Ingram (in 1886) "I engaged to verify any dates Mrs. Ritchie furnished, and I did so. Only those are to be depended upon." Yet it is clearly impossible that both Mrs. Ritchie and Mr. Browning can be correct, and it seems very probable that both are mistaken. The Athenæum, February 4, 1888, published a letter from Mr. Ingram in answer to Mr. Browning's Note, showing, firstly, that there is no such place as Carlton Hall, Durham, nor any record of Mrs. E. B. Browning's birth in that city; secondly, that the newspaper announcement of the birth stated "London, March 4, 1809, the wife of Edward M. Barrett, Esq., of a daughter," so that it was obviously impossible for that lady also to have given birth to a daughter at Burn Hall, Durham, on March 6, 1809, as stated by Mrs. Ritchie; and thirdly, that as in 1806 Mr. Barrett was a student in Cambridge, and only about twenty years of age, it was unlikely that he would then be the father of two children, (as Mr. Browning asserts), although it is admitted he married early. To this letter Mr. Browning briefly replied, disclaiming any "certitude in the matter from knowledge of his own," which reads like a tacit admission of the accuracy of Mr. J. H. Ingram's statements. That there should be some doubt about an event which occurred eighty years ago can be readily understood, but it is difficult to explain the discrepancies which exist in several descriptions of Mrs. Browning's personal appearance, thus Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote : "It is wonderful to see how small she is, how pale her cheek, how bright and dark her eyes. There is not such another figure in the world; and her black ringlets cluster down on her neck, and make her face look the whiter by their sable profusion. Two other observers give very different details: "But it was Mrs. Browning's face upon which one loved to gaze that face and head which almost lost themselves in the thick curls of her dark brown hair. Her large, brown eyes were beautiful, and were, in truth, the windows of her soul. They combined the confidingness of a child with the poet-passion of heart and intellect; and in gazing into them it was easy to read why Mrs. Browning wrote. KATE FIELD, 1861, "Letter from Florence."-Atlantic Monthly, September. "She was slight and fragile in appearance, with a pale, wasted face, shaded by masses of soft chestnut curls which fell on her cheeks, and serious eyes of bluish-gray. Her frame seemed to be altogether disproportionate to her soul." BAYARD TAYLOR, "At Home and Abroad." Mrs. Browning's poetry, though highly praised by critics and literary men, has not yet attained that popularity which engenders many parodies, being, as Charlotte Brontë wrote, somewhat wordy, intricate and obscure. THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. They are leaning their young heads against their mothers- The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, They are weeping in the playtime of the others, Do you question the young children in their sorrow The old man may weep for his to-morrow The old tree is leafless in the forest, The old year is ending in the frost, The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest, The old hope is hardest to be lost : Bnt the young, young children, O my brothers! Do you ask them why they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, In our happy Fatherland? "True," say the children, "it may happen That we die before our time. Little Alice died last year-the grave is shapen We looked into the pit prepared to take her; If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower, "It is good when it happens," say the children, Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking They are binding up their hearts away from breaking, Go out, children, from the mine and from the city— Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows, "For oh," say the children, "we are weary, If we cared for any meadows, it were merely The reddest flower would Icok as pale as snow. For all day we drag our burden tiring Through the coal-dark underground, Or all day we drive the wheels of iron "For all day the wheels are droning, turning,— Their wind comes in our faces, Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning, Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling,- "O ye wheels" (breaking out in a mad moaning), E. B. BROWNING. It is well to praise the spread of education, But the horror of each long examination Haunts the little ones at night. Here are Children born 'mid London's toil and traffic, And we feed them with statistics geographic, And, in the place of bread, we give them "Rule of Three." How long then, we ask it in all sadness, Can such laws be deemed the best; While the Children, through brain-fever and through mad THE WAIL OF THE CHILDREN. "To look at these half-starved children in London Schools is to be 'full of pity.' Very touching is it to think of the quiet heroism with which, when hunger is gnawing within and the dull misery of want overflows them, they sit uncomplaining at their little desks, toiling at their allotted tasks, wondering, no doubt, sometimes what it all means, but bearing their burdens patiently."-Dr. Crichton-Browne's Report on Over Pressure. Do you hear the Children wailing in the daytime, Far too sad are they for pleasure in their playtime, They are old before their age and worn and weary And their little heads are bowed upon their books; "For this life at school," they say "is very dreary," And there's listlessness and languor in their looks. And all day, the Wheel of Education, By the orders of the State, Whirleth round in every school-room in the nation, Like the direful Wheel of Fate. It is hard to see the Children growing older, As you mark the pallid cheek and rounded shoulder, They are suffering from a sempiternal dead ache And they fly to ease the constant "School-Board head-ache," For all day they toil on in their classes, With an earnestness too sad; It is well that we should educate the masses, They come breakfastless from alleys in the city, They are starving, and we give them-more's the pity! THE BITTER CRY OF AGRICULTURE. Do you hear the cry from Farmers, O my brothers, As the toilsome years go by? 'Tis a cry that should be heard above all others The shipping may be crying with its grievance, If you question Farmers why this land depression, You will hear their quick and ever sad expression, But piles up wealth, and has no care for others, They look on wasting stock from land and pocket For the strain upon each Agricultural socket Landlords, they say, have met the question bravely 231 Our old Homesteads are as dear to us my brothers, As your Factories are to you, And we cannot starve our children with their mothers Our pilgrim fathers leit the land that bore them, J. D. BEESTON. "Gus Harris has got Shuttleworth, or Pennington, or some other reverend gentleman, to write him a letter about the sad condition of the children of the poorer clergy, who are in worse plight than the thousands who recently attended Drury Lane from the national and orphan schools and asylums, seeing that they are never invited to witness a pantomime. Quite ready with his response was Gussy, who has now issued an invitation for Thursday morning next to 'the families of curates and ministers of all denominations who are not in a position to pay for seats.' CHURCH OR STAGE; Or, the Cry of the Clergymen's Children. Do you hear those children weeping, O my brothers? They want to go to theatres, like the others, And hence their trickling tears. All the ragged-schools have seen the clown's hot poker- They want to see a panto, like the others, Did you read that parson's letter-full of sorrowWhich described these children's woe? Did you see who tried publicity to borrow From that note-not long ago? 'Twas written by a well-known London preacher That, though he was as poor as lots of others, Percy Bysshe Shelley. BORN, August 4, 1792. DROWNED, July 8, 1822. Shelley's poetry has not been extensively parodied, nor have his prose writings been burlesqued, unless, indeed, the forged letters published in 1852 by Mr. Edward Moxon, London, may be considered in the light of a burlesque. This little volume was entitled "Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, with an Introductory Essay by Robert Browning." The essay, dated "Paris, December 4th, 1851," occupies 44 pages, and the letters, which were 25 in number, occupy pp. 47 to 165 inclusive. This was one of the most ingenious literary forgeries of modern times, so clever, not only in its imitation of hardwriting, but in style and circumstances, as to have deceived the very elect. The genuineness of the letters was first called in question by Mr. F. T. Palgrave, who saw the book at Lord (then Mr.) Tennyson's house, and accidentally opened it at a passage which he recognised as taken from an article contributed by his father to the "Quarterly Review." Other tests were then applied, the post marks were carefully examined, and little by little the network of fraud was unravelled. In February, March, and April, 1852, a great controversy, concerning these letters, was carried on in literary circles, but it was practically decided by a series of articles published in the Athenæum, that they were forgeries. The book was rigidly suppressed, and as only a few copies had got abroad, it now very rarely occurs for sale. :0: In 1886, the Shelley Society produced Shelley's gloomy tragedy "The Cenci," at the Grand Theatre, Islington, when they also issued printed copies of the tragedy containing the revolting "Relation of the Death of the Family of the Cenci," which Shelley had suppressed. For this offence against decency, and good taste, the Shelley Society was severely reproved by the press, and Truth, May 13, 1886, contained a satirical poem, entitled The Salacious Shelley Society O, SHAME upon you Shelleyites! Aye, shame on everyone Who helped to do the sorry deed which was last Friday done! And fired by heedless self-conceit, and covetous of fame, Has made known acts of fiendish lust too terrible to name. Yes, think of it! You bid them come, those English maids, that day, To hear the nameless horrors of a grossly brutal play! |