iticism, on the revival of learning, will ever
express better than this short poem the inexhaustible thirst of the
Renaissance in its pursuit of knowledge, or the enthusiasm of the pupils
of a New Scholar for his desperate strife to know in a short life the
very centre of the Universe.

Another poem on the arts which is mixed up with Browning's theory of
life is _Andrea del Sarto_. Into it the theory slips, like an uninvited
guest into a dinner-party of whom it is felt that he has some relation
to some one of the guests, but for whom no cover is laid. The faulty
and broken life of Andrea, in its contrast with his flawless drawing,
has been a favourite subject with poets. Alfred de Musset and others
have dramatised it, and it seems strange that none of our soul-wrecking
and vivisecting novelists have taken it up for their amusement. Browning
has not left out a single point of the subject. The only criticism I
should make of this admirable poem is that, when we come to the end, we
dislike the woman and despise the man more than we pity either of them;
and in tragic art-work of a fine quality, pity for human nature with a
far-off tenderness in it should remain as the most lasting impression.
All the greater artists, even while they went to the bottom of sorrow
and wickedness, have done this wise and beautiful thing, and Browning
rarely omits it.

The first art-matter in the poem is Browning's sketch of the sudden
genesis of a picture. Andrea is sitting with his wife on the window-seat
looking out to Fiesole. As he talks she smiles a weary, lovely, autumn
smile, and, born in that instant and of her smile, he sees his picture,
knows its atmosphere, realises its tone of colour, feels its prevailing
sentiment. How he will execute it is another question, and depends on
other things; but no better sketch could be given of the sudden
spiritual fashion in which great pictures are generated. Here are the
lines, and they also strike the keynote of Andrea's soul--that to which
his life has brought him.

You smile? why, there's my picture ready made,
There's what we painters call our harmony!
A common greyness silvers everything,--
All in a twilight, you and I alike--,
You at the point of your first pride in me
(That's gone, you know),--but I, at every point;
My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down
To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.
There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top;
Tha