iend of another man. But the whole question is interesting, because
Browning, although he never again attacked a political drama of such
palpable importance as _Strafford_, could never keep politics
altogether out of his dramatic work. _King Victor and King Charles_,
which followed it, is a political play, the study of a despotic
instinct much meaner than that of Strafford. _Colombe's Birthday_,
again, is political as well as romantic. Politics in its historic
aspect would seem to have had a great fascination for him, as indeed
it must have for all ardent intellects, since it is the one thing in
the world that is as intellectual as the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ and
as rapid as the Derby.

One of the favourite subjects among those who like to conduct long
controversies about Browning (and their name is legion) is the
question of whether Browning's plays, such as _Strafford_, were
successes upon the stage. As they are never agreed about what
constitutes a success on the stage, it is difficult to adjudge their
quarrels. But the general fact is very simple; such a play as
_Strafford_ was not a gigantic theatrical success, and nobody, it is
to be presumed, ever imagined that it would be. On the other hand, it
was certainly not a failure, but was enjoyed and applauded as are
hundreds of excellent plays which run only for a week or two, as many
excellent plays do, and as all plays ought to do. Above all, the
definite success which attended the representation of _Strafford_ from
the point of view of the more educated and appreciative was quite
enough to establish Browning in a certain definite literary position.
As a classical and established personality he did not come into his
kingdom for years and decades afterwards; not, indeed, until he was
near to entering upon the final rest. But as a detached and eccentric
personality, as a man who existed and who had arisen on the outskirts
of literature, the world began to be conscious of him at this time.

Of what he was personally at the period that he thus became personally
apparent, Mrs. Bridell Fox has left a very vivid little sketch. She
describes how Browning called at the house (he was acquainted with her
father), and finding that gentleman out, asked with a kind of abrupt
politeness if he might play on the piano. This touch is very
characteristic of the mingled aplomb and unconsciousness of Browning's
social manner. "He was then," she writes, "slim and dark, and very
hands