Force is added to this study by its scenery.

The Moorish windows, the shops, the gorgeous magistrates pacing down the promenade, are touched in with a flying pencil; and then, moving through the crowd, the lean, black-coated figure, with his cane and dog and his peaked hat, clear flint eyes and beaked nose, is seen, as if alive, in the vivid sunshine of Valladolid.

But what Browning wished most to describe in this poem was one of the first marks of a poet, even of a poor one like this gentleman--the power of seeing and observing everything.

Nothing was too small, nothing uninteresting in this man's eyes.

His very hat was scrutinising.
He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade, The man who slices lemons into drink, The coffee-roaster's brazier, and the boys That volunteer to help him turn its winch.
He glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye, And fly-leaf ballads on the vendor's string, And broad-edged bold-print posters by the wall.
He took such cognisance of man and things, If any beat a horse you felt he saw; If any cursed a woman, he took note; Yet stared at nobody, you stared at him, And found, less to your pleasure than surprise, He seemed to know you and expect as much.
That is the artist's way.