PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
The present edition of the Handbook includes a summary of Mr. Browning's "Parleyings," which from the contents of this volume, as well as from its recent appearance, finds its natural place in a Supplement.
I have added an Index to the six volumes of the "Works," which has been desired for greater facility of reference.
Various corrections and improvements of the nature indicated in the Preface to my second edition have been also made in the book.
A. ORR.
June 25th, 1887.
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
The deeply painful circumstances in which the Handbook re-appears have compelled me to defer the fulfilment of Mr. Browning's wish, that its quotation references should be adapted to the use of readers of his new edition. They also leave it the poorer by some interesting notes which he more than once promised me for my next reprint; I had never the heart to say to him: "Is it not safer to give them now?"