4604. Walter Savage Landor to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 182–184.
[Florence]
Feb. 11 [1860] [1]
My dear Browning,
I am now beginning to read Shakespeare’s dramatic works regularly through. His Sonnets I leave behind. I can not feast on mince-pies and rich puff-paste[.] It was well enough to “put in a thumb
And pick out a plum
and cry what a brave boy am I” [2] as that lad did whose name I have forgotten, as I have the names of his betters– What a pity it is that the greatest of poets and wisest of men should have descended to puns and bawdery to please Queen Bess and her maids of honor, to say nothing of the populace. This idea occurred to me more forcably than ever on turning over the beginning of Romeo and Juliet. Mr Heckley [3] sent to me the last volume of the Athenæum, on my expressing a desire to see a notice of Milton. [4] How surprised was I at finding in his fate a resemblance to mine, regarding his family. It seems his children robbed him as mine have robbed me—but they had it not in their power, if in their will, to be so ungrateful.
Talking of poets, did you or anybody ever notice a strange mistake in the most correct of them? Virgil represents Polyphemus calling to Galitea, [5] say she is hedera formosior alba– [6] Now ivy is quite shapeless, and never white. I am writing this from memory, since my son refuses to send my Virgil to me, or any other of the books, altho neither he nor either of his brothers ever read one. Several days ago I lent my only copy of the Hellenics to Mr Carbonel, [7] who promised to bring the book next day. He has not brought it. This I much regret, because at the bottom of one page, I had written an addition– It has vext me sorely and kept me sleepless and feverish four nights. I would rather have utterly lost all the other copies, and every book belonging to me. I am unable to find Mr C. in Florence nor can I hear of him at the Post-office. Here is what I wrote yesterday on the death of Arndt. [8]
Remember me to all friends at Rome–
Ever yours WSL.
Address: Robert Browning Esq / 28 Via del Tritone / 2. Piano / Roma.
Publication: BBIS-5, p. 26.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
Enclosure:
On the death of Ernst Moritz Arndt. [9]
Arndt! in thy orchard we shall meet no more
To talk of freedom and of peace revived.
We stood, and looking down across the Rhine
Heard fifes and choral voices far below.
“What an enthusiastic song, O Arndt,” said I,
[“]Is that!” then smiled he, and he turn’d aside
My question. “Why not deem our Teuton tongue
Worthy to have been learnt with ancient Rome’s,
Whose we converse in? When an Attila,
Far less ferocious, far more provident,
Than his successor, storm’d the Capitol,
He broke no oaths, no vows, no promises;
But he who since laid waste our fertile fields
And handcuft our weak princes, broke them all.
I am among the many better men
Whose head he had devoted; I am he
The framer of that anthem; they who now
Sing it, would then have sung it o’er my grave,
And found their own in singing it.” He stopt
Suddenly, then ran forward; swiftly ran
The septuagint, and overtook the youth
Who carried the light weight of six years less;
For he had seen an apple drop and roll
Along the grass; he stoopt and took it up
And wiped the dew away, and gave it me.
“Take it, for there are better in the house”
Said he, “and this is over-ripe; one pip
Keep in remembrance of our converse here.”
I sow’d them all; but kill’d were the new-born,
Ere slender stem could bear its first twin-leaves,
And all were swept away maliciously
By one who never heeded sage or sire.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Cf. the English nursery rhyme “Little Jack Horner,” lines 3–4.
3. Sic, for Eckley.
4. Landor refers to a review that appeared in The Athenæum for 17 September 1859 (no. 1664, pp. 360–361) of Thomas Keightley’s edition of The Poems of Milton (1859) and An Account of the Life, Opinions, and Writings of John Milton (1859). The review focused on the latter work, which was first published in 1855.
5. Sic for Galatea. In Greek mythology, she was a sea-nymph beloved by the Cyclops Polyphemus.
6. “Lovelier than pale ivy” (Virgil, Eclogues, VII, 38, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough).
8. See enclosure. See also letter 4569, note 6.
9. This poem was printed two weeks later in The Athenæum of 25 February 1860 (no. 1687, p. 269).
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