Ripert-Monclar; for he was on friendly terms with the uncle of the young
count, the Marquis de Fortia, a learned man and member of the Institut,
and gave a letter of introduction--actually, I believe, to his brother
Reuben--at the Marquis's request.*

     * A grandson of William Shergold, Robert Jardine Browning,
     graduated at Lincoln College, was called to the Bar, and is
     now Crown Prosecutor in New South Wales; where his name
     first gave rise to a report that he was Mr. Browning's son,
     while the announcement of his marriage was, for a moment,
     connected with Mr. Browning himself.  He was also intimate
     with the poet and his sister, who liked him very much.

The friendly relations with Carlyle, which resulted in his high estimate
of the poet's mother, also began at Hatcham. On one occasion he took
his brother, the doctor, with him to dine there. An earlier and much
attached friend of the family was Captain Pritchard, cousin to the noted
physician Dr. Blundell. He enabled the young Robert, whom he knew from
the age of sixteen, to attend some of Dr. Blundell's lectures; and this
aroused in him a considerable interest in the sciences connected with
medicine, though, as I shall have occasion to show, no knowledge of
either disease or its treatment ever seems to have penetrated into his
life. A Captain Lloyd is indirectly associated with 'The Flight of the
Duchess'. That poem was not completed according to its original plan;
and it was the always welcome occurrence of a visit from this gentleman
which arrested its completion. Mr. Browning vividly remembered how the
click of the garden gate, and the sight of the familiar figure advancing
towards the house, had broken in upon his work and dispelled its first
inspiration.

The appearance of 'Paracelsus' did not give the young poet his just
place in popular judgment and public esteem. A generation was to pass
before this was conceded to him. But it compelled his recognition by the
leading or rising literary men of the day; and a fuller and more varied
social life now opened before him. The names of Serjeant Talfourd,
Horne, Leigh Hunt, Barry Cornwall (Procter), Monckton Milnes (Lord
Houghton), Eliot Warburton, Dickens, Wordsworth, and Walter Savage
Landor, represent, with that of Forster, some of the acquaintances made,
or the friendships begun, at this period. Prominent among the friends
that were to be, was also Archer Gurney, well known in later life as the
Rev. Archer Gurney, and chaplain to the British embassy in Paris.
His sympathies were at present largely absorbed by politics. He was
contesting the representation of some county, on the Conservative side;
but he took a very vivid interest in Mr. Browning's poems; and this
perhaps fixes the beginning of the intimacy at a somewhat later date;
since a pretty story by which it was illustrated connects itself with
the publication of 'Bells and Pomegranates'. He himself wrote dramas and
poems. Sir John, afterwards Lord, Hanmer was also much attracted by the
young poet, who spent a pleasant week with him at Bettisfield Park. He
was the author of a volume entitled 'Fra Cipollo and other Poems', from
which the motto of 'Colombe's Birthday' was subsequently taken.

The friends, old and new, met in the informal manner of those days, at
afternoon dinners, or later suppers, at the houses of Mr. Fox, Serjeant
Talfourd, and, as we shall see, Mr. Macready; and Mr. Fox's daughter,
then only a little girl, but intelligent and observant for her years,
well remembers the pleasant gatherings at which she was allowed to
assist, when first performances of plays, or first readings of plays and
poems, had brought some of the younger and more ardent spirits together.
Miss Flower, also, takes her place in the literary group. Her sister had
married in 1834, and left her free to live for her own pursuits and her
own friends; and Mr. Browning must have seen more of her then than was
possible in his boyish days.

None, however, of these intimacies were, at the time, so important to
him as that formed with the great actor Macready. They were introduced
to each other by Mr. Fox early in the winter of 1835-6; the meeting is
thus chronicled in Macready's diary, November 27.*

     * 'Macready's Reminiscences', edited by Sir Frederick Pollock;
          1875.

'Went from chambers to dine with Rev. William Fox, Bayswater. . . . Mr.
Robert Browning, the author of 'Paracelsus', came in after dinner; I was
very much pleased to meet him. His face is full of intelligence. . . .
I took Mr. Browning on, and requested to be allowed to improve my
acquaintance with him. He expressed himself warmly, as gratified by the
proposal, wished to send me his book; we exchanged cards and parted.'

On December 7 he writes:

'Read 'Paracelsus', a work of great daring, starred with poetry of
thought, feeling, and diction, but occasionally obscure; the writer can
scarcely fail to be a leading spirit of his time. . . .'

He invited Mr. Browning to his country house, Elm Place, Elstree, for
the last evening of the year; and again refers to him under date of
December 31.

'. . . Our other guests were Miss Henney, Forster, Cattermole, Browning,
and Mr. Munro. Mr. Browning was very popular with the whole party; his
simple and enthusiastic manner engaged attention, and won opinions from
all present; he looks and speaks more like a youthful poet than any man
I ever saw.'

This New-Year's-Eve visit brought Browning and Forster together for the
first time. The journey to Elstree was then performed by coach, and the
two young men met at the 'Blue Posts', where, with one or more of Mr.
Macready's other guests, they waited for the coach to start. They eyed
each other with interest, both being striking in their way, and
neither knowing who the other was. When the introduction took place at
Macready's house, Mr. Forster supplemented it by saying: 'Did you see a
little notice of you I wrote in the 'Examiner'?' The two names will
now be constantly associated in Macready's diary, which, except for
Mr. Browning's own casual utterances, is almost our only record of his
literary and social life during the next two years.

It was at Elm Place that Mr. Browning first met Miss Euphrasia Fanny
Haworth, then a neighbour of Mr. Macready, residing with her mother at
Barham Lodge. Miss Haworth was still a young woman, but her love and
talent for art and literature made her a fitting member of the genial
circle to which Mr. Browning belonged; and she and the poet soon became
fast friends. Her first name appears as 'Eyebright' in 'Sordello'. His
letters to her, returned after her death by her brother, Mr. Frederick
Haworth, supply valuable records of his experiences and of his feelings
at one very interesting, and one deeply sorrowful, period of his
history. She was a thoroughly kindly, as well as gifted woman, and much
appreciated by those of the poet's friends who knew her as a resident in
London during her last years. A portrait which she took of him in 1874
is considered by some persons very good.

At about this time also, and probably through Miss Haworth, he became
acquainted with Miss Martineau.

Soon after his introduction to Macready, if not before, Mr. Browning
became busy with the thought of writing for the stage. The diary has
this entry for February 16, 1836:

'Forster and Browning called, and talked over the plot of a tragedy,
which Browning had begun to think of: the subject, Narses. He said that
I had _bit_ him by my performance of Othello, and I told him I hoped I
should make the blood come. It would indeed be some recompense for the
miseries, the humiliations, the heart-sickening disgusts which I have
endured in my profession, if, by its exercise, I had awakened a spirit
of poetry whose influence would elevate, ennoble, and adorn our degraded
drama. May it be!'

But Narses was abandoned, and the more serious inspiration and more
definite motive were to come later. They connect themselves with one
of the pleasant social occurrences which must have lived in the young
poet's memory. On May 26 'Ion' had been performed for the first time and
with great success, Mr. Macready sustaining the principal part; and the
great actor and a number of their common friends had met at supper at
Serjeant Talfourd's house to celebrate the occasion. The party included
Wordsworth and Landor, both of whom Mr. Browning then met for the first
time. Toasts flew right and left. Mr. Browning's health was proposed
by Serjeant Talfourd as that of the youngest poet of England, and
Wordsworth responded to the appeal with very kindly courtesy. The
conversation afterwards turned upon plays, and Macready, who had ignored
a half-joking question of Miss Mitford, whether, if she wrote one, he
would act in it, overtook Browning as they were leaving the house, and
said, 'Write a play, Browning, and keep me from going to America.' The
reply was, 'Shall it be historical and English; what do you say to a
drama on Strafford?'

This ready response on the poet's part showed that Strafford, as a
dramatic subject, had been occupying his thoughts. The subject was in
the air, because Forster was then bringing out a life of that statesman,
with others belonging to the same period. It was more than in the air,
so far as Browning was concerned, because his friend had been disabled,
either through sickness or sorrow, from finishing this volume by the
appointed time, and he, as well he might, had largely helped him in its
completion. It was, however, not till August 3 that Macready wrote in
his diary:

'Forster told me that Browning had fixed on Strafford for the subject of
a tragedy; he could not have hit upon one that I could have more readily
concurred in.'

A previous entry of May 30, the occasion of which is only implied, shows
with how high an estimate of Mr. Browning's intellectual importance
Macready's professional relations to him began.

'Arriving at chambers, I found a note from Browning. What can I say upon
it? It was a tribute which remunerated me for the annoyances and cares
of years: it was one of the very highest, may I not say the highest,
honour I have through life received.'

The estimate maintained itself in reference to the value of Mr.
Browning's work, since he wrote on March 13, 1837:

'Read before dinner a few pages of 'Paracelsus', which raises my wonder
the more I read it. . . . Looked over two plays, which it was not
possible to read, hardly as I tried. . . . Read some scenes in
'Strafford', which restore one to the world of sense and feeling once
again.'

But as the day of the performance drew near, he became at once more
anxious and more critical. An entry of April 28 comments somewhat
sharply on the dramatic faults of 'Strafford', besides declaring the
writer's belief that the only chance for it is in the acting, which, 'by
possibility, might carry it to the end without disapprobation,' though
he dares not hope without opposition. It is quite conceivable that his
first complete study of the play, and first rehearsal of it, brought to
light deficiencies which had previously escaped him; but so complete
a change of sentiment points also to private causes of uneasiness and
irritation; and, perhaps, to the knowledge that its being saved by
collective good acting was out of the question.

'Strafford' was performed at Covent Garden Theatre on May 1. Mr.
Browning wrote to Mr. Fox after one of the last rehearsals:

May Day, Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Dear Sir,--All my endeavours to procure a copy before this morning have
been fruitless. I send the first book of the first bundle. _Pray_ look
over it--the alterations to-night will be considerable. The complexion
of the piece is, I grieve to say, 'perfect gallows' just now--our _King_,
Mr. Dale, being . . . but you'll see him, and, I fear, not much applaud.
Your unworthy son, in things literary, Robert Browning.

P.S. (in pencil).--A most unnecessary desire, but urged on me by Messrs.
Longman: no notice on Str. in to-night's True Sun,* lest the other
papers be jealous!!!

     * Mr. Fox reviewed 'Strafford' in the 'True Sun'.

A second letter, undated, but evidently written a day or two later,
refers to the promised notice, which had then appeared.

Tuesday Night.

No words can express my feelings: I happen to be much annoyed and
unwell--but your most generous notice has almost made 'my soul well and
happy now.'

I thank you, my most kind, most constant friend, from my heart for your
goodness--which is brave enough, just now. I am ever and increasingly
yours, Robert Browning.

You will be glad to see me on the earliest occasion, will you not? I
shall certainly come.

A letter from Miss Flower to Miss Sarah Fox (sister to the Rev. William
Fox), at Norwich, contains the following passage, which evidently
continues a chapter of London news:

'Then 'Strafford'; were you not pleased to hear of the success of one
you must, I think, remember a very little boy, years ago. If not, you
have often heard us speak of Robert Browning: and it is a great deal to
have accomplished a successful tragedy, although he seems a good deal
annoyed at the go of things behind the scenes, and declares he will
never write a play again, as long as he lives. You have no idea of
the ignorance and obstinacy of the whole set, with here and there an
exception; think of his having to write out the meaning of the word
'impeachment', as some of them thought it meant 'poaching'.'

On the first night, indeed, the fate of 'Strafford' hung in the balance;
it was saved by Macready and Miss Helen Faucit. After this they must
have been better supported, as it was received on the second night
with enthusiasm by a full house. The catastrophe came after the fifth
performance, with the desertion of the actor who had sustained the
part of Pym. We cannot now judge whether, even under favourable
circumstances, the play would have had as long a run as was intended;
but the casting vote in favour of this view is given by the conduct of
Mr. Osbaldistone, the manager, when it was submitted to him. The diary
says, March 30, that he caught at it with avidity, and agreed to produce
it without delay. The terms he offered to the author must also have been
considered favourable in those days.

The play was published in April by Longman, this time not at the
author's expense; but it brought no return either to him or to his
publisher. It was dedicated 'in all affectionate admiration' to William
C. Macready.

We gain some personal glimpses of the Browning of 1835-6; one especially
through Mrs. Bridell-Fox, who thus describes her first meeting with him:

'I remember . . . when Mr. Browning entered the drawing-room, with a
quick light step; and on hearing from me that my father was out, and
in fact that nobody was at home but myself, he said: "It's my birthday
to-day; I'll wait till they come in," and sitting down to the piano,
he added: "If it won't disturb you, I'll play till they do." And as he
turned to the instrument, the bells of some neighbouring church suddenly
burst out with a frantic merry peal. It seemed, to my childish fancy, as
if in response to the remark that it was his birthday. He was then slim
and dark, and very handsome; and--may I hint it--just a trifle of a
dandy, addicted to lemon-coloured kid-gloves and such things: quite "the
glass of fashion and the mould of form." But full of ambition, eager for
success, eager for fame, and, what's more, determined to conquer fame
and to achieve success.'

I do not think his memory ever taxed him with foppishness, though he may
have had the innocent personal vanity of an attractive young man at his
first period of much seeing and being seen; but all we know of him
at that time bears out the impression Mrs. Fox conveys, of a joyous,
artless confidence in himself and in life, easily depressed, but quickly
reasserting itself; and in which the eagerness for new experiences
had freed itself from the rebellious impatience of boyish days. The
self-confidence had its touches of flippancy and conceit; but on this
side it must have been constantly counteracted by his gratitude for
kindness, and by his enthusiastic appreciation of the merits of other
men. His powers of feeling, indeed, greatly expended themselves in this
way. He was very attractive to women and, as we have seen, warmly loved
by very various types of men; but, except in its poetic sense, his
emotional nature was by no means then in the ascendant: a fact difficult
to realize when we remember the passion of his childhood's love for
mother and home, and the new and deep capabilities of affection to be
developed in future days. The poet's soul in him was feeling its wings;
the realities of life had not yet begun to weight them.

We see him again at the 'Ion' supper, in the grace and modesty with
which he received the honours then adjudged to him. The testimony has
been said to come from Miss Mitford, but may easily have been supplied
by Miss Haworth, who was also present on this occasion.

Mr. Browning's impulse towards play-writing had not, as we have seen,
begun with 'Strafford'. It was still very far from being exhausted. And
though he had struck out for himself another line of dramatic activity,
his love for the higher theatrical life, and the legitimate inducements
of the more lucrative and not necessarily less noble form of
composition, might ultimately in some degree have prevailed with him if
circumstances had been such as to educate his theatrical capabilities,
and to reward them. His first acted drama was, however, an interlude to
the production of the important group of poems which was to be completed
by 'Sordello'; and he alludes to this later work in an also discarded
preface to 'Strafford', as one on which he had for some time been
engaged. He even characterizes the Tragedy as an attempt 'to freshen
a jaded mind by diverting it to the healthy natures of a grand epoch.'
'Sordello' again occupied him during the remainder of 1837 and the
beginning of 1838; and by the spring of this year he must have been
thankful to vary the scene and mode of his labours by means of a first
visit to Italy. He announces his impending journey, with its immediate
plan and purpose, in the following note:

To John Robertson, Esq.

Good Friday, 1838.

Dear Sir,--I was not fortunate enough to find you the day before
yesterday--and must tell you very hurriedly that I sail this morning
for Venice--intending to finish my poem among the scenes it describes.
I shall have your good wishes I know. Believe me, in return, Dear sir,
Yours faithfully and obliged, Robert Browning.

Mr. John Robertson had influence with the 'Westminster Review', either
as editor, or member of its staff. He had been introduced to Mr.
Browning by Miss Martineau; and, being a great admirer of 'Paracelsus',
had promised careful attention for 'Sordello'; but, when the time
approached, he made conditions of early reading, &c., which Mr. Browning
thought so unfair towards other magazines that he refused to fulfil
them. He lost his review, and the goodwill of its intending writer; and
even Miss Martineau was ever afterwards cooler towards him, though his
attitude in the matter had been in some degree prompted by a chivalrous
partisanship for her.

Chapter 7

1838-1841

First Italian Journey--Letters to Miss Haworth--Mr. John
Kenyon--'Sordello'--Letter to Miss Flower--'Pippa Passes'--'Bells and
Pomegranates'.

Mr. Browning sailed from London with Captain Davidson of the 'Norham
Castle', a merchant vessel bound for Trieste, on which he found himself
the only passenger. A striking experience of the voyage, and some
characteristic personal details, are given in the following letter to
Miss Haworth. It is dated 1838, and was probably written before that
year's summer had closed.

Tuesday Evening.

Dear Miss Haworth,--Do look at a fuchsia in full bloom and notice the
clear little honey-drop depending from every flower. I have just found
it out to my no small satisfaction,--a bee's breakfast. I only answer
for the long-blossomed sort, though,--indeed, for this plant in my room.
Taste and be Titania; you can, that is. All this while I forget that you
will perhaps never guess the good of the discovery: I have, you are to
know, such a love for flowers and leaves--some leaves--that I every
now and then, in an impatience at being able to possess myself of them
thoroughly, to see them quite, satiate myself with their scent,--bite
them to bits--so there will be some sense in that. How I remember the
flowers--even grasses--of places I have seen! Some one flower or weed, I
should say, that gets some strangehow connected with them.

Snowdrops and Tilsit in Prussia go together; cowslips and Windsor Park,
for instance; flowering palm and some place or other in Holland.

Now to answer what can be answered in the letter I was happy to receive
last week. I am quite well. I did not expect you would write,--for none
of your written reasons, however. You will see 'Sordello' in a trice, if
the fagging fit holds. I did not write six lines while absent (except
a scene in a play, jotted down as we sailed thro' the Straits of
Gibraltar)--but I did hammer out some four, two of which are addressed
to you, two to the Queen*--the whole to go in Book III--perhaps. I
called you 'Eyebright'--meaning a simple and sad sort of translation
of "Euphrasia" into my own language: folks would know who Euphrasia, or
Fanny, was--and I should not know Ianthe or Clemanthe. Not that there is
anything in them to care for, good or bad. Shall I say 'Eyebright'?

     * I know no lines directly addressed to the Queen.

I was disappointed in one thing, Canova.

What companions should I have?

The story of the ship must have reached you 'with a difference' as
Ophelia says; my sister told it to a Mr. Dow, who delivered it to
Forster, I suppose, who furnished Macready with it, who made it over
&c., &c., &c.--As short as I can tell, this way it happened: the captain
woke me one bright Sunday morning to say there was a ship floating keel
uppermost half a mile off; they lowered a boat, made ropes fast to some
floating canvas, and towed her towards our vessel. Both met halfway, and
the little air that had risen an hour or two before, sank at once. Our
men made the wreck fast in high glee at having 'new trousers out of the
sails,' and quite sure she was a French boat, broken from her moorings
at Algiers, close by. Ropes were next hove (hang this sea-talk!) round
her stanchions, and after a quarter of an hour's pushing at the capstan,
the vessel righted suddenly, one dead body floating out; five more were
in the forecastle, and had probably been there a month under a blazing
African sun--don't imagine the wretched state of things. They were,
these six, the 'watch below'--(I give you the result of the day's
observation)--the rest, some eight or ten, had been washed overboard at
first. One or two were Algerines, the rest Spaniards. The vessel was a
smuggler bound for Gibraltar; there were two stupidly disproportionate
guns, taking up the whole deck, which was convex and--nay, look you!
(a rough pen-and-ink sketch of the different parts of the wreck is here
introduced) these are the gun-rings, and the black square the place
where the bodies lay. (All the 'bulwarks' or sides of the top, carried
away by the waves.) Well, the sailors covered up the hatchway, broke up
the aft-deck, hauled up tobacco and cigars, such heaps of them, and
then bale after bale of prints and chintz, don't you call it, till the
captain was half-frightened--he would get at the ship's papers, he said;
so these poor fellows were pulled up, piecemeal, and pitched into the
sea, the very sailors calling to each other to 'cover the faces',--no
papers of importance were found, however, but fifteen swords, powder
and ball enough for a dozen such boats, and bundles of cotton, &c., that
would have taken a day to get out, but the captain vowed that after five
o'clock she should be cut adrift: accordingly she was cast loose, not a
third of her cargo having been touched; and you hardly can conceive the
strange sight when the battered hulk turned round, actually, and
looked at us, and then reeled off, like a mutilated creature from some
scoundrel French surgeon's lecture-table, into the most gorgeous and
lavish sunset in the world: there; only thank me for not taking you at
your word, and giving you the whole 'story'.--'What I did?' I went to
Trieste, then Venice--then through Treviso and Bassano to the mountains,
delicious Asolo, all my places and castles, you will see. Then to
Vicenza, Padua, and Venice again. Then to Verona, Trent, Innspruck (the
Tyrol), Munich, Salzburg in Franconia, Frankfort and Mayence; down the
Rhine to Cologne, then to Aix-la-Chapelle, Liege and Antwerp--then home.
Shall you come to town, anywhere near town, soon? I shall be off again
as soon as my book is out, whenever that will be.

I never read that book of Miss Martineau's, so can't understand what
you mean. Macready is looking well; I just saw him the other day for a
minute after the play; his Kitely was Kitely--superb from his flat cap
down to his shining shoes. I saw very few Italians, 'to know', that is.
Those I did see I liked. Your friend Pepoli has been lecturing here, has
he not?

I shall be vexed if you don't write soon, a long Elstree letter. What
are you doing, writing--drawing? Ever yours truly R. B. To Miss Haworth,
Barham Lodge, Elstree.

Miss Browning's account of this experience, supplied from memory of her
brother's letters and conversations, contains some vivid supplementary
details. The drifting away of the wreck put probably no effective
distance between it and the ship; hence the necessity of 'sailing away'
from it.

'Of the dead pirates, one had his hands clasped as if praying; another,
a severe gash in his head. The captain burnt disinfectants and blew
gunpowder, before venturing on board, but even then, he, a powerful man,
turned very sick with the smell and sight. They stayed one whole day
by the side, but the sailors, in spite of orders, began to plunder the
cigars, &c. The captain said privately to Robert, "I cannot restrain my
men, and they will bring the plague into our ship, so I mean quietly in
the night to sail away." Robert took two cutlasses and a dagger; they
were of the coarsest workmanship, intended for use. At the end of one of
the sheaths was a heavy bullet, so that it could be used as a sling.
The day after, to their great relief, a heavy rain fell and cleansed the
ship. Captain Davidson reported the sight of the wreck and its condition
as soon as he arrived at Trieste.'

Miss Browning also relates that the weather was stormy in the Bay of
Biscay, and for the first fortnight her brother suffered terribly. The
captain supported him on to the deck as they passed through the Straits
of Gibraltar, that he might not lose the sight. He recovered, as we
know, sufficiently to write 'How they brought the Good News from Ghent
to Aix'; but we can imagine in what revulsion of feeling towards firm
land and healthy motion this dream of a headlong gallop was born in
him. The poem was pencilled on the cover of Bartoli's "De' Simboli
trasportati al Morale", a favourite book and constant companion of his;
and, in spite of perfect effacement as far as the sense goes, the pencil
dints are still visible. The little poem 'Home Thoughts from the Sea'
was written at the same time, and in the same manner.

By the time they reached Trieste, the captain, a rough north-countryman,
had become so attached to Mr. Browning that he offered him a free
passage to Constantinople; and after they had parted, carefully
preserved, by way of remembrance, a pair of very old gloves worn by him
on deck. Mr. Browning might, on such an occasion, have dispensed with
gloves altogether; but it was one of his peculiarities that he could
never endure to be out of doors with uncovered hands. The captain also
showed his friendly feeling on his return to England by bringing to Miss
Browning, whom he had heard of through her brother, a present of six
bottles of attar of roses.

The inspirations of Asolo and Venice appear in 'Pippa Passes' and 'In
a Gondola'; but the latter poem showed, to Mr. Browning's subsequent
vexation, that Venice had been imperfectly seen; and the magnetism which
Asolo was to exercise upon him, only fully asserted itself at a much
later time.

A second letter to Miss Haworth is undated, but may have been written at
any period of this or the ensuing year.

I have received, a couple of weeks since, a present--an album large and
gaping, and as Cibber's Richard says of the 'fair Elizabeth': 'My
heart is empty--she shall fill it'--so say I (impudently?) of my grand
trouble-table, which holds a sketch or two by my fine fellow Monclar,
one lithograph--his own face of faces,--'all the rest was amethyst.' F.
H. everywhere! not a soul beside 'in the chrystal silence there,' and
it locks, this album; now, don't shower drawings on M., who has so many
advantages over me as it is: or at least don't bid _me_ of all others say
what he is to have.

The 'Master' is somebody you don't know, W. J. Fox, a magnificent and
poetical nature, who used to write in reviews when I was a boy, and
to whom my verses, a bookful, written at the ripe age of twelve and
thirteen, were shown: which verses he praised not a little; which praise
comforted me not a little. Then I lost sight of him for years and
years; then I published _anonymously_ a little poem--which he, to my
inexpressible delight, praised and expounded in a gallant article in a
magazine of which he was the editor; then I found him out again; he got
a publisher for 'Paracelsus' (I read it to him in manuscript) and is in
short 'my literary father'. Pretty nearly the same thing did he for
Miss Martineau, as she has said somewhere. God knows I forget what the
'talk', table-talk was about--I think she must have told you the results
of the whole day we spent tete-a-tete at Ascot, and that day's, the
dinner-day's morning at Elstree and St. Albans. She is to give me advice
about my worldly concerns, and not before I need it!

I cannot say or sing the pleasure your way of writing gives me--do go
on, and tell me all sorts of things, 'the story' for a beginning; but
your moralisings on 'your age' and the rest, are--now what _are_ they?
not to be reasoned on, disputed, laughed at, grieved about: they are
'Fanny's crotchets'. I thank thee, Jew (lia), for teaching me that word.

I don't know that I shall leave town for a month: my friend Monclar
looks piteous when I talk of such an event. I can't bear to leave him;
he is to take my portrait to-day (a famous one he _has_ taken!) and very
like he engages it shall be. I am going to town for the purpose. . . .

Now, then, do something for me, and see if I'll ask Miss M----to help
you! I am going to begin the finishing 'Sordello'--and to begin thinking
a Tragedy (an Historical one, so I shall want heaps of criticisms on
'Strafford') and I want to have _another_ tragedy in prospect, I write
best so provided: I had chosen a splendid subject for it, when I learned
that a magazine for next, this, month, will have a scene founded on my
story; vulgarizing or doing no good to it: and I accordingly throw it
up. I want a subject of the most wild and passionate love, to contrast
with the one I mean to have ready in a short time. I have many
half-conceptions, floating fancies: give me your notion of a thorough
self-devotement, self-forgetting; should it be a woman who loves thus,
or a man? What circumstances will best draw out, set forth this feeling?
. . .

The tragedies in question were to be 'King Victor and King Charles', and
'The Return of the Druses'.

This letter affords a curious insight into Mr. Browning's mode of work;
it is also very significant of the small place which love had hitherto
occupied in his life. It was evident, from his appeal to Miss Haworth's
'notion' on the subject, that he had as yet no experience, even
imaginary, of a genuine passion, whether in woman or man. The experience
was still distant from him in point of time. In circumstance he was
nearer to it than he knew; for it was in 1839 that he became acquainted
with Mr. Kenyon.

When dining one day at Serjeant Talfourd's, he was accosted by a
pleasant elderly man, who, having, we conclude, heard who he was, asked
leave to address to him a few questions: 'Was his father's name Robert?
had he gone to school at the Rev. Mr. Bell's at Cheshunt, and was he
still alive?' On receiving affirmative answers, he went on to say that
Mr. Browning and he had been great chums at school, and though they had
lost sight of each other in after-life, he had never forgotten his
old playmate, but even alluded to him in a little book which he had
published a few years before.*

     * The volume is entitled 'Rhymed Plea for Tolerance' (1833),
     and contains a reference to Mr. Kenyon's schooldays,
     and to the classic fights which Mr. Browning had instituted.

The next morning the poet asked his father if he remembered a
schoolfellow named John Kenyon. He replied, 'Certainly! This is his
face,' and sketched a boy's head, in which his son at once recognized
that of the grown man. The acquaintance was renewed, and Mr. Kenyon
proved ever afterwards a warm friend. Mr. Browning wrote of him, in a
letter to Professor Knight of St. Andrews, Jan. 10, 1884: 'He was one
of the best of human beings, with a general sympathy for excellence
of every kind. He enjoyed the friendship of Wordsworth, of Southey, of
Landor, and, in later days, was intimate with most of my contemporaries
of eminence.' It was at Mr. Kenyon's house that the poet saw most of
Wordsworth, who always stayed there when he came to town.

In 1840 'Sordello' appeared. It was, relatively to its length, by far
the slowest in preparation of Mr. Browning's poems. This seemed, indeed,
a condition of its peculiar character. It had lain much deeper in the
author's mind than the various slighter works which were thrown off in
the course of its inception. We know from the preface to 'Strafford'
that it must have been begun soon after 'Paracelsus'. Its plan may have
belonged to a still earlier date; for it connects itself with 'Pauline'
as the history of a poetic soul; with both the earlier poems, as the
manifestation of the self-conscious spiritual ambitions which were
involved in that history. This first imaginative mood was also
outgrowing itself in the very act of self-expression; for the tragedies
written before the conclusion of 'Sordello' impress us as the product of
a different mental state--as the work of a more balanced imagination and
a more mature mind.

It would be interesting to learn how Mr. Browning's typical poet became
embodied in this mediaeval form: whether the half-mythical character
of the real Sordello presented him as a fitting subject for imaginative
psychological treatment, or whether the circumstances among which he
moved seemed the best adapted to the development of the intended type.
The inspiration may have come through the study of Dante, and his
testimony to the creative influence of Sordello on their mother-tongue.
That period of Italian history must also have assumed, if it did not
already possess, a great charm for Mr. Browning's fancy, since he
studied no less than thirty works upon it, which were to contribute
little more to his dramatic picture than what he calls 'decoration', or
'background'. But the one guide which he has given us to the reading of
the poem is his assertion that its historical circumstance is only to
be regarded as background; and the extent to which he identified himself
with the figure of Sordello has been proved by his continued belief that
its prominence was throughout maintained. He could still declare,
so late as 1863, in his preface to the reprint of the work, that his
'stress' in writing it had lain 'on the incidents in the development of
a soul, little else' being to his mind 'worth study'. I cannot therefore
help thinking that recent investigations of the life and character of
the actual poet, however in themselves praiseworthy and interesting,
have been often in some degree a mistake; because, directly or
indirectly, they referred Mr. Browning's Sordello to an historical
reality, which his author had grasped, as far as was then possible, but
to which he was never intended to conform.

Sordello's story does exhibit the development of a soul; or rather,
the sudden awakening of a self-regarding nature to the claims of other
men--the sudden, though slowly prepared, expansion of the narrower into
the larger self, the selfish into the sympathetic existence; and this
takes place in accordance with Mr. Browning's here expressed belief that
poetry is the appointed vehicle for all lasting truths; that the true
poet must be their exponent. The work is thus obviously, in point of
moral utterance, an advance on 'Pauline'. Its metaphysics are,
also, more distinctly formulated than those of either 'Pauline' or
'Paracelsus'; and the frequent use of the term Will in its metaphysical
sense so strongly points to German associations that it is difficult to
realize their absence, then and always, from Mr. Browning's mind. But
he was emphatic in his assurance that he knew neither the German
philosophers nor their reflection in Coleridge, who would have seemed a
likely medium between them and him. Miss Martineau once said to him
that he had no need to study German thought, since his mind was German
enough--by which she possibly meant too German--already.

The poem also impresses us by a Gothic richness of detail,* the
picturesque counterpart of its intricacy of thought, and, perhaps for
this very reason, never so fully displayed in any subsequent work. Mr.
Browning's genuinely modest attitude towards it could not preclude
the consciousness of the many imaginative beauties which its unpopular
character had served to conceal; and he was glad to find, some years
ago, that 'Sordello' was represented in a collection of descriptive
passages which a friend of his was proposing to make. 'There is a great
deal of that in it,' he said, 'and it has always been overlooked.'

     * The term Gothic has been applied to Mr. Browning's work, I
     believe, by Mr. James Thomson, in writing of 'The Ring and
     the Book', and I do not like to use it without saying so.
     But it is one of those which must have spontaneously
     suggested themselves to many other of Mr. Browning's
     readers.

It was unfortunate that new difficulties of style should have added
themselves on this occasion to those of subject and treatment; and the
reason of it is not generally known. Mr. John Sterling had made some
comments on the wording of 'Paracelsus'; and Miss Caroline Fox, then
quite a young woman, repeated them, with additions, to Miss Haworth,
who, in her turn, communicated them to Mr. Browning, but without making
quite clear to him the source from which they sprang. He took the
criticism much more seriously than it deserved, and condensed the
language of this his next important publication into what was nearly its
present form.

In leaving 'Sordello' we emerge from the self-conscious stage of Mr.
Browning's imagination, and his work ceases to be autobiographic in the
sense in which, perhaps erroneously, we have hitherto felt it to be.
'Festus' and 'Salinguerra' have already given promise of the world of
'Men and Women' into which he will now conduct us. They will be inspired
by every variety of conscious motive, but never again by the old (real
or imagined) self-centred, self-directing Will. We have, indeed, already
lost the sense of disparity between the man and the poet; for the
Browning of 'Sordello' was growing older, while the defects of the poem
were in many respects those of youth. In 'Pippa Passes', published one
year later, the poet and the man show themselves full-grown. Each has
entered on the inheritance of the other.

Neither the imagination nor the passion of what Mr. Gosse so fitly calls
this 'lyrical masque'* gives much scope for tenderness; but the quality
of humour is displayed in it for the first time; as also a strongly
marked philosophy of life--or more properly, of association--from
which its idea and development are derived. In spite, however, of these
evidences of general maturity, Mr. Browning was still sometimes boyish
in personal intercourse, if we may judge from a letter to Miss Flower
written at about the same time.

     * These words, and a subsequent paragraph, are quoted from
     Mr. Gosse's 'Personalia'.

Monday night, March 9 (? 1841).

My dear Miss Flower,--I have this moment received your very kind
note--of course, I understand your objections. How else? But they are
somewhat lightened already (confess--nay 'confess' is vile--you will
be rejoiced to holla from the house-top)--will go on, or rather go
off, lightening, and will be--oh, where _will_ they be half a dozen years
hence?

Meantime praise what you can praise, do me all the good you can, you and
Mr. Fox (as if you will not!) for I have a head full of projects--mean
to song-write, play-write forthwith,--and, believe me, dear Miss Flower,
Yours ever faithfully, Robert Browning.

By the way, you speak of 'Pippa'--could we not make some arrangement
about it? The lyrics _want_ your music--five or six in all--how say you?
When these three plays are out I hope to build a huge Ode--but 'all
goeth by God's Will.'

The loyal Alfred Domett now appears on the scene with a satirical poem,
inspired by an impertinent criticism on his friend. I give its first two
verses:

On a Certain Critique on 'Pippa Passes'.

(Query--Passes what?--the critic's comprehension.)

     Ho! everyone that by the nose is led,
     Automatons of which the world is full,
     Ye myriad bodies, each without a head,
     That dangle from a critic's brainless skull,
     Come, hearken to a deep discovery made,
     A mighty truth now wondrously displayed.

     A black squat beetle, vigorous for his size,
     Pushing tail-first by every road that's wrong
     The dung-ball of his dirty thoughts along
     His tiny sphere of grovelling sympathies--
     Has knocked himself full-butt, with blundering trouble,
     Against a mountain he can neither double
     Nor ever hope to scale.  So like a free,
     Pert, self-conceited scarabaeus, he
     Takes it into his horny head to swear
     There's no such thing as any mountain there.

The writer lived to do better things from a literary point of view; but
these lines have a fine ring of youthful indignation which must have
made them a welcome tribute to friendship.

There seems to have been little respectful criticism of 'Pippa Passes';
it is less surprising that there should have been very little of
'Sordello'. Mr. Browning, it is true, retained a limited number of
earnest appreciators, foremost of whom was the writer of an admirable
notice of these two works, quoted from an 'Eclectic Review' of 1847, in
Dr. Furnivall's 'Bibliography'. I am also told that the series of poems
which was next to appear was enthusiastically greeted by some poets
and painters of the pre-Raphaelite school; but he was now entering on
a period of general neglect, which covered nearly twenty years of his
life, and much that has since become most deservedly popular in his
work.

'Pippa Passes' had appeared as the first instalment of 'Bells and
Pomegranates', the history of which I give in Mr. Gosse's words. This
poem, and the two tragedies, 'King Victor and King Charles' and 'The
Return of the Druses'--first christened 'Mansoor, the Hierophant'--were
lying idle in Mr. Browning's desk. He had not found, perhaps not very
vigorously sought, a publisher for them.

'One day, as the poet was discussing the matter with Mr. Edward Moxon,
the publisher, the latter remarked that at that time he was bringing out
some editions of the old Elizabethan dramatists in a comparatively
cheap form, and that if Mr. Browning would consent to print his poems
as pamphlets, using this cheap type, the expense would be very
inconsiderable. The poet jumped at the idea, and it was agreed that each
poem should form a separate brochure of just one sheet--sixteen pages
in double columns--the entire cost of which should not exceed twelve or
fifteen pounds. In this fashion began the celebrated series of 'Bells
and Pomegranates', eight numbers of which, a perfect treasury of fine
poetry, came out successively between 1841 and 1846. 'Pippa Passes'
led the way, and was priced first at sixpence; then, the sale being
inconsiderable, at a shilling, which greatly encouraged the sale;
and so, slowly, up to half-a-crown, at which the price of each number
finally rested.'

Mr. Browning's hopes and intentions with respect to this series are
announced in the following preface to 'Pippa Passes', of which, in later
editions, only the dedicatory words appear:

'Two or three years ago I wrote a Play, about which the chief matter I
care to recollect at present is, that a Pit-full of good-natured people
applauded it:--ever since, I have been desirous of doing something in
the same way that should better reward their attention. What follows
I mean for the first of a series of Dramatical Pieces, to come out at
intervals, and I amuse myself by fancying that the cheap mode in which
they appear will for once help me to a sort of Pit-audience again.
Of course, such a work must go on no longer than it is liked; and to
provide against a certain and but too possible contingency, let me
hasten to say now--what, if I were sure of success, I would try to say
circumstantially enough at the close--that I dedicate my best intentions
most admiringly to the author of "Ion"--most affectionately to Serjeant
Talfourd.'

A necessary explanation of the general title was reserved for the last
number: and does something towards justifying the popular impression
that Mr. Browning exacted a large measure of literary insight from his
readers.

'Here ends my first series of "Bells and Pomegranates": and I take the
opportunity of explaining, in reply to inquiries, that I only meant
by that title to indicate an endeavour towards something like an
alternation, or mixture, of music with discoursing, sound with sense,
poetry with thought; which looks too ambitious, thus expressed, so the
symbol was preferred. It is little to the purpose, that such is
actually one of the most familiar of the many Rabbinical (and Patristic)
acceptations of the phrase; because I confess that, letting authority
alone, I supposed the bare words, in such juxtaposition, would
sufficiently convey the desired meaning. "Faith and good works" is
another fancy, for instance, and perhaps no easier to arrive at: yet
Giotto placed a pomegranate fruit in the hand of Dante, and Raffaelle
crowned his Theology (in the 'Camera della Segnatura') with blossoms of
the same; as if the Bellari and Vasari would be sure to come after,
and explain that it was merely "simbolo delle buone opere--il qual
Pomogranato fu pero usato nelle vesti del Pontefice appresso gli
Ebrei."'

The Dramas and Poems contained in the eight numbers of 'Bells and
Pomegranates' were:

    I.  Pippa Passes.  1841.
   II.  King Victor and King Charles.  1842.
  III.  Dramatic Lyrics.  1842.
          Cavalier Tunes; I. Marching Along; II. Give a Rouse;
            III. My Wife Gertrude.  ['Boot and Saddle'.]
          Italy and France; I. Italy; II. France.
          Camp and Cloister; I. Camp (French); II. Cloister (Spanish).
          In a Gondola.
          Artemis Prologuizes.
          Waring; I.; II.
          Queen Worship; I. Rudel and The Lady of Tripoli; II. Cristina.
          Madhouse Cells; I. [Johannes Agricola.]; II. [Porphyria.]
          Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr.  1842.
          The Pied Piper of Hamelin; a Child's Story.
   IV.  The Return of the Druses.  A Tragedy, in Five Acts.  1843.
    V.  A Blot in the 'Scutcheon.  A Tragedy, in Three Acts.  1843.
          [Second Edition, same year.]
   VI.  Colombe's Birthday.  A Play, in Five Acts.  1844.
  VII.  Dramatic Romances and Lyrics.  1845.
          'How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.  (16--.)'
          Pictor Ignotus.  (Florence, 15--.)
          Italy in England.
          England in Italy.  (Piano di Sorrento.)
          The Lost Leader.
          The Lost Mistress.
          Home Thoughts, from Abroad.
          The Tomb at St. Praxed's:  (Rome, 15--.)
          Garden Fancies; I. The Flower's Name;
            II. Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis.
          France and Spain; I. The Laboratory (Ancien Regime);
            II. Spain--The Confessional.
          The Flight of the Duchess.
          Earth's Immortalities.
          Song.  ('Nay but you, who do not love her.')
          The Boy and the Angel.
          Night and Morning; I. Night; II. Morning.
          Claret and Tokay.
          Saul.  (Part I.)
          Time's Revenges.
          The Glove.  (Peter Ronsard loquitur.)
 VIII. and last.  Luria; and A Soul's Tragedy.  1846.

This publication has seemed entitled to a detailed notice, because it is
practically extinct, and because its nature and circumstance confer on
it a biographical interest not possessed by any subsequent issue of Mr.
Browning's works. The dramas and poems of which it is composed belong to
that more mature period of the author's life, in which the analysis of
his work ceases to form a necessary part of his history. Some few of
them, however, are significant to it; and this is notably the case with
'A Blot in the 'Scutcheon'.

Chapter 8

1841-1844

'A Blot in the 'Scutcheon'--Letters to Mr. Frank Hill; Lady
Martin--Charles Dickens--Other Dramas and Minor Poems--Letters to Miss
Lee; Miss Haworth; Miss Flower--Second Italian Journey; Naples--E. J.
Trelawney--Stendhal.

'A Blot in the 'Scutcheon' was written for Macready, who meant to
perform the principal part; and we may conclude that the appeal for it
was urgent, since it was composed in the space of four or five days.
Macready's journals must have contained a fuller reference to both the
play and its performance (at Drury Lane, February 1843) than appears in
published form; but considerable irritation had arisen between him and
Mr. Browning, and he possibly wrote something which his editor, Sir
Frederick Pollock, as the friend of both, thought it best to omit. What
occurred on this occasion has been told in some detail by Mr. Gosse, and
would not need repeating if the question were only of re-telling it on
the same authority, in another person's words; but, through the kindness
of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Hill, I am able to give Mr. Browning's direct
statement of the case, as also his expressed judgment upon it. The
statement was made more than forty years later than the events to
which it refers, but will, nevertheless, be best given in its direct
connection with them.

The merits, or demerits, of 'A Blot in the 'Scutcheon' had been freshly
brought under discussion by its performance in London through the action
of the Browning Society, and in Washington by Mr. Laurence Barrett; and
it became the subject of a paragraph in one of the theatrical articles
prepared for the 'Daily News'. Mr. Hill was then editor of the paper,
and when the article came to him for revision, he thought it right
to submit to Mr. Browning the passages devoted to his tragedy, which
embodied some then prevailing, but, he strongly suspected, erroneous
impressions concerning it. The results of this kind and courteous
proceeding appear in the following letter.

19, Warwick Crescent: December 15, 1884.

My dear Mr. Hill,--It was kind and considerate of you to suppress the
paragraph which you send me,--and of which the publication would
have been unpleasant for reasons quite other than as regarding my own
work,--which exists to defend or accuse itself. You will judge of the
true reasons when I tell you the facts--so much of them as contradicts
the statements of your critic--who, I suppose, has received a stimulus
from the notice, in an American paper which arrived last week, of
Mr. Laurence Barrett's intention 'shortly to produce the play' in New
York--and subsequently in London: so that 'the failure' of forty-one
years ago might be duly influential at present--or two years hence
perhaps. The 'mere amateurs' are no high game.

Macready received and accepted the play, while he was engaged at the
Haymarket, and retained it for Drury Lane, of which I was ignorant that
he was about to become the manager: he accepted it 'at the instigation'
of nobody,--and Charles Dickens was not in England when he did so: it
was read to him after his return, by Forster--and the glowing letter
which contains his opinion of it, although directed by him to be shown
to myself, was never heard of nor seen by me till printed in Forster's
book some thirty years after. When the Drury Lane season began, Macready
informed me that he should act the play when he had brought out two
others--'The Patrician's Daughter', and 'Plighted Troth': having
done so, he wrote to me that the former had been unsuccessful in
money-drawing, and the latter had 'smashed his arrangements altogether':
but he would still produce my play. I had--in my ignorance of certain
symptoms better understood by Macready's professional acquaintances--I
had no notion that it was a proper thing, in such a case, to 'release
him from his promise'; on the contrary, I should have fancied that such
a proposal was offensive. Soon after, Macready begged that I would call
on him: he said the play had been read to the actors the day before,
'and laughed at from beginning to end': on my speaking my mind about
this, he explained that the reading had been done by the Prompter, a
grotesque person with a red nose and wooden leg, ill at ease in the love
scenes, and that he would himself make amends by reading the play next
morning--which he did, and very adequately--but apprised me that, in
consequence of the state of his mind, harassed by business and various
trouble, the principal character must be taken by Mr. Phelps; and again
I failed to understand,--what Forster subsequently assured me was plain
as the sun at noonday,--that to allow at Macready's Theatre any
other than Macready to play the principal part in a new piece was
suicidal,--and really believed I was meeting his exigencies by accepting
the substitution. At the rehearsal, Macready announced that Mr.
Phelps was ill, and that he himself would read the part: on the third
rehearsal, Mr. Phelps appeared for the first time, and sat in a chair
while Macready more than read, rehearsed the part. The next morning Mr.
Phelps waylaid me at the stage-door to say, with much emotion, that it
never was intended that _he_ should be instrumental in the success of a
new tragedy, and that Macready would play Tresham on the ground that
himself, Phelps, was unable to do so. He added that he could not expect
me to waive such an advantage,--but that, if I were prepared to waive
it, 'he would take ether, sit up all night, and have the words in his
memory by next day.' I bade him follow me to the green-room, and hear
what I decided upon--which was that as Macready had given him the part,
he should keep it: this was on a Thursday; he rehearsed on Friday and
Saturday,--the play being acted the same evening,--_of the fifth day
after the 'reading' by MacReady_. Macready at once wished to reduce the
importance of the 'play',--as he styled it in the bills,--tried to leave
out so much of the text, that I baffled him by getting it printed in
four-and-twenty hours, by Moxon's assistance. He wanted me to call it
'The Sister'!--and I have before me, while I write, the stage-acting
copy, with two lines of his own insertion to avoid the tragical
ending--Tresham was to announce his intention of going into a monastery!
all this, to keep up the belief that Macready, and Macready alone, could
produce a veritable 'tragedy', unproduced before. Not a shilling was
spent on scenery or dresses--and a striking scene which had been used
for the 'Patrician's Daughter', did duty a second time. If your critic
considers this treatment of the play an instance of 'the failure of
powerful and experienced actors' to ensure its success,--I can only say
that my own opinion was shown by at once breaking off a friendship of
many years--a friendship which had a right to be plainly and simply told
that the play I had contributed as a proof of it, would through a change
of circumstances, no longer be to my friend's advantage,--all I could
possibly care for. Only recently, when by the publication of Macready's
journals the extent of his pecuniary embarrassments at that time
was made known, could I in a measure understand his motives for such
conduct--and less than ever understand why he so strangely disguised and
disfigured them. If 'applause' means success, the play thus maimed
and maltreated was successful enough: it 'made way' for Macready's own
Benefit, and the Theatre closed a fortnight after.

Having kept silence for all these years, in spite of repeated
explanations, in the style of your critic's, that the play 'failed in
spite of the best endeavours' &c. I hardly wish to revive a very painful
matter: on the other hand,--as I have said; my play subsists, and is as
open to praise or blame as it was forty-one years ago: is it necessary
to search out what somebody or other,--not improbably a jealous adherent
of Macready, 'the only organizer of theatrical victories', chose to say
on the subject? If the characters are 'abhorrent' and 'inscrutable'--and
the language conformable,--they were so when Dickens pronounced
upon them, and will be so whenever the critic pleases to re-consider
them--which, if he ever has an opportunity of doing, apart from the
printed copy, I can assure you is through no motion of mine. This
particular experience was sufficient: but the Play is out of my power
now; though amateurs and actors may do what they please.

Of course, this being the true story, I should desire that it were told
_thus_ and no otherwise, if it must be told at all: but _not_ as a statement
of mine,--the substance of it has been partly stated already by more
than one qualified person, and if I have been willing to let the poor
matter drop, surely there is no need that it should be gone into now
when Macready and his Athenaeum upholder are no longer able to speak
for themselves: this is just a word to you, dear Mr. Hill, and may be
brought under the notice of your critic if you think proper--but only
for the facts--not as a communication for the public.

Yes, thank you, I am in full health, as you wish--and I wish you and
Mrs. Hill, I assure you, all the good appropriate to the season. My
sister has completely recovered from her illness, and is grateful for
your enquiries.

With best regards to Mrs. Hill, and an apology for this long letter,
which however,--when once induced to write it,--I could not well
shorten,--believe me, Yours truly ever Robert Browning.

I well remember Mr. Browning's telling me how, when he returned to the
green-room, on that critical day, he drove his hat more firmly on to his
head, and said to Macready, 'I beg pardon, sir, but you have given the
part to Mr. Phelps, and I am satisfied that he should act it;' and how
Macready, on hearing this, crushed up the MS., and flung it on to the
ground. He also admitted that his own manner had been provocative; but
he was indignant at what he deemed the unjust treatment which Mr. Phelps
had received. The occasion of the next letter speaks for itself.

December 21, 1884.

My dear Mr. Hill,--Your goodness must extend to letting me have the last
word--one of sincere thanks. You cannot suppose I doubted for a moment
of a good-will which I have had abundant proof of. I only took the
occasion your considerate letter gave me, to tell the simple truth which
my forty years' silence is a sign I would only tell on compulsion. I
never thought your critic had any less generous motive for alluding to
the performance as he did than that which he professes: he doubtless
heard the account of the matter which Macready and his intimates gave
currency to at the time; and which, being confined for a while to their
limited number, I never chose to notice. But of late years I have got to
_read_,--not merely _hear_,--of the play's failure 'which all the efforts
of my friend the great actor could not avert;' and the nonsense of this
untruth gets hard to bear. I told you the principal facts in the letter
I very hastily wrote: I could, had it been worth while, corroborate them
by others in plenty, and refer to the living witnesses--Lady Martin,
Mrs. Stirling, and (I believe) Mr. Anderson: it was solely through the
admirable loyalty of the two former that . . . a play . . . deprived
of every advantage, in the way of scenery, dresses, and
rehearsing--proved--what Macready himself declared it to be--'a complete
success'. _So_ he sent a servant to tell me, 'in case there was a call for
the author at the end of the act'--to which I replied that the author
had been too sick and sorry at the whole treatment of his play to do any
such thing. Such a call there truly _was_, and Mr. Anderson had to come
forward and 'beg the author to come forward if he were in the house--a
circumstance of which he was not aware:' whereat the author laughed at
him from a box just opposite. . . . I would submit to anybody drawing a
conclusion from one or two facts past contradiction, whether that play
could have thoroughly failed which was not only not withdrawn at
once but acted three nights in the same week, and years afterwards,
reproduced at his own theatre, during my absence in Italy, by Mr.
Phelps--the person most completely aware of the untoward circumstances
which stood originally in the way of success. Why not enquire how it
happens that, this second time, there was no doubt of the play's doing
as well as plays ordinarily do? for those were not the days of a 'run'.

. . . . .

. . . This 'last word' has indeed been an Aristophanic one of fifty
syllables: but I have spoken it, relieved myself, and commend all that
concerns me to the approved and valued friend of whom I am proud to
account myself in corresponding friendship, His truly ever Robert
Browning.

Mr. Browning also alludes to Mr. Phelps's acting as not only not having
been detrimental to the play, but having helped to save it, in the
conspiracy of circumstances which seemed to invoke its failure. This was
a mistake, since Macready had been anxious to resume the part, and would
have saved it, to say the least, more thoroughly. It must, however, be
remembered that the irritation which these letters express was due much
less to the nature of the facts recorded in them than to the manner in
which they had been brought before Mr. Browning's mind. Writing on the
subject to Lady Martin in February 1881, he had spoken very temperately
of Macready's treatment of his play, while deprecating the injustice
towards his own friendship which its want of frankness involved: and
many years before this, the touch of a common sorrow had caused the old
feeling, at least momentarily, to well up again. The two met for the
first time after these occurrences when Mr. Browning had returned, a
widower, from Italy. Mr. Macready, too, had recently lost his wife; and
Mr. Browning could only start forward, grasp the hand of his old friend,
and in a voice choked with emotion say, 'O Macready!'

Lady Martin has spoken to me of the poet's attitude on the occasion of
this performance as being full of generous sympathy for those who were
working with him, as well as of the natural anxiety of a young author
for his own success. She also remains convinced that this sympathy led
him rather to over-than to under-rate the support he received. She wrote
concerning it in 'Blackwood's Magazine', March 1881:

'It seems but yesterday that I sat by his [Mr. Elton's] side in the
green-room at the reading of Robert Browning's beautiful drama, 'A Blot
in the 'Scutcheon'. As a rule Mr. Macready always read the new plays.
But owing, I suppose, to some press of business, the task was entrusted
on this occasion to the head prompter,--a clever man in his way, but
wholly unfitted to bring out, or even to understand, Mr. Browning's
meaning. Consequently, the delicate, subtle lines were twisted,
perverted, and sometimes even made ridiculous in his hands. My "cruel
father" [Mr. Elton] was a warm admirer of the poet. He sat writhing and
indignant, and tried by gentle asides to make me see the real meaning of
the verse. But somehow the mischief proved irreparable, for a few of
the actors during the rehearsals chose to continue to misunderstand the
text, and never took the interest in the play which they would have done
had Mr. Macready read it.'

Looking back on the first appearance of his tragedy through the widening
perspectives of nearly forty years, Mr. Browning might well declare as
he did in the letter to Lady Martin to which I have just referred, that
her '_perfect_ behaviour as a woman' and her 'admirable playing as an
actress' had been (or at all events were) to him 'the one gratifying
circumstance connected with it.'

He also felt it a just cause of bitterness that the letter from Charles
Dickens,* which conveyed his almost passionate admiration of 'A Blot in
the 'Scutcheon', and was clearly written to Mr. Forster in order that
it might be seen, was withheld for thirty years from his knowledge, and
that of the public whose judgment it might so largely have influenced.
Nor was this the only time in the poet's life that fairly earned honours
escaped him.

     * See Forster's 'Life of Dickens'.

'Colombe's Birthday' was produced in 1853 at the Haymarket;* and
afterwards in the provinces, under the direction of Miss Helen Faucit,
who created the principal part. It was again performed for the Browning
Society in 1885,** and although Miss Alma Murray, as Colombe, was almost
entirely supported by amateurs, the result fully justified Miss
Mary Robinson (now Madame James Darmesteter) in writing immediately
afterwards in the Boston 'Literary World':***

     * Also in 1853 or 1854 at Boston.

     ** It had been played by amateurs, members of the Browning
     Society, and their friends, at the house of Mr. Joseph King,
     in January 1882.

     *** December 12, 1885; quoted in Mr. Arthur Symons'
     'Introduction to the Study of Browning'.

'"Colombe's Birthday" is charming on the boards, clearer, more direct in
action, more full of delicate surprises than one imagines it in print.
With a very little cutting it could be made an excellent acting play.'

Mr. Gosse has seen a first edition copy of it marked for acting, and
alludes in his 'Personalia' to the greatly increased knowledge of the
stage which its minute directions displayed. They told also of sad
experience in the sacrifice of the poet which the play-writer so often
exacts: since they included the proviso that unless a very good Valence
could be found, a certain speech of his should be left out. That speech
is very important to the poetic, and not less to the moral, purpose
of the play: the triumph of unworldly affections. It is that in which
Valence defies the platitudes so often launched against rank and power,
and shows that these may be very beautiful things--in which he pleads
for his rival, and against his own heart. He is the better man of
the two, and Colombe has fallen genuinely in love with him. But the
instincts of sovereignty are not outgrown in one day however eventful,
and the young duchess has shown herself amply endowed with them. The
Prince's offer promised much, and it held still more. The time may come
when she will need that crowning memory of her husband's unselfishness
and truth, not to regret what she has done.

'King Victor and King Charles' and 'The Return of the Druses' are both
admitted by competent judges to have good qualifications for the stage;
and Mr. Browning would have preferred seeing one of these acted to
witnessing the revival of 'Strafford' or 'A Blot in the 'Scutcheon',
from neither of which the best amateur performance could remove the
stigma of past, real or reputed, failure; and when once a friend
belonging to the Browning Society told him she had been seriously
occupied with the possibility of producing the Eastern play, he assented
to the idea with a simplicity that was almost touching, 'It _was_ written
for the stage,' he said, 'and has only one scene.' He knew, however,
that the single scene was far from obviating all the difficulties of
the case, and that the Society, with its limited means, did the best it
could.

I seldom hear any allusion to a passage in 'King Victor and King
Charles' which I think more than rivals the famous utterance of Valence,
revealing as it does the same grasp of non-conventional truth, while its
occasion lends itself to a far deeper recognition of the mystery,
the frequent hopeless dilemma of our moral life. It is that in which
Polixena, the wife of Charles, entreats him for _duty's_ sake to retain
the crown, though he will earn, by so doing, neither the credit of a
virtuous deed nor the sure, persistent consciousness of having performed
one.

Four poems of the 'Dramatic Lyrics' had appeared, as I have said, in the
'Monthly Repository'. Six of those included in the 'Dramatic Lyrics and
Romances' were first published in 'Hood's Magazine' from June 1844
to April 1845, a month before Hood's death. These poems were, 'The
Laboratory', 'Claret and Tokay', 'Garden Fancies', 'The Boy and the
Angel', 'The Tomb at St. Praxed's', and 'The Flight of the Duchess'. Mr.
Hood's health had given way under stress of work, and Mr. Browning
with other friends thus came forward to help him. The fact deserves
remembering in connection with his subsequent unbroken rule never to
write for magazines. He might always have made exceptions for friendly
or philanthropic objects; the appearance of 'Herve Riel' in the
'Cornhill Magazine', 1870, indeed proves that it was so. But the offer
of a blank cheque would not have tempted him, for his own sake, to this
concession, as he would have deemed it, of his integrity of literary
purpose.

'In a Gondola' grew out of a single verse extemporized for a picture by
Maclise, in what circumstances we shall hear in the poet's own words.

The first proof of 'Artemis Prologuizes' had the following note:

'I had better say perhaps that the above is nearly all retained of a
tragedy I composed, much against my endeavour, while in bed with a fever
two years ago--it went farther into the story of Hippolytus and Aricia;
but when I got well, putting only thus much down at once, I soon forgot
the remainder.'*

     * When Mr. Browning gave me these supplementary details for
     the 'Handbook', he spoke as if his illness had interrupted
     the work, not preceded its conception.  The real fact is, I
     think, the more striking.

Mr. Browning would have been very angry with himself if he had known he
ever wrote 'I _had_ better'; and the punctuation of this note, as well as
of every other unrevised specimen which we possess of his early writing,
helps to show by what careful study of the literary art he must have
acquired his subsequent mastery of it.

'Cristina' was addressed in fancy to the Spanish queen. It is to be
regretted that the poem did not remain under its original heading of
'Queen Worship': as this gave a practical clue to the nature of the love
described, and the special remoteness of its object.

'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' and another poem were written in May 1842
for Mr. Macready's little eldest son, Willy, who was confined to the
house by illness, and who was to amuse himself by illustrating the poems
as well as reading them;* and the first of these, though not intended
for publication, was added to the 'Dramatic Lyrics', because some
columns of that number of 'Bells and Pomegranates' still required
filling. It is perhaps not known that the second was 'Crescentius, the
Pope's Legate': now included in 'Asolando'.

     * Miss Browning has lately found some of the illustrations,
     and the touching childish letter together with which
     her brother received them.

Mr. Browning's father had himself begun a rhymed story on the subject of
'The Pied Piper'; but left it unfinished when he discovered that his son
was writing one. The fragment survives as part of a letter addressed to
Mr. Thomas Powell, and which I have referred to as in the possession of
Mr. Dykes Campbell.

'The Lost Leader' has given rise to periodical questionings continued
until the present day, as to the person indicated in its title. Mr.
Browning answered or anticipated them fifteen years ago in a letter to
Miss Lee, of West Peckham, Maidstone. It was his reply to an application
in verse made to him in their very young days by herself and two other
members of her family, the manner of which seems to have unusually
pleased him.

Villers-sur-mer, Calvados, France: September 7, '75.

Dear Friends,--Your letter has made a round to reach me--hence the delay
in replying to it--which you will therefore pardon. I have been asked
the question you put to me--tho' never asked so poetically and so
pleasantly--I suppose a score of times: and I can only answer, with
something of shame and contrition, that I undoubtedly had Wordsworth in
my mind--but simply as 'a model'; you know, an artist takes one or two
striking traits in the features of his 'model', and uses them to start
his fancy on a flight which may end far enough from the good man or
woman who happens to be 'sitting' for nose and eye.

I thought of the great Poet's abandonment of liberalism, at an unlucky
juncture, and no repaying consequence that I could ever see. But--once
call my fancy-portrait 'Wordsworth'--and how much more ought one to
say,--how much more would not I have attempted to say!

There is my apology, dear friends, and your acceptance of it will
confirm me Truly yours, Robert Browning.

Some fragments of correspondence, not all very interesting, and his
own allusion to an attack of illness, are our only record of the poet's
general life during the interval which separated the publication of
'Pippa Passes' from his second Italian journey.

An undated letter to Miss Haworth probably refers to the close of 1841.

'. . . I am getting to love painting as I did once. Do you know I was
a young wonder (as are eleven out of the dozen of us) at drawing? My
father had faith in me, and over yonder in a drawer of mine lies, I
well know, a certain cottage and rocks in lead pencil and black currant
jam-juice (paint being rank poison, as they said when I sucked my
brushes) with his (my father's) note in one corner, "R. B., aetat. two
years three months." "How fast, alas, our days we spend--How vain
they be, how soon they end!" I am going to print "Victor", however, by
February, and there is one thing not so badly painted in there--oh, let
me tell you. I chanced to call on Forster the other day, and he pressed
me into committing verse on the instant, not the minute, in Maclise's
behalf, who has wrought a divine Venetian work, it seems, for the
British Institution. Forster described it well--but I could do nothing
better, than this wooden ware--(all the "properties", as we say, were
given, and the problem was how to catalogue them in rhyme and unreason).

     I send my heart up to thee, all my heart
     In this my singing!
     For the stars help me, and the sea bears part;
     The very night is clinging
     Closer to Venice' streets to leave me space
     Above me, whence thy face
     May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.

Singing and stars and night and Venice streets and joyous heart, are
properties, do you please to see. And now tell me, is this below the
average of catalogue original poetry? Tell me--for to that end of being
told, I write. . . . I dined with dear Carlyle and his wife (catch
me calling people "dear" in a hurry, except in letter-beginnings!)
yesterday. I don't know any people like them. There was a son of Burns
there, Major Burns whom Macready knows--he sung "Of all the airts",
"John Anderson", and another song of his father's. . . .'

In the course of 1842 he wrote the following note to Miss Flower,
evidently relating to the publication of her 'Hymns and Anthems'.

New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey: Tuesday morning.

Dear Miss Flower,--I am sorry for what must grieve Mr. Fox; for myself,
I beg him earnestly not to see me till his entire convenience, however
pleased I shall be to receive the letter you promise on his part.

And how can I thank you enough for this good news--all this music I
shall be so thoroughly gratified to hear? Ever yours faithfully, Robert
Browning.

His last letter to her was written in 1845; the subject being a concert
of her own sacred music which she was about to give; and again, although
more slightly, I anticipate the course of events, in order to give it
in its natural connection with the present one. Mr. Browning was
now engaged to be married, and the last ring of youthful levity had
disappeared from his tone; but neither the new happiness nor the new
responsibility had weakened his interest in his boyhood's friend. Miss
Flower must then have been slowly dying, and the closing words of the
letter have the solemnity of a last farewell.

Sunday.

Dear Miss Flower,--I was very foolishly surprized at the sorrowful
finical notice you mention: foolishly; for, God help us, how else is
it with all critics of everything--don't I hear them talk and see them
write? I dare-say he admires you as he said.

For me, I never had another feeling than entire admiration for your
music--entire admiration--I put it apart from all other English music I
know, and fully believe in it as _the_ music we all waited for.

Of your health I shall not trust myself to speak: you must know what
is unspoken. I should have been most happy to see you if but for a
minute--and if next Wednesday, I might take your hand for a moment.--

But you would concede that, if it were right, remembering what is now
very old friendship. May God bless you for ever (The signature has been
cut off.)

In the autumn of 1844 Mr. Browning set forth for Italy, taking ship, it
is believed, direct to Naples. Here he made the acquaintance of a young
Neapolitan gentleman who had spent most of his life in Paris; and they
became such good friends that they proceeded to Rome together. Mr.
Scotti was an invaluable travelling companion, for he engaged their
conveyance, and did all such bargaining in their joint interest as the
habits of his country required. 'As I write,' Mr. Browning said in a
letter to his sister, 'I hear him disputing our bill in the next room.
He does not see why we should pay for six wax candles when we have
used only two.' At Rome they spent most of their evenings with an
old acquaintance of Mr. Browning's, then Countess Carducci, and she
pronounced Mr. Scotti the handsomest man she had ever seen. He certainly
bore no appearance of being the least prosperous. But he blew out his
brains soon after he and his new friend had parted; and I do not think
the act was ever fully accounted for.

It must have been on his return journey that Mr. Browning went to
Leghorn to see Edward John Trelawney, to whom he carried a letter of
introduction. He described the interview long afterwards to Mr. Val
Prinsep, but chiefly in his impressions of the cool courage which Mr.
Trelawney had displayed during its course. A surgeon was occupied all
the time in probing his leg for a bullet which had been lodged there
some years before, and had lately made itself felt; and he showed
himself absolutely indifferent to the pain of the operation. Mr.
Browning's main object in paying the visit had been, naturally, to speak
with one who had known Byron and been the last to see Shelley alive; but
we only hear of the two poets that they formed in part the subject
of their conversation. He reached England, again, we suppose, through
Germany--since he avoided Paris as before.

It has been asserted by persons otherwise well informed, that on this,
if not on his previous Italian journey, Mr. Browning became acquainted
with Stendhal, then French Consul at Civita Vecchia, and that he imbibed
from the great novelist a taste for curiosities of Italian family
history, which ultimately led him in the direction of the Franceschini
case. It is certain that he profoundly admired this writer, and if he
was not, at some time or other, introduced to him it was because the
opportunity did not occur. But there is abundant evidence that no
introduction took place, and quite sufficient proof that none was
possible. Stendhal died in Paris in March 1842; and granting that he was
at Civita Vecchia when the poet made his earlier voyage--no certainty
even while he held the appointment--the ship cannot have touched there
on its way to Trieste. It is also a mistake to suppose that Mr. Browning
was specially interested in ancient chronicles, as such. This was one of
the points on which he distinctly differed from his father. He took his
dramatic subjects wherever he found them, and any historical research
which they ultimately involved was undertaken for purposes of
verification. 'Sordello' alone may have been conceived on a rather
different plan, and I have no authority whatever for admitting that it
was so. The discovery of the record of the Franceschini case was, as its
author has everywhere declared, an accident.

A single relic exists for us of this visit to the South--a shell picked
up, according to its inscription, on one of the Syren Isles, October
4, 1844; but many of its reminiscences are embodied in that vivid and
charming picture 'The Englishman in Italy', which appeared in the 'Bells
and Pomegranates' number for the following year. Naples always remained
a bright spot in the poet's memory; and if it had been, like Asolo, his
first experience of Italy, it must have drawn him in later years the
more powerfully of the two. At one period, indeed, he dreamed of it as a
home for his declining days.

Chapter 9

1844-1849

Introduction to Miss Barrett--Engagement--Motives for
Secrecy--Marriage--Journey to Italy--Extract of Letter from
Mr. Fox--Mrs. Browning's Letters to Miss Mitford--Life at
Pisa--Vallombrosa--Florence; Mr. Powers; Miss Boyle--Proposed British
Mission to the Vatican--Father Prout--Palazzo Guidi--Fano; Ancona--'A
Blot in the 'Scutcheon' at Sadler's Wells.

During his recent intercourse with the Browning family Mr. Kenyon had
often spoken of his invalid cousin, Elizabeth Barrett,* and had given
them copies of her works; and when the poet returned to England, late in
1844, he saw the volume containing 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship', which
had appeared during his absence. On hearing him express his admiration
of it, Mr. Kenyon begged him to write to Miss Barrett, and himself tell
her how the poems had impressed him; 'for,' he added, 'my cousin is a
great invalid, and sees no one, but great souls jump at sympathy.'
Mr. Browning did write, and, a few months, probably, after the
correspondence had been established, begged to be allowed to visit
her. She at first refused this, on the score of her delicate health and
habitual seclusion, emphasizing the refusal by words of such touching
humility and resignation that I cannot refrain from quoting them. 'There
is nothing to see in me, nothing to hear in me. I am a weed fit for the
ground and darkness.' But her objections were overcome, and their first
interview sealed Mr. Browning's fate.

     * Properly E. Barrett Moulton-Barrett.  The first of these
     surnames was that originally borne by the family, but
     dropped on the annexation of the second.  It has now for
     some years been resumed.

There is no cause for surprize in the passionate admiration with
which Miss Barrett so instantly inspired him. To begin with, he was
heart-whole. It would be too much to affirm that, in the course of his
thirty-two years, he had never met with a woman whom he could entirely
love; but if he had, it was not under circumstances which favoured the
growth of such a feeling. She whom he now saw for the first time had
long been to him one of the greatest of living poets; she was learned as
women seldom were in those days. It must have been apparent, in the most
fugitive contact, that her moral nature was as exquisite as her mind
was exceptional. She looked much younger than her age, which he only
recently knew to have been six years beyond his own; and her face was
filled with beauty by the large, expressive eyes. The imprisoned love
within her must unconsciously have leapt to meet his own. It would have
been only natural that he should grow into the determination to devote
his life to hers, or be swept into an offer of marriage by a sudden
impulse which his after-judgment would condemn. Neither of these things
occurred. The offer was indeed made under a sudden and overmastering
impulse. But it was persistently repeated, till it had obtained a
conditional assent. No sane man in Mr. Browning's position could have
been ignorant of the responsibilities he was incurring. He had, it
is true, no experience of illness. Of its nature, its treatment, its
symptoms direct and indirect, he remained pathetically ignorant to his
dying day. He did not know what disqualifications for active existence
might reside in the fragile, recumbent form, nor in the long years
lived without change of air or scene beyond the passage, not always even
allowed, from bed-room to sitting-room, from sofa to bed again. But he
did know that Miss Barrett received him lying down, and that his very
ignorance of her condition left him without security for her ever being
able to stand. A strong sense of sympathy and pity could alone entirely
justify or explain his act--a strong desire to bring sunshine into that
darkened life. We might be sure that these motives had been present with
him if we had no direct authority for believing it; and we have this
authority in his own comparatively recent words: 'She had so much need
of care and protection. There was so much pity in what I felt for her!'
The pity was, it need hardly be said, at no time a substitute for love,
though the love in its full force only developed itself later; but it
supplied an additional incentive.

Miss Barrett had made her acceptance of Mr. Browning's proposal
contingent on her improving in health. The outlook was therefore vague.
But under the influence of this great new happiness she did gain
some degree of strength. They saw each other three times a week; they
exchanged letters constantly, and a very deep and perfect understanding
established itself between them. Mr. Browning never mentioned his visits
except to his own family, because it was naturally feared that if
Miss Barrett were known to receive one person, other friends, or even
acquaintances, would claim admittance to her; and Mr. Kenyon, who was
greatly pleased by the result of his introduction, kept silence for the
same reason.

In this way the months slipped by till the summer of 1846 was drawing to
its close, and Miss Barrett's doctor then announced that her only chance
of even comparative recovery lay in spending the coming winter in the
South. There was no rational obstacle to her acting on this advice,
since more than one of her brothers was willing to escort her; but Mr.
Barrett, while surrounding his daughter with every possible comfort,
had resigned himself to her invalid condition and expected her also to
acquiesce in it. He probably did not believe that she would benefit by
the proposed change. At any rate he refused his consent to it. There
remained to her only one alternative--to break with the old home and
travel southwards as Mr. Browning's wife.

When she had finally assented to this course, she took a preparatory
step which, in so far as it was known, must itself have been
sufficiently startling to those about her: she drove to Regent's Park,
and when there, stepped out of the carriage and on to the grass. I do
not know how long she stood--probably only for a moment; but I well
remember hearing that when, after so long an interval, she felt earth
under her feet and air about her, the sensation was almost bewilderingly
strange.

They were married, with strict privacy, on September 12, 1846, at St.
Pancras Church.

The engaged pair had not only not obtained Mr. Barrett's sanction to
their marriage; they had not even invoked it; and the doubly clandestine
character thus forced upon the union could not be otherwise than
repugnant to Mr. Browning's pride; but it was dictated by the deepest
filial affection on the part of his intended wife. There could be no
question in so enlightened a mind of sacrificing her own happiness with
that of the man she loved; she was determined to give herself to him.
But she knew that her father would never consent to her doing so; and
she preferred marrying without his knowledge to acting in defiance of a
prohibition which, once issued, he would never have revoked, and which
would have weighed like a portent of evil upon her. She even kept the
secret of her engagement from her intimate friend Miss Mitford, and
her second father, Mr. Kenyon, that they might not be involved in its
responsibility. And Mr. Kenyon, who, probably of all her circle, best
understood the case, was grateful to her for this consideration.

Mr. Barrett was one of those men who will not part with their children;
who will do anything for them except allow them to leave the parental
home. We have all known fathers of this type. He had nothing to urge
against Robert Browning. When Mr. Kenyon, later, said to him that he
could not understand his hostility to the marriage, since there was no
man in the world to whom he would more gladly have given his daughter
if he had been so fortunate as to possess one,* he replied: 'I have no
objection to the young man, but my daughter should have been thinking of
another world;' and, given his conviction that Miss Barrett's state was
hopeless, some allowance must be made for the angered sense of fitness
which her elopement was calculated to arouse in him. But his attitude
was the same, under the varying circumstances, with all his daughters
and sons alike. There was no possible husband or wife whom he would
cordially have accepted for one of them.

     * Mr. Kenyon had been twice married, but he had no children.

Mr. Browning had been willing, even at that somewhat late age, to study
for the Bar, or accept, if he could obtain it, any other employment
which might render him less ineligible from a pecuniary point of view.
But Miss Barrett refused to hear of such a course; and the subsequent
necessity for her leaving England would have rendered it useless.

For some days after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Browning returned to
their old life. He justly thought that the agitation of the ceremony
had been, for the moment, as much as she could endure, and had therefore
fixed for it a day prior by one week to that of their intended departure
from England. The only difference in their habits was that he did not
see her; he recoiled from the hypocrisy of asking for her under her
maiden name; and during this passive interval, fortunately short, he
carried a weight of anxiety and of depression which placed it among the
most painful periods of his existence.

In the late afternoon or evening of September 19, Mrs. Browning,
attended by her maid and her dog, stole away from her father's house.
The family were at dinner, at which meal she was not in the habit of
joining them; her sisters Henrietta and Arabel had been throughout in
the secret of her attachment and in full sympathy with it; in the case
of the servants, she was also sure of friendly connivance. There was no
difficulty in her escape, but that created by the dog, which might be
expected to bark its consciousness of the unusual situation. She took
him into her confidence. She said: 'O Flush, if you make a sound, I
am lost.' And Flush understood, as what good dog would not?--and crept
after his mistress in silence. I do not remember where her husband
joined her; we may be sure it was as near her home as possible. That
night they took the boat to Havre, on their way to Paris.

Only a short time elapsed before Mr. Barrett became aware of what had
happened. It is not necessary to dwell on his indignation, which at that
moment, I believe, was shared by all his sons. Nor were they the only
persons to be agitated by the occurrence. If there was wrath in the
Barrett family, there was consternation in that of Mr. Browning. He
had committed a crime in the eyes of his wife's father; but he had been
guilty, in the judgment of his own parents, of one of those errors which
are worse. A hundred times the possible advantages of marrying a Miss
Barrett could never have balanced for them the risks and dangers he
had incurred in wresting to himself the guardianship of that frail life
which might perish in his hands, leaving him to be accused of having
destroyed it; and they must have awaited the event with feelings never
to be forgotten.

It was soon to be apparent that in breaking the chains which bound her
to a sick room, Mr. Browning had not killed his wife, but was giving her
a new lease of existence. His parents and sister soon loved her dearly,
for her own sake as well as her husband's; and those who, if in a
mistaken manner, had hitherto cherished her, gradually learned, with one
exception, to value him for hers. It would, however, be useless to
deny that the marriage was a hazardous experiment, involving risks of
suffering quite other than those connected with Mrs. Browning's safety:
the latent practical disparities of an essentially vigorous and an
essentially fragile existence; and the time came when these were to make
themselves felt. Mrs. Browning had been a delicate infant. She had also
outgrown this delicacy and developed into a merry, and, in the harmless
sense, mischief-loving child. The accident which subsequently undermined
her life could only have befallen a very active and healthy girl.*
Her condition justified hope and, to a great extent, fulfilled it. She
rallied surprisingly and almost suddenly in the sunshine of her new
life, and remained for several years at the higher physical level: her
natural and now revived spirits sometimes, I imagine, lifting her beyond
it. But her ailments were too radical for permanent cure, as the weak
voice and shrunken form never ceased to attest. They renewed themselves,
though in slightly different conditions; and she gradually relapsed,
during the winters at least, into something like the home-bound
condition of her earlier days. It became impossible that she should
share the more active side of her husband's existence. It had to be
alternately suppressed and carried on without her. The deep heart-love,
the many-sided intellectual sympathy, preserved their union in rare
beauty to the end. But to say that it thus maintained itself as if by
magic, without effort of self-sacrifice on his part or of resignation on
hers, would be as unjust to the noble qualities of both, as it would be
false to assert that its compensating happiness had ever failed them.

     * Her family at that time lived in the country.  She was a
     constant rider, and fond of saddling her pony; and one day,
     when she was about fourteen, she overbalanced herself in
     lifting the saddle, and fell backward, inflicting injuries
     on her head, or rather spine, which caused her great
     suffering, but of which the nature remained for some time
     undiscovered.

Mr. Browning's troubles did not, even for the present, exhaust
themselves in that week of apprehension. They assumed a deeper reality
when his delicate wife first gave herself into his keeping, and the long
hours on steamboat and in diligence were before them. What she suffered
in body, and he in mind, during the first days of that wedding-journey
is better imagined than told. In Paris they either met, or were joined
by, a friend, Mrs. Anna Jameson (then also en route for Italy), and Mrs.
Browning was doubly cared for till she and her husband could once more
put themselves on their way. At Genoa came the long-needed rest in
southern land. From thence, in a few days, they went on to Pisa, and
settled there for the winter.

Even so great a friend as John Forster was not in the secret of Mr.
Browning's marriage; we learn this through an amusing paragraph in a
letter from Mr. Fox, written soon after it had taken place:

'Forster never heard of the Browning marriage till the proof of the
newspaper ('Examiner') notice was sent; when he went into one of his
great passions at the supposed hoax, ordered up the compositor to have a
swear at him, and demanded to see the MS. from which it was taken: so it
was brought, and he instantly recognised the hand of Browning's sister.
Next day came a letter from R. B., saying he had often meant to tell him
or write of it, but hesitated between the two, and neglected both.

'She was better, and a winter in Italy had been recommended some months
ago.

'It seems as if made up by their poetry rather than themselves.'

Many interesting external details of Mr. Browning's married life must
have been lost to us through the wholesale destruction of his letters to
his family, of which mention has been already made, and which he carried
out before leaving Warwick Crescent about four years ago; and Mrs.
Browning's part in the correspondence, though still preserved, cannot
fill the gap, since for a long time it chiefly consisted of
little personal outpourings, inclosed in her husband's letters and
supplementary to them. But she also wrote constantly to Miss Mitford;
and, from the letters addressed to her, now fortunately in Mr. Barrett
Browning's hands, it has been possible to extract many passages of a
sufficiently great, and not too private, interest for our purpose.
These extracts--in some cases almost entire letters--indeed constitute
a fairly complete record of Mr. and Mrs. Browning's joint life till
the summer of 1854, when Miss Mitford's death was drawing near, and the
correspondence ceased. Their chronological order is not always certain,
because Mrs. Browning never gave the year in which her letters were
written, and in some cases the postmark is obliterated; but the missing
date can almost always be gathered from their contents. The first letter
is probably written from Paris.

Oct. 2 ('46).

'. . . and he, as you say, had done everything for me--he loved me for
reasons which had helped to weary me of myself--loved me heart to heart
persistently--in spite of my own will . . . drawn me back to life and
hope again when I had done with both. My life seemed to belong to him
and to none other, at last, and I had no power to speak a word. Have
faith in me, my dearest friend, till you know him. The intellect is so
little in comparison to all the rest--to the womanly tenderness, the
inexhaustible goodness, the high and noble aspiration of every hour.
Temper, spirits, manners--there is not a flaw anywhere. I shut my eyes
sometimes and fancy it all a dream of my guardian angel. Only, if it had
been a dream, the pain of some parts of it would have wakened me before
now--it is not a dream. . . .'

The three next speak for themselves.

Pisa: ('46).

'. . . For Pisa, we both like it extremely. The city is full of beauty
and repose,--and the purple mountains gloriously seem to beckon us on
deeper into the vine land. We have rooms close to the Duomo, and leaning
down on the great Collegio built by Facini. Three excellent bed-rooms
and a sitting-room matted and carpeted, looking comfortable even for
England. For the last fortnight, except the last few sunny days, we have
had rain; but the climate is as mild as possible, no cold with all the
damp. Delightful weather we had for the travelling. Mrs. Jameson says
she won't call me improved but transformed rather. . . . I mean to know
something about pictures some day. Robert does, and I shall get him to
open my eyes for me with a little instruction--in this place are to be
seen the first steps of Art. . . .'

Pisa: Dec. 19 ('46).

'. . . Within these three or four days we have had frost--yes, and a
little snow--for the first time, say the Pisans, within five years.
Robert says the mountains are powdered towards Lucca. . . .'

Feb. 3 ('47).

'. . . Robert is a warm admirer of Balzac and has read most of his
books, but certainly he does not in a general way appreciate our French
people quite with my warmth. He takes too high a standard, I tell him,
and won't listen to a story for a story's sake--I can bear, you know, to
be amused without a strong pull on my admiration. So we have great wars
sometimes--I put up Dumas' flag or Soulie's or Eugene Sue's (yet he was
properly impressed by the 'Mysteres de Paris'), and carry it till my
arms ache. The plays and vaudevilles he knows far more of than I do,
and always maintains they are the happiest growth of the French school.
Setting aside the 'masters', observe; for Balzac and George Sand hold
all their honours. Then we read together the other day 'Rouge et Noir',
that powerful work of Stendhal's, and he observed that it was exactly
like Balzac 'in the raw'--in the material and undeveloped conception . . .
We leave Pisa in April, and pass through Florence towards the north of
Italy . . .'

(She writes out a long list of the 'Comedie Humaine' for Miss Mitford.)

Mr. and Mrs. Browning must have remained in Florence, instead of merely
passing through it; this is proved by the contents of the two following
letters:

Aug. 20 ('47).

'. . . We have spent one of the most delightful of summers
notwithstanding the heat, and I begin to comprehend the possibility of
St. Lawrence's ecstasies on the gridiron. Very hot certainly it has been
and is, yet there have been cool intermissions, and as we have spacious
and airy rooms, as Robert lets me sit all day in my white dressing-gown
without a single masculine criticism, and as we can step out of the
window on a sort of balcony terrace which is quite private, and swims
over with moonlight in the evenings, and as we live upon water-melons
and iced water and figs and all manner of fruit, we bear the heat with
an angelic patience.

We tried to make the monks of Vallombrosa let us stay with them for two
months, but the new abbot said or implied that Wilson and I stank in his
nostrils, being women. So we were sent away at the end of five days. So
provoking! Such scenery, such hills, such a sea of hills looking alive
among the clouds--which rolled, it was difficult to discern. Such fine
woods, supernaturally silent, with the ground black as ink. There were
eagles there too, and there was no road. Robert went on horseback,
and Wilson and I were drawn on a sledge--(i.e. an old hamper, a basket
wine-hamper--without a wheel) by two white bullocks, up the precipitous
mountains. Think of my travelling in those wild places at four o'clock
in the morning! a little frightened, dreadfully tired, but in an ecstasy
of admiration. It was a sight to see before one died and went away into
another world. But being expelled ignominiously at the end of five days,
we had to come back to Florence to find a new apartment cooler than the
old, and wait for dear Mr. Kenyon, and dear Mr. Kenyon does not come
after all. And on the 20th of September we take up our knapsacks and
turn our faces towards Rome, creeping slowly along, with a pause at
Arezzo, and a longer pause at Perugia, and another perhaps at Terni.
Then we plan to take an apartment we have heard of, over the Tarpeian
rock, and enjoy Rome as we have enjoyed Florence. More can scarcely be.
This Florence is unspeakably beautiful . . .'

Oct. ('47).

'. . . Very few acquaintances have we made in Florence, and very quietly
lived out our days. Mr. Powers, the sculptor, is our chief friend and
favourite. A most charming, simple, straightforward, genial American--as
simple as the man of genius he has proved himself to be. He sometimes
comes to talk and take coffee with us, and we like him much. The
sculptor has eyes like a wild Indian's, so black and full of light--you
would scarcely marvel if they clove the marble without the help of his
hands. We have seen, besides, the Hoppners, Lord Byron's friends at
Venice; and Miss Boyle, a niece of the Earl of Cork, an authoress and
poetess on her own account, having been introduced to Robert in London
at Lady Morgan's, has hunted us out, and paid us a visit. A very
vivacious little person, with sparkling talk enough . . .'

In this year, 1847, the question arose of a British mission to the
Vatican; and Mr. Browning wrote to Mr. Monckton Milnes begging him to
signify to the Foreign Office his more than willingness to take part
in it. He would be glad and proud, he said, to be secretary to such an
embassy, and to work like a horse in his vocation. The letter is given
in the lately published biography of Lord Houghton, and I am obliged to
confess that it has been my first intimation of the fact recorded there.
When once his 'Paracelsus' had appeared, and Mr. Browning had taken rank
as a poet, he renounced all idea of more active work; and the tone and
habits of his early married life would have seemed scarcely consistent
with a renewed impulse towards it. But the fact was in some sense due
to the very circumstances of that life: among them, his wife's probable
incitement to, and certain sympathy with, the proceeding.

The projected winter in Rome had been given up, I believe against the
doctor's advice, on the strength of the greater attractions of Florence.
Our next extract is dated from thence, Dec. 8, 1847.

'. . . Think what we have done since I last wrote to you. Taken two
houses, that is, two apartments, each for six months, presigning the
contract. You will set it down to excellent poet's work in the way
of domestic economy, but the fault was altogether mine, as usual. My
husband, to please me, took rooms which I could not be pleased with
three days through the absence of sunshine and warmth. The consequence
was that we had to pay heaps of guineas away, for leave to go away
ourselves--any alternative being preferable to a return of illness--and
I am sure I should have been ill if we had persisted in staying there.
You can scarcely fancy the wonderful difference which the sun makes
in Italy. So away we came into the blaze of him in the Piazza Pitti;
precisely opposite the Grand Duke's palace; I with my remorse, and poor
Robert without a single reproach. Any other man, a little lower than the
angels, would have stamped and sworn a little for the mere relief of the
thing--but as to _his_ being angry with _me_ for any cause except not
eating enough dinner, the said sun would turn the wrong way first. So
here we are in the Pitti till April, in small rooms yellow with sunshine
from morning till evening, and most days I am able to get out into the
piazza and walk up and down for twenty minutes without feeling a breath
of the actual winter . . . and Miss Boyle, ever and anon, comes at
night, at nine o'clock, to catch us at hot chestnuts and mulled wine,
and warm her feet at our fire--and a kinder, more cordial little
creature, full of talent and accomplishment never had the world's polish
on it. Very amusing she is too, and original; and a good deal of
laughing she and Robert make between them. And this is nearly all we see
of the Face Divine--I can't make Robert go out a single evening. . . .'

We have five extracts for 1848. One of these, not otherwise dated,
describes an attack of sore-throat which was fortunately Mr. Browning's
last; and the letter containing it must have been written in the course
of the summer.

'. . . My husband was laid up for nearly a month with fever and relaxed
sore-throat. Quite unhappy I have been over those burning hands and
languid eyes--the only unhappiness I ever had by him. And then he
wouldn't see a physician, and if it had not been that just at the right
moment Mr. Mahoney, the celebrated Jesuit, and "Father Prout" of Fraser,
knowing everything as those Jesuits are apt to do, came in to us on
his way to Rome, pointed out to us that the fever got ahead through
weakness, and mixed up with his own kind hand a potion of eggs and port
wine; to the horror of our Italian servant, who lifted up his eyes at
such a prescription for fever, crying, "O Inglesi! Inglesi!" the case
would have been far worse, I have no kind of doubt, for the eccentric
prescription gave the power of sleeping, and the pulse grew quieter
directly. I shall always be grateful to Father Prout--always.'*

     * It had not been merely a case of relaxed sore-throat.
     There was an abscess, which burst during this first night of
     sleep.

May 28.

'. . . And now I must tell you what we have done since I wrote last,
little thinking of doing so. You see our problem was, to get to England
as much in summer as possible, the expense of the intermediate journeys
making it difficult of solution. On examination of the whole case, it
appeared manifest that we were throwing money into the Arno, by our way
of taking furnished rooms, while to take an apartment and furnish it
would leave us a clear return of the furniture at the end of the
first year in exchange for our outlay, and all but a free residence
afterwards, the cheapness of furniture being quite fabulous at the
present crisis. . . . In fact we have really done it magnificently, and
planted ourselves in the Guidi Palace in the favourite suite of the last
Count (his arms are in scagliola on the floor of my bedroom). Though we
have six beautiful rooms and a kitchen, three of them quite palace rooms
and opening on a terrace, and though such furniture as comes by slow
degrees into them is antique and worthy of the place, we yet shall have
saved money by the end of this year. . . . Now I tell you all this lest
you should hear dreadful rumours of our having forsaken our native land,
venerable institutions and all, whereas we remember it so well (it's a
dear land in many senses), that we have done this thing chiefly in order
to make sure of getting back comfortably, . . . a stone's throw, too, it
is from the Pitti, and really in my present mind I would hardly exchange
with the Grand Duke himself. By the bye, as to street, we have no
spectators in windows in just the grey wall of a church called San
Felice for good omen.

'Now, have you heard enough of us? What I claimed first, in way of
privilege, was a spring-sofa to loll upon, and a supply of rain water to
wash in, and you shall see what a picturesque oil-jar they have given
us for the latter purpose; it would just hold the Captain of the
Forty Thieves. As for the chairs and tables, I yield the more especial
interest in them to Robert; only you would laugh to hear us correct
one another sometimes. "Dear, you get too many drawers, and not enough
washing-stands. Pray don't let us have any more drawers when we've
nothing more to put in them." There was no division on the necessity of
having six spoons--some questions passed themselves. . . .'

July.

'. . . I am quite well again and strong. Robert and I go out often after
tea in a wandering walk to sit in the Loggia and look at the Perseus,
or, better still, at the divine sunsets on the Arno, turning it to pure
gold under the bridges. After more than twenty months of marriage, we
are happier than ever. . . .'

Aug.

'. . . As for ourselves we have hardly done so well--yet well--having
enjoyed a great deal in spite of drawbacks. Murray, the traitor, sent us
to Fano as "a delightful summer residence for an English family," and we
found it uninhabitable from the heat, vegetation scorched into
paleness, the very air swooning in the sun, and the gloomy looks of the
inhabitants sufficiently corroborative of their words that no drop of
rain or dew ever falls there during the summer. A "circulating library"
which "does not give out books," and "a refined and intellectual Italian
society" (I quote Murray for that phrase) which "never reads a book
through" (I quote Mrs. Wiseman, Dr. Wiseman's mother, who has lived in
Fano seven years) complete the advantages of the place. Yet the churches
are very beautiful, and a divine picture of Guercino's is worth going
all that way to see. . . . We fled from Fano after three days, and
finding ourselves cheated out of our dream of summer coolness, resolved
on substituting for it what the Italians call "un bel giro". So we went
to Ancona--a striking sea city, holding up against the brown rocks, and
elbowing out the purple tides--beautiful to look upon. An exfoliation
of the rock itself you would call the houses that seem to grow there--so
identical is the colour and character. I should like to visit Ancona
again when there is a little air and shadow. We stayed a week, as it
was, living upon fish and cold water. . . .'

The one dated Florence, December 16, is interesting with reference to
Mr. Browning's attitude when he wrote the letters to Mr. Frank Hill
which I have recently quoted.

'We have been, at least I have been, a little anxious lately about the
fate of the 'Blot in the 'Scutcheon' which Mr. Phelps applied for
my husband's permission to revive at Sadler's. Of course putting the
request was mere form, as he had every right to act the play--only it
made ME anxious till we heard the result--and we both of us are very
grateful to dear Mr. Chorley, who not only made it his business to be at
the theatre the first night, but, before he slept, sat down like a true
friend to give us the story of the result, and never, he says, was a
more legitimate success. The play went straight to the hearts of the
audience, it seems, and we hear of its continuance on the stage, from
the papers. You may remember, or may not have heard, how Macready
brought it out and put his foot on it, in the flush of a quarrel between
manager and author; and Phelps, knowing the whole secret and feeling
the power of the play, determined on making a revival of it in his own
theatre. Mr. Chorley called his acting "fine". . . .'

Chapter 10

1849-1852

Death of Mr. Browning's Mother--Birth of his Son--Mrs. Browning's
Letters continued--Baths of Lucca--Florence again--Venice--Margaret
Fuller Ossoli--Visit to England--Winter in Paris--Carlyle--George
Sand--Alfred de Musset.

On March 9, 1849, Mr. Browning's son was born. With the joy of his
wife's deliverance from the dangers of such an event came also his
first great sorrow. His mother did not live to receive the news of
her grandchild's birth. The letter which conveyed it found her still
breathing, but in the unconsciousness of approaching death. There had
been no time for warning. The sister could only break the suddenness of
the shock. A letter of Mrs. Browning's tells what was to be told.

Florence: April 30 ('49).

'. . . This is the first packet of letters, except one to Wimpole
Street, which I have written since my confinement. You will have
heard how our joy turned suddenly into deep sorrow by the death of my
husband's mother. An unsuspected disease (ossification of the heart)
terminated in a fatal way--and she lay in the insensibility precursive
of the grave's when the letter written with such gladness by my poor
husband and announcing the birth of his child, reached her address. "It
would have made her heart bound," said her daughter to us. Poor tender
heart--the last throb was too near. The medical men would not allow
the news to be communicated. The next joy she felt was to be in heaven
itself. My husband has been in the deepest anguish, and indeed, except
for the courageous consideration of his sister who wrote two letters of
preparation, saying "She was not well" and she "was very ill" when in
fact all was over, I am frightened to think what the result would have
been to him. He has loved his mother as such passionate natures only
can love, and I never saw a man so bowed down in an extremity of
sorrow--never. Even now, the depression is great--and sometimes when I
leave him alone a little and return to the room, I find him in tears. I
do earnestly wish to change the scene and air--but where to go? England
looks terrible now. He says it would break his heart to see his mother's
roses over the wall and the place where she used to lay her scissors and
gloves--which I understand so thoroughly that I can't say "Let us go to
England." We must wait and see what his father and sister will choose to
do, or choose us to do--for of course a duty plainly seen would draw us
anywhere. My own dearest sisters will be painfully disappointed by any
change of plan--only they are too good and kind not to understand the
difficulty--not to see the motive. So do you, I am certain. It has been
very, very painful altogether, this drawing together of life and death.
Robert was too enraptured at my safety and with his little son, and the
sudden reaction was terrible. . . .'

Bagni di Lucca.

'. . . We have been wandering in search of cool air and a cool bough
among all the olive trees to build our summer nest on. My husband has
been suffering beyond what one could shut one's eyes to, in consequence
of the great mental shock of last March--loss of appetite, loss of
sleep--looks quite worn and altered. His spirits never rallied except
with an effort, and every letter from New Cross threw him back into deep
depression. I was very anxious, and feared much that the end of it
all would be (the intense heat of Florence assisting) nervous fever or
something similar; and I had the greatest difficulty in persuading
him to leave Florence for a month or two. He who generally delights in
travelling, had no mind for change or movement. I had to say and swear
that Baby and I couldn't bear the heat, and that we must and would go
away. "Ce que femme veut, _homme_ veut," if the latter is at all amiable,
or the former persevering. At last I gained the victory. It was agreed
that we two should go on an exploring journey, to find out where we
could have most shadow at least expense; and we left our child with
his nurse and Wilson, while we were absent. We went along the coast to
Spezzia, saw Carrara with the white marble mountains, passed through
the olive-forests and the vineyards, avenues of acacia trees, chestnut
woods, glorious surprises of the most exquisite scenery. I say
olive-forests advisedly--the olive grows like a forest-tree in those
regions, shading the ground with tints of silvery network. The olive
near Florence is but a shrub in comparison, and I have learnt to despise
a little too the Florentine vine, which does not swing such portcullises
of massive dewy green from one tree to another as along the whole road
where we travelled. Beautiful indeed it was. Spezzia wheels the blue sea
into the arms of the wooded mountains; and we had a glance at Shelley's
house at Lerici. It was melancholy to me, of course. I was not sorry
that the lodgings we inquired about were far above our means. We
returned on our steps (after two days in the dirtiest of possible inns),
saw Seravezza, a village in the mountains, where rock river and
wood enticed us to stay, and the inhabitants drove us off by their
unreasonable prices. It is curious--but just in proportion to the
want of civilization the prices rise in Italy. If you haven't cups and
saucers, you are made to pay for plate. Well--so finding no rest for the
soles of our feet, I persuaded Robert to go to the Baths of Lucca, only
to see them. We were to proceed afterwards to San Marcello, or some
safer wilderness. We had both of us, but he chiefly, the strongest
prejudice against the Baths of Lucca; taking them for a sort of wasp's
nest of scandal and gaming, and expecting to find everything trodden
flat by the continental English--yet, I wanted to see the place, because
it is a place to see, after all. So we came, and were so charmed by the
exquisite beauty of the scenery, by the coolness of the climate, and
the absence of our countrymen--political troubles serving admirably our
private requirements, that we made an offer for rooms on the spot, and
returned to Florence for Baby and the rest of our establishment
without further delay. Here we are then. We have been here more than
a fortnight. We have taken an apartment for the season--four months,
paying twelve pounds for the whole term, and hoping to be able to stay
till the end of October. The living is cheaper than even in Florence, so
that there has been no extravagance in coming here. In fact Florence is
scarcely tenable during the summer from the excessive heat by day and
night, even if there were no particular motive for leaving it. We have
taken a sort of eagle's nest in this place--the highest house of the
highest of the three villages which are called the Bagni di Lucca, and
which lie at the heart of a hundred mountains sung to continually by a
rushing mountain stream. The sound of the river and of the cicale is all
the noise we hear. Austrian drums and carriage-wheels cannot vex us, God
be thanked for it! The silence is full of joy and consolation. I think
my husband's spirits are better already, and his appetite improved.
Certainly little Babe's great cheeks are growing rosier and rosier. He
is out all day when the sun is not too strong, and Wilson will have it
that he is prettier than the whole population of babies here. . . . Then
my whole strength has wonderfully improved--just as my medical friends
prophesied,--and it seems like a dream when I find myself able to climb
the hills with Robert, and help him to lose himself in the forests.
Ever since my confinement I have been growing stronger and stronger, and
where it is to stop I can't tell really. I can do as much or more than
at any point of my life since I arrived at woman's estate. The air of
the place seems to penetrate the heart, and not the lungs only: it
draws you, raises you, excites you. Mountain air without its
keenness--sheathed in Italian sunshine--think what that must be! And
the beauty and the solitude--for with a few paces we get free of
the habitations of men--all is delightful to me. What is peculiarly
beautiful and wonderful, is the variety of the shapes of the mountains.
They are a multitude--and yet there is no likeness. None, except where
the golden mist comes and transfigures them into one glory. For the
rest, the mountain there wrapt in the chestnut forest is not like that
bare peak which tilts against the sky--nor like the serpent-twine of
another which seems to move and coil in the moving coiling shadow. . . .'

She writes again:

Bagni di Lucca: Oct. 2 ('49).

'. . . I have performed a great exploit--ridden on a donkey five miles
deep into the mountain, to an almost inaccessible volcanic ground not
far from the stars. Robert on horseback, and Wilson and the nurse (with
Baby) on other donkies,--guides of course. We set off at eight in the
morning, and returned at six P.M. after dining on the mountain pinnacle,
I dreadfully tired, but the child laughing as usual, burnt brick colour
for all bad effect. No horse or ass untrained for the mountains could
have kept foot a moment where we penetrated, and even as it was, one
could not help the natural thrill. No road except the bed of exhausted
torrents--above and through the chestnut forests precipitous beyond
what you would think possible for ascent or descent. Ravines tearing the
ground to pieces under your feet. The scenery, sublime and wonderful,
satisfied us wholly, as we looked round on the world of innumerable
mountains, bound faintly with the grey sea--and not a human habitation.
. . .'

The following fragment, which I have received quite without date, might
refer to this or to a somewhat later period.

'If he is vain about anything in the world it is about my improved
health, and I say to him, "But you needn't talk so much to people, of
how your wife walked here with you, and there with you, as if a wife
with a pair of feet was a miracle of nature."'

Florence: Feb. 18 ('50).

'. . . You can scarcely imagine to yourself the retired life we live,
and how we have retreated from the kind advances of the English society
here. Now people seem to understand that we are to be left alone. . . .'

Florence: April 1 ('50).

'. . . We drive day by day through the lovely Cascine, just sweeping
through the city. Just such a window where Bianca Capello looked out
to see the Duke go by--and just such a door where Tasso stood and where
Dante drew his chair out to sit. Strange to have all that old world life
about us, and the blue sky so bright. . . .'

Venice: June 4 (probably '50).

'. . . I have been between Heaven and Earth since our arrival at Venice.
The Heaven of it is ineffable--never had I touched the skirts of so
celestial a place. The beauty of the architecture, the silver trails of
water up between all that gorgeous colour and carving, the enchanting
silence, the music, the gondolas--I mix it all up together and maintain
that nothing is like it, nothing equal to it, not a second Venice in the
world.

'Do you know when I came first I felt as if I never could go away. But
now comes the earth-side.

'Robert, after sharing the ecstasy, grows uncomfortable and nervous,
unable to eat or sleep, and poor Wilson still worse, in a miserable
condition of sickness and headache. Alas for these mortal Venices, so
exquisite and so bilious. Therefore I am constrained away from my joys
by sympathy, and am forced to be glad that we are going away on Friday.
For myself, it did not affect me at all. Take the mild, soft, relaxing
climate--even the scirocco does not touch me. And the baby grows
gloriously fatter in spite of everything. . . . As for Venice, you can't
get even a "Times", much less an "Athenaeum". We comfort ourselves by
taking a box at the opera (a whole box on the grand tier, mind) for
two shillings and eightpence, English. Also, every evening at half-past
eight, Robert and I are sitting under the moon in the great piazza of
St. Mark, taking excellent coffee and reading the French papers.'

If it were possible to draw more largely on Mrs. Browning's
correspondence for this year, it would certainly supply the record of
her intimacy, and that of her husband, with Margaret Fuller Ossoli. A
warm attachment sprang up between them during that lady's residence in
Florence. Its last evenings were all spent at their house; and, soon
after she had bidden them farewell, she availed herself of a two days'
delay in the departure of the ship to return from Leghorn and be with
them one evening more. She had what seemed a prophetic dread of the
voyage to America, though she attached no superstitious importance to
the prediction once made to her husband that he would be drowned; and
learned when it was too late to change her plans that her presence there
was, after all, unnecessary. Mr. Browning was deeply affected by the
news of her death by shipwreck, which took place on July 16, 1850; and
wrote an account of his acquaintance with her, for publication by her
friends. This also, unfortunately, was lost. Her son was of the same
age as his, little more than a year old; but she left a token of the
friendship which might some day have united them, in a small Bible
inscribed to the baby Robert, 'In memory of Angelo Ossoli.'

The intended journey to England was delayed for Mr. Browning by the
painful associations connected with his mother's death; but in the
summer of 1851 he found courage to go there: and then, as on each
succeeding visit paid to London with his wife, he commemorated his
marriage in a manner all his own. He went to the church in which it had