CHAPTER XXXII.

HUNT, LANDOR, HOOD, THE BROWNINGS, TENNYSON, CLOUGH, ROSSETTI, MORRIS.

James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) received his education at Christ's Hospital. In 1805 he joined his brother in editing a paper called The News, and shortly afterwards established The Examiner. For the libel of calling the Regent George IV. a "corpulent Adonis " he was in prison for two years. Soon after leaving prison he published the Story of Rimini, an Italian tale in verse, containing some exquisite poetry. About 1818 he started The Indicator, a weekly paper, in imitation of The Spectator; and in 1822 he went to Italy to assist Lord Byron and Shelley in their projected paper called The Liberal. Shelley died soon after Hunt's arrival in Italy. Hunt was kindly received by Byron, and lived for a time in his house; but there was little congeniality between them. Returning to England, he continued to write for periodicals, and published various poems. His poetry is graceful, sprightly, and full of sparkle. His prose writings consist of essays, collected under the titles of The Indicator and The Companion; Sir Ralph Esther, a novel; The Old Court Suburb; lives of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar.*

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), a strong personality, of turbulent spirit, entered Rugby at an early age, and thence went to Trinity College, Oxford. In 1795 his first work volume of poems-appeared, followed early in the present

a

* Hunt left an Autobiography, of which a revised edition appeared in 1860. See Dowden's article in Ward's English Poets (Vol. IV., 1888), and in Hazlitt's Essays from The Spirit of the Age (1894).

century by a translation into Latin of Gebir, one of his own English poems. Landor had facility in classical composition, and could transport his thought into the times and sentiments of Greece and Rome. This is clearly seen in the Heroic Idyls in Latin verse, and in the reproduction of Greek thought in The Hellenics. The poet spent most of his life on the Continent, making occasional visits to his native country. Between 1820 and 1830 he wrote his greatest work, entitled Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen. This was followed by Poems, Letters by a Conservative, Satire on Satirists, Pentameron and Pentalogue, and a long series in prose and poetry, including The Hellenics Enlarged and Completed, Dry Sticks Fagoted, and The Last Fruit off an Old Tree. He died at Florence, an exile from his country, and misunderstood by the majority of his countrymen. His works are exquisite in form, but they lack the vitality of human love.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845) has been too often regarded as only a humorist. "Pathos, sensibility, indignation against wrong, enthusiasm for human improvement - all these were his. His pen touched alike the springs of laughter and the sources of tears." He was an associate of Lamb, Hazlitt, the Smiths, and De Quincey. His articles in the London Magazine were followed by Whims and Oddities. All was going well when in the midst of his success the failure of a business house involved him in its losses. Disdaining refuge in bankruptcy, he determined to pay off his indebtedness by five years of economical living in Germany.

Hood's fancy was delicate, graceful, and playful. He possessed in a remarkable degree the sense of the ridiculous. His wit was caustic; it was never coarse; no impurity even in suggestion can be found in his pages. The Death-Bed, one of the most affecting poems in our language, is equaled by another of his ballads entitled Love's Eclipse. Of his larger works, the Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, and Hero and Leander, are full of observation of Nature and musical expression of her beauties.

The best known of his poems are The Bridge of Sighs, Eugene Aram, and the Song of the Shirt. In the humor of his poems there is an earnest purpose. "He tempts men to laugh, and then leads them to pity and relieve." He is among the best punsters in English verse, though, in still lighter manner, the American Saxe worked in his vein.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The most eminent poet among the women of the century is Elizabeth Browning (1806-1861). She was the daughter of a London merchant, and by good fortune received what had been allowed to few women, a good education. In the Latin and Greek literature she was well versed. Her delicate health prevented her from doing the toilsome work of a laborious student; yet her acquirements were extensive. Her first acknowledged work was a translation of the Prometheus Bound, published in 1833. Next appeared a collection of poems. In 1846 she married Robert Browning and went with him to Italy. From that time her sympathies with the Italian struggle for freedom and unity ́colored nearly all of her writings. Her Casa Guidi Windows gives her impressions of the life she saw from her home, the Casa Guidi, in Florence. Her greatest work, and in the estimation of some critics the finest poem of the present century, is Aurora Leigh, which she herself pronounces "the most mature of my works, and the one into which my highest convictions upon Life and Art have entered." In 1856 she left England for the last time, dying at Florence in 1861.

Mrs. Browning's style is often rugged, unfinished, and defective in rhythm; but its passion, stress, and humanity make it seem like that of a Hebrew prophet. Withal, those who read her verse know that they have struck a new note. It is not the novelty of her themes, but the surge of a glorious and

intense womanhood uttering oracles and even rhapsodies on actual life. Some of her finest lyrics are among the Sonnets from the Portuguese, which are not translations, but are her own love-story told with pathos and charm.*

It is fitting that the literary chronicles of Robert Browning (1812-1889) should be closely linked with those of his gifted wife. The kinship of their studies and sympathies exerted marked influence upon the writings of both. Our great poets have often manifested their genius in spite of the most adverse surroundings; but with Browning, as with Milton, the culture of native gifts was assisted from earliest years by the sympathy of friends. Browning's father, who possessed poetic power as well as appreciation, gave him an extensive though not a university education. Byron was his first inspiration and model; in fact, in 1824, the year of the older poet's death, a volume of verses was ready for a publisher, whom Browning's friends sought in vain. A year later he came by chance under the spell of Shelley and Keats, and a complete revision of his poetic standards resulted. For several years he wrote little, though planning much; his mind was set upon gigantic undertakings, midway between drama and epic in their scope. Pauline, a Fragment of a Confession, was anonymously published in 1833, attracting no general notice, although such thinkers as J. S. Mill, John Forster, and D. G. Rossetti at once marked the strong note of the unknown singer. Assured of a moderate fortune from his parents, Browning now resolved to devote his life to study and travel. He made a long stay at St. Petersburg, and thence went to Italy, beginning that ardent study of Italian history and litera

* See articles on Mrs. Browning, and on Robert Browning, in Masson's In the Footsteps of the Poets (1893).

ture which was to prove a dominating influence in his thought. Returning to England, he finished Paracelsus. It was sufficiently read and talked about to give its author encouragement.

Strafford, an historical tragedy (1837), was prepared for the stage at the instance of the tragedian Macready, who himself assumed the leading part. A Blot in the Scutcheon (1843) and Colombe's Birthday (1852) were composed with the same design. To this period also belong several plays which were never acted: Pippa Passes, by common consent the most perfect of Browning's dramas; King Victor and King Charles, The Return of the Druses, Luria, and A Soul's Tragedy.

Sordello had

received much of the censure and praise whose contradictions were destined to become so familiar to the poet; Dramatic Lyrics (1842) contained a number of stirring ballads: How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, Incident of the French Camp, Cavalier Tunes, and the inimitable Pied Piper of Hamelin. To this period belongs also a popular edition of his works under the fanciful title of Bells and Pomegranates. In 1846 Browning married Elizabeth Barrett; and for the next fifteen years the two poets found a congenial home in Italy, amid the stirring scenes of the Italian struggle for national unity. Although Robert Browning published little at this time, later years proved that he felt and studied deeply. Christmas Eve and Easter Day appeared in 1850; and Men and Women contained, among reprinted pieces, many strong new poems.

After the death of his wife Browning returned to England, residing mainly in London during the last and most productive years of his life. "Casa Guidi," his Florentine home, had long been a Mecca to literary pilgrims; and he how became one of the familiar and cherished figures of London society. Many writers have borne witness to the modesty and unspoiled kindliness of his nature.

Dramatis Personœ (1864) was heavily weighted with meta