Januaby 21, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



73 



also knew of the the Celtic name, 'Danuvius,' 

 which had become known to the Eomans. The 

 Greeks learned the name 'Istros' from the 

 Thracians, and applied it as the general name for 

 the river, from the point where the stream issued 

 from the mountains as far as the Thracians occu- 

 pied its banks. Yet it- does not follow necessarily 

 that the name ' Istros ' is of Thracian origin, as it 

 may have been used still earlier by the ancient 

 Illyrians who inhabited that country. It is trace- 

 able, probably, to the Aryan root sru (' to flow '), 

 from which is also derived the name ' Strymon.' 



' Danubius ' or ' Danuvius ' is the Latinized form 

 of the Slavic name, from which don is derived, 

 and which in composition becomes dan. An- 

 ciently this Latinized name was only used for 

 the middle part of the stream. The Slavic root 

 don {' water, river ') appears in the names of many 

 other rivers : for example. Don, Dwina, Dniester, 

 Dnieper, and so forth. In the ' Nibelungenlied ' 

 the Donau is called Tuonowe, that is, the river 

 Tuon. To the name 'Don' the German aha, aa 

 (' river '), is added, and in the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries the forms Dunaw, Tonaw, Donaw, 

 first appear. 



THE STUDY OF BROWNING. 



There can be no question that the picking- 

 apart process to which, under the exigencies of 

 instruction in grammar and parsing, Milton and 

 Shakspeare, Addison and Macaulay, are alike sub- 

 jected, is an evil. It may or may not be a neces- 

 sary evil : if it is, its effect should be subse- 

 quently counteracted as far as possible ; if it is 

 not, it should be done away with. The pupil who 

 is always on the lookout for inverted sentences, 

 modifying clauses, and auxiliary verbs, cannot 

 appreciate the literary beauty of an author ; and 

 so it seems to us that the elementary details of 

 grammar and the exercises for parsing might 

 profitably be based on something less lasting and 

 beautiful than the classics of the language. These 

 details to which we have reference must undoubt- 

 edly be mastered ; but could they not be mastered 

 from current literature, reserving the classics for 

 models of style and diction, and for the cultiva- 

 tion of a refined literary taste and a sound literary 

 judgment? 



If this dissection of the classics is a necessary 

 evil, then great care should be taken to follow it 

 up in the higher grades with the reading of a se- 

 ries of authors, such as Chaucer, Spenser, Shak- 

 speare, Milton, Hooker, Addison, Steele, Burke, 

 Macaulay, Tennyson, Browning, and their fel- 



An introduction to the study of Robert Browning's poetry. 

 By Hiram Cokson, LL.D. Boston, Heath, 1886. 12°. 



lows, not with a view to parsing them correctly, 

 but with the endeavor to understand and appre- 

 ciate them. Professor Corson has given us a book 

 on his hero, which would serve excellently for the 

 purpose we have indicated. 



Mr. Browning has his critics, but few poets have 

 been favored during their lifetime with so numer- 

 ous and energetic a body of devoted students and 

 admirers as he has, both in this country and in 

 England. Of these, Professor Corson is among 

 the most enthusiastic ; and his personal work, 

 and the interest excited by his lectures, have led 

 to the formation of many of the Browning clubs 

 now at work throughout the United States. In 

 the present work, he has given students of Eng- 

 lish literature an example of what we referred to 

 above as the real end to be gained by the study of 

 a great poet or prose writer. We do not want 

 to parse 'Paracelsus,' 'Andrea del Sarto,' and 

 ' Rabbi Ben Ezra,' but we want to read them to 

 discover tbe thoughts they convey and the feelings 

 they portray : in other words, we want to study 

 them as literature ; and this is precisely what Pro- 

 fessor Corson's book helps us to do. His admira- 

 tion for Browning is well-nigh unbounded. For 

 example: he sajs, "Robert Browning is in him- 

 self the completest fulfilment of this equipoise of 

 the intellectual and the spiritual, possessing each 

 in an exalted degree ; and his poetry is an empha- 

 sized expression of his own personality, and a 

 prophecy of the ultimate results of Christian civ- 

 ilization" (p. 31). "It was never truer of any 

 author than it is true of Browning, that Le style 

 c'est Vhomme ; and Browning's style is an expres- 

 sion of the panther-restlessness and panther-spring 

 of his impassioned intellect. The musing spirit 

 of a Wordsworth or a Tennyson he partakes not 

 of" (p. 75). The criticism so often made, that 

 Browning's style is involved and obscure. Profes- 

 sor Corson notices, and attempts to answer. He 

 says that a truly original writer like Browning 

 is always difficult to the uninitiated, and that the 

 poet's favorite art- form is also somewhat of an ob- 

 stacle to the beginner. This art-form is, of course, 

 the ' dramatic or psychologic monologue,' which 

 differs from the soliloquy, as Professor Johnson 

 (quoted by the author in a footnote, p. 85) has 

 pointed out, in supposing the presence of a silent 

 second person to whom the arguments of the 

 speaker are addressed. In addition to these 

 characteristics and to his peculiar collocations of 

 words, Professor Corson finds four peculiarities of 

 Browning's diction which are by some readers 

 held to render him obscure. These are, 1^, the 

 suppression of the relative, whether nominative, 

 accusative, or dative ; 2°, the use of the infinitive 

 without the preposition to in cases not warranted 



