1431. Benjamin Robert Haydon to EBB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 42.

London

Nov. 9th 1843

Dearest Invisible /

I send you for a poetical feast, to night before you retire, the very first proof (and you shall have the very first that is published from me) it is beautifully like—the very head–

Lupton is my man [1] —let me have the large Canvas & keep this—till to-morrow 4—pray take care of dust—as I must retouch– Your Eyes are the very first after the Painter & Engraver—there’s an honor—Bay is nothing to it[.]

Your

B R Haydon

over [2]

My boy passed Examination for Mid[shipman]—with Credit & is now a step higher a regular middy–

Address, on integral page: Miss B Barrett / 50 Wimpole St.

Publication: EBB-BRH, p. 159.

Manuscript: University of Vermont.

1. Thomas Goff Lupton (1791–1873) had engraved Haydon’s “Wellington Surveying the Field of Waterloo” in 1840–41; it was held to be among his best works (DNB). At the time of Haydon’s suicide, Lupton was in possession of an engraving of “Wordsworth on Helvellyn,” not yet having been paid his fee of £84. (See Pope, IV, 627; V, 31, 518 and 556.) It is not clear what engraving Haydon is in the process of retouching.

2. Written at the top of the page.

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