"DRAMATIC IDYLS."

The Dramatic Idyls form, like the Dramas, a natural group; and though, unlike these, they might be distributed under various heads, it would not be desirable to thus disconnect them; for their appearing together at this late period of Mr. Browning's career, constitutes them a landmark in it. They each consist of a nucleus of fact—supplied by history or by romance, as the case may be—and of material, and in most cases, mental circumstance, which Mr. Browning's fancy has engrafted on it; and in both their material and their mental aspect they display a concentrated power, which clearly indicates what I have spoken of as the "crystallizing" process Mr. Browning's genius has undergone. A comparison of these poems with "Pauline," "Paracelsus," or even "Pippa Passes," will be found to justify this assertion.

The Idyls consist of two series, occupying each a volume. The first, published 1879, contains:—

The hero of "MARTIN RELPH" is an old man, whose life is haunted by something which happened to him when little more than a boy. A girl of his own village had been falsely convicted of treason, and the guns were already levelled for her execution, when Martin Relph, who had stolen round on to some rising ground behind the soldiers and villagers who witnessed the scene, saw what no one else could see: a man, about a quarter of mile distant, rushing onwards in staggering haste, and waving a white object over his head. He knew this was Vincent Parkes, Rosamond Page's lover, bearing the expected proofs of her innocence. He knew also that by a shout he might avert her doom. But something paralyzed his tongue, and the girl fell. The man who would have rescued her but for delays and obstacles, which no power of his could overcome, was found dead where Martin Relph had seen him.

The remembrance of these two deaths leaves Martin Relph no rest; for conscience tells him that his part in them was far worse than it appeared. It tells him that what struck him dumb at that awful moment was not, as others said, the simple cowardice of a boy: he loved in secret the girl whom Vincent Parkes was coming to save; and if he had saved her, it would have been for that other man. But that thought could only flash on him in one second of fiery consciousness; he had no time to recognize it as a motive; and he clings madly to the hope that his conscience is mistaken, and it was not that which silenced him. Every year, at the same spot, he re-enacts the scene, striving to convince himself—with those who hear him—that he has been a coward, but not a murderer; and in the moral and physical reaction from the renewed agony, half-succeeds in doing so.

The story, thus told in Martin Relph's words, is supposed to have been repeated to the present narrator by a grandfather, who heard them. It embodies a vague remembrance of something read by Mr. Browning when he was himself a boy.

The facts related in "PHEIDIPPIDES" belong to Greek legendary history, and are told by Herodotus and other writers. When Athens was threatened by the invading Persians, she sent a running messenger to Sparta, to demand help against the foreign foe. The mission was unsuccessful. But the "runner," Pheidippides, fell in on his return, with the god Pan; and though alone among Greeks the Athenians had refused to honour him, he promised to fight with them in the coming battle. Pheidippides was present, when this battle—that of Marathon—was fought and won. He "ran" once more, to announce the victory at Athens; and fell, dead, with the words, "Rejoice, we conquer!" on his lips. This death followed naturally on the excessive physical strain; but Mr. Browning has used it as a connecting link between the historic and the imaginary parts of the idyl. According to this, Pheidippides himself tells his first adventure, to the assembled rulers of Athens: depicting, in vivid words, the emotions which winged his course, and bore him onwards over mountains and through valleys, with the smooth swiftness of running fire; and he also relates that Pan promised him a personal reward for his "toil," which was to consist in release from it. This release he interprets as freedom to return home, and to marry the girl he loves. It meant a termination to his labours, more tragic, but far more glorious: to die, proclaiming the victory which they had helped to secure.

Pan is also made to present him with a sprig of fennel—symbol of Marathon, or the "fennel-field"—as pledge of his promised assistance.