, now Lady Martin.

"A SOUL'S TRAGEDY" brings us near to the period of the "Men and Women;"
and displays, for the first time in Mr. Browning's work, a situation
quite dramatic in itself, but which is nevertheless made by the
characters, and imagined for them. It is a story of moral retrogression;
but, setting aside its very humorous treatment, it is no "tragedy" for
the reader, because he has never believed in that particular "soul,"
though its proprietor and his friends are justly supposed to do so. The
drama is divided into two acts, of which the first represents the
"poetry," the second the prose, of a certain Chiappino's life. The scene
is Faenza; the time 15--.

Chiappino is best understood by comparison with Luitolfo, his
fellow-townsman and friend. Luitolfo has a gentle, genial nature;
Chiappino, if we may judge him by his mood at the time of the action, an
ill-conditioned one. Luitolfo's gentleness is allied to physical
timidity, but his moral courage is always equal to the occasion.
Chiappino is a man more of words than of deeds, and wants both the
courage and the rectitude which ill-conditioned people often possess.
Faenza is governed by a provost from Ravenna. The present provost is a
tyrant; and Chiappino has been agitating in a somewhat purposeless
manner against him. He has been fined for this several times, and is now
sentenced to exile, and confiscation of all his goods.

Luitolfo has helped him until now by paying his fines; but this is an
additional grievance to him, for he is in love with Eulalia, the woman
whom his friend is going to marry, and declares that he has only
refrained from urging his own suit, because he was bound by this
pecuniary obligation not to do so. He is not too delicate, however, to
depreciate Luitolfo's generosity, and generally run him down with the
woman who is to be his wife; and this is what he is doing in the first
scene, under cover of taking leave of her, and while her intended
husband is interceding with the provost in his behalf. A hurried knock,
which they recognise as Luitolfo's, gives a fresh impulse to his spite;
and he begins sneering at the milk-and-watery manner in which Luitolfo
has probably been pleading his cause, and the awful fright in which he
has run home, on seeing that the provost "shrugged his shoulders" at the
intercession.

Luitolfo _is_ frightened, for his friendship for Chiappino has been
carrying him away; and on finding that entreaties were