It has been, as a rule, strangely overlooked, though it is a matter of
the first moment, that Browning's poems are in the most precise sense
_works of art_, and this in a very high degree, positive and relative,
if we understand by a "work of art" a poem which attains its end and
fulfils its purpose completely, and which has a worthy end and plain
purpose to attain.

Surely this is of far more vital importance than the mere melodiousness
of single lines, or a metre of unvarying sweetness bearing gently along
in its placid course (as a stream the leaf or twig fallen into it from
above) some tiny thought or finikin fragment of emotion. Matthew Arnold,
who was both poet and critic, has told us with emphasis of "the
necessity of accurate construction, and the subordinate character of
expression."[5] His next words, though bearing a slightly different
signification, may very legitimately be applied to Browning. Arnold
tells us "how unspeakably superior is the effect of the one moral
impression left by a great action treated as a whole, to the effect
produced by the most striking single thought or by the happiest image."
For "a great action," read "an adequate subject," and the words define
and defend Browning's principle and practice exactly. There is no
characteristic of his work more evident, none more admirable or more
rare, than the unity, the compactness and completeness, the skill and
care in construction and definiteness in impression, of each poem. I do
not know any contemporary of whom this may more truly be said. The
assertion will be startling, no doubt, to those who are accustomed to
think of Browning (as people once thought of Shakespeare) as a poet of
great gifts but little skill; as a giant, but a clumsy giant; as what
the French call a _nature_, an almost unconscious force, expending
itself at random, without rule or measure. But take, for example, the
series of _Men and Women_, as originally published, read poem after poem