Browning and His Century

indicating a growth toward democratic ideals in government is abundantly proved by his choice and treatment of historical epochs in which the democratic tendencies were peculiarly evident. W

ight work itself out in a given historical environment. To deal with contemporaries in this analytic manner would be a difficult and delicate matter, and, as we see, in those instances where he did venture upon an analysis of English contemporaries, as in the case of Wiseman

liar with them, not only through talk and experience but through newspapers and magazines, while their larger, universal meanings cannot be seen at too close a range. If, however, past historical episodes and their tendencies can

itarism had in its lust for power and bloodshed slaughtered itself for the time being, and onc

erloo. During the childhood and boyhood of Browning the events which from time to time marked the determination of the downtrodden Englishman to secure a larger measure of just

Cabinet was congratulating the nation upon the flourishing state of the country, trade was actually almost at a standstill, and failures in business were the order of the day. To make matters worse, a wet summer and early frosts interfered with farming, and the result was that laborers and workmen could no

nal W

nd Southwick in Spa Fields, Clerkenwall, which had been called by Harry Hunt, a man of property and education, who was known as a supporter of extreme measures, and the leader of the Radicals of that day. They met for the legitimate purpose, one would think, of considering the propriety of petitioning the Prince Regent and Parliament to adopt means of relieving the existing distress. One of the speakers, however, a poor doctor by the name of Watson, was of a more belligerent disposition. He made an inflammatory speech which ended by his seizing a tri

on of the person of the Regent, of the more effective prevention of seditious meetings and of surer punishment. And what were some of these measures? Debating societies, lecture halls and reading rooms were

g was arranged at Manchester on the 16th of August, troops were accordingly sent to Manchester. The cavalry was ordered to charge the crowd, and although they used the flat side of their swords, the charge resulted in the killing of six persons and the wounding of some hundreds. The clash did not end here, for to offset the ministerial approval of the action of the magistrates and their decision that the meeting was illegal, the Common Council of London passed a resolution by a large majority d

July, in France, which it will be remembered was directed against the despotic King Charles X, and ended in his being deposed, when his crown was given to his distant cousin Louis Philippe. The success of the French

se of Commons did not need reform and that he would resist all proposals for a change. So great was the popular excitement a

from the upper classes to the middle classes, and was the inauguration of a policy which has constantly added to the prosperity and well-being of the English people. The agitation upon this bill, introduced in the House by Lord John Russell, under the Premiership of Earl Grey, and a ministry favorable to reform, was filling the attention of all Englishmen to the ex

turesque episodes for a dramatist as did the struggle of P

f wonderfully dramatic situations, but in the three men about whom the action moves is presented an individu

to gain the upper hand, and to be non-partisan and therefore truly dramatic is a difficult, if not an impossible, task. When we come to examine this play, we find that the character which unquestionably interested the poet most was Strafford's; not because of his political principles but because of his devotion to his King. Human love and loyalty in whomever manifested was always of the supremest interest to Browning, and,

e he proceeds against his former friend, straight on to the impeachment for treason, straight on, like an inexorable fate, to the prevention of his rescue from execution. Browning's dramatic imagination is responsible for this last climax in which he brings the two men face to face. Here, in Pym's strength of will to serve England at any cost,

fewer representatives than smaller ones, or perhaps none at all. Representation was more a matter of favoritism than of justice. The votes in Parliament were, therefore, not at all a true measure of the attitude of the country. It seems strange that so eminently sensible a reform should meet with such determined opposition. As usual, those in power feared loss of privilege. The House of Lords was the obstruction. The bill was in fact a step logica

been asked. The older Vane added to the consternation of the assembly by announcing that the King would accept nothing less than the twelve subsidies which he had demanded in his message. In the face of this ultimatum t

daring men as Pym, Hampden, Cromwell, and the younger Vane, resolutions were passed censuring the levying of ship-money, tonnage and poundage, monopolies, innovations in reli

ystem of representation in Parliament, an attempt which was partially carried into effect by Cromwell later. Under Charles II, however, things fell back into their old way and gradually went on from bad to worse until the tide changed, and the people became finally aroused after two hundred years to the need of a radical cha

eached such a pitch, however, that the castle of Nottingham in Derby was burned, the King's brother was dragged from his horse, and Lord Londonderry roughly treated. The mob at Bristol was so infuriated that Sir C. Wetherell, the Recorder of the city, who had voted against the bill, had

ng Parliament. A meeting was called which was attended by one hundred and fifty thousand persons, and resolutions were passed

House of Lords to carry the bill. This was done, but before the Lords went into committee a hostile motion postponing the disfranchisement clauses was carried. Then Earl Grey asked for the creation of new peers. As it would require the creating of about fifty new peers, the King refused, the ministry resigned and the Duke of Wellington came into power again. But his power, like that of Strafford, was broken. He had reached the point of recognizing that some reform was needed, but he could not persuade his colleagues of this. In the meantime the House of Commons passed a re

ds, should have dealt with a period whose analysis and interpretation in dramatic form gave him every opportunity for the expression of his sympathy with liberal ideals. Broad-minded in his interpretation of Strafford's career, in love with his qualities of loyalty, and his capabilities of genuine affecti

l? Speak, Englan

labored for,

t,-for whom my

anhood waste

his friend-this

uth with me, lov

his forsaking

ll means (tru

all means) ev

r him. And say

ng than first

entworth might

ave him: I do

y charge (be

ho imposed i

oorly, wrongl

ects-for I a

done my best,

for a moment

if I say ...

ed but one

! Even thus I

at chief portio

rts led astray

e, and, certes

er, I shall n

ow and talk-I

nd her great

ere; but in m

ink of steali

e with Wentworth

l error, glori

not blame us.

ing, Wentworth!

in mist-is it

d once. Then, t

sole guide in his philosophy of life into a perception of the place emotion must hold in any satisfactory theory of life, and put into his mouth a modern conception of evolution illuminated by his own artistic emotion, so he makes Sordello develop from the individualistic type to the socialist type of man, who is bent upon raising the masses of the people to higher conditions. The ideal of libera

take the worl

have one pri

njustice; who

nks with man's

ne less quarr

Ghibelline ma

thing, but bot

Nay, to me,

ed by trees and

f a service-

t mighty aim

ello? What if

, distinct from

s true di

vidual. He might not have defined these principles to himself any more definitely than as a desire for the greatest happiness of the whole number. And even of such an ideal as that he had his doubts because of the necessity of his mind to find a logical use f

outh and

each of you, no

asked at home th

spirit's to th

ened out as ch

··

ood you

he Piazza's s

the unchoked

fe the evil

Living right

his mind as to the people's right to possess the power to bring about their own happiness. Yet gi

the poem is, strictly speaking, that of the opportunist working a step toward his ideal rath

ceded two li

s whole work

plan's com

ich guides the Fabian socialist working in England to-day. Nothing is to be done to subvert the present order of society, but every opportunity is to be made the most of which will tend to the betterment of the conditions of the masses, unt

of a Pym, which just as surely has its disadvantages in the danger that the ideal will be ahead of humanity's power of seizing it and living it, and will therefore run the risk

ent, which was proved by its final utter annihilation. The workingmen's association led by Mr. Duncombe was responsible for a program in the form of a parliamentary petition which asked for six things. These were: universal suffrage, or the

tists and physical-force Chartists, the latter of w

rward the movement, and, at last, confronted by disagreement in the ranks of the Chartists and the Duke of Wellington and his troops, g

prophetic in the light of the passage in the poem already quoted, in which the poet declares himself grown wiser than

d's political development. It meant the adoption of the great principle of free trade, to which England has since adhered. For eight years the agitation in regard to it was continued, during which great meetings were held, thousands of pounds were subscribed to the cause, and the names of Sir Richard Cobden and John Bright became famous as l

d, after some conversation, 'Don't allow this grief, great as it is, to weigh you down too much. There are at this moment in thousands of homes in this country wives and children who are dying of hunger-of hunger made by the law. If you come along with me, we will never rest till we have got rid of the Corn Law.' We saw the colossal injustice which c

the speedy and complete success that crowned its efforts; for the great change it wrought in public opinion and the consequent legislation of the country; overcoming prejudice an

s a great fact. It would be foolish, nay, rash, to deny its importance. It is a great fact that there should have been created in the homestead of our manufacturers (Manchester) a confederacy devoted to the agitation of one political question, persevering

their injustice, and that he was an "absolute convert to the free-trade principle, and that the introduction of the principle into all departments of our commercial legislation was, accordin

not been for the failure of the grain crops and the widespread potato disease which plunged I

ll Parliament was not assembled; and then it was that the Mansion House Relief Committee of Dublin drew up resolutions stating that famine and pes

m; he was forced to resign. Lord John Russell was called to form a m

learly how strongly his sympathies were with the League and how disgusted he was with the pro

n my Engla

t grave

if abolish

teous a

per, Scirocco

from th

and his sans culotte brethren, Southey and Coleridge, to pause, a fact very possibly freshened in Browning's mind by Wordsworth's receiving a pension in 1842 and the poet-laureateship in 1843, does not affect the force of the poem as a personal utterance on the side of democracy. Browning, himself, considered the poem far too fierce as a portrayal of Wordsworth's case.[2] He evidently forgot Wordsworth, and thought only of a renegade liberal as he went on with the poem. It was written the same y

e, then, record o

clined, one more

s triumph and s

to man, one mor

ng thought of Wordswort

his bravery in coming out from his party, in breaking up his cabinet and regardless of all costs in determining to carry the bill or resign, and finally carrying it in the face of the greatest odds-at such a time, when a great con

nto a contemporary expression of admiration for Sir Robert Peel? Perhaps the tortuous windi

ears after his return to England there is no sign that he was taking any interest in the political affairs of his country. Human character under romantic conditions in a social environmen

cal world. The alliance of Napoleon III with England brought his policy of government into strong contrast with that of the li

is which could be in any way construed as an interference in the internal affairs of France. Already, however, Lord Palmerston had expressed to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs his entire approbation in the act of Napoleon and his convictio

hat misunderstandings perpetually renewed, violations of prudence and decorum too frequently repeated, have marred the effects which ought to have followed from a sound policy and able

her shores were allayed, her attitude was modified. She forgot the horrors of the coup d'éta

appeal to Browning's love of a human problem. Furthermore, Napoleon was brought very directly to the poet's notice through his Italian ca

cumstances, or will it pronounce an unqualified condemnation upon the man who, for the sake of consolidating his o

plains fully his aim, as well as showing by indirection, at least, how much he was interested in political affairs at this time, though so little of this interest crops out in his poetry: "I think in the main he meant to do what I say, and but for weakness-grown more apparent in his last years than formerly-would have done what I say he did not. I thought badly of him at the beginning of his career, et pour cause; better afterward, on the strength of the promises he

aking an old ideal and improving upon it. He contends that in following out his special gifts as a conservator he is doing just what God intended him to do, and as to his method of doing it that is

ncies he may choose to indulge in in bringing about that strengthening of an old ideal in which he believes. The old ideal is, of course, the monarchical principle of government, administered, however, in such a manner that it will be for the good of society

orld-though eac

in would spread i

fellow not a

rought about, try to make good do good as evil does-would be just as foolish as if a chemist wanting white and knowing that black ingredients were needed to make the dye insisted these should be white, too. A bad world is that which he experiences and approves. A good world he does

od through man's working against whatever he conceives to be evil with the whole strength of his being. To deliberately follow th

of life. Every step in his own aggrandizement is apologized for on the ground that what needed to be accomplished could only be done by a strong hand and that strong hand his own. He was in fact an unprincipled utilitarian as Browning presents him, who spoiled even what virtue resides in

" "Even when he addressed the Italians at Milan," continues Forbes, "the new light had not broken in upon him which revealed the strength of the quadrilateral, the cost of expelling the Austrians from Venetia, and the conviction that further French successes would certainly bring mobilized Germany into the field. That new light seems to

year while every saddle of iniquity has been tried on the Napoleonic back, and nothing fitted? Wasn't he to crush Piedmontese institutions like so many eggshells? Was he ever going away with his army, and hadn't he occupied houses in Genoa with an intention of bombarding the city? Didn't he keep troops in the north after Villafranca on purpose to come down on us with a grand duke or a Kingdom of Etruria and Plon-Plon to rule it? And wouldn't he give back Bologna to the Pope?... Were not Cipriani, Farini and other patriots his 'mere creatures' in treacherous correspondence with the Tuiler

tely destroying the constitution, for example, and himself being the cause of the violence and bloodshed in Pari

terminating the struggle of parties, I knew would not cause any serious risk to the public tranquillity. Why should the people have risen against me? If I do not any longer possess your confi

ously illustrated in his speech at the close of his dictatorship, during which it must be confessed that he had d

n my power for France and nothing for myself, I would accept any modification of the present state of things only if forced by necessity.... If parties remain quiet, nothing shall be changed. But if they endeavor to sap the foundations of my government; if they deny the legitimacy of the result of the popular vote; if, in short, they continually put the future of the country in jeopardy, then, but only

ith offers of an alliance against Austria at the same time that he was treating secretly with Francis Joseph for the cession of Venetia in return for Silesia. And while

eople of France and to a great extent succeeded, is true; that he combined with this desire the desire of power for himself is true; that he used unscrupulous means to gain whatever end he desired when such were necessary is true; but that he was conscious of his own despicable traits to the extent that the poet makes him conscious of them is most unlikely. Nor is it likely that he would defend himself upon any

y autocratically keeping each one from fully expressing itself. The result is that each grows more aware of the suppression than of the amount of freedom allowed to it, and nobody is pleased. When added to such a policy as this is the surmounting desire for power and the

f the people, a son of the revolution, a champion of universal suffrage, and an adversary of the demagogues. In the first of these characters he was bound to justify his elevation by economic and social reforms, in his second character he had to destroy the

Ewart

admit that Napoleon filled for a time a necessary niche in the line of progress, just t

ncompletenes

oked straight, an

trong: wherein

ve the worst ac

least of one

atch in cri

n inspired, th

e and change th

finds his busi

the done fro

ant and did not

nd I work on,

cessor: he

stance, not mere

the divine right of kings, balance of power, and so on, Napoleon held on to these ideas just long enough to prevent a general disintegration of society. He

ds that Italy had." But as his biographer says, Gladstone was still far from the glorified democracy of the Mazzinian propaganda, and expressed his opinion that England should take the stand that she would be glad if Italian unity proved feasible, "but the conditions of it must be gradually matured by a course of improvement in the several states, and by the political education of the people; if it cannot be reached by these means, it hardly will by any others; and certainly not by opinions which closely link Italian reconstruction with European disorganization and general war." Yet he was as distressed as Mrs. Browning at the peace of Villafranca, about which he wrote: "I little thought to have lived to see the day when the conclusion of a peace should in my own mind cause disgust rather than impart relief." By the end of the year he thought better of N

the sphere of active government were beyond comparison. Gladstone's own summary of his career gives a glimpse of what these performances were as well as an interpretation of the century

a duty and a power, neither of which had attached to the Scottish nation in the preceding period. I rejoice to think how the solemnity of that duty has been recognized, and how that power has been used. The threescore years offer as the pictures of what the historian will recognize as a great legislative and administrative period-perhaps, on the whole, the greatest in o

uences. These have been confined in their actions to the classes above them, because they were its sole possessors. Now is the time for the true friend of his country to remind the masses that their present political elevation is owing to no pr

ow that these two men came into touch with each other during their life, and while it is probable that Browning would not have been in sympathy with many of the aspects of Gladstone's mentality, there is an undercurrent of similarity in their attitude of mind toward reform. The passage in "Sordello" already referred to, written in 1840, might be regarded almost as a prophecy of the sort of leader Gladstone became.

portunity to take a step in the direction of an evolving, all-absorbing ideal. Is not this the opportunism of both a Browning and a Gladstone? Such a policy at least tacitly acknowledges that the law of evolution is the law that should be follo

The skeptical multitude of to-day cannot be taken in by declarations that the politician is working only for their good, and if he frankly acknowledged that he is working also for his own good they would have none of him. The nice point to be decided is how shall he work for his own good and yet gain contro

ing changes of opinion and for a style of oratory in which his points were made by clever invective and sarcasm hurled at his opponents instead of by any

ister and the Reform Ministry! The spirited and snow-white steeds have gradually changed into an equal number of sullen and obstinate donkeys, while Mr. Merryman, who,

Taunton Blues. In the course of his speech he "enunciated," says an anonymous writer of the fifties, "one of those daring historical paradoxes whi

appeared astounded

know?' shoute

it,' replied

exclaimed t

ause I have read, and you' (looking d

oinder by the friends of the candidat

lector, not very much frightened even by Mr. Disraeli's or

israeli replied; 'but I hope there is no d

literature, you are,' s

t that one who is an author by the gift of nature may be as good a man as one who is Master of the Mint by the gift of Lord Melbourne.' Great applause then burst forth from the Blues. Mr. Disraeli continued, 'I am not, however, the pup

exclaimed m

it, and always shall be, either in the House of Commons or on the hustings, considering the sat

of Prime Minister. Possibly it was just as much owing to his power to amuse as to any of the ca

tactics were much the same, except that Disraeli was backed up by a much keener intellect. Possibly he held a part in English politics similar to that held by Napoleon in European politi

s bill was introduced has been described as the greatest legislative assembly of modern times. The House was full to overflowing, and in a brilliant speech of nearly four hours the veteran leader held his audience breathless as he unfolded his plans for the betterment of Irish conditions. We are told that during the debates that followed there was a remarkable exhibition of feeling-"the passions, the enthusiasm, the fear, and hope, and fury and exultatio

It was defeated in Parliament and fared no better when an appeal was made to the country, and Mr. Gladstone resigned. In nine months, however, a general electio

-growing ideals of democracy Gladstone had the sympathy of Browning, shown by his emphatic expression of "liberal

the end of the century. This far-sighted vision of his may have been another reason to be added to those mentioned at the beginning of the chapter why his interest in the practical affairs of his country did not more often express itself. The wrangling, the inconsequentialness, the eloquence expended upon mere personal i