It would be impossible to tell at first hearing what the chopped-up sentences, the interrupted phrases, the interjected "nots" and "buts" and "yets" are intended to convey.

The conversation is mangled.

This vice does not prevail in the other dramas to the same extent as in _Strafford_.

Browning had learnt his lesson, I suppose, when he saw _Strafford_ represented.

But it sorely prevails in _Colombe's Birthday_.
Strafford is brought before us as a politician, as the leader of the king's side in an austere crisis of England's history.