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BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT (z8o6-r861)
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See also:BROWNING, See also: To him she addressed later three of her sonnets, and he was one of her See also:chief See also:friends until-his death in 1848. In 1832 Mr Barrett sold his house of Hope End, and brought his See also:family to See also:Sidmouth, See also:Devon, for some three years. There Elizabeth made a See also:translation of the See also:Prometheus Bound of See also:Aeschylus, published with some See also:original poems (1833). After that time See also:London became the home of the Barretts until the See also:children married and the father died. The temporary dwelling was at 74 See also:Gloucester See also:Place, Portman Square, and in 1838 the See also:lease was taken of the final house, 50 Wimpole See also:Street. It is in the See also:middle of the See also:year 1836 that Elizabeth Barrett's active See also:literary See also:life began. She then made the acquaintance of R. H. See also:Horne, afterwards famous for a tithe as the author of See also:Orion, but perhaps best remembered as her correspondent (Letters to R. H. See also:Hone, 2 vols. 1877), and this acquaintance led to the See also:appearance of rather frequent poems by See also:Miss Barrett in the New Monthly See also:Magazine, edited by Bulwer (See also:Lord See also:Lytton), and in other magazines or annuals. But the publication of The See also:Seraphim and other Poems (1838) was a graver step. " My See also:present See also:attempt," she writes in this year, " is actually, and will be considered by others, more a trial of strength than either of my preceding ones:" There was at that date a See also:lull in the production of conspicuous books of See also:poetry. See also:Wordsworth hadceased, Browning and See also:Tennyson had hardly begun to write their best. Miss Barrett's See also:volume was well reviewed, but not popular, and no second edition was required; of the poems afterwards famous it contained three, " See also:Cowper's See also:Grave," " My Doves," and " The See also:Sea-See also:Mew," the first impassioned and the other, two very quiet, which a See also:fine See also:taste must See also:rank high among all her See also:works. The Quarterly See also:Review (See also:September 184o), in an See also:article on " See also:Modern English Poetesses," criticizes The Seraphim with Prometheus, and treats the former with respect, but does not lift the author out of the quite unequal See also:company of Mrs See also:Norton, " V," and other contemporary See also:women. In the previous year Elizabeth had made the memorable acquaintance of Wordsworth. " No," she writes, " I was not at all disappointed in Wordsworth, although perhaps I should not have singled him from the multitude as a great See also:man. There is a reserve even in his countenance; . . . his eyes have more meekness than brilliancy; and in his slow, even See also:articulation there is rather the solemnity and calmness of truth itself than the animation and See also:energy of those who seek for it . . . He was very See also:kind, and sate near me and talked to me as long as he was in the See also:room, and recited a translation by See also:Cary of a See also:sonnet of See also:Dante's-and altogethe. it was a See also:dream." With See also:Landor, at the same date, a See also:meeting took place that had long results. At this time, trio, began another of Elizabeth's valued friendships—that with Miss See also:Mitford, author of Our See also:Village and other works less well remembered. Mr See also: A few days before she had written, " There are so many mercies See also:close around me that See also:God's being seems proved to me, demonstrated to me, by His manifested love." When the See also:blow came, its heavy See also:weight and closeness to her heart convinced her, she wrote, through an awful experience of suffering, of divine See also:action. But many years later the mention of her brother's death was intolerable to her. At the time she only did not See also:die. She had to remain for nearly a year day and See also:night within See also:hearing of the sea, of which the See also:sound seemed to her the moan of a dying man. There is here an See also:interval of silence in the See also:correspondence which busied her secluded life at all ages; but with an impulse of self-See also:protection she went to See also:work as soon as her strength sufficed. One of her tasks was a See also:part taken in the See also:Chaucer Modernized (1841), a work suggested by Wordsworth, to which he, Leigh See also:Hunt, Horne and others contributed. In 1841 she returned to Wimpole Street, and in that and the following year she was at work on two See also:series of articles on the Greek Christian , poets and on the English poets, written for the See also:Athenaeum under the editorship of Mr C. W. See also:Dilke. In work she found some interest and even some delight: " Once I wished not to live, but the faculty of life seems to have sprung up in me again from under the crushing See also:foot of heavy grief. Be it all as God See also:wills." It is in 1842 that we See also:notice the name of Robert Browning in her letters: " Mr Horne the poet and Mr Browning the poet were not behind in approbation," she says in regard to her work on the poets. " Mr Browning is said to be learned in Greek, especially the dramatists." In this year also she declares her love for Tennyson. To Kenyon she writes, " I ought to be thanking you for your great kindness about this divine Tennyson." In 1842, moreover, she had the See also:pleasure of a See also:letter from Words-See also:worth, who had twice asked Kenyon for permission to visit her. The visit was not permitted on See also:account of Miss Barrett's See also:ill-health. Now See also:Hayden sent her his unfinished See also:painting of the great poet musing upon Helvellyn; she wrote her sonnet on the portrait, and Hayden sent it to Rydal See also:Mount. Wordsworth's See also:commendation is rather cool. In See also:August 1843 " The Cry of the Children " appeared in See also:Blackwood's Magazine, and during the year she was associated with her friend Horne in a See also:critical work, The New Spirit of the Age, rather by See also:advice than by See also:direct contribution. Her two volumes of poems (1844) appeared, six years after her former See also:book, under the See also:title of Poems, by Elizabeth Barrett Barrett. The warmest praises that greeted the new poems were H. F. See also:Chorley's in the Athenaeum, John See also:Forster's in the Examiner, and those conveyed in Blackwood, the See also:Dublin Review, the New Quarterly and the See also:Atlas. Letters came from See also:Carlyle and others. Both he and Miss Martineau selected as their favourite poem " See also:Lady Geraldine's See also:Court-See also:ship," a violent piece of work. In the beginning of the following year came the letter from a stranger that was to be so momentous to both. " I had a letter from Browning the poet last night," she writes to her old friend Mrs See also: He became her frequent visitor and kept her room fragrant with See also:flowers. He never lagged, whether in friendship or in love. We have the See also:strange See also:privilege, since the publication of the letters between the two, of following the whole course of this See also:noble love-See also:story from beginning to end, and day by day. Browning was six years younger than the woman he so passionately admired, and he at first believed her to be confined by some hopeless physical injury to her See also:sofa. But of his own wish and See also:resolution he never doubted. Her hesitation, in her regard for his See also:liberty and strength, to See also:burden him with an ailing wife, she has recorded in the Sonnets after-
wards published under a slight disguise as Sonnets from the Portuguese. She refused him once " with all her will, but much against her heart," and yielded at last for his See also:sake rather than her own. Her father's will was that his children should not marry, and, kind and affectionate father though he was, the prohibition took a violent See also:form and; struck terror into the See also:hearts of the three dutiful and sensitive girls. Robert Browning's addresses were, therefore, kept See also:secret, for fear of scenes of anger which the most fragile of. the three could not See also:face. Browning was reluctant to practise the deception; Elizabeth alone knew how impossible it was to avoid it. When she was persuaded to marry, it was she who insisted, in See also:mental and physical terror', upon a secret See also:wedding. Throughout the summer of 1846 her health improved, and on the 12th of September the two poets were married in St Marylebone See also:parish See also: Browning visited it on his subsequent journeys to England to give thanks for what had taken place at its See also:altar. Elizabeth's two sisters had been permitted to know of the engagement, but not of the wedding, so that their father's anger might not fall on them too heavily. For a See also:week Mrs Browning remained in her father's house. On the loth of September she See also:left it, taking her maid and her little See also:dog, joined her husband, and crossed to the See also:Continent. She never entered that home again, nor did her father ever forgive her. Her letters, written with tears to entreat his See also:pardon, were never answered. They were all subsequently returned to her unopened. Among them was one she had written, in the prospect of danger, before the birth of her child. With her sisters her relations were, as before, most affectionate. Her brothers, one at least of whom disapproved of her action, held for a time aloof. All others were taken entirely by surprise. Mrs See also:Jameson, who had been one of the few intimate visitors to Miss Barrett's room, had offered to take her to Italy that year, but met her instead on her way thither with a newly-married husband. The poets' journey was full of delight. Where she could not walk, up long staircases or across the See also:waters of the stream at See also:Vaucluse, Browning carried her. In See also:October they reached See also:Pisa, and there they wintered, Mrs Jameson keeping them company for a time lest See also:ignorance of See also:practical things should bring them, in their poverty, to trouble. She soon found that they were both admirable economists; not that they gave time and thought to husbandry, but that they knew how to enjoy life without luxuries. So they remained to the end, frugal and content with little. For See also:climate and cheapness they. settled in Italy, choosing See also:Florence in the spring of 1847, and remaining there, with the interruptions of a change to places in Italy such as See also:Siena and See also:Rome, and to See also:Paris and England, until Mrs Browning's death. It was at Pisa that Robert Browning first saw the Sonnets from the Portuguese, poems which his wife had written in secret and had no thought of See also:publishing. He, however, resolved to give them to the world. " I dared not," he said, " reserve to myself the finest sonnets written in any language since See also:Shakespeare's." The See also:judgment, which the existence of Wordsworth's sonnets renders obviously absurd, may be pardoned. . The sonnets were sent to Miss Mitford and published at See also:Reading, as Sonnets by E.B.B., in 1847. In 1850 they were included, under their final title, in a new issue of poems. During the See also:Pisan autumn appeared in Blackwood's Magazine seven poems by Mrs Browning which she had sent some time before, and the publication of which at that moment disturbed her as likely to hurt her father by an apparent reference to her own story. At Pisa also she wrote and sent to America a poem, " The Runaway Slave at See also:Pilgrim Point," which was published in See also:Boston, in The Liberty See also:Bell, in 1848, and separately in England in 1849. In the summer of 1847 the Brownings left their temporary dwelling in Florence and took the apartment in Casa See also:Guidi, near the Pitti See also:Palace, which was thenceforth their chief home. Early in their residence began that excited interest in See also:Italian affairs which made so great a part of Mrs Browning's emotional life. The Florentines, under the See also:government of the See also:grand See also:duke, were prosperous but disturbed by See also:national aspirations. Mrs Browning, by degrees, wrote Casa Guidi Windows on their behalf and as an See also:appeal: to the always impulsive sympathies of England. In 1849 was bbrnn the Brownings' only child, their beloved son Robert See also:Wiedemann Barrett. After this event Mrs Browning resumed her literary activities, preparing a new issue, with some additions, of her poems (1850). A poem on the death of a friend's child appeared in the Athenaeum (1849), and there the new volumes were warmly praised. Casa Guidi Windows followed in 1851. Visiting England in that year, the Brownings saw much of the Procters, and something of Florence See also:Nightingale, See also:Kingsley, See also:Ruskin, See also:Rogers, See also:Patmore and Tennyson, and also of Carlyle, with whom they went to Paris, where they saw See also:George See also:Sand, and where they passed the See also:December days of the coup d'etat. Mrs Browning happened to take a See also:political See also:fancy to See also:Napoleon III., whom she would probably have denounced if a tithe of his tyrannies had occurred in Italy, and the fancy became more emotional in after years. A new edition of Mrs Browning's poems was called for in 1853, and at about this time, in Florence, she began to work on Aurora Leigh. She was still See also:writing this poem when the Brownings were again in England, in 1855. Tennyson there read to them his newly-written Maud. After another interval in Paris they were in London again—Mrs Browning for the last time. She was with her dear cousin Kenyon during the last months of his life. In October 1856 the Brownings returned to their Florentine home, Mrs Browning leaving her completed Aurora Leigh for publication. The book had an immediate success; a second edition was required in a fortnight, a third a few months later. In the See also:fourth edition (1859) several corrections were made. The review in Blackwood was written by W. E. See also:Aytoun, that in the See also:North See also:British by See also:Coventry Patmore. In 1857 Mrs Browning addressed a See also:petition, in the form of a letter, to the See also:emperor Napoleon begging him to remit the See also:sentence of See also:exile upon See also:Victor See also:Hugo. We do not hear of any reply. In 1857 Mrs Browning's father died, unreconciled. Henrietta Barrett had married, like her sister, and like her was unforgiven. In 1858 occurred another visit to Paris, and another to. Rome, where See also:Hawthorne and his family were among the Brownings' friends. In 1859 came the Italian See also:war in which Mrs Browning's hasty sympathies were hotly engaged. Her admiration of Italy's See also:champion, Napoleon III., knew no See also:bounds, and did not give way when, by the See also:peace of Villafranca, See also:Venice and Rome were left unannexed to the See also:kingdom of Italy, and the See also:French frontiers were " rectified " by the withdrawal from that kingdom of See also:Savoy and See also:Nice. That peace, however, was a See also:bitter disappointment, and her fragile health suffered. At Siena and Florence this year the Brownings were very kind to Landor, old, solitary, and ill. Mrs Browning's poem, " A See also:Tale of Villafranca," was published in the Athenaeum in September, and afterwards included in Poems before See also:Congress (186o). Then followed another long visit to Rome, and there Mrs Browning prepared for the See also:press this, her last volume. The little book was judged with some impatience, A Curse for a Nation being mistaken for a denunciation of England, whereas it was aimed at America and her See also:slavery. The Athenaeum, amongst others, committed this See also:error. The Saturday Review was hard on the volume, so was Blackwood; the Atlas and Daily See also:News favourable. In See also:July 186o was published " A Musical See also:Instrument " in the See also:young Cornhill Magazine, edited by the author's friend W. M. See also:Thackeray. The last blow she had to endure was the death of her sister Henrietta, in the same year. On the 3oth of See also:June 1861 Elizabeth Barrett Browning died. Her husband, who tended her alone on the night of her decease, wrote to Miss Blagden: " Then came what my heart will keep till I see her again and longer—the most perfect expression of her love to me within my whole knowledge of her. Always smilingly, halipily, and with a face like a girl's, and in a few minutes she died in my arms, her See also:head on my cheek. . . . There was no lingering, nor acute See also:pain, nor consciousness of separation, but God took her to himself as you would lift a sleeping child from a dark uneasy See also:bed into your arms and the light. Thank God." Her married life had been supremely happy. Something has been said of the difference between husband and wife in regard to " See also:spiritualism," in which Mrs Browning had interest and faith, but no See also:division ever interrupted their entirely perfect affectionand happiness. Of her husband's love for her she wrote at the time of her marriage, " He preferred . . . of See also:free and deliberate choice, to be allowed to sit only an See also:hour a day by my See also:side, to the fulfilment of the brightest dream which should exclude me in any possible world." " I am still doubtful whether all the brightness can be meant for me. It is just as if the See also:sun See also:rose again at 7 o'See also:clock r.m." " I take it for pure magic, this life of mine. Surely nobody was ever so happy before." " I must say to you [Mrs Jameson] who saw the beginning with us, that this end of fifteen months is just fifteen times better and brighter; the mystical ` See also:moon ' growing larger and larger till scarcely room is left for any stars at all: the only See also:differences which have touched me being the more and more happiness." Browning buried his wife in Florence, under a See also:tomb designed by their friend See also:Frederick See also:Leighton. On the See also:wall of Casa Guidi is placed the inscription: " Qui scrisse e moil Elisabetta Barrett Browning, the in cuore di donna conciliava scienza di dotto e spirito di poeta, e face del suo verso aureo annello fra Italia e Inghilterra. Pone questa lapide Firenze grata 1861." In 1866 Robert Browning published a volume of selections from his wife's works. The place of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in English literature is high, if not upon the summits. She had an original See also:genius, a fervent heart, and an See also:intellect that was, if not great, exceedingly active. She seldom has composure or repose, but it is not true that her poetry is purely emotional. It is full of abundant; and even over-abundant, thoughts It is intellectually restless. The impassioned peace of the greatest poetry, such as Words-worth's, is not hers. Nor did she apparently seek to attain those heights. Her Greek training taught her little of the See also:economy that such a poetic See also:education is held to impose; she " dashed," not by reason of feminine weakness, but as it were to prove her See also:possession of masculine strength. Her gentler work, as in the Sonnets from the Portuguese, is beyond praise. There is in her poetic See also:personality a See also:glory of righteousness, of spirituality, and of ardour that makes her name a splendid one in the See also:history of an incomparable literature. See the Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning addressed to R. H. Horne, with Comments on Contemporaries, edited by S. R. See also:Townshend See also:Mayer (2 vols., 1877) ;, The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning from 1826 to 1844, edited with memoir by J. H. See also:Ingram (1887); Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Eminent Women series), by J. H. Ingram, 1888) ; Records of Tennyson, Ruskin and the Brownings, by See also:Anne See also:Ritchie (1892); The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, edited with See also:biographical additions by Frederick G. Kenyon (2 vols., 1897) ; The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett (2 vols., 1899) ; La See also:Vie et l' teuvre d' Elizabeth Browning, by Mdlle. Germaine-See also:Marie Merlette (Paris, 1906). (A. 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