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edition of his poems, containing "Paracelsus" and "Bells and Pomegranates." These were published in the following year with these words prefixed: Many of these pieces were out of print, the rest had been withdrawn from circulation, when the corrected edition, now submitted to the reader, was prepared. The various poems and dramas have received the author's most careful revision." In Florence, in 1850, he wrote the poem "Christmas Eve and Easter Day," which was published in the same year. This remarkable poem consists of arguments on the evidence of religion, and on the proportionate influence which love and knowledge should respectively exercise upon the human soul. The poet takes his stand between the infallible teacher and the infidel; between him who discards faith altogether and him who yields it up into the keeping of others. He declares that he humbly accepts the truth that genuine faith can only be born from uncertainty, and that true resolution and self-reliance can only spring from modesty and self-distrust. The problems here stated are worked out with greater depth and thoroughness in the later poem of "La Saiziaz."

In the summer of 1851 the Brownings went to London, saddened for him by the recollection of his mother's death. Mr. Barrett would not be persuaded to see his daughter, or even to kiss his grandchild. In the autumn they proceeded to Paris, taking an apartment in the Avenue des Champs Elysées. Carlyle travelled with them to Paris, and seems to have been a very pleasant companion. At Paris they went to Madame Mohl's, the last of the great literary salons, which I used to visit in the later days of the Empire. They also saw a great deal of Georges Sand. During this winter also Browning made the acquaintance of Mr. Joseph Milsand, the sympathetic writer to whom he afterwards dedicated the new edition of "Sordello." Before the end of the year Browning had written a preface to some supposed essays of Shelley, which were published by Moxon. The occasion was as follows:-In or before 1851 a forger named Gordon, who said that he was a natural son of Lord Byron, had offered for sale some letters of Shelley and Byron. The Shelley letters were bought by Moxon, and the Byron letters by Murray. Moxon asked Browning to write a preface to the letters, and published them.

Murray waited for a time, and by the discovery of the forgery avoided the trouble and expense to which his colleague was exposed. Browning's preface had nothing specially to do with the letters, but was mainly a discussion on poets, objective and subjective, in general, and on Shelley in particular. He sums up his opinion of Shelley as a poet in the following terms :-"In the hierarchy of creative minds it is the presence of the highest faculty that gives first rank, in virtue of its kind, not degree; no pretension of a lower nature, whatever the completeness of development, or variety of effect, impeding the precedence of the rarer endowment, though only in the germ." What, then, was Shelley's "noblest and predominating characteristic ? This I call his simultaneous perception of Power and Love in the absolute, and of Beauty and Good in the concrete, while he throws, from his poet's status between both, swifter, subtler, and more numerous films, for the connection of each with each, than have been thrown by any modern artificer of whom I have knowledge; proving how, as he says,—

"The spirit of the worm within the sod

"In love and worship blends itself with God."

Browning's next volume was "Men and Women," published in 1851, and said in the Tauchnitz edition to have been written in "London and Florence, 184- 185-." There is scarcely one of these that has not become a household word in English literature. We know when some of these poems were written. In the three first days of 1852, January 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, Browning wrote three great poems, "Love among the Ruins," "Women and Roses," and "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." The last is one of the most powerful and striking of his compositions, and although it would serve very well as an allegory of life, is apparently not an allegory, but merely a piece of imagination based upon the figures in a piece of old tapestry. The Brownings returned to London in the summer of 1852 and lodged at 53, Welbeck Street, near Wimpole Street, his wife's old home. They made the acquaintance of Dante G. Rossetti. In the succeeding winter they returned again to Casa Guidi, resuming their course of quiet laborious life. It is recorded, perhaps with some exaggeration, that during the fifteen years of his married life Browning never dined away from home except

ing on one occasion. The summer and autumn of this year was passed at the Baths of Lucca, where they occupied a villa close to that in which Mr. and Mrs. Story lived. Here he worked at “Men and Women," writing the first part on September 24. The scene of the declaration in "By the Fireside was laid in an adjacent mountain gorge, to which he walked or rode. During this summer also Mr. Lytton, afterwards Lord Lytton, paid them a fortnight's visit.

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The succeeding winter the Brownings spent in Rome with pleasant society. They had close to them William Story, the sculptor, and his wife, saddened, however, by the sudden death of their eldest boy; Miss Fanny Kemble and Mrs. Sartoris, her sister; also Thackeray the novelist, about whom Mrs. Browning has a curious remark in one of her letters: If anybody wants small talk by handfuls of glittering dust swept out of salons, here's Mr. Thackeray besides!" In June they returned to Florence, and probably stayed there through the winter. In 1855 they came to London, living at 13, Dorset Street, Portman Square. In this house, on September 27, Tennyson read his new poem," Maud,” to Mrs. Browning, while Rossetti made a pen-and-ink drawing of him. These later months were spent in revising “Men and Women for the press, the work making its appearance before the end of the year in two volumes. As soon as the volumes were ready for printing they removed to Paris, where Mrs. Browning wrote “Aurora Leigh." The following summer they spent in London, and then returned to Florence. Here they heard the news of Mr. Kenyon's death, and shortly afterwards of Mr. Barrett's. The autumn of 1859 was spent in a villa in the neighbourhood of Siena, the Storys occupying another close by, and Landor an apartment in a house a few steps off. I have often heard an account of the incidents of this autumn from Story and his wife, and of the exuberant vitality shown by Browning in all the relations of life.

A letter from Mrs. Browning to Miss Browning, written in the winter of 1859, gives a graphic description of Browning's pursuits at this time, and remarks upon the reputation which he held in public estimation. Browning had learnt to model in clay from William Story the sculptor. His wife says: "Robert

has made his third bust copied from the antique. He breaks them all up as they are finished-it is only a matter of education. When the power of execution is achieved he will try at something original. Then reading hurts him; as long as I have known him he has not been able to read long at a time; he can do it better now than at the beginning. The consequence of which is that an active occupation is a salvation to him. I wanted his poems done this winter very much, and here was a light room with three windows consecrated to his use. Then he worked himself out by writing for three or four hours together-there has been little poetry done since last winter, when he did much. He was not inclined to write this winter. The modelling combines body work and soul work, and the more tired he has been, and the more his back ached, poor fellow, the more he has exulted and been happy. So I couldn't be much in opposition against the sculpture-I couldn't, in fact, at all. He has material for a volume, and will work at it this summer, he says." The same letter contains complaint about the neglect with which Browning was treated in England. An English lady of rank, who knew the Brownings, asked the American Minister whether the poet was not an American, upon which the Minister replied, "Is it possible that you ask me this? Why, there is not so poor a village in the United States where they would not tell you that Robert Browning was an Englishman, and that they were sorry he was not an American." This indifference was not unknown in Florence itself, because an old resident once said to me, "Robert Browning a poet! She was the poetess. We never knew that he was a poet too." This tie of ideal happiness was, however, to be severed. Mrs. Browning died at Casa Guidi on June 29, 1861, soon after their return from Rome to Florence. The attack which put an end to so frail a life was only slight, and it is supposed that the shock of Cavour's death on June 6th gave the final blow. Her last letter to her sister-in-law said: “We come home into a cloud here. I can scarcely command voice or heart to name Cavour. That great soul which meditated and made Italy has gone to the diviner country. If tears or blood could have saved him to us he should have had mine."

Casa Guidi, the residence and the death-place of Mrs. Brown

ing, has been described by a loving friend;-"Those who have known Casa Guidi as it was could hardly enter the loved rooms now and speak above a whisper. They who have been so favoured can never forget the square ante-room, with its great picture and pianoforte, at which the boy Browning passed many an hour; the little dining-room covered with tapestry, where hung medallions of Tennyson, Carlyle, and Robert Browning; the long room filled with plaster casts and studies, which was Mr. Browning's retreat; and, dearest of all, the large drawingroom, where she always sat. It opens upon a balcony filled with plants, and looks out upon the iron-grey church of Santa Felice. There was something about this room that seemed to make it a proper and especial haunt for poets. The dark shadows and subdued light gave it a decay look, which was enhanced by the tapestry-covered walls and the old picture of saints that looked out sadly from their carved frame of black wood. Large bookcases, constructed of specimens of Florentine carving, selected by Mr. Browning, were brimming over with wise-looking books. Tables were covered with more gaily bound volumes, the gifts of brother authors. Dante's grave profile, a cast of Keats's face and brow taken after death, a penand-ink sketch of Tennyson, the genial face of John Kenyon, Mrs. Browning's good friend and relative, little paintings of the boy Browning, all attracted the eye in turn and gave rise to a thousand musings. A quaint mirror, easy-chairs and sofas, and a hundred nothings that always add an indescribable charm, were all massed in the room. But the glory of all, and that which sanctified all, was seated in a low arm-chair near the door. A small table strewn with writing materials, books, and newspapers was always by her side."

Browning left Florence and never saw it again. It was indeed many years before he had the courage to revisit Italy. He first went to his father and sister near Dinard, and then to London. He took a house in Warwick Crescent, which was for many years his home. The next summer was spent in the Pyrenees. He writes from Biarritz on September 19, 1862: “For me, I have got on by having a great read of Euripides, the one book I brought with me, besides attending to my own matters, my new poem that is about to be, and of which the