1169. RB to Helena Saville Faucit [1]
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 351–352.
[London]
[4 March 1843] [2]
My dear Miss Faucit,—Here is your album, with my best thanks for the honour you have done me by asking some rhymes for it: and here are the rhymes themselves—poor enough, most probably, but sincere, quite as certainly. [3] I wish from my soul it were in my power to find some worthier way of proving the admiration and gratitude with which I remain, my dear Miss Faucit, yours ever faithfully,
Robert Browning.
Text: On Some of Shakespeare’s Female Characters, by Helena Faucit Martin (5th edn., 1893), pp. 396–397.
1. Helena Saville Faucit (1814-98), later (1851) Lady Martin, made her stage debut at Richmond in 1833 as Juliet. She subsequently became a leading actress, playing in London opposite Charles Kemble and Macready. She had played Lady Carlisle in RB’s Strafford and Lady Tresham in A Blot in the ’Scutcheon, and later took the part of Colombe. She and her husband became good friends of RB.
2. Dated by RB’s entry in Miss Faucit’s album.
3. Lady Martin opined that the failure of A Blot in the ’Scutcheon was due in large measure to Macready’s not taking the part of Lord Tresham and that it was “a serious misfortune” to have given the rôle to Phelps. “With his wonted generosity Mr Browning spoke of what I had done for his heroines in the following lines, written in my album soon after the production of The Blot in the Scutcheon. On the opposite page were some verses, in which flowers played a prominent part. This circumstance, and the particulars above given, will explain allusions in the lines, which might otherwise be obscure” (op. cit., p. 395).
The following lines were inscribed in the album:
There’s a sisterhood in words—
Still along with “flowers” go “birds.”
Is it but three weeks to-day
Since they played a luckless play, [4]
And “the Treshams,” like a band
Of full-fledged nestlings, left my hand
To flutter forth, the wide world over?
Just three weeks! yet see—each rover
Here, with more or less unsteady
Winglets, nearly reached already,
In the Past, so dim, so dim,
A place where Lucy, Strafford, Pym,
My elder brood of early years,
Wait peacefully their new compeers.
Then, good voyage! shall it grieve me
Vastly, that such ingrates leave me?
Why, this March, this very morning
Hatched my latest brood, take warning, [5]
Each one worth you put together!
April sees them full in feather—
And how we’ll welcome May’s glad weather!
Helen Faucit, you have twice
Proved my Bird of Paradise!
He, who would my wits inveigle
Into boasting him my eagle,
Turns out very like a Raven:
Fly off, Blacky, to your haven! [6]
But you, softest dove, must never
Leave me, as he does, for ever—
I will strain my eyes to blindness,
Ere lose sight of you and kindness.
“Genius” is a common story!
Few guess that the spirit’s glory,
They hail nightly, is the sweetest,
Fairest, gentlest, and completest
Shakespeare’s-Lady’s, ever poet
Longed for! Few guess this: I know it.
Hatcham, Surrey, March 4, ’43.
The letter and album were included in Sotheby’s sale on 21 December 1936 (see Reconstruction, E180).
4. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon had its first performance on 11 February 1843, but was taken off after only two further performances, on 13 and 15 February.
5. Although Colombe’s Birthday did not appear in print until April 1844, it is apparent that RB started it soon after the publication of A Blot, as he told Domett, in a letter dated 15 May 1843, “I … must also make-up my mind to finish a play I wrote lately for Charles Kean … (Macready has used me vilely.)”
6. These four lines are taken to refer to Macready, for whom the part of Lord Tresham was written. However, when RB refused Macready’s request to delay the date of the first performance, the part was played by Phelps. RB was annoyed by Macready’s behaviour and the two quarrelled, and, as noted above, RB’s next play was submitted to Kean. (For a more detailed account of these circumstances, see SD1191.)
___________________
