is works, including 'Sordello', but again excluding
'Pauline'. A selection of his poems which appeared somewhat earlier, if
we may judge by the preface, dated November 1862, deserves mention as a
tribute to friendship. The volume had been prepared by John Forster and
Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall), 'two friends,' as the preface
states, 'who from the first appearance of 'Paracelsus' have regarded its
writer as among the few great poets of the century.' Mr. Browning had
long before signalized his feeling for Barry Cornwall by the dedication
of 'Colombe's Birthday'. He discharged the present debt to Mr. Procter,
if such there was, by the attentions which he rendered to his infirm old
age. For many years he visited him every Sunday, in spite of a deafness
ultimately so complete that it was only possible to converse with him in
writing. These visits were afterwards, at her urgent request, continued
to Mr. Procter's widow.

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.

The most constant contributions to Mr. Browning's history are supplied
during the next eight or nine years by extracts from his letters to Miss
Blagden. Our next will be dated from Ste.-Marie, near Pornic, where he
and his family again spent their holiday in 1864 and 1865. Some idea
of the life he led there is given at the close of a letter to Frederic
Leighton, August 17, 1863, in which he says:

'I live upon milk and fruit, bathe daily, do a good morning's work, read
a little with Pen and somewhat more by myself, go to bed early, and get
up earlyish--rather liking it all.'

This mention of a diet of milk and fruit recalls a favourite habit of
Mr. Browning's: that of almost renouncing animal food whenever he went
abroad. It was partly promoted by the inferior quality of foreign meat,
and showed no sign of specially agreeing with him, at all events in his
later years, when he habitually returned to England looking thinner and
more haggard than before he left it. But the change was always congenial
to his taste.

A fuller picture of these simple, peaceful, and poetic Pornic days comes
to u