Ee ee 
Meee se a aati 

ROBERT BROWNING’S ADVENTURE. 
By FRED. H. HILL, 7th November, 1905. 
Mr, Hill said he must first discharge a duty by expressing his 
obligation to the Members for having elected him an Honorary 
Member of the Club. It was an honour which he very much 
appreciated, und he regarded it as one of the highest distinction. 
For him to be again amongst them and to see their familiar faces 
was a source of great pleasure and gratification. 
SYNOPSIS. 
Browning’s splendid optimism and belief in the power of love. 
—The theme of the the novelist, the theme of humanity.— 
Literary men not always the best teachers.—Life in the Medieval 
castle of the Twelfth Century.—Jurisdiction of the courts of love. 
—Tristram and Launcelot an index of the period.—Moral de- 
cadence of the romantic school of France and Germany.—George 
Sand.—Goethe and others.—Wordsworth and the English 
natural school of poetry.—Shelley’s ardent love of nature as the 
manifestation of undying love.—Byron’s love of nature and 
humanity.—Browning'’s elopement.—The power of love mani- 
fested.—The adventure of Christmas Eve, 1849.—Scene I. The 
Dissenting Chapel.—Scene If. A Lunar Rainbow.—Scene III. 
At St. Peter’s, Rome.—Scene IV. With the Agnostic Professor 
in Germany; reflections on Browning’s idea of intolerance ; 
Browning’s discovery of Divine Love.—Scene V. ‘Into the 
little Chapel again.’’-—Conclusion.—‘ Love is the startling thing, 
the new.’’ 

A historical review of the power of love and the attitude of 
literary men towards its development would be a very interesting 
subject for study, but we can only glance at a few of its stages. 
Suffice to say that it has been a growth, a development on the 
lines of evolution from a low and selfish standpoint to a higher 
self-sacrifice and devotion, with, of course, the usual interludes 
