ABSTRACT
This play gives sterling proof of Mr. Browning’s genius. There is a want in it: but not of passion, nor of thought. We have had to describe the want so often, that we will spare the reader repetition of it. Mr. Browning exacts some hard conditions for the pleasure of his poetry, and could discourse good reasons for them, doubtless. We must at any rate be content to remember what a high authority has said, that if to do were as easy as to teach what were good to be done, chapels had been churches and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. And this not a poor man’s cottage. It is a building of strength and stateliness, notwithstanding its intricate passages, and galleries of too quaint device: raised by a man of rich imagination, and many fine and noble sympathies. [Approximately 75 lines are quoted here.]
There can be no question of the nerve and vigour of this writing, or of its grasp of thought. Whether the present generation of readers will take note of it, or leave it to the uncertain mercies of the future, still rests with Mr. Browning himself. As far as he has gone, we abominate his tastes as much as we respect his genius.
