2137. RB to William Cox Bennett

An amended version of the text that appeared in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 11, 240.

New Cross, Hatcham

Surrey.

Dec 13. 45.

My dear Sir,

I can have no hesitation whatever in saying that I believe any public body of whatever pretentions may feel a just pride and satisfaction in counting among its officers a person of the very considerable intellectual attainments of which there is ample evidence in the two volumes of Poetry you did me the pleasure of presenting me with. [1]

Pray excuse the delay in sending this—which is attributable to a mis-direction of the letter I only received last night—to “Peckham” for Hatcham—and believe me,

Yours very faithfully,

R Browning.

Address: W. C. Bennett Esqre, / White Bear Inn / Piccadilly, / Manchester.

Publication: BC, 11, 240 (in part).

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. RB is probably thanking Bennett for My Sonnets (Greenwich, 1843) and Songs, Ballads, &c. (Greenwich, 1845), both of which were privately printed. For an account of Bennett’s relationship with the Brownings, see Browning Newsletter (no. 9, Fall 1972, pp. 9–16).

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