4377. RB to William Michael Rossetti
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 112–113.
Rome, Via Bocca di Leone 43.
2 April 1859.
My Dear Rossetti,
I have only a minute or two to say a word in—but your old kindness will understand. I hear that the engraving is too likely to be a failure, despite your best pains: I suppose it is hard to transfer photographs. [1] But the case being so, the only thing will be to suppress the plate at once—because our only object in letting it be published would be to get done with the prints in London and America [2] by putting a real likeness forward. You know that I know your own trouble in the business has been great, and your goodness perfect. But we all fail sometimes, engravers and poets alike, and if Mr. Barlow [3] will not break his heart about it, no more will
Yours most truly and gratefully,
Robert Browning.
I write in all this hurry to save the Saturday’s post: pray write a word and say you understand, though I am sure you do. Of course, it is still possible that through correcting the print may even yet prove satisfactory: I only express my first fears. My wife’s truest thanks and regards go with mine.
Text: William Michael Rossetti, Ruskin: Rossetti: Preraphaelitism; Papers 1854 to 1862 (London, 1899), pp. 226–227.
1. A month earlier, Rossetti expressed his fear that RB would learn of the first unsatisfactory attempt at the engraving of the Macaires’ photograph (see SD2244).
2. The London print refers to an engraving of Marshall Wood’s medallion of EBB in the March 1857 issue of The National Magazine (p. 313); see letter 3965, note 17. The American print probably refers to an engraving by John Sartain (1808–97) of the Thomas Buchanan Read portrait of EBB, painted in 1853, that appeared in the May 1855 and January 1858 issues of The Eclectic Magazine. Additionally, the engraving of the Wood medallion was reprinted in the August 1858 issue of Frank Leslie’s New Family Magazine (New York, p. 137).
3. Thomas Oldham Barlow (1824–89), born in Oldham, Lancashire, had worked as an engraver in London since 1846. He exhibited frequently at the Royal Academy and was in 1881 elected a member of that institution.
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