r herself than for others, and infuses all she
writes with her own fervent spirit: there is nothing commonplace or
lukewarm. She is so strong that she would be masculine; but so tender that
she is entirely feminine: at once one of the most vigorous of poets and
one of the best of women. She has attained the first rank among the
English poets.

ROBERT BROWNING.--As a poet of decided individuality, which has gained for
him many admirers, Browning claims particular mention. His happy marriage
has for his fame the disadvantage that he gave his name to a greater
poet; and it is never mentioned without an instinctive thought of her
superiority. Many who are familiar with her verses have never read a line
of her husband. This is in part due to a mysticism and an intense
subjectivity, which are not adapted to the popular comprehension. He has
chosen subjects unknown or uninteresting to the multitude of readers, and
treats them with such novelty of construction and such an affectation of
originality, that few persons have patience to read his poems.

Robert Browning was born, in 1812, at Camberwell; and after a careful
education, not at either of the universities, (for he was a dissenter,) he
went at the age of twenty to Italy, where he eagerly studied the history
and antiquity to be found in the monasteries and in the remains of the
mediaeval period. He also made a study of the Italian people. In 1835 he
published a drama called _Paracelsus_, founded upon the history of that
celebrated alchemist and physician, and delineating the conditions of
philosophy in the fifteenth century. It is novel, antique, and
metaphysical: it exhibits the varied emotions of human sympathy; but it is
eccentric and obscure, and cannot be popular. He has been called the poet
for poets; and this statement seems to imply that he is not the poet for
the great world.

In 1837 he published a tragedy called _Strafford_; but his Italian culture
seems to have spoiled his powers for portraying English character, and he
has presented a stilted Strafford and a theatrical Charles I.

In 1840 appeared _Sordello_, founded upon incidents in the history of that
Mantuan poet Sordello, whom Dante and Virgil met in purgatory; and who,
deserting the language of Italy, wrote his principal poems in the
Provencal. The critics were so dissatisfied with this work, that Browning
afterwards omitted it in the later editions of his poems. In 1843 he
published a tragedy entit