1515. Cornelius Mathews to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 178–180.
New York.
30th. Jany. 44
My dear Miss Barrett,
The best hour of the twenty four is your due, for the kind letters you write to me, and I wish, now, I had a better to day to choose from, but bleakness overhead & at one’s fingers ends do not ‘fur[n]ish forth’ [1] the daintiest responses. The blocking of steamers by ice in our great Long Island Sound, between N York & Boston, whence the steamers, as you know put forth, hurry the mails & I am called to write a day before my mind was ready. I will pause to say that I wrote your name in my mind as one of the admirers of Behemoth among the first & best tributes I had ever received—& then go on to tell you that a collection of ‘English Poetry’ is to be made in this country [by Mr R.W. Griswold] [2] & that to a friend of mine is deputed, at my request, the charge of your writings, [3] Mr. Horne’s & Mr. Browning’s & I hope you will live to be pleased when you see what is done & said in your & their behalf. The Book is to be published on the first of March, & an early copy shall be yours. I wish it could have waited awhile for your new volume, the promise of which makes the coming of Spring look pleasanter to me. If you will see that copies are sent to me I will take care that they reach our leading Reviews & Magazines, with a proper ushering. And by the way a new Journal of Criticism & Art is just projected in this [city], among certain friends of mine, to be published if sufficient supporters are found & to be called the “Home Critic[.]” [4] Whenever the project ripens I shall see that you are in at the plucking, and—it is to be a weekly of the size & general appearance of the Athenæum—if agreeable to you cause it to be sent regularly by mail as it is issued.
The Massacre of Innocents by the Foreign Q. R. in its article on American Poets & Poetry creates mingled mirth & rage. [5] I for one hold it to be just—in most cases—in its statements, but very questionable in spirit. I may say so who am not among them nor of them.
—There was a brief Notice of ‘Orion’ in Graham’s Magazine, which I have not by me—with a promise of a full Review. [6] Should such appear I will take pains to forward it to Mr. Horne through you. The Notice expressed high admiration so that Mr. Horne, if he be like his brethren & sisters of the craft, may count upon a pleasure in its perusal.
Thank you for reminding me that copies of these Writings of mine should be sent to the London Reviews. They are now, as I hope you know by this time by eye-proof, all bound up in a compassable volume, & sent, through Wiley & P. to the leading Journals. In addressing you before on this point it was not to give you the trouble of looking after them but that I might be put in the way of knowing how they could be sent with the best chance of not being overlooked or allowed to fall behind the desk. If you knew the paramount influence of British Criticism on American reputation you would not be surprized that I confess to a hope that the Athenaeum & other like Organs of Criticism may ‘speak one softly’. [7]
With every good wish for your prosperity, I am,
Yours sincerely
Cornelius Mathews.
To
E. B. Barrett. London.
Address, on integral page: To / Elizabeth B. Barrett, / 50 Wimpole. Street / London.
Docket, in Mathews’s hand: Steamer / 1st Feb. ’44.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Hamlet, I, 2, 181.
2. In this case, the square brackets are the writer’s, not editorial additions.
3. Griswold had edited The Poets and Poetry of America (1842), and in 1844 he collaborated with Duyckinck in publishing The Poets and Poetry of England in the Nineteenth Century. Duyckinck was probably the friend deputed with the charge of EBB’s writings.
4. This scheme later became The Home Library, projected to include new works by English writers as well as American, but only one number was issued, although a volume of EBB’s poems was announced as forthcoming. For a later reference to this, see letter 1572.
5. The Foreign Quarterly Review of January 1844 included comments on volumes of poems by Longfellow, Griswold, Bryant and Colton in a general article on American poetry (pp. 291–324). It commenced with the patronizing remark that “‘American Poetry’ always reminds us of the advertisements in the newspapers, headed ‘The best Substitute for Silver:’—if it be not the genuine thing, it ‘looks just as handsome, and is miles out of sight cheaper.’” The writer found “their poetry is little better than a far-off echo of the father-land” and says “it is a reproach to them that they should be eternally thrusting their pretensions to the poetical character in the face of educated nations.” Mathews equates this verbal slaughter with Herod’s massacre of male children (Matthew, 2:16).
6. Graham’s Magazine, January 1844, carried a brief comment on Orion (p. 46). A longer notice appeared in the issue of March 1844 (pp. 136–141).
7. We have not located the source of this quotation. The Athenæum of 3 February reviewed his Poems on Man (see letter 1538, note 8).
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