Mackechnie. — On Broivning's Vision of Life. 375 



disentangled from the mechanism of the body that we may 

 expect to see it in completeness, with .the impress upon it of 

 its earthly experience. But as the bodily eye is not con- 

 structed to discern a spirit (so I deem), to obtain cognisance of 

 it we must be in the spirit world ourselves, and discern it by 

 a spirit sense. But the soul makes its presence in the body 

 known and felt by its workings. So certain was Browning of 

 its existence that his biographer suggests this line from one of 

 his poems as his most appropriate epitaph : — 



He at least believed in soul, was very sure of God. 



Browning possessed in no ordinary degree the scientific 

 spirit of patient research and minute analysis. He threw 

 himself, as it were, into the very mind he represents, showing 

 it from within, laying bare the thoughts, passions, and secrets 

 of that mental life, the very soul he depicts. This is the 

 study which lent interest to his life, and to which we are 

 indebted for those profoundly interesting psychological pic- 

 tures which give ' in a marvellous manner the workings of 

 man's soul. He did not consider the mysteries of the human 

 mind and human thought impenetrable, but to be reached by 

 men of science, and in accordance with scientific methods. 

 Nor need we despair of something in this dii^ection being 

 eventually done, when such works as Kidd's " Social Evolu- 

 tion," Drummond's " Ascent of Man," Professor Eomanes's 

 " Thoughts on Eeligion," and the like, are given to the world. 

 The analysis of the mind or its movements, imperfectly known 

 at present, will approach nearer and nearer to exactness. 

 The principles that should guide us in the inquiry will become 

 better known, and lead to important discoveries. Such in- 

 quiries will be taken up by men of skill and proper training, 

 till possibly we may— 



have this plain result to show 



How we feel, hard-and-fast as what we know. 



Tennyson has frequently been called "the poet of the 

 age," and from the large circle of his readers and admirers he 

 may perhaps be justly considered so. But the music of his 

 verse, like other bygone music, having supplied the require- 

 ments of the age, will probably cease to command attention 

 for any lengthened period. But the admirers of Browning 

 claim for him a more enduring fame. He depicts man's 

 thoughts, and loves, and hates, the aspirations of our spiritual 

 nature, the trials and disappointments of this life — all, in 

 fact, that makes humanity. He has not inaptly been styled 

 " the dramatist of the soul," and as such they anticipate he 

 will take a position in the world's estimation second only to 

 Shakespeare. 



Nothing can show more clearly the characteristics and 



