In a certain chart of English literature with which I am acquainted, wherein the poets are graphically represented in mountain ranges with peaks of various heights, Tennyson is shown as the towering peak of the Victorian Era, while Browning is a sturdy but much lower peak with a blunted top. This is quite symbolic of the general attitude toward Browning at the end of the century, for, with all the appreciation, there has been on the part of authority a disinclination to assign to him the chief place among the poets of the Victorian Era. Courthope, who most of the time preserves a remarkable reticence upon Browning, voices this general attitude in a remark ventured upon in one of his lectures in 1900. He says: "No one who is capable of appreciating genius will refuse to admire the powers of this poet, the extent of his sympathy and interest in external things, the boldness of his invention, the energy of his analysis, the audacity of his experiments. But so absolutely does he exclude all consideration for the reader from his choice of subject, so arbitrarily, in his treatment of his themes, does he compel his audience to place themselves at his own point of view, that the life of his art depends entirely upon his own individuality. Should future generations be less inclined than our own to surrender their imagination to his guidance, he will not be able to appeal to them through that element of life which lies in the Universal." To the present writer this seems simply like a confession on Courthope's part that he was unable to perceive in Browning the elements of the Universal which are most assuredly there, and which were fully recognized by a Scotch writer, Dawson, at the same time that Courthope was questioning his power to hold coming generations. "The fashions of the world may change," writes Dawson, "and the old doubts may wear themselves out and sink like shadows out of sight in the morning of a stronger faith; but even so the world will still turn to the finer poems of Browning for intellectual stimulus, for the purification of pity and of pathos, for the exaltation of hope. "Or if the darkness still thickens, all the more will men turn to this strong man of the race, who has wrestled and prevailed; who has illumined with imaginative insight the deepest problems of the ages; who has made his poetry not merely the vehicle of pathos, passion, tenderness, fancy, and imagination, but also of the most robust and masculine thought. He has written lyrics which must charm all who love, epics which must move all who act, songs which must cheer all who suffer, poems which must fascinate all who think; and when 'Time hath sundered shell from pearl,' however stern may be the scrutiny, it may be said that there will remain enough of Robert Browning to give him rank among the greatest of poets, and secure for him the sure reward of fame."