Time had not mellowed the raw crudity of this "splotch," which Browning found recorded in no old, square, yellow vellum book, but in the French newspapers of that very August; the final judgment of the court at Caen ("Vire") being actually pronounced while he wrote.

The poet followed on the heels of the journalist, and borrowed, it must be owned, not a little of his methods.

If any poem of Browning's may be compared to versified special correspondence, it is this.

He tells the story, in his own person, in blank verse of admirable ease and fluency, from which every pretence of poetry is usually remote.

What was it in this rather sordid tale that arrested him?
Clearly the strangely mingled character of Miranda.