en
deceived and betrayed, he pleads, by his wife and her parents--an
injured soul who, stung at last into fury at having a son foisted on
him, vindicates his honour. And in this vindication his hypocrisy slips
at intervals from him, because his hatred of his wife is too much for
his hypocrisy.

This is the only touch of the wolf in the man--his cruel teeth shown
momentarily through the smooth surface of his defence. A weaker poet
would have left him there, not having capacity for more. But Browning,
so rich in thought he was, had only begun to draw him. Guido is not only
painted by three others--by Caponsacchi, by Pompilia, by the Pope--but
he finally exposes his real self with his own hand. He is condemned to
death. Two of his friends visit him the night before his execution, in
his cell. Then, exalted into eloquence by the fierce passions of fear of
death and hatred of Pompilia, he lays bare as the night his very soul,
mean, cruel, cowardly, hungry for revenge, crying for life, black with
hate--a revelation such as in literature can best be paralleled by the
soliloquies of Iago. Baseness is supreme in his speech, hate was never
better given; the words are like the gnashing of teeth; prayers for life
at any cost were never meaner, and the outburst of terror and despair at
the end is their ultimate expression.

Over against him is set Caponsacchi, of noble birth, of refined manner,
one of those polished and cultivated priests of whom Rome makes such
excellent use, and of whom Browning had drawn already a different type
in Bishop Blougram. He hesitated, being young and gay, to enter the
Church. But the archbishop of that easy time, two hundred years ago,
told him the Church was strong enough to bear a few light priests, and
that he would be set free from many ecclesiastical duties if, by
assiduity in society and with women, he strengthened the social weight
of the Church. In that way, making his madrigals and confessing fine
ladies, he lived for four years. This is an admirable sketch of a type
of Church society of that date, indeed, of any date in any Church; it
is by no means confined to Rome.

On this worldly, careless, indifferent, pleasure-seeking soul Pompilia,
in her trouble and the pity of it, rises like a pure star seen through
mist that opens at intervals to show her excelling brightness; and in a
moment, at the first glimpse of her in the theatre, the false man drops
away; his soul breaks up, stands clear,