SELECTIONS FROM BROWNING.*
THIS new volume of Selections from Browning ought to receive a wide welcome. It is the first appearance of what may be called a popular edition of any of his poems, and by the ex- treme cheapness, as well as the convenient form and clear type of the book, there ought to be no question as to its success. The aim of the book is evidently to give a selection drawn from Browning's shorter compositions,-which shall be representative of his characteristic manner of thought and expression, without at the same time causing an undue shock to the ordinary reader, by including amongst the poems anything very unusual in obscurity or eccentricity. And certainly there is nothing, as far as we can judge, that can be complained of as in any way gratuitously unintelligible or uncouth. Indeed, the fault to be found is rather that there are poems, too representative by their force or their in- dividuality to be missed without serious loss, which do not find any place in this new collection. It is difficult to understand the principle of selection which has led to the omission of such characteristic poems as " A Death in the Desert," " Saul," " Caliban," " Bishop Blougram." And there are other poems, such as " Love among the Ruins," " Before and After," " A Toccata of Gal* i," that delicious bit of humour "tip in a Villa, down m the City," " Old Pictures of Florence," and even the gay little tulip song, with its plaintive concluding stanza, from theParleyings, which have all of them, one might almost say, a right to a place in such a collection as the present. If a sacrifice had to be made, there are some among the later poems in the volume which could have been more easily spared. But apart from these omissions, the selection has been made with considerable skill. Certainly few poets can be presented in such a way, with less risk of loss to the completeness of their thought, or with so little danger of fatigue to their readers by same- ness of style or subject. Everything that Browning has ever written, however varied in its outward form, and even when most audaciously experimental In its methods, is stamped with a remarkable underlying unity of thought and purpose. The same convictions, the same judgment and estimate of character, the same manner of viewing life, may be traced from Pauline and Paracelsus and Bordello, down to his latest work in Asolando, and with curiously little change or modification. But, at the same time, the range of choice which he allowed himself in character and episode, by which to illustrate and enforce these convictions, is astonishingly wide. Anything with a touch of human reality about it,' however strange and grotesque in its form, all the odds and ends of character, had for him the same fascination as the most tragic or pathetic failures and disappointments of life, as the passion of love or hatred, as the steady courage of those who ventured all in their pursuit of truth or goodness. Browning's poems contain many charming bits of description of Nature, marked by insight and genuine appreciation, and often conveyed in a phrase extraordinary in the truth and directness of its observation. But these pictures of the natural world are seldom if ever given purely for their own sake. They often play an important part, but they take their place for the most part rather as background to his figures, or as serving in some way to heighten the sense which Browning is seeking to give of the pathos or tragic im- portance of- some situation, or as one of the influences -which may affect or modify the development of character. As one turns over the pages of the Selections, one is almost bewildered by the sense of vivid and various human life con- tained in them. The eye is caught, now by some stirring bit of narrative,—the "Piper of Hamelin," the " Ride to Ghent," "An Incident in the French Camp," " Herve Riel ; " or by
• Pocket Yolums of Selections from Browning. London : Smith, Bider, and Co.
some sketch; of character, full of subtle analysis or suggestion, " Waring," the " Bishop Orders his Tomb," " Andrea del Sarto," "The Laboratory," " Cleon," "My Last Duchess ;" or, again, -by poems unfailing in melody and beauty, like "The Guardian Angel," " The Boy and the Angel," " Abt Vogler," " One Word More ;" the songs from Paracelsus and Pippa Passes, "Pictor Ignotus," " The Last Ride Together;" or, again, by a picture such as " The Englishman in Italy," where each point and characteristic detail of Southern Italian life is seized with so much delicious humour and certainty. And such a list, besides giving but an imperfect idea of Browning's versatility, does not include many of those poems where his deepest convictions are most finely and directly expressed. No book of selections could be expected to give an adequate idea of this aspect of Browning's greatness, though there are few writings of his, even where, to all appearances, he is absorbed in the delineation of character, for its own sake, where his own belief and judgment do not make themselves felt. But there are poems, even in a volume like the present—" Rabbi ben Ezra," " Prospice," " The Grammarian's Funeral," the Epilogue to Asokoulo, in another way" The Patriot," or " Instans Tyrannus "—where Browning lets us see more plainly the courageous hope with which he faced life, his confidence in the fruitfulness of effort, his insight into the deeper gain that may result from what seems on the surface to be mere failure or disappointing incompleteness. His belief in the final triumph of goodness, in the reward that attends any sincere effort or self-sacrifice to higher aims, stands with unshaken confidence through all the disenchantmente and failures which he is too clear-sighted and too honest to ignore. However unconventional Browning may be in the methods by which he seeks to enforce these convictions, the courage and hope which inspire them have given a fresh spring of vigour and a confidence to many, such as they have not found in any other poet 'of the century.
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