cal analysis, he did not fall into
the extremes into which other writers carried it, _Paracelsus_ is,
indeed, entirely concerned with the inner history of a soul, but
_Sordello_ combines with a similar history a tale of political and
warlike action in which men and women, like Salinguerra and Palma, who
live in outward work rather than in inward thought, are described; while
in poems like _Pippa Passes_ and some of the Dramas, emotion and
thought, intimately interwoven, are seen blazing, as it were, into a
lightning of swift deeds. Nor are other poems wanting, in which, not
long analysis, but short passion, fiery outbursts of thought, taking
immediate form, are represented with astonishing intensity.

2. This second remarkable power of his touches the transition which has
begun to carry us, in the last few years, from the subjective to the
objective in art. The time came, and quite lately, when art, weary of
intellectual and minute investigation, turned to realise, not the long
inward life of a soul with all its motives laid bare, but sudden moments
of human passion, swift and unoutlined impressions on the senses, the
moody aspects of things, flared-out concentrations of critical hours of
thought and feeling which years perhaps of action and emotion had
brought to the point of eruption. Impressionism was born in painting,
poetry, sculpture and music.

It was curious that, when we sought for a master who had done this in
the art of poetry, we found that Browning--who had in long poems done
the very opposite of impressionism--had also, in a number of short
poems, anticipated impressionist art by nearly forty years. _Porphyria's
Lover_, many a scene in _Sordello_, _My Last Duchess_, _The Laboratory_,
_Home Thoughts from Abroad_, are only a few out of many. It is pleasant
to think of the ultimate appearance of Waring, flashed out for a moment
on the sea, only to disappear. In method, swiftness and colour, but done
in verse, it is an impressionist picture, as vivid in transient scenery
as in colour. He did the same sort of work in poems of nature, of human
life, of moments of passion, of states of the soul. That is another
reason why he was not read at first, and why he is read now. He was
impressionist long before Impressionism arrived. When it arrived he was
found out. And he stood alone, for Tennyson is never impressionist, and
never could have been. Neither was Swinburne nor Arnold, Morris nor
Rossetti.

3. Again, in