QUEEN VICTORIA | autograph letter signed, to Tennyson, 28 August 1883

QUEEN VICTORIA

AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED ("VRI"), TO ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

ON HER DESIRE TO COMMEMORATE JOHN BROWN ("...Could you help me in choosing one or 2 lines to be put on the pedestal of the bronze statue of my faithful attendant & friend w[hich] is to be placed in the grounds here in a pretty quiey spot? As well as on a small granite drinking fountain w[hich] I am placing to his memory in Frogmore gardens..."), in words that will recognise his virtues of "Power & strength, moral as well as physical, truth, devotion, unselfishness", 5 pages, 8vo, headed mourning stationery of Balmoral Castle, 28 August 1883, autograph envelope

Friend more than servant, loyal, truthful, brave!

Self less than duty, even to the grave (Tennyson, epitaph on John Brown)

Tennyson responded to the Queen's request with a selection of quotations including from Shakespeare, Byron, and Pope, but it was the couplet of his own composition that she chose to have inscribed under Sir Joseph Boehm's bronze sculpture erected in the grounds of Balmoral. See also lot 118.

PROVENANCE:

Spiro family collection; their sale, Christie's, London, 3 December 2003, lot 109

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