1804. EBB to Henry Fothergill Chorley
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 3–5.
50, Wimpole Street,
Jany. 3rd. 1845
Dear Mr. Chorley,–
I hope it will not be transgressing very much against the etiquette of journalism or against the individual delicacy which is of more consequence to both of us, if I venture to thank you by one word, for the pages which relate to me in your excellent article in the New Quarterly. [1] It is not my habit to thank or to remonstrate with my reviewers—and indeed I believe I may tell you that I never wrote to thank anyone before on these grounds. I could not thank anyone for praising me: I would not thank him for praising me against his conscience; and if he praised me to the measure of his conscience only, I shd have little (as far as the praise went) to thank him for. Therefore I do not thank you for the praise in your article—but for the kind cordial spirit which pervades both praise and blame—for the willingness in praising, and for the gentleness in finding fault; for the encouragement without unseemly exaggeration, and for the criticisms without critical scorn. Allow me to thank you for these things and for the pleasure I have received by their means. I am bold to do it because I hear that you confess the reviewership; and am the bolder, because I recognized your hand in an act of somewhat similar kindness in the Athenæum, at the first appearance of the poems. [2]
While I am writing of the New Quarterly, I take the liberty of making a remark—not of course in relation to myself—I know too well my duty to my judges—but to your view of the ’vantage ground of the poetesses of England. It is a strong impression with me that previous to Joanna Baillie, there was no such thing in England as a poetess; and that so far from triumphing over the rest of the world in that particular product, we lay until then, under the feet of the world. We hear of a Marie in Brittainy, who sang songs worthy to be mixed with Chaucer’s for true poetic sweetness—and in Italy a Vittoria Colonna sang her noble sonnets. [3] But in England, where is our poetess before Joanna Baillie?[—]poetess in the true sense? Lady Winchelsea had an eye, as Wordsworth found out—but the Duchess of Newcastle had more poetry in her—the comparative praise proving the negative position,—than Lady Winchelsea. [4] And when you say of the French, that they have only epistolary women and wits, while we have our Lady Mary; why what wd Lady Mary be to us, but for her letters and her wit? [5] Not a poetess, surely! unless we accept for poetry, her graceful vers de société. [6]
Do forgive me, if an impulse has carried me too far. It has been long ‘a fact,’ to my view of the matter, that Joanna Baillie is the first female poet in all senses, in England; and I fell with the whole weight of fact and theory against the edge of your article.
I recall myself now to my first intention of being simply, but not silently, grateful to you; and entreating you to pardon this letter too quickly to think it necessary to answer it,..
I remain,
Very truly yours,
Elizabeth B. Barrett.
Publication: LEBB, I, 229–230.
Source: Kenyon Typescript, British Library.
1. Chorley’s review of EBB’s Poems (1844), as well as Poems by Frances Anne Butler and The Star of Attéghéi; The Vision of Schwartz; and other Poems by Frances Brown, appeared in The New Quarterly Review (January 1845, pp. 77–97); for the text, see pp. 344–349.
2. For the text of the portion pertaining to EBB in this review by Chorley, see vol. 9, pp. 320–324.
3. Vittoria Colonna (1490–1547), Marchioness of Pescara, and friend and correspondent of Michelangelo, wrote sonnets, mostly Petrarchan in style, on themes of love and spirituality. Four editions of her sonnets were published in her lifetime, the first, Rime de la Divina, in 1538. Marie in Brittany is doubtless a reference to Marie de France (fl. 1160–1215) the author of The Lai of Gugemar and The Lai of the Nightingale.
4. Anne Finch (née Kingsmill, 1661–1720), Countess of Winchelsea, was a friend of Alexander Pope; she is best remembered for her poem The Spleen (1701). Her works were rediscovered by Wordsworth, who evidently found an affinity with her meditations on nature. The “Duchess of Newcastle,” Margaret Cavendish (née Lucas, 1624?–74), was the author of Philosophicall Fancies (1653) and The World’s Olio (1655).
5. In Chorley’s review in The New Quarterly (January 1845), after mentioning the Countess of Winchelsea, he wrote “then there is the Lady Mary of Lady Maries—with her ‘champaigne and chicken’ eclogue, and her thousand keen epigrams.” The reference is presumably to Mary Wortley Montagu (née Pierrepont, 1689–1762) whose Town Eclogues was published in 1747 after having been pirated in 1716 as Court Poems. She helped introduce inoculation for smallpox to England. Her letters, first published in 1763, have been described as “remarkably well written” and “not without a keen appetite for the scandal of the times” (DNB); see letter 590.
6. A form of verse, usually about polite society, written in a light satiric style.
___________________
