Nearly forty years ago Robert Browning issued The Ring and the Book, his longest and most important poem. It has suffered varied fortunes at the hands of the critics. Brooke, Dowden, Chesterton, and Herford, however, devote long and important chapters to its discussion, and acknowledge the poet's mastery in his subject. Amid critics friendly and hostile alike, the lawyers' monologues have perhaps suffered more than any other portion of the poem. They have been skipped by the ordinary reader as unmeaning and dull. Few open and intelligent words of defense have been uttered in their behalf. Chesterton puts the matter well (p. 160), “One of the ablest and most sympathetic of all the critics of Browning, Mr. Augustine Birrell, has said in one place that the speeches of the two advocates in The Ring and the Booh will scarcely be very interesting to the ordinary reader. There can be little doubt that the great number of readers of Browning think them beside the mark and adventitious. But it is exceedingly dangerous to say that anything in Browning is irrelevant or unnecessary. … The introduction of them is one of the finest strokes in The Ring and the Book.”