An Introduction to the Study of Browning

Theatre, April 25, 1853, Miss Helen Faucit taking the part of Colombe; also, with Miss Alma Murray as Colombe, at St. George's

he conceives the honour and the favour to be sufficient, and makes no pretence at offering love as well. On the other hand, Valence, a poor advocate of Cleves, who has stood by Colombe when all her other friends failed, offers her his love, a love to which she can only respond by "giving up the world"; in other words, by relinquishing her duchy, and the alliance with a Prince who is on the way to be Emperor. We have nothing to do with the question of who has the right and who has the might: that matter is settled, and the succession agreed on, almost from the beginning. Nor are we made to feel that any disgrace or reputation of weakness will rest on Colombe if she gives up her duchy; not even that the pang at doing so will be over-acute or entirely unrel

length portrait of a woman that Browning has drawn," certainly one of the sweetest and

d my birthday-

done on me the

used. But now, at the first and yet final trial, she is proved and found to be of noble metal. The gay girlishness of the young Duchess, her joyous and generous light heart; her womanliness, her earnestness, her clear,

e speaks, is a fine sketch of the contemplative, bookish man who finds no more congenial companion and study than a successful man of action. His attitude of detachment, a mere spectator in the background, is well in keeping with the calm and thoughtful character of the play. Valence, the true hero of the piece, the "pale fiery man" who can speak with so moving an eloquence, whether he is pleading the wrongs of his townsmen or of Colombe, the rights of Berthold or of himself, is no less masterly a portrait than the Prince, though perhaps less wholly unconventional a character. His grave earnestness, his honour as a man and passion as a lover, move our instinctive sympathy, and he never forfeits it. W

good-hearted old courtier, whom not even a court had deprived of a heart, though the dangerous influence of the conscience

is certainly not the most "dramatic" of Browning's plays. "Colombe's Birthday," it was said on the occasion, "is charming on the boards, clearer, more d

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in Boston Literary Wo