of his accusers, who know that he might, and therefore suspect that he will, turn to evil purpose his military successes and the power which they have gained him over the army.  Generals of their own blood have betrayed them:  how much more will this barbarian?  Luria learns of the treachery of his allies in time to take revenge, he is urged to take revenge, and the means are placed in his hands, but his nobler nature conquers, and the punishment he deals on Florence is the punishment of his own voluntary death.  The strength of love which restrains him from punishing the ungrateful city forbids him to live when his only love has proved false, his only link to life has gone.  But before he dies he has the satisfaction of seeing the late repentance and regret of every enemy, whether secret schemer or open foe.

              “Luria goes not poorly forth. 
      If we could wait!  The only fault’s with time;
      All men become good creatures:  but so slow!”

In the pathos of his life and death Luria may remind us of another unrequited lover, Strafford, whose devotion to his king gains the same reward as Luria’s devotion to his adopted country.

In Luria’s faithful friend and comrade Husain we have a contrasted picture of the Moor untouched by alien culture.  The instincts of the one are dulled or disturbed by his Western wisdom and experience; Husain still keeps the old instincts and the unmixed nature, and still speaks the fervid and highly-coloured Eastern speech.  But while Husain is to some extent a contrast with Luria, Luria and Husain together form an infinitely stronger contrast with the group of Italians.  Braccio, the Florentine Commissary, is an admirable study of Italian subtlety and craft.  Only a writer with Browning’s special knowledge and sympathies could have conceived and executed so acute and true a picture of the Italian temper of the time, a temper manifested with singular appropriateness by the city of Machiavelli.  Braccio is the chief schemer against Luria, and he schemes, not from any real ill-will, but from the diplomatic distrust of a too cautious and too suspicious patriot.  Domizia, the vengeful Florentine lady, plotting against Florence with the tireless patience of an unforgetting wrong, is also a representative sketch, though not so clearly and firmly outlined as a character.  Puccio, Luria’s chief officer, once his commander, the simple fighting soldier, discontented but honest, unswervingly loyal to Florence, but little by little aware of and aggrieved at the wrong done to Luria, is a really touching conception.  Tiburzio, the Pisan leader, is yet finer in his perfect chivalry of service to his foe.  Nothing could be more nobly planned than the first meeting, and indeed the whole relations, of these magnanimous and worthy opponents, Luria and Tiburzio.  There is a certain intellectual fascination for Browning in the analysis of mean natures and dubious motives, but of no contemporary can it be more justly said that he rises always and easily to the height and at the touch of an heroic action or of a noble nature.