Browning, as poet and man, was able to forgive any sort of failure if the person whom he was judging had only made a thorough effort to accomplish something. He carried this doctrine so far as to make a lack of effort the cause of his censure of the Duke and the Lady in _The Statue and the Bust_, even though the fulfillment of their plan would have been a sin. This love for endeavor, which always accompanies his attitude toward any personality, along with his enthusiasm for personality itself explains his selection and emphasis in his treatment of the arts. Painting he decidedly preferred above sculpture for other reasons than its greater ability in portraying the soul. This preference is stated in _Old Pictures in Florence_, and is based on the fact that Greek art had run, and “reached the Goal.” Its effort, then, was over: “They are perfect--how else? they shall never change: We are faulty--why not? we have time in store. The Artificer’s hand is not arrested With us ...” * * * * * “’Tis a life-long toil till our lump be leaven-- The better! What’s come to perfection perishes.” These quotations from _Old Pictures in Florence_, in which the poet, by using the first person in his references to the early masters of Italy places himself in their group and refers to Greek art in the third person, are indications of the spirit of the poem and of Browning’s entire attitude toward endeavor in art. To summarize, then: few persons have as great an interest in expressing themselves through all the arts as did Robert Browning. Architecture and sculpture he appreciated least; therefore he expressed least concerning their spirit and feeling. Music was a fundamental part of his life; but he was able to embody his feelings about it in music itself, not merely in poetry about it. Yet because of his perfect understanding of it, he has embodied its spirit in a few choice poems, making permanent, by his treatment of its evanescent quality, the ideas that could not be left to the world by his playing. Painting he deeply appreciated from childhood; but beyond a few amateur efforts for diversion, he could not express his appreciation of it by means of that art itself. Consequently, in an unusually large number of his poems, he gave us his view of that art, his portraits of its followers, historical or imaginary. III. PERSONALITY AND THE ARTS.--Through his presentation of artists, Browning has given the world many different types of character. Prominent among them are the following: The non-altruistic, impractical poet--Sordello; the sensualist--Bocafoli; the superficial character--Plara; the regretful but optimistic idealist--Abt Vogler; the coarse realist, who yet possessed a really fine appreciation of God’s world--Fra Lippo Lippi; the weak, ambitionless man--Andrea del Sarto; the keenly sensitive mind--Pictor Ignotus; and the reformer--Pacchiarotto.