572. RB to William Charles Macready
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 252.
[London]
Wednesday Night. [28 June 1837] [1]
My dear Macready,
Thank you heartily and altogether for “The Bridal”—for having faith in Fletcher, for constructing this admirable play, for setting Knowles to ‘complot’ like another Fletcher “and then rise up—a King,” [2] for being Melantius at night, and for remaining Macready in the morning as the copy and note just received sufficiently testify. One point only in the gift is unsatisfactory & you must render it much more valuable before I can rank it with the rest of the benefits above mentioned—in a word, the title or fly-leaf wants an autograph—“remember this!” when I call on you with the book in my pocket: till then, and ever after, I am, dear Macready,
very faithfully yours,
Robert Browning.
Make me still more thankful by conveying to Mrs Macready and to your Sister my warmest regards and wishes for their health: never forgetting William and my other good friends.
—You hardly appreciate “The Engraving”– I take it to be a fine subject from Jewish History: “Simon’s wife’s mother,” that “lay sick of a fever,” imploring, in a lucid interval, Simon Peter himself—not to cut off his own ear in his remorse at having chopped off that of Malchus the High-Priest[’]s servant: the palm-like pillars suggest the locality—the Gate Beautiful; while in the back-ground “Moses’ (of Monmouth St) seat” is in curious perspective.
Publication: BC, 3, 252 (in part, as [ca. 26 June 1837]).
Manuscript: Onondaga County Public Library.
1. Dated by the reference to The Bridal, Macready’s adaptation of Fletcher’s The Maid’s Tragedy, to which Sheridan Knowles contributed three scenes. Played in Dublin in 1834, it was first performed in London on 26 June 1837, with Macready as Melantius. The following Wednesday was the 28th.
2. Act I, scene 2 of The Bridal, slightly misquoted.
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