the legal point of view, but from that which
his Master would take at the Judgment Day. How have they lived; what
have they made of life? When circumstances invaded them with temptation,
how did they meet temptation? Did they declare by what they did that
they were on God's side or the devil's? And on these lines he delivers
his sentence on Pompilia, Caponsacchi, Guido, Pietro, Violante, and the
rest. He feels he speaks as the Vicegerent of God.

This solemn, silent, lonely, unworldly judgment of the whole case, done
in God's presence, is, after the noisy, crowded, worldly judgment of it
by Rome, after the rude humours of the law, and the terrible clashing of
human passions, most impressive; and it rises into the majesty of old
age in the summing up of the characters of Pompilia, Caponsacchi, and
Guido. I wish Browning had left it there. But he makes a sudden doubt
invade the Pope with a chill. Has he judged rightly in thinking that
divine truth is with him? Is there any divine truth on which he may
infallibly repose?

And then for many pages we are borne away into a theological discussion,
which I take leave to say is wearisome; and which, after all, lands the
Pope exactly at the point from which he set out--a conclusion at which,
as we could have told him beforehand, he would be certain to arrive. We
might have been spared this. It is an instance of Browning's pleasure in
intellectual discourse which had, as I have said, such sad results on
his imaginative work. However, at the end, the Pope resumes his interest
in human life. He determines; and quickly--"Let the murderer die
to-morrow."

Then comes the dreadful passion of Guido in the condemned cell, of
which I have spoken. And then, one would think the poem would have
closed. But no, the epilogue succeeds, in which, after all the tragedy,
humour reigns supreme. It brings us into touch with all that happened in
this case after the execution of Guido; the letters written by the
spectators, the lawyer's view of the deed, the gossip of Rome upon the
interesting occasion. No piece of humour in Browning's poetry, and no
portrait-sketching, is better than the letter written by a Venetian
gentleman in Rome giving an account of the execution. It is high comedy
when we are told that the Austrian Ambassador, who had pleaded for
Guido's life, was so vexed by the sharp "no" of the Pope (even when he
had told the Pope that he had probably dined at the same table with
Guido),