5924. RB to George Murray Smith
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 218–219.
[London]
Monday Morning. [24 June 1867] [1]
My dear Mr Smith,
After all, in case you still care about mentioning the matter of the Degree, it may be as well to give you a good as an indifferent account of it: so I enclose the letter of the Keeper of the Archives, just received. [2] I know you will take care only to extract the facts, disengaged from the language of the writer,—and of course not refer to him at all. Perhaps the mention would best be made after the Tuesday’s proceedings, which will be in the usual report, I suppose. [3] When the letter is done with, have the goodness to return it.
Very truly yours ever
Robert Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
1. Dated by RB’s reference to the M.A. degree, which he received on Tuesday, 25 June 1867.
3. The Pall Mall Gazette, published by Smith, Elder & Co., noted in the issue of 26 June: “In Convocation at Oxford yesterday the degree of Master of Arts was conferred by diploma on Mr. Robert Browning” (p. 8).
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