"Great Writers." EDITED BY ERIC ROBERTSON AND FRANK T. MARZIALS. LIFE OF BROWNING. FOR FULL LIST OF THE VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES, SEE CATALOGUE AT END OF BOOK LIFE OF ROBERT BROWNING BY WILLIAM SHARP. LONDON WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1897 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. London, Robert Browning's birthplace; his immediate predecessors and contemporaries in literature, art, and music; born May 7th, 1812; origin of the Browning family; assertions as to its Semitic connection apparently groundless; the poet a putative descendant of the Captain Micaiah Browning mentioned by Macaulay; Robert Browning's mother of Scottish and German origin; his father a man of exceptional powers, artist, poet, critic, student; Mr. Browning's opinion of his son's writings; the home in Camberwell; Robert Browning's childhood; concerning his optimism; his fondness for Carravaggio's "Andromeda and Perseus"; his poetic precocity; origin of "The Flight of the Duchess"; writes Byronic verse; is sent to school at Peckham; his holiday afternoons; sees London by night, from Herne Hill; the significance of the spectacle to him. Page 11. CHAPTER II. He wishes to be a poet; writes in the style of Byron and Pope; the "Death of Harold"; his poems, written when twelve years old, shown to Miss Flower; the Rev. W.J. Fox's criticisms on them; he comes across Shelley's "Dæmon of the World"; Mrs. Browning procures Shelley's poems, also those of Keats, for her son; the perusal of these volumes proves an important event in his poetic development; he leaves school when fourteen years old, and studies at home under a tutor; attends a few lectures at University College, 1829-30; chooses his career, at the age of twenty; earliest record of his utterances concerning his youthful life printed in _Century Magazine_, 1881; he plans a series of monodramatic epics; Browning's life-work, collectively one monodramatic "epic"; Shakspere's and Browning's methods compared; Browning writes "Pauline" in 1832; his own criticism on it; his parents' opinions; his aunt's generous gift; the poem published in January 1833; description of the poem; written under the inspiring stimulus of Shelley; its autopsychical significance; its importance to the student of the poet's works; quotations from "Pauline". Page 29. CHAPTER III.