5108. Walter Savage Landor to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 118–120.
[Florence]
August 30 [1862] [1]
Dear Browning,
Today the carpenter has been packing up two pictures with which I have taken the liberty to trouble you. One of them is Christ and St Peter, [2] formerly in the Gran Duke villa at Pratolino. A Jew of Leghorn bought it for the rich frame, which he sent to England. The other I have mentioned. [3] Bishop Baynes, to whom it was given by a Cardinal, told me, when it was in a bad state, that he felt certain there was not a finer in England.
I have found room in the case for two small parcels; one of I beg you to accept, and to send the other to my friend Mrs West, as directed. It was my wish to inclose several school-books for Robert—the volumes of Cicero and some of the poets. [4] You shall have them with my Works, [5] which O’Neal [sic, for O’Neill] brought to me, requesting I would take care of them for you. He might as well have carried them with him to London: I could not tell him so.— I have had an application from several through Perry, [6] now Consul General at Venice, to write on poor dear James, who lies buried there. Layard, [7] among others, has desired it. I acceded at once—and here it is.
George Payne Raynsford James, British Consul General in the Adriatic, died at Venice, aged sixty, [8] on the ninth of June 1860: His merits as a writer are known wherever the english language is, and as a man they rest on the hearts of many. A few friends have erected this humble and perishable monument.
James died poor: I shall die poorer. Not even my son and heir will pay the sexton and mason for my grave. Walter and Charles have promist it. I hope the two pictures will defray the expenses. Send this letter to my brother Henry, who will be pleased to hear that, when I cease to be an incumbrance on him, which I know must be very soon, all that is requisite will be provided for me.
Believe me,
dear Browning,
Your ever obliged and affectionate W.S. Landor
Publication: BBIS-5, pp. 57–58.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
2. Identified by R.H. Super as “‘Christ and St. Peter on the Coast of Galilee,’ by Carracci [see letter 2926, note 7] … six feet long, but only three feet high” (Walter Savage Landor: A Biography, New York, 1954, p. 493).
3. See the preceding letter.
4. Landor sent a shipment of books to RB in May 1863; see letter 5223, note 2.
5. Presumably, included with the books Landor sent the following May (see letter 5223, note 2), were his Works (2 vols., 1853), inscribed by RB: “Robert Browning, from W. S. Landor.” These volumes sold as lot 815 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A1416).
6. William Perry (1801–74) was appointed Consul-General at Venice in June 1861.
7. Austen Henry Layard (1817–94); see letter 3250, note 20.
8. Prolific, historical novelist George Payne Rainsford James (1801–60) was 58 years old at the time of his death in Venice. His tenure as Consul General there began in 1858. Landor’s words appear as the epitaph on James’s cemetery monument.
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