ABSTRACT
It is an obvious criticism on Mr. Browning’s last poem to say that it is the work of a poet, but by no means a poem. It is not that the subject is unsuitable; verse is the best, it may even be said, from one point of view, the only way of treating it. But Mr. Browning permits the passion for analysing character so to dominate him, that he becomes careless of things essential to his art. Sweetness, brightness, grace, melody, eloquence are either absent, or present at but the rarest intervals. Here and there he condescends to give us a glimpse of them. Once in some twenty pages or so comes a beautiful line, even a beautiful passage, though seldom this latter without some harshness to blot it. The reader will catch at it, read it aloud, dwell on it with a delight all the greater, because there is so little in the main course of the argument, full of vigour and thought as it is, to call it forth. The first few pages are richer in such promise than what follow. When Balaustion, flying from conquered Athens, wishes that some noble and tragical end had overtaken the city, the thought is finely put:
Doomed to die, Fire should have flung a passion of embrace About thee till, resplendently inarmed, (Temple by temple folded to his breast, All thy white wonder fainting out in ash), Some vaporous sigh of soul had lightly ‘scaped, And so the immortals bade Athenai back!
