"YOUNG ROBERT"

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 22, 27 January 1938, Page 5

"YOUNG ROBERT"

BROWNING'S TEMPER

AN AUSTRALIAN RECORD

A young man. filled with vitality, quick to take offence, short-tempered, and immensely fond of praise, is a description of Robert Browning, which I found in a collection of notes and manuscripts in the bookcase, writes Jchn A. Scarlett in the "Sydney Morning Herald."

| In faded ink, the name-page reads: "The Poet Robert Browning and His Kinsfolk, by his Cousin, Cyrus Mason." Cyrus Mason, who lived at Sandringham, Victoria, was my great-grand-father and, as a first cousin of the poet he was the last of his generation conversant with that race of Brownings who came to London from Dorsetshire about 1785. When he was in London, in 1900. Cyrus Mason visited his aunt, Sarah Browning, the last survivor of the Dorsetshire Robert Browning's children. Although aged 85, the old lady retained an almost youthful charm. She spoke of the poet's death, and his funeral, which she had attended, at Westminster Abbey, a recollection which caused her eyes to flash, as she condemned published ccounts of Browning's family history as "monstrous fabrication." This was not unnatural/ for the poet's forbears, although familiar with their interesting ancestry, left no record of family history behind them, and when Robert Browning's death occurred it was found that he had ordered his friends to destroy the letters which he had written to them. In a small book, a fe\v.of Browning's letters to Alfred Dommett, a friend living in New Zealand, have been preserved. They were written at a critical stage of the young man's life, when he was struggling against adverse cirr cumstances. Although Dommett was an intimate friend, Browning made no mention of his people, whom he seemed to regard with unnatural antagonism.

From the day when his. eccentric Aunt Margaret was seen, crooning strange prophecies over his cot in the house at Camberwell, to the years when the world began to acknowledge his wor!:, everyone looked upon "young Robert" as a superior being, and believed implicitly in the future foretold for him. THE HOUSE AT NEW CROSS. Shortly after Browning published "Sordello," my great-grandfather's parents moved to New Cross, Surrey, where the poet's family also lived. The Browning house on the south side of the Dover Road, was about three-quar-ters of a mile from Deptford. It was r ideal setting for young Browning to weave his thoughts into those verses which were to become his first successes. From his mother's rose garden, a little path led to a wicket gate, opening on to the broad Surrey meadows, and Dulwich Woods. All these surroundings of the poet my great-grandfather knew, at the time when Browning was describing them in letters addressed to a Miss Elizabeth Barrett, of Wimpole Street, London. The story of that romance, which has been dramatise 4., on stage and screen, is well known^ Little wonder that Browning's impassioned descriptions of Surrey fields and hedgerows made Elizabeth Barrett resolve to leave her invalid courch and to enjoy the beauties of Regent's Park. Browning was conveniently placed, for each member of the New Cross household was constantly self-absorbed. His father's leisure was devoted to reading, or to wandering through the fields with his prized sketch-book; his mother's first thought was her garden, and his; sister, Sarianna, was ,always busy with her work at the chapel she attended.

The ismily heard that Macready, a leading actor-manager in London, had asked Browning to write a play which would be produced at the Drury Lane

Theatre. The news was received with j mixed feelings, there were grave; debates on the propriety of the young i man's entrance to affairs connected with the stage. AN UNSUCCESSFUL PLAY. Accompanied by another Robert Browning, my great-grandfather attended the first performance of . "The Blot on the 'Scutcheon." The production was poor, however, and the play did not succeed. One scene, intended by the author to be romantic, caused much merriment. On a rope ladder, attached with reckless insecurity to the heroine's windo\V, swung the lover, murmuring a gentle serenade. He had reached the end of a line, when the word "Drop" was hissed with quiet urgency. The stage-hands' failure to comply immediately with' his request., added to the confusion.

Browning's disappointment at the reception given to his play was not shared by his people, when they heard later of his violent outbursts of temper at the rehearsals.

An illustration of the poet's ungovernable temper, apparently inherited from his grandfather, is shown by a dramatic incident, which occurred on the New Cross Road in the early hours of the morning.

Cyrus Mason had attended a theatre in the city, and was walking home along the road beside the Greenwich Railway. It had been raining heavily, but the storm had passed, and the moon made the shadows of the trees lie in black pools on the roadway. He had reached a turn in the road, when he heard the beat of a horse's Hoofs. The next moment a horseman, riding at a vicious gallop towards London, swept upon him. Leaping to one side, as the animal brushed his cloak, the young man shputed in astonishment: "Are you mad!" Unable to stop at once, the rider pulled his horse on to its haunches, wheeled about, and rode at his accuser with uplifted whip. Mason stood still, and then recognised horse and rider. The horse was "York," which belonged to Reuben Browning," the poet's uncle, and its angry rider was Robert Browning himself. Seeing that it was his cousin who stood before him he lowered his whip, and turning again, galloped off. HIS SUPERIOR ATTITUDE. When Browning's love letters ,to Elizabeth 3arrett were published, the family's opinion was confirmed that "young Robert's" upbringing had so implanted in him notions of his own superiority that he regarded personal assistance as fitting tribute, to his genius. A remark made by. him on one occasion in my great-grandfather's presence is typical of the lofty attitude he adopted when he was with his people. The two young men were talking with the poet's grandmother in the drawing-room of the house at New Cross, when the old lady asked her grandson: "Robert, why don't you write something we ordinary folk can understand?" " * . • \

Browning did not reply at once. He rose, and walked to the windows, where he stood looking out, hands clasped behind his back. Then, without turning his head, he answered petulantly: "I must tell you that what I do write is not intended to be understood by this generation." This unexpected reply so surprised his grandmother that she flushed and shook her cap strings indignantly. Her grandson left the room hurriedly, leaving a member of a first and third I generation. looking at each other in astonishment.

Brownings farewell to that same old lady was for him unusually flattering. As she sat in her chair one morning the door was thrown open, and Browning ran to her side, his face alight with excitement. Taking/his startled grandmother's hands in his own, he exclaimed: :

"A monstrous mistake! According to the Book of Common Prayer, a man is forbidden to marry his grandmother—the pity of it!" He then

kissed her impressively, and walked briskly from the room. It was undoubtedly the completion of arrangements for his elopement with Elizabeth Barrett that caused "his excitement. Probably the gallant kiss, given to the oldest member of the family constituted to his mind a poet's farewell of mother, .father, sister, friends, and native land.