n culture. The instincts of the one
are dulled or disturbed by his Western wisdom and experience; Husain
still keeps the old instincts and the unmixed nature, and still speaks
the fervid and highly-coloured Eastern speech. But while Husain is to
some extent a contrast with Luria, Luria and Husain together form an
infinitely stronger contrast with the group of Italians. Braccio, the
Florentine Commissary, is an admirable study of Italian subtlety and
craft. Only a writer with Browning's special knowledge and sympathies
could have conceived and executed so acute and true a picture of the
Italian temper of the time, a temper manifested with singular
appropriateness by the city of Machiavelli. Braccio is the chief schemer
against Luria, and he schemes, not from any real ill-will, but from the
diplomatic distrust of a too cautious and too suspicious patriot.
Domizia, the vengeful Florentine lady, plotting against Florence with
the tireless patience of an unforgetting wrong, is also a representative
sketch, though not so clearly and firmly outlined as a character.
Puccio, Luria's chief officer, once his commander, the simple fighting
soldier, discontented but honest, unswervingly loyal to Florence, but
little by little aware of and aggrieved at the wrong done to Luria, is a
really touching conception. Tiburzio, the Pisan leader, is yet finer in
his perfect chivalry of service to his foe. Nothing could be more nobly
planned than the first meeting, and indeed the whole relations, of these
magnanimous and worthy opponents, Luria and Tiburzio. There is a
certain intellectual fascination for Browning in the analysis of mean
natures and dubious motives, but of no contemporary can it be more
justly said that he rises always and easily to the height and at the
touch of an heroic action or of a noble nature.

14. CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY: A Poem.

[Published in 1850 (_Poetical Works_, 1889, Vol. V., pp.
207-307). Written in Florence.]

_Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day_ is the chief work in which Browning deals
directly and primarily with the subject of Christianity and the
religious beliefs of the age. Both the poems which appear under this
title are studies of religious life and thought, the first more in the
narrative and critical way, the second rather in relation to individual
experience. Browning's position towards Christianity is perhaps unique.
He has been described as "the latest extant Defender of the Faith," but