Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/153

Rh in each in her sensitive fine handwriting, and always her husband's name added above her own, for she dedicated all her books to him; it was a fancy she had."

In the spring the Brownings appear to have visited Rome, and there was again some talk of their visiting England, passing through Paris on the way, but for the present the project was abandoned. Wordsworth died in April and a suggestion was made by the Athenæum that the vacant laurcateship should be given to Mrs. Browning. "We would urge," says the journal, "the graceful compliment to a youthful queen which would be implied in the recognition of the remarkable literary place taken by women in her reign."

A notable circumstance happened in May, and one that cannot have failed to have made a marked impression upon Mrs. Browning's highly sensitive nature. Margaret Fuller and her husband, Count d'Ossoli, spent their last evening on shore with the Brownings, previous to their departure for the United States. The vessel they sailed in was wrecked, and they never touched land again alive. Margaret Fuller was not, probably, a women with whom our poetess could ever be much in sympathy, but her tragic death and the circumstance of her last night on shore having been passed in her company must have left an indelible impression upon the mind of Mrs. Browning. Another acquaintanceship probably formed about this time was that of Isa Blagden, whose sympathy with some subjects should have drawn her towards the mistress of Casa Guidi. On Italian aspirations for liberty, on the Napoleonic myth, and upon the mysteries of mesmerism—which latter subject continued to greatly exercise Mrs. Browning's mind—they must have been in full accord. Other Florentine friends were W. W. Story,