It is a strong case for the
correctional justice of criticism, which has too long abdicated its
proper functions. The Della Crusca of Sentimentalism perished under the
_Baviad_--is there to be no future Gifford for the Della Crusca of
Transcendentalism? The thing has really grown to a lamentable head
amongst us. The contagion has affected not only our sciolists and our
versifiers, but those whom, in the absence of a mightier race, we must
be content to accept as the poets of our age. Here is Robert Browning,
for instance--no one can doubt that he is capable of better things--no
one, while deploring the obscurities that deface the _Paracelsus_ and
the _Dramatic Lyrics_, can deny the less questionable qualities which
characterized those remarkable poems--but can any of his devotees be
found to uphold his present elaborate experiment on the patience of the
public? Take any of his worshippers you please--let him be "well up" in
the transcendental poets of the day--take him fresh from Alexander
Smith, or Alfred Tennyson's _Maud_, or the _Mystic_ of Bailey--and we
will engage to find him at least ten passages in the first ten pages of
_Men and Women_, some of which, even after profound study, he will not
be able to construe at all, and not one of which he will be able to
read off at sight.
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