He is, in fact, by far the greatest English master of grotesque.

_Childe Roland_, where the natural bent of his invention has full fling, abounds with grotesque traits which, instead of disturbing the romantic atmosphere, infuse into it an element of strange, weird, and uncanny mirth, more unearthly than any solemnity; the day shooting its grim red leer across the plain, the old worn-out horse with its red, gaunt, and colloped neck a-strain; or, in _Paracelsus_, the "Cyclops-like" volcanoes "staring together with their eyes on flame," in whose "uncouth pride" God tastes a pleasure.

Shelley had recoiled from the horrible idea of a host of these One-eyed monsters;[105] Browning deliberately invokes it.

But he can use grotesque effects to heighten tragedy as well as romance.

One source of the peculiar poignancy of the _Heretic's Tragedy_ is the eerie blend in it of mocking familiarity and horror.
[Footnote 104: H.Corkran, _Celebrities and I_.] [Footnote 105: Cf.