The Browning Cyclopædia: A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning. Edward Berdoe
annoyed to hear that he had given the part he had intended to take to Mr. Phelps, then an actor quite unknown. Evidently Macready expected that Mr. Browning would withdraw the play. On the contrary, he accepted Phelps, who, however, was taken seriously ill before the rehearsal began. The consequence was (though there was clearly some shuffling on Macready’s part) that the great tragedian himself consented to take the part at the last moment. It is evident that Macready had changed his mind. He had, however, done more: he had changed the title to The Sisters, and had changed a good deal of the play, even to the extent of inserting some lines of his own. Meanwhile, Phelps having recovered, and being anxious to take his part, Mr. Browning insisted that he should do so; and, to Macready’s annoyance, the old arrangement had to stand. The play was vociferously applauded, and Mr. Phelps was again and again called before the curtain. Mr. Browning was much displeased at the treatment he had received, but his play continued to be performed to crowded houses. It was a great success also when Phelps revived it at Sadlers Wells. Miss Helen Faucit (who afterwards became Lady Martin) played the part of Mildred Tresham on the first appearance of The Blot in 1843. The Browning Society brought it out at St. George’s Hall on May 2nd, 1885; and again at the Olympic Theatre on March 15th, 1888, when Miss Alma Murray played Mildred Tresham in an ideally perfect manner. It was, as the Era said, “a thing to be remembered. From every point of view it was admirable. Its passion was highly pitched, its elocution pure and finished, and its expression, by feature and gesture, of a quality akin to genius. The agonising emotions which in turn thrill the girl’s sensitive frame were depicted with intense truth and keen and delicate art, and an excellent discretion defeated any temptation to extravagance.” It cannot be seriously held by any unprejudiced person that A Blot in the ’Scutcheon has within it the elements of success as an acting play. The subject is unpleasant, the conduct of Thorold monomaniacal and improbable, the wholesale dying in the last scene “transpontine.” The characters philosophise too much, and dissect themselves even as they die. They come to life again under the stimulation of the process, only to perish still more, and to make us speculate on the nature of the poison which permitted such self-analysis, and on the nature of the heart disease which was so subservient to the patient’s necessities. An analytic poet, we feel, is for the study, not for the boards.
Bluphocks. (Pippa Passes.) The vagabond Englishman of the poem. “The name means Blue-Fox, and is a skit on the Edinburgh Review, which is bound in a cover of blue and fox.” (Dr. Furnivall.)
Bombast. The proper name of Paracelsus; “probably acquired,” says Mr. Browning in a note to Paracelsus, “from the characteristic phraseology of his lectures, that unlucky signification which it has ever since retained.” This is not correct. Bombast, in German bombast, cognate with Latin bombyx in the sense of cotton. “Bombast, the cotton-plant growing in Asia” (Phillips, The New World of Words). It was applied also to the cotton wadding with which garments were lined and stuffed in Elizabeth’s time; hence inflated speech, fustian. (See Stubbes, The Anatomy of Abuses, p. 23; Trench, Encyc. Dict., etc.)
Boot and Saddle. No. III. of the “Cavalier Songs,” published in Bells and Pomegranates in 1842, under the title “Cavalier Tunes.”
Bottinius. (The Ring and the Book.) Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius was the Fisc or Public Prosecutor and Advocate of the Apostolic Chamber at Rome. The ninth book of the poem contains his speech as prosecutor of Count Guido.
Boy and the Angel, The. (Hood’s Magazine, vol. ii., 1844, pp. 140-42.) Reprinted, revised, and with five fresh couplets, in “Dramatic Romances and Lyrics” (1845), No. VII. Bells and Pomegranates. Theocrite was a poor Italian boy who, morning, evening, noon and night, ever sang “Praise God!” As he prayed well and loved God, so he worked well and served his master faithfully and cheerfully. Blaise, the monk, heard him sing his Laudate, and said: “I doubt not thou art heard, my son, as well as if thou wert the Pope, praising God from Peter’s dome this Easter day”; but Theocrite said: “Would God I might praise Him that great way and die!” That night there was no more Theocrite, and God missed the boy’s innocent praise. Gabriel the archangel came to the earth, took Theocrite’s humble place, and praised God as did the boy, only with angelic song, – playing well, moreover, the craftsman’s part, content at his poor work, doing God’s will on earth as he had done it in heaven. But God said: “There is neither doubt nor fear in this praise; it is perfect as the song of my new-born worlds; I miss my little human praise.” Then the flesh disguise fell from the angel, and his wings sprang forth again. He flew to Rome: it was Easter Day, and the new pope Theocrite, once the poor work-lad, stood in the tiring room by the great gallery from which the popes are wont to bless the people on Easter morning, and he saw the angel before him, who told him he had made a mistake in bringing him from his trade to set him in that high place; he had done wrong, too, in leaving his angel-sphere: the stopping of that infant praise marred creation’s chorus; he must go back, and once more that early way praise God – “back to the cell and poor employ”; and so Theocrite grew to old age at his former home, and Rome had a new pope, and the angel’s error was rectified. Legends and stories of saints, angels, and our Lord Himself, are common in all Catholic countries, where these heavenly beings are far more real to the minds of the people than they are to the colder intelligence of Protestant and more logical lands. In southern Europe, hosts of such stories as these cluster round our Lady and the Saints. The Holy Virgin does not disdain to take her needle and sew buttons on the clothing of her worshippers, and the angels and saints think nothing of a little domestic or trade employment if it will assist their devout clients.
In Notes and Queries, 3rd Series, xii. 6, July 6, 1867, there appeared two queries on this poem by “John Addis, Jun.”: “1. What is the precise inner meaning? 2. On what legend is it founded? With regard to my first question, I see dimly in the poem a comparison of three kinds of praise – viz., human, ceremonial, and angelic. Further, I see dimly a contrasting of Gabriel’s humility with Theocrite’s ambition… The poem … has been recalled to me by reading ‘Kyng Roberd of Cysillé’ (Hazlitt’s Early Popular Poetry, vol. i., p. 264). There is a general analogy (by contrast perhaps rather than likeness) between the two poems, which points, I think, to the existence of a legend kindred to ‘Kyng Roberd’ as the prototype of Browning’s poem, rather than to ‘Kyng Roberd’ itself as that prototype… To ‘Sir Gowghter’ and the Jovinianus story of Gesta Romanorum, I have not present access; but both I fancy (while akin to ‘Kyng Roberd of Cysillé’) have nothing in common with ‘The Boy and the Angel.’” At page 55 another correspondent says that according to Warton (ii. 22), “‘Sir Gowghter’ is only another version of ‘Robert the Devil,’ and therefore of ‘King Roberd of Cysillé.’ He goes on to say that Longfellow has closely followed the old poem in ‘King Robert of Sicily’ printed in Tales of a Wayside Inn; but no answer is given to Mr. Addis’ queries about ‘The Boy and the Angel’” (Browning Notes and Queries, No. 13, Pt. I., vol. ii.) Leigh Hunt, in his Jar of Honey, chap. vi., gives the story of King Robert of Sicily. We can only include the following abbreviation here of the beautiful legend told so delightfully by the great essayist.
One day, when King Robert of Sicily was hearing vespers on St. John’s Eve, he was struck by the words of the Magnificat– “Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles” (“He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble”). He asked a chaplain near him what the words meant; and when they were explained to him, scoffingly replied that men like himself were not so easily put down, much less supplanted by those contemptible poor folk. The chaplain was horrified, and made no reply, and the king relieved his annoyance by going to sleep. After some time the king awoke and found himself in the church with no creature present except an old deaf woman who was dusting it. When the old lady saw the man who was trying to make her hear, she cried “Thieves!” and scuttled off to the door, closing it behind her. King Robert looked at the door, then at the empty church, then at himself. His ermine robe was gone, his coronet, his jewels, all the insignia of his royalty had disappeared. Raging at the door, he demanded that it should be opened; but they only mocked him through the keyhole and threatened him with the constable; but as the sexton mocked the captive king the great door was burst open in