ABSTRACT
The general fault of the tragedy, as a poem, is in its defects of versification; and, as a dramatic work, in its substitution of the metaphysics of character and passion for their broad and practical results. These mistakes, which have a wilful and deliberate air, are easily pointed and much effective abuse vented upon them without much trouble. But it is worth more trouble to be able to discover, even in these, the wayward perverseness of a man of true genius. Such is Mr. Browning. We ought not to extenuate what we hold to be a grave error; but we think it not difficult to see that, by the very passion for his art, such a man may be so betrayed. Time is the great corrector: as Time is the disinterested, the immortal witness on Poetry’s behalf, that her ways are very old and very settled ways, not admitting, like those of steam and other wonderful inventions, of many novel or useful improvements. She had now been current in the world for some thousands of years, and it is generally admitted, we believe, that the first effort she madethe first at any rate of which there is written record-continues to be the best.
