The Greater Victorian Poets

842 (all, that is, which he permanently retained) in Macmillan's edition of 1888 fills only part of two very moderate-sized volumes. But between 1833 and 1846 Browning published eleven long poems and over forty shorter pieces. This ratio of productiveness was characteristic of the two men, though the difference in later years was not so great. It is also characteristic that while Tennyson laboriously revised and touched up his poems, Browning made few changes. He seems indeed?to judge from the preface to Pauline?to have held peculiar notions as to the ethics of the relation between an author and his readers. In the first reprint he corrected only errors of the press, holding it "the honest course" to "leave mere literary errors unaltered". Pauline bears throughout the marks of youth, but it is a youth of splendid promise. It is all the more imperative to recognise its merits because of Browning's own exaggerated, though doubtless quite sincere, depreciation. The poem is defective in construction and hazy in outline. It shows little of that intimate and masterly knowledge of human passion which the author's mature works display. He seems to be labouring at a work too great for him, while he shows by strokes here and there that he may some day be great enough for any work. But though its defects are grave they are redeemed by many fine passages, some of them beautiful with a luxuriant beauty not common in Browning's subsequent works. It is moreover always instruc...