BROWNING 



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BROWNSVILLE 



his education came from the books which sur- 

 rounded him from his childhood. In all his 

 works there is evident a very wide acquaintance 

 not only with the literature that everyone reads 

 but with obscure works that come within the 

 reach of comparatively few. This accounts for 

 the difficulty many experience in reading some 

 ,of his poems. They are filled with allusions 

 to facts and fancies which only a person as 

 widely read as Browning himself could hope 

 fully to understand. Travel on the Continent 

 did much to broaden his outlook on life and 

 to convince him that his early attempts at 

 writing poetry were feeble and immature. The 

 works of Keats and Shelley were a genuine 

 inspiration to him, and confirmed him in the 

 desire to devote his life to poetry. 



Marriage with Elizabeth Barrett. In 1844 

 Browning became acquainted with Elizabeth 

 Barrett through calling on her to thank her 

 for a compliment she had paid him in one of 

 her poems. Friendship grew into love, and in 

 1846 they were married. Their life together 

 was very beautiful, and her death in 1861 was 

 a shock from which Browning never completely 

 recovered (see BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT). 

 He removed from Italy, where all his married 

 life had been spent, to England, that he might 

 educate his son. In England he was very pop- 

 ular socially. Later, however, he returned to 

 Venice, where he died. His body was taken 

 to England and buried in Westminster Abbey. 

 As a Poet. From the time his first poem 

 appeared, in 1832, he wrote rapidly, revising 

 little. He seemed unable to revise his work, 

 and this probably kept him from attaining 

 the faultless form which distinguishes Tenny- 

 son's poetry. The form which he adopted, how- 

 ever, rugged as it is, fits far better the content 

 of his poems than would more smoothly-flowing 

 measures. And at times his lines have all 

 the swing desired by the most music-loving 

 reader, as for instance, these lines : 



Just for a handful of silver he left us, 

 Just for a riband to stick in his coat. 



To Browning the most fascinating of all 

 studies was the human mind, and he was able 

 to analyze it and to describe its experiences 

 as perhaps no other English poet except 

 Shakespeare has ever been able to do. His 

 genius was distinctly dramatic, and had he 

 lived in an age when the drama was the chief 

 form of literary expression, he might have done 

 his best work in that field. As it was, how- 

 ever, he brought the dramatic monologue to 

 a high point of perfection, such poems as My 



Last Duchess, Andrea del Sarto, The Bishop 

 Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's, Fra Lippo 

 Lippi and A Forgiveness showing him at his 

 best. The Ring and the Book, considered by 

 many critics his masterpiece, is a series of 

 monologues forming one great poem. Besides 

 the poems mentioned above, his best-known 

 works are the dramas, A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, 

 In a Balcony, Pippa Passes and Colombe's 

 Birthday; Saul, Rabbi Ben Ezra, and the poems 

 comprised in the collection called Men and 

 Women. Browning is for the most part dis- 

 tinctly not a children's poet, but such ringing 

 dramatic poems as An Incident of the French 

 Camp, How . They Brought the Good News 

 from Ghent to Aix and Herve Riel will appeal 

 to any boy who likes war and action. C.W.K. 



BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS, county seat, of 

 Cameron County, is the southernmost city of 

 the state. It is situated on the north bank of 

 the Rio Grande, opposite Matamoras, Mexico, 

 and- about thirty-five miles from the Gulf of 

 Mexico. Galveston is 372 miles northeast, 

 Corpus Christi 157 miles northeast and Laredo 

 234 miles northwest, up the river. The popula- 

 tion of Brownsville is more than fifty per cent 

 Mexican. In 1910 there were 10,517 inhabi- 

 tants; in 1914 there were 12,310. The area of 

 the town is nearly eight square miles. ' 



The value of exports and imports between 

 the United States and Mexico, handled by the 

 United States customhouse at Brownsville, ex- 

 ceeds $2,150,000 annually. The city is the 

 market for a large, developing agricultural and 

 cattle country. The important products are 

 stock, garden vegetables, corn, cotton, fruits 

 and sugar cane. A large sugar mill and oil 

 mills are the chief commercial establishments. 



The prominent buildings of the town are the 

 United States customhouse; a Federal building 

 costing $50,000, erected in 1889; Cameron 

 County courthouse, costing $250,000; two large 

 bank buildings, a hospital, library and the 

 Roman Catholic cathedral. Brownsville is the 

 seat of a Roman Catholic college and convent. 

 On Point Isabel, on the coast, is a government 

 wireless station. 



As a border town Brownsville has been the 

 scene of a number of minor battles. A Mexican 

 settlement occupied the site before the Mex- 

 ican War. It was at that time fortified by 

 General Zachary Taylor. Major Brown, whose 

 name was later given to the town, was put in 

 command of the fort and lost his life in its 

 defense. The Battle of Resaca de la Palma 

 was fought near here in 1846. In 1859 the 



