Rawdon Brown

“Mr. Rawdon Brown, an English man of culture, well known to visitors in Venice, died in that city in the summer of 1883. He went to Venice for a short visit, with a definite object in view, and ended by staying forty years. During one of his rare runs to England, I met him at Ruskin’s at Denmark Hill, somewhere about 1860. He englished, abstracted, and calendared for our Record Office, a large number of the reports of the Venetian Amba adors in England in the days of Elizabeth, etc. His love for Venice was so great, that some one invented about him the story which Browning told in the following sonnet, which was printed by Browning’s permi ion, and that of Mrs. Bronson—at whose request it was written—in the Century Magazine ‘Bric-à-Brac’ for February 1884” (Dr. Furnivall in Browning Society’s Papers , vol. i., p. 132*). “Tutti ga i so gust i, e mi go i mii.”— Venetian Saying. ( Tr. Everybody follows his taste, and I follow mine.) Sighed Rawdon Brown: “Yes, I’m departing, Toni! I needs must, just this once before I die, Revisit England: Anglus Brown am I, Although my heart’s Venetian. Yes, old crony— Venice and London—London’s ‘Death the bony’ Compared with Life—that’s Venice! What a sky, A sea, this morning! One last look! Good-bye. Cà Pesaro! No, lion—I’m a coney To weep—I’m dazzled; ’tis that sun I view Rippling the—the— Cospetto , Toni! Down With carpet-bag, and off with valise-straps! Bella Venezia, non ti lascio più! ” Nor did Brown ever leave her: well, perhaps Browning, next week, may find himself quite Brown! Nov. 28th, 1883. Robert Browning.