g, with a curious
knowledge, this kind of work for many years. He had anticipated the
results of that movement of the imagination in historical work which did
not exist when he began to write; he had worked that mine, and the
discovery of this made another host of people readers of his poetry.

We need scarcely give examples of this. _Sordello_, in 1840 (long before
the effort of which we speak began), was such a poem--the history of a
specialised soul, with all its scenery and history vividly mediaeval.
Think of the _Spanish Cloister_, _The Laboratory_, _A Grammarian's
Funeral_, the _Bishop orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church_, poems,
each of which paints an historical period or a vivid piece of its life.
Think of _The Ring and the Book_, with all the world of Rome painted to
the life, and all the soul of the time!

The same kind of work was done for phases and periods of the arts from
Greek times to the Renaissance, I may even say, from the Renaissance to
the present day. _Balaustion's Prologue_ concentrates the passage of
dramatic poetry from Sophocles to Euripides. _Aristophanes' Apology_
realises the wild licence in which art and freedom died in Athens--their
greatness in their ruin--and the passionate sorrow of those who loved
what had been so beautiful. _Cleon_ takes us into a later time when men
had ceased to be original, and life and art had become darkened by the
pain of the soul. We pass on to two different periods of the
Renaissance in _Fra Lippo Lippi_ and in _Andrea del Sarto_, and are
carried further through the centuries of art when we read _Abt Vogler_
and _A Toccata of Galuppi's_. Each of these poems is a concentrated,
accurate piece of art-history, with the addition to it of the human
soul.

Periods and phases of religious history are equally realised. _Caliban
upon Setebos_ begins the record--that philosophic savage who makes his
God out of himself. Then follows study after study, from _A Death in the
Desert_ to _Bishop Blougram's Apology_. Some carry us from early
Christianity through the mediaeval faith; others lead us through the
Paganism of the Renaissance and strange shows of Judaism to Browning's
own conception of religion in the present day contrasted with those of
the popular religion in _Christmas-Day and Easter-Day_.

Never, in poetry, was the desire of the historical critic for accuracy
of fact and portraiture, combined with vivid presentation of life, so
fully satisfied. No wonde