Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/455

Rh the whole mass through and through into clear glow of light and heat? or but strong enough to smoulder smokily under it? or so relatively weak as to be crushed out by it? Here the admirers of Browning directly join issue with the common critics, and the public led or misled by them, who assert that his fire is of the second or smoky species. As he himself puts it with humorous contempt in the Pacchiarotto (1876):—

I shall not attempt to argue this issue here, as Mr. Swinburne, in his excellent Critical Essay on George Chapman, has discussed it with admirable power and eloquence, and to my mind conclusively, in general vindication of the great poet against the small critics "as sweeps out his chimbly." I will venture to add but one remark of my own on this matter. Many years since, in 1864 or '65, I wrote: "Robert Browning, a true and splendid genius, though his vigorous and restless talents often overpower and run away with his genius, so that some of his creations are left but half-retrieved from chaos." This now seems to me put much too strongly, save perhaps in reference to "Sordello" and a very few of the minor poems but I