The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition. Robert Browning

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      It has often been told, though with curious confusion as regards the date, how Mr. Browning picked up the original parchment-bound record of the Franceschini case, on a stall of the Piazza San Lorenzo. We read in the first section of his own work that he plunged instantly into the study of this record; that he had mastered it by the end of the day; and that he then stepped out on to the terrace of his house amid the sultry blackness and silent lightnings of the June night, as the adjacent church of San Felice sent forth its chants, and voices buzzed in the street below, — and saw the tragedy as a living picture unfold itself before him. These were his last days at Casa Guidi. It was four years before he definitely began the work. The idea of converting the story into a poem cannot even have occurred to him for some little time, since he offered it for prose treatment to Miss Ogle, the author of ‘A Lost Love’; and for poetic use, I am almost certain, to one of his leading contemporaries. It was this slow process of incubation which gave so much force and distinctness to his ultimate presentment of the characters; though it infused a large measure of personal imagination, and, as we shall see, of personal reminiscence, into their historical truth.

      Before ‘The Ring and the Book’ was actually begun, ‘Dramatis Personae’ and ‘In a Balcony’ were to be completed. Their production had been delayed during Mrs. Browning’s lifetime, and necessarily interrupted by her death; but we hear of the work as progressing steadily during this summer of 1862.

      A painful subject of correspondence had been also for some time engaging Mr. Browning’s thoughts and pen. A letter to Miss Blagden written January 19, ‘63, is so expressive of his continued attitude towards the questions involved that, in spite of its strong language, his family advise its publication. The name of the person referred to will alone be omitted.

      ‘… Ever since I set foot in England I have been pestered with applications for leave to write the Life of my wife — I have refused — and there an end. I have last week received two communications from friends, enclosing the letters of a certain … of …, asking them for details of life and letters, for a biography he is engaged in — adding, that he “has secured the correspondence with her old friend …” Think of this beast working away at this, not deeming my feelings or those of her family worthy of notice — and meaning to print letters written years and years ago, on the most intimate and personal subjects to an “old friend” — which, at the poor … [friend’s] death fell into the hands of a complete stranger, who, at once wanted to print them, but desisted through Ba’s earnest expostulation enforced by my own threat to take law proceedings — as fortunately letters are copyright. I find this woman died last year, and her son writes to me this morning that … got them from him as autographs merely — he will try and get them back… , evidently a blackguard, got my letter, which gave him his deserts, on Saturday — no answer yet, — if none comes, I shall be forced to advertise in the ‘Times’, and obtain an injunction. But what I suffer in feeling the hands of these blackguards (for I forgot to say another man has been making similar applications to friends) what I undergo with their paws in my very bowels, you can guess, and God knows! No friend, of course, would ever give up the letters — if anybody ever is forced to do that which she would have writhed under — if it ever were necessary, why, I should be forced to do it, and, with any good to her memory and fame, my own pain in the attempt would be turned into joy — I should do it at whatever cost: but it is not only unnecessary but absurdly useless — and, indeed, it shall not be done if I can stop the scamp’s knavery along with his breath.

      ‘I am going to reprint the Greek Christian Poets and another essay — nothing that ought to be published shall be kept back, — and this she certainly intended to correct, augment, and reproduce — but I open the doubled-up paper! Warn anyone you may think needs the warning of the utter distress in which I should be placed were this scoundrel, or any other of the sort, to baffle me and bring out the letters — I can’t prevent fools from uttering their folly upon her life, as they do on every other subject, but the law protects property, — as these letters are. Only last week, or so, the Bishop of Exeter stopped the publication of an announced “Life” — containing extracts from his correspondence — and so I shall do… .’

      Mr. Browning only resented the exactions of modern biography in the same degree as most other right-minded persons; but there was, to his thinking, something specially ungenerous in dragging to light any immature or unconsidered utterance which the writer’s later judgment would have disclaimed. Early work was always for him included in this category; and here it was possible to disagree with him; since the promise of genius has a legitimate interest from which no distance from its subsequent fulfilment can detract. But there could be no disagreement as to the rights and decencies involved in the present case; and, as we hear no more of the letters to Mr… ., we may perhaps assume that their intending publisher was acting in ignorance, but did not wish to act in defiance, of Mr. Browning’s feeling in the matter.

      In the course of this year, 1863, Mr. Browning brought out, through Chapman and Hall, the still well-known and well-loved three-volume edition of his works, including ‘Sordello’, but again excluding ‘Pauline’. A selection of his poems which appeared somewhat earlier, if we may judge by the preface, dated November 1862, deserves mention as a tribute to friendship. The volume had been prepared by John Forster and Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall), ‘two friends,’ as the preface states, ‘who from the first appearance of ‘Paracelsus’ have regarded its writer as among the few great poets of the century.’ Mr. Browning had long before signalized his feeling for Barry Cornwall by the dedication of ‘Colombe’s Birthday’. He discharged the present debt to Mr. Procter, if such there was, by the attentions which he rendered to his infirm old age. For many years he visited him every Sunday, in spite of a deafness ultimately so complete that it was only possible to converse with him in writing. These visits were afterwards, at her urgent request, continued to Mr. Procter’s widow.