new version of
his career. His comments represent his real conduct, and they are such
as he assumes would naturally be made on the "ideal" course by the very
critics who have censured his actual temporising policy. The final pages
contain an involuntary confession that, even in his own eyes, Prince
Hohenstiel is not quite satisfied with either his conduct or his defence
of it.
To separate the truth from the falsehood in this dramatic monologue has
not been Browning's intention, and it need not be ours. It may be
repeated that Browning is no apologist for Louis Napoleon: he simply
calls him to the front, and, standing aside, allows him to speak for
himself.[46] In his speech under these circumstances we find just as
much truth entangled with just as much sophistry as we might reasonably
expect. Here, we get what seems the genuine truth; there, in what
appears to the speaker a satisfactory defence, we see that he is simply
exposing his own moral defect; again, like Bishop Blougram, he "says
true things, but calls them by wrong names." Passages of the last kind
are very frequent; are, indeed, to be found everywhere throughout the
poem; and it is in these that Browning unites most cleverly the
vicarious thinking due to his dramatic subject, and the good honest
thought which we never fail to find dominant in his most exceptional
work. The Prince gives utterance to a great deal of very true and very
admirable good sense; we are at liberty to think him insincere in his
application of it, but an axiom remains true, even if it be wrongly
applied.
The versification of the poem is everywhere vigorous, and often fine;
perhaps the finest passage it contains is that referring to Louis
Napoleon's abortive dreams on behalf of Italy.
"Ay, still my fragments wander, music-fraught,
Sighs of the soul, mine once, mine now, and mine
For ever! Crumbled arch, crushed aqueduct,
Alive with tremors in the shaggy growth
Of wild-wood, crevice-sown, that triumphs there
Imparting exultation to the hills!
Sweep of the swathe when only the winds walk
And waft my words above the grassy sea
Under the blinding blue that basks o'er Rome--
Hear ye not still--'Be Italy again?'
And ye, what strikes the panic to your heart?
Decrepit council-chambers,--where some lamp
Drives the unbroken black three paces off
From where the greybeards huddle in debate,
Dim cowl
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