[The seal of the said Notary.]
THE SECONDARY SOURCE
OF
THE RING AND THE BOOK
A CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT PAMPHLET
"The following pages contain a MS. contemporaneous account of the execution of the principal actors in the tragedy which has been immortalised in the poem of the Ring and the Book.
"I am enabled by the kindness of my friend, Mr. Browning, to give it a place in these Miscellanies of the Philobiblion Society."
John Simeon.
(I shall not attempt to say with what a feeling I correct proof-sheets received on the day subsequent to that which brought the intelligence of the death of this great-hearted and noble-minded man, characteristically good and gracious to the very last.)
R. B., May 24, 1870.
The above words are the introduction by Sir John Simeon and the comment by the poet (Philobiblion Society Miscellanies, xii. 1868-9), on the reprint of the subsequent pamphlet in the original Italian.
It was found in London by one of Browning's acquaintances, who, knowing the poet's interest in the subject, sent it to him. Internal evidence indicates that it was probably written (but not published) some few years after the crime, and it is more popular in style than any part of The Book. The writer during the first half of his pamphlet follows closely the affidavit of Pompilia and the second anonymous pamphlet [[No. 15]] of The Book. He then adds much interesting information as to the murder and the pursuit, arrest, trial, and execution of the criminals. Browning uses almost every scrap of additional information it affords. He accepts its fact with the same fidelity he shows in using The Book, and uses it extensively and without discounting its value as compared with the official record. It is therefore treated as an essential portion of the present source-study. Its new matter will be indicated by italics in the following translation.