5200. William Allingham to RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 223.

28 Surrey Street, Strand W C [1]

April 6/63

My dear Mr Browning

I have been obliged to come back to London, but I hope only for a few days. Perhaps you will let me call one day?– I am no longer in doleful dumps [2] to afflict you–

Ever truly yours

W Allingham

I am in office till 4 every day.

Address: Robert Browning Esq / Warwick Crescent / Harrow Road / W.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: R.H. Taylor Collection.

1. A boarding-house kept by one Thomas Parker (see Webster’s Royal Red Book … for April, 1863, p. 822).

2. Cf. “The More Modern Ballad of Chevy Chace,” in Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765): “For Witherington needs must I wayle, / As one in doleful dumpes; / For when his leggs were smitten off, / He fought upon his stumpes,” lines 197–200.

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