the study of human life; but these
very poems display also, on Mr. Browning's part, a loving familiarity
with the works of painters, sculptors, and musicians, and a practical
understanding of them, which might easily have resulted in a partial
acceptance of artistic standards as such, and of the policy of art for
art; and it is only through the breadth and strength of his dramatic
genius, that artistic sympathies in themselves so strong could be
subjected to it.

In music, this position appears at first sight to be reversed; for Mr.
Browning rejects the dramatic theory which would convert it into a
direct expression of human thought. Here, however, the poet in him comes
into play. He leaves the plastic arts to express what may be both felt
and thought; and calls on music to express what may be felt but not
thought. In this sense he accepts it as an independent science subject
to its own ideals and to its own laws. But this only means that, in his
opinion, the relation of music to human life is different from that of
plastic art: the one revealing the unknown, while the other embodies
what is known.

"OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE" is a fanciful monologue, spoken as by one who
is looking down upon Florence, through her magical atmosphere, from a
villa on the neighbouring heights. The sight of her Campanile brings
Giotto to his mind; and with Giotto comes a vision of all the dead Old
Masters who mingle in spirit with her living men. He sees them each
haunting the scene of his former labours in church or chapter-room,
cloister or crypt; and he sees them grieving over the decay of their
works, as these fade and moulder under the hand of time. He is also
conscious that they do not grieve for themselves. Earthly praise or
neglect cannot touch them more. But they have had a lesson to teach; and
so long as the world has not learnt the lesson, their souls may not rest
in heaven.

"Greek art had _its_ lesson to teach, and it taught it. It reasserted
the dignity of the human form. It re-stated _the truth_ of the soul
which informs the body, and the body which expresses it. Men saw in its
creations their own qualities carried to perfection, and were content to
know that such perfection was possible, and to renounce the hope of
attaining it. In this experience the first stage was progress; the
second was stagnation. Progress began again, when men looked on these
images of themselves and said: "we are not inferior to these. We are