Supporting Documents

SD2890.  Diary Entry of William Allingham

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 361.

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21 April [1867]

Lunch with Browning at Warwick Crescent. Miss Browning. Swinburne’s writing ‘a fuzz of words.’ Browning improvises,

Don’t play with sharp tools, these are edge ’uns,

My Ned Jones!

B.’s pet owl sits on its perch in a corner, B. calls him ‘a good man,’ petting and stroking him. We speak of William Morris, and B. wishes he could see him: I say, ‘Come with me to him,’ and B. hesitates, but ends by not finding it possible to-day. Enter Pen. As You Like It—Mrs. Scott Siddons was ‘so bad!’ Shakespeare’s language; he invented a great number of words and phrases which have become common property—

The big round tears

Cours’d one another down his innocent nose.

Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens!

Now Byron says ‘swept,’ and that’s all fine—but give me a man who first said ‘sweep.’

Text: William Allingham, A Diary, ed. H. Allingham & D. Radford (London, 1908), p. 151.

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