Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/417

 11 S. V. MAY 4, 1912.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

341

LONDON, SATURDAY, Jf AY '., 1012.

CONTENTS. No. 123.

NOTES : Robert Browning, 341 The Bibliography of London, 343 Charles Dickens. 344 Thompson of Trinity : "None of us infallible" " Survey "= Auction Friday Bed-making, 346 Novel by Disraeli General Grant Gretna Green Marriages, 1825-54 Chiswick Churchyard, 347.

QUERIES : Authors of Quotations Wanted Portraits of Gary Ships Lost in Great Storm, 1703 Harvey Smith R. Dellon, Artist "J'ai vu Carcassonne ""Splendid Isolation " Macaulay on "Fen Slodgers," 348 Congres des Sciences auxiliaires de 1'Histoire Freeman Family of Greenwich Author Wanted St. Agatha and White Rabbit M. de Calonne's Museum The City of Statues De Vere at Dniry Lane Ghibelline Arms Neolithic Remains : their Distribution, 349 Hollier Hebrew Scholarship Paganel as a Christian Name Compston Family Biographical Information Wanted Incidents at Dettingen, 350.

REPLIES : The Sardinian Archway, 351 The Royal Charlotte Sanskrit Hymn Municipal Records Printed, 352 "Sone" Jane and Robert Porter Australian Coat of Arms, 353 Office of St. Werburgh Quotation from Emerson Shepherd's Market, Mayfair Last \Vitch Burnt, 354 Batley Grammar School The National Anthem Combe-Martin Market Charter Powell Duration of Families, 355 A Boy Bandmaster Sir John Klley _ Musicians' Epitaphs, 356 Losses by Fire : Licences to Beg Dr. James, Master of St Bees School, 357 Del Vignes : Vines Authors' Errors Walter Brisbane Henry Blake, 358.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' A History of Architectural Development ' Barlee's Concordance of Manorial Law 'James Hutchison Stirling' 'Dombey and Son' "The Queen ' Book of Travel' Fortnightly ' ' Cornhill.'

Notices to Correspondents.

flatts.

ROBERT BROWNING. BORN 7 MAY, 1812 DIED 12 DEC., 1889.

NEXT week falls the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Robert Browning. From his death we are already separated by nearly a quarter of a century. Middle-aged now, the generation which in its youth flung itself with eager enthusiasm upon all he gave it, and flouted in joyful scorn the barbarians who misunderstood him, will be setting itself to sum up once again his achievement, and trace out anew what is his peculiar contribution to the eternal web of poetry that rtVAos which century by century mankind so unfailingly weaves and offers. Between him and us no new poet of equal strength, greatness, and influence has yet arisen. Of the younger men who have died since he died, perhaps

Francis Thompson alone will be found .to have woven into the web any strands easily visible a hundred years hence.

Browning's life like that of so many men of letters in the West in the nineteenth century was comfortable and uneventful. His father, not rich, had yet means sufficient to educate his son in the way that suited him, and later to support him without his adopting a profession. Browning never knew great privation, nor what it is to obtain necessities by means of struggle, nor the bitterness of seeing those he loved in want. On the other hand, his surroundings during child- hood and youth, if pleasant and wholesome, were narrow, remote alike from the conven- tions and the inspirations of what is known as the great world. His adventures were all within, and he himself was of the stuff to which such adventures come abundantly. English on the father's side, he drew from his mother Scotch and German blood Creole too. some people assert. On both sides there was considerable, though characteristically different, intellectual ability and artistic capacity. From a mere baby he made verses ; and a collection of his childish productions called ' Incondita ' was copied and treasured, till her death, by Mrs. Sarah Flower Adams, the writer of "Nearer, my God, to Thee," who during his earliest years was Browning's best-beloved friend.

As every one knows, to this outward un- eventfulness there was one great exception : his marriage with Elizabeth Barrett :

I am named and known by that moment's feat ; There took my station ana degree.

Its effect was to transfer his life, for some fifteen years, from England to Italy; while its inner significance may be partly gauged by the fact that his work, if finer in quality, was diminished in quantity. Of his married life too, on the whole, it may be truly said that its adventures were within.

When now we consider the wide range of Browning's work, the first thing that may strike us is how unusually far in him ima- gination outruns experience. In his con- temporaries either the experience is more, or the imagination markedly less audacious and exact. This fact, I believe, holds the secret both of his peculiar strength and of what one comes to recognize in him as weak- ness, or at any rate Limitation. His ima- gination was illustrated and enriched by a vast amount of miscellaneous knowledge ; he was acquainted with innumerable legends, histories, persons, situations, not barely in themselves, but clothed in all their accessories of time and circumstance, place and mood.