of his forthcoming volume, he met a
London physician, Dr Bird. Next evening Dr Bird again dined with
Browning, who expressed confident satisfaction as to his state of
health, and held out his wrist that his words might be confirmed by the
regularity and vigour of his pulse. The physician became at once aware
that Browning's confidence was far from receiving the warrant in which
he believed. Still he maintained his customary two hours' walk each day.
Towards the close of November, on a day of fog, he returned from the
Lido with symptoms of a bronchial cold. He dealt with the trouble as he
was accustomed, and did not take to his bed. Though feeling scarcely fit
to travel he planned his departure for England after the lapse of four
or five days. On December 1st, an Italian physician was summoned, and
immediately perceived the gravity of the case. Within a few days the
bronchial trouble was subdued, but failure of the heart was apparent.
Some hours before the end he said to one of his nurses, "I feel much
worse. I know now that I must die." The ebbing away of life was
painless. As the clocks of Venice were striking ten on the night of
Thursday, December 12, 1889, Browning died.[148]

He had never concerned himself much about his place of burial. A
lifeless body seemed to him only an old vesture that had been cast
aside. "He had said to his sister in the foregoing summer," Mrs Orr
tells us, "that he wished to be buried wherever he might die; if in
England, with his mother; if in France, with his father; if in Italy,
with his wife." The English cemetery in Florence had, however, been
closed. The choice seemed to lie between Venice, which was the desire of
the city, or, if the difficulties could be overcome by the intervention
of Lord Dufferin, the old Florentine cemetery. The matter was decided
otherwise; a grave in Westminster Abbey was proposed by Dean Bradley,
and the proposal was accepted.[149] A private service took place in the
_Palazzo Rezzonico_; the coffin, in compliance with the civic
requirements, was conveyed with public honours to the chapel on the
island of San Michele; and from thence to the house in De Vere Gardens.
On the last day of the year 1889, in presence of a great and reverent
crowd, with solemn music arranged for the words of Mrs Browning's poem,
"He giveth his beloved sleep," the body of Browning was laid in its
resting-place in Poets' Corner.

To attempt at the present time to determine the place o