1507. Benjamin Robert Haydon to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 168–169.
[London]
Sunday Jan 21. 1844
Now Ma’am, do you suppose I’ll be content with a written Portrait, strong & pictorial as it is– [1] I give you 6 months to recover, & see me, and if you dont then, I shall be justified in coming to your door & reproaching you through the key hole—& that, I[’]ll do. You do not know, how delightful your words
“My Son, thou art Invincible” [2]
sound yet in my heart not Ears—for it never went through them–
I have got Macbeth & George IV all ready [3] —I[’]ll send you the sketch of Macbeth to look at & cut up[.] I say, it is a glorious conception—what will you say—I say Lady Macbeth is better in Sketch than in Nature[.] Mary says it is not—but she likes the feminine & graceful—I maintain—Murder must be guessed by her mien—Mary says, she must still be beautiful & graceful– But he is about it[.] That which has made them bold has made me drunk [4] (is no trifle)–
What are you doing with your fine poetic soul, the highest poetry of Soul I know living– I have heard a capital Sermon from Dean of Carlisle, on the Conversion of St Paul, & the commemoration of that day next Thursday, I complete my 58th year & enter my 59th. [5] I shall soon write 60! I only hope to cut out Titian in completing my 100th & then I[’]ll die happy[.] I shall cut him out on nothing else– Think of the old Hero, dying of the plague prematurely cut off in his prime in his 99th year! [6] ha—ha– Could I but feel as I do now for 42 years longer how happy I should be– Is it nothing to have a strong clear brain, a vigorous body—activity[,] health, thought, gratitude to God; to have something to fight about, & fight for, to love & adore old England—& know I have advanced her Taste?—to be sure it is—I wake with aspirations of piety for feeling alive[.] I always did in Prison!—— [7] What an unfortunate Man you are Haydon said another last year– Unfortunate? how—have I not my faculties & health the Unconquerable Will!—& a beautiful face to look at—no—no that is not Unfortunate—and have I not female poets who esteem & Inspire me?– I have–
B. R. Haydon
Address: Miss B. Barrett / 50– Wimpole St
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 168–169.
Manuscript: University of Vermont.
1. Haydon refers to EBB’s description of herself, given in letter 1482.
2. EBB had quoted the Delphic Oracle’s reply to Alexander the Great in letter 1504.
3. Haydon painted several versions of Macbeth; he now refers to no. 145 in Pope’s checklist. “George IV and Wellington Visiting Waterloo” was first exhibited at the British Institution in 1845. (See Pope, V, 596 and 598.)
4. Cf. Macbeth, II, 2, 1.
5. The Very Rev. Robert Hodgson (1773?–1844) was ordained in 1796, became Dean of Chester in 1815, then Dean of Carlisle in 1820. The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul is celebrated on 25 January, given by Pope (V, 602) as Haydon’s birthday, although it is given as 26 January in DNB.
6. The belief that Titian (ca. 1487–1576) reached the age of 99 was based on false claims made by him for the purpose of extracting money from the King of Spain (The Oxford Companion to Art, 1970, p. 1141).
7. Haydon was imprisoned for debt four times: in 1823, 1827, 1830 and 1836.
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