4632. Bryan Waller Procter to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 242–245.
32 Weymouth Street, Portland Place, W
24 March 1860.
My dear Browning,
Although I date this Letter from my house in London, I write really from the Star & Garter at Richmond, [1] & the object of it is to thank Mrs Browning for her book, which I have not yet received, but which, as I learn, awaits my return, in Weymouth Street. [2] Pray thank her in my name.
I have come here, for the sake of health. I have been very unwell, and, when trying to get better, took 3 grains of Calomel, which threw me into a state of severe Salivation, for three weeks. —If you should look curiously at this pink paper, know that it belongs to my wife, who commands me to use it. She sends, by me, her kind regards to you & Mrs Browning, hoping—as indeed we all do—that you both remain untouched by the troubles of Tuscany. I refrain purposely from further alluding to them here.
I hear a little of you, now & then, from Forster,—only a little: not enough. For you bear with you at all times my best wishes. I regret that you have abandoned England. I believe it to be the best place in the world, after all—with all its faults & shortcomings, it is the refuge, where good & substantial thinking abides in safety.
You have both of you lost a sincere lover in poor Mrs Jameson. [3] She always spoke of you two, in terms of the greatest liking—& this whenever your names were mentioned. She lived a hard life—working to the very last. Beset by poor relatives, she thought herself bound to labour for all. Thus she expended all her little means,—leaving nothing, I suspect, except some copyrights which I trust will prove important in helping her two unmarried sisters to live hereafter. [4] Endeavours are being made to procure an extension of a portion of her annuity, to the two Sisters, with what success we do not at present know.
My daughter Adelaide & Bessie Parkes were with her as soon as they heard of her illness, and telegraphed to Brighton for one of her sisters. She (Charlotte) came & was indefatigable—afterwards another, Eliza—& finally, but not until she had lost all consciousness, her widow sister, Mrs Sherwin. I believe the last words which she uttered were to my daughter, Adelaide. “It has been a hard struggle, my dear,—only for a few years.” [5] —Her disease was a species of bronchitis,—accompanied by such accumulation of phlegm, that the Doctor, had her placed, from [sic] some hours, in an arm chair, with directions that she must not be allowed to sleep, lest her head should drop and suffocation ensue. Several persons have been very kind, during her last illness, and also to her sisters since her death. Lady Byron (between whom & Mrs Jameson there had been a rupture or coolness of some years) has had a cast taken from her face. She had, I believe, nearly printed her last book “Legends of our Saviour”:—at all events it is in a state, almost fit for press. Some good friend doubtless will put the finishing stroke. [6]
Madame du Quaire (formerly Miss Blackett) whom you know, has been in England, two or three months ago, in indifferent health: but is now with her husband in Paris. Thackeray is in status quo. He has been very successful with his magazine—making a large income, & paying large prices to his contributors. Your friend, Masson, has also superintended a magazine, [7] but not, I think, very successfully– I mean not very profitably. Mrs Sartoris has left London, & lives with her husband in Hampshire or Surrey (near Winchester)– [8] Mrs Butler, who came here with her youngest Daughter, [9] has gone back to America—still a sort of married widow, & bearing the name of Mrs Kemble. Chorley looks as pale as when you were in England, & England itself is very green, & I hope will soon be warm. At present I shrink up like an old leaf. Tennyson has got great praise for his Kings Idylls. There is a large eulogy of him, in the Quarterly Review, by Gladstone, in which he is lifted above all Christians, past & present [10] —& another article by Coventry Patmore, in the Edinburgh Review, of the same purport. [11] I suppose I get old, & hate too much of praise & blame. I am of the ‘in media’ faction, which perhaps you will think is of no use to any one. Be satisfied that I read your Dramatic Lyrics still, [12] & like them as much as ever. I have even marked ‘Aurora Leigh’ throughout, for the edification of a reader or two, less strenuous and (I flatter myself) less critical than myself.
Should you wish to know where I write—I am here on a second floor suite of rooms overlooking half of Middlesex & Surrey, with your ancient friend the Thames wandering about the meadows below,—now looking blue—& now in grey streaky lines, blown by the winds, which are singing about my room like so many nightingales. Is there anything much more musical than a high wind? Now & then the gusts sound as they would carry my words to Florence.
You know, I suppose, that my Daughter has had great success with a book of verse, [13] —reaping not only praise, but pudding also, of substantial quality. I, who am at the other end of the world, look back upon the golden regions, with an equal mind, & chink the copper in my pocket.
I need not say that I shall be very glad to hear from you—of you & yours—& of anything else on which you may please to discourse. Words from Italy sound very melodiously in our poor insular air,—whether they come from a Tuscan or an English mouth.
I am getting very infirm. I thought, some short time ago, that I should never see you again and even now I perhaps shall not, unless you come soon. Come soon therefore, & in the meantime write.
With kind regards to Mrs Browning I am my dear Browning
Very sincerely yours
B. W. Procter.
Address: Robert Browning Esqre / Casa Guidi / Florence / Italy. Redirected: Roma.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Brown University.
1. Hotel on Richmond Hill, notable for hosting such luminaries as Queen Victoria, Louis Philippe, and Charles Dickens.
2. We have been unable to trace the whereabouts of this presentation copy.
3. Mrs. Jameson died on 17 March 1860 in her lodgings at 57 Conduit Street, London. The Times of 20 March 1860 reported that she had suffered “a severe attack of bronchitis” after catching a cold while on a “visit to the Reading Room of the British Museum” (p. 9).
4. Eliza Murphy (d. 1874, aged 78) and Charlotte Alicia Murphy (1805–76). A third sister, Camilla Sherwin (née Murphy, 1797–1886), was a widow who resided with them at Brighton.
5. Procter’s wife, Anne, repeated a slight variation of this in a letter to John Forster dated 25 March 1860: “On the Friday before her death she saw Adelaide & said, [‘]Oh my dear it has been a hard struggle, to live for so few years.’ She had suffered so much not being allowed to sleep, for fear of her being suffocated” (ms at V&A).
6. The History of Our Lord As Exemplified in Works of Art (2 vols., 1864). The title page reads: “Commenced by the late Mrs. Jameson. Continued and completed by Lady Eastlake [Elizabeth Eastlake (née Rigby)].”
7. Macmillan’s Magazine; see letter 4199, note 4.
9. Frances Anne Butler (afterwards Leigh, 1838–1910); see letter 3299, note 35.
10. In an unsigned review of Tennyson’s works that appeared in The Quarterly Review of October 1859 (pp. 454–485), William Ewart Gladstone wrote of the Idylls: “The chastity and moral elevation of this volume, its essential and profound though not didactic Christianity, are such as perhaps cannot be matched throughout the circle of English literature in conjunction with an equal power” (pp. 482–483).
11. In his notice of Idylls of the King in The Edinburgh Review of July 1859 (pp. 247–263), Coventry Patmore did not discuss the Christianity of the poem, and he was more critical than Gladstone of its subject matter, especially in the idylls “Enid” and “Elaine.” However, Patmore observed that in language Tennyson had no equal: “The particular power by which Mr. Tennyson surpasses all recent English poets is precisely that of sustained perfection of style. Others have equalled or excelled him in other respects, but we look in vain among his modern rivals for any who can compete with him in the power of saying beautifully the thing he has to say; and this, not only in single sentences and passages, but for page after page, and poem after poem, without flagging, and apparently without effort” (p. 247).
12. Dramatic Lyrics (1842), No. III in the Bells and Pomegranates series.
13. Legends and Lyrics (1858) by Adelaide Anne Procter (1825–64).
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