Browne's own "" Saxon will easily show the truth of this contention. He has given six parallel passages in English and in a 66 Saxon " which seems to be of his own manufacture, for many of the words do not occur in the forms he gives, nor is the style Anglo-Saxon. Below is an example: ENGLISH I.-The first and foremost step to all good works is the dread and fear of the Lord of heaven and earth, which through the Holy Ghost enlighteneth the blindness of our sinful hearts to tread the ways of wisdom, and leads our feet into the land of blessing. SAXON I.-The erst and fyrmost staep to eal gode weorka is the draed and feurt of the Lauord of heofan and eorth, while thurh the Heilig Gast onlihtneth the blindnesse of ure sinfull heorte to traed the waeg of wisdome, and thone laed ure fet into the land of blessung. This brief passage shows both that Browne was undoubtedly acquainted with an Old English vocabulary and that Dr. Johnson was right in his comment. Browne himself says he was trying to show "how near English and Saxon meet"; this he has clearly done. Browne's interest in philology is clearly visible upon an examination of his works, where numerous quotations, both in translations and in the originals, may be found to substantiate the boast quoted earlier in this paper. In one tract 10 he mentioned the following translations of the Bible, in most cases quoting a verse or a word from the one then under consideration: Dutch, Flemish, Luther's (German), Saxon (Old English), Icelandic, French, Spanish, Italian of Diodati, Tremellius's, Septuagint, Vulgate, Beza's, Junius's, and the Geneva Translation. In his treatise on languages he writes a paragraph in Provençal, and in MS. Sloan. 1827, collated with this same tract by Wilkin in his 1846 edition of Browne's works, appears a letter written in French. Like every educated man of his time, he knew Latin as well as he did English, and wrote in it when the occasion demanded. Greek he knew not quite so well, but he read it with ease." He read Rabelais with gusto in the original, and a recent editor notes that he was one of the few 10 Miscellany Tract 1, "Observations upon Several Plants Mentioned in Scripture." 11 This fact is to be inferred from his preference for Aristotle in the translation of J. C. Scaliger, and for his use of other Latin translations of Greek writers. English gentlemen of the seventeenth century who could read Dante in the original.12 He quotes from the Divine Comedy six times in his works, using the Italian twice. His library gives evidence of his desire to master Hebrew, for it contained grammars, methods, and lexicons for that language. In fact the sales catalogue of Browne's library, happily preserved in the British Museum, affords substantial proof of his wide and varied interest in languages. The Library of the University of North Carolina has a photostatic copy of this catalogue, entitled, "Catalogue of the Libraries of the learned Sir Thomas Browne and Dr. Edward Browne his son . . . which will be sold at auction. . . on Monday the 8th day of January 1710/11... by Thomas Ballard, bookseller." This collection, which numbers well over a thousand titles, shows that Browne had a wide acquaintance with the classics in the originals and in translations, in the best editions then available. Many of them were edited by such scholars as Scaliger, Vossius, and Casaubon, and a number of them contained variorum notes. But what is more important for the student of Browne's learning is the number of languages represented in the collection. His library contained books in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, English, Italian, Spanish, German, Flemish, and Dutch. A number of these works were grammars and lexicons, a fact which still further strengthens the statement that he was interested in comparative linguistics. He had the true Renaissance regard for learning in all its branches; and although medical works hold a prominent place in his collection, philological and etymological works are not lacking. His library, as well as his writings themselves, shows that he, like Bacon, had "taken all knowledge to be his province." Thus although it is necessary to agree with Johnson in his comment on Browne's knowledge of Old English, it becomes increasingly clear to the student of Browne that the great Lexicographer underestimated Browne's knowledge of languages on the whole. It appears that he was a consummate master of his own, which he used with a richness and fulness seldom found in the writers of any age; he developed to its fullest possibilities the Latinized style 13 W. Murison in his edition of the Religio Medici, Introduction; Pitt Press Series, Cambridge, 1923, pp. xi and xii. of the early seventeenth century. Moreover he knew, and used frequently, the principal languages of antiquity, he could read the best known languages of the continent in his own time, and he was interested in the whole field of linguistics. Readers of the antiquarian-doctor are too apt to forget that his works are scholarly in the best sense of the word, as well as attractive from the standpoint of style; they are prone to lose sight of his erudition in following the mazes of his sonorous periods. The University of North Carolina. 66 ALLOY AND GOLD. BY A. G. DRACHMANN. Who thinks Hugues wrote for the deaf? Better submit-try again-what's the clef? 'Faith, it's no trifle for pipe and for tabor- The metaphor used by Browning at the beginning of "The Ring and the Book" has been a stumbling block to more than one commentator. The image is clear enough: A ring cannot be made out of pure gold alone, the jeweller must mingle it with some alloy; the mass then can be hammered and filed, but when the ring is finished the alloy is removed by means of an acid, and the pure gold remains in the shape of a ring. The application of this metaphor is generally explained like this: The gold is the truth contained in the Old Yellow Book, the alloy is the poet's fancy, the finished ring is the poem. A. K. Cook, in his Commentary upon Browning's "The Ring and the Book," Oxford, 1920, p. 2, goes on to say: Perhaps the admirable metaphor was pressed too hard. Browning tells us repeatedly that just as, when the jeweller's art has been exercised upon the ring, he disengages the alloy, so, when the poet has fashioned his poem, he will disengage his fancy from it. But he does not disengage it, there is no repristination"; unlike the jeweller's alloy, the poet's fancy does not "fly in fume," it cannot (happily) be "unfastened the facts. 66 from This is a clear and fair statement of the difficulty in the interpretation of the metaphor; and if the point of view is shifted a little, we reach the conclusion put into words by Dr. Frances Theresa Russell, in her paper: "Gold and Alloy " in Studies in Philology, XXI, 3, 1924: "... .. Browning muddles his own metaphor until it becomes a treacherous quagmire." Now, a muddle is really the last thing one expects to find in Browning. And here we are dealing with the metaphor from which his greatest poem takes its name, and which he has elaborated and insisted upon throughout the 1412 verses of the first book of that poem. So before agreeing with Dr. Russell that Browning in this metaphor "so thoroughly misinterprets himself and misleads his readers that practically the reverse of his assertions constitutes the actual case," I think it might be worth while to see if the metaphor is really interpreted in the right way. In the usual interpretation of the metaphor there is no room for the "washing with acid." This fact is either slurred over by the commentator or expressly stated, as by Mr. Cook. But Browning insists on this washing, not only where he describes the ring, but also where he applies the metaphor, and then twice: v. 685-686, v. 1388. So it stands to reason that he must have meant something by it. But in this case the usual interpretation is obviously wrong, as it fails to tell us what the poet meant. Mrs. Russell assumes that this incongruency is only part of the general muddle: the alloy is still in the gold-fiction is still mingled with fact in the poem, by the poet's own confession: v. 830: No dose of purer truth than man digests But truth with falsehood, milk that feeds him now, Not strong meat he may get to bear some day. But these lines have really nothing to do with the question of the Ring. A careful study of the context will show that they are expressing quite another line of thought of Browning's. 824 Let this old woe step on the stage again! 827 Act itself o'er anew for men to judge, Not by the very sense and sight indeed (Which take at best imperfect cognizance, Since, how heart moves brain, and how both move hand, 830 -No dose of purer truth than man digests, But truth with falsehood, milk that feeds him now, Not strong meat he may get to bear some day— 833 To-wit, by voices we call evidence, Uproar in the echo, live fact deadened down, Talked over, bruited along, whispered away, 836 Yet helping us to all we seem to hear: For how else know we save by worth of word? Here are the voices presently shall sound. . . . Compare "The Pope," v. 344 sqq.: 344 This condemnation of a man to-day. I must plead Not so! Expect nor question nor reply |