But let us call them by their true name; let us not call them poetry, nor mistake their art for the art of poetry.

Writing them in blank verse does not make them poetry.

In _Half-Rome_, in _The Other Half-Rome_, and in _Tertium Quid_, these elements of analysis and wit are exhibited in three-fourths of the verse; but the other fourth--in description of scenes, in vivid portraiture, in transient outbursts out of which passion, in glimpses, breaks--rises into the realm of poetry.

In the books which sketch the lawyers and their pleadings, there is wit in its finest brilliancy, analysis in its keenest veracity, but they are scarcely a poet's work.
The whole book is then a mixed book, extremely mixed.

All that was poetical in Browning's previous work is represented in it, and all the unpoetical elements which had gradually been winning power in him, and which showed themselves previously in _Bishop Blougram_ and _Mr.
Sludge_, are also there in full blast.