Correspondence

5418.  RB to Arthur Sullivan

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 85.

19 Warwick Crescent,

Upper Westbourne Terrace W.

July 7. ’64.

Dear Mr Sullivan, [1]

I venture to take this way of introducing to you a friend of mine, a countryman of yours, and a benefactor of us all, the poet Allingham, [2] to-wit. He knows and admires your music: if you know his poetry, the business of “introduction” will not need be a long one. What concerns you particularly is, that I don’t believe anybody could write a better, nor so good a lyric opera with a view to the requirements of music as well as of poetry—and one day you may want such a poet, as, I hope, now, he wants such a musician. At all events, you will enjoy his acquaintance, as we all do.

Ever yours faithfully

Robert Browning

Address: A. Sullivan Esq. / 3 Ponsonby Street / Pimlico.

Publication: Herbert Sullivan and Walter Newman Flower, Sir Arthur Sullivan (London, 1927), p. 45.

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.

1. Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842–1900), composer and conductor, best known for his comic operettas written with librettist William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911).

2. William Allingham called on Sullivan ten days later; see SD2714.

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