1546. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 225–226.
[London]
Friday Morng. [23 February 1844] [1]
Be consoled that you are not a woman. [2] Orion might have been the worse for it.
Not to be a man was one of my childish griefs—indignations & disdains—but I have gradually become resigned to my misfortune .. which is an example to you. And now for the mottos.
I have had great difficulty with Banim & his crew .. The combination of passion & humour are scarcely expressed in any motto I can find. Look at this—
“Certes, Sir! your painted eloquence
So gay, so freshe & eke so talkative
It doth transcend the wit of Dame Prudence
For to declare your thought, or to descrive;
So gloriously glad language ye contrive.”
Chaucer> [3]
or—
“This shall I give unto thy worthiness,
Honour, & conquest, nobleness & price,
Victory, courage, force & hardiness,
Good adventure & famous manliness—
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙
A glad aspect with favour & fairness
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙
According to your native gentillesse.”
Chaucer. [4]
Then for the Irish novelists as a body, you might say briefly—
“Impressed with life of art, & squared to nature.”
Shirley. [5]
If you did not like my suggestions for Mrs Shelley & the imaginative novelists yesterday, .. would this do better?
“With flame condensed thou dost thy jewels fix,
And solid colours in it mix.”
Cowley. [6]
or
“I hope you will excuse these fancies of mine. Though I
was born a poet, I will study to be your servant in prose.”
Shirley [7]
and for the multitude ..
“They’d fly high; for some of them are very lofty minded.” Shirley [8]
For Heraud, would this do?
“Air, earth and Hell are yours.”
Shirley [9]
No—perhaps it is not enough—specific, yet not appropriate. And then ....
I will write again today, if I am more successful about Heraud.
You are in the highest degree preparatory, to be sure! with your stamped envelopes!,
Ever yours
EBB
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. Dated by Horne’s reply (no. 1548), in which he accepts one of EBB’s suggested mottoes.
2. See Horne’s jocular comment in letter 1543.
3. Partially obliterated, presumably by EBB. Horne drew a vertical line through this quotation, which he used to introduce the chapter on Banim and the Irish Novelists (II, 142).
4. These suggestions were not accepted by Horne. Despite EBB’s ascription to Chaucer, none of these quotations can be found in the concordance to his works; neither do they appear in Chaucer, Modernized.
5. Changes, or Love in a Maze (1632), act IV, sc. 2. This line was not used by Horne.
6. “Hymn to Light” (The Works of Mr Abraham Cowley, 1668), verse 21, lines 1–2; not used by Horne.
7. Changes, or Love in a Maze (1632), act I, sc. 2; not used by Horne.
8. The Bird in a Cage (1633), act IV, sc. 1. Horne did not include Heraud in A New Spirit, and did not use these lines.
9. We have not identified the play from which this line is taken; Horne did not use it.
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