1257. Benjamin Robert Haydon to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 143–144.
London
May 23 1843
My dearest Friend /
You should consider my notes as a rattling conversation– I dont want you to make an anxiety about my auto-da-fe, [1] —is that right? Leave me & the Publishers to fight it out—only you will see it first—confidentially of course–
I send you my dear Harry [2] you shall have all the Haydons on “succession due”– [3] On my returned folio, I found a drawing is it yours or your Sisters?– It is very clever—with a slight tendency to German[.] I shall roll my Cartoons to-morrow—there goes Cæsar & his Fortunes– [4] Some young monkey will start up, who will swear he drew with his feet[.] The Town will get mad—& adieu to B. R. Haydon. I shall send you confidentially my mottoes in a day or two—you with the subject & a motto outside—& your name inside—if a blank your letter is never opened & there is an end—if a prize it is, & your name is known I do not think the things will be a failure—if they be—it is the duty of Englishmen to defend the first failure–
Suppose the King of Bavaria had offered prizes to Cornelius [5] for the best specimens of Color, impasta, light[,] shadow—handling? Would all the Germans have failed to a dead Certainty then why are the English to be taken out of their practice, & expected at once to succeed?– Impossibilities are always expected of Inglesi to prove their bottom–
Mind, I consider my own Superb of course–
Yours,
BRH.
Address: Miss B. Barrett / 50 Wimpole St.
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 101–102.
Manuscript: University of Vermont.
1. “Act of faith.” Usually referring to the public burning of heretics by the Holy Inquisition, it here suggests self-destruction through the publication of Haydon’s autobiography.
2. A sketch of Haydon’s son Harry, who was born 19 August 1830 and died 14 April 1834.
3. Shelley, “The Triumph of Life,” line 15 (Posthumous Poems, 1824).
4. Cf. Plutarch’s Lives (“Cæsar,” XXXVIII, 5).
5. Peter von Cornelius (1783–1867), a historical painter, went to Rome to study in 1811. In 1819, Crown Prince Ludwig (1786–1868, later Ludwig I) summoned him to Bavaria to direct the decoration of the Glyptothek, and he later executed the fresco of “The Last Judgement” over the high altar of the Ludwigskirche—“perhaps the most important mural works of modern times” (Encyclopædia Britannica). His advice was sought regarding the proposed frescos for the Houses of Parliament.
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