Tower and
Baptistery, all of which are a stone's throw from our windows. We
have rooms in a great college-house built by Vasari, and fallen into
desuetude from collegiate purposes; and here we live the quietest and
most _tete-a-tete_ of lives, knowing nobody, hearing nothing, and for
nearly three months together never catching a glimpse of a paper. Oh,
how wrong you were about the 'Times'! Now, however, we subscribe to a
French and Italian library, and have a French newspaper every evening,
the 'Siecle,' and so look through a loophole at the world. Yet, not
too proud are we, even now, for all the news you will please to send
us in charity: 'da obolum Belisario!'

What do you mean about poor Tennyson? I heard of him last on his
return from a visit to the Swiss mountains, which 'disappointed him,'
he was _said to say_. Very wrong, either of mountains or poet!

Tell me if you make acquaintance with Mrs. Hewitt's new ballads.

Mrs. Jameson is engaged in a work on art which will be very
interesting....

Flush's love to your Flopsy. Flush has grown very overbearing in this
Italy, I think because my husband spoils him (if not for the glory
at Vaucluse); Robert declares that the said Flush considers him, my
husband, to be created for the especial purpose of doing him service,
and really it looks rather like it.

Never do I see the 'Athenaeum' now, but before I left England some
pure gushes between the rocks reminded me of you. Tell me all you can;
it will all be like rain upon dry ground. My husband bids me offer his
regards to you--if you will accept them; and that you may do it ask
your heart. I will assure you (aside) that his poetry is as the prose
of his nature: he himself is so much better and higher than his own
works.

In the middle of April the Brownings left Pisa and journeyed to
Florence, arriving there on April 20. There, however, the programme
was arrested, and, save for an abortive excursion to Vallombrosa,
whence they were repulsed by the misogynist principles of the monks,
they continued to reside in Florence for the remainder of the year.
Their first abode was in the Via delle Belle Donne; but after the
return from Vallombrosa, in August, they moved across the river, and
took furnished rooms in the Palazzo Guidi, the building which, under
the name of 'Casa Guidi,' is for ever associated with their memory.

_To Mrs. Martin_
Florence: April 24, 1847.

I received your letter, my dearest friend, by