thoroughly lively and _healthy_ interest in your poetry, and he showed me
some of your boyish attempts at versification.

Taking your dear father altogether, I quite believe him to have been one
of those men--interesting men--whom the world never hears of. Perhaps he
was shy--at any rate he was much less known than he ought to have been;
and now, perhaps, he only remains in the recollection of his family,
and of one or two superior people (like myself!) who were capable of
appreciating him. My dear Browning, I really hope you will draw up a
slight sketch of your father before it is too late. Yours, Frederick
Locker.


The judgments thus expressed twenty years ago are cordially re-stated
in the letter in which Mr. Locker-Lampson authorizes me to publish them.
The desired memoir was never written; but the few details which I have
given of the older Mr. Browning's life and character may perhaps stand
for it.

With regard to the 'strict dissent' with which her parents have been
taxed, Miss Browning writes to me: 'My father was born and educated in
the Church of England, and, for many years before his death, lived in
her communion. He became a Dissenter in middle life, and my mother, born
and brought up in the Kirk of Scotland, became one also; but they could
not be called bigoted, since we always in the evening attended the
preaching of the Rev. Henry Melvill* (afterwards Canon of St. Paul's),
whose sermons Robert much admired.'**

* At Camden Chapel, Camberwell.