1282. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 182–183.
[London]
June 14, 1843
My dear Mr Horne,
I have read & forwarded your letter to Miss Mitford, .. who tells me in a letter yesterday (a cross stitch) that in spite of all I can say, she is glad of having written to you; because … you “will be obliged to say something in your answer.” Well! I also am glad … that somebody is curious besides myself. And I am not sorry that the somebody shd be Herself, .. being jealous of her “with Styx nine times round me,” [1] in natural proportion to her degree of glory & victory & twentyfive promised copies!
Very well, Mr Horne!–
‘It is quite useless,’ said I to Miss Mitford, ‘that you shd make your application!! have I [2] not asked for six copies & been repulsed?”– Now carry the result of the application historically downwards … & me with it!– Very well, Mr Horne!–
As to your suggestion about the compromise of her & my struggling heroically for these spolia opima [3] ... really you can know little of what, heroes, female-heroes, are made to suggest such a thing. I have told Miss Mitford (to disabuse you at once) that not if she & you asked me on your four knees to touch a page of the twentyfive, would I consent to such a thing! I make feminine oath [4] against it … I [5] dont choose to do it. I wont have one of them … no, nor of any others in their stead.! Very well, Mr Horne!–
After all, it is not (seriously) so very ill—because she may have (has, probably) twentyfive & more “learned & accomplished friends” & I have not—& Mr Miller will probably be in a better humour in a second edition than his advertisement gives us present hope of—& I recognize at once the fact that you shd not be asked to give your books away actually, as a consequence of your doing so virtually– Virtually—not virtuously. Not in the least do I approve of your distributing the second edition in the manner of the first– The cause of it & the object in it are inscrutable to me—particularly as I dont hold to the common opinion that much poetry has made the author mad. Papa says .. “Perhaps he is going to shoot the queen, & is preparing evidence of monomania” .. an ingenious conjecture, but not altogether satisfactory–
I have seen no criticism at all! The star-gazers will all have their glasses up of course, .. while “this new planet swims into their ken”. [6] But Orion is a constellation .. is’nt he? [7]
Pity my astronomy, if not my ill-temper … which last may not be quite as bad as it seems!
Ever yours,
EBB–
Address: R H Horne Esqr / 36 New Broad Street / City.
Publication: EBB-RHH, I, 57–60.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. Cf. Pope, Ode for Musick. On St. Cecilia’s Day (1713), line 91.
2. Underscored twice.
3. “Spoils of honour [to the victor]” (Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, IV, 20, 5).
4. Cf. Fletcher, The Chances (1647), II, 1, 118.
5. Underscored twice.
6. Cf. Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” line 10 (Poems, 1817).
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