with exquisite skill; but they are not
in the strict sense inventions, creations: we understand rather than see
them. Only towards the end, where the facts leave freer play for the
poetic impulse, do they rise into sharp vividness of dramatic life and
speech. Nothing in the poem equals in intensity the great soliloquy of
Miranda before his strange and suicidal leap, and the speech of Clara to
the "Cousinry." Here we pass at a bound from chronicling to creation. As
a narrative, _Red Cotton Night-Cap Country_ has all the interest of a
novel, with the concentration and higher pitch of poetry. Less ingenious
and philosophical than _Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau_ and _Fifine at the
Fair_, it is far more intimately human, more closely concerned with
"man's thoughts and loves and hates," with the manifestations of his
eager and uneasy spirit, in strange shapes, on miry roads, in dubious
twilights. Of all Browning's works it is perhaps the easiest to read; no
tale could be more straightforward, no language more lucid, no verse
more free from harshness or irregularity, The versification, indeed, is
exceptionally smooth and measured, seldom rising into strong passion,
but never running into volubility. Here and there are short passages,
which I can scarcely detach for quotation, with a singular charm of
vague remote music. The final summary of Clara and Miranda, excellent
and convenient alike, may be severed without much damage from the
context.

"Clara, I hold the happier specimen,--
It may be, through that artist-preference
For work complete, inferiorly proposed,
To incompletion, though it aim aright.
Morally, no! Aspire, break bounds! I say,
Endeavour to be good, and better still,
And best! Success is nought, endeavour's all.
But intellect adjusts the means to ends,
Tries the low thing, and leaves it done, at least;
No prejudice to high thing, intellect
Would do and will do, only give the means.
Miranda, in my picture-gallery,
Presents a Blake; be Clara--Meissonnier!
Merely considered so, by artist, mind!
For, break through Art and rise to poetry,
Bring Art to tremble nearer, touch enough
The verge of vastness to inform our soul
What orb makes transit through the dark above,
And there's the triumph!--there the incomplete,
More than completion, matches the immense,--
Then, Michelagnolo against the w