I am disposed to consider the ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ as, if not the finest, a portion of the finest subjective poetry in our literature. Their form reminds us of an English prototype, and it is no sacrilege to say that their music is showered from a higher and purer atmosphere than that of the Swan of Avon. We need not enter upon cold comparison of their respective excellences; but Shakespeare’s personal poems were the overflow of his impetuous youth: his broader vision, that took a world within its ken, was absolutely objective; while Mrs. Browning’s ‘Love Sonnets’ are the outpourings of a woman’s tenderest emotions, at an epoch when her art was most mature, and her whole nature exalted by a passion that to such a being comes but once and for all. Here, indeed, the singer rose to her height. Here she is absorbed in rapturous utterance, radiant and triumphant with her own joy. The mists have risen and her sight is clear. Her mouthing and affectation are forgotten, her lips cease to stammer, the lyrical spirit has full control. The sonnet, artificial in weaker hands, becomes swift with feeling, red with a “veined humanity,” the chosen vehicle of a royal woman’s vows. Graces, felicities, vigor, glory of speech, here are so crowded as to tread each upon the other’s sceptred pall. The first sonnet, equal to any in our tongue, is an overture containing the motive of the canticle; “not Death, but Love” had seized her unaware. The growth of this happiness, her worship of its bringer, her doubts of her own worthiness, are the theme of these poems. She is in a sweet and, to us, pathetic surprise at the delight which had at last fallen to her: “The wonder was not yet quite gone From that still look of hers.” Never was man or minstrel so honored as her “most gracious singer of high poems.” In the tremor of her love she undervalued herself,--with all her feebleness of body, it was enough for any man to live within the atmosphere of such a soul! In fine, the ‘Portuguese Sonnets,’ whose title was a screen behind which the singer poured out her full heart, are the most exquisite poetry hitherto written by a woman, and of themselves justify us in pronouncing their author the greatest of her sex.... An analogy with ‘In Memoriam’ may be derived from their arrangement and their presentation of a single analytic theme; but Tennyson’s poem, though exhibiting equal art, more subtile reasoning and comprehensive thought, is devoted to the analysis of philosophic grief, while the ‘Sonnets’ reveal to us that love which is the most ecstatic of human emotions and worth all other gifts in life. E. C. STEDMAN: ‘Victorian Poets.’ Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1881. * * * * * [Sidenote: Her timidity.]