And never the King told the story,
How bringing a glove brought such glory,
But the wife smiled--"His nerves are grown firmer:
Mine he brings now and utters no murmur."
_Venienti occurrite morbo!_
With which moral I drop my theorbo.
Browning wrote two poems on pedantry; the former, in _Garden Fancies_,
takes the conventional view. How can a man with any blood in him pore
over miserable books, when life is so sweet? The other, _A
Grammarian's Funeral_, is the apotheosis of the scholar. The paradox
here is that Browning has made a hero out of what seems at first
blush impossible material. It is easy to make a hero out of a noble
character; it is equally easy to make a hero out of a thorough
scoundrel, a train-robber, or a murderer. Milton made a splendid
hero out of the Devil, But a hero out of a nincompoop? A hero out of
a dull, sexless pedant?
But this is exactly what Browning has done, nay, he has made this
grammarian exactly the same kind of hero as a dashing cavalry
officer leading a forlorn hope.
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