3653. Robert Browning, Sr. to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 306–307.
[Paris]
Friday– [12 October 1855] [1]
My dear Robert. I am very thankful to you for the trouble you have taken & am very sorry to think you have been diverted from attending to your own work by any attention to mine. I wish the work to be printed just as it is & as I think it may be useful to those who read the Bible—I would merely suggest the use of colouring the “Roundels” (as Speed calls them) [2] as a means of fixing the names in the memory. Besides I merely intend it as an Essay—which I should feel happy could I see others, better qualified, improve into a Quarto Volume– It has assisted me much in the work I have long been engaged in—a Clear Genealogy of the Bible. There are but 3 written on that subject in England (that ever I heard of) & not a single one in Paris— When the Books arrive, I am certain in a few weeks to be able to accomplish my plan to my own satisfaction—if not to anybody elses– There are several works common enough in England but not to be met with here which wod greatly assist me—but I despair of ever meeting with them here–
I thank you for the point of Illus. —but the instances so rarely occur—that no confusion cod happen if they were painted Red like the others—& as simplicity is my grand object—I do not wish to multiply references &c. What I should have done in Paris without some such occupation as this I do not know– I have yet 2 books to consult—but then you must know the exact edition &c or 10 to 1 they bring you (after waiting about an hour) the wrong one. But I hope with the assistance of Berry & Burrington [3] to complete my task to my satisfaction.
Yr affecte father
R Browning
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. This letter is a reply to letter 3652.
2. John Speed (1551/52–1629), historian and map maker, who in 1592 published The Genealogies Recorded in The Sacred Scriptures. It “probably formed the basis of those for which Speed was granted the privilege in 1610 to insert in every copy of the Authorized Version of the Bible for ten years” (ODNB). The Genealogies featured roundels, or circles, containing the names of descendants.
3. RB, Sr. refers to An Arrangement of the Genealogies in the Old Testament and Apocrypha (2 vols., 1836) by Gilbert Burrington (1753–1840) and to Genealogia Sacra; or Scripture Tables, Compiled from the Holy Bible (1819) by William Berry (1774–1851).
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