1732. Benjamin Robert Haydon to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 175–176.
London
Oct 6. 1844
My dear Friend /
I hope on the whole you are pleased with our worthy The Examiner yesterday. [1]
Your defence of the Poetry of Harriett Martineau, is worthy of her—perhaps I could defend the converse—viz. there is nothing Poetical but what is Radical– I could say just as much on one side as the other.
What I have a horror of, is the Ultimate republican vulgarity to which we are tending– What is high Art become? a beastly vulgarity already—the solitary heroism, the mysterious sublimity, the awful singleness is gone!—every body now is profaning–
I can no longer stride my room by midnight—& glory in feeling alone in my pursuit, from its dangers, its risks, its isolation! The Treasury with its vulgar thousands, have destroyed the danger, & therefore the honor. [2]
Upon the whole, I sympathise with the irresponsibility of a despotism, rather than the legal submission to law which characterises a Republic—this is my bond of sympathy with Napoleon & Alexander in preference to that namby pamby bit of moral worth Washington–
In fact I am a contradiction my dear Friend, & to you alone I confess–
I gave Dennys your note which sent him to the 3rd Heavens! [3] His Portrait is my best [4] – It was done in one sitting[;] if Tennyson has such a head, will you tell him I shall glory in painting him[?] [5] Uriel is getting on—& Sattan [sic] settled—I make him spring off, maliciously glorying—& pointing to the Earth– [6]
B R Haydon
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 151–152 (as 6 October 1843).
Manuscript: University of Vermont.
1. For the text of this review, see pp. 345–348.
2. Haydon’s diary entry for 4 October reads: “The art is becoming a beastly vulgarity. The solitary grandeur of Historical painting is gone. There was something grand … in pacing your quiet Painting room after midnight” (Pope, V, 393).
3. Cf. II Corinthians 12:2.
4. A reference to “Uriel Revealing Himself to Satan,” which Edward N. Dennys had commissioned. In his diary entry for 10 September, Haydon reported: “My Uriel is making a sensation already; I am very proud of it. I think the head of Uriel the finest thing I ever did … Dennys, my Employer, called, & was pleased beyond expression” (Pope, V, 389).
5. EBB was not well enough acquainted with Tennyson to make such a request.
6. On 5 October, Haydon recorded in his diary that he had “worked hard & at last hit the action & Expression of Satan” (Pope, V, 394).
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