ain Salinguerra of Browning's own _Sordello_. At
times he entered the bric-a-brac shops, and made a purchase of some
piece of old furniture or tapestry. His rule "never to buy anything
without knowing exactly what he wished to do with it" must have been
interpreted liberally, for when about to move in June 1887 from Warwick
Crescent to De Vere Gardens many treasures acquired in Italy were, Mrs
Orr tells us, stowed away in the house which he was on the point of
leaving. And the latest bibelot was always the most enchanting: "Like a
child with a new toy," says Mrs Bronson, "he would carry it himself
(size and weight permitting) into the gondola, rejoice over his chance
in finding it, and descant eloquently upon its intrinsic merits." Thus,
or with his son's assistance, came to De Vere Gardens brass lamps that
had hung in Venetian chapels, the silver Jewish "Sabbath lamp," and the
"four little heads"--the seasons--after which, Browning declared, he
would not buy another thing for the house.[139] Returning from his walks
on the Lido or wanderings through the little _calli_, he showed that
unwise half-disdain, which an unenlightened masculine Herakles might
have shown, for the blessedness of five o'clock tea. At dinner he was in
his toilet what Mr Henry James calls the "member of society," never the
poet whose necktie is a dithyramb. Good sense was his habit if not his
foible. And why should we deny ourselves here the pleasure of imagining
Miss Browning at these pleasant ceremonies, as Mrs Bronson describes
her, wearing "beautiful gowns of rich and sombre tints, and appearing
each day in a different and most dainty French cap and quaint antique
jewels"? If other guests were not present, sometimes a visit to the
theatre followed. The Venetian comedies of Gallina especially pleased
Browning; he went to his spacious box at the Goldoni evening after
evening, and did not fail to express his thanks to his "brother
dramatist" for the enjoyment he had received. In his _Toccata of
Galuppi_ he had expressed the melancholy which underlies the transitory
gaiety of eighteenth-century life in Venice; but he could also remember
its innocent gladnesses without this sense of melancholy. When in 1883
the committee of the Goldoni monument asked Browning to contribute a
poem to their Album he immediately complied with the request. It was
"scribbled off," according to Mrs Orr, while Professor Molmenti's
messenger was waiting; it was ready the day