Into that high and free region of thought and action Browning brought us long ago.

Tennyson did not, save at intervals when the poet over-rode the man.

This differentiates the men.

But it also tells us why Browning was not read fifty years ago, when social conventions were tyrannous and respectability a despot, and why he has been read for the last fifteen years and is read now.
8.

There is another contrast between these poets.