3515. RB to Alexander Gilchrist
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 65–66.
Florence,
Feb. 9th ’55.
Dear Sir, [1]
I well remember the occasion of my writing to Mr Etty, [2] & the feeling with which I wrote,—nothing more. I can readily believe, however, you have done me as little harm, by printing the note, [3] as good—except in the honor of associating my name, even in so slight a matter, with that admirable & loveable man’s.
Your book has only reached us partially as yet—by the extracts in reviews [4] —but these are of very pleasant promise.
Pray let me thank you very cordially for your kind expressions to myself, & assure you that I am,
Dear Sir,
Yours very sincerely,
Robert Browning.
Address: Angleterre viâ France. / Alexander Gilchrist Esq. / Guildford, / Surrey, / near London.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Alexander Gilchrist (1828–61), biographer, was the son of James Gilchrist and his wife Deborah (née Champion). His Life of William Etty was published mid-January 1855. The work by which he is best known, Life of William Blake (1863), was completed by his widow Anne (née Burrows, 1828–85), also a biographer, who sent a presentation copy to RB (see Reconstruction, A1035).
3. Gilchrist had published, without permission, RB’s letter in Life of William Etty (1855, II, 380), for which he wrote a letter of apology on 19 January 1855 (see List of Absent Letters, p. 399).
4. Several reviews had appeared by the time of this letter: The Athenæum, no. 1421, 20 January 1855, pp. 74–76; The Examiner, 27 January 1855, pp. 51–52; and The Literary Gazette, 27 January 1855, pp. 51–53.
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