Correspondence

564.  RB to William Johnson Fox

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 239.

[London]

Tuesday Night. [2 May 1837] [1]

No words can express my feelings: I happen to be much annoyed [2] and unwell,—but your most generous notice [3] has almost made “my soul well and happy, now.” I thank you, my most kind, most constant friend, from my heart for your goodness .. which is brave enough, just now. I am ever and increasingly yours,

Robert Browning.

You will be glad to see me on the earliest occasion, will you not? I shall certainly come.

Publication: Orr, p. 84.

Manuscript: University of Iowa.

1. Dated by Fox’s review of Strafford in The True Sun, 2 May 1837, p. 3.

2. Perhaps by the review in The Times, 2 May, saying that Strafford “would be almost unintelligible” to one not “acquainted with the minutiæ” of the historical period.

3. Fox’s review echoes, to a degree, the comment in The Times, but he ends by speaking of RB as “this young, daring, and successful aspirant for the higher honours of poetry.” (For the full text of both reviews, see pp. 391–393.)

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