Ned Bratts

This is the title of as disagreeable a subject as any
man could select for a poem. But Browinng seemed
to need the hanging of somebody to make up his vari-
ety, and perhaps he thought it more humane to make
use of a willing victim or a pair of them, than to
strangle some one or two who protested innocence to
the last. Browning's description of a hot day is
graphic, to say the least ; one sees the

"Court a-simmer with smoke, one ferment of oozy flesh;"

The scene is Bedford special Assize, and the
"Court House, quality crammed."

The drouth was blasting. "The trees looked yel-
low," the ponds were dust-dry. "Dogs went mad, and
folk kept bibbing beer, while the parsons prayed for
rain."

Into this crowded court came Ned Bratts and his
wife, confessing their sins and praying to be hanged
at once, that their souls might be saved before they
became back-sliders. They had been awakened to a
sense of their depravity through their acquaintance
with John Bunyan and the reading of his "Pilgrim's
Progress," given by his blind daughter Mary. Fearing
that if they did not die at once they would go back to
their evil ways.
