126 Proceedings q/ the Royal Society of Victoria. 



to the grim captain's iron discipline, and so have these days 

 beheld the mules of Browning, for whom no load is too 

 merciless, no path too rugged for their patient plodding. 

 They receive with humble gratitude his periodical bounties, 

 and stolidly proceed to put them through the mill of inter- 

 pretation and analysis, more than rewarded if they can 

 proclaim that they have found a meaning. The Browning 

 societies are a very doubtful l)lessing to their poet, for 

 their tendency is to disguise the fact that to the world 

 generally he is to a large extent unreadable, and, if he 

 regards them at all, to confirm him in a course which may 

 sorely thin his wreath of immortality. If it be objected 

 that each poet has a right to his own style, and is under no 

 obligation to stoop to a popular level, it may be answered, 

 first, that there is no " stooping " implied in I'eturning to 

 the style of what even his votaries acknowledge as his 

 noblest work, and which has a depth and clearness like 

 Shakspeare's ; secondly, that a great poet, dowered with a 

 gift whereby he may raise and purify and inspire men's souls, 

 whose song may be strength to the weak, comfort to the 

 sorrowing, companionship to the lonely, and a spur to high 

 endeavour — such an one owes to his fellows a free and 

 generous recognition of the principle that " none of us liveth 

 to himself" There is no poet whose disregard of it could be 

 a greater loss to the world, for since Browning's special gift 

 lies in the analysis and presentment of character, and since 

 he has an inborn affinity for what is noble and true and 

 strong, and since he holds with an unfaltering grasp tliose 

 vital ti'uths which deeyjly concern all men, and since in a 

 day when the sensuous, the revolting, the unmoral assert 

 their claim to the thrones of Valhalla, he is ever a witness 

 for what is pure and lovely and of good report, it is of the 

 highest moment that every stroke should tell, that the 

 trumpet should give no uncertain sound, that the prophet 

 should not speak in riddles nor babble in an unknown tongue. 

 To attempt to arrange in order of merit, like so many 

 boys at a school, the great writers of any period, would be 

 both futile and misleading ; for, on examining their work, 

 we find that their genius is at bottom dissimilar. It has an 

 affinity for different subjects, and even should these be 

 based on identical events or phenomena, it at once cancels 

 the apparent identity by taking a different point of view, b}' 

 selecting different features as most important, by a different 

 moral attitude to the subject, and by singing the song to 



