1188. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 23–24.
[London]
March 25. 1843.
I should have written yesterday my dearest friend, but Mr Kenyon came with the Scissors of a Fate [1] & cut off the remnant of the day before post time. And now, first of all, lest I forget afterwards, .. about the chocolate. I will make .. that is .. more reverentially .. I will ask Papa to enquire in the City whether any West India ships have brought a supply, & send it to you according to my success. His own ships return in the summer—but he may have means of supplying you earlier. It is almost unlucky—because the prepared chocolate I could always have it in my power to send you– Nevertheless I hope in Papa!–
No—I have seen Bewick only in extracts [2] —therefore you are justified in reproaching my ignorance—and I dare say I was perfectly wrong in supposing him to be a mere scientific writer without a soul—as wrong as if I had fancied the same thing of Buffon. [3] Bewick did not however write all his own books .. as of course you are aware: and an old eccentric Northumbrian clergyman who was one of his writers, was one of my unknown correspondents years & years ago, & amused me much with his quaintnesses of thought & word. Mr Cotes, the name was!– [4] Ah! I am glad I recollect it at last! For the name of a friend, vanishing out of one’s head for a moment, makes one think of sackcloth & ashes & all sorts of propitiations!–
Well! Mr Kenyon came to see me yesterday (dear Mr Kenyon!) and he brought & read to me a letter from Mr Wordsworth to Mr Crabbe Robinson speaking with great feeling of the release of the poor Laureate– [5] Although it was a release, the letter said,––yet he, Wordsworth, could not consider the removal of a friend of his youth, without depression of heart—and then he went on to say that, invited or not to the funeral, he wd attend the body to the grave. [6] Dr Southey died at last of typhus fever .. having had an apoplectic fit a few weeks ago—so that he passed through many forms of death before he entered into its rest. [7] It is equally impossible to lament that he is gone who stood in the world with a wall of darkness between him & us so long—and not to feel sadness in some degree when we think of Southey among the dead!–
Mr Wordsworth had the goodness to send for me, in the same letter, a printed but unpublished poem of his own, & of some four pages, ‘with his very kind regards’. This of course has delighted me!– The subject is Grace Darling. [8] I rejoice very much in the subscription prosperity. My beloved friend, if your friends shd advise you (& I cant really see why they shd) to print the list, .. my petition to you is that EBB stand for my name– But what object is there in printing it? or can there be?
Ever yr attached
EBB–
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 192–194.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Atropos, the eldest of the three sisters controlling the fate of men, held the scissors that severed the thread of life.
2. See letter 1183.
3. Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707–88) was a naturalist and curator of the Jardin du Roi. His major work was Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux (1749–1804); of the 36 volumes issued in his lifetime, nine were devoted to ornithology.
4. Bewick’s contribution was confined to the extraordinarily realistic engravings. Henry Cotes, Vicar of Bedlington, supplied the text of the second volume (1804) on aquatic birds. For EBB’s known correspondence with Cotes, see volume 2.
5. Southey had died on 21 March.
6. Wordsworth was not formally invited to the funeral, as he had offended Southey’s second wife by taking the part of her stepchildren against her, but he was present. He later wrote an inscription intended for Southey’s tomb in Crosthwaite Church; the text was printed in John Bull (25 December 1843, p. 809); The Times (26 December); and The Athenæum (30 December, p. 1161).
7. Southey’s faculties had been declining for some time; the last year of his life was passed in “a mere trance” (DNB).
8. Grace Horsley Darling (1815–42), with her father, the keeper of the Farne Islands lighthouse, on 7 September 1838 rowed in high seas to rescue a group of people isolated on the rocks after their ship was wrecked. For this act, she and her father were both awarded gold medals by the Humane Society. Wordsworth’s four-page leaflet was offered for sale in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A2491). Haydon’s wife also received a copy, which he sent on loan to EBB with letter 1208. Its subject, which EBB associated with Bro’s death at sea, caused her to say she read it with pain (see letter 1250).
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