friend,' in the 'Guardian Angel', he had reached the last line before it
occurred to him that the person invoked could be he. I do not think that
this poem, and that directly addressed to him under the pseudonym of
'Waring', were the only ones inspired by the affectionate remembrance
which he had left in their author's mind.

Among his boy companions were also the three Silverthornes, his
neighbours at Camberwell, and cousins on the maternal side. They appear
to have been wild youths, and had certainly no part in his intellectual
or literary life; but the group is interesting to his biographer.
The three brothers were all gifted musicians; having also, probably,
received this endowment from their mother's father. Mr. Browning
conceived a great affection for the eldest, and on the whole most
talented of the cousins; and when he had died--young, as they all
did--he wrote 'May and Death' in remembrance of him. The name of
'Charles' stands there for the old, familiar 'Jim', so often uttered by
him in half-pitying, and all-affectionate allusion, in his later years.
Mrs. Silverthorne was the aunt who paid for the printing of 'Pauline'.

It was at about the time of his short attendance at University College
that the choice of poetry as his future profession was formally made. It
was a foregone conclusion in the young Robert's mind; and little less
in that of his father, who took too sympathetic an interest in his son's
life not to have seen in what direction his desires were tending. He
must, it is true, at some time or other, have played with the thought of
becoming an artist; but the thought can never have represented a wish.
If he had entertained such a one, it would have met not only with no
opposition on his father's part, but with a very ready assent, nor
does the question ever seem to have been seriously mooted in the family
councils. It would be strange, perhaps, if it had. Mr. Browning became