1726. EBB to Cornelius Mathews
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 164–166.
London– 50 Wimpole St.
October 1 [sic, for September 30]. 1844. [1]
My dear Mr Mathews,
I have just received your note, which, on the principle of single sighs or breaths being wafted from Indies to the pole, arrived quite safely, and I was very glad to have it. I shall fall into monotony if I go on to talk of my continued warm sense of your wonderful kindness to me a stranger according to the manner of men, [2] —and indeed I have just this moment been writing a note to a friend two streets away, & calling it ‘wonderful kindness’. I cannot however, of course, allow you to run the tether of your impulse, & furnish me with the reviews of my books, & other things you speak of, at your own expense,—and I should prefer, if you wd have the goodness to give the necessary direction to Messrs Putnam &c, that they shd send what wd interest me to see, together with a note of the pecuniary debt to themselves– I shall like to see the reviews of course—and that you shd have taken the first word of American judgement into your own mouth, [3] is a pleasant thought to me, & leaves me grateful– In England, I have no reason, so far, to be otherwise than well pleased. There has not indeed been much yet besides newspaper criticism,—<except Ainsworth’s Magazine which is benignant!—> [4] there has not been time. The monthly reviewers give themselves “pause” [5] in such matters, to set the plumes of their dignity,—& I am rather glad than otherwise not to have the first fruits of their haste. The ‘Atlas,’ the best newspaper for literary reviews, excepting always the ‘Examiner’ who does not speak yet, is generous to me [6] —& I have reason to be satisfied with others– And our most influential quarterly (after the Edinburgh & right Quarterly) the Westminster Review, promises an early paper, with passing words of high praise. [7] What vexed me a little in one or two of the journals, was an attempt made to fix me in a school, and the calling me a follower of Tennyson for my habit of using compound words, noun-substantives,—which I used to do before I knew a page of Tennyson, & adopted from a study of our old English writers, & Greeks & even Germans. The custom is so far from being peculiar to Tennyson, that Shelley & Keats & Leigh Hunt are all redolent of it,—& no one can read our old poets without perceiving the leaning of our Saxon to that species of coalition. Then I have had letters of great kindness from “Spirits of the Age” whose praises are so many crowns,—and altogether, am far from being out of spirits about the prospects of my work. I am glad, however, that I gave the name of “Poems” to the work, instead of admitting the ‘Drama of Exile’ into the titlepage & increasing its responsibility,—for, for one person who likes the Drama, ten like the other poems. Both Carlyle & Miss Martineau select as favorites ‘Lady Geraldine’s Courtship,’—which amuses, and surprises me somewhat. In that poem I had endeavoured to throw conventionalities (turned asbestos for the nonce) into the fire of poetry, to make them glow & glitter as if they were not dull things. Well—I shall soon hear what you like best––& worst! I wonder if you have been very carnivorous with me! I tremble a little to think of your hereditary claim to an instrument called the tomahawk. Still, I am sure I shall have to think most, ever as now, of your kindness,—and truth must be sacred to all of us, whether we have to suffer or be glad by it. As to Mr Horne I cannot answer for what he has received or not received. I had one note from him on silver paper, (fear of postage having reduced him to a transparency) from Germany,—& that is all,—and I did not think him in good spirits in what he said of himself. I will tell him what you have the goodness to say—& something too on my own part. He has had a hard time of it with his ‘Spirit of the Age’,—the attacks on the book, here, being bitter in the extreme. Your ‘Democratic’ does not comfort him for the rest, by the way [8] —& indeed he is almost past comfort on the subject. I had a letter the other day from Dr Shelton Mackenzie whom I do not know personally, but who is about to publish a ‘Living author dictionary’, & who, by some association, talked of the effeminacy of the American poets,—so I begged him to read your poems on “Man” & prepare an exception to his position. [9] I wish to write more, & must not–
Most faithfully yours
EBB–
Am I the first with the great & good news for America & England, that Harriet Martineau is better & likely to be better? She told me so herself, & attributes the change to the agency of mesmerism.
Address, on integral page: Cornelius Mathews Esqre / 4 Pine Street / New York / United States.
Docket, in Mathews’s hand: Rd Oct. 21. 44 / (Steam) And No /6/.
Publication: LEBB, I, 198–200 (as 1 October 1844).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. This letter is postmarked 30 September 1844.
2. Cf. Romans 6:19.
3. Mathews’s review of EBB’s Poems (1844) appeared in The United States Magazine, and Democratic Review for October 1844. It was the first review of the volumes in America; for the text, see pp. 340–345.
4. Bracketed passage is inserted above the line. For the text of the review in Ainsworth’s Magazine for September 1844, see pp. 333–335.
5. Cf. Hamlet, III, 1, 67.
6. See pp. 326–330.
7. See letter 1707, note 5.
8. A review of Horne’s A New Spirit appeared in the July 1844 issue of The United States Magazine, and Democratic Review, pp. 49–62. For the full text, see vol. 8, pp. 418–426.
9. See letter 1722.
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