Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/285

 NOTES BY THE WAY.

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��On the 1st of June, 1895, Dr. R. M. Spence makes interesting reference (8 S. vii. 425) to parallel passages in the works of " the superhuman poet pair," pointing out that in ' Aurora Leigh ' Mrs. Browning shows indebtedness to her husband's ' Paracelsus ' (' Aurora Leigh,' book vi. ; ' Paracelsus,' part v.).

The French have in recent years shown remarkable interest in the life and work of Mrs. Browning. On the 8th of August, 1903, The Athenceum reviewed M. Leon Morel's translation into French of the ' Sonnets from the Portuguese ' " a close and careful translation." In this book the English text is given opposite the French, and there is a preface in which " the story of the Brown- ings is told simply and sympathetically." The Athenceum did not up to this " recall any serious study of Mrs. Browning's work in France except the essay of M. Gabriel Sarrazin, published in 1885, in his ' Poetes Modernes de 1'Angleterre,' and Madame Mary Duclaux's chapter in her recent ' Grands Ecrivains d'Outre-Manche.' Another French translation of the Sonnets is reviewed in The Athe- naeum on the 15th of April, 1905. This was by M. Fernand Henry. In the review reference is made to the elaborate biography of Mrs. Browning by Mile. Merlette, and to the successive translations by MM. " A. B." and Charles des Guerrois.

Mile. Germaine Marie Merlette did not live long after writing what The Athenceum pronounced would " long continue to be by far the fullest and most adequate biography " of Mrs. Browning. Mile. Merlette died on the 5th of October, 1905 ; and a short obituary notice in The Athenceum of the 21st of the same month states that her " enthusiasm for her subject took her to England and Italy in search of material." This was supplied to her by Mr. Barrett Browning and other friends. The biography gained for her the distinction of the Doctorate of the University of Paris, to which it was presented as a thesis. Much more, says The Athe- nceum, " might have been expected from the industry and talent so painfully eclipsed by a sudden death."

The closing years of Mrs. Browning's life were full of excite- ment on account of the fight for Italian freedom, and when Florence was mourning over the treaty of Villafranca, Elizabeth Barrett Browning sent her poem commencing

My little son, my Florentine,

to The Athenceum. This appeared on the 24th of September, 1 859. With it she wrote :

"The good and true politics of this poem you, being English, will dissent from altogether ; say so, if you please, but let me in. Strike, but hear me."

To this challenge the editor replied :

" We need not say how much we respect the poetess for we insert her tale nor, though we give it circulation, how far we dissent from her present reading of the Sphinx."

��1 Paracelsus.'

��'Sonnets from

the

Portuguese ' in French.

Mile. Merlette's biography.

��Her death.

��Treaty of Villafranca.

�� �