ABSTRACT
It will not be supposed that in seeking to convey to the reader what we have derived of Mr Browning’s meaning in these latter respects from the volume before us, we would imply our own implicit agreement with them. Far from this. We are much more disposed than Mr Browning would now seem to be, to perceive in a mutual reverence for differences of creed one of the most Christian manifestations of the religious spirit, and to recognise in those very differences but a better means of development for that free mental life which must always cooperate with religion to make the latter truly profitable to man. We are by no means sure that we should hesitate to call not a few passages in the poem we have been noticing but another form of a common bigotry-poetry veiling a somewhat narrow and intolerant superstition. But unsatisfactory and imperfect in these respects as the composition is, we think its general teaching, as we have sought to explain it, quite sound, apart from the particular applications now and then indiscreetly given to it.
