To splendid strife."

Under the title of "Incondita" was collected a group of the juvenile
verses of Robert Browning, whose special claim to interest is in the
revelation of the impress made upon the youth by Byron and Shelley.

Among the early friends of the youthful poet were Alfred Domett (the
"Waring" of his future poem), and Joseph Arnould, who became a celebrated
judge in India.

With Browning there was never any question about his definite vocation as
a poet. "Pauline" was published in 1833, before he had reached his
twenty-first birthday. Rejected by publishers, it was brought out at the
expense of his aunt, Mrs. Silverthorne; and his father paid for the
publication of "Paracelsus," "Sordello," and for the first eight parts of
"Bells and Pomegranates." On the appearance of "Pauline," it was reviewed
by Rev. William Johnson Fox, as the "work of a poet and a genius." Allan
Cunningham and other reviewers gave encouraging expressions. The design
of "Pauline" is that spiritual drama to which Browning was always
temperamentally drawn. It is supposed to be the confessions and
reminiscences of a dying man, and while it is easy to discern its
crudeness and inconsistencies, there are in it, too, many detached
passages of absolute and permanent value. As this:

"Sun-treader, life and light be thine for ever!
Thou art gone from us; years go by and spring
Gladdens, and the young earth is beautiful,
Yet thy songs come not...."

Mr. Browning certainly gave hostages to poetic art when he produced
"Pauline," in which may be traced the same conceptions of life as those
more fully and clearly presented in "Paracelsus" and "Sordello." It
embodies the conviction which is the very essence and vital center of all
Browning's work--that ultimate success is attained through partial
failures. From first to last Browning regards life as an adventure of the
soul, which sinks, falls, rises, recovers itself, relapses into
faithlessness to its higher powers, yet sees the wrong and aims to
retrieve it; gropes through darkness to light; and though "tried,
troubled, tempted," never yields to alien forces and ignominious failure.
The soul, being divine, must achieve divinity at last. That is the
crystallization of the message of Browning.

The poem "Pauline," lightly as Mr. Browning himself seemed in after life
to regard it, becomes of tremendous importance in the right approach to
the comprehension of his future work. It rev