This, on the whole, he has done; for, though a prose heading runs before every page, with a knowing wink to the reader, the mystery is not cleared up. As the view dissolves with every turn of a leaf, the showman says, confidentially,--"Now you shall see how a poet's soul comes into play,--how he succeeds a little, but fails more,--tries again, is no better satisfied,-- "Because perceptions whole, like that he sought To clothe, reject so pure a work of thought As language: thought may take perception's place, But hardly coexist in any case, Being its mere presentment,--of the whole By parts, the simultaneous and the sole By the successive and the many. Lacks The crowd perception?" We fear so; at any rate, the exhibition fails, because the showman cannot furnish brains to his commentary. The man who can read "Sordello" is little helped by these headings, and the man who cannot is soon distracted by continual disappointment. We think he will end by reading only the headings. And they doubtless are the best for him. Otherwise, under the cerebral struggle to perceive how the prose interprets the poetry, he might become the idiot that Douglas Jerrold exclaimed that _he_ was at his first trial of "Sordello." There has been a careful overhauling of the punctuation, with benefit to the text. Many lines have been altered, sometimes to the comfort of the reader; and about a hundred fresh lines have been interpolated here and there, to the weakening, we think, of the dramatic vigor of nearly every place that is thus handled. Many readers will, however, find this compensated by an increased clearness of the sense. On page 131 (page 152, first edition) there is an improved manipulation of the simile of the dwarf palm; and four lines before the last one on page 147 (page 171, first edition) lighten up the thought. So there are eight lines placed to advantage after "Sordello, wake!" on page 152 (page 176). But, on the whole, what Mr. Browning first imagined cannot be tampered with, and he must generously trust the elements of his own fine genius to do justice to his thought with all people who would not thank him to furnish an interpreter. One day we argued earnestly for Browning with a man who said it was fatal to the poetry that it needed an argument, and that he did not want to earn the quickening of his imagination by the sweat of his brow,--he could gather the same thought and beauty in less break-neck places,--all the profit was expended in mental gymnastics,--in short, "The man can't stoop To sing us out, quoth he, a mere romance; He'd fain do better than the best, enhance The subjects' rarity, work problems out Therewith: now, you're a bard, a bard past doubt, And no philosopher; why introduce Crotchets like these? fine, surely, but no use In poetry,--which still must be, to strike, Eased upon common sense; there's nothing like Appealing to our nature!"