trasportati al Morale", a favourite book and constant companion of his;
and, in spite of perfect effacement as far as the sense goes, the pencil
dints are still visible. The little poem 'Home Thoughts from the Sea'
was written at the same time, and in the same manner.

By the time they reached Trieste, the captain, a rough north-countryman,
had become so attached to Mr. Browning that he offered him a free
passage to Constantinople; and after they had parted, carefully
preserved, by way of remembrance, a pair of very old gloves worn by him
on deck. Mr. Browning might, on such an occasion, have dispensed with
gloves altogether; but it was one of his peculiarities that he could
never endure to be out of doors with uncovered hands. The captain also
showed his friendly feeling on his return to England by bringing to Miss
Browning, whom he had heard of through her brother, a present of six
bottles of attar of roses.

The inspirations of Asolo and Venice appear in 'Pippa Passes' and 'In
a Gondola'; but the latter poem showed, to Mr. Browning's subsequent
vexation, that Venice had been imperfectly seen; and the magnetism which
Asolo was to exercise upon him, only fully asserted itself at a much
later time.

A second letter to Miss Haworth is undated, but may have been written at
any period of this or the ensuing year.


I have received, a couple of weeks since, a present--an album large and
gaping, and as Cibber's Richard says of the 'fair Elizabeth': 'My
heart is empty--she shall fill it'--so say I (impudently?) of my grand
trouble-table, which holds a sketch or two by my fine fellow Monclar,