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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The current conception of Browning's reputation before his marriage is based to a large extent on that little book of pleasant and readable scholarship by Professor T. R. Lounsbury, The Early Literary Career of Robert Browning. Lounsbury attempted to show that Pauline (1833) and Paracelsus (1835) were surprisingly well received for first poems; that Strafford (1837), a bad play, chilled this initial enthusiasm; and that Sordello (1840), a foolishly obscure poem, killed all enthusiasm except in a few. He went on to assert that the effect of Sordello lasted for many years, and that thereafter there was an ignorance “almost incredible” among “the great majority of the most highly educated class,” even among those “distinguished in letters,” and that this ignorance did not begin to lift until the publication of The Ring and the Book (1868–69).
1 T. R. Lounsbury, The Early Literary Career of Robert Browning (New York, 1911), p. 163.
2 W. C. DeVane, A Browning Handbook (New York, 1935), p. 17.
3 Ibid., p. 18.
4 Lounsbury, op. cit., p. 93.
5 Ibid.; DeVane, op. cit., p. 19; Griffin and Minchin, Life of Robert Browning (New York, 1910), pp. 76–77.
6 Harriet Martineau, “Literary Lionism,” Westminster Review, xxxii (1839), 261–281, an interesting essay to read in this connection.
7 D.N.B.; Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 43; E. E. Kellett, “The Press,” in Early Victorian England (London, 1934), ii, 29.
8 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., pp. 42–13; Lounsbury, op. cit., pp. 8–9.
9 Ibid., pp. 9–10; Mrs. Sutherland Orr, Life and Letters of Robert Browning (Boston, 1892), i, 76 ff.
10 Ibid., i, 97, 101.
11 The Diaries of William Charles Macready 1833–1851, ed. William Toynbee (New York, 1912), ii, 76. At least in August, 1840, Browning was behaving toward Fox as if Fox had criticized Sordello adversely.
12 Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1845–1846 (New York, 1899), i, 276. For the later course of their friendship see Orr, op. cit., i, 321–322.
13 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 76.
14 Ibid., pp. 74–75.
15 Ibid., p. 136.
16 Macready, op. cit., i, 469; Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 64–65; Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning addressed to Richard Hengist Home, ed. S. R. Townshend Mayer (London, 1877), i, 98, 136; ii, 122n, 182–183.
17 Lounsbury, op. cit., pp. 42–44.
18 R. H. Home, “Robert Browning and J. W. Marston,” in A New Spirit of the Age (New York, 1872), p. 279.
19 Ibid., p. 280.
20 Ibid., pp. 293–294.
21 Robert Browning and Alfred Domett, ed. F. G. Kenyon (New York, 1906), p. 102.
22 Macready, op. cit., i, 247, 264.
23 Ibid., i, 264.
24 Ibid., i, 265.
25 Ibid., i, 267.
26 Ibid., i, 275, 423, 450, 469, 483; ii, 15.
27 Ibid., i, 281.
28 Ibid., i, 321.
29 Orr, op. cit., I, 123–131, 168–184; R. B. and A. D., pp. 61–67; Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., pp. 104–121; DeVane, op. cit., pp. 54 ff., 123 ff.
30 Macready, op. cit., i, 361.
31 Ibid., i, 392.
32 Ibid., ii, 23.
33 Ibid., ii, 72.
34 Ibid., ii, 76.
35 Ibid., ii, 73.
36 Ibid., ii, 159.
37 Ibid., ii, 171.
38 DeVane, op. cit., pp. 124–125.
39 Ibid., p. 124.
40 See Macready, op. cit., passim, between these dates.
41 Ibid., ii, 196, 198.
42 Ibid., ii, 340.
43 Ibid., ii, 464.
44 Ibid.; Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Letters to Her Sister 1846–1859, ed. Leonard Huxley (London, 1929), p. 244; Orr, op. cit., i, 181.
45 Macready, op. cit., i, 247n.
46 Harriet Martineau's Autobiography 3rd ed. (London, 1877), i, 417–418.
47 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 136.
48 Martineau, op. cit., passim.; D.N.B.; Theodora Bosanquet, Harriet Martineau; An Essay in Comprehension (London, 1927).
49 Martineau, op. cit., i, 417–418.
50 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 137.
51 Orr, op. cit., i, 135–136.
52 Bosanquet, op. cit., pp. 113–114; Martineau, loc. cit.
53 Bosanquet, loc. cit.
54 Macready, op. cit., i, 267.
55 D.N.B.
56 These reviews are discussed by Lounsbury and DeVane.
57 See Macready's Diaries during these years.
58 Macready, op. cit., i, 272.
59 Lounsbury, op. cit., p. 47.
60 Macready, op. cit., i, 339.
61 Ibid., i, 387, 392–393; ii, 76; Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., pp. 115–116.
62 See for example Macready, op. cit., ii, 159.
63 Ibid., ii, 143.
64 John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens (London, 1876), i, 331-+332.
65 DeVane, op. cit., p. 125.
66 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 121.
67 Ibid., pp. 167, 179, 207, 231, 292.
68 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 322; ii, 106, 108.
69 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., pp. 76–77.
70 See Barry Cornwall, English Songs (London, 1880), pp. xxv-xxx, “All good be thinel thou'lt win a name of might.”
71 R. B. and A. D., p. 58.
72 Letters of R.B. and E. B. B., ii, 134, 211, 254, 284, 390, 425; E. B. B.: Letters to Her Sister, pp. 165, 167, 250; R. B.andA. D., p. 121; Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., pp. 179, 227; Orr, op. cit., ii, 384; Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall), An Autobiographical Fragment and Biographical Notes (Boston, 1877), p. 102.
73 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., pp. 167, 231.
74 E. F. Benson, As We Were (London, 1932), pp. 43, 45.
75 Procter, op. cit., p. 7; Benson, op. cit., p. 45; Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 138.
76 D.N.B.
77 Macready, op. cit., ii, 79.
78 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., ii, 62.
79 Procter, op. cit., pp. 102–103; Harper's Magazine, li, 782.
80 D.N.B.
81 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 66.
82 The Correspondence of Leigh Bunt, ed. by his eldest son (London, 1862), i, 316.
83 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 262.
84 Leigh Hunt, op. cit., ii, 264–271.
85 Edmund Blunden, Leigh Hunt and Bis Circle (New York, 1930), p. 350.
86 Ibid., p. 368.
87 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 77.
88 Autobiographical Notes of the Life of William Bell Scott, ed. W. Minto (London, 1892), i, 124–125.
89 William Allingham, A Diary, ed. H. Allingham and D. Radford (London, 1908), p. 36.
90 Evidence for this statement I hope to present in another article.
91 D.N.B. under W. Allingham.
92 Allingham, op. cit., p. 240.
93 W. C. DeVane, Browning's Parleyings. The Autobiography of a Mind (New Haven, 1927), pp. 23–25. See also pp. 14 ff.
94 D. A. Wilson and D. W. MacArthur, Carlyle in Old Age (London, 1934), p. 176.
95 DeVane, op. cit., p. 19.
96 New Letters of Thomas Carlyle, ed. Alexander Carlyle (London, 1904), i, 235n.
97 Carlyle continued to admire Browning's poetry until The Ring and the Book. See Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Conversations with Carlyle (London, 1892), pp. 56–57; D. A. Wilson, Carlyle at His Zenith (London, 1927), pp. 386–387; Letters of Thomas Carlyle to John Stuart Mill, John Sterling and Robert Browning, ed. Alexander Carlyle (London, 1923), pp. 290–293; Praeraphaelite Diaries and Letters, ed. W. M. Rossetti (London, 1900), p. 304; Letters to William Allingham (London, 1911), p. 289; D. A. Wilson, Carlyle to Threescore-and-Ten (London, 1931), p. 207. These are references to various occasions after Browning's marriage on which Carlyle showed his admiration of Browning. Among the persons involved are Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, George Eliot, Thomas Woolner, William Allingham, Lady Ashburton.
98 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 136.
99 New Letters of Thomas Carlyle, i, 233–235.
100 Letters of Thomas Carlyle to J. S. M., J. S. and R. B., p. ix; DeVane, op. cit., p. 17.
101 Orr, op. cit., i, 194.
102 Ibid., i, 25, 117; Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 49.
103 D. A. Wilson, Carlyle on Cromwell and Others (London, 1925), pp. 152, 169, 225, 240, 277–278.
104 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 27, 151; ii, 184.
105 Ibid., ii, 90–91.
106 Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ed. F. G. Kenyon (London, 1897), i, 315.
107 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 76.
108 D.N.B.; Martineau, op. cit., i, 420–421; Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 322.
109 Orr, op. cit., i, 124–125.—Professor DeVane on page 14 of A Browning Handbook calls this “the crowning event of Browning's early literary fame.” On page 17 he implies that it was the climax after which came the darkness of Sordello: “There were no more healths to the young poet, and instead he was plunged into that semi-obscurity which was to last for twenty-four years.” I cannot agree with this interpretation.
110 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 316; ii, 307; Orr, op. cit., i, 119.
111 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 140.
112 Edmund Gosse, Robert Browning: Personalia (Boston, 1899), p. 42.
113 Macready, op. cit., ii, 149.
114 Unpublished Letters of Walter Savage Landor, ed. A. J. Armstrong in Baylor University Browning Interests fifth series (Waco, Dec. 1932), p. 17.
115 DeVane, op. cit., p. 82.
116 Landor, loc. cit.
117 John Forster, Waller Savage Landor. A Biography (London, 1869), ii, 424.
118 Landor, loc. cit.
119 Letters of E. B. B., i, 275.
120 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 293–294.
121 Ibid., i, 319–320, 493–494.
122 R. B. and A. D., pp. 124–125.
123 Forster, of. cit., ii, 425.
124 Letters to William Allingham, p. 219. For further details of this friendship see Forster, op. cit., ii, 562, 568; Orr, op. cit., ii, 335.
125 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., ii, 241–242.
126 See also Letters of E. B. B., i, 376, “Now I love you for the kind words you say of him.”
127 Mary Russell Mitford, Recollections of a Literary Life (London, 1851), pp. 180–184.
128 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 393, 543–544; ii, 131, 134, 307, 381, 410; R. B. and A.D., p. 121.
129 W. Hall Griffin, “Early Friends of Robert Browning,” Contemporary Review, lxxxvii (1905), 430.
130 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 137.—There were times when the Brownings did not feel friendly toward him: Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 393, 413–414; ii, 410; Letters of Robert Browning to Miss Isa Blagden, ed. A. J. Armstrong (Waco, Texas, 1923), pp. 24–25.
131 Griffin, op. cit., p. 431. I cannot say when Chorley discovered that Pauline was by his friend Browning. Mrs. Orr said (i, 90) that the anonymity of the poem was “not long preserved” in the inner circle of Browning's friends; Arnould knew the secret in 1847.
132 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 379–380, 410; ii, 348–349.
133 Ibid., i, 287; ii, 91–92; Letters of E. B. B., i, 392–393, 446–447.
134 D.N.B.; Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 67.
135 Ibid., i, 63–64, 292, 543–544; ii, 370–371, 425; Macready, op. cit., ii, 171.
136 Orr, op. cit., i, 151.
137 Macready, op. cit., ii, 162.
138 D.N.B.
139 Orr, op. cit., i, 201–202; D.N.B.
140 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., ii, 83.
141 Ibid., i, 306.
142 Ibid., i, 266.
143 Ibid., i, 285.
144 Ibid., i, 325. See also i, 244, 273, 294, 360, 523; ii, 281, 384–385.
145 Ibid., ii, 370.
146 See Letters of E. B. B., various letters to Cornelius Matthews, Mrs. Martin, Miss Mitford, Mr. Westwood, and Mr. Boyd; especially i, 236, 238, 254, 264, 288–289, 315, 320, 441, 449; ii, 29–30.
147 Ibid., i, 238.
148 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., ii, 4–5.
149 Ibid., ii, 148. See also ii, 249.
150 Ibid., ii, 85.
151 Ibid., ii, 131.
152 Ibid., ii, 131, 211.
153 Ibid., ii, 138, 143.
154 Ibid., ii, 215–216.
155 Utters of E. B. B., ii, 253.
156 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., pp. 79 ff.
157 W. Hall Griffin, “Robert Browning and Alfred Domett,” Contemporary Review, lxxxvii (1905), 108.
158 Orr, op. cit., i, 93.
159 Griffin, “Early Friends of R. B.,” p. 434.
160 Mrs. Orr thought they had been boyhood friends (Orr, op. cit., i, 67–69). It seems possible that Browning at least knew of Domett for many years: he went to the same school at Peckham with Domett's two older brothers (Griffin, “R. B. and A. D.,” p. 105), and in 1836 Browning's close friend, Christopher Dowson, married Domett's sister (Griffin, “Early Friends of R. B.,” p. 434). Domett himself in 1878 seems to indicate that he had been introduced to Browning's mother about 1838 (Griffin, “R. B. and A. D.,” p. 108). At any rate in March, 1840, they were on friendly enough terms for Browning to send Domett a copy of his new poem, Sordello, accompanied by a playful (Domett himself used this term for the last line of the note, see R. B. and A. D., p. 28n) and cliquish (see the long discussion of St. Perpetua's Day, Griffin, “R. B. and A. D.,” p. 109) note (R. B. and A. D., pp. 27–28). In a friendly letter written later in March, 1840, Browning seems to imply that he did not know Domett when he wrote the end of Book Three of Sordello (?1838–1839), although all he may mean is that he did not know then that Domett was the author of Venice, a poem published in 1839 (Griffin, “R.B. and A.D.,” pp. 108–109; R. B. and A. D., pp. 28–31).
161 Griffin, “R. B. and A. D.,” p. 108.
162 Griffin, “Early Friends of R. B.,” p. 440.
163 Ibid., p. 444.
164 Ibid., p. 443.
165 Ibid., p. 434; R. B. and A. D., pp. 45, 47, 67, 83–84, 106, 130.
166 Griffin, “Early Friends of R. B.,” p. 443.
167 Griffin, “R. B. and A. D.,” p. 97.
168 Orr, op. cit., i, 159.
169 R. B. and A. D., pp. 13–14. See also p. 19, and Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., pp. 247 ff.
170 Ibid., pp. 82 ff; R. B.and A. D., passim; D.N.B.
171 In January, 1845, Arnould contributed an article to the New Quarterly, and by 1846 he was writing for two newspapers. He was soon to be offered (and decline) the editorship of the Daily News, a position held by Dickens and Forster, and in 1848 he published what was called “one of the best law books in the language.” (Griffin, “Early Friends of R. B.,” pp. 428–430; Griffin, “R. B. and A. D.,” p. 98; D.N.B.).
172 R. B. and A. D., pp. 87–88.
173 Ibid., pp. 86–87.
174 Ibid., p. 67.
175 Ibid., pp. 85–86.
176 Ibid., p. 86.
177 Ibid., p. 101.
178 Ibid., p. 141.
179 Ibid.
180 Orr, op. cit. i, 118.
181 R. B. and A. D., pp. 45–46.
182 Macready, op. cit., ii, 15, 145; Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens, i, 331, 383.
183 R. B. and A. D., p. 44.
184 Macready, op. cit., ii, 15.
185 Letters of R. B., collected by T. J. Wise, ed. T. L. Hood (New Haven, 1933), pp. 5–6.
186 R. B. and A. D., pp. 97–98.
187 Ibid., pp. 107–108, 112.
188 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 287, 293, 392, 396, 527; ii, 134, 246, 372; 407; Orr, op. cit., i, 223; R. B. and A. D., p. 114.
189 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., ii, 134, 150–151, 249, 254, 267, 407, 425; see also R. B. and A. D., pp. 114–115.
190 Ibid., p. 58.
191 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., ii, 30.
192 Ibid., i, 292.
193 Ibid., i, 455; ii, 143, 144, 149.
194 Ibid., ii, 131.
195 Ibid., ii, 193–196.
196 Ibid., ii, 211; Macready, op. cit., ii, 340.
197 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 63, 455, 457.
198 Orr, op. cit., ii, 558–569.
199 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 67, 523; ii, 116, 148; Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 44, Sarah Flower's Letter to a cousin, June 1833; Martineau, op. cit., i, 417–418; Macready, op. cit., i, 267, 281.
200 R. B. and A. D., p. 86.
201 Letters of R.B. and E. B. B., ii, 249.
202 Ibid., ii, 4–255.
203 Ibid., i, 151, 267, 286; ii, 81, 88, 91–92, 102, 143.
204 Ibid., i, 227.
205 Ibid., ii, 31–32.
206 Ibid., ii, 367.
207 Ibid., i, 245–246; ii, 80, 100, 127–128; Letters of E. B. B., i, 150, 264; R. B. and A. D., pp. 122–123.
208 Letters of R. B., p. 9; R. B. and A. D., p. 56.
209 Ibid., pp. 49, 57, 113.
210 Ibid., p. 104. Browning's introduction of Arnould to the editor of the New Quarterly led to the publication of Arnould's forty-page article on Rabelais in that magazine (Griffin, “Early Friends of R. B.,” p. 429).
211 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 200; DeVane, A Browning Handbook, pp. 101n, 133–134. Kean approved of Colombe's Birthday, but Browning was unwilling to wait as long as Kean wished.
212 R. B. and A. D., p. 67.
213 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 14.
214 Ibid., i, 28.
215 Ibid., i, 18–19. See also R. B. and A. D., p. 125.
216 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., 76, 134; Orr, op. cit., i, 162.
217 R. B. and A. D., p. 92.
218 Letters of R. B., p. 9.
219 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 237–238, 356, 528; ii, 117, 232, 474; Letters of R. B., p. 14.
220 Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., ii, 485–486.
221 Letters of E. B. B., i, 447. The poem could not be called a commercial success, but 200 copies were sold the first fortnight.
222 The reviewers, of course, had not been wholly cordial before Sordello, nor were they to be so even at the time of The Ring and the Book. To some degree, in fact, it may be said that Browning's career was nourished by his wide-spread reputation for being neglected and difficult. It may also be said that during his whole lifetime his fame did not rest primarily on the support of the reviews.
223 DeVane, op. cit., p. 17.
224 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 76.
225 See note 90 above.