BROWNING, ROBERT. 



BROWNING, ELIZABETH BAUUETT. 



th* Upari Uland*, and then returned reluctantly to Knrland. Of 

 tbi* xtmMve and interesting tour ha himself MVrr published sny 

 account, bat MTMI years tttrr hu death lome curious utnoU from 

 hi* journal WT incln.l. d in Mr. Walpole's ' Memoir* relating to 

 Eurofiean and Aaiatic Turkey.' 



After a long interval of repoee Mr. Browne reaolred to penetrate to 

 the Tartar city of Saroarcand and the central regions of Ana. He left 

 London for Conetantinople in the rammer of 1812 : at the end of 

 that jear he went from the Turkuh capital to Smyrna, which city he 

 left in the spring of 1818 to proceed through Asia Minor and 

 Armenia. On the lit of June he armed at TabrU, just within the 

 frontiers of Persia, where be stayed till the end of summer. In 

 pursuance of his plan of penetrating into TarUry he took his de- 

 parture for Tehran, the present capital of Persia, accompanied by only 

 twoserranta. 



Some day* aft' r their departure from Tabriz his two attendants 

 returned to that city, where thry reported that at a place about 120 

 mil<* from Tabria, Mr. Browne hud been attacked and murdered by 

 robber*, who had permitted (Am (the two servant*) to escape. They 

 brought back with them a double-barrelled gun, and a few other eflecU 

 of Mr. Browne's, but no pa) era, At the instance of Sir Gore Ousel<-y, 

 who was then on a diplomatic mission in the country, the Persian 

 government despatched soldiers to the spot described by the two 

 servants, with orders to bring back Mr. Browne's remains, and hunt 

 out the aanassini According to their own report the soldiers failed 

 in both these measures, but fully ascertained the fact of Mr. Browne's 

 death by finding torn fragments of his clothes, which being in the 

 Turkish fashion and made at Constantinople were very distinguishable 

 from Persian. They said they believed the body must have been 

 torn to piece* and devoured by beasts of prey, and, as they are very 

 numerous in most part* of Persia, this was probably the fact Some 

 time after, certain bones, supposed to be those of Mr. Browne, were 

 brought to Tabriz, and there interred with due respect. " The spot," 

 ays Mr. Walpole, " was happily choten near the grave of Thevenot, 

 the celebrated French traveller, who died in this part of Persia about 

 a century and a half before." Some doubt however must be allowed 

 as to whether these said relics were really the bones of Mr. Browne. 



As the murderers were never discovered, some awkward suspicions 

 fell upon the Persian government, who, being then at war with the 

 Turcomans, were supposed to be jealous of European intercourse with 

 those hordes, or with any of the people east of the Caspian Sea. It 

 was said at the tiu.e that men high in authority in the Shah's court 

 had shown great anxiety about the traveller's objects and destination, 

 and had particularly wished to know whether he waa a military man 

 or an engineer. It should be mentioned however, on the other hand, 

 that Mr. Browne's imprudence in wearing the Turkish dress exposed 

 him in a special manner to the fanaticism of the Persians, who hate 

 the Turks (the schismatic Mohammedans, as they call them) even 

 more than they bate Christians, and have seldom any objection to send 

 a bullet through the bead that wears a turban of the Conatantino- 

 politan fashion. A Persian in the Shah's service said to the writer of 

 this article, " Had Mr. Browne only worn an English hat be might 

 have gone safely through Persia." The only public fruits of this last 

 journey are a few short extracts of letters from Mr. Browne to his 

 friend Mr. Smitbson Tennant, which also are included in Mr. Walpole's 

 work. 



(Browne, Tratelt in Africa, &c. ; Memoirt relating to European and 

 Aiialic Tvkry, edited by the Rev. Robert Walpole, 1820.) 



BROWN ING, ROBERT, an English poet, was bom at Camberwell, 

 a suburb of London, in 1812, and educated at the University of London. 

 ID 1836, when twenty-three years of age, be published ' Paracelsus,' a 

 poem of such peculiar originality as immediately to attract to him the 

 attention of the best judges of poetic talent, though, both from the 

 nature of the subject and the style of the treatment, the mass of 

 inadirs could make nothing of the book. In 1887 Mr. Browning 

 published ' Strafford, an Historical Tragedy,' which was also brought 

 on the stage by Mr. Macready, but did not prove popular as an acting 

 play. ' Bordello,' a long poem published in 1840, is still spoken of by 

 Mr. Browning's greatest admirers as the least comprehensible of his 

 works. Far more fitted to extend bis reputation with the public, 

 though still of a kind the full beauty of which only very intellectual 

 readers could appreciate, were the poems, of various lengths and with 

 various sub-title*, published by him in successive instalments from 

 1842 to 1 848, under the quaint designation of ' Bells and Pomegranates.' 

 Some of the poems in this collection and none more than the one 

 railed ' 1'ippa Pauses' increased the estimate of Mr. Browning's powers 

 even among those who** admiration he had already won. One of them, 

 a dramatic piece entitled ' The Blot on the Scutcheon,' was produced 

 in 1843 at Drury Lane Theatre, but with no very great success. At a 

 later period, another drama in the collection entitled ' The Ducheas of 

 Claras,' was produced at the Haymarket, Miss Cunhman acting the 

 part of the heroin*. In 1 849 a collected edition of hi* poem* (omitting 

 the larger one*) was published in two volumes ; and about this time 

 took place the most romantic event in hi* life his marriage with 

 KlintMth R. Barrett, now Mrs. Browning, and then already distinguished 

 a* perhaps the firnt liing Kngli-h poetat*. [BnoWKtvo, ELIZABETH 

 BARB.KTT.] Seldom, If ever, have husband and wife had such a coequal 

 'lip in the Mu*e*l Sine* their marriage Mr. Browning and 



bis wife have resided almost continually abroad chiefly in Florence, 

 but sometimes in Paris. In 1860 be added to his previous publications 

 a poetu as singular as any of them, and yet different from any of them, 

 entitled ' Chrwmas-Eve and Easter-Day, which has not received nearly 

 so much attention as it deserves. With the exception of an ' Intro- 

 duction* to some ' Letters of Shelley ' published in 1 852, but afterwards 

 withdrawn from doubts a* to their genuineness, Mr. Browning then 

 published nothing new till the end of 1855, when his collection of 

 miscellaneous poems, under the title of * Men and Women,' gave the 

 critics an opportunity of revising their past judgment of him, and 

 assigning him his place and rank as an English poet That place is, 

 confessedly, a high one. With the exception of Tennyson, there is no 

 living English poet that one would dare to place higher ; and there 

 are not a few who would bo disposed, we believe, to claim for Browning, 

 in some respects, more than a rivalry of Tennyson. On the whole 

 however the two poets are so different, that they s< em related to each 

 other less as rivals than as polar opposite*, supporting between them 

 the English poetical literature of the present day. Browning's chief 

 peculiarity is his intellectual subtlety. He is as much a thinker as a 

 poet, and his thoughts are generally in tracks into which only educated 

 minds can follow him. Add to thin that he is a man of immense stores 

 of acquired information on all kinds of curious topics which informa- 

 tion he shows in his allusions and even in his choice of subjects ; and 

 that he seems to be more at home in foreign circumstance and costume 

 than in British. The greater part of his poems have their scenes 

 under Italian or Spanish or oriental skies ; the names of his persons 

 are Italian or German ; and he ia fond of taking subjects from later 

 medieval history. It is this exotic character of his poetry, combined 

 with the subtlety of the thought pervading it, that makes him pecu- 

 liarly the poet of the cultured classes. He is conscious of this, and 

 speaks of his affection for southern climes and themes as not acquired 

 by residence in Italy, but, as it were, inborn. Let others, he says, 

 walk in English lanes and amid English trees 

 " What I IOTC best In all the world 

 Is a castle, precipice-encircled, 

 In a ganh of the wind-grieved Apennine." 



Yet he hat treated English subjects, and well. His style is a peculiar 

 as his mode of imagination. It ia terse, strong, and direct, but often 

 crabbed and grotesque ; while his versification is about the most 

 extraordinary in the English language occasionally beating for oddity 

 of rhyme that of ' Hudibras.' Want of music in his metre is the fault 

 most frequently alleged against him, and this is ono point of contrast 

 between him and Tennyson. Yet Mr. Browning is technically a 

 musician, and a very learned one. " To us it seems," says a recent 

 critic, " that his art is more perfect the nearer he keeps to blank versa 

 and the other kinds of verse suited for narration, description, and 

 exposition, and the less he ventures on purely lyrical measures, except 

 for a bold or grand occasional purpose." 



BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT, English poetess, already 

 alluded to in the foregoing article as the wife of ono of the first of our 

 living English poets, is still best remembered by many under her 

 former name of Miss Barrett Born, we believe, in London, of a family 

 in affluent circumstances, and educated with great care, Miss Barrett 

 gave very early proofs of genius. At the ago of ten she began to 

 attempt writing both in prose and verse ; at the age of fifteen her 

 powers as a writer were known to her friends. Assiduous in culti- 

 vating these powers by attainments and studies in the classical 

 languages, in philosophy, and in other departments, from which, by 

 the want in our age of any means of university education for women 

 equivalent to that provided for men, women are usually, but moat 

 improperly, taught to think themselves debarred, she became a fre- 

 quent contributor, both in prose and verse, to various periodicals. 

 Among her prose contributions were essays on some of the Greek 

 poets, evincing both subtlety of intellect and accurate learning. Her 

 first deliberate work waa a translation of the ' Prometheus Bound ' of 

 -Kschylun, published anonymously in 1833, but afterwards superseded 

 by a new version from her maturer pen. In 1838 appeared 'The 

 Seraphim and Other Poems ' (the " other poems " being chiefly a 

 collection of her fugitive pieces from periodicals). The high reputa- 

 tion won by this publication waa won in circumstances which imparted 

 to it something of sombre and painful interest. Before or about the 

 time of the publication, the young authoress had, by the breaking of 

 a bloodvessel in the lungs, been reduced to a state of debility which 

 gave great alarm to I.er friends. With her eld. st brother, to whom 

 she was fondly attached, and other relatives, she removed for the 

 benefit of a more genial air to Torquay in Devonshire. Here she was 

 slowly regaining her health, when the death of her brother, with two 

 companions, by the accidental upsetting of a boat, gave her a nervous 

 shock which completely prostrated her. "It was not till the following 

 year," siys her friend Miss Mitford in her ' Literary Recollections,' 

 "that she could be removed in an invalid carriage, and by journeys of 

 twenty miles a day, to her afllu (<! i.imily and her London home. On 

 her return began the life which she continued for so many years : con- 

 fined to one large and commodious but darkened chamber, to which 

 only her own family and a few devoted friends were admitted; reading 

 meanwhile almost every book worth reading in every language, study- 

 ing with ever fresh delight tho great classic author^ in the original, 

 and giving herself heart and eoul to that pootry of which she seemed 



