Browning was forty-nine when Mrs. Browning died.

And by the time he had reached his fiftieth meridian, England, harkening to America’s suggestion, was awakening to the fact that he was one of the world’s great poets.

Honors came slowly, but surely:  Oxford with a degree; Saint Andrew’s with a Lord-Rectorship; publishers with advance payments.  And when Smith and Elder paid one hundred pounds for the poem of “Herve Riel,” it seemed that at last Browning’s worth was being recognized.  Not, of course, that money is the infallible test, but even poetry has its Rialto, where the extent of appreciation is shown by prices current.

Browning’s best work was done after his wife’s death; and in that love he ever lived and breathed.  In his seventy-fifth year, it filled his days and dreams as though it were a thing of yesterday, singing in his heart a perpetual eucharist.

“The Ring and the Book” must be regarded as Browning’s crowning work.  Offhand critics have disposed of it, but the great minds go back to it again and again.  In the character of Pompilia the author sought to pay tribute to the woman whose memory was ever in his mind; yet he was too sensitive and shrinking to fully picture her.  He sought to mask his inspiration; but tender, loving recollections of “Ba” are interlaced and interwoven through it all.

When Robert Browning died, in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-nine, the world of literature and art uncovered in token of honor to one who had lived long and well and had done a deathless work.  And the doors of storied Westminster opened wide to receive his dust.

ALFRED TENNYSON

    Not of the sunlight,
    Not of the moonlight,
    Nor of the starlight! 
    O young Mariner,
    Down to the haven,
    Call your companions,
    Launch your vessel,
    And crowd your canvas,
    And ere it vanishes
    Over the margin,
    After it, follow it,
    Follow the Gleam.
                      —­Merlin

[Illustration:  Alfred Tennyson]

The grandfather of Tennyson had two sons, the elder boy, according to Clement Scott, being “both wilful and commonplace.”  Now, of course, the property and honors and titles, according to the law of England, would all gravitate to the commonplace boy; and the second son, who was competent, dutiful and worthy, would be out in the cold world—­simply because he was accidentally born second and not first.  It was not his fault that he was born second, and it was in no wise to the credit of the other that he was born first.

So the father, seeing that the elder boy had small executive capacity, and no appreciation of a Good Thing, disinherited him, giving him, however, a generous allowance, but letting the titles go to the second boy, who was bright and brave and withal a right manly fellow.