s Mr. Macready in his journal; "his simple and enthusiastic
manner engaged attention and won golden opinions from all present; he
looks and speaks more like a youthful poet than any man I ever saw."

Browning's personal appearance, "slim, and dark, and very handsome," as
Mary Cowden Clarke said, is pictured by many of his friends of that time.
"As a young man," writes William Sharp, "he seems to have had a certain
ivory delicacy of coloring ... and he appeared taller than he really was,
partly because of his rare grace of movement, and partly from a
characteristic high poise of the head when listening intently to music or
conversation.... His hair was so beautiful in its heavy sculpturesque
waves as to attract frequent notice. Another, and more subtle personal
charm, was his voice, then with a rare, flute-like tone, clear, sweet, and
resonant."

Macready was not only a notable figure on the stage at this period, but he
was also (what every great actor must be) a man of thought, intense
sensibility, and wide culture. Soon after Macready had appeared in
Talfourd's "Ion" (the _premiere_ being on the playwright's birthday),
Talfourd gave a supper at his house, at which Browning for the first time
met Wordsworth and Landor. Macready himself sat between these two
illustrious poets, with Browning opposite to him. The guests included
Ellen Tree, Miss Mitford, and Forster. Macready, recording this night in
his diary, writes of "Wordsworth who pinned me." Landor, it seems, talked
of constructing drama, and said he "had not the faculty," that he "could
only set persons to talking; all the rest was chance." But an ever
remembered moment came for the young poet when the host proposed a toast
to the author of "Paracelsus," and Wordsworth, rising, said: "I am proud
to drink to your health, Mr. Browning," and Landor bowed with his
inimitable, courteous grace, raising his glass to his lips. For some
years, whenever Wordsworth visited London, Forster invited Browning to
meet him. The younger poet was never an enthusiast in his mild friendship
for the elder, although in after years (1875) he replied to a question by
Rev. A. B. Grosart, the editor of Wordsworth's works, that while in hasty
youth he did "presume to use the great and venerated personality of
Wordsworth as a sort of painter's model," he intended in "The Lost Leader"
no portrait of the entire man. While Wordsworth's political attitude did
not please the young disciple of Shell