657. EBB to John Kenyon

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 69–70.

[London]

Wednesday morng [?1] [August 1838] [1]

Arabel forgot to tell me dear Mr Kenyon, until late in the evening, that you wished to have the Athenian Captive. [2] I take the opportunity of returning to you the Magazine, you were so kind as to send, but with which we had already provided ourselves.

I have felt all the pleasure & honor of being praised by Professor Wilson & associated with Mr Milnes [3] ––& very much all the kindness of your being pleased in this pleasure of mine. Papa had looked thro’ Blackwood, & came home to be surprised with your discovery!——

Your affecte cousin

EBB

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. Dated by the reference to the article in Blackwood’s.

2. Talfourd’s play, sent to EBB with letter 637.

3. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for August 1838 contained a review of The Seraphim (XLIV, 279–284). John Wilson (1785–1854), the editor of Blackwood’s, was the author, using his pseudonym “Christopher North.” Earlier in the article, Wilson quotes from Monckton Milnes’s Poems of Many Years. (For the full text of his comments on The Seraphim, see pp. 379–382.)

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