they excite are of a widely different nature. The recital which detained" the wedding guest" overawes and chills with a sort of passive horror; for there is no struggle indicated in the story, but simply resistless, remorseless destiny seizing its victims; while Mrs. Browning's narrative is effective from its display of heroic action, and consequently excites less painful emotions. "Twice he wrung her hands in twain, but the small hands closed again. Toll slowly. Back he reined the steed, back, back! but she trailed along his track With a frantic clasp and strain. "Thrice he wrung her hands in twain,- but they closed and clung again, – Toll slowly. Wild she clung, as one, withstood, clasps a Christ upon the rood "She clung wild and she clung mute, with her shuddering lips half shut. Toll slowly. Her head fallen as half in swound, hair and knee swept on the ground, She clung wild to stirrup and foot. "Back he reined his steed, back thrown on the slippery coping-stone, 66 Toll slowly. Back the iron hoofs did grind on the battlement behind, Whence a hundred feet went down. They have caught out at the rein, which Sir Guy threw loose, Toll slowly. For the horse, in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air, "Now he hangs, he rocks between, and his nostrils curdle in! Toll slowly. Now he shivers head and hoof, — and the flakes of foam fall off, "And a look of human woe from his staring eyes Toll slowly, And a sharp cry uttered he, in a foretold agony Of the headlong death below. did go, "And 'Ring, ring, thou passing-bell,' still she cried, 'i' the old chapelle !' – Toll slowly. Great art is shown in concentrating the interest at last upon the steed, and his agony is most vigorously depicted. The death of Aurora's aunt is another example of tragic intensity in scenic representations. "There she sate, my aunt, Bolt upright in the chair beside her bed, Mark the significance of the line, The contemplated wedding, in the same poem, where “half St. Giles in frieze was bidden to meet St. James in cloth of gold," is as powerful, if not as terse, a description. So also the sculpturing of the lion in the "Drama of Exile." "On a mountain-peak Half-sheathed in primal woods and glittering With his calm, massive face turned full on thine, And his mane listening." Here are two pictures of natural scenes, both finely executed; the first from "The Romaunt of the Page," and the other a view of Aurora's English home, seen from her chamber window. "Our troop is far behind, The woodland calm is new ; Our steeds, with slow grass-muffled hoofs, "First the lime, (I had enough, there, of the lime, be sure, - The irregular line of elms by the deep lane, Which stopped the grounds and dammed the overflow Of arbutus and laurel. Out of sight The lane was; sunk so deep, no foreign tramp Nor drover of wild ponies out of Wales Could guess if lady's hall or tenant's lodge Dispensed such odors, though his stick well crooked Which dipped upon the wall." The beauty of the last extract is mostly in its suggestiveness; and the hint as to the height of the wall is very ingeniously given. "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" abounds in exquisite sketches, both of figures and landscape. We select two of the richest color. Thus, her foot upon the new-mown grass, bareheaded, with the flowing "Twixt the purple lattice-curtains, how she standeth still and pale! 'Tis a vision, sure, of mercies, sent to soften his self-curses Sent to sweep a patient quiet o'er the tossing of his wail. “With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air, the purple curtain Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale brows, While the gliding of the river sends a rippling noise forever Through the open casement whitened by the moonlight's slant repose.” The purple curtains, the river, and the moonlight, form a perfect background for "the vision of a Lady." But "Marian's Babe" is Mrs. Browning's masterpiece. Raphael never painted a more exquisitely natural and tender picture. It needs a mother as well as an artist to mix such colors. "There he lay, upon his back, The yearling creature, warm and moist with life To keep him from the light glare, both his cheeks As a portrait hinting at character, the sketch of Aurora's aunt is admirable for quaint originality and fidelity. "She stood straight and calm, Her somewhat narrow forehead braided tight As if for taming accidental thoughts From possible pulses; brown hair pricked with grey By frigid use of life, (she was not old, In smiling; cheeks in which was yet a rose Of perished summers, like a rose in a book, Kept more for ruth than pleasure,—if past bloom, Whilst Mrs. Browning's skill in detecting and describing shades of character is unquestionable, she does not possess in an equal degree the creative power which gives life and individuality to the children of the brain. Her delineations are often rather abstractions than flesh-and-blood creations, except when clothed and vitalized by her own individuality. Take the characters in "Aurora Leigh." Aurora is the reflex of Mrs. Browning, and has therefore some form and color. Still she is more interesting as a revelation of the inner life of the author, than as a purely imaginative embodiment. Romney has no exclusive personality of his own. He represents a certain class of reformers, and is both the expounder and refuter of their doctrines. Aurora describes Marian charmingly, but when she speaks for herself, she talks as pedantically as the poet. It is true, her conversations are presumed to be always reported, but the import is her own, if not the mode of expression. A woman of no cultivation, whose life had been passed chiefly among the cruel and the coarse, might, by the force of her own sweet, intelligent nature, discourse feelingly and eloquently, but never learnedly. This specimen will explain our meaning. We find the same inconsistency in Lady Waldemar. So long as her character is merely described, and her acts narrated by a third party, we have some conception of what she really is, though a woman of the world, as she is represented to be, would hardly make such confessions. But whenever she herself comes upon the stage, we hear the prompter's voice, and all personality vanishes. The defect we are indicating will be made evident by comparing any of Mrs. Browning's characters with Tennyson's, Marian, for example, with that of the old woman in "The Grandmother's Apology." The difference of the two in essential warmth and life is at once apparent. In the one case, it is the poet who speaks in the person of Marian. In the other, it is the spirit of the Grandmother which has taken possession of the soul of the poet, and guides his pen. Hence, in the latter creation there is no incongruity either of thought or expression. The author is not seen or heard. It is the garrulous old woman and her touching reminiscences we listen to,- her character that is unfolding itself. In this impersonality Tennyson is truly Shakespearian. He never intrudes himself; and is so superior to Mrs. Browning in this respect, though she excels him in tragic power and depth of feeling. She is too thoroughly a woman to be many |