, the Marchesa
Peruzzi di' Medici (_nata_ Story), the writer of this biography strolled
with them under the host's orange trees and among the riotous roses of his
Florentine villa, "La Torre All' Antella," listening to their sparkling
conversation, replete with fascinating reminiscences. To Mr. Browning the
tribute of thanks, whose full scope is known to the Recording Angel alone,
is here offered; and there is the blending of both privilege and duty in
grateful acknowledgements to Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Company for their
courtesy in permitting the somewhat liberal drawing on their published
Letters of both the Brownings, on which reliance had to be based in any
effort to

"Call up the buried Past again,"

and construct the story, from season to season, so far as might be, of
that wonderful interlude of the wedded life of the poets.

Yet any formality of thanks to this house is almost lost sight of in the
rush of memories of that long and mutually-trusting friendship between the
late George Murray Smith, the former head of this firm, and Robert
Browning, a friendship which was one of the choicest treasures in both
their lives.

To The Macmillan Company, the publishers for both the first and the
present Lord Tennyson; To Houghton Mifflin Company; to Messrs. Dodd, Mead,
& Company; to The Cornhill Magazine (to which the writer is indebted for
some data regarding Browning and Professor Masson); to each and all,
acknowledgments are offered for their courtesy which has invested with
added charm a work than which none was ever more completely a labor of
love.

To Edith, Contessa Rucellai (_nata_ Bronson), whose characteristically
lovely kindness placed at the disposal of this volume a number of letters
written by Robert Browning to her mother, Mrs. Arthur Bronson, special
gratitude is offered.

"Poetry," said Mrs. Browning, "is its own exceeding great reward." Any
effort, however remote its results from the ideal that haunted the writer,
to interpret the lives of such transcendent genius and nobleness as those
of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, must also be its own exceeding
reward in leading to a passion of pursuit of all that is highest and
holiest in the life that now is, and in that which is to come.

LILIAN WHITING

THE BRUNSWICK, BOSTON
Midsummer Days, 1911

CONTENTS

PAGE
CHAPTER I

1812-1833

The Most Exqu