This idle weakness really appears to be at the bottom
of half the daring nonsense in this most daringly nonsensical book.
Hudibras Butler told us long ago that "rhyme the rudder is of verses;"
and when, as in his case, or in that of Ingoldsby Barham, or
Whims-and-Oddities Hood, the rudder guides the good ship into tracks of
fun and fancy she might otherwise have missed, we are grateful to the
double-endings, not on their own account, but for what they have led us
to. But Mr. Browning is the mere thrall of his own rudder, and is
constantly being steered by it into whirlpools of the most raging
absurdity. This morbid passion for double rhymes, which is observable
more or less throughout the book, reaches its climax in a long copy of
verses on the "Old Pictures of Florence," which, with every disposition
to be tolerant of the frailties of genius, we cannot hesitate to
pronounce a masterpiece of absurdity. Let the lovers of the Hudibrastic
admire these _tours de force_:--
Not that I expect the great Bigordi
Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, bellicose;
Nor wronged Lippino--and not a word I
Say of a scrap of Fra Angelico's.
Pages:
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339