k to his book-shelf, to
"dry-rot" there in all the comfort it deserves.

DESCRIPTIVE POEMS.

Mr. Browning's poems abound in descriptive passages, and his power of
word-painting is very vivid, as well as frequently employed. But we have
here another instance of a quality diffused throughout his work, yet
scarcely ever asserting itself in a distinct form. The reason is, that
he deals with men and women first--with nature afterwards; and that the
details of a landscape have little meaning for him, except in reference
to the mental or dramatic situation of which they form a part. This is
very apparent in such lyrics or romances as: "By the Fire-side," "In a
Gondola," and "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." We find three
poems only which might have been written for the sake of the picturesque
impressions which they convey:

"De Gustibus--" ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Men and
Women." 1855.)

"Home-Thoughts, from Abroad." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in
"Dramatic Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)

"The Englishman in Italy." ("Dramatic Romances." Published as
"England in Italy" in "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)
And even here we receive the picture with a lyric and dramatic
colouring, which makes it much less one of facts than of
associations. It is also to be remarked that, in these poems,
the associations are of two opposite kinds, and Mr. Browning
is in equal sympathy with both. He feels English scenery as an
Englishman does: Italian, as an Italian might be supposed to,
feel it.

"DE GUSTIBUS--" illustrates the difference of tastes by the respective
attractions of these two kinds of scenery, and of the ideas and images
connected with them. Some one is apostrophizing a friend, whose ghost he
is convinced will be found haunting an English lane, with its adjoining
corn-field and hazel coppice: where in the early summer the blackbird
sings, and the bean-flower scents the air. And he declares at the same
time that Italy is the land of his own love, whether his home there be a
castle in the Apennine, or some house on its southern shore; among
"wind-grieved" heights, or on the edge of an opaque blue sea: amidst a
drought and stillness in which the very cicala dies, and the cypress
seems to rust; and scorpions drop and crawl from the peeling walls ...
and where "a bare-footed girl tumbles green melons on to the ground
before you, as she gives n