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development, or degradation, to the extent that Browning deals with them. Here, too, is the secret of Browning's failure as a dramatist, for failure it was for a man of Browning's calibre not to excel pre-eminently. Who would not prefer to have Colombe's Birthday or A Blot in the 'Scutcheon as a dramatic idyll? And the reason is that the dramatic side of these dramas—the action—is not the thing for which the poet cares or makes his audience care. Two acts of Colombe pass without any action whatever. Browning had a quick eye for a dramatic situation; he was dramatic in that sense, if you will. But of the power of connecting such situations together into one organic whole, in which each should add force to each of this, the true dramatic power, he had singularly little. Even Pippa Passes has, with all its grace and effectiveness, no real dramatic unity. Pippa passes through a series of dramatic situations, and so strings them together; but it is from the outside. Contrast the far more effective way in which a poet of infinitely less poetic force, but yet of keener dramatic instinct, M. François Coppée, has dealt with a kindred theme in Le Passant. No, Browning was no born dramatist, and was wisely advised by his own instinct to turn to 'Dramatic Idyls ' or 'Dramatis Personæ,' or in other words, dramatic situations instead of dramas.