Of alien people that ascribe
The outlandish ways and dress
On which their neighbours lay such stress,
To their fathers and mothers having risen
Out of some subterraneous prison
Into which they were trepanned
Long time ago in a mighty band
Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,
But how or why, they don't understand.

Something more we had to say of Mr. Browning, but we must stop. It is
singularly characteristic of this age that the poems which rise to the
surface should be examples of ornate art, and grotesque art, not of
pure art. We live in the realm of the _half_ educated. The number of
readers grows daily, but the quality of readers does not improve
rapidly. The middle class is scattered, headless; it is well-meaning
but aimless; wishing to be wise, but ignorant how to be wise. The
aristocracy of England never was a literary aristocracy, never even in
the days of its full power, of its unquestioned predominance, did it
guide--did it even seriously try to guide--the taste of England.
Without guidance young men and tired men are thrown amongst a mass of
books; they have to choose which they like; many of them would much
like to improve their culture, to chasten their taste, if they knew
how. But left to themselves they take, not pure art, but showy art;
not that which permanently relieves the eye and makes it happy
whenever it looks, and as long as it looks, but _glaring_ art which
catches and arrests the eye for a moment, but which in the end
fatigues it. But before the wholesome remedy of nature--the
fatigue--arrives, the hasty reader has passed on to some new
excitement, which in its turn stimulates for an instant, and then is
passed by for ever. These conditions are not favourable to the due
appreciation of pure art--of that art which must be known before it is
admired--which must have fastened irrevocably on the brain before you
appreciate it--which you must love ere it will seem worthy of your
love. Women too, whose voice in literature counts as well as that of
men--and in a light literature counts for more than that of
men--women, such as we know them, such as they are likely to be, ever
prefer a delicate unreality to a true or firm art. A dressy
literature, an exaggerated literature seem to be fated to us. These
are our curses, as other times had theirs.

And yet
Think not the living times forget,
Ages of heroes fought and fell,