Nevertheless, it may be permissible to repeat that there is in the play a definite trace of Browning's Puritan education and Puritan historical outlook.
For _Strafford_ is, of course, an example of that most difficult of all literary works--a political play.

The thing has been achieved once at least admirably in Shakespeare's _Julius Caesar_, and something like it, though from a more one-sided and romantic stand-point, has been done excellently in _L'Aiglon_.

But the difficulties of such a play are obvious on the face of the matter.

In a political play the principal characters are not merely men.

They are symbols, arithmetical figures representing millions of other men outside.