ric portrayal
of the soul-history of Sordello,--a study in which, with the dramatic
form, almost all the dramatic excellences of its predecessors are put
aside. But the poet was outgrowing the method; the work hung fire; and
we find him, before he had gone far with the perplexed record of that
"ineffectual angel," already "eager to freshen a jaded mind by diverting
it to the healthy natures of a grand epoch."[6]

[Footnote 6: Preface to the first edition of _Strafford_ (subsequently
omitted).]

The open-eyed man of the world and of affairs in Browning was plainly
clamouring for more expression than he had yet found. An invitation from
the first actor of the day to write a tragedy for him was not likely,
under these circumstances, to be declined; and during the whole winter
of 1836-37 the story of Sordello remained untold, while its author
plunged, with a security and relish which no one who knew only his
poetry could have foretold, into the pragmatic politics and diplomatic
intrigues of _Strafford_. The performance of the play on May 1, 1837
introduced further distractions. And _Sordello_ had made little further
progress, when, in the April of the following year, Browning embarked on
a sudden but memorable trip to the South of Europe. It gave him his
first glimpse of Italy and of the Mediterranean, and plenty of the rough
homely intercourse with men which he loved. He travelled, in a fashion
that suited his purse and his hardy nature, by a merchant vessel from
London to the Adriatic. The food was uneatable, the horrors of dirt and
discomfort portentous; but he bore them cheerfully for the sake of one
advantage,--"the solitariness of the _one_ passenger among all those
rough new creatures, _I_ like it much, and soon get deep into their
friendship."[7] Grim tragedies of the high-seas, too, came within his
ken.[8] Two or three moments of the voyage stand out for us with
peculiar distinctness: the gorgeous sunset off Cadiz bay, when he
watched the fading outlines of Gibraltar and Cape St Vincent,--ghostly
mementos of England,--not as Arnold's weary Titan, but as a Herakles
stretching a hand of help across the seas; the other sunset on the
Mediterranean, when Etna loomed against the flaming sky;[9] and, between
them, that glaring noontide on the African shore, when the "solitary
passenger," weary of shipboard and sea sickness, longed for his good
horse York in the stable at home, and scribbled his ballad of brave
horses, _