They tried Dinard for the remainder of the summer; but finding it unsuitable, proceeded by St.-Malo to Le Croisic, the little sea-side town of south-eastern Brittany which two of Mr. Browning's poems have since rendered famous. The following extract has no date. Le Croisic, Loire Inferieure. '. . . We all found Dinard unsuitable, and after staying a few days at St. Malo resolved to try this place, and well for us, since it serves our purpose capitally. . . . We are in the most delicious and peculiar old house I ever occupied, the oldest in the town--plenty of great rooms--nearly as much space as in Villa Alberti. The little town, and surrounding country are wild and primitive, even a trifle beyond Pornic perhaps. Close by is Batz, a village where the men dress in white from head to foot, with baggy breeches, and great black flap hats;--opposite is Guerande, the old capital of Bretagne: you have read about it in Balzac's 'Beatrix',--and other interesting places are near. The sea is all round our peninsula, and on the whole I expect we shall like it very much. . . .' Later. '. . . We enjoyed Croisic increasingly to the last--spite of three weeks' vile weather, in striking contrast to the golden months at Pornic last year. I often went to Guerande--once Sarianna and I walked from it in two hours and something under,--nine miles:--though from our house, straight over the sands and sea, it is not half the distance. . . .' In 1867 Mr. Browning received his first and greatest academic honours. The M.A. degree by diploma, of the University of Oxford, was conferred on him in June;* and in the month of October he was made honorary Fellow of Balliol College. Dr. Jowett allows me to publish the, as he terms it, very characteristic letter in which he acknowledged the distinction. Dr. Scott, afterwards Dean of Rochester, was then Master of Balliol. * 'Not a lower degree than that of D.C.L., but a much higher honour, hardly given since Dr. Johnson's time except to kings and royal personages. . . .' So the Keeper of the Archives wrote to Mr. Browning at the time. 19, Warwick Crescent: Oct. 21, '67. Dear Dr. Scott,--I am altogether unable to say how I feel as to the fact you communicate to me. I must know more intimately than you can how little worthy I am of such an honour,--you hardly can set the value of that honour, you who give, as I who take it. Indeed, there _are_ both 'duties and emoluments' attached to this position,--duties of deep and lasting gratitude, and emoluments through which I shall be wealthy my life long. I have at least loved learning and the learned, and there needed no recognition of my love on their part to warrant my professing myself, as I do, dear Dr. Scott, yours ever most faithfully, Robert Browning. In the following year he received and declined the virtual offer of the Lord Rectorship of the University of St. Andrews, rendered vacant by the death of Mr. J. S. Mill.