Browning's England: A Study in English Influences in Browning. Helen Archibald Clarke

At least I soil no page with bread and milk,

       Nor crumple, dogsear and deface—boys' way.

      This chapter would not be complete without Browning's tribute to dog Tray, whose traits may not be peculiar to English dogs40 but whose name is proverbially English. Besides it touches a subject upon which the poet had strong feelings. Vivisection he abhorred, and in the controversies which were tearing the scientific and philanthropic world asunder in the last years of his life, no one was a more determined opponent of vivisection than he.

TRAY

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      Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst

       Of soul, ye bards!

       Quoth Bard the first:

       "Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don

       His helm and eke his habergeon. … "

       Sir Olaf and his bard——!

      "That sin-scathed brow" (quoth Bard the second),

       "That eye wide ope as though Fate beckoned

       My hero to some steep, beneath

       Which precipice smiled tempting death. … "

       You too without your host have reckoned!

      "A beggar-child" (let's hear this third!)

       "Sat on a quay's edge: like a bird

       Sang to herself at careless play,

       'And fell into the stream. Dismay!

       Help, you the standers-by!' None stirred.

      "Bystanders reason, think of wives

       And children ere they risk their lives.

       Over the balustrade has bounced

       A mere instinctive dog, and pounced

       Plumb on the prize. 'How well he dives!

      41 "'Up he comes with the child, see, tight

       In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite

       A depth of ten feet—twelve, I bet!

       Good dog! What, off again? There's yet

       Another child to save? All right!

      "'How strange we saw no other fall!

       It's instinct in the animal.

       Good dog! But he's a long while under:

       If he got drowned I should not wonder—

       Strong current, that against the wall!

      "'Here he comes, holds in mouth this time

       —What may the thing be? Well, that's prime!

       Now, did you ever? Reason reigns

       In man alone, since all Tray's pains

       Have fished—the child's doll from the slime!'

      "And so, amid the laughter gay,

       Trotted my hero off—old Tray—

       Till somebody, prerogatived

       With reason, reasoned: 'Why he dived,

       His brain would show us, I should say.

      "'John, go and catch—or, if needs be,

       Purchase—that animal for me!

       By vivisection, at expense

       Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence,

       How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'"

      42

CHAPTER II

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      SHAKESPEARE'S PORTRAIT

      Once and once only did Browning depart from his custom of choosing people of minor note to figure in his dramatic monologues. In "At the 'Mermaid'" he ventures upon the consecrated ground of a heart-to-heart talk between Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and the wits who gathered at the classic "Mermaid" Tavern in Cheapside, following this up with further glimpses into the inner recesses of Shakespeare's mind in the monologues "House" and "Shop." It is a particularly daring feat in the case of Shakespeare, for as all the world knows any attempt at getting in touch with the real man, Shakespeare, must, per force, be woven out of such "stuff as dreams are made on."

      In interpreting this portraiture of one great poet by another it will be of interest to glance at the actual facts as far as they are known in regard to the relations which existed between Shakespeare and Jonson. Praise and blame both are recorded on Jon43son's part when writing of Shakespeare, yet the praise shows such undisguised admiration that the blame sinks into insignificance. Jonson's "learned socks" to which Milton refers probably tripped the critic up occasionally by reason of their weight.

      There is a charming story told of the friendship between the two men recorded by Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, within a very few years of Shakespeare's death, who attributed it to Dr. Donne. The story goes that "Shakespeare was godfather to one of Ben Jonson's children, and after the christening, being in a deep study, Jonson came to cheer him up and asked him why he was so melancholy. 'No, faith, Ben,' says he, 'not I, but I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolved at last.' 'I prythee what?' says he. 'I'faith, Ben, I'll e'en give him a dozen good Lattin spoons, and thou shalt translate them.'" If this must be taken with a grain of salt, there is another even more to the honor of Shakespeare reported by Rowe and considered credible by such Shakespearian scholars as Halliwell Phillipps and Sidney Lee. "His acquaintance with Ben Jonson" writes Rowe, "began with a remarkable piece of humanity44 and good nature; Mr. Jonson, who was at that time altogether unknown to the world, had offered one of his plays to the players in order to have it acted, and the persons into whose hands it was put, after having turned it carelessly and superciliously over, were just upon returning it to him with an ill-natured answer that it would be of no service to their company, when Shakespeare luckily cast his eye upon it, and found something so well in it as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonson and his writings to the public." The play in question was the famous comedy of "Every Man in His Humour," which was brought out in September, 1598, by the Lord Chamberlain's company, Shakespeare himself being one of the leading actors upon the occasion.

      Authentic history records a theater war in which Jonson and Shakespeare figured, on opposite sides, but if allusions in Jonson's play the "Poetaster" have been properly interpreted, their friendly relations were not deeply disturbed. The trouble began in the first place by the London of 1600 suddenly rushing into a fad for the company of boy players, recruited chiefly from the choristers of the Chapel Royal, and known as the "Chil45dren of the Chapel." They had been acting at the new theater in Blackfriars since 1597, and their vogue became so great as actually to threaten Shakespeare's company and other companies of adult actors. Just at this time Ben Jonson was having a personal quarrel with his fellow dramatists, Marston and Dekker, and as he received little sympathy from the actors, he took his revenge by joining his forces with those of the Children of the Chapel. They brought out for him in 1600 his satire of "Cynthia's Revels," in which he held up to ridicule Marston, Dekker and their friends the actors. Marston and Dekker, with the actors of Shakespeare's company, prepared to retaliate, but Jonson hearing of it forestalled them with his play the "Poetaster" in which he spared neither dramatists nor actors. Shakespeare's company continued the fray by bringing out at the Globe Theatre, in the following year, Dekker and Marston's "Satiro-Mastix, or The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," and as Ward remarks, "the quarrel had now become too hot to last." The excitement, however, continued for sometime, theater-goers took sides and watched with interest "the actors and dramatists' boisterous war of personalities," to quote Mr. Lee, who46 goes on to point out that on May 10, 1601, the Privy Council called the attention of the Middlesex