of ROBERT BROWNING VOL. IX. BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTES TO THE POEMS New York 1894 COPYRIGHT, 1894, By MACMILLAN AND CO. Set up and electrotyped October, 1894. Reprinted November, 1894. Norwood Press: J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith. "From the Estate of 2-14-30 TO MRS. ARTHUR BRONSON. add TO WHOM but you, dear Friend, should I dedicate verses some few written, all of them supervised, in the comfort of your presence, and with yet another experience of the gracious hospitality now bestowed on me since so many a year, ing a charm even to my residences at Venice, and leaving me little regret for the surprise and delight at my visits to Asolo in bygone days? I unite, you will see, the disconnected poems by a titlename popularly ascribed to the inventiveness of the ancient secretary of Queen Cornaro whose palace-tower still overlooks us: Asolare" to disport in the open air, amuse oneself at random." The objection that such a word nowhere occurs in the works of the Cardinal is hardly important Bembo was too thorough a purist to conserve in print a term which in talk he might possibly toy with: but the word is more likely derived from a Spanish source. I use it for V |