was his first
theatrical essay, and he was somewhat showy of fine intentions. The
loyalty of Strafford to the King is too fatuous an instinct to gain our
complete sympathy. He rides gallantly into the quicksand, knowing it to
be such, and the quicksand, as certainly as the worm of Nilus, will do
its kind. And yet though this is the vain romance of loyalty, in it, as
Browning conceives, lies the test of Strafford. A self-renouncing
passion of any kind is not so common that we can afford to look on his
king-worship with scorn.

Over against these devotees of the ideal Browning sets his worldlings,
ranging from creatures as despicable as the courtiers of Duchess Colombe
to such men of power and inexhaustible resource as the Nuncio who
confronts Djabal with his Druses, or the Papal Legate whose easier and
half-humorous task is to dismiss to his private affairs at Lugo the
four-and-twentieth leader of revolt. To the same breed with the
courtiers of Colombe belong old Vane and Savile of the court of Charles.
To the same breed with the Nuncio and the Legate, belongs Monsignor, who
proves himself more than a match for his hireling, the scoundrel
Intendant. In a happy moment Monsignor is startled into indignant
wrath; he does not exclaim with the Edmund of Shakespeare's tragedy
"Some good I mean to do before I die;" but his "Gag the villain!" is a
substantial contribution to the justice of our world. Under the
ennobling influence of Charles and his Polyxena, the craft of D'Ormea is
uplifted to a level of real dignity; if he cannot quite attain the
position of a martyr for the truth, he becomes something better than one
who serves God at the devil's bidding. And Braccio, plotter and
betrayer, yet always with a certain fidelity towards his mother-city, is
won over to the side of simple truth and righteousness by the
overmastering power of Luria's magnanimity. So precious, after
all--Browning would say--is the mere capacity to recognise facts; if
only a little grain of virtue remains in the heart, this faculty of
vision may make some sudden discovery which shall prove to a worldling
that there exist facts, undeniable and of immense potency, hitherto
unknown to his philosophy of chicane. Browning's vote is given, as has
been said, and with no uncertain voice, for his devotees of the ideal;
but the men of fine worldly brain-craft have a fascination for him as
they have for his Eastern Luria. In Djabal, at once enthusiast and
impost