The most interesting letter which he received during the interval of the writing was one from Robert Browning, in answer to an inquiry concerning a letter written years earlier by Rossetti to Browning, to know if the author of Paracelsus was also the author of Pauline. Rossetti once told William Sharp that it was “on the forenoon of the day when the Burden of Nineveh was begun, conceived rather,” that he read this story (at the British Museum) “of a soul by the soul’s ablest historian.” So delighted was Rossetti with it, and so strong his opinion that Pauline was by Browning, that he wrote to that poet, then in Florence, for confirmation. Mr. Browning, in his reply—which I quote from my husband’s monograph on Browning—gave the following particulars of the incident:
St. Pierre de Chartreuse,
Aug. 22, 1882.
Dear Mr. Sharp,
Rossetti’s Pauline letter concerning which you inquire was addressed to me at Florence, more than thirty years ago: I must have preserved it, but, even were I at home, should be unable to find it without troublesome searching. It was to the effect that the writer, personally and altogether unknown to me, had come upon a poem in the British Museum, which he copied the whole of, from its being not otherwise procurable, that he judged it to be mine, but could not be sure, and wished me to pronounce on the matter—which I did. A year or two after, I had a visit in London from Mr. Allingham and a friend—who proved to be Rossetti: when I heard he was a painter I insisted on calling on him, though he declared he had nothing to show me—which was far enough from the case. Subsequently on another of my returns to London, he painted my portrait: not, I fancy, in oils but water colours—and finished it in Paris shortly after: this must have been in the year when Tennyson published “Maud,” unless I mistake: for I remember Tennyson reading the poem one evening, while Rossetti made a rapid pen-and-ink sketch of him, very good, from an unobserved corner of vantage—which I still possess and duly value. This was before Rossetti’s marriage.
I hope that these particulars may answer your purpose; and beg you to believe me, dear Mr. Sharp,
Yours very truly,
Robert Browning.
The young biographer wrote to every one who he thought might possess drawings or paintings by Rossetti—and among others he applied to Tennyson. The Poet Laureate replied:
Aldworth, Haslemere,