intellectually, one of the greatest, of English poems; translated the
_Agamemnon_ of Æschylus and the _Alcestis_ of Euripides;
published many shorter poems; kept up the studies which had always
been his labor and his pastime; and found leisure also to know a wide
circle of men and women. William Sharp gives a pleasing picture of the
last years of his life: "Everybody wished him to come and dine; and he
did his utmost to gratify Everybody. He saw everything; read all the
notable books; kept himself acquainted with the leading contents of
the journals and magazines; conducted a large correspondence; read
new French, German, and Italian books of mark; read and translated
Euripides and Æschylus: 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 Shakespeare."[1]

He died in Venice, on December 12, 1889, and was buried in the poet's
corner of Westminster Abbey.

[Footnote 1: Sharp's _Life of Browning_.]


BROWNING AS POET

The three generations of readers who have lived since Browning's first
publication have seen as many attitudes taken toward one of the ablest
poetic spirits of the century. To the first he appeared an enigma, a
writer hopelessly obscure, perhaps not even clear in his own mind,
as to the message he wished to deliver; to the second he appeared a
prophet and a philosopher, full of all wisdom and subtlety, too deep
for common mortals to fathom with line and plummet,--concealing below