On the other hand, it was certainly not a failure, but was enjoyed and applauded as are hundreds of excellent plays which run only for a week or two, as many excellent plays do, and as all plays ought to do.

Above all, the definite success which attended the representation of _Strafford_ from the point of view of the more educated and appreciative was quite enough to establish Browning in a certain definite literary position.
As a classical and established personality he did not come into his kingdom for years and decades afterwards; not, indeed, until he was near to entering upon the final rest.

But as a detached and eccentric personality, as a man who existed and who had arisen on the outskirts of literature, the world began to be conscious of him at this time.
Of what he was personally at the period that he thus became personally apparent, Mrs.Bridell Fox has left a very vivid little sketch.

She describes how Browning called at the house (he was acquainted with her father), and finding that gentleman out, asked with a kind of abrupt politeness if he might play on the piano.

This touch is very characteristic of the mingled aplomb and unconsciousness of Browning's social manner.