it being pretended by Guido that his wife had been guilty of adultery with the priest Caponsacchi, and that his deed was a simple act of justice.  He was found guilty by the legal tribunal, and condemned to death; Pompilia’s innocence being confirmed beyond a doubt.  Guido then appealed to the Pope, who confirmed the judicial sentence.  The whole of the poem takes place between the arrest and trial of Guido, and the final sentence of the Pope; at the time, that is, when the hopes and fears of the actors, and the curiosity of the spectators, would be at their highest pitch.

The first book, entitled The Ring and the Book, gives the facts of the story, some hint of the author’s interpretation of them, and the outlines of his plan.  We are not permitted any of the interest of suspense.  Browning shows us clearly from the first the whole bearing and consequence of events, as well as the right and wrong of them.  He has written few finer passages than the swift and fiery narrative of the story, lived through in vision on the night of his purchase of the original documents.  But complete and elaborate as this is, it is merely introductory, a prologue before the curtain rises on the drama.  First we have three representative specimens of public opinion:  Half-Rome, The Other Half-Rome, and Tertium Quid; each speaker presenting the complete case from his own point of view.  “Half-Rome” takes the side of Guido.  We are allowed to see that the speaker is a jealous husband, and that his judgment is biased by an instinctive sympathy with the presumably jealous husband, Guido.  “The Other Half-Rome” takes the side of the wife, “Little Pompilia with the patient eyes,” now lying in the hospital, mortally wounded, and waiting for death.  This speaker is a bachelor, probably a young man, and his judgment is swayed by the beauty and the piteousness of the dying girl.  The speech of “Half-Rome,” being as it is an attempt to make light of the murder, and the utterance of a somewhat ridiculous personage, is exceedingly humorous and colloquial; that of the “Other Half-Rome” is serious, earnest, sometimes eloquent.  No contrast could be more complete than that presented by these two “sample-speeches.”  The objects remain the same, but we see them through different ends of the telescope.  Either account taken by itself is so plausible as to seem almost morally conclusive.  But in both instances we have down-right apology and condemnation, partiality bred of prejudice. Tertium Quid presents us with a reasoned and judicial judgment, impartiality bred of contempt or indifference; this being—­

      “What the superior social section thinks,
      In person of some man of quality
      Who,—­breathing musk from lace-work and brocade,
      His solitaire amid the flow of frill,
      Powdered peruke on nose, and bag at back,
      And cane dependent from the ruffled wrist—­
      Harangues in silvery