Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/199

Rh to her son those bitter lines "A Tale of Villafranca," beginning:—

Mr. Story avers that the news of the Imperial Treaty of Villafranca, following so fast upon the victories of Solferino and San Martino, almost killed Mrs. Browning. "That it hastened her into the grave," he says, "is beyond a doubt, as she never fully shook off the severe attack of illness occasioned by this check upon her life-hopes."

Notwithstanding, however, his failure to fulfil his promise to Italy; notwithstanding the annexation of Nice and Savoy, Mrs. Browning would not give up her faith in Napoleon the Third; as Savage Landor said of it, "If that woman put her faith in a man as good as Jesus, and he should become as wicked as Pontius Pilate, she would not change it." In language somewhat more to the purpose, Professor Dowden points out, in explanation of Mrs. Browning's belief of one whose political deeds were often so diametrically opposed to her own principles, "She saw a great work being worked out around her, and instinctively she believed that in the workers also there must be something great and god-like. Still," he proceeds, "the keenness of Mrs. Browning's Imperialism dated from the time of the Italian War. It is difficult to convey an idea to strangers of the intenseness of all her feelings about Italy. Hers was no