571. RB to William Charles Macready
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 251–252.
Camberwell,
June 15 1837.
My dear Macready,
You never can have wronged me, I am sure; by thinking I might have called for the Drawings—when I have been quite unable to get near you. Even on Monday night I was forced to leave the Theatre without seeing you—Hamlet I saw––and have sacrificed to him one of the most vivid recollections I had meant to keep as “a joy for ever” [1] —I mean that of the ‘Hamlet’ of Wednesday October 21, 1830 [2] —but
“’Tis the last key-stone
That makes the Arch: the rest that there were put
Are nothing till that comes to bind and shut–
Then stands it a triumphal mark! Then men
Observe the strength, the height, the why and when
It was erected; and still, walking under,
Meet some new matter to look up and wonder!” [3]
It was indeed a magnificent revelation.
I trust Miss Macready’s health continues to improve and that “Elstrie” is as Elstree should be and shall, si quid mea vota!– [4] I am just going into the country to keep up, in some measure, the motion to good works—of which the original impetus was got there: but I shall see you first, no doubt: tomorrow if possible.
Ever your’s most faithfully,
Robert Browning.
I called on Mr Osbaldiston, [5] I should tell you, last Saturday, and not finding him, wrote a note which Mr Robertson [6] promised to deliver—mentioning the omission and desiring an answer forthwith. He has taken no notice whatever of my application.
I am going to meet Dow [7] tonight by appointment—he has “business to communicate.” Should you hint that I left him last Monday for Hamlet—grievous would the effects be! In the event of your encountering him, of course. Dii meliora piis! [8] (meliora than the “effects,” not the “meeting”!)
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. Keats, Endymion, I, i, 1.
2. In 1830, 21 October fell on Thursday. The performance RB mentions included Macready as Hamlet and The Times of 22 October 1830 described his performance as “exceedingly cold and tame,” saying that “Mr. Macready possesses an excellent voice, but it seems to be under the guidance, not of judgment, but of caprice.” The performance that RB had just seen was the first in a new season at the Haymarket Theatre “under the auspices of Mr. Webster, who has gathered together a most efficient company … The chief attraction last night was the tragedy of Hamlet, in which, of course, Macready played the Royal Dane. His qualities … are too well known to need particular comment; it will be sufficient to say that his acting of the difficult part was seen to the greatest possible advantage” (The Times, 13 June 1837).
3. Ben Jonson’s “An Epistle to Sir Edward Sackville,” lines 136–142.
4. “If my prayers [accomplished anything].” Elstree, some 12 miles N.W. of central London, was where Macready lived.
5. David Webster Osbaldiston, actor and manager 1835–37 of Covent Garden.
6. The box office manager and agent of the proprietors of Covent Garden.
7. William Alexander Dow, (d. 1848, aged 41), of Southwark, a lawyer and sometime legal advisor to Macready, through whom RB is thought to have met him. DeVane suggests that Dow and his family were neighbours of the Brownings and were therefore known to RB from the early 1830’s. He supports this assertion by citing the lines composed by RB for the tombstone of Dow’s father (see Reconstruction, E495), who died in October 1832 (DeVane, p. 556). Maynard, however, states (p. 403) that the tombstone was not erected at that time, and believes that the lines in question were written about 1837. He places RB’s first meeting with Dow in 1836.
8. “[May] the gods [give] better things to the good” (Vergil, Georgics, III, 513).
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