ROBERT BROWNING
 
 A 
 
 BROWNING PRIMER 
 
 BEING 
 A COMPANION TO THE POCKET- VOLUME OF 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM THE POETICAL WORK'S OF 
 ROBER T BRO U '.VAVG 
 
 BY 
 
 ESTHER PHCEBE DEFRIES 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BV 
 
 DR. F. J. F U R X I V A L L 
 
 FOURTH KfT^&M EDITION 
 
 Xonfcon 
 
 S\VAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO 
 
 NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO 
 1894
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION I5Y DR. FURNIVALL - V 
 
 PREFACE -.-- Vll 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE LIFE OF BROWNING I 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF BROWNING'S POETRY - 5 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE POEMS 14 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE - - - -145 
 INDEX 153 
 
 N.B. The Poems are discussed according to their 
 arrangements in the sixteen -volume edition oj 
 r8Sg (Smith, Elder <& Co.), which was re- 
 vised by Browning himself.
 
 tRLF 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE Browning Society always wanted a Shilling 
 Primer to Browning's works; and when a Shilling 
 Selection from those works was promised, the 
 need for a cheap Primer became more urgent. 
 Miss Defries, now Mrs. Leon, kindly undertook 
 to write the Primer, and Messrs. Swan Sonnen- 
 schein & Co. agreed to publish it. 
 
 The selection in the shilling volume is badly 
 made, inasmuch as the careless chooser of the 
 poems has (i) put in several third-rate and un- 
 interesting poems of Browning's, and left out 
 some of his best, like Fro. Lippo, Caliban, Count 
 Gismond, Up at a Villa, Home Thoughts ; and 
 has (2) confused the time-order of the pieces, 
 putting (for instance) Porphyries Lover, of 1836, 
 between two poems of 1855, The Statue and the 
 Bust and Childe Rolande ; and Pisgah Sights, of 
 1849, between two groups of poems of 1876. 
 But the little book does contain some of the 
 poet's most characteristic works, and has intro-
 
 vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 duced him to many thousand readers who knew 
 little or nothing of him before its appearance. 
 Some of these at least will be glad to see the 
 general sketch of Browning and his poems that 
 Mrs. Leon has drawn up. 
 
 For myself, when urging on folk the study of 
 Browning, I always admit his faults, his often 
 failure in moulding his verse, his want of 
 lucidity, his habit of going off at tangents, 
 &c. ; but I insist that for manliness, strength, 
 vividness, penetration, humour, buoyancy, char- 
 acterisation, insight into music and art, he 
 has no equal in modern poetry. He is not 
 for lovers of the commonplace, the pretty, 
 or the sentimental, for drawing-room misses or 
 namby-pamby dawdlers. He is for men and 
 women with the thews of mind and soul which 
 move the world and raise their possessors to the 
 highest level that mortals can attain. He is 
 worthy of the earnest study of all earnest folk ; 
 and to them I commend him. 
 
 F. J. FURNIVALL. 
 21 th October, 1892.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 BEFORE introducing this little book to the public, 
 I should like to thank Dr. Furnivall, who first 
 suggested to me the idea of writing it not 
 only for the idea, but for the kind use he has 
 allowed me of his Browning Bibliography, and 
 of his books. My thanks are also due to the 
 works of Mrs. Orr, Mr. Arthur Symons, Mr. 
 Nettleship, and Mr. Fotheringham, which have 
 been of much service to me. 
 
 This book tries to give a first sketch of 
 Browning's poetry. It is not meant for readers 
 to whom the poems are already familiar, but 
 for those who are as yet unacquainted with 
 them. To such readers critical assistance 
 would be almost premature, and I have in-
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 tentionally preferred to write in the most con- 
 ventional and non-critical spirit, hoping no more 
 than that this book may act as a sign-post to 
 the beauties which are to be found in the poems, 
 and to some slight extent as a guide to the way 
 in which difficulties, which are sometimes over- 
 stated, may be overcome. 
 
 My aim is to induce a few more English men 
 and women to read Browning in a spirit of grati- 
 tude and affection, in order that they may share 
 the pleasure, and perhaps the help, which such 
 reading has given to many besides me. 
 
 E. PH. D.
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE LIFE OF BROWNING. 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING was born at Camberwell, May yth, 
 1812. The mixed nationality of which he comes forms 
 an important and interesting clue to the broadness of his 
 ideas and sympathies. His father's mother was a Creole 
 of St. Kitts ; his mother's mother a Scotchwoman. She 
 married a Scotch-German mariner, William Wiedermann, 
 and of this marriage was born the poet's mother, 
 Sarianna Wiedermann. His father, also Robert Brown- 
 ing, was a clerk in the Bank of England, but the occupa- 
 tion was an uncongenial one, and he determined that his 
 son should follow the bent of his inclinations, whitherso- 
 ever they might lead him. A loveless and unhappy 
 childhood had pre-disposed the elder Browning towards 
 making his children's lives as happy as possible. 
 
 From early childhood Browning displayed a restless, 
 energetic, and eminently sensitive disposition. This last 
 quality he seems to have inherited from his mother, a deli- 
 cate woman of nervous constitution. From her also he 
 derived his love and appreciation of music. His intimate 
 
 A
 
 THE LIFE OF ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 knowledge of animal life and of inanimate nature also 
 began in childhood. At ten years of age he was sent to 
 the Rev. Thomas Ready's school at Peckham, for which 
 he had been prepared by the Misses Ready. He re- 
 mained there until he was fourteen, then for three years 
 studied at home with a tutor, and afterwards went to 
 University College, Gower Street, for a short time. This 
 somewhat unsystematic course of education had compara- 
 tively little influence on his later life, and his extensive 
 knowledge is almost entirely the result of his own exten- 
 sive reading and research. His poetic tendency showed 
 itself while he was very young, an enthusiastic but short- 
 lived admiration for Byron giving place at the age of 
 fourteen to the deep and lasting impression which the 
 works of Keats, and still more of Shelley, made upon 
 him. Popularity, written nearly forty years after, is a 
 tribute to Keats ; while we find evidence of his devotion 
 to Shelley in Pauline, Sordello, Memorabilia, and 
 Cenciaja. His first publication was in 1833, when 
 Pauline appeared anonymously. Two years later Para- 
 celsus appeared, duly signed by its author. About this 
 time Browning was introduced to Macready. Keenly 
 interested in acting and actors, Browning very gladly 
 undertook at Macready's request to write a play for him. 
 Strafford (1837) was the result, and might have proved a 
 success had Miss Helen Faucit and Macready received 
 better support from the rest of the actors ; but the in- 
 ability of the management from lack of funds to mount 
 or cast it properly caused it to be withdrawn after five 
 performances. It is practically impossible to trace the 
 ^growth of Browning's power and genius as the years 
 rolled on, for although The Ping and the Book is justly 
 considered his greatest achievement, yet there is little
 
 THE LIFE OF ROBERT BROWNING. 3 
 
 that excels Pippa Passes, which was written at the age 
 of twenty-nine. The nine years following the production 
 of Stratford saw the publication of Sorddlo and the series 
 of BELLS AND POMEGRANATES, containing the remainder 
 of the plays, DRAMATIC ROMANCES and DRAMATIC 
 LYRICS. In 1844 he made the acquaintance of the 
 poetess Elizabeth Barrett, whose works he already knew 
 and admired, and on September I2th, 1846, they were 
 secretly married. With his marriage came the necessity 
 to live abroad for the benefit of Mrs. Browning's health, 
 and thence sprang the indelible influence which Italy 
 exercised upon his work. In March, 1849, a son was 
 born to them, but joy and sorrow came hand in hand, for 
 Browning's mother died on the day of his son's birth. 
 Browning's devotion to his mother was very great. 
 But in the love of his wife he was comforted for his 
 mother's death, and for twelve more years supreme 
 happiness reigned in the home of the poet husband 
 and wife. In 1861, however, <reath bore away his 
 " perfect wife," leaving him with a life-long grief 
 which would have completely crushed a weaker man. 
 For his son's sake, however, he conquered the gloom 
 which threatened to surround his life, and at once 
 devoted himself to his paternal duties. From this time 
 Browning established himself in London in " the third 
 house by the bridge," 1 No. 19 Warwick Crescent, Maida 
 Hill ; and on the death of their father in 1866, his sister, 
 Miss Sarianna Browning, made her home with him. 
 From 1861 till 1864 he published nothing, but the ap- 
 pearance in 1864 of MEN AND WOMEN proves that he 
 was not idle in the interval. This was followed four 
 
 1 Cf. Hew it Strikes a Contemporary.
 
 4 THE LIFE OF ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 years later (1868-69) by one of the greatest products of 
 English literature, THE RING AND THE BOOK. In June, 
 1867, the University of Oxford conferred the degree of 
 M.A. upon him, and in the following October he was 
 made Honorary Fellow of Balliol College. On the death 
 of Mr. John Stuart Mill in 1868, and again nine years 
 later, he was offered, but on each occasion declined, the 
 Lord Rectorship of the University of St. Andrews. In 
 1879 he received the degree of LL.D. at Cambridge, and 
 in 1882 that of D.C.L. of Oxford. 
 
 In 1887 he moved from Warwick Crescent to De Vere 
 Gardens, Kensington, a house altogether better suited to 
 his requirements. In October of this year Mr. Barrett 
 Browning married, and it was at the house of his dearly 
 loved son and daughter, the Palazzo Rezzonico, Venice, 
 that in 1889 the poet " passed to where beyond these 
 voices there is peace."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF BROWNING'S POETRY. 
 
 RELIGION. " God's in his heaven 
 
 All's right with the world ! " 
 
 THESE simple words, put into the mouth of the little 
 peasant-girl Pippa, may fairly be said to strike the 
 key-note of Browning's faith. His religion was un- 
 doubtedly Christianity, though it appears to a great extent 
 to verge on Theism, and, but for his wife's influence, 
 \night possibly have become so. As it was, however, 
 he accepted in the broad sense the ideal spirit of Chris- 
 tianity, and in strength and sympathy he has interpreted 
 its spiritual and human depths. He was a man of much 
 faith. He had faith in God, His love and power, and 
 with this primary faith he included faith in friendship 
 and human love, faith in high ideals, faith in the great 
 principles of Art and Science, and he held that this 
 comprehensive faith had its use and even its origin 
 in the conflict of good with evil in man's soul. Brown- 
 ing depicts these conflicts vividly, often letting evil gain 
 the apparent mastery, but invariably showing that faith 
 rightly used would have been capable of reversing the vic- 
 tory. He rejected all certainty in religious dogma, and 
 only believed in Christ as a Divine mystery, not as a definite 
 fact about which all that can be known is known. He felt 
 that if religion can be definitely asserted in a cut-and-di ied 
 5
 
 6 CHARACTERISTICS OF BROWNING'S POETRY. 
 
 form for all time, pi ogress in spiritual life must ei:d, and 
 stagnation ensue. It was his belief that spiritual life 
 needs uncertainty to develop it, and forbids any sense of 
 finality. Love and self-sacrifice for God and man form 
 the sole channel through which humanity can reach the 
 Deity, although his creed invested the Deity himself 
 with no human emotions. He believed that life does 
 not cease with what we know as death, but how or in 
 what changed form it continues to exist he felt was 
 the Divine mystery. His almost prophetic belief in this 
 after-life was, moreover, not so much the result of blind, 
 unthinking faith, as of logical reasoning, based upon the 
 mainspring of his life love. I le could not explain, but yet 
 felt, the need of loving and of being loved, and it is from 
 this strong religion of love that his world-wide sympathies 
 spring. They are not derived from the mere scientific 
 interest of a psychologist, but from the genuine belief 
 that all men are brothers, and form with him the great 
 family of God. It is in this self-same spirit that Brown- 
 ing exhibits his sympathy for other religions. No better 
 -ion of religious toleration can be found than his 
 denunciation in Holy Cross Day of Jewish perse- 
 cutions, together with the poet's own prose comment 
 at the end, "The present Pope abolished this bad 
 business of the sermon. R.B." As for his feelings 
 towards Roman Catholicism, we know that Browning 
 treated the subject in such a way as to win a favourable 
 icview from Cardinal Wiseman, who is said to have been 
 the original of "Bishop Blougram." As the poet 
 grew older he rejected more and more all forms and 
 restrictions of religious belief, but it is remarkable that 
 throughout all variations of style, subject, and quality, the 
 faith to which we have alluded consistently permeates his
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF BROWNING'S POETRY. 7 
 
 work from his earliest fragment to his latest epilogue. 
 Perhaps the most nearly absolute confession of his form of 
 faith occurs in La, Saisiaz, but the consistency of his deep 
 and unvarying trust in good and God may be illustrated by 
 the following quotations from (i) Prospice (Dram. Pers. 
 1864), and from (2) the Epilogue to ASOLANDO, his latest 
 volume. 
 
 (1) " For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, 
 
 The black minute's at end, 
 
 And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, 
 
 Shall dwindle, shall blend, 
 
 Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, 
 
 Then a light, then thy breast, 
 
 O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again 
 
 And with God be the rest !" 
 
 (2) " One who never turned his back but marched breast 
 
 forward, 
 
 Never doubted clouds would break, 
 
 Never dreamed, though right was worsted, wrong 
 would triumph, 
 
 Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
 
 Sleep to wake." 
 
 SUBJECT. Browning has, out of the many subjects 
 open to poetic treatment, deliberately chosen for his 
 own the human soul. In a note dedicating Sordello to 
 
 Mr. J. Milsand of Dijon, he writes, " my 
 
 stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul : 
 little else is worth study. I at least always thought so." 
 Everywhere all other interests are subordinated to the 
 human. Man has been created with innumerable possi- 
 bilities in his soul ; according to Browning the poet's 
 mission is the development of these possibilities in indi-
 
 8 CHARACTERISTICS OF BROWNING'S POETRY. 
 
 vidual men and women in all the conditions and circum- 
 stances of life. The necessary consequence of dealing with 
 so difficult a subject is that the resulting poetry cannot be 
 carelessly read, and Browning protests against the use of 
 his poetry as a substitute for a cigar after dinner. Brown- 
 ing believed that the individual soul is of all-importance 
 in the plan of life ; that the final value and result of life is 
 found, not in outward action, but within ourselves. In 
 pursuance of this belief he shows us the emotions and 
 motives of the soul, instead of the action to which these 
 lead. He takes a human soul, apparently possessing in 
 itself but little interest, and invests it with interest by 
 placing it in some critical situation where a single step 
 towards good or evil will decide its ultimate fate. Then 
 he proceeds to analyse each conflicting emotion in 
 such a way that the final result seems the only natural 
 and possible one. It is this result which gives to his 
 dramas their special character. They are, to a great 
 extent, dramas of thought, not of action. Their chief 
 interest lies in the emotions which they present, not in the 
 events which occur. Browning accordingly makes very 
 frequent use of monologue. He makes the character un- 
 der dissection explain itself. In some cases deliberately, 
 and in others unconsciously, it reveals its very inmost soul, 
 so that we realise the fitness of all that had at first seemed 
 incongruous. No writer has made so constant or better 
 use of monologue. He employs it both in his dramas 
 and his shorter poems. 
 
 PAINTING AND Music. Although Browning's life 
 was given up to poetry, he did not allow his knowledge 
 of music and art to be idle. Browning stands acknow- 
 ledged as the poet of painting and of music. He was
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF BROWNING'S POETRY. Q 
 
 the first among poets to interpret the hidden depths 
 of art and its spiritual relation to humanity. He speaks 
 not as the poet dwelling on an unfamiliar theme, but as 
 the artisf himself might speak, could he express his inmost 
 soul in verse. In the poems on plastic art, no less than 
 in those on mu>ic, he shows a technical knowledge that is 
 surprising. But he has done more than this ; he traces, 
 and makes his readers feel, a relation between the soul of 
 man and the soul of music, and he interprets the effects 
 of music on the emotions in words which have never been 
 excelled. It may be taken that he considered music 
 as the highest art 
 
 STYLE. Coming to his technical achievements, \\u 
 cannot fail to be impressed by Browning's remarkable 
 power of rhyme as well as of variety in versification. No 
 poet more clearly shows the spirit by the metrical rhythm 
 of the lines. The mere arrangement of the words calls 
 up a striking picture, so striking indeed that it could in >t 
 be re-produced in painting or sculpture ; no art but the 
 words themselves could bring the picture so vividly before 
 us. Browning excels most other poets in this power of 
 word-painting. As a rule, a good description of external 
 objects is improved by a good illustration, or at least such 
 illustration is possible ; but the artist would labour in vain 
 who tried to depict on canvas the actual scene which 
 Browning has described to us. If any artist doubts the 
 truth of this, let him try for himself to present the sky as 
 described in Easter Day, the poet as portrayed in How 
 it Strikes a Contemporary. This power of allying sound 
 with sense is very noticeable in How they brought the 
 Good News from Ghent to Aix. The words seem, as it 
 were, tumbling over each other in the haste and excite-
 
 10 CHARACTERISTICS OF BROWNING'S POETRY. 
 
 ment to reach a climax, and few can read the poem with- 
 out feeling breathless at the end of it Equally forcible 
 is the calm and solemn atmosphere we breathe in Evdyn 
 Hope; the pathos of a child's death rather than awe 
 at the death of an active worker. 
 
 Another, perhaps the most striking feature of Brown- 
 ing's work, is the robustness which characterises the 
 matter of his poems, and which appears in an equally 
 marked degree in their form. They present a note- 
 worthy illustration of "mens sana in corpore sano." His 
 clear, strong, energetic mind, unhampered by ill-health, 
 seems to grasp the actual significance of man's life ; and 
 his deep sympathy with all that is real in man enables 
 him to transmit the feeling of reality to all his works. 
 Throughout there is nothing morbid, nothing weak, and 
 little that is vague. He not only seems thoroughly alive 
 and vigorous himself, but he endows with actual life and 
 vigour every character which he introduces. 
 
 His power of description is keen, but this, like every- 
 thing else, is kept in subordination to the study of soul 
 the study which was the aim of Browning's life, and for 
 the sake of which he chose poetry as his vocation. His 
 capabilities would have fitted him equally well for a 
 musician or a painter, but his choice fell once for all on 
 poetry, as dealing more closely with human interests. 
 In this study of the lives of men his vast sympathies led 
 him to treat of innumerable varieties of periods, places, and 
 people. Whether he deals with ancient, mediaeval, or 
 modern subjects, the liberality of moral range is as great 
 as the variety of type ; and, belonging to a time when 
 scientific research is far-reaching, keen, and critical as to 
 the history of life, Browning is equally far-reaching, keen, 
 and critical in his research for all the facts and details of
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF BROWNING'S POETRY, n 
 
 the life of the soul. His wide scope of subject is invariably 
 bound up with a wide extent of knowledge. He was in every 
 sense a scholar, and his minute knowledge of animate 
 and inanimate life add greatly to the vividness and force 
 of his poetry. 
 
 OBSCURITY. Before we turn to consider the poems in 
 detail, another point arrests our attention. It is the ever- 
 repeated charge of obscurity which the critical and un- 
 critical alike bring against Browning. In some cases the 
 charge must be admitted. At the same time the accusation 
 is often brought by those who attempt to glance through his 
 works as a mere relaxation and pastime. The full en- 
 joyment, however, of Browning, as of Shakespeare, cannot 
 be had without study, and the thinking powers of his 
 readers are specially called into use by his poetry. Per- 
 haps Browning cared too little for popularity. Believing, 
 as he did, that only the motives of life are seriously of 
 consequence, and again that every failure is but a step 
 to success, he would not be discouraged. In a preface to 
 Stratford (1837) he writes: "While a trifling success 
 would much gratify, failure will not wholly discourage me 
 from another effort : experience is to come, and earnest 
 endeavour may yet remove many disadvantages." In a 
 later preface, that to Sorddlo (1863), he acknowledges 
 with commendable modesty such shortcomings as may 
 have provoked hostile criticism. " My own faults of 
 expression were many ; but with care for a man or book 
 such would be surmounted, and without it, what avails 
 the faultlessness of either ? " In his determination neither 
 to sacrifice sense to sound, nor fact to form, and to use no 
 superfluous words which might weaken the force of his 
 meaning, Browning perhaps went to the other extreme, and
 
 12 CHARACTERISTICS OF BROWNING'S POETRY. 
 
 acquired to excess the habit of condensation, of nigged and 
 abrupt expression, and so defeated his own ends. But if 
 this be occasionally true, it is nevertheless the exception 
 rather than the rule. It is true that with the character- 
 istic modesty before referred to, he often ignored the fact 
 that his own intellect was superior to that of his readers. 
 Realising that his own clear mind could retain the original 
 thread of the subject, while he went off at a tangent, and 
 devoted a page or two to some subordinate topic which 
 he had touched on in passing, and which had started a 
 new train of ideas, he forgot that his readers could not 
 keep pace with such a digression. In this way his intel- 
 lect sometimes not only renders him liable to the charge 
 of obscurity, but substantially interferes with his dramatic 
 effect There is, however, very little of his poetry from 
 which a second reading does not lift the veil that at first 
 conceals from our eyes the beauty and the truth that it 
 contains. 
 
 In reading passages in Browning which at first sight 
 seem difficult, it is well to remember that apparently he 
 makes a practice of setting down his thoughts almost in 
 the precise words in which he thinks them. This means, 
 not only that the reader must supply the minor words 
 necessary to the strict expression of the thought, a task 
 not difficult, if he remembers that he is free to do it, but 
 also that he must put up with many phrases and con- 
 structions which would not be habitual in a writer whose 
 reading was less wide and less completely absorbed than 
 Browning's was. A reader is also liable to try to read 
 more into the lines than the plain sense ; and that is a 
 very great mistake with Browning, who is seldom mystical. 
 His wife well describes the spirit in which such works 
 should be read :
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF BROWNING'S POETRY. 13 
 
 " We get no good 
 
 By being ungenerous, even to a book, 
 And calculating profits, so much help 
 By so much reading. It is rather when 
 We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge 
 Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound, 
 Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth 
 'Tis then we get the right good from a book."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE POEMS. 
 
 VOL. I. Pauline, 1833, written when the poet was only 
 twenty, is a fragment of the confession of a poet to his 
 lady-love. It serves as a sort of introduction tc the 
 characteristics of Browning's later work notably his 
 religious fervour, his knowledge of the Greek classics, 
 his love of music and the Fine Arts, and his keen 
 power of analysis of the human mind. It is also 
 distinct from the other love poems, inasmuch as the 
 lover's interest is centred in himself. Pauline is a 
 monologue, utterly devoid of action, describing the 
 various phases of a lover's mind. It is evident through- 
 out his confession that Pauline's lover is a man with 
 noble thoughts and a vast spiritual ambition, but with- 
 out the energy necessary to the realisation of his 
 longings. Immeasurably self-conscious and morbid, he 
 has spent his time in dreaming of high ideals instead 
 of labouring to attain them. From his self-accusations it 
 seems as if morbid introspection had given place to a 
 reaction of wild and evil behaviour, which included even 
 temporary faithlessness to Pauline. His better nature, 
 however, at last re-asserts itself and leads him back to 
 Pauline, in whose never-failing love he at last finds peace. 
 14
 
 THE POEMS. 15 
 
 The poem contains frequent reference to Browning's love 
 and admiration for Shelley, whom he idealises throughout 
 as the " Suntreader. " 
 
 In Bordello, 1840, Browning has traced the development 
 of a poet's soul among the discordant elements of mediaeval 
 Italy. The historical episodes serve as a mere background 
 to this study of soul. The Guelfs, the party supporting the 
 ascendancy of the Pope, struggle for supremacy with the 
 Ghibellines, who are led by the Emperor Frederick. 
 Sordello first appears as a dreamy youth living in the 
 castle of Goito, under the protection of Ecelin Romano, 
 one of the chief leaders on the Emperor's side. All that 
 is known of Bordello's birth is, that he is reported to be 
 the child of a poor archer who had saved the life of 
 Ecelin's wife and child. Out of gratitude, Ecelin and his 
 wife, Adelaide of Este, have brought up the orphan, 
 Sordello. The years which he passes at Goito have 
 brought forth great events in the world. Ecelin has 
 grown old and retired from active service, and his son is 
 not capable of replacing him. The chief burden of the 
 Ghibelline cause rests on Taurello Salinguerra, a brave 
 and chivalrous soldier who carries all before him. The 
 Guelfs are utterly routed, and great rejoicings take place 
 at Mantua. Hither comes Sordello to compete in song 
 with other troubadours. He is triumphant and is pro- 
 claimed poet to the Lady Palma of Este, daughter of 
 Ecelin, by his first wife, Agnes of Este. In Lady Palma 
 he sees his fate. His love is returned, but, unfortunately, 
 she is not free to choose, for her friends intend her to 
 marry Count Richard Bonifacio. He is a Guelf whom it 
 is very desirable to attach firmly to the Pope, while Sor- 
 dello is nameless and a Ghibelline. But under Palma's 
 influence. Bordello's views undergo a change, and he
 
 1 6 THE POEMS. 
 
 then becomes only anxious that the great soldier Taurello 
 shall change with him from the Emperor's to the Pope's 
 side. 
 
 While he is vainly endeavouring to achieve this, the 
 discovery is made that Sordello is not the child of a poor 
 archer, but of Taurello himself. The secret was known 
 to Adelaide of Este, but she kept silence from fear of 
 rivalry between Sordello and her own son, and she is 
 now dead. Taurello rejoices that this famous poet should 
 be no other than his son, and sets before him the grandest 
 of careers, on condition that he shall reject his new Guelf 
 ideas, and remain a Ghibelline. In the event of his con- 
 senting to this, Taurello promises that he shall marry 
 Palma, and shall succeed to the command of the Ghibel- 
 line party. After long and earnest debate, in which 
 temptation presses sorely, Sordello decides to yield to the 
 dictates of his conscience, and to renounce all hope of 
 Palma and happiness. But the severe mental strain 
 has been too much for the fragile, sensitive poet, 
 and when Taurello returns for his reply, bringing 
 Palma with him, they find Sordello dead, and the 
 badge, which would have proclaimed his future 
 happiness and infidelity, trampled under foot. The 
 rest of the poem dwells upon Taurello's later life and 
 exploits. 
 
 Although Sordello is undoubtedly the most difficult of 
 all Browning's works, it contains much that is well worth 
 the careful study which is necessary to the comprehension 
 of the whole. The digression in the third book, although 
 it seems out of place there, coming as it does at the crisis 
 of Sordello's life, is, nevertheless, interesting in itself as 
 setting forth many important ideas and aims of Brown- 
 ing's work.
 
 THE POEMS. t; 
 
 VOL. II. ParoedttU, 1835, is an account sufficiently 
 idealised for the purposes of poetry of the great doctor- 
 quack of the sixteenth century. The details of his life 
 are exactly followed, and side by side with these Brown- 
 ing has endeavoured to portray the probable inner life of 
 the man, with his cleverness, his intolerance, and his 
 ambition. The poem is divided into five scenes, each 
 showing a crisis in Paracelsus' life. Three minor char- 
 acters are introduced Festus and his wife Michal to re- 
 present the simply human element ; and Aprile, an 
 Italian poet, who is a type of the power of Love, just as 
 Paracelsus is a type of the power of Knowledge. Both 
 are unregulated powers, neither complete without the 
 other, and neither therefore realising success. 
 
 The first scene, Paracelsus Aspires, takes place at 
 \Viirzburg on the eve of Paracelsus' departure from the 
 home which, until then, he had shared with Festus and 
 Michal. Both of these endeavour to dissuade him from 
 the solitary path he has chosen, and this leads Paracelsus 
 to explain and defend his aims. He believes it to be his 
 mission to acquire knowledge such knowledge as will 
 benefit mankind, but he feels that he can only acquire 
 it through hiiherto untried methods, and at the sacri- 
 fice of human joys. Festus regards this as a delusion, 
 and tries to combat it with arguments of common 
 sense. Paracelsus, however, overrules them, and de- 
 clares 
 
 " I go to prove my soul ! 
 I see my way as birds their trackless way. 
 I shall arrive ! w hat time, what circuit first, 
 I ask not : but unless God send his hail 
 Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow, 
 
 B
 
 1 8 THE POEMS. 
 
 In some time, his good time, I shall arrive : 
 
 He guides me and the bird. In his good time !" 
 
 Festus answers that the path of knowledge is not track- 
 less. There are footprints left by the great men gone 
 before. Nature has written her secrets, not in desert 
 places, but in the souls of men such men as the 
 Stagirite, 1 and many more. He urges Paracelsus to first 
 learn what they can teach, and then go farther on the 
 same path. He warns him earnestly against personal 
 ambition which will corrupt his unselfish thirst for know- 
 ledge, against the presumption which will lead him to 
 serve God in other than the appointed way, and equally 
 against the dangers of a course which will cut him off 
 from human love. But Paracelsus has his answer ready. 
 The wisdom of the past has done nothing for mankind. 
 Men have laboured and grown famous, but the evils of 
 earth are unabated. Truth comes from within our- 
 selves, and to know is to have opened a door to let truth 
 out, not to admit it. The force which inspires him 
 proves that his mission comes from a higher power. 
 His own will could not create such promptings, and 
 he dares not set them aside. The depth of his convic- 
 tions carries the day, and the scene closes with the 
 avowal from both Festus and Michal, that they have 
 faith in him. 
 
 The second scene, Paracelsus Attains, takes place 
 nine years later, in the house of a Greek conjuror at Con- 
 stantinople. Here we find Paracelsus reviewing his past 
 life and writing an account of it at the bidding of the 
 
 1 Aristotle.
 
 THE POEMS. 19 
 
 conjuror, by whose help he is now hoping to learn the 
 secret which these nine years have failed to teach him. 
 Even while he seeks such help, he realises how low he 
 has sunk since God's help no longer suffices him, and he 
 is willing to receive a mere conjuror's help instead. As 
 he sits wrapped in thought, the idea flashes through 
 his brain that he may be going mad, and he prays long 
 and fervently against such punishment. Ending this 
 prayer, he hears from within the voice of Aprile, an 
 Italian poet, singing a song of those who have failed 
 b-fore, and who are lost With the last words of the 
 song, Aprile enters. He is one of those who have failed, 
 and his fate unconsciously teaches Paracelsus one great 
 reason of his own failure. Aprile relates how he has 
 loved and sought love with endless passion, caring for 
 nothing else. He explains that his love included not 
 alone human love, but love of all things beautiful in Art 
 and Nature, and how he longed to give this beauty to 
 man. But he feels at last how in striving after this he 
 has wasted his powers and his life, and has lived in utter 
 selfishness, because he has not tried to create any of this 
 beauty, but merely to possess it. Now this vain remorse 
 comes too late. The hand of death is heavy on him, and 
 almost with the last words of his confession, Aprile dies. 
 His story, however, has taught Paracelsus the lesson that 
 he must use his knowledge in love for men, and must 
 not neglect such immediate service to follow a vague 
 ideal passion. 
 
 The third scene, Paracelsus, occurs five years later at 
 Basle, where Festus has come to visit his friend for the 
 first time during the fourteen years which have passed 
 since he set out on his quest. Paracelsus is now at the 
 height of his fame as a professor of medicine at Basle.
 
 30 THE POEMS. 
 
 Festus had been present at his lecture that morning, and 
 had seen how largely it was attended, and he now en- 
 thusiastically tells Paracelsus how he glories in his success. 
 Then Paracelsus owns the truth. His apparent success 
 is mere outward show : inwardly, in his own heart, he 
 has failed, for he is no nearer the truth than when he 
 started ; and, indeed, he has learnt to be content with 
 lower aims. He is very bitter in his self-reproach, and 
 it is now Festus's turn to encourage him : but Festus's 
 very love only adds to the despair that overwhelms him, 
 which he pathetically expresses thus 
 
 " No, no : 
 
 Love, hope, fear, faith these make humanity ; 
 These are its sign and note and character, 
 And these I have lost ! " 
 
 In the fourth scene, Paracelsus Aspires once more. 
 It is two years since the night at Basle when he opened his 
 heart to Festus, and he is now at Colmar. He has be'en 
 driven ignominiously from Basle as an " egregious cheat," 
 and he now sends for Festus, and tells him of that and of 
 his future plans and aspirations. These aspirations have 
 become very complex and hard to understand, and despite 
 his somewhat softened manner it is evident that he has 
 greatly deteriorated, and we cannot but feel that from this 
 downward path there will be no return. Festus feels this 
 too, but still he is more hopeful of Paracelsus' future, since 
 he now seems nearer to human love, and this hope seems 
 justified by the profoundly touching manner in which, on 
 hearing of Michal's death, Paracelsus forgets his personal 
 griefs to comfort Festus.
 
 THE POEMS. 21 
 
 The last scene of all, Paracelsus Attains, takes place 
 in the hospital at Salzburg, thirteen years later. 
 
 Paracelsus lies dying. His faithful Festus is watching 
 beside him in love, grief, and prayer. Paracelsus is deliri- 
 ous, and dreams of the poet Aprile. He has heard Aprile 
 all night singing in Paradise, and in his pardon Paiacelsus 
 feels his own. Wild words follow about his past life ; 
 then he dreams about Apiile and Michal together, and 
 struggles to keep near to them and to love. Then, half- 
 conscious, he prays for his old power, for full attainment 
 of his aims, and for Divine approval ; and as he realises 
 that such things cannot be in this world, he feels absolute 
 faith that there must be a world to come. Then his mind 
 wanders again, but at last Festus succeeds in rousing him 
 to full consciousness, and he then sums up the whole of 
 his past life, and the lessons it should teach, in a wonder- 
 ful, prophetic death-bed vision. 
 
 Apart from its strong psychological interest, this 
 poem serves as a sort of index to Browning's ideas and 
 faith more fully developed in his later work, and is 
 in many parts eloquent and musical. The song, " Over 
 the sea our galleys went," is one of the finest lyrics in 
 the English language. 
 
 Strafford, 1837, an Historical Tragedy, as it is called, 
 presents less interest from the historical than from the 
 simply human point of view. The histoiical events of the 
 time are for the most part merely referred to, and those 
 which are actually set before us serve simply as so many 
 pegs on which the poet chooses to hang the touching pic- 
 ture of Strafford's devotion to the person of the king. 
 This devotion is the more remarkable because it is obvious 
 that it is simply love for Charles, not sympathy with his 
 cause, which actuates Strafford throughout. Browning
 
 22 THE POEMS. 
 
 has entirely discarded the usual halo with which it is usual 
 to surround Charles I., and he appears before us as mean 
 and despicable a character as the Roundheads themselves 
 coiill have desired. His treachery nnd vacillation, how- 
 ever, form a convenient foil to Strafford, with his perfect 
 loyalty which no amount of deceit nor the fear of death 
 can shake. He is true to the end, and with his dying words 
 thanks God that, since Charles too must die, he is at least 
 spared the pain of outliving him. Pym, with his passion- 
 ate devotion to the ideal of England which he cherished, is 
 also an interesting character, more especially when his 
 love for his old friend Strafford struggles with and is 
 overthrown by his sense of duty to his country. His fare- 
 well speech to Strafford, expressing the confident hope that 
 they will meet hereafter when Strafford's sin of desertion 
 shall have been pardoned, is veiy touching. The imaginary 
 character of Lady Carlisle, with her silent love for Strafford, 
 whom she all but saves, is the picture of a true woman. 
 
 VOL. III. Pippa Passes, 1841, although frequently in- 
 cluded under the head of the dramas, is not entirely a 
 play, though it contains as true a dramatic spirit as any- 
 thing Browning has written. It consists of a series of 
 dramatic scenes connected by one central, poetical idea. 
 The idea is that of the unconscious influence which even 
 the humblest of God's creatures may exercise over the lives 
 around it Incidentally it shows how impossible it is for 
 one human being to estimate the actual life and happiness 
 of a fellow-creature. The simple picture of the happy 
 little silk -girl, Pippa, who, by her singing, unconsciously 
 carries God's message to the hearts of those she supposed 
 the happiest in Asolo, is in exquisite relief to the per- 
 plexities depicted in the four principal scenes. The
 
 THE POEMS. 23 
 
 first of these shows us Ottima, who has murdered her 
 husband that she may the more freely enjoy the guilty 
 love of Sebald, her confederate in the crime. Her para- 
 mour, however, now that the deed is done, lacks courage 
 to enjoy the fruits of it. Ottima, on the contrary, gloats 
 over and glories in her crime, and has almost succeeded 
 in silencing Sebald's remorse, when Pippa passes singing. 
 Her song, with its simple refrain, 
 
 " God's in his heaven 
 All's right with the world," 
 
 awakens his almost sleeping conscience. He heaps re- 
 proaches and abuse on his accomplice, and in an ac- 
 cess of remorse and despair kills himself, while 
 Ottima bursts forth into a cry of passionate and un- 
 changed love for him. In this one scene is concen- 
 trated a whole tragedy of the most powerful kind. A few 
 lines depict with startling vividness the two characters 
 Ottima, strong, passionate, and determined, and Sebald, 
 weak, vacillating, and remorseful. Pippa passes on, and 
 we come to an Interlude, which serves as a connecting 
 link with the rest of the poem. This is the "Talk by the 
 Way " of a group of students who have played a practical 
 joke on their comrade, Jules, by which he is made to be- 
 lieve that he has married a lady of birth who has admired 
 his work. In the episode following, Jules has just re- 
 turned with his bride from the church ; in reply to his 
 endearing words she recites to him scoffing verses dictated 
 to her by his jealous fellow-students, from which he learns 
 the truth that his wife is only a sculptor's model and the 
 creature of an infamous woman. While his anger is at its 
 height he hears the voice of Pippa singing on her way; his 
 heart is filled with pity for his wife, Phene, who loves him so
 
 24 THE POF.M^. 
 
 will, and he determines that he will take her far away from 
 all who knew them here, and that henceforward he will live 
 for her and Art alone. Special interest attaches to this 
 scene because it contains one of the earliest of Browning's 
 dissertations upon Art. Pippa next passes the house of 
 Luigi, a young patriot, whose mother is trying to dis- 
 suade him from the murder of the Austrian tyrant. Just 
 as she seems about to gain her point, Pippa passes, and her 
 song so rouses Luigi's latent patriotism that he starts on 
 his mission at once, and thus escapes being arrested. 
 
 Last of all, Pippa passes by the Bishop's palace while 
 he is discussing a plan with his Intendant by which they 
 can make away with Pippa, who, we now learn, is the 
 daughter of the Bishop's dead brother, at whose murder 
 both the Bishop and his Intendant had connived. As 
 the sound of Pippa's song reaches them, the Bishop's 
 better self prevails and he orders the Intendant's arrest. 
 
 All unconscious of the wonders she has wrought, Pippa 
 returns home still singing, and wondering vaguely 
 whether it could ever be possible that her life should in 
 any way influence the lives of the great people about 
 whom she has been dreaming all day. 
 
 King Victor and King Charles, 1842, is an historical 
 tragedy based on the abdication of King Victor the 
 Second, first king of Sardinia, in favour of his son Charles, 
 for whom he had previously shown no affection whatever. 
 His probable motive for abdication Browning assumes to 
 have been the desire to bring about certain projects un- 
 popular to the nation. His son, he imagined, would 
 naturally defer to the father who so nobly yielded up tlu- 
 ^crown to him, and thus he would be able to execute ia- 
 desires while he escaped the ill-favour which would ui-ue 
 from them. Charles, however, in great measure owing
 
 THE POEMS. 25 
 
 to Polyxena his wife, was less compliant than his father 
 wished. A year after his abdication, Victor, finding that 
 his schemes have not so progressed, returns to demand 
 the restitution of his crown. It appears to Charles, how- 
 ever, that such restitution now would be mere desertion 
 of his post, for the improvements throughout the land 
 since his rule began are very obvious. He therefore 
 refuses, and Victor at once sets about raising an army to 
 recover his crown by force. By the vigilance of the 
 minister d'Ormea, however, he is arrested and brought 
 back to Charles as a prisoner. Horror at the idea of 
 keeping his father captive induces Charles to condemn 
 d'Ormea's interference, and to acknowledge Victor as 
 king. This proves, however, to be a mere matter of 
 form, for it is soon evident that Victor is a dying man. 
 His death, immediately after his re-installation to the 
 throne, is the only point in the play which is not ab- 
 solutely historical. In reality he survived a year in a 
 state of semi-insanity. Polyxena is a fine study of a 
 strong, right-minded woman, clear-sighted through her 
 great love, and thus able to see alike through Victor's 
 wiles and the time-serving devotion of d'Ormea, and so 
 to help her husband to withstand them. 
 
 The Return of the Druses, 1843, is a tragedy in five 
 acts, enveloped in the romance and mystery of the East. 
 The scene is laid in the fifteenth century, in an island of 
 the South Sporades, inhabited by Druses of Lebanon, 
 and garrisoned by the Knights-Hospitallers of Rhodes. 
 The plot is elaborate for Browning, and throughout 
 the tragedy there runs an intense active excitement 
 which is highly dramatic. The play turns on the 
 passionate desire of a Druse chief, Djabal, to free 
 his nation from the tyranny of the Christian Prefect
 
 26 THE POEMS. 
 
 under which they groan. But the people fear that re- 
 sistance will only provoke worse treatment, and they be- 
 lieve that deliverance can only be achieved by the return 
 to earth of a Druse divinity, Hakeem. Djabal has over- 
 heard Anael, a maiden of the tribe, declare that she will 
 love only one who saves her people, and partly in order 
 to gain her love, and almost in self-deception, he has pro- 
 claimed himself Hakeem. He has been received with 
 implicit faith, and the action of the play takes place on 
 the very day on which he stands pledged to slay the 
 Prefect, to exalt himself, and to appear before the tribe no 
 longer Djabal, but Hakeem. Anael alone secretly doubts 
 his divinity, and, overwhelmed with shame at such doubt, 
 she resolves that she will herself slay the Prefect, and 
 thus prove to herself not less than to Djabal (who, as 
 Hakeem, must already know her unworthiness) her re- 
 stored faith in him. Had they but known, help was 
 already at hand without need of murder. Loys, a Chris- 
 tian knight-novice, whom Djabal had sent to Rhodes for 
 safety from the massacre which was imminent, had used 
 his absence to such purpose, that he returned that day to 
 announce the deposition of the tyrant Prefect, whose 
 place he was more worthily to fill. The state of excite- 
 ment in which he found the isle induced him to delay his 
 news until the Pope's Nuncio should arrive and formally 
 instal him. Ignorant of this, however, Anael slays the 
 Prefect, and when Djabal comes prepared to do the deed 
 himself, he finds no Prefect, but Anael, pale and trem- 
 bling, with a blood-stained dagger in her hands. Horror- 
 stricken at the result of his deception, Djabal reveals his 
 imposture to her. Anael, incredulous at first, slowly 
 grasps the truth, and, while retaining her love for him, 
 urges his confession to the tribe. He refuses, and with a
 
 THE POEMS. 27 
 
 passionate outburst of scorn she leaves him, seeks the 
 Nuncio, and denounces Djabal as an impostor. The 
 Nuncio uses Anael's accusation, to which he adds the 
 charge of the Prefect's murder, to try and weaken Djabal's 
 influence with the Druses, for he fears that, being a Chris- 
 tian and delegate of the Church, he may also share and 
 suffer from the hatred against the late Prefect. His elo- 
 quence is such that the Druses seem to waver in their 
 allegiance, and the Nuncio at once orders Djabal to be 
 brought before them, and repeats his accusations to his 
 face. Djabal challenges him to name one Druse who 
 accuses him, and Anael is brought in veiled. No one 
 recognises her, and the veil is indignantly torn from her 
 by Khalil, her brother and Djabal's most faithful adher- 
 ent. When he sees who his accuser is, Djabal, bowed 
 with shame and remorse, yet feeling that his punishment 
 is just, calls upon Anael to pronounce his doom. But 
 the full tide of her love returns upon Anael. She utters 
 one cry, the acclamation " Hakeem ! " and falls dead at 
 his feet. The Druses think that his wrath has killed her, 
 and at once fall down in worship. At the same moment 
 the sound is heard of the trumpet announcing help from 
 Venice. Thus assured of the speedy deliverance of his 
 .people, Djabal stabs himself over Anael's body, and so, 
 through her sacrifice of truth to love, he remains for ever 
 Hakeem to the Druses. 
 
 It is frequently alleged that Browning has not suffici- 
 ently accounted for Anael's death, but it is a well-known 
 fact that people have died ere now from the effect of a 
 great shock, and it seems scarcely strange that the horror 
 of a pure-minded and hitherto innocent girl at suddenly 
 finding herself transformed into a murderess, the grief 
 and shame at her lover's imposture, and the supreme
 
 28 THE POKMS. 
 
 effort by which she herself supported it, should combine 
 to kill her. 
 
 A Soul's Tragedy (1846). In this, as the title sug- 
 gests, the inner drama presents the greatest interest, 
 although it is set in a background of distinctly interesting 
 action. The first act, " being the poetry of Chiappino's 
 life," shows his apparent nobleness and devotion to his 
 friend Luitolfo, who, in anger at the unjust sentence of 
 exile which had been passed on Chiappino, has stabbed 
 and he believes murdered the Provost. Luitolfo, dazed 
 with terror, and thinking that the Provost's guards are 
 after him, accepts Chiappino's offer of escape and leaves 
 him to meet the guards. The next moment proves that it 
 is a crowd of the populace who are approaching ; the 
 murder has acted as a signal for revolt, and with cheers and 
 joy the people come to hail the murderer as their saviour. 
 Chiappino accepts the position without a thought, though 
 honour requires him to disclose that Luitolfo, and not he, 
 had done the deed. In this begins the tragedy of the ruin 
 of his soul. The second part, " being the prose of Chiap- 
 pino's life," shows the further deterioration of his moral 
 character, and ends with his exposure by the Pope's 
 Legate, who leads him on, with the hope of being made 
 Provost himself, to change his politics and principles, and 
 abandon the duties of friendship. Having made him re- 
 veal his own baseness, the Legate proceeds to hold him up 
 to the scorn which he deserves, and finally completes his 
 discomfiture by announcing that the Provost had not 
 been killed but only wounded. Luitolfo is therefore able 
 to return to the city, which Chiappino as promptly 
 leaves. 
 
 The prose is admirably written, and is as forcible and 
 concise as the poetry.
 
 THE POEMS. 29 
 
 VOL. IV. A Blot on the 'Scutcheon (1843), the 
 simplest of all the plays, is at once the most pathetic and 
 most human. Every gentle feeling of love and pity is 
 awakened for the child-like, tender Mildred Tresham, 
 who drifted into sin almost from very innocence, and 
 whose one heart-rending cry is, "I had no mother, God 
 forgot me, and I fell ; " while reverence deep and true 
 is aroused for Guendolen, Mildred's cousin and true 
 friend, who in the early scenes furnishes the brightness 
 and gaiety of the play, but who in time of trouble proves 
 the depth of her love and loyalty. The character of Mil- 
 dred's lover, Lord Henry Mertoun, presents a touching 
 sketch of boyish weakness and devoted love, on the verge 
 of developing into manly resolution. The central figure 
 of the play is, however, Thorold, Lord Tresham, with 
 his overweening pride in the honour of his house, tem- 
 pered only by a passionate love for the sister to whom he 
 has stood for both father and mother. Unspeakably 
 touching is the scene in the second act, where, after first 
 dwelling long and tenderly on "a brother's love fora 
 sole sister," he urges Mildred to confess her guilty love, 
 promising that he will help her, that she shall marry her 
 lover, and that somehow they two ' ' will wear this day 
 out." Then follows, in powerful contrast, the revulsion 
 of feeling at what seems her utter depravity in refusing 
 either to name her lover, or to forbid the advances of Lord 
 Henry Mertoun, which facts even Thorold's love is not 
 keen enough to connect. Maddened at her apparent 
 double sin, he curses Mildred, and then with rash haste 
 surprises Mertoun under Mildred's window, and kills 
 him. Then, too late, he realises the truth, and, feeling 
 that the wrong he has committed through want of thought 
 can only be expiated by his sharing Mildred's and Mer-
 
 3O THE POEMS. 
 
 toun's fate, he takes poison. Mildred dies broken- 
 hearted in his arms a few minutes before his death, but 
 the eyes of brother and sister see clearly now, and in 
 their mutual forgiveness death re-unites them. The 
 tragic interest of the play is greatly heightened by the 
 fact that Guendolen discovers the truth only just too late 
 to save the lives of all three. The language throughout 
 is poetical and beautiful in the extreme, the love-song in 
 the first act being one of the most charming and melodious 
 of Browning's lyrics. 
 
 Colombe' s Birthday, 1844, is an imaginary historical 
 play turning on the question of the Salic law. The chief 
 interest, however, lies less in this than in the internal 
 drama which centres in Colombe, the supposed Duchess 
 of Cleves, who in one day passes through almost every 
 phase of human emotion, and who at last emerges strong 
 and triumphant from the struggle, having yielded up the 
 prospect of becoming empress, because she felt that "love, 
 not vanity, is best." Surrounding Colombe are the char- 
 acters of the nobles of her court, the rival claimant to her 
 Duchy, his confidant, Melchior, and Valence, the advo- 
 cate of Cleves, whose loyalty and courage carry the day 
 and win her love. Each of these, with scarcely an ex- 
 ception, is a finished picture imbued with a distinct 
 personality. 
 
 MEN AND WOMEN (1855). The title of this collection 
 is admirably significant of the variety of subject and style 
 which we may expect to find in it. Criticism, argument, 
 painting, religion, mythology, and love alike have place 
 here, and vie with each other in subtlety of thought and 
 beauty of expression. 
 
 Transcendentalism, a poem in twelve books, is evi-
 
 THE POEMS. 31 
 
 dently an imaginary title quoted in order to address to an 
 imaginary author words of criticism and encouragement. 
 The fault lies, his critic says, in that the youthful poet 
 speaks his thoughts instead of singing them. He has also 
 fallen into the error of thinking that only youth needs 
 "images and melody " whereas, in reality, age needs them 
 most, and finds more comfort in what throws a halo of 
 glory over the commonplace than in philosophy or intri- 
 cate thought. 
 
 How it Strikes a Contemporary expresses a humorous, 
 almost contemptuous criticism upon the slight value 
 which should be placed on popular opinion. The subject 
 of the poem is a Spanish poet, whose characteristic dress 
 and manner arouse suspicion that he is a spy. A graphic 
 description of the wealth which he is supposed to enjoy 
 forms a dramatic contrast to the picture of the garret in 
 which he dies. 
 
 Artemis Prologizes was originally intended for a poem 
 of some length, but was unfortunately never completed. 
 It takes up the story of Hippolytus, as told by Euripides, 
 and continues where he left off. According to Euripides, 
 Hippolytus, son of Hippolyta and Theseus, offended 
 Venus by his aversion to women and by his worship of 
 the godess Artemis. Hippolyta died, and Theseus then 
 married Phaedra, daughter of Minos, king of Crete. To 
 revenge herself on Hippolytus, Venus caused Phaedra to 
 fall in love with her step-son. He repulsed her love, 
 and Phaedra killed herself, but left a letter accusing Ilip- 
 polytus of guilty love for her. Theseus, enraged, sought 
 no explanation of his son, but prayed for vengeance on 
 him from Neptune, who had promised Theseus to grant 
 him three requests. Accordingly, as Hippolytus was 
 driving his chariot along the coast, Neptune sent a bull
 
 32 THE POEMS. 
 
 out from the sea. The horses were frightened, up=et the 
 chariot, and Hippolytus was mortally wounded. As he 
 was dying, Artemis appeared to him, and told him that 
 such a death was his fate. This ends the tragedy as told 
 by Euripides. Browning continues the story in a mono- 
 logue descriptive of all that has occurred since Phaedra's 
 confession down to the actual time of the poem, when 
 Artemis, assisted by Aesculapius, is nursing the still un- 
 conscious Hippolytus back to life. 
 
 An Epistle containing the Strange Medical Experience 
 of Karshish, the Arab Physician, gives an account of 
 the raising of Lazarus from an entirely new point of view. 
 Karshish writes to the imaginary sage, Abib, about a man 
 named Lazarus who was seized with an epileptic fit, from 
 which he was roused too soon, the result being that his 
 reason is affected. Karshish explains that Lazarus re- 
 gards his recovery from the fit as a Divine miracle, and 
 that he asserts the Nazarene physician who attended him 
 was God Himself. Karshish repeats that he well knows 
 this is merely madness, but yet the strangeness of the idea 
 and the consistency of Lazarus' story puzzle him sorely, 
 and he cannot forget it He therefore seeks Abib's opin- 
 ion on the matter. 
 
 Johannes Agricola is an imaginary soliloquy of the Ger- 
 man of that name, who in the sixteenth century founded 
 the sect of the Antinomians. The tenets of their faith 
 denied the power of freewill for good or evil, but main- 
 tained that some human beings were elect, and therefore 
 could do no wrong, sin as they might, while the good at- 
 tempted by others was doomed to turn to evil. Johannes 
 Agricola wonders at such a state of things, but accepts it, 
 and .feels only gratitude that God is entirely incompre- 
 hensible, since it places His love beyond all price.
 
 THE POEMS. 33 
 
 Pictor Ignotus is the lament of an unknown painter, 
 who hears praise lavished upon a rival. lie too, he says, 
 could have become famous, but to achieve this, his pictures 
 must have been sold, and he preferred to die unhonoured 
 and unknown rather than that the pictures he deemed 
 so sacred should become mere matter of merchandise and 
 trade. The speaker feels assured that the consciousness 
 of such dishonour would have utterly cancelled the de- 
 lights of fame ; but there is, nevertheless, a vein of 
 intense and bitter longing for glory, which he admits 
 would have been bought too dear. 
 
 Fra Lippo Lippi possesses a double interest both as a 
 transcript from life, and also as setting forth in definite 
 terms our poet's view of one of the great services and the 
 true aim of Art. In a delightfully humorous and witty 
 monologue Fra Lippo Lippi relates to the Watch, who 
 have just arrested him at midnight in a suspicious neigh- 
 bourhood, the story and reason of his escapade. His 
 patron, Cosmo dei Medici, had locked him in a room of 
 the palace, that he might the sooner complete some pictures 
 on which he was at work. Fra Lippo Lippi, however, 
 found this imprisonment unbearable. In the street below 
 he caught the sound of voices singing, and heard the 
 patter of feet. Looking out of the window he caught a 
 glimpse of a pretty face ; then, without further effort at 
 self-control, he tore his bedclothes into strips, made a 
 rope of them and dropped down into the street below. 
 His frolic over, he was returning home when he was 
 arrested. On his way back he entertains his captors with 
 an account of his life, telling them how he was lured 
 into a convent at the age of eight, when he was starving, 
 and would have sold his soul for bread ; how he had a 
 talent for drawing, of which the Carmelites made use, 
 

 
 34 
 
 THE POEMS. 
 
 but the full development of which they stunted by their 
 narrow-minded prejudices. The monks found his paint- 
 ing too fleshly, because it represented Nature, and, they 
 declared, did not stimulate devotion. But, urges Fra 
 Lippo Lippi, a bell can call folks to matins and vespers, 
 but it cannot inspire devotion ; it is the province of Art 
 to convey to them 
 
 " The beauty and the wonder and the power, 
 The shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades, 
 Changes, surprises, and God made it all !" 
 
 It may be urged, he admits, that since it is God's 
 world, what need is there that man should strive to re- 
 produce it ? He answers 
 
 " For, don't you mark ? We're made so that we love 
 First when we see them painted, things we have passed 
 Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see ; 
 And so they are better, painted better to us, 
 Which is the same thing. Art was given for that." 
 
 Andrea del Sarto gives a pathetic picture of energy 
 and power wasted and misdirected through the love and 
 evil influence of a beautiful but worthless woman. Con- 
 scious as he still is of the potentialities his soul might 
 have realised, Andrea del Sarto remains the willing slave 
 of a heartless wife, who, for the sake of her guilty love, 
 despises the sacrifice of his life and genius. He now feels 
 that his mind has lost its power, though his hand retains 
 its cunning. 
 
 . " A man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
 Or what's a heaven for ? "
 
 THE POEMS. 35 
 
 The BisJiop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church 
 is a typical study of the Renaissance, and of its influence 
 upon man and Art. The Bishop is dying, and his last 
 moments are spent not in regret for a life which, by his 
 own confession, has been sensuous and worldly, but in 
 giving elaborate instructions about his tomb. The 
 minute details of the costly marbles, the bronze frieze, 
 the ball of lapis-lazuli, et cetera, with which he desires it 
 to be decorated, make it very evident what a wide know- 
 ledge of art and sculpture the Bishop possessed, and how 
 high was his regard for these ; but it is also clear that the 
 love of the beautiful is in no way allied with spiritual 
 emotion. His so-called nephews, whom he now fusi 
 acknowledges as his sons, are round his deathbed, 
 and he implores them, with a fervour worthy of a better 
 cause, to carry out his wishes, the chief of which is that 
 they shall cast into insignificance the humbler tomb of a 
 detested rival now lying in the same church. 
 
 Bishop Blow/ranis Apology is in reality a dialogue, 
 although it is written in Browning's favourite form of 
 monologue. Bishop Blougram, 1 a Roman Catholic 
 priest, has invited to dinner a young literary man, Mr. 
 Gigadibs, who is a professed free-thinker. Like all such, 
 he is very anxious to air his views and to convince the 
 Bishop of the folly of his episcopal ways. Coming 
 straight to the point, Gigadibs after dinner hazards 
 the opinion that the Bishop must see through the absur- 
 dity of the views he professes to hold and teach, and that 
 he thus places himself in a false position. Gigadibs 
 asserts that even he is more true and sincere than the 
 
 1 Supposed to be taken from Cardinal Wiseman. Cf. Chap. II.
 
 36 THE POEMS. 
 
 Bishop, because he boldly states his unbelief, while the 
 Bishop is a disbeliever, but has not the courage to own 
 his convictions. Hence, from adhering to a faith in 
 which he does not believe, Bishop Blougram loses the 
 sense of the ideal life which Gigadibs considers a neces- 
 sity. The Bishop's reply, or as it is termed, "apology," 
 is ingenious in the extreme, and is apparently successful 
 in the case of Gigadibs. It must, however, strike the 
 reader that a great many of the arguments are simply 
 ironical, and are uttered in contempt for so shallow 
 a creature as Gigadibs, to whom Bishop Blougram 
 scorns to reveal the hidden noble depths of his soul, 
 which we feel must exist. The poem is in blank 
 verse, and flows with vigour and ease, while apart 
 from its psychological interest it contains passages 
 of very great beauty, the more striking because of 
 the calm, argumentative atmosphere which surrounds 
 them. 
 
 Clean is a study of Greek life and thought in the early 
 days of Christianity. The poem is in the form of a letter 
 from Cleon the aged poet, in answer to one from Protus 
 the king, asking in what spirit Cleon is prepared for 
 death, which Protus feels cannot be far distant from 
 either of them. He has suggested that, leaving work 
 behind him which will live and influence the world, 
 Cleon must be prepared to welcome death with less 
 regret than others less worthy. Cleon denies this, de- 
 claring there is little pleasure in knowing that his works 
 will live, since he will not be there to enjoy the glory. 
 He then speaks of the possibility of a future life which 
 the doctrine of Christ has recently promulgated, and 
 with bitter longing he expresses his wish that he could 
 believe in
 
 THE POEMS. 37 
 
 " Some future state revealed to us by Zeus, 
 Unlimited in capability 
 For joy, as this is in desire for joy." 
 
 He cannot, however, grasp any other idea of God than 
 Zeus and the philosophy which forms part of his worship, 
 and, therefore, he rejects the idea of an after-life, since it 
 has not been revealed by Zeus. As to St. Paul, who had 
 recently been preaching in the neighbourhood, and of 
 whom Protus asks for information, Cleon indignantly 
 scorns the idea that 
 
 " . . . a mere barbarian Jew 
 Hath access to a secret shut from us ? " 
 
 Apart from the religious motive of the poem, it is in- 
 teresting for the remarkable picture it presents of Greek 
 life in those days the reverence for knowledge and 
 wisdom, the love of Art, the incessant pursuit of plea- 
 sure, and, underlying all, the sense of incompletion or 
 even despair at the thought that this world ends all. 
 
 Rudd to the Lady of Tripoli is a dainty little 
 love-poem in which the French troubadour Rudel re- 
 lates the legend of how the sun-flower acquired its 
 name. To this flower he compares himself and his 
 chivalrous passion for the unknown Lady of Tripoli, 
 towards whom his life sets as the sun-flower turns ever 
 to the sun. 
 
 One Word More. To E. B. B. The exquisite tender- 
 ness and beauty of this sacred dedication to Mrs. Brown- 
 ing cannot be expressed in words. It needs no inter-
 
 38 THfe POEMS. 
 
 preter but the heart, and it is above criticism and 
 beyond praise. 
 
 V. DRAMATIC ROMANCES (1845). Incident of the 
 French Camp is a stirring record of the patriotic loyalty 
 of a soldier under Napoleon. The boy of Browning's 
 poem was in reality a man, but in all other respects the 
 story is true. Dying of wounds received while planting 
 the flag over the market-place at Ratisbon, the soldier, 
 nevertheless, succeeds in reaching the Emperor and in 
 gasping out the good news. Napoleon gently says, 
 " You're wounded." With a proud smile he answers, 
 " I'm killed, sire," and falls dead. 
 
 The Patriot : an Old Story, illustrates the ingratitude 
 which is the reward of unsuccessful devotion. Igno- 
 minious death awaits the hero of a year before ; but 
 faith is strong in him, and from God he hopefully looks 
 for the reward denied him by men. 
 
 My La*t Duchess is a perfect sketch of the noble of 
 the Renaissance with his haughty pride of a " nine- 
 hundred-years' old name," his jealousy untouched by love, 
 his arrogation of sole homage and submission from all who 
 come under his tyrannical sway. His late wife did not 
 sufficiently appreciate the honour and splendour of her 
 position : she lavished her smiles too freely on all around. 
 The duke remonstrated with such effect that "all smiles 
 stopped together," and the lady sank under the chilling, 
 cheerless atmosphere, and died. The duke cannot regret 
 his conduct. He feels that it was right, and he is now 
 about to take another wife. While with protestations of 
 his desire for herself he is negociating with an ambassador 
 about her dowry, he relates his late wife's story, and, 
 among other works of art, points out her picture. There
 
 THE POEMS. 39 
 
 is an apparent carelessness about the manner of the poem 
 which is, however, calculated to set off to better advan- 
 tage the significance of every detail. 
 
 Count Gismond turns on the mediaeval faith in 
 duel as arbiter in a cause of honour. Through the 
 envy of two rivals, a girl is falsely accused of being 
 unfit to hold the place of honour as queen of a certain 
 tournament. As the calumny is spoken, a champion, 
 Count Gismond, rises in her defence. He fights and 
 kills her accuser, and leads the girl away to a happy 
 future as his wife. The poem shows us the girl many 
 years later, when she is relating to a friend the story of 
 her deliverance. 
 
 The Boy and the Angel teaches the lesson of content 
 in whatsoever place God has chosen to assign to each of 
 us. The result of discontent is forcibly and eloquently 
 set forth in the story of a boy, Theocrite, who longed to 
 be Pope in order that he might the better praise God. 
 The wish was granted, but God missed the humble praise 
 from the boy, and sent the angel Gabriel to take his 
 place. To no purpose. The place was Theocrite's, and 
 none but he could fill it. So at last the angel sought the 
 boy in his pomp as Pope, and showed him how he was 
 out of place there, while his craftsman's cell was empty, 
 his work there undone, and God unpraised. Theocrite 
 saw the truth, and returned to his former station : a new 
 Pope ruled at Rome, and when death came to each, 
 "they sought God side by side." 
 
 Installs Tyranny is a tribute to the power of con- 
 science. A king confesses his unreasonable, inveterate 
 hatred of one of his meaner subjects. His constant wish, 
 to accomplish which he left no means of tyranny or 
 temptation untried, was that the man should do some
 
 40 THE POEMS. 
 
 wrong, which would justify the king in destroying him. 
 Enraged at the failure of every attempt to entrap him, 
 the king at last determined to crush him without any just 
 cause ; but at the crisis, just as the impending ruin was 
 at hand, 
 
 " The man sprang to his feet, 
 Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed ! " 
 
 The tyrant stood terrified and abashed. 
 
 Mesmerism describes the experience of a man who 
 possesses the mesmeric power so strongly that when 
 separated from the woman he loves, he can nevertheless 
 so influence her, that, despite all hindrance, she is irre- 
 sistibly compelled to come to him. The poem is less 
 interesting as a story than as a marvel of versification. 
 The breathless excitement of the speaker is perfectly re- 
 produced in the breathless rush of the verse, in which a 
 minimum of punctuation makes the absolute intelligibi- 
 lity of the poem the more remarkable. 
 
 The. Glove is a record of an old friend with a new 
 face. The story of the lady who tested her lover's 
 courage by flinging her glove among the lions, and there- 
 by lost her lover and the king's favour, is familiar to 
 everyone. Browning, however, upholds the lady's cop- 
 duct, and defends it on the plea that De Lorge was 
 always boasting of his courage, and never took any oppor- 
 tunity of proving it. The poem ends with a new and 
 original sequel in the lady's happy marriage with an 
 admiring witness, and De Lorge's less fortunate fate in 
 'wedding a court beauty who was a favourite of the 
 king.
 
 HE POEMS. 41 
 
 Time's Revenges. A man soliloquises on a certain 
 friend whose devotion and love are immeasurable, and 
 whom he in return simply tolerates. His thoughts then 
 turn to the lady he loves, and for whose sake he exults 
 in killing "body and soul, and peace and fame," but 
 who in her turn would calmly see him roasted alive, if so 
 she could obtain a certain invitation which she longs for. 
 
 The Italian in England is interesting and affecting 
 from its simplicity of manner and matter. The Italian, 
 now an exile in England, relates the story of his escape 
 through the courage and loyalty of a peasant girl, to 
 whom in the desperation of hunger he revealed himself. 
 
 The EjHjlixhman in Italy presents a vastly different 
 picture. It is wriiten in briik, animated verse, and is 
 purely a descriptive poem consisting of a vivid picture of 
 Italian peasant life, and of Italian scenery. The English- 
 man has taken refuge from the "scirocco" and rain- 
 storm which had broken out, and he is whiling away the 
 time by comforting and amusing a little frightened 
 peasant girl with his cheery talk about all he had noticed 
 of the national life and habits while the storm was still 
 brewing. \Vhile he is speaking the sun shines out again, 
 and the " scirocco " is gone more quickly, he fears, 
 than the political "scirocco" now overshadowing 
 England. 
 
 In a Gondola is a love poem, marvellous in its sub- 
 dued passion and power. The scene is an Italian lake, 
 on which the lovers float by night, safe as they fondly 
 hope from the jealous vigilance of "the three" who 
 guard the lady. The sense of possible danger only adds 
 to the intensity of their enjoyment and their love. Safely 
 and happily they reach the lady's home, and the arrange- 
 ments for the next night's meeting are completed, when
 
 42 THE POEMS. 
 
 the lover is surprised and stabbed. The glow of happi- 
 ness which he has just experienced is with him still, and 
 now will never leave him. So he dies content, having 
 "lived indeed." 
 
 Waring is a sketch from life, and the hero was a per- 
 sonal friend of Browning's, Mr. Alfred Domett. He is 
 represented in the poem as a man of great promise, but 
 whose achievements always fell short of his possibilities, 
 and who consequently remained unappreciated even by 
 his friends. This lack of appreciation wounded his too 
 sensitive nature, and he suddenly vanished from among 
 his companions. In the first part of the poem, one of a 
 group of friends is deploring Waring's sudden departure, 
 and suggests all kinds of conjectures as to his where- 
 abouts. The second part is spoken by one hitherto 
 silent, but who now abruptly begins, " When I last saw 
 Waring," and to the amazement of the rest he goes on to 
 relate a meeting near Trieste, where he had seen Waring 
 as the captain of a smuggling vessel. 
 
 The Twins, "Date "and " Dabitur," "Give "and 
 " It shall be given unto you," relates the fable from 
 Luther's " Table-Talk " how the success of Dabitur de- 
 pends upon Date's well-being. 
 
 De Gustibus is one of the few poems in which Brown- 
 ing seems to have written about scenery for its own sake 
 only. It contains no human interest whatever, but simply 
 describes a couple of landscapes of English and Italian 
 scenery. 
 
 A Light Woman. The speaker has endeavoured 
 to free his friend from the toils of such a woman. 
 He has succeeded but too well, for he finds that he 
 has gained the woman's heart himself at the cost of 
 his friend's friendship. He has no love to give her, and
 
 THE POEMS. 43 
 
 when he reflects on the part he must seem to his friend 
 to have played, he wonders which of the three is the 
 most to be pitied. 
 
 The Last Ride Together has justly been called one of 
 the finest lyrics of the century. It is charmingly melo- 
 dious and full of subdued passion which, however, never 
 drifts into sickly sentimentality. The rejected lover to 
 whom the privilege of this last ride has been granted is 
 throughout manly and noble. He realises that his failure 
 is but one among many, and, as he muses on universal 
 failure, he decides that it is best to lose bliss here and 
 perchance gain it hereafter. Then as they ride on and on 
 in silence his fancy suggests 
 
 "What if 
 
 heaven just prove that I and she 
 Ride, ride together, for ever ride." 
 
 The Pied Piper of Hamelin, written for and inscribed 
 to the little son of Macready, the actor, is probably the 
 best known of all Browning's shorter poems. The legend 
 is familiar to all of the mysterious piper, who, by the 
 irresistible and magnetic force of his music, cleared 
 Hamelin of the rats with which the town was infested, 
 and afterwards revenged himself for the non-payment 
 of the stipulated fee by playing a still sweeter melody 
 to draw the children after him out of the town. The 
 poem has a singular simplicity and directness of style. 
 
 The Flight of the Duchess is probably entirely imagi- 
 nary, although it reads like an old legend. It is said to 
 have originated through one line of a song which Brown- 
 ing, when a boy, heard a gipsy sing on Guy Fawkes' Day, 
 and which ran
 
 44 THE POEMS. 
 
 " Following the Queen of the Gipsies, oh !" 
 
 The story is told by an old huntsman thirty years after 
 the flight of the Duchess, in whose escape he had assisted. 
 The somewhat abrupt manner of the verse suggests ad- 
 mirably the good-hearted but rough and ready retainer, 
 while the change to the mystic wonder and solemnity of 
 the gipsy's song, revealing to the Duchess her gipsy origin, 
 wakes an interest and an excitement throughout, which 
 are perfectly delightful. 
 
 A Grammarian's Funeral describes the burial by his 
 ilisciples of a man whose love has been devoted to study 
 at the cost of everything else. They are carrying him to 
 the topmost peak of a mountain, as a symbol of the noble 
 heights to which he aspired. Uninteresting as the sub- 
 ject of a mere dry pedant may appear, Browning has 
 dived into the heart and soul of the man and has por- 
 trayed with such masterly skill the spirit striving after 
 what appeared to him the highest aim, that the old 
 grammarian ceases to be dull and insignificant. 
 
 " That low man seeks a little thing to do, 
 Sees it and does it : 
 
 This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 
 Dies ere he knows it." 
 
 The Heretic's Tragedy: A Middle-Age Interlude. 
 The victim of this tragedy is supposed to be Jacques du 
 Bourg-Molay, who was burned at Paris A.D. 1314. 
 TJie scene opens with an admonition from the Abbot 
 expressing the infinite justice of God, notwithstanding his 
 mercy. The chorus repeats the last line of the Abbot's
 
 THE POEMS. 45 
 
 sermon, " As infinite a justice too," with gruesome and 
 indescribably powerful effect. The rest of the Interlude 
 is sung by one person, the chorus again taking up the 
 last line of every verse. The description of the stake and 
 the agony of the victim are only the more keenly ap- 
 parent through the grim humour of the language and the 
 quaint formalities of the Interlude. 
 
 Holy-Cross Day. In this poem also the language is 
 for the first half grotesque and humorous, although it is 
 not hard to find a serious and even tragic under-current 
 in the irony with which the speaker describes the scene 
 at Church, where on Holy-Cross Day (Sept. 14) at 
 Rome a sermon was preached at which the attendance 
 of the Jews was enforced. At the twelfth verse, how- 
 ever, this grim irony ceases, and there follows the magni- 
 ficent and solemn death-song of Rabbi Ben Ezra. This 
 prayer, at once a protest and a prophecy, defends the 
 alleged conduct of the Jews, and ends with a triumphant 
 expression of faith in God and confidence in the future. 
 
 Protus, an extract from an imaginary record, con- 
 tains the history of how John the Pannonian, the 
 blacksmith's son, usurped the crown of Protus, a tiny 
 child of exceeding beauty, as to whose ultimate fate 
 rumour varies. The poem begins with a description of 
 a bust of Protus 
 
 "... A baby face, with violets there, 
 As those were all the little locks could bear." 
 
 The last lines describe a bust of the usurper, John, and 
 form a striking example of Browning's power of ex- 
 pressing sense by sound.
 
 46 THE POEMS. 
 
 The Statue, and the Biist is more or less founded upon 
 fact. In it Browning vigorously denounces the weakness 
 of indecision and vacillation, and urges that, whatsoever 
 man findeth to do, he should do it with his might. And 
 this is what the hero and heroine of the Statue and the 
 Bust did not do. The lady was married, but loved the 
 Grand-Duke Frederick the First, who returned her love. 
 They agreed to fly together, but, day after day, not from 
 moral compunction but from mere infirmity of pur- 
 pose, postponed their flight, until at last youth had 
 passed and love had cooled, and only the memory of the 
 past was left them. To ensure that this, at least, should 
 live forever, the Duke caused an equestrian statue of 
 himself riding away from the palace, but with his head 
 turned towards the lady's window, to be erected in the 
 square opposite ; while the lady ordered a bust of herself 
 to be placed in the window, where she had daily watched 
 for the Duke. 
 
 Porphyries Lover 1 is a monologue spoken by a man 
 who has murdered the woman he loves, but has no right 
 to love. Yielding to momentary passion, she has come 
 to him and confessed her love. In that supreme moment 
 of happiness he felt that she was his "perfectly pure and 
 good," and, that she may remain so for ever, he has mur- 
 dered her. The matter-of-fact description, first of the 
 weather, and then of the whole episode of the murder, 
 add to the weird horror of the poem, which reveals mar- 
 vellous dramatic power and concentration. 
 
 Childe Rolande to the Dark Tower Came is a strange, 
 fantastic mixture of romance and realism. Romance 
 
 1 Originally published with Johannes A^ricola under the title of 
 Cells.
 
 THE POEMS. 47 
 
 pure and simple is the legend of the knight who sets out 
 in quest of the "Dark Tower," and who meets with 
 none of the adventures common to the knights of old. 
 Instead, he passes through a country barren and desolate, 
 over which an awful silence reigns, a country so gloomy 
 and a silence so hideous that imagination conjures up 
 endless varieties of impossible horrors, while the vivid 
 description of the terror of the place lends a ghastly 
 realism to the fearful and wonderful scene. Un- 
 daunted by the overwhelming depression of his journey, 
 Childe Rolande trudges bravely on, and at last meets 
 with the success which had been denied to his predeces- 
 sors. The poem is not an allegory, as is frequently sug- 
 gested. The idea of it was first suggested by the line in 
 " King Lear," which forms the title of the poem ; then, 
 as Mrs. Orr tells us, a certain tower which struck Brown- 
 ing's poetic fancy led to the development of the idea, and 
 the figure of a horse on some tapestry in his own drawing- 
 room still further developed it, until it reached its present 
 form. 
 
 Christmas Eve and Easter Day, 1850. These poems 
 are in no way sequels of each other. They are always 
 classed together because they were published together, 
 and both deal with the details of the Christian religion, 
 and describe a vision of Christ. In Christmas Eve the 
 speaker relates how the weather drove him for shelter 
 into a small dissenting chapel on the borders of a 
 common. But the preacher with his narrow-minded 
 rant was more unpleasing to him than the wind and 
 rain outside, and he left the chapel in hot haste. 
 Once again outside in the storm, he began to think 
 more tolerantly of what he had heard within. As he 
 stood there meditating, the aspect of the sky suddenly
 
 48 THE POEMS. 
 
 changed. The rain ceased, and a wonderful double 
 lunar rainbow shone across the heavens, and the Christ 
 in person stood before him. The face was turned from 
 him, but he caught the hem of the garment, and, so 
 holding, was borne in a vision to St. Peter's at Rome. 
 Without entering the cathedral he watched the whole cere- 
 mony; and, as he watched, he realised that faith and love 
 existed in the Roman Catholic worship which he was wit- 
 nessing, although in a different form from that in which 
 he had heretofore recognised it. The vision bore him 
 yet further, until they reached a lecture-hall in Germany, 
 where a freethinker was logically tracing the source of 
 the myth called Christianity. The lecturer's logic de- 
 stroyed all idea of divinity, but attached almost equal 
 value to Christ's work as a man, because it led to God, 
 and to love, God's attribute. So here, too, the listener 
 found the basis of faith and love, though again differ- 
 ently expressed ; and he felt that henceforth he would 
 not despise faiths alien to his own, but would believe 
 that before God they were as one. Such tolerance, how- 
 ever, was too near akin to indifference, and he suddenly 
 felt that he had lost even the hem of the garment, and 
 was again left to the mercy of the storm, which had re- 
 commenced. As the divine figure began to fade from 
 his sight, he realised his fault, and, once more catching 
 at the robe, held it until he found himself safe inside the 
 little chapel again, which, indeed, he seemed never to 
 have left. And then at last he had learnt the lesson not 
 to despise the lowliest form of love and faith, nor to 
 reject the truth in whatever form it might appear. The 
 second poem, Easter Day, seems to be a dialogue, al- 
 though, as in " Fifine " and many others, one person 
 both quotes and answers the arguments of the second
 
 HE POEMS. 49 
 
 The speaker asserts, " How very hard it is to be a Chris- 
 tian ! " His friend apparently denies this, and the argu- 
 ment continues until the fir-t relates a vision which 
 appeared to him on Easter Eve three years before. He 
 had been walking on the common past the little chapel, 
 and as he walked he had been considering the question 
 they had just argued. Finally, his reflections resolved 
 themselves into the one question, " Am I any better 
 because of the faith I profess ? If the Judgment Day 
 were to come now, should I be among those saved or 
 lost?" As he had uttered these words aloud in the dark- 
 ness, a sudden fire lit up the heaven, and a vision of the 
 Christ appeared. The Judgment Day seemed to have 
 come indeed, for the face was stern, and an austere voice 
 declared the sentence passed, and heaven denied him. 
 The voice spoke of how earthly joys had always filled 
 his heart, and declared that so it should be still. The 
 world with all it contained was left him, but heaven 
 denied for ever. For a moment he rejoiced at the pros- 
 pect of so much happiness as the world affords, but the 
 voice sternly recounted all that he had lost, until with a 
 desperate effort to resist despair, he declared that since faith 
 in natural things was gone, the love and study of Art 
 should replace it. At once the voice granted the desire, 
 but again in words which made the gift seem valueless ; 
 and so he passed from one request to another, each 
 granted as he spoke it, and each in turn made to seem 
 valueless before God who stood in judgment. Then 
 at the last, truth came to him, and he prayed for love 
 of God and for faith, so that he might still hope on to 
 reach "one eve the Better Land." Then the face re- 
 laxed its sternness, and he knew he was forgiven. Such 
 was his evening vision, and he lives now happy in the 
 
 D
 
 50 THE POEMS. 
 
 trials and temptations which he must bear and conquer, 
 rather than 
 
 " left in God's contempt apart, 
 
 With ghastly smooth life, ..... 
 
 shut 
 
 From heaven ! " 
 
 VI. DRAMATIC LYRICS (1842). Cavalier Tunes 
 comprise three stirring little lyrics, each vigorously 
 upholding King Charles I. and denouncing the Round- 
 heads. They are named respectively: (i) Marching 
 Along; (2) Give a Rouse; (3) Boot and Saddle. 
 
 The Lost Leader is a dignified and tender lament over 
 the defection of a once honoured leader. Browning has 
 admitted that the poem bears actual reference to Words- 
 worth's abandonment of the Liberal cause. 
 
 How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix 
 is purely an imaginary story, but it is told so graphically 
 and realistically that no amount of truth could add to the 
 breathless interest which is excited by this fictitious 
 account of the three horsemen who start on their mid- 
 night ride to carry the " Good News" and only one of 
 whom reaches Aix. 
 
 Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr is chiefly inter- 
 esting for the technical skill which Browning therein dis- 
 plays in expressing sense by sound. The repetition of 
 the same rhyme throughout the five verses, and the 
 metrical alternation of the short lines, convey not alone 
 the mere picture of the horseman riding through the 
 desert to rejoin Abd-el-Kadi, but an actual sense of the
 
 THE POEMS. 51 
 
 swift, regular motion of the horse as it hastens towards 
 the goal. 
 
 Nationality in Drinks is a bright little poem descanting 
 on the relative merits of claret, tokay, and beer the 
 distinctive national drinks of France, Hungary, and 
 England, and suggesting the fancies which each calls up. 
 
 GARDEN FANCIES. I. The Flower's Name is the 
 reverie of a lover on the garden across which his lady has 
 walked with him a short time since, and especially on a 
 certain flower, of which she had told the sweet lingering 
 Spanish name. 
 
 II. Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis strikes a very different 
 note. It is a comical account of a person who inflicts 
 condign punishment on a book, because it is dry reading, by- 
 dropping it into the hollow of a tree, and there leaving it 
 to the rain, toadstools, etc., which will make a home 
 there. A month later he relents, and restores the poor, 
 dilapidated volume to a place of comfort on his book- 
 shelf. Mrs. Orr, in her Handbook, suggests that the 
 title of the poem is probably the name of the author. 
 
 Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister expresses with grim 
 humour the hate which grows apparently through the 
 absence of other passions. The speaker, a monk, launches 
 every species of abuse and ridicule on a senior monk, 
 Brother Laurence. His great hope is that some day the 
 opportunity may arise to catch him tripping ; meanwhile, 
 resenting both the content which Laurence derives from 
 industrious gardening and the slight extra privilege which 
 he enjoys in the convent, he consoles himself with de- 
 stroying Brother Laurence's fruit trees and cultivating 
 a sense of his own superior piety. 
 
 The Laboratory, on the contrary, describes a more acute
 
 52 THE POEMS. 
 
 hate arising from the presence of other passions. A girl is 
 buying poison, with which she means to destroy her rival, 
 and from behind a glass mask she watches the preparation 
 of the deadly powder with fiendish excitement anddelight. 
 Despised love and bitter hate rouse a storm of passions, 
 which are the more vivid and intense by reason of the 
 extreme concentration of the language. There is not a 
 superfluous syllable, every word tells, and the whole 
 scene is visible with awful clearness. 
 
 The Confessional pours forth with passionate eloquence 
 the scorn and hatred for the Church, of a young girl who 
 had been deceived by the priest into betraying political 
 secrets of her lover, who thereby lost his life. Her 
 frantic denunciations have now cost her her liberty, but 
 she vows that, in spite of her prison cell, both God and 
 man shall hear her accusing cry of grief and rage : 
 
 " Lies lies, again and still, they lie !" 
 
 Cristina is an expression of the ideal passion of love. 
 The speaker has met Cristina, and at the first glance 
 loved her with a perfect love, which shall illumine for 
 him the dark journey of life. Cristina has expressed in 
 one look the recognition of their mutual love but with 
 her it was but a flash, which she has since lost, while 
 with the man it remains a guiding star here, and, he 
 firmly believes, hereafter. His is the ideal love which 
 suffers all things, and is its own exceeding great reward. 
 
 The Lost Mistress is another example of the robust 
 manner in which Browning treats his love-poems. The 
 rejected lover bids farewell to his hopes of love and 
 accepts friendship in its stead. There is a tone of sad- 
 ness in his words, but neither reproach nor despair.
 
 THE POEMS. 53 
 
 Earth's Immortalities consist of two little poems of 
 only a few lines each, on the supposed immortality of 
 Love and Fame. In each there is a touch of sarcasm and 
 also of sadness. 
 
 Meeting at Night and Parting at Morning are compan- 
 ion pictures, of which love forms the motive. Two verses 
 desci ibe the glad anticipation of meeting, while four aptly 
 significant lines express the necessary parting at morning 
 when " the need of a world of men " returns. 
 
 Song is an exquisitely melodious little lyric in which a 
 lover claims for his lady-love unqualified admiration and 
 praise from even those who do not love her. 
 
 A Woman's Last Word is the voluntary sacrifice of hei 
 own individuality at the shrine of love. She has been 
 quarrelling with her husband, who until now has been 
 as a god to her, and she yields in the dispute, feeling that 
 her individuality is of less value than the ideal she holds 
 of her husband, which she must inevitably lose if they 
 disagree. Thenceforth she promises she will mould 
 her thoughts on his ; but, she adds, with gentle pathos, 
 " That shall be to-morrow, not to-night," after she has 
 been able to put sorrow away, 
 
 " And so fall asleep, Love, 
 Loved by thee. " 
 
 Evflyn Hope is one of the most beautiful poems in the 
 English language. It is the lament of a middle-aged 
 man over the dead body of a girl of sixteen whom he has 
 loved. He was almost a stranger to her, and she neither 
 knew of nor returned his affection. " It was not her time 
 to love." But as he gazes on the " sweet, white brow," 
 an inborn conviction springs up in his heart that it is not
 
 54 THE POEMS. 
 
 yet too late. God above " creates the love to reward the 
 love," and hereafter, be it even after other lives have been 
 lived, other worlds traversed, new knowledge gained and 
 old knowledge lost, in the end she " will wake and re- 
 member and understand." 
 
 Love Among the Ruins is the reverie of a lover about to 
 meet the girl he loves in a ruined tower close at hand, 
 which is the sole remains of a once fabulously wealthy 
 city. As the lover muses on this city, whence 
 
 " In one year they sent a million fighters forth," 
 
 he feels how little remains from all these centuries of 
 " folly, noise and sin," and bids his heart 
 
 " Shut them in, 
 
 W ith their triumphs and their glories and the rest ! 
 Love is best." 
 
 A Lover's Quarrel is based on the belief that nothing 
 in this world or the next can change true love. There is, 
 therefore, even a vein of playfulness running through the 
 lover's lament at the quarrel which has parted him from 
 his love. He lives over again in fancy the happy days 
 of three months before, when, despite the cold and dreary 
 winter, sunshine born of love shone in their hearts. 
 Now 
 
 " The March sun feels like May ! 
 
 Only my love's away ! 
 I'd as lief that the blue were grey. " 
 
 But as surely as the winter of the year will come round 
 again in due course, so, he feel*, will the summer sunshine
 
 THE POEMS. 55 
 
 of their love, and then all will be forgotten in the happy 
 knowledge 
 
 " I shall have her for evermore !" 
 
 Up at a Villa Down in the City is an extremely 
 graphic description of the delights of a town life, as 
 pictured by an Italian person of quality, who contrasts 
 them piteously with the dead-and-alive kind of existence 
 he leads at his country villa, but which he cannot afford 
 to exchange for the town joys he longs for. 
 
 A Toccata of Galuppi's is at once the lightest and ore 
 of the most melodious and delicate of the Art-poems. 
 The speaker is listening to a Toccata of Galuppi's, and 
 the strains of the music conjure up before him the 
 musician himself and the age (eighteenth century) in which 
 he lived. The gay, careless life of the old Venetians rises 
 before him, rebuked in vain by the solemn modulations of 
 the music, and he grieves that the only outcome was mirth 
 and folly, and no soul left " when the kissing had to stop." 
 
 Old Pictures in Florence is in praise of the old masters 
 who had first abandoned the ideal models of Greek art, 
 and began 
 
 " .... to become now self-acquainters, 
 And paint man man, whatever the issue ! 
 Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray, 
 New fears aggrandise the rags and tatters : 
 To bring the invisible full into play ! 
 Let the visible go to the dogs what imtters?" 
 The poem is framed in a humorous complaint that his 
 admiration is never rewarded by finding those examples 
 of them which exist unnoticed in Florence, and ends with 
 a passionate prophecy of the extrusion of Austrian rule 
 from Italy.
 
 $6 THE POEMS. 
 
 Home Thoughts from Abroad is an exquisite little 
 song of exile, contrasting the delights of Nature in an 
 English April and May with the gaudy flowers which the 
 singer finds abroad. 
 
 Home Thoughts from the Sea expresses a burst of 
 patriotic love for England, stimulated by the scenes of 
 British victories, passed in coasting along the West of 
 Spain. The four impressionist lines are exquisite. 
 
 Saul. The first part is a semi-historical account of the 
 Biblical narrative of how David, by his wondrous playing 
 upon the harp and singing, won Saul from the melancholy 
 to which he was subject. The poem is written as on 
 the day following his visit to the king, when David re- 
 views all that had occurred and puts it into speech, which 
 on the previous day he had found impossible. He re- 
 lates that for a long while he played and sang in vain. 
 The king stood in the centre of the tent, motionless as 
 death, Beginning with the simplest melodies, David 
 played on and on, until at last the sound of the Levites' 
 chant as they marched to the altar roused Saul with a 
 groan from his lethargy. The groan shook the tent, but 
 there was no other sign. Undaunted, David next sang 
 of man's life, with its duties and pleasures, and gradually 
 reached a climax in a direct appeal to Saul. Partial 
 success rewarded the effort. The glare of madness faded 
 from the king's eye, but the dull stare of despair re- 
 mained. At this point (the end of the ninth stanza) the 
 poem originally ended, the king's ultimate recovery being 
 left to the reader's imagination. Ten years later, how- 
 ever, Browning completed the poem, making no mention 
 .of Saul, but adding to the Hebrew narrative the prophetic 
 announcement of the birth of Christ. 
 
 By the Fireside. Browning imagines himself in the
 
 THE POEMS. 57 
 
 autumn of his life looking over his great Greek book and 
 turning to gaze at the image of his wife " reading by 
 firelight," that great brow 
 
 " And the spirit-small hand propping it, 
 Yonder, my heart knows how ! " 
 
 Thence his thoughts will travel back to those parts of 
 Italy where he lived with her, recalling above all 
 the moment when in the solitude of the forests the 
 last faint screen between them was broken and intimate 
 friendship became love. In these memories he will 
 pass 
 
 " An age so blest that, by its side, 
 Youth seems the waste instead." 
 
 My Star tells of the insight given to loving eyes, and 
 denied to others. Browning did not think that Love is 
 blind. 
 
 Any Wife to Any Husband is the lament of a woman 
 who is dying, and who feels that, although her husband's 
 love has never failed during her life, it will nevertheless 
 not be strong enough to bear the test of separation. Her 
 grief at this thought is not of a selfish nature, for she is con- 
 vinced that his actual love for her will not suffer ; she regrets 
 the inevitable inconstancy which she foresees, merely as a 
 sign of weakness and lack of moral dignity in him. 
 
 Two in the Campagna is written in the form of a love- 
 poem, but it has regard not only to love, but to life itself. 
 It points out with mournful truth the insufficiency of 
 realisation as compared with the eternal longings of the 
 heart. Throughout the world, as with the lover in the 
 poem, we can obtain only " so much of our desires,"
 
 58 THE POEMS. 
 
 The lovers are together, their love is mutual, yet they are 
 not content. There is an invisible barrier which prevents 
 the absolute union of their souls, and it is the explanation 
 of this unseen force which the man seems to discover. 
 He illustrates his meaning by a spider's web, which he 
 entreats his love, " Help me to hold," but which shrivels 
 at his touch and vanishes. It appears to him that in this 
 way he shall always just gain his goal, and as he seeks to 
 grasp it, it will vanish ; and he discerns 
 
 " Infinite passion, and the pain 
 Of finite hearts that yearn." 
 
 Misconceptions is a cheery little poem, which describes 
 how the fact that the beloved one meant no more by lean- 
 ing for an instant on the man's heart than the bird meant 
 by resting upon a certain spray before it flew to the top 
 of the tree, does not alter the ecstasy of that instant. 
 
 A Serenade at the Villa begs the lady of the villa to 
 understand her lover's absolute devotion, even though she 
 cannot return his love, and not to prefer the silence of the 
 hot thunderous night to the music of his voice and lute. 
 
 One Way of Love is a dainty little lyric, describing the 
 way of perfect devotion with imperfect return. 
 
 Another Way of Love describes love wearied by too 
 constant sweetness. The speaker here is the lady, and 
 she tells her lover that, since he is weary of her incessant 
 smiles, he is at liberty to go. She boasts, however, that 
 if he tires of June roses, her June can more readily mend 
 her bower than his hand can heal the scratches from the 
 roses which he has gathered ; and then she will consider 
 whether to bestow her roses on some one who appreciates 
 their sweetness, or whether with another of June's attri-
 
 THE POEMS. 59 
 
 butes June lightning, to slay any spider whatever that 
 may approach her, and so, if we may break from the 
 metaphor, live an old maid all her life. 
 
 A Pretty Woman describes a woman who is nothing 
 but pretty, possessing no depth of feeling or power of 
 love. The speaker thinks that even such a woman serves 
 an end on earth. But to effect this end, men must take 
 her for what she is worth and leave her simply natural, 
 like the rose which loses its sweetness and true beauty 
 when copied in gold and jewels. 
 
 Respectability depicts the nightly walk of two lovers 
 on the banks of the Seine. They speak of the time 
 which would have been wasted before they found out the 
 true worth of the world and its good word, had, un- 
 happily, the world approved their union. 
 
 Love in a Life depicts a man who from youth to old 
 age searches for the twin soul whom he may love, and 
 finds life too short either to succeed in his quest or to 
 exhaust the possibilities of success. The world is typified 
 by a house, a simile which occurs more than once in 
 Browning. 
 
 Life in a Love presents the same man having found the 
 beloved one, but conscious that she will ever elude him, 
 and that the chase will take up his whole life. 
 
 In Three Days sounds the joyful note of expectant 
 love, over which thoughts of possible future dangers are 
 powerless to cast a gloom. 
 
 In a Year is a woman's heart-broken lament over her 
 lover's inconstancy. 
 
 Women and Roses is a dream in which the poet sees a 
 rose tree bearing three roses. A group of beautiful 
 women float round and round each. Around the first 
 rose, which is faded, move all the beautiful women of
 
 60 THE POEMS. 
 
 ancient times ; around the second, which is fresh and 
 full, those of to-day ; and around the third, a bud, those 
 yet unborn. The poet appeals to each in turn to love 
 him, but without answer they only float on, each round 
 her own rose. The feeling with which the poem deals is 
 that of the recognition of beauty which one can only 
 watch from without, having no part in it. This feeling 
 is most rare in Browning, and, perhaps, has been in- 
 tentionally cast into a dream, in which sleep may be sup- 
 posed to hold in bondage all powers but the power of 
 watching. 
 
 Before and After are companion poems, of which the 
 subject is a duel. A third person speaks " Before," 
 urging that justice shall take its course, and shall thereby 
 have avenged itself, whatever be the issue of the combat. 
 If the wronged man be slain, he will have gained 
 Heaven, and his murderer Hell, in the consciousness of 
 sin which will pursue him throughout his life. If the 
 guilty man fall, he will have atoned for his sin in death. 
 Therefore, "Both the fighters to their places." They 
 fight, and the sinner falls dead. " After," the victor 
 gazes on the dead face once so dear to him, and he feels, 
 too late, that death cannot erase the past, and in the 
 present only adds remorse to his sorrow. 
 
 TTie Guardian Angel may best be described in Brown- 
 ing's own words as a "translation into song" of the 
 picture, L'Angelo Custode, by Guercino, which hangs in 
 the church of San Augostine at Fano. Together with a 
 description of the picture is a record of the profound im- 
 pression it made on Browning's mind. 1 
 
 i The 'friend referred to in it is Alfred Domett, then in New 
 Zealand. Cf. Wat-ing.
 
 THE POEMS. 6l 
 
 Memorabilia is a tribute to the memory of Shelley, for 
 whose poetry Browning had unbounded admiration. 
 
 Popularity is a perhaps finer, certainly more elaborate, 
 poem in memory of Keats, whose fame and influence in 
 the future are there foretold. To illustrate this future 
 popularity and present obscurity, Browning imagines the 
 fisherman who first landed the murex shell from which 
 was obtained the deep blue dye that made the fortune of 
 Tyre. Like Keats, the fisherman was obscure and un- 
 rewarded ; but the source of beauty which he discovered 
 brought undying glory to those who used it after him. 
 
 Master Hugues of 'Saxe-Gotha is the somewhat humorous 
 soliloquy of an organist, supposed often to have played 
 the fugues of the imaginary Master Hugues, and who now 
 wishes to discover the absolute meaning which the com- 
 poser read in the music. To this end he considers and 
 describes with marvellous skill and aptness the construc- 
 tion of a fugue, but still he can see nothing but a simple 
 meaningless arrangement of five voices. This raises the 
 suggestion that a fugue is symbolical of life in its 
 complexity, beginning with one short phrase and leading 
 through endless intricacies to where it began. But 
 he feels that life has a higher meaning, although 
 we cannot trace it in a fugue; and so farewell to 
 fugues, and let a fuller, richer music, symbolical of the 
 fulness and beauty of life, take its place. The descrip- 
 tion in the course of the poem, of a fugue, is in every 
 detail, as well as in general effect, absolutely accurate. 
 
 Luria, 1846, is a tragedy replete with noble thoughts 
 nobly expressed, but it does not appeal so strongly to 
 human interests and emotions as most of the other plays. 
 Luria, a Moor in command of the army of Florence in a 
 battle against Pisa, learns on the eve of the battle that
 
 62 THE POEMS. 
 
 while he is fighting in their cause, the Florentines at home 
 have invented a charge of treachery against him, and in 
 his absence are trying him for his life. This news is 
 brought him by the Pisan general, who urges him to 
 unite with Pisa in destroying Florence. Luria's simple, 
 noble nature scarcely credits the alleged treachery, and 
 in any case, refusing this revenge, he fights and wins the 
 battle. Then he demands and learns the truth from 
 Braccio, the Florentine Commissary, who has through- 
 out the war been acting as a spy upon him. He is 
 overwhelmed by despair at the unworthiness of the 
 people he had so loved, takes poison, and dies at the 
 moment when news is brought of his acquittal. The 
 play is an excellent example of Browning's use of mono- 
 logue, and, besides, contains some excellent character 
 drawing. Braccio is a subtle sketch of the crafty Italian 
 temper of the period. Feminine interest is introduced in 
 Domizia, a Florentine lady, who seeks revenge on Flor- 
 ence for the unjust accusation of her two brothers. She 
 rejoices that similar injustice is to be practised on 
 Luria, because she hopes that he will avenge himself 
 on her. His death, however, teaches her how little 
 noble is revenge, and she determines to seek it no 
 further. 
 
 VII. In a Balcony, 1855, is a dramatic fragment left 
 to the reader's imagination to place as a tragedy or 
 drama. 
 
 Xorbert, the Queen's chief minister, loves Constance, 
 who is cousin to the Queen. Constance persuades him to 
 ,tell the Queen of his love in such a way that she may 
 think he only asks for Constance as the next best to her- 
 self, "since none loves queens directly, none dares that."
 
 THE POEMS. 63 
 
 He reluctantly agrees, but overacts his part, so that the 
 Queen takes his declaration to herself, and in wild excite- 
 ment and delight seeks Constance, and tells her of her 
 unhoped-for good fortune. Constance at once realises 
 what has occurred, and, believing it to be for Norbert's 
 advantage, determines to sacrifice herself, and yield him 
 up to the Queen. The Queen leaves Constance, and 
 Norbert comes, but before he understands, the Queen re- 
 enters. Norbert proclaims his love for Constance in un- 
 mistakable terms, and the Queen, seeing how she has 
 been deceived, leaves in silent rage. As the lovers em- 
 brace, the guards are heard approaching to arrest them. 
 Browning has here reached a height of passion and tragic 
 intensity such as he has only before attained in the great 
 scene in " Pippa Passes." The words themselves are full 
 of passion and power, but they are secondary to the 
 supreme passion in the hearts of the two women. 
 The contrast between the two is vivid. We are 
 insensibly drawn to Constance because of her youth, her 
 strong love, with its mistaken ideas of self-sacrifice, and 
 perhaps because we feel that there are great possibilities 
 in her soul, which are stunted in their development by 
 the false and intriguing atmosphere of the Court. But a 
 far more pathetic, heart-rending figure is the Queen in 
 her solitary state dreaming for one bright moment that, 
 old and unlovely, she is nevertheless blessed with love 
 for which her soul has hitherto hungered in silence, and 
 the next moment waking to find herself the victim, as 
 she imagines, of an insulting plot. 
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONS (1864). James Lee's Wife 
 consists of a series of monologues spoken by the wife 
 from the time when her mind grasps the first faint
 
 64 THE POEMS. 
 
 glimmer of doubt as to her husband's love, until the con- 
 firmation of her fears when she leaves him. Passionate 
 love is evident in every word she utters, but it is also 
 clear how totally she and her husband misunderstand 
 each other. She is of a poetic and artistic temperament, 
 to which the need of love is paramount, and with this 
 she is ultra-sensitive and inclined to be morbid. The 
 husband (by inference, for we never hear him speak) is 
 essentially of this work-a-day world, and is absolutely 
 unable to grasp the ideal love and the poetic thoughts in 
 which his wife lives, and towards which she is for ever 
 trying to attract him. Her constant anxiety for his im- 
 provement wearies him, and he finds his pleasures away 
 from home. Thus they drift mentally further and further 
 apart, the wife's only idea of re-union being that her hus- 
 band shall mould himself to her, and when at last we 
 find her " on deck," the thought uppermost in her mind 
 is that her silence will lead his heart back to her, and 
 that the parting is not for ever. The various phases of 
 mind through which James Lee's wife passes are depicted 
 in nine short poems. 
 
 I. At the. Window she is watching for her husband's 
 return. The skies are changing towards winter, and 
 momentary dread fills her heart. Will her husband's 
 love change to winter also? 
 
 II. By the Fireside. They are sitting together over 
 the fire, but she cannot silence her forebodings. She 
 thinks how the sailor out at sea will notice the brightly 
 lighted room and will envy the warmth within, and then 
 bitterly she contrasts the cheerful appearance of her home 
 \vith the dreary gloom in her own heart. The fire in 
 front of them is of shipwreck wood, and it seems to her 
 ominously suggestive of her life.
 
 THE POEMS. 63 
 
 ill. In the Doorway. The cold of approaching win- 
 ter, which makes the swallows flee and the leaves wither, 
 chills her heart. Then it braces her to a healthy resist- 
 ance, and she resolves that her life and love shall not 
 change with the change of season. 
 
 IV. On the Beach is addressed directly to her husband, 
 but she seems to be speaking to his absent spirit rather 
 than to himself. She reviews the past, and reasons with 
 him, and endeavours to show him why he is in the 
 svrong. He first sought her love, and now that it is 
 wholly his, he not only despises but is angered by it. 
 
 V. On the Cliff she is struggling to hope against hope. 
 She watches a bare dry rock, which is suddenly beautified 
 by a butterfly which settles on it. In like manner, she 
 almost hopes love may beautify her husband's heart 
 and bring it back to her. 
 
 VI. Reading a Book, Under the Cliff. The poem 
 which she here quotes is one which was published in a 
 magazine in 1836. It is a song indicating the wailing of 
 the wind, and attempting to fathom the meaning of the 
 sound, in which she finds the echo of her own grief. She 
 feels that her grief and the wind are alike controlled by 
 God, and she tries to submit patiently to His will, al- 
 though she fails as yet to see the reason for the law of 
 change and uncertainty, the existence of which she can- 
 not but admit. 
 
 VII. Among the Rocks she resigns herself to the in- 
 evitable, but determines that since 
 
 " If you loved only what were worth your love, 
 Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you." 
 
 Therefore she will love on for ever, though her reward may 
 not be found on earth.
 
 66 THE POEMS. 
 
 VIII. Beside the Drawing-Board completes the lesson 
 of resignation which she began to learn among the rocks. 
 She has for her models a little peasant-girl " with the 
 poor coarse hand," and an exquisite cast of a hand by 
 Da Vinci. For a moment she scorns the hand of 
 flesh which is so unsightly, until she remembers that 
 the beauty in Da Vinci's cast is due to his life-long 
 study of all hands, coarse or otherwise. In like 
 manner, she feels, must she study and endure life and 
 reality ere she can produce the desired effect on her 
 husband. And just as the poor coarse hand of the 
 peasant is of equal use with the most beautiful, so must 
 life without love be yet as useful and as earnest. 
 
 IX. On Deck is the fulfilment of this decision according 
 to her lights. She feels that release from her presence is 
 necessary to her husband's happiness, and therefore she 
 is leaving him, but not without a faint hope that absence 
 may endear her to him. Should this be, should he come 
 to her at last with a gleam of love equal to her own, he 
 might by then be old and wrinkled, ugly as herself, yet 
 joy would blind her to everything but their re-union. 
 
 Gold Hair : A Story of Pornic, is a true story, and 
 traces the effect of Original Sin in even those who 
 appear most holy. A girl, supposed to be all that 
 is good and gracious, was discovered, after her death, to 
 have hoarded up and hidden in her golden hair, thirty 
 gold pieces. To ensure that these should be buried with 
 her, she assumed great pride in her masses of golden hair, 
 and insisted that it should be left exactly as it was at her 
 death. 
 
 'Jhe Worst of It is the passionate, heartbroken appeal 
 of a man to his wife, who has been false to him. He im- 
 plores her to return to the path of virtue, not to escape
 
 THE POEMS. 67 
 
 his anger, for, although he utterly resigns her here and 
 hereafter, yet he feels for her nothing but an overwhelm- 
 ing sense of pity, which he knows will be powerless to 
 avert God's wrath. The worst of it is that he is con- 
 scious of all the good which his wife's influence had 
 formerly wrought upon him, and this recollection makes 
 it the harder that he is helpless now, and can do nothing 
 to save her. 
 
 Dte Aliter Visvm; 1 or, Le Byron de Nos Jours, is 
 an indignant reproach spoken by a woman to the man 
 who, ten years before, had seemed to love her, but who 
 had lacked the moral courage to face the possible diffi- 
 culties which might have arisen from the differences of 
 their age and experience of life. He was already elderly, 
 and she a girl. He had just allowed her to see the 
 love which was dawning in his heart, then discretion 
 had gained the day, and he had left her in silence. 
 They have now met again for the first time, and with 
 bitter irony, which we cannot but feel must have been 
 bora of love, she reviews the past ten years. He is still 
 unmarried, is famous, and has become entangled with a 
 ballet-dancer. She has married, but her life has been 
 loveless, and thus the possibilities of her soul have been 
 stunted, and her life infinitely narrowed. Thus the ruin 
 of four souls lies at his door, and all the result of wasted 
 opportunity. 
 
 Too Late is the lament of a lover who had not 
 pressed his love, and had watched the beloved one give 
 herself to another, while he still loved on in silence. 
 Now it is too late. She is dead, and in death he feels 
 that she is his own once more, as he believes she will be 
 hereafter in eternity. 
 
 1 " Heaven thought not so," from V:rgil, Aen. II. 4^8.
 
 68 THE POEMS. 
 
 Alt Vogler is a wonderful interpretation of the power 
 of music. The Abbe has been extemporising upon the 
 musical instrument which he had invented, and as the 
 last notes die away, he is possessed of a passionate desire 
 to retain the sounds of the music in his head, and in his 
 soul the emotions and exaltation which it has called up. 
 Out of it there had grown up a palace more beautiful 
 than Solomon's, but it vanished like a dream. While it 
 lasted the music bore him to the very heights of heaven 
 and showed him all its glories, and the secrets of the past 
 and future. But it is over now, and cannot be recalled. 
 To him then music appears as "the finger of God," not 
 " art in obedience to laws," and the cause of its power is 
 unknown. Thus more nearly than all else in this world, 
 music interprets the power of God. In God's eyes 
 i 'There shall never be one lost good," but "All we 
 have willed, or hoped, or dreamed of good shall exist," 
 and therefore Abt Vogler is content to leave his music 
 together wilh all other lost ideals, in God's hands, con- 
 fident that our failure here is 
 
 " but a triumph's evidence 
 For the fulness of the days," 
 
 and that hereafter we shall find them all perfected by 
 God. With this comfort in his heart, Abt Vogler ceases 
 to grieve at the suddenness with which the cessation of 
 the music has brought him back to this lower world, the 
 C major of life, and he finds rest. 
 
 Rabbi Ben Ezra expresses the supposed meditations on 
 life and death of the Hebrew Rabbi of that name. Ac- 
 cording to him, life is to be a continual striving after the 
 highest, which can only be reached in so-called death.
 
 THE POEMS. 69 
 
 It is his belief that only in age does man begin to know, 
 and that therefore it is contrary to all idea of God's love 
 to think that just before success the end shall come to 
 annul the labour of so many years. Thus he feels that 
 death is but the perfecting crisis in the life of the soul which 
 is immortal. Such is the bare outline of A'abbi Sen Ezra. 
 It is one of those rare poems which go through the world 
 helping to mould the lives of those who will fathom its 
 meaning, a model of religious philosophy, giving strength 
 and courage. 
 
 A Death in the Desert relates the death of St. John 
 as supposed to be told by an eye-witness. The details 
 of the surroundings of the dying apostle are graphically 
 and delicately portrayed, and over the whole there hangs 
 an atmosphere of calm in perfect harmony with a sacred 
 death-bed. 
 
 St. John, the last of the disciples of Christ, has fled 
 from persecution, and is hidden and guarded in a cave in 
 the desert by faithful friends. His last hour is at hand, 
 and he has lain long unconscious, but just before the end 
 he recovers from his trance and speaks last words of 
 counsel to those who are so tenderly watching him. He 
 foretells the age of doubt which will ensue, when his 
 very existence will not be credited and his life with Christ 
 will be laughed to scorn ; but he preaches courage to those 
 who shall then be living, for he affirms that Christianity 
 will never become a mere remembrance, because the 
 indefinable need of love will never die ; and this need 
 can be ascribed to no law of nature but only to God Him- 
 self. This idea seems to constitute -the raisan d'etre of 
 the poem. It is not historical, but seems to be a peg 
 on which to hang the leading principles of Browning's 
 religion. This is confirmed by the prophecy of modern
 
 76 HE POEMS. 
 
 agnostic criticism, which Browning is well known to have 
 icsented bitterly. 
 
 Caliban upon Setebos : or Natural Theology in tht 
 Island, is a satire upon those who would create God in 
 their own image, and is an inimitable study of the 
 grotesque. Monologue is again the method of the poem, 
 which is written in the third person, after the manner in 
 which children speak. Caliban has stolen an hour's rest 
 from his labours, and while he sprawls in the sun to enjoy 
 it, he reflects somewhat disrespectfully on the God of 
 the Patagonians, Setebos, whom he worships. He ex- 
 plains his belief that Setebos is only a secondary deity, 
 and that there is One higher still whom Caliban styles 
 the "Quiet." Whether Setebos was created by the 
 "Quiet," Caliban cannot decide, but in any case he is 
 convinced that Setebos is not the primary deity, and 
 therefore Caliban imputes to him human attributes and 
 weaknesses, and imagines him jealous of the " Quiet," 
 just as he, Caliban, is jealous of Setebos. Suddenly a 
 thunderstorm begins, and in terror Caliban hides his 
 face, protesting infinite penitence for disrespect, and 
 promising anything and everything if only he may escape 
 the dreadful thunder. 
 
 Confessions. The speaker is dying, and his answer to 
 the priest's inquiry as to whether he does not " view the 
 world as a vale of tears " is a review of the love episode 
 of his youth, in which with exultant joy he lives over 
 again the happiness of long ago. In the description of 
 the scene of the love-making, in order to fix the spots 
 which he used to pass, the sick man points to the posi- 
 tion of various medicine bottles on the table, and it is 
 remarkable that there is nothing grotesque in this 
 commonplace illustration. Rambling on with the
 
 THE POEMS. 71 
 
 story, the two last lines sufficiently express the spirit 
 of the poem, 
 
 " How sad and bad and mad it was 
 But then, how it was sweet !" 
 
 May and Death is a lament on the death of a friend. 
 The mourner wishes that the season which has robbed 
 him of his friend might in turn be robbed of all its 
 beauty. Then, realising the selfishness of such a wish, 
 he modifies it, and only wishes that one plant might die 
 which specially reminds him of his dead friend. 
 
 Deaf and Dumb, a Group by Woolner. The faces 
 and eyes of the deaf and dumb children in Woolner's 
 group express what their lips could not adequately have 
 spoken, just as the obstruction of the prism divides blank 
 white light into its lovely elementary colours. 
 
 Prospice is a passionate protest against fear of death. 
 It is a tribute to the memory of Mrs. Browning, written 
 only a few months after her death, and the knowledge 
 that it is a personal utterance adds to its interest, although 
 not to its beauty, which nothing can enhance. 
 
 Eurydice to Orpheus interprets Sir Frederick Leighton's 
 picture of that name, and puts into the mouth of Eurydice 
 such pleading words that she appears entirely responsible 
 for Orpheus' disobedience in turning to look at her. 
 
 Youth and Art has for motive, like " Dis Aliter 
 Visum," the pathetic utterance, " What might have 
 been," but this poem is written in a much lighter and 
 almost humorous spirit. The woman is again the 
 speaker, but there is no bitterness in the speech, only a 
 vague regret. 
 
 A Face describes with infinite delicacy and grace the 
 picture of a very beautiful head and throat.
 
 72 THE POEMS. 
 
 A Likeness expresses the annoyance which is caused 
 by the indifferent criticism of some object precious to its 
 owner. The instance quoted is that of a print which has 
 been bought for the sake of some fancied resemblance, 
 and which a friend, ignorant of the association, half- 
 heartedly admires or takes exception to. 
 
 Mr, Sludge, the Medium, is a sketch supposed to be 
 founded on an incident in the life of the American spirit- 
 ualist, Home. The poem is extremely humorous, and, 
 at the same time, is a striking instance of Browning's 
 sympathy with all men that is to say, of his power of 
 realising what in given circumstances their thoughts 
 would be, whether he shares them or no. It is quite 
 certain that Browning in no way felt with such an 
 acknowledged cheat and humbug as Sludge, but he 
 insists that even he shall have fair play, and allows him 
 at least to defend himself. Discovered cheating in the 
 house of his patron, Mr. Hiram Horsfall, Sludge ingeni- 
 ously turns the tables on to Society, affirming that truth 
 is not believed, and that therefore lies are actually forced 
 from him. By arguments expressed with infinite humour, 
 Sludge confesses, excuses, and defends himself to such 
 effect that his patron pardons him, and even dismisses 
 him with a present of money. Left alone, Sludge changes 
 his tone, and departs cursing Mr. Horsfall freely, and 
 vowing vengeance. 
 
 Apparent Failure, a touching little poem on the 
 Morgue 1 at Paris, is one of the many examples of Brown- 
 ing's optimism and of his firm faith in the immortality of 
 the soul. He had visited the Morgue, and the sight of 
 the bodies of three suicides, which many would have 
 
 1 The building where the bodies of those found drowned are 
 carried for identification.
 
 HE POEMS. "3 
 
 shrunk from in disgust, only calls from him exclamations 
 of pity, and the expression of his belief 
 
 " That what began best, can't end worst, 
 Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst." 
 
 Epilogue presents a kind of summing up of religion in 
 all its aspects. The first speaker, as David, represents 
 the strong faith of Judaism, and testifies how, amidst 
 the worship of thousands, the presence of the Lord filled 
 the house of the Lord. Next comes Kenan, grieving 
 over the loss of Christian faith, which he thinks has gone 
 to join other myths, and over the hard responsibility 
 of those who hive to lead men's thoughts in default of 
 religion. Lastly comes Browning himself, who de- 
 clares God's earth to be the only temple needed for His 
 worship, and that God is my universe that feels and 
 knows. 
 
 VIII., IX., X. The King and the Boole. "The 
 Ring and the Book " may best be described as a gigantic 
 dramatic monologue in twelve books. It has its origin 
 in an old Roman murder case, the account of which 
 Browning found in a book he bought for eightpence 
 at a second-hand bookstall in Florence. In it he found 
 not only the details of the murder, but also verbatim 
 copies of the speeches for and against the accused, 
 together with the final judgment of the Pope, and cer- 
 tain manuscript letters reporting the execution of the 
 murderers. It has often been urged that the story is not 
 a fit subject for poetry, and at first sight of the bare 
 details this seems true. Browning himself realised this, 
 and he defends his choice in the first part of the poem,
 
 74 THE POEMS. 
 
 to which he gives the title of the whole " The Ring and 
 the Book." 
 
 The following epitome of the story may serve as a guide 
 to the plot and the construction. 
 
 Count Guklo Franceschini, an impecunious nobleman 
 of Rome, is anxious to retrieve his shattered fortunes by a 
 wealthy marriage, and to this end he takes for his wife 
 Pompilia, the supposed child of Pietro and Violante 
 Camparini. This couple, thinking to secure for them- 
 selves a luxurious shelter for their old age, do not unde- 
 ceive Guido as to Pompilia's parentage until the marriage 
 has taken place, and the expected dowry is claimed. 
 Then each party discovers his mistake. The Comparini 
 promptly find that discretion is the better part of valour, 
 and quit their adopted son-in-law's not too hospitable 
 roof, leaving poor Pompilia to bear the brunt of his rage. 
 This is no light matter, and she seeks alleviation of 
 her miseries in vain. The Church and the law, to whom 
 she appeals, alike rebuke and send her back to her hus- 
 band, and she submits patiently to his malice until she 
 realises that ere long she will become a mother* Then, 
 with the courage of despair, she leaves her husband's 
 house, escorted by her own true friend, Giuseppe Capon- 
 sacchi, a priest of Arezzo. Guido pursues and overtakes 
 them at Castelmurio, and they are arrested. The case is 
 tried, but Guide's charge against his wife of infidelity not 
 being proved, Caponsacchi is merely banished for a time, 
 while Pompilia is consigned to the care of a sisterhood, 
 and is eventually permitted to return to Violante and 
 Pietro. 
 
 Here a son is born, who is at once hidden away in 
 safety out of his father's reach. A fortnight later, Guido, 
 accompanied by four hired assassins, makes his appear-
 
 fHE POEMS. ?5 
 
 ance at the C'omparini's villa, attacks and kills them both, 
 together with Pompilia, who, however, survives long 
 enough to give evidence of the crime. Guido is arrested 
 the same night, and boldly admits his deed, defending it 
 on the alleged ground of his wife's infidelity, which, he 
 declares, renders the murder a simple act of justice. 
 Pompilia's innocence, however, is fully proved, and 
 Guido is condemned. He makes a final appeal to the 
 Pope, who utterly refuses him mercy, and the sentence of 
 death is carried out. 
 
 Such is the bare outline of the story, in the minute 
 investigation of which Browning has filled four volumes 
 and 20,000 lines. One might reasonably expect from 
 this statement that the constant repetition of the tale 
 would become wearisome; and that it never does become 
 so is sufficient evidence of the subtle genius which pro- 
 duced the work. For character painting and grouping it 
 is unrivalled in English literature, and it is difficult to 
 fitly criticise such passages as that at the close of the 
 first book, beginning 
 
 " 0, lyric love, half-angel and half-bird," 
 
 wherein the poet invokes in his work the help and bless- 
 ing of his dearly-loved wife, who had died some years 
 before, but whose soul he feels death has left unchanged, 
 and whose spirit is ever with him. The action of the 
 entire poem takes place during the period of the trial of 
 Guide's subsequent appeal to the Pope. 
 
 The King and the Book opens with a description of 
 the manufacture of a gold ring, and the reader is at once 
 told that this dissertation on the manner of moulding the 
 gold into a circlet is analogous to Browning's plan of
 
 76 THE POEMS. 
 
 moulding the facts of the murder case into a poem. Gold 
 alone is too soft for such delicate workmanship, and is, 
 therefore, mixed with alloy to make it durable. So with 
 the poem. The book he bought for eight pence is the 
 pure golden fact too soft for use as it is, but easy to work 
 into the desired form when alloyed with a new spirit 
 that of the poet's self. To this end, writes Browning, 
 
 " I fused my live soul and that inert stuff," 
 
 until one by one the scenes rose before his eyes no 
 longer dead words, but tragedies of living, breathing 
 men and women. Next follows a plain unvarnished 
 account of the case just as set forth in the book, and after 
 this come the various points of view from which Brown- 
 ing intends to consider the trial. Public opinion is 
 accorded the first claim, and is, of course, divided in its 
 mind. Heuce we find the verdicts of Half Rome, 
 which favours the husband's cause ; The Other Half 
 Rome, which indignantly defends the wife ; and Tertium 
 Quid, in which the speaker is addressing two persons of 
 high degree, of whose opinions he is not quite sure. 
 Tertium Quid is, therefore, careful not to commit himself 
 on either side, but merely proposes the arguments each 
 might use. Rome and rumour having thus spoken, next 
 come the dramatis personce of the tragedy. First, Count 
 Guido Franceschini, just released from the rack, speaking 
 with assumed humility, tells his tale. He admits and 
 glories in his deed, which he asserts was an act of justice 
 due to the Church, of which he declares himself a most 
 zealous adherent. Weaving together a tissue of false- 
 hoods, he only introduces truth where it can be turned to
 
 THE POEMS. 77 
 
 his advantage. With exquisite craft he turns and twists 
 his defence to appeal to the susceptibilities of his judges, 
 elaborating such arguments as he thinks likely to gain 
 their sympathy, and slurring over those which his assumed 
 innocence forces him to name, but which he knows would 
 weaken his case. This marriage, according to his version, 
 was a matter of arrangement, in which love had no part, 
 and he at least had faithfully adhered to the terms of the 
 agreement, although he had been so shamefully duped in 
 the matters of Pompilia's birth and dowry. He implies 
 that, nevertheless, had she cared to try, Pompilia might 
 have aroused some feeling of affection in him, but she 
 did not try, and of that he will not complain. The true 
 motives for his killing her was his devotion to the Church, 
 whom her infidelity had insulted, and his own outraged 
 feelings as a father, on which last point he dwells largely. 
 Finally, he defies the Court to convict him justly, and 
 after an eloquent appeal that his son, together with his 
 wounded honour, should be restored to him, he makes 
 way for his alleged rival. Giuseppe Caponsacchi's evi- 
 dence forms a finely-drawn contrast to Count Guide's. 
 It lacks the overwhelming spirit of intellectual genius 
 which pervades the Count's oration, but instead it has a 
 ring of truth which invests its pathos and passion with 
 power not less impressive. Caponsacchi speaks in a state 
 of violent agitation, which he tries vainly to suppress. 
 He can hardly credit the news of the murder, which, with 
 a summons to appear at the trial, has brought him from 
 Civita Vecchia, and when he at last grasps the truth, his 
 soul is torn with conflicting emotions of rage and sorrow. 
 Distress and indignation fill his heart, and with passionate 
 fervour he relates the story of his whole acquaintance 
 with Pompilia from his first sight of her at the theatre
 
 78 THK POF.MS. 
 
 until their flight. Then, fearing lest his reverence and 
 devotion for her may through his vehemence be miscon- 
 strued into unholy love, he tries to moderate his words and 
 speak with forced calm. At the last with a cry of utter 
 despair he leaves the Court. 
 
 Pompilia. The next scene takes place by the bedside 
 of the dying Pompilia, who, in touching, child-like words 
 tells the story of her life such a simple, gentle little life, 
 without the experience that might have brought her 
 worldly wisdom. Married at thirteen to a man nearly 
 four times her own age, she had expected her husband 
 to love and cherish her "as husbands are supposed to," 
 and disappointed in this, she none the less knew her duty 
 to obey her husband; and so in patience and submission 
 she obeyed until she knew another life than hers was in 
 her hands. Then, at the mother's call, the woman in 
 her sprang to life. For her unborn child no sacrifice or 
 risk could be too great, and she sent for Caponsacchi. 
 The forged letters which the waiting-woman had 
 carried between them were nothing to her, for she could 
 neither read nor write. Her husband's furious tirades 
 against Caponsacchi did not trouble her. In her new 
 joy, the solitary joy which had shone upon her life, her 
 instinct fastened upon her one true friend, and without 
 doubt or fear she turned to him for help. After that, 
 until her husband's savage slaughter at the villa, every- 
 thing had seemed a dream in which the one reality had 
 been her child, and even this is taken from her. Still 
 with exquisite pathos she thanks God that he was 
 born, and that for a whole long fortnight he was hers. 
 Of her husband she speaks as little ill as she can, 
 and merely says, " I could not love him, but his 
 mother did." So to the end, when her last words are
 
 THE POEMS. 79 
 
 in blessing of her " soldier-saint " who "saved her at 
 her need." 
 
 From the supreme beauty of Pompilia we turn 
 with reluctance to the most matter-of-fact portions 
 of the poem, the counsel for the prosecution and 
 the counsel for the defence. The change of atmos- 
 phere is somewhat abruptly evident in the very first 
 lines of Dominus Hycinthus de Archangelis, of which 
 the metre and versification at once denote an almost 
 humorous spirit. De Archangelis is preparing his speech 
 in defence of Count Guide's crime, but beneath his Law 
 and Latin there runs an under-current of domestic matters 
 which is highly amusing, although somewhat irritating 
 immediately after the hushed and tender pathos of 
 Pompilia's tale. To the advocate, however, the 
 feast in honour of his son's eighth birthday is more 
 interesting than Count Guido, and his chief object is to 
 get through his work quickly, so that he may the sooner 
 enjoy a romp with his little son. His arguments are 
 therefore merely words strung together, with which for a 
 show of learning he mixes a great deal of Latin. He 
 assumes Pompilia to be guilty, so takes no pains to prove 
 it, and then by much obviously false reasoning he asserts 
 the justice of Count Guide's avenging his outraged honour. 
 Jut is doctor Johannes Baptista Eottimua, the Fisc or 
 public prosecutor, is equally unenthusiastic over his case, 
 and is merely anxious to defeat De Archangelis, of whom 
 he is extremely jealous. His ideal of womanhood is 
 evidently low, and his defence of Pompilia consists more 
 in coarse praise of her and in attempting to justify the 
 misconduct which is alleged against her than in denying 
 it. It seems probable that Bottinius was not fully con- 
 vinced ami was wholly indifferent as to her innocence.
 
 80 THE POEMS. 
 
 His object is simply to advertise himself, which he does 
 in an amusing if rather repulsive manner. 
 
 The Pope, From these the least interesting sections 
 of the poem we pass to one of the most impressive, the 
 summing-up and final verdict of the Pope. The grave, 
 measured verse in which this book is written admirably 
 portrays the dignity and solemnity which may well be 
 supposed to characterise Pope Innocent XII. We find 
 him at the end of a long day which has been devoted to 
 earnest consideration of Count Guide's case. He has 
 arrived at his final decision, that the murderers shall be 
 put to death; but before he puts the seal to this decree, 
 he pauses and reviews the case yet once again, fearing 
 lest his mere human judgment may err. To avert such 
 mishap he searches for precedent in the past, but finds 
 each a contradiction of the last. On himself alone then 
 he must rely; and he is an old man whose end cannot be 
 far distant, and from whose weary shoulders he would 
 fain keep the burden of this fellow-mortal's death. On 
 what plea dare he grant mercy? He lays bare the in- 
 most workings of his heart and mind, from which his 
 judgment has been formed, and the result is that he feels 
 his decision to be the right one, "in the eyes alike of 
 God and man." As he reviews the case, he throws a 
 new light upon it by reiterating the points upon which 
 Guido based this last appeal, but he turns these very 
 arguments of defence into weapons against the Count. 
 Guido had pleaded for a reprieve on the ground of his 
 connection with the Church, and of his high birth. 
 ^But these advantages, argues the Pope, only increase 
 his guilt, while the dishonour of Pompilia's birth 
 sheds added radiance on her purity and goodness, since 
 from the child of such a mother surely evil only might
 
 THE POEMS. 8 1 
 
 have been expected. Willi tender, reverential words 
 the old man rejoices in the "one blossom makes me 
 proud at eve," ending 
 
 "Go past me 
 
 And get thy praise, and be not far to seek 
 
 Presently when I follow if I may ! " 
 
 Caponsacchi he places " not so very much apart," but 
 awards him a more qualified praise, feeling that, although 
 he has done well and wisely in coming to Pompilia's 
 rescue, yet he has not done so in a manner entirely con- 
 sistent with the dignity of the Church. For Guido he 
 can see no hope here or hereafter, unless the suddenness 
 of the shock of death may flash the truth into his soul 
 and save him. He bids Pietro and Violante " troop 
 somewhere 'twixt the best and worst," for he realises that 
 they sinned more through ignorance than vice, and they 
 have suffered for their sin. Thus having judged the actors 
 in the drama, and having sought in prayer true light from 
 God, Pope Innocent silences his inclination to pity with 
 one question, " How should I dare die, this man let live ? " 
 The next line shows the answer which his conscience 
 makes : 
 
 " Carry this forthwith to the Governor !" 
 
 Guido. The next book, the last of the monologues 
 spoken by the characters of the drama, brings us back 
 again to Guido ; but, as Browning makes evident by his 
 title, it is the man himself this time who speaks, not 
 the smooth-tongued hypocrite, Count Guido Franceschini. 
 Guido has received the final judgment of the Pope, 
 but can scarcely credit its reality. As the truth forces 
 itself upon him, he tries, with protestations of innocence, 
 to persuade his former friends, Cardinal Acciaiuoli and 
 
 F
 
 82 THE POEMS. 
 
 Abate Panciatichi, to intercede once again for his life, 
 but all to no purpose. The time for any chance of reprieve 
 is past, the hour of doom is rapidly drawing near, and 
 they are there to receive Guido's confession and to shrive 
 him. Guido's last hope dies away, and as it dies he 
 throws off the mask with which he had hoped to cheat 
 his judges. The Cardinal and Abate desire his confession ? 
 They shall have it, and__truth itself does indeed appear. 
 But such truth, such confession ! Frantic with rage and 
 despair, the unhappy man pours forth a torrent of 
 blasphemy, impenitence, and scorn, very different from 
 his specious, wary speech before the Court. Raving in 
 alternate bursts of defiance and entreaty, his last moments 
 pass, until, as the door opens and the guard enters to lead 
 him to execution, an involuntary confession of his wife's 
 innocence is wrung from his dying lips in his last frenzied 
 cry, 
 
 " Abate, Cardinal, Christ, Maria, God, . . . 
 Pompilia, will you let them murder me ? " 
 
 The Book and the Ring. Under this title follows 
 what may be described as author's notes on the preceding 
 eleven books, together with four letters, part genuine, 
 part fictitious, describing the execution of Count Guido 
 and his accomplices. The first letter, from a Venetian 
 gentleman to a friend, describes the execution among the 
 news of the past week. The second, from De Archangelis, 
 the late Count's counsel, is diplomatically written for the 
 edification of the late Count's friends and relations, and 
 dwells upon the noble bearing and patience of the Count 
 until the end, together with much more in a similar strain. 
 To this, however, Browning adds an imaginary postscript, 
 which is evidently intended for only one pair of eyes, and
 
 THE POEMS. 83 
 
 this is to quite another effect. In it the writer admits 
 that his only regret for the Count's death is that it involves 
 his own failure and consequent lack of pay. At the same 
 time he confides to his friend that the Gomez case, which 
 is soon coming on, will make up for this one proving un- 
 profitable. The third letter is again imaginary, and comes 
 from Bottinius, Pompilia's counsel. His chief regret is 
 that his case was so easily won. He would have relished 
 a harder fight better. As to Pompilia's innocence or 
 guilt, that interested him but little, and now fancying that 
 he sees an advantage to be gained by her guilt, he pro- 
 ceeds to declare that Guido's guilt in no way proves her 
 innocence, which he attempts to disprove. By this he 
 hopes to secure her property for the monastery to which 
 she was originally consigned, and from which he hopes to 
 receive a large reward. It is interesting to know that, 
 although the letter to this effect is fictitious, such an 
 attempt was actually made. The Pope interfered 
 to prevent this, and Browning quotes from the actual 
 verdict on the matter, as recorded in the little yellow- 
 covered eightpenny book in which he discovered all the 
 other details of the case. 
 
 Last, but not least, come Browning's own reflections 
 on the story and on the probable fate of Pompilia's child, 
 together with the statement that the object of the whole 
 poem is to prove the worthlessness of human testimony. 
 Finally, the poet lays his rounded ring at the feet of the 
 " Lyric Love," whose help and blessing he had invoked 
 at the close of the first book. 
 
 XI. Bcdaustion's Adventure, including a transcript 
 from Euripides. Balaustiorfs Adventure is written with 
 a double motive ; in the first place as a vindication of
 
 84 THE POEMS. 
 
 the power of poetry, and secondly to introduce the tran- 
 script of the Alktstis of Euripides. Its first object 
 is attained melodiously, and with an enthusiasm which 
 irresistibly communicates itself to the reader. 
 
 Balaustion tells her girl-friends the story of how she 
 and her companions from Rhodes were pursued by a 
 pirate ship and sought for shelter in the harbour of 
 Syracuse. This was refused, until Balaustion, knowing 
 their love for Euripides, volunteered to recite to them his 
 play of Alkestis, as she had recently seen it performed at 
 Kameiios. Having recounted her adventure, through 
 which, she says, she has gained not only her freedom but 
 the esteem of Euripides himself and the love of Euthykles, 
 Balaustion proceeds to recite the play to her friends. 
 
 Alkestis. Admetus, the husband of Alkesti?, was dying, 
 but according to a promise which Apollo had gained for 
 him from the Fates, his life might be spared if some 
 friend would voluntarily die in his stead. His wife 
 accordingly sacrificed herself, and then, too late, he re- 
 pented of his selfish cowardice. His whole household 
 was plunged in grief when Herakles, 1 not knowing of 
 Alkestis' death, came jubilantly to visit him. Admetus 
 told him that death was in the house, but did not say 
 who was dead. Nevertheless Herakles at once proposed 
 to proceed to some other host. This Admetus would not 
 allow, and bade his servants prepare the guest-rooms and 
 "furnish forth a plenteous feast." While feasting, 
 Herakles learnt from a servant that it was Alkestis who 
 was dead. Touched by Admetus' courtesy and hospitality 
 in the midst of his own grief, Herakles resolved to descend 
 into Hades and wrestle with Death for Alkestis. He re- 
 
 1 Hercules.
 
 THE POEMS. 85 
 
 turned panting but victorious, bearing Alkestis, veiled, with 
 him. lie then asked Admetus' protection for the woman 
 he had brought, and it was not until he was convinced of 
 the sincerity of his penitence for his late cowardice that 
 he showed him that the woman was his own wife. 
 
 The translation of the Alkestis is declared by Greek 
 scholars to be admirable, although it is here reproduced 
 as an epic poem, not a play. Browning's own criticisms 
 and explanations by the way bring out the sympathetic 
 humanity of Euripides. 
 
 Balaustion herself leaves a happy, refreshing memory 
 in our minds, and we look forward with pleasure to her 
 re-appearance in Aristophanes' Apology. 
 
 Prince Hohenstiel-Schicangau, Saviour of Society, 
 Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau is a fictitious monologue 
 supposed to be spoken by Louis Napoleon, and is a clever 
 mixture of justice and sophistry. The scene of the poem 
 is laid in a room near Leicester Square, where the Prince 
 sits smoking and drinking tea with an adventuress, to 
 whom he volunteers to relate the history of his political 
 life and to explain the motives which have induced his 
 line of conduct. He begins by stating that he assumes 
 the title Saviour of Society in centra-distinction to the 
 would-be reformers of Society ; because, while the latter 
 have endeavoured to bring about a new state of things, 
 he has merely laboured to preserve and make the best of 
 the old. He cites and defends not only possible accusa- 
 tions launched against him by the world, but also the 
 arguments of his own conscience. 1 His defence of his 
 mode of life is brilliant special-pleading, and is most in- 
 
 1 Cf. the husband in Fifine and Aristophanes in Aristophanti 
 Apology.
 
 86 THE POEMS. 
 
 teresting : nevertheless it always leaves a feeling that it 
 is only talk, and although much of what he asserts is both 
 true and laudable in theory, the poem seems to reach a 
 perfectly natural ending in the admission that neither his 
 life nor his defence of it are entirely satisfactory even to 
 himself. 
 
 Fifine at the Fair discusses the merits of a vagrant and 
 unconventional life with particular regard to inconstancy 
 in marriage. The advantages and justifications are set 
 forth in an elaborate monologue in the body of the poem, 
 addressed by the speaker to his wife ; and the final judg- 
 ment of the poet seems to be set out in the Epilogue, 
 spoken by the same speaker, in which he imagines how, 
 years after his wife's death, he, being himself about to 
 die, sees only his wife returning to re-union with him. 
 In the Prologue the poet imagines a swimmer in the sea, 
 while a butterfly floats through the air over his head ; 
 and he feels that as each of them is in a separate element, 
 and yet is conscious of and can watch the other, so it 
 may be that those in heaven watch mortals left behind 
 on earth. In the poem itself the husband continues this 
 simile of a swimmer in the sea. He speaks of his wife, 
 Elvire, as the sea itself, while Fifine, the gipsy, represents 
 simply the froth of the waves, valueless in itself, yet with- 
 out which the sea would be incomplete. Having thus 
 vindicated the necessity for Fifine's existence, he proceeds 
 to show the special use she is to be to him. She, Fifine 
 the foam-flake, here one minute, gone the next, if gathered 
 useless and not even beautiful, is to give him an impetus 
 towards Elvire, the very ocean which never varies or slips 
 away.. When every argument fails to convince Elvire, 
 lie makes a last effort to gain his point by describing to 
 her a dream he has had of the Carnival at Venice. At
 
 THE POEMS. 87 
 
 first he seemed to view it from a distance, and could not 
 understand what the revellers were saying, and every- 
 thing looked grotesque and ugly. As he drew nearer, 
 the faces and language became clearer and more human, 
 and at last by mixing with the crowd he understood the 
 worth of qualities which at first sight he had counted as 
 faults. Then in his dream he grew aware that the sup- 
 posed Carnival was in reality the world, and that the 
 nearer he drew to the men and women in it, the less 
 repulsive did they become. At this he awoke rilled 
 with the determination that henceforth "nothing human 
 should be alien to him," and he declares that it is in the 
 exercise of this lesson that he now urges the claims of 
 Fifine. While he is speaking, as if to show the 
 value of his reasoning, a note is slipped into his hand. 
 He explains to Elvire that he had given Fifine gold in 
 mistake for silver, and he begs five minutes in which to 
 " clear the matter up." If he exceeds that time, he de- 
 clares that Elvire may indeed doubt and leave him. 
 With this the body of the poem ends abruptly, and the 
 Epilogue, in a solemn, musical measure, sums up its dis- 
 cussion with " love is all and death is naught." 
 
 XII. Red Cotton Nightcap Country ; or, Turf and 
 rowers, 1873. This poem derives its title second-hand 
 from Miss Thackeray, who had laughingly styled St. 
 Aubin, the actual scene of this drama of real life, White 
 Cotton Nightcap Country, on account of its dead-and- 
 alive appearance, and also from the custom among its 
 inhabitants, both men and women, of wearing white caps. 
 In 1872, Browning and Miss Thackeray met at St. 
 Aubin (called in the poem St. Rambert), and here 
 Browning took occasion to correct the title, White Cot-
 
 88 THE POEMS. 
 
 ton Nightcap Country, to Red Cotton Nightcap Country, 
 as being more suitable to the tragic tale he knew con- 
 cerning it. The conversational method of the poem 
 gives a lighter tone and an added interest to a 
 somewhat gloomy tale, of which, unfortunately, the de- 
 tails are absolutely true, the only fictitious items being 
 imaginary names instead of real ones. The story is that 
 of Leonce Miranda, 1 who committed suicide on his 
 estate at St, Aubin in 1870. A man of Spanish descent 
 and temperament, Miranda was governed by two con- 
 flicting passions : the strongest devotion to the Catholic 
 Church, and utter infatuation in the love of a lady, Clara 
 Mulhausen. An inconvenient husband was the obstacle 
 which prevented Miranda from reconciling his two pas- 
 sions. He therefore chose the lady, and lived with her 
 in what would have been perfect happiness but for the 
 opposing passion, which disturbed his conscience. After 
 five years of this kind of life, during which he spent 
 much time and money on improving his estate, his 
 mother suddenly sent for him to remonstrate severely on 
 his extravagance. Miranda was much attached to his 
 mother, and felt her reproof so keenly that he attempted 
 suicide by throwing himself into the Seine. He was 
 rescued ; but, despite every care, he lay at death's door 
 until Clara was summoned to his side, after which he 
 gradually recovered sufficiently to return with her to St. 
 Aubin. Before he was perfectly convalescent, however, 
 he was again summoned to his mother's house. There 
 he found her dead, and a tribe of cousins waitins,' to 
 pounce upon her property, and to din into his ears their 
 opinion that he alone was responsible for her ikma 
 
 1 Antoiae Mellerio, the jeweller of the Place Vendome, Paris.
 
 THE POEMS. 89 
 
 Their cruel words had the desired effect. Miranda fell 
 into a swoon, and, on recovery, agreed to sign a deed 
 of gift, distributing all his property among his relations, 
 reserving only a sufficient portion for Clara, from whom 
 he determined to part forever. On the very day, how- 
 ever, on which the deeds were to be finally signed and 
 sealed by himself and Clara, Miranda was found delirious 
 before a huge fire, in which it was his evident intention 
 to destroy himself, and from which he was dragged away, 
 raving that he was being deprived of his last chance of 
 salvation. His hands had already been burnt away, and 
 his condition was such that when the delirium left him 
 several months of complete prostration ensued. Im- 
 mediately on his recovery he returned to Clara, and his 
 cousins heard no more about the distribution of his pro- 
 perty among themselves. For two years he endeavoured 
 by the strictest regard for all religious observances and 
 by fabulous acts of indiscriminate charity to atone for 
 the illegal love to which he still clung. Then suddenly, 
 without apparent rhyme or reason, he one day flung him- 
 self from the top of the tower in his garden, and was 
 found dead below. 
 
 Browning, after the large-hearted manner in which he 
 sympathised with all mankind, attributes the fatal leap 
 not to suicidal intent, but to a fanatical desire to vindicate 
 the power of the Image which is worshipped as a god in 
 France, on account of its supposed power of working 
 miracles. He conceives Miranda's hope to have been 
 that by supernatural power he would leap from the tower 
 to the chui'ch opposite, in which the Image stood, and that 
 by so doing he would prove indisputably to sceptics the 
 infallibility and glory of the Church. The poem is written 
 in flowing blank verse, which seldom rises to passim.
 
 90 THE POEMS. 
 
 but which is always just full enough of energy and spirit 
 to keep the reader's interest thoroughly alive. The 
 characters of Miranda and Clara being taken from life, 
 there is little scope for imagination in their portrayal, 
 but it is remarkable with what unerring aim Browning 
 has probed their hearts and read the story of their inner 
 lives. Miranda presents by far the more finished sketch, 
 Clara being to a great extent merely his reflection. Both 
 her final speech to the cousins who intrude upon her after 
 Miranda's death, and his soliloquy just before he takes 
 the fatal leap, are imaginary, and are fine examples of 
 dignity and repressed power. 
 
 The Inn Album, 1875, is a notable example of 
 Browning's attraction towards grotesque subjects, in 
 which he found such deep psychological interest. It also 
 bears out admirably his favourite saying, " nihil humanum 
 alienum a me puto," since the bare details of the story 
 (unfortunately a true one) are repulsive in the extreme. 
 Yet so skilfully has he wrought the touch of Nature into 
 what would else be mere vulgar crime, that disgust is re- 
 placed by interest, and immorality loses half its horror in 
 tragic grandeur. The story could not well have been re- 
 produced with the exactitude which characterises Red 
 Cotton Nightcap Country, and for this reason as well as 
 for poetical purposes Browning has closed the poem with 
 the violent death of the nobleman whose wickedness 
 forms the basis of the story. In reality the man lived 
 for many years after the events treated of in the poem. 
 Browning also introduces the imaginary character of a 
 young girl who, though a mere sketch in herself, forms 
 the pivot on which the tragedy of the other three char- 
 acters turns. These other three characters are taken fro.n 
 life, but all four are nameless in the poem and are dis-
 
 THE POEMS. Q( 
 
 tinguibhed only as the " elder" or " younger " man and 
 woman. The younger man has been transformed from 
 the low gambler which he really was into a youthful hero 
 caught in the toils of an experienced villain, and as such 
 he becomes a subject of interest and sympathy. There 
 is great pathos in the simple-minded, honest young fellow 
 who discovers in the victim of his friend's treachery his 
 own lost love, for whom his old reverence and devotion 
 are as strong as ever, though they are mixed with pity 
 now. The elderly roud, with his long record of sin and 
 shame, in which he sees only lost opportunities that rouse 
 regret but no remorse, is a perfect study of innate wicked- 
 ness. Even his own passionate appeal that his former 
 victim shall forget her past and present life and fly with 
 him to a happy future is only a fresh insult, although it 
 is possible that the sudden and unexpected meeting may 
 have roused in him a momentary flash which he believed 
 to be genuine love. The sequel, however, proves the 
 utter baseness of the man who endeavours to sell her to 
 his friend as payment of a gambling debt, and who 
 threatens, should she refuse, to lay before her unsuspecting 
 husband the history of her past life. 
 
 The lady herself presents a far simpler picture. Her 
 experience of wasted love and trust has crushed her life 
 and changed her nature. Love had ruled her very soul, 
 and its betrayal turned it into hate. It is not that she 
 seeks to claim undeserved sympathy : she realises that 
 her own sin has brought a just punishment, from which 
 there is no escape except in death. It seems as if, in spite 
 of the past, she had not fully grasped the infamy of her 
 sometime lover until he makes his foul suggestion. Then 
 all that is best in her nature rises in a desperate effort to 
 save the youth who has so chivalrously loved her from
 
 92 THE POEM?. 
 
 the clutches of his false, evil-minded friend. With heart- 
 felt earnestness she implores him to resist the fatal influence 
 which has been her ruin, and will be his, if he has not 
 strength enough to throw it off now and forever. Pro- 
 foundly moved, although at first bewildered, the youth 
 yields to her appeal, and when the truth is clear to him> 
 his vengeance is swift and sure. 
 
 XIII. Aristophanes' Apology, 1875, shows us Balaus- 
 tion happily married, having seen her hero-poet, and re- 
 ceived from him the priceless gift of his tragedy, 
 Herakles. Euripides is now dead, and as they float to- 
 wards Rhodes, Balaustion recalls to her husband, 
 Euthykles, the events of the night on which they first 
 heard of their poet's death. Balaustion had been about 
 to commemorate the night by reading aloud his Herakles, 
 when a knock at the door, followed by shouts of merri- 
 ment, bade them open to Aristophanes. He entered 
 drunk, and with mock deference explained the object of 
 his visit. His play, Thesmophoriazusce, had been a 
 great success, and while the uproarious mirth of the sup- 
 per which followed it was at its height, Sophocles had 
 entered, and announced the death of Euripides. Aristo- 
 phanes, feeling half guilty because of his previous ridicule 
 and abuse of the dead poet, had felt the need of justifying 
 himself, and therefore had come to Balaustion and 
 Euthykles, whom he regarded as almost belonging to 
 Euripides. His apology, Balaustion continues, was a 
 defence of comedy as tiie best means of teaching truth, 
 while doing harm to none, and he had explained his 
 'objections to Euripides, and challenged her to defend 
 him. This she did, first in her own words, and then by 
 what she thought the most powerful of all means, the
 
 THE POEMS. 93 
 
 reading of the Herakles, which Aristophanes' arrival had 
 interrupted. By this time their boat is nearing Rhodes, and 
 the poem ends with a final tribute to Euripides, in Balaus- 
 tion's emphatic assertion that he will live forever, and her 
 thanksgiving, " Glory to God, who saves Euripides ! " 
 
 Euripides' tragedy of Herakles (Hercules Furens) 
 opens with the return of Herakles from Hades, whence 
 he has brought Cerberus. 1 He finds his wife and chil- 
 dren in sore distress, thinking him dead, and themselves 
 threatened with death by the usurper Lukos. Herakles 
 slays Lukos, but is afterwards seized with a fit of mad- 
 ness, in which he kills his wife and children. When he 
 recovers his senses he is overwhelmed with grief at what 
 he has done, and the play ends with his departure with 
 Theseus, King of Athens, who vainly endeavours to rouse 
 and comfort him. 
 
 Aristophanes' Apology is more difficult to understand 
 than Balaustion's Adventure, on account of the many 
 classical allusions ; but the main thread of the story can 
 be followed and enjoyed by the most unclassical reader. 
 
 The Agamemnon of jEschylus. 1877, is the hardest of 
 all Browning's Greek poems. The plot is familiar to most. 
 Agamemnon returns from Ilion to Argos with Cassandra, 
 the prophetess. His wife, Clytemnestra, jealous of his 
 love for Cassandra, and enraged at the sacrifice of his 
 daughter, Iphigenia, slays Cassandra, while her lover, 
 Aigisthos, kills Agamemnon. Browning has made a per- 
 fectly literal translation of the play, which is, however, 
 more remarkable for its exactness of word for word in 
 almost the original metre than for its poetic beauty. 
 
 XIV. Pacchiarotlo and other poems. Prologue is a 
 1 This was the last of his twelve labours.
 
 94 THE POEMS. 
 
 dedication to a lady, in which Browning speaks of him- 
 self as breaking forth with his tale through the ring of 
 neighbours that separate him from her. 
 
 Pacchiarotto, and how he worked in Distemper, al- 
 though written as one consecutive poem, is, in reality, 
 composed of two parts. The first part is an amusing ac- 
 count of a true episode in the life of the painter, Giacomo 
 Pacchiarotto ; and the second part, under the veil of an 
 admonition to the same, is an attack from Browning him- 
 self upon his critics. Pacchiarotto lived in the sixteenth 
 century, and was one of a society called the Bardotti, 
 whose principal business in life seemed to be to discover 
 all actual and imaginary abuses, and to suggest innumer- 
 able theories for their reform, which they expected other 
 people to put in practice. Hence the title, Bardotti, 
 " spare horses," signifying that they walk quietly beside 
 the waggon, while others do the labour of drawing it 
 along. At last, however, Pacchiarotto discovered that 
 people were not anxious to be reformed, and that he only 
 got into trouble by his interference. He therefore re- 
 tired for a while from the ungrateful public, and since the 
 need of hearing his own eloquence was essential to him, 
 he arranged to give daily orations and sermons in his own 
 house to an audience which was, at least, silent if not ap- 
 preciative. He selected for his purpose a large empty 
 room, with white-washed walls, on which he painted in 
 distemper portraits of all sorts and conditions of men, 
 such as he thought in need of his admonitions, and from 
 whom he imagined himself receiving suitably deferential 
 replies and apologies. This amusement kept him out of 
 harm's way for a time. Then famine broke out in Siena, 
 and the Bardotti once more came to the front with then 
 advice, which ran as follows :
 
 THE POEMS. 95 
 
 "Just substitute servant for master, 
 Make Poverty Wealth and Wealth Poverty, 
 Unloose Man from overt and covert tie, 
 And straight out of social confusion 
 True Order would spring ! " 
 
 To this doctrine the Bardotti were all agreed, until Pac- 
 chiarotto suggested himself as the fittest leader in this 
 new order of things. Then the whole society turned 
 upon him with such fury that he was glad to beat an 
 ignominious retreat, and vanish from their sight as fast as 
 his heels could carry him. 
 
 " Right and left did he dash helter-skelter, 
 In agonised search of a shelter," 
 
 which at last he found in a sepulchre. It was not a 
 lodging after his taste; but such was his fear of the search 
 which the "spare horses " might make for the offending 
 would-be leader, that there he remained for two days. 
 Then he ventured out, a sadder and a wiser man, and 
 "gained, in a state past description, a convent of 
 monks." This ends the first part. Then follows the 
 monk's admonition that the paint-brush, and not social 
 reform, is Pacchiarotto's business, in which rebuke he 
 humbly acquiesces. Lastly, imagining them under the 
 disguise of a Masque of May-Day chimney-sweeps, who 
 are aptly accused of bringing with them more dirt than 
 they find in the chimneys, comes Browning's witty and 
 good-humoured attack on the criticism of his critics. In 
 place of the minute analysis which occurs in most of the 
 poems, this composition has throughout a boisterous vigour 
 which goes well witn the reckless audacity of the rhymes.
 
 96 tHE POEMS. 
 
 At the Mermaid disclaims the idea that the utterances 
 of the poet necessarily disclose the poet's self, and it also 
 denies that the poet's temperament is essentially sad. 
 Browning considered this last idea a popular fallacy, due 
 in great measure to the influence of Byron. The verses 
 are spoken in the name of Shakespeare, of whom it is 
 certainly more true that the public knows nothing of him 
 but his " work," and is absolutely ignorant as to his 
 inner life, than it is of Browning, who has given us such un- 
 deniably personal utterances as the Masque in Pacchiar- 
 otto, Prosfrice, and the incomparable One Word More. 
 
 House is also addressed to his indiscriminating critics, 
 and repeats the refusal to exhibit his inner life to the 
 public gaze. But he adds for those whose criticism 
 Browning could really value 
 
 " Outside should suffice for evidence : 
 And whoso desires to penetrate 
 Deeper, must dive by the spirit-sense." 
 
 In illustration of the wisdom of his refusal, there follows 
 the description of a house from which an earthquake has 
 torn off the front, together with an account of the idle 
 chatter of the neighbours as they rush in to explore the 
 house, indifferent as to the fate of its owner. 
 
 Shop is a grave rebuke to such as give their whole 
 lives to nothing but the business of making or trying 
 to make money. 
 
 Pisgah- Sights 1 are visions of the truth of life seen by 
 one leaving it. I. is a death-bed vision of life as it is 
 
 " And Moses went up from the plains of Moab upon the moun- 
 tain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is before Jericho." Deut. 
 xxxiv. i.
 
 THE POEMS. 97 
 
 with its apparent hindrances and inconsistencies, and of 
 the absolute necessity of these. The pathos of this know- 
 ledge, which has come too late, is summed up in the last 
 words 
 
 " There's the life lying, 
 And I see all of it, 
 Only, I'm dying ! " 
 
 II. depicts life as it would have been, had such knowledge 
 shone on the beginning of life instead of on its close, and 
 we feel that loss, not gain, would have been the result. 
 
 Fears and Scruples. In this poem the speaker pro- 
 tests perfect trust in an unseen friend who has not yet 
 shown any acknowledgment of the love and trust re- 
 ceived. None the less love and trust remain, and when 
 friends try to combat the existence of such an unseen 
 friend, the speaker asks, " What if this friend happen to 
 be God ? " 
 
 Xatural Magic is a tribute to the power of love, which 
 can clothe with beauty all that was formerly bare and 
 dreary. Inexplicable this may be, says the speaker, 
 "only I feel it." 
 
 Magical Nature sings of the beloved, whose beauty is 
 glorious as that of a flower, unchanging as that of a 
 jewel. 
 
 Bifurcation urges the duty of love to fulfil its mission 
 of help, and condemns the apparent virtue of sacrificing 
 love to what seems duty. Such false sacrifice may bring 
 content to the one who makes it, but to the other, who 
 is simply put aside and left to his own devices, it means 
 ruin. The poem speaks of such a couple, and implies 
 that the sinner is not the man who fails from the lack of 
 love's helping hand, but the woman who refused to lend it. 
 
 G
 
 98 THE POEMS. 
 
 Numpholeptos. 1 The speaker loves with overwhelm- 
 ing passion a being of another sphere, who, without 
 rejecting his love, requires of him such perfection as 
 no mortal can attain to. Again and again he comes 
 to her, but some flaw is always visible, and he is in- 
 variably dismissed to further efforts. Once despair 
 emboldens him, and he breaks out in passionate re- 
 proach, but only to be met with the same "sad, slow, 
 silver smile." And he goes forth to try again. 
 
 Appearances, a graceful little lyric in two verses, ex- 
 presses the power of association to beautify what is poor 
 and ugly, or to destroy the beauty of what is almost per- 
 fection. 
 
 St. Martin's Summer describes a lover who discovers 
 that his lady's charm for him is made up only of the 
 ghost of an older love, which unknowingly he has pro- 
 jected upon her. 
 
 Herat, Rid relates the story of the Breton sailor of that 
 name, who, after the battle of La Hogue, guided the 
 French fleet through the narrow passage of the Ranee 
 from St. Malo to Solidor, and so saved it from the 
 English, who were in hot pursuit. Simple and strong as 
 the hero of the poem, Herve Kiel is justly one of the 
 most popular of Browning's ballads. 
 
 A Forgiveness brings us again to the heights of tragedy. 
 At confession the speaker relates the story of his wife's 
 infidelity, and of the scorn instead of anger which it 
 raised in his heart, tor three years they livtd together 
 with this silent barrier between them, he, conscious of 
 her guilt; she, knowing that he knew it. Then his wife 
 confessed the truth. Her infidelity arose from grief and 
 
 Tits, caught or entranced by a nymph.
 
 THE POEMS. 99 
 
 despair at his apparent devotion to "state-craft" rather 
 than to her. Loving him all the time, she had hoped to 
 win him back by showing him that another valued her 
 love, if he despised it. Now she saw that all had been 
 in vain, and she only longed for death to end her misery. 
 Her confession turned his scorn to hate. He bade her 
 write her love, and when she offered to do so in her 
 blood, he handed her a dagger for the purpose. She 
 wrote, and died that night, for the dagger had been 
 poisoned. Now, adds the husband, 
 
 "She sleeps, as erst 
 Beloved, in this your church ; ay, yours ! " 
 
 ,\nd through the grata of the confessional he stabs the 
 guilty "father." 
 
 Cendaja is connected with Shelley's "The Cenci," in 
 that it relates an incident which sealed the fate of 
 Beatrice Cenci when, after long delay, it seemed as if 
 pardon were at hand. On the very day on which 
 Beatrice Cenci's fate was to be declared, the Mar- 
 chesa dell' Oriolo was murdered by her younger son, 
 Paolo Santa Croce. He escaped, but Beatrice Cenci's 
 fate for a similar crime was not yet sealed, and "she 
 shall not flee at least," declared the Pope. The case o 
 the Marchesa's murder was entrusted to a nephew of the 
 Pope, Cardinal Aldobrandini. The Cardinal, his public 
 zeal being whetted, as it afterwards appears, by private 
 jealousy in a love intrigue, at once arrived at the 
 conclusion that the elder brother, Onofrio Santa Croce, 
 would be in Paolo's confidence. Fortune favoured the 
 Cardinal, for a note from Onofrio of distinctly equivocal 
 meaning was discovered, on the strength of which he was
 
 100 THE POEMS. 
 
 arrested and imprisoned. There, " day by day, week by 
 week, and month by month," he was unceasingly ex- 
 amined and cross-examined as to the meaning of the 
 note, until his mind sank into imbecility under the 
 "persistent question-torture," and a false admission of 
 complicity in his mother's death was drawn from him, 
 upon which he was beheaded. The title of the poem, 
 and the proverb which follows it, are best explained in 
 Browning's own words. In a letter to Mr. Buxton 
 Forman, he writes, " ' aia ' is generally an accumulative 
 yet depreciative termination. Cenciaja a bundle of rags 
 a trifle. The proverb, ' Agni cencio vuol entrare in 
 lucato,' means ' every poor creature will be pressing into 
 the company of his betters,' and I used it to deprecate 
 the notion that I intended anything of the kind." 
 
 Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial : A 
 ftiminiscence of A.D. 1676, is a humorous account of an 
 incident recorded in Baldinucci's " History of Painters." 
 
 Adjoining the Jewish burial-ground in Florence there 
 was a field belonging to a Christian farmer. In order to 
 annoy the Jews, and under the pretence of protecting his 
 possessions, this farmer engaged a painter, Buti, to paint 
 a picture of the Virgin Mary, which he then fixed so that 
 it overlooked the Jewish cemetery. The Jews resented 
 this, and offered to pay a hundred ducats that the picture 
 should be turned round to face the field. This offer was 
 accepted, and a covered boarding was erected, behind 
 which the alteration was made. When, however, this 
 was completed, the picture of the Virgin Mary certainly 
 no longer faced the cemetery, but in its place there hung 
 a picture of the Crucifixion. At this point (stanza 35) 
 history gives place to fiction. The following morning the 
 farmer and Buti were enjoying a laugh over the discom-
 
 THK POF.MS. 101 
 
 fiture of the Jews, when the door of Buti's shop opened, 
 and in walked a young Jew of immense stature, with 
 "a beard that baulks description." Buti quaked with 
 fear as he recognised the son of the Jewish High Priest, 
 while the young man with infinite civility explained the 
 object of his visit. The pictures of Mary and of the 
 Crucifixion had so struck his fancy that he wished to pur- 
 chase them for his picture gallery. His " tone so 
 ominously mild," and "smile terrifically soft," so scared 
 Buti that he named only just the proper price, and took 
 the money in abject silence. The farmer, being some- 
 what bolder, hazarded the suggestion that 
 
 " Mary in triumph bom to deck 
 A Hebrew household," 
 
 implied a miracle, in the Jew's conversion. At this the 
 Jew straightway made it clear that the only miracle 
 effected was that which kept his hands off Buti's throat, 
 and that his conversion consisted in the idea that a 
 picture of the Virgin Mary may well hang in a gallery 
 together with other works of art. With this explanation 
 he shouldered his purchase, and walked off. The farmer 
 tells the tale to his little son to show why he must not 
 pelt Jews. 
 
 Epilogue, is a powerful attack on the freely-expressed 
 view that Browning's poetry is stiff reading. The posi- 
 tion which he takes is substantially that those who com- 
 plain of a lack in him of that grace which, as they al- 
 lege, they find in classical English poets, have not read 
 even the Masters whom they pretend, for fashion's sake, to 
 admire. The poem opens with a line from Mrs. Brown- 
 ing, "The poets pour us wine" and then proceeds to
 
 102 THE POEMS. 
 
 compare wine and poetry, and to analyse the ingredients 
 necessary to both. Strength and sweetness in both can 
 only be blended to a moderate extent, and this does not 
 satisfy the public. The complaints at lack of sweetness 
 are, however, not genuine. Shakespeare and Milton are 
 admitted food for all, yet in the cellars of the general 
 public 
 
 "There are 
 
 Forty barrels with Shakespeare's brand ; 
 
 Some five or six are abroach ; " 
 
 while from Milton "mere drippings suffice." These 
 being thus neglected, Browning boldly declares the 
 essence of his work and vintage 
 
 " Man's thoughts, and loves, and hates ! 
 Earth is my vineyard these grew there : 
 From grape of the ground, I made or marred 
 My vintage ; easy the task or hard, 
 Who set it His praise be my reward." 
 
 La Saisiaz, 1878, is one of the few poems in which 
 Browning acknowledges his own personality in the views 
 and sentiments expressed. It is Browning and no one 
 else who speaks here ; Browning, whose faith has never 
 failed him indeed, but who now suddenly feels the need 
 of again convincing himself that it is no myth, but a 
 Divine reality, that death is not the "ending once and 
 always." The need for his own satisfaction of thus 
 once more defining the tenets of his faith, arose from 
 the shock of the sudden death of a dear friend, Mi.-s 
 Anne Egerton Smith, who had been staying with 
 him and his sister at a villa called La Saisiaz, near 
 Geneva. The poem commences with a reminiscence
 
 THE POEMS. 103 
 
 of how the speaker reached the summit of a certain 
 hill alone, which only the night before he had planned 
 to climb with her who had been taken away. He 
 speaks of the commonplace leave they took of each 
 other, with no foreboding of the long parting which was 
 before them. The next morning, after his usual bathe, 
 he returned expecting to meet his friend ready for the ex- 
 pedition, and he describes his horror at finding her 
 dead. As he stood on the summit, where she should 
 have been by his side, he was meditating and seeking a 
 reason for her being so suddenly taken away. He en- 
 deavoured to console himself with the thought that she 
 was happier there than here, when the question suddenly 
 flashed through his mind, " Is there in truth an after- 
 life ? " The doubt shook him for a moment, but he would 
 not shirk it. There and then he faced the question and 
 bravely answered it. Giving play alternately to Reason 
 and Fancy, he comes ultimately to the knowledge that 
 he himself possesses an invincible hope of future life, a 
 hope so strong that it may fairly be described as ex- 
 pectation. 
 
 The. Two Poets of Cromc, 1 1878. The poem tells 
 two tales showing the little worth of fame ; and the Pro- 
 logue and Epilogue, as well as some incidental verses in 
 the body of the poem, suggest love as the one thing need- 
 ful either with it or without it. 
 
 The poem itself opens by the fireside, round which 
 husband and wife sit watching the blazing logs. 
 The logs are of ship timber, 2 in which the husband 
 easily conjures up a ship which quickly bears him within 
 sight of Croisic and of the strange, Druid-like worship 
 
 1 Published with La Saisiaz. 
 
 2 Cf. James Lets Wifr.
 
 104 THE POEMS. 
 
 which still holds sway there, despite the progress of 
 civilisation. But Druid, Christian, or Jew, men differ 
 much, no doubt, but resemble each other more. So with- 
 out further prelude our poets step upon the scene, different 
 in many ways, with a century between them, but alike in 
 that each enjoyed 
 
 " Such a mighty moment of success 
 As pinnacled him straight, in full display 
 For the whole world to worship." 
 
 Since when their very names would long since have been 
 forgotten were it not for Piron's "Metronamie" and 
 Browning's poems. 
 
 The first poet, Rene Gentilhomme, was by occupation 
 page to the Prince of Conde, who, by reason of Louis XIII. 
 being childless, was regarded as the future king of France, 
 and openly styled "now Duke; next King." All his 
 leisure Rene spent in verse-making. One day, while he 
 was busily employed with an ode on Love, a thunderstorm 
 broke out, and the lightning struck and destroyed the 
 Duke's crown, which a moment before had been safe on 
 a marble pillar close by where Rene was sitting. The 
 incident flashed upon Rene as a revelation, and forthwith 
 he turned his ode into a prophecy that, as surely as the 
 lightning had destroyed the Duke's crown, so surely were 
 his hopes of succeeding to the throne also dashed to the 
 ground. Before the next year dawned a dauphin would 
 be born, and Conde plain duke again. The prophecy 
 proved true, and Rene was appointed Court poet to Louis 
 XIII. But this first success proved also his last. He 
 wrote nothing afterwards worthy of the name of poetry, 
 and sank completely into insignificance. Browning
 
 TIIK POF.MS. 10; 
 
 imagines that, believing certainly that God had diiectly 
 dealt with him, Rene found 
 
 " That, after prophecy, the rhyming-trick 
 Is poor employment : human praises scare 
 Rather than soothe ears all a-tingle yet 
 With tones few hear and live, but none forget." 
 
 The second poet, Paul Desforges Maillard, has a more 
 interesting and more amusing, if equally transitory, ex- 
 perience of success. For many years, to his great chagrin, 
 his poems were continually rejected more or less politely 
 by every journal to which he sent them. At last his sister 
 came to the rescue. Copying some of the weakest of her 
 brother's verses, she sent them with a humble little note, 
 begging his opinion on her first efforts, to the very editor 
 who had rejected them. Not recognising the verses under 
 the alleged authorship of Mdlle. Malcrais de la Vigne, 
 the editor enthusiastically accepted them. More verses, 
 equally bad, followed with equal success, and at length 
 the editor and Voltaire himself were at her feet. Believing 
 that his worth was at last recognised, and refusing to credit 
 that it was the lady's name that had worked the change, 
 Paul set off for Paris to receive the honours now acknow- 
 ledged his due. His reception, when he made himself 
 known to the editor and Voltaire, was not all he could 
 have desired. Nevertheless he felt confident that " the 
 world could not eat its own printed words, and that the 
 poems it had so praised must now succeed." They failed, 
 however, and his imagined glory vanished like a flash o 
 light. 
 
 The delicacy and tenderness of the Prologue and Epi- 
 logue make them conspicuous in the poem. The Pro-
 
 Io6 THE POEMS. 
 
 logue shows all things cold, dark, and sordid, till love 
 shines o.i them. The Epilogue tells a little tale of one 
 who was singing for a prize to the accompaniment of his 
 lyre. A string snapped ; but before the harmony could 
 fail, a cricket perched on the lyre, and sang the missing 
 notes till the end of the song. That, says Browning, is 
 what a girl's love does. 
 
 XV. DRAMATIC IDYLLS (1879). In these poems 
 Browning deals almost for the first time with the poor. 
 The interest of each poem also depends more on action 
 than is usual with him. 
 
 Martin Rdph depicts with painful realism the life- 
 long remorse and agony caused by a moment's hesitation 
 and lack of moral courage. The speaker is apparently 
 a young man, who has heard from his grandfather the 
 story which he relates in Martin Relph's own words. 
 When little more than a boy, Martin Relph had been 
 present at the execution of a young woman who was sus- 
 pected of being a spy. As the fatal signal was given, 
 the bystanders hid their faces. He alone gazed at the 
 scene, and saw in the distance a man rushing wildly on, 
 waving a paper above his head. The truth flashed into 
 his mind at once. It was Vincent Parkes, the girl's 
 lover, bearing the proofs of her innocence. Whether 
 from frantic jealousy because he loved the girl himself, 
 or simply from boyish terror, Martin Relph can never 
 determine, but he stood there for a moment paralysed and 
 speechless. The next moment it was too late. Rosa- 
 mund Page had fallen under the guns, and at the sight 
 Vincent Parkes dropped dead. Ever since that terrible 
 day Martin Relph has been a prey to remorse, and he 
 strives to silence the strings of conscience by yearly con-
 
 THE POEMS. 167 
 
 fession of his cowardice" upon the spot where the tragedy 
 had taken place. 
 
 Pheidippides relates the Greek legend of how Phei- 
 dippides, the runner, was sent to seek from Sparta help 
 for Athens against Persia. Pheidippides describes his 
 journey with picturesque vividness, and tells how, re- 
 turning from a fruitless mission, he met the goat-god Pan, 
 who promised, not alone to assist Athens, but to reward 
 him for his zeal. This reward, he imagined, would be 
 release from his office as runner, and prosperity in the 
 home he should then make with the woman he loved. 
 So far Pheidippides speaks. An eye-witness completes 
 the tale. After the battle of Marathon was won, Phei- 
 dippides was sent to announce the victory at Athens. 
 As he reached Athens, he cried out, " Rejoice, we con- 
 quer ! " and, exhausted, fell dead in his glory. 
 
 Halbert and Hob relates the extraordinary effect of a 
 sudden flash of moral consciousness upon two men, 
 until then 
 
 " Harsh and fierce of word, rough and savage of deed." 
 
 They were father and son, and lived together in one 
 incessant war of words and blows. One Christinas night, 
 after a quarrel more fierce than usual, Halbert rose, and 
 seizing his father by the throat, was on the point of 
 flinging him from the hut into the bitter winter night 
 outside. Suddenly the old man's struggles ceased, and 
 passively he let his son drag him to the door. Then 
 he spoke. Years before, he said, he had treated his 
 father as Halbert now treated him ; but at the door, 
 a better self had prevailed and he had stopped in time. 
 Let Halbert now do likewise. At his words, Halbert
 
 lofc THfc POKMS. 
 
 loosed his hold, and in silence they re-entered the room 
 together. In silence they passed the night. The next 
 morning Hob sat there dead, while Halbert crouched 
 trembling on the ground, an idiot. 
 
 The poem ends with the quotation from Shakespeare's 
 King Lear, 
 
 " Is there a reason in Nature for these hard hearts ? " 
 to which Browning answers, 
 
 "That a reason out of Nature must turn them soft, 
 seems clear ! " 
 
 Iv&n Ivcuwvitch is an account, terrible in its intensity 
 and realism, of an incident supposed to have occurred in 
 Russia. A woman travelling with her three children 
 through the forest was attacked by wolves. Fear and 
 the instinct of self-preservation were stronger than the 
 mother's love, and in an agony of terror she let the wolves 
 seize one after another of her children. She alone escaped, 
 and arrived at her native village half dead with grief and 
 fear. A friend, Ivan Ivanovitch, the village carpenter, 
 greeted and soothed her till she recovered, and could tell 
 her tale. At its close Ivan spoke no word, but, as she 
 lay there prostrate, he raised his axe, and severed her 
 head from her body. Then he spoke, 
 
 " It had to be : 
 I could no other : God it was bade ' act for me. ' " 
 
 Very soon the whole village was in commotion, and 
 Ivan Ivanovitch was tried for murder. Some praised, 
 some blamed the deed ; but at the end of the trial the
 
 THE POEMS. 109 
 
 aged Pope, whose word was law, proclaimed "Ivan 
 Ivknovitch, God's servant." A bystander carried him 
 news of his acquittal, and found him kneeling on the 
 floor, playing with his children. 
 
 " They told him he was free 
 As air, to walk abroad. ' How otherwise ?' asked he." 
 
 Such is the tale, but words are utterly inadequate to de- 
 scribe the power with which it is told. The mother's 
 agony of mind during the terrible drive is told with many 
 a break and pause in the verse. And this lends additional 
 force to the change of metre at the description of the 
 moment when the wolves have almost overtaken the 
 sledge. The sudden change at this point to anapaests 
 suggests the regular gallop of the pack of wolves with 
 painful realism. 
 
 Tray is an idyll of less tragic interest, in which 
 Browning derides the usually accepted type of hero, and 
 he illustrates his scorn by the following true and simple 
 story. A child in Paris fell in the water ; while the 
 bystanders stood stupefied and motionless, a dog plunged 
 into the river, and rescued first the child and then her 
 doll, after which he trotted quietly off, unconscious of his 
 glory. With indignant sarcasm 1 Browning relates that 
 an onlooker wished to buy and vivisect that clog so that, 
 
 "At expense 
 
 Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence, 
 How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see ! " 
 
 JWd Bratts. With regard to this poem Browning 
 wrote, " The story of old Tod, as told in Bunyan's ' Life 
 
 1 Cf. Arcades Ambo. Asolando,
 
 110 THE POEMS. 
 
 and Death of Mr. Badman,' was distinctly in my mind 
 when I wrote Ned Bratts at the Splugen, without refer- 
 ence to what I had read when quite a boy." From re- 
 marks which Browning made to Dr. Furnivall on the 
 subject of this first series of DRAMATIC IDYLLS, it is 
 evident that he himself considered Ned Bratts the best 
 poem in the volume. It is, however, by no means the 
 most pleasant, although undoubtedly it is extremely 
 powerful. It deals with the conversion of Ned Bratts and 
 his wife, who voluntarily deliver themselves over to 
 justice, and indeed implore that in order that their 
 souls may be saved hereafter, they may now be hanged, 
 as they so richly deserve. 
 
 DRAMATIC IDYLLS, Second Series (1880). 
 
 Echetlos, like Pheidippides, is a tale of the battle of 
 Marathon. It tells of the unknown hero who in the 
 disguise of a " clown " ploughed the field of Marathon to 
 such good effect that he effectually rooted up the living 
 weeds (Medes and Persians), and saved the day and the 
 glory of Greece. Then silently he vanished, and the 
 oracle bade the Greeks leave his name enshrouded in 
 mystery, since " the great deed ne'er grows small ; " 
 whereas a great name sometimes does. 
 
 Glive. The anecdote which this poem relates was 
 told to Browning by Mrs. Jameson, a fortnight after she 
 had heard it from Lord Macaulay. Browning has re- 
 produced the exact details of the story, but has added 
 slightly thereto, in accordance with his own conception 
 of dive's character. The poem is in the form of a 
 monologue, spoken by an old comrade, who tells the tale 
 exactly as Clive himself had told it to him a fortnight be- 
 fore his suicide. The subject is a duel which Clive fought 
 at the age of fifteen with an officer whom he had accused
 
 THE POEMS. Ill 
 
 of cheating at cards. With inexperienced hand, Clive 
 fired too soon, and to no purpose ; whereupon the officer 
 held his loaded pistol to the lad's head, and dared him to 
 repeat his accusation. Boldly, without flinching, he re- 
 peated the charge, and the officer, impressed by his cou- 
 rage, and confounded by his own guilty conscience, 
 threw down the pistol, owned his guilt, and rushed from 
 the room. The bystanders vowed vengeance on him ; 
 but Clive scornfully declared that not one of them had 
 interfered to save his life, and therefore now he would 
 challenge whichever of them spoke a word against the 
 honour of the man who had spared him. 
 
 Clive had related the incident in response to his friend's 
 inquiry, " When were you most brave?" and in order 
 to illustrate his own enigmatical answer, " The time I 
 felt most fear." But, he explains, (and it is here that 
 Browning draws upon his imagination simply), it was not 
 death at the hand of his enemy which he feared, but 
 rather contemptuous mercy, arising from assumed pity of 
 his youth and inexperience. Such mercy from a cheat 
 and bully would have left him no alternative but to 
 " pick his weapon up, and use it on myself." 
 
 Mulfykeh, an old Arabian story, is by far the most 
 beautiful of these later idylls. Hoseyn was the owner 
 of Muleykeh ^ie Pearl, the finest and swiftest horse 
 in the country ; and though he had little else to call 
 his own, this possession made him the happiest and 
 most contented of men. Duhl, the son of Sheyban, 
 sought in vain to buy his treasure, and at last came 
 craftily by night, and stole Mule'ykch. Hoseyn, who 
 slept in the stable, soon missed her, and at once gave 
 chase. He rapidly gained upon the thief, for the Pearl, 
 missing the accustomed " tap of the heel, the touch
 
 112 THE POEMS. 
 
 of the bit," did not exert her usual speed. But, just 
 as he came within reach of his darling, the thought 
 struck Hoseyn that to overtake her would be to own her 
 beaten in the race. Unselfish love and pride conquered, 
 and in despair he cried aloud the secret of her unrivalled 
 speed. Duhl was wise at the word, and Mul^ykeh, re- 
 cognising her master's voice, bounded away beyond all 
 reach of recapture. Weeping, Hoseyn returned home, 
 and told his story. Friends and neighbours laughed at 
 him for his folly in actually aiding the thief, when by a 
 moment's silence and haste he would have regained 
 Mul^ykeh. 
 
 " ' And the beaten in speed,' wept Iloseyn ; ' you never 
 have loved my Pearl. ' " 
 
 This line, and Guide's frantic cry, " Pompilia, will you 
 let them murder me ? " ' have been quoted by Professor 
 Westcott as the two finest lines Browning ever wrote, 
 and which, he declares, no one but Browning could have 
 written. They go to the very depths of the two men's 
 hearts. 
 
 Pietro ofAlbano derives its title from the Italian philo- 
 sopher and physician, Petrus Aponensis, who flourished 
 in the thirteenth century ; but it seems that the legend 
 which Browning has applied to Pietro is an old popular 
 fiction, which has been told in turn of various other per- 
 sons. The tale is of a magician who earns a precarious 
 living by the use of the highest magical skill, gaining 
 when successful only a jealous reproach for meddling 
 with the black arts. 
 
 1 Ring and Book, vol. iv., line 2427.
 
 THE POEMS. 113 
 
 Doctor relates a legend from the Talmud, in illustration 
 of the saying that " A bad wife is stronger than Death or 
 Satan." 
 
 Pan and Luna repeats Virgil's legend of the capture of 
 the moon by Pan. Ashamed at her own uncovered beauty, 
 she sought the shelter of some clouds, behind which 
 lurked Pan, her betrayer, who had set them as a trap. 
 Since then she never remains behind a cloud longer than 
 is necessary to break through it. And Browning asks, 
 11 No lesson for a maid leaves she ? " 
 
 The DRAMATIC IDYLLS, Second Series (1880), contain 
 also two short poems without title, as Prologue and Epi- 
 logue, respectively. The former verses contrast the doubts 
 and ignorance admitted in respect to the body with the 
 certainty and wisdom pretended in respect to man's soul. 
 The latter verses express Browning's view that the great 
 poet's nature is not a fertile soil on which every flower- 
 seed blossoms, but a rock from whose cleft grows slowly 
 the abiding pine. 
 
 JOCOSERIA, 1883. This volume (as its name suggests) 
 includes a wide variety of subjects, which may almost be 
 said to range from the sublime to the ridiculous. 
 
 It begins with a short poem without title, telling how, 
 in the complete incompleteness of summer with its blue 
 sky and roses and green leaves, there is wanting for per- 
 fection only love. 
 
 Donald is a true story, which was related to Browning 
 by the so-called Donald himself. The motive of the 
 poem is obviously to censure the instinctive brutality which 
 love of sport engenders, just as in Tray Browning cen- 
 sures the idle curiosity which seeks useless and merely 
 barbaric vivisection. 
 
 A sportsman, passing along a narrow ledge of rock 
 
 H
 
 114 THE POEMS. 
 
 cbove a precipice, was suddenly confronted by a fine stag, 
 who barred further passage. It was an impossibility for 
 the two to pass each other ; and it was evident that, unleo 
 he made way for the animal, or went back, the stag would 
 thrust him over the precipice. The man therefore lay 
 down flat upon the ledge, and the stag at once, with the 
 utmost caution, began to step over him. At the sight of 
 the beauty of the animal, however, the sportsman's in- 
 stinct within him asserted itself, and he stabbed the stag. 
 Together they rolled over on to the rocks below, the 
 dying stag falling undermost, thus again saving the man 
 from death. But his injuries were severe, and on his re- 
 covery he was an utter cripple, only able to gain his 
 livelihood by crawling from tavern to tavern, where 
 the recital of his tale generally earned him a few pence. 
 And, adds Browning, " rightly rewarded, ingrate." 
 
 Solomon and Balkis relates an amusing legend from 
 the Talmud concerning the visit of the Queen of Sheba to 
 Solomon. Solomon and the queen for some time deceive 
 each other with fine talk he declaring that in the company 
 of the wise alone can he find pleasure, she that her joy is 
 only in the company of the good when suddenly upon 
 Balkis' finger the king sees 
 
 " The Ring which bore the Name . . . 
 The truth-compelling Name ! " 
 
 Then each drops the mask and owns the truth. Solomon, 
 that he welcomes the wise, provided always that they ex- 
 tol him ; Balkis, that she delights in the company of the 
 good,
 
 THE POEMS. 115 
 
 " Provided the good are the young, men strong and tall 
 and proper." 
 
 And her object in coming so far to visit the king has been 
 
 "Sage Solomon 
 One fool's small kiss ! " 
 
 Cristina and Monaldeschi presents a powerful sketch 
 of a woman's vengeance. The speaker is Queen Cristina of 
 Sweden, who with Count Monaldeschi is pacing a corri- 
 dor in the palace at Fontainebleau. With bitter taunts and 
 scathing sarcasm she shows him how fully she is aware of 
 his treachery. Illustrating her words by metaphors suggest- 
 ed by the tapestry on the walls, she reveals to Monaldeschi 
 his danger and utter helplessness, and mockingly suggests 
 that the danger might be averted, would he but crouch at 
 her feet again, and seem to love her as before. But with 
 every word she utters she is leading him nearer and 
 nearer to his doom. In the " Chamber of the Fawn " she 
 has stationed a priest who is to confess him and the 
 soldiers who are to murder him, while she looks on un- 
 moved at the ghastly spectacle. The fierce cruelty with 
 which she plays with her cowardly victim and gloats 
 over his agony are portrayed with striking if painful 
 realism. The final moral left on the reader's mind, how- 
 ever, is much the same as that with which Donald ends. 
 
 Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli is a woman's patient 
 but passionate lament of an unrequited love. There is 
 little reason to believe that the poem is founded upon 
 fact. 
 
 Adam, Lilith and Eve. Adam is sitting with Lilith, 
 the woman who had loved him, and Eve, the wife who had
 
 Il6 THE POEMS. 
 
 sometime loved another. The love of the one and the 
 indifference of the other for Adam had alike been con- 
 cealed, until the terror of a thunderstorm suddenly impels 
 each to speak, and confess the truth as to her past feelings. 
 The storm once over, each sees her imprudence clearly, 
 and, with a laugh, pretends she had only been in joke. 
 The husband, too stupid to see that in their terror they had 
 spoken truth, replies, " I saw through the joke," and the 
 old life goes on as before. 
 
 Ixion. Suiting the subject, the verse is unrhymed 
 hexameters and pentameters of remarkable strength and 
 ease. 
 
 Ixion speaks from the burning wheel to which he 
 is chained. He relates his story, and declares his punish- 
 ment, as well as Zeus who inflicted it, to be unjust. It 
 is this sense of injustice which first convinces him that 
 Zeus cannot be the highest power. Zeus knew that Ixion 
 sinned in ignorance, and yet punished him ; and therefore 
 Zeus must be less than man, not more. Out of the wreck 
 which Zeus has made, Ixion declares that he rises "past 
 Zeus, to the Potency o'er him." 
 
 Jochanan ffakkadosh (John the Holy). This poem 
 purports to be derived from a Talmudic writing, the 
 title of which is, "A Collection of Many Lies." 1 
 
 It records the supposed prolongation of the life of John 
 
 1 This title is, of course, pure invention. With regard to the 
 alleged superstition concerning the prolongation of life by the sacri- 
 fice of part of the life of another, there is a legend about Adam to 
 whom life was granted for one day (= 1,000 years) ; but when, on 
 reviewing the coming generations, he noticed the youngest son of 
 Jesse being deprived of life altogether, he prayed to God to take 
 70 years of his (Adam's) life, and give them to the son of Jesse 
 (David). Thence Adam lived 930 years ; David, 70.
 
 THE POEMS. 117 
 
 the Holy by his pupils, who each sacrificed a certain 
 period of his own life to lengthen that of the Rabbi. 
 John tells the experiences which that period has brought 
 him, and in no one of them finds content. But in a final 
 extension of life which, unknown to his friends, had been 
 sacrificed for him by some boy, or had been permitted by 
 God, he tells how he has learnt the unspeakable secret of 
 life's mystery, and in utter happiness he dies. 
 
 Never the Time and the Place is one of the most beau- 
 tiful of the love songs. 
 
 " Never the time and the place, 
 And the loved one all together ! " 
 
 sings the poet, but "time" and "place" are of no 
 account, and the " loved one " is all that is needed. 
 
 Pambo relates a true story of a certain foolish person 
 of that name, who is said to have spent many years in 
 studying the verse (Psalm xxxix. ), 
 
 " I said, I will look to my ways 
 That I with my tongue offend not." 
 
 The first line was easy to act upon, but Pambo was baffled 
 by the second. The last verse serves as a sort of epilogue, 
 and is addressed to Browning's critics. With good- 
 humoured mock modesty he admits that, 
 
 11 1 keep my sunrise. Aim 
 
 And look to my ways, yet much the same, 
 Of end with my tongue like Pambo." 
 
 XVI. FKRISHTAH'S FANCIES (1884). Concerning
 
 Il8 THE POEMS. 
 
 this volume Browning wrote in a letter to a friend : 
 "Above all, pray allow for the poet's inventiveness in 
 any case, and do not suppose there is more than a thin 
 disguise of a few Persian names and illusions. There 
 was no such person as Ferishtah the stories are all in- 
 ventions. . . . The Hebrew quotations are put in for a 
 purpose, as a direct acknowledgment that certain doc- 
 trines may be found in the Old Book, which the Con- 
 cocters of Novel Schemes of Morality put forth as 
 discoveries of their own." From this, as well as from 
 the quotation from King Lear* at the beginning of the 
 volume, we may gather that it is Browning himself who 
 speaks through the disguise of Ferishtah. The volume 
 consists of twelve Fancies, a Prologue, and Epilogue. 
 
 The Prologue is fanciful in the extreme, illustrating 
 the method of the whole collection of fancies by a 
 humorous description of a certain famous Italian dish, in 
 which various ingredients, unpalatable alone, combine to 
 yield their proper flavour. Each fancy is followed by a 
 lyric bearing upon almost the same subject, but mostly in 
 the form of a love-song, one more delicate and beautiful 
 than another. 
 
 I. The Eagle tells how the desire to become a dervish 
 and to minister to his fellow-men first entered the heart 
 of Ferishtah. With this desire came the knowledge that, 
 in order to teach, he must first learn ; and to this end 
 Ferishtah determined that he would leave the woods in 
 which the desire to help mankind had come to him, and 
 so live among men that he might learn their deepest 
 
 1 "You, sir, I entertain for one of my hundred ; only I do nol like 
 tlie fashion of your garments ; you will say they are Persian ; but let 
 them be changed."
 
 THE POEMS. 119 
 
 needs, and afterwards endeavour to supply them. The 
 lyric which follows condemns the selfishness which makes 
 two lovers live for each other only, and declares that 
 true love should the better enable those who are so blessed 
 to help their fellow-men. 
 
 II. The Mdon-Sdler shows the second lesson which 
 Ferishtah learnt before he became a dervish, and which 
 may be summed up in the last two lines of the poem 
 
 " Shall we receive good at the hand of God, 
 And evil not receive, " 
 
 The lyric declares that, should the loved one be for once 
 unjust, yet the memory of how often she has lavished 
 upon him more than his deserts may well teach her lover 
 to suffer once with patience. 
 
 III. Shah Abbas presents the first lesson which 
 Ferishtah teaches after he has become a dervish. It 
 declares God weighs and values faith and unfaith ac- 
 cording to the way in which it is endured by the heart, 
 not according to the accuracy with which it is deduced 
 by the head. The lyric speaks of love as the light, and 
 of trust as the guide, with which the heart of the loved 
 one should be explored. 
 
 IV. The Family opens the question as to whether 
 prayer does not in some cases imply want of faith in the 
 wisdom of the Almighty. It may seem so, admits 
 Ferishtah ; but not to pray for those we love argues us 
 either more or less than man, which is not good. Our 
 place in the world is that of man and nothing more. 
 
 " Man, who as man conceiving, hopes and fears, 
 And craves and deprecates, and loves and loathes,
 
 120 THE POEMS. 
 
 And bids God help him, till death touch his eyes, 
 And show God granted most, denying all." 
 
 The lyric repeats the assertion that man is human, not 
 divine, and the speaker adds that it is best so. 
 
 V. The Sun is in defence of that worship which can 
 only conceive the idea of the Deity in a human form. 
 Man, argues Ferishtah, can understand only that which he 
 himself can experience ; therefore the idea of humanity 
 in the Deity is justifiable and free from blame. Love 
 and gratitude are the highest attributes of worship ; and 
 these man can only offer in the mere human way in 
 which he has felt them. To do this as best he can is his 
 duty ; and it is right to respect any man doing this, how. 
 ever little one can understand his faith. The lyric speaks 
 of how, in the glory and splendour of fire, its birth in the 
 humble flint is quite forgotten or ignored. 
 
 VI. Mihrab Shah illustrates the view that 
 
 " Put pain from out the world, what room were left 
 For thanks to God for love to man ? " 
 
 In the lyric the speaker compares his own physical strength 
 and mental sloth with the bodily weakness and active 
 mind of his wife, and suggests that, being thus handi- 
 capped, they may keep the closer together. 
 
 VII. A Camel Driver condemns the equal punishment 
 of faults committed deliberately and those done in ignor- 
 ance. Faults of ignorance often punish themselves, but at 
 any rate deserve neither blame nor forgiveness. In the 
 recognition of this fact lies the distinction between God's 
 judgment and that of man. The lyric also treats of the 
 fallibility of human judgment. 
 
 VIII. Two Camels exposes the folly of those who exer- 
 Ise undue vigour in neglecting the good things of this
 
 THE POEMS. 121 
 
 world, thinking thereby to grow wise. " How," asks 
 Ferishtah, " can mind or body grow strong, and bear the 
 burden of life bravely to the end, if nourished only on dry 
 husks ? and how can man teach the due use and value of 
 joy in the world, if not from his own experience? There- 
 fore, desire joy, and thank God for it." The lyric deals 
 with the idea that from the joys of earth we may conceive 
 what Heaven may be. This suggestion is illustrated, 
 first by the description of a chemical experiment, and then 
 more poetically by reference to the heaven of love. 
 
 IX. Cherries dwells upon the fact that a gift is rightly 
 valued not for its intrinsic worth, but for the spirit in 
 which it is given ; a trifle which loving thought has pre- 
 pared being of more value than gold or jewels carelessly 
 bestowed. The lyric speaks of life as too short a period 
 in which to extract all the wealth which "verse-making" 
 should yield ; but, "I said, 'To do little is bad, to do 
 nothing is worse,' and made verse." With love-making, 
 he says, the matter is different ; for love has no need of 
 time, but exists here and hereafter. 
 
 X. Plot Culture propounds the question as to how far 
 man is a free agent, and responsible for his own life. 
 Ferishtah replies that, as the gardener of an estate is 
 practically master of the plot under his charge, and yet 
 is responsible for it to his employer, so man is master of 
 his own life, yet at Judgment Day he will be accountable 
 to God for the use he has made of it. The lyric as usual 
 leads the same idea into the region of love, where the 
 speaker urges that sense and soul must unite, and each 
 complete the other. 
 
 XL A Pillar at Sebzevah argues that love is worth in- 
 finitely more than knowledge. What one learns to-day, 
 says Ferishtah, is useless to-morrow, being replaced by
 
 122 THE POEMS. 
 
 something better; and this incessant change with its in- 
 evitable sense of disappointment goes on, whereas love 
 is unchangeable, and lives forever. In illustration of 
 the superiority of love over knowledge, Ferishtah speaks 
 of a certain sun-dial near Sebzevah. Should the towns- 
 men, he asks, seek to know the motive of the man who 
 placed it there for their convenience, before they feel due 
 love, in this case gratitude, that there it is ? Thus he ends, 
 love God, rather than pretend to know Him. The lyric 
 counsels silent love which shall be felt, not spoken. 
 
 XII. A Bean-Stripe : also Apple- Eating, is an eloquent 
 and discursive answer to the question, "Is life good or 
 bad?" Life, says Ferishtah, holds both good and evil, 
 black and white ; and the shadow of evil falls upon the 
 good, and tinges it with sadness, while the brightness of 
 good shines upon the evil. Thus the two extremes meet 
 and blend, forming neither black nor white entirely, 
 but what may be symbolised as grey. Life cannot 
 stagnate ; for good or evil it must progress continually, 
 and the past and future shed alternate light and darkness 
 upon the present, making it grey or dim of hue according 
 to the nature of each individual, and to his power of 
 looking upon the bright side of things. That is the moral 
 illustrated by the Bean-Stripe; and for that which is 
 good, even as for the sweetness in an apple, not the thing 
 itself, but God who gave it, is to be thanked. The lyric 
 asserts that justice, not love, is all that is due from the 
 world to Ferishtah 's work, since his motive was to achieve 
 an ideal found not in the world, but beyond it. 
 
 The Epilogue presents a view of life here and hereafter, 
 when the joys of Eternity shall replace earth's pain and 
 sorrow. The speaker is surrounded by love and happi- 
 ness, and his words are of passionate love, ending with
 
 THE POEMS. 123 
 
 the suggestion that the glory he has portrayed may be 
 only the reflection of his own happiness. But it seems as 
 if that would content him. 
 
 PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE 
 IN THEIR DAY (1887). Throughout this group of poems, 
 no less than in Ferishtah's Fancies, the personality of 
 Browning himself is evident. From the Prologue, "Apollo 
 and the Fates," to the Epilogue, " Fust and his Friends," 
 two sketches in entirely different styles, his identity is 
 unmistakable. Repeatedly there are plainly visible below 
 the surface of the legend the foundation stones of his 
 estimate of life 1st., that uncertainty is necessary to 
 spiritual progress; 2nd., that the necessity for the existence 
 of evil must be admitted in the scheme of creation; and, 
 lastly, that faith, hope, and love form the pathway which 
 leads to God. 
 
 Apollo and the Fates relates the story of how Apollo, 
 the god of the Sun, descended into Hades to intercede 
 with the Fates for the life of Admetus, who was threatened 
 with an early death. Unsuccessful at first in his errand, 
 Apollo persuades the three sisters to taste the wine which 
 he has brought; and he promises to show them that, al- 
 though it may be, as they say, that mortal happiness is only 
 an illusion, yet man has the power of continually creating 
 that illusion, and need therefore never wake to the know- 
 ledge of its unreality. Under the influence of the wine, 
 Atropos, who was about to cut the thread of Admetus' 
 life, consents to spare him, and with delirious joy the 
 Fates break into song and dancing. Suddenly an ex- 
 plosion from the centre of the earth sobers them. In 
 fear and humility they recognise the anger of Zeus, their 
 Omnipotent, that each has sought to leave the place
 
 124 THE POEMS. 
 
 assigned to her, and to assume the function of a higher 
 Power. It is not the duty of the Fates to pronounce 
 sentence of life or death, but to execute. It is Apollo's 
 duty to encourage faith and hope throughout life, not to 
 place a limit upon these by certainty of knowledge. In 
 keeping with this dogma of uncertainty is the compromise 
 which the sisters now make concerning Admetus. lie 
 shall live, they say, should there be found someone else 
 willing to die for him. Apollo asserts that there will be 
 many ready to sacrifice themselves for their king, but 
 that Admetus will choose death. Here, with the derisive 
 laughter of the Fates at Apollo's simple faith, the prologue 
 ends. 
 
 Bernard de Mandeville, the first of the group of chosen 
 spirits with whom Browning holds commune in his 
 parleying, was a Dutch physician at the end of the last 
 century, who, however, practised in England as soon as 
 he had taken his degree. He was the author of "The 
 Fable of the Bees," and also of several medical works. 
 The help which Browning claims from Bernard de 
 Mandeville is, as he says, "no fresh knowledge," but the 
 power to disprove certain pessimistic arguments (in which 
 we can plainly trace Carlyle), and to establish indisput- 
 ably the advantage to be gained by gratefully accepting 
 the existence of an all-powerful Love to encourage us on 
 our way, instead of cavilling at the existence of sin and 
 evil. 
 
 Daniel Bartoli forms a contrast, and a delightful one, to 
 its predecessor. Although we feel the truth of Browning's 
 arguments in Bernard de Mandeville, and in spite of the 
 undeniable charm in the measured swing of the verse, 
 yet to many it must undoubtedly seem dry reading. 
 Daniel Bartoli is written in musical rhyme, the echo
 
 THE POEMS. 125 
 
 of which lingers pleasantly in our ears. The story 
 which Browning chooses from Bartoli's chronicles is 
 that of Duke Charles IV. of Lorraine, who fell in love 
 with Marianne Pagot, a chemist's daughter. Duke Charles 
 had previously agreed to sign a deed of gift, making over 
 certain of his lands to the king, Louis XIV., who, fearing 
 that on his marriage Charles would seek to cancel the 
 deed, grants his consent solely on condition that the 
 original agreement should be adhered to. This message 
 was delivered to the lady, who indignantly bade the 
 Duke destroy the agreement and relinquish all hope of 
 court favour, rather than relinquish lands with which God 
 had endowed him in trust only. Charles, however, had 
 not the courage, and Marianne left him. After some 
 years she married the Marquis de La?say, who, although 
 a mere child at the time, had been deeply impressed by 
 her conduct. Their married life was extremely happy, 
 but of brief duration, for Marianne died. As for the 
 Duke, Browning pictures him as leading a frivolous 
 life, in which he declares that it is his ghost which 
 walks earth now, whilst his real self lies hidden, waiting 
 to rise at the call of his first and only true love. Thus 
 does Browning vindicate the power of love and faith. 
 Though weakness has spoilt their beauty, yet it is power- 
 less to utterly destroy them. 
 
 In Christopher Smart, Browning calls upon Smart to 
 explain why, having such rare gift of poetry as he displayed 
 in "A Song of David." he afterwards neglected poetry 
 for prose ? He illustrates by a simile his reproof at 
 the fact that the flash of genius which produced "A Song 
 of David " was the first and last. He describes a dream, 
 in which he imagines himself to be exploring a large 
 empty house, in which he finds everywhere evidence of
 
 126 THE POEMS. 
 
 moderate wealth and moderate taste. Suddenly, how- 
 ever, he comes upon a room which is fitted up as a 
 chapel, and in which he finds everything that ancient 
 and modern art could show. Magnificence and beauty 
 reign throughout the apartment; but on leaving it he finds 
 the remaining rooms as mediocre and commonplace as 
 before. And for the moment Christopher Smart repre- 
 sents in Browning's eyes just such a house ; but, consider 
 the matter as he will, he can find no satisfactory explana- 
 tion for the poetic fire which flared up so brightly once 
 and once only, and that during the period of Smart's 
 insanity. He finds, however, cause for praise in that at 
 least Smart has not followed the fashion of the day by 
 beginning at what should rightly be the end of our 
 knowledge. He has at least proved his belief that 
 
 " Live and learn, 
 Not first learn, and then live is our concern." 
 
 George Bubb Dodington, the subject of this Parleying, 
 was a disreputable politician in the reign of George I. ; 
 and Browning explains to him by what errors he con- 
 trived to fail in the career which he had chosen. For 
 the purposes of argument he assumes that self-interest, 
 and, in pursuance thereof, humbug, are legitimate and 
 even praiseworthy. The only disgrace is to be found out. 
 " If, therefore, you cannot be an honest politician," says 
 Browning, "you should at least be a successful one, and 
 , you will never succeed in gaining followers unless you 
 can inspire men with a belief that your powers are in 
 some way superior to their own. Men will not submit 
 to their equals. Formerly superior physical force gained 
 men power ; then intelligence and wit held sway ; or,
 
 THE POEMS. 127 
 
 failing these, mere simple cunning replaced them. A 
 man smilingly professed his aims to be the good of man- 
 kind, and he was believed until he was found out. But 
 now such deception is grown too common, and men can 
 only be ruled by belief in the supernatural, because that 
 involves something which is not apparent. Therefore, 
 first arrogating to yourself powers superior to those of all 
 men, except a select few, of whom everyone will think 
 himself one, gain their attention; then, by professing that 
 such arrogance was a mere blind to your own very low 
 opinion of yourself, you shall make them believe that you 
 are really a man of exceptional gifts. But," says Browning, 
 " as you missed this secret, you are known as just a fool 
 and a knave." 
 
 The "parleying" with Francis Furini deals with a 
 defence of painting and sculpture from the nude, and begins 
 with Browning's emphatic refusal to believe that Furini, 
 as had been alleged, regretted having followed that line 
 of art, or that on his death-bed he desired that all such 
 of his pictures should be destroyed. To foul minds, 
 says he, such art may suggest foul thoughts ; but one 
 might for that reason as well deprive one's self of the pure 
 delight which such pictures give to the pure, as not wear 
 gems because thieves long to steal them. This presenta- 
 tion of the nude, properly considered, is only a special 
 case of the painter's duty to express through form the soul 
 of man, and therefore to depict the body which the soul 
 permeates. Great stress is laid on the fact that such 
 painting is the antithesis to the materialism of evolution, 
 in which, if soul is reached at all, it is by a physical 
 development from matter. To Furini, on the contrary, 
 the soul is the one certainty, and his art is to use the body 
 as a medium for showing it.
 
 I2S THE POEMS. 
 
 Gerard de Lairesse, a Dutch painter of the latter end 
 of the seventeenth century, was struck blind at the age of 
 fifty. While still a child, Browning had come across 
 a work which he dictated after his blindness, and had been 
 highly delighted with it. The portion of it entitled 
 " The Walk " most struck his fancy, in which the most 
 commonplace surroundings are made by imagination to 
 yield interest. To illustrate de Lairesse's power of ob- 
 servation, Browning tells us how, finding an empty 
 sepulchre with a thunderbolt carved upon the lid, Gerard 
 de Lairesse at once jumped to the conclusion that the 
 sepulchre represented Phaeton's tomb, while a piece of a 
 broken wheel half buried in the sand served to furnish in 
 his imagination the "Chariot of the Sun." Browning 
 then proceeds to discuss whether modern imagination is 
 weaker than ancient, taking in this case poetry as the 
 medium of expression, and stating as his position that, 
 
 " If we no longer see as you of old, 
 'Tis we see deeper . 
 
 You saw the body, 'tis the soul we see." 
 
 None the less, Browning declares, hand in hand with 
 this new, nobler insight of the soul, there walks the old, 
 vivid imagination, and in order to prove his words, he 
 challenges Gerard de Lairesse to once more tread the 
 " Walk " with him. Thereupon follows a wonderful 
 word-painting, which proves incontestably the power of 
 imagination in at least one poet of the nineteenth century. 
 The subjects Browning chooses for his picture are the 
 earth and sky in the various aspects they assume during a 
 day from early morning until night. A storm rages at
 
 THE POEMS. 129 
 
 dawn, and by the lightning flashes may be seen Prometheus 
 chained to his rock, the vulture cowering at his feet. At 
 break of day, when Nature shakes off the stupor of the 
 night, there appears through the glories of the newly 
 risen sun Artemis, pure, cold, and cruel, goddess of 
 sudden death, the huntress-queen. Noon, with its 
 burning heat, brings before us shady nooks in which we 
 find Lyda and the Satyr once more repeating the piteous 
 story of despised love. Sunset, the hour of expectation 
 between the close of the day and the beginning of the 
 night, shows us the silent preparations for approaching 
 battle between the kings Darius and Alexander. And 
 when day is past and night has settled over the face of 
 the earth, all that is left is a shadow, a ghost holding out 
 deprecating hands towards the vanishing past, but power- 
 less to strive towards the future. Here Browning ceases 
 his pictures, and proceeds to contrast the cheerless view 
 of life bred by the old Greek Hades-doctrine with the 
 brightness which should be derived from our modern 
 view that "what once lives never dies;" winding up 
 with a few cheerful words on Spring in illustration of his 
 meaning. This part of his contention is perhaps more 
 characteristic of Browning than of his time. 
 
 With Charles Avison, a Newcastle composer of the early 
 time of the Georges, Browning assumes an attitude 
 half critical, half explanatory. His aim is to interpret 
 the power and effect of music on the soul of man ; but, 
 before attempting this, he relates the very simple cause 
 which had led his thoughts into this channel. A bird in 
 his garden had first suggested to his mind the unseason- 
 ableness of the month of March, and thence by inexplicable 
 sequence rose the memory of another sort of march, that 
 of a long-forgotten composer of the eighteenth century, 
 
 I
 
 130 THE POEMS. 
 
 Charles Avison. The memory thus awakened deepened 
 and grew, till the echo of the music rang in his ears loud 
 and clear. Next came consideration of the question why 
 the music and musician are alike forgotten . In his own 
 day Charles Avison's music supplied all that was needed ; 
 it moved its hearers as forcibly as the music of to-day 
 moves us. Hosv then does it come that his name to-day 
 wakens neither memory nor recognition ? Browning sets 
 forth this question very earnestly and clearly, and he 
 then proceeds to answer it in an equally forcible manner. 
 In the first place, music appeals to the soul rather than 
 to the mind, and it evokes feeling rather than thought. 
 The power and effect of music are therefore as unapproach- 
 able and as indescribable as the soul itself; and the re- 
 production of the workings of the soul is as impossible as 
 a photograph of the deepest workings of the sea, whose 
 ebb and flow we note, but know not whence they come 
 nor whither they tend. From this relation of music to 
 the soul, Browning argues that as the soul is imperishable, 
 so is the effect produced by each successive musician. 
 Nevertheless the times change, and with each generation 
 comes the demand for fresh expression of the emotions in 
 fresh music. Each century, by the irresistible law of 
 eternal progress, draws nearer to the aim and end of 
 music, to 
 
 " have the plain result to show 
 
 How we feel, hard and fast as what we know. " 
 
 In this lies the aim and end towards which every Art 
 aspires and music most nearly touches, but which none 
 shall altogether reach. Thus one star wanes and another 
 rises, but, says Browning
 
 THE POEMS. 131 
 
 " Never dream 
 That what once lived shall ever die ! " 
 
 They may seem dead, these musicians of the past, they 
 and their music together ; but a breath from our life will 
 kindle theirs, and give them power to speak to us to-day 
 as to those of ages long ago. The essence of soul and of 
 music are the same now as then, and Browning's purpose 
 to-day, as Avison's of old, is man's good simply. They 
 will therefore march together, and the music of the past 
 shall rouse in the poet of the present memories of a yet 
 more distant past, the connecting link of which shall be 
 Avison's music with Browning's words to express the 
 glories of the Commonwealth. The last stanzas are 
 accordingly written in metre to an air of Avison's, the 
 music of which is given at the end of the poem. 
 
 The Epilogue, Fust and his Friends, opens humorously 
 with the arrival of the seven friends who have come to 
 entreat Fust from his evil ways. They find him in great 
 dejection, and at once attribute the cause to sin or to re- 
 morse. Accordingly they remonstrate with him, and 
 even endeavour to exorcise the evil spirit by pious 
 prayers, in the repetition of which, however, their memo- 
 ries play them sadly false. Impatient of their chatter, 
 Fust rushes from the room, promising to return shortly 
 with a copy of the prayer in which his friends have made 
 so many blunders, but which he declares he knows by 
 heart. He does return after a few moments, throws open 
 the door of an inner room, and discovers at work the 
 printing-press, the invention of which he had just com- 
 pleted. He explains the process, and distributes copies 
 of the prayer as samples of his work. After some few 
 exclamations of incredulity, astonishment, and super-
 
 IJ3 THE POEMS. 
 
 stitious terror, his friends suddenly realise the perfect 
 simplicity of the machine, and profess to be but little im- 
 pressed by the invention. 
 
 The story is, of course, identical with the legend which 
 attributes the invention of the printing-press to Dr. 
 Faust, and there are several allusions in the poem to the 
 incidents of Goethe's Faust. The material difference, 
 however, appears in the fact that, while traditions attri- 
 bute Faust's invention of the printing-press to his being 
 in league with the evil one, Browning makes it appear as 
 an act of atonement for a hitherto ill-spent life. This 
 idea is presented in a speech, half-prayer, half-thanks- 
 giving, that God has granted him the joy of conferring'so 
 great a benefit on mankind. Even as he speaks, how- 
 ever, the thought is borne in upon his mind that, as 
 printing can increase the spread of good and truth 
 throughout the world, so can it diffuse evil and false- 
 hood. The note of sadness which these thoughts arouse 
 is, however, quickly dispelled by the interruption of 
 some of the friends, who again protest that the same 
 thought had struck them at first sight of the apparatus. 
 This barefaced, but withal amusing, announcement is 
 followed by a play upon the word "goose," and the 
 name of Huss, the first reformer, who was supposed 
 at the stake to have foretold the coming of Luther ; and 
 with Fust's confirmation of this prophecy the Epilogue 
 closes. 
 
 It may seem strange to many that Browning should have 
 chosen for the recipients of his " parleyings" men so alto- 
 gether unknown in his own day ; but a moment's reflec- 
 tion shows the wisdom of his choice. Had he chosen 
 more popular celebrities, the interest of his readers 
 might possibly have been increased ; but it would have
 
 THE POEMS. 133 
 
 been interest in the individual, not in the subject on 
 which the poet was speaking. 
 
 ASOLANDO ; FANCIES AND FACTS. (1889. Pub- 
 lished Dec. 18th, the day of Browning's death in 
 Venice. ) 
 
 It is needless to dwell upon the sad association which 
 must surround this "swan-song" of its great author. 
 Asolando is Browning's dying legacy to the public, and 
 is held sacred accordingly. But the poems contained in 
 this latest volume are not all of recent date. Mrs. Orr 
 tells us that in 1887-8 he wrote Rosny, Beatrici Signorini, 
 Flute-Music, Bad Dreams, Ponte dell' Angdo, White 
 Witchcraft, and it certainly seems as if the Prologue, 
 Epilogue, Speculative, and several others must be- 
 long to the latest period. The Cardinal and the Dog 
 was written in 1840 for Macready's little son, that he 
 might amuse himself by illustrating the story. Browning 
 explains the title Asolaiido in a dedicatory note to Mrs. 
 Arthur Bronson . . . . "a title-name popularly 
 ascribed to the inventiveness of the ancient secretary of 
 Queen Comoro, whose palace tower still overlooks ?<* .- 
 A solare ' to disport in the open air, amuse one-self at 
 random ; ' . . . but the word is more likely derived 
 from a Spanish source. I use it for love of the place, 
 and in requital of your pleasant assurance that an early 
 poem of mine, first attracted you thither." 
 
 The Prologue dwells upon the disillusionment which 
 comes with age ; but, with characteristic optimism, 
 admits only rejoicing at what thus reveals absolute 
 truth. 
 
 Rosny. A woman laments the death of her lover, who 
 with rash haste " went galloping into the war ; " but her 
 grief seems to be assuaged by the thought that, as he fell
 
 134 THE POEMS. 
 
 dead on the battle-field, her portrait lay on his breast, not 
 that of her rival, Clara, whom she is apostrophising. 
 
 Dubiety describes the desire for a state of rest which is 
 not sleep, in which everything is hushed and shaded, yet 
 not obscured. But the repose which the speaker longs 
 for is obviously "the calm of old ago? beautified by the 
 memory of love. 
 
 Now is a lover's rhapsody. In that "moment eternal* 
 when love is first owned mutual, past and future sink 
 into insignificance beside the glory and perfect bliss of 
 the present. 
 
 Humility expresses the gratitude of an unsuccessful 
 lover who can rejoice in the smiles which fall on him 
 through the wealth with which love for another has 
 endowed his beloved one, 
 
 Poetics. The speaker urges that lovers are in fault to 
 use such terms as "my rose," "my swan," to praise 
 their loved ones. The highest praise there is he can 
 accord his love 
 
 " What is she? Her human self, no lower word will 
 serve." 
 
 Summum Bonum (the highest good). Admirable and 
 wonderful is the vigour of this love-poem, written as it is 
 by a man long past seventy. All the glories of the sea 
 are reflected in the shade and shine of one pearl, in ona 
 gem all the wonders of the mine, but greater than both is 
 the truth and trust . . . 
 
 " In the kiss of one girl." 
 A Pearl, a, Oirl, is also a love-song. It tells an
 
 THE POEMS. 135 
 
 Eastern legend that by whispering the right word there is 
 power in a pearl to conjure up a spirit which shall make 
 you lord of heaven and earth. So with the heart of a 
 girl : whisper the right word, and love wakes at the call, 
 and makes you indeed sole " lord of creation." 
 
 Speculative is obviously a tribute to Mrs. Browning. 
 It declares that to others heaven may mean some new 
 state, but for the speaker, heaven, could he choose, 
 should be earth with its old joys and sorrows, " so we but 
 meet our part again." 
 
 White Witchcraft is a love poem in a more playful 
 strain than usual. The lover suggests that, could he 
 usurp Jupiter's power, and transform his lady love into 
 an animal, and she became a fox, and she changed him 
 into a toad, still she would feel 
 
 " He's loathsome, I allow : 
 
 But see his eyes that follow mine love lasts there any- 
 how." 
 
 Browning's love of animals, etc., has already been men- 
 tioned, and it is probable that this reference to the toad 
 is a reminiscence of one of which he made a great pet in 
 youth. 
 
 Bad Dreams. I. describes a man's dream of his love 
 with her "faith gone, love estranged." He woke with 
 two-fold joy : first, that it was only a dream ; and, 
 secondly, because he realised that had it been true, 
 though it had broken his heart, his love would have 
 remained unchanged. 
 
 II. is a dream of a strange unseemly revelry in the 
 midst of which the dreamer sees the girl he loves. When
 
 136 THE POEMS. 
 
 he awakes, the dream has so taken hold of him that he 
 muses whether the spirit may not escape at night, and 
 the dream be the reality after all. The girl answers his 
 fear with a laughing retort and description of her dream, 
 which she declares was the fellow of his. 
 
 III. is a dream of art and nature, each good in its 
 way, but which result in confusion and chaos when one 
 springs up in the place which should belong solely to the 
 other. 
 
 IV. is a dream of a woman evidently treated with 
 neglect and contempt by her lover. She dreams that she 
 is dead, and that then, too late, he visits her grave, 
 heart-broken and remorseful that he had so little appre- 
 ciated her while she was still with him. 
 
 Inapprehensiveness protests against those who allow 
 the head to take precedence over the heart. The protest 
 is illustrated by the story of a woman, who is so occupied 
 in trying to remember the name of a certain author that, 
 standing side by side with the man who loves her, she is 
 quite unaware of his love. The result is that he accepts 
 her on her own ground, and instead of telling her of his 
 love, helps to find the forgotten author. 
 
 Which ? Three ladies are discussing the qualities each 
 thinks noblest in a lover, while " an Abbe crossed legs to 
 decide on the wager." The first requires high thoughts, 
 the second high deeds, while the third will accept the 
 vilest wretch 
 
 " So he stretch 
 
 Arms to me his sole saviour, love's ultimate goal." 
 
 The Abb6 gives unqualified preference to this last as 
 being most pleasing before God. 
 
 The Cardinal and the Dog has its origin in the
 
 THE POEMS. 137 
 
 " Grand Dictionnaire Historique," where the story is 
 told in a slightly different form of a certain Cardinal 
 Marcel Crescentio. On March 25th, 1522, the Cardinal 
 was writing letters to the Pope till late into the night. 
 His work completed, as he rose from his chair, he saw an 
 immense black dog which sprang towards him. Terrified, 
 he called for his servants to drive it away, but they could 
 find no sign of it. The Cardinal, however, was so 
 shaken by the shock that he fell ill and died, the night- 
 mare and terror of the dog haunting him to the end. 
 
 TTie Pope and the Xet relates the story of a fisher- 
 man's son who was raised to the position first of Deacon, 
 then Priest, Bishop, Cardinal, and lastly Pope. Whilst 
 he remained Cardinal, he had his fisherman's net hung on 
 the palace wall in place of a coat-of-arms. When he 
 became Pope, however, and the people flocked to do 
 him homage, the net was gone. One bolder than the 
 rest ventured to ask the reason 
 
 "'Why, Father, is the net removed?' 'Son, it hath 
 caught the fish.' " 
 
 The Bean Feast. Pope Sixtus V., wandering disguised 
 among the poor, entered a tumble-down house and found 
 the inmates happily at supper. The people were very 
 poor, and seemed awed at the priest's condescension in 
 searching out their wants. With reassuring words Sixtus 
 threw back his hood and showed he was the Pope. Their 
 consternation increased, and all were at a loss how to re- 
 pay such goodness. 
 
 " ' Thus amply,' laughed Pope Sixtus, ' I early rise, sleep 
 late:
 
 138 THE POEMS. 
 
 Who works may eat : they tempt me, your beans there: 
 spare a plate. ' " 
 
 The Pope shared the poor folks' meal, then rose and went 
 his way, thanking God that, despite his high place, 
 appetite and digestion of humble fare were nowise de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 Muckle-mouth Meg tells how a young lord makes a 
 raid across the Border and is caught red-handed. His 
 life is offered him on condition of his marrying a girl who 
 is described to him as "Muckle-mouth Meg." He, 
 without seeing her, declines to marry a monster, and is 
 given seven days in a dungeon to think it over. During 
 this time he is waited on by a pretty girl, and falling in 
 love with her, is the more confirmed to prefer death to 
 the marriage offered him. At the week's end he persists 
 in his refusal, and she then tells him that she herself is 
 " Muckle-mouth Meg." 
 
 Arcades Ambo l is directed against vivisection, to which 
 Browning was strongly opposed. 
 
 The Lady and the Painter. The lady reproaches the 
 painter with inducing a modest girl to stand naked as his 
 model. He defends the practice on the ground that both 
 painter and model are joined in a reverent praise to God 
 for his good gift of beautiful womanhood. On his part he 
 reproaches the lady with the murder of God's innocent 
 birds for the savage decoration of her hat. But they both 
 keep their own opinion. 
 
 Ponte dell 'Angela, Venice, relates an amusing legend of 
 how a lawyer got the better of Satan. The lawyer was a 
 grasping, avaricious man, whose extortions were notorious. 
 On one occasion when he could not forget the wails of a 
 
 1 Cf. Tray, Dramatic Idylls. First Series.
 
 THE POEMS. 139 
 
 certain widow whom he had robbed, he invited the chief 
 of the Capucins to dinner, hoping that the presence of 
 such a holy man might disinfect his house. When his 
 guest arrives, the lawyer excuses himself for a moment to 
 see that his servant has everything prepared. This ser- 
 vant, he explains, is an ape; whereupon the priest at once 
 jumps to the conclusion that the ape must be a fiend in 
 disguise. He therefore adjures the ape to show himself 
 in his true form, and forthwith Satan appears. He ex- 
 plains that he has been sent to fetch the lawyer to hell, 
 but that the man as yet eludes his clutches by never 
 failing to say a prayer to the virgin before he goes to bed. 
 The priest then bids Satan vanish, but the fiend says he 
 dare not leave the house without doing some mischief to 
 prove that he has accomplished his errand. The priest 
 therefore suggests that Satan shall depart through the 
 wall, leaving a gap for all to see. He does so, and the 
 priest goes down to dinner. The lawyer calls to the ape, 
 but of course receives no answer. He then sees, to his 
 horror, that the priest is wringing blood out of his napkin. 
 He asks the meaning, and the priest explains that it is a 
 symbol of his wringing gold from his clients ; then takes 
 him upstairs, and shows the gap in the wall. The terrified 
 lawyer promises to mend his ways, and the priest absolves 
 him. But the gap in the wall remains, and he fears Satan 
 might return through it, so the priest suggests that in the 
 breach through which the devil went out the lawyer should 
 place the figure of an angel, past which Satan dare not 
 venture. 
 
 " So said and so done. See the angel has place 
 \Vhere the devil had passage ! " 
 
 Hence the name of the bridge.
 
 140 THE POEMS. 
 
 Beatrice Sujnorini was the wife of Francesco Romanelli, 
 a painter of Viteibo, 1 in the seventeenth century. Soon 
 after their marriage Romanelli went to Rome to paint, 
 and there became enamoured of Artemisia Gentileschi, a 
 painter. When he was leaving Rome, Artemisia gave him 
 a picture which she had painted. Festoons of flowers 
 surrounded an empty space in which he at once painted 
 her face, thus uniting their arts, since no other union was 
 possible. When at home once more, Romanelli, thinking 
 his Beatrice too placid and meek to complain, showed 
 her the picture. His wife praised and admired the 
 flowers, then stabbed the beautiful face in their midst and 
 stood 
 
 " In quietude 
 Awaiting judgment." 
 
 The sight of her jealous love and passion delighted her 
 husband, who was cured of his infatuation for Artemisia 
 in redoubled love and admiration for his wife. 
 
 Flute Mttsic, trVA an Accompaniment. A man and a 
 woman sitting together hear through the trees the sound 
 of a flute. He fancies that he can hear various emotions 
 of joy, love, and grief in the sounds, but the lady un- 
 romantically tells him the player is a neighbour who 
 spends his hour's leisure from office-work in studying 
 
 " Youth's Complete Instructor 
 How to play the Flute." 
 
 Distance has lent enchantment to the sound and altered 
 sharp to flat. The disillusioned man wonders whether it 
 
 Forty miles from Rome.
 
 THE POEMS. 141 
 
 is distance (i.e. her indifference or shyness) which makes 
 him think the lady all he could wish. If so, he begs 
 
 " But since I sleep, don't wake me ! " 
 
 " Imperante Augusto Xatus Est." The scene of this 
 poem is laid in Rome during the reign of Augustus, great- 
 nephew of Julius Caesar. Two Romans are waiting to 
 enter the public bath. One of them relates how, on the 
 previous day, tiring of the long Panegyric which Lucius 
 Varius Rufus had read on the Emperor, he had left the 
 crowd, and as he walked along he reflected on the great- 
 ness of Augustus. A beggar, asking alms, disturbed his 
 reverie. As he handed a coin he saw the beggar's face 
 it was Augustus. He then remembered the report that 
 once a year, to remind himself of the changeability of 
 fortune, Augustus disguised himself as a beggar and 
 walked the streets asking alms. The speaker, too, re- 
 flected on the swift changes of this world's fortune, 
 "Crown now, cross when?" The poem ends with a 
 reference to a supposed prophecy of the birth of Christ. 
 
 Development tells how Browning at five years old learnt 
 the history of the siege of Troy from his father, who 
 illustrated the scene with the help of tables and chairs, 
 the dogs, page-boy, etc. Thence grew the desire to read 
 first Pope's translation and then the original. The poem 
 also speaks of his regret when first he learnt that Wolf 
 (1795) discredited Homer's authorship, and it dwells upon 
 the beauty and use of illusion. 
 
 Rephan again teaches the lesson that our " reach must 
 exceed our grasp." The idea of the poem was suggested 
 to Browning "by a very early recollection of a prose 
 story by the noble woman and imaginative writer, Jane
 
 142 THE POEMS. 
 
 Taylor of Norwich." This story tells how an inhabitant 
 of the star Rephan grew discontented with the perfect 
 happiness in the star, and came to earth. When the 
 knowledge of death there came to him, he spent all his 
 life preparing for it. 
 
 In the poem the speaker is the inhabitant of Rephan, 
 and he describes life in the star the peace, plenty, and 
 content. He cannot explain why this perfection did not 
 suffice him; but by some unseen power he felt the need of 
 strife, not rest, and he found only discontent in a " wealth 
 that's dearth." 
 
 Reverie asserts the firm belief that Love and Power are 
 one and the same, but they cannot be entirely reconciled 
 on earth because of the incessant necessary conflict between 
 good and evil. Reverie contains the last lesson of 
 Browning's religion of love. The two last verses 
 sufficiently express the spirit of the poem : 
 
 " I have faith such end shall be : 
 
 From the first, Power was I knew. 
 
 Life has made clear to me 
 That, strive but for closer view, 
 
 Love were as plain to see. 
 
 " When see ? When there dawns a day, 
 
 If not on the homely earth, 
 Then yonder, worlds away, 
 
 Where the strange and new have birth, 
 And Power comes full in play." 
 
 Epilogue is a fitting close to the work and life of 
 Browning. The courage which never failed him is here 
 nobly and beautifully expressed. Added interest may
 
 THE POEMS. 143 
 
 perhaps be lent to the poem by the characteristic remark 
 which Browning himself made upon it. One evening, 
 just before his death-illness, the poet was reading its 
 third versei from a proof to his daughter-in-law and 
 sister. He said : " It almost looks like bragging to say 
 this, and as if I ought to cancel it ; but it's the simple 
 truth ; and as it's true it shall stand." 
 
 1 Quoted on p. 7. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 inUd bf Cowan &> Co., Limited,
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 The Dates are those of Publication. 
 
 1833. PAULINE. A Fragment of a Confession. 
 
 1835. PARACELSUS. 
 
 1837. STRAFFORD. 
 
 1 840. SORDELLO. 
 
 1841. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES. 
 
 No. I. Pippa Passei.' 
 BELLS AND POMEGRANATES. 
 
 No. II. King Victor and King Charles. 
 BELLS AND POMEGRANATES. 
 
 No. HI. Dramatic Lyrics. 
 CONTENTS. Cavalier Tunes : I. Marching 
 Along; 2 II. Give a Rouse; III. My \Vife 
 Gertrude. Italy and France. 3 Camp and 
 Cloister. 4 In a Gondola. Artemis Prolo- 
 gizes. Waring. Queen-Worship : I. Rudel 10 
 
 1 Pipfa's Sat/f, Part. III., was originally published in the 
 Monthly Repository, 1885, as The King. 
 
 * 1863. Re-named Boot and Saddle. 
 
 '1863. Re-named Italy My Last Duchess; Franc* Count 
 Cismond. 
 
 1863. Re-name J Camp Incident of the French Ca>n/> ; 
 Cloister Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister. 
 
 K
 
 146 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 the Lady of Tripoli ; II. Cristina. Mad- 
 house Cells, I. and II. 1 Through the Metidja 
 lo Abd-el-Kadr. The Pied Piper of Hamelin. 
 
 1843. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES. 
 
 IV. The Return of the Druses. 
 BULLS AND POMEGRANATES. 
 
 V. A Blot on the 'Scutcheon. 
 
 1844. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES. 
 
 VI. Colombe's Birthday. 
 
 1845. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES. 
 
 VII. Dramatic Romances and Lyrics. 
 CONTENTS. How they brought the Good 
 News from Ghent to Aix. Pictor Ignotus. 
 Italy in England. 2 England in Italy. 3 The 
 Lost Leader. The Lost Mistress. Home 
 Thoughts from Abroad. The Tomb at St. 
 Praxed's. 4 Garden Fancies : I. The Flower's 
 Name; II. Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis. Fiance 
 and Spain : I. The Laboratory ; II. The Con- 
 fessional. The Flight of the Duchess. Earth's 
 Immortalities. Song. The Boy and the An- 
 gel. Night and Morning, I. and II. 5 Claret 
 
 1 1863. Named I. Johannes Ag-ricola ; II. Porphyria's Lover. 
 
 - 1849. Re-named The Italian in England. 
 
 3 1849. Re-named Tlie Englishman in Italy. 
 
 4 1863. Re-named 'I he British Bishop Orders his Tomb at St. 
 VraxecTs. 
 
 * 1863. Re-named I. Meeting at Night ; II. Parting at 
 Morning.
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 147 
 
 and Tokay.' Saul. Time's Revenges. The 
 Glove (Peter Ronsard, loquitur). 
 
 1846. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES. 
 
 VIII. Luria : A Soul's Tragedy. 
 
 1850. CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY. 
 
 1855. MEN AND WOMEN. In two volumes. 
 
 VOL. I. CONTENTS. Love Among the 
 Ruins. A Lover's Quarrel. Evelyn Hope. 
 Up at a Villa Down in the City. A Wo- 
 man's Last Word. Fra Lippo Lippi. A 
 Toccata of Galuppi's. By the Fireside. Any 
 Wife to Any Husband. An Epistle contain- 
 ing the Strange Medical Experience of Kars- 
 hish, the Arab Physician. Mesmerism. A 
 Serenade at the Villa. My Star. Instans 
 Tyrannus. A Pretty Woman. Childe Ro- 
 lande to the Dark Tower Came. Respecta- 
 bility. A Light Woman. The Statue and 
 the Bust. Love in a Life. Life in a Love. 
 How it Strikes a Contemporary. The Last 
 Ride Together. The Patriot : an Old Story. 
 Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha. Bishop Blou- 
 gram's Apology. Memorabilia. 
 
 VOL. II. CONTENTS. Andrea del Sarto. 
 Before. After. In Three Days. In a Year. 
 Old Pictures in Florence. In a Balcony. 
 
 1 1863. Re-named Nationality in Drinks,
 
 148 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 Saul. De Gustibus. Women and Roses. 
 Protus. Holy Cross Day. The Guardian 
 Angel A Picture at Fano. Cleon. The 
 Twins. 1 Popularity. The Heretic's Tragedy: 
 A Middle-Age Interlude. Two in the Cam- 
 pagna. A Grammarian's Funeral. One 
 Way of Love. Another Way of Love. 
 "Transcendentalism:" A Poem in Twelve 
 Books. Misconceptions. One Word More: 
 To E. B. B. 
 
 1856. BEN KARSHOOK'S WISDOM.' 
 
 1864. DRAMATIS PERSONS. 
 
 CONTENTS. James Lee.s Gold Hair : A 
 Legend of Pornic. The Worst of it. Dis 
 Aliter Visum ; or, Le Byron de nos Jours. 
 Too Late. Abt Vogler. Rabbi Ben Ezra. 
 A Death in the Desert. Caliban upon 
 Setebos, or, Natural Theology in the Island. 
 Confessions. May and Death. Prospice. 
 Youth and Art. A Face. A Likeness. 
 Mr. Sludge, the Medium. Apparent 
 Failure. Epilogue. 
 
 1 Written and published in a Pamphlet for a Bazaar in 1854, to- 
 gether with "A Plea for the Ragged Schools of London," by 
 E. B. B. 
 
 2 Written, 1854, at Rome. Published 1856 in "The Keepsake.' 
 Never reprinted. To be found in Dr. Furnivall's Browning Biblio- 
 graphy. 
 
 3 Reprinted in Edition of 1868 as James Lee's Wife.
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 149 
 
 1868-69. THE RlNG AND THE BOOK. In four volumes. 
 1871. BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE: Including a Tran- 
 script from Euripides. 
 
 1871. PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU : SAVIOUR 
 
 OF SOCIETY. 
 
 1872. FlFINE AT THE FAIR. 
 
 1873. RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY ; OR, TURF 
 
 AND TOWERS. 
 
 1875. ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY, including a Tran- 
 script from Euripides, being the Last Adven- 
 ture of Bcdaustion. 
 
 1875. THE INN ALBUM. 
 
 1876. PACCHIAROTTO, AND HOW HE WORKED IN 
 
 DISTEMPER : WITH OTHER POEMS. 
 
 CONTENTS. Prologue. Of Pacchiarotto 
 and how he worked in Distemper. At the 
 Mermaid. House. Shop. Pisgah-Sights, 
 I. and II. Fears and Scruples. Natural 
 Magic. Magical Nature. Bifurcation. Num- 
 pholeptos. Appearances. St. Martin's 
 Summer. Herv6 Kiel. A Forgiveness. 
 Cenciaja. Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege 
 of Burial. Epilogue. 
 
 1877. THE AGAMEMNON OF /ESCHYLUS. 
 
 1878. LA SAISIAZ. THE Two POETS OF CROISIC. 
 
 1879. -DRAMATIC IDYLLS. First Series.
 
 IJO CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 CONTENTS. Martin Relph. Pheidippides. 
 Halbert and Hob. Ivan Ivanovitch. Tray. 
 Ned Bratts. 
 
 1880. DRAMATIC IDYLLS. Second Series. 
 
 CONTENTS. Prologue. Echetlos. Clive. 
 Muleykeh. Pietro of Albano. Doctor. 
 Pan and Luna. Epilogue. 
 
 1883. JOCOSERIA. 
 
 CONTENTS. Wanting is What? Donald. 
 Solomon and Balkis. Cristina and Monal- 
 deschi. Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli. 
 Adam, Lilith, and Eve. Ixion. Jochanan 
 Hakkadosh. Never the Time and the Place. 
 Pambo. 
 
 1884. FERISHTAH'S FANCIES. 
 
 CONTENTS. Prologue. I. The Eagle ; 
 II. The Melon-Seller; III. Shah Abbas; 
 IV. The Family ; V. The Sun ; VI. Mihrab 
 Shah; VII. A Camel Driver; VIII. Two 
 Camels; IX. Cherries; X. Plot Culture; 
 XI. A Pillar at Sebzevah ; XII. A Bean- 
 Stripe ; also, Apple Eating. Epilogue. 
 1887. PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORT- 
 ANCE IN THEIR DAY. 
 
 CONTENTS. Apollo and the Fates. A 
 Prologue. I. With Bernard de Mandeville ; 
 II. With Daniel Bartoli ; III. With Christo-
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. !$! 
 
 pher Smart ; IV. With George Bubb Doding- 
 ton ; V. With Francis Furini ; VI. With 
 Gerard de Lairesse ; VII. With Charles 
 Avison. Fust and his Friends. An Epilogue. 
 1889. ASOLANDO. 
 
 CONTENTS. Prologue. Rosny. Dubiety. 
 Now. Humility. Poetics. Summum 
 Bonum. A Pearl, a Girl. Speculative. 
 White Witchcraft. Bad Dreams: I., II., 
 III., IV. Inapprehensiveness. Which? 
 The Cardinal and the Dog. The Pope and 
 the Net. The Bean Feast. Muckle-Mouth 
 Meg. Arcades Ambo. The Lady and the 
 Painter. Ponte dell" Angelo, Venice. 
 Beatrice Signorini. Flute Music, with i,n 
 Accompaniment. '' Imperante Augusto Natus 
 Est " Development. Rephan. Reverie 
 Epilogue.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ABD-EL-KADR, Through the Metidja to, 50 
 
 Abt Vogler, 68 
 
 Adam, Lilith, and Eve, 115 
 
 Adventure, Balaustion's, 83 
 
 After, 60 
 
 Agamemnon of ^Eschylus, The, 93 
 
 Agricola (Johannes), in Meditation, 32 
 
 Album, The Inn, 90 
 
 Alkestis, 84 
 
 Andrea del Sarto, 34 
 
 Angel, The Boy and the, 39 
 
 Another Way of Love, 58 
 
 Any Wife to any Husband, 57 
 
 Apollo and the Fates. A Prologue, 123 
 
 Apparent Failure, 72 
 
 Appearances, 97 
 
 Apple- Eating, A Bean-Stripe, also, 122, 
 
 Arcades Ambo, 138 
 
 Aristophanes' Apology, 02 
 
 Art, Youth and, 71 
 
 Artemis Prologize?, 3.1 
 
 Asolando, 133 
 
 At the " Mermaid", 96 
 
 Avison (Charles), Parleyings with, 129 
 
 Bad. Dreams, 135 
 
 Balaustion's Adventure ; including A Transcript from 
 
 Euripides, 83 
 Balcony, In a, 62 
 
 Baldinucci (Filippo), on the Privilege of Burial, IOO 
 Bartoli (Daniel), 124 
 Bean-Feast, The, 137 
 Bean-Stripe (A) ; also, Apple-Eating, 122 
 152
 
 INDEX. 153 
 
 Beatrice Signorini, 140 
 
 Before, 60 
 
 Ben Ezra, Rabbi, 68 
 
 Bernard de Mandeville, 124 
 
 Bifurcation, 97 
 
 Bishop Blougram's Apology, 6, 35 
 
 Bishop (The), orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's Church, 35 
 
 Blot in the 'Scutcheon, A, 29 
 
 Book (The), and the Ring, 82 
 
 Boot and Saddle, 50 
 
 Boy (The), and the Angel, 39 
 
 Bratts, Ned, 109 
 
 Burial, Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of, too 
 
 By the Fireside, 56 
 
 Caliban upon Setebos ; or, Natural Theology in the 
 
 Island, 70 
 
 Camel- Driver, A, 120 
 Camels, Two, 120 
 Campagna, Two in the, 57 
 Cardinal (The), and the Dog, 136 
 Cavalier Tunes, 50 
 Cenciaja, 99 
 Charles Avison, 129 
 Cherries, 121 
 
 " Childe Rolande to the Dark Tower came," 46 
 Christmas Eve, 46 
 
 Christopher Smart, Parleyings with, 125 
 Cleon, 36 
 Clive, no 
 
 Colombe's Birthday, 30 
 Confessional, The, 52 
 Confessions, 70 
 
 Contemporary, How it Strikes a, 13, 9, 31 
 Count Gismond, 39 
 Count Guido Franceschini, 76 
 Cristina, 52 
 
 Cristina and Monaldeschi, 115 
 Croisic, The Two Poets of, 103 
 Culture, Plot, 121
 
 154 INDEX. 
 
 Daniel Bartoli, 124 
 
 " De Gustibus ," 42 
 
 Deaf and Dumb : a Group by Woolner, 71 
 
 Death in the Desert, A, 69 
 
 Development, 141 
 
 Dis aliter visum ; or, Le Byron de nos Jours, 67 
 
 Doctor , 113 
 
 Dodington (George Bubb), 126 
 
 Dog, The Cardinal and the, 136 
 
 Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, 79 
 
 Donald, 113 
 
 Dreams, Bad, 135 
 
 Drinks, Nationality in, 51 
 
 Druses, The Return of the, 25 
 
 Dubiety, 134 
 
 Duchess, My Last, 38 
 
 Duchess, The Flight of the, 43 
 
 Eagle, The, 118 
 
 Earth's Immortalities, 53 
 
 Easter Day, 9, 48 
 
 Echetlos, no 
 
 England, The Italian in, 41 
 
 Knglishman (The), in Italy, 41 
 
 Epistle (An), containing the Strange Medical Experience 
 
 of Karshish, the Arab Physician, 32 
 Eurydice to Orpheus ; a Picture by Leighton, 71 
 Evelyn Hope, 9, 53 
 
 Face, A, 71 
 
 Failure, Apparent, 72 
 
 Family, The, 119 
 
 Fates, Apollo and the, 123 
 
 Fears and Scruples, 97 
 
 Ferishtah's Fancies, 117 
 
 Fifine at the Fair, 86 
 
 Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial, 100 
 
 Fireside, By the, 56 
 
 Flight of the Duchess, The, 43 
 
 Florence, Old Pictures in, 55 
 
 Flower's Name, The, 5 1
 
 Flute Music, with an Accompaniment, 140 
 
 Forgiveness, A, 98 
 
 Fra Lippo Lippi, 33 
 
 French Camp, Incident of the, 38 
 
 Funeral, A Grammarian's, 41 
 
 Furini (Francis), 127 
 
 Fuseli, Mary Wollstonecraft and, 115 
 
 Fust and his Friends. An Epilogue, 131 
 
 Galuppi's, A Toccata of, 55 
 
 Garden Fancies, 51 
 
 George Bubb Dodington, 126 
 
 Gerard de Lairesse, 128 
 
 Ghent to Aix, How they brought the Good News from, 9,50 
 
 Girl, A Pearl, a, 134 
 
 Gismond, Count, 39 
 
 Giuseppe Caponsacchi, 77 
 
 Give a Rouse, 50 
 
 Glove, The, 40 
 
 Gold Hair : A Story of Pornic, 66 
 
 Gondola, In a, 41 
 
 Grammarian's Funeral, A, 44 
 
 Guardian Angel, The a Picture at Fano, 60 
 
 Guido, 8 1 
 
 Halbert and Hob, 107 
 
 Half Rome, 76 
 
 Hamelin, The Pied Piper of a Child's Story, 43 
 
 Herakles, 93 
 
 Heretic's Tragedy, The, 44 
 
 Herve" Riel, 98 
 
 Hohenstiel-Schwangau (Prince), Saviour of Society, 85 
 
 Holy Cross Day, 6, 45 
 
 Home Thoughts, from Abroad, 56 
 
 Home Thoughts, from the Sea, 56 
 
 House, 96 
 
 How it Strikes a Contemporary, 3, 9, 31 
 
 How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, 9,50 
 
 Hugues (Master) of Saxe-Gotha, 6l 
 
 Humility, 134 
 
 "Imperante Augusto Natus Est," 141
 
 156 INDEX. 
 
 In a Balcony, 62 
 
 In a Gondola, 41 
 
 In a Year, 59 
 
 Inapprehensiveness, 136 
 
 Incident of the French Camp, 38 
 
 Inn Album, The, 90 
 
 Instans Tyrannus, 39 
 
 In Three Days, 59 
 
 Italian (The), in England, 41 
 
 Italy, The Englishman in, 41 
 
 Ivan Ivanovitch, 1 08 
 
 Ixion, 116 
 
 James Lee's Wife, 63 
 
 Jochanan Hakkadosh, 1 16 
 
 Jocoseria, 113 
 
 Johannes Agricola in Meditation, 32 
 
 Juris, Doctor Johannes Baptista Bottinius, 79 
 
 Karshish, 32 
 
 King Victor and King Charles, 24 
 
 La Saisiaz, 7, 102 
 
 Laboratory, The, 51 
 
 Lady of Tripoli, Rudel to the, 37 
 
 Lady (The), and the Painter, 138 
 
 I^airesse (Gerard de), 128 
 
 I^ast Duchess, My, 38 
 
 Last Ride Together, The, 43 
 
 Last Word, A Woman's, 53 
 
 Leader, The Lost, 50 
 
 Life in a Love, 59 
 
 Light Woman, A, 42 
 
 Likeness, A, 71 
 
 Lippo Lippi, Era, 33 
 
 Lost Leader, The, 50 
 
 Lost Mistress, The, 52 
 
 Ixive Among the Ruins, 54 
 
 Love, Another Way of, 58 
 
 Love in a Life, 59 
 
 Love, One Way of, 58
 
 INDEX. 157 
 
 Lover, Porphyria's, 46 
 Lover's Quarrel, A, 54 
 Luria, 61 
 
 Madhouse Cells, 46 
 
 Magic, Natural, 97 
 
 Magical Nature, 97 
 
 Mandeville (Bernard de), 124 
 
 Marching Along, 50 
 
 Martin Relph, 106 
 
 Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli, 115 
 
 May and Death, 71 
 
 Medium, Mr. Sludge, The, 72 
 
 Meeting at Night, 53 
 
 Melon-Seller, The, 119 
 
 Memorabilia, 61 
 
 "Mermaid," At the, 96 
 
 Mesmerism, 40 
 
 Mihiab Shah, 120 
 
 Misconceptions, 57 
 
 Mistress, The Lost, 52 
 
 Monaldeschi, Cristina and, 115 
 
 Morning, Farting at, 53 
 
 Mr. Sludge, the Medium, 72 
 
 Muckle-Mouth Meg, 138 
 
 Mu!6ykeh, ill 
 
 Music (Flute), with an Accompaniment, 140 
 
 My Star, 57 
 
 My Last Duchess, 38 
 
 Nationality in Drinks, 51 
 
 Natural Magic, 97 
 
 Nature, Magical, 97 
 
 Ned Bratts, 109 
 
 Net, The Pope and the, 137 
 
 Never the Time and the Place, 117 
 
 Night, Meeting at, 53 
 
 Now, 134 
 
 Numpholeptos, 98 
 
 Old Pictures in Florence, 55
 
 158 INDEX. 
 
 One Way of Love, 58 
 
 One Word More. To E. B. B M 37 
 
 Other Half-Rome, The, 76 
 
 Pacchiarotto (Of) and how he Worked in Distemper, 93 
 
 Painter, The Lady and the, 138 
 
 Pambo, 117 
 
 Pan and Luna, 113 
 
 Paracelsus, 17 
 
 Parleyings with Certain Persons of Importance in their 
 
 Day, 123 
 
 Parting at Morning, 53 
 Patriot, The, 38 
 
 Pauline ; A Fragment of a Confession, 2, 14 
 Pearl (A), a Girl, 134 
 Pheidippides, 107 
 Pictor Ignotus, 33 
 Pictures (Old) in Florence, 55 
 Pied Piper of Hamelin, The A Child's Story, 43 
 Pietro of Albano, 112 
 Pillar at Sebzevar, A, 121 
 Pippa Passes, 5, 22 
 Pisgah Sights, 96 
 Plot Culture, 121 
 Poetics, 134 
 
 Poets of Croisic, The Two, 103 
 Pompilia, 78 
 
 Ponte dell' Angelo, Venice, 138 
 Pope, The, 80 
 
 Pope (The) and the Net, 137 
 Popularity, 6 1 
 Porphyria's Lover, 46 
 Pretty Woman, A, 59 
 
 Prince Ilohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society, 8$ 
 Prospice, 7, 71 
 Protus, 45 
 
 Quarrel, A Lover's, 54 
 
 Rabbi Ben Ezra, 68 
 
 Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, or Turf and Towers, 87
 
 INDEX. 159 
 
 Rephan, 141 
 
 Respectability, 59 
 
 Return (The) of the Druses, 23 
 
 Revenges, Time's, 41 
 
 Reverie, 142 
 
 Ride Together, The Last, 43 
 
 Ring (The) and the Book, 73, 75 
 
 Roses, Women and, 59 
 
 Rosny, 133 
 
 Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli, 37 
 
 Saisiaz, La, 102 
 
 Saul, 56 
 
 Sebzevar, A Pillar at, 121 
 
 Serenade (A) at the Villa, 57 
 
 Shah Abbas, 119 
 
 Shop, 96 
 
 Sibrandus Schafnaloirgensis, 51 
 
 Sludge (Mr.), "The Medium," 72 
 
 Smart (Christopher) 125 
 
 Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 51 
 
 Solomon and Balkis, 1 14 
 
 Song (Dramatic Lyrics), 53 
 
 Sordello, 7, n, 15 
 
 Soul's Tragedy, A, 28 
 
 Spanish Cloister, Soliloquy of the, 51 
 
 Speculative, 135 
 
 St. Martin's Summer, 98 
 
 Star, My, 57 
 
 Statue (The) and the Bust, 46 
 
 Strafford, II, 21 
 
 Summum Bonum, 134 
 
 Sun, The, 120 
 
 Tertium Quid, 76 
 
 Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr, 50 
 
 Time and the Place, Never the, 117 
 
 Time's Revenges, 41 
 
 Toccata of Galuppi : s, A, 55 
 
 Tomb, The Bishop orders his, at St. Praxed's Church, 35 
 
 Too Late, 67
 
 160 INDEX. 
 
 Tragedy, A Soul's, 28 
 
 Transcendentalism, 30 
 
 Tray, 109 
 
 Tripoli, Rudel to the Lady of, 37 
 
 Tunes, Cavalier, 50 
 
 Turf and Towers, Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, or, 87 
 
 Twins, The, 42 
 
 Two Camels, 120 
 
 Two in the Campagna, 57 
 
 Two Poets of Croisic (The), 103 
 
 Tyrannus, Instans, 39 
 
 Up at a Villa, Down in the City, 55 
 
 Villa, A Serenade at the, 57 
 Vogler, Abt, 68 
 
 Wanting is What ? (Jocoseria), 113 
 
 Waring, 42 
 
 Which? 1 36 
 
 White Witchcraft, 135 
 
 Wife (Any), to any Husband, 57 
 
 Witchcraft, White, 135 
 
 Woman, A Light, 42 
 
 Woman, A Pretty, 59 
 
 Woman's Last Word, A, 53 
 
 Women and Rose?, 59 
 
 Worst of It, The, 66 
 
 Youth and Art, 71
 
 OBJRAR*. MS K8SER*
 
 A 000 551 150 6