NOTICES AND NOTES TO PART II. ROBERT BROWNING. ROBERT BROWNING was born in London, in the year 1812, and was educated under the auspices of the London University. His first acknowledged work, Paracelsus, was published in 1836, and gained some praises, but few readers. Pippa Passes, a graceful but somewhat fantastic dramatic poem, found more favour. It was not, however, till the publication of Men and Women, in 1856, and of Dramatic Lyrics and Dramatic Romances a little later, that any large number of people realised that a great and powerful poet had arisen amongst us. He has none of the light graces and pretty tricks of expression, or the simple plaintive thoughts, that make a poet widely popular. Indeed, his language is often harsh and unmelodious, and sometimes his thought is very hard to follow. But it is always powerful and lofty thought, always his own thought, not borrowed from any one else; while every here and there we come upon passages of rare melody and wonderful beauty of words. His insight into the heart, his lofty-mindedness, his power of making a character unfold itself in its own words, are unsurpassed by any living poet, and indeed but by few of any time. He is undeniably our best dramatist since the days of Elizabeth; though two of his dramas, Stratford and The Blot on the Scutcheon, proved unsuccessful when they were brought out at Drury Lane --the former in 1837 and the latter in 1843. THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN. The story of The Pied Piper of Hamelin as told by Mr. Browning so closely follows the original account that there is but little left to tell, except where the story comes from. It will be found in Thorpe's Northern Mythology, iii. 119, and in Grimm's Deutsche Sagen (Berlin, 1866), i. 245, in which a list is given of authorities who speak of the event as an historical fact-so credulous were the good folk in days gone by; but had they not the inscriptions on the Town Hall, and the new gate, and the two old moss-grown crosses on the Koppenberg, which of course spoke the truth? In his Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, Mr. Baring Gould has collected a large number of very similar legends, telling of the power of music over men and animals and all things: how a man with a violin came to Brandenburg, and drew all the children after him into the Marienberg; how another, after having been served in the same way as our Pied Piper, piped all the children of Worms into the Tannenberg; and so on. Even in Abyssinia the story is told of the daemons Hadjiuji, Madjuji. And we all remember the lad in Grimm's Household Stories who has a wonderful fiddle that forces everyone to dance as long as he plays it—a story very like that published in England hundreds of years ago by Wynkyn de Worde, under the name of A merrie Geste of the Frere and the Boye, in which the lad receives a pipe of marvellous power "All that may the pypë herë The humour and the vigour of Mr. Browning's version of the tale must be manifest to every one. The quick flow of the words, the cleverness of the rhymes, the skilful management of the metre, and the wonderful power in the epithets throughout, make it a masterpiece of its kind. However slight and well known the story may be, the charm with which it is told is such that we are compelled to be interested and amused, even when we read it for the twentieth time. P. 11, 11. 10-20. Notice specially the humour and descriptive power of these lines. P. 11, 1. 20. Sharps and flats. Terms in music. A note is said to be sharp when it has been raised, or made more acute, by a half tone; and flat when it has been lowered or dulled by a half tone. Here, of course, there is simply a reference to the different degrees of shrillness in the squeaks and shrieks. P. 12, 1. 23. Noddy = a silly fellow; probably from a simpleton nodding or shaking his head in a silly way. "What do you think I am? Jasp. An arrant noddy." Cf. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, Knight of the Burning Pestle, ii. 1. P. 12, 1. 32. Send packing = send away in a hurry. Cf. "Faith, and I'll send him packing” (1 Hen. ÏV. ii. 4); “I'll send some packing" (Rich. III. iii. 2). P. 12, 1. 37. Guilder. A Dutch coin, worth about 2s. 4d. It was often used for money in general. Cf. — "I am bound For Persia, and want gilders for my voyage." Comedy of Errors, iv. 1. 4. P. 12, 1. 54. Pit-a-pat—a repeated sound of pat, the repetition of a slight tapping noise. Cf. 'What's all this love they put into parts? DRYDEN, Epilogue to "Tamerlane." "Now I hear the pit-a-pat of a pretty foot through the dark alley."-DRYDEN, Don Sebastian, iii. 2. The repetition of the word pat is meant to imitate the recurrence of the sound. Cf. tittle-tattle, fiddle-faddle, &c. P. 12, 1. 60. With sharp... pin = with blue eyes, each as sharp as a pin. acquaintance and relations. unknown, strange; and = known, familiar, pleasant. Scotch couth, couthy = nice, dainty, curious, unusual, odd. P. 13, 1. 78. Newt = an animal of the frog tribe, like a small lizard. The word is properly an ewt, or eft, but the n was run on in pronunciation, and the words were very commonly written as one; when they were divided again the division was made in the wrong place. Cf. a nickname an eke-name; a nuncle (in Shakspere) = an uncle; so, on the other hand, an adder should be a nadder, and an apron, a napron. P. 13, 1. 79. Pied-parti-coloured, variegated. Literally the word means marked like a pie (Lat. pica a magpie) with black and white, spotted. Pie-bald = = = pie-spotted. P. 13, 1. 82. Cheque a pattern consisting of differentcoloured stripes or lines, or little squares, like a chess-board. The game of chess is a corruption of the game of checks, from French échec, Old French, eschac, which itself is from Persian schah = a king. The game is of Persian origin, and "checkmate” is from échec et mat = schachmat the king is dead. = = P. 13, 1. 87. Old-fangled. Coined by Browning from the common expression new-fangled fond of new trifles, or fangles, decorated with a foolish attempt at novelty. Hence old. fangled queerly old-fashioned. = P. 13, 1. 89. Cham. The title of the sovereign prince of Tartary, now written "Khan.” P. 13, 1. 91. Nizam. The title of the native sovereign of Hyderabad in India. It is derived from Nizam-ul-Mulk, who, in the beginning of the last century, obtained possession of the Muhammadan conquests of the Deccan (1724). His successors in the sovereignty having assumed his name as their title of dignity, have retained it to this day. P. 13, 1. 92. Vampyre bats-huge bats found in the tropics, so called from the superstition about vampyres. A vampyre is supposed to be a dead man who returns in body and soul from the other world, and wanders about the earth doing mischief to the living. He sucks the blood of persons asleep, and these persons become vampyres in turn. He lies as a corpse during the day; but at night, especially at full moon, he wanders about in the form of a dog, bat, &c., biting_sleepers on the back or neck. Cf. the French loup-garou, the Persian ghoul, &c. P. 13, 11. 98-122. Notice the movement of the metre-slow at first, and quickening up to a breathless rush—and the vividness of the description. Cf. Southey's Lodore, Browning's How they brought the Good News from Ghent, &c. Lines 191-207 are admirable in the same way. P. 14, 1. 123. Julius Cæsar. "The third danger was in the battle by sea, that was fought by the tower of Phar [Pharos, a lighthouse]: where, meaning to help his men that fought by sea, he leapt from the pier into a boat. Then the Egyptians made towards him with their oars on every side; but he, leaping into the sea, with great hazard saved himself by swimming. It is said that then, holding divers books in his hand, he did never let them go, but kept them always upon his head above water, and swam with the other hand, notwithstanding that they shot marvellously at him, and was driven sometime to duck into the water; howbeit the boat was drowned presently."-SKEAT'S North's Plutarch, "Julius Cæsar," p. 86. P. 14, 11. 127-145.-One of the best parts of the poem. The humour, the command of words, the power of finding rhymes, are all at their strongest. P. 14, 1. 136. Psaltery. A stringed musical instrument of the Jews, like a small harp; it was beaten with small sticks. P. 14, 1. 138. Drysaltery. A factory of dry salted meats, pickles, drugs, &c. P. 14, 1. 139. Nuncheon. A mid-day meal, literally food taken at noon: equivalent to our luncheon. Cf. "Harvest folks (with curds and clouted creame), With cheese and butter, cakes and cates anon, On sheafes of corne were at their noonshun's close." BROWNE, Britannia's Pastorals, ii. 1. "When laying by their swords and truncheons, P. 15, 1. 153. Perked. To perk means to hold up anything (as the head) with impertinent smartness or briskness. So we speak of peacocks "perking their tails." The word is very commonly used by country folk. To perk it = to behave impertinently, as in "If, after all, you think it a disgrace That Edward's miss thus perks it in your face." POPE, Epilogue to "Jane Shore." P. 15, 1. 155. Looked blue was disconcerted, looked aghast. The effect of fear and astonishment is to stop the flow of blood, and the face then becomes of a pale bluish or livid tinge. The expression is common enough in conversation, especially in Scotland. [What other such "slang" expressions are there in this poem? Justify their use here.] P. 15, 1. 179. Caliph. A title given to the successors of Muhammad the Arab Prophet and Emperor. Twelve hundred years ago the court of the Caliph of Bagdad, Haroun al Raschid (Haroun the Good, whom we all know through the Arabian Nights), was the most splendid and learned in the world. Originally the Caliph was one vested with supreme spiritual and temporal authority; but for the last two hundred years the title has been swallowed up by Shah, Sultan, Emir, &c. P. 15, 1. 182. Stiver. A stiver was a Dutch coin of about the value of a halfpenny. Here it means simply the smallest sum of money. P. 16, 1. 220. Koppelberg. Other versions call it Koppenberg. P. 17, 1. 246. Fallow pale reddish yellow. Fallow-deer are now, and have long been, the commonest deer of Europe. P. 17, 1. 258. A text:-"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God" (Matt. xix. 24). "The eye of a needle" is generally taken to be the name of the small side gate for foot-passengers in the walls of Eastern cities, through which a camel could not pass unless his load were removed. P. 18, 1. 274. According to Baring-Gould (Curious Myths, p. 421) the inscription on the wall of a house in the town gives the date as "June 26, 1284." P. 18, 1.278. Baring-Gould says the street was called "Bungenstrasse," because no drum (bunge)-nor indeed any other musical instrument-was allowed to be played in it. P. 18, 1. 296. Trepanned = enticed, ensnared, entrapped. Cf. "If these swear true, he was trepanned on shipboard."-STILLINGFLEET (Speech in 1692, quoted in Wedgewood). P. 18, 1. 300. "Willy," was "William Macready the younger," son of the celebrated William Charles Macready, actor, and manager of Drury Lane Theatre. Browning, as a writer of plays, had had transactions with the great manager, and these four last lines very probably contain a sly hit at him. |