1221. Richard Hengist Horne to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 90–91.
36 New Broad St
April 27/43
My dear Miss Barrett–
So far as I know the remark that “Corneille is rather epic than dramatic” is mine, and used for the first time. Has anybody else said so? Certainly I shd not wonder—for (as with you) it seems to me so true and obvious that I cannot think but that most people who understood the two things wd have seen it long ago, and said it, of course. Very good remarks on Corneille you will find in Vol 1. pp. 394–5.6.7 of Schlegel’s Lectures—Black’s translation—Second Edition. [1]
I am very glad you are pleased with the article I sent you. [2] For any omissions of names see the first paragraph of the article—’specially the first sentence. The whole view is jammed into less than a sheet and a quarter. Nevertheless Beaumarchais was written by accident. His name was down in my notes. The writers of the substantive articles on each country will of course be “perfect.” I do not intend to write any of them.
To what you say of Mr Powell, I can only add that I fear you are right as to his want of a unity of poetical conception. I wished by encouragement to make him ‘study and mend’—not omitting some severity. But any one can be severe, you know. I have never touched upon one of Mr Browning’s greatest failings. Nor do I wish. Also—I think I have done the best for the learned French. Have’nt I now? “I like to write to you because you allow and encourage me to talk of” R.H.H. [3]
P.S. I have finished my note like a woman you will find it. I object to your answer to your ‘guess.’ No man (unless Leigh Hunt) would have ventured such a thing.
Address: Miss E. B. Barrett / 50 Wimpole St / Cavendish Sq.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. John Black’s translation of A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature was first published in 1815. A second edition, with an introduction by Horne, appeared in 1840. Lecture X contained extensive references to French writers, including the opinion that “Rhetoric, and rhetoric in court dress, prevails but too much in many French tragedies, especially in those of Corneille” (I, 381), and that “Corneille was peculiarly well qualified for exhibiting ambition and the lust of power” (I, 397).
2. We have not traced publication of this article.
3. EBB has apparently repeated to Horne Haydon’s assertion in letter 1219, but without ascription.
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