2 NOVEMBER 1889, Page 44

Introduction to Browning. By William John Alexander, Ph.D. (Ginn and

Co., Boston, U.S.A.)—We turned naturally to the chapter on " Sordello," and found it most interesting reading. Once at least the commentator owns himself baffled by his original, but, on the whole, he gives a most satisfactorily clear account of the poem, which we shall attack again with the support of this new auxiliary. But everywhere Professor Alexander is most in- structive. Among the subjects of the chapters may be mentioned

Christianity as Presented in Browning's Work," and " Brown- ing's Theory of Art." The first of these two is admirably illus- trated by an analysis of the " Epistle containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician," the story of Lazarus, as our readers will remember, told, so to speak, from outside.