edly in so many directions, because she felt that he
had thus too little time and energy left for poetry. Her fear was not
without justification, for after the richly productive period from 1841
to 1846, we come upon a space of nine years the only publications of
which are, in 1850, _Christmas Eve and Easter Day_, a long poem in two
parts giving the arguments in favor of Christianity; and, in 1852, an
introduction to a collection of letters then supposed to be by Shelley,
but since found to be spurious. The essay is nevertheless of importance
as an exposition of Browning's theory of poetry, and as an interesting
study of Shelley.

In 1855, at the close of this period of nine years, there appeared a
collection of fifty-one poems entitled _Men and Women_. In "fundamental
brain power," insight, beauty, and mastery of style, these poems show
Browning at the highest level of his poetic achievement. It is in these
remarkable poems that he brought to perfection a poetic form which he
practically invented, the dramatic monologue, a form in which there is
but one speaker but which is essentially dramatic in effect. The
dramatic quality arises partly from the implied presence of listeners
whose expressions of assent or dissent determine the progress or the
abrupt changes of direction of the speaker's words. In "Andrea del
Sarto," for example, Lucrezia's smiles and frowns and gestures of
impatience are a constant influence, and the poem presents as vivid an
interplay of personalities as any scene in a drama. But the implied
listener is hardly more than a secondary dramatic element, the chief one
being that the speaker talks, as do the characters in a play, out of the
demands of the immediate experience, gradually and casually disclosing
all the tangled web of influence, all the clashes of will with destiny,
of desire with convention, that have led to the crisis depicted. Fra
Lippo Lippi gives no consecutive history of his life, only such snatches
of it as partially account for his present mad freak, but the strife
between his own nature and instinct on the one hand and the conventions
and traditions of religious art on the other could hardly be more
vividly presented. _In a Balcony_, the one drama in _Men and Women_, has
but a fragment of a plot, but in intensity, reality, and passion it
excels most of Browning's dramas, and, in spite of its long speeches,
has proved effective on the stage.[5] In variety of theme,
subject-matter,