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had sworn only to give her love to the saviour of her race; to her, an initiated Druse, the Saviour, and Hakeem were one; and Djabal, enthusiast as much as deceiver, feigned himself Hakeem that he might win that love, and vaguely hoped that its possession would transform him to the reality of what he pretended to be; but the hope has proved fitful, and the desire of confession weighs heavily upon him, quickened no less than repelled by the glowing veneration of Anael, now his promised wife, and by the simple worship of Khalil her brother. Anael, too, has her struggles; her reverence for Djabal the saviour is inextricably bound up with her passion for Djabal the man, and in the clairvoyance of her highly strung nature she doubts the belief which can thus appeal to her in the tumult of an earthly love. An interview with the man whom but for Djabal she probably would have loved, proves to her that her feeling for Djabal differs from her feeling for other men much less in kind than in degree, and in her desire to expiate the imperfectness of a faith which possesses her intelligence but cannot transform her life, she herself murders the common enemy, the Prefect. The moment of this deed was to be that of Djabal's transfiguration. It prostrates him at her feet in agonized confession of his fraud. She cannot at once disbelieve, she clings to him for refuge against the newly awakened sense of crime, she entreats him to "exalt " himself, and let her share in the exaltation; but at length the knowledge of his helpless humanity is borne irrevocably in upon her; she gives utterance to one brief passionate burst of scorn, and then the liberated earthly love wells up triumphant through the ruins of her faith, and she gathers the shamed existence the more absolutely into her

⚫own.

Anael passes away, and Djabal, still vaguely adored by the astonished people, whose future he entrusts to the true heart and unswerving will of Khalil, falls, stabbed by his own hand, thus completing the atonement for his guilt and the union with her, whom her love, not his deed, has exalted.

Of the many fine passages in this tragedy the last lines, spoken by Djabal, are perhaps the finest; they are addressed to a young knight of the Order of Rhodes, the son of his protector in exile and his constant friend.

DJABAL. [raises Loys.] Then to thee, Loys!
How I wronged thee, Loys!

- Yet wronged, no less thou shalt have full revenge

Fit for thy noble self, revenge — and thus, Thou, loaded with such wrongs, the princely soul,

The first sword of Christ's sepulchre - thou shalt

Guard Khalil and my Druses home again!
Justice, no less- God's justice and no more,
For those I leave! -to seeking this, devote
Some few days out of thy knight's brilliant
life:
And, this obtained them, leave their Lebanon,
My Druses' blessing in thine ears (they shall
Bless thee with blessing sure to have its way).
One cedar blossom in thy ducal cap,
One thought of Anael in thy heart, — per-

chance

One thought of him who thus, to bid thee His last word to the living speaks! This speed,

done

Resume thy course, and, first amid the first
In Europe take my heart along with thee!
Go boldly, go serenely, go augustly
What shall withstand thee then?

"A Blot on the Scutcheon" is a domestic tragedy, but of almost historic magnitude. It stands alone amongst Mr. Browning's dramatic works, as conveying tragic impressions under that purely obSide by side with this fierce conspiracy jective form, which is derived from no runs a friendly plot which we have not subtle, individual, slowly ripening fatality, space to describe, strongly illustrative of but from the rapid and distinct collision the manner in which the natural course of the elemental forces of the human of events often tends towards a result soul. Three out of five of its principal which fraud or violence are made to actors fall victims to love, revenge, or rebring about. In the last act the living morse, and it is characteristic of the personages of the drama are assembled author's manner that whilst this work in the same Hall of the Prefect's palace, gives so much scope to the more violent brought together by the news of his emotions, its tone seldom exceeds the .death. The Nuncio denounces, the expression of a profound and concenDruses waver, the finer nature in Djabal trated sorrow. We notice this especially triumphs. A solemn and sorrowful con- in the case of the heroine Mildred, a very fession cast round him a sudden halo young girl, whose self-condemning grief of redeeming glory. With a cry of has something of the introspectiveness "Hakeem ! the overstrained life of wrongly imputed to all Mr. Browning's

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Marching to fortune, not surprised by her.
One great aim, like a guiding star, above-
Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness, to
His manhood to the height that takes the
prize;
A prize not near

lift

characters, and we think detracts a little | He gathers earth's whole good into his arms; from the tragic simplicity with which the Standing, as man now, stately, strong and story is otherwise conceived. Her death, wise, which is immediately caused by the murder of her lover, is perhaps also an overstraining of natural possibilities; but this event was necessary to carry out the dramatic idea of a short fierce tempest and a sudden calm. The tender brotherly love so terrible in its revulsion but so truly asserted in the Earl's self-inflicted death, is expressed with great delicacy and power in the passage in which he himself defines this form of affection. It is un

fortunately too long to be quoted. Mertoun's words of comfort to his grieving child-love are also very touching and heartfelt.

Have I gained at last Your brother, the one scarer of your dreams, And waking thought's sole apprehension too? Does a new life, like a young sunrise, break On the strange unrest of our night, confused With rain and stormy flaw - and will you see No dripping blossoms, no fire-tinted drops On each live spray, no vapour steaming up And no expressless glory in the East? When I am by you, to be ever by you, When I have won you and may worship you, Oh, Mildred, can you say this will not be? "Columbe's Birthday" is the slightest in conception of Mr. Browning's plays, and the only one which is somewhat theatrical in its effects, but it contains much genuine poetry and some genuinely dramatic scenes. The reputed heiress of two duchies finds herself suddenly called upon to surrender her honours or to retain them by marriage with the rightful heir, who, on coming to dispossess her, is struck by her beauty and dignity, and bethinks himself of this compromise as likely to be advantageous to both. He opens his negotiations through Valence, an advocate, a devoted adherent of the young Duchess and her unconfessed lover, and Valence is so conscientiously afraid of disposing her against his rival that he says everything he can in his behalf. He cannot plead the ardour of the Prince's attachment, for the young aspirant to a possible empire imagines himself a cynic, and has not included his heart in the offer of his hand; but he sets forth, in a glowing discourse, the mystical glories of a career of prosperous ambition as the prize which she is invited to share; and though this exordium is a tribute not to merit but to success, and therefore its very solemnity a satire, it is one of the finest passages in Mr. Browning's collective works.

- lest overlooking earth
He rashly spring to seize it - nor remote,
So that he rest upon his path content :
But day by day, while shimmering grows shine,
And the faint circlet prophesies the orb,
He sees so much as, just evolving these,
The stateliness, the wisdom, and the strength,
And lead him at his grandest to the grave,
To due completion will suffice this life,
After this star, out of a night he springs;
A beggar's cradle for the throne of thrones
He quits; so, mounting, feels each step he
mounts,

Nor, as from each to each exultingly
He passes, overleaps one grade of joy.
This, for his own good:-
:- with the world,
each gift

Of God and man, — reality, tradition,
Fancy and fact- -so well environ him,
That as a mystic panoply they serve -
Of force, untenanted, to awe mankind,
And work his purpose out with half the world,
While he, their master, dexterously slipt
From some encumbrance is meantime em-
ployed

With his own prowess on the other half.
Thus shall he prosper, every day's success
Adding to what is he, a solid strength-
An aëry might to what encircles him,
Till at the last so life's routine lends help,
His shadow shall be watched, his step or stalk
That as the Emperor only breathes and moves
Become a comport or a portent, how
He trails his ermine take significance,
Till even his power shall cease to be most

power

And men shall dread his weakness more, nor

dare

Peril their earth its bravest, first and best,
Its typified invincibility.

Thus shall he go on greatening, till he ends -
The fiery centre of an earthly world!
The man of men, the spirit of all flesh,

Such a speech stands in admirable
contrast to the business-like simplicity
evinced by the hero himself, when he ac-
cepts the title-deeds to the Duchy and
resigns Colombe to her obscure admirer,
at the same time admitting that though he
has himself no tendency to romance, a
life in which it has no place appears to
him rather more dreary than before.
Lady, well rewarded! Sir, as well deserved
I could not imitate - I hardly envy-
I do admire you! All is for the best!
Too costly a flower were this, I see it now,
To pluck and set upon my barren helm

"Oh, I thought that you came about "And, most important of all, the the badger, Struan. But what are these, badger. Good-bye, Struan; I shall see even more serious matters ?" you soon."

"Concerning your dealings with the devil, Roland. Of course, I never listen to anything foolish. Still, for the sake of my parish, I am bound to know what your explanation is. I have not much faith in witchcraft, though in that perhaps I am heterodox; but we are bound to have faith in the devil, I hope."

"Your hope does you credit," Sir Roland answered; "but for the moment I fail to see how I am concerned with this Drthodoxy."

"I hardly know whether you will or not," the rector answered testily; "this is the time when those cursed poachers scarcely allow me a good night's rest. And to come up this hill and hear nothing at the top! It is too bad at my time of life! After two services every Sunday, to have to be gamekeeper all the week!"

"At your time of life!" said Sir Roland, kindly: "why, you are the youngest man in the parish, so far as life and spirits go. To-day you are not yourself at all. Struan, you have not sworn one good

"Well, what can you expect, Roland, with these confounded secrets held over one? I feel myself many pegs down today. And that pony trips so abominably. Perhaps, after all, I might take one glass of red wine before I go down the hill."

"Now, my dear fellow, my dear fellow, you know as well as I do what I mean. Of course there is a great deal of exag-round oath!" geration; and knowing you so well, I have taken on myself to deny a great part of what people say. But you know the old proverb, No smoke without fire;' and I could defend you so much better, if I knew what really has occurred. And besides all that, you must feel, I am sure, that you are not treating me with that candour which our long friendship and close connection entitle me to expect from you."

"Your last argument is the only one requiring any answer. Those based on religious, social, and even parochial grounds, do not apply to this case at all. But I should be sorry to vex you, Struan, or keep from you anything you claim to know in right of your dear sister. This matter, however, is so entirely confined to those of our name only, at the same time so likely to charm all the gossips who have made such wild guesses about it, and after all it is such a trifle except to a superstitious mind; that I may trust your good sense to be well content to hear no more about it, until it comes into action if it ever should do so."

"Very well, Sir Roland, of course you know best. I am the last man in the world to intrude into family mysteries. And my very worst enemy (if I have one) would never dream of charging me with the vice of curiosity."

"Of course not. And therefore you will be well pleased that we should drop this subject. Will you take white wine, or red wine, Struan? Your kind and good wife was quite ready to scold me, for having forgotten my duty in that, the last time you came up the hill."

"Ah, then I walked. But to-day I am riding. I thank you, I thank you, Sir Roland; but the General and Sir Remnant are waiting for me."

"It is a duty you owe to the parish. Now come, and let me try to find Alice to wait upon you. Alice is always so glad to see you.'

"And I am always so glad to see her. How narrow your doors are in these old houses! Those Normans must have been a skewer-shouldered lot. Now, Roland, if I have said anything harsh, you will make all allowance for me, of course; because you know the reason."

"You mean that you are a little disappointed

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"Not a bit of it. Quite the contrary. But after such weather as we have had, and nothing but duty, duty, to do, one is apt to get a little crotchety. What kind of sport can be got anywhere? The landrail-shooting is over, of course, and the rabbits are running in families; the fish are all sulky, and the water low, and the sea-trout not come up yet. There are no young hounds fit to handle yet; and the ground cracks the heels of a decent hack. One's mouth only waters at oiling a gun; all the best of the cocks are beginning to mute; and if one gets up a badger-bait, to lead to a dinner-party, people will come, and look on, and make bets, and then tell the women how cruel it was! And with all the week thus, I am always expected to say something new every Sunday morning!"

"Nay, nay, Struan. Come now; we have never expected that of you. But here comes Alice from her gardening work! Now, she does look well; don't you think she does?"

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NATURE appears to have sternly willed that no man shall keep a secret. There is a monster here and there to be discovered capable of not even whispering anything; but he ought to expect to be put aside in our estimate of humanity. And lest he should be so, the powers above provide him, for the most part, with a wife of truly fecund loquacity.

under so gentle a race they managed to get over them.

Lady Valeria knew all this; and feeling, as all women feel, the ownership of her husband (active, or passive, whichever it be), she threw herself into the nest of Lorraine, and having no portion, waived all other obligation to parental ties. This was a noble act on her part, as her hushand always said. He, Sir Roger Lorraine, lay under her thumb, as calmly as need be; yet was pleased as the birth of children gave some distribution of pressure. For the lady ruled the house, and lands, and all that was therein, as if she had brought them under her settlement.

Although Sir Roger had now been sleeping, for a good many years, with his fathers, his widow, Lady Valeria, showed no sign of any preparation for sleeping with her mothers. Now in her eightyA word is enough on such parlous second year, this lady was as brisk and themes; and the least said the soonest active, at least in mind if not in body, as mended. What one of us is not exceed-half a century ago she had been. Many ingly wise, in his own or his wife's opinion? What one of us does not pretend to be as "reticent" as Minerva's owl, and yet in his heart confess that a secret is apt to fly out of his bosom ?

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good stories (and some even true) were told concerning her doings and sayings in the time of her youth and beauty. Doings were always put first, because for these she was more famous, having the Nature is full of rules; and if the wit of ready action more than of rapid above should happen to be one of words perhaps. And yet in the latter them, it was illustrated in the third at- she was not slack, when once she had tack upon Sir Roland's secrecy. For taken up the quiver of the winged poison. scarcely had he succeeded in baffling, She had seen so much of the world, and without offending, his brother-in-law, of the loftiest people that dwell therewhen a servant brought him a summons in so far at least as they were to be from his mother, Lady Valeria. found at the Court of George the Second all According to modern writers, that she sat in an upper stratum now whether of poetry or prose, in our admir-over all she had to deal with. And yet able language, the daughter of an earl is she was not of a narrow mind, when unalways lovely, graceful, irresistible, al- folded out of her creases. Her suite of most to as great an extent as she is un-rooms was the best in the house, of all attainable. This is but a natural homage above the ground-floor at least; and now on the part of nature to a power so far she was waiting to receive her son, with above her; so that this daughter of an her usual little bit of state. For the last Earl of Thanet had been, in every out-five years she had ceased to appear at ward point, whatever is delightful. Neither had she shown any slackness in turning to the best account these notable things in her favour. In short, she had been a very beautiful woman, and had employed her beauty well, in having her own will and way. She had not married well, it is true, in the opinion of her compeers; but she had pleased herself, and none could say that she had lowered her family. The ancestors of Lord Thanet had held in villeinage of the Lorraines, some three or four hundred years after the Conquest, until from being

the table where once she ruled supreme; and the servants, who never had blessed her before, blessed her and themselves for that happy change. For she would have her due, as firmly and fairly (if not a trifle more so), as and than she gave the same to others, if undemanded.

In her upright seat she was now beginning- not to chafe, for such a thing would have been below her-but rather to feel her sense of right and duty (as owing to herself) becoming more and more grievous to her the longer she was kept waiting. She had learned long ago

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"Roland, this manner of speech, know not what to call it, but I have heard of it among foreign people years ago, whatever it is, I beg you not to catch it from that boy Hilary."

that she could not govern her son as ab- to endure mild irony, even half so well as solutely as she was wont to rule his fa- his wife would? ther; and having a clearer perception of her own will than of any large principles, whenever she found him immovable, she set the cause down as prejudice. Yet by feeling her way among these prejudices carefully, and working filial duty hard, and flying as a last resort to the stronghold of her many years, she pretty nearly always managed to get her own way in everything.

But few of those who pride themselves on their knowledge of the human face would have perceived in this lady's features any shape of steadfast will. Perhaps the expression had passed away, while the substance settled inwards; but however that may have been, her face was pleasant, calm, and gentle. Her manner also to all around her was courteous, kind, and unpretending; and people believed her to have no fault, until they began to deal with her. Her eyes, not overhung with lid, but delicately set and shaped, were still bright, and of a pale blue tint; her forehead was not remarkably large, but straight and of beautiful outline; while the filaments of fine wrinkles took, in some lights, a cast of silver from snowy silkiness of hair. For still she had abundant hair, that crown of glory to old age; and like a young girl, she still took pleasure in having it drawn through the hands, and done wisely, and tired to the utmost vantage.

"Poetical justice!" Sir Roland exclaimed; for his temper was always in good control, by virtue of varied humour; "this is the self-same whip wherewith I scourged little Alice quite lately! Only I feel that I was far more just."

"Roland, you are always just. You may not be always wise, of course; but justice you have inherited from your dear father, and from me. And this is the reason why I wish to know what is the meaning of the strange reports, which almost any one, except myself, would have been sure to go into, or must have been told of long ago. Your thorough truthfulness I know. And you have no chance to mislead me now."

"I will imitate, though perhaps I cannot equal, your candour, my dear mother, by assuring you that I greatly prefer to keep my own counsel in this matter."

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Roland, is that your answer? You admit that there is something important, and you refuse to let your own mother know it!"

"Excuse me, but I do not remember saying anything about 'importance.' I am not superstitious enough to suppose that the thing can have any importance."

"Then why should you make such a fuss about it? Really, Roland, you are sometimes very hard to understand."

Sir Roland came into his mother's room with his usual care and diligence. She with ancient courtesy rose from her straight-backed chair, and offered him "I was not aware that I had made a one little hand, and smiled at him; and fuss," Sir Roland answered, gravely ; from the manner of that smile he knew" but if I have, I will make no more. that she was not by any means pleased, Now, my dear mother, what did you think but thought it as well to conciliate him. of that extraordinary bill of Bottler's?" Roland, you know that I never pay heed," she began, with a voice that shook just a little, "to rumours that reach me through servants, or even low them to think of telling me."

66

"Bottler, the pigman, is a rogue," said her ladyship, peremptorily; "his father was a rogue before him ; and those things al-run in families. But surely you cannot suppose that this is the proper way to treat the subject."

"Dear mother, of course you never do. Such a thing would be far beneath you." "Well, well, you might wait till I have spoken, Roland, before you begin to judge me. If I listen to nothing I must be quite unlike all the other women in the world."

"To my mind a most improper way to condemn a man's bill, on the ground that his father transmitted the right to overcharge!"

"Now, my dear son," said Lady Valeria, who never called him her son at all, "And so you are. How well you ex- unless she was put out with him, and her press it! At last you begin to perceive," dear son" only when she was at the exmy dear mother, what I perpetually urge in vain your own superiority."

What man's mother can be expected

tremity of endurance-"my dear son, these are sad attempts to disguise the real truth from me. The truth I am en

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