4746. Walter Landor to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 160–161.
Rugeley
21st September 1860
Dear Sir
No doubt Miss Sophy Landor has written [1] & led you to expect to hear from me, with the accompanying deed, which requires to be signed by your friend Mr W. Savage Landor, now residing at Sienna. It relates to a sum of money (£4000) originally the property of his eldest sister, Miss Elizth S. Landor, [2] which she invested in a mortgage upon a Mr Caless’s [3] Estate.
In the division of her property at her death this mortgage security became the property of her Nieces, but the legal Estate in the land on which the money was invested (from the form in which the security is made) became vested in her Heir at Law, her eldest brother, as trustee for the person’s entitled to the money.
It confers no beneficial interest on Mr Landor, but Mr Caless the real Owner of the estate having sold it, Mr L’s signature to the deed, although, as regards him, it is a mere matter of form, is necessary to obtain the money for the parties entitled to it, and to make a good title to the purchasers of the Estate[.]
The unfortunate Chancery Suit arising out of Mrs Yescombe’s affair, in which I and my son Robert as Mr Landor’s Trustees are unhappily involved, prevents us from asking professionally for him, or I wod have written direct to him.
You see by the signatures of his brothers and nieces, on whose behalf I write, that they are satisfied of the correctness of the transaction and from the innumerable acts of kindness which I know the family of [sic, for have] experienced at your hands, I feel assured you will excuse my troubling you [for a] deed signed by Mr Landor. His signature shod be made where it is written in pencil opposite the first seal, and the witness, I hope yourself, shod write his name & place of abode, under the last attestation written on the back of the first skin of the deed, where your name is written in pencil.
Please to return the deed to Rugeley & to let me know of any expense you incur. Do not pay the postage back unless the P. O. authorities require pre-payment[.]
I am, dear Sir
faithfully yours
Walter Landor [4]
Robt Browning Esq
Do you know what scrape young Walter Savage is got into to make him fly suddenly from Florence to England? [5]
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
2. Elizabeth Savage Landor (1776–1854).
3. Unidentified.
4. Walter Landor (1782–1864) of Rugeley; see letter 4452, note 3.
5. According to R.H. Super, Walter Savage Landor (1822–99) arrived in Bath “in the middle of September … fleeing (as he told his cousins) from imprisonment because he had been an innocent onlooker in a Mazzini riot; the company with whom he had been drinking coffee were all arrested, but he made his escape with no luggage but his cigar box. His cousin Kitty declined to see him … and desired him to leave Bath on the instant, before his presence should bring disgrace on her family name. … He remained in England only long enough to get funds from the Rugeley cousins, and returned to Italy” (Walter Savage Landor: A Biography, New York, 1954, p. 484). Sophia Landor discusses his visit in letter 4757.
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