1575. Bryan Waller Procter to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 266–267.
4 Grays Inn Square
March 21. 1844.
My dear Browning,
Your advents are like those of your friend Phœbus [1] —pleasant & sunny—but silent. I missed you by 3 minutes yesterday– I missed you before—I know not how often—but too often. The next time you mean to come shining into Grays Inn, send a trumpet beforehand.
And now to thank you for your kindness—or rather—if you will let me use the word—your friendship. I am a bad thanker—but I mean all that I say, when I say that it will give me great pleasure to have my name associated with you in any way––& I am not very sure that I could say as much—so far as poetry goes—to any one else, except Tennyson.* I accept therefore your kindness in the same Spirit as it is offered, & am very proud of the Alliance. [2] I hope that it will be more holy (& durable) than the one of Verona [3] —for that lasts only in seeming.
I am glad to hear your account of your play & I have no doubt about it. I am quite sure—& I have always (& to every body) said that—if you would give yourself fair-play you would be sure to do great things—& you will do better than you now have done (whatever it may be)– Avant! Onwards is the word. But you must show brain fever, & loneliness (the word is loneliness not loveliness)—& with health & the resolution to do—& to look at the thing fairly, I will back you against any of the Dramatists of the day, including the author of Gregory the 7th– [4] And some of these days, I mean to break a Cause with you (unless you will join forces)—& I dont care whether you beat me or no—for I have something of the poor Robin Hood nature in me– I am willing that my friends & allies shall be stronger than myself–
I stop. I am writing as if I had a fee at the back of the letter—& yet not so—for after all I never sell my soul for money– Pray believe me now & always
Your very sincere
B W Procter
*I put old Wordsworth out of the question. He is a fine poet in his way—but he is an old curmudgeon. Q. S [5] Curmudgeon? unde derive? [6]
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Huntington Library.
1. Otherwise Apollo, the sun god.
2. RB’s Colombe’s Birthday was dedicated to Barry Cornwall, Procter’s nom-de-plume.
3. Procter apparently refers to the Holy Alliance, concluded by Russia, Austria and Prussia after the fall of Napoleon; it pledged them “to take for their sole guide” the sublime truths of the Christian religion and to maintain “the precepts of Justice, Christian Charity and Peace.” However, it was the Powers of the Quadruple Alliance (Russia, Austria, Prussia and Great Britain), pledged to preserve the territorial settlement of 1815, that met at the Congress of Verona in 1822.
4. Horne’s play, published in 1840.
5. Q.S. (“quantum sufficit”): “to a sufficient extent; as much as suffices.”
6. “Whence does it derive?”
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