f pain (_Mihrab
Shah_), punishment present and future (_A Camel-Driver_), asceticism
(_Two Camels_), gratefulness to God for small benefits (_Cherries_), the
direct personal relation existing between man and God (_Plot-Culture_),
the uncertain value of knowledge contrasted with the sure gain of love
(_A Pillar at Sebzevah_), and, finally, in _A Bean-Stripe: also Apple
Eating_, the problem of life: is it more good than evil, or more evil
than good? The work is a serious attempt to grapple with these great
questions, and is as important on its ethical as on its artistic side.
Each argument is conveyed by means of a parable, often brilliant, often
quaint, always striking and serviceable, and always expressed in
scrupulously clear and simple language. The teaching, put more plainly
and definitely, perhaps, with less intellectual disguise than usual, is
the old unconquered optimism which, in Browning, is so unmistakably a
matter of temperament.

The most purely delightful poetry in the volume will be found in the
delicate and musical love-songs which brighten its pages. They are
snatches of spontaneous and exquisite song, bird-notes seldom heard
except from the lips of youth. Perhaps the most perfect is the first.

"Round us the wild creatures, overhead the trees,
Underfoot the moss-tracks,--life and love with these!
I to wear a fawn-skin, thou to dress in flowers:
All the long lone Summer-day, that greenwood life of ours!

Rich-pavilioned, rather,--still the world without,--
Inside--gold-roofed silk-walled silence round about!
Queen it thou in purple,--I, at watch and ward
Couched beneath the columns, gaze, thy slave, love's guard!

So, for us no world? Let throngs press thee to me!
Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we!
Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face!
God is soul, souls I and thou: with souls should souls have place."

"With souls should souls have place," is, with Browning, the condensed
expression of an experience, a philosophy, and an art. Like the lovers
of his lyric, he has renounced the selfish serenities of wild-wood and
dream-palace; he has gone up and down among men, listening to that human
music, and observing that human or divine comedy. He has sung what he
has heard, and he has painted what he has seen. If it should be asked
whether such work will live, there can be only one answer, and he has
already given