those which exhibit it. The two impulses derived from temperament and
from imagination thus drew him in somewhat diverse directions; and for
some years the joy in the stir and stress and many-sided life of drama
competed with the powerful bent of the portrayer of souls, until the two
contending currents finally coalesced in the dramatic monologues of _Men
and Women_. In 1835 the solution was not yet found, but the five years
which followed were to carry Browning, not without crises of perplexity
and hesitation, far on his way towards it. _Paracelsus_ was no sooner
completed than he entered upon his kindred but more esoteric 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