ABSTRACT
First pub!. Orr Life s6; repr. Penguin and Correspondence iii 75· The epigram is a postscript to a letter conjecturally dated 28 Mar. 1833 to W. J. Fox (for whom see headnotes to Dance and Pauline, pp. 3-4 and I6). The MS of the letter is in the Huntington Library; no other autograph copy of the epigram is known. 'T. R-' is the Rev. Thomas Ready, whose school B. attended between the ages of about eight and fourteen (I82o-26); for details see Maynard 24I-53. Maynard suggests that the epigram refers to 'one of Ready's sermons at Kennington', i.e. that it dates from the time of the letter to Fox, rather than from B.'s school-days. Maynard also suggests that B. was the author of another epigram on Ready, to be found in an amateur magazine called The Trifler, produced by friends of B. in I 83 s. to which B. is known to have contributed a prose piece (Maynard 38o-2; the prose piece is also repr. in Correspondence iii I I 8-20):
Epigram "I wander from the point!" cried Tom-
It was an idle fearHow could he ever wander from
What he was never near! Maynard's attribution is possible, though there is no conclusive evidence. Two other fragments of verse connected with Ready and his school are recorded in Domett Diary 73-4. Domett recalls: 'We talked of Browning's early school at Peckham . . . He says they taught him nothing there and he was "bullied by the big boys". When first there, at 8 or 9 years of age, he says he made a copy of verses, which he remembered to this day, and "great bosh they were", intended to ingratiate himself with the Master (a Mr. Ready.) He quoted the two concluding lines which ran thus:
We boys are privates in our Regiments ranks-'Tis to our Captain that we all owe thanks!
