5676. RB to Lord Houghton

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 32–33.

19 Warwick Crescent,

Upper Westbourne Terr:

Dec. 20. ’65.

My dear Houghton,

Don’t think me careless about these, your kind invitations,—much less ungrateful. I have kept refusing pleasant calls—away from this place; till now, even if I wished to go, I could not, with any decent face. Yet I like much to know that if I brought myself to break the tee-total pledge, you, for one, would be ready with a bottle of the best: thank you heartily—& herewith I pass the port–

Tennyson has been in town & lit up the blackness for us at whiles.

Please thank Lady Houghton for her remembrance of me & the Boy—italicising this last word. He is getting big and looks bearded—(“looks”—as the grudging somebody said of a lady—“pretty, well, she looks so!”)

Another thing—who wants to buy a Botticelli, [1] —a Tondo, the Holy Family, old good frame and picture intact—a fair specimen? A friend has begged me to sell it for him if I can,—an old Florentine connoisseur: [2] there are works on sale at double the price. It is here if anyone wants to look at it.

Ever faithfully yours,

Robert Browning.

Publication: NL, p. 169.

Manuscript: Trinity College, Cambridge.

1. Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510), Florentine painter. We have been unable to identify this depiction of the Holy Family.

2. Henry Cottrell (see the third paragraph in letter 5894).

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