a_--_Donald_, are
hateful subjects, and their treatment does not redeem them; unlike the
treatment of _Ivan Ivanovitch_ which does lift the pain of the story
into the high realms of pity and justice. Death, swift death, was not
only the right judgment, but also the most pitiful. Had the mother
lived, an hour's memory would have been intolerable torture.
Nevertheless, if Browning, in his desire to represent the whole of
humanity, chose to treat these lower forms of human nature, I suppose we
must accept them as an integral part of his work; and, at least, there
can be no doubt of their ability, and of the brilliancy of their
psychological surprises. _Ned Bratts_ is a monument of cleverness, as
well as of fine characterisation of a momentary outburst of conscience
in a man who had none before; and who would have lost it in an hour, had
he not been hanged on the spot. The quick, agile, unpremeditated turns
of wit in this poem, as in some of the others, are admirably easy, and
happily expressed. Indeed, in these later poems of character and event,
ingenuity or nimbleness of intellect is the chief element, and it is
accompanied by a facile power which is sometimes rude, often careless,
always inventive, fully fantastical, and rarely imaginative in the
highest sense of the word. Moreover, as was not the case of old, they
have, beyond the story, a direct teaching aim, which, while it lowers
them as art, is very agreeable to the ethical psychologist.

_Jocoseria_ has poems of a higher quality, some of which, like the
lovely _Never the Time and Place_, I have been already quoted. _Ixion_
is too obscurely put to attain its end with the general public. But it
may be recommended, though vainly, to those theologians who, hungry for
the Divine Right of torture, build their God, like Caliban, out of their
own minds; who, foolish enough to believe that the everlasting endurance
of evil is a necessary guarantee of the everlasting endurance of good,
are still bold and bad enough to proclaim the abominable lie of eternal
punishment. They need that spirit the little child whom Christ placed in
the midst of his disciples; and in gaining which, after living the life
of the lover, the warrior, the poet, the statesman, _Jochanan Hakkadosh_
found absolute peace and joy. Few poems contain more of Browning's
matured theory of life than this of the Jewish Rabbi; and its
seriousness is happily mingled with imaginative illustrations and with
racy wi