as
questioners, objectors, and answerers in the great debate of conflicting
thoughts which proceeds throughout his poems. His object in transferring
his own consciousness into the consciousness of some imagined personage
seems often to be that of gaining a new stand-point from which to see
another and a different aspect of the questions concerning which he
could not wholly satisfy himself from any single point of view. He
cannot be content to leave his men and women, in Shakespeare's
disinterested manner, to look in various directions according to
whatever chanced to suit best the temper and disposition he had imagined
for them. They are placed by him with their eyes turned in very much the
same direction, gazing towards the same problems, the same ideas. And
somehow Browning himself seems to be in company with them all the time,
learning their different reports of the various aspects which those
problems or ideas present to each of them, and choosing between the
different reports in order to give credence to that which seems true.
The study of no individual character would seem to him of capital value
unless that character contained something which should help to throw
light upon matters common to all humanity, upon the inquiries either as
to what it is, or as to what are its relations to the things outside
humanity. This is not quite the highest form of dramatic poetry. There
is in it perhaps something of the error of seeking too quick returns of
profit, and of drawing "a circle premature," to use Browning's own
words, "heedless of far gain." The contents of characters so conceived
can be exhausted, whereas when characters are presented with entire
disinterestedness they may seem to yield us less at first, but they are
inexhaustible. The fault--if it be one--lay partly in Browning's epoch,
partly in the nature of his genius. Such a method of deflected dramatic
characterisation as his is less appropriate to regular drama than to the
monologue; and accordingly the monologue, reflective or lyrical, became
the most characteristic instrument of his art.

There is little of repose in Browning's poetry. He feared lethargy of
heart, the supine mood, more than he feared excess of passion. Once or
twice he utters a sigh for rest, but it is for rest after strife or
labour. Broad spaces of repose, of emotional tranquillity are rare, if
not entirely wanting, in his poetry. It is not a high table-land, but a
range, or range upon r