because the secondary luminaries on this stage, Miss Mitford and Mrs. Jameson, and (Orion) Home and Mr. Kenyon though they had great merits are already fading into comparative oblivion, and it requires an effort to allow for the effect of perspective. But it is a charm of these letters that this element of the situation affects only the earlier letters. Browning and Miss Barrett began by mutual appreciation as authors, and, of course, have to start upon the common platform of literary communication. A little literary talk about Æschylus and the relations of northern and Italian poets, and the past and intended works of the correspondents is, of course, inevitable, and certainly not uninteresting. But Browning very soon discovers the unsatisfactory nature of mere literary work, and explains his view by one of his characteristic parallel cases out of Vivian Grey. A gentleman in that novel is about to interrupt the development of the story by reading some 'brief remarks upon the characteristics of the Mœso-Gothic literature.' The author, however, upon consideration, judiciously omits the remarks, as you find upon turning the page. You will ask, says Browning, what this 'parallel case' means; and Miss Barrett admits
