in Italy,' and 'Italy and the World,' in which a true and noble enthusiasm is expressed in living and burning words, worthy of a poet.
For attacks on her Italian politics Mrs.Browning was prepared, as the foregoing letters show; but one incident caused her real and quite unexpected annoyance.

The reviewer in the 'Athenaeum' (apparently Mr.
Chorley) by some unaccountable oversight took the 'Curse for a Nation' to apply to England, instead of being (as it obviously is) a denunciation of American slavery.

Consequently he referred to this poem in terms of strong censure, as improper and unpatriotic on the part of an English writer; and a protest from Mrs.Browning only elicited a somewhat grudging editorial note, in a tone which implied that the interpretation which the reviewer had put upon the poem was one which it would naturally bear.

One can hardly be surprised at the annoyance which this treatment caused to Mrs.Browning, though some of the phrases in which she speaks of it bear signs of the excitement which characterised so much of her thought in these years of mental strain and stress, and bodily weakness and decay.
* * * * * _To Mrs.Jameson_ (Fragment) [Early in 1860.] I remember well your kindness to it.

Nothing was said then about the 'fit arguments for poetry,' and I recovered from it to write 'Aurora Leigh,' of which, however, many people did say that it was built on an unfit argument, and besides was a very indecent, corrupting book (have I not heard of ladies of sixty, who had 'never felt themselves pure since reading it' ?) But now, consider.