e, is also, as even Mons. Jullien could tell us, fast becoming a
popular favourite. Now why is this? Simply because these master minds,
under the divine teaching of genius, have known how to clothe their
works in a beauty of form incorporate with their very essence--a beauty
of form which has an elective affinity with the highest instincts of
universal humanity. And it is on this beauty of form, this exquisite
perfection of style, that the Baileys and the Brownings would have us
believe that they set small account, that they purposely and scornfully
trample. We do not believe it. We believe that it is only because they
are half-gifted that they are but half-intelligible. Their mysticism is
weakness--weakness writhing itself into contortions that it may ape the
muscles of strength. Artistic genius, in its higher degrees, necessarily
involves the power of beautiful self-expression. It is but a weak and
watery sun that allows the fogs to hang heavy between the objects on
which it shines and the eyes it would enlighten; the true day-star
chases the mists at once, and shows us the world at a glance.

Our main object has been to protest against what we feel to be the false
teachings of a perverted school of art; and we have used this book of
Mr. Browning's chiefly as a means of showing the extravagant lengths of
absurdity to which the tenets of that school can lead a man of admitted
powers. We should regret, however in the pursuit of this object to
inflict injustice on Mr. Browning. This last book of his, like most of
its predecessors, contains some undeniable beauties--subtle thoughts,
graceful fancies, and occasionally a strain of music, which only makes
the chaos of surrounding discords jar more harshly on the ear. The
dramatic scenes "In a Balcony" are finely conceived and vigorously
written; "Bishop Blougram's Apology," and "Cleon," are well worth
reading and thinking over; and there is a certain grace and beauty in
several of the minor poems. That which, on the whole, has pleased us
most--really, perhaps, because we could read it off-hand--is "The Statue
and the Bust," of which we give the opening stanzas:--

[Quotes fourteen stanzas of _The Statue and the Bust_.]

Why should a man, who, with so little apparent labour, can write
naturally and well, take so much apparent labour to write affectedly and
ill? There can be but one of two solutions. Either he goes wrong from
want of knowledge, in which case it is clear that