Even this does not quite satisfy the poet's desires for the supremacy of music, and his final conclusion is that if we only get ourselves into a proper historical frame of mind, any form will reveal its beauty, This is a truth which needs especially to be recognized in music, for we too often hear people objecting to Haydn or Mozart and even Beethoven because they are not modern, never realizing that each age has produced its distinctive musical beauty. But Browning means it of course to have the largest significance in relation to all forms of truth and beauty of which every age has had its living example--thus--his last triumphant mood is, "Never dream that what once lived shall ever die." I have been able to throw out only a few general suggestions as to these late masterpieces. There are many subtleties of thought and graces of expression which reveal themselves upon every fresh reading, and each poem might well be made the subject of a special study. I have said nothing about the Prologue and Epilogue to the Parleyings, not because I love them less, but because I love them so much that I should never be able to bring this paper, already too long, to a close if I once began on them. I hope, however, I have said enough not only to prove the point that these poems give complete expression to the thought of the age, but that Browning appears in them, to borrow an apt term from Whitman, as the "Answerer" of the age. That he has unquestioningly accepted the knowledge which science has brought and recognizing its relative character, has yet interpreted it in such a way as to make it subserve the highest ideals in ethics, religion, and art, and that far from reflecting any degeneration in Browning's philosophy of life, these poems put on a firmer basis than ever the thoughts prominent in his poetry from the first, and which constantly find illustration indirectly and sometimes directly in his dramatic poems. I am just as unable to find any fault with their subject matter as with their form. The variety in both is remarkable. Religion and fable, romance and philosophy, art and science all commingled in rich profusion. Everything in language--talk almost colloquial, dainty lyrics full of exquisite emotion, and grand passages which present in sweeping images now the processes of cosmic evolution, now those of spiritual evolution, until it seems as if we had indeed been conducted to some vast mountain height, whence we could look forth upon the century's turbulent seas of thought, into which flows many a current from the past, while suspended above between the sea and sky like the crucifix in Simons' wonderful symbolistic picture of the Middle Ages, is the mystical form of Divine Love. _Helen A. Clarke._ SCHOOL OF LITERATURE. GLIMPSES OF PRESENT DAY POETS: A SELECTIVE READING COURSE. II. A Group Of American Poets.[2] 1. Edmund Clarence Stedman.