whole is pretty well in my head-the Roman murder story, you know." This is the first mention of "The Ring and the Book," which was published in four volumes in 1868-69.

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"Rabbi Ben

"A Death

The summers of 1864 and 1865 were spent at Ste. Marie near Venice, on the coast of Brittany. Writing to Leighton from this place he says: “I live upon milk and fruit, bathe daily, do a good morning's work, read a little with Pen and somewhat more by myself, go to bed early and get up earlyish, rather liking it all." In 1864 appeared "Dramatis Personæ,” a volume of 250 pages, containing eighteen poems. The two first, "James Lee's Wife" and "Gold Hair" were suggested by Pornic. "Abt Vogler" is a wonderful effort. Ezra," one of the deepest of the poet's productions. in the Desert" is a description of St. John's death and a defence of Christianity. 'Prospice" is a noble poem, bidding not to be afraid of death. "Mr. Sludge, The Medium," shows Browning's hatred to spiritualism, whereas his wife was rather inclined to support it. This was the first book of Browning's that could really be called popular. It had a much larger sale than any of his previous works. It prepared the way for the edition of his works in six volumes published by Smith & Elder, in which "Pauline was included for the first time. The culmination, however, of his fame was reached by the publication of "The Ring and the Book," in four volumes, at the end of 1868 and the beginning of 1869. This poem deserves a special notice. In June, 1866, his father had died rather suddenly in Paris, three weeks before the completion of his eighty-fifth year. His son tells us that he retained all his faculties to the last, and was utterly indifferent to death, asking with surprise what it was we were affected about, since he was perfectly happy. The summer was spent at Le Croisic, which became the scene of two of Browning's poems. It is a quaint little village whose sandbanks jut out into the Bay of Biscay, near the mouth of the Loire, forming the back of the great salt plains that stretch down from Guérande to the sea. He dated the poem of "Hervé Riel" from this place on September 30, 1867, and a month later he was elected an honorary fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. The summer of 1868 was spent at Audierai, an obscure place on the coast of Britanny, and here

"The Ring and the Book " made great progress. I remember his telling me in the summer of this year in London that he was working hard at it, beginning every day at five o'clock in the morning.

The origin of the poem is interesting. One day Browning found on an old curiosity stall in the Piazza San Lorenzo at Florence a parchment-covered book, containing the record of a murder which had taken place in Rome. It contained the whole history of the case-pleadings, counter-pleadings, depositions of defendant's witnesses, letters announcing the execution of the murderer. The book was purchased for the sum of eightpence, and became the raw material of the poem. The other word "ring" is due to the fact that the murder case forms a circle of evidence as to its one central truth, and this ring is formed as the Etruscan workman makes one. Alloy is mixed with the gold to make it harder, so as to bear the hammer or the file, and when the ring is completed the alloy is discharged and a pure gold ornament remains. Browning took great pains to write the poem in intelligible English, and it sprung at once into popularity. The Athenæum wrote of it immediately with great enthusiasm : • At last the opus magnum of our generation lies before the world. The fascination of the work is still so strong upon us, our eyes are still so spell-bound by the immortal features of Pompilia (which shine through the troubled merits of the story with almost insufferable beauty), that we feel it difficult to write calmly and without exaggeration; yet we must record at once our conviction, not merely that The Ring and the Book' is beyond all parallel the supremest poetical achievement of our time, but that it is the most precious and profound spiritual treasure that England has produced since the days of Shakespeare. Its intellectual greatness is as nothing compared with its transcendant spiritual teaching."

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Browning published nothing between 1869 to 1871. In 1869 he went with the Storys on a tour in Scotland, including a visit to Louisa Lady Ashburton at Loch Luichart, who always remained a warm friend of his. In 1870, the year of the war, he was in France at St. Aubin, with his friend Milsand in a cottage two steps off. In consequence of the war they had the

greatest difficulty in getting back to their own country: The boats from Calais and Boulogne were no longer running; the boats from Havre had been stopped. With great trouble they arrived at Honfleur, where they found an English vessel just about to convey cattle to Southampton. Setting out at midnight they reached England. In 1871 two poems appeared, "Balaustion's Adventure" and "Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, -Saviour of Society." The first was suggested by Lady Cowper, and is dedicated to her in a few graceful lines, in which he says that the poem absolutely owes its existence to her. It contains a translation of the "Alcestis" of Euripides. The poem was said by a scholar to be a model of facile felicity. "Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau" is a satire on Louis Napoleon, in the form of a monologue addressed to a lady whom he had met in Leicester Square. It was written in Scotland in the autumn of 1871. Browning says of the subject of it: "I thought badly of him at the beginning of his career; better afterwards on the strength of the promise he made and gave indications of intending to redeem. I think him very weak in the last miserable year." In the spring of 1872 Alfred Dommett, the "Waring" of the early poem, returned to England, and Browning says of him: Waring came back the other day, after thirty years' absence, the same as ever-nearly. He had been Prime Minister at New Zealand for a year and a half, but gets tired and returns home with a poem."

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To the spring of 1872 belongs also Fifine at the Fair," a man's defence to his noble wife of his admiration for a very handsome, loose gipsy dancing-woman, and a discussion of the questions involved. It is described as a serio-fantastic discussion on the nature of sexual love, and its relation to all other modes of æsthetic life, and turns mainly on the question as to whether noble love best fulfils itself in constancy or in change, in devotion to one object or in the appreciation of many. The gipsy who was the original of “Fifine was seen by Browning at Pornic. The autumn of 1872 was again spent at St. Aubin. Here he met Miss Annie Thackeray, who was staying close by. I remember well hearing the account of their stay from her, and how from the headdress of the peasants they called the region "White Cotton Nightcap Country."

His subtlety made him change the colour into red. Browning wrote the poem in London in the autumn and published it in the succeeding spring. "Red Cotton Nightcap Country; or, Turf and Towers," is an absolutely true story, except where certain details had to be supplied by imagination. It is the story of Mellerio, a Paris jeweller, who died at St. Aubin, and was studied from the law papers used in the suit concerning his will. It is the tale of a modern Ultramontane Roman Catholic, driven into sheer madness by the conflicting emotions of illicit love which he cannot control, and extravagant religious devotion which he does not dare to resist. It was originally put into type with all the true names of persons and things, but on Lord Coleridge giving his opinion that its publication might be actionable, fictitious names were substituted for the real ones in every case.

After a summer spent in 1875 at Mers near Tréport, in company with his sister and Miss Egerton Smith, he wrote "Aristophanes' Apology, including the Last Adventure of Balaustion." The "Apology" is a defence of comedy as understood and practised by Aristophanes, that is, as a broad expression of the natural life, and a broad satire upon those who directly or indirectly condemn it. It is addressed to Euripides, and is to some extent an attack upon him. It was supposed to have been addressed to Balaustion, a Rhodian girl, on the day of Euripides' death. She replied to it, and also, in defence of Euripides, revised his play of "Herakles," the manuscript of which he had given to her. "The Inn Album,' the most powerful of Browning's later works, was also published in 1875. It contains more than 3,078 lines of blank verse, divided into eight sections. The idea is taken from a story of real life related in the Greville Memoirs, but it is ennobled and refined by Browning's treatment of it. The story is highly sensational, and ends with suicide and a murder.

In 1876 a volume was published, "Pacchiarotto, and how he worked in distemper," containing nineteen poems, only one of which, "Hervé Riel," had been published before. The Athenæum remarks on this volume: "Mr. Browning's mistake all through has been to suppose that people will take the trouble to wrestle with difficulties; that, because his longer

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poems are worth understanding, the public would try to understand them. If there is a defect in the 'Pacchiarotto' volume it is that Mr. Browning betrays a tendency to quarrel with his critics, and to write not so much about himself as at himself. If a man chooses to say that Mr. Browning is grotesque, uncouth, chaotic, and no poet, the criticism may please the critic and cannot possibly hurt Mr. Browning.'

In the spring of 1877 Browning paid a visit to Professor Colvin and myself at Cambridge. He dined with me one evening in College, meeting Joachim and others. I remember a conversation as to the merits of Beethoven, in which Browning, Joachim, Franz Hüffer, and Davidson took part. The general result was unfavourable to Beethoven as a great musician; Mozart was given a higher place, but supremacy was awarded to Beethoven as a man of intellect. Browning, of course, visited Oxford more often than Cambridge, because he was a Fellow of Balliol, but an honorary degree was given to him by Cambridge in 1879, and by Oxford not till 1882. The winter's work of this year had been the translation of the "Agamemnon” of Eschylus. The prominence given by his translation to this greatest of Greek plays may perhaps• have inspired the idea of acting it in the original tongue at Oxford, a performance which proved the forerunner of many a similar performance since. Mr. J. A. Symonds, a most competent critic, calls it the Herculean achievement of a scholar-poet's ripe genius. He says: "The more we examine the workmanship of Mr. Browning's version, comparing English and Greek verses in detail, the more reason we shall have to wonder at his dexterity in matching word with word, and maintaining the exact order of the original."

The summer of 1877 was spent at La Saisiaz, a countryhouse in the district of the Salève, near Geneva. Browning describes it in the following words :-"How lovely is this place in its solitude and seclusion, with its trees and shrubs and flowers, and, above all, its live mountain-stream which supplies three fountains, and two delightful baths, a marvel of delicate delight framed in with trees. I bathe three times a day, and then what a wonderful view from the châlet on every side! Geneva lying under us with the lake, and the whole plain