higher and higher runs
A child, bare-foot and rosy."

Asolo appears again very soon afterward in the lovely opening of the
play "Pippa Passes." This came first in the series which appeared in
the years 1841-46, under the odd title of "Bells and Pomegranates."
There were eight numbers of this publication--thin, yellow-covered
pamphlets, printed in double columns of small type, by Mr. Moxon;
surely us unattractive a way as a poet ever attempted of bringing his
wares before the world. Doubtless it was done in order that the low
price might appeal to a large audience, but we doubt whether the sale
of "Bells and Pomegranates" was ever large. The series is exceedingly
rare now, and the curious who prefer to read those noble poems in this
unsightly form have to pay L10 or L12 for the privilege of possessing
them. In this first series appeared all the author's plays except
"Strafford," namely, "Pippa Passes," "King Victor and King Charles,"
"The Return of the Druses," "A Blot on the Scutcheon," "Colombe's
Birthday," "Luria," and "A Soul's Tragedy." But, alternating with
these, appealed many of the shorter poems which have long since passed
into the common treasure-house of all who care for poetry throughout
the English-speaking world. One of the numbers contains the set called
"Dramatic Lyrics," including "In a Gondola," "Waring," and "The Pied
Piper of Hamelin." Another number contained "Dramatic Romances and
Lyrics," among which are to be found such favorite poems as "How they
Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," and "Saul." In this group of
poems were also to be found the celebrated lines called "The Lost
Leader." People at the time supposed that these indignant verses were
aimed at the Tory backsliding of Wordsworth; and, indeed, though Mr.
Browning in after-years denied their special applicability to the old
Laureate, there can be no doubt that when he wrote them he had
Wordsworth more or less in his mind.

In 1846 there happened to Mr. Browning something much more important
than the publication of this or that poem; for it was then, on
September 12th, in Marylebone parish church, that he was married to
the poetess, Elizabeth Barrett. Their union was the direct result, in
the first instance, of poetic and intellectual sympathy, and it was to
the admiration which Miss Barrett, then an invalid, felt for the
author of "Bells and Pomegranates," that they owed their first
introduction. For the greater part of