There at the window stood,

Framed in its black square length, with lamp in hand,

Pompilia; the same great, grave, griefful air

As stands in the dusk on altar that I know,

Left alone with one moonbeam in her cell,
Our Lady of all the Sorrows.

He listens to the young wife's pleading. Then he accepts the duty laid upon him; he prepares for their flight, knowing well the risks that he ran and the scandal that would follow. The incidents of the journey towards Rome are touched on with a delicacy and gentleness that are simply fascinating; but I must not allow myself further quotations here. The dramatic scene at Castelnuova is powerfully, passionately rendered. He recalls that splendid moment when she had sprung forward ready to kill her husband with the sword she had snatched from his side.

No, Sirs, I cannot have the lady dead!

That erect form, flashing brow, fulgurant eye,
That voice immortal (oh, that voice of her's)!
That vision of the blood-red daybreak, that

Leap to life of the pale electric sword

Angels go armed with-that was not the last

O' the lady!

But he had told them enough of the story-the story at which they had smiled and jeered. He had no more to say now: "For me, no word in my defence I speak, and God shall answer for the lady!"

Books VIII and IX, containing the pleadings of the two lawyers, ought next to engage our attention. They are full of learning, ingenuity and subtle wit, and I cannot agree with the criticism that says the poem would be better without them. Of course, The Ring and the Book would be "better," in the sense of being more readable,

were it shorter; but if the case was to be fully stated, these professional presentations ought not to have been omitted. And quite apart from the argument, the poem. would certainly have been the poorer, from the dramatic point of view, had these two admirably-drawn and wittilycontrasted characters been absent from the scene. However, I am fain from considerations of time and space (considerations with which the poet did not vex his soul) to content myself with what has already been said about these two luminaries of the law. Let us go on with the story.

Count Guido, having been thus amply tried by public opinion and otherwise, was in due course condemned. He was to be beheaded and his four accomplices hanged.

But Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis had kept his last trump up his sleeve. The Count, having been in minor orders, claims the right of appeal to a spiritual court; the case is accordingly reserved for the decision of the Pope. Herein lies great expectation. The Pope is an old man, and this judgment might well be among the very latest of his official acts; surely clemency were becoming in such a case! Besides, Guido was a man of high family, and all the “best people" in Rome were in his favour-to condemn a noble in order to screen a priest would afford occasion to the enemy. Then there was all the talk about honour to be vindicated, about domestic sanctities to be guarded, and so forth. All these things ought to weigh with the old man of eighty-six.

Book X, entitled The Pope, is generally considered the finest of the twelve. And no doubt, as a study it is wellnigh perfect. Absolutely fearless and unswervingly just; tender with a mother's tenderness, where there was proper scope for pity; yet resolute to very hardness, where right and truth would have been imperiled by pliancy; the

consciousness of power re-enforced, not weakened, by the sense of responsibility; the trained intellect, stimulated and exalted by spiritual insight; the strenuous judgment illumined by a playful fancy; Pope Innocent XII, as Browning conceives him, stands forth a truly venerable and even magnificent figure, a man worthy, if ever man might be, of that supreme title, Vicar of Christ.

Thus hear him speak of himself and his office-—

In God's name! Once more on this earth of God's,
While twilight lasts and time wherein to work,
I take His staff with my uncertain hand,
And stay my six and four-score years, my due
Labour and sorrow, on His judgment seat,

And forthwith think, speak, act in place of Him—
The Pope for Christ. Once more appeal is made
From man's assize to mine: I sit and see
Another poor weak trembling human wretch
Pushed by his fellows, who pretend the right,
Up to the gulf which, where I gaze, begins
From this world to the next, gives way and way,

Just on the edge, over the awful dark:

With nothing to arrest him but my feet.

He catches at me with convulsive face,

Cries, "Leave to live the natural minute more!"

The old man then goes deliberately through the entire case; he summons before him, as it were, each one of the actors, weighing not so much the mere acts done, as the motives and impulses revealed in them. Guido is utterly condemned" found reprobate." He had had all advantages of birth and education-the very appeal is grounded on the fact of consecrating hands having been laid upon him; in seeking Pompilia he had not been actuated even by the lower form of love-" the mere liking of the eye and ear," but by the sordid greed of money; it was the news of his child's birth that set him on the path of

murder. By the forged letters and the intrigues of a vile woman, he had endeavoured to ensnare his child-wife with the priest "unmanly simulation of a sin."

A terrible situation had been thus deliberately created, the terror and the splendour of which the old man fully realizes

See!

Pompilia wife, and Caponsacchi priest,

Are brought together as nor priest nor wife
Should stand, and there is passion in the place,
Power in the air for evil or for good,
Promptings from heaven or hell, as if the stars
Fought in their courses for a fate to be.
Thus stand the wife and priest, a spectacle,

I doubt not, to unseen assemblage there.
No lamp will mark that window for a shrine,
No tablet signalize the terrace, teach
New generations which succeed the old,

The pavement of the street is holy ground;

No bard describe in verse how Christ prevailed

And Satan fell like lightning! Why repine?

What does the world, told truth, but lie the more?

The plot is foiled

By God's gift of a purity of soul

That will not take pollution, ermine-like,

Armed from dishonour by its own soft snow.

The vindication of Pompilia is absolute—

First of the first,

Such I pronounce Pompilia, then as now

Perfect in whiteness: stoop thou down, my child,
Give one good moment to the poor old Pope,

Heart-sick at having all his world to blame—

It was not given Pompilia to know much,

Speak much, to write a book, to move mankind,

Be memorized by who records my time.

Yet if in purity and patience, if

In faith held fast despite the plucking fiend,
Safe like the signet-stone with the new name
The saints are known by, if in right returned
For wrong, most pardon for worst injury,

If there be any virtue, any praise,

Then will this woman-child have proved-who knows?
Just the one prize vouchsafed unworthy me,

Seven years a gardener of the untoward ground

My rose, I gather for the breast of God,

This I praise most in thee, where all I praise.

He marvels at the courage with which the dawning sense of motherhood had inspired her—

Brave

Thou at first prompting of what I call God,
And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend,

Accept the obligation laid on thee,

Mother elect, to save the unborn child.

So he concludes

Go past me

And get thy praise, and be not far to seek

Presently when I follow, if I may!

The young priest is dealt with very gently. He must needs be chidden for rashness-for "infringement manifold of law's prescribed pudicity;" but much is forgiven to "the chivalry that dares the right and disregards alike the yea and nay o' the world." In his purity the kind old man professes an absolute belief. Or should there have been any passing temptation, what then? "Why comes temptation but for man to meet and master, and make crouch beneath his foot, and so be pedestalled in triumph?" And so he concludes, "Work, be unhappy, but bear life my son."