"O king!" she cried, "and I will tell thee true: And wept, and wish'd that I were dead; and he- And spake sweet words, and comforted my heart, When Leodogran doubted and slept, his dream was again a suggestion of the voice of Conscience little heeded in wild first days of the world. She spake, and King Leodogran rejoiced, But musing "Shall I answer yea or nay?" Doubted, and drowsed, nodded and slept, and saw, Dreaming, a slope of land that ever grew, Field after field, up to a height, the peak Haze-hidden, and thereon a phantom king, Now looming, and now lost; and on the slope The sword rose, the hind fell, the herd was driven, Fire glimpsed; and all the land from roof and rick, In drifts of smoke before a rolling wind, Stream'd to the peak, and mingled with the haze And made it thicker; while the phantom king Sent out at times a voice; and here or there Stood one who pointed towards the voice, the rest Slew on and burnt, crying, "No king of ours, No son of Uther, and no king of ours;" Till with a wink his dream was changed, the haze As nothing, and the king stood out in heaven, The Idylls of the Round Table which follow "The Coming of Arthur" open with "Gareth and Lynette," which is a general allegory of the spiritual struggle as it passes on from youth through middle age and old age to death. This is the conflict with the Brotherhood of Day and Night, the knights of the Morning Star, the Noonday Sun, the Star of Evening, and Death, the last enemy that shall be overcome. The training of Gareth as a servant in King Arthur's kitchen before he is armed for his adventure represents St. Paul's lesson to the Christian warrior, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant." "Gareth and Lynette" serves as a general introduction to the following series of Idylls of the contest of the spirit with the flesh throughout this life; until the hour comes of the passing of Arthur, hour of the last weird battle in the west, the hour of death: There the pursuer could pursue no more, And he that fled no further fly the King; And there, that day when the great light of heaven On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed. The two Idylls of "Geraint and Enid" and "Merlin and Vivien," represent the true and the false spirit of love. The true love of Enid is an energy that sends men to the work of life, impels to action and, through every discouragement, aids and sustains. The false love, like that of Vivien, cancels power. Merlin yielded to it, And in the hollow oak he lay as dead, And lost to life, and use, and name, and fame. The conception is like that of Milton when he made Comus, after hearing the song of the Lady that expresses harmony of a pure soul, compare its effect upon him with that of the songs of Circe and the Sirens : "I have oft heard My mother Circe with the Sirens three, And chid her barking waves into attention; I never heard till now." From "Lancelot and Elaine" to "The Last Tournament," the Idylls represent the widening breach between the flesh and the spirit; the poem of "The Holy Grail" being set in the midst as an allegory of the struggle of the soul, just as it was set there by Walter Map, with the image of Percival added to that of Galahad, as pure a type as he was in the "Parzival" of Wolfram von Eschenbach. Before "The Passing of Arthur," the dialogue between Arthur and Guinevere is not without spiritual kinship to the dialogues between Soul and Body that formed part of our First-English literature. At the close of the whole poem, Tennyson represents Sir Bedivere, the first to join and last to abide by his king, who might stand for a type of simple faith, watching the departure of Arthur over the great sea. The sword has been returned to the lake, the Bible to the Church, and he is attended only by the three queens, Faith, Hope, Charity, of whom one The tallest of them all, And fairest, laid his head upon her lap. "Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. . . . And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." Then from the dawn it seemed there came, but faint Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the king, And the new sun rose bringing the new year. That last line is no anti-climax. The allegory is of the battle within every one of us. Life follows life, year follows year; "long sleeps the summer in the seed." All labour on towards "the closing cycle rich in good." The last line of "The Idylls of the King" is related to the last words of "In Memoriam": One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves. The spirit of Alfred Tennyson's "In Memoriam " has already been dwelt upon', and also the fidelity with which Robert Browning, in his early poems, "Paracelsus" and "Sordello," sounded the true note of the music of our time, in enforcing-as all his works have enforced-the doing of life's daily duties great or small, as the one way to the achievement of life's far ideal; and if the ideal should be unattainable by man in this world, not the less certain is the daily duty that has to be done. In THE RING AND THE BOOK Robert Browning, with the dramatic power which is inseparable from all his works, shows one story of life through diverse minds of actors and lookers on, truth itself taking many shapes and colours from 1 See in this Library "Illustrations of English Religion," pages 429-432. 2 "Shorter English Poems," pages 467-471. the characters of those who think they speak it. The Book, bought for a lira, at a stall in Florence, is an old record of a law case that once occupied the thoughts of all gossips in Rome, and in course of time passed out of memory. The Ring is a piece of fine goldsmith's work, imitating the Etruscan, and so delicate in tracing that it could not be worked in the pure metal. Alloy was mixed with the gold, that it might be hammered and filed; when shaped, the alloy was discharged from it, and the perfect pattern of pure gold remained. Such alloy goes to man's shaping of the gold of truth; it is in all our records and opinions. The story of the Book takes many shapes in many minds. Half Rome looks at it in one way, half Rome another way. The counsel for the prosecution in the pleading has his view of it, even as matter of business, coloured by his character; and so has, in his different way, the counsel for the defence. To each person of the story it has different shape and colour. Perception of the whole truth would lie only in a mind able to discharge from every version its alloy, and makes it contribute its part to the delicate shaping of the perfect pattern. But what man is thus capable of absolute knowledge. Are they not the rashest and the weakest who believe they have it? The poet in thus telling the story of the book uses also his alloy; I fused my live soul and that inert stuff Before attempting smith-craft. The introduction to the poem ends with this invocation : O lyric Love, half-angel and half-bird, To toil for man, to suffer or to die,— This is the same voice: can thy soul know change? The story is to this effect. Pietro and Violante Comparini were a husband and wife, of the middle class, wealthy and childless. They lived in Rome in the Via Vittoria, and had a retired villa for their pleasure. To add to her husband's happiness Violante professed that she was about to become a mother, and presented Pietro with an infant brought out of misery, bought really from a mother of the most degraded class. This was believed by Pietro to be his own child, was called Pompilia, grew up pure, innocent, and was beloved at home. When Pompilia ROBERT BROWNING. From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott and Fry. was twelve years old Count Guido Franceschini of Arezzo, a hard man of an old noble house fallen to poverty, was caught by Violante as a husband for the girl. The money of the Comparini tempted him; his rank and the chance of living in a palace at Arezzo tempted her. Lest Pietro should make difficulties, Violante hurried a clandestine marriage by help of the priest, who was Guido's younger brother, and had helped him to the match that should repair his fortune. Pietro and Violante went with Pompilia to Arezzo, found the decayed and dreary palace with its dreary master no tolerable home, and left it. Guido visited the offence of the parents upon the wife. Violante took revenge on Guido by confessing that Pompilia was not her child, and declaring her base-born. Revenge fell still on Pompilia in her home. There was suit for her dowry; question of gain to be secured, in stay of deadly vengeance. After three years of misery Pompilia was conscious of kind looks from a young ecclesiastic, with good heart, but given to song, masquerade, and pleasures of the world. This was Giuseppe Maria Caponsacchi, who pitied and loved her lightly perhaps at first, until her pure simplicity raised him to higher worship. The time came when Pompilia felt that she was to become a mother. Strong in the new sense of motherhood to come, as she had not been in resistance in her own behalf, she resolved to fly from her harsh husband, who was thrusting her into temptation with a hope that she might fall, and he be rid of her without loss of the wealth she could be made to bring. That she might fly to Rome and take shelter again with Pietro and courts. Violante, she sought help from Caponsacchi, trusting not wrongly in the sincerity of his goodwill. They fled together, but within a stage of Rome, before she could be placed in the shelter of her own home, they were overtaken. Both were compromised in the world's opinion. There was new matter for the Roman Meanwhile Pompilia was placed among the quiet nuns, and when her child was near birth she was restored to Pietro and Violante. In their villa the child was born, Pompilia lived; and there Pietro, Violante, and Pompilia were fallen upon by Guido's men and stabbed to death, Pompilia surviving for some days. As she lay dying in hospital she told her story through. The child's birth was birth of an heir to all the worldly goods of Pietro, Violante, and Pompilia. With the child the money could be taken after death of those who held it; the time therefore was fit for the revenging of Count Guido's outraged honour. Guido was brought to trial for the murder, justified in the opinion of half Rome. That was the case that once set all tongues wagging. Mr. Browning represents it not only through the minds of Guido, Caponsacchi, and Pompilia, but through the summing up within the mind of the Pope as, in the solitude of his chamber, he has to determine whether sentence of death against Count Guido shall be carried out. This is the Pope's estimate of Caponsacchi : Nay, Caponsacchi, much I find amiss, Of thine, this youth prolonged, though age was ripe, Of motley too,-now hypocrite's disguise, Now fool's costume: which lie was least like truth, The churchman's or the worldling's,-let him judge, I rather chronicle the healthy rage,- Where are the men-at-arms with cross on coat? In mask and motley, pledged to dance, not fight, At any fateful moment of the strange Do I not see the praise ?-that while thy mates We gave to train them well and start them fair,— Of ear, through iteration of command, Thus Robert Browning closes the whole poem :— So, British Public, who may like me yet, The shrug, the disappointed eyes of him Are not so bad to bear-but here's the plague Nor recognisable by whom it left: While falsehood would have done the work of truth. So, note by note, bring music from your mind, So write a book shall mean beyond the facts, Suffice the eye, and save the soul beside. And save the soul! If this intent save mine,- In Lewis Morris's "Epic of Hades," first published in 1877, there is a touch of inspiration drawn from Dante, in the blending of the wisdom of the ancients with suggestion that true wisdom is the same to-day as yesterday, for Evermore All things and thoughts, both new and old, are writ Upon the unchanging human heart and soul. From a woman of true genius worthily spent, whose death is a fresh grief to all in England as these lines are written, novels have come, that put the best wisdom of life into prose stories, every one of which breathed the one spirit of daily fidelity in each life to the nearest and highest duty that it knows. "George Eliot" was born on the 22nd of November, 1820, at Griff House, Griff being a hamlet of Chilvers Coton, close by Nuneaton. She was one of several children of Mr. Robert Evans, who came from Wicksworth in Derbyshire, and became at Nuneaton steward of the estates of Sir Roger Newdegate and the owners of surrounding land. She was brought early into relation as a writer with high-minded and earnest thinkers, whose opinions drew her into a certain sympathy with the views of Auguste Comte. But this only added depth and breadth to her sympathy with every form of opinion through which man or woman sought actively to rise to a due sense of the duties and the higher hopes of life. Comte, perhaps following the bent of his nation, idealised into a theory and system a Religion of Humanity, founded upon that thought of our time which is the best product of the great French Revolution, development of the individual, and through that the well-being of the human race. The English mind had laid hold of the same thought in a less systematic way, though not less really, when it was applied, as it has been with us, to a 1 The reference is to Dante, the last thought of whose "Divine Comedy" is "L'Amor, che muove 'l Sole et l'Altre Stelle." quickening in many of the sense of individual duty, and of common action for the common good. But "George Eliot" was no sectarian upholder, philosophical or religious, of the nobler life in man. She had a heart open to impressions of it in all forms. Not only for the artistic purpose of securing variety of grouping and colour, but for the higher purpose of giving through the whole body of her writings breadth of sympathy to her readers, as far as her influence could extend, she dressed Love and Duty now as Methodists, now as Jews, now rich with the picturesque surroundings of old Florentine art, now beset with the pulsating with individuality of life, may be said to represent the clear capable soul of man. Her inheritance is a library, she is the daughter of blind learning, and she is won first by the fair seeming of Tito Melema. Tito Melema. Of this we are told in the first part of the work. Tito is a Greek who has all the learning of the blind scholar, with a fair face and a flexible mind evading what is painful. From little cowardly evasions of the troubles men must bear, he passes step by step into the way of falsehood. Cowardice was the root of his misdoing, and he grows into a life of fear. But while he seeks ever the ease of the artless country life of the English Midlands. Let us glance only at one book as an example of her power. ROMOLA. 1Its argument is of an epic dignity, and worthily sustained. It is true that, except in a few passages towards the close, there is nothing to fetch tears, and there is no matter for mirth in all the story. But so it is with many a noble strain of thought whereof the argument is highest and most worthily sustained. Even Dante and Milton are read, as they should be read, with neither tears nor laughter, but with lofty sense of a true spiritual life. So, in a lesser way, the author of "Adam Bede " has written "Romola." For the tale is a genuine prose epic. The scene is laid at Florence, in the days of Savonarola. With exquisite skill and easy grace the colours of old Florentine life are blended into a swift succession of bright pictures, but the argument is that of human life itself; if we will, we may call it the relation of the soul to God and man. The work is divided into three parts, and it has three central characters. The innermost is Romola, with a bright and pure mind rich in latent energies, who, if we may translate into abstractions a story 1 I reprint this sketch from a newspaper for which it was written by me when "Romola" first appeared. moment, the fresh charm of his way wins Romola. She, taught by her father to shrink from the superstitions and corruptions of the church back into the spirit of the old heroic time, is betrothed to Tito and accepts his guidance for a while. She has a brother who has left their father's house for a life of visionary religious enthusiasm; she has seen him die as a haggard enthusiast, Savonarola standing near; and he has bequeathed to her, in remembrance of his warning words, the cross he had worn on his breast. But Tito hides the cross that she sets up in her room within the fence of a gaily-painted triptych which represents herself, his betrothed, as Ariadne, Tito as Bacchus crowning her, and their way of triumph among young loves over flowers. So ends the first part of the argument. But in the second part there is developed the repulsion between Romola's noble aspirations, her high instincts, and the baseness of mind in pleasureloving Tito, whose Sybarite selfishness has turned his nearest friend into the terrible form of a pursuing and avenging Fate. At the close of this second part of the work repulsion is complete, and Romola is flying from her husband; but is met on her way by Savonarola, whose historical character is here used with remarkable skill in vivid personification of the religious principle in man, the pure light that is not less a light because seen through the mists of |