primitive savagery to our present state of imperfect development. It has been necessary to transcribe in a reduced form the teaching of Ferishtah, for this is the clearest record left by Browning of his own beliefs on the most important of all subjects, this is an essential part of his criticism of life, and at the same time it is little less than a passage of autobiography. The poems are admirable in their vigour, their humour, their seriousness, their felicity of imagery. Yet the wisdom of _Ferishtah's Fancies_ is an old man's wisdom; we perceive in it the inner life, as Baxter puts it, in speaking of changes wrought by his elder years, quitting the leaves and branches and drawing down to the root. But when in prologue or epilogue to this volume or that Browning touches upon the great happiness, the great sorrow of his own life, he is always young. Here the lyrical epilogue is inspired by a noble enthusiasm, and closes with a surprise of beauty. What if all his happy faith in the purpose of life, and the Divine presence through all its course, were but a reflex from the private and personal love that had once been his and was still above and around him? Such a doubt contained its own refutation: Only, at heart's utmost joy and triumph, terror Sudden turns the blood to ice: a chill wind disencharms All the late enchantment! What if all be error-- If the halo irised round my head were, Love, thine arms? All the more, if this were so, must the speaker's heart turn Godwards in gratitude. The whole design of the volume with its theological parables and its beautiful lyrics of human love implies that there is a correspondency between the truths of religion and the truths of the passion of love between man and woman. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 141: Mr Gosse: "Dictionary of National Biography," Supplement, i. 317.] [Footnote 142: Of the mother in this poem, a writer in the "Browning Society's Papers," Miss E.D. West, said justly: "There is discernible in her no soul which could be cleansed from guilt by any purgatorial process.... Her fault had not been moral, had not been sin, to be punished by pain inflicted on the soul; it was merely the uncounteracted primary instinct of self-preservation, and as such it is fitliest dealt with by the simple depriving her, without further penalty, of the very life which she had secured for herself at so horrible a cost."] [Footnote 143: The story of the melon-seller was related by a correspondent of _The Times_ in 1846, and is told by Browning in a letter to Miss Barrett of Aug. 6 of that year. Thus subjects of verse rose up in his memory after many years.] Chapter XVII Closing Works and Days