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the very conception of a Deity who reveals his Love in human attributes as clearly as he has revealed his POWER in natural forces.

The very God! think, Ahib; dost thou think?
So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too—
So, through the thunder comes a human voice
Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here!
Face, My hands fashioned, see it in Myself.
Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of Mine,
But love I gave thee, with Myself to love,

And thou must love Me who have died for thee!"
The madman saith He said so it is strange.

Saul, Cleon, and Caliban on Setebos manifest Browning's intense interest in the problems of theistic faith and the immortal hope. Rabbi Ben Ezra gives us some of Browning's deepest convictions on the meaning of individual life; the Rabbi describes life as the process by which the Divine Fashioner of our souls is moulding us "'mid this dance of plastic circumstance" into some consummate completeness. Life's triumphs and failures must only be judged by their spiritual results; what have outward events made of us?—that is the supreme test of the value of our earthly career. The wheel of time, upon which our being is spun, can only accomplish the providential purpose by moulding us into vessels meet for the Master's use. In two verses Browning emphasises his repugnance to that dualistic asceticism which renounces the claims of the flesh in order to win redemption for the spirit.

For pleasant is this flesh;

Our soul in its rose-mesh

Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest ;

Would we some prize might hold

To match those manifold

Possessions of the brute-gain most, as we did best!

Let us not always say

"Spite of this flesh to day

I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!"
As the bird wings and sings,

Let us cry" All good things

Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh
helps soul!"

7.-LATER POEMS.

The Ring and the Book appeared in the years 1868-9; I have tried to express my sense of the power of this astonishing poem in the succeeding chapter. During the following years the Poet's long study of Greek Dramatists resulted in Balaustion's Adventure, Aristophane's Apology, and The Agamemnon of Aeschylus; while his relentless analysis of human passion and crime bore fruit in the terrific tragedies of The Inn Album and Red Cotton Night-Cap Country. In La Saisiaz the question of immortality still fascinates Browning's mind, and its affirmative solution receives the finest justification. In the Pacchiarotto volume he included the famous ballad, Hervé Riel. In the same volume appeared a remarkable poem, Fears and Scruples, dealing in a very brief but most impressive manner with some difficulties of theistic faith. Here, also, we again find striking illustrations of Browning's inexhaustible interest in the relations of men and women, with their endless mysteries of love and hatred, aspiration and despair; Numpholeptos, Bifurcation, St. Martin's Summer, A Forgiveness, are all

powerful descriptions of various forms of sexual relationship. The poems of the last ten years of the poet's life were published under the titles, Dramatic Idyls, Jocoseria, Ferishtah's Fancies, Parleyings with certain People, and Asolando issued the month of his death. In these works he chiefly emphasised the views of life which had become familiar through his earlier writings; and his latest productions display not only undiminished intellectual power, but, at times, also ring with that clear lyric note which so often rises into purest music above the complicated clouds of moral strife and mental subtlety.

8. CONCLUSION.

Mrs. Browning died in 1861; and for the remainder of his life, the Poet's permanent home was in London, though he made frequent visits to Italy. His son grew up to manhood under his care, and for twenty-three years his sister was also a member of his household. During a visit to Venice, late in the year 1889, the Poet was attacked by fatal illness. It is gratifying to know that, before the end came, he received the news from England of the welcome that had been given to his new volume, Asolando, and almost his last words were an expression to his son of the pleasure the tidings gave him. His illness was very short, there was scarcely any suffering, and he peacefully passed away on the 12th December. Florence and Venice both desired to take charge of the sacred dust of the poet who had written :-

Open my heart and you will see
Graved inside of it "Italy."

But England claimed the body of her illustrious son, and it was buried in Westminster Abbey, 31st December, 1889. In the Epilogue to his last volume he bids his friends not to pity him when he passes through the shadow of death, but rather to bid him god-speed as, with dauntless courage, he presses on to some new work in unseen worlds:

Greet the unseen with a cheer!

Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, "Strive and thrive!" cry

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Speed,-fight on, fare ever

There as here!"

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CHAPTER II.

RELIGION AND ETHICS.

Give me a spirit that on life's rough sea
Loves t' have his sails filled with a lusty wind,
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,
And his rapt ship run on her side so low
That she drinks water, and her keel plows air.
There is no danger to a man that knows
What life and death is; there's not any law
Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful
That he should stoop to any other law.
He goes before them, and commands them all,
That to himself is a law rational.

George Chapman, Byron's Conspiracy, iii. 1.

1.-BROWNING A RELIGIOUS TEACHER.

ROBERT BROWNING was a profound philosopher

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as well as a great poet; and both his philosophy and his poetry were consecrated by religion. This fact is very stimulating to us who are so much interested in the maintenance of spiritual faith. His intellect was as lofty as his heart was large; he explored every realm of thought, feeling and enterprise; I do not think we have had a man of finer intellect amongst us during this century; and it is encouraging to find, in the writings of such a man, noble vindications of the primary

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