Robert Browning

Mrs Orr gives the dates of composition of several of the Asolando poems. Rosny, Beatrice Signorini and Flute-Music were written in the winter of 1887-1888. Two or three of the Bad Dreams are, with less confidence, assigned to the same date. The Ponte dell' Angelo "was imagined during the next autumn in Venice" (see Mrs Bronson's article "Browning in Venice"). "White Witchcraft had been suggested in the same summer (1888) by a letter from a friend in the Channel Islands which spoke of the number of toads to be seen there." The Cardinal and the Dog, written with the Pied Piper for Macready's son, is a poem of early date. Mrs Bronson in her article "Browning in Asolo" (Century Magazine, April 1900) relates the origin at Asolo 1889 of The Lady and the Painter.

Mrs Orr, Life, p. 414.

W.M. Rossetti, Portraits of Browning, i., Magazine of Art, 1890, p. 182. Mr Rossetti's words refer to an earlier period.

"The Nation," vol. 1., where reminiscences by Moncure Conway may also be found.

"My father died without pain or suffering other than that of weakness or weariness"—so Mr R. Barrett Browning wrote to Mrs Bloomfield-Moore. "His death was what death ought to be, but rarely is—so said the doctor." (Quoted in an article on Browning by Mrs Bloomfield-Moore in Lippincott's Magazine—Jan.—June 1890, p. 690.)

A grave in the Abbey was at the same time offered for the body of Browning's wife; the removal of her body from Florence would have been against both the wishes of Browning and of the people of Florence. It was therefore declined by Mr R. Barrett Browning. See his letter in Mrs Bloomfield-Moore's article in Lippincott's Magazine, vol. xiv.

E.D. West in the first of two papers, "Browning as a Preacher," in The Dark Blue Magazine. Browning esteemed these papers highly and in what follows I appropriate, with some modifications, a passage from the first of them. The writer has consented to the use here made of the passage, and has contributed a passage towards the close.