of a young man of high impulses but weak determination. In its
over-emphasis upon errors of judgment, as well as upon real if
exaggerated misdeeds, it has all the crudeness of youth. An almost
fantastic self-consciousness is the central motive: it is a matter of
question if this be absolutely vicarious. To me it seems that the author
himself was at the time confused by the complicated flashing of the
lights of life.

The autobiographical and autopsychical lines and passages scattered
through the poem are of immediate interest. Generously the poet repays
his debt to Shelley, whom he apostrophises as "Sun-treader," and invokes
in strains of lofty emotion--"Sun-treader--life and light be thine for
ever." The music of "Alastor," indeed, is audible ever and again
throughout "Pauline." None the less is there a new music, a new poetic
voice, in

"Thou wilt remember one warm morn, when Winter
Crept aged from the earth, and Spring's first breath
Blew soft from the moist hills--the black-thorn boughs,
So dark in the bare wood, when glistening
In the sunshine were white with coming buds,
Like the bright side of a sorrow--and the banks
Had violets opening from sleep like eyes."

If we have an imaginary Browning, a Shelleyan phantasm, in

"I seemed the fate from which I fled; I felt
A strange delight in causing my decay;
I was a fiend, in darkness chained for ever
Within some ocean-wave:"