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. | |
| INPREPARATION. | ||
| GEORGE ELIOT | A.T. QUILLER-COUCH. | |
| J.A. FROUDE | JOHN OLIVER HOBBES. | |
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
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 haspassed since the day when, in your study at BrackenbedGrange, your reading of "Ben Ezra," the tones of which still vibrate inmy memory, first introduced me to the poetry of Robert Browning. He wasthen just entering upon his wider fame. You had for years been one notmerely of the few who recognised him, but of those, yet fewer, whoproclaimed 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 ofresponsibility for them is, on all counts, considerable, and you mustnot refuse to allow me to associate them with a name which the oldRabbi's great heartening cry: "Strive, and hold cheap the strain, Learn,nor account the pang, Dare, never grudge the throe," summonsspontaneously to many other lips than mine. To some it is brought yetcloser by his calm retrospect through sorrow.
ει δη θειον ο νους προς τον ανθρωπον, και ο κατα τουτον βιος θειος προς τον ανθρωπινον βιον —ARIST., Eth. N. x. 8.
"Nè creator nè creatura mai,"
Cominciò ei, "figliuol, fu senza amore."
—DANTE,Purg. xvii. 91.
BROWNING is confessedly a difficult poet, and his difficulty is by nomean