th painting and
sculpture, but he had little inclination for the exact sciences.

In his London home Browning was soon again launched on a tide of
work,--the dearest of which was in preparing the "Last Poems" of his wife
for publication. He gave it a dedication to "Grateful Florence, and
Tommaseo, her spokesman." He was also preparing a new edition of his own
works to be issued in three volumes. The tutor he had secured for his son
was considered skillful in "grammatical niceties," which, he said, "was
much more to my mind than to Pen's." But he, as well as the boy, was
homesick for Italy, and he wrote to Story that his particular reward would
be "just to go back to Italy, to Rome"; and he adds:

"Why should I not trust to you what I know you will keep to
yourselves, but which will certainly amuse you as nothing else I could
write is like to do? What good in our loving each other unless I do
such a thing? So, O Story, O Emelyn, (dare I say, for the solemnity's
sake?) and O Edie, the editorship has, under the circumstances, been
offered to me: me! I really take it as a compliment because I am, by
your indulgence, a bit of a poet, if you like, but a man of the world
and able editor hardly!"[8]

The editorship in question was that of _Cornhill_, left vacant by the
death of Thackeray.

Browning was too great of spirit to sink into the recluse, and first
beguiled into Rossetti's studio, he soon met Millais, and by degrees he
responded again to friends and friendships, and life called to him with
many voices. In the late summer of 1862 the poet and his son were at
"green, pleasant little Cambo," and then at Biarritz. He was absorbed in
Euripides; and the supreme work of his life, "The Ring and the Book," the
Roman murder story, as he then called it, was constantly in his thought
and beginning to take shape. The sudden and intense impression that the
Franceschini tragedy had made on him, on first reading it, rushed back and
held him as under a spell. But the "Dramatis Personae" and "In a Balcony"
were to be completed before the inauguration of this great work.

For more than four years the thrilling tragedy had lain in his mind,
impressing that subconscious realm of mental action where all great work
in art acquires its creative vitality. It is said that episodes of crime
had a great fascination for Browning, _pere_, who would write out long
imaginary conversations regarding the facts, repre