Life and Letters of Robert Browning | Page 2

secluded Life--Letters from Mr. and Mrs. Browning--'Colombe's
Birthday'--Baths of Lucca--Mrs. Browning's Letters--Winter in
Rome--Mr. and Mrs. Story--Mrs. Sartoris--Mrs. Fanny
Kemble--Summer in London--Tennyson--Ruskin.
Chapter 12
1855-1858 'Men and Women'--'Karshook'--'Two in the
Campagna'--Winter in Paris; Lady Elgin--'Aurora Leigh'--Death of Mr.
Kenyon and Mr. 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