1068. EBB to Ann Henrietta Hayes
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 187–188.
[London]
Dec. 1. 1842
My dearest Annie,
I have deferred more days than I at first intended, thanking you for your kind letter, & satisfactory & therefore most welcome account of your health & position at Taunton– But how long do you remain there? Are you so pleased with your castle as to “live there happily all the days of your life” [1] ,—or do you mean sometime to cross the drawbridge & come to London? Your question to Henrietta about pretty bonnets leads me to hope that we shall see you again—& that Mr Hayes has not checkmated you by castle-ing his queen, for ever & ever–
My sonnet to Wordsworth,—which is in fact as you will see, a sonnet on a picture of Wordsworth, I enclose under this cover,—& acknowledge that it was scarcely worth so much waiting for. Arabel put off attending to your request, but did not mean to neglect it altogether. The sonnet was occasioned by the kindness of Mr Haydon the artist who sent the picture to me,—& who afterwards, without consulting me, sent the sonnet to the poet:—the result of the whole being that Mr Wordsworth wrote to me very kindly with his own hand!–
The “Mr Cornwall Barry Wilson” is not as I fancy you fancy, Barry Cornwall the poet,—but simply a Mr Cornwall Baron Wilson & the very undistinguished husband of Mrs Cornwall Baron Wilson who edits the Belle Assemblée & writes diluted verses & watery novels– [2] I say ‘an undistinguished husband’ because I never heard of his being remarkable for anything in the world except for husbandship of the authoress. Enquire if I am not right: Barry Cornwall’s real name is Procter.
Is it true that Mrs Woodforde has been writing certain verses in Taits Magazine?—the name attached to them being Mrs Thomas Woodforde & the date of the place Taunton– [3] Does she not live at Taunton? Is she not there now?
Dear Mr Boyd has been writing a good deal to me lately; & we have been quarrelling fiercely about Wordsworth—and I am pleased through all the quarrellings to see him armed with his old iron & energy—exactly as of yore–
Thank you for enquiring about me– I am very essentially better certainly—must be—for within these last ten weeks the spitting of blood has quite stopped for the first time since I broke the vessel—& it may be the Divine Will to restore me– The weather serves me, & is so unseasonably & delightfully mild, that a fire has been a mere superfluity—and indeed today & yesterday I have had my fire put out & sate more pleasantly without any,—this day being the first of December!!
Should Mr Hayes be with you, do offer my remembrance to him, & believe me yourself dear Anni<e,>
Ever your affecte
<EBB>
Arabel’s love—& she means to write.
Address: Mrs Hayes / Taunton Castle / Taunton / Somersetshire.
Publication: EBB-HSB, p. 250 (in part).
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. Cf. The Book of Common Prayer, Epiphany II.
2. Cornwall Baron Wilson, a solicitor, married Margaret Harries (1797–1846) in 1819. She assumed the editorship of The Weekly Belle Assemblée (later The New Monthly Belle Assemblée) in 1833, and also wrote novels, poems and plays, including The Cypress Wreath (1828), Venus in Arms (1836), Chronicles of Life (1840) and Popularity, and the Destinies of Woman (1842).
3. No verses bearing her name appeared in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine. The Woodfordes were apparently friends of the Boyds, as a message to Mr. Woodforde was contained in letter 609.
___________________
