histories on the subject, had absolutely no effect upon the politics of Europe, and certainly represented no clash of fundamental principles in government. From the slight hints of history Browning has created a most interesting group of characters, whose motives and emotions he unfolds toward inevitable action and events as they are known to have happened. Victor and Charles are both complex in their natures, but one has the complexity born of the supreme desire to serve his own ends, the other a complexity born of the conflict between love for his father and regard for his own dignity and integrity. History is not quite certain on the point of Victor's perfidious treatment of his allies, nor as to whether he abdicated to extricate himself from pending difficulties or merely because he was weary of the cares of the crown. Browning has cleverly made use of both ideas, giving Victor the rôle of perfidy, but making Charles believe him capable of the better impulse. D'Ormea is the only one who really knows all the wily depths of Victor's nature, and Polyxena, with no absolute knowledge, has a woman's intuition that he is deceiving Charles. For these reasons Charles hates D'Ormea, and will not see that the minister is genuinely anxious to help him, and almost quarrels with Polyxena. Not that he himself has any absolute faith in his father; it is rather that through love for his father he would fain blind himself to all faults, and it irritates him that the minister as well as Polyxena should be so well aware of them. His whole action is colored by his desire to justify his father to them. He permitted himself to complain of Victor's treatment to Polyxena, and seemed glad of her sympathy before the abdication, but he seizes upon this as a mark of his father's affection at last, and it

must be sacredly guarded from all suspicion. The Charles of history had an intense admiration for the genius of Victor, and tried most faithfully to model his direction of state affairs upon Victor's methods. In the play Polyxena feels this to be Charles's great weakness. She knows the quality of his powers to be superior in some respects to Victor's, because of the sincerity and goodness of his nature, but he is constantly prevented from reaching a knowledge of his possibilities by his persistent reverence for the parental wisdom. The genuineness of Charles's affection for his father is finally put to the test when he can no longer ignore the fact that Victor means to retake the crown by force. He gives in to D'Ormea to the extent of allowing him to arrest Victor, but at the last moment hands the crown back to Victor. Here Browning gains a dramatic climax, and rounds out Charles's nature by making him stanch in the face of all odds to the supreme influence of his life, his unselfish love for his father. Devotion of this sort has its fine side. One cannot help admiring so complete an example of living up to an all-dominating ideal, yet most people will sympathize with Polyxena, whose ideal was different. She considered Charles's most important duty to be reverence for his prospective office of ruler over the people. She begged him first to bear anything from his father rather than forfeit what God had intrusted to him; but when the power suddenly came to him through suspicious circumstances, she threw her weight upon the side of his refusing it, because with perfect understanding of her husband's nature she knew it would never be a true kingship for Charles as long as Victor's influence should be exerted over him.

The subtle play of motives in this drama is managed with Browning's accustomed skill, but the work has not the peculiar charm of " Pippa Passes," nor the strength of Strafford," both preceding it. It was, however, to be followed by dramas surpassing all that the poet had yet accomplished in this field.

CHARLOTTE Porter.

HELEN A. CLARKE.

PAULINE.

A FRAGMENT OF A CONFESSION.

1833.

Plus ne suis ce que j'ai été,

Et ne le sçaurois jamais être.

Marot.

NON dubito, quin titulus libri nostri raritate sua quam plurimos alliciat ad legendum : inter quos nonnulli obliquæ opinionis, mente languidi, multi etiam maligni, et in ingenium nostrum ingrati accedent, qui temeraria sua ignorantia, "ix conspecto titulo clamabunt.

Nos vetita docere, hæresium semina jacere: piis auribus offendiculo, præclaris ingeniis scandalo esse: ... . . adeo conscientiæ suæ consulentes, ut nec Apollo, nec Musæ omnes, neque Angelus de coelo me ab illorum execratione vindicare queant quibus et ego nunc consulo, ne scripta nostra legant, nec intelligant, nec meminerint: nam noxia sunt, venenosa sunt : Acherontis ostium est in hoc libro, lapides loquitur, caveant, ne cerebrum illis excutiat. Vos autem, qui æqua mente ad legendum venitis, si tantam prudentiæ discretionem adhibueritis, quantam in melle legendo apes, jam securi egite. Puto namque vos et utilitatis haud parum et voluptatis plurimum accepturos. Quod si qua repereritis, quæ vobis non placeant, mittite illa, nec utimini. NAM ET EGO VOBIS ILLA NON PROBO, SED NARRO. Cætera tamen propterea non respuite Ideo, si quid liberius dictum sit, ignoscite adolescentiæ nostræ, qui minor quam adolescens hcc opus composui. Hen. Corn. Agrippa, De Occult. Philoso h. in Præfat. LONDON: January 1833.

V. A. XX.

...

[This introduction would appear less absurdly pretentious did it apply, as was intended, to a completed struc