POMEGRANATES FROM AN ENGLISH GARDEN: A SELECTION FROM THE POEMS OF ROBERT BROWNING. WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY JOHN MONRO GIBSON. “Or from Browning some ‘Pomegranate,’ which, if cut deep down the middle, Shows a heart within, blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.” _Lady Geraldine’s Courtship._ NEW YORK: CHAUTAUQUA PRESS, C. L. S. C. Department. 1885. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The required books of the C. L. S. C. are recommended by a Council of six. It must, however, be understood that recommendation does not involve an approval by the Council, or by any member of it, of every principle or doctrine contained in the book recommended. Copyright 1885, by PHILLIPS & HUNT, 805 Broadway, New York. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTRODUCTORY. The name of Robert Browning has been before the world now for fifty years. For the greater part of the time his work has had so little recognition, that one marvels at his courage in going so steadily on with it. His “Pomegranates” have been produced year after year, decade after decade, in unfailing abundance; and, while critics have kept paring at the rind, and the general public has not even asked if there was anything beneath it, he has laboured on with unremitting energy, calmly awaiting the time when “the heart within, blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity,” should be at length discovered. It can scarcely be said, even yet, that that time has come; but it is coming fast. Already he is something more than “the poet’s poet.” Few intelligent people now are content to know one of the master minds of the age simply as the author of “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” as if that were the only thing he had written worth reading!