Among other early admirers were Landor, Leigh Hunt, Horne, Serjeant Talfourd, and Monckton-Milnes.

One man of even greater literary stature seems to have come into Browning's life about this time, a man for whom he never ceased to have the warmest affection and trust.
Browning was, indeed, one of the very few men of that period who got on perfectly with Thomas Carlyle.

It is precisely one of those little things which speak volumes for the honesty and unfathomable good humour of Browning, that Carlyle, who had a reckless contempt for most other poets of his day, had something amounting to a real attachment to him.

He would run over to Paris for the mere privilege of dining with him.

Browning, on the other hand, with characteristic impetuosity, passionately defended and justified Carlyle in all companies.