Correspondence

3901.    EBB & RB to John Greenleaf Whittier

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 106-107.

Oct. 20. ’56.

My dear Sir,

On returning to England this summer we found a book [1] of manly & beautiful verse, and our names (I speak for my wife in this letter) written, with a kind and gratifying word of sympathy from yourself, in the first page. We are just leaving England again, but you must take our hasty thanks as if they had been more worthily expressed: they are hearty and sincere, at all events—since acknowledging that you have thus numbered with your friends

Two, proud to be so numbered,

Elizabeth Barrett & Robert Browning.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. The Panorama, and Other Poems (Boston, 1856), inscribed by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92) on a slip of paper lightly hinged inside the cover: “To Robert & Elizth. Browning, with the love and admiration of John G. Whittier, Amesbury (Mass.) U.S. 3rd mo. 12, 1856.” This volume sold as lot 1209 in Browning Collections; see Reconstruction, A2460.

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