he has fulfilled
it, how far he has succeeded in conveying to your mind a distinct and
sharply-cut impression. You will find that whatever be the subject,
whatever the style, whether in your eyes the former be mistaken, the
latter perverse, the poem itself, within its recognised limits, is
designed, constructed and finished with the finest skill of the
draughtsman or the architect. You will find that the impression you have
received from the whole is single and vivid, and, while you may not
perceive it, it will generally be the case that certain details at which
your fastidiousness cries out, certain uncouthnesses, as you fancy, are
perfectly appropriate and in their place, and have contributed to the
perfection of the _ensemble_.

A word may here be said in reference to the charge of "obscurity,"
which, from the time when Browning's earliest poem was disposed of by a
complacent critic in the single phrase, "A piece of pure bewilderment,"
has been hurled at each succeeding poem with re-iterate vigour of
virulence. The charge of "pure bewilderment" is about as reasonable as
the charge of "habitual rudeness of versification." It is a fashion.
People abuse their "Browning" as they abuse their "Bradshaw," though all
that is wanting, in either case, is a little patience and a little
common sense. Browning might say, as his wife said in an early preface,
"I never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry, nor leisure for
the hour of the poet;" as indeed he has himself said, to much the same
effect, in a letter printed many years ago: "I never pretended to offer
such literature as should be a substitute for a cigar or a game at
dominoes to an idle man." But he has not made anything like such a
demand on the reader's faculties as people, _not_ readers, seem to
suppose. _Sordello_ is difficult, _Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau_ is
difficult, so, perhaps, in parts, is _Fifine at the Fair_; so, too, on
account of its unfamiliar allusions, is _Aristophanes' Apology_; and a
few smaller poems, here and there, remotely argumentative or specially
complex in psychology, are difficult. But really these are about all to
which such a term as "unintelligible," so freely and recklessly flung
about, could with the faintest show of reason be applied by any
reasonable being. In the 21,116 lines which form Browning's longest work
and masterpiece, the "psychological epic" of _The Ring and the Book_, I
am inclined to think it possible that a car