Duchess of Cleves and Juliers. At the time, represented in the play, one year of her rule has passed amid the adulations of a court, and she is now to celebrate her birth-day and the anniversary of her coronation. But the Duchy descends according to Salic law, and, this very day, Berthold, the nearest heir male of her father, backed by the influence of the Pope, the Emperor, and the Kings of France and Spain, demands the throne. The arrival of this demand gives the author a fine opportunity to paint the littleness and inconstancy of men nurtured amid the artifices of courts. Each courtier tries to shift upon the other the unpleasant duty of presenting the demand to the Duchess; and each shrinks from the task, desirous of doing nothing which shall forfeit the favor of their mistress, and, at the same time, of conciliating the new claimant. At this point, Valence, a young advocate, comes with a petition from the inhabitants of Cleves for the redress of their grievances, and, unconscious of its purport, is induced, as the price of an admission, to present the demand. The Duchess is surprised, heaps reproaches on her courtiers, who apologize, shuffle, and temporize. The prince is at the city gates, and they have no counsel for the emergency. Valence, with noble manliness and chivalry, assumes the responsibilities from which they shrink, is invested by the Duchess with their offices, and by his courage and promptitude, at once relieves her from her embarrassments and wins her heart. She submits to him the claims of Berthold, and bids him decide upon their validity. Valence decides in favor of the prince, but before the decision is made known, the prince makes, through Valence, proposals of marriage with the Duchess. This dashes all the hopes of Valence, yet he manfully acquaints her with his decision and Berthold's offer. The

Duchess, during the interview, obtains from him a confession of his love, and then, in the presence of the court, rejects the proposals of the prince, with his prospects of imperial rule, for the hand of the humble advocate of Cleves.

The character of Valence, for in this play the characters become valuable for what they are, as well as for what they say, is drawn with bold yet discriminating touches. Thrown into the midst of court

iers, his large sympathies for humanity and his heart, burning with the wrongs of his townsmen, contrast finely with their intriguing selfishness. While their courtly accomplishments, their paltry shifts and evasions but sink them deeper in trouble, acting from the instincts of nature and loyal to his sovereign, because loyal to his own conscience, he inspires a confidence, which he will use only for Truth and Right. While the Duchess supposes that the fickle impotence of her courtiers has left her succorless, he reveals to her the true sources of sovereignty. When she says, "heard you not I rule no longer," he replies:

What makes, instead of rising, all as one,
And teaching fingers, so expert to yield
Their tool, the broad-sword's play, or carbine's
trick?

-What makes that there's an easier help they
think,

For you, whose name so few of them can spell,
Whose face scarce one in every hundred saw,
You simply have to understand their wrongs,
And wrong will vanish-so, still trades are
plied,

And swords lie rusting, and myself am here?
There is a vision in the heart of each,
Of justice, mercy, wisdom; tenderness
To wrong and pain, and knowledge of its cure,
And these embodied in a woman's form,
That best transmits them, pure as first received,
From God above her to mankind below."

And when Berthold reiterates his demand

in person, speaking of the weakness of the Duchess, he answers:

"You see our Lady; there, the old shapes

stand!

A Marshal, Chamberlain, and Chancellor,
Be helped their way, into their death put life,
And find advantage! So you counsel us.
But let strength feel alone; seek help itself,
And, as the inland hatched sea-creature hunts
The sea's breast out; as bittered 'mid the waves,
The desert brute makes for the desert's joy,
So turns our lady to her true resource,

Passing o'er hollow fictions, worn-out types,
-So, I am first her instinct fastens on!

And prompt, I say, so clear as heart can speak,
The people will not have you.
Never, in this gentle spot of earth,
Can you become our Colombe, our play-queen,
For whom, to furnish lilies for her hair,
We'd pour our veins forth to enrich the soil."

We would gladly quote the whole scene between the Duchess and Valence, where Valence makes known the Prince's proposals of marriage, and where the Duchess learns the secret of his love for her. He is hardly an eloquent advocate for the Prince, since his own love has sharpened his vision to the want of it in others. The Duchess asks why Berthold's offer does not imply love.

"Val. Because not one of Berthold's words and looks

Had gone with Love's presentment of a flower
To the beloved; because bold confidence,
Open superiority, free pride-

Love owns not, yet were all that Besthold
owned,

Because, where reason even finds no flaw,
Unerringly a lover's instinct may."

But upon this topic we have room to extract only those beautiful lines, in which, when the Prince in person proffers his hand and the Duchess seems about to accept it, he resigns his claims, not only unrepiningly, but with a kind of triumph.

"Val. Who thought upon reward? And yet how much,

Comes after-oh what amplest recompense!} Is the knowledge of her, nought? the memory nought?

Lady, should such an one have looked on you, 'Ne'er wrong yourself so far as quote the world And say, Love can go unrequited here!

You will have blessed him to his whole life's end;

Low passions hindered, baser cares kept back, All goodness cherished where you dwelt and dwell.

What would he have?

He holds you; you, both form

And mind, in his; where self-love makes such

room

For love of you, he would not serve you now
The vulgar way; repulse your enemies,
Win you new realms, or best in saving you,
Die blissfully, that's past so long!

He wishes you no need, thought, care of him,
Your good, by any means, himself unseen,
Away, forgotton!"

Berthold is the counterpart of Valence. With his nature half chivalric and half epicurean, with his aristocratic tastes and worldly views of marriage, he represents

the highest class of artificial men. Valment, without regard to consequences; ence acts always from principle and sentibut Berthold, even in wooing a bride, keeps in view his darling projects of self-aggrandizement. He thus makes love to the Duchess:

"You are what I, to be complete, must have, Find, now, and may not find, another time. While I career on all the world for stage, There needs at home my representative. The Duch. Such rather would some warrior woman be;

One dowered with lands and gold, or rich in friends; One like yourself!

Berth.

Lady, I am myself,

And have all these. I want what's not my

self, Nor has all these. swords? Here's one already; be a friend's next gift A silk glove, if you will-I have a sword! The Duch. You love me then.

Why give one hand two

Berth. Your lineage I revere; Honor your virtue, in your truth believe, Do homage to your intellect, and bow Before your peerless beauty. The Duch. But, for love; Berth. A further love I do not understand. Our best course is to say these hideous truths, And see them, once said, grow considerable, Like waters shuddering from their central bed, Black with the midnight bowels of the earth, That once up-spouted by an earthquake's throe A portent and a terror-soon subside, Freshen apace, take gold and rainbow hues In sunshine, sleep in shade; and, at last, Grow common to the earth as hills and trees, Accepted by all things they came to scare. The Duch. You cannot love then. Berth.

And again :

Charlamagne, perhaps !”

"A

All the dawn promised shall the day perform. Mil. So may it be; but--

You are cautious, love? Are sure that, unobserved, you scaled the walls?

Mer. Oh, trust me! Then our final meeting's fixed?

To-morrow night?

Mil. Farewell! Stay, Henry. Wherefore?
His foot is on the yew-trew bough-the turf
Receives him-now the moonlight, as he runs,
Embraces him-but he must go-is gone-
Ah, once again he turns-thanks, thanks, my
love!

He's gone-Oh, I'll believe him, every word!
I was so young-I loved him so-I had
No mother,-God forgot me, and I fell.
There may be pardon yet-all's doubt be-
yond.

Surely the bitterness of death is past!

But their meetings have not been wholly unobserved. For several nights, an old retainer has seen a muffled stranger enter his lady's chamber, and now, in view of the proposed marriage, his conscience will not permit him, any longer, to defer the discovery of the secret. Thorold is thun

derstruck at the disclosure. He sends for her to meet him in the library, on the pretence that "the passage in that old Italian book we hunted for so long is found."

Thor.

Mildred, here's a line(Don't lean on me-I'll English it for you) "Love conquers all things." What love conquers them?

What love should you esteem---best love? Mil. True love. Thor. I mean, and I should have said, whose love is best

Of all that love, or that profess to love? Mil. The list's so long. There's father's, mother's, husband's--

Thor. Mildred, I do believe a brother's love
For a sole sister, must exceed them all!
For, see now; only see! there's no alloy
Of earth that creeps into the perfect'st gold
Of other loves---no gratitude to claim;
You never gave her life--nor even aught
That keeps life-never tended her.--instructed,
Enriched her--so, your love can claim no
right

O'er hers, save pure love's claim--that's what
I call

Freedom from earthliness. You'll never hope
To be such friends, for instance, she and you,
As when you hunted cowslips in the woods,
Or played together in the meadow hay.
Oh, yes---with age, respect comes, and your
worth

Is felt; there's growing sympathy of tastes,

"Arise and come away." Come whither?-far

Enough from the esteem, respect, and all
The brother's somewhat insignificant
Array of rights! all which he knows before-
Has calculated on so long ago!

I think such love (apart from yours and mine)
Contented with its little term of life,
Intending to retire betimes, aware

How soon the background must be a place for it,

I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds All the world's love in its unwordliness, Mil. What is this for?

Thor.

This, Mildred, is it for;
Oh, no, I cannot go to it so soon!
That's one of many points my haste left out ---
Each day, each hour throws forth its silk-slight
film

Between the being tied to you by birth,
And you, until those slender threads compose
A web, that shrouds her daily life of hopes,
And fears, and fancies, all her life, from

Mil.

Thor.

Speak!
I will.

I

Is there a story men could--any man
Could tell of you, you would conceal from me?
I'd never think there's falsehood on that lip!
Say "There is no such story men could tell,"
And I'll believe you, tho' I disbelieve

The world--the world of better men than I,
And women, such as I suppose you---Speak!
[After a pause.] Not speak? Explain then!
Clear it up then! Move

Some of the miserable weight away,

That presses lower than the grave! Not speak?

Some of the dead weight, Mildred! Ah, if I Could bring myself to plainly make their charge Against you! Must I, Mildred? Silent still? [After a pause.] Is there a gallant that has, night by night,

Admittance to your chamber? [After a pause.]

Then his name! Till now, I only had a thought for you--But now,his name!

Mil.

Thorold, do you devise

Mildred persists in refusing to name her lover, but proposes to proceed in the marriage with the Earl. Thorold, shuddering at what he supposes an infamous fraud upon Mertoun, and a contamination of a holy rite, exposes her guilt to Austin and Guendolen, and, frenzied with madness, roams all day over his estates, to return at night beneath the tree, which Mertoun climbs to reach his lady's window. Here he meets Mertoun, forces him to unmask himself and draw his sword, then madly slays the unresisting youth. The dying lover reveals to him the true nature of his love, and his proposed reparation. Thorold, stricken with remorse, drinks poison, bears to Mildred the intelligence of the deed, who expires, forgiving him his rash act,

and then he himself dies.

We will quote from this play one more passage, where, when Austin and Guendolen, have gathered around the corpse of the Earl, Thorold turns to them, and says:

He fell just here! Now, answer me. Shall you, in your whole

life

---You, that have naught to do with Mertoun's

fate,

Now, you have seen his breast upon the turf, Shall you ere walk this way if you can help? When you and Austin wander arm in arm Thro' our ancestral grounds, will not a shade Be ever on the meadow and the waste--Another kind of shade, than when the night Shuts the woodside with all its whispers up! But will you ever so forget his breast As willingly to cross the bloody turf Under the black yew avenue? That's well! You turn your head! and I then ?Guen.

What is done

Is done! My care is for the living. Thorold, Bear up against the burthen---more remains To set the neck to! Thor.

Dear and ancient trees My fathers planted, and I loved so well! What have I done that, like some fabled

crime

Of gore, lets loose a fury, leading thus
Her miserable dance amidst you all?
Oh, never more for me shall winds intone
With all your tops a vast antiphony,
Demanding and responding in God's praise!
Hers ye are now---not mine! Farewell---
farewell!

Of "Lusia" we have no space for a stinct and feeling of the orient brought into complete analysis. It represents the inconflict with the calculating intellect of Europe, and nobly vindicating its moral superiority over the cold-hearted Machiavellianism, by which it is entoiled and overmatched. It has been called Mr. Browning's greatest work; but, in our opinion, though admirable for its thought and philosophy, it is surpassed, as a drama, by either of the two preceding. Its theories are too imperfectly transfused into character. It is poem and commentary in one. The persons, instead of exhaling the philosophy of the piece, unconsciously, as their vital atmosphere, are continually philosophizing upon themselves. Even Lusia, the warm-hearted Moor, the fiery creature of feeling, is ever and anon hinting, as it were, Now, you are going to witness a fine specimen of impulsiveness and instinctive action," and indulges in ethnological speculations upon the differences between the Asiatic and the European. Lusia and Braccio, indeed, seem very much like abstract propositions defining themselvesegotistical transactions. Now, Hamlet, or lago, or Falstaff, is as representative of a distinct class, as Lusia the Arab, or Braccio the Florentine, but in Shakespeare the generic is so individualized, that the abstraction is forgotten in the man. Lusia and Othello, for instance, are both Moors, both credulous, generous, impulsive, unschooled in wile or craft; but while Othello imprints his character on every word and act of his, without thinking of it, Lusia is constantly reminding us, 'I do so and so, because I am the Moor, the representative of Oriental spontaniety, and am not one of your cold, cunning, artful Europeans.'"

But we have not room for futher remark ful, as in many respects it is. Perhaps, if upon this play, excellent and beautiwe should compare it with "Colombe's Birthday," or with "A Blot on the 'Scutcheon," we should say that in this play there are the nobler materials, but in the others, they are the more exquisitely wrought.

Mr. Browning's other plays are "King Victor and King Charles," "The Return of the Druses," and "A Soul's Tragedy," works of various excellence, and all mark