1537. Richard Hengist Horne to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 209–210.
[London]
Tuesday Mg [Postmark: 20 February 1844]
My dear Miss Barrett, I have no doubt at all but many, or most, of your objections and corrections are well founded .. I wonder I write common English. The article on Macaulay was written in a day, and half a night, and the m∙s. never read over. I will revise as well as I can at the time. Glad you like the Tennyson.
Can you help me to a motto (Oh, how very exquisite some of your mottoes are!—how did you think of them just at the right moment!) but can you think of one for Henry Taylor? He says, you know, that the understanding, or sound sense, is the first faculty to which poetry should address itself—or words to that, or a similar effect. [1] The philosophy of a fine level good sense in verse; yet withal a poet. I shall also be glad of any opinion (like my own, or opposed) concerning “Philip Van Artevelde.”
Thank my stars, I fancy that is my last—at last—except (indeed) [did] you ever read a poem called “Festus?” [2]
The publishers say we must have finished by next Saturday. It is just possible.*
Yours truly
R.H.H.
*If I can spare time, I, Oh, I cant write any more.
P.S. You are an excellent woman of business—a real compliment from me.
Address: Miss E. B. Barrett / 50 Wimpole St / Cavendish Sqre.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. Henry Taylor (1800–86) published Philip van Artevelde in 1834; the observation quoted by Horne appears in the preface thereto. Taylor is discussed in the second volume of A New Spirit (II, 283–310).
2. Horne has forgotten the anecdote about Festus related by EBB in letter 1276.
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