5227. Walter Savage Landor to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 248–249.
[Florence]
May 24 [1863] [1]
Dear Browning,
Our friend Thistlethwait [2] (you see I venture to call him so) has left Florence for Venice– He went yesterday, and took with him a nephew and niece, two lovely children and very sensible. [3]
I now am writing to let you know that I have just recieved from the Spedizionario [4] the intelligence I requested to hear from him of the case of books, which I ordered him to forward carriage-free. He tells me he will take care it shall be done so when he has got the account from his correspondent. I ought to have thrown into the stove a large addition to the vast quantity of things I sent to you—but you will correct this oversight and stupidity.
I am recovering from my total deafness, and I can write a little, but not long together, nor perhaps not very legibly. In reading I find amusement, and better than amusement, in Hood’s novels. [5] On the other side of this sheet I will transcribe a few lines in consequence while my eyes serve me– I may add also about as many which I wrote on the departure of Thissletwaite, for Rome, as I believed. By this time Robert will have written better than his old codger
W Landor
I’ve known the noble of thy name,
Pure-soul’d, warm-hearted Hood;
Not one who higher rank may claim
Among the wise and good.
_________
Hæc mitto tibi pauca, mox ituro
Ad pigras Venetum et breves paludes
Seu sint projicienda per fenestram
Sicut talia plura, sive primæ
Sint mansura hyemis focum ad Penates. [6]
You see I have substituted Venice for Rome, which I had no time to do for Thistlethwaite—no matter—
Address: Angleterre / Robert Browning Esq / 19 Warwick Crescent / Upper Westbourne Terrace / London.
Publication: BBIS-5, p. 54.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
Enclosure:
Firenze 22 Magg 1863.
Ricevuto dal WL pero Romagnoli
1 Cassa Libri usati
I Do manoscritti & Spediti a
Londra Secondo l’indirizzo
M Ramaci [7]
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Sic, for Twisleton. Further variations occur below.
3. Henry Parkman and Ellen Twisleton Parkman (see letter 5037, note 1).
4. Sic, for Spedizioniere (“shipping agent”), named below as “M Ramaci.”
5. Thomas Hood (1799–1845), humorous poet and writer, is not known as a novelist. The British Library Catalogue lists only one novel by Hood, Tylney Hall (3 vols., 1834). His Up the Rhine (1840), a series of comical sketches, letters, and verse, might also qualify as a novel.
6. “I send these few things to you, who are going to the fertile shallow marshes of Venice, whether they are to be thrown out of the window like a lot of other things of this kind, or to abide at the hearth of early winter near the Penates.”
7. “Florence 22 May 1863. / Received from WL by Romagnoli / 1 case of used books / 1 Ditto manuscripts sent to / London according to the address. / M Ramaci.”
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