368 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Abt. XLIV. — Broivning's Vision of Life. 



By E. A. Mackechnie. 



[Read before the Auckland InstiUite.'] 



Those who are accustomed to the sentimental sweetness of 

 Moore's melodies, or the exquisite smoothness of Tennyson's 

 verse, will turn, I fear, with more than impatience from the 

 poetry of Eobert Browning. And yet writers well qualified to 

 judge unhesitatingly declare that his poems disclose the highest 

 poetic insight that has been known since Shakespeare. Why 

 this distaste to such high excellence ? He is charged in the 

 first place with being obscure ; but much of his obscurity is 

 due to his efforts to express his thoughts with conciseness. 

 Eeaders of the present day desire to grasp the meaning of an 

 author with as little trouble to themselves as possible, and 

 when obstacles to their doing so occur which the writer, 

 they think, could easily have avoided the volume is thrown 

 aside and seldom resumed. 



Browning, it is generally admitted, possessed a large com- 

 mand of language and great facility of rhythm. It was not, 

 therefore, want of words or rhyme that induced him to place 

 his thoughts before the public in the manner he did. Most of 

 his poetry is easily mastered, particularly his ballads, the lyrics 

 and songs scattered through his longer poems, the Cavalier 

 Tunes, and others. The language he employed was, in his 

 opinion, always the best and most appropriate to the subject. 

 Why, then, is he so often obscure, abrupt, and non-poetical ? 

 Every original thinker, be it remembered, expresses his 

 thoughts in the way he considers best adapted to exhibit their 

 force and beauty, to convince the intellect, warm the imagi- 

 nation, and rouse the emotions. 'And this is borne out by 

 Browning's own testimony. "lean," he says, "have little 

 doubt that my writing has been in the main too hard for 

 many I should have been pleased to communicate with, but I 

 never designedly tried to puzzle people, as some of my critics 

 have supposed." As a worker is endowed by nature so he 

 works. This is his method, his style, his mode of treatment, 

 his individuality, in fact. 



It should be borne, too, in mind that the higher men's 

 gifts are the less are they understood by their fellow-men. 

 Shakespeare is known to the general public by the interpreta- 

 tion of a few of his plays by actors of ability and genius ; but 

 the greater portion of his dramas and all his poems remain 

 a sealed book to most persons, or nearly so. Milton, whose 



