The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition. Robert Browning
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from chambers to dine with Rev. William Fox, Bayswater… . Mr. Robert Browning, the author of ‘Paracelsus’, came in after dinner; I was very much pleased to meet him. His face is full of intelligence… . I took Mr. Browning on, and requested to be allowed to improve my acquaintance with him. He expressed himself warmly, as gratified by the proposal, wished to send me his book; we exchanged cards and parted.’
On December 7 he writes:
‘Read ‘Paracelsus’, a work of great daring, starred with poetry of thought, feeling, and diction, but occasionally obscure; the writer can scarcely fail to be a leading spirit of his time… .’
He invited Mr. Browning to his country house, Elm Place, Elstree, for the last evening of the year; and again refers to him under date of December 31.
‘… Our other guests were Miss Henney, Forster, Cattermole, Browning, and Mr. Munro. Mr. Browning was very popular with the whole party; his simple and enthusiastic manner engaged attention, and won opinions from all present; he looks and speaks more like a youthful poet than any man I ever saw.’
This New-Year’s-Eve visit brought Browning and Forster together for the first time. The journey to Elstree was then performed by coach, and the two young men met at the ‘Blue Posts’, where, with one or more of Mr. Macready’s other guests, they waited for the coach to start. They eyed each other with interest, both being striking in their way, and neither knowing who the other was. When the introduction took place at Macready’s house, Mr. Forster supplemented it by saying: ‘Did you see a little notice of you I wrote in the ‘Examiner’?’ The two names will now be constantly associated in Macready’s diary, which, except for Mr. Browning’s own casual utterances, is almost our only record of his literary and social life during the next two years.
It was at Elm Place that Mr. Browning first met Miss Euphrasia Fanny Haworth, then a neighbour of Mr. Macready, residing with her mother at Barham Lodge. Miss Haworth was still a young woman, but her love and talent for art and literature made her a fitting member of the genial circle to which Mr. Browning belonged; and she and the poet soon became fast friends. Her first name appears as ‘Eyebright’ in ‘Sordello’. His letters to her, returned after her death by her brother, Mr. Frederick Haworth, supply valuable records of his experiences and of his feelings at one very interesting, and one deeply sorrowful, period of his history. She was a thoroughly kindly, as well as gifted woman, and much appreciated by those of the poet’s friends who knew her as a resident in London during her last years. A portrait which she took of him in 1874 is considered by some persons very good.
At about this time also, and probably through Miss Haworth, he became acquainted with Miss Martineau.
Soon after his introduction to Macready, if not before, Mr. Browning became busy with the thought of writing for the stage. The diary has this entry for February 16, 1836:
‘Forster and Browning called, and talked over the plot of a tragedy, which Browning had begun to think of: the subject, Narses. He said that I had bit him by my performance of Othello, and I told him I hoped I should make the blood come. It would indeed be some recompense for the miseries, the humiliations, the heart-sickening disgusts which I have endured in my profession, if, by its exercise, I had awakened a spirit of poetry whose influence would elevate, ennoble, and adorn our degraded drama. May it be!’
But Narses was abandoned, and the more serious inspiration and more definite motive were to come later. They connect themselves with one of the pleasant social occurrences which must have lived in the young poet’s memory. On May 26 ‘Ion’ had been performed for the first time and with great success, Mr. Macready sustaining the principal part; and the great actor and a number of their common friends had met at supper at Serjeant Talfourd’s house to celebrate the occasion. The party included Wordsworth and Landor, both of whom Mr. Browning then met for the first time. Toasts flew right and left. Mr. Browning’s health was proposed by Serjeant Talfourd as that of the youngest poet of England, and Wordsworth responded to the appeal with very kindly courtesy. The conversation afterwards turned upon plays, and Macready, who had ignored a half-joking question of Miss Mitford, whether, if she wrote one, he would act in it, overtook Browning as they were leaving the house, and said, ‘Write a play, Browning, and keep me from going to America.’ The reply was, ‘Shall it be historical and English; what do you say to a drama on Strafford?’
This ready response on the poet’s part showed that Strafford, as a dramatic subject, had been occupying his thoughts. The subject was in the air, because Forster was then bringing out a life of that statesman, with others belonging to the same period. It was more than in the air, so far as Browning was concerned, because his friend had been disabled, either through sickness or sorrow, from finishing this volume by the appointed time, and he, as well he might, had largely helped him in its completion. It was, however, not till August 3 that Macready wrote in his diary:
‘Forster told me that Browning had fixed on Strafford for the subject of a tragedy; he could not have hit upon one that I could have more readily concurred in.’
A previous entry of May 30, the occasion of which is only implied, shows with how high an estimate of Mr. Browning’s intellectual importance Macready’s professional relations to him began.
‘Arriving at chambers, I found a note from Browning. What can I say upon it? It was a tribute which remunerated me for the annoyances and cares of years: it was one of the very highest, may I not say the highest, honour I have through life received.’
The estimate maintained itself in reference to the value of Mr. Browning’s work, since he wrote on March 13, 1837:
‘Read before dinner a few pages of ‘Paracelsus’, which raises my wonder the more I read it… . Looked over two plays, which it was not possible to read, hardly as I tried… . Read some scenes in ‘Strafford’, which restore one to the world of sense and feeling once again.’
But as the day of the performance drew near, he became at once more anxious and more critical. An entry of April 28 comments somewhat sharply on the dramatic faults of ‘Strafford’, besides declaring the writer’s belief that the only chance for it is in the acting, which, ‘by possibility, might carry it to the end without disapprobation,’ though he dares not hope without opposition. It is quite conceivable that his first complete study of the play, and first rehearsal of it, brought to light deficiencies which had previously escaped him; but so complete a change of sentiment points also to private causes of uneasiness and irritation; and, perhaps, to the knowledge that its being saved by collective good acting was out of the question.
‘Strafford’ was performed at Covent Garden Theatre on May 1. Mr. Browning wrote to Mr. Fox after one of the last rehearsals:
May Day, Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Dear Sir, — All my endeavours to procure a copy before this morning have been fruitless. I send the first book of the first bundle. Pray look over it — the alterations tonight will be considerable. The complexion of the piece is, I grieve to say, ‘perfect gallows’ just now — our King, Mr. Dale, being … but you’ll see him, and, I fear, not much applaud. Your unworthy son, in things literary, Robert Browning.
P.S. (in pencil). — A most unnecessary desire, but urged on me by Messrs. Longman: no notice on Str. in tonight’s True Sun,* lest the other papers be jealous!!!
* Mr. Fox reviewed ‘Strafford’ in the ‘True Sun’.
A second letter, undated, but evidently written a day or two later, refers to the promised notice, which had then appeared.
Tuesday Night.
No words can express my feelings: I happen to be much annoyed and unwell — but your most generous notice has almost made ‘my soul well and happy now.’
I thank you, my most kind, most constant friend, from my heart for your goodness — which is brave enough, just now. I am ever and increasingly yours, Robert Browning.
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