1183. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 14–16.
[London]
March 21. 1843–
Your letter is delightful to me my beloved friend—and if I did not write yesterday or the day before to say so, it was because I had an accumulation of writing to throw aside before I came to the ‘sweet necessity’ [1] of writing to you. In the meantime a great colossal parcel has come “to my care,” & your address, .. & I hoped to receive from you this morning some direction as to what you might be graciously pleased for me to do with it. When Crow told me of it, I thought, among other imaginations, that it might be Madme de Grandrion’s mss,—but as soon as ever I had beheld it with my eyes, I became comfortably sure that no possible consummation of ‘Duty & Inclination’ could look so large or weigh so heavy. Besides it feels hard—& is more like two or three new oratorios in shape & dimension than anything I can think of, being by several sizes larger than encyclopædias– Now may the sweet saints forefend that it be a manuscript romance written in music-books!
In any case my dearest Miss Mitford I am afraid of doing harm by keeping the parcel even until I can receive your commands—and I send it to you accordingly by this day’s railroad– Should I be connected with it in the way of having it in my power to be otherwise useful to you than by the simple forwarding, command me. Your letter was abundantly satisfactory on the point of editorships—& since you resolve on fastidiousness, I am nearly as sure as if the future were open to me, that you will, by no manner of means, consent to edit a work by your Admiral’s daughter. [2] Yes! my dearest friend!—certainly you are often more fastidious than I am, & often probably pour cause. [3] Yet it seems to me that my fastidiousness is rather for poetry, & yours for prose. For instance I never cd be persuaded even by you, to call Hayley a poet—and among our contemporaries, Stirling & Simmons are in good odour with you. On the other hand you will remind me that you wd like Browning better as an attorney .. or a merchant’s clerk .. which is it?—than as the poet of ‘Paracelsus’—to which I answer nothing, hiding my face. Yes, you are more fastidious than I—upon the whole you are! and nobody in the world with any sort of an organ of veneration, wd appeal from a condemnation of yours to an acquittal of mine. Still, being ‘perverse’ & ‘insolent’ as our dear Mr Kenyon says, I persist in going on to be of opinion that Bulwer is a writer of indubitable genius,—that so is, Charles Dickens—that so is Robert Browning—& that so, in spite of the criticism “ben trovato,” [4] is Christopher North!– Your Ben is admirable—& so are you, .. who “keeps a critic,” .. in your report of him! Your letter shd be a chapter charming a thousand readers!– Ah! but albeit the ornithology of the Professor [5] be not authentic like Bewick’s [6] in all its details—we feel, beseeching Ben’s pardon, a nature deep down in it, which if not the same as science, is at least more beautiful. If we have not the bird in it we have the poet—& the poet is the nobler creature– Be sure, my dearest friend, that readers who are not cockneys, & who are not women, have thrilled, & laughed & dropped hot tears over many & many a page of those Recreations. For my own part I cannot be such a dastard as to deny their influence for good & admiration over my own heart. The man is a poet through his prose.
And is it true that he uses a multitude of words? Perhaps in certain passages they do abound: and yet the term verbosity is not one for him .. he has life enough for all his words … they breathe & they burn.
You are something better, but not well! And the blister!– But that cant be a long-lived evil––and I see you in my dreams walking through the green lanes as usual again– I am so glad about the chocolate & the oysters. And that reminds me .. will you be reminded to tell me which of the chocolates .. the rough large piece .. or the prepared .. you like best,—& also whether you are near the end of your supply? When you write next, I beg you to answer these questions: and I also beg you not to write too soon to me if you shd still be over-worked in the letter-writing way. Only if you are ill, let me hear! or if I have it in my power to assist you in anything possible to me .. let me hear then.
Notwithstanding my admiration of Bulwer, I had the hardest & most laborious work passing through his ‘Last of the Barons’ [7] (May it be the last of his romances wrought after such a fashion!) that you cd attribute to a reader of the last of the Encyclopædists! [8] There are threads of golden beauty sedulously cut off with Birmingham scissors—the sub-stuff being strong, & stiff, & useful—very good stout history, with all the dates right—but as for romance & poetic Art, the Goddess of useful knowledge [9] has set her face against them. You are restricted from being interested in anybody beyond a few pages at a time—and a crowd of persons keep walking up & down before your eyes, frowning & smiling most picturesquely & beautifully, .. till you are in a bewilderment as to the who is who & the what is what & long to turn your back on them for good!– There is an interesting man of science & a divine daughter [10] —but we are not suffered to stay with them,—so what do we gain by them? or what do we lose when one of them is hanged?– It is very strange altogether. And Mr Bulwer speaks in a recondite preface, much about Art & Art!– [11] And of all his romances, according to my impression, there is least of Art in this romance. Romance! call it history! It is the romance pedestrian, in any case .. & the history on horseback!
And you are resolved not to like Mary Howitt & Frederika Bremer together? And you did not like the extracts in Tait?– And you do like Jane Austen?– [12] Well! all that is a mystery to me I confess–
But it is post time. May God bless you my dearest dearest Miss Mitford!– How are the subscriptions? I have delivered yr message to Mr Horne—and I love you always–
Your EBB–
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 189–192.
Manuscript: Eton College Library and Wellesley College.
1. Cf. Milton, “Arcades,” lines 68–69.
2. i.e., Mme. de Grandrion/de Gaudrion.
3. “With good reason.”
4. “Well-founded.” John Wilson had reprinted, in The Recreations of Christopher North, a series of essays on birds, entitled “Christopher in His Aviary.” Ben Kirby had apparently criticized their accuracy, hence EBB’s play on “ben.”
5. Appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University in 1821, Wilson (Christopher North) held the chair until 1851.
6. Thomas Bewick (1753–1828), wood engraver, published The History of British Birds (1797–1804), the high-water mark of his career (DNB). His aim was “to stick to nature as closely as [he] could” (Memoir of Thomas Bewick, 1862, p. 154).
7. The Last of the Barons, just published, revolved around the struggle between Edward IV and Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick and Salisbury (1428–71), known as “the King-maker.”
8. Rousseau, Diderot, Condillac and other contributors to the Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers (1751–80).
9. Minerva/Athena.
10. Adam Warner, a philosopher and inventor, and his daughter Sibyll.
11. “In discussing, for instance, a modern work, we hear it praised, perhaps, for some striking passage, some prominent character; but when do we ever hear any comment about its harmony of construction, on its fulness of design, on its ideal character,—on its essentials, in short, as a work of art?… We do not yet comprehend that the author is an artist, and that the true rules of art by which he should be tested are precise and immutable” (The Last of the Barons, pp. xxv–xxviii).
12. Excerpts from Mrs. Howitt’s translation of Fredrika Bremer’s The Neighbours were given in the December 1842 issue of Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine (pp. 779–796). Bremer had been compared to Jane Austen, whom Miss Mitford admired (see letter 1070).
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