4302. RB to William Michael Rossetti
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 324–325.
Rome, 43 Bocca di Leone.
31 December 1858.
My dear William Rossetti,
(If you will let me write that)—you must have thought hardly of me unless admonished that the Roman post-office is no better than ever, and that a letter directed to Florence waits there—and when redirected to Rome, as in this case, waits there; and when finally arrived at R.B.’s, alas, waits there longer than it should! Yours was too kind a letter, however, to want a guarantee of gratitude in words at all—much less prompt words. So I say slowly now—thank you most sincerely for the attention to the engraving which you promise: [1] I shall be quite careless and happy about it now, and so will my wife. In the other matter, the “Exposition” of Sordello you had a thought of making [2] —how can I be other than honoured and gratified in every way by such a thought, and benefited by such an act if it arrives so far? In that case, use what you will, do what you will—of course with exactly the same freedom and assurance of not being misunderstood as if I were up to my ears in the moss of the pleasant plot here hard by Caius Cestius’ pyramid. [3] Your quotations will not interfere with my own additions because they are purely additions, accretions, innestations, merely explanatory—I change nothing, but interpolate; and those who don’t want more than they have already will be able to stick to that and welcome. [4] It’s an odd thing that I have heard of more than one commentary on the poem—Mrs. Carlyle told me all about a young actress, some five or six years since, who had written such a thing. [5] I shall be greatly interested to read yours, you know.
All love to your brother. We hope to see you and get plenty of you ere very long. Munro will have mentioned us to you: he was made to give up his utmost news of you both, and Woolner, and Holman Hunt, and Madox Brown and the rest. Truest thanks once more from
Yours faithfully ever,
Robert Browning.
P.S.—I shall hardly be able to tell Morris what I think and rethink of his admirable poems, [6] the only new poems to my mind since there’s no telling when. I am indeed glad to hear that Gabriel will soon publish those translations: [7] I never saw one of them, less thanks to him.
Text: William Michael Rossetti, Ruskin: Rossetti: Preraphaelitism; Papers 1854 to 1862 (London, 1899), pp. 218–220.
1. Of the Macaire photograph for the frontispiece of Aurora Leigh (4th ed., 1859).
2. In a 27 March 1860 letter to EBB, Rossetti admits “to my shame” that the project was never undertaken (ms at Wellesley).
3. The Pyramid of Cestius was built at the end of the first century B.C. as the tomb of Gaius Cestius, a Roman magistrate. Over 100 feet high and just under 100 feet square, it was constructed of concrete and brick with a marble facing. It stands just outside the walls of the English Cemetery.
4. RB’s slightly revised version of Sordello (1840) was published in The Poetical Works (1863). He had originally planned “to revise thoroughly and do justice to … ‘Sordello’” (letter 3618) but in the end settled for the kinds of changes he notes here.
5. The young actress was probably Sarah Anderton (1827–69). In a January 1853 letter, Jane Carlyle wrote that she had met her in the summer of 1852 and was amused by “her gaiety and humorous and dramatic views of life,” adding: “The little Actress is also a Writer[.] I have a ms of hers at present in my keeping which tho full of faults gives promise of great things in the Novel-way” (Carlyle, 28, 21–22). We have been unable to trace the “commentary” that RB mentions.
6. The Defence of Guenevere, and Other Poems (see letter 4152, note 5).
7. The Early Italian Poets (1861).
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