the new life
as unlike the old as possible. He went to London, and after some delay
established himself in a house at Warwick Crescent, where he lived till
1887. The first portion of his life in England was one of "unbearable
loneliness." He took care of his son, busied himself with a new edition
of his wife's poems, read and studied and wrote with feverish intensity,
and avoided people. But with the spring of 1863, says Mr. Gosse, "a
great change came over Browning's habits. He had shunned all invitations
into society, but ... it suddenly occurred to him that this mode of life
was morbid and unworthy," and thereupon he entered into the social,
literary, musical, and artistic life of London.

The nine years following 1855 were again a period of small productivity.
_Dramatis Personae_ was a slender volume to represent so many years, even
though it contained such great poems as "Rabbi Ben Ezra," "A Death in
the Desert," and "Abt Vogler." But during this period a long poem, _The
Ring and the Book_, had been maturing. In 1860, while still at Casa
Guidi, Browning had found at a book-stall the now famous "square old
yellow Book," containing the legal record of a famous Roman murder case.
He read the account on the way home, and before night had so mastered
the details that, as he paced up and down on the terrace in the
darkness, he saw the tragedy unfold before him in picture after picture.
It was not, however, till 1864 that he definitely set to work on the
composition of the poem. It was published in four volumes of three parts
each, in the winter and spring of 1868-9. The poem has a novel
structure. The story is retold ten times by different persons and with
such variations of fact and opinions and style as are dictated by the
knowledge and the character of the speaker. The monologues of Count
Guido, who murdered his wife, of Pompilia the young wife, of Caponsacchi
the "soldier saint" who endeavored to save her, and of the old Pope, are
by far the most interesting portions of the poem, but the whole of it is
remarkable, and it justly takes rank as one of England's greatest poems.
With the appearance of this book Browning's genius received adequate
recognition in high places. _The Athenaeum_ called it "the _opus magnum_
of the generation, not merely beyond all parallel the supremest poetic
achievement of the time, but the most precious and profound spiritual
treasure that England has possessed since the days of Shakespeare.