One hundred years ago
BROWNING is to be buried in West- minster Abbey on the last day of the year, — a decision in which the Dean of Westminster has been supported by the hearty approbation of all who have expressed their feeling on the subject. In poetic and artistic genius, the Laure- ate no doubt ranks above him; but in the strength and fertility and vividness of his imaginative and intellectual life, Browning has had no superior during the generation which has lived since the death of Wordsworth. Cosmopolitan in his interests, penetrating in his know- ledge of men and women, and marvel- lously rich in the discernment and appreciation of new moral and intellec- tual conditions, Browning's poems range over a larger area of genuine human experience and motive than those of any other poet of the century. Moreover, all he has written has been ethically pure and intellectually bracing, marked almost uniformly by both cour- age and charity, His greatest poem, "The Ring and the Book," is as original as it is brilliant, and contains, too, much • more than the usual proportion in his poems of genuine poetic force and feeling. It is a very great imaginative work, which but few of the poets commemorated in Westminster Abbey could rival. Browning's greatest im- aginative characteristic was his inex- haustible fertility and variety; his greatest fault was his frequent failure of imaginative dignity, — the too great familiarity of his poetic treatment.
The Spectator, 21 December 1889
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