oke through, but she never. He had the habit of working in a
downstairs room, where their meals were spread, while Mrs. Browning
studied in a room on the floor above. One day, early in 1847, their
breakfast being over, Mrs. Browning went upstairs, while her husband
stood at the window watching the street till the table should be
cleared. He was presently aware of some one behind him, although the
servant was gone. It was Mrs. Browning, who held him by the shoulder
to prevent his turning to look at her, and at the same time pushed
a packet of papers into the pocket of his coat. She told him to read
that, and to tear it up if he did not like it; and then she fled again
to her own room.'

The sonnets were intended for her husband's eye alone; in the first
instance, not even for his. No poems can ever have been composed with
less thought of the public; perhaps for that very reason they are
unmatched for simplicity and sincerity in all Mrs. Browning's work.
Her genius in them has full mastery over its material, as it has in
few of her other poems. All impurities of style or rhythm are purged
away by the fire of love; and they stand, not only highest among the
writings of their authoress, but also in the very forefront of English
love-poems. With the single exception of Rossetti, no modern English
poet has written of love with such genius, such beauty, and such
sincerity, as the two who gave the most beautiful example of it in
their own lives.

Fortunately for all those who love true poetry, Mr. Browning judged
rightly of the obligation laid upon him by the possession of these
poems. 'I dared not,' he said, 'reserve to myself the finest sonnets
written in any language since Shakespeare's.' Accordingly he persuaded
his wife to commit the printing of them to her friend, Miss Mitford;
and in the course of the year they appeared in a slender volume,
entitled 'Sonnets, by E.B.B.,' with the imprint 'Reading, 1847,' and
marked 'Not for publication.' It was not until three years later that
they were offered to the general public, in the volumes of 1850.
Here first they appeared under the title of 'Sonnets from the
Portuguese'--a title suggested by Mr. Browning (in preference to his
wife's proposal, 'Sonnets translated from the Bosnian') for the sake
of its half-allusion to her other poem, 'Catarina to Camoens,' which
was one of his chief favourites among her works.

To these sonnets there is, however, no allusion in the letters he