_because_ of
these characteristics--but _in spite_ of them.--_The Athenaeum_.

_Sordello_. By Robert Browning. London: Moxon. 1840.

The scene of this poem is laid in Italy, when the Ghibelline and Guelph
factions were in hottest contest. The author's style is rather peculiar,
there being affectations of language and invertions of thought, and
other causes of obscurity in the course of the story which detract from
the pleasure of perusing it. But after all, we are much mistaken if Mr.
Browning does not prove himself a poet of a right stamp,--original,
vigorous, and finely inspired. He appears to us to possess a true sense
of the dignity and sacredness of the poet's kingdom; and his imagination
wings its way with a boldness, freedom and scope, as if he felt himself
at home in that sphere, and was resolved to put his allegiance to the
test.--_The Monthly Review_.

_Men and Women_. By Robert Browning. Two Volumes. Chapman and Hall.

It is really high time that this sort of thing should, if possible, be
stopped. Here is another book of madness and mysticism--another
melancholy specimen of power wantonly wasted, and talent deliberately
perverted--another act of self-prostration before that demon of bad
taste who now seems to hold in absolute possession the fashionable
masters of our ideal literature. It is a strong case for the
correctional justice of criticism, which has too long abdicated its
proper functions. The Della Crusca of Sentimentalism perished under the
_Baviad_--is there to be no future Gifford for the Della Crusca of
Transcendentalism? The thing has really grown to a lamentable head
amongst us. The contagion has affected not only our sciolists and our
versifiers, but those whom, in the absence of a mightier race, we must
be content to accept as the poets of our age. Here is Robert Browning,
for instance--no one can doubt that he is capable of better things--no
one, while deploring the obscurities that deface the _Paracelsus_ and
the _Dramatic Lyrics_, can deny the less questionable qualities which
characterized those remarkable poems--but can any of his devotees be
found to uphold his present elaborate experiment on the patience of the
public? Take any of his worshippers you please--let him be "well up" in
the transcendental poets of the day--take him fresh from Alexander
Smith, or Alfred Tennyson's _Maud_, or the _Mystic_ of Bailey--and we
will engage to find him at least ten passages in the first ten