façade of the Pitti--a fact of at least equal significance. From the
days of his boyish pilgrimages to the Dulwich Gallery across the
Camberwell meadows, he had been an eager student and critic of painting;
curious, too, if not yet expert in all the processes and technicalities
of the studio. He judged pictures with the eye of a skilful draughtsman;
and two rapid journeys had given him some knowledge of the Italian
galleries. Continuous residence among the chief glories of the brush and
chisel did not merely multiply artistic incitement and appeal; it
brought the whole world of art into more vital touch with his
imaginative activity. It would be hard to say that there is any definite
change in his view of art, but its problems grow more alluring to him,
and its images more readily waylay and capture his passing thought. The
artist as such becomes a more dominant figure in his hierarchy of
spiritual workers; while Browning himself betrays a new
self-consciousness of his own function as an artist in verse;
conceiving, for instance, his consummate address to his wife as an
artist's way of solving a perplexity which only an artist could feel,
that of finding unique expression for the unique love.

"He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush,
Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly,
Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little,
Makes a strange art of an art familiar,
Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets;
He who blows thro' bronze may breathe thro' silver,
Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess;
He who writes may write for once, as I do."

Browning is distinguished among the poets to whom art meant much by the
prominence with him of the specifically artist's point of view. He cared