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Roland. (See Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.)

Rosny. (Asolando, 1889.) Love, pure and passionate, unrestrained by thought of self, and gluttonous of sacrifice, was the undoing of the hero. No prudence could keep Rosny from his fate. Strength in love, and its victory in death is judged by the maiden to be the best. Although there does not seem to be any historical incident referred to in the poem, it may be advisable to say that Maximilian de Béthune, duke of Sully (1560-1641), the French statesman, was born at the château of Rosny, near Mantes. The title of his baronetcy was derived from the name of his birthplace, and he was commonly known by the name of Rosny all his life. Murray says that “Rosny is a dirty little village about half-way between Mantes and Bonnières. The château was the birthplace of Sully, where he was frequently visited by his friend and master, Henri IV., who slept here the night after his victory at Ivry. The king, having overtaken Sully on the road desperately wounded, carried on a litter, accompanied by his squires in a like plight, fell on his neck and affectionately embraced him. The château is a plain, solid building of red brick, with stone quoins and a high tent roof, surrounded by a deep ditch. It was rebuilt by Sully at the beginning of the seventeenth century. From 1818 down to the Revolution of 1830 Rosny was the favourite residence of the Duchesse de Berri, who erected here a chapel to contain the heart of her husband.”

Rosamund Page. (Martin Relph.) She was the young girl who was shot by the military for supposed treason, and whose innocence would have been proved by her lover Parkes, if Mr. Martin had made known his presence when he saw him arrive at the village from the eminence on which he was standing.

“Round us the Wild Creatures.” (Ferishtah’s Fancies.) The lyric to the first poem, “The Eagle,” commences with this line.

Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli. (Dramatic Lyrics, in Bells and Pomegranates, No. III., 1842. Since transferred to Men and Women in Poetical Works, 1863.) Geoffrey de Rudel was a gentleman of Blieux, in Provence, and one of those who were presented to Frederick Barbarossa in 1154. He was a troubadour. Sismondi, in his Literature of the South of Europe, vol. i., p. 87 (Bohn’s Edit.), gives the following account of Rudel: – “The knights who had returned from the Holy Land spoke with enthusiasm of a Countess of Tripoli, who had extended to them the most generous hospitality, and whose grace and beauty equalled her virtues. Geoffrey Rudel, hearing this account, fell deeply in love with her without having ever seen her, and prevailed upon one of his friends, Bertrand d’Allamanon, a troubadour like himself, to accompany him to the Levant. In 1162 he quitted the court of England, whither he had been conducted by Geoffrey, the brother of Richard I., and embarked for the Holy Land. On his voyage he was attacked by a severe illness, and had lost the power of speech when he arrived at the port of Tripoli. The Countess, being informed that a celebrated poet was dying of love for her on board a vessel which was entering the roads, visited him on shipboard, took him kindly by the hand, and attempted to cheer his spirits. Rudel, we are assured, recovered his speech sufficiently to thank the Countess for her humanity, and to declare his passion, when his expressions of gratitude were silenced by the convulsions of death. He was buried at Tripoli, beneath a tomb of porphyry which the Countess raised to his memory, with an Arabic inscription. I have transcribed his verses on “Distant Love,” which he composed previous to his last voyage: —

 
“Angry and sad shall be my way,
If I behold not her afar:
And yet I know not when that day
Shall rise – for still she dwells afar.
God! who hast formed this fair array
Of worlds, and placed my love afar,
Strengthen my heart with hope, I pray,
Of seeing her I love afar.
 
 
“Oh Lord I believe my faithful lay,
For well I love her, though afar;
Though but one blessing may repay
The thousand griefs I feel afar,
No other love shall shed its ray
On me, if not this love afar;
A brighter one, where’er I stray
I shall not see, or near, or far.”
 

In Mr. Browning’s poem, Rudel chooses for his device a sun flower, which, by ever turning towards the sun, has parted with the graces of a flower to become a mimic sun. He says that men feed on his songs; but the sunflower’s concern is not for the bees which gather the sweetness of the flower’s breast, – its concern is solely for the sun. So turns Rudel longingly to the East, where his lady dwells afar.

St. John. (A Death in the Desert.) The poem is a monologue of the dying saint in the desert near Ephesus. He records what he has seen of our Lord, and sadly anticipates the time when men will ask, “Did he say he saw?”

St. Martin’s Summer. (Pacchiarotto, with Other Poems, 1876.) A husband and wife, both young, are reflecting on the fact that they have each buried love under some tomb now moss-grown and forgotten. The man admits that somehow, somewhere, he has pledged his “soul to endless duty, many a time and oft.” Grief is fickle, for time is a traitor. Love, being mortal, must pass away, and he does not think either of them so very guilty; they grieved over their lost love at the time, though now it is forgotten. Yet, though Love’s corpse lies quiet, its ghost sometimes escapes, and it is not well to build too durable a monument over it; trellis-work is better. It is better to own the power of first love, recognise its permanence in the soul, and let the succeeding love be estimated at its value, which to the poet does not seem to be very high. Dead loves are the potent, though living loves are ghost dispellers. From the oft-repeated expressions of Mr. Browning’s opinion, and from the drift of this poem, we might be warranted in concluding that he believed only in first love.

Notes. —St. Martin’s Summer; or, St. Martin’s Little Summer. From October 9th to November 11th. At the close of autumn we generally have a month of magnificent summer weather. “Expect St. Martin’s summer, halcyon days” (Shakespeare, I Hen. VI., Act i., sc. 2), and, “Farewell thou latter spring! farewell All-hallown summer!” It is also called “St. Luke’s Summer,” and Martinmas, and Martilmasse, because the feast of St. Martin is kept on November 11th. St. Luke’s Day is October 18th. Verse 12, Penelope was the wife of Ulysses. During the long absence of her husband she was several times importuned by suitors to marry them. She told them that she could not marry again, even if she were assured that Ulysses were dead, until she had finished weaving a shroud for her aged father-in-law. Every night she pulled out what she had woven during the day, and so her work made no progress. Ulysses: is a corrupt form of Odusseus, the king of Ithaca. He is one of the principal heroes in the Iliad of Homer, and the chief hero of the Odyssey.

St. Peter’s at Rome. (Christmas Eve.) The great colonnade on either side of St. Peter’s Square is of semicircular form, and is beautifully described by the poet as

 
“Arms wide open to embrace
The entry of the human race.”
 

Saul. This is perhaps the grandest and most beautiful of all Mr. Browning’s religious poems. It is a Messianic oratorio in words. The influence of music in the cure of diseases has long been a subject of study by physicians. Disraeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, has an article on “Medical Music.” In Dr. Burney’s History of Music there is a chapter on “The Medicinal Powers attributed to Music by the Ancients.” Dr. Burney thought this influence was partly due to its occasioning certain vibrations of the nerves, as well as its well-known effect in diverting the attention. Depression of mind, delirium and insanity, were anciently attributed to evil spirits, which were put to flight by suitable harmonies. It was for this reason that David was sent for to cure the mental derangement of Saul. The influence of music on the lower animals is often exceedingly marked, and can scarcely in their case, as in our own, be due to the association of ideas. The peculiar and sweet melancholy inspired by distant church bells on a calm summer evening in the country, though difficult to account for, is not less real than is the inspiring and invigorating effect produced by march music on weary soldiers. Life is a harmonious process; where there is most health there is most harmony in the way in which the bodily functions are performed. A great physician has described health as “going easy.” It would be strange, therefore, if animal life were not attuned to sympathy with mechanical harmony. The most modern theory is that “Music is one of the stimuli which regulates the vaso-motor activity employed in tissue nutrition.” (See Lancet, May 9th, 1891, p. 1055.) In another article in the same journal, for May 23rd, the subject is still further treated. The writer says: “The value of music as a therapeutic method cannot yet be so precisely stated that we may measure it by dosage or by an invariably similar order of effects. Of its wholesome influence in various forms of disease, however, there can be little or no doubt. In making this assertion we do not, of course, assign to it any specific or peculiar action. It is no quack’s nostrum, no reputed conqueror of ache or ailment. It is only, as we have already shown in a recent article, one of those intangible but effective aids of medicine which exert their healthful properties through the nervous system. It is as a mental tonic that music acts. Accordingly, we may naturally expect it to exert its powers chiefly in those diseases, or aspects of disease, which are due to morbid nervous action. The evidence of its utility on occasions where fatigue or worry has disturbed the proper balance and relation between the mind and body of the so-called healthy will explain its action in disease. We can readily understand how a pleasing and lively melody can awake in a jaded brain the strong emotion of hope, and energising by its means the languid nerve-control of the whole circulation, strengthen the heart-beat and refresh the vascularity of every organ. We can picture the same brain in forced irritation fretfully stimulating the service of the vaso-motor nerves, and starving the tissues of their blood-supply. Here, again, it is easy to comprehend the regulating effect of quieter harmony, which brings at once a rest and a diversion to the fretting mind. Even aches are soothed for a time by a transference of attention; and why, then, should not pain be lulled by music?” That it sometimes is thus relieved, we cannot doubt. It is especially in the graver nervous maladies, however, that we should look for benefit from this remedy. Definite statistics on the subject may not be forthcoming, but all that we have said goes to show that states of insanity, which are largely influenced by the condition of the sympathetic system, should find some part of their treatment in the hands of the musician. It is, therefore, for such cases especially that we would enlist his services. In nervous diseases music produces a stimulating effect on the trophic nerves, these are so called because they are supposed to govern or control the normal metabolism of their tissues (or the phenomena whereby living organisms assimilate their food into their tissues). Depressing news will impede or even arrest digestion, as is well known; cheerful conversation and music assist the assimilation of our sustenance. The almost total ignorance of the ancients concerning physiological processes caused them to attribute to demons the maladies which they could not comprehend. Music was prescribed for Saul empirically: it mattered little to the patient, so long as he was cured, whether music expelled a demon who was tormenting him, or lubricated the wheels of his nervous mechanism. David took his harp to Saul’s tent, untwisted the lilies which were twined round the strings to keep them cool, and began by playing the tune all the sheep knew, appealing to his mere animal nature, and bringing him into harmony with the lower forms of healthy life; for there are points in our lives touched alike by men and sheep. Then he played the tune which the quails love, and that which delights the crickets, and the music which appeals to the quick jerboa; for there is a bond of sympathy between these creatures of our Father’s hand and ourselves which we do ill to overlook; it is well for us sometimes to allow ourselves to be influenced by those things which God has made to delight the beautiful dumb creatures whom St. Francis of Assisi delighted to call his brothers and sisters. It was another step towards Saul’s recovery when his soul achieved the harmony of a quail and a jerboa. Then he advanced his theme: he led the patient by his melody to the help tune of the reapers; brought before his saddened soul the good friendship of the toilers at their merry-making; expanded his heart in the warmth of brotherliness, the sympathy of man with man. But higher yet! The march of the honoured dead is played, – the praise of the men who have forgotten the faults in the work the man completed. And after that the joyful marriage chant, the abounding life and cheerfulness of the maidens; the march, too, of the comradeship of man in his greater task, the compulsion of the mechanical forces to aid the progress of the race. More exalted strains follow when, in the spirit of the worship of the one God of Israel, the Levites ascend the altar steps to appease Jehovah in sacrifice. By slow degrees the music had done the first part of its work: the sluggish forces of his life began to tremble, the quiverings of returning vital force began to thrill his torpid nerves. The song went forward: the wild joys of living were celebrated, the value of man’s life, the good providence of God, the friendship, the kingship, the gifts combined to dower one head with the wealth of the world, – the stimulus of high ambition, the surpassing deeds, the crowning fame all concentrated in Saul, king of Israel. And the leap of David’s heart voicing itself in the cry “Saul!” went to his wintry soul as “spring’s arrowy summons to the vale, making it laugh in freedom and flowers.” Saul was “released and aware,” the despair was gone; pale and worn, he stood by the tent pole, once more himself; he was recalled to life, but not yet fitted to enjoy it. David pushes his advantage: the future, with its glorious prospect, the reward which God shall give to the successors of the king; and as David sings of the ages to come, which will ring with his praises and the fame of his mighty deeds, the life stream courses through his veins, he begins to live once more, he puts out his hand, touches tenderly the brow of the harpist, and as he looks on David the beautiful soul of the youthful singer goes out to the king in love, the magnetism of his sympathy touches him, and he longs to impart to him more than the past and present; he would give him new life altogether ages hence as at the moment. If he would do this, how much more would God do!

 
“Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.
Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite Care!”
 

If he would fain do so much for this suffering man, would save, redeem and restore him, interpose to snatch Saul the mistake, the failure, from ruin, and bid him win by the pain-throb, the intensified bliss of the next world’s reward and repose, if he would starve his own soul to fill up Saul’s life, surely God would exceed all that David could desire to do, as the Creator in everything surpasses the creature, and as the Infinite transcends the finite. Then, in a magnificent prophetic burst, the singer tells Saul:

 
“O Saul, it shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me,
Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever; a Hand like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!”
 

The singer leaves the tent, goes to his home through the night, but not alone: clouds of witnesses hover around him, angels have come to listen to his prophecy, and the air is full of yearning spirits; the earth has awakened; hell has heard the echoes of his song, – her crews are loosed with alarm at the danger which impends; the stars in their courses beat with emotion; all creation palpitates with excitement; but the Hand which impelled him “quenched it with quiet,” and earth in rapture sank to rest. But the world was the better for the blessed news, “felt the new law”; the flowers rejoiced, the heart of the cedars and the sap of the vines responded to the thrill of joy the brooks murmured, “E’en so, it is so!” (What are known as the Messianic Psalms, or those in which David sings of the Christ, who was to come, are the following: Psalm ii., xxi., xxii., xlv., lxxii., and cx.) – In Longus’s romance of Daphnis and Chloe there occur two passages which may have furnished Browning with the suggestion of this series of tunes. The first is found on pp. 303-4 (I quote from Smith’s translation, in the Bohn edition): “He ran through all variations of pastoral melody; he played the tune which the oxen obey, and which attracts the goats, – that in which the sheep delight. The notes for the sheep were sweet, those for the oxen deep, those for the goats were shrill. In short, his single pipe could express the tones of every pipe which is played upon. Those present lay listening in silent delight; when Dryas rose up, and desired Philetas to strike up the Bacchanalian tune, Philetas obeyed; and Dryas began the vintage-dance in which he represented the plucking of the grapes, the carrying of the baskets, the treading of the clusters, and the drinking of the new-made wine… Upon losing sight of her, Daphnis, seizing the large pipe of Philetas, breathed into it a mournful strain as of one who loves; then a lovesick strain as of one who pleads; lastly, a recalling strain, as of one who seeks her whom he has lost.” The other is from pp. 332-4: “Daphnis disposed the company in a semicircle; then standing under the shade of a beech-tree, he took his pipe from his scrip, and breathed into it very gently. The goats stood still, merely lifting up their heads. Next he played the pasture tune, upon which they all put down their heads and began to graze. Now he produced some notes soft and sweet in tone: at once his herd lay down. After this he piped in a sharp key, and they ran off to the wood, as if a wolf were in sight.” Again, may not the impulse to write this poetry have been derived from Heber’s Spirit of Hebrew Poetry? On p. 197, vol. ii., of the translation, there is a kind of challenge to poets in general: “Take David in the presence of Saul. More than one poet has availed himself of the beauty of this situation; but no one to my knowledge has yet stolen the harp of David, and produced a poem, such even as Dryden’s ode in the composition of Handel, where Timotheus plays before Alexander. If Browning did accept the challenge, it was only to refute the observation by his success.” —Pall Mall Gazette.

Notes. – The Bible story of David playing before Saul is found in 1 Samuel xvi. 14-23. Stanza i., Abner: the son of Ner, captain of Saul’s host (1 Samuel xxvi. 5). Stanza vi., jerboa: a small jumping rodent animal, called also the jumping hare. Stanza viii., Male-Sapphires: the asterias or star-stone, a semi-transparent sapphire. Stanza xiv., Hebron: the most southern of the three cities of refuge west of Jordan; Kidron: a brook in Jerusalem.

Science in Browning. The following are some references to scientific matters in the poet’s works appended to my essay on “Browning as a Scientific Poet” in Browning’s Message to his Time. The list of references makes no pretension to be an exhaustive one – it could be considerably amplified by a careful reperusal of the works – but it will suffice for the purpose: —

Anatomy.– Poems, v., p. 152; vi., p. 158. Fifine, p. 68.

Astronomy.– Prince H. S., p. 96. Sordello, pp. 187, 188.

Botany.– Poems, i., p. 194; v., pp. 193, 208, 228, 312. Fifine, p. 14. Sordello, p. 20.

Chemistry.– Poems, iii., pp. 219, 220; iv., p. 238; v., pp. 155, 156. Prince H. S., pp. 44, 91. Red Cotton, p. 196. Croisic, pp. 90, 92. Fifine, pp. 65, 97, 130. Ferishtah, pp. 39, 40, 45, 76. Pippa P., p. 250. Sordello, p. 194. Ring and Book, i., p. 2.

Electricity.– Poems, vi., pp. 183, 203. Red Cotton, p. 196. Fifine, p. 115.

Evolution.– Poems, i., p. 188. Prince H. S., p. 68. Fifine, p. 162. La Saisiaz, p. 57.

Light.– Poems, iii., p. 170. Jocoseria, p. 124. Fifine, pp. 65, 29. Numpholeptos, p. 101. Ring and Book, i., p. 71; iii., p. 170; iv., pp. 57, 79.

Materia Medica and Therapeutics.– Pietro of Abano, p. 84. Prince H. S., p. 77. Paracelsus, p. 111.

Medicine.– Poems, iv., p. 273; v., p. 220. Dramatic Idyls, ii., preface. Red Cotton, p. 199. Ferishtah, pp. 27, 55, 56. Ring and Book, iv., p. 12.

Pharmacy.– Poems, iii., p. 96; v., p. 220.

Physiology.– Poems, v., p. 191. Sordello, p. 195. Tray.

Scientific Matters in General.– Poems, v., pp. 128, 302; vi., p. 203. Dramatic Idyls, ii., p. 68. Fifine, pp. 51, 86. La Saisiaz, pp. 69, 82. Ferishtah, p. 131. Sordello, pp. 25, 203. Ring and Book, iv., pp. 61, 77, 180.

The references are to the six-volume edition of the poems, and to the original separate editions of the larger works.

Sebald. The man in Pippa Passes who murdered Ottima’s husband.

Serenade at the Villa, A. (Men and Women, 1855; Lyrics, 1863; Dramatic Lyrics, 1868.) A lover serenades his lady on a sultry summer night; and the burden of his song is that, as he watches through the dark night at her villa, so he vows to watch through life over her path, and shield her from danger and serve her in secret devotion, as he sings to her now while she sleeps. The lady dreamed of music, but slept on, though “the earth turned in her sleep in pain,” Earth has heard many serenades and many vows made only to be broken. The iron gate which ground its teeth to let the serenader pass seemed to be disputing the lover’s protestations; and one fears that if his mistress was like the earth, and “turned in her sleep” too, she would derive little satisfaction from his music.

Setebos. (Caliban and Setebos.) The god of the Patagonians, whom Caliban worships because his mother did so. Caliban thinks he lives in the moon, and has made mankind for his amusement.

Shah ’Abbas. (Ferishtah’s Fancies, III.) Shah ’Abbas, surnamed the Great, was one of the most celebrated of the sovereigns of Persia. He came to the throne at the age of eighteen, in the year 1585. He defeated the predatory Uzbeks, who occupied Khorassan, after a long and severe struggle, in a great battle near Herat (1597), and drove them out of his dominions. He was successful in the wars he waged against the Turks, and thereby greatly extended his dominions. He defeated the united armies of the Turks and Tartars in 1618. Baghdad was taken in 1623. When he died, in 1628, his dominions reached from the Tigris to the Indus. The circumstances narrated in Mr. Browning’s poem are not historical. The subject of the poem is Belief. “It is beautiful, but is it true?” Ferishtah has now achieved dervishhood, and a pupil asks, “Was this life lived, was this death died, not dreamed?” It was answered, “Many attested it for fact.” A cup-bearer left on record a story of the death of the brave Shah ’Abbas of simple fear at discovering a spider in his wine. The cup-bearer was eye-witness of the fact. The Dervish says we must distinguish between the noble act of belief, and mere easy acquiescence. Twenty soldiers testify to the death of a comrade; yet he comes home safe and sound after the wars. He had two sons. One who heard that his father was living rejoiced; the other preferred the evidence of the twenty men who saw him die. Ten years later home comes Ishak. The townsmen bid the man of ready faith go and welcome his father, and the unbelieving one to hide his head. The father would praise the loving heart in preference to the sceptical head. “Is God less wise?” asks Ferishtah. The lyric teaches that the true light of life is love. The dark ways of life and the mysteries of the human heart will prove stones of stumbling and rocks of offence where love is not the guide. With love and truth our obstacles disappear.

Shakespeare. The poem which Mr. Browning wrote for the Shakespearean Show-Book, 1884, commenced with the word “Shakespeare!” See Names, The.

Shop. (Pacchiarotto, with other Poems, 1876.) “As even in science all roads,” it has been said, “lead to the mouth,” so is it with Art and Letters. The poet deplores the life of a tradesman who knows no other use of life but to enable him to drive a roaring business, his “meat and drink but money chink,” – and so, because flesh must be fed, spirit is chained to the counter. The poet would have the tradesman brighten his daily life with art and song, as men do who let their good angels sometimes converse with them, in lands where poets and painters think more of art than money. The danger and wickedness of compelling the soul to be the eternal slave of sordid desires and petty anxieties is pointed out in this poem, and by “shop” we are not only to think of tradesmen, but of all the large class of those who are, like the man in the Pilgrim’s Progress, too busy with the muck-rake to look at the heavens above them, and losing their higher selves in their absorption in earthly employments.

Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis. (See Garden Fancies.) The name of some old scholar, who has written a book, which is read by a profane fellow in a garden, who throws it into a decaying tree, there to be in company with congenial fungi.

“Sighed Rawdon Brown.” (See Rawdon Brown.)

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister. [Dramatic Lyrics, in Bells and Pomegranates, III., 1842, under the title of “Camp and Cloister – I. Camp (French), II. Cloister (Spanish).”] There is, of course, no historical basis for the subject-matter of this poem; but there is no reason why such things should not occur in a convent or monastery. Human nature, we find, is pretty much the same, under whatever conditions we examine it; and petty malice, ill-nature, and evil passions, find their congenial soil alike in the cloister and the world. Some of the most unpleasant failings of our nature are no doubt directly fostered by cloister life, just as religious people of every class are often censorious, uncharitable in their judgments, pharisaical and severe. Unless monks and nuns are regularly and entirely employed in useful labour, these evil weeds are certain to spring up in the untilled soil of the human heart. Work is the only remedy for pettiness of spirit, and active employment the only atmosphere for the nobler products of the soul. It must never be forgotten, however, that thousands of the most beautiful characters which have blessed the world have been formed in the cloister; such are being formed now, and will continue to be so formed, in direct proportion to the useful work in which its inmates are employed. – To inferior and evil natures the lofty and noble soul is generally an object of hatred and jealousy. In this poem we have a coarse-minded Spanish monk, boiling over with abhorrence of a good, gentle brother, who loves his flowers, trims his bushes and waters his rose trees with tender solicitude for the welfare of his plants, the only things in the monastery he can love. The simple talk of the hated friar at meal-time and recreation disgusts him; he knows in his heart that the good brother is a saint, though he tries in his malice to rake up some remembrance of a wandering look at odd times, and is not so ritualistically exact as he is himself. He spites him by damaging his plants all he can in a sly and ingenious way. He would like him to lose his chances of salvation if he could, so he will endeavour to pervert his orthodoxy and trip him up on his way to heaven; he will slip in amongst his greengages a wicked French novel; or he will even go so far as to ask Satan’s aid, – when, as he meditates all this evil doing, the vesper bell rings and the wicked old fellow goes to his prayers.

Notes. – Verse ii., “Salve tibi”: a salutation, “Hail to thee!” Verse v., Cross-wise: the use of the sign of the cross is traceable to the earliest Christian times; “The Trinity illustrate”: when the sign of the cross is made it is usual to add internally “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” A Catholic remembers the Trinity in numberless ways; Arian: “One who adheres to the doctrines of Arius, a presbyter of the Church in the fourth century, who held Christ to be a created being, inferior to God the Father in nature and dignity, though the first and noblest of created beings.” (Mosheim.) Verse vii., “The great text in the Galatians” I take to be the tenth verse of the third chapter: “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, ‘Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.’” “It is written,” – that is to say, in the book of Deuteronomy, xxviii., 15 to 68, wherein are set forth at length the curses for disobedience. Those arithmetically-minded commentators on this poem who have been disappointed in finding only some “seventeen works of the flesh” in Galatians v. 19-21 will find an abundant opportunity for their discrimination in the chapter of Deuteronomy to which I refer. The question to settle is “the twenty-nine distinct damnations.” St. James says in his epistle (ii. 10), that “he who offends against the law in one point is guilty of all.” If, therefore, the envious monk could induce his brother to trust to his works instead of to his faith, he would fall under the condemnation of the law, as explained by St. Paul in his epistle. Manichee: “A follower of Manes, a Persian, who tried to combine the Oriental philosophy with Christianity; and maintained that there are two supreme principles: the first of which, light, was held to be the author of all good; the second, darkness, the author of all evil” (Webster’s Dict.). Verse viii., Belial: an evil spirit; “Plena gratiâ Ave, Virgo!”: probably intended to represent “the angelical salutation,” which is “Ave Maria, gratiâ plena” – “Hail, Mary, full of grace!”