4655. Walter Savage Landor to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 291–292.
[Florence]
April 24 [1860] [1]
Dear Browning,
My friend Charles Empson [2] will bring this to you. He has a refined taste for the arts, and is highly esteemed in England by people of distinction—beyond all this, he is the descendant of Roger Ascham. [3] He will tell you about everything that has occurred here.
Until this morning, my walks have been confined to the Porta Romana—but this morning I returned a visit made me by Mr Kinney, who informed me that Garibaldi has taken leave of his friends at Turin and Genoa and is going to spend the remainder of his life in America. It grieves me that I never have seen him—perhaps it would grieve me more if I had.
My niece tells me, in a letter I receive from her today, that she has forwarded to Mr Fields a photograph from my bust by Gibson. [4] I hope that both Mr Field and his beautiful lady enjoy Rome, and that the Story’s are well. I expect to see them in Florence ere long. Miss Blagdon has a most agreeable friend staying with her, Miss Cobb[.]
We receive sad accounts from Sicily. Garibaldi would have saved both the i[s]land and the continent. As it is, I should not be at all surprised if papal and Neapolitan troops were become our near neighbours before the end of the year. I take no interest now in politics, and seldom even glance at a gazette. God bless you and yours,
WSL
Address: Robert Browning Esq / 2ndo Piano—28 Via del Tritone / Roma.
Publication: BBIS-5, pp. 48–49 (as 24 April [1862]).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Year provided by reference to the address; 1860 was the only year the Brownings resided at 28 Via del Tritone in April.
2. Charles Empson (1794–1861); see vol. 26, p. 396n.
3. Roger Ascham (ca. 1515–68), scholar and tutor to Princess Elizabeth. He served in the administration of three Tudor monarchs.
4. It was commissioned by philanthropist Joseph Ablett (1773–1848) in 1828 and completed by John Gibson that same year (see R.H. Super, Walter Savage Landor: A Biography, New York, 1954, p. 200). The bust is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
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