808. RB to John Anster [1]
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 38–39.
Hatcham, New Cross, Surrey.
April 28 1841.
My dear Sir,
Some years ago I received a very beautiful and melodious volume of Poetry—“Xeniola” [2] —you had been good enough to send me: it arrived by a very circuitous route and considerably after the date of the kind letter that was enclosed in it, and I very unfortunately allowed myself to imagine that a little longer delay in acknowledging your courtesy would not much matter, while it would allow me to accompany my thanks with a Poem on which I was engaged. [3] That Poem, however, took a longer time to complete than I had anticipated– I was forced to travel– I have not a single acquaintance in Dublin .. in short the thanks I should have delivered then, I only deliver now—they have kept warm all the same. The facility of the Post enables me to beg your acceptance of the trifle you receive, [4] and your leave to forward its successors in due course. If you will further signify to me any way a packet would easily reach you—(I am so unacquainted with these matters)—I will also send the work I published last year—Sordello.
Begging once more that you will accept my true thanks and forgive the tardiness of their expression,
I am, Dear Sir,
Your’s obliged
R Browning.
Dr Anster.
Publication: NL, p. 24.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. John Anster (1793-1867), Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Dublin, had published an English translation of Goethe’s Faust in 1835.
2. Xeniola. Poems, Including Translations from Schiller and De la Motte Fouqué (1837).
3. Sordello.
4. Pippa Passes, published in April 1841.
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