OF-

ROBERT BROWNING.

Edited, with Notes,

BY

WILLIAM J. ROLFE, LITT. D.,

AND

HELOISE E. HERSEY.

ΕΧΟΝΤΕΣ ΔΙ

NEW YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

FRANKLIN SQUARE.

1894.

HARVARD

COLLEGE

LIBRARY

ENGLISH

Illustrated.

CLASSICS.

EDITED BY WM. J. ROLFE, LITT. D.

16mo, Cloth, 56 cents per volume; Paper, 40 cents per volume.

GOLDSMITH'S SELECT POEMS.
GRAY'S SELECT POEMS.

MINOR POEMS OF JOHN MILTON.

Richard III.
Henry VIII.
King Lear.

The Taming of the Shrew.
All's Well that Ends Well.
Coriolanus.

The Comedy of Errors.
Cymbeline.

Antony and Cleopatra.

Measure for Measure.

Merry Wives of Windsor.
Love's Labour 's Lost.
Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Timon of Athens.

Troilus and Cressida.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre.

The Two Noble Kinsmen.

Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, etc.
Sonnets.

Titus Andronicus.

BROWNING'S SELECT POEMS.

BROWNING'S SELECT DRAMAS.

MACAULAY'S LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME

WORDSWORTH'S SELECT POEMS.

PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.

The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or they will be sent by
HARPER & BROTHERS to any address on receipt of price as quoted. If
ordered sent by mail, 10 per cent. should be added to the price to cover cost
of postage.

Copyright, 1886, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

PREFACE.

THE publishers have desired that this book should be included in the series of "English Classics" edited by me, and that my name should be put first on the title-page; but I may say here in the preface that the better part-in every sense-of the work has been done by Miss Hersey, who knows tenfold more about Browning than I do. She originated the plan, selected the poems, prepared the Introduction, and wrote more than half of the notes. I have carefully collated the earlier and later texts of the poems (see especially the various readings of The Lost Leader, Childe Roland, and Pippa Passes, none of which appear in their later form in the American editions), and have revised and filled out the Notes.

We have worked together in putting the results of our individual labors in shape for the press; and we venture to hope that the book is the better for having two editors instead of one. We are more confident of the excellence of choice and arrangement in the text than of the wisdom and completeness of the annotations. In the latter, however, we trust that at least we have not merited the scathing reminder of Browning's own lines in Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha:

"So we o'ershroud stars and roses,

Cherub and trophy and garland;

Nothings grow something which quietly closes

Heaven's earnest eye: not a glimpse of the far land

Gets through our comments and glozes."

CAMBRIDGE, July 28, 1886.

W. J. R.