rapidity of its movement, the harmony of its details, the natural attraction with which they all tend toward, and at last blend in, the consummation, and in the simplicity and concentration of its tragic element. The plot is noble in its plainness. War exists between Florence and Pisa. Luria, a Moor, has superseded Puccio in the command of the Florentine forces. Gifted in the highest degree with the rapid intellect and fiery, explosive force of his race, and loving the turmoil of battle because it taxes these qualities of his nature to the utmost, he has brought the war to a point where one decisive blow, and that clearly within his own power to strike, will close it triumphantly for Florence. That republic, meanwhile, which is represented as making it a principle to use every great captain as a sword, to be broken as soon as her purpose should be attained, lest it be turned against herself, has her spies in the camp, who report from time to time every circumstance which may be twisted into a charge against Luria. His trial is, in fact, going on in Florence, and the sentence is ready to fall at the moment when, Pisa being subdued, he ceases to be useful, and may become dangerous. Braccio, who is placed in the camp as a spy upon Luria, is a man of pure intellect, with a compact, sinewy, perfectly trained mind, which he uses, as it were something apart from himself, for the delight which he feels in his own skill, and in making it act upon remote results. He cannot comprehend Luria, with whose intellect that element of mysticism, so common in the East, is interfused, and gives him a tendency to brood over and analyze his own sensations and enjoy ideal triumphs even more keenly than those which await mere external success. Artificial himself, and constantly on his guard against artifice in others, Braccio can still less appreciate that fierce, uncultivated nature in which sense and spirit seem molten together, in which intuition has not been stinted into calculation, and which enjoys its own suppleness and swift strength for themselves alone, and not as means. His own faculties he uses as chessmen with which the game of life is to be played. Domizia, a noble Florentine lady, whose father and two brothers have been punished by the cautious republic for the successes they had achieved, has come to the camp foreseeing the fate in store for Luria, intending to warn him of it, and to bring about her own revenge against Florence He requires them only to feel. A writer of the other kind taxes the understanding, and demands in turn an exercise of thought on the part of his readers. Both of these faculties may, of course, differ in degree, may be more or less external, more or less profound, as it may happen. They coexist in the same mind, overlapping one the other by a wider or more limited extent. The predominance of one or the other determines the tendency of the mind. Those are exceptional natures in which they balance each other as in Shakspeare. We may instance Browne and Montaigne as examples in one kind, Bacon as an illustration of the other. It is because we find in Browning eminent qualities as a dramatist, that we assign him his place as a thinker. This dramatic faculty is a far rarer one than we are apt to imagine. It does not consist in a familiarity with stage effect, in the capacity for inventing and developing a harmonious and intricate plot, nor in an appreciation of passion as it reveals itself in outward word or action. It lies not in a knowledge of character, so much as in an imaginative conception of the springs of it. Neither each of these singly, nor all of them together, without that unitary faculty which fuses the whole and subjects them all to the motion of a single will, constitute a dramatist. Among the crowd of play-writers contemporary with Shakspeare, we can find poets enough, but can we name three who were dramatists in any other than a technical sense? In endeavouring to eliminate the pure dramatic faculty, by precipitating and removing one by one the grosser materials which it holds in solution, we have left the Greek drama entirely out of the question. The motive of the ancient tragedy differs from that of the modern in kind. Nor do we speak of this faculty as a higher or lower oue, but simply as being distinct and rare. If we cannot satisfy ourselves, then, by giving a variety of extracts from Mr. Browning's different dramas, since any fragment which we could pick out of the mosaic, so perfect and graceful as a whole, might be after all but a shapeless bit of colored pebble with the rough cement clinging all round its edge, let us endeavour to give our readers as complete a view of a single play as our limits will allow. And for this purpose we shall select Luria, the last published of his tragedies, and which, if not the best, is certainly one of the most striking in the clearness of its purpose, the energetic rapidity of its movement, the harmony of its details, the natural attraction with which they all tend toward, and at last blend in, the consummation, and in the simplicity and concentration of its tragic element. The plot is noble in its plainness. War exists between Florence and Pisa. Luria, a Moor, has superseded Puccio in the command of the Florentine forces. Gifted in the highest degree with the rapid intellect and fiery, explosive force of his race, and loving the turmoil of battle because it taxes these qualities of his nature to the utmost, he has brought the war to a point where one decisive blow, and that clearly within his own power to strike, will close it triumphantly for Florence. That republic, meanwhile, which is represented as making it a principle to use every great captain as a sword, to be broken as soon as her purpose should be attained, lest it be turned against herself, has her spies in the camp, who report from time to time every circumstance which may be twisted into a charge against Luria. His trial is, in fact, going on in Florence, and the sentence is ready to fall at the moment when, Pisa being subdued, he ceases to be useful, and may become dangerous. Braccio, who is placed in the camp as a spy upon Luria, is a man of pure intellect, with a compact, sinewy, perfectly trained mind, which he uses, as it were something apart from himself, for the delight which he feels in his own skill, and in making it act upon remote results. He cannot comprehend Luria, with whose intellect that element of mysticism, so common in the East, is interfused, and gives him a tendency to brood over and analyze his own sensations and enjoy ideal triumphs even more keenly than those which await mere external sucArtificial himself, and constantly on his guard against artifice in others, Braccio can still less appreciate that fierce, uncultivated nature in which sense and spirit seem molten together, in which intuition has not been stinted into calculation, and which enjoys its own suppleness and swift strength for themselves alone, and not as means. His own faculties he uses as chessmen with which the game of life is to be played. Domizia, a noble Florentine lady, whose father and two brothers have been punished by the cautious republic for the successes they had achieved, has come to the camp foreseeing the fate in store for Luria, intending to warn him of it, and to bring about her own revenge against Florence cess. This Luria, our inevitable foe, Confessed a mercenary and a Moor, Born free from any ties that bind the rest Of common faith in Heaven or hope on Earth, Shall hold the path from which our stanchest broke, Intellect Upon that broad Man's heart of his, I go! Till the good comes -'t was Intellect that ruled, -- its end pp. 6, 7. We must next give a glimpse of the character of Luria himself. "Lur. I wonder, do you guess why I delay Involuntarily the final blow As long as possible? Peace follows it! Florence at peace, and the calm studious heads As if a spell broke, all's resumed, each art Bury it. . . so I write to the Signory. The doom-word just on the destroyer's lip, Motioned him off, and let life's sun fall straight. “Brac. (Looks to the wall of the tent.) Did he draw that? "Sec. With charcoal, when the watch Made the report at midnight; Lady Domizia Spoke of the unfinished Duomo, you remember; Might join to, and complete, the body, a sketch, And again where the cloak hangs, yonder in the shadow. "Brac. He loves that woman. "Sec. She is sent the spy Of Florence, spies on you as you on him: "Brac. A Moorish front, nor of such ill design! I see Lapo, there's one thing plain and positive; Have said, The Foreigner, no child of mine, Shall henceforth lead my troops, reach height by height The glory, then descend into the shame; So shall rebellion be less guilt in him, And punishment the easier task for me' |