3384. Bryan Waller Procter to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 179–182.
32 Weymouth Street, Portland Place, London.
April 13. 1854
My dear Browning,
Your letter reached me yesterday morning. I need not tell you how glad I was to get it. Apart from the verses &c, it was something to see your writing & to hear that you would soon come to Old England again.
I knew that you would send me the verses, [1] —if you had any by you to send. I even thought that you would be pleased at my coming to you for help. It is all right that it should be so. I should have been pleased at your coming to me, for such a contribution, in such a case.
I am sorry to tell you that the verses will be acceptable—as soon as you can contrive to send them. You can either send them through Kenyon, or to me direct, which ever best suits your convenience. Kiss Mrs Browning’s hand, & thank her, in my name, for her gift.
I sent Kenyon some rhymes [2] for Miss Barrett, several days ago. I am afraid that they are not good for much—but I had only one other piece of verse complete—& time pressed—& cough & a cold,—and so &c &c—you will understand that I was obliged to put her off with something less good than I could have wished. But she must ask me again & I will try to recover myself.
The weather is very clear here– We have floods one side of the Street, & the wind (an Easterly) sweeps the other—& between both every body contrives to catch a cold. I have been coughing, night & day, during the whole of this week.
By all means get me some verses from Mrs Kemble, if you can. [3] Give my love to her, & thank her for them beforehand. It is a pleasure to hear that she is well,—to hear of her in fact at all.
How I should like to have one holiday with you before I die—but I never shall—to see Florence & your Italian hills, & the pictures & statues—& all that I have never seen, & shall never see. My dear Browning, I have discovered that I get stiff in the knees—that my hair is thinner than it used to be—that it is something like what the Prince of Denmark calls ‘sable-silvered.’ [4] Moreover, I am a little pursy, as Hamlet was. [5] Slower of speech (I was never quick)—a little (or rather not a little) oblivious– In short, I see, better than I used to do, that there is an end to ever[y]body’s journey—however rough or dusty the road may be.
And now for news!– Alack, Sir,—“Stories, God bless you, I have none to tell Sir.’[’] [6] —Kenyon indeed has purchased a house at Cowes, Isle of Wight [7] —whither he is now gone—or going. I think that he will find it a long way there—that it will be sufficiently dull—& that he will give it up. I had rather that he had kept the Wimbledon Cottage,—which he has let.
Tennyson is gone to live somewhere in the Isle of Wight, [8] also—& James White, whose merry face used to shine out on London in the early summer time—has not left the Island since you were in London. [9]
I see, by yesterday’s paper, that there is to be a meeting on the 29th to consider as to a Memorial for poor Talfourd. [10] I am afraid we are getting too fond of these things. He was a kind excellent man, & his memory should & will be cherished by those who knew him. But these posthumous shows are—to me—unpleasant. If the matter proceed, I shall contribute my ‘mite’ as subscribers say, but I shall not attend the meeting.
I have not seen Forster since last August—except once when I called on him & sate (or rather stood) for ten minutes. He was then busy. He is an odd man—kind but odd.
—I & my wife dined at Kenyon’s on Monday last, meeting Sir C & Lady Fellowes, Brockedon & Ux. [11] —Mrs Baynes—Boxall—& Murray. [12] — I told you about poor Mrs Crowe, in my last letter. You will be glad to hear that she is now well. She called on my wife & told her that she had had “a fever–” My wife who had heard that her last appearance in public, was in the Streets of Edinburgh, without a scrap of clothing, was reasonably a little alarmed at the vision. All went off quietly, however & the authoress of Susan Hopley [13] talked in her usual manner,—except that she avoided the subject of table-turning,—which indeed seems gone out of fashion here.
I hope that you have been writing plenty of Lyrics—& that you have been collecting Health also, & enjoying yourself (you & all yours) every day & all day long.
We are all tolerably well here, (except your humble admirer, B.C.) but all looking for some terrific News, from the Black Sea or the Baltic. [14] That Emperor of Russia!—but what can one expect from——Kings! I wonder that they dont forget that they are men. [‘]‘Kings would be Gods, if Beggars could not kill them,” saith Cyril Tourneur. [15] We will wait & see what sort of sickness will put a stop to the doings of the Emperor Nicholas. With kind regards to Mrs B. I am always your sincere
B. W. Procter
Address: Robert Browning Esqre / 43 Via Bocca di Leone / Rome.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Brown University.
3. There are no contributions from Mrs. Kemble in The Keepsake for the years 1855–57.
4. It is Horatio who uses this expression to describe the beard of Hamlet’s father’s ghost; see Hamlet, I, 2, 241.
5. Hamlet, III, 4, 153.
6. Cf. George Canning (1770–1827), “The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder” (1797), line 21.
8. In November 1853, the Tennysons took a lease (“with an option to purchase”) on Farringford, “a late Georgian house of moderate size … surrounded by a small park” with “a farm of two or three hundred acres attached to it,” situated at the western end of the Isle of Wight, near Freshwater (Charles Tennyson, Tennyson, 1949, pp. 276 and 277).
9. James White (1803–62), former vicar of Loxley, Warwickshire, had “resigned his living in 1839 and retired to the Isle of Wight to write” (ODNB). Some of his plays were performed on the London stage from 1845 to 1847, including The King of the Commons (see letter 2491, note 2).
10. The meeting was announced in several newspapers, including The Daily News of 11 April 1854. It was “to be held in London on Saturday, the 29th inst, for the purpose of considering what will be the best method of carrying into effect a desire universally entertained by the friends of Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, that a suitable memorial shall be erected in honour of the late lamented judge” (p. 5). A memorial bust of Talfourd, commissioned by members of the Oxford Circuit, which he had joined in 1821, was unveiled and displayed at the Shire Hall Crown Courtroom in Stafford in 1855.
11. i.e., “uxor” or “wife.” William Brockedon (1787–1854), painter and geographer, “married Anna Maria, widow of Captain Farwell of Totnes, on 8 May 1839” (ODNB). Sir Charles Fellows (see letter 3303, note 3) had married in 1848, as his second wife, Harriet (née Eames, d. 1874, aged 65), widow of William Knight, of Oaklands, Hertfordshire.
12. Murray presumably refers to John Murray (1808–92), the publisher. Alicia Bayne (née Pryme, 1814–83) resided at 40 York Terrace, Regent’s Park, where Kenyon lived prior to moving to 39 Devonshire Place. William Boxall (1800–79), portrait painter and museum director, later assisted RB when Landor’s paintings were being sent to England from Italy.
13. The Adventures of Susan Hopley; or; Circumstantial Evidence (1841).
14. England and France had declared war on Russia on 28 March 1854, a month after delivering a joint ultimatum that the Czar ignored. On 12 April a British fleet under the command of Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Napier had entered the Baltic Sea with orders to blockade Russian ports (see The Times of 12 April 1854, p. 7, and 21 April 1854, p. 8). Meanwhile, the combined fleets of France and England had been patrolling the Black Sea since early January, and French and English troops had recently landed at Gallipoli.
15. Cf. The Revenger’s Tragedie (1607), II, 2, 94, originally attributed to Cyril Tourneur (d. 1626), now to Thomas Middleton (d. 1627).
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