Correspondence

5620.  RB to John Murray

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 269.

19 Warwick Crescent,

Upper Westbourne Terrace, W.

July 7. ’65.

Dear Mr Murray, [1]

Thank you exceedingly for your kind thought of me, & this early copy of the “Quarterly:” [2] I wish I could also thank the good natured critic who has done me only too much honor.

I mean to have my call & chat with you some morning,—as you encouraged me the other day,—but will not wait for it.

Very faithfully yours

Robert Browning.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. John Murray (1808–92), book publisher and publisher of The Quarterly Review, which was founded in 1809 by his father, John Murray (1778–1843).

2. The July 1865 issue (pp. 77–105), which contained a lengthy review by Gerald Massey (1828–1907) of RB’s Dramatis Personæ (1864) and Poetical Works (3 vols., 1863). In his opening paragraph, Massey writes that RB “has qualities such as should be cherished by the age we live in, for it needs them. His poetry ought to be taken as a tonic” (p. 77). For the full text of this review, see pp. 358–369.

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