it had been his neck. Much harm more was done on both sides; but this must not be forgotten, it was now a wonder to see my Lord Will-be-will so indifferent as he was; he did not seem to take one side more than another, only it was perceived that he smiled to see how old Prejudice was tumbled up and down in the dirt; also when Captain Anything came halting up before him he seemed to take but little notice of him.

Here then we have the "brisk man in the broil," and with him a memorable lot of other worthies. The Phrontist has always cherished the name of Mr. Benumbing with especial love. He would give much to know what further happened to him. He has met many orators, and some professors who, he fondly believes, are direct descendants of Mr. Benumbing.

D. N. L.

REVIEWS

The Old Yellow Book: Source of Browning's "The Ring and the Book." A New Translation with Explanatory Notes and Critical Chapters upon the Poem and its Source. By JOHN MARSHALL GEST. Chipman Law Publishing Company, Boston, 1925. xv+699 pp. $7.00.

To say that the world has not been suffering from a dearth of Browning criticism is not so reassuring as it may sound, since abundance does not insure satisfaction. Famine has certain advantages over plethoric malnutrition. When the latter occurs, however, it calls for an antidote. And such a corrective of the erroneous and misleading in critical diet is supplied by this latest commentary on Browning's behemoth of a poem. What the world has been waiting for, in all childlike unconsciousness of what it lacked, is an estimate by a qualified legal expert of a legalistic work of art. And at last it has arrived. In a fine legal-looking tome Judge Gest presents the results of long and laborious investigation. His study is based on a large special library of medieval and renaissance criminal law, collected for this particular purpose, and the work has been done with the high enthusiasm that spares not time, trouble, or expense.

The only superfluous item in the whole huge volume is the author's modest doubt as to the worthwhileness of his effort. The present reviewer at least had long been wishing so hard for this very thing that its sudden appearance brought all the excitement of direct answer to prayer. No makeshift answer, either, but gratifyingly adequate. Judge Gest has done what needed doing and done it with the scholar's thoroughness, the jurist's technical skill, the humanist's graciousness, and the wit of the man of the world.

Why it needed doing is another story, long, complicated, and as interesting as the episode which started the whole business. The tale of The Old Yellow Book is as dramatic as the tale in The Old Yellow Book, though happily less calamitous. And like a good and proper drama it is divisible into five acts, which might be captioned as follows:

I. A poet's chance stumbling upon a mass of raw material peculiarly congenial to his taste and suited to his genius.

II. His curious hallucination as to the rôles played respectively by fact and fancy in his transformation of this crude stuff into an artistic product.

III. The natural acceptance of his statement by the critics as long as the original documents were not available.

IV. The continued but now incredible reaffirming of that tradition by a specialist who became intimate enough with this hitherto hidden source to translate it and write extensive reports thereon.

V. The correction of that error by another specialist who by means of a more accurate translation, citation of authorities, and unhypnotized viewpoint, showed what had been saluted as a noble ensign to be simply a picturesque totem-pole.

It is evident that the fourth act might have been the final if it had been of a conclusive nature, and that its very inadequacy made a really definitive sequel necessary.

These two examinations of The Old Yellow Book are similar in procedure. They both consist of translation from the original Latin and Italian, with exposition and interpretation. But they differ in purpose, method, and effect; and this difference happens to be pithily symbolized by the keynote quotations chosen by each critic from The Ring and the Book. The selections are variants of Browning's own clamorous contention and sound much alike. The motives with which they are presented give them the opposite tastes of sugar and salt. "So absolutely good is truth," echoes Professor Hodell. And again, "Lovers of live truth, found ye false my tale?" with the poet's own implication that this is a rhetorical question, a prompt and emphatic negative reply being taken for granted.

If Judge Gest had chosen to repeat that question, his answer would have been a grieved but decided affirmative. He contented himself, however, with the quoted exclamation, "All for the truth's sake, mere truth, nothing else!" Only the exclamation point twinkles with a double meaning.

Professor Hodell's citations front you with the grave and innocent air of those who beg to be taken literally and seriously. Judge Gest's wink at you in sly, mischievous irony.

The spirit of irony indeed presides over this whole situation. That Robert Browning, zealous and preeminent in unmasking

deceivers, lobbyist for truth metaphysical (right thinking), and hobbyist for truth ethical (right acting), writer of whole plays and poems on the profound theme, Honesty is the Best Policy, that he should be caught-and that in his chef-d'oeuvre-making Baron Munchausen look as guileless as little George Washington, is as pretty a paradox as literature affords. Of course, it is a discovery that does him no harm, since it merely proves that, like all true poets, he had a rich endowment of imagination.

Although Browning not only made a mistake but defeated his own end in his sweeping assertion that "there is nothing good in or out of the world except truth," the amendment that there is nothing good in criticism except it be truthful is of vital importance. By that test alone Judge Gest's gallant excursion into Browning criticism is justified. By offering a maximum of information and a minimum of opinion it is a blessed relief from many of its contrasting predecessors. By officiating as a neat nemesis it appeases our sense of justice. The poet, with no known provocation, went out of his way to sneer and snarl at the Law. Now a lawyer, marshalling hard facts with deftness and urbanity, avenges his profession. Nor could Browning himself consistently object to this gracing with another garland that shrine of Truth to which he so persistently announced his own allegiance. It is an occasion for all-around pleasure, profit, and gratitude.

FRANCES THERESA RUSSELL.

ONE WORD MORE

After the above was written and in galley proof I chanced to read the treatment of the same subject by Professor Schelling. In his review of Judge Gest's volume for the New York Sun, the professor takes occasion to defend the poet against the critic's indictment for falsifying facts. For another reviewer to question the defense would seem to make confusion worse confounded, but I must ease my mind, at whatever cost to editor and reader.

Mr. Schelling's contention is that Browning was justified in warping his source material to suit his own purpose because that purpose was the higher of the two and should have ethical and artistic precedence accordingly. "The alloy of fact,” he affirms, "is needful to the working of the gold of truth into a thing of a new artistic beauty." That is intended, of course, as an echo of Browning's own claim, but it turns the original metaphor upside down. It was the facts of this strange Roman murder case that

the poet termed the "pure crude gold," and his imaginative interpretation of them that constituted the alloy.

Now no one is going to object to the infusion of fancy or make a fuss about the sacrosanctity of facts. But the real truth and unfortunate fact is that the poet's fancy, once admitted, took to masquerading as what but the primal verity itself; a performance that was permitted, nay, encouraged, because in this instance Browning was passionate partisan as much as artist. If he had merely "neglected the non-essentials," as Mr. Schelling observes, all this would be much ado about nothing, but what he did was to distort the essentials until he might have been sued for libel had not his victims been dead for a long time.

Mr. Schelling deprecates the notion of “mere fidelity to the gravity and learning of a group of forgotten pleaders." The pleaders themselves might well sigh, "Would we had been forgotten!" To be dragged out from peaceful oblivion and pinnacled undeservedly on a bad eminence is indeed a doubtful boon.

If it be asked why the fate of these obscure Italian lawyers one way or another is worth a debate, the answer is that they were at least actual men and able jurists. And if they are no longer in a position to be disturbed by this post-mortem, all the more do their memories need an uplifted voice, since they cannot speak for themselves. Next, the counter-question is appropriate: Who was this obscure Italian youth that he should be glorified, and who was this obscure Italian girl that she should be sainted? To vilify some in order to exalt others is an erratic sort of justice.

The real secret is that Browning had a violent prejudice against the law in general (heaven only knows why, for he had no courtroom experience of any kind), and this he indulged in his cartoon. of Archangelis; and against the prosecution in this case in particular because it was not so vehemently pro-Pompilia as he himself, and this he sated in his caricature of Bottinius. He was out for the blood of that enemy especially, and he meant to have it, and he got it.

That being the case, we must concede his victory but we may profitably dispense with all this big talk about his Higher Truth and Truer Idealism, mainly figments of the academic mind as they are. What that amounts to, the poet himself warns us in his own conclusion. "Learn one lesson hence," he exhorts,

This lesson, that our human speech is naught,

Our human testimony false, our fame

And human estimation words and wind.