Robert BROWNING ⁷²⁹

  General Notes:

The poet, Robert Browning, was born May 7, 1812, at Camberwell, Eng. He was a handsome, vigorous, fearless child, of restless activity and fiery temper. When two years and three months old, he painted with lead pencil and black currant juice, a landscape which was considered by critics a masterpiece. In his boyhood, he evinced a great fondness for animals, and collected quite a menagerie, containing owls, monkeys, magpies, hedgehogs, an eagle, and some snakes, which afforded him great amusement as his daily playmates. His father gave him a liberal education, which he improved with avidity and labored most strenuously in his studies. He made rapid progress in both the modern sciences and in Greek, Latin, and other languages, and became one of the most learned men in England in general encyclopedic knowledge. He has left it recorded as his belief that the Browning, or Bruning, family came from one of the German tribes, known as the De Brni, who occupied the lowlands around the Baltic Sea, and who invaded Brittany along with other Germanic tribes in the fifth century. They drove back the ancient Britons and took possession of their lands, and gradually spread over England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.
Mr. Browning, when young, was rather foppish in his dress, and wore his black hair long, after the conventional style of the poet, and never appeared in the streets without wearing light canary-colored kid gloves. His dress was stylish and in the extreme of fashion, but as he advanced in years and in judgment all his foppishness disappeared and he became unobtrusive in manners and dress.
In 1846, Robert Browning married Elizabeth Barrett, a well known poetess, of great renown, even at that time. Her health was very poor and her father was much opposed to her marrying anyone. But her love for Robert Browning was so great that she eloped with him, unbeknown to her father and without his consent. At this time she was thirty-seven years old. They went to Florence, Italy, where her health was much improved. In 1849 their only son, Robert Barrett Browning, was born. Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in 1861, when her son was twelve years old, at Florence, where she was buried. After his wife's death, Mr. Browning went to London, where he remained until 1878. when he returned to Italy, but would not go to Florence, as it was too mournful for him. He purchased the Rezzonico Palace, on the Grand Canal at Venice, where he resided with his son and his sister Sarianna, until his death on Dec. 12, 1889. His remains were taken to London and buried in Westminster Abbey, in the Poet's Corner, where a white marble slab, with the simple inscription, "Browning," upon it, marks his last resting place. ⁷²⁹

Robert married Elizabeth BARRETT in 1846.⁷²⁹ (Elizabeth BARRETT died in 1861 in Florence, , Toscana, Italy ⁷²⁹.)