e girl by small talk about the
sparrows and the leaf-buds.

When one has marvelled one's fill at the professor's phrases and
misunderstandings, however, one is compelled to admit that he has
written what is probably the best popular introduction to Browning in
existence.

Professor Phelps's book is one of those rare essays in popular criticism
which will introduce an average reader to a world of new excitements.
One of its chief virtues is that it is an anthology as well as a
commentary. It contains more than fifty complete poems of Browning
quoted in the body of the book. And these include, not merely short
poems like _Meeting at Night_, but long poems, such as _Andrea del
Sarto, Caliban on Setebos_, and _Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came._
This is the right kind of introduction to a great author. The poet is
allowed as far as possible to be his own interpreter.

At the outset Professor Phelps quotes in full _Transcendentalism_ and
_How it Strikes a Contemporary_ as Browning's confession of his aims as
an artist. The first of these is Browning's most energetic assertion
that the poet is no philosopher concerned with ideas rather than with
things--with abstractions rather than with actions. His disciples have
written a great many books that seem to reduce him from a poet to a
philosopher, and one cannot protest too vehemently against this dulling
of an imagination richer than a child's in adventures and in the passion
for the detailed and the concrete. In _Transcendentalism_ he bids a
younger poet answer whether there is more help to be got from Jacob
Boehme with his subtle meanings:--

Or some stout Mage like him of Halberstadt,
John, who made things Boehme wrote thoughts about.

With how magnificent an image he then justifies the poet of "things" as
compared with the philosopher of "thoughts":--

He with a "look you!" vents a brace of rhymes,
And in there breaks the sudden rose herself,
Over us, under, round us every side,
Nay, in and out the tables and the chairs
And musty volumes, Boehme's book and all--
Buries us with a glory, young once more,
Pouring heaven into this poor house of life.

One of the things one constantly marvels at as one reads Browning is the
splendid aestheticism with which he lights up prosaic words and
pedestrian details with beauty.

The truth is, if we do not realize that he is a great singer and a great
painter as well as a, great humor