Life and Letters of Robert Browning | Page 2

Barrett--Penini--Mrs. Browning's Letters to Miss Browning--The Florentine Carnival--Baths of Lucca--Spiritualism--Mr. Kirkup; Count Ginnasi--Letter from Mr. Browning to Mr. Fox--Havre.
Chapter 13
1858-1861 Mrs. Browning's Illness--Siena--Letter from Mr. Browning to Mr. Leighton--Mrs. Browning's Letters continued--Walter Savage Landor--Winter in Rome--Mr. Val Prinsep--Friends in Rome: Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright--Multiplying Social Relations--Massimo d'Azeglio--Siena again--Illness and Death of Mrs. Browning's Sister--Mr. Browning's Occupations--Madame du Quaire--Mrs. Browning's last Illness and Death.
Chapter 14
1861-1863 Miss Blagden--Letters from Mr. Browning to Miss Haworth and Mr. Leighton--His Feeling in regard to Funeral Ceremonies--Establishment in London--Plan of Life--Letter to Madame du Quaire--Miss Arabel Barrett--Biarritz--Letters to Miss Blagden--Conception of 'The Ring and the Book'--Biographical Indiscretion--New Edition of his Works--Mr. and Mrs. Procter.
Chapter 15
1863-1869 Pornic--'James Lee's Wife'--Meeting at Mr. F. Palgrave's--Letters to Miss Blagden--His own Estimate of his Work--His Father's Illness and Death; Miss Browning--Le Croisic--Academic Honours; Letter to the Master of Balliol--Death of Miss Barrett--Audierne--Uniform Edition of his Works--His rising Fame--'Dramatis Personae'--'The Ring and the Book'; Character of Pompilia.
Chapter 16
1869-1873 Lord Dufferin; Helen's Tower--Scotland; Visit to Lady Ashburton--Letters to Miss Blagden--St.-Aubin; The Franco-Prussian War--'Herve Riel'--Letter to Mr. G. M. Smith--'Balaustion's Adventure'; 'Prince Hohenstiel--Schwangau'--'Fifine at the Fair'--Mistaken Theories of Mr. Browning's Work--St.-Aubin; 'Red Cotton Nightcap Country'.
Chapter 17
1873-1878 London Life--Love of Music--Miss Egerton-Smith--Periodical Nervous Exhaustion--Mers; 'Aristophanes' Apology'--'Agamemnon'--'The Inn Album'--'Pacchiarotto and other Poems'--Visits to Oxford and Cambridge--Letters to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald--St. Andrews; Letter from Professor Knight--In the Savoyard Mountains--Death of Miss Egerton-Smith--'La Saisiaz'; 'The Two Poets of Croisic'--Selections from his Works.
Chapter 18
1878-1884 He revisits Italy; Asolo; Letters to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald--Venice--Favourite Alpine Retreats--Mrs. Arthur Bronson--Life in Venice--A Tragedy at Saint-Pierre--Mr. Cholmondeley--Mr. Browning's Patriotic Feeling; Extract from Letter to Mrs. Charles Skirrow--'Dramatic Idyls'--'Jocoseria'--'Ferishtah's Fancies'.
Chapter 19
1881-1887 The Browning Society; Mr. Furnivall; Miss E. H. Hickey--His Attitude towards the Society; Letter to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald--Mr. Thaxter, Mrs. Celia Thaxter--Letter to Miss Hickey; 'Strafford'--Shakspere and Wordsworth Societies--Letters to Professor Knight--Appreciation in Italy; Professor Nencioni--The Goldoni Sonnet--Mr. Barrett Browning; Palazzo Manzoni--Letters to Mrs. Charles Skirrow--Mrs. Bloomfield Moore--Llangollen; Sir Theodore and Lady Martin--Loss of old Friends--Foreign Correspondent of the Royal Academy--'Parleyings with certain People of Importance in their Day'.
Chapter 20
Constancy to Habit--Optimism--Belief in Providence--Political Opinions--His Friendships--Reverence for Genius--Attitude towards his Public--Attitude towards his Work--Habits of Work--His Reading--Conversational Powers--Impulsiveness and Reserve--Nervous Peculiarities--His Benevolence--His Attitude towards Women.
Chapter 21
1887-1889 Marriage of Mr. Barrett Browning--Removal to De Vere Gardens--Symptoms of failing Strength--New Poems; New Edition of his Works--Letters to Mr. George Bainton, Mr. Smith, and Lady Martin--Primiero and Venice--Letters to Miss Keep--The last Year in London--Asolo--Letters to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, Mrs. Skirrow, and Mr. G. M. Smith.
Chapter 22
1889 Proposed Purchase of Land at Asolo--Venice--Letter to Mr. G. Moulton-Barrett--Lines in the 'Athenaeum'--Letter to Miss Keep--Illness--Death--Funeral Ceremonial at Venice--Publication of 'Asolando'--Interment in Poets' Corner.
Conclusion
Index
Portrait of Robert Browning (1889) Mr. Browning's Study in De Vere Gardens

LIFE AND LETTERS OF ROBERT BROWNING
Chapter 1
Origin of the Browning Family--Robert Browning's Grandfather--His position and Character--His first and second Marriage--Unkindness towards his eldest Son, Robert Browning's Father--Alleged Infusion of West Indian Blood through Robert Browning's Grandmother--Existing Evidence against it--The Grandmother's Portrait.

A belief was current in Mr. Browning's lifetime that he had Jewish blood in his veins. It received outward support from certain accidents of his life, from his known interest in the Hebrew language and literature, from his friendship for various members of the Jewish community in London. It might well have yielded to the fact of his never claiming the kinship, which could not have existed without his knowledge, and which, if he had known it, he would, by reason of these very sympathies, have been the last person to disavow. The results of more recent and more systematic inquiry have shown the belief to be unfounded.
Our poet sprang, on the father's side, from an obscure or, as family tradition asserts, a decayed branch, of an Anglo-Saxon stock settled, at an early period of our history, in the south, and probably also south-west, of England. A line of Brownings owned the manors of Melbury-Sampford and Melbury-Osmond, in north-west Dorsetshire; their last representative disappeared--or was believed to do so--in the time of Henry VII., their manors passing into the hands of the Earls of Ilchester, who still hold them.* The name occurs after 1542 in different parts of the country: in two cases with the affix of 'esquire', in two also, though not in both coincidently, within twenty miles of Pentridge, where the first distinct traces of the poet's family appear. Its cradle, as he called it, was Woodyates, in the parish of Pentridge, on the Wiltshire confines of Dorsetshire; and there his ancestors, of the third and fourth generations, held, as we understand, a modest but independent social position.
* I am indebted for these facts, as well as for some others referring to, or supplied by, Mr. Browning's uncles, to some notes made for the Browning Society by Dr. Furnivall.
This fragment of history, if we may so call it, accords better with our impression of Mr. Browning's genius