DEAR MR. GROSART,

I have been asked the question you now address me with, and as duly
answered it, I can't remember how many times: there is no sort of
objection to one more assurance, or rather confession, on my part,
that I _did_ in my hasty youth presume to use the great and
venerated personality of WORDSWORTH as a sort of painter's model;
one from which this or the other particular feature may be selected
and turned to account: had I intended more, above all, such a
boldness as portraying the entire man, I should not have talked
about "handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon". These never
influenced the change of politics in the great poet; whose
defection, nevertheless, accompanied as it was by a regular face
about of his special party, was to my juvenile apprehension, and
even mature consideration, an event to deplore. But just as in the
tapestry on my wall I can recognise figures which have _struck out_
a fancy, on occasion, that though truly enough thus derived, yet
would be preposterous as a copy, so, though I dare not deny the
original of my little poem, I altogether refuse to have it
considered as the "very effigies" of such a moral and intellectual
superiority.

Faithfully yours,

ROBERT BROWNING.'

The Editor cannot close this Preface without expressing his sense of the
greatness of the trust confided to him, and the personal benefit it has
been to himself to have been brought so near to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH as he