CHAPTER VI.
BROWNING AS A LITERARY ARTIST Mr.William Sharp, in his _Life_ of Browning, quotes the remarks of another critic to the following effect: "The poet's processes of thought are scientific in their precision and analysis; the sudden conclusion that he imposes upon them is transcendental and inept." This is a very fair but a very curious example of the way in which Browning is treated.

For what is the state of affairs?
A man publishes a series of poems, vigorous, perplexing, and unique.

The critics read them, and they decide that he has failed as a poet, but that he is a remarkable philosopher and logician.

They then proceed to examine his philosophy, and show with great triumph that it is unphilosophical, and to examine his logic and show with great triumph that it is not logical, but "transcendental and inept." In other words, Browning is first denounced for being a logician and not a poet, and then denounced for insisting on being a poet when they have decided that he is to be a logician.

It is just as if a man were to say first that a garden was so neglected that it was only fit for a boys' playground, and then complain of the unsuitability in a boys' playground of rockeries and flower-beds.
As we find, after this manner, that Browning does not act satisfactorily as that which we have decided that he shall be--a logician--it might possibly be worth while to make another attempt to see whether he may not, after all, be more valid than we thought as to what he himself professed to be--a poet.