f"--as if one could, with that self-contemplating
motive, ever realise personality.

This, then, is the position of Sordello in the period of history I have
pictured, and it carries him to the end of the third book of the poem.
It has embodied the history of his youth--of his first contact with the
world; of his retreat from it into thought over what he has gone
through; and of his reawakening into a fresh questioning--how he shall
realise life, how manifest himself in action. "What shall I do as a
poet, and a man?"

3. The next thing to be said of _Sordello_ is its vivid realisation of
certain aspects of mediaeval life. Behind this image of the curious
dreamer lost in abstractions, and vividly contrasted with it, is the
fierce activity of mediaeval cities and men in incessant war; each city,
each man eager to make his own individuality supreme; and this is
painted by Browning at the very moment when the two great parties were
formed, and added to personal war the intensifying power of two ideals.
This was a field for imagination in which Browning was sure to revel,
like a wild creature of the woods on a summer day. He had the genius of
places, of portraiture, and of sudden flashes of action and passion;
and the time of which he wrote supplied him with full matter for these
several capacities of genius.

When we read in _Sordello_ of the fierce outbursts of war in the cities
of North Italy, we know that Browning saw them with his eyes and shared
their fury and delight. Verona is painted in the first book just as the
news arrives that her prince is captive in Ferrara. It is evening, a
still and flaming sunset, and soft sky. In dreadful contrast to this
burning silence of Nature is the wrath and hate which are seething in
the market-place. Group talked with restless group, and not a face

But wrath made livid, for among them were
Death's staunch purveyors, such as have in care
To feast him. Fear had long since taken root
In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit,
The ripe hate, like a wine; to note the way
It worked while each grew drunk! Men grave and grey
Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro,
Letting the silent luxury trickle slow
About the hollows where a heart should be;
But the young gulped with a delirious glee
Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood
At the fierce news.

Step by step the varying passions, varying with the men of the varied