es, confine their editorial duties to going up and down the
diaries and papers of the departed saint, and obliterating all human
touches. This they do for the "better prevention of scandals"; and one
cannot deny that they attain their end, though they pay dearly for it.

I shall never forget the start I gave when, on reading some old book
about India, I came across an after-dinner jest of Henry Martyn's. The
thought of Henry Martyn laughing over the walnuts and the wine was
almost, as Robert Browning's unknown painter says, "too wildly dear;"
and to this day I cannot help thinking that there must be a mistake
somewhere.

To return to Cellini, and to conclude. On laying down his Memoirs, let
us be careful to recall our banished moral sense, and make peace with
her, by passing a final judgment on this desperate sinner; which perhaps
after all, we cannot do better than by employing language of his own
concerning a monk, a fellow-prisoner of his, who never, so far as
appears, murdered anybody, but of whom Cellini none the less felt
himself entitled to say:--

"I admired his shining qualities, but his odious vices I freely censured
and held in abhorrence."

ON THE ALLEGED OBSCURITY OF MR. BROWNING'S POETRY

From 'Obiter Dicta'

In considering whether a poet is intelligible and lucid, we ought not to
grope and grub about his work in search of obscurities and oddities, but
should, in the first instance at all events, attempt to regard his whole
scope and range; to form some estimate, if we can, of his general
purport and effect, asking ourselves for this purpose such questions as
these:--How are we the better for him? Has he quickened any passion,
lightened any burden, purified any taste? Does he play any real part in
our lives? When we are in love, do we whisper him in our lady's ear?
When we sorrow, does he ease our pain? Can he calm the strife of mental
conflict? Has he had anything to say which wasn't twaddle on those
subjects which, elude analysis as they may, and defy demonstration as
they do, are yet alone of perennial interest--

"On man, on nature, and on human life,"

on the pathos of our situation, looking back on to the irrevocable and
forward to the unknown? If a poet has said, or done, or been any of
these things to an appreciable extent, to charge him with obscurity is
both folly and ingratitude.

But the subject may be pursued further, and one may be called upon to
investigate this charge with