Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, 4 January 1846: 'I found Horne's book at home, and have had time to see that beautiful things are there -- I suppose "Delora" will stand alone still -- but I got pleasantly smothered with that odd shower of wood-spoils at the end, the dwarf-story [...] and there is good sailor-speech in the "Ben Capstan" [...] At one thing I wonder -- his not reprinting a quaint clever [italics]real[end italics] ballad, published before "Delora", on the "Merry Devil of Edmonton" -- the first of his works I ever read -- no, the very first piece was a single stanza, if I remember, in which was this line "When bason-crested Quixote, lean and bold," .. good, is it not?'