Sir John Morley, in his Essay on "The Ring and the Book," says:

"The whole poem is a parable of the feeble and halfhopeless struggle which truth has to make against the ways of the world.'

"

In "The Ring and the Book" is placed Browning's reasoned philosophy:

"Mind is not matter nor from matter, but above,-
Leave the inferior minds and look at man!
Conjecture of the worker by the work:

Is there strength there? enough; intelligence?
Ample but goodness in a like degree?
Not to the human eye in the present state,
An isoscele deficient in the base.

What lacks, then, of perfection fit for God
But just the instance which this tale supplies
Of Love without a limit.

Beyond the tale, I reach into the dark,

Feel what I cannot see, and still faith stands!
I can believe, this dread machinery

Of sin and sorrow would confound me else
Devised-all pain, at most expenditure
Of pain by Who devised pain,-to evolve,
By new machinery, in counterpart,
The moral qualities of man-how else?
To make him love in turn, and be beloved,
Creative and self-sacrificing too,

And thus eventually God-like."

The Ring and the Book: The Pope. (Book X.) "Between Thee and ourselves-nay even again, Below us, to the extreme of the minute Appreciable by how many and what diverse Modes of the life Thou madest be! (Why live Except for love,-how love unless they know?) Each of them, only filling to the edge, Insect or angel, his just length and breadth, Due facet of reflection,-full no less,

Angel or insect, as Thou framedst things."

Ibid. The Pope. (Book X.)

'To our last resource, then! Since all flesh is weak,
Bind weaknesses together, we get strength:
The individual weighed, found wanting, try

Some institution, honest artifice
Whereby the units grow compact and firm!
Each props the other, and so stand is made
By our embodied cowards that grow brave.

66

Ibid. The Pope. (Book X.)

So my heart be struck

What care I,-by God's gloved hand or the bar?”

"I have heard said

'Twas no good sign when in a limb diseased
All the pain suddenly departs,—as if
The guardian angel discontinued pain
Because the hope of cure was gone at last:
The limb shall not again exert itself,

It needs be pained no longer:

All pain must be to work some good in the end.”
Ibid.: Giuseppe Caponsacchi. (Book VI.)

"God ever mindful in all strife and strait,
Who, for our own good, makes the need extreme,
Till at the last He puts forth might and saves.
Ibid.: Pompilia. (Book VII.)

"

"Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul,
Do out the duty! Through such souls alone
God stooping shows sufficient of His light
For us i' the dark to rise by."

Ibid. (Book VII.)

"Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestaled in triumph?"

Ibid.: The Pope. (Book X.)

"Feel at the end the earthly garments drop, And rise with something of a rosy shame Into immortal nakedness."

Ibid. Giuseppe Caponsacchi. (Book VI.)

"And thus I see him [Guido] slowly and surely edged Off all the table-land whence life upsprings

Aspiring to be immortality,

As the snake, hatched on hill-top by mischance
Despite his wriggling, slips, slides, slidders down
Hill-side, lies low and prostrate on the smooth
Level of the outer place lapsed in the vale."

Ibid.: Giuseppe Caponsacchi. (Book VI.)

"I, untouched by one adverse circumstance,

Adopted virtue as my rule of life,

Waived all reward, loved but for loving's sake,

And, what my heart taught me, I taught the world."
Ibid.: The Pope. (Book X.)

Correct the portrait by the living face."

So did this old woe fade from memory.

Till after, in the fulness of the days,

Ibid.

I needs must find an ember yet unquenched,
And, breathing, blow the spark to flame. It lives

If precious be the soul of man to man."

The Book and the Ring.

For Guido, pronounces the Pope-for such there is no hope but by miracle :

"For the main criminal I have no hope Except in such a suddenness of fate.

I stood at Naples once, a night so dark

I could have scarce conjectured there was earth
Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all:

But the night's black was burst through by a blaze—
Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore
Through her whole length of mountain visible:
There lay the city thick and plain with spires,
And like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea.
So may the truth be flashed out by one blow,
And Guido see, one instant, and be saved.

You must know that a man gets drunk with truth
Stagnant inside him."

Ibid. (Book VI.)

"You know this is not love—it is faith,

The feeling that there's God, he reigns and rules
Out of this low world."

Ibid. (Book VI.)

"Life is probation and the earth no goal

But starting-point of man: compel him strive,

Which means, in man, as good as reach the goal."

Ibid.: The Pope. (Book X.)

CHAPTER VII

"BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE"

HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU,

"PRINCE

SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY"-" ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY""AGAMEMNON OF ESCHYLUS"-"THE INN ALBUM"

Studies in Greek poetry-Power of poetry to sustain the soul -Translation of the " Alcestis" of Euripides-Recital of the "Alcestis" to cheer fugitives from war and prisoners at Syracuse-Enthusiasm of Balaustion, a Greek girl, for poetry of Euripides-Arousing patriotism-Apologia of Aristophanes Argument with Balaustion - Comic and tragic in Art-Compromise or revolution-Portraiture of Napoleon III.-Expediency-Conservation of political and social ideals-Review of ideals of French writersIdeal of womanhood Story of woman's sacrifice for love. IN 1871 was published the long poem 'Balaustion's Adventure, including a Transcript from Euripides.'

In the poem of "Balaustion's Adventure," Browning depicts the power of poetry and love of country to arouse action as Balaustion recites the poetry of the great Euripides to the captives of the war.

Poetry is power which

speaking to one sense, inspires the rest, Pressing them all into its service."

Balaustion's Adventure.

Balaustion and her companions had fled from Rhodes. She had saved her fellow-fugitives from their fear and despair by reciting to them the great poetry of Euripides.

Blown out of their course, they approached the shores of Syracuse the enemy country. There were captives of war at Syracuse, and the shipwrecked party were allowed

to land on condition that some one among them should recite the poetry of Euripides to them. So Balaustion is put forward and recites for the fainting spirits of the prisoners the story of Alkestis.

They crown her with pomegranate flowers-the name she took henceforth.

Balaustion pleads for love to her master's work:

"If I, too, should try and speak at times,

Leading your love to where my love, perchance,
Climbed earlier, found a nest before you knew—
Why, bear with the poor climber, for love's sake!"

In "Balaustion's Adventure" Browning again utters the faith that through poetry the soul is liberated.

The "Alcestis" of Euripides is the story of the devotion of Alcestis, who sacrificed her life to save that of her husband it was translated from the Greek by Browning.

The god Apollo has been banished from Olympus for an alleged misdemeanour, his banishment taking the form of servitude with King Admetus of Thessaly, and he requites it in return by finding one who is prepared to die for his friend. When Admetus lies ill, it is his wife Alcestis who elects to make the sacrifice. Hercules appears to claim shelter from his friend Admetus, who will not disclose the name of the one mourned, for hospitality's sake, and Hercules goes within to the guest-chamber and feasts sumptuously, whilst the final obsequies are being observed on the distant hillside. Before the mourners return, Hercules has ascertained that it is Alcestis who has died; and ashamed of his gross conduct in the face of his host's calamity, he girds up his loins and fares forth to fight Death himself, though he perish in the encounter. But the valiant one does not perish. Tattered and spent, he returns, leading a veiled woman, for whom he craves shelter from Admetus. The King declines the office, remembering his oath of constancy to the dying Alcestis, when Hercules unveils the woman—Alcestis.