208
From the portrait by Elihu Vedder, Florence, 1860

The Pallazzo Riccardi, Florence 214

Bust of Robert Browning, by his Son 226

Portrait of Robert Browning in 1882, by his Son 242

Church of San Lorenzo, Florence 246

Portrait of Robert Barrett Browning, as a Child, 1859 263

Portrait of Robert Browning, by George Frederick Watts, R.A. 270

Mrs. Arthur Bronson, by Ellen Montalba, in Asolo 274

Miss Edith Bronson, (Comtessa Rucellai) 280

Portrait of Professor Hiram Corson, by J. Colin Forbes, R.A. 290

Palazzo Rezzonico, Venice 294

Engraved Facsimile of a letter from Robert Browning to
Professor Hiram Corson 260

THE BROWNINGS
THEIR LIFE AND ART

CHAPTER I

1812-1833

"Allons! after the Great Companions! and to belong to them!"

"To know the universe itself as a road--as many roads--as
roads for travelling souls."

THE MOST EXQUISITE ROMANCE OF MODERN LIFE--ANCESTRY AND YOUTH OF ROBERT
BROWNING--LOVE OF MUSIC--FORMATIVE INFLUENCES--THE FASCINATION OF
BYRON--A HOME "CRAMMED WITH BOOKS"--THE SPELL OF SHELLEY--
"INCONDITA"--POETIC VOCATION DEFINITELY CHOSEN--"PAULINE."

Such a very page _de Contes_ is the life of the wedded poets, Robert and
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, that it is difficult to realize that this
immortal idyl of Poetry, Genius, and Love was less than fifteen years in
duration, out of his seventy-seven, and her fifty-five years of life. It
is a story that has touched the entire world

"... with mystic gleams,
Like fragments of forgotten dreams,"

this story of beautiful associations and friendships, of artistic
creation, and of the entrance on a wonderful realm of inspiration and
loveliness. At the time of their marriage he was in his thirty-fifth, and
she in her forty-first year, although she is described as looking so
youthful that she was like a girl, in her slender, flower-like grace; and
he lived on for twenty-eight years after

"Clouds and darkness
Fell upon Camelot,"

with the death of his "Lyric Love." The story of the most beautiful
romance that