The same gentlemanly indifference to his plebeian readers is diffused
all through Matthew Arnold's writing, of course. He casually disposes of
popularity:

Some secrets may the poet tell
For the world loves new ways;
To tell too deep ones is not well,--
It knows not what he says.
[Footnote: See _In Memory of Obermann._]

Mrs. Browning probably has her own success in mind when she makes the
young poetess, Aurora Leigh, recoil from the fulsome praise of her
readers. Browning takes the same attitude in _Sordello,_ contrasting
Eglamor, the versifier who servilely conformed to the taste of the mob,
with Sordello, the true poet, who despised it. In _Popularity_, Browning
returns to the same theme, of the public's misplaced praises, and in
_Pacchiarotto_ he outdoes himself in heaping ridicule upon his readers.
Naturally the coterie of later poets who have prided themselves on their
unique skill in interpreting Browning have been impressed by his
contempt for his readers. Perhaps they have even exaggerated it. No less
contemptuous of his readers than Browning was that other Victorian, so
like him in many respects, George Meredith.

It would be interesting to make a list of the zoological metaphors by
which the Victorians expressed their contempt for the public. Landor
characterized their criticisms as "asses' kicks aimed at his head."
[Footnote: Edmund Gosse, _Life of Swinburne_, p. 103.] Browning
alternately represented his public cackling and barking at him.
[Footnote: See Thomas J. Wise, Letters, Second Series, Vol. 2, p. 52.]