Very Original Poem, written with even a greater endeavour than ordinary after intelligibility, and hitherto only published on the first leaf of the Author's Son's Account-book

First publ. George Monteiro, NQ n.s. xiii, 9 (1966), 340. There are three MSS, all at ABL: one with title as above, dated ‘London, March 8 ’64’, the day before Pen Browning’s fifteenth birthday (MS¹ ); ‘Economic Precept written more than twenty years ago in the first account-book possessed by my son’, dated ‘Aug. 10. ′84’ (MS² ); an untitled and undated version of the poem (Collections E484; MS³ ). Our text is MS¹ , on the grounds that it has the earliest date affixed to it, but we record all variants from the other versions.