[Footnote 18:  See Robert Browning and Alfred Domett.  Edited by F.G.  Kenyon. (Smith, Elder & Co., 1906).]

[Footnote 19:  It is worth noticing, as a curious point in Browning’s technique, that in the stanza (ababcc) in which this and some of his other poems are written, he almost always omits the pause customary at the end of the fourth line, running it into the fifth, and thus producing a novel metrical effect, such as we find used with success in more than one poem of Carew.]

[Footnote 20:  Browning’s authority for the story, which is told in many quarters, was North Wanley’s Wonders of the Little World, 1678, and the books there cited.]

8.  THE RETURN OF THE DRUSES:  A Tragedy in Five Acts.

[Published in 1843 as No.  IV. of Bells and Pomegranates (Poetical Works, 1889, Vol.  III., pp. 167-255).  Written in 1840 (in five days), and named in MS. Mansoor the Hierophant.  The action takes place during one day.]

The story of The Return of the Druses is purely imaginary as to facts, but it is founded on the Druse belief in divine incarnations, a belief inculcated by the founder of their religion, Hakeem Biamr Allah, the sixth Fatemite Caliph of Egypt, whose pretension to be an incarnation of the Divinity was stamped in the popular mind by his mysterious disappearance, and the expectation of his glorious return.  Browning here gives the rein to his fervid and passionate imagination; in event, in character, in expression, the play is romantic, lyrical and Oriental.  The first line—­

      “The moon is carried off in purple fire,—­”

sounds the note of the new music; and to the last line the emotion is sustained at the same height.  Passionate, rapid, vivid, intense and picturesque, no stronger contrast could be imagined than that which exists between this drama and King Victor and King Charles.  The cause of the difference must be sought in the different nature of the two subjects, for one of Browning’s most eminent qualities is his care in harmonising treatment with subject. King Victor and King Charles is a modern play, dealing with human nature under all the restrictions of a pervading conventionality and an oppressive statecraft.  It deals, moreover, with complex and weakened emotions, with the petty and prosaic details of a secondary Western government. The Return of the Druses, on the other hand, treats of human nature in its most romantic conditions, of the mystic East, of great and immediate issues, of the most inspiring of crises, a revolt for liberty, and a revolt under the leadership of a “Messiah,” about whom hangs a mystery, and a reputation of more than mortal power.  The characters, like the language, are all somewhat idealised.  Djabal, the protagonist, is the first instance of a character specially fascinating to Browning as an artistic subject:  the deceiver of others or of himself