You must know how much I grieve at your illness--temporary as I will trust it to be--I feel all your goodness to me--or whatever in my books may be taken for me--well, I wish you knew how thoroughly I feel it--and how truly I am and shall ever be Yours affectionately, Robert Browning. From the time of the foundation of the New Shakspere Society, Mr. Browning was its president. In 1880 he became a member of the Wordsworth Society. Two interesting letters to Professor Knight, dated respectively 1880 and 1887, connect themselves with the working of the latter; and, in spite of their distance in time, may therefore be given together. The poem which formed the subject of the first was 'The Daisy';* the selection referred to in the second was that made in 1888 by Professor Knight for the Wordsworth Society, with the co-operation of Mr. Browning and other eminent literary men. * That beginning 'In youth from rock to rock, I went.' 19, Warwick Crescent, W.: July 9, '80. My dear Sir,--You pay me a compliment in caring for my opinion--but, such as it is, a very decided one it must be. On every account, your method of giving the original text, and subjoining in a note the variations, each with its proper date, is incontestably preferable to any other. It would be so, if the variations were even improvements--there would be pleasure as well as profit in seeing what was good grow visibly better. But--to confine ourselves to the single 'proof' you have sent me--in every case the change is sadly for the worse: I am quite troubled by such spoilings of passage after passage as I should have chuckled at had I chanced upon them in some copy pencil-marked with corrections by Jeffrey or Gifford: indeed, they are nearly as wretched as the touchings-up of the 'Siege of Corinth' by the latter. If ever diabolic agency was caught at tricks with 'apostolic' achievement (see page 9)--and 'apostolic', with no 'profanity' at all, I esteem these poems to be--surely you may bid it 'aroint' 'about and all about' these desecrated stanzas--each of which, however, thanks to your piety, we may hail, I trust, with a hearty Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain Nor be less dear to future men Than in old time! Believe me, my dear Sir, Yours very sincerely, Robert Browning. 19, Warwick Crescent, W.: March 23, '87.