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Rh order that he should be kept in the dark. On the other hand in the course of the wild and startling tirade which precedes his exit, he works himself up to the opposite point of view, and expresses it with an energy and assurance far exceeding that of Admetus. As the speech is for many reasons important, as it contains the only unequivocal commendation bestowed in the drama upon the act which we have to consider, and as Browning, cheered, we may well suppose, by finding here, for the first and last time, something like the tone of religious confidence which the Heracles of Balaustion's Adventure might be expected to use, has discarded for the moment the somewhat stumbling style of his average dialogue, and has produced a version of excellent spirit, I should like to quote the whole of it.

A fine declamation, amazingly fine—and not the less so, or