5316. RB to Francis Turner Palgrave
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 7.
19. Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace,
Jan. 13. ’64.
Dear Palgrave, [1]
I am vexed indeed to find myself unable to do as you so kindly & pleasantly propose: I have to dine elsewhere on Thursday, and see but little chance of getting away in time to be with you. I rely on your kindness to mention to Professor Jowett how sorry I feel at missing the opportunity of seeing him.
Were you indeed near us last autumn? [2] But we will talk it all over ere long, I hope: Meantime, true congratulations on the good news [3] which I only heard from Woolner a week ago; and, with best regard to Mrs Palgrave, [4] believe me
Faithfully yours ever
Robert Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Francis Turner Palgrave (1824–97), anthologist and art critic, best known for The Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language (1861), which he edited and arranged. He first met RB at the christening of Hallam Tennyson in October 1852 (see Gwenllian F. Palgrave, Francis Turner Palgrave: His Journals and Memories of His Life, 1899, p. 218). Palgrave is listed in RB’s address book of this period (AB-5) at 15 York Gate.
2. The Palgraves married on 30 December 1862. In mid-August 1863 they spent a month in “Normandy and Brittany, which they called their wedding tour” (see Palgrave, pp. 81–83). RB and his family were in Brittany at Ste. Marie, near Pornic, from 10 August to 3 October 1863.
3. The birth of the Palgraves’ first child, Cecil Ursula (1863–1939), on 7 December 1863.
4. Cecil Grenville Milnes Palgrave (née Gaskell, 1833–90).
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