But when we take down Browning, we cannot think of him and the 'wormy bed' together. He is so unmistakably and deliciously alive. Die, indeed! when one recalls the ideal characters he has invested with reality; how he has described love and joy, pain and sorrow, art and music; as poems like 'Childe Roland,' 'Abt Vogler,' 'Evelyn Hope,' 'The Worst of It,' 'Pictor Ignotus,' 'The Lost Leader,' 'Home Thoughts from Abroad,' 'Old Pictures in Florence,' 'Hervé Riel,' 'A Householder,' 'Fears and Scruples,' come tumbling into one's memory, one over another—we are tempted to employ the language of hyperbole, and to answer the question 'Will Browning die?' by exclaiming, 'Yes; when Niagara stops.' In him indeed we can
'Discern
Infinite passion and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.'
But love of Mr. Browning's poetry is no exclusive cult.
Of Lord Tennyson it is needless to speak. Certainly amongst his Peers there is no such Poet.
Mr. Arnold may have a limited poetical range and a restricted style, but within that range and in that style, surely we must exclaim:
'Whence that completed form of all completeness?
Whence came that high perfection of all sweetness?'
Rossetti's luscious lines seldom fail to cast a spell by which
'In sundry moods 'tis pastime to be bound.'
William Morris has a sunny slope of Parnassus all to himself, and Mr. Swinburne has written some verses over which the world will long love to linger.
Dull must he be of soul who can take up Cardinal Newman's 'Verses on Various Occasions,' or Miss Christina Rossetti's poems, and lay them down without recognising their diverse charms.