4552. Walter Savage Landor to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 92–93.
[Florence]
[24] December 1859 [1]
Never surely were such long soliloquies as in Göethe’s Egmont. [2] I have waded thro’ shifting sands and bursting bubbles, but I must throw myself down now. Surely Dean Swift would have burst his sides with laughter at the bombast of Blackenburg [3] when he cries “Suddenly the hideous birth of night returned into its mother’s womb.” [4] This uncouth simily is taken from a mother snake. Of all absurdities the greatest is toward the close of this drama. Allegory comes in– Freedom! Egmont calls on the Goddess of Liberty! Today, saturday the 24, there should have come back the master of the house—his son occupies the quarter above me. I made a proposal to pay twenty per cent for the improvement of the staircase, down which, had I not clung to the rail, I should have fallen and have broken my back or neck. I would prefer even a mason’s ladder. This evening the German [5] sent me a Galigniani [sic] eight days old—none yesterday or the day before, perhaps because of the weather. I sent him back the Gazette and a book from the Library, telling him I would trouble him no more. Mrs Romagnoli’s servant maid brings them, after two hours with her ganzo, or ganzi. [6] Politics have little interest for me now Garibaldi is no longer in arms, and Italy is parcelled out by Napoleon, Francis, and the Holiness of our Lord. [7] I doubt whether I shall ever read another newspaper, even if I knew how to procure one. We have had some such fogs in Florence as I never saw but once in London. And here have been skaters on the Arno. —My wishes for a pleasant Christmas, to you and Mrs B. and the brave Dragoon, will come late. They will, however, keep warm for the new year. I must now try a third pen, in order to transcribe legibly a few verses. I hope they will raise no sigh from the gentle breast of her to whom I shall send them on her birthday, three weeks hence. [8]
The grave is open, soon to close
On him who sang the charms of Rose,
Her pensive brow, her placid eye,
Her smile’s angelic purity,
Her voice so sweet, her speech so sage
It checkt wild Youth and cheer’d dull Age,
Her truth, when others were untrue
And vows forgotten.
Friends, adieu!
The grave is open. O how far
From under that bright Morning—star!
W S Landor
December 23. ’59
Address: Robert Browning Esq / 28 Via del Tritone / 2nd piano / Roma.
Publication: BBIS-5, pp. 21–22 (as 23 December 1859).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Day provided by Landor in the letter.
2. Egmont (1787), a historical tragedy in five acts.
3. Sic, for Brackenburg.
4. Egmont, V, 3. The metaphor is spoken by Brackenburg to describe the extinguishing of torches around the scaffold where Egmont will be executed.
5. Landor refers to Brecker’s bookshop at 1877 Via Maggio (see letter 2787, note 5).
6. “Paramour, or paramours.”
7. i.e., Napoleon III, Franz Josef, and Pius IX.
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