to think with regret of the lost
Manzoni. At no time, however, did he design a voluntary abandonment of
his life in England. When in full expectation of becoming the owner of
the Palazzo Manzoni he wrote to Dr Furnivall: "Don't think I mean to
give up London till it warns me away; when the hospitalities and
innumerable delights grow a burden.... Pen will have sunshine and beauty
about him, and every help to profit by these, while I and my sister have
secured a shelter when the fogs of life grow too troublesome."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 119: Some parts of what follows on _La Saisiaz_ have already
appeared in print in a forgotten article of mine on that poem.]

[Footnote 120: "An Artist's Reminiscences," by R. Lehmann (1894), p.
231.]

[Footnote 121: Thus he declaimed to Robert Buchanan against Walt
Whitman's writings, with which, according to Buchanan, he had little
acquaintance.]

[Footnote 122: "Autobiography of a Journalist," ii. 210.]

[Footnote 123: From the first of three valuable articles by Mr Rossetti
in _The Magazine of Art_ (1890) on "Portraits of Robert Browning."]

[Footnote 124: Robert Browning, "Personalia," by Edmund Gosse, pp. 81,
82.]

[Footnote 125: Vol. ii. pp. 88, 89.]

[Footnote 126: Anna Swanwick, "A Memoir by Mary L. Bruce," pp. 130, 131.
To Dr Furnivall he often spoke of Mrs Browning.]

[Footnote 127: From Mrs Bronson's article in _The Century Magazine_,
"Browning in Venice."]

[Footnote 128: Related more fully in Mrs Bronson's article "Browning in
Asolo" in _The Century Magazine_.]

[Footnote 129: Mrs Bronson's "Browning in Venice" in _The Century
Magazine_.]

[Footnote 130: To Dr Furnivall, Sept. 28, 1884.]

[Footnote 131: Some notices of Browning in Wales occur in Sir T.
Martin's "Life of Lady Martin."]

[Footnote 132: Letter to Dr Furnivall, August 29, 1881.]

[Footnote 133: To Dr Furnivall, Sept. 7, 1885.]

[Footnote 134: To Dr Furnivall, August 21, 1887.]

[Footnote 135: See for fuller details the letter in Mrs Orr's _Life of
Browning_, pp. 407, 408.]

[Footnote 136: So described by Mrs Bronson.]

[Footnote 137: To Dr Furnivall, Oct. 11, 1881.]

[Footnote 138: Quoted by Mrs Bronson.]

[Footnote 139: Mrs Orr, "Life of Browning," p. 400.]

[Footnote 140: Mrs Bronson records this.]

Chapter XVI

Poet and Teacher in Old Age

During the last decade of his life Browning's influence as a literary
power was assured. The publication indeed of _The Ring and