SD1672. Mary Russell Mitford to Digby Starkey

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 373 (in part).

Swallowfield

August 18, ’53.

This is a note of adieu, dear Mr. Starkey, to you and dearest Emily, for I have concluded the agreement for two works, and must abstain from all correspondence until both be completed. … Mr. Ticknor says that the rappings have driven so many people to the madhouse that there is a question in the States of forbidding such practices by law. Mrs. Browning believes in them. The world have believed in the Cock Lane ghost.

There is an elder Tennyson, the third of the poet-brothers who is about to print a volume—“better than Charles,” Mrs. Browning says—“worse than Alfred.” …

Text: L’Estrange (1), II, 264–267.

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