5937. Charles Kingsley to RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 226–227.

[Eversley]

July 9/67

My dear Mr Browning

I am going to take the liberty of asking you—if it is not a rudeness—for your autograph for Mrs Kingsley, [1] an old & faithful admirer of your poems—I trust I am not asking too much.

One “Dowden”, a young Irishman, has sent me for Frasers’ Magazine a review of—or rather exegesis of—your Sordello, [2] wh I am going to dissect, as shewing more understanding of the poem than anything I have read.

I love these old poems of yours—as I love you—with all my heart. There is no one rising now to take your place. In a few years you & Tennyson will stand alone—et puis? [3]

Yours ever sincerely

Kingsley [4]

Address: Robert Browning Eqr / Care of Messrs Chapman & Hall / Publishers / Piccadilly / SW / London.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Yale University.

1. Frances (“Fanny”) Kingsley (née Grenfell, 1814–91).

2. Edward Dowden’s review of Sordello (Poetical Works, 1863) appeared in Fraser’s Magazine, October 1867, pp. 518–530. For the full text of this review, see pp. 392–398.

3. “And then?”

4. Charles Kingsley (1819–75); see letter 1556, note 1.

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