501. RB to William Johnson Fox

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 132.

[London]

April 2. 1835.

Dear Sir,

I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter:—Sardanapalus “could not go on multiplying kingdoms” [1] —nor I protestations—but I thank you very much.

You will oblige me indeed by forwarding the introduction to Moxon: [2] —I merely suggested him in particular, on account of his good name & fame among author-folk; beside he has himself written—as the Americans say—“more poetry ’an you could shake a stick at.” So I hope we shall come to terms.

I also hope my poem [3] will turn out not utterly unworthy your kind interest & more deserving your favour than anything of mine you have as yet seen; indeed I all along proposed to myself such an endeavour, for it will never do for one so distinguished by past praise to prove nobody after all—nous verrons. [4]

I am, dear Sir

Yours most truly & obliged

Robt Browning–

Publication: Orr, pp. 64–65.

Manuscript: Huntington Library.

1. Byron’s Sardanapalus (1821), I, 2, 599, slightly misquoted. Sardanapalus, King of Assyria, greatly enlarged his dominions in wars against Egypt, Tyre and other kingdoms, but the endless struggle exhausted his resources, and his empire fell to Cimmerian and Scythian invaders.

2. Edward Moxon (1801–58), publisher, lawyer and scholar.

3. Paracelsus.

4. “We shall see.”

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