's consideration, since nature, in all else his slave, forbade his
drinking milk (this is told of the true Pietro): in other words, denied
him the affection which softens and sweetens the dry bread of human
life. Pietro pretended to consent, and began, to utter, by way of
preface, the word "benedicite." The young Greek lost consciousness at
its second syllable; and awoke to find himself alone, and with a first
instalment of Peter's secret in his mind. "Good is product of evil, and
to be effected through it." Acting upon this doctrine, he traded on the
weaknesses of his fellow-creatures wherever the opportunity occurred;
and attained by this means, first, wealth; next temporal, and then
spiritual, power; rising finally to the dignity of Pope. At each stage
of this progress, Peter came to him in apparent destitution, and claimed
the promised gratitude in an urgent, but very modest prayer for
assistance. And each time Peter's presence infused into him a fresh
power of unscrupulousness, and sent him a step farther on his way. But
each time also the pupil postponed his obligation, till he at last
disclaimed it; and--enthroned in the Lateran--was dismissing his
benefactor with insult: when the closing syllables--"dicite"--sounded in
his ear; and he became conscious of Peter's countenance smiling back at
him over his shoulder, and Peter's door being banged in his face. And he
then knew that he had lived a lifetime in the fraction of a minute, and
that the magician, by means of whom he had done so, justly declined to
trust him.

Mr. Browning, however, bids the young Greek persevere; since he might
ransack Peter's books, without discovering a better secret for gaining
power over the masses, than the "cleverness uncurbed by conscience,"
which he perhaps already possesses.[107]

"DOCTOR ----" is an old Hebrew legend, founded upon the saying that a
bad wife is stronger than death. Satan complains, in his character of
Death, that man has the advantage of him: since he may baffle him,
whenever he will, by the aid of a bad woman; and he undertakes to show
this in his own person. He comes to earth, marries, and has a son, who
in due time must be supplied with a profession. This son is too cowardly
to be a soldier, and too lazy to be a lawyer; Divinity is his father's
sphere. So Satan decides that he shall be a doctor; and endows him with
a faculty which will enable him to practise Medicine, without any
knowledge of it at all. The mo