4654. Walter Savage Landor to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 290–291.
[Florence]
[Postmark: 20 April 1860]
Dear Browning,
Probably you will already have heard a great deal more than I can tell you about the rejoicings here, on the arrival of Carlo Alberto[.] [1] A friend from England came to visit me, [2] and I took him to Kirkup’s that he might see the fireworks on the river and along it. He chose rather to walk about in the crowd. I could not do that, and would not even if I were young. So I remained on the terrace til nine oclock. There I met Miss Field in all her beauty. She was accompanied by a most forbidding-faced personage, man of course. Mr Trollope was also there, and perhaps he came with her– The king appears to be highly popular. No nation upon the earth is so deserving of a good kind ruler, and I believe the Tuscans have found one. All the Italians, however, are indignant at the barter of Savoy, and especially of Nice, which they justly consider as a portion of their own country. Garibaldi has raised his voice against it [3] —but what can even a giant do between two mill-stones? I shall have lived long enough if I live to see this perfidy and perjury avenged. Cavour is known to have told the king that the world had been officially informed that Savoy should continue under the dominion of Carlo Alberto—and the latter is reported to have replied in deep sorrow “Cosa posso io.” [4] Lord J. Russell has spoken out, like an Englishman, who hates duplicity and breach of promise– We are living in a whirlwind of dust and see nothing clearly. It never was the french policy to let Italy be united or contented. The youngest man will not live to see it. He will only see the unhappy nations struggling in seas of blood. The poorer Savoyards are feasted, and taste coffee for the first time: their wives show exultingly a french franc piece. Of the landholders not one in a dozen (they say “not one in twenty”) votes for alienation. I recieved this intelligence from a resident of Leghorn who had just left Genoa, and who came here to see what was going on. By the same steamer came also Mrs Crawford to visit me. [5] Our friend Miss Blagdon a few weeks ago, stayed an hour with me, which appeared an extremely short one. On her return to her villa—she took me with her. Until then I had never gone an inch farther than the city gate, and never shall again. A walk of two hundred yards tires me. I live in the hope of seeing you and Mrs Browning on your return, tho’ your residence in Florence is only three months in the twelve. I shall never go farther than your house. Robert will enjoy his rides in the Cascine, which, I hear, are beginning to show the influence of spring. Schleghel writes on Shakespeare like an Englishman, Coleridge like a German; both scantily. Germany has crampt and crusht our literature. When will it (will it ever) recover its own fresh colour and characteristic features? This reminds me of my loss in Napier—not that I need the reminding– Few hours of the day or the night but I think of him—how strong, how stately, how true, and how warm-hearted. And now his wife has followed him, I hear. [6] All the thoughts I have thrown into verse are not worth one thought of him– Goodbye
Address: Robert Browning Esq / 28 Via del Tritone / (2ndo Piano) / Roma.
Publication: BBIS-5, pp. 29–30 (as 23 April 1860).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Sic, for Victor Emmanuel II (see letter 4648, note 6). Carlo Alberto, anglicized as Charles Albert (1798–1849), former King of Sardinia, was succeeded by his son Victor Emmanuel.
2. Charles Empson, as identified by Landor in the following letter.
3. Prior to the plebiscites held in Nice and Savoy on 15 and 22 April, Garibaldi, representing Nice in the Italian parliament, urgently requested a floor debate on the impending cession of those regions to France. But the debate was avoided by means of “some sleight of hand over procedural technicalities” (Denis Mack Smith, Cavour, New York, 1985, p. 206). The transfer of his native Nice to France so angered Garibaldi that on the day of the plebiscite, he planned to “raid the polling stations, break open the ballot-boxes, and burn the ballot-papers,” but he was dissuaded from the adventure just before leaving Genoa for Nice (Jasper Ridley, Garibaldi, 1974, p. 432).
4. “What can I do?”
5. Louisa Crawford (née Ward, 1823–97).
6. Caroline Amelia Napier (née Fox, 1789–1860), younger daughter of General Henry Fox and niece of statesman Charles James Fox, died on 26 March 1860.
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