1540. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 216–219.
[London]
Wednesday morng. [Postmark: 21 February 1844]
My dear Mr Horne,
I suppose by an opinion upon Taylor you mean nothing elaborate—& indeed I am not qualified for it without a little study, having read Van Artevelde once in a hurry (once—long ago!) [1] & no work of his subsequently at all. In fact as you may have imagined, Taylor, who is understood, I understand, by many men of understanding, to be the great poet of the day, .. is, to my apprehension, scarcely a poet at all,—& stands coldly on the outside of my sympathies. Consider! a dramatic poet, without passion!——what does that amount to? A contemplative poet, without a Heaven of ideality above his head!—what shall we call that? [2] A rhythmetical writer who denies the distinct element of poetry!—how can we respect that? [2] A man of talent, without genius, probably resumes it all.
It appears to me that what was said most unjustly of Byron—(who, because he had more than his due fame once,—or at least, who had more exclusive fame, .. than was due to him, once,—is now denied his just honours .. yes, by Mr Horne as well as by others—) namely, .. that he wrote eloquence rather than poetry, .. is the very criticism for Mr Taylor. Yet .. an orator, without impulse & exaltation!——what does that amount to?
He has however, to do him justice, an excellent “trick of rhetoric,” and more than a trick; for his thoughts last to the end of his sentences .. if not extending (which they do not– There is no superfluity of thought!) beyond them. He is eloquent in his good sense. His diction is flowing & harmonious—& “flowing” may be said of it advisedly, because it always finds its own level. His understanding works within it clearly & satisfactorily: his sentiments have a certain attitude of nobleness, which is the highest point in him—and he has a constructive power in the framing of a story, which goes the farthest probably with the majority of his readers. For the rest, .. he may crown the faculty of the understanding,—but he cannot make a king of it: he may place it in the niche before an altar, .. but he cannot make a god of it. He remains manifestly, an atheist among poets—an infidel in poetry—with arid lines of schism marked hard on his forehead. Where a believing poet, stooping from his elevations, is genial & fresh,—he is only as sensible as ever. Poetry has avenged herself upon him. Because he has rejected the mysteries of her highest skies, no dew has fallen from them on the lowest of his flowers. They grow in a certain way, to be sure. He waters them from a watering pot. But no drop of dew has impearled them with lustre, nor wakened them into fragrance. There is a dusty city feel in the very touch & smell of the leaves. He who has denied the mysteries, shall not be happy in the simplicities.
After all the right way of looking at the works of this Taylor, may be to derive from them a proof of that divinity of poetry which he has attempted to disprove. He is a false prophet, from whose very successes & triumphs, may be deduced the falsity of his mission—a Mahomet (say!) whose sword, bloody to the hilt, disproves his Allah. From this man we may learn what poetry is. A man of high intellect, active thoughts, noble sentiments & instructed philosophy, & of confidence in his attributes. What more does he need? Nothing, he says. He makes a theory on the strength of his deprivations. Because he works within limits, he blasphemes space. What does his work want? Nothing, he says. Something, the whole world may see! Yes, and it may learn what the essence of poetry is, by the thing wanting in Mr Taylor’s work.
Have I read “Festus”? Certainly I have. Do you not remember how I told you of my having asked somebody to read it, & how the somebody confounded me by answering, .. that he was stopped short in the first pages, by the “indecency & blasphemy”? [3] That was Mr Townsend, the “man of lawe” [4] —a man, too, not without poetry in the depths of his soul––albeit with that high, thick, Chinese wall built up around it!. Oh yes! I was much struck by “Festus”; and it was only by accident that I did not ask you whether you wd not do honor to the author of it. Mr Roggerson, you told me yourself, he was called, [5] —and a man of genius, & of no ordinary genius, he is undoubtedly. Both the “Festus” & the supplement apologetic to it, which appeared in the Monthly Repository (I think) filled me with admiration. [6] He is a man for heights & depths,—is he not? a man of great thoughts. Still,—the misfortune of that poem is, that it is formed upon Goethe’s, & has, thus, no originality of design. Its fault is an extraordinary inequality—so that really one falls down precipices continually; & from pinacles of grandeur, into profundities of badness. Parts of the poem are as bad, and weak as is well possible to be conceived of: and moreover (to do justice to Mr Townsend) there is an occasional coarseness & gratuitous indelicacy, which the poet’s noble conceptions had ill prepared one to be tolerant of. Also, I will not say that there is not some over-daring in relation to divine things,—the locutorship of the Holy Ghost being among them. But when all is said, what poet-stuff remains! What power! What fire of imagination, worth the stealing of Prometheus! A true poet indeed. And I believe, a poet incognito: for I never heard anybody speak of him or write of him .. out of Heraud’s Magazine. [7] The periodical critics let him drop, as if he scorched their fingers (which I dare say he did)—just like a coal; & said nothing about it.
Will this do for Taylor?–
—“Hand in hand at wisdom’s shrine,
Beauty with truth I strive to join,
And grave Assent with glad Applause;
To paint the story of the soul,
And Plato’s visions to controul
By Verulamian laws.”
Akenside [8]
It is too good for him; but being in the first person, is of the less consequence,—as it is probably what he assumes to do.
You have Heraud of course?
I sympathize with your pangs of haste,
& am
Ever truly yours
EBB–
I am so glad you like the mottos—& I lay up the compliment about being a “woman of business,” because I never (no, never) received the like before, nor am likely to do so again. The Macaulay article (to return) was as well done as if it had been brooded over for a month by the genus, snail—& of course I perceived at a glance where the Haste worked, or rather, did not work. Considering this haste, by the way, the results are wonderful.
Will this motto fit Roggerson?
—“A poet hidden
In the light of thought.”
Shelley. [9]
Address: R H Horne Esqr / 5. Fortess Terrace / Kentish Town.
Publication: EBB-RHH, II, 5–17 (in part).
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Taylor’s Philip van Artevelde was published in 1834.
2. Underscored three times.
4. One of the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales.
5. Horne had erroneously named Rogerson as the writer of Festus in letter 1272; its author was Philip James Bailey.
6. The Monthly Repository ceased publication prior to the appearance of Festus. The additional scene was printed in The Monthly Magazine of April 1840 (pp. 383–409), with an editorial note explaining that it “has been written by way of rejoinder to our critique on the original Poem” (in the issue of September 1839, pp. 247–264).
7. Heraud was the editor of The Monthly Magazine when the articles noted above appeared.
8. “To Caleb Hardinge, M.D.” (The Poems of Mark Akenside, M.D., 1772, p. 292), st. V, lines 5–10. Horne used them to introduce the chapter on Taylor and the author of Festus (II, 282).
9. “To a Skylark” (Prometheus Unbound, 1820), lines 36–37, not used by Horne. He drew a vertical line through this passage, as he also did for the quotation from Akenside and the final part of EBB’s first paragraph.
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