ning;
and such the tenour of his work as a whole. It is time to pass from
general considerations to particular ones; from characteristics of the
writer to characteristics of the poems. In the pages to follow I shall
endeavour to present a critical chronicle of Browning's works; not
neglecting to give due information about each, but not confining myself
to the mere giving of information. It is hoped that the quotations for
which I may find room will practically illustrate and convincingly
corroborate what I have to say about the poetry from which they are
taken.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _Luria_, Act iii.]

[Footnote 2: _Aurora Leigh_, Book Fifth.]

[Footnote 3: Walter Pater, _The Renaissance_, p, 226.]

[Footnote 4: _Aurora Leigh_, Book Third.]

[Footnote 5: Preface to _Poems_, 1853.]

[Footnote 6: _George Chapman: A Critical Essay_, 1875.]

[Footnote 7: _Works_, 1847, Preface to Sermons, pp. viii.-ix., where
will also be found some exceedingly sensible remarks, which I commend to
those whom it concerns, on persons "who take it for granted that they
are acquainted with everything; and that no subject, if treated in the
manner it should be, can be treated in any manner but what is familiar
and easy to them."]

[Footnote 8: "Realism in Dramatic Art," _New Quarterly Magazine_, Oct.,
1879.]

[Footnote 9: Allowing at its highest valuation all that need be allowed
on this score, we find only that Mr. Browning has the defects of his
qualities; and from these who is exempted? By virtue of this style of
his he has succeeded in rendering into words the inmost thoughts and
finest shades of feeling of the "men and women fashioned by his fancy,"
and in such a task we can pardon even a fault, for such a result we can
overlook even a blemish; as Lessing, in _Laokoon_, remarking on an error
in Raphael's drapery, finely says, "Who will not rather praise him for
having had the wisdom and the courage to commit a slight fault, for the
sake of greater fulness of expression?"]

[Footnote 10: George Meredith, _Diana of the Crossways_.]

[Footnote 11: Italians, it is pleasant to remember, have warmly welcomed
the poet who has known and loved Italy best. "Her town and country, her
churches and her ruins, her sorrows and her hopes," said Prof. Nencioni,
as long ago as 1867, "are constantly sung by him. How he loves the land
that inspires him he has shown by his long residence among us, and by
the thrilling, almost lover-like tone