He will remain, and accept the penalty of this heroic deed. Luitolfo, half deadened by horror, goes. The mob are heard approaching. Chiappino's vain-glorious heroism, which must be prating, is admirably conveyed:

"Hush, and pray!

We are to die; but even I perceive,

Tis not a very hard thing, so to die."

We cannot quote all her speech. Chiappino flashes forth again:

"If they would drag one to the market-place,

One might speak there!"

Ay, Lady Beatrice, you must still be talking." Well, the mob arrives. Chiappino shouts instantly, "I killed the Provost." The mob, instead of being furious, are in transports of delight: they hail with rapture the doer of this mighty deed; and we may be well assured Chiappino is not the man to disclaim their gratitude. Eulalia turns an inquiring glance upon him. He responds to her thought, and talks vaguely of confession on the morrow. That morrow never comes. We cannot pursue the narrative to its close. The diplomatic skill and deep craft of the Pope's Legate, Ogniben, is admirably contrasted with Chiappino's shallow selfishness. The Legate stays the revolution by offering to make Chiappino the new Provost, after a certain interval: all the while, his intention is to turn upon him when he has got him into his power. But your liberal bites at the bait. How the catastrophe is brought about, how Luitolfo is pardoned for his manliness in finally coming forward and owning his crime, and Chiappino is dismissed with quiet contempt, utterly crest-fallen, we cannot pause to explain. This heading is put above the work by its author, with quiet but exquisite irony: "A Soul's Tragedy. Part first, being what was called the Poetry of Chiappino's Life; and Part second, its Prose." Further extracts from this work would be of little benefit, unless we discussed and exhibited its high merits at due length, and for this we have no space. We must therefore go forward, remarking only that the prose of the second part breathes some of the most bitter, but also the most salutary satire, with which we are at all acquainted.

We have now arrived at the last division of Mr. Browning's literary labours,-labours, no doubt, of love, his "Dramatic

Lyrics and Romances." As has been already observed, they are so many monodramas, that is, directly dramatic utterances under special circumstances of so many imaginary speakers, in lyric forms; but there are a few exceptions to this rule. Thus the "Cavalier Tunes," which head the series, are not strictly individual; though perhaps this can only be said with truth of the first of them, with its stirring refrain, (Kentish loyalists are singing) :

"Marching along, fifty score strong,

:

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song."

Of course, these lyrics, or monodramas, or whatever we may call them, are replete with Mr. Browning's usual earnestness and fiery vitality. They are extremely abrupt, and consequently, (speaking generally,) by no means easy to understand. The very first poem following the "Cavalier Tunes," strangely enough entitled, "My Last Duchess: Ferrara," and embodying Italian morbid jealousy, would no doubt be a perfect puzzle to most readers, without some clue to its meaning. The speaker is an Italian Duke, who is receiving the envoy of a neighbouring potentate, sent to offer him the hand of that potentate's daughter in marriage. The Duke is supposed to lead the envoy through his picture gallery, to pause suddenly before the portrait of his late Duchess, slain by his jealousy, and, drawing back the veil from it, to break out thus, in a tone of assumed indifference :

"That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive.

That piece a wonder, now."

I call

Such is the colloquial style of the majority of Mr. Browning's lyrics. The Italian's jealousy is thus finely indicated :—

"She had

A heart.. how shall I say? too soon made glad,
Too easily impress'd: -she liked whate'er
She look'd on, and her looks went every where.-
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the west,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace,-all and each

Would draw from her, alike, the approving speech,

Or blush, at least. She thank'd men,-good; but thank'd
Somehow, . . I know not how, as if she rank'd

My gift of a nine hundred years' old name

With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling?"

*

"Oh, Sir, she smiled no doubt,

Whene'er I pass'd her: but who pass'd without

Much the same smile? This grew!-I gave commands :-
Then all smiles stopp'd together!"

There is a quiet and deadly earnestness in this, which cannot fail to strike those who duly apprehend it. But the theme is not a pleasant one. The next, with another odd heading enough, (it requires an argument prefixed,) is sweet and touching, though also too abrupt as it stands. We cannot notice each of these romances in particular. The "Madhouse Cells" are remarkably powerful: the first embodies the musings of a mad predestinarian, and is very terrible; the second is truthful, passionate, and beautiful. All the world will be delighted with the Pied Piper of Hamelin," written for a child, and, for Browning, marvellously easy of comprehension. It is charming throughout; but extracts would convey no fitting idea of it, and therefore we give none. "How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," an adventure told by a horseman, is wonderfully spirited and graphic. Mr. Browning does not write about "the ride," as another man would do; he does not even describe it: he gives us the very thing itself. We have the reality, not its image or its shadow. "Pictor Ignotus," is finely conceived and executed. The idea is that of an Italian Painter of the 16th century, who might have been great as Raphael in the world's esteem, if he had not shrunk alike from vulgar praise and censure, and preferred to remain unknown.

"Wherefore I chose my portion.-If, at whiles,

My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint

These endless cloisters, and eternal aisles

With the same series, Virgin, Babe, and Saint,
With the same cold, calm, beautiful regard,-

At least, no merchant traffics in my heart;
The sanctuary's gloom, at least, shall ward

а

Vain tongues from where my pictures stand apart." There is more, finer even than this, but from such perfect "wholes," it is most difficult to extract. The segment of a circle gives but an imperfect notion of completeness. Next comes an extremely truthful soliloquy spoken by an Italian exile in England, which contains very great beauties, but is withal so simple, so natural, so intensely real, that to vulgar observation it might at first sight seem common place. "The Englishman in Italy," we like less; but this, too, has its merits, especially the description of the Festival:

"To-morrow's the Feast

Of the Rosary's Virgin, by no means VOL. XI.-NO. XXII.-JUNE, 1849.

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Of Virgins the least

As you'll hear in the off-hand discourse,
Which (all nature, no art,)

The Dominican brother, these three weeks,

Was getting by heart."

Very spirited is the next song, "The Lost Leader," commencing,

"Just for a handful of silver he left us,

Just for a riband to stick in his coat :".

And containing these fine lines, (despite their falsity, for if there ever was a literary aristocrat, Shakspeare was one,)—

"We that had loved him so, follow'd him, honour'd him,

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye;

Learn'd his great language, caught his clear accents;
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakspeare was of us, Milton was for us;

Burns, Shelley, were with us, they fight from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,

He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves."

"The Flower's Name" is a soft fanciful soliloquy, in lyric form, spoken by a lover, who recounts how his mistress visited his garden.

"This flower she stopp'd at, finger on lip,

Stoop'd over, in doubt, as settling its claim,
Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip,
Its soft meandering Spanish name.
What a name! Was it love, or praise?
Speech half-asleep, or song half-awake?
I must learn Spanish one of these days,

Only for that slow sweet name's sake."

Another admirable composition is "The Flight of the Duchess," a tale, dramatically told by an old forester. Perhaps it is rather too lengthy in parts; at least, there is one unnecessary episode (very clever in itself) respecting gipsy trades. We cannot speak as favourably of the moral of this composition, for we do not like a wife's being spirited away from her husband, however unworthy of her, even by her own gipsy race. Marriage is, in our eyes, an indissoluble tie. But Mr. Browning does not speak in his own person, and has seriously disclaimed in a certain note the opinions expressed by his lyric "dramatis personæ. A strange wild legend, replete with mystic beauty, is "The Boy and the Angel." We have no space to quote it. Saul," which is a long soliloquy spoken by the youthful David, has rare excel

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lencies, but is not yet completed, a Second Part having to follow. The strange fragment called "Time's Revenges" is extremely powerful in its way. "The Glove," the last in the collection, is a tale told by the French Poet, "Peter Ronsard," or rather a new version of the old story-how a lady, to prove her own power and her lover's faith, threw her glove among wild beasts and bade the lover fetch it. Our readers may remember how Schiller and Leigh Hunt have treated this theme. Mr. Browning has versed the medal," and takes the lady's part with great tact and cleverness. In truth, this poem is marked by a wonderful command of language and an overflow of biting humour. On the whole, these Lyrics and Romances are well worthy of their author; and that is saying much. They are unlike any thing else we are acquainted with; for Southey's monodramas, very fine in their way, have another cast; and Tennyson's dramatic lyrics, such as "Ulysses," are more reflective and contemplative, though very noble also. That passion, that intensity, that power, which is the marked characteristic of Mr. Browning, is conspicuous throughout them. They are not altogether free from morbid tendencies and exaggerations,—witness "The Confessional,” and "The Tomb at St. Praxed's," though both of these have merit : they are sometimes painful; but they are always forcible, and in some instances graceful and pleasant also.-We have noticed the series very cursorily, and Mr. Browning is not a Poet who can be done justice to in a few words. He must be illustrated and elucidated with care. No author more requires interpreters to stand betwixt him and the public: and where, in the present dearth of taste or common sense in the critical world, when the English of a Carlyle is thought sublime, and the artificial and conventional are in almost all cases preferred to the truthful, are we to look for such interpreters? Mr. Browning must bide his time, secure of his own greatness, and of the world's awaking sooner or later to a just appreciation of it. Even now a change is manifest; a new and complete edition of his works is called for, and proof is thereby afforded that the public is beginning to open its eyes.

We have said, on a former occasion, that Browning is most properly classed with Tennyson, and with Miss Barrett, now Mrs. Robert Browning and our poet's wife. The first has less intensity, but perhaps more grace and finish; at all events his talent is mainly and primarily lyric, while Mr. Browning's is almost exclusively dramatic. Mrs. Robert Browning possesses perhaps closer poetical affinities with her husband than with Tennyson, having displayed much of the same dramatic intensity. She is a very great poetess, probably the greatest this country