The Browning Cyclopaedia Part 19

In _Saul_, canto xviii., David says:--

"My flesh, that I seek In the G.o.dhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!"

David--to whom Christendom attributes the Psalms, even were he only the editor of that wonderful body of prayer and praise--as the utterer of sentiments like these, is permitted to express the orthodox opinion that he prophesied of the Christ who was to come. Mr. Browning would have hardly done this "dramatically." (What are termed "the Messianic Psalms"

are ii., xxi., xxii., xlv., lxxii., cx.) Pompilia, in _The Ring and the Book_, a character which is built up of the purest and warmest faith of the poet's heart, says:--

"I never realised G.o.d's truth before-- How He grew likest G.o.d in being born."

The poem ent.i.tled "The Sun," in _Ferishtah's Fancies_, No. 5, may be studied in this connection.

=Jews.= Browning had great sympathy with the Jewish spirit. See RABBI BEN EZRA, JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH, BEN KARSHOOK, HOLY CROSS DAY, and FILIPPO BALDINUCCI.

=Jochanan Hakkadosh.= (_Jocoseria_: 1883.) The Hebrew which Mr. Browning quotes in the tale as the t.i.tle of the work from which his incidents are derived, may be translated as "Collection of many Fables"; and the second Hebrew phrase means "from Moses to Moses [Moses Maimonides] there was never one like Moses." Although the story of this poem is not historical, it is founded on characters and events which are familiar to students of Jewish literature and history. Hakkadosh means "The Holy." Rabbi Yehudah Hannasi (the Prince) was the reputed author of the _Mishnah_, and was born before the year 140 of the Christian era. On account of his holy living he was surnamed Rabbenu Ha?kadosh. Jochanan means John. In the _Jewish Messenger_ for March 4th, 1887, the poem is reviewed from a Jewish point of view by "Mary M. Cohen," from which interesting study we extract the following particulars:--The scene of the poem is laid at Schiphaz, which is probably intended for Sheeraz, in Persia. "I think," says the auth.o.r.ess, "that, with artistic licence, Mr. Browning does not here portray any individual man, but takes the names and characteristics of several rabbis, fusing all into a whole. Jochanan finds old age a continued disappointment. He is represented as almost overtaken by death; his loving scholars, as was usual in the days of rabbinism, cl.u.s.ter about him for some worthy word of parting advice. One of the pupils asks: 'Say, does age acquiesce in vanished youth?' The rabbi, groaning, answers grimly:

"Last as first The truth speak I--in boyhood who began Striving to live an angel, and, amerced For such presumption, die now hardly, man.

What have I proved of life? To live, indeed, That much I learned."

It was suggested to the dying rabbi that if compa.s.sionating folk would render him up a portion of their lives, Hakkadosh might attain his fourscore years. Tsaddik, the scholar, well versed in the Targums, was foremost in urging the adoption of this expedient. By yielding up part of their lives, the pupils of Jochanan hope to combine the lessons of perfect wisdom and varied experience of life. But experience proves fatal to all the hopes, the aspirations, the high ideals of youth. Experience paralyses action. Experience chills the aspirations which animate the generous mind of the lover, the soldier, the poet, the statesman. When the men of experience contributed their quota, 'certain gamesome boys' must needs throw some of theirs also. This accounts for the rabbi being found alive unexpectedly after a long interval:

"Trailing clouds of glory do we come from G.o.d, who is our home."

The rabbi utters heaven-sent intuitions, the gift of these lads. Under the influence of the _Ruach_, or spirit, Jochanan declares that happiness, here and hereafter, is found in acting on the generous impulses, the n.o.ble ideals which are sent into the mind, in spite of the testimony of experience that we shall fail to realise our aspirations. 'There is no sin,' says the rabbi, 'except in doubting that the light which lured the unwary into darkness did no wrong, had I but marched on boldly.' What we see here as ant.i.theses, or as complementary truths, are reconciled hereafter. This reconciliation cannot be grasped by our present faculties.

The rabbi seems to 'babble' when he tries to express in words the truth he sees. The pure white light of truth, seen through the medium of the flesh, is composed of many coloured rays. Evil is like the dark lines in the spectrum. The whole duty of man is to learn to love. If he fails, it matters not; he has learned the art: 'so much for the attempt--anon performance.' Love is the sum of our spiritual intuitions, the law of our practical conduct.'

NOTES.--_Mishna_, the second or oral Jewish law; the great collection of legal decisions by the ancient rabbis; and so the fundamental doc.u.ment of Jewish oral law. _Schiphaz_, an imaginary place; or perhaps _Sheeraz_, on the Bundemeer, referred to at end of poem. _Jochanan Ben Sabbathai_, not historical. _Khubbezleh_, a fanciful name of the poet's invention.

_Targum_, a Chaldee version or paraphrase of the Old Testament. _Nine Points of Perfection_: Nine is a trinity of trinities, and is a mystical number of perfection; the slang expression "dressed to the nines" means dressed to perfection. _Tsaddik_ == just, not historical. _Dob_ == Bear (the constellation). _The Bear_, the constellation. _Aish_, the Great Bear. _The Bier_: the Jews called the constellation of the Great Bear "The Bier." _Three Daughters_, the tail stars of the Bear. _Banoth_ == daughters. _The Ten_: Jewish martyrs under the Roman empire. _Akiba_, _Rabbi_, lived A.C. 117, and laid the groundwork of the Mishna. He was one of the greatest Jewish teachers, and was at the height of his popularity when the revolt of the Jews under Barcochab took place. (See for a history of the revolt, and of Akiba's influence, _Milman's History of the Jews_, Book xviii.) He was sc.r.a.ped to death with an iron comb. _Perida_: a Jewish teacher of such infinite patience that the Talmud records that he repeated his lesson to a dull pupil four hundred times, and as even then he could not understand, four hundred times more, on which the spirit declared that four hundred years should be added to his life. _Uzzean_: Job, the most patient man, was of the land of Uz. _Djinn_, a supernatural being. _Edom_: Rome and Christianity went by this name in the Talmud. "_Sic Jesus vult_,"

so Jesus wills. _The Statist_ == the statesman. _Mizraim_ == Egypt.

_Shushan_ == lily. _Tohu-bohu_, void and waste. _Halaphta_, Talmudic teachers. _Ruach_, spirit. _Bendimir_: no doubt the Bundemeer, one of the chief rivers of _Farzistan_, a province in Persia. _Og's thigh bone_: "Og was king of Bashan. The rabbis say that the height of his stature was 23,033 cubits (nearly six miles). He used to drink water from the clouds, and toast fish by holding them before the orb of the sun. He asked Noah to take him into the ark, but Noah would not. When the flood was at its deepest, it did not reach to the knees of this giant. Og lived 3000 years, and then he was slain by the hand of Moses. Moses was himself ten cubits in stature (15 feet), and he took a spear ten cubits long, and threw it ten cubits high, and yet it only reached the heel of Og.... When dead, his body reached as far as the river Nile. Og's mother was Enach, a daughter of Adam. Her fingers were two cubits long (one yard), and on each finger she had two sharp nails. She was devoured by wild beasts.--_Maracci._"

=Jocoseria.= The volume of poems under this t.i.tle was published in 1883.

It contains the following works: "Wanting is--What?" "Donald," "Solomon and Balkis," "Cristina and Monaldeschi," "Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli,"

"Adam, Lilith and Eve," "Ixion," "Jochanan Hakkadosh," "Never the Time and the Place," "Pambo." In a letter to a friend, along with an early copy of this work, the poet stated that "the t.i.tle is taken from the work of Melander (Schwartzmann)--reviewed, by a curious coincidence, in the _Blackwood_ of this month. I referred to it in a note to 'Paracelsus.' The two Hebrew quotations (put in to give a grave look to what is mere fun and invention), being translated, amount to: (1) "A Collection of Many Lies"; and (2) an old saying, 'From Moses to Moses arose none like to Moses'

(_i.e._ Moses Maimonides)...." One of the notes to _Paracelsus_ refers to Melander's "Jocoseria" as "rubbish." Melander, whose proper name was Otho Schwartzmann, was born in 1571. He published a work called "Joco-Seria,"

because it was a collection of stories both grave and gay.

=Johannes Agricola in Meditation.= (First published in _The Monthly Repository_, and signed "_Z._," in 1836. Reprinted in _Dramatic Lyrics_, in _Bells and Pomegranates_, 1842.) Johannes Agricola meditates on the thought of his election or choice by the Supreme Being, who in His eternal counsels has before all worlds predestined him as an object of mercy and salvation. G.o.d thought of him before He thought of suns or moons, ordained every incident of his life for him, and mapped out its every circ.u.mstance.

Totally irrespective of his conduct, G.o.d having chosen of His own sovereign grace, uninfluenced in the slightest degree by anything which Johannes has done or left undone, to consider him as a guiltless being, is pledged to save him of free mercy. It would make no difference to his ultimate salvation were he to mix all hideous sins in one draught, and drink it to the dregs. Predestined to be saved, nothing that he can do can unsave him; foreordained to heaven, nothing he could do could lead him h.e.l.l-wards. As a corollary, those souls who are not so predestined in the counsels of G.o.d to eternal salvation may be as holy, as perfect, in the sight of men as he (Agricola) might be vile in their sight; yet they shall be tormented for ever in h.e.l.l, simply because G.o.d has mysteriously left them out of His choice. They are reprobate, non-elect, and nothing that they could possibly do could avail to save them. When Adam sinned, he sinned not only for himself, but for the whole human race, and the whole species was forthwith condemned in him, excepting only those whom G.o.d in His Sovereign mercy had from all eternity elected to save, and that without regard to their merit or demerit. These reprobate persons might try to win G.o.d's favour, might labour with all their might to please Him, and would only thereby add to their sin. Priest, doctor, hermit, monk, martyr, nun, or chorister,--all these, leading holy and before men beautiful lives, were eternally foreordained to be lost before G.o.d fas.h.i.+oned star or sun. For all this Johannes Agricola praises G.o.d, praises Him all the more that he cannot understand Him or His ways, praises Him especially that he has not to bargain for His love or pay a price for his salvation. Such is the terrible portrait which Mr. Browning has drawn of the teaching of a man who, as one of the Reformers, and as a friend of Luther, was the founder of what is known in religious history as Antinomianism. Hideous as is the perversion of gospel teaching which Agricola set forth, the doctrines of Antinomianism still linger on amongst certain sects of Calvinists in England and Scotland. The doctrine of reprobation is thus stated in the _Westminster Confession of Faith_, iii.

7: "The rest of mankind (_i.e._ all but the elect), G.o.d was pleased ... to pa.s.s by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath, etc." Mosheim, in his _Ecclesiastical History_ (century xvii., Sect. II., Part II., chap, ii., 23), thus describes the Presbyterian Antinomians: "The Antinomians are over-rigid Calvinists, who are thought by the other Presbyterians to abuse Calvin's doctrine of the absolute decrees of G.o.d, to the injury of the cause of piety. Some of them ... deny that it is necessary for ministers to exhort Christians to holiness and obedience of the law, because those whom G.o.d from all eternity elected to salvation will themselves, and without being admonished and exhorted by any one, by a Divine influence, or the impulse of Almighty grace, perform holy and good deeds; while those who are destined by the Divine decrees to eternal punishment, though admonished and entreated ever so much, will not obey the Divine law, since Divine grace is denied them; and it is therefore sufficient, in preaching to the people, to hold up only the gospel and faith in Jesus Christ. But others merely hold that the elect, because they cannot lose the Divine favour, do not truly commit sin and break the Divine law, although they should go contrary to its precepts and do wicked actions, and therefore it is not necessary that they should confess their sins or grieve for them: that adultery for instance, in one of the elect appears to us indeed to be a sin or a violation of the law, yet it is no sin in the sight of G.o.d, because one who is elected to salvation can do nothing displeasing to G.o.d and forbidden by the law." Very similar teaching may be discovered at the present day in the body of religionists known as Hyper-Calvinists or Strict Baptists. The professors are for the most part much better than their creed, and they are exceedingly reticent concerning their doctrines so far as they are represented by the term Antinomian; but the organs of their phase of religious belief, _The Gospel Standard_ and _The Earthen Vessel_, frequently contain proofs of the vitality of Agricola's doctrines in their pages. For example, in the _Gospel Standard_ for July 1891, p.

288, we find the following: "No hope, nor salvation, can possibly arise out of the law or covenant of works. Every man's works are sin,--his best works are polluted. Every page of the law unfolds his defects and shortcomings, nor will allow of a few s.h.i.+llings to the pound,--Pay the whole or die the death." The tendency of Antinomianism is to become an esoteric doctrine, and it is seldom preached in any grosser form than this, however sweet it may be to the hearts of the initiated.

=John of Halberstadt.= The ecclesiastic in _Transcendentalism_ who was also a magician and performed the "prestigious feat" of conjuring roses up in winter.

=Joris.= One of the riders in the poem "How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix."

=Jules.= (_Pippa Pa.s.ses_). The young French artist who married Phene under a misunderstanding, the result of a practical joke played upon him by his companions.

=Kars.h.i.+sh.= (_An Epistle._) The Arab physician who wrote of the interesting cases which he had seen in his travels to his brother leech, and who described Lazarus, who was raised from the dead, as having been in a trance.

=King, A.= The song in _Pippa Pa.s.ses_, beginning "A king lived long ago,"

was originally published in _The Monthly Repository_ (edited by W. J. Fox) in 1835.

=King Charles I.= of England. See STRAFFORD.

=King Charles Emanuel=, of Savoy (_King Victor and King Charles_), was the son of Victor Amadeus II., Duke of Savoy. He became king when his father suddenly abdicated, in 1730.

=King Victor and King Charles: A Tragedy.= (_Bells and Pomegranates_, II., 1842.) Victor Amadeus II., born in 1666, was Duke of Savoy. He obtained the kingdom of Sicily by treaty from Spain, which he afterwards exchanged with the Emperor for the island of Sardinia, with the t.i.tle of King (1720). He was fierce, audacious, unscrupulous, and selfish, profound in dissimulation, prolific in resources, and a "breaker of vows both to G.o.d and man." He was, however, an able and warlike monarch, and had the interests of his kingdom at heart. He was, moreover, beloved by the people over whom he ruled, and under his reign the country made great progress in finances, education, and the development of its natural resources. His whole reign was one of unexampled prosperity, and his life was a continued career of happiness until, in 1715, his beloved son Victor died. His daughter, the Queen of Spain, died shortly after. Charles Emanuel, his second son, had never been a favourite with the King. He was ill-favoured in appearance, and weak and vacillating in his conduct. When the Queen died, in 1728, Victor married Anna Teresa Ca.n.a.li, a widowed countess, whom he created Marchioness of Spigno. For some reasons or other which have never been satisfactorily explained, the King now decided to abdicate in favour of his son Charles Emanuel. He gave out that he was weary of the world and disgusted with affairs of State, and desired to live in retirement for the remainder of his days. It is more probable that his fiery and audacious temper, and his deceitfulness, dissimulation, and persistent endeavours to overreach the other powers with which he had intercourse, had involved him in difficulties of State policy from which he could only extricate himself by this grave step. Mr. Browning implies, in the preface to his tragedy, that his investigations of the memoirs and correspondence of the period had enabled him to offer a more reasonable solution of the difficulties connected with this strange episode in Italian history than any previous account has offered. When the King announced his intention to resign his crown, he was entreated by his people, his ministers and his son, to forego a project which every one thought would be prejudicial to the interests of the kingdom; but nothing would induce him to reconsider his decision, which he carried out with the completest ceremonial. After taking this step he retired with his wife to his castle at Chambery; and, as might have been expected, he speedily grew weary of his seclusion. He had an attack of apoplexy, and when he recovered it was with faculties impaired and a temper readily irritated to outbursts of violent behaviour. The marchioness now began to suggest to him that he had done unwisely by resigning his crown; and, day by day, urged him to recover it. This was probably due to the desire she felt of being queen. He still remained on good terms with his son, who visited him at Chambery; but he gave him to understand that he was not satisfied with his management of affairs, and constantly intervened in their direction.

In the summer of 1731 Charles, accompanied by his queen (Polyxena) visited his father at the baths of Eviano, and before his return home he received private intimation that his father was about to proceed to Turin to resume the crown he had resigned. He lost no time in returning home, which he reached just before his father and the marchioness. He visited the ex-king on the following day, when he was informed that his reason for returning to Turin was the necessity for seeking a climate more suitable to his present state of health. Charles was satisfied with the explanation, and placed the castle of Moncalieri at his father's service: here the ex-king received his son's ministers, and hints were dropped and threatening expressions used by Victor, which left little doubt as to his intentions on the minds of his audience. It now became necessary for King Charles to seriously consider the best means to secure himself and his queen from the effects of his father's change of mind. Victor lost little time in declaring himself: on September 25th, 1731, he sent for the Marquis del Borgo, and ordered him to deliver up the deed by which he had resigned his crown. The minister evaded in his reply, and of course informed the King of the demand. Now it was that Charles was inclined to waver between his duty to his realm and his duty to his father. He was a good, obedient son, and of upright and generous disposition, and was inclined to yield to his father's wishes. He called the chief officers of state around him, and laid the matter before them. They were not forgetful of the threats which the old king had recently used towards them, and the Archbishop of Turin had little difficulty in convincing them and the king that it was impossible to comply with his father's demands. If anything were wanting to confirm them in their decision, it was forthcoming in the shape of news that the old king had demanded at midnight admittance into the fortress of Turin, but had been refused by the commander. The council of Charles Emanuel readily concurred in the opinion that Victor should be arrested.

The Marquis d'Ormea, who had been the old king's prime minister, was charged with the execution of the warrant of arrest. He proceeded, with a.s.sistance and appropriate military precautions, to carry out the order, entering the king's apartments at Moncalieri. They captured the marchioness, who was hurried away screaming to a state prison at Ceva, with many of her relatives and supporters; and then secured the person of the old king. He was asleep, and when aroused and made acquainted with the mission of the intruders, he became violently excited, and had to be wrapped in the bedclothes and forced into one of the court carriages, which conveyed him to the castle of Rivoli, situated in a small town of five thousand inhabitants, near Turin. His attendants and guards were strictly ordered to say nothing to him: if he addressed them, they maintained an inflexible silence, merely by way of reply making a very low and submissive bow. He was afterwards permitted to have the company of his wife and to remove to another prison, but on October 31st, 1732, he died.

=Laboratory, The=: ANCIEN REGIME. First appeared in _Hood's Magazine_, June 1844, to which it was contributed to help Hood in his illness; afterwards published in _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_ (_Bells and Pomegranates_, VII.) This poem and _The Confessional_ were printed together, and ent.i.tled _France and Spain_. Mr. Arthur Symons reminds us that Rossetti's first water-colour was an ill.u.s.tration of this poem, and has for subject and t.i.tle the line "Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?" The keynote of the poem is jealousy, a distorted love-frenzy that impels to the rival's extinction. The story is told in the most powerful and concentrated manner. The jealous woman's whole soul is compressed into her words and actions; her emotion is visible; her voice, subdued yet full of energy, is audible in every line. The woman is a Brinvilliers, who has secured an interview with an alchemist in his laboratory, that she may purchase a deadly poison for her rival. We gather from the first verse that the poison consisted princ.i.p.ally of a.r.s.enic. The "faint smokes curling whitely," to protect the chemist from which it was necessary to wear a gla.s.s mask, sufficiently supplement our knowledge of the old poisoner's art to enable us to indicate its nature. The patience of the woman, who in her eagerness for her rival's death has no desire to hurry the manufacture of the means of it, is powerfully described. She is content to watch the chemist at his deadly work, asking questions in a dainty manner about the secrets of his art. She has all the ideas of "a big dose" which the uninitiated think requisite for big patients. "She's not little--no minion like me!" "What, only a drop?" she asks. She is anxious to know if it hurts the victim. Is it likely to injure herself too? Rea.s.sured on that point, the gla.s.s mask is removed, and for reward the old man has all her jewels and gold to his fill. He may kiss her besides, and on the mouth if he will. There is a very remarkable instance in the second verse of the use made of ant.i.thesis by the poet. The proper emphasis can only be given when we rightly apprehend the ideas which oppose each other in the lines--

"_He_ is with _her_, and _they_ know that _I_ know Where they are, what they do: they believe _my tears_ flow While _they laugh_, laugh at _me_, at me fled to the _drear Empty church_, to pray G.o.d in, for _them_!--I am _here_."

The ant.i.thesis of the several sets of ideas is the only safe guide to the emphasis--_he_ as opposed to _her_, _tears_ to _laughter_, _me_ to _them_, the _church_ to the _laboratory_.[1] Although the effects of some of the deadliest poisons were well known to the ancients, their detection and recovery from the body by chemical means is a branch of science of only modern discovery. The Greeks and Romans were well acquainted with mercury, a.r.s.enic, henbane, aconite and hemlock. The art of poisoning was brought to great perfection in India; but, though dissection of the living and the dead was practised by the Alexandrian School in the third century B.C., the Greek and Roman physicians were quite incapable of such a knowledge of pathology as would enable them to detect any but the coa.r.s.est signs of poisoning in a dead body. Much less were they able to detect or recover by a.n.a.lysis the particular poison used by the criminal. It is not surprising that, under such circ.u.mstances, professional poisoners usually escaped punishment. In the fourteenth century a.r.s.enic was generally employed. Of the great schools of poisoners which flourished in Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Venice was the earliest. Troublesome people were removed by the Council of Ten by means of convenient poisons. Toffana and others combined poisoning with the art of cookery; and T. Baptist Porta, in his book on "Natural Magic," under the section of cooking, shows that the trades of poisoner and cook were often combined. Toffana was the greatest of all the seventeenth-century poisoners. She made solutions of a.r.s.enic of various strengths, and sold them in phials under the name of "Naples Water" or "Acquetta di Napol." It is said that she poisoned six hundred persons, including Popes Pius III. and Clement XIV. There was practically no fear of detection, and the liquid was sold openly to any one willing to pay the price for a deadly compound; the purpose for which it could alone be employed being perfectly well understood. Mr. Browning's poem introduces us to a laboratory, where an a.r.s.enical preparation is being prepared. The gla.s.s mask refered to in the first line was used to protect the purchaser from the white, deadly smoke which the mineral gave off. The poison for which the lady paid so lavishly could be prepared nowadays by any chemist's apprentice for a few pence; but, plentiful as it is, it is comparatively rarely used by criminals, as the same apprentice could infallibly detect it in the body after death, and reproduce in a test tube the very same poison used by the criminal.

=Lady and the Painter, The.= (_Asolando_: 1889.) A lady visiting an artist who has a picture on his easel of a nude female figure, protests against the irreverence to womanhood involved in his inducing a young woman to strip and stand stark-naked as his model. Before replying, he asks the lady what it is that clings half-savage-like around her hat. She, thinking he is admiring her headgear, tells him they are "wild-bird wings, and that the Paris fas.h.i.+on-books say that next year the skirts of women's dresses are to be feathered too. Owls, hawks, jays and swallows are most in vogue." Asking if he may speak plainly, and having been answered that he may, he tells Lady Blanche that it would be more to her credit to strip off all her bird-spoils and stand naked to help art, like his poor model, as a type of purest womanhood. "_You_, clothed with murder of His best of harmless beings, what have you to teach?" The poem is directed against the savage and wicked custom of wearing the plumage of birds, by which millions of G.o.d's beautiful creatures are doomed annually to slaughter; by wearing gloves made of skins stripped from the living bodies of animals (if report be true); and by the use of sealskin and other animal coverings, which necessitates the wholesale slaughter of countless thousands of happy creatures in Arctic seas. I recently asked Miss Frances Power Cobbe--the n.o.ble lady who was a friend of Mr. Browning, and who has devoted her life and splendid literary talents to befriending dumb animals and protesting against cruelty in high places--to furnish me with some account of the agitation against the foolish habit of wearing bird-plumage in women's bonnets. I have received from Miss Cobbe the following particulars: "The Plumage League began December 1885. It started with a letter in the _Times_, December 18th, 1885 (quoted _in extenso_ in the _Zoophilist_, January 1886, p. 164), by the Rev. F. O. Morris, embodying one from Lady Mount Temple. Before May 1886 a long list of names (given in the _Zoophilist_) were given as patrons of the League, including Lady Mount Temple, d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland, Lady Londesborough, Lady Sudeley, Hon. Mrs. R. C. Boyle, Louisa Marchioness of Waterford, Princess Christian, Lady Burdett Coutts, Lady Eastlake, Lady John Manners, Lady Tennyson, Lady Herbert of Lea, and about forty other ladies of rank. I should say that the League was originated by Lady Mount Temple and the Rev. F. O. Morris. There is another society in existence for the same purpose, working in London--the Birds' Protection Society--one of whose local secretaries lately applied to me for a subscription."

=Lady Carlisle, Lucy Percy.= (_Strafford._) She was the daughter of the ninth Earl of Northumberland, and did her utmost to save Strafford's life.

=Lapaccia.= Mona Lapaccia was Fra Lippo Lippi's aunt, the sister of his father, who brought him up till he was eight years old, when, being no longer able to maintain him, she took him to the Carmelite Convent.

=La Saisiaz= (A. E. S., Sept. 14th, 1877).--Mr. Browning was staying during the autumn of 1877, with his sister, amongst the mountains near Geneva, at a villa called "La Saisiaz," which in the Savoyard dialect means "The Sun." They were accompanied on this occasion by Miss Ann Egerton Smith. The happiness of the visit to this beautiful spot was marred by the sudden death of Miss Smith, from heart disease, on the night of September 14th. The poem is the result of the poet's musings on death, G.o.d, the soul, and the future state. It is one of Mr. Browning's n.o.blest and most beautiful utterances on the great questions of the Supreme Being and the ultimate destiny of the soul of man. It is Theism of the loftiest kind, and the grounds on which it is based are as philosophical as they are poetically expressed. The work has often been compared with the _In Memoriam_ of Tennyson. The powerful optimism, the robust confidence and devout faith in the infinite love and wisdom of the Supreme Being, are in each poem emphasized again and again. After several pages of description of the scenery of the locality, Mr. Browning imagines that a spirit of the place bade him question, and promised answer, of the problems of existence--

"Does the soul survive the body? Is there G.o.d's self--no or yes?"

He is weak, but "weakness never needs be falseness." He will go to the foundations of his faith; he will take stock--see how he stands in the matter of belief and doubt; will fight the question out without fence or self-deception. It shall not satisfy him to say that a second life is necessary to give value to the present, or that pleasure, if not permanent, turns to pain; in the presence of that recent death there must be rigid honesty, and it does not satisfy him to know there's ever some one lives though we be dead. Such a thought is repugnant to him,--not that repugnance matters if it be all the truth. He must, however, ask if there be any prospect of supplemental happiness? In the face of the strong bodies yoked to stunted souls, and the spirits that would soar were they not tethered by a fleshly chain; of the hindering helps, and the hindrances which are really helps in disguise,--the fact remains that hindered we are. However the fact be explained, life is a burthen; at best, more or less, in its whole amount is it curse or blessing? He thinks he has courage enough to fairly ask this question, and accept the answer of reason. He has questioned, and has been answered. Now, a question presupposes two things: that which questions and answers must exist. "I think, therefore I am" (_Cogito, ergo sum_), said Descartes. (And this is about the only thing in life of which we can be certain. Matter may be all illusion; as Bishop Berkeley said, we may be living in one long dream. But at least it takes a mind to do that. We therefore are; soul _is_, whatever else is not.) The second thing presupposed is, that the fact of being answered is proof that there must be a force outside itself:

"Actual ere its own beginning, operative through its course, Unaffected by its end,--that this thing likewise needs must be."

Here, then, are two facts: the last we may call G.o.d; the first, Soul. If an objector demands that he shall _prove_ these facts his answer is that, recognising they surpa.s.s his power of proving these facts, proves them such to him:

"Ask the rush if it suspects Whence and how the stream which floats it had a rise, and where and how Falls or flows on still!"

If the rush could think and speak, it would say it only knows that it floats and is, and that an external stream bears it onward. What may happen to it the rush knows not: it may be wrecked, or it may land on sh.o.r.e and take root again; but this is mere surmise, not knowledge. Can we have better foundation for believing that, because we doubtless are, we shall as doubtless be? Men say we have, "because G.o.d seems good and wise."

But there reigns wrong in life. "G.o.d seems powerful," they say; "why, then, are right and wrong at strife?" "Anyhow, we want a future life," say men; "without it life would be brutish." But wanting a thing, and hoping for it, are not proofs that our aspirations will be gratified; out of all our hopes, how many have had complete fulfilment? None. But "we believe,"

men sigh. So far as others are concerned the poet will not speak--he knows not. But he knows not what he is himself, which nevertheless is an ignorance which is no barrier to his knowing that he exists and can recognise what gives him pain or pleasure. What others are or are not is surmise; his own experience is knowledge. To his own experience, then, he appeals. He has lived, done, suffered, loved, hated, learned and taught this: there is no reconciling wisdom with a distracted world, no reconciling goodness with evil if it is to finally triumph, no reconciling power if the aim is to fail; if--and he only speaks for himself, his own convictions, and not for any other man's--if you hinder him from a.s.suming that earth is a school-time and life a place of probation, all is chaos to him; he cannot say how these arguments and reasons may affect other men; he reiterates that he speaks for himself alone, because to colour-blind men the gra.s.s which is green to him may be red,--who is to decide which uses the proper term, supposing only two men existed, and one called gra.s.s green, the other red? So G.o.d must be the referee in His own case. The earth, as a school, is perhaps different for each individual; our pains and pleasures no more tally than our colour-sense. The poet, therefore, recognises that for him the world is his world, and no other man's; he is to judge what it means for himself. He will therefore proceed to estimate the world as it seems to him, exactly as he would judge of an artisan's work,--is it a success or a failure? Was G.o.d's will or His power in fault when the vapours shrouded the blue heaven, and the flowers fell at the breath of the dragon? Death waits on every rose-bloom, pain upon every pleasure, shadow on every brightness. We cannot love, but death lurks hard by; cannot learn sympathy unless men suffer pain. If he is told that all this is necessity, he will bear it as best he can; if, on the other hand, you say it has been ordained by a Cause all-good, all-wise, all-potent, he protests as a man he will not acquiesce if, at the same time, you tell him that this life is all:

"No, as I am man, I mourn the poverty I must impute: Goodness, wisdom, power, all bounded, each a human attribute!"

Speaking for himself he counts this show of things a failure if after this life there be no other; if the school is not to educate for another sphere, all its lessons are fruitless pain and toil. But, grant a second life, he heartily acquiesces; he sees triumph in misfortune's worst a.s.saults, and gain in all the loss. When was he so near to knowledge as when hampered by his recognised ignorance? Was not beauty made more precious by the deformities surrounding him? Did he not learn to love truth better when he contemplated the reign of falsehood? And for love, who knows what its value is till he has suffered by the death-pang? The poet here breaks off the argument to address the spirit of the lost friend, and express his hope that one day they may meet again:--

"Can it be, and must, and will it?"