2102. Bryan Waller Procter to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 11, 179–180.
13 Upper Harley Street
Cavendish Square
1845 Nov. 19
My dear Browning–
Thanks for the book– Some of the poems are old acquaintances (& not the less imbued on that account)—others are new & welcome—[Saul &c]. [1]
I am very sorry that I have not seen you lately—but I am driven about, from post to post, like a hack horse. I have been all round our County of Cornwall [2] —within half a dozen miles of the Lands End—where they say Poetry is to be had for looking—and now I am home—but must start again in a day or two I believe—hoping however to fix myself for a week or two during the winter weather—when I will come & see you, if you will let me—or will receive you here when you like.
Kenyon has asked me to dine with him to meet you tomorrow—but I have already promised to dine with Thackeray at the Reform Club—& the day after—I fear—[I cannot tell however until this Evening—]—I must start off for Dorsetshire & Somerset–
—I have one Cover with the Queens head on it—& it looks as if Midnight Oil were on it also—but it is not– It is ‘Esprit de Lavande aux Millefleurs’—so excuse the blotch.
I am glad to see a very goodnatured Notice of you in last week’s Examiner. Have you seen Every man in his Humour. [3]
I have a bone to pick with you. I had just bound up Paracelsus & Sordello in one vol: & the dramas &c in another [i.e. the first 6] when lo! out comes No 7—with No 8 looming out on the edge of the distance
always very sincerely yours
B. W. Procter
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: University of Iowa.
1. The square brackets here and following are the author’s, not the editors. Procter is thanking RB for a copy of Dramatic Romances and Lyrics; we have been unable to trace the present whereabouts of this copy.
2. In 1845 Procter had been appointed as a legal Commissioner for the Metropolitan Commissioners of Lunacy. In this capacity he was required to travel throughout England, visiting and inspecting asylums, attending various meetings, and making reports (Richard Willard Armour, Barry Cornwall. Biography of Bryan Waller Procter, Boston, 1935).
3. As previously explained in letter 2092 (see note 2), RB attended the November 15th performance of Dickens’s amateur production, in which Forster took the role of Kitely. Forster’s review of RB’s Dramatic Romances and Lyrics appeared in The Examiner for 15 November; for the text, see pp. 361–363.
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