Angelo, who is said to have regarded his older rival with jealous dislike. PROSPICE. This fighter's challenge to Death is distinctively English and distinctively religious. The abrupt masculine vigor of its verse, the unflinching courage with which it looks squarely in the eyes of the "Arch-Fear," these things are in keeping with the spirit of the Anglo-Saxon, from its earliest literary records until now. But it is no less true that the speaker is sustained by a confidence in the issue of the inevitable struggle, to which his earliest forefathers were strangers. The spirit of the Christian is united to the spirit of the Viking. It is not only emphatically English, but equally characteristic of Browning, himself a good example of sterling Anglo-Saxon manhood. The same unconquerable spirit is shown at the last in the Epilogue in Asolando. Prospice was written in the autumn of 1861; Browning had lost his wife earlier in that year, and the poem is evidently born out of the depth of his own experience. It was published in Dramatis Persona, in 1864. The passage from Dante that Browning wrote in his wife's Testament might be taken as an expression of the essence of this poem: "Thus I believe, thus I affirm, thus I am certain it is, that from this life I shall pass to another better, there, where that lady lives of whom my soul was enamoured." Prospice look forward (imp. of prospicio). RABBI BEN EZRA. 530. This poem was first published in Dramatis Persona, 1864. Alive in every line with courage and quickening power, it is charged with the vital spirit that animates Browning and his work. The poet has expressed the ideals which dominate it in many ways and in many poems, but it would be difficult to name another poem in which he has summed up his philosophy of life in a form at once so brief, so clear, so beautiful, and so comprehensive. It is above all a poem to live by, and it contains the essence of Browning's creed. The poem is dramatic, but only in a secondary and formal way. The personality of Rabbi Ben Ezra is consequently of minor importance, since he is but a mouthpiece for Browning himself. Nevertheless the Jewish teacher who is supposed to be imparting to youth the ultimate wisdom of age is not an imaginary person, but a man whose views, so far as we can judge, were really similar to those the poet has put into his mouth. Rabbi Ben Ezra, whose real name is said to have been Abraham ben Meir ben Ezra, and who is variously spoken of as Abenezra, Iben Ezra, Abenare, and Evenare, was one of the most distinguished Jewish scholars and Old Testament commentators of the Middle Ages. He was born at Toledo, during the latter part of the eleventh century, and is said to have died at Rome, about 1168. A hard student throughout his life, he lost none of his vigor or ambition through age, as he began a Commentary on the Pentateuch at sixty-four, and afterward entirely rewrote it. His view of life was lofty; to him the only reality was spirit, and he regarded material things as of very minor and temporary importance. (For fuller account, see "Rabbi ben Ezra" in Cooke's Browning Guide Book.) 7. Not that, amassing flowers, etc. The construction is, I do not remonstrate that youth, amassing flowers, sighed, etc., nor that it yearned, etc. 531.-31. Then welcome each rebuff, etc. This idea is a fundamental one with Browning, and is often reiterated in his poems. Cf. Saul: "By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss, And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggle in this.” In Rephan, the passage beginning : "Oh gain were it to see above," etc. And in Cleon: "That, stung by straitness of our life, made strait 532.-40. What I aspired to be, etc. Cf. Saul: ""Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!" 46. To man, propose this test. This thought is strikingly close to the real Aben Ezra's philosophy as summarized by Dr. Friedländer: "The Soul, only a stranger and prisoner in the body, filled with a burning desire to return home to its heavenly abode, certainly demands our principal attention.”— 57. I, who saw power, etc. This idea that Love as well as Power is to be discerned as a motive force in the universe, more than once alluded to by Browning, is made the main theme of "Reverie" in Asolando. The central idea of this poem is found in the following stanza : "I have faith such end shall be: From the first, Power was-I knew. Life has made clear to me That, strive but for closer view, Love were as plain to see." 533.–84. Indue—in the original sense of to put on, to clothe (Lat. induere). 535.-121. Be there, etc. Let there be, finally, the true station assigned to each. Was I who arraigned the world right, or they who disdained my soul? 536.-142. All instincts immature. The idea that a man's aspirations as well as his actual accomplishment must be taken into account in the absolute judgement of his life is also expressed in Lowell's poem Longing. Cf. further, on the insufficiency of the world's judgment, Lycidas: Alas! what boots it with uncessant care," etc. 151. Ay. note that Potter's wheel, etc. Cf. 18. lxiv. 8, and Jer. xviii. 2-6. Rolfe cites the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, LXXXIII-XC. See, also, Longfellow's Keramos.-156. Since life fleets, etc. This maxim of the Epicurean philosophy has found frequent and beautiful expression in verse. Cf. Horace, Odes, I. 11. 8: Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero." Herrick: To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time, etc. 537.–157. All that is at all. Cf. Abt. Vogler, IX. 5. : "There shall never be one lost good," etc. 538.-190. My times be in Thy hand! See Psalms xxiv. 15: "My times are in thy hand." E. B. BROWNING. 539. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (1809-1861) was born at Carlton Hall, Durham, England. Owing to ill health she led a secluded life, devoting her time to reading and study in many languages and to the writing of poems. Among her earliest efforts is a spirited translation of Eschylus' Prometheus Bound (1833). In 1846 she met and married Robert Browning, the poet. Her love for him inspired her to write Sonnets from the Portuguese, which are among the most impassioned and beautiful love poems, and are almost unique as the presentation of love from the woman's point of view. She wrote many poems and sonnets; Aurora Leigh, the best known of her long works, is a poem of considerable beauty and interest, but of unequal literary merit. In 1848 her Casa Guidi Windows appeared, showing her deep sympathy with her adopted country, Italy, which was then in a transition state. She died at Florence on the 29th of June 1861, in the Casa Guidi, where a tablet now records the esteem in which the city of Florence held her. KINGSLEY. 544. CHARLES KINGSLEY, clergyman, novelist, poet, and social reformer, was born June 19, 1819, at Holm Vicarage, Dartmouth, Devon. He took his degree at Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1842, and soon after became curate and then rector of Eversley, Hampshire, which was his home for the remaining thirty three years of his life. For a time he was Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge; he held a canonry at Chester, which was exchanged in 1873 for a canonry at Westminster. He died at Eversley, January 23, 1875. Kingsley, a man of aggressive energy, intense enthusiasms, varied interests, and lofty ideals, was one of the most stimulating and wholesome influences of his time. He worked in his parish; he threw himself into the cause of the poor of England, and became their champion in tracts, novels, and poems. His collected works fill twenty-eight volumes, including sermons, criticisms, historical lectures, books on geology and on education. His work as an author began with poetry (The Saint's Tragedy, 1848), but the diversified activities and duties of a busy life were hardly compatible with the serious pursuit of so exacting an art. When this is considered, Kingsley's place as a poet is seen to be surprisingly high. He was a true song writer, and The Three Fishers, The Sands of Dee, and some of his other lyrics and shorter poems, are likely to be loved and known long after many lengthy and elaborate productions of more ambitious poets have been forgotten. CLOUGH. 548. ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH was born at Liverpool in 1819. He was an earnest child fond of reading and the old Greek stories. In 1829 he was sent to Rugby and came under Dr. Arnold's influence. He gained the Balliol scholarship and went to Oxford in 1836. This was a turning-point in Clough's career. Oxford was at that time agitated by the Tractarian movement and Clough was thus brought in to the storm-centre of theological controversy. In 1842 he was elected fellow of Oriel, and in the following year was also appointed tutor of his college. During 1843 his first volume of verse appeared entitled Ambarvalia. He felt that teaching was his natural vocation, and yet, being bound by his position to silence on the subject of his mental struggle over the religions questions then pending, his honesty led him to resign his post of tutor in 1848. In that year he wrote his first and perhaps his best long poem, the Bothie of Tober-na- Vuolich, and also Amours de Voyage. He received an invitation to take the Headship of University Hall, London, an unsectarian institution, and he entered upon his duties there in 1849. In 1850 he took a short trip to Venice and wrote Dipsychus, a long poem bearing the impress of this Venetian visit. He resigned his post at University Hall in 1852 and made a visit to America, where he remained for about a year. During this time he composed his Songs of Absence, wrote for the magazines, and began a translation of Plutarch's Lives for an American publisher. In 1853 he returned to England, and in 1860 was obliged by failing health to leave England again for foreign travel. During this trip he composed his poem Mari Magno, a series of tales told by a party of friends on a sea-voyage, and dealing with the social problems of love and marriage. Not gaining in health, he went to Italy, but was stricken with fever and died at Florence in 1861, in his forty-third year. Matthew Arnold, Clough's warm friend, wrote the beautiful elegy, Thyrsis, to his memory. ARNOLD. 551. MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888) was born at Laleham, a town not far from London in the valley of the Thames. His father, Thomas Arnold, was one of the greatest of English teachers, and Matthew, who was educated at the great public schools of Winchester and Rugby, and at Balliol College, Oxford, had every help which the academic training of his day could afford. He won a scholarship at Balliol in 1840, gained the Newdigate prize by a poem on Cromwell in 1844, and was elected fellow of Oriel in 1845. He was made Lay Inspector of Schools in 1851, and labored indefatigably in this onerous and exacting position until 1885. From 1857 to 1867 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford. The earlier half of Arnold's literary career was devoted almost entirely to poetry; the latter almost as exclusively to prose. His first book of verse, The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems, appeared in 1849, while his essay On Translating Homer, which marks his advent as a critic, was not published until 1861. It was not until 1853, when he published a book of collected Poems under his full name (formerly he had only given the initial M.), that Arnold became known as a poet outside a limited circle. In prose, Arnold stands at the head of the literary criticism of his time: in poetry, if his greatest contemporaries excel him in range, emotion, or power, his place is nevertheless an honorable one, and his work possesses within narrow limits an excellence distinctively its own. That excellence lies chiefly in a certain |