At a summer Assizes holden at Hartfort, while the Judge was sitting upon the Bench, comes this old Tod into the Court, cloathed in a green Suit with his Leathern Girdle in his hand, his bosom open, and all on a dung sweat, as if he had run for his Life; and, being come in, he spake aloud as follows: My Lord, said he, Here is the veryest Rogue that breaths upon the face of the earth, ... My Lord, there has not been a Robbery committed this many years, within so many miles of this place but I have either been at it or privy to it.
"The Judge thought the fellow was mad, but after some conference with some of the Justices, they agreed to Indict him; and so they did, of several felonious Actions; to all of which he heartily confessed Guilty, and so was hanged with his wife at the same time....
"As for the truth of this Story, the Relator told me that he was at the same time himself in the Court, and stood within less than two yards of old Tod, when he heard him aloud to utter the words."—Bunyan's Life and Death of Mr. Badman, 1680.
28. DRAMATIC IDYLS. Second Series.
[Published in July, 1880. Poetical Works, 1889, Vol. XV. pp. 81-163.]
The second series of Dramatic Idyls is bound together, like the first, though somewhat less closely, by a leading idea, which, whether consciously or not, is hinted at in a pointed little prologue: the idea of the paradox of human action, and the apparent antagonism between motive and result. The volume differs considerably from its precursor, and it contains nothing quite equal to the best of the earlier poems. There is more variety, perhaps, but the human interest is less intense, the stories less moving and absorbing. With less humour, there is a much more pronounced element of the grotesque. And most prominent of all is that characteristic of Browning which a great critic has called agility of intellect.
The first poem, Echetlos, is full of heroical ardour and firm, manly vigour of movement. Like Pheidippides, it is a legend of Marathon. It sings of the mysterious helper who appeared to the Greeks, in rustic garb and armed with a plough.