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whole, I think that the chief value and interest of "Aurora Leigh" appertain to its marvellous illustrations of the development, from childhood on, of an æsthetical, imaginative nature. Nowhere in literature is the process of culture, by means of study and passional experience, so graphically depicted. It is the metrical and feminine complement to Thackeray's "Pendennis"- a poem that will be rightly appreciated by artists, thinkers, poets, and by them alone.-E. C. STEDMAN.

STEDMAN'S CHARACTERIZATION OF MRS. BROWNING'S

GENIUS.

Let us attempt to estimate her genius, and discover the position to be assigned to her among contemporary poets; and first with regard to her qualities as an artist. She was thought to resemble Tennyson in some of her early pieces, but this was a mistake, if anything beyond form is to be considered. In reading Tennyson you feel that he drives stately and thoroughbred horses, and has them always under control; that he could reach a higher speed at pleasure; while Mrs. Browning's chargers, half-untamed, prance or halt at their own will, and often bear her away over some rugged, dimly-lighted tract. Her verse was the perfect exponent of her own nature, including a wide variety of topics in its range, but with the author's manner injected through every line of it. Health is not its prominent characteristic. Mrs. Browning's creative power was not equal to her capacity to feel, otherwise there was nothing she might not have accomplished. She evinced over-possession, and certainly had the contortions of the Sibyl, though not lacking the inspiration. We feel that she must have expression or perish, a lack of restraint common to female poets. She was somewhat deficient in æsthetic conscientiousness, and we cannot say of her works, as of Tennyson's, that they include nothing which has failed to receive the author's utmost care. She had that distrust of the "effect" of her productions which betrays a clouded vision, and in truth much of her vaguer work

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well might be distrusted. Her imagination was radiant, but seldom clear; it was the moon obscured by mists, yet encircled with a glorious halo. Her metres came by chance, and this often to her detriment; she rarely had the patience to discover those best adapted to her needs, but gave voice to the first strain which occurred to her. Hence she had a spontaneity which is absent from the Laureate's work. This charming element has its drawbacks; she found herself hampered by difficulties which a little forethought would have avoided, and her song, though as fresh, was too often as purposeless as that of a forest-bird. There is great music in her voice, but one wishes that it were better trained. She had a gift of melodious and effective refrains. "The Nightingales, the Nightingales," "Margaret, Margaret," "You see we're tired, my Heart and I," "Toll slowly!" "The River floweth on," "Pan, Pan is dead!"-these and other examples captivate the memory, but occasionally the burden is the chief sustainer of the song. One of her repetends, "He giveth His beloved Sleep," is the motive of an almost celestial lyric, faultless in holy and melodious design. It is a poem to read by the weary couch of some loved one passing away, and doubtless in many a heart is already associated with memories that "lie too deep for tears." Her spontaneous and exhaustless command of words gave her a large and free style, but likewise a dangerous facility, and it was only in rare instances, like the one just cited, that she attained to the strength and sweetness of repose. Her intense earnestness spared her no leisure for humor, a feature curiously absent from her writings; she almost lacked the sense of the ludicrous, as may be deduced from some of her two-word rhymes, and from various absurdities solemnly indulged in. But of wit and satire she has more than enough, and lashes all kinds of tyranny and hypoсrisy with supernal scorn. It is perhaps due to her years of in-door life that the influence of landscape scenery is not more visible in her poetry. Her girlhood, nevertheless, was partly spent in Herefordshire, among the Malvern Hills, and we find in "Aurora Leigh," and in some of her minor pieces, not only reminiscences of that region, but other landscape, both English and Italian, executed in a broad and admirable manner. But when she follows the idyllic method, making the tone of the background enhance the feeling of a poem, she uses by preference the works of man rather than those of Nature-architecture, furniture, pictures, books above all, rather than water, sky, and forest. Men and women were the chief objects of her regard -her genius was more dramatic than idyllic, and lyric first of all.

BAYNE'S COMPARISON OF MRS. BROWNING AND TENNY

SON.

A first and partial acquaintance, indeed, with the works of Mrs. Browning is apt to prompt the opinion that she may be classed among the pupils and followers of that poet. Both belong to one time, and their thoughts run not unfrequently in the same channels. But a more complete knowledge of Mrs. Browning's works puts to flight every imagination of an influence which could do no more than stimulate, which could in the slightest degree control, her powers. Her genius is of an order altogether above that which can be permanently or organically affected by any other mind. And, in truth, her whole mode of imaginative action is different from that of Tennyson. The unrivalled finish and strange perfection of the latter-his unique imaginative faculty, which combines a color more rich than that of Eastern gardens, with a science more austere than that of Greek architecture; his instinctive and imperious rejection of aught wearing even the semblance of fault or imperfection, requiring that all his marble be polished, and all his gems crystals can in no respect or degree be said to characterize Mrs. Browning. Tennyson, more than any English poet of mark, approaches the statue-like calmness of Goethe; Mrs. Browning thrills with every emotion she depicts, whether passion kindles with a smile her own funeral pyre, or earnestness flows rhythmic from the lips of the Pythoness, or irrepressible weeping shakes the breast of the child. Tennyson is the wizard, looking, with unmoved face, into the furnace, whose white heat melts the flint; Mrs. Browning has the furnace in her own bosom, and you see its throbbings. Tennyson's imagination treads loftily on cloth of gold, its dainty foot neither wetted with dew nor stained with mire; Mrs. Browning's rushes upward and onward, its drapery now streaming in the wind, now draggled in the mountain rivers, making, with impetuous lawlessness, for the goal. Mrs. Browning has scarcely a poem undefaced by palpable error or extravagance; Tennyson's poetry is characterized by that perilous absence of fault which seems hardly consistent with supreme genius. Between our greatest living poet, therefore, and the greatest of all poetesses there can be instituted no general comparison.

BOOKS OF REFERENCE.

Essays: By E. C. Stedman (Scribner, G. Barnett Smith's "Poets and Nov

vol. vii.), Edgar A. Poe, E. P.

Whipple, and Gilfillan. Biographical Essays by A. H. Stoddard.

Kate Field's Letter from Florence (Atlantic Monthly, September, 1861). Letters to R. H. Horne, published 1877.

Peter Bayne's "Two Great Englishwomen" (1881).

elists," pp. 59-109. Nathaniel Hawthorne's "French and

Italian Journals."

Mary Russell Mitford's "Recollec-
tions of a Literary Life."
Bayard Taylor's "At Home and
Abroad."

Edinburgh Review, October, 1861.
British Quarterly Review, 1865.

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