1406. Richard Hengist Horne to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 378–380.
[London]
Friday Morng [Postmark: 20 October 1843]
Thank you, dear Miss Barrett, for your good nature in promising to study political economy to serve me. [1] The proposal made me laugh though—and partly because I expected this part of the matter w’d stagger you, if it did not unnerve your great large hand. Well—I never meant you to trouble yourself about the political economy part—I want to do this myself—and meant, moreover, to go to W. J. Fox to teach me, he having been the chief teacher, and introducer of Harriet Martineau to the public. She is not so old as you fancy. Not fifty, I sh’d think. [2]
How you do go on in the dark about this new dark work of mine as to who sh’d be in it, portrait-wise or not, when I have no deputed power over the illustrations—my part is the literature. Be sure of it I will not forget to make mention of Miss Mitford—but I cannot make the publishers have a portrait from the clouds, nor obtain one, (copyrights) nor pay the engraver, nor ‘all that’ especially when the “plan of the work” is against it. For, where is Lady Morgan, and Mrs Shelley, [3] and Campbell and Moore? All alive, and not in my book? No—others were in Chorley’s picture-book. Miss Mitford was there. [4] Now, dear E.B.B, you be E.B.B, you begin to see? Already there has been a great discussion as to whether the portraits should be as many as a dozen, or only 10. Ten engravings on steel, to say nothing of several pictures (painted on purpose) do you know what they will cost? No. But the publishers do. It is their affair—poor d<evils>. [5] Pity me—and be good—as you are fair. True, you always are. I will do all I can—in every way, for dear Miss Mitford for whom I have a great regard. Now?—behold my breast unbared! The form of these articles is to be that of an essay—any biographical remarks that are true (one can’t well invent these matters, or not safely) will be good to introduce, if pleasant, worth telling, and not of a kind that sh’d be kept private. The disquisition is to be sym[pa]thetical chiefly—no necessity for any analysis of any particular work, nor for the mention of many of them. The nature of the genius is the first thing—then, how far it is the product of the age, and spirit of the time—what is its influence upon the age—with its “future prospects.” <and why—and how—and how far—or for instance.> [6] This is our formula. Instead of political economy, you shall have poetry. Do you know (I never said much about it to you, I believe) I did suddenly arrive at a very high opinion of your critical powers where the subject suited you, in reading your remarks on Shakspeare, and on Beaumont and Fletcher, in the Athenæum. [7] Therefore, oh Friend in need, will you write me four or five pages (Quarterly magazine size and type) on “William Wordsworth and Leigh Hunt.” [8] Considered as connecting links between our previous poetical period and the present (or Wordsworth even w’d not have been included—as an exception—in this our new book, because he has been twice booked before in the two similar works to this our projected[)]– <Hazlitt (1825)—Chorley’s 1838–> [9]
These two poets to be ‘worked’ alternately, and together—by harmonious contrasts.
Thus
Mr Wordsworth is a primitive Preacher;
Mr Hunt the pleasantest creature,
And, besides, a delightful teacher.
Wordsworth’s soul is a very far reacher,
And his nose is an austere feature.
Hunt dances round a flower.
Wordsworth spells it by the hour
& you need not absolutely say it in these words.
Any time within a week or so, will do, if you can manage it by that time. Be pleased to write on letter paper size, at least, on one side only, with an inch of margin on each side.
Your obliged
RH.
P.S. Yes—confidential as the grave.
Which of Miss Mitford’s works do you consider her best? Stand your grounds, so please you, Valerian? [10]
Address: Miss E. B. Barrett / 50 Wimpole St / Cavendish Sq.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. Meaning that EBB expected to have to study Miss Martineau’s Illustrations of Political Economy (1832–34) before being able to write the essay requested by Horne in letter 1403.
2. Miss Martineau, born on 12 June 1802, was 41 at this time.
3. Lady Morgan (née Sydney Owenson, bapt. 1783, d. 1859) established her reputation with The Wild Irish Girl (1806) and Florence Macarthy (1818). Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (née Godwin, 1797–1851) is best remembered for Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818).
4. In Chorley’s The Authors of England (1838).
5. The letters in angle brackets have been partially obliterated, presumably by Horne.
6. Horne inserted this phrase as an afterthought.
7. i.e., in her 1842 papers on The Book of the Poets.
8. See letter 1403, note 2, for prior discussion of the extent of EBB’s co-authorship of A New Spirit of the Age.
9. Horne inserted this information as an afterthought.
10. Horne had termed EBB “The Greek Valerian” in a poem in The Monthly Chronicle (see letter 829, note 12).
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