He evidently hoped that the regular drama would prove to be the form most congenial to him, for he kept on persistently in that form for nearly ten years, wrote much magnificent poetry in it and at times attained a grandeur of dramatic utterance hardly surpassed except in the master of all dramatists, Shakespeare. But while he has attained a very genuine success in this form, it is not the success of the popular acting drama. His dramas are to-day probably being left farther and farther aside every moment in the present exaggerated demands for characters in action, or perhaps it might be nearer the truth to say clothes horses in action. Besides, the drama of action in character, which is the type of drama introduced into English literature by Browning, has reached a more perfect development in other hands. Ibsen's dramas are preëminently dramas of action in character, but the action moves with such rapidity that the audience is almost cheated into thinking they are the old thing over again--that is, dramas of characters in action. Browning's characters in his dramas are presented with a completeness of psychological analysis which makes them of paramount interest to those few who can and like to listen to people holding forth to any length on the stage, and with superb actors, who can give every subtlest change of mood, a Browning drama furnishes an opportunity for the utmost intensity of pleasure. Still, one cannot help but feel that the impressionistic psychology of Ibsen reaches a pinnacle of dramatic art not attained by Browning in his plays, delightful in character portrayal as they are, and not upon any account to have been missed from dramatic literature. In the dramatic monologue Browning found just that form which would focus his forces, bringing them into the sort of relationship needed to reveal the true law of being for his new region of poetic art. If we inquire just why this form was the true medium for the most perfect expression of his genius, I think we may answer that in it, as he has developed it, is given an opportunity for the legitimate exercise of his mental subtlety. Through the voice of one speaker he can portray not only the speaker but one or more other characters, and at the same time show the scene setting, and all without any direct description. On the other hand, his tendency to redundancy, so marked when he is making a character reveal only his own personality, is held in check by the necessity of using just those words and turns of expression and dwelling upon just those details which will make each character stand out distinctly, and at the same time bring the scene before the reader.