The sonnets were intended for her husband’s eye alone; in the first instance, not even for his.  No poems can ever have been composed with less thought of the public; perhaps for that very reason they are unmatched for simplicity and sincerity in all Mrs. Browning’s work.  Her genius in them has full mastery over its material, as it has in few of her other poems.  All impurities of style or rhythm are purged away by the fire of love; and they stand, not only highest among the writings of their authoress, but also in the very forefront of English love-poems.  With the single exception of Rossetti, no modern English poet has written of love with such genius, such beauty, and such sincerity, as the two who gave the most beautiful example of it in their own lives.

Fortunately for all those who love true poetry, Mr. Browning judged rightly of the obligation laid upon him by the possession of these poems.  ‘I dared not,’ he said, ’reserve to myself the finest sonnets written in any language since Shakespeare’s.’  Accordingly he persuaded his wife to commit the printing of them to her friend, Miss Mitford; and in the course of the year they appeared in a slender volume, entitled ‘Sonnets, by E.B.B.,’ with the imprint ‘Reading, 1847,’ and marked ‘Not for publication.’  It was not until three years later that they were offered to the general public, in the volumes of 1850.  Here first they appeared under the title of ’Sonnets from the Portuguese’—­a title suggested by Mr. Browning (in preference to his wife’s proposal, ‘Sonnets translated from the Bosnian’) for the sake of its half-allusion to her other poem, ‘Catarina to Camoens,’ which was one of his chief favourites among her works.

To these sonnets there is, however, no allusion in the letters here published, which say little for some time of her own work.

To Miss Mitford February 8, 1847.

But, my dearest Miss Mitford, your scheme about Leghorn is drawn out in the clouds.  Now just see how impossible.  Leghorn is fifteen miles off, and though there is a railroad there is no liberty for French books to wander backwards and forwards without inspection and seizure.  Why, do remember that we are in Italy after all!  Nevertheless, I will tell you what we have done:  transplanted our subscription from the Italian library, which was wearing us away into a misanthropy, or at least despair of the wits of all Southerns, into a library which has a tolerable supply of French books, and gives us the privilege besides of having a French newspaper, the ‘Siecle,’ left with us every evening.  Also, this library admits (is allowed to admit on certain conditions) some books forbidden generally by the censureship, which is of the strictest; and though Balzac appears very imperfectly, I am delighted to find him at all, and shall dun the bookseller for the ‘Instruction criminelle,’ which I hope discharges your Lucien as a ’forcat’—­neither man nor woman—­and true poet, least of all....