An Introduction to the Study of Browning | Page 2

aim in the following pages to direct attention to the

best, not to forage for the worst--the small faults which acquire
prominence only by isolation--of the poet with whose writings I am
concerned. I wish also to give information, more or less detailed, about
each of Mr. Browning's works; information sufficient to the purpose I
have in view, which is to induce those who have hitherto deprived
themselves of a stimulating pleasure to deprive themselves of it no
longer. Further, my aim is in no sense controversial. In a book whose
sole purpose is to serve as an introduction to the study of a single one
of our contemporary poets, I have consciously and carefully refrained
from instituting comparisons--which I deprecate as, to say the least,
unnecessary--between the poet in question and any of the other eminent
poets in whose time we have the honour of living.
I have to thank Mr. Browning for permission to reprint the interesting
and now almost inaccessible prefaces to some of his earlier works,
which will be found in Appendix II. I have also to thank Dr. Furnivall
for permission to make use of his Browning Bibliography, and for other
kind help. I wish to acknowledge my obligation to Mrs. Orr's
_Handbook to Robert Browning's Works_, and to some of the
Browning Society's papers, for helpful information and welcome light.
Finally, I would tender my especial and grateful thanks to Mr. J. Dykes
Campbell, who has given me much kindly assistance.
Sept. 15, 1886.
CONTENTS

PAGE
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
1

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POEMS
33

APPENDIX:
I. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT BROWNING 241

II. REPRINT OF DISCARDED PREFACES TO THE FIRST
EDITIONS OF SOME OF BROWNING'S WORKS 255
INDEX TO POEMS 261
ROBERT BROWNING
BORN MAY 7, 1812.
DIED DECEMBER 12, 1889.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF BROWNING
The first and perhaps the final impression we receive from the work of
Robert Browning is that of a great nature, an immense personality. The
poet in him is made up of many men. He is dramatist, humorist, lyrist,
painter, musician, philosopher and scholar, each in full measure, and he
includes and dominates them all. In richness of nature, in scope and
penetration of mind and vision, in energy of passion and emotion, he is
probably second among English poets to Shakespeare alone. In art, in
the power or the patience of working his native ore, he is surpassed by
many; but few have ever held so rich a mine in fee. So large, indeed,
appear to be his natural endowments, that we cannot feel as if the
whole vast extent of his work has come near to exhausting them.
As it is, he has written more than any other English poet with the
exception of Shakespeare, and he comes very near the gigantic total of
Shakespeare. Mass of work is of course in itself worth nothing without
due quality; but there is no surer test nor any more fortunate
concomitant of greatness than the union of the two. The highest genius
is splendidly spendthrift; it is only the second order that needs to be
niggardly. Browning's works are not a mere collection of poems, they
are a literature. And his literature is the richest of modern times. If "the
best poetry is that which reproduces the most of life," his place is
among the great poets of the world. In the vast extent of his work he

has dealt with or touched on nearly every phase and feature of
humanity, and his scope is bounded only by the soul's limits and the
last reaches of life. But of all "Poetical Works," small or great, his is
the most consistent in its unity. The manner has varied not a little, the
comparative worth of individual poems is widely different, but from
the first word to the last the attitude is the same, the outlook on life the
same, the conception of God and man, of the world and nature, always
the same. This unity, though it may be deduced from, or at least
accommodated to, a system