Round' from 1 Dec. 1860 to 3 Aug. 1861). 32. 'Our Mutual Friend,' November 1865; illustrated by Marcus Stone (originally in monthly numbers, May 1864 to November 1865). 33. 'Religious Opinions of the late Rev. Chauncy Hare Townshend,' edited by Charles Dickens, 1869. 34. 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' (unfinished); illustrated by S. L. Fildes (six numbers from April to September 1870).

The following appeared in the Christmas numbers of 'Household Words' and 'All the Year Round:' 'A Christmas Tree,' in Christmas 'Household Words,' 1850; 'What Christmas is as we grow Older,' in 'What Christmas is,' ib. 1851; 'The Poor Relation's Story' and 'The Child's Story,' in 'Stories for Christmas,' ib. 1852; 'The Schoolboy's Story' and 'Nobody's Story,' in 'Christmas Stories,' ib. 1853; 'In the Old City of Rochester,' 'The Story of Richard Doubledick,' and 'The Road,' in 'The Seven Poor Travellers,' ib. 1854; 'Myself,' 'The Boots,' and 'The Till,' in 'The Holly Tree,' ib. 1855; 'The Wreck,' in 'The Wreck of the Golden Mary,' ib. 1856; 'The Island of Silver Store' and "The Rafts on the River,' in 'The Perils of certain English Prisoners,' ib. 1857; 'Going into Society,' in 'A House to Let,' ib. 1858; 'The Mortals in the House' and 'The Ghost in Master B.'s Room,' in 'The Haunted House,' 'All the Year Round,' 1859: The Village' (nearly the whole), 'The Money,' and 'The Restitution,' in 'A Message from the Sea,' ib. 1860; 'Picking up Soot and Cinders,' 'Picking up Miss Kimmeens,' and 'Picking up -the Tinker,' in 'Tom Tiddler's Ground,' ib. 1861; 'His Leaving `it till called for,' 'His Boots,' 'His Brown Paper Parcel,' and ‘His Wonderful End,' in 'Somebody's Luggage,' ib. 1862; 'How Mrs. Lirriper carried on the Business,' and 'How the Parlour added a few Words,' in 'Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings,' ib. 1863; 'Mrs. Lirriper relates how she went on and went over' and 'Mrs. Lirriper relates how Jemmy topped up,' in 'Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy,' ib. 1864; 'To be Taken Immediately,' 'To be Taken for Life,' and "The Trial,' in 'Dr. Marigold's Prescriptions,' ib. 1865; 'Barbox Brothers,' 'Barbox Brothers & Co.' 'The Main Line,' the 'Boy at Mugby,' and 'No. 1 Branch Line: the Signalman,' in 'Mugby Junction,' ib. 1866; 'No Thoroughfare' (with Mr. Wilkie Collins), ib. 1867.

Besides these Dickens published the 'Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices' (with Mr. Wilkie Collins) in 'Household Words' for October 1857; 'Hunted Down' (originally in the 'New York Ledger') in 'All the Year Round,' August 1860; 'The Uncommercial Traveller' (a series of papers from 28 Jan. to 13 Oct. 1860, collected in December 1860). Eleven fresh papers from the same were added to an edition in 1868, and seven more were written to 5 June 1869. A 'Holiday Romance,' originally in 'Our Young Folks,' and 'George Silverman's Explanation,' originally in the 'Atlantic Monthly,' appeared in 'All the Year Round,' from 5 Jan. to 22 Feb. 1868. His last paper in 'All the Year Round' was 'Landor's Life,' 5 June 1869. A list of various articles in newspapers, &c., is given in R. H. Shepherd's 'Bibliography.'

The first collective edition of Dickens's works was begun in April 1847. The first series closed in September 1852; a second closed in 1861; and a third in 1874. The first library edition began in 1857. The 'Charles Dickens' edition began in America, and was issued in England from 1868 to 1870. 'Plays and Poems,' edited by R. H. Shepherd, was published in 1882, suppressed as containing copyright matter, and reissued without this in 1885. 'Speeches' by the same in 1884.

For minuter particulars see 'Hints to Collectors,' by J. F. Dexter, in 'Dickens Memento,' 1870; 'Hints to Collectors . by C. P. Johnson, 1885; 'Bibliography of Dickens,' by R. H. Shepherd, 1880; and 'Bibliography of the Writings of Charles Dickens,' by James Cook, 1879.

THE LIFE OF ROBERT BROWNING

EDMUND GOSSE

[From the Dictionary of National Biography.]

BROWNING, ROBERT (1812-1889), poet, was descended, as he believed, from an Anglo-Saxon family which bore in Norman times the name De Bruni. As a matter of fact the stock has been traced no further back than to the early part of the eighteenth century, when the poet's natural great-grandfather owned the

Woodgates inn in the parish of Partridge in Dorset. The son of this man, Robert Browning, was born in 1749, and was a clerk in the bank of England, rising to be principal of the bank stock office. He married, in 1778, Margaret Tittle, a West Indian heiress. He died at Islington on 11 Dec. 1833. By his first wife he had two children, a son Robert, and a daughter who died unmarried; by his second wife he had a large family. The second Robert Browning, who was born in 1781, was early sent out to manage the parental estate in St. Kitts, but threw up his appointment from disgust at the system of slave labour prevailing there. In 1803 he became a clerk in the bank of England, and in 1811 settled in Camberwell, and married the daughter of a small shipowner in Dundee named Wiedemann, whose father was a Hamburg merchant. He was a fluent writer of accurate verse, in the eighteenth century manner, and of tastes both scholarly and artistic. He had wished to be trained as a painter, and it is said that he was wont in later life to soothe his little boy to sleep by humming odes of Anacreon to him. The poet, who had little sympathy for his grandfather, adored the memory of his father, and gave impressions of his genius, which were perhaps exaggerated by affection. He was athletic and enjoyed magnificent health; a ruddy, active man, of high intelligence and liberality of mind. He lived on until 1866, vigorous to the end. A letter from Frederick Locker Lampson preserves some interesting impressions of this fine old man. He had two children - Robert, the poet, and Sarianna, who still survives (born 1814).

Robert Browning, one of the Englishmen of most indisputable genius whom the nineteenth century has produced, was born at Southampton Street, Camberwell, on 7 May 1812. 'He was a handsome, vigorous, fearless child, and soon developed an unresting activity and a fiery temper' (MRS. ORR). He was keenly susceptible, from earliest infancy, to music, poetry, and painting. At two years and three months he painted (in lead-pencil and black-currant jam-juice) a composition of a cottage and rocks, which was thought a masterpiece. So turbulent was he and destructive that he was sent, a mere infant, to the day-school of a dame, who has the credit of having divined his intellect. One of the first books which influenced him was Croxall's 'Fables' in

verse, and he soon began to make rhymes, and a little later plays. From a very early age he began to devour the volumes in his father's well-stocked library, and about 1824 he had completed a little volume of verses, called 'Incondita,' for which he endeavoured in vain to find a publisher, and it was destroyed. It had been shown, however, to Miss Sarah Flower, afterwards Mrs. Adams, who made a copy of it; this copy, fifty years afterwards, fell into the hands of Browning himself, who destroyed it. He told the present writer that these verses were servile imitations of Byron, who was at that time still alive; and that their only merit was their mellifluous smoothness. Of Miss Eliza Flower (elder sister of Sarah Flower), his earliest literary friend, Browning always spoke with deep emotion. Although she was nine years his senior, he regarded her with tender boyish sentiment, and she is believed to have inspired 'Pauline.' In 1825, in his fourteenth year, a complete revolution was made in the boy's attitude to literature by his becoming acquainted with the poems of Shelley and Keats, which his mother bought for him in their original editions. He was at this time at the school of the Rev. Thomas Ready in Peckham. In 1826 the question of his education was seriously raised, and it was decided that he should be sent neither to a public school nor ultimately to a university. In later years the poet regretted this decision, which, however, was probably not unfavourable to his idiosyncrasy. He was taught at home by a tutor; his training was made to include 'music, singing, dancing, riding, boxing, and fencing.' He became an adept at some of these, in particular a graceful and intrepid rider. From fourteen to sixteen he was inclined to believe that musical composition would be the art in which he might excel, and he wrote a number of settings for songs; these he afterwards destroyed. At his father's express wish, his education was definitely literary. In 1829-30, for a very short time, he attended the Greek class of Professor George Long at London University, afterwards University College, London. His aunt, Mrs. Silverthorne, greatly encouraged his father in giving a lettered character to Robert's training. He now formed the acquaintance of two young men of adventurous spirit, each destined to become distinguished. Of these one was (Sir) Joseph Arnould, and the other Alfred Domett; both then lived at Camberwell. Domett early in his

career went out to New Zealand, in circumstances the suddenness and romance of which suggested to Browning his poem of 'Waring.' To Domett also 'The Guardian Angel' is dedicated, and he remained through life a steadfast friend of the poet. While he was at University College, the elder Browning asked his son what he intended to be. The young man replied by asking if his sister would be sufficiently provided for if he adopted no business or profession. The answer was that she would be. The poet then suggested that it would be better for him 'to see life in the best sense, and cultivate the powers of his mind, than to shackle himself in the very outset of his career by a laborious training, foreign to that aim.' 'In short, Robert, your design is to be a poet?' He admitted it; and his father at once acquiesced. It has been said that the bar and painting occurred to him as possible professions. It may be So, but the statement just made was taken from his own lips, and doubtless represents the upshot of family discussion culminating in the determination to live a life of pure culture, out of which art might spontaneously rise. It began to rise immediately, in the form of colossal schemes for poems. In October 1832 Robert was already engaged upon his first completed work, 'Pauline.' Mrs. Silverthorne paid for it to be printed, and the little volume appeared, anonymously, in January 1833. The poet sent a copy to W. J. Fox, with a letter in which he described himself as an oddish sort of boy, who had the honour of being introduced to you at Hackney some years back' by Sarah Flower Adams. Fox reviewed 'Pauline' with very great warmth in the 'Monthly Repository,' and it fell also under the favourable notice of Allan Cunningham. J. S. Mill read and enthusiastically admired it, but had no opportunity of giving it public praise. With these exceptions 'Pauline' fell absolutely still-born from the press. The life of Robert Browning during the next two years is very obscure. He was still occupied with certain religious speculations. In the winter of 1833-4, as the guest of Mr. Benckhausen, the Russian consul-general, he spent three months in St. Petersburg, an experience which had a vivid effect on the awakening of his poetic faculties. At St. Petersburg he wrote 'Porphyria's Lover' and 'Johannes Agricola,' both of which were printed in the 'Monthly Repository' in 1836. These are the earliest specimens