The original part of the book is of far closer texture and more remarkable order than “the amber which embalms Alkestis” the first adventure of Balaustion; but it has less human emotion, less general appeal.  It is nothing less than a resuscitation of the old controversy between Aristophanes and Euripides; a resuscitation, not only of the controversy, but of the combatants.  “Local colour” is laid on with an unsparing hand, though it cannot be said that the atmosphere is really Greek.  There is hardly a line, there is never a page, without an allusion to some recondite thing:  Athenian customs, Greek names, the plays of Euripides, above all, the plays of Aristophanes.  “Every line of the poem,” it has been truly said, “shows Mr. Browning as soaked and steeped in the comedies as was Bunyan in his Bible.”  The result is a vast, shapeless thing, splendidly and grotesquely alive, but alive with the obscure and tangled life of the jungle.

Browning’s attitude towards the controversy, the side he takes as champion of Euripides, is distinctly shown, not merely in Balaustion’s statement and defence, but in the whole conduct of the piece.  Aristophanes, though on his own defence, is set in a decidedly unfavourable light; and no one, judging from Browning’s work, can doubt as to his opinion of the relative qualities of the two great poets.  It is possible even to say there is a partiality in the presentment.  But it must be remembered on the other hand that Browning is not concerned simply with the question of art, but with the whole bearings, artistic and ethical, of the contest; and it must be remembered that the aim of Comedy is intrinsically lower and more limited than that of Tragedy, that it is destructive, disintegrating, negative, concerned with smaller issues and more temporary questions; and that Euripides may reasonably be held a better teacher, a keener, above all a more helpful, reader of the riddle of life, than his mighty assailant.  This is how Aristophanes has been described, by one who should know:—­

“He is an aggregate of many men, all of a certain greatness.  We may build up a conception of his powers if we mount Rabelais upon Hudibras, lift him with the songfulness of Shelley, give him a vein of Heinrich Heine, and cover him with the mantle of the Anti-Jacobin, adding (that there may be some Irish in him) a dash of Grattan, before he is in motion."[50]

Now the “Titanic pamphleteer” is more recognisable in Browning’s most vivid portrait than the “lyric poet of aerial delicacy” who in some strange fashion, beyond his own wildest metamorphoses, distracted and idealised the otherwise congruous figure.  Not that this is overlooked or forgotten:  it is brought out admirably in several places, notably in the fine song put into the mouth of Aristophanes at the close; but it is scarcely so prominent as lovers of him could desire.  It is possible, too, that Browning somewhat over-accentuates