sarily bind him to any political party. It separated him
from all the newest developments of so-called Liberalism. He respected
the rights of property. He was a true patriot, hating to see his country
plunged into aggressive wars, but tenacious of her position among the
empires of the world. He was also a passionate Unionist; although the
question of our political relations with Ireland weighed less with him,
as it has done with so many others, than those considerations of law and
order, of honesty and humanity, which have been trampled under foot in
the name of Home Rule. It grieved and surprised him to find himself on
this subject at issue with so many valued friends; and no pain of Lost
Leadership was ever more angry or more intense, than that which came to
him through the defection of a great statesman whom he had honoured and
loved, from what he believed to be the right cause.

The character of Mr. Browning's friendships reveals itself in great
measure in even a simple outline of his life. His first friends of
his own sex were almost exclusively men of letters, by taste if not by
profession; the circumstances of his entrance into society made this a
matter of course. In later years he associated on cordial terms with
men of very various interests and professions; and only writers of
conspicuous merit, whether in prose or poetry, attracted him as such. No
intercourse was more congenial to him than that of the higher class of
English clergymen. He sympathized in their beliefs even when he did not
share them. Above all he loved their culture; and the love of culture in
general, of its old classic forms in particular, was as strong in him as
if it had been formed by all the natural and conventional associations
of a university career. He had hearty friends and appreciators among the
dignitaries of the Church--successive Archbishops and Bishops, Deans
of Westminster and St. Paul's. They all knew the value of the great
freelance who fought like the gods of old with the regular army. No
name, however, has been mentioned in the poet's family more frequently
or with more affection than that of the Rev. J. D. W. Williams, Vicar
of Bottisham in Cambridgeshire. The mutual acquaintance, which was made
through Mr. Browning's brother-in-law, Mr. George Moulton-Barrett,
was prepared by Mr. Williams' great love for his poems, of which he
translated many into Latin and Greek; but I am convinced that Mr.
Browning's delight in his frie