1382. Benjamin Robert Haydon to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 333–334.
London
Sep 18th 1843.
My dearest Friend /
I send you Wordsworth, send me Wilkie [1] —many thanks for your handsome present,—we have been eating Tamarinds ever since– The Polyphemi [2] of Lemons we have not touched yet–
I am going to spend a whole day with a Lion & watch his savage & Royal Motions—how would I have gloried to have lived in such Times, when Lions were to be met with, taking an evening walk!
One of my day dreams used to be meeting a Lion in the Strand, escaped from Pidcock[’]s [3] & having a regular fight, when of course I laid [it] dead at my feet, & was carried on the Shoulders of the people—I have started up & huzzaed myself! before I got my perceptions——glorious!– Now I will realize a fight in my Picture [4] —it is in a glorious state—do fix a day for a roll up– Best regards to your Sisters & family–
Ever yours
B. R. Haydon
Miss B. Barrett.
P.S. Will you wait till the Lion’s done, on reflection?– I[’]ll give you a savage Monster, not the drawing room Lion, his Mane shining with Rowland’s Calydior [5] like Edwin’s for the Queen! [6]
Did you ever see such an Egotist? I never ask you what you are doing, but take it for granted what I am doing must be delightful to you–
But what are you doing? because an Intellect like yours must be active–
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 147–148.
Manuscript: University of Vermont.
1. Presumably his sketch for the portrait of Wordsworth worked on in November 1843. Pope speculates that it was one of the two likenessess of Wordsworth now at Dove Cottage (Pope, V, 325–328). Haydon was apparently exchanging it for the sketch of Wilkie sent to EBB with letter 1249.
2. Prodigality. Polyphemus, King of the Cyclops, fed upon human flesh. When Ulysses and twelve of his companions landed in Sicily, Polyphemus ate six of them before Ulysses contrived to escape with the surviving members of his crew. (See the Odyssey, bk. IX.)
3. His menagerie occupied the upper floor of Exeter ’Change in the Strand. The building was demolished in 1829.
4. “Alexander’s Combat with the Lion,” finished in December 1843.
5. Rowland’s Kalydor, a “creamy, odoriferous preparation from Oriental Exotics” was advertised as “the only safe and efficient protector and beautifier of the Skin and Complexion” (The Athenæum, 21 January 1843, no. 795, p. 71).
6. Edwin Landseer had depicted Isaac Van Amburgh, the American lion-tamer, with his animals. Victoria attended Van Amburgh’s performance six times in 1839.
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