Henry Crabb Robinson, 30 Russell Square, London, to Lady Anne Isabella Byron, [no address], 9 December 1853.

[f. 20r]

London

30 Russell Square

9th Dec: 1853

Madam –

       The letter I return makes me uneasy on account of the trouble it must occasion your ladyship. – It is painful to perceive how generous designs must be frustrated if it be deemed necessary to obtain the assent of persons differing so widely as your high-minded friend and his very ordinary kindred

       In your last obliging note addressed to me you expressed the wish that I should recall to a declining memory the ipsissima verba of Robertson And it appears that his next of kin requires that the memoir should be so prepared as to “prevent as much as lies in the power” of those who would promote the [f. 20v] work “the possibility of painful criticism” The fact being that in the very degree in which the work contains matter truly valuable it is sure to provoke painful criticism – Exclude all such materials And it would not be difficult to produce a memoir that should be blameless and worthless – His Life or Memoir of it reduced to a Caput Mortuum will leave his memory, as it already stands in the Clergy List of Brighton during the years of his official source –

      I am ashamed to send such obvious matter of fact as this; Yet it would be still less becoming in me to send you back the letter with a mere acknowledgement of its receipt I am unable to suggest any thing under these circumstances

       [f. 21r] This letter has brought to my mind one of Göthes admirable epigrammatic thoughts in which, as in almost every particular of the man of letters, he was the great man of his age Addressing Philanthropic reformers he says I translate from memory –

       [“]You think of benefitting the world – do you? Begin by trying to serve your neighbour and see what comes of it – I have made the Experiment – and know”!!!

       It is poor consolation, but still it is some comfort to know that the evils under which we suffer, have been sufferd by others –

                 I am madam

                                    your’s obediently

                                                 H. C. Robinson

The Lady Noel Byron

To me, the most unpleasant part of this matter would be, the apparent concurrence in opinion of Mr Towers with the family

Text:  MS-DEP Lovelace-Byron 109, fols. 20-21, Bodleian Library, Oxford.