“For the main criminal I have no hope
      Except in such a suddenness of fate. 
      I stood at Naples once, a night so dark,
      I could have scarce conjectured there was earth
      Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all: 
      But the night’s black was burst through by a blaze—­
      Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore,
      Through her whole length of mountain visible: 
      There lay the city thick and plain with spires,
      And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea. 
      So may the truth be flashed out by one blow,
      And Guido see; one instant, and be saved.”

The whole monologue is of different order from all the others.  Every one but this expresses a more or less partial and fragmentary view. Tertium Quid alone makes any pretence at impartiality, and his is the result of indifference, not of justice.  The Pope’s speech is long, slow, discoursive, full of aged wisdom, dignity and nobility.  The latter part of it, containing some of Browning’s most characteristic philosophy, is by no means out of place, but perfectly coherent and appropriate to the character of the speaker.

Last of all comes the second and final speech of Guido, “the same man, another voice,” as he “speaks and despairs, the last night of his life,” before the Cardinal Acciaiuoli and Abate Panciatichi, two old friends, who have come to obtain his confession, absolve him, and accompany him to the scaffold:—­

      “The tiger-cat screams now, that whined before,
      That pried and tried and trod so gingerly,
      Till in its silkiness the trap-teeth join;
      Then you know how the bristling fury foams. 
      They listen, this wrapped in his folds of red,
      While his feet fumble for the filth below;
      The other, as beseems a stouter heart,
      Working his best with beads and cross to ban
      The enemy that come in like a flood
      Spite of the standard set up, verily
      And in no trope at all, against him there: 
      For at the prison-gate, just a few steps
      Outside, already, in the doubtful dawn,
      Thither, from this side and from that, slow sweep
      And settle down in silence solidly,
      Crow-wise, the frightful Brotherhood of Death.”

We have here the completed portrait of Guido, a portrait perhaps unsurpassed as a whole by any of Browning’s studies in the complexities of character.  In his first speech he fought warily, and with delicate skill of fence, for life.  Here, says Mr. Swinburne, “a close and dumb soul compelled into speech by mere struggle and stress of things, labours in literal translation and accurate agony at the lips of Guido.”  Hopeless, but impelled by the biting frenzy of despair, he pours out on his awe-stricken listeners a wild flood of entreaty, defiance, ghastly and anguished humour, flattery, satire, raving blasphemy and foaming impenitence.  His desperate venom and blasphemous raillery is part despair, part calculated horror.  In his last revolt against death and all his foes, he snatches at any weapon, even truth, that may serve his purpose and gain a reprieve:—­