A more stimulative and wider training was awaiting him elsewhere.

For a time Robert's education was superintended by a tutor,
who came to the house in Camberwell for several hours daily.
The afternoons were mainly devoted to music, to exercise,
and occasionally to various experimental studies in technical science.
In the evenings, after his preparatory tasks were over,
when he was not in the entertaining company of his father,
he read and assiduously wrote. After poetry, he cared most for history:
but as a matter of fact, little came amiss to his eager intellectual appetite.
It was a period of growth, with, it may be, a vague consciousness
that his mind was expanding towards compulsive expression.

"So as I grew, I rudely shaped my life
To my immediate wants, yet strong beneath
Was a vague sense of powers folded up --
A sense that though those shadowy times were past,
Their spirit dwelt in me, and I should rule."

When Mr. Browning was satisfied that the tutor had fulfilled his duty
he sent his son to attend a few lectures at University College,
in Gower Street, then just founded. Robert Browning's name
is on the registrar's books for the opening session, 1829-30.
"I attended with him the Greek class of Professor Long" (wrote a friend,
in the `Times', Dec. 14:'89), "and I well recollect the esteem and regard
in which he was held by his fellow-students. He was then a bright,
handsome youth, with long black hair falling over his shoulders."
So short was his period of attendance, however, and so unimportant
the instruction he there derived, that to all intents it may be said
Browning had no University training.