anguage. It is obscure by a
host of parentheses introduced to express thoughts which are only
suggested, half-shaped, and which are frequently interwoven with
parentheses introduced into the original parentheses. It is obscure by
the worst punctuation I ever came across, but this was improved in the
later editions. It is obscure by multitudinous fancies put in whether
they have to do with the subject or not, and by multitudinous deviations
within those fancies. It is obscure by Browning's effort to make words
express more than they are capable of expressing.

It is no carping criticism to say this of Browning's work in _Sordello_,
because it is the very criticism his after-practice as an artist makes.
He gave up these efforts to force, like Procrustes, language to stretch
itself or to cut itself down into forms it could not naturally take; and
there is no more difficulty in most of his earlier poems than there is
in _Paracelsus_. Only a little of the Sordellian agonies remains in
them, only that which was natural to Browning's genius. The interwoven
parentheses remain, the rushes of invention into double and triple
illustrations, the multiplication of thought on thought; but for these
we may even be grateful. Opulence and plenitude of this kind are not
common; we are not often granted a man who flings imaginations, fancies
and thoughts from him as thick and bright as sparks from a grinder's
wheel. It is not every poet who is unwilling to leave off, who finds
himself too full to stop. "These bountiful wits," as Lamb said, "always
give full measure, pressed down, and running over."

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Browning spells this name _Ecelin_, probably for easier use in
verse.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VII

_BROWNING AND SORDELLO_

There are certain analogies between Browning as a poet and the Sordello
of the poem; between his relation to the world of his time and that of
Sordello to his time; and finally, between Browning's language in this
poem and the change in the Italian language which he imputes to the work
of Sordello. This chapter will discuss these analogies, and close with
an appreciation of Browning's position between the classic and romantic
schools of poetry.

The analogies of which I write may be denied, but I do not think they
can be disproved. Browning is, no doubt, separate from Sordello in his
own mind, but underneath the young poet he is creating, he is
continually aski