Those Tuscan forests, that high crown of Lucca, must always have special associations for lovers of poetry. Here Shelley lived, rapt in his beautiful dreams, and translated the `Symposium' so that his wife might share something of his delight in Plato. Here, ten years later, Heine sneered, and laughed and wept, and sneered again -- drank tea with "la belle Irlandaise", flirted with Francesca "la ballerina", and wrote alternately with a feathered quill from the breast of a nightingale and with a lancet steeped in aquafortis: and here, a quarter of a century afterward, Robert and Elizabeth Browning also laughed and wept and "joyed i' the sun," dreamed many dreams, and touched chords of beauty whose vibration has become incorporated with the larger rhythm of all that is high and enduring in our literature. On returning to Florence (Browning with the MS. of the greater part of his splendid fragmentary tragedy, "In a Balcony", composed mainly while walking alone through the forest glades), Mrs. Browning found that the chill breath of the `tramontana' was affecting her lungs, so a move was made to Rome, for the passing of the winter (1853-4). In the spring their little boy, their beloved "Pen",* became ill with malaria. This delayed their return to Florence till well on in the summer. During this stay in Rome Mrs. Browning rapidly proceeded with "Aurora Leigh", and Browning wrote several of his "Men and Women", including the exquisite `Love among the Ruins', with its novel metrical music; `Fra Lippo Lippi', where the painter, already immortalised by Landor, has his third warrant of perpetuity; the `Epistle of Karshish' (in part); `Memorabilia' (composed on the Campagna); `Saul', a portion of which had been written and published ten years previously, that noble and lofty utterance, with its trumpet-like note of the regnant spirit; the concluding part of "In a Balcony"; and `Holy Cross Day' -- besides, probably, one or two others. In the late spring (April 27th) also, he wrote the short dactylic lyric, `Ben Karshook's Wisdom'. This little poem was given to a friend for appearance in one of the then popular `Keepsakes' -- literally given, for Browning never contributed to magazines. The very few exceptions to this rule were the result of a kindliness stronger than scruple: as when (1844), at request of Lord Houghton (then Mr. Monckton Milnes), he sent `Tokay', the `Flower's Name', and `Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis', to "help in making up some magazine numbers for poor Hood, then at the point of death from hemorrhage of the lungs, occasioned by the enlargement of the heart, which had been brought on by the wearing excitement of ceaseless and excessive literary toil." As `Ben Karshook's Wisdom', though it has been reprinted in several quarters, will not be found in any volume of Browning's works, and was omitted from "Men and Women" by accident, and from further collections by forgetfulness, it may be fitly quoted here. Karshook, it may be added,