Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/138

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Yet there is a subjective drama which, as we have Modern and subjective drama. learned in our day, is not without greatness derived from the unique genius of its constructor. The poet of England and Italy, whose ashes Venice has so recently surrendered to their shrine in Westminster, doubtless possessed a sturdier dramatic spirit than any Briton since the days of John Webster and John Ford. Browning Browning. was a masterful poet in his temper and insight, his flashes of power and passion, his metaphors, and distinguished for his recognition of national and historic types, his acceptance of life, his profound conviction that the system of things is all right, that we can trust it to the end. But his incessant recurrence to this conviction was a personal factor significant of many others. There are numerous and distinct characters in his repertory, but it requires study to apprehend them, for they have but one habit of speech, whatsoever their age or country. '''Cp. "Victorian Poets": pp. 294-297, 431-433.''' They all indulge, moreover, in that trick of self-analysis which Shakespeare confines to the soliloquies of special personages at critical moments. Even Browning's little maids study their own cases in the spirit of Sordello or Paracelsus. Finally, his whole work is characterized by a strangely individual style and atmosphere. True, it is difficult to mistake an excerpt from