A second characteristic, which, if not a necessary result of this first, would at least be impossible without it, is the extent to which Browning’s poetry produces its effect by suggestion rather than by elaboration; by stimulating thought, emotion, and the aesthetic sense, instead of seeking to satisfy any one of these—­especially instead of contenting itself with only soothing the last.  The comparison of his poetry with—­for instance—­Tennyson’s, in this respect, is instructive; if it is possibly unjust to both.

And a third trait in Browning—­to make an end of a dangerously categorical attempt to characterize him—­follows logically from this second; its extreme compactness and concentration.  Browning sometimes dwells long—­even dallies—­over an idea, as does Shakespeare; turns it, shows its every facet; and even then it is noticeable, as with the greater master, that every individual phrase with which he does so is practically exhaustive of the suggestiveness of that particular aspect.  But commonly he crowds idea upon idea even in his lyrics, and—­strangely enough—­without losing the lyric quality; each thought pressed down to its very essence, and each with that germinal power that makes the reading of him one of the most stimulating things to be had from literature.  His figures especially are apt and telling in the very minimum of words; they say it all, like the unsurpassable Shakespearean example of “the dyer’s hand”; and the more you think of them, the more you see that not a word could be added or taken away.

It may be said that this quality of compactness is common to all genius, and of the very essence of all true poetry; but Browning manifested it in a way of his own, such as to suggest that he believed in the subordination of all other qualities to it; even of melody, for instance, as may be said by his critics and admitted in many cases by even his strongest admirers.  But all things are not given to one, even among the giants; and Browning’s force with its measure of melody (which is often great) has its place among others’ melody with its measure of force.  Open at random:  here are two lines in ‘A Toccata of Galuppi’s,’ not deficient in melody by any means:—­

     “Dear dead women—­with such hair, too:  what’s become of all the gold
     Used to hang and brush their bosoms?—­I feel chilly and grown old.”

This is not Villon’s ‘Ballad of Dead Ladies,’ nor even Tennyson’s ’Dream of Fair Women’; but a master can still say a good deal in two lines.

What is called the “roughness” of Browning’s verse is at all events never the roughness that comes from mismanagement or disregard of the form chosen.  He has an unerring ear for time and quantity; and his subordination to the laws of his metre is extraordinary in its minuteness.  Of ringing lines there are many; of broadly sonorous or softly melodious ones but few; and especially (if one chooses to go into details of technic) he seems curiously without that