5720. Dante Gabriel Rossetti to RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 61.

16. Cheyne Walk

Chelsea

6 March 1866

My dear Browning

Will you allow your name to appear on the Committee list of a subscription for presenting a testimonial to that splendid old fellow George Cruikshank– [1] The form the testimonial is to take is not yet decided on, but we hope that much may be done with so popular a name if properly managed. No trouble whatever shall be given you, but do belong to the Committee. [2]

Ever

yours

affectionately

D G Rossetti

Publication: Rossetti, 3, 404.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. George Cruikshank (1792–1878), caricaturist and illustrator, who collaborated with Dickens on the latter’s Sketches by Boz (1836) and Oliver Twist (1838). The subscription, directed by the committee’s secretary, Charles Howell, was announced in The Athenæum of 24 March 1866: “A proposal is about to take effect, having for its object the presentation of a testimonial to one of the most original, genial and pathetic of English artists, Mr. George Cruikshank” (no. 2004, p. 400). According to Roger W. Peattie, “it is not known what the final sum was. By December 1866 more than £1000 had been subscribed,” which, however, was considered “disappointing” (Selected Letters of William Michael Rossetti, ed. Roger W. Peattie, University Park, Pennsylvania, and London, 1990, p. 146n).

2. We have been unable to determine whether RB joined this committee.

___________________