5665. William Allingham to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 25–26.
Lymington
Dec 4/65
My dear Browning
Think charitably if possible of my troubling you again about this:
I am given to understand that it would not be very difficult to procure some augmentation of my £60 from the Civil List. [1] The memorial was very strongly signed, both in England and Ireland, & it preceded the publication of ‘Laurence Bloomfield’, [2] for which Mr Gladstone said a good word in the house. [3] The grant was made “for the merits of his poetical writings”—& the question that might perhaps be brought to bear upon Lord Russell or his Private Secretary is whether, looking at the memorial, & the grant, & other names on the list (Festus Bailey, [4] Sam Lover, [5] Charles Mackay, [6] & so on, have £100 each) they might not fairly lift me a little.
I do hope to be worth my salt by writing a book on Ireland past & present—yet to earn daily salt thereby I could not make sure. In the first place it would take much time, as well as more freedom than I now have. My notion would be to leave the Customs if I could at the end of 20 years service (in which I have incurred no blame, only mismanaged for myself by chopping & changing)—but my allowance therefrom would be exceedingly small, perhaps £25 a year, perhaps less. I should want to visit many places in Ireland—consult libraries &c, & then to write—not for the Trade, or the Magazines. But enough & too much!
Tennyson & Woolner came over from the Island [7] on Friday at 2,—ate bread & cheese with me, then we walked into the forest through sunset & misty moonrise, & they started for London at ½ past 6. T is to be at Palgrave’s, & to stop a fortnight. He is excellent good neighbour to me.
With kindest regards to your son & to your people in France, believe me
Yours ever
W. Allingham
I sometimes still hope (in spite of Scotchmen & Publishers) to do something in Poetry too.
Address: Robert Browning esq. / 19 Warwick Crescent / Harrow Road / London W.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: R.H. Taylor Collection.
1. Allingham was awarded a Civil List pension of £60 in June 1864 “in consideration of the literary merit of his poetical works” (William Morris Colles, Literature and the Pension List, 1889, p. 45).
2. Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland (1864); see letter 4700, note 21.
3. On 30 May 1864, Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer, spoke in the House of Commons on Spirit Duties and noted that excessive taxes could be responsible for the adulteration of distilled spirits in Ireland and quoted Allingham, “a poet who dealt with Irish questions … Poor Paddy, of all Christian men, I think, / On basest food pours down the vilest drink [Laurence Bloomfield, XII, 296–297]” (The Times, 31 May 1864, p. 9).
4. Philip James Bailey (1816–1902), author of Festus (1839), was granted a pension of £100 in November 1856 (see Colles, p. 34).
5. Samuel Lover (1797–1868), Irish novelist (see letter 1519, note 1), was granted a pension of £100 in March 1856 (see Colles, p. 32).
6. Charles Mackay (1814–89), Scottish poet and journalist, was granted a pension of £100 in June 1862 (see Colles, p. 42).
7. i.e., the Isle of Wight. Tennyson lived at Farringford, Freshwater, I. of W., not far from Yarmouth, which was a short ferry ride from Lymington. Doubtless, Woolner was visiting Tennyson at this time.
___________________
