In the period between these two poems the same problems were frequently in Browning's mind, and no section of his work is richer in thought and poetic beauty than that which expresses them. In _Karshish_, with its vivid realisation of the mind of a thoughtful heathen longing for a faith, in _A Death in the Desert_, where the St. John is rather a man of the age of Strauss than of the first century, in _The Pope_ and in _Rabbi Ben Ezra_, we have Browning's deepest treatment of the problems which interested him most, and we have not that sacrifice of poetry to philosophy which mars _La Saisiaz_. We may say that about this time Browning discovered the vital interest of his generation, and discovered also where his own strength lay. The effect is seen in the uniform excellence of his work. The publications of the twenty years between 1850 and 1870, taken as a whole, certainly surpass what he had done before or what he did afterwards. _Men and Women_ (1855) has been probably the most popular and the most widely read of all his writings; _Dramatis Personæ_ (1864) is even richer in poetry, but has been commonly felt to be more difficult in thought; while _The Ring and the Book_ (1868-1869) is by almost all competent judges pronounced his masterpiece. The plan of The _Ring and the Book_, whereby the same story is told ten times over from ten different points of view, is defensible only on the ground that it succeeds. Nearly half the poem is hardly worth reading; yet the other half so splendidly redeems it that _The Ring and the Book_ ranks among the great poems of modern times. The pictures of Caponsacchi, of Guido, of Pompilia and of the Pope are all great. Guido has the interest, unique in this poem, of appearing twice; and there is no better illustration of the subtlety of Browning's thought than the difference between the Count, plausible, supple and polished, pleading for his life, and the man Guido, stripped of all but bare humanity, condemned to death, first desperately petitioning, then tearing off the veil of hypocrisy and uttering his terrible truths both about himself and the messengers who bear his sentence. Pompilia is Browning's most perfect female character; but, though a beautiful creation, she illustrates one of the defects in his dramatic art. She speaks Browning's speech, and she thinks his thought. Simple child as she is, there is a depth of philosophy in her utterances that is not in strict keeping with her character; and she, like all Browning's men and women, uses the abrupt vivid language of the poet. Notwithstanding his almost passionate repudiation of the idea, Browning is a self-revealing poet; and nowhere does he reveal himself more than in the Pope, the greatest character in _The Ring and the Book_. In him the resemblance to Browning himself does not matter, it rather adds a new interest. The mind can conceive and picture nothing higher than its own ideal best; and the Pope is Browning's ideal man, great in intellect, in