Note.

In all important respects I leave this volume to speak for itself. For obvious reasons it does not pretend to be more than a `Memoire pour servir’: in the nature of things, the definitive biography cannot appear for many years to come. None the less gratefully may I take the present opportunity to express my indebtedness to Mr. R. Barrett Browning, and to other relatives and intimate friends of Robert Browning, who have given me serviceable information, and otherwise rendered kindly aid. For some of the hitherto unpublished details my thanks are, in particular, due to Mrs. Fraser Corkran and Miss Alice Corkran, and to other old friends of the poet and his family, here, in Italy, and in America; though in one or two instances, I may add, I had them from Robert Browning himself. It is with pleasure that I further acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. Furnivall, for the loan of the advance-proofs of his privately-printed pamphlet on "Browning’s Ancestors"; and to the Browning Society’s Publications — particularly to Mrs. Sutherland Orr’s and Dr. Furnivall’s biographical and bibliographical contributions thereto; to Mr. Gosse’s biographical article in the `Century Magazine’ for 1881; to Mr. Ingram’s `Life of E. B. Browning’; and to the `Memoirs of Anna Jameson’, the `Italian Note-Books’ of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mr. G. S. Hillard’s `Six Months in Italy’ (1853), and the Lives and Correspondence of Macready, Miss Mitford, Leigh Hunt, and Walter Savage Landor. I regret that the imperative need of concision has prevented the insertion of many of the letters, anecdotes, and reminiscences, so generously placed at my disposal; but possibly I may have succeeded in educing from them some essential part of that light which they undoubtedly cast upon the personality and genius of the poet.