The fault of these illustrations is the fault of the whole poem. _Sordello_ is obscure, Browning's idolaters say, by concentration of thought. It is rather obscure by want of that wise rejection of unnecessary thoughts which is the true concentration. It is obscure by a reckless misuse of the ordinary rules of language. It is obscure by a host of parentheses introduced to express thoughts which are only suggested, half-shaped, and which are frequently interwoven with parentheses introduced into the original parentheses. It is obscure by the worst punctuation I ever came across, but this was improved in the later editions. It is obscure by multitudinous fancies put in whether they have to do with the subject or not, and by multitudinous deviations within those fancies. It is obscure by Browning's effort to make words express more than they are capable of expressing. It is no carping criticism to say this of Browning's work in _Sordello_, because it is the very criticism his after-practice as an artist makes. He gave up these efforts to force, like Procrustes, language to stretch itself or to cut itself down into forms it could not naturally take; and there is no more difficulty in most of his earlier poems than there is in _Paracelsus_. Only a little of the Sordellian agonies remains in them, only that which was natural to Browning's genius. The interwoven parentheses remain, the rushes of invention into double and triple illustrations, the multiplication of thought on thought; but for these we may even be grateful. Opulence and plenitude of this kind are not common; we are not often granted a man who flings imaginations, fancies and thoughts from him as thick and bright as sparks from a grinder's wheel. It is not every poet who is unwilling to leave off, who finds himself too full to stop. "These bountiful wits," as Lamb said, "always give full measure, pressed down, and running over." FOOTNOTES: [8] Browning spells this name _Ecelin_, probably for easier use in verse. * * * * * CHAPTER VII _BROWNING AND SORDELLO_ There are certain analogies between Browning as a poet and the Sordello of the poem; between his relation to the world of his time and that of Sordello to his time; and finally, between Browning's language in this poem and the change in the Italian language which he imputes to the work of Sordello. This chapter will discuss these analogies, and close with an appreciation of Browning's position between the classic and romantic schools of poetry.