At first glance, this parenthesis is obscure; but the obscurity is not due to its being “exactly like the short notes of a speech”, etc. It is due to what the “obscurity” of Mr. Browning’s language, as language, is, in nine cases out of ten, due, namely, to the COLLOCATION of the words, not to an excessive economy of words. He often exercises a liberty in the collocation of his words which is beyond what an uninflected language like the English admits of, without more or less obscurity. There are difficult passages in Browning which, if translated into Latin, would present no difficulty at all; for in Latin, the relations of words are more independent of their collocation, being indicated by their inflections. The meaning of the parenthesis is, and, independently of the context, a second glance takes it in (the wonder is, Mr. Hutton didn’t take it in),-- “To be themselves made by him {to} act, Not each of them watch Sordello acting.” There are two or three characteristics of the poet’s diction which may be noticed here:-- 1. The suppression of the relative, both nominative and accusative or dative, is not uncommon; and, until the reader becomes familiar with it, it often gives, especially if the suppression is that of a subject relative, a momentary, but only a momentary, check to the understanding of a passage. The following examples are from ‘The Ring and the Book’:-- “Checking the song of praise in me, had else Swelled to the full for God’s will done on earth.” I. The Ring and the Book, v. 591. i.e., which had (would have) else swelled to the full, etc. “This that I mixed with truth, motions of mine That quickened, made the inertness malleolable O’ the gold was not mine,”-- I. The Ring and the Book, v. 703. “Harbouring in the centre of its sense A hidden germ of failure, shy but sure, Should neutralize that honesty and leave That feel for truth at fault, as the way is too.” I. The Ring and the Book, v. 851. “Elaborate display of pipe and wheel Framed to unchoak, pump up and pour apace Truth in a flowery foam shall wash the world.” I. The Ring and the Book, v. 1113. “see in such A star shall climb apace and culminate,” III. The Other Half Rome, v. 846. “Guido, by his folly, forced from them The untoward avowal of the trick o’ the birth, Would otherwise be safe and secret now.” IV. Tertium Quid, v. 1599. “so I Lay, and let come the proper throe would thrill Into the ecstasy and outthrob pain.” VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi, v. 972. “blind? Ay, as a man would be inside the sun, Delirious with the plentitude of light Should interfuse him to the finger-ends”-- X. The Pope, 1564.