23/24 The analysis of a state of mind, pursued in _Sordello_ with an effort that is sometimes fatiguing and not always successful, is presently followed by a superb portrait--like that of Salinguerra--painted by the artist, not the analyst, and so admirable is it that in our infirmity we are tempted to believe that the process of flaying and dissection alters the person of a man or woman as Swift has said, considerably for the worse. His first visit to Italy was that of 1838. I may note here that in a letter to E.B.B. 443) Browning refers to having been in Holland some ten years since; the date of his letter is August 18, 1846.] [Footnote 16: Mrs Bronson; Browning in Venice. |