Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. 22, March, 1852, Volume 4.
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. 22, March, 1852, Volume 4.
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
Gradually her health improved. About four years ago she married Mr.
Browning, and immediately accompanied him to Pisa. They then settled at
Florence; and this summer I have had the exquisite pleasure of seeing her
once more in London, with a lovely boy at her knee, almost as well as
ever, and telling tales of Italian rambles, of losing herself in chestnut
forests, and scrambling on mule-back up the sources of extinct volcanoes.
May Heaven continue to her such health and such happiness!
The same visit to London that brought me acquainted with my beloved
friend, Elizabeth Barrett, first gave me a sight of Mr. Browning. It was
at a period that forms an epoch in the annals of the modern drama—the
first representation of “Ion.”
I had the honor and pleasure of being the inmate of Mr. and Mrs. Serjeant
Talfourd (my accomplished friend has since worthily changed his
professional title—but his higher title of poet is indelible), having
been, I believe, among the first who had seen that fine play in
manuscript. The dinner party consisted merely of Mr. Wordsworth, Mr.
Landor, and I think Mr. Forster. By a singular coincidence it was our
host’s birthday, and no one present can forget the triumph of the
evening—a triumph of no common order as regarded the number, the quality,
or the enthusiasm of the audience; the boxes being crammed to the ceiling,
and the pit filled, as in an elder day, with critics and gentlemen.
A large party followed the poet home to supper, a party comprising
distinguished persons of almost every class; lawyers, authors, actors,
artists, all were mingled around that splendid board; healths were drunk
and speeches spoken, and it fell to the lot of the young author of
“Paracelsus” to respond to the toast of “The Poets of England.” That he
performed this task with grace and modesty, and that he looked still
younger than he was, I well remember; but we were not introduced, and I
knew him only by those successive works which redeemed the pledge that
“Paracelsus” had given, until this very summer, when going to London
purposely to meet my beloved friend, I was by her presented to her
husband. Ah! I hope it will not be fifteen years before we look each other
in the face again!
Incidents Of A Visit At The House Of William Cobbett.
The name of Blamire has always a certain interest for me, in consequence
of a circumstance, which, as it took place somewhere about five-and-forty
years ago, and has reference to a flirtation of twenty years previous,
there can not now be much harm in relating.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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