MODERN ENGLISH WRITERS. Crown 8vo, 2/6 each. READY. MATTHEW ARNOLD . . . . . . . Professor SAINTSBURY. R.L. STEVENSON . . . . . . . L. COPE CORNFORD. JOHN RUSKIN . . . . . . . . Mrs MEYNELL. ALFRED TENNYSON . . . . . . ANDREW LANG. THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY . . . . EDWARD CLODD. W.M. THACKERAY . . . . . . CHARLES WHIBLEY. ROBERT BROWNING . . . . . . C.H. HERFORD. IN PREPARATION GEORGE ELIOT . . . . . . . A.T. QUILLER-COUCH. J.A. FROUDE . . . . . . . JOHN OLIVER HOBBES. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON. ROBERT BROWNING BY C.H. HERFORD PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MCMV TO THE REV. F.E. MILLSON. DEAR OLD FRIEND, A generation has passed since the day when, in your study at Brackenbed Grange, your reading of "Ben Ezra," the tones of which still vibrate in my memory, first introduced me to the poetry of Robert Browning. He was then just entering upon his wider fame. You had for years been one not merely of the few who recognised him, but of those, yet fewer, who proclaimed him. The standpoint of the following pages is not, I think, very remote from your own; conversations with you have, in any case, done something to define it. You see, then, that your share of responsibility for them is, on all counts, considerable, and you must not refuse to allow me to associate them with a name which the old Rabbi's great heartening cry: "Strive, and hold cheap the strain, Learn, nor account the pang, Dare, never grudge the throe," summons spontaneously to many other lips than mine. To some it is brought yet closer by his calm retrospect through sorrow. ei dê theion ho nous pros ton anthrôpon, kai ho kata touton bios theios pros ton anthrôpinon bion--ARIST., _Eth. N_. x. 8. "Nè creator nè creatura mai," Cominciò ei, "figliuol, fu senza amore." --DANTE, _Purg_. xvii. 91. PREFACE.