h new things from book to book. In
_The Ring and the Book_ the subject is not great, the fates concerned
are not important, and the same event runs through twelve books and is
described twelve times. However we may admire the intellectual force
which actually makes the work interesting, and the passion which often
thrills us in it--this is more than the subject bears, and than we can
always endure. Each book is spun out far beyond what is necessary; a
great deal is inserted which would be wisely left out. No one could be
more concise than Browning when he pleased. His power of flashing a
situation or a thought into a few words is well known. But he did not
always use this power. And in _The Ring and the Book_, as in some of the
poems that followed it, he seems now and then to despise that power.

And now for the poem itself. Browning tells the story eight times by
different persons, each from a different point of view, and twice more
by the same person before and after his condemnation and, of course,
from two points of view. Then he practically tells it twice more in the
prologue and the epilogue--twelve times in all--and in spite of what I
have said about the too great length of the poem, this is an
intellectual victory that no one else but Browning could have won
against its difficulties. Whether it was worth the creation by himself
of the difficulty is another question. He chose to do it, and we had
better submit to him and get the good of his work. At least we may avoid
some of the weariness he himself feared by reading it in the way I have
mentioned, as Browning meant it to be read. Poems--being the highest
product of the highest genius of which man is capable--ought to be
approached with some reverence. And a part of that reverence is to read
them in accordance with the intention and desire of the writer.

We ought not to forget the date of the tale when we read the book. It is
just two hundred years ago. The murder of Pompilia took place in 1698;
and the book completes his studies of the Renaissance in its decay. If
_Sordello_ is worth our careful reading as a study of the thirteenth
century in North Italy, this book is as valuable as a record of the
society of its date. It is, in truth, a mine of gold; pure crude ore is
secreted from man's life, then moulded into figures of living men and
women by the insight and passion of the poet. In it is set down Rome as
she was--her customs, opinions, classes of society;