3312. RB to Frances Anne Kemble
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 47–48.
[Rome]
[1854] [1]
My dear Mrs Kemble,
Mr Duppa, [2] who will give you this, is a friend of Lady Byron: she writes to him that she has mentioned to you, some time ago, her desire that he might be fortunate enough to make your acquaintance, and that you had replied that you were unable to find him. So I greatly sympathise with him in this mischance, and try to remedy it by the line you read. After Lady Byron’s commendation you may well dispense with mine, or it should not be wanting. <***> [3]
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Date based on RB’s frequent contacts with Fanny Kemble during the Brownings’ residence in Rome between November 1853 and May 1854, particularly after December 1853.
2. Baldwin Francis Duppa (1828–73), eldest son of Baldwin Francis Duppa and his wife Catharine (née Durrell). He and his sister were at Bagni di Lucca in August 1853, residing on the lower floor of Casa Lena, below the Storys. The Duppas accompanied the Storys and Brownings to Prato Fiorito (see SD1683 in vol. 19). Duppa may have known Lady Byron through his father. According to the ODNB, he was an “agent in England for the Swiss educationist P.E. von Fellenberg, whose estate schools at Hofwyl in Switzerland had attracted the attention of many observers, including Lord Brougham and Lady Byron.” Duppa is listed in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-3) at 151 Via del Corso.
3. The conclusion, with the signature, has been excised.
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