frequently
invoked. Nothing could be more false than the rumour which once arose
that he superintended those performances of his plays which took place
under the direction of the Society. Once only, and by the urgent desire
of some of the actors, did he witness a last rehearsal of one of them.

It was also a matter of course that men and women brought together by
a pre-existing interest in Mr. Browning's work should often ignore its
authorized explanations, and should read and discuss it in the light of
personal impressions more congenial to their own mind; and the various
and circumstantial views sometimes elicited by a given poem did not
serve to render it more intelligible. But the merit of true poetry lies
so largely in its suggestiveness, that even mistaken impressions of
it have their positive value and also their relative truth; and the
intellectual friction which was thus created, not only in the parent
society, but in its offshoots in England and America, was not their
least important result.

These Societies conferred, it need hardly be said, no less real benefits
on the public at large. They extended the sale of Mr. Browning's works,
and with it their distinct influence for intellectual and moral good.
They not only created in many minds an interest in these works, but
aroused the interest where it was latent, and gave it expression where
it had hitherto found no voice. One fault, alone, could be charged
against them; and this lay partly in the nature of all friendly
concerted action: they stirred a spirit of enthusiasm in which it
was not easy, under conditions equally genuine, to distinguish the
individual element from that which was due to contagion; while the
presence among us of the still living poet often infused into that
enthusiasm a vaguely emotional element, which otherwise detracted from
its intellectual worth. But in so far as this was a drawback to the
intended action of the Societies, it was one only in the most negative
sense; nor can we doubt, that, to a certain extent, Mr. Browning's best
influence was promoted by it. The hysterical sensibilities which, for
some years past, he had unconsciously but not unfrequently aroused in
the minds of women, and even of men, were a morbid development of that
influence, which its open and systematic extension tended rather to
diminish than to increase.

It is also a matter of history that Robert Browning had many deep and
constant admirers in England,