ABSTRACT

Here, as elsewhere, that which gives the special flavour to his work is his unequalled faculty of keeping his eye fixed firm and straight upon human life and of telling what he sees-telling it always in his own bright, lively, if too mannered and fantastic way, for it must always be remembered that, notwithstanding his love of displaying his learning and his miscellaneous knowledge of books, no man is less of a bookpoet than he. The charm of Landor’s poetry is, as we have said on a previous occasion, that of ‘subtle reminders of the great poets of old’; the charm of Mr. Browning’s poetry is that it reminds us of nothing but Mr. Browning. That which gives vitality to his work is not booklore, we say, but the lore that can be only learnt by deep and sympathetic study of man and woman-men and women. Between the outer world and the eyes of most modern poets of a high order there floats an artistic atmosphere through which the poet must needs gaze if he gaze at all. This atmosphere, while it transfigures and enobles human life, gives it also a certain quality which may perhaps be called a dignified remoteness. What the artistic poet gains in dignity, however, he loses in other ways. As a witness of the human drama, for instance, he loses in apparent trustworthiness and apparent authority. ‘The light that never was on sea or land’ is apt to fall with a somewhat chilling effect upon this our real land where men and women live and love and hate and strive. Mr. Browning’s muse knows no such light, gazes at the world through no atmosphere of the golden clime, but confronts life with the frank familiar eyes with which the actors in the real drama gaze at each other. This lends his work a freshness peculiar to itself, but gives it also that air of familiarity which is the proper quest of the prose delineator of human life rather than that of the poet. It is no wonder, then, that of all high-class poets he is the most entirely without dignity. There is no turn of phrase so familiar that he will shrink from it. There is no ingenuity of rhythm or rhyme that is too common and too cheap for him. It is difficult to understand the mood into which a poet of high genius and culture could

Ever in Italy? Recall how cooks there cook them: for my plan’s To-Lyre with Spit ally. They pluck the birds,—some dozen luscious lumps, Or more or fewer,— Then roast them, heads by heads and rumps by rumps, Stuck on a skewer.