an indirect vindication of the conceptions of human life
which `Christmas Eve and Easter Day' condemns. This double poem stands indeed

so much alone in Mr. Browning's work that we are tempted to ask ourselves
to what circumstance or impulse, external or internal, it has been due;

and we can only conjecture that the prolonged communion with a mind
so spiritual as that of his wife, the special sympathies and differences

which were elicited by it, may have quickened his religious imagination,
while directing it towards doctrinal or controversial issues

which it had not previously embraced.
The `Essay' is a tribute to the genius of Shelley; it is also a justification

of his life and character, as the balance of evidence then presented them
to Mr. Browning's mind. It rests on a definition of the respective qualities

of the objective and the subjective poet. . . . While both, he says,
are gifted with the fuller perception of nature and man, the one endeavours to

`reproduce things external (whether the phenomena of the scenic universe,
or the manifested action of the human heart and brain)

with an immediate reference, in every case, to the common eye
and apprehension of his fellow-men, assumed capable of receiving

and profiting by this reproduction' -- the other `is impelled to embody
the thing he perceives, not so much with reference to the many below,

as to the One above him, the supreme Intelligence which apprehends
all things in their absolute truth, -- an ultimate view ever aspired to,

if but partially attained, by the poet's own soul.
Not what man sees, but what God sees -- the `Ideas' of Plato,

seeds of creation lying burningly on the Divine Hand -- it is toward these
that he struggles. Not with the combination of humanity in action,

but with the primal elements of humanity he has to do;
and he digs where he stands, -- preferring to seek them in his own soul

as the nearest reflex of that absolute Mind, according to the intuitions
of which he desires to perceive and speak.'

The objective poet is therefore a fashioner, the subjective is best described
as a seer. The distinction repeats itself in the interest with which we study

their respective lives. We are glad of the biography of the objective poet
because it reveals to us the power by which he works; we desire still more

that of the subjective poet, because it presents us with another aspect
of the work itself. The poetry of such a one is an effluence

much more than a production; it is
`the very radiance and aroma of his personality, projected from it

but not separated. Therefore, in our approach to the poetry,
we necessarily approach the personality of the poet; in apprehending it

we apprehend him, and certainly we cannot love it without loving him.'
The reason of Mr. Browning's prolonged and instinctivereverence for Shelley

is thus set forth in the opening pages of the Essay:
he recognized in his writings the quality of a `subjective' poet;

hence, as he understands the word, the evidence of a divinely inspired man.
Mr. Browning goes on to say that we need the recorded life in order

quite to determine to which class of inspiration a given work belongs;
and though he regards the work of Shelley as carrying its warrant

within itself, his position leaves ample room for a withdrawal of faith,
a reversal of judgment, if the ascertained facts of the poet's life

should at any future time bear decidedwitness against him.
He is also careful to avoid drawing too hard and fast a line between

the two opposite kinds of poet. He admits that a pure instance of either
is seldom to be found; he sees no reason why

`these two modes of poeticfaculty may not issue hereafter
from the same poet in successive perfect works. . . .

A mere running-in of the one faculty upon the other' being,
meanwhile, `the ordinary circumstance.'

I venture, however, to think, that in his various and necessary concessions,
he lets slip the main point; and for the simple reason that it is untenable.

The terms `subjective' and `objective' denote a real and very important
difference on the ground of judgment, but one which tends more and more

to efface itself in the sphere of the higher creative imagination.
Mr. Browning might as briefly, and I think more fully, have expressed

the salient quality of his poet, even while he could describe it
in these emphatic words:

`I pass at once, therefore, from Shelley's minor excellencies
to his noblest and predominating characteristic.

`This I call his simultaneous perception of Power and Love in the absolute,
and of Beauty and Good in the concrete, while he throws,

from his poet's station between both, swifter, subtler,
and more numerous films for the connexion of each with each,

than have been thrown by any modern artificer of whom I have knowledge . . .
I would rather consider Shelley's poetry as a sublime fragmentary essay

towards a presentment of the correspondency of the universe to Deity,
of the natural to the spiritual, and of the actual to the ideal than . . .'

This essay has, in common with the poems of the preceding years,
the one quality of a largely religious and, in a certain sense,

Christian spirit, and in this respect it falls naturally
into the general series of its author's works. The assertion

of Platonic ideas suggests, however, a mood of spiritual thought
for which the reference in `Pauline' has been our only,

and a scarcely sufficient preparation; nor could the most definite theism
to be extracted from Platonic beliefs ever satisfy the human aspirations

which, in a nature like that of Robert Browning, culminate in the idea of God.
The metaphysical aspect of the poet's genius here distinctly reappears

for the first time since `Sordello', and also for the last.
It becomes merged in the simpler forms of the religious imagination.

The justification of the man Shelley, to which great part of the Essay
is devoted, contains little that would seem new to his more recent apologists;

little also which to the writer's later judgments continued
to recommend itself as true. It was as a great poetic artist,

not as a great poet, that the author of `Prometheus' and `The Cenci',
of `Julian and Maddalo', and `Epipsychidion' was finally to rank

in Mr. Browning's mind. The whole remains nevertheless
a memorial of a very touchingaffection; and whatever intrinsic value

the Essay may possess, its main interest must always be biographical.
Its motive and inspiration are set forth in the closing lines:

`It is because I have long held these opinions in assurance and gratitude,
that I catch at the opportunity offered to me of expressing them here;

knowing that the alacrity to fulfil an humble office conveys more love
than the acceptance of the honour of a higher one, and that better,

therefore, than the signal service it was the dream of my boyhood to render
to his fame and memory, may be the saying of a few, inadequate words

upon these scarcely more important supplementary letters of SHELLEY.'
If Mr. Browning had seen reason to doubt the genuineness

of the letters in question, his Introduction could not have been written.
That, while receiving them as genuine, he thought them unimportant,

gave it, as he justly discerned, its full significance.
Mr. and Mrs. Browning returned to London for the summer of 1852,

and we have a glimpse of them there in a letter from Mr. Fox to his daughter.
==

July 16, '52.
`. . . I had a charming hour with the Brownings yesterday;

more fascinated with her than ever. She talked lots of George Sand,
and so beautifully. Moreover she silver-electroplated Louis Napoleon!!

They are lodging at 58 Welbeck Street; the house has a queer name on the door,
and belongs to some Belgian family.

`They came in late one night, and R. B. says that in the morning twilight
he saw three portraits on the bedroom wall, and speculated who they might be.

Light gradually showed the first, Beatrice Cenci, "Good!" said he;
"in a poetic region." More light: the second, Lord Byron!

Who can the third be? And what think you it was, but your sketch
(engraved chalk portrait) of me? He made quite a poem and picture

of the affair.
`She seems much better; did not put her hand before her mouth,

which I took as a compliment: and the young Florentine was gracious . . .'
==

It need hardly be said that this valued friend was one of the first
whom Mr. Browning introduced to his wife, and that she responded

with ready warmth to his claims on her gratitude and regard.
More than one joint letter from herself and her husband

commemorates this new phase of the intimacy; one especially interesting
was written from Florence in 1858, in answer to the announcement by Mr. Fox

of his election for Oldham; and Mr. Browning's contribution,
which is very characteristic, will appear in due course.

Either this or the preceding summer brought Mr. Browning for the first time
into personal contact with an early lover of his works: Mr. D. G. Rossetti.

They had exchanged letters a year or two before, on the subject of `Pauline',
which Rossetti (as I have already mentioned) had read in ignorance of

its origin, but with the conviction that only the author of `Paracelsus'
could have produced it. He wrote to Mr. Browning to ascertain the fact,

and to tell him he had admired the poem so much as to transcribe it whole from
the British Museum copy. He now called on him with Mr. William Allingham;

and doublyrecommended himself to the poet's interest by telling him
that he was a painter. When Mr. Browning was again in London, in 1855,