SD1294. Mary Russell Mitford to Charles Boner

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 367 (in part).

[Three Mile Cross]

[late October 1846]

I have to thank you dear Mr Boner for your most kind letter & for your verses. … The great news of the season is the marriage of my beloved friend Elisabeth Barrett to Robert Browning. Do you know him? I have only seen him once many years ago– He is I hear from all quarters a man of immense attainment & great conversational power– As a Poet <I think> him overrated– The few things of his <which are> clear seem to me as weak as water, & <those> on which his reputation rests Paracelsus <&> the Bells and Pomegranates are to me as <so> many riddles– I could as soon construe [illegible word] as the jargon in which they are written[.] I dread exceedingly for her the dreadful trial of a journey across France to Italy & the total change in life & habits– Mrs Jameson & her niece joined them at Paris, but my last letter was from Moulins, & she then seemed much exhausted. God grant she be not quite worn out by that terrible journey to Pisa!…

Address, on integral page: Charles Boner Esqre

Publication: Memoirs and Letters of Charles Boner, ed. R.M. Kettle (London, 1871), I, 102–104.

Manuscript: Yale University.

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