re amorous adventures of
the Marquis de Lassay make him a conspicuous figure in the annals of
French Court life. He is indirectly connected with our own through a
somewhat pale and artificial passion for Sophia Dorothea, the young
Princess of Hanover, whose husband became ultimately George I. Mr.
Browning indicates the later as well as earlier stages of de Lassay's
career; he only follows that of the Duke of Lorraine into an imaginary
though not impossible development. Charles had shown himself a being of
smaller spiritual stature than his intended wife; and it was only too
likely, Mr. Browning thinks, that the diamonds which should have graced
her neck soon sparkled on that of some venal beauty whose challenge to
his admiration proceeded from the opposite pole of womanhood.
Nevertheless he feels kindly towards him. The nobler love was not
dishonoured by the more ignoble fancy, since it could not be touched by
it. Duke Charles was still faithful as a man may be.

With CHRISTOPHER SMART is an interrogative comment on the strange mental
vicissitudes of this mediocre poet, whose one inspired work, "A Song to
David," was produced in a mad-house[126]. Of this "Song" Rossetti has
said (I quote the "Athenaeum" of Feb. 19, 1887) in a published letter to
Mr. Caine, "This wonderful poem of Smart's is the only great
_accomplished_ poem of the last century. The _un_accomplished ones are
Chatterton's--of course I mean earlier than Blake or Coleridge, and
without reckoning so exceptional a genius as Burns. A masterpiece of
rich imagery, exhaustive resources, and reverberant sound." How Mr.
Browning was impressed by such a work of genius, springing up from the
dead level of the author's own and his contemporary life, he describes
in a simile.

He is exploring a large house. He goes from room to room, finding
everywhere evidence of decent taste and sufficient, but moderate,
expenditure: nothing to repel and nothing to attract him in what he
sees. He suddenly enters the chapel; and here all richness is massed,
all fancy is embodied, art of all styles and periods is blended to one
perfection. He passes from it into another suite of rooms, half fearful
of fresh surprise; and decent mediocrity, respectable commonplace again
meet him on every side. Thus, it seems to him, was the imagination of
Christopher Smart for one moment transfigured by the flames of madness
to resume for ever afterwards the prosaic character of its sanity; and
he