"
The individual, the personal, the concrete, as distinguished from,
yet revealing in its fulness, the general, the universal--that is Mr.
Browning's chosen subject-matter: "Every man is for him an epitome of
the universe, a centre of creation." It is always the particular
soul, and the particular act or episode, as the flower of the
particular soul--the act or episode by which its quality comes to the
test--in which he interests us. With him it is always "a drama of
the interior, a tragedy or comedy of the soul, to see thereby how
each soul becomes conscious of itself." In the Preface to the later
edition of Sordello, Mr. Browning himself told us that to him little
else seems worth study except the development of a soul, the
incidents, the story, of that. And, [45] in fact, the intellectual
public generally agrees with him. It is because he has ministered
with such marvellous vigour, and variety, and fine skill to this
interest, that he is the most modern, to modern people the most
important, of poets.
So much for Mr. Browning's matter; for his manner, we hold Mr. Symons
right in thinking him a master of all the arts of poetry. "These
extraordinary little poems," says Mr.
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