kindness of Sir Walter’s farewell, so frank, and simple, and heartfelt, as he said to me, ‘There are some whom we meet, and should like ever after to claim as kith and kin; and you are one of those.’” During this sojourn, she became acquainted with many eminent persons, and when on the point of leaving, was persuaded to sit for a bust. The necessary process having been gone through, she returned to England.

In 1830, longing again for rural quiet, she visited the lakes and Mr. Wordsworth. In walking and riding, in boating on Windermere, in sketching woody mountains, in conversing with the meditative poet, and in writing poetry to absent friends, time glided rapidly away.

At the earnest and repeated solicitations of her northern friends, she revisited Scotland, and had the severity of the climate not threatened to be fatal to her, she would have gladly fixed her future home inDunedin. She made a voyage to Dublin, to ascertain its suitablility as a place of residence. From Dublin she crossed the channel to Holyhead, and travelled through the Island of Anglesea, to her old home Bronwylfa. Her old Welsh neighbours flocked around her, entreating her to come back and live among them again. She returned to Wavertree with agitated spirits, and an exhausted frame.

In 1831, Mrs. Hemans finally quitted Liverpool for Dublin. After spending several weeks among kind friends, she passed on to the residence of her second brother and his wife, and then visited all the remarkable places around Kilkenny. In the spring and summer of 1832, when cholera was devastating the city, her letters express the solemn composure of her soul, her childlike dependence upon the care of God, and her unreserved submission to His will. In the autumn of 1833, the Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Hughes, the brother-in-law and sister of Mrs. Hemans, whom she had not seen for five years, came to Dublin. Her sister saw with pain the worn and altered looks which time, care, and sickness had wrought. In 1834, referring to the brightening of heart and soul into the perfect day of Christian excellence, she remarks; “When the weary struggle with wrong and injustice leads to such results, I then feel that the fearful mystery of life is solved for me.” Reading one evening in the gardens of the Dublin Society, a chill fog imperceptibly came on, and she was seized with a violent fit of shivering. For many weeks she had periodic attacks of ague. Aware that her time was short, she sedulously employed her genius and talents for the glory of God.

On Sunday the 10th of May, 1835, she was able, for the last time, to read to herself the appointed Collect, Epistle, and Gospel. During that week a heavy languor oppressed her, and sometimes her mind wandered, but always in sunny scenes. On the evening of Saturday the 16th, at nine o’clock, while asleep, her happy spirit passed away. Life, and this admirable woman, had not been long together; she was only in her forty-second year.

Her remains were interred in St. Anne’s church, Dawson Street, Dublin; and over her grave were inscribed eight lines from one of her own dirges:—

“Calm on the bosom of thy God,Fair spirit, rest thee now!E’en while with us thy footsteps trod,His seal was on thy brow.Dust to its narrow house beneath!Soul to its place on high!They that have seen thy look in death,No more may fear to die.”

“Calm on the bosom of thy God,

Fair spirit, rest thee now!

E’en while with us thy footsteps trod,

His seal was on thy brow.

Dust to its narrow house beneath!

Soul to its place on high!

They that have seen thy look in death,

No more may fear to die.”

The memorial erected by her nearest relations in the cathedral of St. Asaph, is very expressive, and records that—

“This Tablet,Placed here by her Brothers,IS IN MEMORY OFFELICIA HEMANS;Whose Character is best PortrayedIN HER WRITINGS.She died in Dublin, May 16, 1835.Aged 41.”

“This Tablet,

Placed here by her Brothers,

IS IN MEMORY OF

FELICIA HEMANS;

Whose Character is best Portrayed

IN HER WRITINGS.

She died in Dublin, May 16, 1835.

Aged 41.”

REVIEW OF HER WORKS.

An eminent living critic has said that Mrs. Hemans’ poetry is silent to all effective utterance of original truth. We do not adopt that sentiment, but we believe had her mind been directed in youth to the works of Lord Bacon and Bishop Butler, or even the elementary propositions of Euclid, it would probably have gained both as to intellectual and moral strength. Her poetical life divides itself into four periods. The juvenile, the classic, the romantic, and the mature. Her mind precociously expanded to a keen sense of the beautiful, and a warm appreciation of nature and poetry. Some pieces found in her works date their composition as far back as 1803 and 1804; but it was not till 1808 that her first volume was ushered into the world. In 1812, she gave to the press “The Domestic Affections.” In 1819, appeared “Tales and Historic Scenes.” In 1823, a tragedy entitled “The Vespers of Palermo.” In 1826, she published “The Forest Sanctuary.” In 1828, “Records of Woman.” In 1830, she brought out “Songs of the Affections.” In 1834, appeared her little volume of “Hymns for Childhood,” “National Lyrics and Songs for Music,” “Scenes and Hymns of Life,” and sonnets, under the title of “Thoughts during Sickness.”

These are her principal works. She obtained a prize from a patriotic Scotsman for the best poem on Sir William Wallace, and a prize was also awarded her by the Royal Society of Literature for the best poem on Dartmoor. Like all authors who have written much, her poetry is of various excellence; but for pathos, sentiment, and gorgeous richness of language,we know no lyrics superior to her little pieces. She was, as Lord Jeffrey well remarked, an admirable writer of occasional verses. Mrs. Hemans never left the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, but her imagination visited and realized every place of which she read, or heard, or saw a picture. How minute, eloquent and exciting, are her descriptions of “The Better Land.”

“‘Is it where the feathery palm-trees rise,And the date grows ripe under sunny skies?Or midst the green islands of glittering seas,Where fragrant forests perfume the breeze,And strange, bright birds on their starry wingsBear the rich hues of all glorious things?’—‘Not there, not there, my child!’“‘Is it far away, in some region old,Where the rivers wander o’er sands of gold?—Where the burning rays of the ruby shine,And the diamond lights up the secret mine,And the pearl gleams forth from the coral strand?—Is it there, sweet mother, that better land?’—‘Not there, not there, my child!’”

“‘Is it where the feathery palm-trees rise,

And the date grows ripe under sunny skies?

Or midst the green islands of glittering seas,

Where fragrant forests perfume the breeze,

And strange, bright birds on their starry wings

Bear the rich hues of all glorious things?’

—‘Not there, not there, my child!’

“‘Is it far away, in some region old,Where the rivers wander o’er sands of gold?—Where the burning rays of the ruby shine,And the diamond lights up the secret mine,And the pearl gleams forth from the coral strand?—Is it there, sweet mother, that better land?’—‘Not there, not there, my child!’”

“‘Is it far away, in some region old,

Where the rivers wander o’er sands of gold?—

Where the burning rays of the ruby shine,

And the diamond lights up the secret mine,

And the pearl gleams forth from the coral strand?—

Is it there, sweet mother, that better land?’

—‘Not there, not there, my child!’”

Mrs. Hemans has the most perfect skill in her science; nothing can be more polished, glowing, and harmonious, than her versification. We give an illustration, “The Voice of Spring.”

“I come! I come!—Ye have called me long:I come o’er the mountains with light and song!Ye may trace my steps o’er the wakening earth,By the winds that tell of the violet’s birth,By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,By the green leaves opening as I pass.”

“I come! I come!—Ye have called me long:

I come o’er the mountains with light and song!

Ye may trace my steps o’er the wakening earth,

By the winds that tell of the violet’s birth,

By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,

By the green leaves opening as I pass.”

There is diffused over all her poetry a yearning desire to associate the name of England with everysentiment and feeling of freedom and patriotism. “The Homes of England” shows that she knew wherein consisted the glory and strength of kingdoms.

“The stately homes of England,How beautiful they standAmidst their tall ancestral trees,O’er all the pleasant land.The deer across their greensward boundThrough shade and sunny gleamAnd the swan glides past them with the soundOf some rejoicing stream.”

“The stately homes of England,

How beautiful they stand

Amidst their tall ancestral trees,

O’er all the pleasant land.

The deer across their greensward bound

Through shade and sunny gleam

And the swan glides past them with the sound

Of some rejoicing stream.”

Her “Graves of a Household” illustrates how well the graphic and pathetic may be made to set off each other.

“They grew in beauty, side by side,They filled one home with glee;Their graves are severed, far and wide,By mount and stream and sea.”

“They grew in beauty, side by side,

They filled one home with glee;

Their graves are severed, far and wide,

By mount and stream and sea.”

With what exquisite tenderness and beautiful imagery does she express in “The Hour of Death” the emotions of every heart.

“Leaves have their time to fall,And flowers to wither at the north wind’s breath,And stars to set—but all,Thou hastallseasons for thine own, O Death!”

“Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the north wind’s breath,

And stars to set—but all,

Thou hastallseasons for thine own, O Death!”

Mrs. Hemans’ poetry has four characteristics, viz., the ideal, the picturesque, the harmonious, and the moral. There may be “too many flowers for the fruit;” yet a large portion of it possesses perennial vitality.

The best edition extant of the works of Mrs. Hemans has been published recently by Messrs. Blackwood. The poems are chronologically arranged,with illustrative notes and a selection of contemporary criticisms. Besides an ample table of contents, there is a general index, and an index of first lines.

CHARACTER OF MRS. HEMANS.

Her personal appearance was highly attractive. The writer of her memoir describes her in early womanhood as radiant with beauty. The mantling bloom of her cheeks was shaded by a profusion of natural ringlets of a rich golden brown; and the ever-varying expression of her brilliant eyes gave a changeful play to her countenance, which would have made it impossible for any painter to do justice to it. She was of middle stature and slight of figure. Her air was graceful, and her manner fascinating in its artlessness. From the crown of the head to the sole of the foot she was touched with elegance.

In dramatic conception, depth of thought, and variety of fancy, we could name several women who excelled her; but in the use of language, in the employment of rich, chaste, and glowing imagery, and in the perfect music of her versification, she stands alone and superior. In the words of Miss Jewsbury, “The genius with which she was gifted, combined to inspire a passion for the ethereal, the tender, the imaginative, the heroic,—in one word, the beautiful. It was in her a faculty Divine, and yet of daily life, it touched all things; but like a sunbeam, touched them with a golden finger.”

She was a genuine woman, and therefore imbued with a Christian spirit. To borrow again from Miss Jewsbury: “Her strength and her weakness alikelay in her affections: these would sometimes make her weep at a word, at others imbue her with courage, so that she was alternately a falcon-hearted dove, and a reed shaken with the wind. Her voice was a sad melody; her spirits reminded me of an old poet’s description of the orange-tree with its

‘Golden lamps hid in a night of green,’

or of those Spanish gardens, where the pomegranate grows beside the cypress. Her gladness was like a burst of sunlight; and if in her depression she resembled night, it was night wearing her stars.”

“It is characteristic of this century, that women play a more important part in literature than previously. Not only have women of genius commanded universal homage, but the distinctive characteristics of the female nature have been exhibited with more exquisite analysis and more powerful truth than heretofore.”

Peter Bayne, A.M.

EPIC POETRY.

The principal of poetical compositions is the epic, otherwise called the heroic. It gives an imaginative narrative of some signal action or series of actions and events, usually the achievements of some distinguished character, and intended to form the morals and affect the mind with the love of virtue. The longer poems of the epic genus embrace an extensiveseries of events, and the actions of numerous personages. The “Iliad” and the “Odyssey” are the principal Grecian epics. The “Æneid” is the most distinguished Roman epic. “Jerusalem Delivered” and the “Divina Comedia” are the most celebrated Italian epics. “Paradise Lost” is the greatest English epic. These are epic poems by way of eminence, but there are several species of minor poems which from their nature most also be ranked as epics. One of these is the “idyl,” a term applied to what is called pastoral poetry. The ballad is another species of minor epic. Critics agree that this sort of poetry is the greatest work human nature is capable of. But attempts at epic poetry are now rare, the spirit of the age being against this kind of composition. It is believed that several of our immortal epics could not have been written in the nineteenth century; because the mind would never produce that of the truth of which it could not persuade itself by any illusion of the imagination. In the room of epic poems, we have now novels, which may be considered as the epics of modern civil and domestic life. We have, however, minds of both sexes, in our midst, capable of furnishing us with epics, so far as genius is concerned.

BIOGRAPHY.

Elizabeth Barrett was born in London, about the year 1809. Her father was an opulent country gentleman, and not a West India merchant as several biographies represent him to have been. She passed her girlhood at his country-seat in Herefordshire,among the lovely scenery of the Malvern Hills. At least she says:—

“Green is the land where my dailySteps in jocund childhood played;Dimpled close with hill and valley;Dappled very close with shade:Summer snow of apple blossomRunning up from glade to glade.”

“Green is the land where my daily

Steps in jocund childhood played;

Dimpled close with hill and valley;

Dappled very close with shade:

Summer snow of apple blossom

Running up from glade to glade.”

She seems to have been a very precocious child, and the culture which she received in her youth was fair, liberal, and sound. Classics, philosophy, and science were studied with enthusiasm and success. We welcome gladly the evidence that society is beginning to recognise woman’s right to be as highly educated as her capacity will allow. She is to be man’s companion, and what can better enable her to be a fit companion for him, than a due comprehension of what he comprehends; an appreciation founded upon knowledge of the difficulties he has mastered, and power to stand beside him and help him in his intellectual labours. Without disregarding the fact that all women do not follow in the footsteps of men, and therefore do not require the same course of learning, Elizabeth Barrett participated largely in the education given to her brothers by a very able tutor, Mr. Hugh Stuart Boyd, the Grecian.

From a very early age her ear was ever attuned to catch the deep and mysterious and hope-inspiring whisperings of nature. At the age of ten she began writing in prose and in verse, and at fifteen her talent for literary composition became known to her friends. She was a most diligent student, and soon became a contributor to periodical literature, and a series ofarticles on the Greek Christian poets not only indicated how deeply she had entered into the spirit of these old authors, but proved that she was possessed both of recondite learning and true poetic genius. If, as some critics aver, her earlier style resembles that of Tennyson; this arises, not from imitation, but from similarity of genius and classical taste. Proofs of rare reading and deep reflection abound in Miss Barrett’s first attempt at authorship, published in 1826: “An Essay on Mind, and other Poems.” Her next literary enterprise was a version of one of the greatest and most difficult masterpieces of classical antiquity; “Prometheus Bound,” which appeared in 1833; and of which she has since given an improved translation. In 1838 appeared another volume of original poetry, “The Seraphim, and other Poems;” the external peculiarity of which was its endeavour to embody the ideas and sentiments of a Christian mystery in the artistic form of a Greek tragedy. This was followed in 1839, by a third work, “The Romaunt of the Page.”

Life’s joys are as inconstant as life itself. Temporal disappointments often distress us, and God’s providential visitations often cause us to change our plans.

“How fast treads sorrow on the heels of joy.”

About this time, a melancholy accident occurred which for years clouded the life of the poetess, and all but irretrievably shattered her naturally delicate constitution. She burst a blood-vessel in the lungs. Happily, no symptoms of consumption supervened; but after a twelvemonth’s confinement at home, shewas ordered by her physician to the mild climate of Devonshire. A house was taken for her at Torquay, near the foot of the cliffs, close by the sea. She was rapidly recovering, when one bright summer morning her brother and two young men, his friends, went out in a small boat for a trip of a few hours. Just as they crossed the bar, the vessel swamped, and all on board perished. Even their lifeless bodies were never recovered. They were sepulchred in the great ocean, which has wrapped its garment of green round many of the fairest and noblest of the sons of men, and which rolls its continued requiem of sublimity and sadness over the millions whom it hath entombed. This sudden and dreadful calamity almost killed Miss Barrett. During a whole year, she lay in the house incapable of removal, whilst the sound of the waves rang in her ears as the moans of the dying. Literature was her only solace. Her physician pleaded with her to abandon her studies; and to quiet his importunities she had an edition of Plato bound so as to resemble a novel.

When eventually removed to London and her father’s house in Wimpole Street, it was in an invalid carriage, and at the slow rate of twenty miles a day. In a commodious and darkened room, to which only her own family and a few devoted friends were admitted, she nursed her remnant of life; reading meanwhile the best books in almost every language, and giving herself heart and soul to that poetry of which she seemed born to be the priestess. The following beautiful and graphic verses were written to commemorate the faithful companionship of a young spaniel (“Flush, my dog”), presented toher by a friend, in those years of imprisonment and inaction.

“Yet, my little sportive friend,Little is’t to such an endThat I should praise thy rareness!Other dogs may be thy peers,Haply in these drooping ears,And in this glossy fairness.“But oftheeit shall be said,This dog watched beside a bedDay and night unweary;—Watched within a curtained room,Where no sunbeam broke the gloom,Round the sick and weary.“Roses, gathered for a vase,In that chamber died apace,Beam and breeze resigning—This dog only waited on,Knowing that when light is gone,Love remains for shining.“Other dogs in thymy dewTracked the hares, and followed throughSunny moor or meadow—This dog only crept and creptNext a languid cheek that slept,Sharing in the shadow.“Other dogs of loyal cheerBounded at the whistle clear,Up the woodside hieing—This dog only watched in reachOf a faintly uttered speech,Or a louder sighing.“And if one or two quick tearsDropt upon his glossy ears,Or a sigh came double,—Up he sprang in eager haste,Fawning, fondling, breathing fast,In a tender trouble.“And this dog was satisfiedIf a pale thin hand would glideDown his dewlaps sloping—Which he pushed his nose within,After—platforming his chinOn the palm left open.”

“Yet, my little sportive friend,Little is’t to such an endThat I should praise thy rareness!Other dogs may be thy peers,Haply in these drooping ears,And in this glossy fairness.

“Yet, my little sportive friend,

Little is’t to such an end

That I should praise thy rareness!

Other dogs may be thy peers,

Haply in these drooping ears,

And in this glossy fairness.

“But oftheeit shall be said,This dog watched beside a bedDay and night unweary;—Watched within a curtained room,Where no sunbeam broke the gloom,Round the sick and weary.

“But oftheeit shall be said,

This dog watched beside a bed

Day and night unweary;—

Watched within a curtained room,

Where no sunbeam broke the gloom,

Round the sick and weary.

“Roses, gathered for a vase,In that chamber died apace,Beam and breeze resigning—This dog only waited on,Knowing that when light is gone,Love remains for shining.

“Roses, gathered for a vase,

In that chamber died apace,

Beam and breeze resigning—

This dog only waited on,

Knowing that when light is gone,

Love remains for shining.

“Other dogs in thymy dewTracked the hares, and followed throughSunny moor or meadow—This dog only crept and creptNext a languid cheek that slept,Sharing in the shadow.

“Other dogs in thymy dew

Tracked the hares, and followed through

Sunny moor or meadow—

This dog only crept and crept

Next a languid cheek that slept,

Sharing in the shadow.

“Other dogs of loyal cheerBounded at the whistle clear,Up the woodside hieing—This dog only watched in reachOf a faintly uttered speech,Or a louder sighing.

“Other dogs of loyal cheer

Bounded at the whistle clear,

Up the woodside hieing—

This dog only watched in reach

Of a faintly uttered speech,

Or a louder sighing.

“And if one or two quick tearsDropt upon his glossy ears,Or a sigh came double,—Up he sprang in eager haste,Fawning, fondling, breathing fast,In a tender trouble.

“And if one or two quick tears

Dropt upon his glossy ears,

Or a sigh came double,—

Up he sprang in eager haste,

Fawning, fondling, breathing fast,

In a tender trouble.

“And this dog was satisfiedIf a pale thin hand would glideDown his dewlaps sloping—Which he pushed his nose within,After—platforming his chinOn the palm left open.”

“And this dog was satisfied

If a pale thin hand would glide

Down his dewlaps sloping—

Which he pushed his nose within,

After—platforming his chin

On the palm left open.”

It was during those six or seven years of seclusion and study that she composed or completed the most striking of those poems, published in two volumes in 1844, which first brought her into notice as a poetess of genius. “Poetry,” said the authoress in her preface, “has been as serious a thing to me as life itself, and life has been a very serious thing. I never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry, nor leisure for the hour of the poet. I have done my work, so far, as work, not as mere hand and head work apart from the personal being, but as the completest expression of that being to which I could attain; and as work I offer it to the public,feeling its shortcomings more deeply than any of my readers, because measured from the height of my aspiration, but feeling also that the reverence and sincerity with which the work was done should give it some protection with the reverent and sincere.”

In 1846, she became the wife of a kindred spirit, Robert Browning, the poet. Never were man and woman more clearly ordained for each other than Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. They were imperfect apart; together they were rounded into one. With marriage came Mrs. Browning’s welcomerestoration to health and strength. The poet-pair started for Italy, staying first at Pisa, and then settling at Florence. In that metropolis of one of the most wealthy and powerful of the Italian States, she witnessed, in 1848-49, the struggle made by the Tuscans for freedom. Mrs. Browning published her collected works in 1850. In 1851, she issued her important work, “Casa Guidi Windows,” a semi-political narrative of actual events and genuine feelings.

Inspirited by what she saw around her, and by a new tie, an only child, a boy of great intellectual and musical precocity, the genius of Mrs. Browning had become practical and energetic. “The future of Italy,” says our authoress, “shall not be disinherited.” Then came, in 1856, “Aurora Leigh,” a long and elaborate poem or novel in blank verse, which our poetess considered the most mature of her works, into which her highest convictions upon life and art were entered. “Poems before Congress” followed in 1860.

After a brief illness, Mrs. Browning died at Florence on the 29th of June, 1861. When the sad news reached England, universal regret was expressed for the loss of the talented lady; the press confessing with singular unanimity that the world had lost in her the greatest poetess that had ever appeared.

She was borne to the tomb amidst the lamentations of Tuscany no less than of her own dear England. Above the door of a decent little house in Florence is a small square slab, with an inscription in Italian, which may be thus translated:—“Here wrote and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who to the heart of a woman joined the science of a scholar and the spirit of a teacher, and who made with her golden verse anuptial ring between Italy and England. Grateful Florence places this memorial.”

PLACE AS A POETESS.

In no languages, save Greek and English, so far as we remember at present, have poetesses achieved special fame; and we think all competent judges will unhesitatingly rank Mrs. Browning as the Queen of song. But we do not wish to judge her by a less elevated standard or less rigid rules than those we apply to the poets generally. “Good for a woman,” is the sort of praise she would have rejected with scorn. She entered fairly into the lists against all the world, and she claims a place among literary worthies as such. Genius is of no sex. What place shall we assign her?

It is not necessary for the purposes of criticism that a scale of genius should be formed, that a list of the orbs of song should be made out. Shakespeare is the greatest author of mankind; for generations he has been hailed as the mightiest of mere men. Mrs. Browning is not Shakespeare; but we do not talk amusingly when we claim her as his counterpart. Milton was endowed with gifts of the soul which have been imparted to few of our race. His name is almost identified with sublimity. He is in fact the sublimest of men. In fitness of conception, terseness of diction, and loftiness of thought, the following lines have all that Miltonic genius could impart:—

“Raise the majestiesOf thy disconsolate brows, O well-beloved,And front with level eyelids the To Come,And all the dark o’ the world. Rise, woman, riseTo thy peculiar and best attitudesOf doing good and of enduring ill,—Of comforting for ill, and teaching good,And reconciling all that ill and goodUnto the patience of a constant hope,—Rise with thy daughters! If sin came by thee,And by sin, death,—the ransom righteousness,The heavenly light, and compensative rest,Shall come by means of thee. If woe by theeHad issue to the world, thou shalt go forthAn angel of the woe thou didst achieve,Found acceptable to the world, insteadOf others of that name, of whose bright stepsThy deed stripped bare the hills. Be satisfied;Something thou hast to bear through womanhood,Peculiar suffering, answering to the sin;—Some pang paid down for each new human life,Some weariness in guarding such a life,Some coldness from the guarded; some mistrustFrom those thou hast too well served; from those belovedToo loyally, some treason; feeblenessWithin thy heart, and cruelty without,And pressures of an alien tyrannyWith its dynastic reasons of larger bonesAnd stronger sinews. But, go to! thy loveShall chant itself its own beatitudes,After its own life working. A child’s kissSet on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad;A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich;A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong.Thou shalt be served thyself by every senseOf service which thou renderest.”

“Raise the majesties

Of thy disconsolate brows, O well-beloved,

And front with level eyelids the To Come,

And all the dark o’ the world. Rise, woman, rise

To thy peculiar and best attitudes

Of doing good and of enduring ill,—

Of comforting for ill, and teaching good,

And reconciling all that ill and good

Unto the patience of a constant hope,—

Rise with thy daughters! If sin came by thee,

And by sin, death,—the ransom righteousness,

The heavenly light, and compensative rest,

Shall come by means of thee. If woe by thee

Had issue to the world, thou shalt go forth

An angel of the woe thou didst achieve,

Found acceptable to the world, instead

Of others of that name, of whose bright steps

Thy deed stripped bare the hills. Be satisfied;

Something thou hast to bear through womanhood,

Peculiar suffering, answering to the sin;—

Some pang paid down for each new human life,

Some weariness in guarding such a life,

Some coldness from the guarded; some mistrust

From those thou hast too well served; from those beloved

Too loyally, some treason; feebleness

Within thy heart, and cruelty without,

And pressures of an alien tyranny

With its dynastic reasons of larger bones

And stronger sinews. But, go to! thy love

Shall chant itself its own beatitudes,

After its own life working. A child’s kiss

Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad;

A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich;

A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong.

Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense

Of service which thou renderest.”

In seeking to ascertain the precise position which Mrs. Browning occupies in relation to other writers, critics of general common sense will select a class of favourites who have exerted a mighty sway over thestrongly pulsing heart of common humanity. Some will place in this list Burns, Moore, and Scott. With others, Byron, Wordsworth, and Tennyson will figure as chiefs. Now, in this selection, we venture to affirm Mrs. Browning has been often enrolled by men as well as by women; by some high upon the list, by others, of course, upon a lower level. There are not many good sonnets in English literature, but in this most difficult and elaborate form of composition Mrs. Browning was eminently successful. We could select half a dozen excellent sonnets from Mrs. Browning with more ease than from Shakespeare, or Milton, or any other writer save Wordsworth.

Of her mere literary style we care to say but little, and still less of her faults. She was essentially a self-taught and self-sustained artist. Her correspondence with Mr. John Kenyon, the poet, did not commence till she was thirty years of age, and consequently she owed less to his influences than some of her critics suppose. Her style is strong and clear, but uneven and abrupt. A sentence or paragraph often limps a little after the hastening thought, and a degree of stiffness is sometimes given by a pet word, coined, or obsolete, or picked up in an old book. It would be absurd to deny that certain characteristics of her poetry withhold it from the many and confine it to the few. The true and eternally grateful notes are struck without show of art or self-conscious ambition. Still, following the rule that she ought to be judged by her best, it must be admitted that she is the rose, the consummate crown, the rarer and stronger and more passionate Sappho of our time.

CHARACTER OF MRS. BROWNING.

It must have been about 1835 that Miss Mitford first saw Miss Barrett, and to this period the following portrait in the “Recollections of a Literary Life” doubtless referred:—“My first acquaintance with Elizabeth Barrett commenced about fifteen years ago. She was certainly one of the most interesting persons I had ever seen. Everybody who then saw her said the same; so it is not merely the impression of my partiality or my enthusiasm. Of a slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a most expressive face, large tender eyes richly fringed by dark eyelashes, a smile like a sunbeam, and such a look of youthfulness, that I had some difficulty in persuading a friend, in whose carriage we went together to Chiswick, that the translatress of the “Prometheus” of Æschylus, the authoress of the “Essay on Mind,” was old enough to be introduced into company; in technical language—was out.” But although not strikingly fair to look upon, her nature was so gentle, and her manners so interesting, that they stood her in the stead of health and beauty.

Mrs. Browning was endowed with the highest imaginative and intellectual qualities. In her poems are passages which admit of being compared with those of the few sovereigns of literature; touches which only the mightiest give. We admire and reverence the breadth and versatility of her genius; no sameness; no one idea; no type character; a woman of great acuteness and originality—one of the prime spirits of this century.

Our poetess laid her splendid powers on the altarof God. Deep chastened affection, and nobleness of faith glow and sparkle in her life as well as in her verse, with a rare brilliancy. “She is a Christian,” to quote the words of a popular writer, “not in the sense of appreciating, like Carlyle, the loftiness of the Christian type of character; not in the sense of adopting, like Goethe, a Christian machinery for artistic self-worship; nor even in the sense of approaching, like Wordsworth, an august but abstract morality; but in the sense of finding, like Cowper, the whole hope of humanity bound up in Christ, and taking all the children of her mind to Him, that He may lay His hand on them and bless them. It is well that Mrs. Browning is a Christian. It is difficult, but possible, to bear the reflection that many great female writers have rejected that gospel which has done more for woman than any other civilizing agency; but it is well that the greatest woman of all looks up in faith and love to that eye which fell on Mary from the cross.”

“I turn from the critical unsympathetic, public,—inclined to judge harshly because they have only seen superficially and not thought deeply. I appeal to that larger and more solemn public, who know how to look with tender humility at faults and errors; how to admire generously extraordinary genius, and how to reverence with warm, full hearts, all noble virtue.”

E. C. Gaskell.

WORKS OF FICTION.

There are few things more worthy of notice thanthose strange mutations of opinion, and returning circuits of belief, to which the human mind is subject. The same tastes and habits, the same fashions and follies, the same delusions and the same doubts, seem to have their periodical cycles of recurrence. Theories which have been solemnly buried, suddenly rear their unexpected heads, and are received with all the more favour because of the contempt and derision which followed them to the grave. How many things are taken for granted which want thinking about! The wholesale condemnation of works of fiction is consummate absurdity. When all are condemned, people are apt to suppose that any may be read with impunity. Some novelists have sought for their heroes and heroines among thieves and desperadoes; flagitiously indifferent alike to fact and morality, they have laboured with pernicious success to invest these wretched characters with a halo of romantic interest and dignity: but if on this account we give up the principle, then we must give up poetry, fable, allegory, and all kinds of imaginative literature. The society of our highest intellects must be renounced. Fictitious literature has been condemned on the ground that those novels which are taken up with a description of the world in its most vain and frivolous aspects, are the most popular. This is not true. The works of our modern fictionists are exceedingly popular; and no one acquainted with them will dare to say they are open to such a charge. Not a few object to works of fiction because they make them discontented with real life. It is true the Bible teaches us that it is wrong to murmur at the allotments of Providence; and the Episcopal Churchbeautifully prays every day, “Give us always minds contented with our present condition.” But it is equally true that the Scriptures teach us to aim at a higher standard than we have yet attained, and clergymen inculcate the necessity for progress. We ought to be dissatisfied with ourselves, and with many things that we see in others. Let us seek to rise to the lofty ideal presented in good novels, and if we do not find that our ascending steps lead us into a purer atmosphere, and into regions where grow perennial fruit—then complain.

BIOGRAPHY.

Charlotte Brontë was born at Thornton, in the parish of Bradford, on the 21st of April, 1816. Her father, the Rev. Patrick Brontë, was a native of the County Down, in Ireland; and her mother, Maria, was the third daughter of Mr. Thomas Branwell, Penzance, Cornwall. In 1820, Mr. Brontë removed to Haworth, a chapelry in the West Riding, and Mrs. Brontë died the following year. Charlotte in after-years could but dimly recall the remembrance of her mother. The servants were impressed with the cleverness of the little Brontës, and often said they had never seen such a clever child as Charlotte. Mr. Brontë’s account of his children is exceedingly interesting:—

“As soon as they could read and write, Charlotte and her brother and sisters used to invent and act little plays of their own, in which the Duke of Wellington, my daughter Charlotte’s hero, was sure to come off conqueror; when a dispute would not unfrequently arise amongst them regarding thecomparative merits of him, Buonaparte, Hannibal, and Cæsar. When the argument got warm, and rose to its height, as their mother was then dead, I had sometimes to come in as arbitrator, and settle the dispute according to the best of my judgment. Generally, in the management of these concerns, I frequently thought that I discovered signs of rising talent, which I had seldom or never before seen in any of their age.... A circumstance now occurs to my mind which I may as well mention. When my children were very young, when, as far as I can remember, the oldest was about ten years of age, and the youngest about four, thinking that they knew more than I had yet discovered, in order to make them speak with less timidity, I deemed that if they were put under a sort of cover I might gain my end; and happening to have a mask in the house, I told them all to stand and speak boldly from under cover of the mask. I began with the youngest (Anne, afterwards Acton Bell), and asked what a child like her most wanted; she answered, ‘Age and experience.’ I asked the next (Emily, afterwards Ellis Bell), what I had best do with her brother Branwell, who was sometimes a naughty boy; she answered, ‘Reason with him, and when he won’t listen to reason, whip him.’ I asked Branwell what was the best way of knowing the difference between the intellects of man and woman; he answered, ‘By considering the difference between them as to their bodies.’ I then asked Charlotte what was the best book in the world; she answered, ‘The Bible.’ What was the next best; she answered, ‘The Book of Nature.’ I then asked the next what was thebest mode of education for a woman; she answered, ‘By laying it out in preparation for a happy eternity.’ I may not have given precisely their words, but I have nearly done so, as they made a deep and lasting impression on my memory.”

Soon after Mrs. Brontë’s death, an elder sister came from Penzance to superintend her brother-in-law’s household, and look after his six children. Miss Branwell taught her nieces sewing and the household arts, in which Charlotte became an adept. In 1823, a school was established for the daughters of clergymen, at a place called Cowan Bridge. Mr. Brontë took Maria and Elizabeth to Cowan Bridge, in July, 1824; and in September, he brought Charlotte and Emily to be admitted as pupils. Maria was untidy, but gentle, and intellectual. Elizabeth won much upon the esteem of the superintendent of the school by her exemplary patience. Emily was distinguished for fortitude. Charlotte was a “bright, clever, little child.” Maria died in May, and Elizabeth in June, 1825. Charlotte was thus early called upon to bear the responsibilities of an elder sister in a motherless family; both Charlotte and Emily returned to the school at the close of the midsummer holidays in this fatal year. But before the next winter they left that establishment.

In 1831, she was sent to Miss Wooler’s school at Roe Head, where her remarkable talents were duly appreciated by her kind instructress, and friendships were formed with some of her fellow-pupils that lasted throughout life. One of these early friends thus graphically describes the impression she made upon her.

“I first saw her coming out of a covered cart, in very old-fashioned clothes, and looking very cold and miserable. She was coming to school at Miss Wooler’s. When she appeared in the schoolroom, her dress was changed, but just as old. She looked a little old woman, so short-sighted that she always appeared to be seeking something, and moving her head from side to side to catch a sight of it. She was very shy and nervous, and spoke with a strong Irish accent. When a book was given her, she dropped her head over it till her nose nearly touched it; and when she was told to hold her head up, up went the book after it, still closer to her nose, so that it was not possible to help laughing.”

Towards the end of the year and half that she remained as a pupil at Roe Head, she received her first bad mark for an imperfect lesson. Charlotte wept bitterly, and her school-fellows were indignant. Miss Wooler withdrew the bad mark.

In 1835, she returned to Miss Wooler’s school as a teacher, and Emily accompanied her as a scholar. Charlotte’s life here was very happy. The girls were hardly strangers to her, some of them being younger sisters of those who had been her own playmates; and however trying the duties were she had to perform, there was always a thoughtful friend watching over her in the person of good Miss Wooler. But her life was too sedentary, and she was advised to return to the parsonage. She did so, and the change at once proved beneficial.

At Haworth she met the person who made the first proposal of marriage to her. Miss Brontë respected the young man very deeply, but as she didnot really love him, she refused to marry him. Soon after, an Irish clergyman, fresh from Dublin University, whom she had only met once, sent her a letter, which proved to be a declaration of love and a proposal of matrimony. But although she had no hope of another offer, the witty, lively, and ardent Irishman was summarily rejected. Restored to health and strength, instead of remaining at Haworth to be a burden to her father, and to live on there in idleness perhaps for years, she determined, if everything else failed, to turn housemaid. Soon after, she became engaged as a governess in a family where she was destined to find an ungenial residence. The children all loved her, more or less, according to their different characters. But the mother was proud and pompous, and Miss Brontë as proud, though not so pompous, as she. In 1839, she left the family of the wealthy Yorkshire manufacturer; and in 1841, found her second and last situation as a governess. This time she became a member of a kind-hearted and friendly household. But her salary, after deducting the expense of washing, amounted to only £16; moreover, the career of a governess was to Miss Brontë a perpetual attempt to force her faculties into a direction for which her previous life had unfitted them. So at Christmas she left this situation.

Several attempts to open a school at the parsonage having proved futile, with the view of better qualifying themselves for the task of teaching, Miss Brontë and her sister Emily went to Brussels in 1842, and took up their abode in Madame Héger’spensionnat. Towards the close of the year, word came from England that her aunt, Miss Branwell,was very ill. Before they got home, the funeral was over, and Mr. Brontë and Anne were sitting together in quiet grief for one who had done her part well in the household for nearly twenty years. About the end of January, 1843, Miss Brontë returned to Brussels alone for another six months.

In returning to England, in 1844, Miss Brontë determined to commence a school, and to facilitate her success in this plan, M. Héger, gave her a kind of diploma, sealed with the Athenée Royal, of which he was a professor. But no pupils made their appearance, and consequently the sisters abandoned the idea of school-keeping, and turned their thoughts to literature. Their volume of poems was published in 1846; their names being veiled under those of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, but it met with little or no attention. It is possible that the names of Emily and Anne may not survive the present generation; but certainly Charlotte’s writings have placed her in the highest rank of lady novelists.

The winter of 1848 was a dark one at Haworth. Her only brother, and the sister she so intensely loved, and whose genius she ever delighted to exalt above her own, died within a few weeks of each other. Miss Brontë was prostrate with fever; and Anne, always delicate, grew rapidly worse. The two went together to Scarborough the following spring. There the younger sister died, and the elder was left alone with her aged father in that dreary deserted home among the graves. In June, 1850, she visited London, saw her old hero the Duke of Wellington, at the Chapel Royal, had an interview with Lewes, and dined with Thackeray. The same summer shewent on to Edinburgh to join the friends with whom she had been staying in town. In a letter to a correspondent, she says: “Do not think that I blaspheme, when I tell you that your great London, as compared to Dunedin, ‘mine own romantic town,’ is as prose compared to poetry; or as a great rumbling, rambling, heavy epic compared to a lyric, brief, bright, clear, and vital as a flash of lightning. You have nothing like Scott’s monument; or, if you had that, and all the glories of architecture assembled together, you have nothing like Arthur’s seat, and above all, you have not the Scottish national character; and it is that grand character after all which gives the land its true charm, its true greatness.”

The three following years pass over. One of the deepest interests of her life centres round the 29th of June, 1854. On that day many old and humble friends saw her come out of Haworth church, leaning on the arm of “one of the best gentlemen in the county,” and looking “like a snowdrop.” We almost smile as we think of the merciless derider of weak and insipid suitors finding a lord and a master—of the hand which drew the three solemn ecclesiastics, Malone, Donne, and Sweeting, locked at the altar in that of her father’s curate, and learning from experience,—

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