of a Soul-and that Soul a Poet-Soul-the many digressions and parentheses,-and Mr. Browning's instinct to write from the consciousness of his actors,-which his penetrating poetic insight often renders a subtle and unlooked-for consciousnessrather than to the consciousness of his readers, we need not greatly wonder that many even of his most ardent disciples have given up "Sordello" as a hopeless problem -too hard a nut to crack, however valuable the kernel it contains. But hard as it is, we believe the nut to be crackable, and the kernel well worth the trouble.-MORRISON, JEANIE, 1889, Sordello, an Outline Analysis of Mr. Browning's Poems, pp. 1, 4.

There is a story of two clever girls who set out to peruse "Sordello," and corresponded with each other about their progress, "Somebody is dead in 'Sordello,'" one of them wrote to her friend. "I don't quite know who it is, but it must make things a little clearer in the long run." Alas! a copious use of the guillotine would scarcely. clear the stage of "Sordello."-LANG, ANDREW, 1889, Letters on Literature, p. 9.

In brief the way not to read Browning is by means of the commentary and the annotation. One should naturally begin with the simpler poems. He who begins with "Sordello" is not likely to make great progress. Let the non-reader beware of getting his introduction to Browning through. "Sordello!" That poem may wait until the last. Then it may wait a little longer; for the time that is needed to extract poetic gold from the ore of "Sordello" may be put to better use on the "Ring and the Book."-VINCENT, LEON H., 1890-95, A Few Words on Robert Browning, p. 19.

Picturesque detail, intellectual interest, moral meaning, struggle in vain in that tale to make themselves felt and discerned through the tangle of words and the labyrinth of act and reflection.-WOODBERRY, GEORGE EDWARD, 1890, Studies in Letters and Life, p. 278.

So I thought I would try myself on him in earnest, and I got "Sordello." Well, it was very hard and difficult-hard in making out what the story meant, hard in grammar and construction, hard in the learning exacted from the reader. But it was plain that it was written for a reader not afraid of trouble, and I accepted the condition. I did take a good deal of trouble, and read it many times, in many moods, in many ways,

beginning at the end, or the middle, trying on it various theories, reserving what I could not make out, which was much, treasuring what I saw to be purpose, and meaning, and beauty, and insight. And so I began to feel as if the cloud was lifting, and though I do not pretend to know all that was in the poet's mind in writing, I got to feel that I had something, and something worth having. And it was an introduction to the poet's method, to his unflinching view of life, to his ever present sense (in which he is like Shakespeare, and in a lower degree like our modern Punch), of how much there is of tragic in the most comic, and of comic in the most tragic.-CHURCH, RICHARD WILLIAM, 1890, To Stanley Withers, Feb. 9; Life and Letters of Dean Church, ed. his Daughter, p. 414.

As when we watch a landscape in a mist,

See here the cross of a great spire break

through,

Note there a coil of silver river twist,

Mark yonder, half revealed, a mountain blue Struggle above the wind-blown vapors gray, Hear lowing kine in many an unseen field, And soft-toned bells in the dim distance swung, And, baffled sense to fancy giving way, We fall to muse on what may lie concealed Where the thick fleeces of the air are flung;So that who reads Sordello's story, sees

Through misty chaos of the song, arise Dim Alps, dim Apennines, dim olive trees, And phantom spires thrust up to purple skies From river-girdled cities, with the din Of all the Middle Ages echoing,—

The clash of arms, the slaughtered women's screams,

The war cries of the Guelph and Ghibelin, The strife of mind and force, of Pope and King; And on the fruitful gloom intent, he dreams. Sordello, Poems, p. 81. -O'CONOR, JOSEPH, 1895, After Reading

His labours gradually concentrated themselves on a long narrative poem, historical and philosophical, in which he recounted the entire life of a mediæval minstrel. He had become terrified at what he thought a tendency to diffuseness in his expression, and consequently "Sordello" is the most tightly compressed and abstrusely dark of all his writings. He was partly aware himself of its excessive density; the present writer (in 1875) saw him take up a copy of the first edition, and say with a grimace, "Ah! the entirely unintelligible 'Sordello."" -GOSSE, EDMUND, 1901, Dictionary of National Biography, Supplement, vol. I, p. 308.

PIPPA PASSES 1841

"Pippa Passes" is the title of the first of these little two shilling volumes, which seem to contain just about as much as a man who lives wisely, might, after a good summer of mingled work, business and pleasure, have to offer to the world, as the honey he could spare from his hive.OSSOLI, MARGARET FULLER, 1846, (?), Browning's Poems; Art, Literature, and the Drama, p. 210.

His "Bells and Pomegranates" furnish us with a series of poems almost unexampled in their strength and variety, considering the rapdity with which they were produced. The first dramatic poem of the series, "Pippa Passes," ranks amongst the best of these efforts. All the qualities which have justly earned distinction for Mr. Browning are present in this drama, which he has never surpassed for its exquisite delineation of passion and intensity of emotion, though he has subsequently worked upon broader conceptions. There is a thorough human interest attaching to the career of Pippa, the lovely peasant maid; and in this instance at least the simplicity of the characters in the poem has its counterpart in the simplicity of the poet's eloquence. In this drama we find beauty, tenderness, grace, and passion combined in an unusual degree. SMITH, GEORGE BARNETT, 1879, Robert Browning, International Review, vol. 6, p. 181.

There had been nothing in the pastoral kind written so delightfully as "Pippa Passes" since the days of the Jacobean dramatists. It was inspired by the same feeling as gave charm and freshness to the masques of Day and Nabbes, but it was carried out with a mastery of execution and fullness of knowledge such as those unequal writers could not dream of exercising. Gosse, Edmund, 1881, The Early Writings of Robert Browning, Century Magazine, vol. 23, p. 197.

"Pippa Passes" is but a series of dramatic scenes, linked together as by God's own sunshine, sweet child-Pippa, the innocent bird-song of whose young heart falls, without her knowledge, though with momentous effect, upon the ears of guilty worldly souls who hear. The episode of Ottima and Sebald with their adulterous loves, after the murder by Ottima of her old husband, is one of the most tremendous things in Eng

lish drama, as, in a livid flash of lightning, the whole ghastly scene starts out upon you; you hear the bloodstained couple talk, and see them move. It is of Shakespearian power.-NOEL, RODEN, 1883, Robert Browning, Contemporary Review, vol. 44, p. 705.

The least dramatic in form of all his plays .. remains, owing to the capriciousness of its form, a poem to be read in the study rather than a play to be seen on the stage.— COURTNEY, W. L., 1883, "Robert Browning, Writer of Plays," Fortnightly Review, vol. 33, pp. 892, 893.

"Pippa Passes" is Mr. Browning's most perfect work. As a whole, he has never written anything to equal it in artistic symmetry; while a single scene-that between Ottima and Sebald-reaches the highest level of tragic utterance which he has ever attained. - SYMONS, ARTHUR, 1886, An Introduction to the Study of Browning, p. 47.

It has even more of the dramatic spirit than Browning's poems generally have, yet it is not a drama. It is rather a series of dramatic sketches loosely strung together by the movements of Pippa. The plan suited Browning and set him free from some of the difficulties which prevented him from ever attaining complete success in the regular drama. Each sketch represents one dramatic situation, and depicts a person or a group at a crisis of life. There is no need to follow them through various developments. The critical method, which Browning seems to have followed, suffices. -WALKER, HUGH, 1895, The Greater Victorian Poets, p. 56.

That lovely and powerful and tragic dramatic poem, "Pippa Passes," which alone Browning as a poet for all time.-FORSTER, marks with triumphant certainty Robert JOSEPH, 1898, Great Teachers, p. 311.

These songs of the wandering Pippa are the most poetical pieces that Browning ever produced, their brevity proving that he could have reached the highest point by placing a master's restriction on his words.

ENGEL, EDWARD, 1902, A History of English Literature, rev. Hamley Bent, p. 429.

A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON

1843

Browning's play has thrown me into a perfect passion of sorrow. To say that there is anything in its subject save what is lovely,

true, deeply affecting, full of the best emotion, the most earnest feeling, and the most true and tender source of interest, is to say that there is no light in the sun, and no heat in blood. It is full of genius, natural and great thoughts, profound and yet simple and beautiful in its vigor. I know nothing that is so affecting, nothing in any book I have ever read, as Mildred's recurrence to that "I was so young-I had no mother." I know no love like it, no passion like it, no moulding of a splendid thing after its conception, like it. And I swear it is a tragedy that MUST be played; and must be played, moreover, by Macready. There are some things I would have changed if I could (they are very slight, mostly broken lines); and I assuredly would have the old servant begin his tale upon the scene; and be taken by the throat, or drawn upon, by his master in its commencement. But the tragedy I never shall forget, or less vividly remember than I do now. And if you tell Browning that I have seen it, tell him that I believe from my soul there is no man living (and not many dead) who could produce such a work.-DICKENS, CHARLES, 1842, Letter to Forster, Nov. 25; Life of Dickens, vol. II, p. 46.

"Luria" is a lesson; "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon" is an experience; the one is a drama; the other is a heart's or home's interior. Luria is stately and inspiring; but Mildred and Guendolen are of us-women kiss them; all sit and weep with them.WEISS, JOHN, 1850, Browning, Massachusetts Quarterly Review, vol. 4.

It is full of poetry and pathos, but there is little in it to relieve the human spirit, which cannot bear too much of earnestness and woe added to the mystery and burden of our daily lives. Yet the piece has such tragic strength as to stamp the author as a great poet, though in a narrow range. One almost forgets the singular improbabilities of the story, the blasé talk of the child-lovers (an English Juliet of fourteen is against nature), the stiff language of the retainers, and various other blemishes.-STEDMAN, EDMUND CLARENCE, 1875-87, Victorian Poets, p. 314.

It seems but yesterday that I sat by his side in the green-room at the reading of Robert Browning's beautiful drama "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon." As a rule, Mr. Macready always read the new plays. But owing, I suppose, to some press of business,

the task was intrusted on this occasion to the head prompter,-a clever man in his way, but wholly unfitted to bring out, or even to understand, Mr. Browning's meaning. Consequently, the delicate, subtle lines were twisted, perverted, and sometimes even made ridiculous in his hands. My "cruel father" was a warm admirer of the poet. He sat writhing and indignant, and tried by gentle asides to make me see the real meaning of the verse. But somehow the mischief proved irreparable, for a few of the actors during the rehearsals chose to continue to misunderstand the text, and never took the interest in the play which they would have done had Mr. Macready read it, for he had great power as a reader. I always thought it was chiefly because of this contretemps that a play, so thoroughly dramatic, failed, despite its painful story, to make the great success which was justly its due.-FAUCIT, HELENA (LADY MARTIN), 1881, Blackwood's Magazine, March.

Neither on its first appearance, nor when Phelps revived it at Sadler's Wells, was "The Blot in the 'Scutcheon" received by the public otherwise than with warm applause.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1881, The Early Writings of Robert Browning, Century Magazine, vol. 23, p. 199.

I had heard "My Last Duchess" and "In a Gondola" read most eloquently by Mr. Boker, and I then turned to the poet's works to find for myself the greatest of dramas in "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon." While I was at once arrested by the majesty of the verse, my mind was more attracted by the dramatic quality of the story, which stamped the author at once as a master of theatric form of narration—the oldest and the greatest of all forms. I saw in Thorold a clear and perfectly outlined character suited to stage purposes; in Mildred and Mertoun a pair of lovers whose counterparts may be found only in the immortal lovers of Verona, Juliet and Romeo, while they are as distinctly original as those of Shakespeare; and in Guendolen a revival of Imogen herself. I saw that the play, like many plays of the earlier dramatists as well as those contemporary with this production, was written for an age when the ear of the auditor was more attentive than the eye, and when the appliances of the stage were less ample than now; and I saw that, with a treatment of the text such as all stage

managers have freely given even to the plays of the greatest of all dramatists, the "Blot in the 'Scutcheon" would take a front rank as an acting play.-BARRETT, LAWRENCE, 1887, A Blot in the 'Scutcheon and Other Dramas, ed, Rolfe and Hersey, p. 13.

The "Athenæum" (Feb. 18, 1843) spoke of "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon" as a "poetic melodrama," and called it "a very puzzling and unpleasant piece of business." It does not seem to have had very fair treatment, if we may believe the statements that have been made. It was produced on the same night that a new farce was given-"A Thumping Legacy"-and the opera of "Der Freischütz," and it is said without Browning's name. It was played only three nights. It might have consoled the poet had he known that the "pit audience," some yet unborn, would be found eventually outside the walls of the theatre. Their commendation, if less noisy, has been more lasting. The play was revived by Phelps at Sadler's Wells in 1848. The late Mr. Lawrence Barrett is said to have obtained in America success with the play in a modified and altered form.-ARCHER, FRANK, 1892, How to Write a Good Play, p. 37.

We are so carried along by the fervor and fire and passion which he puts into his production that we pay no heed to its failure to fulfill the first conditions of dramatic propriety. But a play as a literary product must stand, not upon the excellence of detailed scenes, but upon its perfection as an artistic whole; not upon the beauty of its poetry, but upon its adequate representation of life. The necessities of the drama at times exact, or at least permit, an occasional neglect of probability in the conduct of the characters; but they certainly do not require a persistent defiance of it, as is exhibited throughout this tragedy, which is in no sense a picture of any life that was ever lived. We are in a world of unreal beings, powerfully portrayed; for the situations are exciting, and the pathos of the piece is harrowing. But the action constantly lies out of the realm of the reality it purports to represent, and therefore out of the realm of the highest art.-LOUNSBURY, THOMAS R., 1899, A Philistine View, Atlantic Monthly, vol. 84, p. 773.

SAUL

1845-55

If there is one poem into which Browning has thrown all his artistic power, I think it

is "Saul." How grand is the stage on which we see the suffering Titan! the black tent in the midst of the sand "burnt to powder;" the blinding glare without, darkness within. There he endures in the desert, through which flow no refreshing streams to quench the thirst of his soul; he who once had "heard the words of God, had seen the vision of the Almighty," is now blinded by

the glory, and he knows not the love which

his own heart has cast out.-BEALE, DOROTHEA, 1882, The Religious Teaching of Browning, Browning Studies, ed. Berdoe, p. 81.

"Saul" is probably the finest poem Browning ever wrote, and it has the note of immortality. I know not any modern poem more glorious for substance and form both; here they interpenetrate; they are one as soul and body, character and deed, of lofty aim and heroic countenance.-NOEL, RODEN, 1883, Robert Browning, Contemporary Review, vol. 44, p. 712.

This is, in every respect, one of Browning's grandest poems; and in all that is included in the idea of expression, is quite perfect.-CORSON, HIRAM, 1886, An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry, p. 140.

Browning's "Saul" is one of those superb outbursts of poetic force which have for modern ears, accustomed to overmuch smooth, careful, and uninspired versification, not only the charm of beauty and energy in high degree, but of contrasts as well. It sweeps along, eager, impetuous, resistless as the streams which descend the Alps and rush seaward with the joy of mountain torrents. MABIE, HAMILTON WRIGHT, 1896, My Study Fire, Second Series, p. 51.

MEN AND WOMEN

1854

I fancy we shall agree pretty well on favourites, though one's mind has no right to be quite made up so soon on such a subject. For my own part, I don't reckon I've read them at all yet, as I only got them the day before leaving town, and couldn't possibly read them then,-the best proof to you how hard at work I was for once,-so heard them read by William; since then read them on the journey again, and some a third time at intervals; but they'll bear lots of squeezing yet. My prime favourites hitherto (without the book by me)

are "Childe Roland," "BP. Blougram,' "Karshish," "the Contemporary" (How it Strikes a Contemporary), "Lippo Lippi," "Cleon," and "Popularity;" about the other lyrical ones I can't quite speak yet, and their names don't stick in my head: but I'm afraid "The Heretic's Tragedy" rather gave me the gripes at first, though I've tried since to think it didn't, on finding the Athenæum similarly affected.-RosSETTI, DANTE GABRIEL, 1855, Letters to William Allingham, p. 156.

Elizabeth has been reading Browning's poem, and she tells me it is great. I have only dipped into it, here and there, but it is not exactly comfortable reading. It seemed to me like a galvanic battery in full playits spasmodic utterances and intense passion make me feel as if I had been taking a bath among electric eels. WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF, 1855, To Lucy Larcom, Life and Letters, ed, Pickard, vol. I, p. 370. "Men and Women" . . . is the most finished and comprehensive of the author's works, and the one his readers least could spare. STEDMAN, EDMUND CLARENCE, 1875-87, Victorian Poets, p. 322.

The series of "Men and Women," fiftyone poems in number, represents Mr. Browning's genius at its ripe maturity, its highest uniform level. In this central work of his career, every element of his genius is equally developed, and the whole. brought into perfection of harmony never before or since attained. There is no lack, there is no excess. I do not say that the poet has not touched higher heights since, or perhaps before; but that he has never since nor before maintained himself so long on so high a height, never exhibited the rounded perfection, the imagination, thought, passion, melody, variety, all fused in one, never produced a single work or group at once so great and so various, admits, I think, of little doubt. Here are fifty poems, every one of which, in its way, is a masterpiece: and the range is such as no other English poet has perhaps ever covered in a single book of miscellaneous poems.-SYMONS, ARTHUR, 1886, An Introduction to the Study of Browning, p. 91.

"Men and Women" is a series which, for clearness and balance of matter and style, it would be impossible to surpass in the list of his poems, whether it was owing to the period of his mind, then reached, or to

circumstances. FOTHERINGHAM, JAMES, 1887-98, Studies of the Mind and Art of Robert Browning, p. 40.

The book by which Mr. Browning was best known was the two green volumes of "Men and Women." In these, I still think, is the heart of his genius beating most strenuously and with an immortal vitality. Perhaps this, for its compass, is the collection of poetry the most various and rich of modern English times, almost of any English times. But just as Mr. Fitzgerald cared little for what Lord Tennyson wrote after 1842, so I have never been able to feel quite the same enthusiasm for Mr. Browning's work after "Men and Women." -LANG, ANDREW, 1891, Adventures Among Books, Scribner's Magazine, vol. 10, p. 652.

These wonderful poems might still afford a roughness here and there, a measure broken by the very wealth of metaphor and thought, in which the poet's mind luxuriated, but they could no longer be kept back, even by a thousand parentheses and digressions, from the common intelligence, which by this time also had been trained to receive them. From that period at least, if not before, the name of Browning assumed its place by the side of Tennyson.-OLIPHANT, MARGARET O. W., 1892, The Victorian Age of English Literature, p. 220.

THE RING AND THE BOOK
1868-69

It is full of wonderful work, but it seems to me that, whereas other poets are the more liable to get incoherent the more fanciful their starting-point happens to be, the thing that makes Browning drunk is to give him a dram of prosaic reality, and unluckily this time the "gum-tickler" is less like pure Cognac than 7 Dials gin. Whether the consequent evolutions will be bearable to their proposed extent without the intervening walls of the station-house to tone down their exuberance may be dubious.— ROSSETTI, DANTE GABRIEL, 1868, Letters to William Allingham, p. 284.

"The Ring and the Book," if completed as successfully as it is begun, will certainly be an extraordinary achievement a poem of some 20,000 lines on a great human subject, darkened too often by subtleties and wilful obscurities, but filled with the flashes of Mr. Browning's genius. We know nothing in the writer's former poems which so completely represents his peculiarities as