5824. RB to Edward Twisleton
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 139–140.
19. Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace, W.
Nov. 16 ’66.
My dear Twisleton,
I know very well how kind you have been in calling; and hope you too know that I regret, quite as much as you are pleased to say you do, that we should meet so seldom. With respect to Tuesday morning, you are to know further, that, by what I half suspect to be (in the phrase of Thackeray) “a most iniquititious [sic] job,” [1] I am summoned to go help the Clerkenwell Grand Jury at their deliberations next Monday—and who knows how many other subsequent mornings? I do not at least, so dare not promise myself anything so pleasant as the meeting you on Tuesday. Should I fail to be “called,” or find the business easier than I expect, I will apprise you,—& joyfully. Meanwhile and ever, I am, dear Twisleton,
Most truly yours,
Robert Browning.
Robertulus, animosus infans, [2] is summoned to his Grandest of Juries at Balliol, not to sit but be sitten upon in judgment, “shortly after next Easter”: wish us well!
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Cf. William Makepeace Thackeray (pseud. Pleaceman X), “Jacob Homnium’s Hoss,” Punch, 9 December 1848, p. 251, line 82: “A inquitious Jobb.”
2. “Son of Robert, a spirited child.” Cf. Horace, Odes, III, 4, 20: “Non sine dis animosus infans” (“Thanks to the gods a spirited child”), trans. Niall Rudd.
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