5986. RB to Edward Dowden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 272–273.
19. Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace. W.
Dec. 13. ’67.
My dear Mr Dowden,
I can’t in the least see into the mystery of the rejection of the article. [1] I believe the fault of it must be that you have so disinterestedly stuck to the business of making my poem speak for itself, and not, as most critics do, diverged and flourished with your own tendrils over my brickwork. One of the reasons you give, or re-deliver, is too impossible—that I should consider the appreciation inadequate!—“inadequate” it certainly is in some respects,—the greater your goodness and forbearance! Of course such a demonstration that, after all, there was a wondrous understander of the poem, would be valuable: I wish with all my heart I may yet see that phenomenon registered beyond the reach of incredulity, and that I may be honoured by the publication, as you seem to think possible. By a coincidence there is just going to appear a volume of Essays, [2] —published by Macmillan[,] containing one on Sordello, which was sent to me in m.s. perhaps a year ago, by a person no more personally known to me, at that time, than yourself. I do know him now,—I hope you will one day help me to extend the parallel so far also,—and am sure he would be glad of such a concurrence. As for me, I feel very deeply and gratefully your care for my works and kindness to me, and shall always remember that what I write is more than likely to reach you.
I happen again to have the opportunity of correcting my “works”: I fear there are more blunders than those you so kindly pointed out,—somebody told me a week ago there was an expression “blooming carroch” [3] which he felt difficulty in understanding! Such printer’s-perversity as this I shall rectify by myself,—but, should any slip of my very own seem discovered in the course of your reading, I shall regard the mention of it as one more favour from one who has so much favoured his, or rather,
Yours ever truly,
Robert Browning.
I send the article by the post with the present letter.—R.B.
Address: Edward Dowden Esq. / 61. Wellington Road, / Dublin.
Publication: LRB, pp. 123–124.
Manuscript: Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne (envelope); and Wellesley College.
1. A second article on Sordello for Fraser’s Magazine (unpublished—the first is reprinted in Appendix II, pp. 392–398), as indicated in a letter dated 9 May 1867 from Dowden to his brother, John (see The Letters of Edward Dowden and His Correspondents, [ed. Elizabeth D. Dowden and Hilda M. Dowden], 1914, p. 38).
2. Essays on Robert Browning’s Poetry (1868) by John T. Nettleship (see letter 5886, note 1).
3. Cf. Sordello (Poetical Works, 1865), line 317: “The carroch’s blooming …”; read “booming” for “blooming.” The editors of the Longman edition of RB’s poems define “carroch” as “an anglicisation of ‘carrochio,’ the car of state which accompanied the army of an Italian republic and bore the standard” (see The Poems of Browning, Vol. 1, ed. John Woolford and Daniel Karlin, London and New York, 1991, p. 417).
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