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 have stated in my first Preface,
had not the fact appeared to me self-evident, that I owe to Mr.
Browning's kindness all the additional matter which my own reading could
not supply: such as the index to the Greek names in "Aristophanes'
Apology," and the Persian in "Ferishtah's Fancies;" the notes to
"Transcendentalism," and "Pietro of Abano;" and that he has allowed me
to study in the original documents the story of "The Ring and the Book."
The two signed notes by which he has enriched the present edition have
grown out of recent circumstances.