illuminate it, I shall not add it afterwards but insert
it in a parenthesis. I will make a new tongue for my poetry." And the
result was the style and the strange manner in which _Sordello_ was
written. This partly excuses its obscurity, if deliberation can be an
excuse for a bad manner in literature. Malice prepense does not excuse a
murder, though it makes it more interesting. Finally, the manner in
which _Sordello_ was written did not please him. He left it behind him,
and _Pippa Passes_, which followed _Sordello_, is as clear and simple as
its predecessor is obscure in style.

Thirdly, the language of _Sordello_, and, in a lesser degree, that of
all Browning's poetry, proves--if his whole way of thought and passion
did not also prove it--that Browning was not a classic, that he
deliberately put aside the classic traditions in poetry. In this he
presents a strong contrast to Tennyson. Tennyson was possessed by those
traditions. His masters were Homer, Vergil, Milton and the rest of those
who wrote with measure, purity, and temperance; and from whose poetry
proceeded a spirit of order, of tranquillity, of clearness, of
simplicity; who were reticent in ornament, in illustration, and stern in
rejection of unnecessary material. None of these classic excellences
belong to Browning, nor did he ever try to gain them, and that was,
perhaps, a pity. But, after all, it would have been of no use had he
tried for them. We cannot impose from without on ourselves that which we
have not within; and Browning was, in spirit, a pure romantic, not a
classic. Tennyson never allowed what romanticism he possessed to have
its full swing. It always wore the classic dress, submitted itself to
the classic traditions, used the classic forms. In the _Idylls of the
King_ he took a romantic story; but nothing could be more unromantic
than many of the inventions and the characters; than the temper, the
morality, and the conduct of the poem. The Arthurian poets, Malory
himself, would have jumped out their skin with amazement, even with
indignation, had they read it. And a great deal of this oddity, this
unfitness of the matter to the manner, arose from the romantic story
being expressed in poetry written in accordance with classic traditions.
Of course, there were other sources for these inharmonies in the poem,
but that was one, and not the least of them.

Browning had none of these classic traditions. He had his own matter,
quite new stuff it w