ABSTRACT
From his unsigned review. There was an extremely clever dissertation on Mr Browning’s poems in one of
the quarterly reviews the other day, in which Sordello was recommended as ‘a fine mental exercise,’ Something of the sort we had said ourselves, and if poetry were exactly the thing to grind professors of metaphysics on, we should pray to Mr Browning for perpetual Sordellos. As it is, we are humble enough and modest enough to be more thankful for Dramatic Lyrics. The collection before us is welcome for its own sake, and more welcome for its indication of the poet’s continued advance in a right direction. Some of this we saw and thanked him for in his Victor and Charles, much more in his delightful Pippa Passes, and in the simple and manly strain of some of these Dramatic Lyrics, we find proof of the firmer march and steadier control. Mr Browning will win his laurel. We were the first to hail his noble start in Paracelsus; the Straffords and Sordellos did not shake our faith in him; and we shall see him reach the goal.
