"Robert Browning is unerring in every sentence he writes of the Middle Ages; always vital, right, and profound; so that in the matter of art, with which we have been specially concerned, there is hardly a principle connected with the mediæval temper that he has not struck upon in those seemingly careless and too rugged lines of his.

"'As here I lie

In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,

Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask

"Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.

Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;

And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought

With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:

—Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;

Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South