5365. RB to James Kenward

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 41.

19 Warwick Crescent,

Upper Westbourne Terrace.

May 2. ’64

My dear Sir, [1]

I have first of all to say—what I hope you divine—that your letter and the verses with it only reached me a day or two ago. It was indeed a good “impulse” for me “to which you yielded,” as you express your kindness, in giving me a poem [2] for which I am grateful from my heart. You must let me just write this, and no more,—except that I am rather surprised that I should not remember your name in connection with any other earnest and beautiful performance.

Take my true thanks again, and believe me, My dear Sir,

Gratefully yours

Robert Browning.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. James Kenward (1828–1906), F.S.A. (Fellow Society of Antiquaries), poet and writer on archaeology. He is identified as the recipient by the envelope that enclosed this letter when it was offered for sale by P.F. Madigan, New York, Catalogue 2 (New Series), 1914, item 187.

2. Perhaps “To Gwenynen Gwent,” which was published in Kenward’s For Cambria: Themes in Verse and Prose (1868). The poem’s penultimate stanza contains a reference to EBB:

Oh honour to the radiant throng

Who half redeem our Age!

Hail Art, Philanthropy, and Song,

That wax in woman fair and strong,

To light Time’s latest page!

Hail constellation great and pure,

Lind, Browning, Nightingale, Bonheur!

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