ABSTRACT
Mr. Browning’s unparalleled and increasing rapidity of production is, as might be expected, attended by an additional redundance of the peculiarities which appear admirable only to himself. The present volume abounds in proofs of the sensitiveness with which he repels the imputation of that obscurity and harshness which might seem to be natural results of excessive volubility. If the immunity from criticism which Mr. Browning claims were conceded in personal deference to his genius, it would still be a legitimate cause for regret that he should of late seldom have taken time to embody in intelligible forms the conclusions of a subtle and imaginative intellect. In the present volume he challenges all who presume to form and express an independent judgment of his poems in language so unprovoked, so unreasonable, and so coarse that it would be almost an act of cowardice not to answer his defiance. Like some other men of genius, and like a multitude of writers who have no pretence to genius, Mr. Browning, while he professes to denounce criticism, really objects only to censure. He may perhaps be indifferent to praise, but it is improbable that he should dislike it. The plea to the jurisdiction is only filed as a precaution against an adverse judgment. There are competent and incompetent critics; but it is a monstrous pretension to deny the right of criticism to students who have perhaps proved the accuracy of their taste by a keen enjoyment of the best poetry of all countries, and even by their appreciation of Mr. Browning’s works before he wrote the Inn Album and Pacchiarotto. The claim of a poet to live in regions inaccessible to ordinary men is a fantastic and modern affectation suggested rather by suspected weakness than by conscious strength. It would not have occurred to Chaucer or to Shakespeare that he was a demi-god, and still less that it was not his business to deal with mankind. A speaker who is too much above his audience is not a master of his business; and he stands self-condemned if he boasts of being unintelligible to the most competent judges of his subject and his art. A thoughtful and scholarly critic would regret that involuntary contempt for a feeble and
advantageously be excluded from literature.…
[The reviewer goes on to summarize the title poem.] Mr. Browning, in his dreary and laboured jocosity, has apparently confounded
geese with ducks; but it is a graver mistake to suppose that clearness is inseparable from malignity, frivolity, and baseness. If poets wish to put into a line not so vulgar a meaning as ‘a big and bouncing thought,’ but a pregnant condensation of wisdom, such as Dante, and, in his happier moods, Mr. Browning himself, has sometimes included in a verse, they must put it in so that it can be found there; and not leave it out, while they mistake their own uncommunicated reflections for products of creative art. Mr. Browning’s frequent and growing obscurity resembles a cypher of which the key is withheld. The poet is evidently thinking of something casually associated in his mind with expressions that convey no meaning to the most intelligent reader, unless he by accident finds the clue. Sometimes the reference is to a curious fragment of knowledge which rests in the poet’s memory; but more often he has grudged the labour, or has been wanting in the skill, to give expression to a complicated thought. The indolence which is inseparable from habitual rapidity of composition is the most frequent cause of a flagrant and undeniable defect. The puerile vanity of professing to live in an upper chamber where critics cannot clamber would be more pardonable in an inferior writer. The rough vituperation addressed to critics by no means indicates the transcendent superiority which it is intended to assert. Mr. Browning may be well assured that in Pacchiarotto there is as little wisdom as poetry.
