d he was a painter I insisted on
calling on him, though he declared he had nothing to show me--which
was far enough from the case. Subsequently, on another of my returns
to London, he painted my portrait, not, I fancy, in oils, but
water-colours, and finished it in Paris shortly after. This must
have been in the year when Tennyson published 'Maud,' for I remember
Tennyson reading the poem one evening while Rossetti made a rapid
pen-and-ink sketch of him, very good, from one obscure corner of
vantage, which I still possess, and duly value. This was before
Rossetti's marriage."[8]

[Footnote 8: The highly interesting and excellent portrait of Browning
here alluded to has never been exhibited.]

As a matter of fact, as recorded on the back of the original drawing,
the eventful reading took place at 13 Dorset Street, Portman Square, on
the 27th of September 1855, and those present, besides the
Poet-Laureate, Browning, and Rossetti, were Mrs. E. Barrett Browning and
Miss Arabella Barrett.

When, a year or two ago, the poet learned that a copy of his first work,
which in 1833 could not find a dozen purchasers at a few shillings, went
at a public sale for twenty-five guineas, he remarked that had his dear
old aunt been living he could have returned to her, much to her
incredulous astonishment, no doubt, he smilingly averred, the cost of
the book's publication, less L3 15s. It was about the time of the
publication of "Pauline" that Browning began to see something of the
literary and artistic life for which he had such an inborn taste. For a
brief period he went often to the British Museum, particularly the
Library, and to the National Gallery. At the British Museum Reading Room
he perused with great industry and research those works in philosophy
and medical history which are the bases of "Paracelsus," and those
Italian Records bearing upon the story of Sordello. Residence in
Camberwell, in 1833, rendered night engagements often impracticable: but
nevertheless he managed to mix a good deal in congenial society. It is
not commonly known that he was familiar to these early associates as a
musician and artist rather than as a poet. Among them, and they
comprised many well-known workers in the several arts, were Charles
Dickens and "Ion" Talfourd. Mr. Fox, whom Browning had met once or twice
in his early youth, after the former had been shown the Byronic verses
which had in one way gratified