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Life of Robert Browning by William Sharp
page 47 of 275 (17%)
Fortunately the deep humanity of his work in the mass conserves it against
the mere veerings of taste. A reaction against it will inevitably come;
but this will pass: what, in the future, when the unborn readers of Browning
will look back with clear eyes untroubled by the dust of our footsteps,
not to subside till long after we too are dust, will be the place
given to this poet, we know not, nor can more than speculatively estimate.
That it will, however, be a high one, so far as his weightiest (in bulk,
it may possibly be but a relatively slender) accomplishment is concerned,
we may rest well assured: for indeed "It lives, If precious be
the soul of man to man."

So far as has been ascertained there were only three reviews
or notices of "Pauline": the very favourable article by Mr. Fox
in the `Monthly Repository', the kindly paper by Allan Cunningham
in the `Athenaeum', and, in `Tait's Edinburgh Magazine',
the succinctly expressed impression of either an indolent
or an incapable reviewer: "Pauline; a Fragment of a Confession;
a piece of pure bewilderment" -- a "criticism" which anticipated
and thus prevented the insertion of a highly favourable review
which John Stuart Mill voluntarily wrote.

Browning must have regarded his first book with mingled feelings.
It was a bid for literary fortune, in one sense, but a bid so handicapped
by the circumstances of its publication as to be almost certainly of no avail.
Probably, however, he was well content that it should have mere existence.
Already the fever of an abnormal intellectual curiosity was upon him:
already he had schemed more potent and more vital poems:
already, even, he had developed towards a more individualistic method.
So indifferent was he to an easily gained reputation that he seems
to have been really urgent upon his relatives and intimate acquaintances
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