Last evening, we went to pass the evening with Miss Blagden, who inhabits
a villa at Bellosguardo, about a mile outside of the walls. The
situation is very lofty, and there are good views from every window of
the house, and an especially fine one of Florence and the hills beyond,
from the balcony of the drawing-room. By and by came Mr. Browning, Mr.
Trollope, Mr. Boott and his young daughter, and two or three other
gentlemen. . . . .

Browning was very genial and full of life, as usual, but his conversation
has the effervescent aroma which you cannot catch, even if you get the
very words that seem to be imbued with it. He spoke most rapturously of
a portrait of Mrs. Browning, which an Italian artist is painting for the
wife of an American gentleman, as a present from her husband. The
success was already perfect, although there had been only two sittings as
yet, and both on the same day; and in this relation, Mr. Browning
remarked that P------, the American artist, had had no less than
seventy-three sittings of him for a portrait. In the result, every hair
and speck of him was represented; yet, as I inferred from what he did not
say, this accumulation of minute truths did not, after all, amount to the
true whole.

I do not remember much else that Browning said, except a playful abuse of
a little King Charles spaniel, named Frolic, Miss Blagden's lap-dog,
whose venerable age (he is eleven years old) ought to have pleaded in his
behalf. Browning's nonsense is of very genuine and excellent quality,
the true babble and effervescence of a bright and powerful mind; and he
lets it play among his friends with the faith and simplicity of a child.
He must be an amiable man. I should like him much, and should make him
like me, if opportunities were favorable.