4886. RB to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 103–104.
Rome,
April 30– ’61.
My dear George,
I shall only write one word—no more can be necessary—to acknowledge your truly kind & good note & to say that I never for a moment was vexed at your suggestion or supposed it to imply anything but the admirable precision & probity which characterise you: on the other hand it would not be paying the unfeigned respect I have for your sense & powers of observation if I supposed you could suspect me to be capable of any negligence or indirectness in such a matter as the future comfort of Ba & her child. Indeed, I profit by the good opinion which you make me proud (or something better) by avowing, to act on my own knowledge as I am sure yourself would do, had the peculiar circumstances under which we have lived for the last fifteen years, given you the like experience. I invested our money on the soundest advice I could get—and the ultimate disposal of it has been a settled thing from the beginning. Of course I shall always look to you for advice on the many other points I may need it upon: ex: gr—Look at Lord Kingsdown’s bill [1] and tell me, when it is carried, what its provisions enjoin or allow: for the reading his speech gives me the pleasant assurance that no will made in or out of England at this present time by a man who has any likelihood of staying six months and dying in a foreign country is worth a farthing: this wise, necessary measure, if adopted, will cure an anomaly of which (for my peace of mind’s sake) I have been happily ignorant hither to. Do pray keep your eye on the results.
I will only repeat my truest wishes for your fortunate housekeeping and general welfare. Ba writes the rest,—and for me, no less than herself, whenever she writes affectionately—as, I dare say, is sometimes the case!
Ever yours heartily
Robert Browning.
Address, on integral page: George Moulton Barrett Esqr.
Publication: B-GB, pp. 262–264.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. The “Wills of Personality by British Subjects Bill,” first introduced in Parliament on 21 March 1861 by Thomas Pemberton Leigh (1793–1867), 1st Baron Kingsdown. RB may have read an account of the bill’s debate that took place on 22 April in the House of Lords, during which Lord Kingsdown said: “The inconvenience of the present state of the law with respect to wills of personal estate was very serious, and extensively felt. A British subject resident in a foreign country could neither tell with any certainty by what law his will of personal estate was to be made, nor, when it was made, could he feel any assurance that it might not, without any intention of revocation on his part, become null at the time of his death” (The Times, 23 April 1861, p. 6). The bill was passed into law on 6 August as the Domicile Act of 1861.
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