down to "ancient rapture."]

[Footnote 18: No. V. The vi. ll. beginning, "That autumn ere has stilled."]

[Footnote 19: The xxii ll. beginning, "As, shall I say, some Ethiop."]

[Footnote 20: The xxix ll. beginning, "For he,--for he."]

[Footnote 21: To these XXXI selections there must now be added "Now,"
"Summum Bonum," "Reverie" and the "Epilogue," from "Asolando."]

It is here--I will not say in _Flower o' the Vine_, nor even venture
to restrictively affirm it of that larger and fuller compilation we have
agreed, for the moment, to call "Transcripts from Life"--it is here, in
the worthiest poems of Browning's most poetic period, that, it seems to
me, his highest greatness is to be sought. In these "Men and Women" he
is, in modern times, an unparalleled dramatic poet. The influence he
exercises through these, and the incalculably cumulative influence which
will leaven many generations to come, is not to be looked for in
individuals only, but in the whole thought of the age, which he has
moulded to new form, animated anew, and to which he has imparted a fresh
stimulus. For this a deep debt is due to Robert Browning. But over and
above this shaping force, this manipulative power upon character and
thought, he has enriched our language, our literature, with a new wealth
of poetic diction, has added to it new symbols, has enabled us to inhale
a more liberal if an unfamiliar air, has, above all, raised us to a
fresh standpoint, a standpoint involving our construction of a new
definition.

Here, at least, we are on assured ground: here, at any rate, we realise
the scope and quality of his genius. But, let me hasten to add, he, at
his highest, not being of those who would make Imagination the handmaid
of the Understanding, has given us also a Dorado of pure poetry, of
priceless worth. Tried by the severest tests, not merely of substance,
but of form, not merely of the melody of high thinking, but of rare and
potent verbal music, the larger number of his "Men and Women" poems are
as treasurable acquisitions, in kind, to our literature, as the shorter
poems of Milton, of Shelley, of Keats, and of Tennyson. But once again,
and finally, let me repeat that his primary importance--not greatness,
but importance--is in having forced us to take up a novel standpoint,
involving our construction of a new definition.

CHAPTER VII.

There are, in literary history, few _scenes de la vie privee_ more
affecting than that of