in Browning's poetry, and lead up to the dominant idea of Christianity,
the idea of a Divine Personality; the idea that the soul,
to use an expression from his earliest poem, `Pauline',
must "rest beneath some better essence than itself in weakness".

The notes to the poems will be found, I trust, to cover all points
and features of the text which require explanation and elucidation.
I have not, at any rate, wittingly passed by any real difficulties.
Whether my explanations and interpretations will in all cases
be acceptable, remains to be seen.

Hiram Corson.

Cascadilla Cottage, Ithaca, N.Y.
September, 1886.




Note to the Second Edition.



In this edition, several errors of the first have been corrected.
For the notes on "fifty-part canon", p. 156, and "a certain precious
little tablet", p. 232, I am indebted to Mr. Browning.

H. C.