Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)[77]

"MY LAST DUCHESS." ("Dramatic Romances." Published as "Italy"
in "Dramatic Lyrics." 1842.)

The first of these shows the passion as distorted love: the frenzy of a
woman who has been supplanted. The jealous wife (if wife she is) has
come to the laboratory to obtain a dose of poison, which she means to
administer to her rival; and she watches its preparation with an eager,
ferocious joy, dashed only by the fear of its being inadequate. The
quantity is minute; and it is (as we guess) the "magnificent" strength
of that other one which has won _him_ away.

In the second we find a jealousy which has no love in it; which means
the exactingness of self-love, and the tyranny of possession. A widowed
Duke of Ferrara is exhibiting the portrait of his former wife, to the
envoy of some nobleman whose daughter he proposes to marry; and his
comments on the countenance of his last Duchess plainly state what he
will expect of her successor. "That earnest, impassioned, and yet
smiling glance went alike to everyone. She who sent it, knew no
distinction of things or persons. Everything pleased her: everyone could
arouse her gratitude. And it seemed to her husband, from her manner of
showing it, that she ranked his gift, the 'gift of a
nine-hundred-years-old name,' with that of everyone else. It was below
his dignity to complain of this state of things, so he put an end to it.
He: 'gave commands;' and the smiles, too evenly dispensed, stopped all
together." He does not fear to admit, as he does parenthetically, that
there may have been some right on her side. This was below his concern.
The Duke touches, in conclusion, on the dowry which he will expect with
his second wife; and, with a suggestive carelessness, bids his guest