Note the abruptness and vigor of the style.  Where does it seem effective?  Where unduly harsh?  Why does the poet welcome the third bard?  What things does the poem satirize?

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP. (PAGE 17.)

The incident is real, except that the actual hero was a man, not a boy.

1. =Ratisbon= (German Regensburg).  A city in Austria, stormed by Napoleon in 1809.

11. =Lannes=.  Duke of Montebello, a general in Napoleon’s army.

20.  This sentence is incomplete.  The idea is begun anew in line 23.

What two ideals are contrasted in Napoleon and the boy?  By what means is sympathy turned from one to the other?  Show how rapidity and vividness are given to the story.

HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX. (PAGE 19.)

Browning thus explains the origin of the poem:  “There is no sort of historical foundation about Good News from Ghent.  I wrote it under the bulwark of a vessel off the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse ‘York,’ then in my stable, at home.”  It would require a skilful imagination to create a set of circumstances which could give any other plausible reason for the ride to “save Aix from her fate.”

14. =Lokeren=.  Twelve miles from Ghent.

15. =Boom=.  Sixteen miles from Lokeren.

16. =Dueffeld=.  Twelve miles from Boom.

17. 19, 31, etc. =Mecheln= (Fr. Malines), =Aershot=, =Hasselt=, etc.  The reader may trace the direction and length of the ride in any large atlas.  Minute examinations of the route are, however, of no special value.

Note the rapidity of narration and the galloping movement of the verse; the time of starting, and the anxious attention to the time as the journey proceeds.  How are we given a sense of the effort and distress of the horses?  How do we see Roland gradually emerging as the hero?  Where is the climax of the story?  Note, especially, the power or beauty of lines 2, 5, 7, 15, 23, 25, 39, 40, 47, 51-53, 54-56.

HERVE RIEL. (PAGE 22.)

(Published in the Cornhill Magazine, 1871.  Browning gave the L100 received for the poem to the fund for the relief of the people of Paris, who were starving after the siege of 1870.)

The cause of James II., who had been removed from the English throne in 1688, and succeeded by William and Mary, was taken up by the French.  The story is strictly historical, except that Herve Riel asked a holiday for the rest of his life.

5. =St. Malo on the Rance=.  On the northern coast of France, in Brittany.  See any large atlas.

43. =pressed=.  Forced to enter service in the navy.

44. =Croisickese=.  A native of Croisic, in Brittany.  Browning has used the legends of Croisic for poetic material in his Gold Hair of Pornic and in The Two Poets of Croisic.