1249. Benjamin Robert Haydon to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 134–135.
London
May 17th 1843.
Dearest Friend /
When I said good word I alluded to Bentley, not to any public notice!—& dont suppose I breathe the hundredth part of a syllable yet—no—no I am no Steam writer for the season! Why you are a prophet!—how did you know Revelations were coming?—dare I trust you with them first?– What revelations!– They revived all my early feelings so vividly I grew sick– They brought before “the inward eye” [1] the long weary rapturous encumbered struggle!– Homer should have placed a man in Hell, as an historical painter in England!– you know the line in the Odyssey—Sisyphus would have been a joke to him, for torture [2] —Ixion [3] & he would have prayed Jupiter to keep them where they were, & at any rate not make them Historical painters in England!—
Your Countess on Homer, is like Mdle de Sevigné on Columbus—Avez vous lu ma chère fille, les voyages de C. Columbe? ils sont très amusants! [4] I think it is L’histoire des voyages de C.C. &c—the greatest discovery on this Earth—a bagatelle for a Court! I go on of course, Journal by Journal and am got now to 1813– I found a Sketch of Wilkie—painted in 1807–
[“]David Wilkie arguing with some apprehension he will get the worst of it–” [5]
It is a gem—exactly like him– After I have got through the Extracts—I will send you the Journal—in most sacred confidence at present–
If you go through the life of Wilkie—I think you will like him—in spite of all his quiescent, selfishness–
He was amiable & affectionate—and when I read [of] his Death, I (was at Dover) [6] I felt as if a string was pulled out,—I dreamt all night I was at Jerusalem—& visiting with him the Tombs of the Kings——
Poor Wilkie!—you must acknowledge—Women are the grave of Men’s Friendships! The moment his Mother & Sister [7] came to Town, away it all went—(our extreme attachment)—our “noctes cænæque Deum” [8] were delightful— Some of his letters to me are delightful as you will say— What a Compound he was!—licking the feet of the Nobility, [9] yet, he never accepted an Obligation! crying to get a Commission—he stood erect if they offered him an advance!— I found a Drawing of him 1816, which I will send you—get ready the Napoleons, & the Porte feuille– I will send you Fred—(Wordsworth[’]s God-Son) & Frank—(Sir Walter’s)—Mrs Siddons was to have been his God Mother, but she thought it too solemn so Mary Mitford was—who was not an Actress—& did not think so—but took it for granted as he [sic] had so few sins of her own, she had a corner for Frank[.]
My dearest little Mary, I think—is better–
Always yours
B R Haydon
Ms B B–
Address: Miss B. Barrett / 50 Wimpole St.
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 99–101.
Manuscript: University of Vermont.
1. Line 29 of Blake’s verses to Thomas Butts, included in a letter of 22 November 1802.
2. Homer’s Odyssey describes the torments of Sisyphus, Orion, Tantalus and others in hell (XI, 563ff.). Sisyphus’s punishment, of eternally struggling to roll a large stone to the top of a hill, was for breaking a promise to Pluto.
3. Ixion, King of Thessaly, was shunned by neighbouring princes for killing his father-in-law. Jupiter took pity on him, and carried him to heaven to sit at the table of the gods, but Ixion attempted to seduce Juno, whereupon Jupiter banished him, ordering Mercury to tie him to a perpetually-revolving wheel in hell.
4. “Have you read, my dear girl, the voyages of C. Columbus? They are very amusing!” Mme. de Sévigné, in a letter to Mme. de Grignan of 1 April [1672], actually said “Que lisez-vous, ma bonne? Pour moi je lis la découverte des Indes par Christophe Colomb, qui me divertit au dernier point” (“What are you reading, my dear? For myself, I am reading the discovery of the Indies by Christopher Columbus, which diverts me extremely”). A note in Gérard-Gailly’s 1953–57 edition of Mme. de Sévigné’s correspondence suggests that she was referring to an Italian translation by Alfonso de Ulloa of Ferdinand Columbus’s account of his father’s voyages.
5. A sketch captioned “David Wilkie in an argument” appears in Benjamin Robert Haydon: Correspondence and Table-Talk, ed. Frederic Wordsworth Haydon (1876, I, 252).
6. Sic, for (I was at Dover).
7. Isabella (née Lister) and Helen Wilkie.
8. “Nights and feasts divine” (Horace, Satires, II, vi, 65, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough).
9. This echoes the comment in The Examiner (see letter 1217, note 11).
___________________
