land, he finished Paracelsus, which was published (1835) at his father's expense. It was sufficiently read and talked about to bring its author much friendly encouragement from literary circles. He has said himself that he was nearly fifty years old before his writings became popular enough to secure him income. But his position as a "poet's poet" was certain before he was twenty-five. Strafford, an historical tragedy (1837), was prepared for the stage at the instance of the tragedian Macready, who himself assumed the leading part. A Blot in the Scutcheon (1843) and Colombe's Birthday (1852) were composed with the same design. All had enough of success to excite enthusiasm among Browning's friends, and to this day the reason of their short stage-life remains matter of dispute. Judging them as acting plays, one can see, in the abstract nature of their themes and their tendency to lengthy recitative, abundant counterpoise to their beauties,-eloquent passages, occasional strong characterization, and genuine dramatic insight. To this period also belong several dramas which were never acted: Pippa Passes (1841), by common consent the most perfect of Browning's dramas; King Victor and King Charles (1842); The Return of the Druses (1843); Luria and A Soul's Tragedy (1846). Sordello (1840) had received much of the sweeping censure and unqualified praise, whose contradictions were destined to become so familiar to the poet; Dramatic Lyrics (1842) contained a number of the striking and beautiful short poems with which his name is associated in the popular mind: How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, Incident of the French Camp, Cavalier Tunes, and the inimitable Pied Piper of Hamelin. To this period belongs also a popular edition of his works under the fanciful title of Bells and Pomegranates (1841-46). In 1846, after a brief acquaintance brought about by poetic sympathy, Browning won and married Elizabeth Barrett. For the next fifteen years the two poets found a congenial home in Italy, amid the stirring scenes of the Italian struggle for national unity. Although Robert Browning published comparatively little at this time, later years proved that he felt, thought, and studied deeply. Christmas Eve and Easter Day appeared in 1850; and Men and Women (1855) contained, among reprinted pieces, many strong new poems.

After the death of his wife (1861) Browning returned to England, residing mainly in London during the last and most pro

ductive years of his life. "Casa Guidi," his Florentine home, had long been a Mecca to literary pilgrims of every race; and Browning now became one of the most familiar and cherished figures of London society. His personal relations were singularly delightful. Recognized as a connoisseur in art and letters, and a brilliant talker, he was also a genial, generous friend. Many writers, famous and obscure, have borne witness to the modesty and the unspoiled kindliness of his nature. Freedom from egotism seems truly noteworthy in a poet who lived to see learned societies organized under his name, for the purpose of justifying the alleged defects and extolling the beauties of his verse. It must be owned that he gave them abundant material for elucidation. Dramatis Persona (1864) was heavily weighted with metaphysical disquisition, which was by no means absent from the Ring and the Book (1868–69), generally pronounced the masterpiece among his long poems. This numbers 20,000 lines of blank verse, and its foundation narrative is told and retold eleven times. Balaustion's Adventure (1871) embodies a beautiful rendering of the Alkestis of Euripides, whose Herakles is freely translated in Aristophanes' Apology (1875). A noble and accurate rendering of the Agamemnon of Eschylus (1877) was found difficult reading even by scholarly critics. Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau (1871), Fifine at the Fair (1872), Red Cotton Night-cap Country (1873), The Inn Album (1875), Dramatic Idyls (1879-80), Jocoseria (1883), Ferishtah's Fancies (1884), Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in their Day (1887), Asolando (1889), although warmly received by the inner circle of Browning's admirers, have as yet added little to the general estimate of his powers.

Browning died in Venice, during one of his frequent visits to Italy; and the city sent a wreath to be placed upon his bier. Westminster Abbey received his remains amid manifestations of a nation's grief, which were echoed by the elect spirits of two continents. Recalling the stately obsequies of Spenser, where "mournful elegies, with the pens that wrote them," were thrown into the tomb, the critic queries whether Browning, like Spenser, is destined to a select and limited immortality, bounded by the refined understanding of a literary class. The decision cannot yet be pronounced. Browning's greatness, like his faults, can ill be resolved into a brief summary. Only careful study and judicial comparison

His work repays serious

can define the scope of his powers. thought, not only as a reflection of the many influences exerted upon artists in the nineteenth century, but as an epitome of poetic method-possibly mistaken, certainly original. He did not himself pose as a lawgiver; he has frankly disclaimed many of the subtleties praised by his commentators. To those who value the laws of melodious versification, which have been followed by the greatest masters from Chaucer to Tennyson, Browning seems great in spite of frequent deviations, rather than because the necessities of his genius have transcended them. In his best writing he has proved himself a master of fluent, musical, impressive verse, and this deepens our regret that he has so often thought it superfluous. But making every allowance for the blemishes which repel conventional critics, his obscurities and remote allusions, his prolixity, his frequent errors of taste, and the crude, commonplace diction which masks many of his noblest thoughts,-we must still concede him creative originality, vast fertility, and imagination of a high order. He has often proffered his readers rather the raw material of poetry than poetry itself, yet we are sure of finding in his most unpolished masses beauties of thought and diction sufficient to assure the fame of an ordinary poet. Moreover, he has fulfilled the moral mission of the poet in a high sense. His religious faith is expressed without dogmatism or sentimentality; he believes in the high destiny of man, in the "soul of goodness in things evil," in the noble ends of Art and of Love. Chaucer himself is not freer from cynicism. His sympathy no less than his insight has made him a cosmopolitan, while his interest in the individual, the exceptional type, has enabled him to portray for us race, epoch, caste, sect, even eccentricity and crime, with realistic fidelity. If we acknowledge, furthermore, the virile quality of his genius, the sympathetic breadth of his humor, the variety of his character-study, we shall not ridicule the comparisons with Shakespeare which are so frequently preferred by his disciples. He himself considered his genius to be dramatic in its bent. But no company of scholars can subject him to those tests which three centuries have applied to Shakespeare. The dramatic monologue, his chosen vehicle of expression, is of itself less easily understood than the drama which interprets thought by action; and Browning's themes are frequently foreign to the knowledge and to the interest of English readers. More

over,—and this is, after all, the crucial test,-Shakespeare's greatness is inseparable from the complete objectivity of his method. In him the artist becomes a transparent medium, revealing passion, character, motive, in uncolored, unconstrained working. Browning all too often becomes Browning in his own despite, at the very climax of his impersonation; he constantly uses the light of one century to illumine the darkness of another.

Mrs. Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793-1835) has written poems that are extensively read. Her subjects find a ready admission to the hearts of all classes. The style is graceful, but presenting, as Scott said, "too many flowers for the fruit." There is little intellectual or emotional force about her poetry, and the greater part of it will soon be forgotten. A few of the smaller pieces will perhaps remain as English gems, such as The Graves of a Household, and the Homes of England (321).

In this chapter we have considered:

1. Lord Byron,

a. Childe Harold.

b. His Dramatic Works.

c. Don Juan.

d. Angus's Estimate of Byron.

2. Thomas Moore.

a. His Poetry.

b. His Prose Writings.

3. Percy Bysshe Shelley.

4. John Keats.

5. Thomas Campbell.

6. James Henry Leigh Hunt.

7. Walter Savage Landor.

8. Thomas Hood.

9. Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

10. Robert Browning.

11. Mrs. Felicia Dorothea Hemans.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE LAKE SCHOOL-WORDSWORTH, COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

"Him who uttered nothing base."-Alfred Tennyson.

"I do not know a man more to be venerated for uprightness of heart and lofti. uess of genius."-Walter Scott.

"To feel for the first time a communion with his mind, is to discover loftier faculties in our own."-Thomas N. Talfourd.

"Whatever the world may think of me or of my poetry is now of little consequence; but one thing is a comfort of my old age, that none of my works written since the days of my early youth, contains a line which I should wish to blot out because it panders to the baser passions of our nature. This is a comfort to me; I can do no mischief by my works when I am gone."- William Wordsworth.

W

ILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850), the founder of the so-called Lake School of poetry, was born in the north of England (294-300). He was left an orphan very early in life. In his ninth year he was sent to a school at Hawkshead, in the most picturesque district of Lancashire, where his love for the beauties of creation was rapidly developed. Atter taking his degree at Cambridge in 1791, he went to France, and eagerly embraced the ideas of the champions of liberty in that country. His political sentiments, however, became gradually modified, till in later life they settled down into steady conservatism in all questions of church and state. In 1793 he published two little poems, An Evening Walk, and Descriptive Sketches. Their metre and language are of the school of Pope; but they are the work of a promising pupil, and not of a master. In the following year he completed the story of Salisbury Plain; or, Guilt and Sorrow. In regard to time it is separated from the Descriptive Sketches by a span, but in merit they are parted by a gulf. He had ceased to write in the