d as a development and
variation of this theme.

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S. (PAGE 107.)

Ruskin gives this poem high praise: "Robert Browning is unerring in
every sentence he writes of the Middle Ages.... I know no other piece
of modern English prose or poetry in which there is so much told,
as in these lines, of the Renaissance spirit--its worldliness,
inconsistency, pride, hypocrisy, ignorance of itself, love of art, of
luxury, and of good Latin. It is nearly all that I have said of the
central Renaissance, in thirty pages of _The Stones of Venice_,
put into as many lines; Browning's also being the antecedent work."

It is not, however, for its historical accuracy that a poem is mainly
to be judged. The full and imaginative portrayal of a type, belonging
not to one age only, but to human nature, is a greater achievement.
And this achievement Browning has undoubtedly performed.

5. =Old Gandolf=. Evidently one of the Bishop's colleagues in holy
orders, and like him in holiness.

31. =onion-stone=. See the dictionary for descriptions of this and
other stones named in the poem.

41. =olive-frail=. A crate, made of rushes, for packing olives.

42. =lapis lazuli=. A very beautiful and valuable blue stone.

46. =Frascati=. A town near Rome, celebrated for its villas.

56-62. Such mixture of Christian and Pagan elements was a common
feature in Renaissance art and literature.

58. =tripod=. The triple-footed seat from which the priestesses of
Apollo at Delphi delivered the oracles. =thyrsus=. A staff entwined
with ivy and vines, and borne in the Bacchic processions.

77. =Tully=. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman orator, statesman, and
philosopher.

79. =Ulpian=. A celebrated Roman jurist of the third century.

99. =Elucescebat=. Late Latin, from =elucesco=. The classical or
Ciceronian form would be =elucebat=, from =eluceo=. Here appears the
Bishop's love of good Latin.

108. =Term=. A pillar, widening toward the top, upon which is placed a
figure or a bust.

Who are grouped about the Bishop's bed? What does he desire? Why? What
tastes does he show? Point out evidences of his crimes, his suspicion,
his sensual ideals, his artistic tastes, his canting hypocrisy, his
confusion of the material and the immaterial, and the persistency of
his passions and feelings. Note the subtlety with which these things
are suggested, especially lines 18-19, 29-30, 33-44, 50-52, 59-62,
80-84, 122-125.