4600. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 177–178.
[Rome]
Wednesday, Feb. 8. ’60.
Dearest Isa,
I meant to take time & space for fit reply to your kind letter—but am urged to write of a sudden now, because there will be a Messenger at Florence on Saturday, and I am forced to trouble you again to buy Villari’s Savonarola [1] & send it to Mr Russell, thro’ the agency of Mr Corbett: can you be indulgent again—even to the reimbursing yourself from Wilson’s resources? Thank you, anticipatorily. I have just got a note from Miss Cushman bidding me send you a message which I will transcribe “Circumstances over which I have had no control have prevented the wishes, with regard to the m∙s. from being carried out: but I thought the said m∙s. had been already sent to Miss Collett. [2] I have written to England to-day about it, & have no doubt it will be all right.” She adds “will you tell her I shall be glad to hear from her at her leisure to know positively whether I may expect to receive her after her work is finished.”
Ba is much better—despite the tramontana—Pen, on the other hand, has a cold.
Kind love to Miss Field– Apologies for the fresh trouble I give you—thanks for the negotiations with Mrs Stowe [3] —regrets for the vile hurry in which I write, and the most affectionate greeting to yourself from
yours ever, gratefully & sincerely
R Browning.
Miss Cushman adds “since I saw you I have been in danger from an attack of bronchitis, but to-day am out of bed.”
Publication: B-IB, pp. 287–288.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. La Storia di Girolamo Savonarola e de’ suoi tempi (2 vols., Florence, 1859–61). Volume one was published on 22 October 1859.
2. Sophia Dobson Collet (1822–94), writer and women’s rights advocate, was born in London to John Dobson (1778–1827) and his wife, Elizabeth (née Barker, 1787–1875). According to the ODNB, she was well-acquainted with RB’s friends William Johnson Fox, Eliza Flower, and Sarah Flower Adams; and she “maintained lively correspondences with many of the leading reformers of the day, including … Frances Power Cobbe.” Never marrying, she changed her name to Collet, as did her brother, “probably in the 1840’s.” The manuscript may be part or all of Agnes Tremorne.
3. Regarding the conveyance from Florence to Rome of Wild’s portrait of Pen on his pony.
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