gives the
impression of being consciously overstated. It is neverthess a genuine
piece of criticism.

"AT THE MERMAID" and the "EPILOGUE" deal with public opinion in its
general estimate of poets and poetry; and they expose its fallacies in a
combative spirit, which would exclude them from a more rigorous
definition of the term "critical." In the first of these Mr. Browning
speaks under the mask of Shakespeare, and gives vent to the natural
irritation of any great dramatist who sees his various characters
identified with himself. He repudiates the idea that the writings of a
dramatic poet reveal him as a man, however voluminous they may be; and
on this ground he even rejects the transcendent title to fame which his
contemporaries have adjudged to him. They know him in his work. They
cannot, he says, know him in his _life_. He has never given them the
opportunity of doing so. He has allowed no one to slip inside his soul,
and "label" and "catalogue" what he found there.

This is truer for Shakespeare than for Mr. Browning, who has often
addressed his public with comparative directness, and would be grieved
to have it thought that in the long course of his writings he has never
spoken from his heart. He would also be the first to admit that, in the
course of his writings, the poet must, indirectly, reveal the man. But
he has too often had to defend himself against the impression that
whatever he wrote as a poet must directly reflect him as a man. He has
too often had to repeat, that poetry is an art which "_makes_" not one
which merely _records_; and that the feelings it conveys are no more
necessarily supplied by direct experience than are its facts by the
Cyclopaedia. And with the usual deduction for the dramatic mood, we may
accept the retort as genuine.

I have departed in the case of this poem from the mere statement of
contents, which is all that my plan admits of, or my readers usually can
desire: because it expresses an indifference to general sympathy which
belies the author's feeling in the matter. Mr. Browning speaks equally
for himself and Shakespeare, when he derides another idea which he
considers to be popular: that the fit condition of the poet is
melancholy. "I," he declares, "have found life joyous, and I speak of it
as such. Let those do otherwise who have wasted its opportunities, or
been less richly endowed with them."

The "Epilogue" is a criticism on critics, and is spoken distinctly by
Mr.