1265. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 154–156.
[London]
May 29th 1843.
I inferred from your note that it was a volume of Miscellanies with a fantastic title … perhaps .. “Euthanasia; & Life-poems.” When I saw the advertisement, I cried out aloud … “ah!—he goes down to Brighton to write epics!—no wonder that he cant write to me!”—but when, a whole minute & a half afterwards, my eye was caught by the “price, one farthing” (as if you cd expect anybody to look at once to the price of an epic!) I was dumb,—partly with puzzle .. partly with disappointment .. because you see, .. at least I see, .. it must be a brief mockery of an epic––a page or two of print,—not at all what I wanted from you, nor what America wanted from you––although better than nothing, to be sure!– Well—these are gracious thanks for your epical announcement!– [1] What did you mean by disappointing me so? Oh it cant be an epic—it must be a joke: I think I will be as cross as I was when I wrote last to you!– The fact however is, that I have sent to Mr Miller [2] for sundry copies, and when I get them I mean to blow them about the world as far as my breath will take them, and put all my correspondents upon epical diet for the next .... how long? How long shall we be in reading Orion? I dare say you will give us three minutes—one a book! Really, Mr Horne, it is almost vexatious.
My dear friend, I am very very sorry that you have not been well. Do tell me, if you can sincerely, that it is a passing evil—or past. Perhaps you do too much work—burn too large a wick in your oil—! The other day I took up the Foreign Quarterly of last January in which is your Chinese paper, & fell upon another article called ‘Turkish travellers’ which I had never fallen upon before. [3] Some things in it are so like you, and some other things are so unlike, that I swing like the prophet’s coffin, [4] & petition you to help me down to the ground. Is it you interpolated? Surely the style is yours—or I am bewitched—which is possible too. [5]
If you “owed a note to me” (& you did!) I was just going to double the debt as you paid it—for reading Mr Halpin of the Shakespeare society upon Oberon’s command to Puck in the ‘Midsummer night’s dream,’ [6] & falling into the degree of passion to which sympathy is more necessary than it is to grief itself, I turned in my thoughts to you as the person most likely of all to be in a competent passion, should I ask you civilly. Now by the soul of Shakespeare, it ought to be treason or blasphemy by act of Parliament for men to write such treatises & call them commentaries. They are mentaries in a strict sense. Here is Mr Hunter who used to preach unitarianism as the result of the Christian revelation, .. & now, in order to break down the divinity which hedges Shakespeare, writes to prove Caliban to be a sort of tortoise!! [7] —& Mr Halpin gives us a “paraphrase” of Oberon’s ‘sug’red words’, [8] —from which, here is an extract.
“And so the imperial votaress passëd on
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.”
Halpin loquitur. “And so the virgin queen departed from Kenilworth castle, unshackled by any matrimonial engagement & as heart-whole as ever ..” [9]
I hope you dont belong to the Shakespeare society. [10]
Oh no, no! I have sent no book to America!—to be published there. I shd not quite like to do such a thing—& then if I did, the American booksellers who can get everything (thanks to the state of the copyright!) for nothing, would not thank me for proposing ‘a bargain’ to them. No literature of the soil sells there scarcely, except Magazine literature. Mr Mathews has written & sent to me a pamphlet on the International Copyright, which I wd send to you if you cared to see it—but I am always afraid of troubling you over-much. The condition of native literature in America appears to be most melancholy,—crying out from beneath the chain & lash as loudly as the slaves of the southern states, if not as pathetically.
By the way … I may well write “by the way” … I have been reading you in the Illuminated Magazine. [11]
Tell me, when you can answer questions,—who wrote Festus? [12] and .. Do you know Mr Heraud?–
Next year I mean to publish again. Ah—you laugh at me!—but it was not all perversity. Moxon refused once—& then sent me two benign recanting messages one upon another to the effect that he wd do it for me though it slew him—! I, in the meanwhile, had flagged a little & thought of the advanced season, & how a spring later might be better on all accounts. Do not mistake me—I seldom if ever flag as to essential objects—&, that being the best of me, I take the opportunity of throwing a broad light upon the face of it.
I shd like to have your opinion upon many things in relation to poetry, & shd be very much in my submissions—only, what we shd like, is generally the farthest off us or the most impossible thing to us.
I have not yet heard from America in reply to my question. [13]
Ever your friend
Elizabeth B Barrett.
You shall hear of Orion another day.
Address: R H Horne Esqr / 36. New Broad Street / City.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: R.H. Taylor Collection.
1. i.e., the announcement of Orion, of which he had given EBB notice in letter 1261.
2. J. Miller, of 404 Oxford Street, was the publisher of Orion.
3. “Modern Turkish Travellers,” in The Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review, January 1843, pp. 166–193.
4. Mahomet’s coffin was said to have hung in mid-air in its temple in Mecca, held in place by lodestones (cf. Butler, Hudibras, II, iii, 441–442).
5. In letter 1272, Horne identifies the writer as Julia Pardoe.
6. Oberon’s command was “Fetch me that flower” (II, 1, 169). Nicholas John Halpin (1790–1850) had just published Oberon’s Vision in the Midsummer-Night’s Dream, attempting to demonstrate that the play contained an allegorical representation of the Earl of Leicester’s suit for Queen Elizabeth’s hand at a time when he was engaged to another.
7. Joseph Hunter (1783–1861) made this assertion in A Disquisition on the Scene, Origin, Date, etc. of Shakespeare’s Tempest (1839), basing his argument on the phrase “Come, thou tortoise, when?” (I, 2, 316).
8. Richard III, III, 1, 13.
9. “Halpin says.” This gloss on Shakespeare’s lines (II, 1, 163–164) is given on p. 94 of Halpin’s thesis.
10. Halpin’s work had been published under the auspices of the Shakespeare Society.
11. The Illuminated Magazine of May 1843 (pp. 45–53) contained an article on the Royal Commission on Children’s Employment, of which Horne had been a member.
12. Festus, a version of the Faust legend, was by Philip James Bailey (1816–1902), but had been published anonymously in 1839.
13. In letter 1222, EBB had asked Mathews whether he thought Graham’s Miscellany would be interested in having contributions from Horne.
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