3982. Aubrey Thomas de Vere to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 43–44.
Rome, 50 Piazza di Spagna
April 1. 57.
My dear Browning
Will you let me introduce to you a particular friend of mine, Edward Wilberforce, [1] Son of the late celebrated Robert Wilberforce, whose death has caused so large & deep a grief?
He is devotively attached to literature, & especially to Poetry .. an excellent reason for his being anxious to make your acquaintance & that of Mrs Browning. As for the rest, he has so many good & pleasant qualities that he needs no further recommendation than he carries with him. Writing to many I should find it necessary to add that he does not share the religious convictions of his father, who was <had become a> [2] Catholic: but I do not suppose that you would have any prejudices against him if he did share them–
Should you be staying on at Florence I hope to see you in another month or so. In the mean time with kind remembrances to Mrs Browning believe me very truly yours
Aubrey de Vere
Address, on integral page: Robert Browning Esq / Casa Guidi / Florence.
Publication: None traced.
Source: Transcript in editors’ file.
1. Edward Wilberforce (1834–1914), son of the Tractarian leader Robert Isaac Wilberforce (1802–57) and his wife, Agnes Everilda (née Wrangham, 1800–34). The senior Wilberforce died on 3 February at Albano while preparing for ordination in the Catholic Church. The younger Wilberforce in 1857 co-authored a volume of poetry (Poems) and in 1881 produced a standard work on statute law. Elizabeth Gaskell wrote to Charles Eliot Norton on 16 April 1861 that he was “the young man we all used to meet in Rome; a very odd-looking, and as we thought conceited person” (The Letters of Mrs. Gaskell, ed. J.A.V. Chapple and Arthur Pollard, Manchester, 1966, p. 647).
2. Phrase within angle brackets is interpolated.
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