The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition. Robert Browning
which, by a curious, probably old-fashioned, arrangement, formed part of the house, and were accessible from it. Here the ‘good horse’, York, was eventually put up; and near this, in the garden, the poet soon had another though humbler friend in the person of a toad, which became so much attached to him that it would follow him as he walked. He visited it daily, where it burrowed under a white rose tree, announcing himself by a pinch of gravel dropped into its hole; and the creature would crawl forth, allow its head to be gently tickled, and reward the act with that loving glance of the soft full eyes which Mr. Browning has recalled in one of the poems of ‘Asolando’.
This change of residence brought the grandfather’s second family, for the first time, into close as well as friendly contact with the first. Mr. Browning had always remained on outwardly friendly terms with his stepmother; and both he and his children were rewarded for this forbearance by the cordial relations which grew up between themselves and two of her sons. But in the earlier days they lived too far apart for frequent meeting. The old Mrs. Browning was now a widow, and, in order to be near her relations, she also came to Hatcham, and established herself there in close neighbourhood to them. She had then with her only a son and a daughter, those known to the poet’s friends as Uncle Reuben and Aunt Jemima; respectively nine years, and one year, older than he. ‘Aunt Jemima’ married not long afterwards, and is chiefly remembered as having been very amiable, and, in early youth, to use her nephew’s words, ‘as beautiful as the day;’ but kindly, merry ‘Uncle Reuben’, then clerk in the Rothschilds’ London bank,* became a conspicuous member of the family circle. This does not mean that the poet was ever indebted to him for pecuniary help; and it is desirable that this should be understood, since it has been confidently asserted that he was so. So long as he was dependent at all, he depended exclusively on his father. Even the use of his uncle’s horse, which might have been accepted as a friendly concession on Mr. Reuben’s part, did not really represent one. The animal stood, as I have said, in Mr. Browning’s stable, and it was groomed by his gardener. The promise of these conveniences had induced Reuben Browning to buy a horse instead of continuing to hire one. He could only ride it on a few days of the week, and it was rather a gain than a loss to him that so good a horseman as his nephew should exercise it during the interval.
* This uncle’s name, and his business relations with the great Jewish firm, have contributed to the mistaken theory of the poet’s descent.
Uncle Reuben was not a great appreciator of poetry — at all events of his nephew’s; and an irreverent remark on ‘Sordello’, imputed to a more eminent contemporary, proceeded, under cover of a friend’s name, from him. But he had his share of mental endowments. We are told that he was a good linguist, and that he wrote on finance under an assumed name. He was also, apparently, an accomplished classic. Lord Beaconsfield is said to have declared that the inscription on a silver inkstand, presented to the daughter of Lionel Rothschild on her marriage, by the clerks at New Court, ‘was the most appropriate thing he had ever come across;’ and that whoever had selected it must be one of the first Latin scholars of the day. It was Mr. Reuben Browning.
Another favourite uncle was William Shergold Browning, though less intimate with his nephew and niece than he would have become if he had not married while they were still children, and settled in Paris, where his father’s interest had placed him in the Rothschild house. He is known by his ‘History of the Huguenots’, a work, we are told, ‘full of research, with a reference to contemporary literature for almost every occurrence mentioned or referred to.’ He also wrote the ‘Provost of Paris’, and ‘Hoel Morven’, historical novels, and ‘Leisure Hours’, a collection of miscellanies; and was a contributor for some years to the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’. It was chiefly from this uncle that Miss Browning and her brother heard the now often-repeated stories of their probable ancestors, Micaiah Browning, who distinguished himself at the siege of Derry, and that commander of the ship ‘Holy Ghost’ who conveyed Henry V. to France before the battle of Agincourt, and received the coat-of-arms, with its emblematic waves, in reward for his service. Robert Browning was also indebted to him for the acquaintance of M. de Ripert-Monclar; for he was on friendly terms with the uncle of the young count, the Marquis de Fortia, a learned man and member of the Institut, and gave a letter of introduction — actually, I believe, to his brother Reuben — at the Marquis’s request.*
* A grandson of William Shergold, Robert Jardine Browning, graduated at Lincoln College, was called to the Bar, and is now Crown Prosecutor in New South Wales; where his name first gave rise to a report that he was Mr. Browning’s son, while the announcement of his marriage was, for a moment, connected with Mr. Browning himself. He was also intimate with the poet and his sister, who liked him very much.
The friendly relations with Carlyle, which resulted in his high estimate of the poet’s mother, also began at Hatcham. On one occasion he took his brother, the doctor, with him to dine there. An earlier and much attached friend of the family was Captain Pritchard, cousin to the noted physician Dr. Blundell. He enabled the young Robert, whom he knew from the age of sixteen, to attend some of Dr. Blundell’s lectures; and this aroused in him a considerable interest in the sciences connected with medicine, though, as I shall have occasion to show, no knowledge of either disease or its treatment ever seems to have penetrated into his life. A Captain Lloyd is indirectly associated with ‘The Flight of the Duchess’. That poem was not completed according to its original plan; and it was the always welcome occurrence of a visit from this gentleman which arrested its completion. Mr. Browning vividly remembered how the click of the garden gate, and the sight of the familiar figure advancing towards the house, had broken in upon his work and dispelled its first inspiration.
The appearance of ‘Paracelsus’ did not give the young poet his just place in popular judgment and public esteem. A generation was to pass before this was conceded to him. But it compelled his recognition by the leading or rising literary men of the day; and a fuller and more varied social life now opened before him. The names of Serjeant Talfourd, Horne, Leigh Hunt, Barry Cornwall (Procter), Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton), Eliot Warburton, Dickens, Wordsworth, and Walter Savage Landor, represent, with that of Forster, some of the acquaintances made, or the friendships begun, at this period. Prominent among the friends that were to be, was also Archer Gurney, well known in later life as the Rev. Archer Gurney, and chaplain to the British embassy in Paris. His sympathies were at present largely absorbed by politics. He was contesting the representation of some county, on the Conservative side; but he took a very vivid interest in Mr. Browning’s poems; and this perhaps fixes the beginning of the intimacy at a somewhat later date; since a pretty story by which it was illustrated connects itself with the publication of ‘Bells and Pomegranates’. He himself wrote dramas and poems. Sir John, afterwards Lord, Hanmer was also much attracted by the young poet, who spent a pleasant week with him at Bettisfield Park. He was the author of a volume entitled ‘Fra Cipollo and other Poems’, from which the motto of ‘Colombe’s Birthday’ was subsequently taken.
The friends, old and new, met in the informal manner of those days, at afternoon dinners, or later suppers, at the houses of Mr. Fox, Serjeant Talfourd, and, as we shall see, Mr. Macready; and Mr. Fox’s daughter, then only a little girl, but intelligent and observant for her years, well remembers the pleasant gatherings at which she was allowed to assist, when first performances of plays, or first readings of plays and poems, had brought some of the younger and more ardent spirits together. Miss Flower, also, takes her place in the literary group. Her sister had married in 1834, and left her free to live for her own pursuits and her own friends; and Mr. Browning must have seen more of her then than was possible in his boyish days.
None, however, of these intimacies were, at the time, so important to him as that formed with the great actor Macready. They were introduced to each other by Mr. Fox early in the winter of 1835-6; the meeting is thus chronicled in Macready’s diary, November 27.*