-abused literary
quality, Sensationalism.

The volume entitled _Pacchiarotto_, moreover, includes one or two of
the most spirited poems on the subject of the poet in relation to
publicity--"At the Mermaid," "House," and "Shop."

In spite of his increasing years, his books seemed if anything to
come thicker and faster. Two were published in 1878--_La Saisiaz_, his
great metaphysical poem on the conception of immortality, and that
delightfully foppish fragment of the _ancien regime_, _The Two Poets
of Croisic_. Those two poems would alone suffice to show that he had
not forgotten the hard science of theology or the harder science of
humour. Another collection followed in 1879, the first series of
_Dramatic Idylls_, which contain such masterpieces as "Pheidippides"
and "Ivan Ivanovitch." Upon its heels, in 1880, came the second series
of _Dramatic Idylls_, including "Muleykeh" and "Clive," possibly the
two best stories in poetry, told in the best manner of story-telling.
Then only did the marvellous fountain begin to slacken in quantity,
but never in quality. _Jocoseria_ did not appear till 1883. It
contains among other things a cast-back to his very earliest manner in
the lyric of "Never the Time and the Place," which we may call the
most light-hearted love-song that was ever written by a man over
seventy. In the next year appeared _Ferishtah's Fancies_, which
exhibit some of his shrewdest cosmic sagacity, expressed in some of
his quaintest and most characteristic images. Here perhaps more than
anywhere else we see that supreme peculiarity of Browning--his sense
of the symbolism of material trifles. Enormous problems, and yet more
enormous answers, about pain, prayer, destiny, liberty, and conscience
are suggested by cherries, by the sun, by a melon-seller, by an eagle
flying in the sky, by a man tilling a plot of ground. It is this
spirit of grotesque allegory which really characterises Browning among
all other poets. Other poets might possibly have hit upon the same
philosophical idea--some idea as deep, as delicate, and as spiritual.
But it may be safely asserted that no other poet, having thought of a
deep, delicate, and spiritual idea, would call it "A Bean Stripe; also
Apple Eating."

Three more years passed, and the last book which Browning published in
his lifetime was _Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in
their Day_, a book which consists of apostrophes, amicable, furious,
reverential, satirical, e