-hearted "Epilogue" was really his
valediction to this and his heroic greeting to another world. He could
"greet the unseen with a cheer," because in thought and act he was

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.

Browning was buried in Westminster Abbey on the last day of the year.
The most pathetic element of the imposing ceremonies was the singing of
Mrs. Browning's poem, "He Giveth His Beloved Sleep."

THE POETRY OF BROWNING

Before entering upon a discussion of Browning's poetry it will be of
interest to note briefly some of the more striking general
characteristics of the English literature contemporary with his work.
From _Pauline_ to _Asolando_ is over half a century, but as a central
and especially significant portion of Browning's career we may take the
three decades from 1841, when he began the _Bells and Pomegranates_
series, to 1869, when _The Ring and the Book_ appeared, for these years
include all of his dramas and most of the poetry on which his fame
rests. A survey of this period at once reveals the predominance of
fiction. Within these years come nearly all the novels of Charles
Dickens, of William Makepeace Thackeray, of Charlotte Bronte, of Wilkie
Collins, of Charles Kingsley, of Mrs. Gaskell, of Anthony Trollope, of
George Macdonald, of Charles Reade, much of the work of Bulwer Lytton,
all the novels of George Eliot except _Middlemarch_ and _Daniel
Deronda_, and the earliest of George Meredith's books. This is a notable
showing. No previous period in English literature had presented anything
like so wide a range in fiction or had brought forward so large a number
of novels of the first rank. These years were equally rich in essays,
including much of Carlyle's work, all of Macaulay's except the early
"Essay on Milton," the religious polemics of Frederick Dennison Maurice
and John Henry Newman, nearly all of Ruskin's discussions of art and
social history, most of Leigh Hunt's literary criticism, and Matthew
Arnold's important early critical essays. This, too, is a notable
showing. But if we turn to the two realms in which Browning excelled,
poetry and drama, we find different conditions. During the central
period of his career, there was, aside from his own work, not a single
important drama publi