sure to be defeated by Luria, the baseless trial (which has been secretly proceeded with in Florence) and sentence of the Moor may be completed. Braccio's Secretary expostulates, but Braccio has determined Luria's fate. Depending on no evidence, he merely takes dangerous ambition for granted in a successful commander. Florentine captains have ended their career so, and, according to Braccio, it is inevitable, all the more in an alien. Braccio regards, or affects to regard, a Moorish mercenary as a dangerous animal, best treated with faithlessness. Luria, entering, shows by his dalliance with the Florentines' suspicion how unconscious he is of his adored city's treachery. To Luria, the Italian character is extraordinarily fascinating, and trustworthy for its very impassibility. Act II. Domizia, whose House has been uprooted by Florence on charges similar to that now laid against Luria, is an embodied revenge, who is influencing Luria for the moment when, his sentence pronounced, he may rise and, with his worshipping army, crush the ungrateful city. Husain, Luria's friend, strives to make Luria distrust Florence and, this victory won, abjure her service. But Luria's feeling, his Eastern dower, is laid under a spell by Florentine thought, and his one prevision is dread of dismissal when Florence needs her fighter no longer. Tiburzio, Pisa's commander, a generous foe, here appears to offer Luria, not truce, but news and proof of the Signoria's treachery. He invites Luria to join Pisa. Luria will neither read Braccio's intercepted

letter, nor believe the treachery without further test. Incapable of baseness, he cannot imagine but that Florence will acquit him if he goes on steadily serving her through this critical day. By Act III., the battle is won, and Tiburzio taken prisoner. Luria, who thought this victory would amend all, finds he was mistaken. Braccio admits the existence of the trial, vindicating the city or nation's carelessness of the individual as necessary to the preservation of itself, the type. He disarms Luria's possible appeal to his soldiery, by denominating such an appeal a justification of the Signory's doubts. Hereupon, Tiburzio again beseeches Luria to change masters, and, alone and without followers, take from him his own commandership, in Pisa's name. But Luria plans a different punishment for Florence, viz. continued rectitude in her service, bound, as he believes, to bring surprised recognition, with attendant shame and remorse. Meantime he dismisses Tiburzio, Braccio, and Domizia, assuring them that till the sentence arrives, he remains the officer of Florence. Act IV. Puccio, who reveres Luria, and Husain, who loves him, think his vengeance on Florence, by the double instrument of his and the Pisan army, worthy and inevitable, and Domizia appeals to Luria to take this revenge for very righteousness' sake. Luria, alone again, far from assimilating the others' suggestions, falls to thinking his own meditated 'revenge' too cruel. After all, the Signory, not the People, are false, so why brand these with

eternal disgrace for those? Best disappear, his day ended, like the sun of his native land. To save Florence from the consequences of her 'strange mistake,' he swallows a slow poison. Act V. Luria explains to Puccio how to conclude the campaign victoriously, when he shall have departed, though not to Pisa, as Puccio thought. Overwhelmed by Luria's magnanimity, Puccio refuses to supersede him, and begs to be allowed to serve him. Jacopo, too, the Secretary, on whom Luria enjoins the task of righting the reputation of Domizia's House, is won from Braccio's equivocal service, and, with his heart's homage, accepts Luria's charge. Next enters Domizia, a changed woman, whom knowledge of Luria has taught that revenge is a poor ambition. She divines that whatever Luria now devises for Florence, is at least

Tiburzio has used his liberty to visit Florence and there vindicate, as he well could, Luria's unswerving loyalty. Braccio, too, acknowledges his entire conversion to the truth of the Moor. During their speeches, Luria has gradually grown more silent, till suddenly those present find fulfilled the punishment he prepared (as a punishment, unconsciously) for Florence, his own death. Nothing can be more beautiful and impressive than Luria's comment at the close of the confession of each of his convertites, that there's another for eternity. Of all the suicides

ever read of there was never one more perfectly purged of self than Luria.

A Soul's Tragedy, 1843 (Vol. III.), is a drama, the title of which is ironic, as the chief personage, Chiappino, merely attitudinises.

Act I. Chiappino is, with Eulalia, awaiting the return of Luitolfo, Eulalia's affianced lover, who has gone to the tyrannical Provost to try to obtain some mitigation of the sentence of banishment passed on Chiappino for reviling the Provost and Provostship. The graceless ingrate, Chiappino, employs the hour in sneering down Luitolfo to Eulalia, and professing his old love for her. This love he describes as all along unspoken, because choked by the forestalling glibness and hampering 'benefits' of the prosperous Luitolfo. Ill-conditioned in adversity, Chiappino puts an ungenerous construction on Luitolfo's deeds and words and, while vaunting his own depth of feeling, love of liberty, and general superiority, proves himself one who only sympathises with himself. He has just denounced the craven spirit of the Faentines and gibed at Luitolfo's probably magniloquent description of an unsuccessful interview with the Provost, when an agitated knocking is heard. Luitolfo enters, his garments blood-stained. He tells them that, goaded past forbearance, he has struck, and, he believes, killed the Provost. To a man of weak nerve, as Luitolfo is, the reaction from his impulsive deed, with the prospect of torture and death, is stupefying. Chiappino rises to the occasion,

and almost is, what he has always considered himself, heroic. He hurries the half-stunned Luitolfo out of the house, with his own travelling gear and route, and then puts on Luitolfo's blood-stained vest. He is in a highly excited state when, the multitude rushing in, the situation is instantly transformed, for they reply to Chiappino's announcement, "I killed the Provost!" by hailing him as their saviour and the destroyer of their oppressor. Before the scene closes, we are prepared for what is to follow, for Chiappino shows that the new delight of applause and popularity are too sweet, coming after such strain, to be immediately relinquished. Act II, a month later, represents Luitolfo, in disguise, mingling with the populace, and hearing that Chiappino, having modified his revolutionary ideas, is about to be made the new Provost. To compose the popular tumult, Ogniben, the Pope's Legate, has come over from Ravenna, where the old Provost is lying wounded but not, as was imagined, killed. Ogniben has quickly taken Chiappino's measure. He is now for a time fooling him to the top of his bent, in order to bring him to the more complete collapse. To this end, in discourse with him, he carries out into glaring extremes Chiappino's sophistical vindications of his inconsistency in accepting the Provostship. At last the wily fisher of men sees Chiappino floundering and gasping in the net. Then, to mortify him more entirely, he coolly remarks, that beside the complete depend