than by the possibilities that lie unfolded within them, and the ends to which they aspire, even though such ends be unattained:  “In the hierarchy of creative minds, it is the presence of the highest faculty that gives first rank, in virtue of its kind, not degree; no pretension of a lower nature, whatever the completeness of development or variety of effect, impeding the precedency of the rarer endowment though only in the germ.”  And, last, of the tardy recognition of Shelley’s genius as a poet, Browning wrote in words which though, as he himself says, he had always good praisers, no doubt express a thought that helped to sustain him against the indifference of the public to his poetry:  “The misapprehensiveness of his age is exactly what a poet is sent to remedy:  and the interval between his operation and the generally perceptible effect of it, is no greater, less indeed than in many other departments of the great human effort.  The ‘E pur si muove’ of the astronomer was as bitter a word as any uttered before or since by a poet over his rejected living work, in that depth of conviction which is so like despair.”  The volume in which Browning’s essay appeared was withdrawn from circulation on the discovery of the fraudulent nature of its contents.  He had himself no opportunity of inspecting the forged manuscripts, and no question of authenticity was raised until several copies of the book had passed into circulation.[48]

During the nine months spent in Paris, from September 1851 to June 1852, Browning enlarged the circle of his friends and made some new and interesting acquaintances.  Chief among friendships was that with Joseph Milsand of Dijon, whose name is connected with Sordello in the edition of Browning’s “Poetical Works” of the year 1863.  Under the title “La Poesie Anglaise depuis Byron,” two articles by Milsand were contributed to the “Revue des Deux Mondes,” the first on Tennyson, the second (published 15th August 1851) a little before the poet’s arrival in Paris, on Robert Browning.  “Of all the poets known to me,” wrote his French critic, “he is the most capable of summing up the conceptions of the religion, the ethics, and the theoretic knowledge of our period in forms which embody the beauty proper to such abstractions.”  Such criticism by a thoughtful student of our literature could not but prepare the way pleasantly for personal acquaintance.  Milsand, we are told by his friend Th.  Bentzon (Mme. Blanc), having hesitated as to the propriety of printing a passage in an article as yet unpublished, in which he had spoken of the great sorrow of Mrs Browning’s early life—­the death of her brother, went straight to Browning, who was then in Paris, and declared that he was ready to cancel what he had written if it would cause her pain.  “Only a Frenchman,” exclaimed Browning, grasping both hands of his visitor, “would have done this.”  So began a friendship of an intimate and most helpful kind, which closed only with Milsand’s death in 1886.  To his memory is dedicated the volume published soon after his death, Parleyings with certain People of Importance.  “I never knew or shall know his like among men,” wrote Browning; and again:  “No words can express the love I have for him.”  And in Red Cotton Nightcap Country it is Milsand who is characterised in the lines: