his eminent Italian
novelist and Senator (the King of Italy naming a man as Senator, not in
the least because of any political reasons, but to confer on him the honor
of recognition of his genius in Literature, Science, or Art, and a very
inconvenient, however highly prized, honor he often finds it),--Senator
Antonio Fogazzaro, who contributed, to an Italian biography[7] of the
Brownings by Fanny Zampini, Contessa Salazar, an "Introduction" which is a
notable piece of critical appreciation of the wedded poets from the
Italian standpoint. The Senator records himself as believing that few
poets can be read "with so much intellectual pleasure and spiritual good;
for if the works of Robert and Elizabeth Browning surprise us by the
vigorous originality of their thought," he continues, "they also show us a
rare and salutary spectacle,--two souls as great in their moral character
as in their poetic imagination. 'Aurora Leigh' I esteem Mrs. Browning's
masterpiece.... The ideal poet is a prophet, inspired by God to proclaim
eternal truth...."

The student of Italian literature will find a number of critical
appreciations of the Brownings, written within the past forty or fifty
years, some of which offer no little interest. "Every man has two
countries, his own and Italy," and the land they had made their own in
love and devotion returned this devotion in measure overflowing.

Robert and Elizabeth Browning would have been great,--even immortally
great, as man and woman, if they had not been great poets. They both
lived, in a simple, natural way, the essential life of the spirit, the
life of scholarship and noble culture, of the profound significance of
thought, of creative energy, of wide interest in all the important
movements of the day, and of beautiful and sincere friendships.

"O life, O poetry,
Which means life in life,"

wrote Mrs. Browning.

The character of Mrs. Browning has been so often portrayed as that of some
abnormal being, half-nervous invalid, half-angel, as if she were a
special creation of nature with no particular relation to the great active
world of men and women, that it is quite time to do away with the category
of nonsense and literary hallucination. One does not become less than
woman by being more. Mrs. Browning fulfilled every sweetest relation in
life as daughter, sister, friend, wife, and mother; and her life was not
the less normal in that it was one of exceptional power and exaltation.
Sh