1549. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 229.
[London]
Saturday morng. [24 February 1844] [1]
My dear Mr Horne, I shall be ready on Monday, & curious in the feminine degree, until then.
Would this be better, for Banim & the Irish?
“I feel the fire of ten strong spirits in me”
Beau. & Fletcher. [2]
or
“Such life of fancy, such high choice of brain,
Nought of the vulgar wit or borrowed strain;
Such passion!”
Earle [3]
and—
“Pleasure attend ye! and about ye sit
The springs of mirth, fancy, delight, & wit,
To stir ye up.”
Beaum. & Fletcher. [4]
Those, I think, are comprehensive enough. Then for Mrs Shelley & the Imaginative prosers, ..
<…> [5]
“Mountains, & fountains, trees & stars & goblins.”
B & Fletcher. [6]
No—it wont do?
The next is something better.
“Is this imagination, or some circumstance?
For ’tis extreme strange”
B & Fletcher. [7]
But I am not satisfied. I shall think over it; & you shall hear again–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. Dated by the previous letter, in which Horne announces that he will send EBB “a very important proof” on Monday.
2. The Elder Brother, act IV, sc. 3.
3. John Earle (1601?–65), “On Mr. Beaumont,” lines 35–37 (included in the 1647 edition of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher).
4. Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, Prologue, 1–3.
5. A full line obliterated by EBB.
6. The Loyal Subject, act III, sc. 2.
7. The Mad Lover, act III, sc. 2. Horne did not accept any of these suggestions.
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