semblance ceases. For the absorption was in the one an intellectual process, in the other mainly emotional; and so it was with them in most other respects. Nearly always the woman's emotions dominated her intellect, the man's intellect dominated his emotions, with the result that Matthew Arnold most of all appeals to the academic, the critical mind, which rejoices in some classically turned phrase, takes pleasure in polished and scholarly form, and finds delight in what is dignified, orderly, controlled. Such minds distrust impulses; here is a poet who is never carried away by impulse. Without impulses, of course, he never could have been a poet at all, but they are held carefully in check. But this is precisely the kind of critic who is irritated by the untrimmed luxuriance of Mrs. Browning, with its disturbing effect upon orderly ideas. For the poetess is emphatically impulsive; as she is moved, - so she speaks. One observes that her favourite among the Greeks is Euripides the human, with his droppings of warm tears,' the least classical or 'pure,' as Mr. Bagehot would have it, of the Athenian dramatists. Even when Matthew Arnold adopts the dramatic form, his passion is of the statuesque, stately order. Whereas, even when her theme is most dignified, Mrs. Browning is apt to be, not turbid or turgid, but gusty. Now it follows from this fact that sustained harmonies are not to be expected from the poetess. But she does now and then give bits of melody, and melody is very rare in Wordsworth, Arnold, or Robert Browning. The distinction is an exceedingly difficult one to put into words; I doubt if it will make my meaning much clearer to substitute 'lilt' for 'melody.' Quotation may help us. 'Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan, Piercing sweet by the river! And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly Came back to dream on the river.' There is a music in that which thrills one; but it is altogether different from the music of 'Thyrsis' or Wordsworth's sonnet to Milton, or the invocation, 'O lyric love, half-angel and half-bird.' Perhaps if we note that the corruption of one style turns to jingle, and the corruption of the other to prose, we shall feel where the distinction comes in. Harmony, as I have already remarked, is Tennyson's most striking characteristic; but when the term is applied specially to the sound of his verse, a comparison with Miltonic lines will show that he has also a peculiarly melodious quality. It is not mere melody—the music is too rich, too deep for that; but it is always suggestive of song; and Tears, idle Tears,' is actually a song in blank verse. Therefore, seeing that melody is the soul of song. it is not surprising to find that Tennyson has produced many songs among his poems, while the others have produced many poems, but hardly a song. In dramatic range and force he has been surpassed by Browning, in moral elevation by Wordsworth, but as a maker of songs he stands, in our days at least, alone. ARTHUR D. INNES. ROSES IN THE SNOW. THE things I have to tell happened many years ago in our own city, and because there are those growing up now to whom they will be nothing but a tale that is told, and because such tales grow in the telling till they have no likeness to the things that were, therefore it has pleased the noble House in which I serve that the truth should be set down in writing. And all the more so, because within a little space the Lords of Civitella will be nothing but a memory, since there are none but old men and childless left among them. The rest lie in the church of San Eustachio, where is the great picture of the Last Day, and we trust their souls are in Paradise. But of one, we know not where he is, or even if he be living or dead. Now if it should seem to any reading these writings that the things here set down are not true, let him go from our palace, across the square, past that same church of San Eustachio, down the straight street by it which he can see from this window, and so to the river, and there, on the other side across the bridge, a little to the right of the great statue of St. Michael, he will see a plot of waste ground. It is close to the river, and open to the sky, and olive trees grow within a stone's throw, but on it you will find no blade of grass, and men say that even the birds shun to fly over it. You might say, it is a place where those were buried who were stricken of the plague; but there are no Christian men lying there, only on one night of the year the Brothers of the Misericordia come to pray round the great black Cross that stands in the centre. On that night our palace is hung with black. In the days of which I write there was no thought but that this noble house had its best days yet before it. The heir of all its honours and riches was young and strong, and his father too had many years of life before him. They were always together, and in the whole country round there were not two more stately-looking men. You can see a portrait of my lord in this very room, painted in the armour he wore when he put the cowardly Pisans to flight; you cannot mistake it, it is the third from the east window, and you may search all the portraits in the palaceI might say in the whole city through, before you come on such another face as his. For all that his hair is grey, his eyes are as bright as a falcon's, and he stands like a king-for that picture was painted before his troubles came on him. But where the portrait of his son used to hang beside it the wall is blank. I have heard it said many times, that all the evils which are in the world come through woman-kind (truly the first of all did), but my lord's confessor says it is not so, since those who were cursed through Eve are blessed now by the Gift that came through our Lady. I cannot tell how it may be, but I know well how the troubles that have broken down this noble house began. They came through one fair woman. For in the spring days, of which I have to tell, we who knew him noticed a change in Messer Guido, the heir of the house. He left his hawks on their perches, and his hounds in their kennels for weeks together, and his fingers grew to know the strings of a lute better than the hilt of a sword, and further, I often saw him pacing up and down the square in the moonlight before the great palace you see across the way; it is in ruins now, but then it was as fine a house as any in the city. And soon it was made clear to us what these things meant. My lord had always willed that his son should marry as befitted his rank and noble name, and when he saw the lady on whom Messer Guido's mind was set it pleased him well, For of all living women I think she was the fairest. She came from the East, it was said, and the gems she used to wear had a heathenish look about them; also she knew more, to my thinking, than a Christian woman should, but except for these things, there was nothing of the East about her. She was as fair as a lily, and when she loosed the clasping pearls her golden hair swept the ground on which she trod. It was because she was so unlike all the other women in the city, I think, that Messer Guido loved her, for they all had eyes and hair as dark as his own, and things which a man may see every day he soon ceases to heed at all. And the love in his own eyes hid from him that though hers were as bright as stars, they were as cold also when they looked on him. Sometimes I thought in my own mind that she had too much beauty for a mortal woman, and mused whether she might perhaps be one of those who lived long ago, and whose loveliness was a curse to men, for she often made me think of Helen of Troy for whom the kings fought ten full years, or of the queen who, they say, sits in that wondrous tomb which men call the Pyramid, and whose beauty drives men mad. Also it seemed to me a thing impossible that any woman should refuse our young lord what he asked. But through that summer, though they were side by side continually, she seemed to care no more for him than for the little page who held her bridle. One evening, I remember, when the feast was over in our palace, the two were standing together at the head of the great staircase as the guests were departing, and I heard Messer Guido say,' You give no heed to words or deeds of mine, princess, and yet I would do more for you than ever man did for woman.' The princess laughed. That may well be,' she said. Just then the door opened and we heard one singing to a lute above. 'The king he had one daughter, As fair as fair could be; 'The king he sat and listened, While pages poured him wine, "What shall he bring for dower? He may search the wide world o'er, And find no gem or jewel She hath not in her store." 'Said one, "the gift I offer |