Browning, Robert, 1812-1889; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
Spring came out and found them still in Paris, Mrs. Browning
enthusiastic about Napoleon III. and interested in spiritualism:
her husband serenely sceptical concerning both. In the summer
they again went to London: but they appear to have seen more
of Kenyon and other intimate friends than to have led a busy social life.
Kenyon's friendship and good company never ceased to have a charm
for both poets. Mrs. Browning loved him almost as a brother:
her husband told Bayard Taylor, on the day when that
good poet and charming man called upon them, and after another visitor
had departed -- a man with a large rosy face and rotund body,
as Taylor describes him -- "there goes one of the most splendid men living --
a man so noble in his friendship, so lavish in his hospitality,
so large-hearted and benevolent, that he deserves to be known
all over the world as Kenyon the Magnificent."
In the early autumn a sudden move towards Italy was again made,
and after a few weeks in Paris and on the way the Brownings found themselves
at home once more in Casa Guidi.
But before this, probably indeed before they had left Paris for London,
Mr. Moxon had published the now notorious Shelley forgeries.
These were twenty-five spurious letters, but so cleverly manufactured
that they at first deceived many people. In the preceding November
Browning had been asked to write an introduction to them.
This he had gladly agreed to do, eager as he was for a suitable opportunity
of expressing his admiration for Shelley. When the letters reached him,
he found that, genuine or not, though he never suspected they were forgeries,
they contained nothing of particular import, nothing that afforded
a just basis for what he had intended to say. Pledged as he was, however,
to write something for Mr. Moxon's edition of the Letters, he set about
the composition of an Essay, of a general as much as of an individual nature.
This he wrote in Paris, and finished by the beginning of December.
It dealt with the objective and subjective poet; on the relation
of the latter's life to his work; and upon Shelley in the light of
his nature, art, and character. Apart from the circumstance that
it is the only independent prose writing of any length from Browning's pen,
this is an exceptionally able and interesting production.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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