ad invited French support, with the concurrence of his
people; being expelled from Rome, he invited (and obtained) French
help to restore him, in spite of the desperate opposition of his
people.]

CHAPTER VI

1849-1851

There is here a pause of two months in the correspondence of Mrs.
Browning, during which the happiness of her already happy life was
crowned by the birth, on March 9, 1849, of her son, Robert Wiedeman
Barrett Browning.[187] How great a part this child henceforward played
in her life will be shown abundantly by the letters that follow. Some
passages referring to the child's growth, progress, and performances
have been omitted, partly in the necessary reduction of the bulk of
the correspondence, and partly because too much of one subject may
weary the reader. But enough has been left to show that, in the case
of Mrs. Browning (and of her husband likewise), the parent was by no
means lost in the poet. There is little in what she says which might
not equally be said, and is in substance said, by hundreds of happy
mothers in every age; but it would be a suppression of one essential
part of her nature, and an injury to the pleasant picture which the
whole life of this poet pair presents, if her enthusiasms over her
child were omitted or seriously curtailed. Biographers are fond of
elaborating the details in which the lives of poets have not conformed
to the standard of the moral virtues; let us at least recognise
that, in the case of Robert and Elizabeth Browning, the moral and the
intellectual virtues flourished side by side, each contributing its
share to the completeness of the whole character.

[Footnote 187: Wiedeman was the maiden name of Mr. Browning's mother,
her father having been a German who settled in Scotland and married a
Scotch wife.]

The joy of this firstborn's birth was, however, very quickly dimmed
by the news of the death, only a few days later, of Mr. Browning's
mother, to whom he was devotedly attached. Her death was very sudden,
and the shock of the reaction completely prostrated him for a long
time. The following letters from Mrs. Browning tell how he felt this
loss.

_To Miss Browning_
April i, 1849 [postmark].

I do indeed from the bottom of my heart pity you and grieve with you,
my dearest Sarianna. I may grieve with you as well as for you; for I
too have lost. Believe that, though I never saw her face; I loved that
pure and tender spirit (tender to me even at this