Correspondence

5331. Coventry Patmore to RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 17.

14, Percy Street, Bedford Square.

Tuesday [?9] [February 1864] [1]

My dear Mr Browning,

It will give me great pleasure if you will come and take your dinner—in a very primitive style—with me and James Spedding, [2] on Saturday at 6 o’clock.

Believe me,

Very truly your’s,

Coventry Patmore.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. Dating provided by reference to letter 5357, in which RB writes to the Storys: “You have Coventry Patmore in Rome … he asked me to dine with him one day, and found me engaged: a few days after, I heard of his starting for Rome.” Patmore departed for Rome about 15 February 1864. The preceding Tuesday was the 9th.

2. James Spedding (1808–81), literary editor and biographer, attended Trinity College, Cambridge, and was a member of “The Apostles” with Tennyson, Thackeray, Milnes, and others.

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