3405. EBB to Robert Maxwell Hanna
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 203–204.
43. Via Bocca di Leone.
Friday. [?May] [1854] [1]
My dear Mr Hanna
Will you allow us to introduce to you Mrs Hamilton and her daughters [2] .. country-women of your own, [3] who will commend themselves to you, I think, for better & closer reasons still– Mrs Hamilton is much interested in the religious state of Italy, & whatever you can tell her about Tuscany in this relation will be listened to anxiously– If you can give her a convert as a cameriera, [4] by the way, you will do something very acceptable. She has asked me if I knew of such a person, and I could only refer her to you.
We were glad to get your note with Mrs Fotheringham [5] —whom we have not yet seen however, having attained simply to the exchanging of cards– Rome is very crowded, & not enchanting .. to me at least. I shall not drink of the fountain of Trevi when I go away– [6] Dear Florence keeps the first place with me still, & I wouldnt exchange our Florentine cypresses for the Roman stone pines, not with St Peters thrown in– Yet we have all been well here, thank God–
With my husbands cordial regards to you, believe me dear Mr Hanna
Most truly yours
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Address: Revd. R. Maxwell Hanna / Palazzo Bautte.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Dating suggested by the implication that Mrs. Hamilton will be leaving soon for Florence. Visitors to Rome usually remained in the city until sometime in May, after which the hot malarial weather deterred residence.
2. Maria Rosalie Hamilton had three unmarried daughters at this time: Julia (1825–85), Maria Rosalie (afterwards Sim, 1832–73), and Lydia Mary (afterwards Drake, 1835–1908).
3. Mrs. Hamilton was Danish. Her late husband Alexander Hamilton (see letter 3330, note 2) was born at Hildershurst, Ayrshire, Scotland, son of Patrick Kelso and his wife Mary. After Hamilton left the East India Company the family settled in Devon. EBB was under the impression that Hanna was from Scotland. Although he was educated there, he was from Ireland (see his obituary in The Christian Times, 4 January 1858, p. 2).
4. Maid.
5. Marion Scrymsoure Fothringham (née Scrymsoure or Scrymgeour, 1803–74) married James Scrymsoure-Fothringham (1784–1837), Scottish landowner, in 1826. She is listed in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-3) at 13 Via Condotti in Rome.
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