Reviews

R430200A.  Dramatic Lyrics.

The Metropolitan Magazine, February 1843, p. 55.

Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 6.

Mr. Browning is a very provoking poet; but he is a poet, and we are obliged to tolerate the vagaries of his muse, simply because there is in her the high blood of the heavenly-born Sister-Nine. Now, though we do certainly defer to the aristocracy of talent, we must ask him whether it is fair to us, or just to himself, to exercise the sort of tyranny which this poetical caracoling manifests? Never, surely, did the steed of bard so prance, and prove so restive—now floundering in the mud of obscurity, until, finding we are like to receive nothing but splashes, we are tempted to abandon him altogether, and then breaking into fire and energy, and carrying us into some scene where we suddenly catch sight of showers of the gleams of shattered diamonds. We will not be tempted into praising these Dramatic Lyrics. It is of no use for Mr. Browning to put in his plea that he has taken out a license for poetical frenzy; we hold that sanity is essential to sense, and we look for coherence, at least, in poetry.

In truth, we admire Mr. Browning so much, that we wish he would allow us to admire him more.

Reviewed:

Bells & Pomegranates. No. III. Dramatic Lyrics (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1842.

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