tiff blind
horse" is as grotesque as he is woeful, the dreary day itself, as it
sinks, shoots one grim red leer at the doomed knight as he sets forth;
in the penury and inertness of the wasted plain he sees "grimace"; the
mountains fight like bulls or doze like dotards; and the Dark Tower
itself is "round and squat," built of brown stone, a mere anticlimax to
romance; while round it lie the sportsmen assembled to see the end--

"The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay
Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay."

V.

But the scenery of Italy, with all its appeals of picturesque outline
and glowing colour, interested Browning less than its painting,
sculpture, and music. "Nature I loved, and after Nature, Art," Landor
declared in one of his stately epitaphs on himself; Browning would, in
this sense of the terms at least, have inverted their order. Casa Guidi
windows commanded a view, not only of revolutionary throngs, but of the
facade of the Pitti--a fact of at least equal significance. From the
days of his boyish pilgrimages to the Dulwich Gallery across the
Camberwell meadows, he had been an eager student and critic of painting;
curious, too, if not yet expert in all the processes and technicalities
of the studio. He judged pictures with the eye of a skilful draughtsman;
and two rapid journeys had given him some knowledge of the Italian
galleries. Continuous residence among the chief glories of the brush and
chisel did not merely multiply artistic incitement and appeal; it
brought the whole world of art into more vital touch with his
imaginative activity. It would be hard to say that there is any definite
change in his view of art, but its problems grow more alluring to him,
and its images more readily waylay and capture his passing thought. The
artist as such becomes a more dominant figure in his hierarchy of
spiritual workers; while Browning himself betrays a new
self-consciousness of his own function as an artist in verse;
conceiving, for instance, his consummate address to his wife as an
artist's way of solving a perplexity which only an artist could feel,
that of finding unique expression for the unique love.

"He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush,
Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly,
Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little,
Makes a strange art of an art familiar,
Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets;
He who blows thro' bronze may bre