, on the day when that good poet and charming man called upon
them, and after another visitor had departed--a man with a large rosy
face and rotund body, as Taylor describes him--"there goes one of the
most splendid men living--a man so noble in his friendship, so lavish in
his hospitality, so large-hearted and benevolent, that he deserves to be
known all over the world as Kenyon the Magnificent."

In the early autumn a sudden move towards Italy was again made, and
after a few weeks in Paris and on the way the Brownings found
themselves at home once more in Casa Guidi.

But before this, probably indeed before they had left Paris for London,
Mr. Moxon had published the now notorious Shelley forgeries. These were
twenty-five spurious letters, but so cleverly manufactured that they at
first deceived many people. In the preceding November Browning had been
asked to write an introduction to them. This he had gladly agreed to do,
eager as he was for a suitable opportunity of expressing his admiration
for Shelley. When the letters reached him, he found that, genuine or
not, though he never suspected they were forgeries, they contained
nothing of particular import, nothing that afforded a just basis for
what he had intended to say. Pledged as he was, however, to write
something for Mr. Moxon's edition of the Letters, he set about the
composition of an Essay, of a general as much as of an individual
nature. This he wrote in Paris, and finished by the beginning of
December. It dealt with the objective and subjective poet; on the
relation of the latter's life to his work; and upon Shelley in the light
of his nature, art, and character. Apart from the circumstance that it
is the only independent prose writing of any length from Browning's pen,
this is an exceptionally able and interesting production.

Dr. Furnivall deserves general gratitude for his obtaining the author's
leave to re-issue it, and for having published it as one of the papers
of the Browning Society. As that enthusiastic student and good friend of
the poet says in his "foretalk" to the reprint, the essay is noteworthy,
not merely as a signal service to Shelley's fame and memory, but for
Browning's statement of his own aim in his own work, both as objective
and subjective poet. The same clear-sightedness and impartial sympathy,
which are such distinguishing characteristics of his dramatic studies of
human thought and emotion, are obvious in Browning's Shelley essay.