And hold his own against you, as he may?
But say that he withdraws to Pisa — well,
Then, even if all happens to your wish,
Which is a chance...

"Jac.

Nay't was an oversight

Not waiting till the proper warrant came :
You could not take what was not ours to give.
But when at night the sentence really comes,
And Florence authorizes past dispute

Luria's removal and your own advance,
You will perceive your duty and accept?

"Puc. Accept what? muster-rolls of soldiers' names ?

An army upon paper? - I want men,

Their hearts as well as hands— and where's a heart
That's not with Luria in the multitude

I come from walking thro' by Luria's side?
You gave him to them, set him on to grow
A head upon their trunk, one blood feeds both,
They feel him there and live and well know why
For they do know, if you are ignorant,

Who kept his own place and kept theirs alike,-
Managed their ease, yet never spared his own:
All was your deed: another might have served
There's peradventure no such dearth of men
But you chose Luria so they grew to him:
And now, for nothing they can understand,
Luria 's removed, off is to roll the head
The body's mine much I shall do with it!
"Jac. That's at the worst!
"Puc.

Best, do

No at the best it is!
you hear? I saw them by his side:
Only we two with Luria in the camp

Are left that know the secret? That you think?
Hear what I saw from rear to van no heart

But felt the quiet patient hero there

Was wronged, nor in the moveless ranks an eye
But glancing told its fellow the whole story

Of that convicted silent knot of spies

Who passed thro' them to Florence- they might pass
No breast but gladlier beat when free of them!
Our troops will catch up Luria, close him round,
Lead him to Florence as their natural lord,
Partake his fortunes, live or die with him!

"Jac. And by mistake catch up along with him Puccio, no doubt, compelled in self-despite

Or is this the end even? Can I stop?

You, Lady, with the woman's stand apart,
The heart to see with, not those learned eyes,
. . I cannot fathom why you would destroy me,-
It is but natural, therefore, I should ask

Had you a further end in all you spoke,
All I remember now for the first time?

“Domiz. I am a daughter of the Traversari, Sister of Porzio and of Berto both.

I have foreseen all that has come to pass :
I knew the Florence that could doubt their faith
Must needs mistrust a stranger's — holding back
Reward from them, must hold back his reward.
And I believed, that shame they bore and died,
He would not bear, but live and fight against
Seeing he was of other stuff than they.” — p. 13.

Luria banishes Braccio from the camp. The missive from the Seigniory at Florence, calling Luria home to take his trial, is expected, but has not yet come. Braccio confers upon Puccio the command to be left vacant by the recall of Luria. Puccio, a kind of Bernal Diaz, who has been unable to refrain from criticizing the generalship of Luria all along, and whose criticisms have been made, without his knowledge, the groundwork of the charges against his commander, accepts the office at first from the mere habit of obedience natural to him as a soldier.

"Puc. What Luria will do? Ah, 't is yours, fair Sir, Your and your subtle-witted master's part

To tell me that; I tell you what he can.

"Jac. Friend, you mistake my station! I observe

The game, watch how my betters play, no more.

"Puc. But mankind are not pieces. . there's your fault!

You cannot push them, and, the first move made,

Lean back to study what the next should be,

In confidence that when 't is fixed at length,

You'll find just where you left them, blacks and whites:
Men go on moving when your hand's away.

You build, I notice, firm on Luria's faith

This whole time, firmlier than I choose to build,
Who never doubted it of old, that is

With Luria in his ordinary mind:

But now, oppression makes the wise man mad
How do I know he will not turn and stand

Wide, deep to live upon, in feeling now,

And after, in remembrance, year by year-
And, in the dear conviction, die at last!
She lies now at thy pleasure

pleasure have!

Their vaunted intellect that gilds our sense,

They blend with life to show it better by,

How think'st thou ?—I have turned that light on them!
They called our thirst of war a transient thing;
The battle element must pass away

From life, they said, and leave a tranquil world:
Master, I took their light and turned it full
On that dull turgid vein they said would burst
And pass away; and as I looked on Life,
Still everywhere I tracked this, though it hid
And shifted, lay so silent as it thought,
Changed oft the hue yet ever was the same:
Why 't was all fighting, all their nobler life!
All work was fighting, every harm
And every joy obtained a victory!
Be not their dupe!

defeat,

Their dupe? That hour is past!
Here stand'st thou in the glory and the calm!
All is determined! Silence for me now!
"Lur. Have I heard all?

[Exit HUSAIN.

"DOMIZIA (advancing from the background.)
No, Luria, I am here.

Not from the motives these have urged on thee,
Ignoble, insufficient, incomplete,
And pregnant each with sure seeds of decay
As failing of sustainment from thyself,

Neither from low revenge, nor selfishness,
Nor savage lust of power, nor one, nor all,
Shalt thou abolish Florence! I proclaim
The angel in thee and reject the spirits
Which ineffectual crowd about his strength
And mingle with his work and claim a share!
Inconsciously to the augustest end

Thou hast arisen: second not to him
In rank so much as time, who first ordained
The Florence thou art to destroy, should be
Yet him a star, too, guided, who broke first
The pride of lonely power, the life apart,
And made the eminences, each to each,
Lean o'er the level world and let it lie

Safe from the thunder henceforth 'neath their arms

To still continue Second in Command!

“Puc. No, Sir, no second nor so fortunate! Your tricks succeed with me too well for that!

I am as you have made me, and shall die

A mere trained fighting hack to serve your end;

With words, you laugh at while they leave your mouth,
For my life's rules and ordinance of God!

Duty have I to do, and faith to keep,

And praise to earn, and blame to guard against,
As I was trained. I shall accept your charge,
And fight against one better than myself,
And my own heart's conviction of his wrongs
That you may count on! -just as hitherto
Have I gone on, persuaded I was slighted,
Degraded, all the terms we learn by rote,
Because the better nature, fresh-inspired,
Mounted above me to its proper place :
What mattered all the kindly graciousness
And cordial brother's bearing? This was clear
I was once captain, am subaltern now,
And so must keep complaining like a fool!
So take the curse of a lost man, I say!
You neither play your puppets to the end,
Nor treat the real man, for his realness' sake
Thrust rudely in their place, with such regard
As might console them for their altered rank.
Me, the mere steady soldier, you depose
For Luria, and here's all that he deserves!
Of what account, then, are my services?
One word for all whatever Luria does,

If backed by his indignant troops he turns
In self-defence and Florence goes to ground,
Or for a signal, everlasting shame

He pardons you, and simply seeks his friends
And heads the Pisan and the Lucchese troops
And if I, for you ingrates past belief,

Resolve to fight against one false to us,
Who, inasmuch as he is true, fights there
Whichever way he wins, he wins for me,
For every soldier, for the common good!

Sir, chronicling the rest, omit not this!"- pp. 14, 15.

Husain and Domizia both urge Luria to revenge his wrongs, but from different motives.

“Hus. Both armies against Florence! Take revenge!

faculties of his mind, the reflective and ideal qualities of character begin in turn to predominate. His revenge must not be of a physical and animal type. It will be based more on impulse than reason, but it must be intellectual and heroic. He accordingly takes poison, and dies just as Braccio returns from Florence, whither Tiburzio has gone with a generous rival's admiration of his magnanimity to testify in his favor, with the news of his acquittal. Up to the fifth act, the characters have been kept entirely distinct, each within his own limited personality, and absorbed in his own aims. But now every thing centres toward Luria. His unselfish grandeur magnetizes all the rest. The true human soul in each breaks through its artificial barriers, reaching towards and doing fealty to the enthusiasm of the greater spirit which attracts and absorbs their own. There is something in this not only natural, but nobly so. We see in it an appreciation of the true elements of tragedy, not dependent on any overthrow of outward fortune, but on the simple, broad humanity common to us all. We must gratify ourselves by giving the conclusion almost entire.

"Lur.

My own East!
How nearer God we are! He glows above
With scarce an intervention, presses close
And palpitatingly, His soul o'er ours!
We feel Him, nor by painful reason know!
The everlasting minute of creation

Is felt there; Now it is, as it was Then ;

All changes at His instantaneous will,

Not by the operation of a law

Whose maker is elsewhere at other work!
His soul is still engaged upon his world

Man's praise can forward it, Man's prayer suspend,
For is not God all-mighty? — To recast

The world, erase old things and make them new,
What costs it Him? So man breathes nobly there!
And inasmuch as Feeling, the East's gift,

Is quick and transient comes, and lo, is gone-
While Northern Thought is slow and durable,
Oh, what a mission was reserved for me,
Who, born with a perception of the power
And use of the North's thought for us of the East,
Should have stayed there and turned it to account,
Giving Thought's character and permanence