jest, we are fatigued by the climb, and too much out of breath to be capable of laughter. In like manner few persons except the Browning enthusiast, who is not responsible for his fervour, will assert that either the jest or the frankly cynical moral of _Pietro of Abano_ compensates for the jolting in a springless waggon over a rough road and a long. We make the acquaintance of a magician who with knowledge uninspired by love has kicks and cuffs for his reward, and the acquaintance of an astute Greek, who, at least in his dream of life, imposed upon him by the art of magic, exploits the talents of his friend Pietro, and gains the prize of his astuteness, having learnt to rule men by the potent spell of "cleverness uncurbed by conscience." The cynicism is only inverted morality, and implies that the writer is the reverse of cynical; but it lacks the attractive sub-acid flavour of a delicate cynicism, which insinuates its prophylactic virus into our veins, and the humour of the poem, ascending from stage to stage until we reach Pietro's final failure, is cumbrous and mechanical. The two series of _Dramatic Idyls_ included some conspicuous successes. The classical poems _Pheidippides_, _Echetlos_, _Pan and Luna_, idyls heroic and mythological, invite us by their beauty to return to them again and again. Browning's sympathy with gallantry in action, with self-devotion to a worthy cause, was never more vividly rendered than in the first of these poems. The runner of Athens is a more graceful brother of the Breton sailor who saved a fleet for France; but the vision of majestical Pan in "the cool of a cleft" exalts our human heroism into relation with the divine benevolence, and the reward of release from labour is proportionally higher than a holiday with the "belle Aurore." Victory and then domestic love is the human interpretation of Pan's oracular promise; but the gifts of the gods are better than our hopes and it proves to be victory and death: He flung down his shield, Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the Fennel-field And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through, Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine through clay, Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died--the bliss!