The Browning Cyclopædia: A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning

 
“Feeling God loves us, and that all that errs,
Is a strange dream which death will dissipate.”
 

Again he will go o’er the tracts of thought, again will beauteous shapes come to him and unknown secrets be divulged, – priest and lover as of old – “Shelley, Sun-treader,” he cries, “I believe in God, and truth, love – I would lean on thee.” Professor Johnson, in his paper on “Conscience and Art in Browning,” gives the following as the theme of the poem: – “The Divine call and anointing of the poet, so to speak; his sin, which consists in a self-divorce; his decline and degradation as he sinks into the ‘dim orb of self’; finally, his redemption and restoration by Divine love, mediated to him by human love.”

Notes. – “His award,” “Him whom all honour,” “Thou didst smile, poet,” “Sun-treader” (lines 142, 144, 151, 1020): all these refer to Shelley. “A god wandering after beauty” (line 321): Apollo seeking Daphne. Apollo pursued Daphne, who fled from him, seeking the aid of the gods, who changed her into a laurel. “A giant standing vast in the sunset” (line 322): Atlas, one of the Titans, is referred to here.

 
“A high-crested chief
Sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos” (line 324):
 

“After the fall of Troy, many of the Greek chiefs, among them Nestor, set sail for home, while others, at the desire of Agamemnon, remained behind to sacrifice to Pallas. Those who set sail went to the island of Tenedos, where they made offerings to the gods” (Poet Lore, vol. i., p. 244; Homer, Odyssey, iii.). “The dim clustered isles in the blue sea” (line 321): the islands of the Ægean Sea, east of Greece.

 
“Who stood beside the naked swift-footed,
Who bound my forehead with Proserpine’s hair” (line 334):
 

the swift-footed was Hermes, the name of Mercury among the Greeks. He was the messenger of the gods. He was presented by the King of Heaven with a winged cap, called petasus, and with wings for his feet, called talaria. Proserpine was the daughter of Ceres by Jupiter. “As Arab birds float sleeping in the wind” (line 479): this is considered by some to refer to the pelican, by others to the Birds of Paradise.

 
“The king
Treading the purple calmly to his death” (line 568):
 

Agamemnon, to whom his loved Cassandra foretells his doom in vain: —

 
“Well, sire, I yield me vanquished by thy voice;
I go, treading on purple, to my house.”
 

(Potter’s “Agamemnon” of Æschylus, 1017.)

“The boy with his white breast,” etc. (line 574): see Potter’s “Choephoræ” of Æschylus, 1073: Orestes avenged his father’s death by assassinating his mother Clytemnestra and the adulterer Ægisthus. Andromeda (line 656): Andromeda was ordered to be exposed to a sea-monster, and was tied naked to a rock; but Perseus delivered her, changed the monster into a rock, and married her. “The fair pale sister went to her chill grave” (line 963): Antigone interred by night the remains of her brother Polynices against the orders of Creon, who commanded her to be buried alive. She, however, killed herself before the sentence could be executed (see “Antigone” of Sophocles). The long Latin preface to Pauline from the Occult Philosophy of Cornelius-Agrippa is thus englished in Mr. Cooke’s Browning Guide-Book: – “I doubt not but the title of our book, by its rarity, may entice very many to the perusal of it. Among whom many of hostile opinions, with weak minds, many even malignant and ungrateful, will assail our genius, who in their rash ignorance, hardly before the title is before their eyes, will make a clamour. We are forbidden to teach, to scatter abroad the seeds of philosophy, pious ears being offended, clear-seeing minds having arisen. I, as a counsellor, assail their consciences; but neither Apollo nor all the Muses, nor an angel from heaven, would be able to save me from their execrations, whom now I counsel that they may not read our books, that they may not understand them, that they may not remember them, for they are noxious – they are poisonous. The mouth of Acheron is in this book: it speaks often of stones: beware, lest by these it shape the understanding. You, also, who with fair wind shall come to the reading, if you will apply so much of the discernment of prudence as bees in gathering honey, then read with security. For, indeed, I believe you about to receive many things not a little both for instruction and enjoyment. But if you find anything that pleases you not, let it go that you may not use it, for I do not declare these things good for you, but merely relate them. Therefore, if any freer word may be, forgive our youth; I, who am less than a youth, have composed this work.” The preface is dated London, January 1833. V.A. XX. is the Latin abbreviation of Vixi annos viginti, I was twenty years old.

Pearl, A, a Girl. (Asolando, 1889.) According to Eastern fable there is a great power in a pearl: if you could speak the right word, you could call a spirit from the simple-looking stone which would make you lord of heaven and earth. Be this as it may, the poet says if you utter the right word, that evokes for you the love of a girl – held, perhaps, in little esteem by the world – her soul escapes to you, and you are creation’s lord!

“Periods” of Browning. It is usual with students to divide the poet’s work into some four or five periods. Mr. Fotheringham’s classification is as good as any: he makes the periods five. – Period I., “a time of youth and prelude” (1832-1840), the time of Pauline, Paracelsus, and Sordello. During this time the poet was trying the nature and compass of his theme and forming his style. – Period II., “the time of early manhood” (1841-1846), the time of the dramas and early dramatic lyrics. All the dramas except Strafford belong to this time. In this period he was studying how best to use his poetical powers. – Period III. is “the time of maturity,” his manhood and married life (1846-1869). Now he has found his standpoint; he is firm, vigorous, and confident. During this time he gave us Christmas Eve, Men and Women, Dramatis Personæ, and The Ring and the Book. – Period IV. is “the time of his later maturity” (1870-1878). Now the casuistic and argumentative element becomes more prominent; the dramatic aspect retires into the background, the philosophical teacher advances. “His hardest and least poetic work,” it has been said, was put forth in this period: Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, etc. – Period V. (1879-1889), “the time of the latest works.” A period of criticism of life, as in Ferishtah and the Parleyings.

Peter Ronsard. (The Glove.) He tells the story of Sir De Lorge, and how he leaped amongst the lions to recover his lady’s glove.

Pheidippides. (Dramatic Idyls, First Series, 1879.) Pheidippides, an athlete, has been commissioned by the Athenian government to run a race, – to reach Sparta for military assistance in a great crisis in Greek history. Persia has invaded Greece: in her extremity she implores help from the neighbouring Spartans; for two days and two nights Pheidippides the fleet-footed youth ran over hills and along the dales, as fire runs through stubble, and so he bounded on his way with his message. He broke into the midst of the Spartan assembly, told his story, and prayed the prayer of Athens; but Sparta, ever jealous and mistrustful of her great neighbour, heard it coldly, and cast about for excuses. Then the passionate runner cried to the gods of his country – to Pallas Athene, protector of the city, to Apollo, to Diana – to influence the deliberations of the council gathered to hear his message, and to say to them “Ye must!” And no bolt fell from heaven, as they still delayed. At last they gave their answer, – their religion forbade them to go to war while the moon was half-orbed in the sky; her circle must be full ere they could assist; Athens must wait in patience! The youth wasted neither word nor look on the false and vile Spartans, but turned his face homewards, crying to the gods of his land; rushing past the woods and streams where they had often manifested themselves to mortals he reproached them with faithlessness and ingratitude, – his countrymen had honoured them with sacrifice and libation, and in their extremity they disregarded their cry for help. All at once, as he ran by the ridge of Parnassus, there in the cool of a cleft was seated the majestical god Pan! Grave, kindly were his eyes, his face amused at the mortal’s awe of him. “Halt, Pheidippides!” he cried; and with his brain in a whirl the youth stood still. “Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?” he graciously began. “How is it Athens only in Hellas holds me aloof?” Then the god told the young man how they might trust him; that he was to bid Athens take heart, – that when the Persians were not only lying dead on their soil, but cast into the sea, then they were to praise great Pan, who had fought in their ranks and made one cause with the free and the bold Athenians. And for a pledge he gave him the fennel he grasped in his hand. He went on to speak of reward for himself, but of that Pheidippides would not speak; if he ran before, now he flew indeed; he touched not the earth with his foot, the air was his road. “Praise Pan!” he cried, as he reached Athens, “we stand no more in danger!” Then Miltiades asked him what his own reward should be? What had the god promised for him? “Release from the racer’s toil,” he said. “But he would fight and be foremost in the field of fennel, pounding Persia to the dust; then marry a certain maid when Athens was free, and in the coming days tell his children how the god was awful, yet so kind.” The brave youth fought at Marathon; and when Persia was dust. “Once more run,” they cried, “Pheidippides, to Akropolis, say Athens is saved, thank Pan, – go shout!” Then the youth flung down his shield and ran as before. “Rejoice! we conquer!” he cried; and with joy bursting his heart he died. He had gained the reward promised by Pan, – release from the racer’s toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in pelf, – he could desire no greater bliss. Herodotus tells the whole story (Book VI., 94-106). Darius was desirous of subduing those people of Greece who had refused to give him earth and water. He sent against Eretria and Athens Datis, who was a Mede by birth, and Artaphernes, son of Artaphernes, his own nephew; and he despatched them with strict orders, having enslaved Athens and Eretria, to bring the bondsmen into his presence. 102. “Having subdued Eretria, and rested a few days, they sailed to Attica, pressing them very close, and expecting to treat the Athenians in the same way as they had the Eretrians. Now, as Marathon was the spot in Attica best adapted for cavalry, and nearest to Eretria, Hippias, son of Pisistratus, conducted them there. 103. But the Athenians, when they heard of this, also sent their forces to Marathon; and ten generals led them, of whom the tenth was Miltiades… 105. And first, while the generals were yet in the city, they despatched a herald to Sparta, one Pheidippides, an Athenian, who was a courier by profession, one who attended to this very business. This man, then, as Pheidippides himself said, and reported to the Athenians, Pan met near Mount Parthenion, above Tegea; and Pan, calling out the name of Pheidippides, bade him ask the Athenians why they paid no attention to him, who was well inclined to the Athenians, and had often been useful to them, and would be so hereafter. The Athenians, therefore, as their affairs were then in a prosperous condition, believed that this was true, and erected (after Marathon presumably), a temple to Pan beneath the Akropolis, and in consequence of that message they propitiate Pan with yearly sacrifices and the torch race. 106. This Pheidippides, being sent by the generals at that time when he said Pan appeared to him, arrived in Sparta on the following day after his departure from the city of the Athenians, and on coming in presence of the magistrates, he said, ‘Lacedæmonians, the Athenians entreat you to assist them, and not to suffer the most ancient city among the Greeks to fall into bondage to barbarians; for Eretria is already reduced to slavery, and Greece has become weaker by the loss of a renowned city,’ He accordingly delivered the message according to his instructions, and they resolved indeed to assist the Athenians; but it was out of their power to do so immediately, as they were unwilling to violate the law; for it was the ninth day of the current month, and they said they could not march out on the ninth day, the moon’s circle not being full. They therefore waited for the full moon.” How the Athenians won the famous battle of Marathon, “following the Persians in their flight, cutting them to pieces, till, reaching the shore, they called for fire and attacked the ships,” should be read also. Herodotus says the Persians lost about six thousand four hundred men; the Athenians only one hundred and ninety-two. Mr. Browning seems unduly severe on the Spartans, for Herodotus tells us (120) that “two thousand of the Lacedæmonians came to Athens after the full moon, making haste to be in time; that they arrived in Attica on the third day after leaving Sparta. But having come too late for the battle, they nevertheless desired to see the Medes; and having proceeded to Marathon, they saw the slain; and afterwards, having commended the Athenians and their achievement, they returned home.”

Notes. – Χαίρετε, νικωμεν: Rejoice! we conquer! Zeus, the Defender: Jupiter was worshipped under many aspects, such as “the Lightning Flasher,” “the Thunderer,” “the Flight Stayer,” “the Best and Greatest,” etc. “Her of the aegis and spear” == Minerva, who was represented with a shield and spear. “Ye of the bow and the buskin” == Diana, who was represented with a bow and buskined legs of a huntress. Pan, the goat-god. “Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix” (tettix, a grasshopper): the Athenians sometimes wore golden grasshoppers in their hair as badges of honour, because these insects are supposed to spring from the ground, and thus they showed they were sprung from the original inhabitants of the country. Sparta, the capital of Laconia, also called Lacedæmon. The distance from Athens to Sparta is from 135 to 140 miles. The trained couriers had great physical strength and powers of endurance, being regularly employed for such occasions as this. “Persia bids Athens proffer slaves’-tribute”: “Darius (B.C. 493) sent heralds into all parts of Greece to require earth and water in his name. This was the form used by the Persians when they exacted submission from those they were desirous of bringing under subjection.” (Rollins’ Ancient History, vol. ii., p. 267.) Eretria, one of the principal cities of Eubœa, which is the largest Island in the Ægean Sea, now called Negroponte. Hellas == Greece. Athené, Minerva. Phoibos, an epithet of Apollo; Artemis, the Greek name of Diana. Olumpos == Olympus, the mountain in Greece believed to be the seat of the gods. Filleted victim: sacrificial victims were generally decked out with ribbons and wreaths, and sometimes the cattle had their horns gilded. Fulsome libation– fulsome in the sense of rich, liberal. Libations were offerings of oil or wine poured on the ground in honour of the deity. Parnes: the mountain is called Parthenion above Tegea, by Herodotus. Ivy: the Greeks highly esteemed the ivy. It was consecrated to Apollo, and Bacchus had his brows and spear decked with it; Miltiades, the Greek general who commanded the Athenians at the battle of Marathon; Marathon day: “The victory of Marathon preserved the liberties of Greece, and perhaps of Europe, from the dominion of Persia; was fought in the month of September, B.C. 490” (Wordsworth’s Greece, p. 109). Akropolis, the citadel or stronghold of Athens. Fennel-field: Marathon in Greek meant this; when Pan gave the handful of fennel to the courier he gave him Μαραθρον – that is to say, the fennel field where the battle was to be. “Rejoice!” χαίρετε: the first of the two Greek words which are at the head of the poem. Pan (lit. “the pasturer” – from the same root as the Lat. pastor, shepherd, and panis, bread). He was the protecting deity of flocks and herds and hunters. He was represented by the ancients with a pug nose, very hairy, and with horns and feet of a goat. He was described as wandering about in the woods and dales and hills, playing with the nymphs and looking after the flocks. He was sleepy in the noonday sun, and did not like to be disturbed; at such times, therefore, shepherds did not play their pipes. His voice and appearance used to frighten those who saw him – so much so, that our word “panic” is derived from his name. It is said that he won the fight at Marathon for the Athenians by causing a “panic” amongst the Persians. He was the god of prophecy, and there were oracles of Pan. Pan as the Universe, the All, is a misinterpretation of his name. The Romans identified Pan with their Faunus. [Mrs. Browning’s fine poem The Dead Pan should be read in this connection.]

Pictor Ignotus. Florence, 15 – . (Dramatic Romances and Lyrics in Bells and Pomegranates, VII., 1845.) The subject is not historical, but is conceived in the true spirit which animated the work of the great religious (chiefly monastic) painters of the middle ages. The speaker says he could have painted pictures like those of a certain youth whose praise is in every one’s mouth. He could have executed all his soul conceived: hand and brain were pair, and all he saw he could have committed to his canvas. Each passion written on the countenance, whether Hope a-tiptoe for embrace, or Rapture with drooping eyes, or Confidence lighting up the forehead, all that human faces gave him, has he saved. He has dreamed of going forth in his pictures to pope or kaiser, to the whole world, with flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight, through streets re-named from the triumphal passing of his picture, to the house where learning and genius should greet his coming; and the thought has frightened him, and he has shrunk from the popularity as a nun shrinks from the gaze of rough soldiery; it terrified him to think of his works dragged forth to be bought and sold as household stuff, to have to live with people sunk in their daily pettiness, to see their faces, listen to their prate, and hear his work discussed. If at times he feels his work monotonous, as he goes on filling the cloisters and eternal aisles with the same Virgins, Babes, and Saints, with the same cold, calm, beautiful regard, at least no merchant traffics in his heart. The sacredness of the place where his pictures moulder and grow black will protect him from vain tongues which would criticise and discuss his work. This poem has been much misunderstood. Some have seen in it the bitter complaint and the wail of half-suppressed longing of one whom fame has passed unnoticed; he has failed to please the world, and will now retire to pursue his art in the cloister. Nothing could be further from the poet’s purpose in this work. Others, and those the majority of critics, have found in the poem a revelation of the true art-spirit, as though Mr. Browning had made a great discovery in this connection. The plain fact is that this spirit of retirement, this abhorrence of working for the praise of men, this hatred of applause-seeking and of self-advertisement, was that which animated the men of old Catholic times who built our cathedrals and our abbeys, and who painted our great pictures and glorified all Europe with works of art. The poem might fairly be considered as uttered by a Fra Angelico with reference to Raffaele. The great monastic painters, like Angelico, painted under the eye of God, looking upon their work as immediately inspired by His Spirit: for God and through God, not through men and for men, was their work done. It has been the life-work of Mr. Ruskin to point this out. These men were not actuated by the vain advertising spirit which animates so much of our modern work of all kinds. Humility is a virtue now little appreciated: it was the life of these old artists’ souls. Pictor Ignotus was not jealous of the popular youth whose pictures were decked with flowers by the people as they were borne through the streets which were re-named in their honour. He did not want the mob’s applause; he shrank from the appreciations of the thoughtless street folk as a nun would shrink from the compliments of a band of rough soldiery. All this beautiful spirit is fast dying out. When a writer like Browning reminds us that there were once, in “15 – ,” in a place like Florence, men animated by it, critics cry out, “What a discovery! How wonderful!” It is a discovery like ours of gold in South Africa, where the men of old time went to Ophir to find the precious metal.

Note. – Vasari says that the Borgo Allegri at Florence took its name from the joy of the inhabitants when a Madonna by Cimabue was carried through it in procession.

Pied Piper of Hamelin, The. (Dramatic Lyrics, 1842.) Written to amuse little Willie Macready. The story told in the poem is one of a class of legends dealing with the subject of cheating magicians of a promised reward for services rendered. Verstegan, in his Restitution of Decayed Intelligence (1634), has the story on which apparently Mr. Browning’s poem is written. “A piper named Bunting undertook for a certain sum of money to free the town of Hamelin, in Brunswick, of the rats which infested it; but when he had drowned all the rats in the river Weser, the townsmen refused to pay the sum agreed upon. The piper, in revenge, collected together all the children of Hamelin, and enticed them by his piping into a cavern in the side of the mountain Koppenberg, which instantly closed upon them, and a hundred and thirty went down alive into the pit (June 26th, 1284). The street through which Bunting conducted his victims was Bungen, and from that day to this no music is ever allowed to be played in this particular street.” The same tale is told of the fiddler of Brandenberg: the children were led to the Marienberg, which opened upon them and swallowed them up. When Lorch was infested with ants, a hermit led the multitudinous insects by his pipe into a lake, where they perished. As the inhabitants refused to pay the stipulated price, he led their pigs the same dance, and they, too, perished in the lake. Next year a charcoal burner cleared the same place of crickets; and when the price agreed upon was refused, he led the sheep of the inhabitants into the lake. The third year came a plague of rats, which an old man of the mountain piped away and destroyed. Being refused his reward, he piped the children of Lorch into the Tannenberg. There are similar Persian and Chinese tales. (See Dr. Brewer’s Reader’s Handbook.) Hamlin or Hamelin is a town in the province of Hanover, Prussia. “Some trace the origin of the legend to the ‘Child Crusade,’ or to an abduction of children. For a considerable time the town dated its public documents from the event” (Encyc. Brit.). Julius Wolff wrote a poem on the subject (Berlin, 1876). See S. Baring Gould’s Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, 2nd ser., 1868; Grimm’s Deutsche Sagen, Berlin, 1866; and Reitzenstein’s edition of Springer’s Geschichte der Stadt Hameln, Hameln, 1861. Some authorities consider the story a myth of the wind.

Pietro Comparini (The Ring and the Book) was the reputed father of Pompilia, and was murdered with his wife by Count Guido.

Pietro of Abano. (Dramatic Idyls, second series, 1880.) [The Man.] Dr. Furnivall, in a note to Mr. Sharpe’s excellent paper on Pietro of Abano in the Browning Society’s Reports, No. V., gives the following particulars of the character from the Nouvelle Biographie Universelle, Paris, 1855, i. 29-31. “Pietro of A’bano, Petrus de A’pano or Aponensis, or Petrus de Padua, was an Italian physician and alchemist; born at Abano, near Padua, in 1246, died about 1320. He is said to have studied Greek at Constantinople, mathematics at Padua, and to have been made Doctor of Medicine and Philosophy at Paris. He then returned to Padua, where he was Professor of Medicine, and followed the Arabian physicians, especially Averroes. He got a great reputation, and charged enormous fees. He hated milk and cheese, and swooned at the sight of them. His enemies, jealous of his renown and wealth, denounced him to the Inquisition as a magician. They accused him of possessing the philosopher’s stone, and of making, with the devil’s help, all money spent by him come back to his purse, etc. His trial was begun; and had he not died naturally in time, he would have been burnt. The Inquisitors ordered his corpse to be burnt; and as a friend had taken that away, they had his portrait publicly burnt by the executioner. In 1560 a Latin epitaph in his memory was put up in the church of St. Augustine. The Duke of Urbino set his statue among those of illustrious men; and the Senate of Padua put one on the gate of its palace, beside those of Livy, etc. His best-known work is his Conciliator Differentiarum quæ inter Philosophos et Medicos versantur (Mantua, 1472, and Venice, 1476, fol.); often reprinted. Other works are: 1. De Venenis, eorumque Remediis, translated into French by L. Boet (Lyons, 1593, 12mo); 2. Geomantia (Venice, 1505, 1556, 8vo); 3. Expositio Problematum Aristotelis (Mantua, 1475, 4to); 4. Hippocrates de Medicorum Astrologia Libellus, in Greek and Latin (Venice, 1485, 4to); 5. Astrolabium planum in tabulis ascendens, continens qualibet hora atque minutæ æquationes Domorum Cæli, etc. (Venice, 1502, 4to); 6. Dioscorides digestus alphabetico ordine (Lyons, 1512, 4to); 7. Heptameron (Paris, 1474, 4to); 8. Textus Mesues noviter emendatus, etc. (Venice, 1505, 8vo); 9. Decisiones physionomiæ (1548, 8vo); 10. Questiones de Febribus (Padua, 1482); 11. Galeni tractatus varii a Petro Paduano, latinitate donati, MS. in St. Mark’s Library, Venice; 12. Les Eléments pour opérer dans les Sciences magiques, MS. in the Arsenal Library, Paris.” Murray’s Guide to Northern Italy says that “Abano may be visited either from Padua or from Monselice. Its baths have retained their celebrity from the time of the Romans. The place is also remarkable as being the birthplace of Livy, and also of the physician and reputed necromancer, Pietro d’Abano, in whom the Paduans take almost equal pride. This village is about three miles from the Euganean hills.” The medicinal springs procured this place its ancient name of Aponon, derived from α, privative, and πονος, pain. At Padua is the Palazzo della Ragione, built by Pietro Cozzo between 1172 and 1219, a vast building standing entirely upon open arches, surrounded by a loggia. Murray says: “The history of this hall is as remarkable as its aspect. It was built in 1306 by an Austin friar, Frate Giovanni, a great traveller; and he asked no other pay for his work than the wood and tiles of the old roof which he was to take down. The interior of the hall is covered by strange, mystical paintings designed by Giotto according to the instructions of Pietro d’Abano.” Pietro d’Abano was the first reviver of the art of medicine in Europe; and he travelled to Greece for the purpose of learning the language of Hippocrates and Galen, and of profiting by the stores which the Byzantine libraries yet contained. He practised with the greatest success; and his medical works were considered as amongst the most valuable volumes of the therapeutic library of the middle ages. His bust is over one of the doors of the hall; the inscription placed beneath it indignantly repudiates the magic and sorcery ascribed to him; but the votaries of the occult sciences smiled inwardly at this disclaimer. His treatises upon necromancy, geomancy, amulets and conjuration, were circulated from hand to hand. When at Padua, some years since, the Rev. John Sharpe found a stone set in the wall of the vestibule of the Sacristy of the Church of the Eremitani, to Pietro of Abano. It bore the following inscription: —

Petri Apon

Cineres

Ob. AN. 1315

Aet. 66

[The Poem.] Peter was a magician. He had been of all trades, architect, astronomer, astrologer, beside physician. Even worse than astrologer, for men scrupled not to accuse him of having dealings with the devil. This was the Middle Age way with men of science, and it must be confessed that the mystical manner of their writings and the uncanny nature of some of their doings give colour to the accusation. It was convenient, also, to accuse Peter of diabolic arts. When he had built a tower or cured a prince, it was an economical way of discharging the debt to accuse the old man of wizardry. So they cursed him roundly and then rid themselves of their liability. But Peter grinned and bore it all. He seems to have invented a steamboat which would have whirled through the water had not the priests broken up his evil-looking machine, and bastinadoed him beside. One night, as he reached his lodgings, some one plucked his sleeve and asked an interview with him. It was a young Greek, who professed great admiration for the mage. He tells him that he has heard that the price he pays for his potent arts is that he may not drink a drop of milk; but he has discovered this is not to be taken literally, – it is to be considered figuratively, as he will explain. He asks the master leave to become the friend of mankind, and that by being himself their model. He begs, therefore, to be taught the true magic, to learn the art of making fools subserve the man of mind. A prince is inspired with the idea of building a palace by an architect. The architect uses the prince as the means of furthering his own interests – his ambition to be honoured as a great architect. The workmen who build the mansion are animated by their desire for wages, and so the architect uses both prince and artisan as his tools. The young Greek wants to use men of high and low degree for similar ends. The magician says if he were to comply with his desire he would only make one ingrate more; he has been so often deceived this way. The Greek replies that what he wants is the milk of human kindness. He has not been animated by love of his species in what he has done for mankind. He has wrought wonders, but not for love. This is the meaning of his enforced abstinence from milk; but let him confer upon his supplicant this favour he asks, and he will earn his love and gratitude, which will remove from him his curse. Every step he lifts him up, by so much greater will the reward of the benefactor be. The magician determines to comply: he will test this man’s heart. “Shuffle the cards once more,” he says. Suddenly the young man becomes aware that he has undergone a great change. He was talking Plato to the master but a while ago; now he is surrounded by wealth, and has many friends. A year has passed when one day, lounging at his ease in his villa, his servant announces an old friend who desires to speak with him. It is old Peter, who is sore beset by his enemies, who want to burn him. He has come to the young man who owes him everything, to beg a hiding-place and a crust. The ingrate will not for a moment listen to his plea; he cannot think of harbouring him, as if it were to be discovered it would compromise him. He takes the opportunity, however, to ask for a greater favour, – he wishes to learn how to rule men and subject them to his pleasure. Then, if he will wait awhile, he may be able to show his gratitude. The old man turns his back and leaves the house. He is no sooner away than the spell begins to work. Politics were the prize now. He became a statesman and a friend of the Emperor. One day, after a council, he was pacing his closet, when there was a knock at the door, and Peter entered. He reminds him that ten years have passed since he refused him the favour he demanded. He had given him a mansion, out of which he only begged the use of a single chamber, that will no longer suffice. He now comes to beg a stronghold where he may be safe from his enemies: grant him this, and he will trouble the young man no more. But the latter is concerned only with thoughts of more power for himself: he wants now to rule the souls of men; from the temporal power he would rise to the spiritual; he would be no less than Pope. Having then reached the highest rung of the ladder, he promises to pay the debt he owes to the full. Once more old Peter turns to go, and already the influence is felt. He is at Rome, has been elected Pope, and has reached the summit of his desires. Seated in the palace of the Lateran, one day an intruder pushes aside the arras. It is old Peter again; he is ninety now, and does not care if they burn him; he has lived his day. He has, however, a favour to ask: he has written a great book, and he wants it preserved for the use of posterity. Will the Pope see to this? The Pontiff eyes the frowsy parchment with disgust, and when the old man kneels to kiss his foot, he spurns him. “We’re Pope, – once Pope, you can’t unpope us!” In a moment the vision was over. The three trial scenes of the Greek’s life were played out: he was himself again. The magic was dissolved; he had been tested, had been shown the corruption of his own heart in a moment, though it seemed a lifetime in the passing of the vision. Peter lived out his life, but he had never yet learned love. Perhaps in another life that lesson was to come. As for the Greek, nothing is recorded of him. The poet says he may go his way – he is too selfish not to thrive! The moral of the story is that to win men’s love we must not merely help them, not merely fling favours at them, but must consecrate ourselves to their service. In the loving service of, and the self-sacrificing endeavour to benefit our fellow-men, lies the secret of winning happiness for ourselves. It is more blessed to give than to receive only when the giving is to man for God’s sake – for the love of God manifested by efforts on behalf of our fellow-men.