Robert Browning - The Complete Works of Robert Browning - Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition

‘His power is much in advance of “Strafford”, which is his poorest work of art. Ah, the brain stratifies and matures, even in the pauses of the pen.

‘At the same time, his treatment in England affects him, naturally, and for my part I set it down as an infamy of that public — no other word. He says he has told you some things you had not heard, and which I acknowledge I always try to prevent him from repeating to anyone. I wonder if he has told you besides (no, I fancy not) that an English lady of rank, an acquaintance of ours, (observe that!) asked, the other day, the American minister, whether “Robert was not an American.” The minister answered — ”is it possible that you ask me this? Why, there is not so poor a village in the United States, where they would not tell you that Robert Browning was an Englishman, and that they were sorry he was not an American.” Very pretty of the American minister, was it not? — and literally true, besides… . Ah, dear Sarianna — I don’t complain for myself of an unappreciating public. I have no reason. But, just for that reason, I complain more about Robert — only he does not hear me complain — to you I may say, that the blindness, deafness and stupidity of the English public to Robert are amazing. Of course Milsand had heard his name — well the contrary would have been strange. Robert is. All England can’t prevent his existence, I suppose. But nobody there, except a small knot of pre-Raffaellite men, pretend to do him justice. Mr. Forster has done the best, — in the press. As a sort of lion, Robert has his range in society — and — for the rest, you should see Chapman’s returns! — While, in America he is a power, a writer, a poet — he is read — he lives in the hearts of the people.

‘“Browning readings” here in Boston — ”Browning evenings” there. For the rest, the English hunt lions, too, Sarianna, but their lions are chiefly chosen among lords and railway kings… .’

We cannot be surprised at Mrs. Browning’s desire for a more sustained literary activity on her husband’s part. We learn from his own subsequent correspondence that he too regarded the persevering exercise of his poetic faculty as almost a religious obligation. But it becomes the more apparent that the restlessness under which he was now labouring was its own excuse; and that its causes can have been no mystery even to those ‘outside’ him. The life and climate of Italy were beginning to undermine his strength. We owe it perhaps to the great and sorrowful change, which was then drawing near, that the full power of work returned to him.

During the winter of 1859-60, Mr. Val Prinsep was in Rome. He had gone to Siena with Mr. Burne Jones, bearing an introduction from Rossetti to Mr. Browning and his wife; and the acquaintance with them was renewed in the ensuing months. Mr. Prinsep had acquired much knowledge of the popular, hence picturesque aspects of Roman life, through a French artist long resident in the city; and by the help of the two young men Mr. Browning was also introduced to them. The assertion that during his married life he never dined away from home must be so far modified, that he sometimes joined Mr. Prinsep and his friend in a Bohemian meal, at an inn near the Porta Pinciana which they much frequented; and he gained in this manner some distinctive experiences which he liked long afterwards to recall. I am again indebted to Mr. Prinsep for a description of some of these.

‘The first time he honoured us was on an evening when the poet of the quarter of the “Monte” had announced his intention of coming to challenge a rival poet to a poetical contest. Such contests are, or were, common in Rome. In old times the Monte and the Trastevere, the two great quarters of the eternal city, held their meetings on the Ponte Rotto. The contests were not confined to the effusions of the poetical muse. Sometimes it was a strife between two lute-players, sometimes guitarists would engage, and sometimes mere wrestlers. The rivalry was so keen that the adverse parties finished up with a general fight. So the Papal Government had forbidden the meetings on the old bridge. But still each quarter had its pet champions, who were wont to meet in private before an appreciative, but less excitable audience, than in olden times.

‘Gigi (the host) had furnished a first-rate dinner, and his usual tap of excellent wine. (‘Vino del Popolo’ he called it.) The ‘Osteria’ had filled; the combatants were placed opposite each other on either side of a small table on which stood two ‘mezzi’ — long glass bottles holding about a quart apiece. For a moment the two poets eyed each other like two cocks seeking an opportunity to engage. Then through the crowd a stalwart carpenter, a constant attendant of Gigi’s, elbowed his way. He leaned over the table with a hand on each shoulder, and in a neatly turned couplet he then addressed the rival bards.

‘“You two,” he said, “for the honour of Rome, must do your best, for there is now listening to you a great Poet from England.”

‘Having said this, he bowed to Browning, and swaggered back to his place in the crowd, amid the applause of the on-lookers.

‘It is not necessary to recount how the two Improvisatori poetized, even if I remembered, which I do not.

‘On another occasion, when Browning and Story were dining with us, we had a little orchestra (mandolins, two guitars, and a lute,) to play to us. The music consisted chiefly of well-known popular airs. While they were playing with great fervour the Hymn to Garibaldi — an air strictly forbidden by the Papal Government, three blows at the door resounded through the ‘Osteria’. The music stopped in a moment. I saw Gigi was very pale as he walked down the room. There was a short parley at the door. It opened, and a sergeant and two Papal gendarmes marched solemnly up to the counter from which drink was supplied. There was a dead silence while Gigi supplied them with large measures of wine, which the gendarmes leisurely imbibed. Then as solemnly they marched out again, with their heads well in the air, looking neither to the right nor the left. Most discreet if not incorruptible guardians of the peace! When the door was shut the music began again; but Gigi was so earnest in his protestations, that my friend Browning suggested we should get into carriages and drive to see the Coliseum by moonlight. And so we sallied forth, to the great relief of poor Gigi, to whom it meant, if reported, several months of imprisonment, and complete ruin.

‘In after-years Browning frequently recounted with delight this night march.

‘“We drove down the Corso in two carriages,” he would say. “In one were our musicians, in the other we sat. Yes! and the people all asked, ‘who are these who make all this parade?’ At last some one said, ‘Without doubt these are the fellows who won the lottery,’ and everybody cried, ‘Of course these are the lucky men who have won.’“‘

The two persons whom Mr. Browning saw most, and most intimately, during this and the ensuing winter, were probably Mr. and Mrs. Story. Allusion has already been made to the opening of the acquaintance at the Baths of Lucca in 1853, to its continuance in Rome in ‘53 and ‘54, and to the artistic pursuits which then brought the two men into close and frequent contact with each other. These friendly relations were cemented by their children, who were of about the same age; and after Mrs. Browning’s death, Miss Browning took her place in the pleasant intercourse which renewed itself whenever their respective visits to Italy and to England again brought the two families together. A no less lasting and truly affectionate intimacy was now also growing up with Mr. Cartwright and his wife — the Cartwrights (of Aynhoe) of whom mention was made in the Siena letter to F. Leighton; and this too was subsequently to include their daughter, now Mrs. Guy Le Strange, and Mr. Browning’s sister. I cannot quite ascertain when the poet first knew Mr. Odo Russell, and his mother, Lady William Russell, who was also during this, or at all events the following winter, in Rome; and whom afterwards in London he regularly visited until her death; but the acquaintance was already entering on the stage in which it would spread as a matter of course through every branch of the family. His first country visit, when he had returned to England, was paid with his son to Woburn Abbey.