with characteristically tortuous phrases, that the tyranny is intolerable, and that she is not to sacrifice herself to the tyrant. As she was happily clear upon that point, he is able to maintain a reticence which is not less honourable than his utterance. I fancy that, in the one or two passages in the letters in which something like a controversy arises, Browning is really giving vent to an accumulated desire for plain-speaking, which he would have liked to discharge upon the head of Mr. Barrett. He defends duelling and capital punishment with a vigour that gives her some pain, and causes her to drop the subject; and he insists upon the objections to her paying ransom to the dog-stealers who had appropriated her favourite Flush. There is just a momentary glimpse of the shrewd man of the world opposing amiable sentimentalism. The topics were harmless, as the practical danger of Browning fighting a duel was of the minutest, and as he made sure that the dog-stealers had got their money before he entered his protest. If Mr. Barrett's behaviour had been discussable with the same frankness, Browning would have relieved his feelings at the cost of inflicting real suffering upon his beloved. He shows, however, perfect self-restraint in that
