Page:Bells and pomegranates, 1st series (IA bellspomegranate00brow).pdf/16

 Browning's poetry which is most calculated to become generally admired, and to take a firm and lasting hold upon popular appreciation.

The two charges most frequently and most successfully brought against the poetry of Robert Browning are, firstly, obscurity of thought, and, secondly, roughness of execution. That these charges are amply justified cannot be gainsaid. But, upon the other hand, it is also a fact beyond reasonable dispute that these faults of mannerism, grave though they be, are more than amply atoned for by the wealth of bright and vivid poetry to be found, mainly, in the earlier volumes, almost hidden and buried by the bulk and weight of the heavier work.

With the exception of "Prospice" from ("Dramatis Personæ"), and some half dozen of the pieces contained in the two volumes of "Men and Women," no selection could possibly be made more adapted to the perusal of a reader approaching for the first time the writings of Robert Browning, than the series of poems and plays united under the general title of "Bells and Pomegranates," Nowhere is Browning's lyrical faculty more