IT is no reflection on the energy and devotion which

Professor Dowden has brought to his task to hazard the conjecture that the conditions under which he performed it cannot have been altogether congenial. The methods demanded for the making of a book that shall at once cover the story of a man's life and be a criticism of his work must almost inevitably produce the effect, at worst, of a patchwork quilt, at best, of a rather disjointed mosaic. This is not to imply that any biography of a writer is possible that takes no account of his work, or that any criticism can be altogether adequate which neglects the influence of his environment. It is pleasant, as a point of personal interest, to know that "Pippo, Passes " was composed in a wood near Dulwich ; and the information that " Childe Roland" was partially inspired by a horse in some tapestry at Casa Guidi throws a certain misty light on the gloom of that dismal fantasy. But no sort of light is thrown on the motive of A Soul's Tragedy by a knowledge of the fact that in the very year in which that admirable drama was being prepared for the press the spectacle of a Great Western train induced in Miss Barrett a nervous prostration ; nor does it assist us much towards a right understanding of " How it Strikes a Contemporary" to learn that just prior to the incubation of that poem the Browning baby was taken to see the Monckton Milnes baby, and declined, on the ground of superiority in point of age, to kiss it. Mrs. Sutherland Orr, who published her Handbook of Robert Browning's Works during the poet's lifetime, and her Life and Letters after his death, enjoys the unique distinction of having kept her two themes apart. And there seems no good reason why the future biographer of Browning, or of any other writer, should not divide his volume into two parts, preserving an un- broken consecution both of narrative and criticism, while allowing each by cross-references, if at the risk of a trifling repetition, to supplement and interpret the other.

But when one has done with demurring at the hybrid con- vention which Professor Dowden has chosen to adopt, nothing short of the highest praise will serve to do justice to his achievement. He has not been content merely to embody in his book the latest available data, such as those afforded by the recent publication of the correspondence between Browning and his wife. He has not been content to bring order out of the vast mass of criticism by which the poet's writings have been still further obscured. In the freshness and buoyancy and breadth of his work one traces an individuality all his own. He may not have attempted the profundi- ties of Professor Jones, but he is never shallow when most lucid. He shirks no difficult problems, yet never plays round them for the joy of proving that he, too, can be a casuist at need. And in this regard, as in many others, it would be unnatural to avoid a comparison, greatly in favour of Professor Dowden, between his present book and the recent monograph of Mr. G. S. Chesterton on the same theme. Mr. Chesterton, as was shown in these pages, set out at all costs to say some new thing, and was less concerned with his subject than with himself. Professor Dowden permits himself to forego that luxury. He has a wide general erudition, but he holds it in reserve for other occasions that may call for it, and is satisfied to prove himself equipped to speak, from accurate knowledge and reasoned conclusions, of the matter in hand.

And if, for himself, he is at pains to avoid the obtrusion of a personal element, he is not less anxious, for the sake of his subject, to escape from the attitude of a special pleader. He makes it his business to compare and co-ordinate rather than to pass opinions, sympathetic or otherwise. Thus he has shown, with admirable clearness, the single motive which, under various concrete shapes, is to be found in the great series of Browning's early period,—" Pauline," " Paracelsus," " Sordello." He has taken Browning's dramatic work as a whole, and shown with great felicity of illustration the dual ideas that dominate his leading characters,—" characters of passion and characters of intelligence." Elsewhere he has tried, with a more limited success, as was natural, to trace a

• Hobart .Browning. By Edward Dowden. " The Temple Biographies. London : J. M. Dent and Co. [42. 6d. set.]

conveyed :— But in no case does he overstrain the synthetic method, nor attempt by excess of subtlety to adjust the poet's purpose to the requirements of his own theories. At the same time, he recognises the purposefulness of all Browning's serious work.

From the very commencement of his book he declares this. attitude, where he says, with what looks like a glance at Mr..

Chesterton's assertion that Browning was not a teacher :— "It is quite right and needful to speak of the `lesson' of Browning's poem [' Pauline 1."

And, indeed, in his treatment of the poet's later works, over- which the critic grows somewhat more expansive, the reitera- tion of doctrines which had grown to be an obsession with Browning would tend to become tedious but for the constant. charm of Professor Dowden's style. The high seriousness which must remain the prevailing element in such criticism as this he has relieved by flashes of humour, and now and again by some rare inevitable paradox. Of Edward Moulton Barrett (that serviceable butt for the shafts of Browning's biographers) he says that " from the superior position of a domestic autocrat he could even indulge himself in fiats of affection." Of the women of the dramas he complains that "they admit of definition to a degree which places them at a distance from

the inexplicable open secrets of Shakespeare's creation ; they- lack the simple mysteriousness, the transparent obscurity of nature." On Browning's protests in " House " and " Shop against the intrusion of critics he makes the just observa- tion that " these poems were needless confidences to the- public that no confidences would be vouchsafed to them."

If there is any passage in this book at which the orthodox are likely to carp it will be that in which the author reviews

—a little too scantly—that delightful play, In a Balcony. Constance, so forthright in her desires, so tortuous in the pro-

cesses by which she hopes to attain them, should not have been lightly dismissed as one of a "highly meritorious pair, who.

express their passion in excellent and eloquent periods." On this same page a great shock is prepared for the reader who had always supposed, and with every warrant from the text, that the Queen is about to take summary vengeance on the lovers for the deception of which she imagines herself to be the victim; and that this is the meaning of the heavy tramp of the guards heard as the curtain falls. The reader may have- further concluded, from what he has been allowed to observe of her character, that the Queen's generous nature will presently wake to a bitter repentance of her act. But. Professor Dowden contends that, if she does not die that. night, the next morning " her passion will heroically slay itself in an act of generosity." This is ambiguous, and may point either to pardon or suicide. But, having written this, he comes upon an article by Mrs. Arthur Bronson on "Browning

in Venice," in which the poet gives his own views of his in- tentions, and these are cited in a footnote. " The Queen," he- said, " has a large and passionate temperament, which had only once been touched and brought into intense life. She

would have died by a knife in her heart. The guard would have come to carry away her dead body." Yet here are the

concluding lines in which this implication is supposed to be

" Norbert. This must end here : It is too perfect. Constance. There's the music stopped. What measured heavy tread ? It is one blaze About me and within me.

Norbert. Oh, some death

Will run its sudden finger round this spark And sever us from the rest !

Constance. And so do well. Now the doors open.

Norbert. 'Tis the guard comes.

Constance. Kiss !"

If Browning does not here wilfully mislead—and such a purpose is disproved by his remark, made " with quick interest" in answer to some one who pointed out the common interpretation : " Then don't you think it would be well to put it in the stage directions, and have it seen that they were

carrying her across the back of the stage P "—this passage, read by the light of the poet's commentary upon it, must serve for a crowning instance of Browning's inveterate in- ability to see his own work with the eyes of his audience.

In conclusion, one may say that of the making of Browning biographies there can be no end so long as there are fresh details to be learned of his private life. A man's contem- poraries die and their reticence with them; and death, as by a law of Nature, is the fruitful source of new " Lives." But it needs no great rashness to venture the prophecy that Professor Dowden's book, as something more than a popular study of the poet's purpose and the interrelation of his life and work, is not likely to be displaced until some later generation brings to bear upon his theme that infallible sense of proportion which is understood to be the peculiar perquisite of posterities.