qually true, and means exactly the same thing,
whether we state it at the beginning of a conversation or at the end,
whether we print it in a dictionary or chalk it up on a wall. But if
we take some phrase commonly used in the art of literature--such a
sentence, for the sake of example, as "the dawn was breaking"--the
matter is quite different. If the sentence came at the beginning of a
short story, it might be a mere descriptive prelude. If it were the
last sentence in a short story, it might be poignant with some
peculiar irony or triumph. Can any one read Browning's great
monologues and not feel that they are built up like a good short
story, entirely on this principle of the value of language arising
from its arrangement. Take such an example as "Caliban upon Setebos,"
a wonderful poem designed to describe the way in which a primitive
nature may at once be afraid of its gods and yet familiar with them.
Caliban in describing his deity starts with a more or less natural and
obvious parallel between the deity and himself, carries out the
comparison with consistency and an almost revolting simplicity, and
ends in a kind of blasphemous extravaganza of anthropomorphism, basing
his conduct not merely on the greatness and wisdom, but also on the
manifest weaknesses and stupidities, of the Creator of all things.
Then suddenly a thunderstorm breaks over Caliban's island, and the
profane speculator falls flat upon his face--

"Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos!
'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip,
Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month
One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!"

Surely it would be very difficult to persuade oneself that this
thunderstorm would have meant exactly the same thing if it had
occurred at the beginning of "Caliban upon Setebos." It does not mean
the same thing, but something very different; and the deduction from
this is the curious fact that Browning is an artist, and that
consequently his processes of thought are not "scientific in their
precision and analysis."

No criticism of Browning's poems can be vital, none in the face of the
poems themselves can be even intelligible, which is not based upon the
fact that he was successfully or otherwise a conscious and deliberate
artist. He may have failed as an artist, though I do not think so;
that is quite a different matter. But it is one thing to say that a
man through vanity or ignorance has built an ugly c