5306. Aubrey Thomas de Vere to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 324–326.
The Uplands, East Sheen
Dec. 29– 63
My dear Browning
Many thanks for Landor’s Address. Either on my way to or from Rome I shall be pretty sure to be in that “lovely, lordly” [1] City, Florence, & I shall take good care not to leave the old Greek unvisited.
The very day after I wrote to you I heard who your Publisher was; for H. Taylor called on Mr Chapman about his own new edition, [2] & found that he was your publisher also, & am glad I did not hear of it a day earlier, for the vols of Selections will become greatly the more valuable to me from being your gift. [3] H. Taylor has started a proposal to which I shall very gladly accede, should it prove practicable; viz. that a small selection from my various vols. of verse should be published in a cheap form, [4] by way of an advertisement to the rest. He is himself to make the selection as I should be probably the worst judge of which would go down with the Public. He talked it over during his visit to Mr Chapman, & if Mr C. will take the risk the thing is to be done.
I wish you would turn over in your mind my suggestion about a small vol. of Selections from Landor’s Poetry. A vol. of some 300 pages might easily be selected which could not fail ultimately to make its way. But Poetry in that great double-columned Edition [5] has hardly a chance of even being tried, I think, not to speak of the great inequality of Landor’s poetry.
Alas for poor Thackeray! [6] I regret him greatly. Just before I became a catholic [7] he told me that he considered himself a “Theist”, but that if he could accept Revelation he should consider that as a matter almost self-evident its Representative was the R.C. Church. Of course you will not mention this. His views may have altered at a later time[.]
Yours ever A de Vere
Address: Robert Browning Esq / 19 Warwick St. / Upper Westbourne Terrace / London.
Publication: None traced.
Source: Transcript in editors’ file.
1. Cf. Thomas Campbell (1777–1844), “The Child and the Hind” (1842), line 23.
2. The Poetical Works (3 vols., 1864) of Henry Taylor (1800–86) had just been issued by Chapman and Hall.
3. This presentation copy of RB’s Selections (1863) has not been traced.
4. Evidently, such an edition was never published.
5. The Works of Walter Savage Landor (2 vols., 1846).
6. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) died at his residence, 2 Palace Green, Kensington, sometime after returning home on the night of December 23rd. He was found the next morning, dead from a stroke (see ODNB).
7. In November 1851 de Vere was received into the Roman Catholic Church.
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