A few editors had gone out of their way to "discover" him to the world,
but their lavish reviews fell flat. Buyers would not buy--no one seemed to
want the wares of Robert Browning. He was hard to read, difficult,
obscure--or else there wasn't anything in it at all--they didn't know
which.

Fox, editor of the "Repository," had met Browning at the Flowers' and
liked him. He tried to make his verse go, but couldn't. Yet he did what he
could and insisted that Browning should go with him to the "Sunday
evenings" at Barry Cornwall's. There Browning met Leigh Hunt, Monckton
Milnes and Dickens. Then there were dinner-parties at Sergeant Talfourd's,
where he got acquainted with Wordsworth, Walter Savage Landor and
Macready.

Macready impressed him greatly and he impressed Macready. He gave the
actor a copy of "Paracelsus" (one of the pile in the garret) and Macready
suggested he write a play. "Strafford" was the result, and we know it was
stillborn, and caused a very frosty feeling to exist for many a year
between the author and the actor. When a play fails, the author blames the
actor and the actor damns the author. These men were human. Of course
Browning's kinsmen all considered him a failure, and when the father paid
over the weekly allowance he often rubbed it in a bit. Lizzie Flower had
modified her prophecy as to the Laureateship, but was still loyal. They
had tiffed occasionally, and broken off the friendship, and once I believe
returned letters. To marry was out of the question--he couldn't support
himself--and besides that, they were old, demnition old; he was past
thirty and she was forty--Gramercy!

They tiffed.