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A DRAMATIC CRITIC
and in his firm grasp of their thought.
His reading, as an illumination of the
text, was marvelous, and fairly compelled
Browning to be comprehensible, even in
works as subtle and obscure as La Saisiaz.
Mr. Thaxter's dramatic gift was nothing
short of magnificent, and I put his read-
ing of the dialogue of Ottima and Sebald,
in Pippa Passes, in the same class, for
force and completeness, with Mrs. Kem-
ble's reading of the Shakespearean trage-
dies.
In quite another kind, but unique and
highly remarkable, was the reading of
Shelley's and Keats's poetry by Mr. Wil-
liam Ordway Partridge, now noted as a
sculptor. Not much of the verse of Shel-
ley will bear putting under the logician's
press or into the analyst's crucible; but
some of it is the fine wine of poetry,
—
poetry for poets, as has been cleverly said,
appealing to the subtlest parts of the im-
aginative sense, as remote from the com-
[ ^76 ]