The Project Gutenberg eBook, An Introduction to the Study of Browning, by
Arthur Symons

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Title: An Introduction to the Study of Browning

Author: Arthur Symons

Release Date: January 25, 2006 [eBook #17608]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF
BROWNING***

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AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF BROWNING

by

ARTHUR SYMONS

New Edition Revised and Enlarged

First Edition, 1906. Reprinted, 1916
London, Paris and Toronto J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.
10-13 Bedford Street, W.C. 1916

_" ... Browning, a great poet, a very great poet indeed, as
the world will have to agree with us in thinking."_--LANDOR.

TO

GEORGE MEREDITH

NOVELIST AND POET

THIS LITTLE BOOK ON AN ILLUSTRIOUS CONTEMPORARY

IS WITH DEEP RESPECT AND ADMIRATION

INSCRIBED.

PREFACE

This _Introduction to the Study of Browning_, which is now reprinted in
a new form, revised throughout, and with everything relating to facts
carefully brought up to date, has been for many years out of print. I
wrote it as an act of homage to the poet whom I had worshipped from my
boyhood; I meant it to be, in almost his own words, used of Shelley,
some approach to "the signal service it was the dream of my boyhood to
render to his fame and memory."

It was sufficiently rewarded by three things: first, by the generous
praise of Walter Pater, in the _Guardian_, which led to the beginning of
my friendship with him; then, by a single sentence from George Meredith,
"You have done knightly service to a brave leader"; lastly, by a letter
from Browning himself, in which he said: "How can I manage even to
thank--much more praise--what, in its generosity of appreciation, makes
the poorest recognition 'come too near the praising of myself'?"

I repeat these things now, because they seem to justify me in dragging
back into sight a book written when I was very young, and, as I am only
too conscious, lacking in many of the quali