In method as in conception these pieces are among the most Browningesque things that Browning ever wrote.

It is clear, however, that while his way of handling these topics is absolutely his own, his peculiar concern with them is new.

The _Karshish_, the _Clean_, and the _Blougram_ have no prototype or parallel among the poems of Browning's previous periods.

In the early Dramatic Lyrics and Romances, and in the plays, there is exquisite rendering of religion, and also of irreligion; but the religion is just the simple faith of Pippa or of Theocrite that "God's in his world"; and the irreligion is the Humanist paganism of St Praxed's, not so much hostile to Christianity as unconscious of it.

No single poem written before 1850 shows that acute interest in the problems of Christian faith which constantly emerges in the work of this and the following years.