3931. Bryan Waller Procter to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 142–145.
32 Weymouth Street
Portland Place, London.
[ca. 4 December 1856] [1]
Your amiable letter, my dear Mrs Browning, is what I expected to receive. It does justice to the character that I had formed of you, and also—if you will permit me to say so—to my own friendship. For I have had, for many years, a most sincere ‘friendship’ (pray understand that I weigh the word carefully) for your husband—& now, the husband & wife are One!– Apart from this Law fiction however I enter very gratefully into the kind Spirit of your Letter, and am proud to include you amongst my well wishers & those who permit me to call them my friends.
You have done rightly, my dear Mrs Browning, in adhering to your own well considered plan. I sent you, in a hurry,—in almost too headlong a manner—my first hasty impressions. [2] You received them I hope as such. I have now read the poem carefully through. I shall read it again, and I am capable, I assure you, of the great act of renouncing my opinions when I see cause for doing so. At present, although my objections are fainter than at first, I can scarcely say that I have abandoned them. Some words & phrases will always, I think, jar upon me—even when I shall have admitted that the integrity of the poem requires modern phraseology—which it perhaps does. For instance, there is a word it seems twice on p. 272 (& elsewhere) which is repulsive, & is surely without value. [3] Observe, I am decidedly for plain speaking—for out-speaking. There is a passage for instance in The Revenger’s Tragedy (by Cyril Tourneur) [4] which your husband knows—that I cannot quote to you—but which is wonderfully fine, after its fashion—& daring & thoroughly to the purpose. Now this is sealed & excluded from (so called) respectable readers. Its justification rests on its merit alone. If the word (in A L.) that jars upon me were of any peculiar value I would keep it at all hazards. At present, I think it serves to mar what is fine. —When from a Protestant I turn more Catholic I will make an unrestrained confession to you.
In the meantime, I will keep your Letter—which gains upon me even on re-reading. Few persons, even among poets, could write such a letter. You can afford to make grand concessions. If you do not make them, I am satisfied that you have reasons for declining. —The freshness & unabated energy of Aurora Leigh, are (I own to you) very striking. All good fortune go with it—& with you, & Robert,—& Penini.
Christmas Day.
I have been a long time in answering your kind letter; but—as an excuse—I must tell you that I have been confined, for three weeks & upwards, to the house—with severe cough & cold (bronchitis, I believe)—& during that time have been low & supine—scarcely able to write, or even read—except by snatches.
And since the date of your letter, my dear Mrs Browning, we have lost our dear old friend Kenyon! I know how you liked him. For myself, I had a true—a most unaffected regard for him. He had an open hand—a candid spirit—a most honorable & delicate mind. During the last 20 years—especially during the last 7 or 8—I have seen a great deal of him. I never knew a man who was so widely regretted. People who had seen him only once or twice have spoken of his kind & genial manner. All who knew him lament him. He was very wealthy, yet no one got about him, or attempted to exercise a selfish interest. Miss Bayley who nursed him for so many months, might have had anything I believe—yet she has comparatively a small (certainly a moderate) legacy. [5] He has been bountiful to me & to Southey [6] —& to Mr Hawthorne [7] his Executor, of whose excellent conduct on some trying occasions I have heard him speak, in terms of high eulogy. I think I once saw Mr H., but I do not otherwise know him.
The last time I saw our friend was in May last. He gave me a ring that he was in the habit of wearing—an affecting token—for he was then very ill. I & my wife were to have gone to Cowes, had his health allowed him to receive us—but it did not.
I take it for granted that you have been apprized of many of his bequests. I do not know of many, but I think it right to mention those. I hear it reported that there are Eighty Legatees—many having 100£ only. The following I believe are correct–
Mr Hawthorne (Executor) £20,000.
Mr & Mrs Browning — 10,500 [8]
Dr Southey — 8,000
B.W. Procter — 6,500
Mr Booth (Executor) — 5,000
Dr Panizzi has, I believe, £500 and the wine—Forster £500– Chorley £100– Mrs Jameson £100. [9] Mr Hawthorne & Mr Booth are residuary legatees.
He was anxious to remember all his friends, poor fellow, & employed almost his last days in conferring some benefit or other upon them. —Browning will know, I dare say, that the Executors have a year to pay the Legacies in. Do not accuse me of want of feeling, for entering into these details. I thought that they must interest you. Some of them were notified in last weeks Athenæum—i.e the legacies to yourselves, Dr Southey & me. [10] I have since been copied into the daily papers. All this is very unpleasant—independently of the fact of my having received an application for a loan every day this week—each being from a person whom I had never heard of before.
I need not say how pleased I shall be to hear from you or R.B at any time—or to do anything you want, in England.
Pray believe me—your’s & Browning[’]s sincere friend
B. W. Procter.
Chapman & Hall had instructions to forward my book to you—some weeks since. [11]
Address: Mrs Browning / Casa Guidi / Florence / Italy.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Brown University.
1. Date suggested by Procter’s explanation in the fourth paragraph for his being “a long time in answering” EBB’s letter.
3. The word is “stinks,” which occurs twice in reference to a corpse on p. 272 of Aurora Leigh (1857), VI, 1198 and 1202. In letter 3924 Procter had objected to the word “stink,” which occurs in Book III, line 300.
4. Procter may be referring to the lines he quoted to RB two years earlier in letter 3384 from The Revenger’s Tragedie (1607), II, 2, 94, originally attributed to Cyril Tourneur (d. 1626), now to Thomas Middleton (d. 1627).
6. Henry Herbert Southey, Kenyon’s physician (see letter 3724, note 2); his bequest and Procter’s are given below.
7. Robert Hawthorn (1791–1869), West Indies merchant in the firm of Hawthorn & Shedden at 5 Lime Street Square. He and James Booth (1796–1880), barrister and counsel to the speaker of the House of Commons, were co-executors of John Kenyon’s estate. In addition to the bequest listed below, Hawthorn, being a residuary legatee along with Booth, received an even greater amount of money after the settling of Edward Kenyon’s will.
8. The relevant passage in Kenyon’s will reads: “To my cousin Elizabeth Browning Wife of Robert Browning Four thousand pounds To the said Robert Browning six thousand five hundred pounds” (see SD1993).
9. All the bequests listed here are correct. The bequest of wine to Anthony Panizzi (1797–1879), librarian of the British Museum, reads as follows: “I give to my friend Panizzi all the Wines in my Cellars in Devonshire Place & at Cowes” (see SD1993).
10. In the column “Our Weekly Gossip”: “Many a literary home has been made brighter this Christmas time by the noble sympathy of John Kenyon, the poet, whose death we recently announced [6 December 1856, no. 1519, p. 1499]. The poet was rich as he was genial. Scarcely a man or woman distinguished in the world of letters with which he was familiar has passed unremembered in his will; and some poets and children of poets are endowed with a princely munificence. Among those who have shared the most liberally in this harvest of goodwill, we are happy to hear that Mr. and Mrs. Browning receive 10,000l. [sic], Mr. Procter (Barry Cornwall), 6,000l. [sic], and Dr. Southey a very handsome sum, we think 8,000l. We hear that there are about eighty legatees,—many of them the old literary friends of the deceased poet” (The Athenæum, 20 December 1856, no. 1521, p. 1573).
11. Dramatic Scenes, with Other Poems (1857); see letter 3885, note 3.
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