THE words ‘cousin’ and ‘friend’ are constantly recurring in this poem,
the last pages of which have been finished under the hospitality of
your roof, my own dearest cousin and friend;—cousin and friend, in a
sense of less equality and greater disinterestedness than ‘Romney’’s.
Ending, therefore, and preparing once more to quit England, I venture
to leave in your hands this book, the most mature of my works, and the
one into which my highest convictions upon Life and Art have entered:
that as, through my various efforts in literature and steps in life,
you have believed in me, borne with me, and been generous to me, far
beyond the common uses of mere relationship or sympathy of mind, so you
may kindly accept, in sight of the public, this poor sign of esteem,
gratitude, and affection, from
your unforgetting
E. B. B.
39, DEVONSHIRE PLACE,
_October_ 17, 1856.