The opponents of Victor Hugo called him a mere windbag; the opponents of Shakespeare called him a buffoon.

But the admirers of Hugo and Shakespeare at least knew better.

Now the admirers and opponents of Browning alike make him out to be a pedant rather than a poet.

The only difference between the Browningite and the anti-Browningite, is that the second says he was not a poet but a mere philosopher, and the first says he was a philosopher and not a mere poet.

The admirer disparages poetry in order to exalt Browning; the opponent exalts poetry in order to disparage Browning; and all the time Browning himself exalted poetry above all earthly things, served it with single-hearted intensity, and stands among the few poets who hardly wrote a line of anything else.
The whole of the boyhood and youth of Robert Browning has as much the quality of pure poetry as the boyhood and youth of Shelley.