ΤΟ GRATEFUL FLORENCE," TO THE MUNICIPALITY, HER REPRESENTATIVE, AND TO TOMMASEO, ITS SPOKESMAN, MOST GRATEFULLY. Browning's long survival of his wife could not but restrain English endeavour to celebrate her in biographical memoirs. To the end of his life he remained passionately in love with her and too reverently so as to let the world be at once flooded with authoritative documents; but that the masses of such documents controlled by him were scrupulously guarded from perishing is certain; and he doubtless contemplated with equanimity the eventual upheaval that would make public just as much about his wife's wonderful and flawless life, his own relations with her, and all else concerning the Brownings, as the world might find a use for. While these sacred archives were in the hands of the only son of the two poets, he by no means denied access to them; and it was perhaps by reason of uncontrollable circumstances that his executors were left to deal with the formidable collection distributed under the hammer in the summer of 1913. It consisted of vastly more than Sir Frederick Kenyon drew upon for his invaluable selection from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Letters published in two thick volumes in 1897; nor was the material of high interest by any means ex hausted when he followed those volumes up in 1899 with two more consisting of the letters exchanged between the affianced poets during the year preceding their marriage. The Bibliophile Society will doubtless learn with eager anticipation that those youthful efforts in the quarto copy-book with others obtained by the Society afford a veritable constructive chronicle of the child-poet's early life at Hope End and elsewhere. There are about ninety of these compositions, the acquisition of which was the more fortunate from the circumstance, lamented by Sir F. Kenyon in his edition of Mrs. Browning's Letters, that there is little known of those early years beyond what in 1843 the poetess imparted to R. H. Horne in a biographical letter which he ultimately published. The great majority of the compositions is in verse; but a good deal of prose is scattered among the poems; and it is from the poems that we learn most about the Hope End life and circle. Fortunate as that acquisition was, it is surpassed in actual importance by the recovery of a most remarkable record of the life of Elizabeth Barrett written by herself on her entry into her fifteenth year. That record Browning certainly knew, for it was found wrapped in paper and marked by him with the words "Her own life and character to her 15th Year." The fourteen-year-old girl's "Glimpses into My Own Life and Literary Character" will figure, importantly, in the first volume of her posthumous writings which, as I understand, the Council hopes to issue this year. How well the "Glimpses" and the poems of the copy-book fit in with each other may well be shown by a few examples. From the "Glimpses" we learn that the title of "Poet Laureate of Hope End" was awarded to her "in her sixth year," and that, at six, having "mounted Pegasus at four," she thought herself "privileged to show off feats of horsemanship." Here, then, from the copy-book, are the diploma lines leading up to that privilege: Oh! thou! whom Fortune led to stray At eight, when she was being dazzled in her nursery, at a first acquaintance, by Beattie's "Minstrel," she addressed a little note to her father in mingled verse and prose, thus Sweet Parent! dear to me as kind Who sowed the very bottom of my mind And raised the very inmost of my heart To taste the sweets of Nature you impart! I hope you will let us drink tea with you and have your fiddle to-night YOUR DEAR CHILD ELIZABETH An answer to the Nursery. Here Pegasus is harnessed to carry a petition; and the verses cannot be called quite disinterested; but what a strangely powerful view for a child to take of heredity and training! Not till she was nine do we find her (in her record) taking keen pleasure in weaving the raiment of verse for the children of her imagination; and only two months before her ninth birthday the copy-book yields evidence of this enthusiasm, in some lines to Summer and some headed "Aurora." SUMMER All hail most grateful Summer, Goddess hail! Throw back thy yellow hair-throw back thy Veil, Which Spring has thrown so lightly o'er thy face; Goddess approach - let's see majestic grace. Come near, come tip with gold the varied trees, Come wake the World, come wake the gentle breeze To joy, to lively Mirth, to tender love; The peacock with its tints, the am'rous dove. Sometimes by light'ning is the thunder driven, AURORA But hark! Aurora wakes the Cock's shrill crow The lark with quiv'ring wings begins its flight, The next Summer was welcomed beforehand with an improved quality in the singing note. TO SUMMER Fair Summer come sweet thy breath with perfumes Scatters the rising odors at our feet, Light zephyrs frolic o'er the full drest ground, Or oftentimes they lave within the warbling rill; near, And the lambkins with joy, now frolic and play And the fawn quickly flies, in the sun's bright ray, Then haste thee, sweet summer, I long for thee, For thy jocund pleasures, to all are free. |