I have given you this fairly full discussion as an example of how a rather difficult thing may be done, namely, how a single poem may sometimes be used to give an introduction to a poet and prepare a class for reading the remainder of his work. Before I close let me give you a couple of things I have discovered about teaching which may be useful to you. First, it is more important to be physically fit than to be well prepared. If you feel well and look it, your class will be in good humour even if you are not well prepared. Be worried and tired, and your class will soon become worried and tired too. Secondly, it is better to teach too little than too much. Do not subject your class to mental indigestion. Thirdly, one should always try to appear interested. Lastly, one should never appear to be in a hurry. Nothing annoys a class more than to be rushed madly from point to point without a breathing space. MY LAST DUCHESS _A paper given in 1911 to a Church Society that wished guidance for literary study_ In this poem Browning takes his subject from the midst of the Renaissance period in Italy, a period when the revival of classical learning was accompanied by a breakdown in the authority of the Church. The conventions of ages were swept away in a few years, and side by side with the new culture, scepticism, cynicism, robbery, lust, and murder prevailed in high places, even in the palaces of the Popes themselves. Under a thin veneer of culture, society became rotten to the core. The word _Ferrara_ at the head of the poem gives us the clue to the period. Ferrara is an ancient Italian town, and was at one time the seat of a powerful duchy. The ancient ducal palace still frowns down from its eminence upon the country around. The Duke of Ferrara at the period of our poem was one of the most powerful noblemen of Italy. The speaker in this monologue is the Duke of Ferrara, a typical Renaissance product, cultured and cold and cruel. He is showing the picture of his late wife to an envoy from some Count or other who has sent to negotiate a marriage for his daughter with the widowed Duke. The first thing to do with a poem like this is to make it live. We will read it. The character we have represented here is one probably not uncommon at the period. The Duke is a man of intellect, imbued with the new culture, a critic and collector of art treasures. He combines with this appreciation of art, an utter selfishness and cynicism. His heart is incapable of tenderness or emotion. He has an immense pride in his rank and in his ancient name, and an impatience of anything that would derogate from his dignity.