Mankind cannot wisely dispense with the services of either type of poet; at one time it chiefly needs to have that which is already known interpreted into its highest meanings; and at another, when the virtue of these interpretations has been appropriated and exhausted, it needs a fresh study and exploration of the facts of life and nature--for "the world is not to be learned and thrown aside, but reverted to and relearned." The truest and highest point of view from which to regard the poetry of Shelley is that which shows it as a "sublime fragmentary essay towards a presentment of the correspondency of the universe to Deity, of the natural to the spiritual, and of the actual to the ideal." For Browning the poet of _Prometheus Unbound_ was not that beautiful and ineffectual angel of Matthew Arnold's fancy, beating in the void his luminous wings.

A great moral purpose looked forth from Shelley's work, as it does, Browning would add, from all lofty works of art.

And it may be remarked that the criticism of Browning's own writings which considers not only their artistic methods and artistic success or failure, but also their ethical and spiritual purport, is entirely in accord with his thoughts in this essay.

Far from regarding Shelley as unpractical, he notes--and with perfect justice--"the peculiar practicalness" of Shelley's mind, which in his earlier years acted injuriously upon both his conduct and his art.

His power to perceive the defects of society was accompanied by as precocious a fertility to contrive remedies; but his crudeness in theorising and his inexperience in practice resulted in not a few youthful errors.