5061. RB to Reuben Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 73–74.
1. Chichester Road,
Upper Westbourne Terrace.
Apr. 28. ’62.
My dear Reuben,
I don’t know why I need feel so ashamed of my silence, at least of my absence, for if a good conscience is any sustainment I certainly have that: my time is taken up from morning to night—not only by the routine of the Boy’s lessons but by the trouble that has devolved on me of taking a house, spite of all my aversion to the very appearance of housekeeping—but there was no help for it: I had no room to turn about in, and the rent has been doubled since I came: I supposed for a week that I had found what I wanted, but the landlord proved a tremendous fellow & slipped engagements into the lease which I refused to sign, so all came to an end: I have only just decided on the house that will suit me, & taken it: [1] I mean to have over my old things from Florence—(have indeed written for them) and think I shall feel a little less estranged from London when in the face of my old bookcases & pictures. One good thing of getting room will be that I can with some assurance ask you & your boys [2] to come & make acquaintance with me & mine: here, while the Tutor is giving his lessons, I have to go out of the house! I shall be occupied all the week in various troubles connected with house-furnishing, and only write this to excuse my giving no sign of life all this while, and to say that I see a little light & breathing-space in the distance, that is all. I send you by to-day’s post the Poems [3] —which have been lying till I could carry them: I have also photographs [4] for you which your old kindness will value. Robert continues very well, grows much, & satisfies me in many ways.
Could you take the April Bank Div: for me, and transmit it in a crossed cheque to me, payable at the London & Westminster Bank? [5] Address here, of course,—I don’t leave till this day week. [6] My new address is 19. Warwick Crescent, Upper Westbourne Terrace.
I think of poor Mr. Gentilucci [7] with remorse—but what could I do?—& what will I not do when I can!
Kindest love to you all—in which Robert, standing by me, heartily joins.
Yours ever affy
Robert Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Libraries Department, City of Liverpool.
1. The tenancy of 19 Warwick Crescent “commenced by a Lease for 19 years from the 24th June 1862[;] at the expiration of that term, on 24 June 1881 … [you] became a tenant from year to year” (Henry Green to RB, 11 February 1887, ms at ABL). However, in SD2576, Bessie Rayner Parkes reports that the house was taken for 5 years. And, in letter 5234, RB writes that he has “taken a house for six years, at least.”
2. Reuben and his wife, Margaret, had four sons (see letter 4301, note 4).
3. This presentation copy of Last Poems is inscribed “Reuben Browning from his affectionately Robert Browning. May 5. ’62 (see Reconstruction, C47).
4. One of the photographs was of EBB by Fratelli D’Alessandri, Rome, 27 May 1861, where she is seated and holding a volume in her right hand (variant C). The only known copy was presented to Eton College by Elaine Baly, a descendant of Reuben. It is reproduced in vol. 29, facing p. 176.
5. RB had established an account with the London and Westminster Bank at Stratford Place, Oxford Street.
6. i.e., 5 May 1862. However, as RB indicates in letter 5070, he took possession of 19 Warwick Crescent on the 8th.
7. Romualdo Gentilucci (1805–69), writer and publisher, had commissioned Filippo Bigioli (1798–1878), Italian painter, to design 27 canvasses illustrating key scenes in Dante’s Divine Comedy for a travelling exhibition. Held first at Rome in 1860, the exhibition came to London in early 1862. It was mounted in St. James’s Hall, Piccadilly, and visitors were charged from 1 to 3 shillings (see The Morning Post, 28 February 1862, p. 1). The exhibition, called “The Dante Gallery,” was successful initially, but declining attendance led to Gentilucci’s canvases being seized for payment of his debts.
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