is one in which there is no room for terror or pity, only for contempt.
All real stress of circumstance is excluded. Both sides fight with
blunted weapons; the revolt is like one of those Florentine risings
which the Brownings later witnessed with amusement from the windows of
Casa Guidi, which were liable to postponement because of rain. The
prefect who is "assassinated" does not die, and the rebellious city is
genially bantered into submission. The "soul" of Chiappino is, in fact,
not the stuff of which tragedy is made. Even in his instant acceptance
of Luitolfo's bloodstained cloak when the pursuers are, as he thinks, at
the door, he seems to have been casually switched off the proper lines
of his character into a piece of heroism which properly belongs to the
man he would like to be thought, but has not the strength to be. On the
whole, Browning's scorn must be considered to have injured his art.
Tragedy, in the deepest sense, lay beyond his sphere; and this "tragedy"
of mere degeneration and helpless collapse left untouched all the
springs from which his poetry drew its life.

[Footnote 21: Browning's letter to Elizabeth Barrett, Feb. 13, 1846,
which does not seem to have been adequately noticed. The piece is
ignored by Mrs Orr. He speaks of suspending the publication of the
"unlucky play" until a second edition of the _Bells_--an "apparition"
which Moxon, he says, seems to think possible; and then inserting it
before _Luria_: it will then be "in its place, for it was written two or
three years ago." In other words, _The Soul's Tragedy_ was written in
1843-44, between _Colombe's Birthday_ and _Luria_.]

In the autumn of 1844 Browning made a second tour to Italy. It was
chiefly memorable for his meeting, at Leghorn, with Edward John
Trelawney, to whom he carried a letter of introduction;--one who had not
only himself "seen Shelley plain," but has contributed more than any one