he life of
Sordello does not fuse the events of the poem into one long rhythm. He
thinks and dreams apart, and Palma's ambition for him is an aside, and
the events swing their arms and strike fiery and cruel blows with
Sordello absent. Considering Mr. Browning's intent, there is a fine
poetic success in this very fault of the poem, but it is not a plain
one, and is an after-thought of the critic. The numerous splendid pages
in "Sordello" do nothing towards making one complete impression which
cannot be evaded. Naddo, the genius-haunter, would complain, that, in
struggling out towards these aisles of beauty, he had seriously
compromised his clothing in the underbrush.

But the faults which characterize "Sordello" are not prevalent in the
subsequent writings which are loosely accused of them. They become
afterwards exceptional, they vein here and there the surface, and Mr.
Average stumbles over them and proceeds no farther. Still, Mr.
Browning's verse is not easy reading. He is economical of words to the
point of harmony; but what a hypocrite he would be, if he used more! He
brings you meaning, if you bring him mind; and there is Tupper outside,
if you don't care to trouble yourself. In saying this we are not
arrogant at all, for there is a large and widening sympathy with Mr.
Browning's thought. Perhaps a whole generation of readers will fretfully
break itself upon his style, and pass away, before the mind hails with
ease his merits. But is Shakspeare's verse easy reading? Not to this
day, in spite of his level of common sense, the artlessness of his
passion, and the broad simplicity of a great imagination, that causeth
its sun to shine on the evil and the good. It was easy reading to Ben
Jonson, to Milton, and to Chapman; it took "Eliza and our James"; it had
more theatrical success than the scholarly plays of Jonson: but two or
three centuries have exhausted neither his commentators nor the subtile
parts that need a comment. A good deal of Shakspeare is read, but the
rest is caviare to the multitude. We need not comfort ourselves on the
facility with which we take his name in vain. We venture to say that the
whole of Shakspeare's thought is inwardly tasted by as many people as
enjoy the subtilty of Robert Browning. Shakspeare has broader places
over which the waters lie, sweet and warm, to tempt disporting crowds,
and places deep as human nature, upon whose brink the pleasure-seekers
peer and shudder. But if Mr. Browni