Item 28 - Letter from Thomas Woolner to Robert Browning

2 docs

Gift from A. N. L. Munby, Apr. 1948.

27 Rutland Street, N.W. - Has given his friend Sir Charles Nicholson, who is travelling to Egypt in November and will pass through Italy an introduction to Browning. Had an invitation from Carlyle two days ago to meet some friends of Browning, the Twisledons [Twisletons] but was not free; Carlyle is evidently recovered. Another friend of Browning's, Mrs Cust, has called on Woolner, wanting him to cast her hand as a gift for a sister who is going to India; found she was an old friend of the Trevelyans.

Has done little since he last saw Browning but work on his bust of Tennyson; has 'worked upon it closely for nearly 9 weeks and have fully a month's work yet before it can be completed'; complains about lack of time spent on most works of art nowadays, particularly sculpture. Rossetti is soon going to paint an altarpiece for Llandaff Cathedral; he is travelling to Wales with Seddon, the architect responsible for repairing the building, 'so that probably he will not be long before he commences it - but as to finishing? -'

David Masson asks in which paper Browning's article on Chatterton is to be found. Story about Thackeray's recent lectures at the Glasgow Athenaeum. Does not 'hear much spoken of in the literary world except [Elizabeth Barrett Browning's] Aurora Leigh'.