R500900B. Poems (Boston, 1850).
The Southern Quarterly Review, September 1850, pp. 256–257.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 402.
This very beautiful edition is worthy of the author whom it enshrines. Browning is no common verse-maker. He is a writer of thought and genius, of peculiar and curious powers as an artist; subtle, spiritual, and singularly fanciful, and, though as yet perhaps unacknowledged, is one of the master minds of living European [p. 257→] song. He is obscure, however, and will scarcely ever reach that degree of popularity which follows only the limpid and transparent Sonnetteer. He will grow slowly in public esteem, and, finally, when his peculiar phraseology shall become familiar, to the ear, it will compel an admiration which is very far from general now. The singular deficiency with Browning, at present, seems to be that his power of utterance is inadequate to the thought with which he is burdened. It will need more years of practice before he will find a fit expression for the phrenzies of his muse. Hence his obscurities and roughnesses, and the frequent wrong done to his fancies by the halting and ungainly measures in which he clothes them. We shall probably review him at length hereafter. Meanwhile, let us briefly say, that his claims to the regards of those who require a deep and earnest thought, in verse, as well as music and fancy, is beyond question. All such persons must take him to their studies, if not to their hearts. It is only through the one, indeed, that he can find his way to the other. Why, let us ask, have the publishers of this very fine edition, omitted “Sordello” from its table of contents?
[William Gilmore Simms]
Reviewed:
Poems (RB), Boston: Ticknor, Reed, & Fields, 1850.
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