1281. Richard Hengist Horne to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 181–182.
[London]
Monday Morg [12 June 1843] [1]
My dear Miss Barrett. The enclosed is for Miss Mitford—which please to read, and forward. It is also my wish that you should be excessively amused by it—and you would if you had but read her letter. She innocently wants 50—nay 100 copies, without at all perceiving that I am even aware of the Publisher refusing to sell more than a single copy. But, of course, you know I shall be too glad to have it sent to any such friends as you and Miss Mitford know to be the right class for such a work—only, you see, in such a place as London, it would have been as mad as some people think it, not to guard every avenue in so novel a proceeding, where a false step, or a single oversight might have rendered me ridiculous, and empty of copies in a single hour! [2]
The Second Edition (same price) cannot be ready till the latter end of next week though four press-men are at work day, and night. I will send you the order upon the Publisher, in a day or two, and also let you know exactly the right time to apply.
Jerrold’s “Illuminated” and the old “Monthly Magazine” have both behaved very handsomely to me already. [3] Have you seen? I expect, however, plenty of spite and ill-nature from various quarters, and should not be surprised if the Athenæum were among the number. [4] I have no idea why.
Yours
H.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. In the following letter, EBB reports having forwarded the enclosure to Miss Mitford.
2. Writing to Hunt on 3 June, Horne said: “Anybody who ought to have the poem can buy it for a farthing. The proof that he ‘ought’, which I have directed the Publisher to require, is that the applicant should have a good face and proper accent. A man with a horse-nose and boar’s mouth who asked for ‘Horion’ would certainly not obtain it.... The book is refused, in numbers, to the ‘trade’ and to ‘unlikely’ messengers; and no friend can obtain two copies for his halfpenny.... as the poem is published at less than the price of waste paper I had to protect myself from people sending five shillings and a sack, with an eye to trunks and pie-bottom” (The Farthing Poet, by Ann Blainey, p. 133).
3. Orion was reviewed in The Illuminated Magazine, June 1843 (pp. 119–121) and in The Monthly Magazine, June 1843 (pp. 490–501).
4. Horne was not aware that the review yet to appear in The Athenæum would be by EBB herself.
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