t to which
Browning's poetry produces its effect by suggestion rather than by
elaboration; by stimulating thought, emotion, and the aesthetic sense,
instead of seeking to satisfy any one of these--especially instead of
contenting itself with only soothing the last. The comparison of his
poetry with--for instance--Tennyson's, in this respect, is instructive;
if it is possibly unjust to both.

And a third trait in Browning--to make an end of a dangerously
categorical attempt to characterize him--follows logically from this
second; its extreme compactness and concentration. Browning sometimes
dwells long--even dallies--over an idea, as does Shakespeare; turns it,
shows its every facet; and even then it is noticeable, as with the
greater master, that every individual phrase with which he does so is
practically exhaustive of the suggestiveness of that particular aspect.
But commonly he crowds idea upon idea even in his lyrics, and--strangely
enough--without losing the lyric quality; each thought pressed down to
its very essence, and each with that germinal power that makes the
reading of him one of the most stimulating things to be had from
literature. His figures especially are apt and telling in the very
minimum of words; they say it all, like the unsurpassable Shakespearean
example of "the dyer's hand"; and the more you think of them, the more
you see that not a word could be added or taken away.

It may be said that this quality of compactness is common to all genius,
and of the very essence of all true poetry; but Browning manifested it
in a way of his own, such as to suggest that he believed in the
subordination of all other qualities to it; even of melody, for
instance, as may be said by his critics and admitted in many cases by
even his strongest admirers. But all things are not given to one, even
among the giants; and Browning's force with its measure of melody (which
is often great) has its place among others' melody with its measure of
force. Open at random: here are two lines in 'A Toccata of Galuppi's,'
not deficient in melody by any means:--

"Dear dead women--with such hair, too: what's become of all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms?--I feel chilly and grown old."

This is not Villon's 'Ballad of Dead Ladies,' nor even Tennyson's 'Dream
of Fair Women'; but a master can still say a good deal in two lines.

What is called the "roughness" of Browning's verse is at all events
never the r