is to inform men in the just reason of living" (Ben Jonson).

The poem "Gold Hair" embodies a legend of Pornic. A young girl with beautiful golden hair belied her reputation for holiness, and time disclosed her as miser. Her hoarded gold she concealed under her masses of gold hair, ordering it not to be touched after her death. Time crumbled her tomb; the gold came to light during repairs. The power of gold, says the poem, is unable to pass heaven's doors. The avarice of the human heart discounted the fairness of the beautiful girl, who seemed too good for earth with

"A soul that is meant (her parents said)
To just see earth, and hardly be seen,
And blossom in heaven instead.”

Browning's fancy plays in this as in other poems round "her great gold hair":

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Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss,

Freshness and fragrance-floods of it, too!

Gold, did I say? Nay, gold's mere dross:

Here, Life smiled,

And Love sighed, Fancy my loss!'"'

And the thought that rises out of the legend, says the poet, is that lust of material power, attempt to use both God and Mammon, is corruption :

"Evil or good may be better or worse

In the human heart, but the mixture of each

Is a marvel and a curse."

For his part, despite the essayists and reviewers, he finds the Christian faith true :

""Tis the faith that launched point-blank her dart At the head of a lie-taught Original Sin,

The Corruption of Man's Heart.

"A Death in the Desert" is the long soliloquy of John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, who was permitted to take charge of the Mother of Jesus by his expressed wish, as He died on the Cross. "Son, behold thy mother mother, behold thy son. From that moment John disappears from the scene of the disciples' preaching of Christ : he is lost with this charge of love to Mary, and only reappears later as the writer and recorder.

The Gospel of St. John was Browning's favourite Gospel. He draws upon it again and again, from its mysticism to its practical advice thrown at Gigadibs, the young freethinker bearding the lion of the Church. In final fling the great Churchman makes remark about the unsuccessful Gigadibs: he hopes he has studied his last Chapter of St. John.

John the Beloved is pictured as at the end of his long, hard-driven life. He has fled from persecution, but is unable to go on. The sorrowing little band of disciples turn aside with him that he may die in peace, secure from pursuit of persecutors of the Christians. He rouses to give his last words: his testimony to the reality of Jesus. He is the only one left who personally knew the Master: he will place on record what

"He saw and heard and could remember well.
There are some who will even say of him,
'Was John at all, and did he say he saw?'"

In long dying breath John traverses the story of Jesus, of Whom he had written, "I am the Resurrection and the Life." Christ's life and death were not hearsay only to him he had seen Him personally, had lain on His breast, and yet it is written of him, he knows: "He turned and fled."

John traverses the Christian traditions-the tumult of the betrayal and death on the Cross, that defection of his in momentary panic, his faithful watch with the women at the foot of the Cross in the end.

All the salient points of John's intimacy of service and simple faith are traversed in the poem, their lessons expounded, the parables opened; the inner light of the mystic and saint floods the little band. The aged disciple rises to formulate his faith that the acknowledgment of God in Christ accepted by thy reason

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All questions in the earth and out of it,
And has so far advanced thee to be wise."

In A Death in the Desert" the circumstances of that Life-that Death-are presented as from an eye-witness.

The "Epilogue" to "Dramatis Personæ presents three speakers: David, with his mystical faith added to Jewish faith Renan, the author of the "Life of Jesus," disturber of the Christian faith in the authenticity of Christ and the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel; Renan, the critic of Christianity, whose words Browning uses and answers in his own person as the third speaker. After presenting the point of view of David and Renan, we are invited to look at this question of Christ through his eyes. He flings back the words of Renan; he illustrates the play of the Divine round the human soul, as the rock-point in the sea attracts the swirl of the currents around, and after expending themselves on this point sweep on to find another peak to break upon : so do spiritual currents whirl about the soul and, having worked their purpose, leave it to its own resources. Natural forces do their work: the old Temple service of David did its emotive work; John did his work of testimony; Renan sends out his words subversive of this Christ ideal. Renan thinks he has decomposed Christ, but says Browning to Renan's view of Jesus: "This is my conception":

"That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,
Or decomposes but to recompose,

Become my universe that feels and knows."

Just when Christ recaptured the devotion of the poet we can but divine.

On June 14, 1866, the father of Browning died, within three weeks of completing his eighty-fifth year. His sister was henceforth his housekeeper and companion.

"So passed away," wrote Browning to Miss Blagden, "this good, unworldly, kind-hearted, religious man, whose powers, natural and acquired, would so easily have made him a notable man, had he known what vanity or ambition or the love of money or social influence meant. . . . My sister will come and live with me henceforth; all her life has been spent in caring for my mother, and seventeen years after that, my father. You may be sure she does not rave and rend hair like people who have plenty to atone for in the past; but she loses very much."

CHAPTER VI

"THE RING AND THE BOOK"

Materials of the poem-Celebrated Italian murder trial-Old book of the murder case found by Browning-Poem reviews course of trial from various points of viewPassion for truth was Browning's impelling motiveDefence of innocence-Truth's fight against a lie-Browning's confession of method of his art-Defiance of public opinion-Creative rapture-Philosophy in the welter of life-Poem conceived in Florence during life of his wifeWork of writing it at Warwick Crescent after her deathDedication to the memory of Mrs. Browning.

IN 1868-69 was published "The Ring and the Book," in four volumes.

The poem "The Ring and the Book" tells its own history. The finding of the old yellow book, the walk home, the mastering of the story-time, place, emotion, are recorded the ecstasy of creative rage, that intoxication as imagination seized its facts and the live soul fused them, and the result was:

"The life in me abolished the death of things,

Deep calling to deep."

Spirit laughed and leaped through every limb, lighted the eye, breathed power, bestowed life upon the past, and made it live again :

"How title I the dead alive once more."

This memorable poem belonged to Florence; the place of conception was Casa Guidi Terrace; his "lyric love" was with him. The writing of it all out, solaced and combated