'"
In Mr. Symons's opinion Pippa Passes is Mr. Browning's most perfect
piece of work, for pregnancy of intellect, combined with faultless
expression in a perfectly novel yet symmetrical outline: and he is
very likely right. He is certainly right in thinking Mas they
formerly stood, Mr. Browning's most delightful volumes. It is only
to be regretted [49] that in the later collected edition of the works
those two magical old volumes are broken up and scattered under other
headings. We think also that Mr. Symons in his high praise does no
more than justice to The Ring and the Book. The Ring and the Book is
at once the largest and the greatest of Mr. Browning's works, the
culmination of his dramatic method, and the turning-point more
decisively than Dramatis Personae of his style. Yet just here he
rightly marks a change in Mr. Browning's manner:--
"Not merely the manner of presentment, the substance, and also the
style and versification have undergone a change. I might point to
the profound intellectual depth of certain pieces as its
characteristic, or, equally, to the traces here and there of an
apparent carelessness of workmanship; or, yet again, to the new and
very marked partiality for scenes and situations of English and
modern rather than medieval and foreign life.
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