'Only there was a way--you crept Close by the side, to dodge Eyes in the house--two eyes except. They styled their house "The Lodge." 'What right had a lounger up their lane? But by creeping very close, With the good wall's help their eyes might strain And stretch themselves to oes, 'Yet never catch her and me together, As she left the attic--there, By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether"-- And stole from stair to stair, 'And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas! We loved, sir; used to meet. How sad and bad and mad it was! But then, how it was sweet!' The second period of Mr. Browning's poetry demands a different line of argument; for it is, in my judgment, folly to deny that he has of late years written a great deal which makes very difficult reading indeed. No doubt you may meet people who tell you that they read 'The Ring and the Book' for the first time without much mental effort; but you will do well not to believe them. These poems are difficult--they cannot help being so. What is 'The Ring and the Book'? A huge novel in 20,000 lines--told after the method not of Scott but of Balzac; it tears the hearts out of a dozen characters; it tells the same story from ten different points of view. It is loaded with detail of every kind and description: you are let off nothing. As with a schoolboy's life at a large school, if he is to enjoy it at all, he must fling himself into it, and care intensely about everything--so the reader of 'The Ring and the Book' must be interested in everybody and everything, down to the fact that the eldest daughter of the counsel for the prosecution of Guido is eight years old on the very day he is writing his speech, and that he is going to have fried liver and parsley for his supper. If you are prepared for this, you will have your reward; for the _style_, though rugged and involved, is throughout, with the exception of the speeches of counsel, eloquent, and at times superb; and as for the _matter_, if your interest in human nature is keen, curious, almost professional--if nothing man, woman, or child has been, done, or suffered, or conceivably can be, do, or suffer, is without interest for you; if you are fond of analysis, and do not shrink from dissection--you will prize 'The Ring and the Book' as the surgeon prizes the last great contribution to comparative anatomy or pathology.