In such fashion, and in ungrudged com pleteness, was his poetic greatness acknowl edged at the last. Its too tardy recognition by the popular voice wa.s largely due to the pre vailing belief that poetry is for the mental dalliance of a lazy hour, and also to the per sistency with which Browning had mocked at this belief in the athletic hardiness of mind which he required in his readers. Moreover he seemed always inclined, to the dismay of the public, to press forward into service the super ficial defects of his solid interior qualities. Thus, at times, his wide scholarship strayed off into pedantry; his secure skill in verse dropped ever and again into grotesque Bohemian robust ness of phrase and rhyme; his swift intuitive glance into the problems of life seemed to create in him an artistic impatience of detail which, in the structure of his verse, became a thrifty brusqueness of expression tending toward cipher; and, above all, his most notable gift of analysis, his power to track the most hidden motive to its last retreat, seemed ever tending to lapse into an introspective subtlety akin to the cobwebberies of the schoolmen.
Yet, aside from these occasional shortcomings, there remain his learning, his humor, his mas tery of artistic expression, his immense range of sympathy, his spiritual insight and the height and strength of his ideals to make him one of the greatest of modern poets. See SORDELLO ; PIPPA PASSES; RING AND THE BOOK, THE; SAUL; CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME; PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN, THE; ANDREA DEL SARTO ; FRA LIPPO LIPPI.
The poems of Robert Browning have given rise to a great body of literature, largely interpretative. His 'Life' and Letters,' edited by Mrs. Sutherland Orr, was published in the 'Love Letters, 1845-46,' in 1899. Among biographies and appreciations may he recommended those by G. H. Chester ton (1908); Edward Dowden (London 1905) R. B. Figgis (London 1902) ; C. H. Herford (New York 1905), and R. B. Waugh (London 1900). Other useful works are Berdoe, E., 'Browning Cyclopedia> (London 1892) ; 'Stu dies> (London 1895) • Brooke, Stopford, 'Poetry of Robert Browning' (London 1902); Clarke, 'Browning and His Century' (New York 1912) ; Cunliffe, 'Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Influence on Robert Browning's Poetry' (Cam bridge 1908); Gosse, E., (Personalia' (London 1890) • Jones, H., 'Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher> (6th ed., 1913) • Nettle ship, 'Robert Browning: Essays and Thoughts> (London 1890); Phelps, (Robert Browning: How to Know Him' (New York 1915) ; Pigou, A. C., (Robert Browning as a Religious Teach er> (London 1901); Revell, W. F., 'Browning's Criticism of Life' (London 1892); Symons, Arthur, to the Study, of Robert Browning' (London 1886), and the publications of the Browning Society.
D. S. DouGLAs, Editorial Staff of The Americana.