Henry Crabb Robinson, Athenaeum, London, to Lady Anne Isabell Byron, [no address], 13 October 1854.

[f. 59r]

London

Athenaeum

13th Oct: 1854.

Dear Lady Byron,

       Recollecting that miscarriages of a letter are more likely to occur and are almost irremediable, as I lately experienced, when there is a second passage, I write merely to say that I am now about to set out for Bury St Edmunds where my name with the Initials is sufficient but Westgate Street prevents all hesitation.  Not that my last letter was likely to invite a second on your part – I was dissatisfied with it; for it must be dissatisfactory to apologise merely for the mobility to answer with any effect a question very interesting – Brevity, they say, is the soul of wit, but it often has an appearance of disrespect – The case not put, but only in part hypothetically stated, is one that cannot be answerd by any one so well as he who has himself to act – An opinion of an inferior mind can only be suggestive – Weishaupts mot! is one as easily affected as it may be wisely acted on –

      I hope your Ladyship continues to receive letters from Bonne as promising as that you permitted me to read –

       Does the divine drama eclipse your anticipations? and will the Sermons of your late honourd friend appear soon?[1]

       My poor friend Paynter is I fear in unmanageable grief – His Son perished by the Explosion at Newcastle – he was just enterd the army –

      I shall remain at Bury till Novr I expect –

      I have the honor to be

                    &c &c &c

                         H. C. Robinson

Lady Noel Byron

Text: MS-DEP Lovelace-Byron 109, fol. 59, Bodleian Library, Oxford. Sermons Preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton, appeared in a ‘Series’ of five volumes between 1855 and 1880, along with three volumes of lectures; the editor, as well as the author of his ‘Memoir’ in vol. 1, was unacknowledged, but not in a way that warranted the approval of Lady Byron. As she writes below (19 April 1855) to HCR, ‘That we should never have mentioned Robertson’s Sermons! Have you seen them? I shall not read them. It is sufficient for me to know through what still they have passed – The story is told with some reservation in the Preface or Dedication.’ The Life and Letters of Frederick W. Robertson would not reach the public until 1865, edited by Stopford Brookes.