15
The supposition of Mr Sharp and Mr Gosse that Browning visited Italy after having seen St Petersburg is an error. His first visit to Italy was that of 1838. I may note here that in a letter to E.B.B. (vol. ii. 443) Browning refers to having been in Holland some ten years since; the date of his letter is August 18, 1846.
16
Mrs Bronson; Browning in Venice.
17
Mrs Orr's "Handbook to Browning," pp. 10, 11.
18
Dr Moncure Conway in "The Nation" vol. i. (an article written on the occasion of Browning's death) says that he was told by Carlyle of his first meeting with Browning—as Carlyle rode upon Wimbledon Common a "beautiful youth," walking there alone, stopped him and asked for his acquaintance. The incident has a somewhat legendary air.
19
Lady Martin (Helen Faucit), however, wrote in 1891 to Mrs Ritchie: "The play was mounted in all matters with great care … minute attention to accuracy of costume prevailed.... The scenery was alike accurate."
20
On which occasion Browning—muffled up in a cloak—was asked by a stranger in the pit whether he was not the author of "Romeo and Juliet" and "Othello." "No, so far as I am aware," replied Browning. Two burlesques of Shakespeare by a Mr Brown or Brownley were in course of performance in London.
21
Mrs Orr, "Handbook to the Works of Robert Browning," p. 54 (1st ed.).
22
Mrs Orr, "Handbook to the Works of Robert Browning," p. 54 (1st ed.).
23
24
Letters of D.G. Rossetti to William Allingham, p. 168.
25
The above statement is substantially that of Browning; but on certain points his memory misled him. Whoever is interested in the matter should consult Professor Lounsbury's valuable article "A Philistine View of a Browning Play" in
26
An uncle seems to have accompanied him. See
27
In later years no friendship existed between the two. We read in Mr. W.M. Rossetti's Diary for 1869, "4th July.... I see Browning dislikes Trelawny quite as much as Trelawny dislikes him (which is not a little.)"
28
See Mr R. Holt Hutton's article on Browning in "Essays Theological and Literary."
29
Luria withdraws from life "to prevent the harm Florence will do herself by striking him."
30
31
I had written the above—and I leave it as I wrote it—before I noticed the following quoted from the letter of a friend by Mrs Arthur Bronson in her article Browning in Venice: "Browning seemed as full of dramatic interest in reading 'In a Balcony' as if he had just written it for our benefit. One who sat near him said that it was a natural sequence that the step of the guard should be heard coming to take Norbert to his doom, as, with a nature like the queen's, who had known only one hour of joy in her sterile life, vengeance swift and terrible would follow on the sudden destruction of her happiness. 'Now I don't quite think that,' answered Browning, as if he were following out the play as a spectator. 'The queen has a large and passionate temperament, which had only once been touched and brought into intense life. She would have died by a knife in her heart. The guard would have come to carry away her dead body.' 'But I imagine that most people interpret it as I do,' was the reply. 'Then,' said Browning, with quick interest, 'don't you think it would be well to put it in the stage directions, and have it seen that they were carrying her across the back of the stage?'"
32
Browning's eyes were in a remarkable degree unequal in their power of vision; one was unusually long-sighted; the other, with which he could read the most microscopic print, unusually short-sighted.
33
See a very interesting passage on Browning's "odd liking for 'vermin'" in
34
Of the first part of
35
36
See
37
E.B.B. to R.B., March 30, 1846.