eak of Peni, who
was in the next room. The last word was, when I asked, 'How do you
feel?' 'Beautiful.'...

So ended on earth the most perfect example of wedded happiness in the
history of literature--perfect in the inner life and perfect in its
poetical expression. It was on June 29, 1861, that Mrs. Browning died.
She was buried at Florence, where her body rests in a sarcophagus
designed by her friend and her husband's friend, Frederic Leighton, the
future President of the Royal Academy. At a later date, when her husband
was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, her remains might have been
transferred to England, to lie with his among the great company of
English poets in which they had earned their places. But it was thought
better, on the whole, to leave them undisturbed in the land and in the
city which she had loved so well, and which had been her home so long.
In life and in death she had been made welcome in Florence. The
Italians, as her husband said, seemed to have understood her by an
instinct; and upon the walls of Casa Guidi is a marble slab, placed
there by the municipality of Florence, and bearing an inscription from
the pen of the Italian poet, Tommaseo:--

QUI SCRISSE E MORI
ELISABETTA BARRETT BROWNING
CHE IN CUORE DI DONNA CONCILIAVA
SCIENZA DI DOTTO E SPIRITO DI POETA
E FECE DEL SUO VERSO AUREO ANELLO
FRA ITALIA E INGHILTERRA.
PONE QUESTA LAPIDE
FIRENZE GRATA
1861.

It is with words adapted from this memorial that her husband, seven
years later, closed his own great poem, praying that the 'ring,' to
which he likens it, might but--

'Lie outside thine, Lyric Love,
Thy rare gold ring of verse (the poet praised),
Linking our England to his Italy.'

FOOTNOTES:

[77] This refers to the 'Curse for a Nation.'

[78] See note on p. 387. [Transcriber's note: Reference is to Footnote
[87].]

[79] Mrs. Jameson died on March 17, 1860.

[80] The surrender to France of Savoy and Nice, which, though propounded
by Napoleon to Cavour before the war, was only definitely demanded at
the end of February 1860.

[81] Rome, it will be remembered, was still under Papal government.

[82] The French general appointed by the Pope in April, 1860, to command
the Papal army.

[83] The Italian poet.

[84] So in the original, but probably a slip for 'goes abroad.'

[85] The _Cornhill Magazine_, the first number of which was published,
under Tha