more perplexed by the poet's utterance in later years. 'Quel homme
extraordinaire!' he once said to me; 'son centre n'est pas au milieu.'
The usual criticism would have been that, while his own centre was in
the middle, he did not seek it in the middle for the things of which
he wrote; but I remember that, at the moment in which the words were
spoken, they impressed me as full of penetration. Mr. Browning had so
much confidence in M. Milsand's linguistic powers that he invariably
sent him his proof-sheets for final revision, and was exceedingly
pleased with such few corrections as his friend was able to suggest.

With the name of Milsand connects itself in the poet's life that of a
younger, but very genuine friend of both, M. Gustave Dourlans: a man of
fine critical and intellectual powers, unfortunately neutralized by bad
health. M. Dourlans also became a visitor at Warwick Crescent, and a
frequent correspondent of Mr. or rather of Miss Browning. He came from
Paris once more, to witness the last sad scene in Westminster Abbey.

The first three years of Mr. Browning's married life had been
unproductive from a literary point of view. The realization and
enjoyment of the new companionship, the duties as well as interests
of the dual existence, and, lastly, the shock and pain of his mother's
death, had absorbed his mental energies for the time being. But by the
close of 1848 he had prepared for publication in the following year a
new edition of 'Paracelsus' and the 'Bells and Pomegranates' poems. The
reprint was in two volumes, and the publishers were Messrs. Chapman and
Hall; the system, maintained through Mr. Moxon, of publication at the
author's expense, being abandoned by Mr. Browning when he left home.
Mrs. Browning writes of him on this occasion that he is paying 'peculiar
attention to the objections made against certain obscurities.' He
himself prefaced the edition by these words: 'Many of these pieces were