_In Memoriam_ and this Collected Edition of Browning issued almost together; but with how different a fate and fame we see most plainly in the fact that Browning can scarcely be said to have had any imitators.

The groves and ledges of his side of Apollo's mountain were empty, save for a few enchanted listeners, who said: "This is our music, and here we build our tent." As the years went on, these readers increased in number, but even when the volumes entitled _Men and Women_ were published in 1855, and the _Dramatis Personae_ in 1864, his followers were but a little company.

For all this neglect Browning cared as a bird cares who sings for the love of singing, and who never muses in himself whether the wood is full or not of listeners.

Being always a true artist, he could not stop versing and playing; and not one grain of villain envy touched his happy heart when he looked across the valley to Tennyson.

He loved his mistress Art, and his love made him always joyful in creating.
At last his time came, but it was not till nearly twenty years after the Collected Poems of 1849 that _The Ring and the Book_ astonished the reading public so much by its intellectual _tour de force_ that it was felt to be unwise to ignore Browning any longer.