ible, I would renounce all personal ambition and would
destroy every line I ever wrote, if by so doing I could see fame and
honors heaped on my Robert's head." Mrs. Bronson's comment on this was
that in his son he saw the image of his wife, whom he adored,--"literally
adored," she added.

At the Academy banquets Browning was always an honored guest, and his
nomination by the President to the post of Foreign Correspondent was
promptly ratified by the Council.

On the removal to DeVere Gardens, Mr. Browning took great pleasure in the
arrangement of his home. His father's library of six thousand books was
now unpacked, and, for the first time, he had space for them; many of the
beautiful old carvings, chests, cabinets, bookcases, that he had brought
from Florence, could in the new home be placed to advantage. The visitor,
to-day, to Mr. Barrett Browning's Florentine villa will see many of these
rich and elaborate furnishings, and the younger Browning will point out an
immense sofa (that resembles a catafalque), with amused recollection of
having once seen his father and Ruskin sitting side by side on it, "their
feet dangling." From Venice the poet had brought home, first and last,
many curious and beautiful things,--a silver lamp, old sconces from
churches, and many things of which he speaks in his letters to Mrs.
Bronson.

The initial poem in "Asolando," entitled "Rosny," was written at the
opening of the year 1888, and it was soon followed by "Beatrice Signorini"
and "Flute-Music." In February he writes to George Murray Smith, his
publisher, of his impulse to revise "Pauline," which had lain untouched
for fifty years,--an impulse to "correct the most obvious faults ...
letting the thoughts, such as they are, remain exactly as at first." It
seems that the portrait, too, that is to accompany the volume does not
quite please him, and he suggests slight changes. "Were Pen here," he
says, "he could manage it all in a moment."

This confidence was not undeserved. Richly gifted in many directions, a
true child of the gods, Robert Barrett Browning has an almost marvelous
gift in portraiture. He seems to be the diviner, the seer, as well as the
artist, when transferring to canvas a face that interests him. The
portrait of Milsand, to which allusion has before been made, and that of
his father, painted in his Oxford robes, with "the old yellow book in his
hand," which is in Balliol, are signal illustrations of his power in
por