1512. Thomas Westwood to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 173–175.
Chase Side
Jany. 28th 1844.
My dear Miss Barrett,
I hope sober Enfield has cured your book of its eccentricities, & that it will go straight home, & not make a circuit, & tarry a week or so at Timbuctoo–– I have my doubts, however—for Puck, & Robin Goodfellow, [1] are its fellow travellers, and I am sure it will not be their fault, if it does not indulge in some fresh vagary– Have you seen this book of Hood’s?– [2] If not, you will find it worth looking at. I have often thought that Hood might, if he chose, achieve a higher fame than the harlequin one which is just now his portion, & that the writer of ‘Eugene Aram’, & ‘Hero & Leander’, [3] ought to shine after something better than the world’s ‘broad grins’. [4] But it is probably a matter of necessity with him—jokes, are doubtless a more marketable commodity than subtle thoughts, and fine fancies, which have to knock long at the world’s heart, ere they gain admittance, and having certain little mouths to fill, & smiles to keep alive, he feels himself bound, I suppose, to make the sacrifice, & content himself with the laughter of the moment, instead of the praises of “all time”——
For the Dramas, we owe you many thanks—we have read them all, & admired them all, & that is no common measure. I confess I have formed an almost higher opinion of Mr Horne’s genius from them, than from ‘Orion’, which with all its beauty did not win from me the enthusiasm which these have done– “Delora’[’] too, has many fine passages, [5] —and I should be more particular in adverting to them & others, were it not that your own pencil has forestalled me, so that my encomiums would be, in most cases, but a reiteration of your own.
I like this marking of books– I never feel that I am reading alone in such a case. The pencil line at the fine passage, which echoes your own feeling, is almost as gratifying as when, in reading aloud, you lift your eyes from the page, & see in the hearer’s face, the admiration which you feel yourself– One is conscious too of knowing a person better, after thus travelling through a volume, in companionship with him– You know more of his tastes & sentiments, & sympathies than you did before– It is a revelation, often more conclusive, I think, on that head, than a verbal avowal would be– I like too, to take up, after the lapse of years, a volume that I have marked, & see how far my tastes are changed, whether I have been constant to my then idea of beauty. I often detect my self smiling at myself when so employed.
I was much pleased, dear Miss Barrett—though I need scarcely tell you so with your more than kind mention of my book– That Flower song, which was fortunate enough to please you, it was my intention, I remember, to work out at much greater length, but something interfered, or I grew weary of it—I forget which, so it was wound up prematurely with a chant– [6]
I have seen no notice of the volume hitherto, except a very brief one in the ‘Spectator’, [7] which first benumbs me with ‘faint praise’, [8] & then knocks me on the head with sharp censure– Both my appetite, & my sleep, however have been proof against the attack– Ah—poor Charles Lamb!—no—if it were in my power to wish anything worthy of his memory, it should have been done long ago, but I respect him too much to speak of him in such rhymes as mine– I paid a visit to his grave not very long since, & could not help thinking that the verses on the stone were a sad failure, like those of Wordsworth’s. [9] Such things are seldom done well–
Now pray do not return the books till you are quite done with them—for indeed, and indeed we do not want them– We had just concluded our second reading of the sermons, before they came to you– I find Mr Melvill is going to leave Camberwell [10] —his congregation will feel the loss severely for they are much attached to him—& reasonably, for over & above his being a man of “firm imagination”—I believe him to be a man of sound piety, & know him to be one of a humble & affectionate spirit– Believe me to be, dear Miss Barrett,
Very sincerely yours
T Westwood.
I saw in the paper the other day, an advertisement of the Foreign & Colonial Quarterly,—I think it was—& one item of its contents was headed “Tennyson & Browning” [11] ——have you met with it?—
Address: Miss E. B. Barrett.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Puck, otherwise Robin Goodfellow, was a “shrewd and knavish sprite” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, II, 1, 33).
2. The first number of Hood’s Magazine, January 1844.
3. Hood’s “Hero and Leander” was published in 1827; The Dream of Eugene Aram, the Murderer dates from 1831.
4. Taken to be a reference to The Comic Annual, of which Hood became editor in 1830.
5. EBB’s copy of Horne’s The Ballad of Delora (1836) formed part of Browning Collections and is now at the Berg Collection (see Reconstruction, A1241).
6. This was one of the poems singled out for mention by EBB in letter 1503.
7. The Spectator, 13 January 1844, thought the poems “not devoid of fancy, and frequently exhibiting much delicacy of thought … But there seems to us an inherent fragility in the writer’s genius” (pp. 41–42).
8. Pope, An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1734), line 201.
9. Westwood refers to Wordsworth’s verses for Southey’s tomb, included in letter 1470, but Wordsworth was also invited to provide an epitaph for Lamb’s grave. He sent it to Moxon on 20 November 1835, saying it was “composed yesterday.” It proved to be too long for the purpose, but Moxon had copies privately printed; one of the few extant is in the British Library (Epitaph [Upon Charles Lamb, 1835], call number Ashley 5139).
10. As previously noted (letter 1499, note 5), Melvill had been appointed Principal of the East India College.
11. The Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review of January 1844 discussed Tennyson’s Poems, RB’s The Return of the Druses and Marston’s Gerald (pp. 202–215). That portion of the review dealing with RB is reprinted at pp. 337–340.
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