dle when, after a prolonged stay in Antwerp, he went to Paris and
studied sculpture under Rodin, an advantage of which to this day he is
particularly proud. This life-size figure of Driope was the outcome of
much study and thought, and had been so warmly appreciated on all sides,
that it was deemed worthy of being cast in bronze. When it was rejected
at the Royal Academy, Browning was indignant, eloquently indignant, and
well he might be, for the work was a remarkable one, and as it now
stands in the vast Entrance Hall of the Palazzo Rezzonico, many think as
I do, that it can challenge comparison with some of the great
masterpieces in Venice.

I need scarcely say that the adverse verdict of the rulers at Burlington
House did not shake his confidence in Pen or in his first teacher. The
poet's gratitude to the latter was expressed in ever-varying forms. He
writes to him: "I have to repeat--what I never can be tired of
repeating, however inadequately I make my words correspond with my
feelings--how deeply grateful I am to you for your instrumentality in
the success of my son, which I am sure he will have attributed to the
admirable master whose true 'son' in art he is bound to consider
himself." When, some years later, Heyermans settled in London, Browning
never lost an opportunity of smoothing the artist's path among
strangers, in the country which has since become the country of his
adoption.

As I may presently allow myself to speak of some of my pictures which
Browning liked, it may not be inappropriate to record here that there
were others which he disliked. Such were some Japanese subjects, which
my love of the newly imported art had impelled me to paint. At the time
I am speaking of--in the early seventies--the work of the Japanese was
only just coming to the front; there was no shop to display it in all
London or Paris. The first things of the kind I can remember here were
some of those cheap paper fans on sale at a very popular little shop in
the Brompton Road, Harrod's, now developed into one of London's monster
emporiums. In Holland I had previously come across some wonderful
specimens of Japanese painting and weaving, and when I next saw a unique
collection of such work in the Paris Exhibition, my admiration was
fairly kindled into enthusiasm. Shortly afterwards the same exhibits
found their way into the hands of those syrens with the ivory hammer,
known as Christie & Manson's, and on that occasion my savings