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Scottish woodland. Many years ago they had begun to thin the larch at this particular spot; but the work had been interrupted, and the pines yet lie where they fell. In the interval, however, the mosses and the lichen had taken possession of the dead trunks, and they are again masses of verdure. You wade knee-deep through delicate ferns; there are open beds on which the wild hyacinth and the wood anemone bloom. The foxglove nods on the roughest faces of the rocks. It is only the midsummer-time, yet the sun has already begun to brown the foliage. The bracken is parched. Pines, ferns, broom—all the leaves, except the green leaves of the blae-berry-are assuming the russet suit that That is the reason, perhaps, why the cushat, dreaming among the tree-tops, sobs to itself in the sad silence of the wood.

autumn wears.

It was here that I read and mused upon what one of our greatest poets-Robert Browning-had said about life and death and the life beyond.

Let me try-with your leave, O most forbearing of readers!—to recall a little of this desultory woodland criticism. I have told you in the last chapter something about the men who, in the fields of arms, and philosophy, and letters, have won our regard; the series would be incomplete were the poets' niche to remain unoccupied.

247

IT

ROBERT BROWNING.

T is about time that we began to do justice to Robert Browning. A nation should be able to make up its mind on the merits and demerits of its leaders in the course of thirty years. Thirty years have passed since Robert Browning's first volume of poems was published; and thirty years ago he was almost as widely known as he is to-day. He is like to share the fate of Milton, and of several other Englishmen,—and women

too.

'Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels
Reveal themselves to you: they sit all day
Beside you, and lie down at night by you

Who care not for their presence-muse or sleep-
And all at once they leave you, and you know them;
We are so fooled, so cheated!

Browning's is, in truth, a curious fame. Few (except the unfrequent traveller, who remembers somewhat sadly now the kindly greetings which met him within that pleasant English household 'at Florence, on the hill of Bellosguardo ') know him personally:* his works

It is proper to mention that this paper was written several years since.

are read by an insignificant minority, only a moiety of whom profess to understand a tithe of what they read; only here and there, in nooks and byways, do you meet vigorous and somewhat disagreeable people, addicted to sarcasm and other evil courses, who take him as a kind of tonic, and who fancy that an age which has Robert Browning and the Bible cannot be very badly off after all.

I confess that this profound neglect and unpopularity has always rather surprised me. One who understands the people of England is of course prepared for many anomalous and inexplicable phenomena. Trial by jury is the palladium of our liberties; yet an English or Scotch jury (not to speak of an Irish) is the very last tribunal to which a wise man would be inclined to submit his cause. 'May God send thee a good deliverance' is not by any means the language of hope, when addressed to a friend who has to undergo this ordeal. The verdicts of the English public are often in like manner very incomprehensible; yet it is difficult to account at first sight for Browning's prolonged unpopularity. For he has many of the qualities which recommend a poet to the people. He is a master of the passions. His humour is bright and keen. He has a fine eye for colour. There is a rich and daring melody in his verse. He observes with minute and absolute fidelity. He is a philosophical poet; but the direct human element is always strong in his philosophy. Tennyson (our popular poet) is essentially an intellectual poet; but Browning is at once a more masculine,

and a more intricate and subtle, thinker than the laureate.

Yet his unpopularity may be explained. He is not the poet to be perused with profit in the nursery or in a railway-carriage. He does not relish a platitude as Mr. Longfellow does, nor does his verse move with the same supple smoothness and graceful facility. He is not a rhetorician, like Lord Macaulay. Unlike Pope's, his couplet does not carry a sting in its tail. He does not care to be effective.' 'Point' is not his strong point. His meaning, besides, does not always lie on the surface. It has to be sought with diligence and close attention. Thus, to those who read while they run, he is commonly obscure, and often incomprehensible. He is never insipid, but-brusque, quaint, rugged, intricately ingenious, involved, ironical-he perplexes the dull and startles the timid.

Voluptuousness, grotesqueness, ghastliness
Environ my devotedness, as quaintly

As round about some antique altar wreathe
The rose festoons, goats' horns, and oxen's skulls.

Yet these defects have been exaggerated, and are not wilful. The occasional obscurity of his language, and the irregularity of the poetic forms which he uses, cannot be attributed to affectation. They are the natural and appropriate garniture of a peculiar and complex genius. As such, it will be well to look a little more closely into their origin, ere we go farther.

Á vein of obscurity necessarily runs through the

subjects which occupy, or at least attract, Mr. Browning's muse. There are certain aspects of life which are by no means easily read. You may address an ode to your mistress's eyebrow, or celebrate the virtues of your lady's sparrow, if not with the grace of Catullus, at all events in language that is perfectly intelligible. Within this limited circle you are safe enough. The slope of the bank is very gradual at first; but, once you are out a few yards, it shelves down suddenly into deep water. There are mysteries enough even upon the earth's surface, and only a light crust lies between us and the infinite,-infinite light or infinite darkness. No thoughtful poet can altogether avoid these topics, nor avert his eyes from the grave issues of life,—death, immortality, hell, heaven. The cry for light will not be silenced, though we crown ourselves with roses, and pour the hundred-yeared Opimian before the shrine of Apollo. And whenever the poet essays to decipher those high instincts, which, be they what they may, are yet the fountain-light of all our day,' perfect lucidity of style is hardly to be looked for. Mr. Browning has not been able to escape the perilous fascination which, as he has pointed out, peculiarly affects the Christian poet. Pagan art is perfect in its way; we falter and hesitate, are perplexed and inconsistent. Why? Because our horizon is wider.

To-day's brief passion limits their range:

It seethes with the morrow for us, and more.

Only in one work, however-his Christmas Eve-has

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