First went my hopes of perfecting mankind,
Next--faith in them, and then in freedom's self
And virtue's self, then my own motives, ends,
And aims and loves, and human love went last.
I felt this no decay, because new powers
Rose as old feelings left--wit, mockery,
Light-heartedness; for I had oft been sad,
Mistrusting my resolves, but now I cast
Hope joyously away; I laughed and said
"No more of this!"

It is difficult to believe that Browning is wholly dramatic here; we
seem to discover something of that period of _Sturm und Drang_, when his
mood grew restless and aggressive. The homage paid to Shelley, whose
higher influence Browning already perceived to be in large measure
independent of his creed of revolution, has in it certainly something of
the spirit of autobiography. In this enthusiastic admiration for Shelley
there is nothing to regret, except the unhappy extravagance of the name
"Suntreader," which he invented as a title for the poet of _Alastor_ and
_Prometheus Unbound._

The attention of Mr W.J. Fox, a Unitarian minister of note, had been
directed to Browning's early unpublished verse by Miss Flower. In the
_Monthly Repository_ (April 1833) which he then edited, Mr Fox wrote of
_Pauline_ with admiration, and Browning was duly grateful for this
earliest public recognition of his genius as a poet. In the _Athenaeum_
Allen Cunningham made an effort to be appreciative and sympathetic. John
Stuart Mill desired to be the reviewer of _Pauline_ in _Taifs Magazine_;
there, however, the poem had been already dismissed with one