ABSTRACT
Mr. Browning would be a poet of high order, if he could free himself from his affectations, and set before himself a great aim in poetry.… As it is, with powers capable of all this, he makes himself merely a puzzle to those that see here and there really brilliant passages in him, and to the general reader-caviare. For a long time we were inclined to believe him really insane. We could not bring ourselves to believe that any man who possessed the power evidenced in his writings would voluntarily assume a form of confused and crazy eccentricity, merely for the poor pleasure of making people wonder. But we came at length to his drama of The Blot in the ’Scutcheon,… and then the conviction was forced on us. Here all is as clear and rational in language as any plain understanding can desire. Mr. Browning, then can be intelligible, if he will.… But besides muddiness of style, Mr. Browning, has also much muddiness of matter to get rid of. There is a sensual trait about his writings which will bring him one day a bitterness that no amount of reputation will be found an antidote for. Let him purify his style and his spirit, and we shall hope to meet him again on a future day in a far higher and nobler position.
