hich had just then
taken possession of Mr. Browning's mind, and we have sometimes to
struggle through a group of sentences out of which he has so laboured to
squeeze every unnecessary word, that their grammatical connection is
broken up, and they present a compact mass of meaning which without
previous knowledge it is almost impossible to construe. We are also
puzzled by an abridged, interjectional, way of carrying on the
historical part of the narrative; by the author's habit of alluding to
imaginary or typical personages in the same tone as to real ones; and by
misprints, including errors in punctuation, which will be easily
corrected in a later edition, but which mar the present one.

It is only fair to add that he would deprecate the idea of any excessive
labour as bestowed on this, to his mind, immature performance. It is for
us, not for him, to do justice to it. With all its faults and
obscurities, "Sordello" is a great work; full moreover of pregnant and
beautiful passages which are not affected by them. When Mr. Browning
re-edited "Sordello" in 1863, he considered the possibility of
re-writing it in a more transparent manner; but he concluded that the
labour would be disproportionate to the result, and contented himself
with summarizing the contents of each "book" in a continuous heading,
which represents the main thread of the story. It will be useful to read
this carefully.

BOOK THE FIRST.

The story opens at Verona, at the moment of the formation of the Lombard
League--a well-known union of Guelph cities against the Ghibellines in
Northern Italy. Mr. Browning, addressing himself to an imaginary
audience composed of living and dead, describes the city as it hastens
to arms, and the chain of circumstances through which she has been
called upon to do so; and draws a curious picture of two political
ideals which he considers respectively those of Ghibelline and Guelph:
the one symbolized by isolated heights, the other by a continuous level
growth; those again suggesting the violent disruptions which create
imperial power; these the peaceful organic processes of democratic life.
The poet Shelley is desired to withdraw his "pure face" from among the
spectators of this chequered scene; and Dante is invoked in the name of
him whose fame preceded his, and has been absorbed by it. A secret
chamber in Count Richard's palace shows Palma and Sordello in earnest
conference with each other. Then the curtain falls; and