Thus? oh, not thus! no type of earth could image that awaking,

Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of seraphs, round him breaking,

Or felt the new immortal throb of soul from body parted,

But felt those eyes alone, and knew—'My Saviour! not deserted!'

Deserted! Who hath dreamt that when the cross in darkness rested,

Upon the Victim's hidden face, no love was manifested? What frantic hands outstretched have e'er the atoning drops averted?

What tears have washed them from the soul, that one

should be deserted?

ROBERT BROWNING.

The head of what has been termed the psychowho for more than thirty years has been recoglogical school of poetry is MR ROBERT BROWNING, nised as one of our most original and intellectual poets. Latterly, the public-to use his own words

The British Public, ye who like me not

(God love you!), whom I yet have laboured for, have been more indulgent to the poet, and more ready to acknowledge his real merits. Mr Browning first attracted attention in 1836, when he published his poem of Paracelsus. He had previously published anonymously a poem entitled Pauline, a Fragment of a Confession. Paracelsus evinced that love of psychological analysis and that subtle imagination more fully displayed in the author's later works. It is the history of a soul struggling and aspiring after hidden knowledge, power, and happiness

All ambitious, upwards tending,
Like plants in mines, which never saw the sun-

but is thwarted and baffled in the visionary pursuit. For an author of twenty-four years of age, this was a remarkable poem. Mr Browning next tried the historical drama. In 1837 his tragedy of Strafford was brought on the stage, the hero It was played several nights, but cannot be said being personated by Macready, a favourite actor. to have been successful. Mr Horne, in his New Spirit of the Age, characterises it as a 'piece of passionate action with the bones of poetry.' Van Dyck's portrait of Strafford, so well known from copies and engravings, will always, we suspect, eclipse or supersede any pen-and-ink delineation of the splendid apostate. The poet now went to Italy, where he resided several years, and in 1841 he sent forth another psychological poem-'the richest puzzle to all lovers of poetry which was ever given to the world'-a thin volume entitled Sordello. Mr Browning's subsequent works were in a dramatic form and spirit, the most popular being Pippa Passes, forming part of a series called Bells and Pomegranates (1841-44), of which a second collection was published containing some exquisite sketches and monologues. 'Pippa is a girl from a silk-factory, who passes the various persons of the play at certain critical moments, in the course of her holiday, and becomes unconsciously to herself a determining influence on the fortune of each.' In 1843 the poet produced another regular drama, a tragedy entitled A Blot in the Scutcheon, which was acted at Drury Lane with moderate success, and is the best of the author's plays. Next to it is King Victor and King Charles, a tragedy in four acts, in which the characters are well drawn and well contrasted. Altogether Mr Browning has written eight plays and two short dramatic sketches, A Soul's Tragedy and In a Balcony. Some of the others-The Return of the Druses, Colombe's Birthday, and Luria-are superior productions both in conception and execution. Two narrative poems, Christmas Eve and Easter Day, present the author's marked peculiarities-grotesque imagery, insight into the human heart, vivid painting, and careless, faulty versification. In principle, the poet is thoroughly

orthodox, and treats the two great Christian festivals in a Christian spirit. Of the lighter pieces of the author, the most popular is The Pied Piper of Hamelin, a Child's Story, told with inimitable liveliness and spirit, and with a flow of rattling rhymes and quaint fancies rivalling Southey's Cataract of Lodore. This amusing production is as unlike the usual style of its author as John Gilpin is unlike the usual style of Cowper.

In 1855 the reputation of Mr Browning was greatly enhanced by the publication of a collection of poems, fifty in number, bearing the comprehensive title of Men and Women. In 1864 another volume of character sketches appeared, entitled Dramatis Persona; and in 1868 was produced the most elaborate of all his works, "The Ring and the Book, an Italian story of the seventeenth century concerning certain assassins

Put to death

By heading or hanging, as befitted ranks, At Rome on February twenty-two, Since our salvation sixteen ninety-eight. The latest works of Mr Browning are Balaustion's Adventure, including a Transcript from Euripides (1871)—which is another recital of the story of Alcestes, supposed to be told by a Greek girl who had witnessed the performance; Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society (1871), a name under which is thinly veiled the name of Louis Napoleon; Fifine at the Fair (1872); Red Cotton Night-cap Country (1873); and Aristophanes Apology, including a Transcript from Euripides, being the last Adventure of Balaustion (1875). Of Aristophanes

Splendour of wit that springs a thunder ball-
Satire to burn and purify the world,
True aim, fair purpose—

we have this bright pen-and-ink portrait :

And no ignoble presence! on the bulge

Of the clear baldness-all his head one brow-
True, the veins swelled, blue network, and there
surged

A red from cheek to temple-then retired

As if the dark-leaved chaplet damped a flame-
Was never nursed by temperance or health.
But huge the eyeballs rolled black native fire,
Imperiously triumphant, nostrils wide

Waited their incense; while the pursed mouth's pout
Aggressive, while the beak supreme above,

While the head, face, nay, pillared throat thrown back,

Beard whitening under like a vinous foam-
These made a glory of such insolence,

I thought, such domineering deity

Hephaistos might have carved to cut the brine
For his gay brother's prow, imbrue that path
Which, purpling, recognised the conqueror.
Impudent and majestic: drunk, perhaps,
But that's religion; sense too plainly snuffed:
Still, sensuality was grown a rite.

In 1875 also appeared from the prolific pen of the poet The Inn Album.

A fertile and original author with high and generous aims, Mr Browning has proved his poetic power alike in thought, description, passion, and conception of character. But the effect of even his happiest productions is marred by obscurity, by eccentricities of style and expression, and by the intrusion of familiar phrases and

462

Hudibrastic rhymes or dry metaphysical discussions. His choice of subjects-chiefly Italian— his stories of monastic life, repulsive crimes, and exceptional types of character-are also against his popularity. The Ring and the Book is prolix : four volumes of blank verse, in which the same tale of murder is told by various interlocutors, with long digressions from old chronicles and other sources-such a work must repel all but devoted poetical readers. These, however, Mr Browning has obtained, and the student who perseveres, digging for the pure untempered gold' of poetry, will find his reward in the pages of this master of psychological monologues and dramatic lyrics.

Mr Browning is a native of Camberwell in Surrey, born in 1812, and educated at the London University. He is also an honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. In November 1846 he was married, as already stated, to Miss Elizabeth Barrett. Of Mr Browning's many descriptions of the sunny south,' the following is a favourable specimen, and Miss Mitford states that it was admired by Mr Ruskin for its exceeding truthfulness:

Picture of the Grape-harvest.

But to-day not a boat reached Salerno,
So back to a man

Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyards
Grape-harvest began:

In the vat half-way up on our house-side
Like blood the juice spins,

While your brother all bare-legged is dancing
Till breathless he grins,

Dead-beaten, in effort on effort

To keep the grapes under,

For still when he seems all but master,
In pours the fresh plunder

From girls who keep coming and going
With basket on shoulder,

And eyes shut against the rain's driving,
Your girls that are older-

For under the hedges of aloe,

And where, on its bed

Of the orchard's black mould, the love-apple
Lies pulpy and red,

All the young ones are kneeling and filling
Their laps with the snails,

Tempted out by the first rainy weather-
Your best of regales,

As to-night will be proved to my sorrow,
When, supping in state,

We shall feast our grape-gleaners-two dozen,
Three over one plate-

Macaroni, so tempting to swallow,

In slippery strings,

And gourds fried in great purple slices,

That colour of kings.

Meantime, see the grape-bunch they've brought you-
The rain-water slips

O'er the heavy blue bloom on each globe
Which the wasp to your lips

Still follows with fretful persistence.
Nay, taste while awake,

This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball,
That peels, flake by flake,

Like an onion's, each smoother and whiter;
Next sip this weak wine

From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper,
A leaf of the vine;

And end with the prickly pear's red flesh,
That leaves through its juice
The stony black seeds on your pearl teeth.

At last the people in a body

To the Town Hall came flocking:

''Tis clear,' cried they, 'our Mayor's a noddy;
And as for our Corporation-shocking
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that can't or won't determine
What's best to rid us of our vermin!
You hope, because you're old and obese,
To find in the furry civic robe ease?
Rouse up, sirs! Give your brains a racking
To find the remedy we 're lacking,

Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!'
At this the Mayor and Corporation
Quaked with a mighty consternation.

IV.

An hour they sat in council,

At length the Mayor broke silence:
For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell;
I wish I were a mile hence!

It's easy to bid one rack one's brain-
I'm sure my poor head aches again,
I've scratched it so, and all in vain;
O for a trap, a trap, a trap!'

Just as he said this, what should hap
At the chamber-door but a gentle tap!

'Bless us,' cried the Mayor, 'what's that?' (With the Corporation as he sat, Looking little, though wondrous fat; Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister, Than a too-long-opened oyster,

Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous
For a plate of turtle green and glutinous),
'Only a scraping of shoes on the mat?
Anything like the sound of a rat
Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!'

V.

'Come in!'-the Mayor cried, looking bigger :
And in did come the strangest figure.
His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of yellow and half of red;
And he himself was tall and thin,
With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,
And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin,
No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin,
But lips where smiles went out and in-
There was no guessing his kith and kin !

He advanced to the Council-table:

And, 'Please your honours,' said he, 'I'm able,
By means of a secret charm, to draw
All creatures living beneath the sun,
That creep, or swim, or fly, or run,
After me so as you never saw!
And I chiefly use my charm

On creatures that do people harm,

The mole, and toad, and newt, and viper;
And people call me the Pied Piper.'

(And here they noticed round his neck

A scarf of red and yellow stripe,

To match with his coat of the self-same check; And at the scarf's end hung a pipe ;

And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying, As if impatient to be playing

Upon this pipe, as low it dangled

Over his vesture so old-fangled.)

'Yet,' said he, 'poor piper as I am,

In Tartary I freed the Cham,

Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats;

I eased in Asia the Nizam

Of a monstrous brood of vampyre bats :
And, as for what your brain bewilders,

If I can rid your town of rats,

Will you give me a thousand guilders?' 'One? fifty thousand ! '-was the exclamation Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.

VII.

Into the street the Piper stept,
Smiling first a little smile,
As if he knew what magic slept

In his quiet pipe the while;
Then, like a musical adept,

To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled,
Like a candle flame where salt is sprinkled;
And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered;
And the muttering grew to a grumbling;
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;
And out of the house the rats came tumbling.
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats,
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,
Families by tens and dozens,
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives-
Followed the Piper for their lives.

From street to street he piped advancing,

And step by step they followed dancing,
Until they came to the river Weser,
Wherein all plunged and perished

-Save one, who, stout as Julius Cæsar,

Swam across, and lived to carry

(As he the manuscript he cherished)

To Rat-land home his commentary,

Which was: 'At the first shrill notes of the pipe,

I heard a sound as of scraping tripe,
And putting apples, wondrous ripe,
Into a cider-press's gripe;

And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards,
And a leaving ajar of conserve cupboards,
And a drawing the corks of train-oil flasks,
And a breaking the hoops of butter casks;
And it seemed as if a voice
(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery

Is breathed) called out: "O rats, rejoice!
The world is grown to one vast drysaltery!
To munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,
Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!"
And just as a bulky sugar puncheon,
All ready staved, like a great sun shone
Glorious scarce an inch before me,

Just as methought it said, "Come, bore me!"
-I found the Weser rolling o'er me.'

VIII.

You should have heard the Hamelin people
Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple.
'Go, cried the Mayor, ' and get long poles !
Poke out the nests and block up the holes!
Consult with carpenters and builders,
And leave in our town not even a trace
Of the rats!'—when suddenly up the face
Of the Piper perked in the market-place,
With a, 'First, if you please, my thousand guilders !'

IX.

A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue; So did the Corporation too.

For Council dinners made rare havoc

With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;

And half the money would replenish
Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish.
To pay this sum to a wandering fellow
With a gipsy coat of red and yellow!

'Beside,' quoth the Mayor, with a knowing wink,
'Our business was done at the river's brink;
We saw with our eyes the vermin sink,
And what 's dead can't come to life, I think.
So, friend, we 're not the folks to shrink
From the duty of giving you something to drink,
And a matter of money to put in your poke;
But, as for the guilders, what we spoke
Of them, as you very well know, was in joke.
Beside, our losses have made us thrifty;
A thousand guilders! Come, take fisty!'

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood
As if they were changed into blocks of wood,
Unable to move a step, or cry

To the children merrily skipping by-
And could only follow with the eye
That joyous crowd at the Piper's back.
But how the Mayor was on the rack,
And the wretched Council's bosoms beat,
As the Piper turned from the High Street
To where the Weser rolled its waters
Right in the way of their sons and daughters!
However he turned from south to west,
And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,
And after him the children pressed;
Great was the joy in every breast.

'He never can cross that mighty top!
He's forced to let the piping drop,
And we shall see our children stop!'

When lo! as they reached the mountain's side,
A wondrous portal opened wide,

As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;

And the Piper advanced and the children followed, And when all were in to the very last,

The door in the mountain-side shut fast.

Did I say all? No! one was lame,

And could not dance the whole of the way;

And in after-years, if you would blame

His sadness, he was used to say:

'It's dull in our town since my playmates left;

I can't forget that I 'm bereft

Of all the pleasant sights they see,
Which the Piper also promised me;

For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
Joining the town, and just at hand,

Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,

And everything was strange and new;

The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
And honey-bees had lost their stings;
And horses were born with eagle's wings;
And just as I became assured

My lame foot would be speedily cured,
The music stopped, and I stood still,
And found myself outside the hill,
Left alone against my will,
To go now limping as before,
And never hear of that country more!'

XIV.

Alas, alas for Hamelin !

There came into many a burgher's pate
A text which says, that heaven's gate
Opes to the rich at as easy rate

As the needle's eye takes a camel in!
The Mayor sent east, west, north, and south,
To offer the Piper by word of mouth,

Wherever it was men's lot to find him,
Silver and gold to his heart's content,
If he'd only return the way he went,

And bring the children all behind him. But when they saw 'twas a lost endeavour, And Piper and dancers were gone for ever, They made a decree that lawyers never

Should think their records dated duly, If, after the day of the month and year, These words did not as well appear :

'And so long after what happened here On the twenty-second of July,

Thirteen hundred and seventy-six :' And the better in memory to fix The place of the children's last retreat, They called it, the Pied Piper's streetWhere any one playing on pipe or tabor, Was sure for the future to lose his labour. Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern

To shock with mirth a street so solemn ; But opposite the place of the cavern

They wrote the story on a column,
And on the great church window painted
The same, to make the world acquainted
How their children were stolen away;
And there it stands to this very day.
And I must not omit to say

That in Transylvania there 's a tribe
Of alien people that ascribe

The outlandish ways and dress,

On which their neighbours lay such stress,

To their fathers and mothers having risen
Out of some subterraneous prison,
Into which they were trepanned
Long time ago in a mighty band

Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,
But how or why they don't understand.

XV.

So, Willy, let you and me be wipers

Of scores out with all men-especially pipers: And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice,

If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise.

A Parting Scene (1526 A.D.).

PARACELSUS and FESTUS.

Par. And you saw Luther?

Fest. 'Tis a wondrous soul!

Par. True: the so-heavy chain which galled mankind

Is shattered, and the noblest of us all

Must bow to the deliverer-nay the worker

Of our own project-we who long before
Had burst our trammels, but forgot the crowd,

We would have taught, still groaned beneath the load :

This he has done and nobly. Speed that may !
Whatever be my chance or my mischance,
What benefits mankind must glad me too:
And men seem made, though not as I believed,
For something better than the times display:
Witness these gangs of peasants your new lights
From Suabia have possessed, whom Münzer leads,
And whom the Duke, the Landgrave, and the Elector
Will calm in blood! Well, well-'tis not my world!
Fest. Hark!

Par. 'Tis the melancholy wind astir

Within the trees; the embers too are gray;
Morn must be near.

Fest. Best ope the casement. See,

The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars,
Is blank and motionless: how peaceful sleep
The tree-tops all together! like an asp
The wind slips whispering from bough to bough.
Par. Ay; you would gaze on a wind-shaken tree
By the hour, nor count time lost.

Fest. So you shall gaze.

Those happy times will come again.

Par. Gone! gone!

Those pleasant times! Does not the moaning wind

Seem to bewail that we have gained such gains

And bartered sleep for them?

Fest. It is our trust

That there is yet another world, to mend

All error and mischance.

Par. Another world!

And why this world, this common world, to be
A make-shift, a mere foil, how fair soever,
To some fine life to come? Man must be fed
With angels' food, forsooth; and some few traces
Of a diviner nature which look out
Through his corporeal baseness, warrant him
In a supreme contempt for all provision
For his inferior tastes-some straggling marks
Which constitute his essence, just as truly
As here and there a gem would constitute
The rock, their barren bed, a diamond.
But were it so-were man all mind--he gains
A station little enviable. From God
Down to the lowest spirit ministrant,
Intelligence exists which casts our mind
Into immeasurable shade. No, no:

Love, hope, fear, faith-these make humanity,
These are its sign, and note, and character;

And these I have lost!-gone, shut from me for

ever,

Like a dead friend, safe from unkindness more !—
See morn at length. The heavy darkness seems
Diluted; gray and clear without the stars;

The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves, as if
Some snake, that weighed them down all night, let

go

His hold; and from the east, fuller and fuller,
Day, like a mighty river, is flowing in ;
But clouded, wintry, desolate, and cold:

Yet see how that broad, prickly, star-shaped plant,

Half down the crevice, spreads its woolly leaves
All thick and glistering with diamond dew.-
And you depart for Einsiedeln to-day,
And we have spent all night in talk like this!
If you would have me better for your love,
Revert no more to these sad themes.

From My Last Duchess.'

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

That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said
'Frà Pandolf' by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you but I),
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, 'Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much,' or, 'Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half flush that dies along her throat;' such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart-how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
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 thanked men-good; but

thanked

Somehow I know not how-as if she ranked My gift of a nine hundred years old name With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame This sort of trifling?