[Venice—Monday, 8 October 1888]
Mr Browning said ‘I have just seen Ruskin.’ We embraced on both cheeks, in foreign fashion. He is very ill, but delighted with Venice and the restoration of the Ducal Palace. I told him he must see Palazzo Barbaro and your restoration of the XIV century Arcade (cited & drawn in Appendix to Stones of Venice)[.] He was at Bassano, and when he found the walls demolished, cried: and said he would not come to Venice. I wrote to urge him to come, but he never got my letter.
Browning said copies of ‘Pauline,’ an early poem he printed & paid for—issued at 3.6—now bring £25—‘and in my life time![’] (thrice). I told him of a lot of Bodoni’s superbly printed books, (Palatine Press, Parma) to be had here new—of wh. I got Gray, Thompson, Theophrastus & Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius. He said the Gray would be saleable in London, and wd go to see them. The Tacitus, in 4 vols, splendid.
