having written _Sordello_. Over and over again we have been informed
that the publication of this poem shattered his reputation for
twenty-five years. Well, what of it? what difference does it make now?
He seems to have successfully survived it. This huge work, which
William Sharp called "that colossal derelict upon the ocean of poetry,"
is destined to have an immortality all its own. From one point of
view, we ought to be grateful for its publication. It has aroused
inextinguishable laughter among the blessed gods. It is not witty in
itself, but it is the cause of wit in many. Douglas Jerrold and
Carlyle commented delightfully on it; even Tennyson succeeded for
once in saying something funny. One critic called it a fine house in
which the architect had forgotten to put any stairs. Another called
it a huge boil in which all the impurities in Browning's system came
to an impressive head, after which the patient, pure from poison,
succeeded in writing the clear and beautiful _Pippa Passes_. Besides
innumerable parodies that have been forgotten, Browning's obscurity
was the impenetrable flint that struck two mental flashes that
belong to literature, Calverley's _Cock and the Bull_, and
Swinburne's _John Jones_, a brilliant exposition of the perversities
in that tedious poem, _James Lee's Wife_. Not long ago, a young man
sat by the lamplight, studying a thick volume with evident discomfort.
To the friend who asked what he was doing, he replied, "I'm studying
Browning."

"Why, no, you idiot, that isn't Browning: you are reading the index
of first lines to the works of Wordsworth."

"By Jove! you're right! But it sounds just like Browning."

Browning's place in English literature is not with the great