range
religions of the East, that queer phantastic part of the world that gave
birth to a Western religion which has transformed the West, leaving the
East to gaze afar off. This poem is, for Chesterton, a psychological
one. It is an attempt to give an account of a human being; perhaps the
most difficult task in the world, because it can never hope to solve all
sides of the question. The central character of this splendid poem is
one 'Djubal,' a queer mixture of the virtues of the Deity with the vices
of Humanity. He is for Browning the first of a series of characters on
which he displays his wonderful powers of apologizing for apparently
bad men.

He attempted, to quote our critic, 'to seek out the sinners whom even
sinners cast out,' which Christ always did, and which His Church does
not always do.

Again Browning turned his hand to writing plays, but he was always a
'neglected dramatist' in the sense that he had to push his plays; his
plays did not push him.

His next play, 'A Blot on the "Scutcheon,"' is chiefly interesting, as
it was the occasion of a quarrel between its author and that most
eccentric of theatrical personalities, Macready. The quarrel was, our
critic points out, a matter of money. But Browning failed to see this;
he was a man of the world in his poems, but not in his life.

It is interesting here to see what our critic says of Browning about
this period before we consider the question of his marriage. 'There were
people who called Browning a snob. He was fond of wealth and fond of
society; he admired them as the child who comes in from the desert. He
bore the same relation to the snob that the righteous man bears to the
Pharisee--something frightfully close and similar and yet an everlasting
opposite.'

It has been left for Chesterton to give the truest definition of a
Pharisee that has yet been penned, because it is exactly what every man
feels but has never expressed in so brilliant a paradox.

* * * * *

That Browning had faults Chesterton would be the last to deny. Faults
are as much a part of a great man as virtues. The more pronounced the
fault, the more exquisite is the virtue, especially in a man of the
character of Browning, a character that had a certain 'uncontrollable
brutality of speech,' together with a profound and unaffected respect
for other people.

Chesterton's chapter on Browning and his marriage is one of the most
homely chapters