autiful epilogue, addressed to
E.B.B., "There they are, my fifty men and women," was written in Dorset
Street. Tennyson's _Maud_ had preceded Browning's volumes by some
months. It bewildered the critics, but his brother poet did justice to
Tennyson's passionate sequence of dramatic lyrics. And though London in
mid-autumn had emptied itself Tennyson happened for a few days to be in
town. Two evenings he gave to the Brownings, "dined with us," writes Mrs
Browning, "smoked with us, opened his heart to us (and the second bottle
of port), and ended by reading _Maud_ through from end to end, and going
away at half-past two in the morning." His delightful frankness and
simplicity charmed his hostess. "Think of his stopping in _Maud_," she
goes on, "every now and then--'There's a wonderful touch! That's very
tender! How beautiful that is!' Yes and it _was_ wonderful, tender,
beautiful, and he read exquisitely in a voice like an organ, rather
music than speech."

One of the few persons who were invited to meet Tennyson on this
occasion, Mr W.M. Rossetti, is still living, and his record of that
memorable evening ought not to be omitted. "The audience was a small
one, the privilege accorded to each individual all the higher: Mr and
Mrs Browning, Miss Browning, my brother, and myself, and I think there
was one more--either Madox Brown or else [Holman] Hunt or Woolner ...
Tennyson, seated on a sofa in a characteristic attitude, and holding the
volume near his eyes ... read _Maud_ right through. My brother made two
pen-and-ink sketches of him, and gave one of them to Browning. So far as
I remember, the Poet-Laureate neither saw what Dante was doing, nor knew
of it afterwards. His deep grand voice, with slightly chaunting
intonation, was a noble vehicle for the perusal of mighty verse. On it
rolled, sonorous and emotional. Dante Rossetti, according to Mr Hall
Caine, spoke of the incident in these terms: 'I once heard Tennyson
read _Maud_; and, whilst the fiery passages were delivered with a voice
and vehemence which he alone of living men can compass, the softer
passages and the songs made the tears course down his cheeks.' ... After
Tennyson and _Maud_ came Browning and _Fra Lippo Lippi_--read with as
much sprightly variation as there was in Tennyson of sustained
continuity. Truly a night of the gods, not to be remembered without
pride and pang."[61] A quotation from a letter of Dante Rossetti to
Allingham gives praise to Mrs Brownin