the profound intellectual depth of certain pieces as its
characteristic, or, equally, to the traces here and there of an
apparent carelessness of workmanship; or, yet again, to the new and
very marked partiality for scenes and situations of English and
modern rather than medieval and foreign life."

Noble as much of Mr. Browning's later work is, full of intellect,
alive with excellent passages (in the first volume of the Dramatic
Idyls [50] perhaps more powerful than in any earlier work);
notwithstanding all that, we think the change here indicated matter
of regret. After all, we have to conjure up ideal poets for
ourselves out of those who stand in or behind the range of volumes on
our book-shelves; and our ideal Browning would have for his entire
structural type those two volumes of Men and Women with Pippa Passes.

Certainly, it is a delightful world to which Mr. Browning has given
us the key, and those volumes a delightful gift to our age-record of
so much that is richest in the world of things, and men, and their
works--all so much the richer by the great intellect, the great
imagination, which has made the record, transmuted them into
imperishable things of art:--

"'With souls should souls have place'--this, with Mr. Browning, is
something more than a mere poetical conceit. It is the condensed
expression of an experience, a philosophy, and an art. Like the
lovers of his lyric, Mr. Browning has renounced the selfish
serenities of wild-wood and dream-palace; he has fared up and down
among men, listening to the music of humanity, [51] observing the
acts of men, and he has sung what he has heard, and he has painted
what he has seen. Will the work live? we ask; and we can answer only