3263. Robert Bulwer Lytton to EBB & RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 273–275.
[Florence]
31 Août 53.
My dear Browning
Many many thanks for your kind letter. As for ‘that other’ [1] I know that he has a wisp in his horn—fœnum in cornu [2] —but I do not set the verdict of any number of men above that of my own conscience. I only saw him once or twice, he seemed chapfallen—a man with a mark on him—and his grey hair, and melancholy eyes, were pitiful[;] he must be his own castigator. I think it must all have been madness a fearful madness—‘quem deus vult perdere primum dementat’ [3] but to be sure that is to be said of all crime and holds no excu<se> in it. I dont give up heart a bit—its not there– I have had much grief & vexation of spirit lately—ce qui ne se dit pas [4] —but indeed I dont mean to whimper.
Well. My coll: has returned—and to day I expect the chef lux ille humani generis [5] —and I should have been with you before now but for an unexpected press of business in the Chancel[l]erie [6] —what with “Consuls and high Pontiffs” [7] et id genus omne [8] there has been enough of it. Yesterday—3 people arrested, as I hear, for having Bibles! On marche à grand pas [9] —As it is all in the way of the C[l]erk of Chatham–
“The Clerk of Chatham he can write & read.
O monstrous!
We caught setting boys copies. [10]
Hang him with his ink-horn about his neck” [11]
As for these poor devils it seems they may go hang with the Bible about their neck.
I hope to start for the Baths early next week, but will write you word, the exact day I am able to leave Florence, so soon as I shall know it myself. It will indeed be to me a great happiness to see you all again: I have nurst up the prospect for many weeks.
As for the comet [12] I hear that he last showed himself in the days of Francois premier, [13] and brought many disasters—that he is behind time, having been due, according to calculations made at that time, 3 years ago– I dou[b]t whether cholera at Denmark and the still probable chance of a Row in the East, [14] are among the things in the way of “pestilence & War’[’] shaken “from his horrid hair[.]” [15] Pray give my most kind love to the Stories[.] I hope now soon to see both them and you. I have been very remiss with the Kin[n]eys—only having seen them once since your departure but truth to say have been too bad company to go any where. I lent them your Easter Day & Xmas Eve and now the Cotterils [sic] have it. So that you see you leave us “gentle words and use your influence on the mind.” [16] Ever my dear Browning your devoted & faithful friend R∙B∙L.
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My dear Mrs Browning,
It is very kind of you to write to me, and I hope soon to be in casa to receive oral revelations from you. I dont disbelieve in Agrippa neither, but when before now was it ever known that upwards of 30,000 people conversed with spirits [17] —that’s where it lies. Roger Bacon may have known gunpowder, [18] but it was the use of it by armies that made an Era. I am only put out that my father dont think as I do—he having taken up the subject with vigour and given great attention to it. I have hardly had time to look at Swedenborg and therefore have no business to say one word about him—but I intend to read him carefully. I have been looking at Pr[o]udhon whom I knew nothing of before. It is certainly a striking style—but I dont get at what he is—he is neither Constitu[tio]nalist, Revolutionist, Communist, nor what I conceive to be Socialist, but only M. Pr[o]udhon. I have not room to say a word more but that I am your faithful and grateful friend.
R∙B∙L.
Address, on integral page: Franco distino / Monr Monsr Browning / Casa Tolommeo / Bagni Alla Villa / Bagni di Lucca.
Publication: BBIS-10, pp. 44–46.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. William John Bankes; see letter 3249, note 3.
2. “He carries hay on his horns” (cf. Horace, Satires, I, 4, 34, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough); that is, “to be ill-tempered or dangerous … from an ox apt to gore, whose horns were bound about with hay” (OED).
3. “Whom God would destroy He first makes mad.” The correct Latin should read: “Quos deus vult perdere prius dementat.” A Latin rendering of an ancient Greek passage of debatable authorship. Cf. James Duport (1606–79), Homeri Gnomologia (1660), p. 282.
4. “That which is not to be spoken.”
5. “He, the light of mankind.” Cf. John 1:4. The “chef” was Peter Campbell Scarlett; the “coll[eague],” Henry Philip Fenton.
6. French spelling of chancellery. Lytton refers to the legation.
7. Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Virginia,” (1842), line 129.
8. “And all that breed” (cf. Horace, Satires, I, 2, 2, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough).
9. “Things move rapidly.”
10. Cf. II Henry VI, IV, 2, 85–88.
11. Cf. II Henry VI, IV, 2, 110.
12. See letter 3249, note 2. Comet Klinkerfues is classified as a non-periodic comet.
13. Francis I (1494–1547), King of France (1515–47).
14. A reference to the increasing tension between Russia and Turkey that would lead to a declaration of war in October 1853. The “cholera at Denmark” had been in the news for over a month. The Times of 28 July 1853 carried the following report from its Danish correspondent in Copenhagen: “This town is just now visited by the cholera more awfully than ever before: the new cases every day exceed now 300, of which more than half are fatal. … Up to the present day there have been 2,461 taken ill, of whom 1,243 died” (p. 5).
15. Cf. Paradise Lost, II, 710–711.
16. Cf. Tennyson, “Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue” (1842), lines 11–12.
17. In Sights and Sounds (1853), Henry Spicer observed: “It is calculated that there are … not less than thirty thousand recognised media practising in various parts of the United States” (p. 4).
18. Roger Bacon (ca. 1214–ca. 1294), scientist and philosopher, was generally considered, through the nineteenth century, the European discoverer of gunpowder.
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