Wordsworth

Corn-laws (repealed in 1846) are compared to the withering, oppressive Scirocco.

The Lost Leader (Vol. VI.), records the desertion by a certain poet of the cause of liberty and progress. The last four lines recommend him to justify his instruction by doughty fighting, though for the new party, opposing and menacing the old.

Time will

reconvert him, and then-for he is still loved-God will pardon him and reunite him to his first allies.

The Lost Mistress (Vol. VI.) is a man's regretful acceptance of friendship where love existed previously. Stanza 2 is a delicious nature note.

Home-Thoughts from Abroad (Vol. VI.) sketches English April and May. Browning's works contain no more magical touches than the words describing the 'buttercups' and 'wise thrush.'

Home-Thoughts, from the Sea (Vol. VI.) records a noble question, nobly answered by Browning in his gift of poetry to England.

The Bishop orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church (Vol. IV.) (originally called The Tomb at Saint Praxed's), is a marvellous piece of craftsmanship. After reading it, one never again hears the 'blessed mutter in a Roman church, or goes round the ecclesiastics' monuments of cipollino or nero-antico without recalling the voluptuous pagan of the Renaissance, who implores his nephews' for good marble, good carving, and Ciceronian Latin. 'Elucescebat' ('he shone forth or 'was notable') should be elucebat.' The Bishop derides Ulpian's dog-latin.

Garden Fancies (Vol. VI.) I. The Flower's Name is a lover's delicate rhapsody. II. Sibrandus Schnafburgensis is the portentous name of the writer of a dull and solemn book, a reader's merry revenge on which the poem narrates. The spider with arms akimbo' is an amusing touch of actuality.

The Laboratory (Vol. VI.) (with The Confessional called France and Spain), is a vivid picture of the intense, scorching jealousy of an unscrupulous woman, who flourished when poisoning was fashionable. In a speaking picture, Browning makes us see the keeper of the poison shop and his fair, evil customer.

The Confessional (Vol. VI.) is the desperate outcry of an unhappy girl, whom a priest inveigled, under false pretences, into telling the secrets of her lover, a malcontent. Two days later, she saw her lover executed. She has herself been incarcerated and tortured for her impotent denunciation of priestly treachery.

The Flight of the Duchess (Vol. V.) is the enchantingly fantastic narrative of an ardent, natural young girl's immurement in artificial surroundings and among unloving people. The death-in-life becoming impossible, she escapes, under the influence of a wondrous crone, the Gipsies' Queen. The descriptions of Moldavia, the 'middle-age-manners-adapter' Duke, the crafts of the gipsies, and the Duchess's departure are particularly fresh and romantic. The lulling, stimulating words the gipsy croons over the Duchess are open to wide interpretation. Their didactic

mysticalness is effectively contrasted with the rough and ready style of the huntsman who tells the story. In this poem, Browning first speaks of the distinct happiness of age in restful retrospect, the harvesting of ripened memories, that happy, characteristic view of By the Fireside, Rabbi Ben Ezra, and other poems.

Earth's Immortalities (Vol. VI.) reminds us how oblivion swallows fame, and how love passes too, and, despite its febrile promise of 'for ever,' becomes as forgotten as June is in autumn's snows.

Song (Vol. VI.) is a lover's impassioned demand of praise for his lady, who is too dear to him for his own praising.

The Boy and the Angel (Vol. V.) is a kind of legend of how Gabriel took Theocrite's place, that Theocrite might be Pope. Both angel and boy found their mistake, for God missed the 'little human praise.' Each returned to his proper calling, with the chastening knowledge that while all service ranks the same with God, each creature's grace is evinced in acquiescence in the conditions of his own life.

Meeting at Night and Parting at Morning (Vol. VI.) (originally called Night and Morning), are descriptive and ethical, the second poem implying that as surely as morning brings the sun his task, the privilege and responsibility of life in the world devolve on a man (cp. the first lyric in Ferishtah).

Nationality in Drinks (Vol. VI.) (two-thirds of which were originally called Claret and Tokay), consists of two lively wine fancies, French and Hungarian, and

a fact concerning Nelson, whose memory is drunk in 'British Beer.'

Then he turns to life's great deeds that will

Saul (Vol. VI.), one of the world's finest poems, is founded on 1 Sam. xvi. 14-23. To arouse the King from his terrible lethargy, David tries all his harp tunes. He begins with the music that folds the sheep, the music that attracts birds and insects, the music of human existence. All these availing little to stir Saul, David sings the joys of living, all concentrated upon Israel's King. deeper harmonies, and Saul's never die nor be forgotten. His spirit yearning over Saul in his distress, a great inspiration enters David, and laying aside harp and song, he prophesies, step by step from his own love, which only to die for Saul, if need were, can satisfy, the existence of a similar love in God. It is a tremendous inference, but nothing less is possible, unless the creature is to surpass the creator, and David, enwrapped in vision, sees and knows the Human Love in the Divine Power, the self-sacrificing Christ. As David returns homeward through the night, Nature's voices are hushed with acquiescence in or tremulous in attestation of the new law, the new life. (Saul was written in two parts, i.-ix., appearing in 1845, the rest in 1855, among Men and Women.)

Time's Revenges (Vol. V.) is a man's bitter reflection on one-sided attraction. His friend's devotion to him, which he repays with contempt, is revenged by his own devouring love for a heartless society woman.

The Glove (Vol. V.) takes up Schiller and Hunt's ballad, treats the theme afresh, and continues it beyond the old conclusion, according to a new view of the conduct of the 'dame' and De Lorge. Instead of taking the well-known superficial, and somewhat brutal, view of the episode, Browning convincingly justifies the lady in putting her knight's professions to the test.

Luria; A Tragedy, 1846 (Vol. VI.), may well be called Browning's favourite drama. The character of Luria, an absolutely original creation without historical basis, is unmatched in literature. Luria shares with Othello the fervour of the Oriental, as, guileless like him, he is surrounded by Italian craft and guile. Luria is the most utterly unselfish and lofty of men. He loved Florence so much, and was so true to her, that he would perish rather than allow her to be false to him. He died to save Florence from that shame.

Act I. ('Scene-Luria's Camp between Florence and Pisa. Time, 14-.') Puccio, the commander Luria has superseded, is reporting to Braccio, the Florentine Signoria's commissary, how Luria stands prepared for to-day's decisive battle with Pisa. Jealous and carping as his displacement inclines him to be, the honest-natured Puccio cannot forbear testifying to Luria's consummate conduct. This message is never destined to reach Florence. Braccio tears the report as soon as Puccio leaves him, substituting a missive to the effect that as the Pisans are

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