t even if
it justify itself to the mind of my readers, it can never be helpful or
attractive to their eye, which had the first right to be considered.
That I should have failed in a first attempt, however earnest, to meet
the difficulties of such a task, is so natural as to be almost beyond
regret, where my credit only is concerned; but I shall be very sorry if
this result of my inexperience detracts from any usefulness which the
Handbook might otherwise possess as a guide to Mr. Browning's works. I
note also, and with real vexation, some blunders of a more mechanical
kind, which I might have been expected to avoid.

I have been indebted for valuable advice to Mr. Furnivall; and for
fruitful suggestion to Mr. Nettleship, whose proposed scheme of
classification I have in some degree followed.

A. ORR.

_March 2nd, 1885._

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

In preparing the Handbook for its second edition, my first endeavour has
been to correct, as far as possible, the faults which I acknowledged in
my Preface to the first. But even before the time for doing so had
arrived, I had convinced myself that where construction or arrangement
was concerned, these faults could not be corrected: that I, at least,
could discover no more artistic method of compressing into a small
space, and to any practical purpose, an even relatively just view of Mr.
Browning's work. The altered page-headings will, where they occur,
soften away the harshness of the classification, while they remove a
distinct anomaly: the discussion of such a poem as "Pauline" under its
own title, such a one as "Aristophanes' Apology," under that of a group;
but even this slight improvement rather detracts from than increases
what little symmetry my scheme possessed. The other changes which, on my
own account, I have been able to make, include the re-writing of some
passages in which the needful condensation had unnecessarily mutilated
the author's sense; the completing of quotation references which through
an unforeseen accident had been printed off in an unfinished state; and
the addition of a few bibliographical facts. By Mr. Browning's desire, I
have corrected two mistakes: the misreading, on my part, of an
historical allusion in "The Statue and the Bust," and of a poetical
sentiment expressed in "Pictor Ignotus"--and, by the insertion of a word
or sentence in the notice of each, expanded or emphasized the meaning of
several of the minor poems. I should ha