PIPPA PASSES. This brief but delightful poetic drama by Browning was published as the initial number of 'Bells and Pomegranates' in 1841, and, according to Mr. Gosse, was the first work of its author to win the public. Mrs. Orr says that it was conceived when the poet was once walking in a wood near Dulwich. There came to his mind the image of some one, unimportant in himself and unconscious of his influence upon others, walking alone through life and yet influencing permanently the lives of those whom he met. The image took shape in the person of one of Browning's most charming imaginative creations, Felippa, or uPippa," the little Italian girl of Asolo, near Venice, who on her one holiday of the year passes singing through the streets and by her songs changes the lives of the other persons of the play. The time of (Pippa Passes' is the early 19th century, the °local color'. that of Asolo, but the story has no historic founda tion. The play consists of prologue and epilogue spoken by Pippa in her room; of four principal scenes, which take place re spectively in the morning, noon, evening, and night of Pippa's holiday; and by three inter ludes on the streets. The form is free lyric verse in Pippa's monologues and songs, blank-verse in the first, second and third scenes, and prose in the fourth scene and the interludes. Pippa, wishing to make the most of her holiday, alone, yet longing to love and be loved, identifies herself with those whom she fancies must be the happiest in Asolo with Ottima and Sebald, the guilty lovers in the great house on the hill; with Luigi and his loving mother; with Jules the sculptor and Phene his bride; and with Monsignor the Bishop, who loves but God. As Pippa passes in turn by the houses of these persons, her song greets each at a crisis of his life. Ottima and Sebald are spiritually saved; Jules, about to send away the ignorant and .baseb...rn Phene, whom he has been tricked into marrying, lifts her instead up to his own level and into his heart; Luigi, about to yield to his mother's plea that he give up his dangerous patriotic mis sion, chooses death rather than safety; and the Bishon. tempted to sin through
avarice, turns upon his tempter and saves his soul.
Pippa's songs are not impressive in them selves; their power and significance lie only in the hearer's state of mind, but they change the course of destiny; for "all service ranks the same with God," with whom "there is no last nor first." Each of the four scenes, complete in itself, is essentially and intensely dramatic; the characters are all individualized, though their speech is rather the speech of Browning; the style is always appropriate and at times, with its intensity of feeling and magnificence of imagery, rises to the heights of very great poetry. The scei.es are given background and continuity by the interludes in the streets, in which figures artists, village girls, and the Austrian police. Pippa has no personal concern in the action save in the last scene, in which by her singing she unconsciously saves herself from death or worse. The human truth under lying the conception of the play, the dramatic force of the various scenes, the representative characterization and the always forceful and often superb style, combine to render 'Pippa Passes> one of the very few remarkable poetic dramas in recent English literature, almost the only one, in fact, that has gained a large read ing public and yet has qualities that fit it for the stage. Although not written for the theatre, it has repeatedly been presented in special per formances with all the fine effect to be expected from its essential dramatic quality. Rolfe's 'Select Poems' contains 'Pippa Passes) with introduction and notes, and Miss Burt discusses the character of Pippa in her 'Browning's Women'.