To Joseph Severn

Denmark Hill, 23rd January, 1861.

Dear Mr. Severn,—Indeed it gives me great and unqualified pleasure to hear that you wish to obtain the Roman Consulate. What testimonial can I offer to you, that will not be a thousand-fold out-testified by the consent of all who know you, and who knew, in those old times of happy dwelling in the ruinous Immortality of Rome: where English and Italians alike used always to think of Mr. Severn as of a gleam of living sunshine—in which there was no malaria of mind—and which set at one, and melted into golden fellowship, all comfortless shadows and separations of society or of heart. Consul! Truly and with most prosperous approbation, it must be! I shall say with Menenius, “Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee.” As for Raphael Cartoons or frescoes—you know I mind them not profoundly, but all that I do mind profoundly, I know that you have eye for also, and as I cannot fancy anything pleasanter for English people at Rome than to have you for Consul, so I can fancy nothing more profitable for English people at home than that your zeal and judgment should be on the watch for [such] straying treasures as in these changeful times may be obtainable of otherwise unhoped-for Italian art.