The second was painted by F. Leighton. It represents Orpheus leading
Eurydice away from the infernal regions, but with an implied variation
on the story of her subsequent return to them. She was restored to
Orpheus on the condition of his not looking at her till they had reached
the upper world; and, as the legend goes, the condition proved too hard
for him to fulfil. But the face of Leighton's Eurydice wears an
intensity of longing which seems to challenge the forbidden look, and
make her responsible for it. The poem thus interprets the expression,
and translates it into words.


"ANDREA DEL SARTO" ("Men and Women," 1855) lays down the principle,
asserted by Mr. Browning as far back as in "Sordello," that the soul of
the true artist must exceed his technical powers; that in art, as in all
else, "a man's reach should exceed his grasp." And on this ground the
poem might be classed as critical. But it is still more an expression of
feeling; the lament of an artist who has fallen short of his ideal--of a
man who feels himself the slave of circumstance--of a lover who is
sacrificing his moral, and in some degree his artistic, conscience to a
woman who does not return his love. It is the harmonious utterance of a
many-sided sadness which has become identified with even the pleasures
of the man's life; and is hopeless, because he is resigned to it.

Andrea del Sarto was called the "faultless painter." His execution was
as easy as it was perfect; and Michael Angelo is reported to have said
to Raphael, of the insignificant little personage Andrea then was: that
he would bring the sweat to his (Raphael's) brow, if urged on in like
manner by popes and kings. But he lacked strength and loftiness of
purpose; and as Mr. Browning depicts him, is painfully conscious of