not to betray his authorship. The Miss Flower, however,
to whom allusion has already been made, could not repress her admiration
to the extent of depriving her friend, Mr. Fox, of a pleasure
similar to that she had herself enjoyed. The result was the generous notice
in the `Monthly Repository'. The poet never forgot his indebtedness
to Mr. Fox, to whose sympathy and kindness much direct and indirect good
is traceable. The friendship then begun was lifelong,
and was continued with the distinguished Unitarian's family
when Mr. Fox himself ended his active and beneficent career.

But after a time the few admirers of "Pauline" forgot to speak about it:
the poet himself never alluded to it: and in a year or two it was almost
as though it had never been written. Many years after, when articles
upon Robert Browning were as numerous as they once had been scarce,
never a word betrayed that their authors knew of the existence of "Pauline".
There was, however, yet another friendship to come out of this book,
though not until long after it was practically forgotten by its author.

One day a young poet-painter came upon a copy of the book
in the British Museum Library, and was at once captivated by its beauty.
One of the earliest admirers of Browning's poetry, Dante Gabriel Rossetti --
for it was he -- felt certain that "Pauline" could be by none other
than the author of "Paracelsus". He himself informed me that he had
never heard this authorship suggested, though some one had spoken to him
of a poem of remarkable promise, called "Pauline", which he ought to read.
If I remember aright, Rossetti told me that it was on the forenoon of the day
when the "Burden of Nineveh" was begun, conceived rather,
that he read this story of a soul by the soul's ablest historian.
So delighted was he with it, and so strong his opinion it was by Browning,
that he wrote to the poet, then in Florence, for confirmation,