The sonnet is not very striking,though hints of the poet's future psychological subtlety are not wanting in it;but his most essential dramatic quality reveals itself in the last three poems.
This winter of 1834-5witnessed the birth,perhaps also the extinction,of an amateur periodical,established by some of Mr.Browning's friends;foremost among these the young Dowsons,afterwards connected with Alfred Domett.The magazine was called the 'Trifler',and published in monthly numbers of about ten pages each.
It collapsed from lack of pocket-money on the part of the editors;but Mr.Browning had written for it one letter,February 1833,signed with his usual initial Z,and entitled 'Some strictures on a late article in the 'Trifler'.'This boyish production sparkles with fun,while affecting the lengthy quaintnesses of some obsolete modes of speech.
The article which it attacks was 'A Dissertation on Debt and Debtors',where the subject was,I imagine,treated in the orthodox way:
and he expends all his paradox in showing that indebtedness is a necessary condition of human life,and all his sophistry in confusing it with the abstract sense of obligation.It is,perhaps,scarcely fair to call attention to such a mere argumentative and literary freak;but there is something so comical in a defence of debt,however transparent,proceeding from a man to whom never in his life a bill can have been sent in twice,and who would always have preferred ready-money payment to receiving a bill at all,that I may be forgiven for quoting some passages from it.
For to be man is to be a debtor:--hinting but slightly at the grand and primeval debt implied in the idea of a creation,as matter too hard for ears like thine,(for saith not Luther,What hath a cow to do with nutmegs?)I must,nevertheless,remind thee that all moralists have concurred in considering this our mortal sojourn as indeed an uninterrupted state of debt,and the world our dwelling-place as represented by nothing so aptly as by an inn,wherein those who lodge most commodiously have in perspective a proportionate score to reduce,and those who fare least delicately,but an insignificant shot to discharge --or,as the tuneful Quarles well phraseth it --He's most in DEBT who lingers out the day,Who dies betimes has less and less to pay.
So far,therefore,from these sagacious ethics holding that Debt cramps the energies of the soul,&c.
as thou pratest,'tis plain that they have willed on the very outset to inculcate this truth on the mind of every man,--no barren and inconsequential dogma,but an effectual,ever influencing and productive rule of life,--that he is born a debtor,lives a debtor --aye,friend,and when thou diest,will not some judicious bystander,--no recreant as thou to the bonds of nature,but a good borrower and true --remark,as did his grandsire before him on like occasions,that thou hast 'paid the DEBT of nature'?
Ha!I have thee 'beyond the rules',as one (a bailiff)may say!
Such performances supplied a distraction to the more serious work of writing 'Paracelsus',which was to be concluded in March 1835,and which occupied the foregoing winter months.We do not know to what extent Mr.Browning had remained in communication with Mr.Fox;but the following letters show that the friend of 'Pauline'
gave ready and efficient help in the strangely difficult task of securing a publisher for the new poem.
The first is dated April 2,1835.
Dear Sir,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter:--Sardanapalus 'could not go on multiplying kingdoms'--nor I protestations --but I thank you very much.
You will oblige me indeed by forwarding the introduction to Moxon.
I merely suggested him in particular,on account of his good name and fame among author-folk,besides he has himself written --as the Americans say --'more poetry 'an you can shake a stick at.'So I hope we shall come to terms.
I also hope my poem will turn out not utterly unworthy your kind interest,and more deserving your favour than anything of mine you have as yet seen;indeed I all along proposed to myself such an endeavour,for it will never do for one so distinguished by past praise to prove nobody after all --'nous verrons'.
I am,dear sir,Yours most truly and obliged Robt.Browning.
On April 16he wrote again as follows:
Dear Sir,Your communication gladdened the cockles of my heart.I lost no time in presenting myself to Moxon,but no sooner was Mr.Clarke's letter perused than the Moxonian visage loured exceedingly thereat --the Moxonian accent grew dolorous thereupon:--'Artevelde'has not paid expenses by about thirty odd pounds.Tennyson's poetry is 'popular at Cambridge',and yet of 800copies which were printed of his last,some 300only have gone off:Mr.M.hardly knows whether he shall ever venture again,&c.&c.,and in short begs to decline even inspecting,&c.&c.
I called on Saunders and Otley at once,and,marvel of marvels,do really think there is some chance of our coming to decent terms --I shall know at the beginning of next week,but am not over-sanguine.
You will 'sarve me out'?two words to that;being the man you are,you must need very little telling from me,of the real feeling I have of your criticism's worth,and if I have had no more of it,surely I am hardly to blame,who have in more than one instance bored you sufficiently:but not a particle of your article has been rejected or neglected by your observant humble servant,and very proud shall I be if my new work bear in it the marks of the influence under which it was undertaken --and if I prove not a fit compeer of the potter in Horace who anticipated an amphora and produced a porridge-pot.
