“Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.” 7. ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT, afterwards MRS BROWNING, the greatest poetess of this century, was born in London in the year 1809. She wrote verses “at the age of eight-- and earlier,” she says; and her first volume of poems was published when she was seventeen. When still a girl, she broke a blood-vessel upon the lungs, was ordered to a warmer climate than that of London; and her brother, whom she loved very dearly, took her down to Torquay. There a terrible tragedy was enacted before her eyes. One day the weather and the water looked very tempting; her brother took a sailing-boat for a short cruise in Torbay; the boat went down in front of the house, and in view of his sister; the body was never recovered. This sad event completely destroyed her already weak health; she returned to London, and spent several years in a darkened room. Here she “read almost every book worth reading in almost every language, and gave herself heart and soul to that poetry of which she seemed born to be the priestess.” This way of life lasted for many years: and, in the course of it, she published several volumes of noble verse. In 1846 she married Robert Browning, also a great poet. In 1856 she brought out +Aurora Leigh+, her longest, and probably also her greatest, poem. Mr Ruskin called it “the greatest poem which the century has produced in any language;” but this is going too far. --Mrs Browning will probably be longest remembered by her incomparable sonnets and by her lyrics, which are full of pathos and passion. Perhaps her two finest poems in this kind are the +Cry of the Children+ and +Cowper’s Grave+. All her poems show an enormous power of eloquent, penetrating, and picturesque language; and many of them are melodious with a rich and wonderful music. She died in 1861. [Transcriber’s Note: The above paragraph is given as printed. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born Elizabeth Barrett Moulton, later Moulton-Barrett, in 1806. Her year of birth was universally given as 1809 until some time after Robert Browning’s death. Her brother’s fatal accident took place in 1840.]