His adversaries consider his literary vagaries a disqualification for every position among poets; and his admirers regard those vagaries with the affectionate indulgence of a circle of maiden aunts towards a boy home for the holidays.

Browning is supposed to do as he likes with form, because he had such a profound scheme of thought.

But, as a matter of fact, though few of his followers will take Browning's literary form seriously, he took his own literary form very seriously.

Now _Pippa Passes_ is, among other things, eminently remarkable as a very original artistic form, a series of disconnected but dramatic scenes which have only in common the appearance of one figure.

For this admirable literary departure Browning, amid all the laudations of his "mind" and his "message," has scarcely ever had credit.