d all came,--glory of the golden verse,
And passion of the picture, and that fine
Frank outgush of the human gratitude
Which saved our ship and me, in Syracuse,--
Ay, and the tear or two which slipt perhaps
Away from you, friends, while I told my tale,
--It all came of this play that gained no prize!
Why crown whom Zeus has crowned in soul before?"

Once before had Sir Frederick Leighton inspired the poet in the
exquisite lines on Eurydice.

EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS

A PICTURE BY LEIGHTON

But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!
Let them once more absorb me! One look now
Will lap me round for ever, not to pass
Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond:
Hold me but safe again within the bond
Of one immortal look! All woe that was,
Forgotten, and all terror that may be,
Defied,--no past is mine, no future: look at me!

Beautiful as these lines are, they do not impress me as fully
interpreting Leighton's picture. The expression of Eurydice is rather
one of unthinking confiding affection--as if she were really unconscious
or ignorant of the danger; while that of Orpheus is one of passionate
agony as he tries to hold her off.

Though English art could not fascinate the poet as Italian art did, for
the fully sufficient reason that it does not stand for a great epoch of
intellectual awakening, yet with what fair alchemy he has touched those
few artists he has chosen to honor. Notwithstanding his avowed devotion
to Italy, expressed in "De Gustibus," one cannot help feeling that in
the poems mentioned in this chapter, there is that ecstasy of sympathy
which goes only to the most potent influences in the formation of
character. Something of what I mean is expressed in one of his latest
poems, "Development." In this we certainly get a real peep at young
Robert Browning, led by his wise father into the delights of Homer, by
slow degrees, where all is truth at first, to end up with the
devastating criticism of Wolf. In spite of it all the dream stays and is
the reality. Nothing can obliterate the magic of a strong early
enthusiasm, as "fact still held" "Spite of new Knowledge," in his "heart
of hearts."

DEVELOPMENT

My Father was a scholar and knew Greek.
When I was five years old, I asked him once
"What do you read about?"
"The siege of Troy."
"What is a siege and what is Troy?"