Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair, The silver answer rang: 'Not Death, but Love.' An interval of some years elapsed ere Miss Barrett came forward with another volume, though she was occasionally seen as a contributor to literary journals. She became in 1846 the wife of a kindred spirit, Robert Browning, the poet, and removed with him to Italy. In Florence she witnessed the revolutionary outbreak of 1848, and this furnished the theme of her next important work, Casa Guidi Windows, a poem containing 'the impressions of the writer upon events in Tuscany of which she was a witness' from the windows of her house, the Casa Guidi in Florence. The poem is a spirited semi-political narrative of actual events and genuine feelings. Part might pass for the work of Byron-so free is its versification, and so warm the affection of Mrs Browning for Italy and the Italians-but there are also passages that would have served better for a prose pamphlet. The genius of the poetess had become practical and energetic-inspirited by what she saw around her, and by the new tie which, as we learn from this pleasing poem, now brightened her visions of the future: The sun strikes, through the windows, up the floor; And fix thy brave blue English eyes on mine, In 1856 appeared Aurora Leigh, an elaborate While breaking into voluble ecstasy, I flattered all the beauteous country round, In 1860, Poems before Congress evinced Mrs Browning's unabated interest in Italy and its people. This was her last publication. She died on the 29th of June 1861, at the Casa Guidi, Florence; and in front of the house, a marble tablet records that in it wrote and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who, by her song, created a golden link between Italy and England, and that in gratitude Florence had erected that memorial. In 1862 the literary remains of Mrs Browning were published under the title of Last Poems. We subjoin a piece written in the early, and we think the purest style of the poetess : Cowper's Grave. Earth surely now may give her calm to whom she gave her anguish. O poets, from poem or novel in blank verse, which Mrs Browning It is a place where poets crowned may feel the heart's characterises as the 'most mature' of her works, and one into which her 'highest convictions upon It is a place where happy saints may weep amid their decaying. life and art are entered.' It presents us, like Wordsworth's Prelude, with the history of a poet- Yet let the grief and humbleness, as low as silence, praying. ical mind-an autobiography of the heart and languish. intellect; but Wordsworth, with all his contempt for literary conventionalities,' would never have ventured on such a sweeping departure from established critical rules and poetical diction as Mrs O Browning has here carried out. There is a prodigality of genius in the work, many just and fine remarks, ethical and critical, and passages evincing a keen insight into the human heart as well as into the working of our social institutions and artificial restraints. A noble hatred of falsehood, hypocrisy, and oppression breathes through the whole. But the materials of the poem are so strangely mingled and so discordant-prose and poetry so mixed up together-scenes of splendid passion and tears followed by dry metaphysical and polemical disquisitions, or rambling commonplace conversation, that the effect of the poem as a whole, though splendid in parts, is unsatisfactory. An English Landscape.—From 'Aurora Leigh, The thrushes still sang in it. At which word Christians, at your cross of hope, a hopeless hand was O men, this man in brotherhood your weary paths clinging! beguiling, Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while ye were smiling! قطر And now, what time ye all may read through dimming How discord on the music fell, and darkness on the He wore no less a loving face because so broken-hearted. He shall be strong to sanctify the poet's high vocation, And bow the meekest Christian down in meeker adoration. Nor ever shall he be, in praise, by wise or good forsaken, Named softly as the household name of one whom God hath taken. With quiet sadness and no gloom I learn to think upon him With meekness that is gratefulness to God whose heaven hath won him, ways removing, Its women and its men became, beside him, true and loving. And though, in blindness, he remained unconscious of that guiding, And things provided came without the sweet sense of providing, He testified this solemn truth, while frenzy desolatedNor man nor nature satisfy whom only God created. Like a sick child that knoweth not his mother whilst she blesses And drops upon his burning brow the coolness of her kisses That turns his fevered eyes around-'My mother! where's my mother?' As if such tender words and deeds could come from any other! ROBERT BROWNING. The head of what has been termed the psychowho for more than thirty years has been recoglogical school of poetry is MR ROBERT BROWNING, nised as one of our most original and intellectual poets. Latterly, the public-to use his own words The British Public, ye who like me not (God love you!), whom I yet have laboured for, have been more indulgent to the poet, and more ready to acknowledge his real merits. Mr Browning first attracted attention in 1836, when he published his poem of Paracelsus. He had previously published anonymously a poem entitled Pauline, a Fragment of a Confession. Paracelsus evinced that love of psychological analysis and that subtle imagination more fully displayed in the author's later works. It is the history of a soul struggling and aspiring after hidden knowledge, power, and happiness All ambitious, upwards tending, Like plants in mines, which never saw the sun but is thwarted and baffled in the visionary pursuit. For an author of twenty-four years of age, this was a remarkable poem. Mr Browning next tried the historical drama. In 1837 his tragedy of Strafford was brought on the stage, the hero It was played several nights, but cannot be said being personated by Macready, a favourite actor. to have been successful. Mr Horne, in his New Spirit of the Age, characterises it as a 'piece of passionate action with the bones of poetry.' Van Dyck's portrait of Strafford, so well known from copies and engravings, will always, we suspect, eclipse or supersede any pen-and-ink delineation of the splendid apostate. The poet now went to Italy, where he resided several years, and in 1841 he sent forth another psychological poem-'the richest puzzle to all lovers of poetry which was ever given to the world'-a thin volume entitled Sordello. Mr Browning's subsequent works were in a dramatic form and spirit, the most popular being Pippa Passes, forming part of a series called Bells and Pomegranates (1841-44), of which a second collection was published containing some exquisite sketches and monologues. 'Pippa is a girl from a silk-factory, who passes the various persons of the play at certain critical moments, in the course of her holiday, and becomes unconsciously to herself a determining influence on the fortune of each.' In 1843 the poet produced another regular drama, a tragedy entitled A Blot in the Scutcheon, which was acted at Drury Lane with moderate success, and is the best of the author's plays. Next to it is King Victor and King Charles, a tragedy in four acts, in which the characters are well drawn and well contrasted. Altogether Mr Browning has written eight plays and two short dramatic sketches, A Soul's Tragedy and In a Balcony. Some of the others-The Return of the Druses, Colombe's Birthday, and Luria-are superior productions both in conception and execution. Two narrative poems, Christmas Eve and Easter Day, present the author's marked peculiarities-grotesque imagery, insight into the human heart, vivid painting, and careless, faulty versification. In principle, the poet is thoroughly orthodox, and treats the two great Christian festivals in a Christian spirit. Of the lighter pieces of the author, the most popular is The Pied Piper of Hamelin, a Child's Story, told with inimitable liveliness and spirit, and with a flow of rattling rhymes and quaint fancies rivalling Southey's Cataract of Lodore. This amusing production is as unlike the usual style of its author as John Gilpin is unlike the usual style of Cowper. In 1855 the reputation of Mr Browning was greatly enhanced by the publication of a collection of poems, fifty in number, bearing the comprehensive title of Men and Women. In 1864 another volume of character sketches appeared, entitled Dramatis Persona; and in 1868 was produced the most elaborate of all his works, The Ring and the Book, an Italian story of the seventeenth century concerning certain assassins Put to death By heading or hanging, as befitted ranks, At Rome on February twenty-two, Since our salvation sixteen ninety-eight. The latest works of Mr Browning are Balaustion's Adventure, including a Transcript from Euripides (1871)-which is another recital of the story of Alcestes, supposed to be told by a Greek girl who had witnessed the performance; Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society (1871), a name under which is thinly veiled the name of Louis Napoleon; Fifine at the Fair (1872); Red Cotton Night-cap Country (1873); and Aristophanes Apology, including a Transcript from Euripides, being the last Adventure of Balaustion (1875). Of Aristophanes Splendour of wit that springs a thunder ball— we have this bright pen-and-ink portrait : And no ignoble presence! on the bulge Of the clear baldness-all his head one browTrue, the veins swelled, blue network, and there surged A red from cheek to temple-then retired As if the dark-leaved chaplet damped a flame- Waited their incense; while the pursed mouth's pout While the head, face, nay, pillared throat thrown back, Beard whitening under like a vinous foam- I thought, such domineering deity Hephaistos might have carved to cut the brine In 1875 also appeared from the prolific pen of the poet The Inn Album. A fertile and original author with high and generous aims, Mr Browning has proved his poetic power alike in thought, description, passion, and conception of character. But the effect of even his happiest productions is marred by obscurity, by eccentricities of style and expression, and by the intrusion of familiar phrases and Hudibrastic rhymes or dry metaphysical discussions. His choice of subjects-chiefly Italianhis stories of monastic life, repulsive crimes, and exceptional types of character-are also against his popularity." The Ring and the Book is prolix : four volumes of blank verse, in which the same tale of murder is told by various interlocutors, with long digressions from old chronicles and other sources-such a work must repel all but devoted poetical readers. These, however, Mr Browning has obtained, and the student who perseveres, digging for the pure untempered gold' of poetry, will find his reward in the pages of this master of psychological monologues and dramatic lyrics. Mr Browning is a native of Camberwell in Surrey, born in 1812, and educated at the London University. He is also an honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. In November 1846 he was married, as already stated, to Miss Elizabeth Barrett. Of Mr Browning's many descriptions of the sunny south,' the following is a favourable specimen, and Miss Mitford states that it was admired by Mr Ruskin for its exceeding truthfulness: Picture of the Grape-harvest. But to-day not a boat reached Salerno, Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyards In the vat half-way up on our house-side While your brother all bare-legged is dancing Dead-beaten, in effort on effort To keep the grapes under, For still when he seems all but master, From girls who keep coming and going And eyes shut against the rain's driving, For under the hedges of aloe, And where, on its bed Of the orchard's black mould, the love-apple All the young ones are kneeling and filling Tempted out by the first rainy weather- As to-night will be proved to my sorrow, We shall feast our grape-gleaners-two dozen, Macaroni, so tempting to swallow, In slippery strings, And gourds fried in great purple slices, That colour of kings. Meantime, see the grape-bunch they've brought you- O'er the heavy blue bloom on each globe Still follows with fretful persistence. This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball, Like an onion's, each smoother and whiter; From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper, And end with the prickly pear's red flesh, At last the people in a body To the Town Hall came flocking: ''Tis clear,' cried they, 'our Mayor's a noddy; Or, sure as fate, we 'll send you packing!' IV. An hour they sat in council, At length the Mayor broke silence : It's easy to bid one rack one's brain- Just as he said this, what should hap 'Bless us,' cried the Mayor, 'what's that?' (With the Corporation as he sat, Looking little, though wondrous fat; Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister, Than a too-long-opened oyster, Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous V. 'Come in!'-the Mayor cried, looking bigger : And in did come the strangest figure. His queer long coat from heel to head He advanced to the Council-table : And, 'Please your honours,' said he, 'I'm able, On creatures that do people harm, The mole, and toad, and newt, and viper; (And here they noticed round his neck A scarf of red and yellow stripe, To match with his coat of the self-same check; And at the scarf's end hung a pipe; And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying, As if impatient to be playing Upon this pipe, as low it dangled Over his vesture so old-fangled.) 'Yet,' said he, 'poor piper as I am, In Tartary I freed the Cham, Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats; I eased in Asia the Nizam Of a monstrous brood of vampyre bats : Will you give me a thousand guilders?' 'One? fifty thousand ! '-was the exclamation Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation. VII. Into the street the Piper stept, Smiling first a little smile, To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, From street to street he piped advancing, (As he the manuscript he cherished) To Rat-land home his commentary, Which was 'At the first shrill notes of the pipe, I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, And putting apples, wondrous ripe, And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards, FROM 1830 Is breathed) called out: "O rats, rejoice! Just as methought it said, "Come, bore me!" VIII. You should have heard the Hamelin people IX. A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue; For Council dinners made rare havoc 'Beside,' quoth the Mayor, with a knowing wink, The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood To the children merrily skipping by- 'He never can cross that mighty top! When lo! as they reached the mountain's side, As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed; And the Piper advanced and the children followed, And when all were in to the very last, The door in the mountain-side shut fast. Did I say all? No! one was lame, And could not dance the whole of the way; And in after-years, if you would blame His sadness, he was used to say: 'It's dull in our town since my playmates left; I can't forget that I 'm bereft Of all the pleasant sights they see, Which the Piper also promised me; Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew, The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here, My lame foot would be speedily cured, XIV. Alas, alas for Hamelin ! There came into many a burgher's pate As the needle's eye takes a camel in! Wherever it was men's lot to find him, And bring the children all behind him. But when they saw 'twas a lost endeavour, And Piper and dancers were gone for ever, They made a decree that lawyers never Should think their records dated duly, |