Correspondence

3268.  Robert Bulwer Lytton to RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 293–295.

Firenze

Sept 19 1853

My dear Browning,

I have been as busy as a shuttlecock ever since we sd ‘goodbye’. I hardly know where to begin with my adventures; it is “renovare dolores[.]” [1] First you must know that having galloped thro’ the Fra Botolomeos at Lucca [2] I was galloping back to the Station when whom, think you I shd meet but our friend Mr Irving, [3] who had just jumped out of a Railway Carriage with a letter in his pocket from Scarlett for the Gd Duke—or, rather, not from Scarlett but my Ld Normanby, [4] quoad Miss Cunningham asking, her liberation, I believe, as a personal favour. This however I shd tell you is a mighty secret wh I have no business to divulge. Pray, therefore, dont speak of it to any one, not even Mr Greene or the Stories; well, he asks me to wait to take back a letter from him to Scarlett, so back I go first to the Palace where we leave the letter, then to Mrs Cunningham, to try & find out the names of certain three tracts, [5] wh the young lady is charged with having given away; there we hear that Mr Gordon & the other Sister on Mr Tolommeo’s alarm have taken sudden flight to Leghorn and are to embark the same evg for Genoa. [6] Mrs Cunningham cannot certify the tracts but thinks Mr Gordon can; so back to Pisa where I have just time to drive to the Leghorn Station & jump into a carriage as the train is whistling off. Get to Leghorn & find that the stray covey of Proselyters is flown on board an English man of war—the Modeste (Ld W. Compton’s) [7] Consule Planco, [8] the Consul over the plank too. Row after them & find a sympathetic Lieutenant [9] cheering the lady with an acct of vast multitudes of pheasants shot by him in the Maremma, get the name of the tracts from Mr Gordon, and a ship’s boat from the Lieutenant & just in ye nick of time drop panting over a fat woman, garlic-exuding, in ye 2d Class, & so back to Florence, & in all haste to ye Legation where I find my Coll; [10] just fitting himself into his properest pantaloons to go to the Normanby’s, and find moreover that it was quite unnecessary for me to have gone to Leghorn, and that all the Restaurants are shut up: thence supperless & dinnerless & cross to bed.

The sister of the victim is by this time I hope safe at Genoa—both she & Mr Gordon seemed annoyed by the notion that Scarlett, had begged too much, and rightly said the ground they wished to see taken was one of principle, rather than personality, but I have seen all that has been written on the subject, and find that a higher tone has been taken than was supposed. Scarlett did not ask clemency but pressed the liberation of the lady on the Royal & Imbecil[e] Mind, as the most politic step wh cd be taken by ye Gd Duke, for his own interests, on the grounds that Public feeling wd be greatly irritated in Engd by what had happened. What the Dk is reported to have sd about the English in general is true. [11] The idea entertained at the Legation here is that our govt will withdraw the Eng. Mission from Tuscany, & suspend Dipc Relations with this country.

Pray give my best love to the Stories to whom I will write soon. I wish myself heartily back amongst you. You know I am sure all I feel; I hope so, for all words seem coarse. I have in my heart memories “which tho’ long time go by shall make it fragrant as their time befits[.]” [12] I am forced to pull up– Eleven O’Clock, and I must go to the Chancel[l]erie. [13]

Will you send me word the name &c of the House where I am to make enquiries for the Stories? [14] Ever your faithfullest & warmly affect. friend

R∙B∙L

P.S Scarlett told me that someone has, he understood, been writing from ye Bagni to <one> of <the> English Papers with reference to this affair of Miss Cunningham, and asked me if I knew who it was. [15] I said no. He then asked me if I thought you had done so, adding that it was most desirable the first information as to the matter shd reach ye govt thro’ the official medium of their Legation at Florence. I replied that I was sure you had not written, but that he cd not be surprised if any body had done so for the event had created great sensation at the Baths & ample time had elapsed for the transmission of news of it to Engd

I send you “a little Shell[ey]an bit [16] I made in ye train coming from Leghorn—an attempt to preserve in words, some impressions of Prato Fiorito.

Ever faity yrs

RBL

I am going to write to Mrs Browning—ben-presto[.] [17]

Address, on integral page: Franco distino / Robert Browning Esq / Casa Tolommeo / Bagni alla Villa / Bagni di Lucca.

Publication: BBIS-10, pp. 46–50.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. “Grief revived.” Cf. Vergil, Æneid, II, 3, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough.

2. Fra Bartolommeo (1473–1517), Florentine painter. Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Northern Italy (1852) identifies three of his paintings in Lucca: “A Virgin and Child,” in the cathedral; “Madonna della Misericordia”; and an altarpiece depicting “St. Mary Magdalene and St. Catherine of Sienna,” the latter two in the church of Romano (pp. 406 and 408).

3. Presumably James Irving (1792–1855), of Pisa.

4. Constantine Henry Phipps, 1st Marquis of Normanby (1797–1863), British ambassador to France (1846–52) had for many years made a second home in a villa outside Florence (see letter 2906, note 3). In 1854 he was appointed British minister to Tuscany.

5. In the “Decree of Accusation” issued by the Tribunal of First Instance at Lucca, a translation of which appeared in a dispatch from Peter Scarlett to Lord Clarendon, Miss Cuninghame was accused of distributing the following tracts: “Letter of Mr. Duval,” “Where are you going?” “A brief Treatise on the state of Man,” “A short Exposition and clear Examination of the Two Covenants,” “The Way of Salvation,” “The [True Cross],” “What a Saviour,” “The New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and “Conversation between Two Friends” (see British and Foreign State Papers. 1853–1854, vol. 44, 1865, pp. 580–582).

6. James Farquhar Gordon (afterwards Oswald, 1818–97), was the third son of James Farquhar Gordon, writer to Her Majesty’s Signet, of Balmuir, Scotland, and his wife Margaret (née Haldane). Following a brief military career, he married in 1844 Thomazine Crawford (d. 1881), eldest daughter of William Crawford, of Lakelands, co. Cork. Gordon was ordained a minister in the Anglican church in 1847 at Dublin. Scarlett sent a dispatch to Clarendon, on 17 September, informing him that “Miss Helen Cunninghame [sic] … and the Rev. Mr. Gordon, had been advised to quit Lucca without delay, lest anything might transpire to implicate them in the case now pending at Lucca” (British and Foreign State Papers, p. 541).

7. William Compton (1818–97), 4th Marquess of Northampton, commander of the H.M.S. Modeste, a sloop-of-war in the Mediterranean Squadron (see The Navy List of 1853).

8. Cf. Horace, Odes, III, xiv, 28.

9. According to The Navy List of 1853, there were two Lieutenants serving aboard the Modeste: Stapleton John Greville (1826–1903) and Richard Dawkins (1828–96), both of whom later retired as rear-admirals.

10. Henry Fenton; see letter 3243, note 2.

11. After learning of Margaret Cuninghame’s arrest (see letter 3266, note 19), Scarlett travelled to Lucca for an audience with Grand Duke Leopold II, who had recently removed there with his family from Bagni di Lucca. In a dispatch to Clarendon, dated 17 September 1853, Scarlett reported on his conversation with the Grand Duke: “I began by stating to His Imperial and Royal Highness that the object of my visit to Lucca was not to justify Miss Cunninghame [sic] if she had really violated the laws, but to implore him, for the sake of religious tranquillity, to avoid a public scandal throughout Europe, by interposing his Royal authority to prevent further proceedings against her, and liberating her under the condition of her immediate departure from Tuscany. His Imperial and Royal Highness interrupted me, complaining of the conduct of the English who came to reside in his dominions; and emphatically observed, that their interference with the religion of the country was systematically carried on, and that it was time to arrest such unlawful practices. ‘Let the English,’ said His Imperial and Royal Highness, ‘who are not in the habit of breaking their own laws at home, learn to respect our laws; and I recommend you to inculcate this on them; they will then not be molested’” (British and Foreign State Papers, pp. 534–535). In a 21 September letter Scarlett advised the Grand Duke to consider the effect the news “of these circumstances” would have in England (p. 546).

12. Cf. Paracelsus, I, 2–6.

13. French spelling of chancellery.

14. The Storys were planning a stay in Florence before returning to Rome.

15. We have been unable to identify the correspondent in question. However, a letter on the subject from Bagni di Lucca, dated 13 September, appeared in The Morning Post of 20 September. The writer of the letter, signing himself “an Englishman,” took Miss Cuninghame to task for “her excessive folly in offending the religious feelings of a nation whose hospitality has been extended to her” (p. 4).

16. Evidently a poem; we have been unable to trace it.

17. “Quite soon.”

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