[56-62]. [Such] mixture of Christian and Pagan elements was a common feature in Renaissance art and literature.
58. tripod. The triple-footed seat from which the priestesses of Apollo at Delphi delivered the oracles. thyrsus. A staff entwined with ivy and vines, and borne in the Bacchic processions.
[77]. [Tully]. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman orator, statesman, and philosopher.
[79]. [Ulpian]. A celebrated Roman jurist of the third century.
[99]. [Elucescebat]. Late Latin, from elucesco. The classical or Ciceronian form would be elucebat, from eluceo. Here appears the Bishop's love of good Latin.
[108]. [Term]. A pillar, widening toward the top, upon which is placed a figure or a bust.
Who are grouped about the Bishop's bed? What does he desire? Why? What tastes does he show? Point out evidences of his crimes, his suspicion, his sensual ideals, his artistic[page 255] tastes, his canting hypocrisy, his confusion of the material and the immaterial, and the persistency of his passions and feelings. Note the subtlety with which these things are suggested, especially lines 18-19, 29-30, 33-44, 50-52, 59-62, 80-84, 122-125.
THE LABORATORY. (PAGE [113].)
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This is a little masterpiece in its vividness and condensation. The passions of hate and jealousy have seldom been so well portrayed. The time and place are probably France and the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Berdoe has called attention in his Browning Cyclopædia, to the number of fine antitheses in the second stanza.