Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 7.djvu/263

 ROBERT BROWNING 195 Then, four years later, as we have said, appeared four volumes of that marvellous performance, " The Ring and the Book," a poetic and psychological grappling with the question suggested to the poet by the account of a Roman trial that took place a couple of centuries ago. Whether anyone else in any country has ever before ventured to publish a poem in four simultaneous volumes, we cannot say ; but, in spite of its length and difficulty, " The Ring and the Book " was and is one of the most successful of the author's works. It has every right to be so, for nowhere does he exhibit in a manner so sustained, and yet so varied, his own extraordinary insight into characters and motives entirely dissimilar. Since that remarkable work was given to the world, Mr. Browning has at- tempted nothing approaching it in magnitude, or in the demand it made upon the sustained exertion of high intellectual powers. But he left his admirers no room to complain of diminished fecundity or of decaying vigor. " Balaustion's Adventure," including a transcript from Euripides, appeared in 1 871, to prove his undiminished insight and inexhaustible interest in spiritual analysis. It was followed by " Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society," a book sug- gested by the collapse of the French Empire, and recalling the scathing satire with which he lashed the impostures of spiritualism in " Sludge the Medium." In 1872 he published " Fifine at the Fair," to the delight of those who loved him, and, as usual, to the irritation of those who did not " Red Cotton Nightcap Country" appeared in the following year; and, after an interval of two years, was followed by " Aristophanes' Apology." Again, after a similar interval, he gave us "The Agamemnon of ./Rschylus Transcribed." In 1879 came "Dramatic Idylls," with the stirring ballad of "Herv6 Riel," which, as some think, roused the Laureate to emulative effort "Jocoseria," published in 1883, reclaimed many of his earlier admirers, who had been estranged by what they regarded as the extravagance and whimsicality, not to speak of the obscurity and ruggedness, of so many of his later works. "Jocoseria," in fact, recalls " Men and Women " rather than the " Fifines," the " Hohenstiel-Schwangaus," and the " Red Cotton Nightcap Countries " of a later and less happily-inspired period. " Ferishtah's Fancies and Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in theii Day " was the rather cumbrous title of a still later volume ; and last of all ap- peared " Asolando," a work which displays all the old qualities, the old fire, and the old audacity, apparently untouched by advancing years, or even by imminent death. He died the same month that it appeared, December, 1889. It has been Mr. Browning's fate to divide the reading world into two hostile camps. There are no lukewarm friends on his side ; and from those who have never acquired a taste for the strong wine of his muse, it is sometimes difficult to extort recognition of the vigor, the insight, the tenderness, and the variety of in- tellectual sympathy which characterize the man, even, if we make abstraction of the poet. An industrious and enthusiastic society devoted itself during his life- time to the promotion of a taste for his writings, but even that singular tribute to the strengtn of his personality does not shut the mouth of the sceptic. Those who love the poets of prettinesses, of artificial measures, and dainty trifles have