German, and Italian books of mark; read and translated Euripides and AEschylus; knew all the gossip of the literary clubs, salons, and the studios; was a frequenter of afternoon-tea parties; and then, over and above it, he was Browning:  the most profoundly subtle mind that has exercised itself in poetry since Shakspere.  His personal grace and charm of manner never failed.  Whether he was dedicating “Balaustion’s Adventure” in terms of gracious courtesy, or handing a flower from some jar of roses, or lilies, or his favourite daffodils, with a bright smile or merry glance, to the lady of his regard, or when sending a copy of a new book of poetry with an accompanying letter expressed with rare felicity, or when generously prophesying for a young poet the only true success if he will but listen and act upon “the inner voice,”—­he was in all these, and in all things, the ideal gentleman.  There is so charming and characteristic a touch in the following note to a girl-friend, that I must find room for it:—­

      29 De Vere Gardens, W.,
      6th July 1889.

      MY BELOVED ALMA,—­I had the honour yesterday of dining with the
      Shah, whereupon the following dialogue:—­

      “Vous etes poete?”

      “On s’est permis de me le dire quelquefois.”

      “Et vous avez fait des livres?”

      “Trop de livres.”

      “Voulez-vous m’en donner un, afin que je puisse me ressouvenir de
      vous?”

      “Avec plaisir.”

I have been accordingly this morning to town, where the thing is procurable, and as I chose a volume of which I judged the binding might take the imperial eye, I said to myself, “Here do I present my poetry to a personage for whom I do not care three straws; why should I not venture to do as much for a young lady I love dearly, who, for the author’s sake, will not impossibly care rather for the inside than the outside of the volume?” So I was bold enough to take one and offer it for your kind acceptance, begging you to remember in days to come that the author, whether a good poet or no, was always, my Alma, your affectionate friend,

      ROBERT BROWNING.

[Footnote 25:  It was on his first experience of this kind, more than a quarter of a century earlier, that he wrote the nobly patriotic lines of “Home Thoughts from the Sea,” and that flawless strain of bird-music, “Home Thoughts from Abroad:”  then, also, that he composed “How they brought the Good News.”  Concerning the last, he wrote, in 1881 (vide The Academy, April 2nd), “There is no sort of historical foundation about [this poem].  I wrote it under the bulwark of a vessel off the African coast, after I had been at it long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse, ‘York,’ then in my stable at home.  It was written in pencil on the fly-leaf of Bartoli’s Simboli, I remember.”]