and was also to the end of his life an accomplished swimmer. For two years he had a French tutor, and at the age of eighteen he attended the classes of Professor Long, who taught Greek at University College, London. He is described by a fellowstudent at this time as "a bright handsome youth with long black hair falling over his shoulders." At this time he determined not to devote himself to any of the pursuits by which fortunes are made in life, but to consecrate himself to the serious service of literature. He conceived the idea of a great portrait gallery of typical men and women, but the only portion of the scheme which was completed was "Pauline." I heard an account of Pauline many years ago from the author's own lips, and my recollection of it does not tally precisely with the accounts given in printed narratives. He said that it was written and printed surreptitiously, and that he used to steal out at night to correct the proofs at Richmond, which will account for the place Richmond occurring in the preface. He also said that the book fell into the hands of Mr. John Stuart Mill, who greatly admired it. Mill had just started the reputation of Alfred Tennyson by a sympathetic review. He desired to do the same for Browning in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, but on offering to review "Pauline" he was told that it had been already criticised. On minute inspection he found that the last two words of the previous number, attached to the notices of books, were "Pauline-A piece of pure bewilderment." He inquired the reason of this unfavourable criticism, and learnt that the printer, wanting a line more copy, the assistant editor had taken up a thin little book of poetry lying before him, and finding that he could not understand it had condemned it as unintelligible. "Pauline appeared anonymously in 1833. The expense of printing was paid by his aunt, Mrs. Silverstone. "Pauline" consists of a thousand and thirty lines. Allan Cunningham said of it in the Athenæum: "There is not a little true poetry in this very little book. Here and there we have a touch of the mysterious which we cannot admire, and now and then a want of melody which we can forgive, with perhaps more abruptness than is necessary. All that, however, is as a grain of sand in a cup of pure water, compared to the nature, passion, and fancy of the poem. We open the book at random; but fine things abound. Description and sentiment are everywhere beautifully mingled. We hope the author's next strains will be more cheerful and as original as these. To one who sings so naturally poetry must be as easy as music is to a bird, and no doubt it has a solace all its own." Browning himself thought little of the work. He wrote: "Pauline '-written in pursuance of a foolish plan, I forget, or have no wish to remember, involving the assumption of several distinct characters. The world was also to guess that such an opera, such a comedy, such a speech proceeded from the same notable person; " and again, "only this crab remains of the shapeless tree of life in my fool's paradise." Rossetti came accidentally across the book in the British Museum, and copied it out, feeling sure that it was written by Browning. A copy was once sold at a public sale for twentyfive guineas. The author reprinted it in 1867, fearing that it might be pirated in America. "Pauline" bears date October 22, 1832. In the winter of 1833-34 Browning travelled to Russia and was abroad three months. He went as Secretary to the Russian Consul-General. He enjoyed the society of the Russian capital, and witnessed the breaking up of the ice in the Neva, and the ceremony of the Czar drinking the first glass of water from the river. On his return he contributed some poems to the Monthly Repository, edited by his friend Mr. Fox. Five of them appeared at intervals, all signed Z. The first was a sonnet, not very successful. The second, "A King lived long ago," included afterwards in "Pippa Passes." Then followed "Porphyria's Lover," "Johannes Agricola," and some lines, "Still ailing, wind? wilt be appeased or no?" What afterwards appeared in a revised form is the first six stanzas of "James Lee." Two of these poems, "Porphyria " and " Agricola," were afterwards reprinted in "Bells and Pomegranates," under the title of "Madhouse Cells;" and "Porphyria" is certainly as striking a picture of madness as literature contains. But Browning's serious occupation during the winter of 1834-35 was the writing of "Paracelsus," which was concluded in the spring of the latter year. This was a truly great work, full of beauties, not only of the more recondite kind but such as appeal to every one Nothing can be more melodious or more affecting than the lyric song, "Over the sea our galleys went." The book was fully appreciated at the time by Mr. Fox and John Forster. One wrote: "The work before us has truth and life in it, and gave us the thrill and laid hold of us with the power, the sensation of which has never yet failed us as a test of genius." Mr. Forster placed Browning at once by the side of Shelley, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. Soon after this the Browning family went to live at Hatcham, in a house with a stable and a large garden. Here the poet made friends with a toad, which followed him about and allowed itself to be stroked. This strange pet was unfortunately killed by the gardener. Here, too, he first became acquainted with Carlyle. In November, 1835, he first met Macready, and made a great impression on him. The actor read "Paracelsus" and thought it a work of great daring, starred with poetry of thought, feeling, and diction. He inferred that the writer could scarcely fail to be a leading spirit of his time. The spring of the following year there was talk between them of Browning writing a tragedy, and in August we hear that the subject of Strafford had been chosen. Macready thought that he could not have hit upon one that would have been more suitable. The reason for this choice was that Browning had been treating the subject in a different manner. John Forster, whose acquaintance Browning had made in Germany, was writing some lives of the statesmen of the Commonwealth for Lardner's "Cabinet Cyclopædia." He had fallen ill, and not being able to finish the life of Strafford, had requested Browning to complete it for him. Browning did so, and it is believed by competent critics that almost the whole of the existing life is from Browning's pen. The play of "Strafford" was completed by the end of March. It was accepted with avidity by Mr. Osbaldiston, the manager of Covent Garden Theatre, who agreed to give the author £12 a night for twenty-five nights, and £10 a night for ten nights beyond. It was acted on May 1 and obtained a certain amount of success. Macready was acknowledged to be admirable in the principal character, and Helen Faucit in Lady Carlisle. But the King was so bad an actor that he ought to have been driven from the stage, and the Queen was not much 66 better. The performances came to an abrupt conclusion because Vandenhoff, who played the part of Pym, was drawn aside by a better engagement at another theatre. The play was published by Messrs. Longman, but only had a moderate sale. The poet in the original preface described the play as one of action in character rather than character in action," but claimed historical faithfulness for the portraits, excepting that of Lady Carlisle. He tells us also that the Italian boat-song comes from Redi's "Bacco in Toscana." Browning had, according to his own account, been engaged for some time on a poem of a very different nature when he was induced to write "Strafford." This was the poem of "Sordello," perhaps the greatest of his works. It occupied him for several years, and was not published till 1840. He must have worked at it during the winter of 1837-38, for he writes on Good Friday in the latter year that he is sailing that morning for Venice, intending to finish his poem amongst the scenes it describes. He went through the Bay of Biscay and suffered very much from the rough weather. The Captain supported him on deck as they passed through the Straits of Gibraltar, that he might gaze on the sight. At this time he wrote, "How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix." "Under the bulwark of a vessel off the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse York,' then in my stable at home." "Home Thoughts from the Sea," written at the same timé, tells us what he saw : 66 'Nobly, nobly, Cape St. Vincent to the north-west died away, "In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray." He went to Trieste, then to Venice, then through Treviso and Bassano to the mountains, visiting "delicious Asolo, all my places and castles you will see.” Then to Vicenza, Padua, and Venice again. Then to Verona and Trent, through the Tyrol to Innsbruck, to Munich, Salzburg, Frankfort, and Mainz; then down the Rhine to Cologne, and home by Aix-laChapelle, Liège, and Antwerp. He returned in the summer of 1838. "Sordello" did not appear till 1840. را . "Sordello is one of the very greatest of Browning's productions, perhaps his masterpiece. Starting from the casual and mysterious mention of Sordello in Dante, it attempted to tell the story of a soul, and how it gained good out of everything, in which it seemed only to fail. All the stages and processes are described by which the soul of Sordello comes into play. It is common to call "Sordello" obscure; to relate how Douglas Jerrold once thought that he was mad because he could not understand it, and was relieved to find that everyone else was as mad as himself. With regard to this charge it will be well to quote the remark of another great poet, Mr. Swinburne. He says: "If there is any great quality more perceptible than another in Mr. Browning's intellect, it is his decisive and incisive faculty of thought, his sureness and intensity of perception, his rapid and trenchant resolution of aim. To charge him with obscurity is about as accurate as to call Lynceus purblind, or complain of the slowness of the telegraphic wire. He is something too much the reverse of obscure; he is too brilliant and subtle for the ready reader of a ready writer to follow with any certainty the track of an intelligence which moves with such incessant rapidity. The rate of his thoughts is to that of another man's as the speed of a railway to that of a waggon. The very evidence of Mr. Browning's aim and method is such as implies above all other things the possession of a quality the very opposite of obscurity, a faculty of spiritual illumination, rapid and intense and subtle as lightning, which brings to bear upon its central object, by way of direct and vivid illustration, every symbol and every detail on which its light is flashed in passing." In 1841 appeared" Pippa Passes," as the first instalment of "Bells and Pomegranates." This requires some explanation. This exquisite poem and two tragedies were lying in Browning's desk awaiting a publisher. Just at this time Mr. Moxon said that he was bringing out some editions of the Elizabethan dramatists in a cheap form, and that if Browning liked to use the same cheap type he might have the opportunity of doing so. It was agreed that each poem should form a brochure of sixteen pages in double columns, which would cost not more than |