in Victorian verse. It is curious to remember, in view of Brown-
ing's profound admiration for these sonnets, which was not
bounded by his love for the writer, his undisguised contempt
for the form in general as a vehicle of poetic ideas--

"Did Shakespeare write sonnets?
The worse Shakespeare he."

It was Edgar Poe who said of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Cry of the Children that it could not be scanned, and pointed
out the usual extreme uncertainty of her rhythm. As he said,
she thought nothing of forcing the cesura in the middle of a
word, or playing fast and loose with her rhymes. But in spite
of her heedlessness, she has left verses, as in the Cry of the
Children, which have authentically passed into the currency;
and in Aurora Leigh she has written a personal epic, or a lyrical
autobiography, which has broken every rule, yet is often
superb.

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