speech, cordial in manner, gracious and conciliatory in address, but subject to sudden fits of indignation which were like thunderstorms. In his long periods of foreign residence, he had acquired something of the mode and gesture of a Northern Italian.

The following Poem was written in pursuance of a foolish
flan which cumpied me mightily for a time, and which
hard for its object the enabling me to assume & realize I Nois
know
not how many different characters; _ man while the world
was wears to guess that" Brown, Smith, Jones, & Robinson for the
Selling boks have it) the respective antheons of this poem, the other.
novel, such an opere, such a speech Bethe wee norther then one
and the same individual. The present abortion was the fird
work of the Past of the batch, whowould have been more legit,
= mantely myself than wish of the thess; but I surrounded in
with all manner of (to my then notion) poetical accesories,
and had planned quite a delightful life for him!
Only this crab remains of the shapely nee of Life in
this Vools paradire Jmine -

BB

MS. Note of Browning's on the Fly-leaf of "Pauline"

FROM "A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S."

Well (and it was graceful of the.n) they'd break talk off and afford
-She, to bite her mask's black velvet, he to finger on his sword,'
While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished sigh on sigh,
Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions-" Must we die?"
Those commiserating sevenths-"Life might last! we can but try!"

"Were you happy?"—" Yes."—" And are you still as happy?"-" Yes-and you?"
-"Then more kisses "-"Did I stop them, when a million seemed so few?"
Hark-the dominant's persistence, till it must be answered to!

So an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!
"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!

I can always leave off talking, when I hear a master play."

Then they left you for their pleasure: til in due time, one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,
Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.

H

But when I sit down to reason-think to take my stand nor swerve
Till I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve,
In you come with your cold music, till I creep thro' every nerve.

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned-
"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned!
The soul, doubtless, is immortal-where a soul can be discerned.

"Yours for instance, you know physics, something of geology,
Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
Butterflies may dread extinction-you'll not die, it cannot be !

"As for Venice and its people, merely born to bloom and drop,
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop.
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

"Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold. Dear dead women, with such hair, too-what's become of all the gold Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.

FROM "SORDELLO.'

Lo, on a heathy brown and nameless hill

By sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill,
Morning just up, higher and higher runs

A child barefoot and rosy-See! the sun's

On the square castle's inner-court's green wall

-Like the chine of some extinct animal

Half-turned to earth and flowers; and thro' the haze
(Save where some slender patches of grey maize
Are to be overleaped) that boy has crost
The whole hillside of dew and powder-frost
Matting the balm and mountain camomile :

Up and up goes he, singing all the while

Some unintelligible words to beat

The lark, God's poet, swooning at his feet,

So worsted is he at "the few fine locks

Stained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocks
Sun-blanched the livelong summer."-All that's left
Of the Goito lay! And thus bereft,

Sleep and forget, Sordello . . . in effect

He sleeps, the feverish poet-I suspect

Not utterly companionless; but, friends,

Wake up; the ghost's gone, and the story ends
I'd fain hope, sweetly-seeing, peri or ghoul,
That spirits are conjectured fair or foul,
Evil or good, judicious authors think
According as they vanish in a sink

Or in a perfume: friends be frank; ye snuff
Civet, I warrant really? Like enough—
Merely the savour's rareness-- any nose

May ravage with impunity a rose-
Rifle a musk-pot and 'twill ache like yours:
I'd tell you that same pungency ensures
An after-gust, but that were overbold:
Who would has heard Sordello's story told.

A silver sound, a hollow sound :

I will not ring, for priest or king,

One Hast tat in re-echoing,

Would leser a bondsman faster bounc.

Kisabet Dansett Browning

ch, impting of fame !

oh, Persic Zoroaster, Lord of Hars!

Who said these old renowns, dead long ago, would make me overlook the hiring world

น

gazem glooms at where they stood, indeed, But stand no longer ? - What a warm, light lift _ after the shade!

Robert Browning.

MS. Verses by Robert Browning and E. B. Browning

when I come back from seeing you.

and thick over it all,

there never is a beast word of yours I could not occupy with, and wish to return to

myself

4 say.

all.. the

you

with some...not

thoughts & gencies it is wore to call out

of me : - there is nothing in you that does not draw out al of me :- you popep ine, dearest .. and there is us

the

1

expressing it all, no voice It all, no voice nor hand, but thuse of nime which shrink and turn may from the attempt : 80 you

on

must go on.

on me I

more and more,

patiently, knowing me and your entire power and I wil insol myself, to the full extent, with your knowledge, penetration, intuition.. somehow get to what is here, in I must beliève you the pretence of my telling or writing it. But, becauses give up the great achievements, there is no reasons. not leave any occasion of making clear one. Up important points that wire in our

our inter

wurk af I farely I can drist with the least success & for instance, mind to replain what I meant gesterday

my by trusting that the entire happines I feel in the letters, and the help in the criticing might not be

Facsimile Letter from Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett.
(Reproduced by permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co.)

your

buot by the surmise, com, that thou labours to which you were born, might be inspended, whims digne, this mich generosity to me = dearest I believed in glorious genius and knew it for a threw star from the moment I saw it, long sefere that the bleping of kuning Mar, with my portime and futurity in d and, when I Meno back from myself and look better and more then I do feel with

I was

my

- gm, that the writing a few letter

речит,

Ah, reading many or few chymes of any other would not interfere in materiid deye with that hower of yours - that you might easily make one to

yeh

am

happy and go on writing "Geraldines and "Butters"

but... how can I dearest, leave my

long, even to look at

?..and when I come

the

your genius back and find all rafe, find the comfort of you. traces of you will it do I lick me to that all that in light effort, in casy matter?

het, if you can lift

shown.

же

with one

ут

There is mekli:

hand, while the other suffices to crown, you in that too!

on

mich, I have spoken. As I told you, your

tura comes now: how have you determined unperting the hover = rich wdition? you like me nothing of gorrily It is al me you