ABSTRACT
The place held by Mr. Browning among English poets is altogether unique. There is no other that can fairly be compared with him. He needs to fear no rival, and he can afford to despise imitators. The author of Paradise Lost dwelt not more apart from his fellows than the author of The Ring and the Book. It is no doubt possible to parody Mr. Browning’s style, and even to reproduce some of his apparent mannerisms of thought, but all such attempts-that, for example, of Mr. Bayard Taylor,2 in his amusing Diversions,—invariably suggest little more than quick perception and clever mechanical achievement. Mr. Browning may influence individuals, but will hardly affect classes. There is certainly little probability that he will found a school of poetry. His subjects are not those the crowd will take delight in; his trains of thought are not instantly and directly evident; and his method is hardly calculated to attract the ordinary reader of poetry. Altogether, Mr. Browning’s single-handed fight, at once against the powers of evil and the prejudices of his fellow-citizens, has in it much that is heroic. The poet is an earnest searcher after truth, if only the British Public could be brought to believe it, and to recognise the fact that all knowledge lies not on the surface. His links of association are apt to be abrupt and sudden, and his mode of expression corresponds in apparent harshness and want of symmetry. The whole question, indeed, as between Mr. Browning and readers of poetry, resolves itself into this,—that poetry, to be read with interest, should not form a series of puzzles wantonly fitted together. It is questionable, for example, whether those addressed as follows, in The Ring and the Book, where the author gives an account of his plan, will be either reconciled or edified by the apostrophe and the explanation:
Than erst when all, it seemed, could read who ran,— Perchance more careless whoso reads may praise Than late when he who praised and read and wrote Was apt to find himself the self-same me,— Such labour had such issue, so I wrought This arc, by furtherance of such alloy, And so, by one spirit, take away its trace Till, justifiably golden, rounds my ring.
