Theocrite. (The Boy and the Angel.) The boy who wishes to praise God “the Pope’s great way,” and who leaves his common task, and is replaced by the angel Gabriel. As neither boy nor angel please God in their changed positions, each returns to his appropriate sphere.
“The Poets pour us wine.” (Epilogue to Pacchiarotto.) These words are the beginning of the Epilogue named, and are quoted from a poem of Mr. Browning’s entitled Wine of Cyprus, the last verse but one, the last line of which is “And the poets poured us wine.”
“There’s a Woman like a Dewdrop.” (A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.) The song in Act I., Scene iii., begins with this line. It is sung by Earl Mertoun as he climbs to Mildred Tresham’s chamber.
“The Year’s at the Spring.” (Pippa Passes.) The song which Pippa sings as she passes the house of Ottima, and thereby brings conviction to her lover Sebald.
Thorold, Earl Tresham. (A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.) The brother of Mildred Tresham, who challenges Mertoun, her lover, on his way to a stolen interview with his sister, and kills him, thinking he has disgraced the family.
Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kader. (1842.) The Metidja is an extensive plain near the coast of Algeria, “commencing on the eastern side of the Bay of Algiers, and stretching thence inland to the south and west. It is about sixty miles in length by ten or twelve in breadth” (Encyc. Brit.). Algiers was conquered by the French in 1830; but, after the conquest, constant outbreaks of hostilities on the part of the natives occurred, and in 1831 General Bertherene was despatched to chastise the rebels. Later in the same year General Savary was sent with an additional force of 16,000 men for the same purpose. He attempted to suppress the outbreaks of hostilities with the greatest cruelty and treachery. These acts so exasperated the people against their new ruler that such tribes as had acquiesced in the new order of things now armed themselves against the French. It was at this time that the world first heard of Abd-el-Kader. He was born in 1807, and was a learned and pious man, greatly distinguished amongst his people for his skill in horsemanship and athletic sports. He now rapidly collected an army of ten thousand men, marched to Oran and attacked the French, who had taken possession of the town; but was repulsed with great loss. He was so popular with his people that he had little difficulty in recruiting his forces, and he made himself so dangerous to the French that they found it expedient to offer him terms of peace, and he was recognised as emir of the province of Mascara. The peace did not last long, and hostilities broke out, leading to a defeat of the French in 1835. Constant troubles were caused the French by the opposition of Abd-el-Kader, and reinforcements on a large scale were sent against him from France. After varying fortunes, Abd-el-Kader was at last reduced to extremities, and was compelled to hide in the mountains with a few followers; at length he gave himself up to the French, and was imprisoned at Pau, and afterwards at Amboise. He afterwards obtained permission to remove to Constantinople, and from thence to remove to Damascus. The poem describes an incident of the war which took place in 1842, when the Duke d’Aumale fell upon the emir’s camp and took several thousand prisoners, Abd-el-Kader escaping with difficulty.
“Thus the Mayne glideth.” (Paracelsus.) The song which Festus sings to Paracelsus in the closing scene in his cell in the Hospital of St. Sebastian.
Tiburzio. (Luria.) The general of the army of the Pisans, who exposes to Luria the treachery of the Florentines, and whose letter the Moor destroys without reading it.
Time’s Revenges. A Soliloquy. (Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, in Bells and Pomegranates, VII., 1845; Romances, 1863; Dramatic Romances, 1868.) “Love begets love,” they say: probably this is not much truer than proverbs usually are. The speaker in the poem has a friend who would do anything in the world for him; in return, he barely likes him. As a compensation, inasmuch as “human love is not the growth of human will,” the lady to whom the soliloquiser is passionately devoted, the woman for whom he is prepared to sacrifice body, soul, everything he holds dear, cares nothing at all for him; she would roast him before a slow fire for a coveted ball-ticket. And why not? if love be what the poet says it is—the merging by affinity of one soul in another—where no affinity exists no union can result. Lovers should study the elements of chemistry, and the laws which govern the affinities of the elementary bodies; or, if they are not inclined to so serious a task, let them take to heart the Spanish proverb, “Love one that does not love you, answer one that does not call you, and you will run a fruitless race.”