brought into exercise are the less impeded by one another; the love of
beauty is not tripped up by a delight in the grotesque. And there is a
certain pleasure in attending to prophecy which has not learnt to hide
itself in casuistry. The analysis of a state of mind, pursued in
_Sordello_ with an effort that is sometimes fatiguing and not always
successful, is presently followed by a superb portrait--like that of
Salinguerra--painted by the artist, not the analyst, and so admirable is
it that in our infirmity we are tempted to believe that the process of
flaying and dissection alters the person of a man or woman as Swift has
said, considerably for the worse.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 15: The supposition of Mr Sharp and Mr Gosse that Browning
visited Italy after having seen St Petersburg is an error. His first
visit to Italy was that of 1838. I may note here that in a letter to
E.B.B. (vol. ii. 443) Browning refers to having been in Holland some ten
years since; the date of his letter is August 18, 1846.]

[Footnote 16: Mrs Bronson; Browning in Venice. _Cornhill Magazine_, Feb.
1902. pp. 160, 161.]

[Footnote 17: Mrs Orr's "Handbook to Browning," pp. 10, 11.]

Chapter III

The Maker of Plays

The publication of _Paracelsus_ did not gain for Browning a large
audience, but it brought him friends and acquaintances who gave his life
a delightful expansion in its social relations. John Forster, the
critic, biographer and historian, then unknown to him, reviewed the poem
in the _Examiner_ with full recognition of its power and promise.
Browning gratefully commemorated a lifelong friendship with Forster,
nearly a score of years later, in the dedication of the 1863 edition of
his poetical works. Mrs Orr recites the names of Carlyle, Talfourd, R.
Hengist Horne, Leigh Hunt, Procter, Monckton Milnes, Dickens,
Wordsworth, Landor, among those of distinguished persons who became
known to Browning at this period.[18] His "simple and enthusiastic
manner" is referred to by the actor Macready in his diary; "he looks and
speaks more like a youthful poet than any man I ever saw." Browning's
face was one of rare intelligence and full of changing expression. He
was not tall, but in early years he was slight, was graceful in his
movements, and held his head high. His dark brown hair hung in wavy
masses upon his neck. His voice had in early manhood a quality,
afterwards lost, which Mr Sharp describes as "flute-like, clear, sweet
an