is a poet of active faith, and, therefore, of

strength and comfort. destiny of mankind. Though he clearly recognizes the existence of "the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to;" though he sees pain and sorrow with widely and deeply sympathetic vision, he is yet able to look forward toward the consummation of all things, with a serene assurance of ultimate triumph for the race. This spirit constantly manifests itself in his work ; it animates the dreamily tender sentiment of Evelyn Hope, it may be traced more clearly in the passionate cry of Abt Vogler, and it rises to still nobler heights in Prospice, and in the rapt ecstasy of the shepherd-boy, the inspired bard and seer, who proclaims deliverance to Saul.

He utters no wail over the

With two exceptions-Abt Vogler and Saul-no poem in this volume can be for a moment regarded as obscure. The aim has been to show the poet at his best; but the principle of selection has made it necessary to exclude many poems of rare, beauty and excellence. No extracts have been made from

the longer poems, although they contain much that is clear and admirable; such fragments can seldom produce a satisfactory impression, or do any justice to their author. Despite their occasional obscurity, it was found impossible to exclude Abt Vogler and Saul, for both of these poems are among the best illustrations of the optimism which is so important an element of Browning's genius; and, among his shorter poems, Saul is, perhaps, the one which most conspicuously manifests that creative imagination, which is the highest faculty that a poet can possess. I am indebted to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. for permission to make use of the ninth chapter of Mr. Stedman's Victorian Poets, which is here reprinted. This is an especially valuable introduction to the study of Browning; being a comprehensive and judicial estimate of the poet's merits and demerits, by a not unfriendly critic.

ROBERT BROWNING.*

In a study of Browning, the most original and unequal of living poets, three features obviously present themselves. His dramatic gift, so rare in these times, calls for recognition and analysis; his method the eccentric quality of his expression constantly intrudes upon the reader; lastly, the moral of his verse warrants a closer examination than we give to the sentiments of a more conventional poet My own perception of the spirit which his poetry, despite his assumption of a purely dramatic purpose, has breathed from the outset, is one which I shall endeavor to convey in simple and direct terms.

Various other examples have served to illustrate the phases of a poet's life, but Browning arouses

* Reprinted from E. C. Stedman's Victorian Poets, by permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.

discussion with respect to the elements of poetry as an art. Hitherto I have given some account of an author's career and writings before proffering a critical estimate of the latter. But this man's genius is so peculiar, and he has been so isolated in style and purpose, that I know not how to speak of his works without first seeking a key to their interpretation, and hence must partially reverse the order hitherto pursued.

I.

It is customary to call Browning a dramatist, and without doubt he represents the dramatic element, such as it is, of the recent English school. He counts among his admirers many intellectual persons, some of whom pronounce him the greatest dramatic poet since Shakespeare, and one has said that "it is to him we must pay homage for whatever is good, and great, and profound, in the second period of the Poetic Drama of England."

This may be true; nevertheless, it also should be declared, with certain modifications, that Robert

Browning, in the original sense of the term, is not a dramatic poet at all.

Procter, in the preface to a collection of his own songs, remarks with precision and truth: "It is, in fact, this power of forgetting himself, and of imagining and fashioning characters different from his own, which constitutes the dramatic quality. A man who can set aside his own idiosyncrasy is half a dramatist." Although Browning's earlier poems were in the form of plays, and have a dramatic purpose, they are at the opposite remove, in spirit and method, from the models of the true histrionic era, -the work of Fletcher, Webster, and Shakespeare. They have the sacred age and fire, but the flame is that of Browning, and not of the separate creations which he strives to inform.

The early drama was the mouthpiece of a passionate and adventurous era. The stage bore to the period the relations of the modern novel and newspaper to our own, not only holding the mirror up to nature, but showing the "very age and body of the time." It was a vital growth, sprung from the peo