sake of religion because he thought such imprisonment the most irrational and the least justifiable. Had he been better acquainted with the story of Bonnivard, he would have found the latter's career unsuited to the purposes of his poem, for the old hero was unfortunately wavering and inconsistent in his religious beliefs.

1. 170. To hoard my life.

Note the effect of hoard. Por

tray the character of the elder brother.

1. 189. Those. "There is much delicacy in this plural. By such a fanciful multiplying of survivors the elder brother prevents self-intrusion; himself and his loneliness are, as it were, kept out of sight and forgotten."

HALES.

1. 191. mockery. What is this meaning?

1. 210. I burst my chain with one strong bound. The climax of the poem.

I?

1. 213. I. What effect is sought through this repetition of

1. 230. A selfish death. His religious scruples prevented his committing suicide.

1. 252. carol of a bird. Could such a song have produced such an effect? Is the psychology of the poem accurate?

1. 268. A lovely bird with azure wings. To-day bird lore is so popular that a poet would hardly dare introduce under ordinary circumstances a bird without having in mind some definite species. Would it have been better if the Prisoner at this point had spoken of a wren or pewee as having perched on his window-sill?

1. 301. keepers grew compassionate. Why do you think the keepers grew compassionate?

1. 318. I made a footing in the wall.

Would he have made

a footing in the wall if the bird had not sung? 1. 331. The quiet of a loving eye.

Does this line suggest

the attitude of the Prisoner toward nature before he climbed to the window? Does it not rather express the feeling of some meditative person, like Wordsworth, who had lived long in a beautiful region and had become attached to the familiar surroundings?

1. 339. white-walled distant town. Villeneuve, an old Roman town.

1. 341. A little isle. "Between the entrances of the Rhone and Villeneuve, not far from Chillon, is a small island; the only one I could perceive, in my voyage round and over the lake, within its circumference. It contains a few trees (I think not above three), and from its singleness and diminutive size has a peculiar effect upon the view." BYRON.

1. 374. to love despair. Is the Prisoner, like other heroes of the poet, only a disguise for Byron himself? Is this part of the significance of the "fable"?

1. 387. strange to tell. Byron, it is said, had great compassion for the sufferings of animals. In the first canto of Childe Harold he called the Spanish national sport a "sweet sight for vulgar eyes," and he expressed much sympathy for the wounded horses and bulls.

1. 392. Regained my freedom with a sigh. How much of the Prisoner's individuality is left? Has he become merely a typical prisoner?

SELECTIONS FROM POEMS

ROBERT BROWNING

THE LIFE OF ROBERT BROWNING

ROBERT BROWNING, "the subtlest asserter of the soul in song," was imaginer and inventor of a legion of men and women. Except Shakespeare, probably no one else ever bodied forth so many human forms. These fictitious and historical personages, with their vast differences of character, of social rank, and of intellectual fibre, show the breadth of his interests and sympathies. Any live coals among the black attracted him.

In his poems about these people of his it is not the outward events that are to Browning the chief subject of interest. He is a student of mind and heart, a psychologist, and it is in the reactions of the human spirit itself that he finds his field of poetic endeavor. Thus, while another poet of an older day might tell us of a battle, indicating the chief actors and describing the main events and their effects directly and forcibly, Browning would portray the occurrences through the eyes of one of the fighters, show us how the circumstances affected an actual contestant, how he acted and why. This is a modern method, and Browning was one of the pioneers in using it. He believed in nothing so

much as in the human individual. He realized tha progress or regress in society depends upon live souls and what they do and think. Thus, every moment in the mind of an individual, when a moral decision must be made, was to Browning sacred, a crisis for the world.

The love of nature which in Wordsworth we find supreme is in Browning secondary to a passion for humanity. He is even greatly interested in curious. and warped characters if only they be genuine and have confidence in their own ideas and opinions. In this connection Henry van Dyke calls him a carver of gargoyles. (See My Last Duchess, Up at a Villa Down in the City.)

Having selected his characters, Browning often lets one of them talk the poem all out. In the course of his monologue one discovers all the essential facts of the situation, and one sees, besides, what are the opinions and nature of the speaker. He often begins as if the reader or some imaginary person had been engaged in conversation with him for some time. Thus the poem seems but a fragment of the speaker's talk, the heart and core of it, with no introduction or explanation. Understanding this favorite method of Robert Browning, one finds his works less difficult to comprehend.

For one beginning to read him, there remains, however, a difficulty in his use of language, which is so scholarly, so competent, so elliptical, so metaphoric, yet so uncondescending often, that one can only understand it after many times re-reading. One must get acquainted with his mannerisms before one can enjoy any of his longer works. He cared very little to please by exterior beauty

as did the earlier romantic poets. The tendency of his work is to make one look deeper and deeper into things as they are, and not to dwell with delight on expression. In this respect he is a true product of the scientific age in which we live. And in addition, one finds this poet always earnest, vigorous, profound, discriminating; and often exquisite, inspiring, and splendid.

Robert Browning was born in Camberwell, one of the suburbs of London, in 1812. Among the groves still standing thereabout, he played and walked as a child, and there he composed some of his poems. In his early years he had many pet animals, and he was fond of collecting scientific material. His love for stories was fostered by the habits and tastes of his father and mother, and in his father's library were laid the foundations of that thorough culture and scholarship which his books evince. His father was a bank clerk, who delighted in books and constantly bought and read them. He delighted in his two children no less, and when Robert was a little fellow his father used to take him in his arms and walk to and fro in the dusky firelit library of an evening, singing him Greek odes to an old tune which was a favorite of his. Thus, too, was the tale of the Fall of Troy taught to the child and amply illustrated by the dog and cat and the red coals in the grate. From his mother, an earnest Scotch woman, he heard the old Highland lyrics so full of passionate sadness. All the father's reading was shared with the son. From intellectual beginnings such as these he was able, without much experience in the schools, to make, under tutors, rapid advances in education. It was characteristic of him that he liked and studied everything. He learned to fence, to box, to