gallop on the grass." The "writing" included the revision and
preparation for the press of Browning's _Poems_, in two volumes, which
Chapman & Hall, more liberal than Moxon, had undertaken to publish at
their own risk, and which appeared in 1849. Some care and thought were
also given by Browning to the alterations of text made in the edition of
his wife's Poems of the following year; and for a time his own
_Christmas Eve and Easter Day_ was an absorbing occupation. As to the
"reading," the chief disadvantage of Florence towards the middle of the
last century was the difficulty of seeing new books of interest, whether
French or English. Yet _Vanity Fair_ and _The Princess, Jane Eyre_ and
_Modern Painters_ somehow found their way to Casa Guidi.[44]

Casa Guidi proper, the Casa Guidi which held the books and pictures and
furniture and graceful knick-knacks chosen by its occupants, who were
lovers of beauty, dates only from 1848. Previously they had been
satisfied with a furnished apartment. Not long before the unfurnished
rooms were hired, a mistake in choosing rooms which suffered from the
absence of sunshine and warmth gave Browning an opportunity of
displaying what to his wife's eyes appeared to be unexampled
magnanimity. The six months' rent was promptly paid, and chambers on the
Pitti "yellow with sunshine from morning to evening" were secured. "Any
other man, a little lower than the angels," his wife assured Miss
Mitford, "would have stamped and sworn a little for the mere relief of
the thing, but as to _his_ being angry with _me_ for any cause, except
not eating enough dinner, the sun would turn the wrong way first." It
seemed an excellent piece of economy to take the spacious suite of
unfurnished rooms in the Via Maggio, now distinguished by the
inscription known to all visitors to Florence, which were to be had for
twenty-five guineas a year, and which, when furnished, might be let
during any prolonged absence for a considerable sum. The temptation of a
ground-floor in the Frescobaldi Palace, and a garden bright with
camellias, to which Browning for a time inclined, was rejected. At Casa
Guidi the double terrace where orange-trees and camellias also might
find a place made amends for the garden with its threatening cloud of
mosquitoes, "worse than Austrians"; every need of space and height, of
warmth and coolness seemed to be met; and it only remained to expend the
welcome proceeds of the sale of books in the recre