3377. RB to John Forster
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 162–165.
Rome, Via Bocca di Leone 43.
April 2. ’54.
My dear Forster,
So, meaning me the great pleasure of a letter’s receipt, you have missed it; and I, the comfort of getting it—Mr Kenyon’s letter and all its enclosures having miscarried. I have tried the wretched post here and with the usual no-effect. The Postmaster is one Prince Massimo, the oldest Roman here, being just descended from Fabius the Delayer,—and his, or their, motto very happily surmounts the office-door, & tells you that “cunctando” [1] the old Rome was saved, and new one ought to be saved—tho’ the power celestial will have a word to say to that. It seems much longer than usual since I heard from you—six or seven months ago for certain. The winter is over now, and you must get well in time for my summer transit—for come I will if I can—and do all I would have done last time. A note from Chapman gave no bad account of you, however. How shocked I was,—how utterly sad & strange it must have been to you,—to receive the news of poor Talfourd’s death: [2] I thought him hale and lively when I saw him last. I shall try and write a word to his wife,—those old days, Forster—at your rooms—then the play,—then the projects! [3] What happened to me, think you, some six weeks ago? I was talking on the Pincian to an acquaintance, when a stranger touched my arm and said in French, “Is that you, Robert?” It was my old friend Monclar, [4] who, after an absence of seventeen years, had recognized my voice—(my back being turned). He seemed not much changed, after a time. I don’t think you ever saw him. Well—this has been a less fructuous visit to Rome for us than we had anticipated. We arrived one night, and the next morning were called in to the Storys’, who had meant to make Rome twice Rome to us,—to see their only boy of six years & a half die in convulsions. Their other child was in great danger for a while—then rallied, relapsed, and gave them sadness enough till they were forced to break up their establishment here and go to Naples—but at Velletri the first night’s stage thither the worst symptoms occurred and they were detained for a week—when I received a despairing letter saying all hope was over and I must go and be with them at the end. I set off in a few minutes, effected the journey in a few hours, and found things had taken a favorable turn. I sate up a night, and left them much lighter of heart next morning—since then the child’s state has improved steadily,—tho’ all is not safe yet, by any means. You know them, I remember, and may be interested in hearing all this. This sorrow of theirs took us into its shadow also. And then the weather was unfavorable to my wife’s power of enjoyment. Last, I have let myself be too much entangled with people’s calls, cardleavings, and kindnesses of all sorts—having not been without several engagements for each evening for many a week now. I don’t know whom, of new people, you would be interested in, however-new to me, that is,—but, perhaps, Lockhart—of whom I saw a good deal lately: what think you of his choosing to like me very much—being so unlike, as he said, “a damned literary man”! He, Mrs Sartoris, F. Kemble, and I had a picnic at Frascati last week—at Ostia the week before & at Valderano [5] the week before: he’s just gone [6] —in woeful case,—to England—with some friends, one of whom was seriously taking counsel as to what he should do if Lockhart died in the passage– [7] “Would there be any indelicacy in asking him, do you think?” I suggested that a similar question to Bob Acres, about the relative advantages of being pickled and sent home, or consigned to the snug lying of the Abbey, [8] had not been duly appreciated. Talking of “damned literary men,” Chapman’s account has come in,—I daresay you know the result—this half year we have sold 70 copies of the “Poems” [9] —and I have at last a balance in his hands—or better say, on his little finger tip—of seven pence! Chronicle that. I shall see if I can do any better with my new book, [10] which I have hopes in on other grounds (by “book” I mean a set of poems, of various show and substance, not one poem.) I have not seen many notices of what passes in England—but I did see, and was glad, that another edition of your Goldsmith was announced. [11] Won’t you write me the letter you ought to have given me and tell me all about yourself and a little about others? I heard of your writing to Lytton some time ago. Do you know,—you must—Miss Cushman? She will receive soon her admirable pictures—portraits of herself, a friend, [12] and the artist,—by William Page: they are so admirable, that I would have you see them,—about which there can be no difficulty; I never saw such modern art, certainly. I know the painter,—as noble a fellow as his works show him: do see them the moment they arrive. Our painters will say their little say against them, you may be sure, but he can bear it. And now you must take more thanks for having written to me,—more hopes that you will write again—a word at least ere I leave Rome, so that I may feel something of you before I see you, if that may be.
(April 5) This was delayed, thro’ interruptions of various sorts—and now you will get it by the long overland post. Goodbye, dear Forster—my wife’s truest regard accompanies mine. She is well, I think I have said, & the boy also.
Ever yours most affectionately
Robert Browning.
Address, on integral page: John Forster Esqre / 58 Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Publication: NL, pp. 72–76.
Manuscript: Victoria and Albert Museum.
1. “By delaying”; see letter 3367, note 6. In his Annals (12, 363), Quintus Ennius (239–169 B.C.) wrote of Fabius: “Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem” [“one man by delaying restored the state”] (The Annals of Q. Ennius, ed. Otto Skutsch, Oxford, 1985, p. 102).
2. Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795–1854) died suddenly on 13 March 1854, “struck by an apoplectic seizure as he was addressing the grand jury … from his judge’s seat at Stafford” (ODNB).
3. The “play” refers to the opening night of Talfourd’s Ion on 26 May 1836 with Macready in the title role. After the performance, Talfourd hosted a gala dinner attended by many of the legal and literary notables of the day, to which RB and Forster were invited (see vol. 3, p. 324). Doubtless one of the “projects” RB has in mind was his collaboration with Forster on the latter’s biography of the Earl of Strafford (see letter 2374, note 4). Other projects might include Forster’s strong support of Talfourd’s copyright bill in the pages of The Examiner and their work together, along with that of Procter, in preparing for publication the 1849 edition of RB’s Poems. Yet another project might have involved RB’s play, Strafford (1837), which Forster and Macready tried to improve for the stage, though this would probably not have represented a pleasant memory for RB (see James A. Davies, John Forster: A Literary Life, Leicester, 1983, pp. 135–136).
4. André Victor Amédée de Ripert-Monclar (1807–71).
5. Sic, for Vallerano.
6. Lockhart took a steamer on 29 March 1854 from Civitavecchia on his return journey to England (Andrew Lang, The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart, 1897, II, 385).
7. The friend seeking counsel was the 2nd Duke of Wellington (see the fifth to last paragraph in letter 3378). Among the other “friends” travelling with Lockhart were William Godolphin Osborne (1804–88), and his second wife, Caroline (née Montagu, 1815–67); see Lang, II, 386.
8. Cf. Sheridan, The Rivals (1775), V, 3, where Sir Lucius asks Bob Acres, who is facing the possibility of a duel, the following: “Would you chuse to be pickled and sent home?——or would it be the same to you to lie here in the Abbey?——I’m told there is very snug lying in the Abbey.”
9. Poems (1849).
10. Men and Women (1855).
11. Forster’s second edition of The Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith (1848) had just been released under the title The Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith. It was “enlarged to two volumes mainly through the inclusion of much source material and footnoted references” (Davies, p. 106). The work was advertised as “this day … published” in the 11, 18, and 25 March issues of The Athenæum.
12. Matilda Hays, as indicated by EBB in letter 3410. The portrait of Charlotte Cushman is now in the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. We have been unable to trace the whereabouts of the other two portraits mentioned.
___________________
