It is really true that such a line as "Irks fear the crop-full bird, frets doubt the maw-crammed beast ?" is a very ugly and a very bad line.

But it is quite equally true that Tennyson's "And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace," is a very ugly and a very bad line.

But people do not say that this proves that Tennyson was a mere crabbed controversialist and metaphysician.

They say that it is a bad example of Tennyson's form; they do not say that it is a good example of Tennyson's indifference to form.

Upon the whole, Browning exhibits far fewer instances of this failure in his own style than any other of the great poets, with the exception of one or two like Spenser and Keats, who seem to have a mysterious incapacity for writing bad poetry.