declaration of love. Voltaire also placed himself at her feet.

Paul now refused to efface himself any longer. The clever sister urged
in vain that it was her petticoats which had conquered, and not his
verse. He went to Paris to claim his honours, and introduce himself as
the admired poetess to La Roque and Voltaire. Voltaire bitterly resented
the joke; La Roque affected to enjoy it; but nevertheless advised its
perpetrator to get out of Paris as fast as possible. The trick had
answered for once. It would not be wise to repeat it. Again Paul
disregarded his sister's advice, and reprinted the poems in his own
name. "They had been praised and more than praised. The world could not
eat its own printed words!"

He discovered, however, that the world _could_ eat its words; or, at
least, forget them. The only fame--the speaker adds--which a great man
cannot destroy, is that which he has had no hand in making. Paul's
light, with his sister's, went out as did that of his predecessor.

Mr. Browning gives, in conclusion, a test by which the relative merit of
any two real poets may be gauged. _The greater is he who leads the
happier life_. To be a poet is to see and feel. To see and feel is to
suffer. His is the truest poetic existence who enslaves his sufferings,
and makes their strength his own. He who yokes them to his chariot shall
win the race.[83]


"CENCIAJA" signifies matter relating to the "Cenci;"[84] and the poem
describes an incident extraneous to the "Cenci" tragedy, but which
strongly influenced its course. This incident was the murder of the
widowed Marchesa dell' Oriolo, by her younger son, Paolo Santa Croce,