Dear Friend,--Let the next poem be introduced by your name, and so repay
all trouble it ever cost me. I wrote it twenty-five years ago for only a
few, counting even in these on somewhat more care about its subject than
they really had. My own faults of expression were many; but with care
for a man or book, such would be surmounted, and without it what avails
the faultlessness of either? I blame nobody, least of all myself, who
did my best then and since; for I lately gave time and pains to turn my
work into what the many might,--instead of what the few must,--like: but
after all, I imagined another thing at first, and therefore leave as I
find it. The historical decoration was purposely of no more importance
than a background requires; and my stress lay on the incidents in the
development of a soul: little else is worth study. I, at least, always
thought so--you, with many known and unknown to me, think so--others may
one day think so: and whether my attempt remain for them or not, I
trust, though away and past it, to continue ever yours, R. B.

London, June 9, 1863."


4. Preface to _Bells and Pomegranates_.--I. _Pippa Passes_ (1841).

"ADVERTISEMENT.

Two or three years ago I wrote a Play, about which the chief matter I
much care to recollect at present is, that a Pit-full of good-natured
people applauded it: ever since, I have been desirous of doing something
in the same way that should better reward their attention. What follows,
I mean for the first of a series of Dramatical Pieces, to come out at
intervals; and I amuse myself by fancying that the cheap mode in which
they appear, will for once help me to a sort of Pit-audience again. Of