ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (1809-1861). PORTRAITS OF MRS. BROWNING. IN a letter to Mr. Horne, written in 1843, Miss Barrett says: "The last time I 'reclined' for my picture was for a miniature by Mrs. Carter, just before I left Devonshire, and I did it for love's sake and papa's. And yet, although she was so obliging as to paint a very pretty little girl, with unexceptionable regularity of features, he was ungrateful enough to throw it down with a pshaw! and deny the likeness altogether. There is no portrait of me at all which is considered like, except one painted in my infancy, where I appear in the character of a fugitive angel, which papa swears by all his gods is very like me to this day, and which perhaps may be like about the wings." In 1856 Mrs. Browning's likeness was taken by Macaire, at Havre, and was considered faithful by her husband. It is a three-quarters length, thus showing her extremely slight figure; the countenance is marked by intense spirituality; the beautiful large eyes reveal the seriousness of her nature, while the face is almost hidden in the thick dark curls that fall on either side. In a photograph taken about a month before her death she closely resembles the Macaire likeness, only a little thinner and paler. PERSONAL APPEARANCE. My first acquaintance with Elizabeth Barrett commenced about fifteen years ago. She was certainly one of the most interesting persons that I had ever seen. Everybody who then saw her said the same; so that it is not merely the impression of my partiality or my enthu siasm. Of a slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a most expressive face, large, tender eyes fringed by dark eyelashes, a smile like a sunbeam, and such a look of youthfulness that I had some difficulty in persuading a friend, in whose carriage we went together to Chiswick, that the translatress of the "Prometheus" of Eschylus, the authoress of the "Essay on Mind" was old enough to be introduced into company--in technical language was out.-MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: Recollections of a Literary Life. To those who loved Mrs. Browning (and to know her was to love her) she was singularly attractive. Hers was not the beauty of feature; it was the loftier beauty of expression. Her slight figure seemed hardly large enough to contain the great heart that beat so fervently within, and the soul that expanded more and more as one year gave place to another. It was difficult to believe that such a fairy hand could pen thoughts of such ponderous weight, or that such a "still small voice" could utter them with equal force. But it was Mrs. Browning's face upon which one loved to gaze-that face and head which almost lost themselves in the thick curls of her dark brown hair. That jealous hair could not hide the broad, fair forehead, "royal with the birth," as smooth as any girl's, and "Too large for wreath of modern wont." Her large, brown eyes were beautiful, and were, in truth, the windows of her soul. They combined the confidingness of a child with the poet-passion of heart and of intellect; and in gazing into them it was easy to read why Mrs. Browning wrote. God's inspiration was her motive power, and in her eyes was the reflection of this higher light.-KATE FIELD: Letter from Florence, July 5, 1861. COMMENTS. The sister of Tennyson.-LEIGH HUNT. The mother of the beautiful child [an appellation given her by the Florentines]. I have never seen a human frame which seemed so nearly a transparent veil for a celestial and immortal spirit. She is a soul of fire enclosed in a shell of pearl. - GEORGE S. HILLARD. In delicacy of perception Miss Barrett may vie with any of her sex. She has what is called a true woman's heart, although we must believe that men of a fine conscience and good organization will have such a heart no less. Signal instances occur to us in the cases of Spenser, Wordsworth, and Tennyson. The woman who reads them will not find hardness or blindness as to the subtler workings of thoughts and affections. If men are often deficient on this score, women, on the other hand, are apt to pay excessive attention to the slight tokens, the little things of life. Thus, in conduct or writing, they tend to weary us with a morbid sentimentalism. From this fault Miss Barrett is wholly free.— MARGARET FULLER. I would now content myself with saying that, in fervor, melodiousness, and splendor of poetic genius, Mrs. Browning stands, to the best of my knowledge, first among women; that in truthfulness, the distinctive quality of the poet, George Eliot is greatly her inferior; but that in knowledge of life, insight into character, comprehensiveness and penetration of thought, and the plastic energy by which the literary artist moulds his figures, she was not the equal of George Eliot.-PETER BAYNE. Probably the greatest female poet that England has ever produced, and one of the most unreadable, is Elizabeth Barrett Barrett. In the works of no woman have we ever observed so much grandeur of imagination, disguised as it is in an elaborately infelicitous style. She has a large heart and a large brain, but many of her thoughts are hooded eagles.-E. P. WHIPPLE. As long as one human heart throbs for another she will be held in high esteem. Her poetry is that which refines, chastens, and elevates.-G. BARNETT SMITH. The Victorian era, with its wider range of opportunities for women, has been illumined by the career of the greatest female poet that England has produced-nor only England, but the whole territory of the English language; more than this, the most inspired woman, so far as known, of all who have composed in ancient or modern tongues, or flourished in any land or time. -E. C. STEDMAN. The Blaise Pascal of women. She was the most beloved of minstrels and women.-E. C. STEDMAN. Mrs. Browning-Shakespeare's daughter. I think of her as the best symbol of the choicest part of Britain: in her grand Christian connections, her mighty aspirations for progress, her love of the poor, her spiritual tenderness born of Christianity, her mental aggressiveness born of science, her womanliness-I had almost said her manliness—I will say her heroic readiness to follow God, whithersoever he may lead. This woman, with Tennyson at her side, is really the best representative I can name of what appears to me to be the innermost heart of England and Scotland.-REV. Joseph Cooke. TOPICAL STUDY OF MRS. BROWNING'S LIFE. No extended biography of Mrs. Browning has yet been written. Of her uneventful life she says: "My story amounts to the knife-grinder's, with nothing at all for a catastrophe. A bird in a cage would have as good a story. Most of my events, and nearly all my intense pleasures, have passed in my thoughts." The chief source of materials for writing a life so almost entirely composed of mental action will be found in her letters, which (with the exception of those to Mr. Horne) are as yet unpublished. At present our knowledge of this great woman of genius is of a desultory and almost statistical nature; but her history may be reckoned with certainty among the works which posterity will demand and execute. Birth and Parentage. - Elizabeth Barrett Barrett was born in the county of Durham, in 1809. Soon after her birth the family removed to Hope End, in the vicinity of Malvern Hills. She was reared in luxury, and all her early manifestations of genius were carefully nurtured and developed. Her father-a wealthy merchant-petted and praised her "'Neath thy gentleness of praise, Education.-Elizabeth Barrett's education was derived |