His eagerness to possess such treasures was only matched by the generosity with which he parted with them;and his daughter well remembers the feeling of angry suspicion with which she and her brother noted the periodical arrival of a certain visitor who would be closeted with their father for hours,and steal away before the supper time,when the family would meet,with some precious parcel of books or prints under his arm.
It is almost superfluous to say that he was indifferent to creature comforts.
Miss Browning was convinced that,if on any occasion she had said to him,'There will be no dinner to-day,'he would only have looked up from his book to reply,'All right,my dear,it is of no consequence.'
In his bank-clerk days,when he sometimes dined in Town,he left one restaurant with which he was not otherwise dissatisfied,because the waiter always gave him the trouble of specifying what he would have to eat.A hundred times that trouble would not have deterred him from a kindly act.Of his goodness of heart,indeed,many distinct instances might be given;but even this scanty outline of his life has rendered them superfluous.
Mr.Browning enjoyed splendid physical health.His early love of reading had not precluded a wholesome enjoyment of athletic sports;and he was,as a boy,the fastest runner and best base-ball player in his school.He died,like his father,at eighty-four (or rather,within a few days of eighty-five),but,unlike him,he had never been ill;a French friend exclaimed when all was over,'Il n'a jamais e/te/vieux.'
His faculties were so unclouded up to the last moment that he could watch himself dying,and speculate on the nature of the change which was befalling him.'What do you think death is,Robert?'
he said to his son;'is it a fainting,or is it a pang?'
A notice of his decease appeared in an American newspaper.
It was written by an unknown hand,and bears a stamp of genuineness which renders the greater part of it worth quoting.
'He was not only a ruddy,active man,with fine hair,that retained its strength and brownness to the last,but he had a courageous spirit and a remarkably intelligent mind.
He was a man of the finest culture,and was often,and never vainly,consulted by his son Robert concerning the more recondite facts relating to the old characters,whose bones that poet liked so well to disturb.
His knowledge of old French,Spanish,and Italian literature was wonderful.
The old man went smiling and peaceful to his long rest,preserving his faculties to the last,insomuch that the physician,astonished at his continued calmness and good humour,turned to his daughter,and said in a low voice,"Does this gentleman know that he is dying?"The daughter said in a voice which the father could hear,"He knows it;"and the old man said with a quiet smile,"Death is no enemy in my eyes."His last words were spoken to his son Robert,who was fanning him,"I fear I am wearying you,dear."'
Four years later one of his English acquaintances in Paris,Mr.Frederick Locker,now Mr.Locker-Lampson,wrote to Robert Browning as follows:
Dec.26,1870.
My dear Browning,--I have always thought that you or Miss Browning,or some other capable person,should draw up a sketch of your excellent father so that,hereafter,it might be known what an interesting man he was.
I used often to meet you in Paris,at Lady Elgin's.She had a genuine taste for poetry,and she liked being read to,and I remember you gave her a copy of Keats'poems,and you used often to read his poetry to her.
Lady Elgin died in 1860,and I think it was in that year that Lady Charlotte and I saw the most of Mr.Browning.He was then quite an elderly man,if years could make him so,but he had so much vivacity of manner,and such simplicity and freshness of mind,that it was difficult to think him old.
I remember,he and your sister lived in an apartment in the Rue de Grenelle,St.Germain,in quite a simple fashion,much in the way that most people live in Paris,and in the way that all sensible people would wish to live all over the world.
Your father and I had at least one taste and affection in common.
He liked hunting the old bookstalls on the 'quais',and he had a great love and admiration for Hogarth;and he possessed several of Hogarth's engravings,some in rare and early states of the plate;and he would relate with glee the circumstances under which he had picked them up,and at so small a price too!However,he had none of the 'petit-maitre'weakness of the ordinary collector,which is so common,and which I own to!--such as an infatuation for tall copies,and wide margins.
I remember your father was fond of drawing in a rough and ready fashion;he had plenty of talent,I should think not very great cultivation;but quite enough to serve his purpose,and to amuse his friends.
He had a thoroughly lively and HEALTHY interest in your poetry,and he showed me some of your boyish attempts at versification.
Taking your dear father altogether,I quite believe him to have been one of those men --interesting men --whom the world never hears of.
Perhaps he was shy --at any rate he was much less known than he ought to have been;and now,perhaps,he only remains in the recollection of his family,and of one or two superior people (like myself!)who were capable of appreciating him.My dear Browning,I really hope you will draw up a slight sketch of your father before it is too late.
Yours,Frederick Locker.
The judgments thus expressed twenty years ago are cordially re-stated in the letter in which Mr.Locker-Lampson authorizes me to publish them.
The desired memoir was never written;but the few details which I have given of the older Mr.Browning's life and character may perhaps stand for it.
