There is another thing to say.  The three long dramas of Tennyson are better as dramas than the long ones of Browning.  But the smaller dramatic pieces of Browning are much better than the smaller ones of Tennyson. The Promise of May is bad in dialogue, bad in composition, bad in delineation of character, worst of all in its subject, in its plot, and in its motives. The Cup, and The Falcon, a beautiful story beautifully written by Boccaccio, is strangely dulled, even vulgarised, by Tennyson.  The Robin Hood play has gracious things in it, but as a drama it is worthless, and it is impossible to forgive Tennyson for his fairies.  All these small plays are dreadful examples of what a great poet may do when he works in a vehicle—­if I may borrow a term from painting—­for which he has no natural capacity, but for which he thinks he has.  He is then like those sailors, and meets justly the same fate, who think that because they can steer a boat admirably, they can also drive a coach and four.  The love scene in Becket between Rosamund and Henry illustrates my meaning.  It was a subject in itself that Tennyson ought to have done well, and would probably have done well in another form of poetry; but, done in a form for which he had no genius, he did it badly.  It is the worst thing in the play.  Once, however, he did a short drama fairly well. The Cup has some dramatic movement, its construction is clear, its verse imaginative, its scenery well conceived; and its motives are simple and easily understood.  But then, as in Becket, Irving stood at his right hand, and advised him concerning dramatic changes and situations.  Its passion is, however, cold; it leaves us unimpressed.

On the contrary, Browning’s smaller dramatic pieces—­I cannot call them dramas—­are much better than those of Tennyson. Pippa Passes, A Soul’s Tragedy, In a Balcony, stand on a much higher level, aim higher, and reach their aim more fully than Tennyson’s shorter efforts.  They have not the qualities which fit them for representation, but they have those which fit them for thoughtful and quiet reading.  No one thinks much of the separate personalities; our chief interest is in following Browning’s imagination as it invents new phases of his subject, and plays like a sword in sunlight, in and out of these phases.  As poems of the soul in severe straits, made under a quasi-dramatic form, they reach a high excellence, but all that we like best in them, when we follow them as situations of the soul, we should most dislike when represented on the stage.

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