5024. RB to Mary Elizabeth Lyell
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 38.
1. Chichester Road,
Upper Westbourne Terrace.
Monday, Feb. 17. ’62.
Dear Mary Elizabeth Lyell, [1]
Most unluckily it happens that we go next Saturday to Paris for a few days—a week at most. If anything should delay our going, I shall venture to apprise you—so anxious am I to secure such an advantage for my Boy as the company of your nephews. [2] I was sorry indeed to miss Sir Charles [3] yesterday. Pray thank him for the favor of his call & take my own truest thanks for the good news about Annunziata [4] you give me–
Yours very faithfully,
Robert Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Source: Transcript in editors’ file.
1. Mary Elizabeth Lyell (née Horner, 1808–73); see letter 3033, note 2. She is listed in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-4) at 53 Harley Street.
2. Presumably the sons of Katherine Murray Lyell (née Horner, 1817–1915) and her husband, Col. Henry Lyell (1804–75), brother of Lady Lyell's husband: Leonard Armody (1850–1926), Francis Horner (1852–1934), and Arthur Henry (1853–1925). Col. Lyell is listed in AB-4 at 15 Queen’s Road West, Regent’s Park.
3. Charles Lyell (1797–1875), Scottish-born geologist, knighted in 1848 for his contributions to science.
4. Annunziata Lena (b. 1828), the Brownings’ former maid, was in the service of Lady Lyell’s mother, Anne Susanna Horner (née Lloyd, 1786–1862), who was in Florence for her health.
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