1. By the summer of 1838 Elizabeth’s health had become so poor that her physician, William Frederick Chambers, fearing that she might fall ill with consumption, recommended her to move to a sunnier climate. Torquay was the suggested destination, and at the end of August she went by ship from London to Plymouth, and from there by packet boat to Torquay. She later wrote: ‘The worst – what people call the worst – was apprehended for me at that time.’ This is the background to ‘A sabbath morning at sea’, as she describes dawn breaking on her first Sunday at sea. The poem was published that autumn in Thomas Kibble’s The Amaranth.

1. Greek poet (c.308–c.240 BC) of bucolic idylls from Syracuse, Sicily.

1. Both Elizabeth and Robert kept their wonderfully learned and witty letters, which were auctioned along with the contents of Casa Guidi after Pen Browning’s death.

1. Muslims.

2. Non-Muslims – a term of contempt used by Turks.

3. The Cyclops and cannibal from the Odyssey, IX.