oseph
Milsand of Dijon, whose name is connected with _Sordello_ in the edition
of Browning's "Poetical Works" of the year 1863. Under the title "La
Poesie Anglaise depuis Byron," two articles by Milsand were contributed
to the "Revue des Deux Mondes," the first on Tennyson, the second
(published 15th August 1851) a little before the poet's arrival in
Paris, on Robert Browning. "Of all the poets known to me," wrote his
French critic, "he is the most capable of summing up the conceptions of
the religion, the ethics, and the theoretic knowledge of our period in
forms which embody the beauty proper to such abstractions." Such
criticism by a thoughtful student of our literature could not but
prepare the way pleasantly for personal acquaintance. Milsand, we are
told by his friend Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc), having hesitated as to the
propriety of printing a passage in an article as yet unpublished, in
which he had spoken of the great sorrow of Mrs Browning's early
life--the death of her brother, went straight to Browning, who was then
in Paris, and declared that he was ready to cancel what he had written
if it would cause her pain. "Only a Frenchman," exclaimed Browning,
grasping both hands of his visitor, "would have done this." So began a
friendship of an intimate and most helpful kind, which closed only with
Milsand's death in 1886. To his memory is dedicated the volume published
soon after his death, _Parleyings with certain People of Importance_. "I
never knew or shall know his like among men," wrote Browning; and again:
"No words can express the love I have for him." And in _Red Cotton
Nightcap Country_ it is Milsand who is characterised in the lines:

He knows more and loves better than the world
That never heard his name and never may, ...
What hinders that my heart relieve itself,
O friend! who makest warm my wintry world,
And wise my heaven, if there we consort too.

In the correction of Browning's proof-sheets, and especially in
regulating the punctuation of his poems, Milsand's friendly services
were of high value. In 1858 when Browning happened to be at Dijon, and
had reason to believe, though in fact erroneously, that his friend was
absent in Paris, he went twice "in a passion of friendship," as his wife
tells a correspondent, to stand before Maison Milsand, and muse, and
bless the threshold.[49]

Browning desired much to know Victor Hugo, but his wish was never
gratified. After December 2n