We all have moods when the mind wishes to be lulled, soothed, charmed,
hypnotised with agreeable melody, and in English literature we
fortunately have many great poets who can perform this service.

That strain again! it had a dying fall.

Tennyson was a veritable magician, who charmed with his genius
hundreds and thousands of people. No arduous mental effort is
necessary for the enjoyment of his verse, which is one reason why he
is and will remain a popular poet. Browning can not be taken in just
that way, any more than a man completely exhausted with the day's
work can enjoy _Siegfried_ or _Hedda Gabler_. Active, constant
cerebration on the part of the listener or the reader is essential.
This excludes at once a considerable number to whom the effort of
real thinking is as strange as it is oppressive. Browning is a
stimulus, not a sedative; his poetry is like an electric current
which naturally fails to affect those who are non-conductors of
poetry. As one of my undergraduate students tersely expressed it,
"Tennyson soothes our senses: Browning stimulates our thoughts."
Poetry is in some ways like medicine. Tennyson quiets the nerves:
Browning is a tonic: some have found Thomson's _Seasons_ invaluable
for insomnia: the poetry of Swift is an excellent emetic.

I do not quite understand the intense anger of many critics and
readers over the eternal question of Browning's obscurity. They have
been harping on this theme for eighty years and show no more sign of
exhaustion than a dog barking in the night. Why do the heathen rage?
Why do they not let Browning alone, and read somebody they can
understand? Browning is still gravely rebuked by many critics for