the Book”—­1.  O Lyric Love (The Invocation:  26 lines); 2.  Caponsacchi (ll. 2069 to 2103); 3.  Pompilia (ll. 181 to 205); 4.  Pompilia (ll. 1771 to 1845); 5.  The Pope (ll. 2017 to 2228); 6.  Count Guido (Book XI., ll. 2407 to 2427).  XXV.  Prologue to “La Saisiaz.”  XXVI.  Prologue to “Two Poets of Croisic.”  XXVII.  Epilogue to “Two Poets of Croisic.”  XXVIII.  Never the Time and Place.  XXIX.  “Round us the Wild Creatures,” etc. (song from “Ferishtah’s Fancies").  XXX.  “The Walk” (Pts. ix., x., xi., xii., of “Gerard de Lairesse.”) XXXI.  “One word more” (To E.B.B.).[21]

[Footnote 16:  The first, from the line quoted, extends through 55 lines—­“To see thee for a moment as thou art.”  No. 2 consists of the xviii ll. beginning, “They came to me in my first dawn of life.”  No. 3, the xi ll. of the Andromeda picture.  No. 4, the lix ll. beginning, “Night, and one single ridge of narrow path” (to “delight").]

[Footnote 17:  No.  IV. comprises the xxix ll. beginning, “The centre fire heaves underneath the earth,” down to “ancient rapture.”]

[Footnote 18:  No.  V. The vi. ll. beginning, “That autumn ere has stilled.”]

[Footnote 19:  The xxii ll. beginning, “As, shall I say, some Ethiop.”]

[Footnote 20:  The xxix ll. beginning, “For he,—­for he.”]

[Footnote 21:  To these XXXI selections there must now be added “Now,” “Summum Bonum,” “Reverie” and the “Epilogue,” from “Asolando.”]

It is here—­I will not say in Flower o’ the Vine, nor even venture to restrictively affirm it of that larger and fuller compilation we have agreed, for the moment, to call “Transcripts from Life”—­it is here, in the worthiest poems of Browning’s most poetic period, that, it seems to me, his highest greatness is to be sought.  In these “Men and Women” he is, in modern times, an unparalleled dramatic poet.  The influence he exercises through these, and the incalculably cumulative influence which will leaven many generations to come, is not to be looked for in individuals only, but in the whole thought of the age, which he has moulded to new form, animated anew, and to which he has imparted a fresh stimulus.  For this a deep debt is due to Robert Browning.  But over and above this shaping force, this manipulative power upon character and thought, he has enriched our language, our literature, with a new wealth of poetic diction, has added to it new symbols, has enabled us to inhale a more liberal if an unfamiliar air, has, above all, raised us to a fresh standpoint, a standpoint involving our construction of a new definition.