duce.

"THE GUARDIAN-ANGEL" and "EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS" describe each an actual
picture in the emotions it expresses or conveys.

The former represents an angel, standing with outstretched wings by a
little child. The child is half kneeling on a kind of pedestal, while
the angel joins its hands in prayer: its gaze directed upward towards
the sky, from which cherubs are looking down. The picture was painted by
Guercino, and is now in the church of St. Augustine, at Fano, on the
Italian coast. Mr. Browning relates to an absent friend (who appears in
the "Dramatic Romances" as Waring) how he saw it in the company of his
own "angel;" and how it occurred to him to develop into a poem one of
the thoughts which the picture had "struck out." The thought resolves
itself into a feeling: the yearning for guidance and protection. The
poet dreams himself in the place of that praying child. The angel wings
cover his head: the angel hands upon his eyes press back the excess of
thought which has made his brain too big. He feels how thankfully those
eyes would rest on the "gracious face" instead of looking to the opening
sky beyond it; and how purely beautiful the world would seem when that
healing touch had been upon them.

The second was painted by F. Leighton. It represents Orpheus leading
Eurydice away from the infernal regions, but with an implied variation
on the story of her subsequent return to them. She was restored to
Orpheus on the condition of his not looking at her till they had reached
the upper world; and, as the legend goes, the condition proved too hard
for him to fulfil. But the face of Leighton's Eurydice wears an
intensity of longing which seems to challenge the forbidden look, and
make her responsible for it. The poem thus interprets the expression,
and translates it into words.

"ANDREA DEL SARTO" ("Men and Women," 1855) lays down the principle,
asserted by Mr. Browning as far back as in "Sordello," that the soul of
the true artist must exceed his technical powers; that in art, as in all
else, "a man's reach should exceed his grasp." And on this ground the
poem might be classed as critical. But it is still more an expression of
feeling; the lament of an artist who has fallen short of his ideal--of a
man who feels himself the slave of circumstance--of a lover who is
sacrificing his moral, and in some degree his artistic, conscience to a
woman who does not return his love. It is the harmonious utterance of a
ma