ey, for Landor he conceived the most
profound admiration and sympathetic affection. It was a striking sequel to
this youthful attraction that in Landor's desolate old age it should be
Browning who tenderly cared for him, and surrounded his last days with
unfailing comfort and solicitude.

At this memorable supper, just as Browning was about to take his leave,
Macready laid his hand on the young man's shoulder, saying earnestly:
"Write a play for me, and keep me from going to America." The thought
appealed to the poet, who replied: "Shall it be historical and English?
What do you say to 'Strafford' for a subject?" Forster was then bringing
out his biography of Strafford, on which Browning had assisted, so that
the theme had already engaged his imagination. A few days after the supper
Macready records in his diary receiving a note from Browning and adds:
"What can I say upon it? It was a tribute which remunerated me for the
annoyances and cares of years; it was one of the very highest, may I not
say the highest, honor I have through life received."

A certain temperamental sympathy between the two men is evident, though
Macready sounded no such fathomless depths as lay, however unsuspected, in
Browning; but Macready gives many indications of poetic sympathies, as,
for instance, when he records in his diary how he had been looking through
Coleridge's translation of Wallenstein, "abounding with noble passages and
beautiful scenes," to see if it would lend itself to stage representation.

On November 19 of this autumn Macready notes in his journal that Browning
came that night to bring his tragedy of "Strafford," of which the fourth
act was incomplete. "I requested him to write in the plot of what was
deficient," says Macready, and drove to the Garrick Club while Browning
wrote out this story. Later, there was a morning call from Browning, who
gave him an interesting old print of Richard, from some tapestry, and they
talked of "La Valliere." All the time we get glimpses of an interesting
circle: Bulwer and Forster call, and they discuss Cromwell; Bulwer's play
of "Virginius" is in rehearsal; Macready acts Cardinal Wolsey; there is a
dinner at Lady Blessington's, where are met Lord Canterbury, Count
D'Orsay, Bulwer, Trelawney, and Proctor; there is a call on Miss
Martineau, and meetings with Thackeray and Dickens; Kenyon appears in the
intersecting circles; Marston (the father of the blind poet) writes his
play, "The Patrici