908. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 231–233.
Wimpole Street.
Febr– 4. 1842
My dearest friend—, do let me see Dryden. [1] Oh yes—I shall certainly like it! I like anything of that sort—anything that brings [us] nearer, or seems to do so, to the Immortals. I am capable of all sorts of foolishnesses (which Mr Kenyon thinks so degrading that he does me the honor of not believing a word of them—at least he says so) about autographs & such like niaiseries. [2] I might, if I were tempted, be caught in the overt act of gathering a thistle because Wordsworth had trodden it down .. of gathering it eagerly like his own ass! [3] —and
“the duck
Which Samuel Johnson trod on—” [4]
being left for you, of course! So you dont ‘think anything’ (as people say) of Samuel Johnson! How Boswell wd distrust, in his magnanimous ‘hero-worship,’ your compliment which brushes by Johnson!– And after all, he was a fine show giant! a memorable Gargantua! [5] He was a ‘man’—as Carlyle boasts of him—& a specimen-man! [6] and if he does “say things three times over,” he says things sometimes which are worth the repetition. Take notice, this is all in the spirit of contradiction, for I have’nt the least bit of real love for this great lumbering bookcase of a man. Oh I quite agree with you in my inner woman. Think how he treated our poets! Even I, who care almost less for Gray than for him, shrink away from the sight of his injustices in the Life of Gray.– [7] Still, there were some fine things about Johnson—& what with them & what with Boswell, one is worked up into an attitude of respect to him from which there is no quite relaxing. I observe that the imitators of his style, are for the most part superficial—they catch his mechanical trick,—but the intellectual atonement for it, the thought which causes us to pardon the re-iterated emphasis, is passed over altogether.
Yes—Wordsworth is wordy sometimes—in his blank verse he is. But he is a Wordsworth—a great poet & true!
As to Dryden .. why perhaps .. nay, certainly, he does’nt lie as near to my heart as yours. And yet how true is every word that you say of him—every word except … The truth is I never cd believe him capable of being a true dramatist under any possible combination of favorable circumstances. I do not believe it, simply because I believe that his defect as a poet is, still more than his verbosity, a defect of sensibility & consequent power over the feelings. Dryden always makes me think of Lucan, who was called by the Roman critic, an orator rather than a poet. [8] He roars magnificently to be sure! ‘Yes’—to the letter, my dearest friend! Yes, frankly!
I am impatient to read Mdme d’Arblay [9] —I like diaries & letters & all that sort of gossip so much! Have you Jephson’s plays? [10] I never read one of them—& shd like to glance thro’ them, in à propos to the times! Think of him & Hannah More [11] dividing the stage between them!–
Ever your attached
EBB.
I am so sorry about your new distress! Is it an epileptic affection? How is she now? [12]
As to Flush .. I did hear once of his condescending to stoop his head over the dripping pan—& I will speak to Crow about it. She is gone out to see the show of the Queen & the Prussian king, [13] & not being at home at one o clock, as usual nothing cd persuade Flushie to go down stairs to his own dinner. He wdnt stir. So the housemaid brought his plate up to my bedside! Pray thank K____ for the suggestion about the dripping. But really his extreme particularity makes it difficult to satisfy him. Milk, he likes best—milk & cakes. Hard biscuits unless there is sugar in them, he does’nt like much. Macaroons & ratafies he is very grateful for—but then, one cant exactly feed him upon macaroons & ratafies all day long! He likes pastry too; & buttered muffins—but with no fanatical enthusiasm. The sweet soft kinds of cake are the only things which excite that. What do you think Papa said to me a few days ago?– “It is my opinion that you love Flush better than anyone else in the world”!
No—it is’nt true. But I do love Flush & for two unanswerable reasons.
Papa has come into the room while I write,—& he desires me to offer you his regards. Mine to dear Dr Mitford! That cramp! How sorry I am!
God bless you both–
Am I to understand from what you say of the Athenæum that you see it regularly? Tell me if I may send it when my papers appear? Because I must make you see them—you must criticise my criticisms!
I congratulate you on Mr Lucas, O dearest prophetess. [14]
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 344–346.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Letter 910 makes clear that EBB refers to an autograph letter of his.
2. “Foolishnesses.”
3. See “Peter Bell” (1819), lines 1126–30.
4. Johnson, at age five, was supposed to have composed the following epitaph: “Here lies poor duck / That Samuel Johnson trod on; / If it had liv’d it had been good luck, / For it would have been an odd one” (Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, LL.D., by Hester Lynch Piozzi, 1786, p. 10). However, authorship is ascribed to his father, “foolishly proud of him” (DNB).
5. Gargantua, famed for his insatiable appetite, was immortalized by Rabelais in La Vie Inestimable du Grand Gargantua, Père de Pantagruel (1535).
6. In his lecture of 19 May 1840, “The Hero as Man of Letters,” Carlyle spoke of Johnson as “A strong and noble man … An original man” (Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History, 1841, p. 46).
7. Gray was included in Johnson’s Prefaces Biographical and Critical to the Works of the Most Eminent English Poets (1779–81), later published separately as The Lives of the English Poets. Although owning that “To say that he has no beauties, would be unjust”, Johnson’s comments are mainly adverse; he considers the odes to be marked “by glittering accumulations of ungraceful ornaments; they strike, rather than please … the language is laboured into harshness.... there is too little appearance of ease and nature.”
8. Lucan, the author of Pharsalia, was said by Quintilian to be “fiery and passionate and remarkable for the grandeur of his general reflexions, but, to be frank, I consider that he is more suitable for imitation by the orator than by the poet” (Institutio Oratio, X, 1, 90–95, trans. H.E. Butler, 1922).
9. The first volume of Diary and Letters of Madame d’Arblay. Edited by her Niece [Charlotte Frances Barrett] had just been reviewed in The Athenæum (no. 744, 29 January 1842, pp. 101–104).
10. Robert Jephson (1736–1803), Irish poet and dramatist, wrote Braganza (1775), The Count of Narbonne (1781) and Julia, or the Italian Lover (1787), among others.
11. Hannah More (1745–1833) wrote prose and verse, as well as plays, and was held by Johnson to be the most “powerful versificatrix in the English language” (DNB). Her play Percy was produced at Covent Garden in 1777 and was revived in 1787 for Mrs. Siddons.
12. Miss Mitford’s new maid, Marianne, was subject to fits. EBB, fearing that either Miss Mitford or her father might be physically harmed in the course of one of them, urged Marianne’s dismissal (see letter to Miss Mitford, 17 October 1842).
13. Frederick William IV (1795–1861), who had become King of Prussia in 1840, had come to London to act as one of the sponsors at the christening of the Prince of Wales on 25 January 1842. This was the day of his departure, and he and his suite were being escorted in procession to the Woolwich Dockyard by Prince Albert.
14. Miss Mitford had early recognized the talent of Lucas, and was one of his first patrons (see letter 857). He was now painting Prince Albert, the first of four portraits Lucas made of him. Finished in 1842, it is reproduced facing p. 41 of John Lucas, Portrait Painter, 1828–1874, by Arthur Lucas (1910).
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