the wolf-like Guido suddenly, in his
supreme agony, transcends his lost manhood in one despairing cry--

"Abate,--Cardinal,--Christ,--Maria,--God, ...
Pompilia, will you let them murder me?"

Lastly, the Epilogue rounds off the tale. But is this Epilogue
necessary? Surely the close should have come with the words just quoted?

It will not be after a first perusal that the reader will be able to
arrive at a definite conviction. No individual or collective estimate of
to-day can be accepted as final. Those who come after us, perhaps not
the next generation, nor the next again, will see "The Ring and the
Book" free of all the manifold and complex considerations which confuse
our judgment. Meanwhile, each can only speak for himself. To me it seems
that "The Ring and the Book" is, regarded as an artistic whole, the most
magnificent failure in our literature. It enshrines poetry which no
other than our greatest could have written; it has depths to which many
of far inferior power have not descended. Surely the poem must be judged
by the balance of its success and failure? It is in no presumptuous
spirit, but out of my profound admiration of this long-loved and
often-read, this superb poem, that I, for one, wish it comprised but the
Prologue, the Plea of Guido, "Caponsacchi," "Pompilia," "The Pope," and
Guido's last Defence. I cannot help thinking that this is the form in
which it will be read in the years to come. Thus circumscribed, it seems
to me to be rounded and complete, a great work of art void of the dross,
the mere _debris_ which the true artist discards. But as it is, in all
its lordly poetic strength and flagging impulse, is it not, after all,
the true climacteric of Browning's genius?

"The Inn Album," a dramatic poem of extraordinary power, has so much
more markedly the defects of his qualities that I take it to be, at the
utmost, the poise of the first gradual refluence. This analogy of the
tidal ebb and flow may be observed with singular aptness in Browning's
life-work--the tide that first moved shoreward in the loveliness of
"Pauline," and, with "long withdrawing roar," ebbed in slow, just
perceptible lapse to the poet's penultimate volume. As for "Asolando," I
would rather regard it as the gathering of a new wave--nay, again
rather, as the deep sound of ocean which the outward surge has reached.

But for myself I do not accept "The Inn Album" as the first hesitant
swing of the tide. I seem to h