terwards became a partner in the loveliest marriage of which we have
record in literary history, that, even were there nothing to
substantiate the fact, it were fair to infer that Mertoun's song to
Mildred was the electric touch which compelled to its metric shape one
of Mrs. Browning's best-known poems.

The further interest lies in the lordly acknowledgment of the dedication
to him of "Luria," which Landor sent to Browning--lines pregnant with
the stateliest music of his old age:--

"Shakespeare is not our poet but the world's,
Therefore on him no speech! and brief for thee,
Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale
No man has walked along our roads with step
So active, so enquiring eye, or tongue
So varied in discourse. But warmer climes
Give brighter plumage, stronger wing: the breeze
Of Alpine heights thou playest with, borne on
Beyond Sorrento and Amalfi, where
The Siren waits thee, singing song for song."

CHAPTER V.

In my allusion to "Pippa Passes," towards the close of the preceding
chapter, as the most imperishable because the most nearly immaculate of
Browning's dramatic poems, I would not have it understood that its
pre-eminence is considered from the standpoint of technical achievement,
of art, merely. It seems to me, like all simple and beautiful things,
profound enough for the searching plummet of the most curious explorer
of the depths of life. It can be read, re-read, learned by heart, and
the more it is known the wider and more alluring are the avenues of
imaginative thought which it discloses. It has, more than any other long
composition by its author, that quality of symmetry, that _symmetria
prisca_ recorded of Leonardo da Vinci in the Latin epitaph of Platino
Piatto; and, as might be expected, its mental basis, what Rossetti
called fundamental brain-work, is as luminous, depth within depth, as
the morning air. By its side, the more obviously "profound" poems,
Bishop Blougram and the rest, are mere skilled dialectics.

The art that is most profound and most touching must ever be the
simplest. Whenever AEschylus, Dante, Shakspere, Milton, are at white heat
they require no exposition, but meditation only--the meditation akin to
the sentiment of little children who listen, intent upon every syllable,
and passionately eager of soul, to hearth-side tragedies. The play of
genius is like the movement of the sea. It has its solemn r