as; and he made his own manner. He did not go back
to the old stories, but, being filled with the romantic spirit, embodied
it in new forms, and drenched with it his subjects, whether he took
them from ancient, mediaeval, Renaissance, or modern life. He felt, and
truly, that it is of the essence of romanticism to be always arising
into new shapes, assimilating itself, century by century, to the needs,
the thought and the passions of growing mankind; progressive, a lover of
change; in steady opposition to that dull conservatism the tendency to
which besets the classic literature.

Browning had the natural faults of the romantic poet; and these are most
remarkable when such a poet is young. The faults are the opposites of
the classic poet's excellences: want of measure, want of proportion,
want of clearness and simplicity, want of temperance, want of that
selective power which knows what to leave out or when to stop. And these
frequently become positive and end in actual disorder of composition,
huddling of the matters treated of into ill-digested masses, violence in
effects and phrase, bewildering obscurity, sought-out even desperate
strangeness of subject and expression, uncompromising individuality,
crude ornament, and fierce colour. Many examples of these faults are to
be found in _Sordello_ and throughout the work of Browning. They are the
extremes into which the Romantic is frequently hurried.

But, then, Browning has the natural gifts and excellences of the
romantic poet, and these elements make him dearer than the mere Classic
to a multitude of imaginative persons. One of them is endless and
impassioned curiosity, for ever unsatisfied, always finding new worlds
of thought and feeling into which to make dangerous and thrilling
voyages of discovery--voyages that are filled from end to end with
incessantly changing adventure, or delight in that adventure. This
enchants the world. And it is not only in his subjects that the romantic
poet shows his curiosity. He is just as curious of new methods of
tragedy, of lyric work, of every mode of poetry; of new ways of
expressing old thoughts; new ways of treating old metres; of the
invention of new metres and new ways of phrasing; of strange and
startling word-combinations, to clothe fittingly the strange and
startling things discovered in human nature, in one's own soul, or in
the souls of others. In ancient days such a temper produced the many
tales of invention which fill