5911. Benjamin Jowett to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 208–209.
[Oxford]
May 27. [1867] [1]
My dear Mr Browning,
I am looking forward to my annual visit which is always a great pleasure to me. Will you & your Son come to me on Sat. June 15 when I hope Lady Airlie [2] will also come & some other friends? [3]
May I ask you also to do me a slight favour if not disagreeable to you, for the matter is of no real consequence. I think you may have seen a friend of mine here, the Revd L. Campbell, [4] Professor of Greek at St Andrews. He is a real scholar & is at present at Florence collating the great ms of Sophocles which is in the Laurentian Library– [5] He is shy for the purposes of Society, but he is also one of the best persons who I have ever known: This preface is intended to ask you to give him one or two suitable introductions at Florence: they had better be to persons who can speak English as I suspect that he is only a ‘way farer’ in French or Italian: With kind regards to your Son, believe me
Your’s most truly
B Jowett
Address: R. B. Browning Esqe / 19 Warwick Crescent / Harrow Road / London.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Henrietta Blanche Ogilvy (née Stanley, 1830–1921), daughter of Edward John Stanley (1802–69), 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley, and his wife, Henrietta Maria (née Dillon-Lee, 1807–95). She married David Graham Drummond Ogilvy (1826–81), 7th Earl of Airlie, in 1851.
3. These included Matthew Arnold and Arthur Peel (1829–1912), later Viscount Peel, Sir Robert Peel’s youngest son (see SD2914).
4. Lewis Campbell (1830–1908), professor of Greek at the University of St. Andrews (1863–92).
5. Located in the cloister of San Lorenzo in Florence, the Laurentian Library was designed by Michelangelo and completed in 1571. It is known for its collection of ancient and medieval manuscripts.
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