"The Browning Society, I need not say, as well as Browning himself, are fair game for criticism. I had no more to do with the founding it than the babe unborn; and, as Wilkes was no Wilkesite, I am quite other than a Browningite. But I cannot wish harm to a society of, with a few exceptions, names unknown to me, who are busied about my books so disinterestedly. The exaggerations probably come of the fifty-years'-long charge of unintelligibility against my books; such reactions are possible, though I never looked for the beginning of one so soon. That there is a grotesque side to the thing is certain; but I have been surprised and touched by what cannot but have been well intentioned, I think. Anyhow, as I never felt inconvenienced by hard words, you will not expect me to wax bumptious because of undue compliment: so enough of 'Browning'--except that he is yours very truly 'while the machine is to him.'" In 1887 Browning removed to a more agreeable quarter in De Vere Gardens in the west end of London, and with his affection for Asolo, he set about purchasing a residence there in 1889, and it was while engaged in negotiations for the purchase that he was taken ill with bronchial troubles, and died at his son's home in Venice, December 12, 1889. He was buried in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, on the last day of the year. Italy rightly divided honors with England, and on the outer wall of the Rezzonico Palace in Venice is a memorial tablet with the inscription:-- A ROBERTO BROWNING morto in questo palazzo il _12 Dicembre 1889_ Venezia pose Below, in the corner, are placed two lines from his poem, _De Gustibus:_-- "Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, 'Italy.'" H. E. S. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote 1: The materials for this sketch are drawn from Mrs. Sutherland Orr's _Life and Letters of Robert Browning_, Mr. William Sharp's _Life of Robert Browning_, and Mr. Edmund Gosse's _Robert Browning: Personalia_.] PAULINE: THE FRAGMENT OF A CONFESSION