LONDON
WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1897




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.

London, Robert Browning's birthplace; his immediate predecessors and
contemporaries in literature, art, and music; born May 7th, 1812; origin
of the Browning family; assertions as to its Semitic connection
apparently groundless; the poet a putative descendant of the Captain
Micaiah Browning mentioned by Macaulay; Robert Browning's mother of
Scottish and German origin; his father a man of exceptional powers,
artist, poet, critic, student; Mr. Browning's opinion of his son's
writings; the home in Camberwell; Robert Browning's childhood;
concerning his optimism; his fondness for Carravaggio's "Andromeda and
Perseus"; his poetic precocity; origin of "The Flight of the Duchess";
writes Byronic verse; is sent to school at Peckham; his holiday
afternoons; sees London by night, from Herne Hill; the significance of
the spectacle to him. Page 11.