Mr. Browning's main defects, a want of clearness, and a tendency to sacrifice truth to effect, are very conspicuous in it. The hero Djabal, as we have already said, wishes to gain a noble end by base means, for which he is rightly punished. Our only sympathy throughout (with the exception of a slight regard for Khalil, Anael's, the heroine's, brother) is with Loys de Dreux, a KnightNovice of the Hospitallers, duped by Djabal, and bent on saving the Druses, without the slightest suspicion of their intended conspiracy against his order. Nothing can be finer and more effective in its way than the scene in which he finally learns the truth from the traitor Djabal's lips, and thus acts thereon: This is undoubtedly sufficiently spirited. We would not be misunderstood: there is much that is extremely beautiful in this Tragedy also, and it is only by comparison with Mr. Browning's other creations that we are induced or enabled to disparage it. The stirring interest maintained throughout, the concentration of the action within a few hours, the various individualities so forcibly and dramatically sustained, are worthy of all praise. There is some beautiful poetry placed in the lips of Khalil and Anael. The characters of the Order's Prefect and the Nuncio, both specimens of thorough villany, are admirably conceived and embodied. On the other hand, the motives in various instances are not as clear as might be desired. Djabal is decidedly ambiguous: he does not seem to know himself whether he loves or not; and though this may be said to be a part of his character, it is certainly not comfortable. Anael's motives, too, are throughout only indicated, and not sufficiently or clearly indi cated; her intention of slaying the Prefect would never be guessed by the vast majority of readers. We do not like alterations in published works; but this play might certainly be rendered far superior to what it is. We now come to a very great work, one of Mr. Browning's greatest, indeed, the "Tragedy," or rather the dramatic Poem, of "Luria. Luria." In this, Genius is shown in conflict with obstinate mediocrity which will not believe in it, which will persist in attributing all manner of unnatural motives to its every action, and which finally accomplishes its ruin. Another view of this piece would present to us the contrast betwixt Luria, the impulsive half-savage Moor, and the comparatively Northern Machiavelian prudent Florentines, betwixt impulse in fact and worldly wisdom. Regard it as we will, "Luria" is a great work, and deserving of far other notice than we can bestow upon it here. There are some strained effects in it, some striking improbabilities, and there is a final suicide (of which the poetic effect is great), which we cannot admire from a moral or religious point of view. We can only hope that "Luria" was not a Christian; for then the deed of ignorance might be forgiven. It is certain that this excuse would not have availed poor Thorold. To resume: One unnatural circumstance we may not pass without direct censure. Luria, it must be observed, is the General of the Florentine army against the Pisans; Braccio, his great common-sense worldly adversary, is the Commissary of the Republic in the camp. Now a certain Florentine lady, called Domizia, is also there: we are not at all informed for what expressed purpose. We learn, indeed, that Braccio has had her placed there to entrap Luria; and that her secret wish is to lead Luria to rebellion against Florence, which she hopes to destroy through him; but all this does not bring us a step nearer any avowed motive for her presence, which is indeed wholly wanting. This deficiency greatly injures the effect of the part she takes in the play, and tends to give an unreality to the whole. Here, too, an argument seems needful. ful. At all events, no one, we should say, would clearly understand the work, on his first perusal of it. But we must not pause for further comments. Our readers will thank us more for a few extracts. Luria's character is admirably conveyed in a speech which he makes to Braccio and Domizia in the first act :— "I wonder, do you guess, why I delay, Involuntarily, the final blow, As long as possible?--Peace follows it!-- -But Luria,—where will then be Luria's place?" Tiburzio expresses his admiration and goes. The following soliloquy of Luria's is so grand, and so characteristic of our author, that we cannot find in our heart to omit or even to shorten it: My heart will have it, he speaks true! My Beats close to this Tiburzio as a friend. Oh, life, the long mutation! Is it so ? The unaffected humility and candor of genius breathe from every line of this, and a similar spirit is sustained throughout. Braccio, however, chooses to believe this "childishness," as he calls it, affected; he cannot conceive that such a leader should be so wanting in worldly wisdom; he suspects him of a secret design to turn Florence's arms against her; and so, while he is winning her battles, Braccio sends such reports to the It Senators as induce them to pass a secret sentence of death upon him. This Luria learns from Tiburzio, the Pisan General, who is ushered to his presence by Husain, a Moor, and Luria's friend. We must not pass Husain without his meed of praise. In him is personified the true African instinct, whether of rage or love; he all but adores Luria as a God, and hates all the Florentines, against whom he warns him. He says: "There stands a wall 'Twixt our expansive and explosive race And these absorbing, concentrating men.” But we must not keep Tiburzio waiting. We may return later to Husain. The Pisan General comes. He remains alone with Luria, he proffers him the proof of Florentine treachery, and conjures him to open the intercepted missive, and act thereon, as he may feel inclined. Luria replies at last: "And act on what I read? What act were fit ?— ... Having to fail, or your sagacity, You do not wish to find yourself alone. Domizia's eyes reject the searcher;—yes: cannot directly pursue the narrative. He "There lie beneath thee thine own multitudes- What would the world be worth? Whose love HUSAIN. I saw. Then, hold thy course, my The years return.-Let thy heart have its way!" And, again, further on : fo, who is one of these. The Provost, who governs Faenza under the Pope, has not improperly banished this very odious fellow: "Oh, friend, oh, lord,—for me, What am I?—I was silent at thy side, That am a part of thee-It is thy hand, Thy foot, that glows, when in the heart fresh blood he is in Luitolfo's house, with Eulalia, the Boils up, thou heart of me!" And, finally, "Both armies against Florence! Take revenge! She lies now at thy pleasure :-pleasure have!" Luria, however, resists this and all other temptations. His only vengeance on Florence is to destroy himself by poison, from love for her, lest she should incur the disgrace of his punishment :-before his death, his true greatness is acknowledged by one after the other of those Florentines who have been leagued against him: finally, even the worldly-wise Braccio bows down before the purity of Genius. But it is all too late--he dies! One more passage we must cite from one of Luria's later speeches :— "My own East! How nearer God we were! He glows above Is felt there; now it is, as it was then :- Whose maker is elsewhere at other work! And now we pass on to the last of Mr. Browning's longer works, socially and politically, perhaps, the most important of them all, entitled "The Soul's Tragedy," a wild species of Drama, the design and execution of which are thoroughly after our own heart. It is written for the purpose of flaying alive (if we may so express ourselves) certain morbid restless " byronizers" and troublesome democrats to be found in all countries in this our age. The hero, the representative of this class, called Chiappino, is a citizen of the Italian town Faenza, which is under papal domination. No matter, however, what the government may be, Chiappino is one of those who will always be found on the side of opposition (unless, indeed, they have secured the loaves and fishes for themselves); oud, noisy, turbulent, a mischief-maker by profession. Nevertheless, some good men are taken in by his high-sounding liberalism, and our Chiappino has a friend called Luitol latter's betrothed, whilst the honest, comparatively conservative friend, has gone to intercede for him with the Provost. He amuses himself in the mean time with abusing Luitolfo, whom he hates on account of his happy, genial nature, which contrasts with his he calls his friend's "wise passiveness," and own currish temperament. He derides what says most characteristically of himself:"True, I thank God, I ever said 'you sin,' When a man did sin: if I could not say it, I glared it at him; if I could not glare it, I pray'd against him. Then, my part seem'd over. God's may begin yet: so it will, I trust.' Not contented with this, Chiappino gets up a little additional misery on the score of his being madly in love with Eulalia, though he has never mentioned it: oh, no! he loved too deeply for that. Talking was all very well for Luitolfo, with his "slight, free, loose, and incapacious soul." The fellow proceeds a long time in this strain. He is interrupted by Luitolfo's arrival, who, maddened by the Provost's refusal to spare his worthless friend, had actually come to blows with him, and left him for dead of course he is very remorseful for this deed. Chiappino brightens up and resolves to act the martyr. Luitolfo shall fly in his stead. 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 : or sing "How the people tarry! I can't be silent... I must speak. How natural to sing now!" To this twaddle Eulalia very finely responds: "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 1849.] ROBERT BROWNING'S POEMS. transports of delight: they hail with rapture | ess: 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 neighboring 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 : the doer of this mighty deed; and we may go forward, remarking only that the prose We have now arrived at the last division of Mr. Browning's literary labors,-labors, 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 may not be said with truth of the first of them, with its stirring refrain, (Kentish loyalists are singing) : 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 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 As you'll hear in the off-hand discourse, The Dominican brother, these three weeks, Shakspeare was of us, Milton was for us; He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, "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, 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 favorably 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 persona.' 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 excellencies, 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 Very spirited is the next song, "The Lost prove her own power and her lover's faith, 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, followed him, honor'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! 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 "reversed 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 humor. On the whole, these Lyrics and Romances are well worthy of their author; and that is saying much. They are unlike anything else we are acquainted with; for Southey's monodramas, very fine in their way, have another cast; and Tennyson's dramatic lyrics, such |