difficult, so, perhaps, in parts, is _Fifine at the Fair_; so, too, on
account of its unfamiliar allusions, is _Aristophanes' Apology_; and a
few smaller poems, here and there, remotely argumentative or specially
complex in psychology, are difficult. But really these are about all to
which such a term as "unintelligible," so freely and recklessly flung
about, could with the faintest show of reason be applied by any
reasonable being. In the 21,116 lines which form Browning's longest work
and masterpiece, the "psychological epic" of _The Ring and the Book_, I
am inclined to think it possible that a careful scrutiny might reveal
116 which an ordinary reader would require to read twice. Anything more
clear than the work as a whole it would be difficult to find. It is much
easier to follow than _Paradise Lost_; the _Agamemnon_ is rather less
easy to follow than _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_.

That there is some excuse for the accusation, no one would or could
deny. But it is only the excuse of a misconception. Browning is a
thinker of extraordinary depth and subtlety; his themes are seldom
superficial, often very remote, and his thought is, moreover, as swift
as it is subtle. To a dull reader there is little difference between
cloudy and fiery thought; the one is as much too bright for him as the
other is too dense. Of all thinkers in poetry, Browning is the most
swift and fiery. "If there is any great quality," says Mr. Swinburne, in
those noble pages in which he has so generously and triumphantly
vindicated his brother-poet from this very charge of obscurity--

"If there is any great quality more perceptible than another
in Mr. Browning's intellect, it is his decisive and incisive
faculty of thought, his sureness and intensity of perception,
his rapid and trenchant resolution of aim. To charge him with
obscurity is about as accurate as to call Lynceus purblind,