"The Ring and the Book."

A Browning authority "who does not merge the appreciator into the adulator" calls "The Ring and the Book" a huge novel in twenty thousand lines, told not after the manner of Scott, but of Balzac; it tears the hearts out of a dozen characters, it tells the same story from ten different points of view. It is loaded with detail of every kind and description." Later, he says: "If your interest in human nature is keen, curious, almost professional; if nothing man, woman or child has been, done, or suffered, is without interest for you; if you are fond of analysis, and do not shrink from dissection, you will prize 'The Ring and the Book' as the surgeon prizes the last great contribution to comparative anatomy or pathology."

The greatest work of Robert Browning is unquestionably "The Ring and the Book." It is perhaps the fault of the commentators who approach Browning as a problem, that the public generally fear to approach him at all.

But if the devotees of Browning could induce the ever-willing public to read this poem of "intensely human, essentially simple and direct, dramatic and lyrical work," they would help to bring about the time when the once popular attitude towards Browning's "Ring and the Book" would seem as unjustifiable as to judge Goethe only by the second part of Faust."

"The Ring and the Book" belongs to Browning's later years, as does also his "Red Cotton Nightcap Country," its fellow in character if not in length.

The title needs explanation. The book grew out of an incident in Browning's life in Florence. According to his custom, he was rummaging one day among "old books" at a second-hand dealer's stall, when he chanced upon a curious "old book," for which he paid a sixpence, containing the full account of a murder trial in Rome one hundred and seventy years previous. It gave, in full, the pleadings and counter-pleadings of the lawyers on both sides and the statements of all the witnesses. This was "The Book." "The Ring" was an invention of Robert Browning.

Gold in its purity must be mixed with alloy before it is hard enough for man to fashion it for his purposes; so the Roman jeweler, in making a ring, mixed an alloy with the gold until its form was complete, then with an acid dissolved the alloy and left the ring pure gold. So Browning takes the facts of the Book and fashions a Ring, or an environment to contain them. He was the jeweler; the setting of the old tragedy in poetic form is Browning's "Ring and the Book."

Briefly told, the story follows the fate of the unfortunate heroine, Pompilia, and that of Count Guido Franceschini,--a girl of sixteen years and a man of fifty. Count Guido, after having spent the better part of his life in the service of the Church without attaining the advancement he desired, decides to forsake his priestly office and retire for greater leisure to his ancestral castle. Realizing that his means were insufficient to maintain the style befitting his rank, he gained the consent of Comparini and his wife, wealthy farmers of the middle class, to his marriage with their daughter Pompilia, and retires with her to his estate.

The cruelty and violence of the Count soon caused his young wife to flee from him. This was accomplished under the protection and with the assistance of a young priest named Giuseppe Caponsacchi, who agreed to convey her safely to her old home. Count Guido pursues and overtakes the fleeing couple, and has them arrested on the charge of elopement. The priest is banished and Pompilia is relegated to a convent. The parents then confess that Pompilia is not their own daughter, and therefore not their legal heir.

Pompilia after five months is released, apparently at the suggestion of the nuns, on account of her failing health, and returns to the home of Comparini. Guido, with hired assassins, follow her there, and murder not only the unfortunate Pompilia, but the aged couple, Comparini. Then follows the arrest of the Count and his accomplices; the trial, condemnation and execution of all. The events of the great tragedy as related by the Count, Pompilia, Caponsacchi, the Pope, and others, each from his or her standpoint; and the case, as discussed by the two opposing factions, gives the views of "half Rome" and "the other Half." Browning, in conclusion, explains why he has chosen to put the Book into poetic form, and the lesson he has endeavored to teach. The lesson is well expressed in the Pope's sad words:

The Pope's Soliloquy is a masterly piece of work, and other chapters are full of emotion and tragic beauty.

The thought, the imagery and the wisdom embodied in this poem make it a triumph of poetic art, the masterpiece of one of the greatest poets of the nineteenth century.