5743. RB to Edward Dowden

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 76.

[1]9. Warwick Crescent

Upper Westbourne Terrace W

April 25 66.

My dear Sir,

Your very kind & welcome letter [1] came to me far too long ago—when I was leaving London for Paris, as I do now & then—on returning I find it again & am vexed at what may seem a neglect—however you will understand this more easily than some of my poems—I dare say—surprisingly as you do understand them—I must add with gratitude. You are right in all your suppositions & emendations—the bad printing is not so much my fault as the printers’, who have a trick of neglecting corrections & letting stops & even more drop out from what is corrected & done with– Witness the line which should run “they take as it were a padlock & clap it tight,” [2] thereby furnishing a commodious rhyme. Thank you heartily once more

Yours truly

Robert Browning

Publication: None traced.

Source: Copy in recipient’s hand at British Library.

1. Dowden’s letter has not surfaced.

2. Cf. RB’s Christmas-Eve (1850), line 718. In Poetical Works (3 vols., 1863), the word “clap” was omitted.

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