An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 60

But he was dead: 'twas about noon, the day Somewhat declining: we five buried him That eve, and then, dividing, went five ways, {645} And I, disguised, returned to Ephesus.

By this, the cave's mouth must be filled with sand.

Valens is lost, I know not of his trace; The Bactrian was but a wild childish man, And could not write nor speak, but only loved: {650} So, lest the memory of this go quite, Seeing that I to-morrow fight the beasts, I tell the same to Phoebas, whom believe!

For many look again to find that face, Beloved John's to whom I ministered, {655} Somewhere in life about the world; they err: Either mistaking what was darkly spoke At ending of his book, as he relates, Or misconceiving somewhat of this speech Scattered from mouth to mouth, as I suppose. {660} Believe ye will not see him any more About the world with his divine regard!

For all was as I say, and now the man Lies as he lay once, breast to breast with G.o.d.

-- 652. Pamphylax tells the story to Phoebas, on the eve of his martyrdom.

654-660. See Gospel of St. John 21:20-24.

662. regard: look.

"To whom thus Michael, with regard benign:" P. L., XI., 334.

"From that placid aspect and meek regard."--P. R., III., 217.

De Quincey remarks (Milton vs. Southey and Landor) in reply to Landor's demurring that "meek regard conveys no new idea to placid aspect": "But ASPECT is the countenance of Christ when pa.s.sive to the gaze of others; REGARD is the same countenance in active contemplation of those others whom he loves or pities.

The PLACID ASPECT expresses, therefore, the divine rest; the MEEK REGARD expresses the divine benignity; the one is the self-absorption of the total G.o.dhead, the other the external emanation of the Filial G.o.dhead."

{Cerinthus read and mused; one added this:-- {665}

"If Christ, as thou affirmest, be of men Mere man, the first and best but nothing more,-- Account Him, for reward of what He was, Now and forever, wretchedest of all.

For see; Himself conceived of life as love, {670} Conceived of love as what must enter in, Fill up, make one with His each soul He loved: Thus much for man's joy, all men's joy for Him.

Well, He is gone, thou sayest, to fit reward.

But by this time are many souls set free, {675} And very many still retained alive: Nay, should His coming be delayed awhile, Say, ten years longer (twelve years, some compute) See if, for every finger of thy hands, There be not found, that day the world shall end, {680} Hundreds of souls, each holding by Christ's word That He will grow incorporate with all, With me as Pamphylax, with him as John, Groom for each bride! Can a mere man do this?

Yet Christ saith, this He lived and died to do. {685} Call Christ, then, the illimitable G.o.d, Or lost!"

But 'twas Cerinthus that is lost.}

-- 665. Cerinthus read and mused: It must be supposed that an opportunity had been afforded Cerinthus of reading the MS. by the one who added the postscript, which is addressed to him, and who sought his conversion.

683. That is, 'With me as {with} Pamphylax, with him as {with} John': See Gospel of John, 17:11,21-23.

"In the critical examination of the evangelical records, the fourth Gospel suffered most. Strauss--in this instance following his early master and later antagonist, Baur--denied that St. John had anything to do with its composition. The author, he held, was neither St. John nor any one else who had personally known Christ: nor, in accordance with a widely accepted theory, did he believe it to be the work of a pupil of St. John, who, after the death of his master, related, from memory or from fragmentary notes, traditions and sayings which had been taught him, and made out of them a continuous history. Strauss p.r.o.nounced it to be a controversial work, written late in the second century after Christ, by a profound theologian of the Greek Gnostic and anti-Jewish school, whose design was not to add another to the existing biographies of Christ, not to represent him as a real man, nor to give an account of any human life, but to produce an elaborate theological work in which, under the veil of allegory, the Neo-platonic conception of Christ as the Logos, the realized Word of G.o.d, the divine principle of light and life, should be developed. With this purpose, the writer made a free selection from the sayings and doings of Christ as recorded in the three Gospels already written, and as freely invented others. All the events, all the words, of the Gospel thus composed, are subordinate to the main design, which was worked out by the author with an artistic completeness most ingeniously traced by his German interpreters. Each miracle symbolizes some important dogma, and its narration must be understood to mean that it embodies some deep spiritual truth, not, necessarily, that it ever actually took place. The author manifests, throughout, his ignorance of Jewish customs, and his antagonism to Jewish sentiments."

"The general purport of the poem can scarcely be doubted, as we look back upon it as a whole and consider its main conclusions.

The tendency of the argument is to diminish the importance of the original events--historical or traditional--on which the Christian religion is based. 'It is not worth while,'

the writer seems to say to Strauss and his followers, 'to occupy ourselves with discussions about miracles and events which are said to have taken place a long time ago, and can now neither be denied or proved. What we are concerned with, is, Christianity as it is now: as a religion which the human mind has through many generations developed, purified, spiritualized; and which has reacted upon human nature and made it wiser and n.o.bler.

Shall we give up this faith which has been so great a power for good in the world, and which, its whole past history justifies us in concluding, will continue its work of improvement, because our belief in certain events is shaken or destroyed? It would be vain, indeed, thus to build our religion on a foundation so unstable as material evidence. For human sensations are not infallible; they very often deceive us; we think we see objects, which are really the illusions of our own brain; others we see in part only, or distorted; others we fail to perceive at all. Our faith, essential as it is to the well-being of the deepest parts of our nature, must not be dependent on such controlling powers as these.'"

"He {Browning} was, we may suppose, offended by Strauss's ruthless attack on much that mankind has held sacred for ages.

His religious sense was revolted by the a.s.sumption that there was nothing in Christianity which could survive the destruction of the miraculous and supernatural elements in its history.

He desired to represent Christianity as an entirely spiritual religion, independent of external, material agencies. In order to make his argument as powerful as possible, he chose for his mouth-piece one of the personal followers of Christ, on whom, it might be supposed, the actual human life of his master had made a permanent and lively impression. With the details of Biblical criticism he had nothing to do; his principles were unaffected by discussions about the authenticity of the various parts of Gospels; so, in defiance of Strauss, the disciple he chose was that very John, whose personality, as recognized by long tradition, had been so much discredited. He showed how even in one of the disciples the recollection of wonders and signs could be transcended, and at last obliterated, by a spiritual faith which was sustained by the needs and faculties of the soul. The poem is, in effect, an eloquent protest in defence of 'the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge'."

From Mrs. M. G. Glazebrook's paper on 'A Death in the Desert', read before the London Browning Society.

A LIST OF CRITICISMS OF BROWNING'S WORKS.

(Selected from Dr. Frederick J. Furnivall's 'Bibliography of Robert Browning', contained in 'The Browning Society's Papers', Part I., with additions in Part II.)

1833. The Monthly Mag., N. S., V. 7, pp. 254-262: Review of 'Pauline', by W. J. Fox.

1835. The Examiner, Sept. 6, pp. 563-565: on 'Paracelsus', by John Forster.

1835. Monthly Repository, Nov., pp. 716-727: Review of 'Paracelsus', by W. J. Fox.

1836. New Monthly Mag., March, Vol. 46, pp. 289-308: 'Evidences of a New Genius for Dramatic Poetry.--No. 1.'

On 'Paracelsus', by John Forster.

1837. Edinburgh Rev., July, Vol. 66, pp. 132-151: 'Strafford'.

1848. N. A. Rev., April, Vol. 66, pp. 357-400: B.'s 'Plays and Poems', by James Russell Lowell.

1849. Eclectic Rev., London, 4th S. V. 26, pp. 203-214: on 1. the 'Poems', 2 vols. 1849, and 2. 'Sordello', 1840.

A sympathetic and excellent review.

1850. Ma.s.sachusetts Quarterly Rev., No. XI. June, Art. IV.

'Browning's Poems'. 1. 'Poems', 2 vols., Boston, 1850.

2. 'Christmas Eve' and 'Easter Day', London, 1850.

1850. Littell's Living Age, Vol. 25, pp. 403-409: on 'Christmas Eve'

and 'Easter Day'.

1857. The Christian Remembrancer, N. S., Vol. 39, pp. 361-390.

1861. North British Rev., May, pp. 350-374: on 'The Poems and Plays of R. B.', by F. H. Evans.

1863. Fraser's Mag., Feb., pp. 240-256.

1863. The Eclectic Rev., No. 23, N. S., May, pp. 436-454.

1863. National Rev., Oct., Vol. 47, pp. 417-446. Poetical Works of R. B., 3 vols., 3d ed., by R. H. Hutton; republ. in Hutton's 'Literary Essays, 1871'.

1864. The Eclectic and Congregational Rev., July, pp. 61-72: on 'Dramatis Personae', by E. Paxton Hood.