st," now dares to approach questions
insoluble, and again declines their solution. What is all this but the
changeful mood of grief? The singing linnet, like the bird in the old
English heathen apologue, dashes its light wings painfully against the
walls of the chamber into which it has flown out of the blind night that
shall again receive it.

I do not care to dwell on the imperfections in that immortal strain of
sympathy and consolation, that enchanted book of consecrated regrets. It
is an easier if not more grateful task to note a certain peevish egotism
of tone in the heroes of "Locksley Hall," of "Maud," of "Lady Clara Vere
de Vere." "You can't think how poor a figure you make when you tell that
story, sir," said Dr. Johnson to some unlucky gentleman whose "figure"
must certainly have been more respectable than that which is cut by these
whining and peevish lovers of Maud and Cousin Amy.

Let it be admitted, too, that King Arthur, of the "Idylls," is like an
Albert in blank verse, an Albert cursed with a Guinevere for a wife, and
a Lancelot for friend. The "Idylls," with all their beauties, are full
of a Victorian respectability, and love of talking with Vivien about what
is not so respectable. One wishes, at times, that the "Morte d'Arthur"
had remained a lonely and flawless fragment, as noble as Homer, as
polished as Sophocles. But then we must have missed, with many other
admirable things, the "Last Battle in the West."

People who come after us will be more impressed than we are by the
Laureate's versatility. He has touched so many strings, from "Will
Waterproof's Monologue," so far above Praed, to the agony of "Rizpah,"
the invincible energy of "Ulysses," the languor and the fairy music of
the "Lotus Eaters," the grace as of a Greek epigram which inspires the
lines to Catullus and to Virgil. He is with Milton for learning, with
Keats for magic and vision, with Virgil for graceful recasting of ancient
golden lines, and, even in the latest volume of his long life, "we may
tell from the straw," as Homer says, "what the grain has been."

There are many who make it a kind of religion to regard Mr. Browning as
the greatest of living English poets. For him, too, one is thankful as
for a veritable great poet; but can we believe that impartial posterity
will rate him with the Laureate, or that so large a proportion of his
work will endure? The charm of an enigma now attracts students who feel
proud of bei